Does anyone read this? Are tons of women disappointed yet? :)
Let's see....I ordered waaaay too much booze.
It poured all morning, the roof in our family room leaked and also water dripped down our chimney.
The appetizers were a little late and ran over into the arrival of the dinner....leading to lots of leftovers there.
And yet I wouldn't trade it for anything :)
Although I'd love to trade out of having trash duty this week.
So that's the theory....pouring rain for our halloween party / wedding reception. What will this mean? Probably more people leaving early....it's pretty freakin' dark in my neighborhood at night. That of course means tons of leftovers.
Erika has asked for "Ironic" by Alanis in the music list. That's doable. She bought a Y-adaptor to hook her laptop to the downstairs stereo, so we can run the songs off iTunes. That's GOT to be every DJ's best friend.
Today is nice and sunny, hopefully I can get in some last-minute tennis tonight.
Holy crap, booze is expensive.
I've bought
8 bottles of champagne
20 bottles of wine
2 30-packs of beer
MADE another 40 or so bottles of homebrew
plus big bottles of:
Jack
Grey Goose
Bacardi
Tequila (forgot what brand)
Bailey's
I still have to buy non-alcoholic stuff too.
All this for a party of 40-45 people.
Either we're going to run out, or we're going to have waaaay too much, and I can't figure out which.
At least if we have extra, we can have friends over to try to use it up at a subsequent party.
Okay, where to start....
Endy Chavez, what a freakin' catch. How did the Mets NOT have karma on their side after that? That never happens. Like Dewey Evans, only with a better throw back to the infield to start the double play. And how does Beltran not swing at that curve ball? Doesn't something in the back of your head say, oh crap! and you at least try to drag the bat through the zone with your arms?
I just ordered sheet music to learn to play that Maroon 5 album. Mostly to surprise Erika. I find it's easier to fake piano parts from guitar music, than it is to fake guitar parts from piano music. Guitar music is always written to be exact, that's probably why.
I can't put my beer in the fridge yet, because the yeast is still working on making the bubbles.
Off to the movies tonight, I think. Great, on a rainy night. Noooobody will be at the movies on a rainy Friday.
The IRS published its pension limits for 2007. To be an HCE in 2008, ya gotta make 100K in 2007. I can dream, can't I?
I've got my wedding pants all set!
I've got my beer bottled while watching the game last night. (Hideous Cards!)
Lunch at Boxcar Cantina in Greenwich. Not awesome. I get the feeling that beans and rice are the Mexican equivalent to French Fries....everything gets served with them as the standard side course. The pork enchilada with hot green chilies were good though.
Mint cholcolate Bailey's. That's a sweet treat....bought a bottle when I did my wine-shopping last night. Kinda weird, but in a good way.
I thought this would be a good idea as a wedding reception / Halloween party game. I suppose the whole idea of random people all dipping their heads in water to eat the same apple is a bit passe with germophobes taking over the world....and getting a bunch of garters wet would probably ruin them...and getting them chewed on seems gross, too. So anyway, we'll put them in a dry black caldron and let people reach in for them, like The Price Is Right's "3 Strikes" game, I suppose.
Should be some good baseball to watch this weekend. No Red Sox, but no Yankees either. I can actually just watch impartially without begging for wins or losses one way or the other.
I plan to buy Moneyball this weekend in paperback, see if it's as good as advertised, in anticipation of Dan Shanoff's Varisty Letters series in NYC next month. All my reading seems to come in the form of magazines. I got my first SI last week, hadn't gotten that since the 80's. It seems skinnier than it used to. Between that, ESPN the Mag, and Entertainment Weekly, I sorta keep up my "cultural literacy" as needed. Another good read is the Ideas section of the Sunday Boston Globe. (Or is it Boston Sunday Globe, I'm not sure.....)
Okay, so there's a Men's Wearhouse a few miles down Route 1 from here, and that's who I've taken on to outfit me for the wedding later this month.
First trip down....shirt and tie. But I need to take the shirt home to make sure the color is right for the family room decor (which also matches the trim on the girls' flower-girl dresses).
Second trip....okay, the shirt and tie go, now I need pants and a sportscoat. Manager recommends some nice wool pants, so I get measured for them, and the salesman reminds me I may need shoes to go with them, since my work shoes are the wrong color and a bit scuffy and worn. I don't get the jacket yet, thinking I may have one at home that'll go, and I need to verify my belt selection at home.
Third trip (later today).....I don't have the right color belt at home, and I do need to get the sportscoat after all.
Fourth trip (next week)....pants should be all hemmed up and ready to pick up.
On the bright side....I should look *gooood* on the 28th! As long as I can get the creases out of the shirt!
....that I was chopping. Nonetheless, taking an axe to a fallen tree is kinda fun. The drier wood split easy, the rotted wood even easier. Only the greener stuff was tough. Apparently the former homeowners left a partially chain-sawn tree or two in the back behind the driveway.
No apparent soreness from THAT, although tennis last night has me a little tight in the glutes again. 6-4, 6-8, and then lost the "super tie-breaker" 1-10. Ugh.
Today I go buy my suit for the wedding. Yee-hah! Erika's taken a cynical spin to it, suddenly my clothes are ready before hers!
And oh boo hoo, the Yankees are done. It's like a holiday in New England, a new annual rite. Although I'll say this, the Yankee fans in NY are less obnoxious than the Yankee fans in Connecticut. *Those* are the ones that have had smug, faux superiority complexes, all their lives. Perhaps Mets fans in NY experience it, instead?
Now this should be a yummy weekend. Made apple pie Monday night, and I'm planning to incorporate it into ice cream. Maybe tonight, but probably tomorrow, as I forgot to put the ice cream maker in the freezer to prepare it. (It's not one of those rock salt kinds....you actually pre-freeze the unit a day ahead.)
