Can You Feel The Vibrations?

I went to the video store the other day looking for something to pass the time. Summer television programming seems to suck harder than I remember, and we haven't had something interesting to watch on our DVR in weeks. Of course, there really wasn't a single thing I was interested in renting (well... I still have this urge to check out Rocky Balboa, but I know my wife won't watch it). Then, the shop owner said, "How about Shooter? Everyone seems to like it."
I am really glad he suggested this movie. It kind of came and went out of the theaters (what movie doesn't these days - it's like the theater is some formality to get out of the way to make room for the DVD cash) and I forgot it even existed. Well, it was really entertaining. And somehow, you can't help but like Marky Mark's character even while he's shooting everyone in the head.
It's a good flick. Check it out.

NP: Richard Hung Himself, D.I.

Did You Say Free?

I enjoy my coffee. So, I naturally jumped at the chance to get a free pod coffee maker from Senseo. I had read about this freebie online before, but never seemed to be able to get it to work for me. This time, I received an e-mail from the company to see if I qualified for a free machine.
Finally, success!
I got the e-mail asking me to pay for shipping ($15.00), and a free Senseo coffee maker (and some coffee) would be mine. (Okay, so maybe it's not exactly free, but $15 bucks for this machine which goes for $65-$75 in the store isn't too shabby.)
My initial plan was to bring this machine into work, so that I could easily make myself a cup of joe during my overnight shifts. First, however, I needed to try out the machine. If it was crap, what was the point?
That first night, we cracked open the box and set up the machine for some after-dinner coffee. Personally, I'm much more of a fan of the espresso based drinks, and that's usually what I drink at home (and from the coffee-shop). Unfortunately, my Breville machine is too loud to use once the baby is asleep, so we've been using a French-Press as an alternative. Well, the Senseo actually made a nice cup of coffee. And it's quiet, so we can use it at night. Yes, I'm still looking for a way to get a cup of coffee at work once everything else has closed, but I like having this at home.
Besides, everything is better when it's free.

NP: All Right Now, Free

Long Time No Post

Life really catches up with you sometimes...
As a family, we've been really busy lately. There have been birthdays, anniversaries, conferences, a lot of working, and preparing for the big move (more on that at a later time). Mix that in with trying to get some quality time as a family really leaves you with no time for the little things. So, I haven't posted in a really long time. I've got a bunch of things to catch up on, but first I'll talk about yesterday.
We finally had a weekend day off together, so we packed up the kid and headed downtown to the Lower East Side (Alphabet City to be exact) to have some beers and sausages at Zum Schneider Restaurant & Biergarten. We sat outside, enjoyed the weather and ate some damn good food and enjoyed some beers. I had a couple 0.5L mugs of Hacker Pschorr, while my wife had a 0.3L glass of Aventinus, which is a double bock wheat beer. They were out of our favorite, the Spaten Optimator, but what can you do? This is a terrific place to go hang out with your friends and just relax with some beers. It's also a lot of fun for Oktoberfest. Food-wise, we shared some potato pancakes (Reiberdatschi) and then split the homemade spätzle with cheese, caramelized onions & bacon (Käsespätzle), which, incidentally, is listed as a vegetarian dish on the menu, and the sausage platter, which comes with 3 Bavarian sausages, sauerkraut & potato salad.
After lunch, we walked off the beer by going over to the Laboratorio del Gelato. We never seemed to find ourselves down there when it was a good time for some gelato. But today worked out well, and I was finally able to try this place. I got 2 flavors - Mexican cinnamon and dark chocolate. My wife got milk chocolate malt and dulche de leche. All were terrific.

NP: Eternal Life, Jeff Buckley

Gas Mania

I like this game:

BP Gas Mania Keep your customers happy!

Play this free game now!!

