I've been eating oatmeal every day for breakfast. The following are actual "trivia" questions from my most recent box of instant oatmeal. (Highlight the end of the line to view the answer.)
Reasonable, right? But as the days wore on, it sank to the level of Are You Smarter than a First Grader?
I'll see your Dashboard Ganesha, and raise you a Plastic Vishnu:
Plastic Vishnu, plastic Vishnu
Riding on the dashboard of my car:
Ride with me and you'll be safer,
You needn't bother with any wafer
Bow to Plastic Vishnu, in my car…
If I run over little old ladies
And the police think I might have rabies
They'll never find my hashish, though they ask;
plastic Vishnu shelters me,
For His head comes off, you see—
He's hollow, and I use Him for my stash…
The Indian grocery in Central Square, Shalimar, sells dashboard Ganeshas with Velcro on the bottom. I think this is awesome. That is all.
A snippet from today's Globe: The Savant Project is celebrating the day with couples and bitter single people in mind. The romantic Valentine's Day menu features oyster shooters and chocolate molten cake. The F&%@ Valentine's menu has chicken wings, Miller High Life, and a pint of Ben & Jerry's. You can also tack pictures of your exes to a dartboard. Festive, right? Reservations recommended. Savant Project, 1625 Tremont St., Boston. 617-566-5958.
And for all you couples: it's business time.
Sonya offers the following for your stunned amusement. You must watch this all the way through to experience the surrealism in its entirety.
On a related note, prepare to have your mind blown by the The Hasselhoff Recursion.
Found a few other sources of info, besides the Wikipedia entry that I linked to earlier:
To celebrate the nascent Year of the Rat, a group of us went to Chinatown on Sunday for dim sum. We converged on Framingham and took the first Commuter Rail train, arriving at South Station just before 11 a.m. A quick walk through the crowded streets found us standing at the doorstep of Emperor's Garden (a.k.a. Empire Garden). The restaurant is on the edge of Chinatown and the Combat Zone, just across the street from Penang. The building used to be the Center Theater, and you can really tell if you're sitting in the main room of the restaurant— just look up at the ceiling. We didn't even have to wait for a table; going early (and going to a place with lots of seating) really paid off. Lots and lots of sticky rice, dumplings containing shrimp, pork, or shrimp and pork, char siu bao, har gau, mango pudding, jin dui, shu mai, yu choy, and more, were consumed. We didn't come close to beating our all-time high of $14 per person; the bill totaled $100 for 9 people (6 adults, 3 kids), including lavish tip. Afterward, we wandered a bit, marveling at the ever-changing New England weather (sun, rain, sun, snow, wind, you-name-it…). Made a quick stop at Hing Shing Bakery for more char siu bao, jin dui, peanut buns, zongzi, yellow custard bao, etc., then headed back to catch the train. Unfortunately, it looks like the big celebration is next weekend.
Good gaming this weekend: we tried a new game called Unspeakable Words (a Christmas present from Cheryl and Mike). It's a Call of Cthulhu-themed word game by James Ernest (of Cheapass Games fame) and Mike Selinker. It was fun for the two older kids and the four grown-ups. Fairly quick gameplay, silly Mythos artwork, and 30 plastic Cthulhu figurines! I'm sure that there's another game here somewhere if we combine it with the little plastic brains from Mmm… Brains! and the little plastic zombies from Zombies!!!
We also tried our hand (again) and Shadows over Camelot. Defective Yeti has a well-written review and explanation of the mechanics. We came close to winning, but were undone by a combination of factors. Anaïs played the Traitor expertly, and twisted the knife just when it looked like we might succeed. Chris and I thought that Rohan was the Traitor, and the false accusation cost us a turn. I fell on my sword too soon, thinking that Chris would be able to complete a particular quest. So close. Next time for sure.
Everybody's calling for donations this week. WBUR is doing its annual pre-Valentine's Day flower flogging, and WXPN was touting a chance to win free tickets to Bonnaroo or Ithaca, NY. Wait, what? Yes, it's true— you can win a trip for two to Ithaca. (It reminds me of the old joke: 1st Prize - 1 week in Ithaca. 2nd Prize - 2 weeks in Ithaca…) At least they threw in dinner at the Moosewood Restaurant and tix to Los Lobos.
In between all the calls for donations, XPN managed to play some darned good music, including several songs I hadn't heard in ages. I particularly enjoyed hearing Harry Nilsson's Everybody's Talkin' (theme from Midnight Cowboy) and Wilco's Heavy Metal Drummer. The latter reminded me of one of my favorite videos (from over 4 years ago!): Instant Messaging.
6:15 a.m., at the gym. Four silent TV sets, each tuned to a different station. Closed captioning scrolls across each screen.
Mercifully, my time is up & I can stagger back to my room to take a shower. I can't wait to get home— I need A Daily Show, stat!
Once again, I'm visiting the City of Brotherly Love for a work-related meeting. Last year, during the same week, it was twenty below. Yesterday, it was 68. Freaky.
Walked to dinner at the trendily-named twenty21. (Get it? They're between 20th and 21st Streets— nudge nudge wink wink.) Goofy name aside, the restaurant was quite good. Our group had a fixed menu: roasted red pepper soup, baby arugula salad with fennel & parmesan, and a choice of 4 entrees. The halibut with roasted vegetables rocked— nice sear on one side, delicious, and the obligatory nouvelle cuisine arrangement of teeny tiny veggies.
The warm weather meant that there was no shortage of crazy people. Had a brief conversation with one, then started to cross the street. Suddenly, this police car came through the light, pulled up, and started arresting/ accosting the crazy person. No idea what happened or why... Just kind of surreal.
And speaking of surreal (I am feeling very stream-of-consciousness today, plus I have not yet finished my coffee), the closed captioning on morning news shows is so unintentionally Dada that it is brilliant. I was on the elliptical machine, bleary-eyed and sweaty, trying to parse how a traumatic event during pregnancy could lead to the child having "skits oh friends yeah". (I eventually learned that they were discussing schizophrenia.) But it's only a big concern during the 3rd(?) "try messier".
I've been trying messier for a while; I think I'll try neater this year.
Last night, Cambridge's own Club Passim hosted a rockin', rollin', preachin', folky, gospel show from the inimitable Michelle Shocked. (Actually, Passim hosted two shows, but we only went to the early one. We're old folks, and it was a school night.) I was really psyched because it's been so long (5 years) since we last saw her, and because Erin McKeown was backing her up on guitar. I'm happy to say that the show did not disappoint. Also picked up a copy of Michelle's newest live album (link to follow later-- this is just a quick, Blackberry-driven post, so my link fu is impaired.). Great show, excellent company, and yummy pizza from Veggie Planet— what's not to like?
Her new album is called To Heaven U Ride, a live performance recorded at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. She played almost all of these tracks during her Passim set.
