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| Sunday, October 11, 2009 07:45 PM |
| Harry Potter and the Frozen Dessert |
 by Fëanor |
Poppy and I are taking a little vacation this weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We like to come down here a couple times a year, stay at our favorite hotel, and eat our favorite foods. One of the places we often go to is a little ice cream stand that sells some really interesting flavors. Last time we were here, I tried Chocolate-Covered Bacon (which was okay, but surprisingly not my favorite) and Better Than Sex (which was pretty tasty, but did not live up to its name). This time I noticed a new flavor on the menu that I just had to try: Sirius Black. It's chocolate ice cream dyed black with a raspberry swirl. After I got my cone, I found a container of what I thought were dog-shaped sprinkles on the counter, and unable to resist the appropriateness (Padfoot!), I dumped a spoonful on top. Looking at them more carefully later, I realized they were actually probably meant to be cow-shaped, but... close enough. The ice cream itself is pretty tasty, and it has the added bonus of turning your tongue an awesome purple color! Thanks, Sirius! |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:29 PM |
| (Last updated on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 08:38 AM) | | Adventures in Rehoboth |
 by Fëanor |
poppy and I took our semi-annual vacation to Rehoboth this past weekend. We got lucky with the weather (there was one weird moment at Grotto Pizza when the heavens opened up and it just poured, but we were safe under an awning eating pizza until it was over) and, except for my allergies attacking me savagely throughout, we had a pretty good time. I took my usual trips to the Book Trader (picking up a couple of graphic novels for cheap - expect reviews in a future edition of The Take, which I really have to catch up on again, btw) and the CD store (picking up 11 CDs for an average price of less than $8). We also hit Old Navy, where I replenished my rapidly depleting sock collection and picked up another hoodie (I'm addicted to hoodies now). There were also a few trips to the beach, which poppy enjoyed a great deal, and which I... endured. I like the beach fine, but there were lots of bugs, which I dislike, and I'm really not good at just sitting around and not doing anything. Other activities included walking the boardwalk and playing some games in the arcades; poppy kicked butt at skee ball and won herself a puppy.
I have a rule when I go into the CD store: I will buy no CD that is more than $10, because I know I will almost certainly be able to download the same music for that price or less online. Thanks to the store having a lot of cheap used CDs, I can still get a lot of great music for that price. This time I picked up:
Megadeth - Greatest Hits
King Diamond - Abigail
Manowar - Best of Manowar: The Hell of Steel
The Roots - Do You Want More?!!!??!
Soundgarden - Down on the Upside
Velvet Revolver - Libertad
Clutch - Slow Hole to China: Rare and Re-released
Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer
Elvis Costello - All This Useless Beauty
Metallica - ...And Justice For All
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life
So far I've listened to most of the Bob Dylan album, and the entirety of the Metallica album. I heard great things about Together Through Life, which is Dylan's latest, but I have to say I find it pretty boring so far. In the same vein as the stuff he's been doing lately, but not even as interesting. Metallica, however, I like just fine. It's hard to go wrong with metal as far as I'm concerned.
We ate out for every meal throughout the weekend, enjoying all the beach food that Rehoboth has to offer: awesome Mexican food and margaritas at the Mariachi Restaurant (highly recommended), ice cream (I tried chocolate covered bacon ice cream, but was surprised to find it was not for me; ended up with a cone of Better Than Sex ice cream instead, which did not actually live up to its name, but was still good - it was chocolate cake batter ice cream with chunks of chocolate and chocolate fudge mixed in), Five Guys burgers, Thai food, and more. But eating out that many times in a row ended up being too much even for me. I started to crave something light and healthy, like a salad. Still, when, on the way home, we needed to stop somewhere for lunch, I couldn't resist swinging in at the Sonic. I have very fond memories of Sonic from a visit to New Mexico when I was younger, and I'm constantly tantalized by commercials for it on TV, which I know can never lead to anything, as there are no Sonics anywhere near here.
So we parked at the Sonic and prepared to go inside, only to discover that you can't go inside a Sonic - you have to order outside, either at a table or from your car, using a drive-thru style intercom system. We opted for the car. Neither of us were sure what to order; normally I'd just get the bacon cheeseburger, but at this point I didn't even want one (so you know something was horribly wrong). I'd also thought I might finally have a corn dog this weekend (it seems wrong to me that I've never had one - it's a fried hot dog! It was practically made for me!), but that didn't seem attractive to me, either. But still, I determined to get something - maybe a chicken sandwich - and pushed the order button. And waited. And waited. Then I pushed it again. Nothing. Neither of us were really that excited about Sonic anymore at this point, so we just drove across the street to Wendy's and got our chicken sandwiches there.
But some day! Some day I will go back to Sonic. And some day I will have a corn dog. The point is, Rehoboth was a good time, as always.