Another Year Older

Yesterday was my birthday. All in all, it wasn't a great day. The baby was really cranky and I was very tired with a lot of stuff that I needed to get done. It did end on a nice note, however.
My wife took me out to Balthazar on Spring Street in NYC. This is one of the places I've wanted to go since I moved back here seven years ago, and I finally made it. I have to say, it didn't disappoint (well... except for the dessert, which is kind of tragic in a dinner/dessert sort of way). I've always been a little wary because this place is labeled a tourist trap, but it's well regarded anyway.
For starters, my wife had the Onion Soup Gratinee and I had the Chicken Liver and Foie Gras Mousse. They were both fantastic, but I think I liked the soup better - it was the best Onion Soup I've had outside of France. We paired our appetizers with a "carafe" of one of the 2 house whites - Pinot Blanc "Reserve" A Seltz, 2005 (by "carafe" they mean a full 750mL bottle). Our main courses consisted of Pan Roasted Chicken "A La Creme" for my wife and Duck Confit for myself (which I paired with a glass of Cote De Beaune Villages "Combottes" d'Ardhuy 2005).
Finally, we rounded out the dinner with some Warm Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Ice Cream. Unfortunately, this was basically a brownie with a scoop of ice cream. There were other choices that would probably have been better. The cafe au'lait was good though.
Forget about the dessert and I had a great meal. It was a very nice birthday.

NP:

The Tradition Continues

Yesterday marked my 3rd wedding anniversary, and for the 3rd year in a row we celebrated at Babbo Ristorante in New York. Well... I'm going to finish this later... watch for it.

B Is For Belgian

The other night we decided to check out a new restaurant in our neighborhood called the B Cafe. This is a new Belgian Beer Cafe that has opened on the Upper East Side. We read that they have a great back yard dining area, which is good for kids. So, we loaded up our son in his stroller and off we went (we were meeting two of our friends there). Unfortunately the backyard was closed for repairs/reports of bad weather, so we had to sit inside where it's louder (which resulted in waking our son up a couple times during the meal). The place is very nice inside, and has the feel of a place that should be downtown and not on the UES. We started with some appetizers - salt and pepper shrimp and bitter ballen - which are deep fried meatballs served with a spicy mustard dipping sauce. Nice.
For dinner, 3 of us had variations on the house specialty - moules frites (mussels and fries). I got the mussels cooked in beer (Hoegarten), parsley and garlic. My wife got them cooked in white wine, vegetables and fresh herbs, and our friend got them cooked in saffron, chicken broth and white wine. All were terrific. And the fries came with ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard for dipping. Our other friend got the beef stew, which was also very good. To wash it all down I had a couple bottles of Leffe Dark, which went very well with my meal. Unfortunately our son got too cranky and we had to leave before dessert. Maybe next time.

Better Butter

So, I think I finally realized I have turned into a food-snob (or Foodie if you want to use the kinder, less offensive terminology) when I went from getting my butter from the local Gristedes or D'Agostino and now have to go to Agata and Valentina (where I do most of my shopping anyways) or Citarella to get my French, Italian or Danish butter. Land O' Lakes or Breakstone's used to be good enough for me, but one day I decided to try some of the fancy stuff - it was on sale - and it really was a ton better. It's much creamier than the basic American product (which to me, tends to crumble easier) and the taste is so much better on toast or bagels or English muffins. So, now I'm stuck, paying more than I should for butter. But I don't want to go back to regular butter and that's why I've realize I have finally crossed the line... Oh, you can also get the Plugra brand, which is made in the good ol' U S of A (I think it's from Vermont) but in the "European style." It's pretty much the same as the one's from Europe but cheaper (I guess you're saving on the importing costs).









NP: Wish Upon A Dogstar, Satellite Party

Gypsies!

Today I had to go to Midtown to rent a tuxedo for my friend's wedding. It was such a nice day and I didn't really have much to do, so I decided to walk around the city a bit. Imagine my surprise when I saw a figure hunched over, head covered with a shawl, and her hand stretched out and up holding a can waiting for handouts. You may be thinking "Surprised about beggers in NYC? Is this guy an idiot?" But what really got me was that this was a Gypsy. She looked just like the ones we avoided in Italy and in Spain. The only difference is that I didn't see any Gyspy kids hanging around her waiting to take your money. In Italy, my response of choice was "Get away from me you damn Gypsy." Yes, not very politically correct, but when they follow you and try and touch you and keep trying to get money from you, there's only so much you can take.
Anyway... after getting over my initial surprise of seeing a Gypsy begging in New York, I saw another a few blocks later. They're here and I'm scared...