That'll taste good after the first homemade pizzas of the year. Got a new pizza stone at the wedding shower, although I think we still need a peel. Oops. (Really....oops....how to get stuff onto the stone?!) Anyways, Hawaiian for me and Erika, and I'm sure just plain cheese for the girls. I didn't actually see "Hawaiian pizza" in Hawaii this summer. Maybe it was just called "pizza."
Ah, there's nothing to make you feel stupid than walking down 1st avenue and seeing the UN building for the first time. How do you NOT come off like a tourist?
I loved just walking up and down the streets of Manhattan, except for the heel blisters.
I remember a news story on a zillion different "Ray's Pizza" joints in NYC. I tried a slice from one on Houston Street. And then I called Erika to apologize to her for me making fun of her unabashed love for city pizza. It was awesome! And isn't Huston Street the name of the A's closer?
Anyways, Dan Shanoff's Varsity Letters reading series was quite good last night. It didn't actually come with a "happy ending", unless I just left too early!
Wow, 26 days to go of the single life.
Erika made some kick-ass dutch apple cheesecake Friday. Maybe someone would like to buy one! I'll put the price at $40, see who wants to order one. Ha! (Old school internet marketing, baby....)
Of course, I suppose I should check with her.
Let's see....Red Sox get a David Palmer-esque no-hitter (5 innings....this has nothing to do with the ex-president from "24") but end up NOT in 2nd place. Trot Nixon is as good as gone.....that's too bad, I will miss seeing a player that I, as a lefty, could get out most of the time.
Pats looked good....they're a wagon-circling club, it seems.
Hockey season starts this week! Only two months until ice actually forms outside, and that's in Connecticut. How soon until Tampa or Dallas or Phoenix gets.....oh never mind.
The Skull Splitter clone just got moved to the secondary fermentation tank.....should be good, not sure what adding oak chips will do, but that's what the recipe said to do.
I think Erika and I are having a contest to see who can outDio the other at Scrabble.
7-inning games...
1) Games take too long. Well, multiply by 7/9ths to get 2:45 instead of 3:30.
2) Stats are juiced. Well, 73 homers times 7/9 is 57. Even Barry can't reach Maris now.
3) Pitch counts. Suddenly 105 pitches gets you a complete game.
4) Bad middle relief. Now you just need two closers and a starting staff.
5) No doubleheaders....well, I'm not sure this helps, because of the whole "separate gate" issue.
So I'm making a clone brew.....can't wait to see how 9% alcohol comes out....this stuff's gonna be hooch if ever there was.
The best part, of course, is turning around to see a 5-gallon stockpot boil over with all the malt added. Instant caramelization on the stovetop and plenty of sticky goo to clean up. No, that stuff doesn't end up in the beer.
Good to see the yeast already going to town this morning. That should be some happy yeast. Stunningly, the package of yeast claims 100,000,000,000 cells of yeast. So maybe NYC traffic over the weekend wasn't so bad.
Oh, and by the way, the sound system for Mötley Crüe in Camden NJ Saturday night sucked! Is Vince Neil actually still *in* the band? I couldn't hear him, if he is....
If anyone reads this, let me know whether your computer actually put the umlauts over the o and u....
So far, 11 started, and 1 lost week one, 2 lost week two....will this trend continue? I've got the Bills over the Jets. Gulp! None of these games are appetizing.
I think if I started a sports league, I wouldn't offer an MVP trophy, only a "player of the year" award, so that great players on sucky teams don't get screwed over Derek freaking Jeter.
Okay, tonight I head over to Maltose Express in Monroe to get some ingredients to make a batch of beer (about eight-nine six packs' worth) to use at our Halloween party. I'm a big IPA fan, but for homebrews, I like adding a lot of malt to give the beer some good body to it. I'll probably end up buying some clone brew kit, but maybe I'll pick one I've never actually had before. Aside from the occasional flat bottle that was mis-capped, I don't seem to get any complaints on taste.
Michelle Tafoya is a very good announcer, but damn, if she doesn't look like a female Al Michaels.
Byron Leftwich's post-game on-field snippet gave me a weird "Arnold Jackson" vibe.
Good to see Rudy Seanez sucking for someone else....eek what a nightmare for the Padres last night.
The Futurama episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" was on last night.....holy crap was that hysterical. I can't wait for the new ones they've signed up to make. Why did Fox screw around with that show's time slot? It was more creatively clever even than the Simpsons!
What if ESPN, instead of referring to them as "college basketball" and "college football", just started calling them "minor league" games instead? That's what they are.....with or without any semblance of professionalism. The only difference is that there aren't any 32-year-old "lifers" playing for Purdue, for example, for 10 years (except Brian Cardinal).
I think I know why, if I ran a company, I'd want to offer a 401(k) plan instead of a traditional pension.
If a guy makes $50,000 a year, and I have a 401(k) plan, all I have to budget for is that $50,000. Because the guy's responsible for putting away the money himself.....and maybe it reduces his take-home pay to $45,000.
If I offer a defined benefit plan, I'm on the hook for his $50,000 salary AND his normal cost for the DB plan. Depending on age and the formula, that could be an additional $500 or $5,000. So the same employee could cost $55,000.
The effect of a 401(k) plan is simply a net drain on one's pay, for the same benefit at age 65. If the DB plan were to feature smaller salaries, then the effects could be equalized. Or, to feature the same cost as the DB plan, the company could offer a money purchase plan that puts them on the hook for a mandatory fixed percentage of pay, say....
That's why 401(k) plans without company contributions kinda are a scheme by the company.
Has this term been defined yet?
Erika pointed out to me that "reverse psychology" wouldn't work to get her to pay attention to me.....so I suggested as an alternative that perhaps "forward psychology" might....