NP:

Did Heroes Disappoint?

Don't read this if you haven't watched the show and don't want to know what happens in the end.

Last night I watched the season finale of Heroes (we had it on our DVR since I worked Monday night). All in all, I really enjoyed this series and will be watching for it next year. The end, however, had me a little bummed out and disappointed. I almost feel as though they tried to cram too much into the last episode. Maybe if they made it a 2 hour episode it would have gone over better. A lot of things did get wrapped up, but I felt they happened too quickly. Also, there was no big fight between Sylar and the good guys. Sure they battled it out for like 2 minutes, but I was expecting more. He went down way too fast. Also... if Peter Petrelli can fly, why did his brother need to sacrifice himself to fly him away from NYC. Why didn't Peter just fly away? Who knows?

Here's waiting for next year.

NP: Far Cry, Rush

Hey, We're In Delaware...

Anyone remember that scene in Wayne's World where they were playing with the blue screen? They were pretending to travel to different places around the country, and when they ended up in Delaware they had nothing to say except "hey... we're in Delaware." Well... I ended up in Delaware this weekend, and discovered that although there's truly not much to do there you can still have a nice time.
We went down to Rehoboth Beach for a long weekend (we both took Friday off) to have a little rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, Friday turned out to be a crappy day with some rain showers and cold temperatures. We roughed it out and looked around the main strip of Rehoboth. We couldn't really walk on the boardwalk that day because it was too cold and windy for the baby. There seems to be a large British influence in this area. The main old hotel on the beach (where we didn't stay) flies the British Flag proudly, and there are a lot of fish and chips places and like three Thrasher's restaurants (I use the term lightly). Of course there are like 50 Grotto Pizza places and I don't think the town is particularly Italian...
One of the fun things we did while we were there was eat at this crab house called Claws. We both went with the all you can eat crabs and corn on the cob special. It's pretty fun getting to eat your dinner with a mallet. Those crabs never stood a chance.
On Saturday, the weather got nicer, although we did have to deal with some showers at night. Sunday, of course was beautiful for the drive back to NYC. (BTW, driving 4 hours with a 7 month old in the car is not easy...)
Today... back to work.

Today's Wines Sponsered By The Letter "L"

We tried a couple more wines from the Wine-of-the-month club my wife got me for Christmas this year (I've only got 2 more months to go... I'm kind of sad about that). This time, we had another of the reds shipped to me. It was Lara Dao 2005, Portugal. Apparently, this wine goes very well with authentic Portuguese cuisine. Since we didn't have any way to test out that theory, we just had it with some meats (the wine club says it goes well with grilled and/or spicy meats). I loved this wine. My wife liked it a lot, but didn't love it like I did. I would definitely get this again, but my brief search on the internet left me with nothing. This wine was deep red in color and had just enough acidity without being harsh. Some nice dark fruits too with a little chewy-ness to it.
The other wine we had was a chardonnay (one bad thing about this club is that 3 of my 4 white wine selections have been chardonnays... maybe they could get a bit more creative) from Australia. It was Lismore Range Chardonnay 2006, South Eastern Australia. I can't remember what we ate with this wine, but I enjoyed this one too. It was on the fruitier side with little oak. It was crisp and fresh. A good summer wine. I would drink this one again too.

Mail...

I just read that the United States Postal Service has increased the price of a first class postage stamp to $0.41 today. That sucks.
Yes, in this day and age, most "mail" communication happens via e-mail. And yes, most bills are paid electronically. And I'm assuming that a decrease in overall paper mail volume increases the individual price of mailing a single letter, but it still sucks to pay 41 cents to mail a letter. And why 41? They couldn't make it an even 40?
Ah well... pass the beer nuts...

One Comic-Book Geek's Opinion

This weekend, we went to see a movie in the theater for the first time since our son was born. We decided to go and see Spiderman 3. Personally, I thought the first two were some of the best comic-book-to-the-big-screen adaptations out there. Maybe my expectations for the third installment were too high. I was definitely entertained by this film, but I left feeling somewhat disappointed. Maybe it's because I read these comics as a kid (I don't think I've bought a comic since college, so it's been a while and maybe I'm not up with all the comic-book-facts), but I wasn't totally happy with how some of the characters were handled. I also felt that they were trying to do way to much with this movie, and some of the plot lines moved so quickly they were a little hard to accept.

Yeah, I know it's a movie about a guy with spider powers and you have to have a certain level of acceptance of the ridiculous...

A big part of my difficulty accepting this movie is because they changed some characters and moved some classic comic story lines around. The first two films didn't do that too much, but this one was full of changes. Gwen Stacy... Eddie Brock... The Alien Space Suit... Venom... The Sandman... Harry Osbourne (The "New" Goblin). Nothing was really faithful to the comic, and that left me feeling a little let down. Maybe it was because they tried to cram so much crap into one film, they had to cut corners and change things around to make it all work. Perhaps if they only had one villain... who knows?
Overall, it's a fun summer flick. We were entertained and enjoyed ourselves during the movie. Looking back on it, I'm disappointed, but you've got to learn to live with life's little disappointments, right?

NP: How Many Times?, Zack Hexum

Back Again

Today, Roger Clemens announced his return to the New York Yankees. Once again he is coming out of retirement to join his friend Andy Pettite. Hopefully, this will be a good thing. The man is 44 years old. But hey, it's not like the Yankees have a plethora of pitchers at the moment. And they won again today. Nice.

Mr. Smithsonian Goes To Washington

Although I was in DC for work related reasons (an overall disappointing conference) I decided that during this visit to our nation's capital, I would visit some of the museums. Over the past few years I've been to Washington DC about 6 times and the only time I did anything somewhat tourist-y was the last time, and all I did was walk around The Mall. Anyway, I decided I wanted to check out the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. In some ways it reminded me of the Museum of Natural History in NYC, but in other ways not at all. Mainly, the entire place had a modern sheen that the NYC museum doesn't have. The stuffed animals actually looked like animals to me, unlike the one's in the NYC version. I think that a big part of it is that in NYC, the animals are placed in fake habitats that basically cancel out any form of realism once you've reached the age of eleven. In the Smithsonian, there was just a big stuffed grizzly bear in a plexiglass box. Also on display were the winners (and honorable mentions) in the Smithsonian's 3rd Annual Photo Contest (these were the ones in the "nature" category). This exhibit was awesome. I can't find this exhibit online, but you can see the finalists for the 4th annual contest here.
I also went to the National Gallery of Art after the throngs of school children drove me out of the Smithsonian. I loved this place. First of all, the architecture is awesome, with nods to places like the Prado in Madrid, Museu Nacional d' Art Catalunya in Barcelona, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other museums like it. It's cool because it has the only Da Vinci painting in the entire United States, as well as tons of paintings by El Greco, Cezanne, Lautrec, etc...

Coffeebucks

One of my favorite things to be brought into Scrubs lately is the in-hospital Coffeebucks. I love the fact that they didn't even try to hide that they were ripping on Starbucks.
Today, I have the pleasure of sitting in a place called Caribou Coffee. I've never been in one of these before (although I think maybe I've seen one in NYC). The place I went to grab breakfast in yesterday was really sub-par even though it looked like it would be good. It was called Corner Bakery Cafe. My breakfast sandwich was cold (although it took them 20 minutes to make it) and my coffee sucked. This Caribou Coffee place is pretty good. My latte is excellent, and my cinnamon roll is good (not great, but good). The thing that cracks me up about this place is how much it wants to be Starbucks. It should be called Cariboubucks. If you went into a Starbucks and hit it with an odd Montana-living-Canadian-mounty-riding-magic-wand-thingy, you'd get this place. It's laid out like a Starbucks. The food and drinks are like a Starbucks, and they even sell the same crap as a Starbucks. Now, let me tell you that I don't love Starbucks. In fact, I don't think they make great tasting coffee (although if you hide it in a lot of sugar and steamed milk, it turns out pretty good). My main point is that the similarities are amazing. Who knows, maybe this Caribou Coffee place came first and Starbucks rode it's ideas to fame, but somehow I doubt it.



For now, I'm off to the Smithsonian.

NP: Some crappy smooth-jazz, courtesy of Caribou Coffee

Tapas This

As I said earlier, I'm in DC for a work conference. Actually, my hotel is in this place called Crystal City, which is somewhere between DC proper and Ronald Reagan Airport. It's basically like a fake city that was built specifically for the convention crowd. There's a bunch of hotels on a strip with a bunch of chain restaurants littering the main strip. There are also a couple of underground malls with more restaurants and crappy souvenir stores (can someone tell me why a place with weather as nice as DC feels the need to build so many underground shopping areas?). So, tonight, after being unsuccessful contacting old friends in the area, I went to get dinner by myself. I decided to go to this Tapas place called Jaleo which is a few blocks away from the hotel. I've actually been to another Jaleo last summer when I was in DC for another conference. That was the one downtown, and although I thought it was okay, I didn't love all of the choices the friends I was with picked out for dinner, and was hoping tonight would be different. A couple of my DC-centric friends have vouched for this place as having great Tapas. Unfortunately, I can't say they were correct. Tonight I went with some standard fare - chorizo, a Spanish tortilla, and string beans with garlic and Serrano ham. All were labeled as "traditional" in styling. Unfortunately, neither the chorizo nor the tortilla was like anything I had before. Neither were bad, so I'm not going to complain too much, but overall, it wasn't what I was expecting. I did have some great wine, however. Lorinon Crianza Tempranillo 2003, Rioja Spain and some free cheeses. It was no Tia Pol or even Las Ramblas. But it was okay. It was the Disney version of Spanish Tapas.

And since we're talking about Tapas, I figured I would mention my favorite Tapas bar in Madrid (out of the ones we were able to try): The Alhambra on Calle de Victoria. It may not look like much, but it's always crowded, the bartenders are really friendly, and they serve good, cheap wine. While the Tapas menu may be small, everything we had was excellent. They tend to serve everything either with or on this fantastic toasty bread, which goes great with some chorizo or manchego cheese. We actually went there twice, which says a lot that we'd rather go back there than try somewhere else new.



NP: Vancouver, Jeff Buckley

Batali's Vegas Vacation

Mario Batali has opened up two new restaurants in Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel. He's opening up the B & B Restaurant (Mario Batali and his partner/ winemaker Joseph Bastianich make up the B & B), which is supposed to be the Vegas version of Babbo (which is my favorite restaurant in the U.S.A.) and Enoteca San Marco (which is supposed to be like NYC's Otto).
On one hand I think this is great. On the other, I'm kind of sad that these are opening over there. I feel like they're a part of New York that has now just become another example of commercialism. Of course, Batali is a "celebrity chef," so commercialism should be expected...

In The District

This week I've been hanging out in Washington DC for a work conference. It's been okay so far. I think I would have enjoyed it much more if by butt wasn't kicked by this cold I've been fighting since Friday. I'm actually starting to feel a bit better today, which is great.
The weather here has been fantastic, so the few moments I've had to get away and step outside have been really nice. As part of the conference we were taken out to dinner to Ruth Chris Steakhouse last night. I have to say, my steak was excellent and cooked perfectly (the way I like it). Coming from NYC where there are so many great steakhouses to choose from (Sparks is my personal favorite) I've never thought about going to Ruth Chris, but this was terrific. And it was free, which made it even better. It's really difficult to pass up free steak.
Tonight I'm just hanging in my hotel room watching television. I'm trying to give my body an evening in to get some sleep and hopefully finish recovering.

On a totally different note, I read today that the Yankees fired their newly hired conditioning coach. Personally I think it's about time. 3 pitchers in one month suffering hamstring injuries is just plain odd. Also with all of the other injuries the Yankees have suffered this year, something needed to change (I think the only injury that definitely can't be blamed on the conditioning is Karsten's broken leg). Personally I was blown away when I heard that Phil Hughes got hurt last night, especially when he was on pace for a no-hitter. But what can you do? Right?