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| Saturday, November 8, 2008 01:00 PM |
| Strange Photos |
| by Fëanor |
I found a couple of old photos on my phone that I thought were worth posting. They both need a little backstory. The first one comes from a trip we took a while back up to the area of Rutgers New Brunswick to meet a friend of poppy's, a very smart, very cool guy named Anthony. Anthony likes all the right things, including Buffy, SNL, The Colbert Report, greyhounds, comic books, and Lord of the Rings. Anyways, while we were up there, we went over to an art museum at the school and checked out an exhibition of prints by Francisco Goya. I've always been pretty impressed by Goya's work, and I find his depictions of monsters and witches particularly effective. I also see the roots of Mike Mignola's work in Goya, which pleases me. Anyway, as we were walking into the exhibit, we were struck by this sign, which reveals the sponsor of the exhibit - a sponsor who is at once completely appropriate, and painfully inappropriate:
The next picture is more recent and is from our trip to Rehoboth Beach. One of the things we always do when we're in Rehoboth is go shopping, because there are tons of outlets, and Delaware has no sales tax. We stopped in a Pier One and saw this sign, which I found very odd, especially since there was nothing nearby that looked anything like what it described. poppy pointed out that it was probably referring to these stuffed things that are meant to sit at the bottom of your door and keep out drafts. But still... questionable choice of product name.
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| Wednesday, May 7, 2008 10:29 AM |
| On the Viewer - Battlestar Galactica ("He That Believeth in Me") |
| by Fëanor |
While I'm talking Rehoboth, another thing I got to do there was catch up a little on my Battlestar Galactica by watching it online at the official website (God bless the TV stations for jumping into this whole online, on demand video thing; I don't know how I'd watch my TV shows otherwise). But only a very little. To put it simply, I managed to watch one new episode - the first of the new season.
The four people who were revealed to be Cylons at the end of the last season are still trying to deal with what they've learned about themselves. Baltar has been smuggled into a weird religious cult which worships him, and which is composed mostly of women. Of course he sleeps with one of them almost immediately, and maybe even starts to believe what they say about him. Meanwhile, the crew is trying to understand how Starbuck could be back, and she's trying to convince the fleet to leave its current course and follow her vague ideas about where Earth is. But the crew trusts her so little that she's beginning to doubt herself. And of course the episode ends on a crazy cliffhanger.
It's pretty great stuff. I particularly enjoyed the scenes with our four new Cylons, because that whole situation is so seriously effed up. The Baltar sequences were pretty great, too. Looking forward to catching up on the rest of the season... in two or three months, when I have free time again. |
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 05:12 PM |
| Another thing we did in Rehoboth... |
| by Fëanor |
...is drink a pretty goodly amount of alcohol, and eat lots of nasty food (which, let's face it, is what going on vacation to the shore is all about). This, combined with the stress I'm experiencing, and all the allergy medicine I'm taking, has not exactly been good for my stomach. In fact, it feels like my small intestines want to crawl out of my body and run away. |
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| Tuesday, May 6, 2008 05:05 PM |
| (Last updated on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 10:14 AM) | | New Music |
| by Fëanor |
Well, that didn't take long. I'm back over 1000 unrated songs on the iPod again. This is thanks to the fact that we went down to Rehoboth Beach this past weekend, and when I'm there one of the things I enjoy doing is going across the street from our hotel to the CD store and picking my way slowly and carefully through their entire collection, purchasing any album that interests me and that costs $9.99 or less. (Since all I'm going to do with the CD is rip it and put it on my iPod, I figure it doesn't make any sense to pay more than I would at the iTunes Music Store.) This time I ended up buying 15 new* CDs for about $100, which is really a pretty sweet deal. (It was actually originally going to be 16, but as is traditional, despite the fact that I brought my iPod with me and was continually checking it to make sure I wasn't buying anything I already had, I still managed to mistakenly purchase a CD that poppy already owns [she thinks I may have even bought the same one last time I was there], so I returned it the next day.) I ended up concentrating mostly on metal, but still managed to impress the CD clerk with my eclectic tastes ("Wow, 3 Inches of Blood and U2!"). The complete list, with notes, is below.
Modest Mouse - Building Nothing out of Something
Disturbed - Believe
Bjork - Telegram
Dio - Metal Hits (Essentially a best of collection; the important part is, it includes "Holy Diver.")
Clutch - Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes & Undeniable Truths (Their first album. I believe I now own the complete Clutch collection.)
Judas Priest - Prisoners of Pain (There were actually a number of Priest CDs that fit my specifications, but I picked this album because it includes a couple of tracks I know I like.)
Seether - Karma and Effect (I know, I know, they're lame nu-metal, but what can I say? I really enjoy them.)
Phantom Planet - The Guest (I was surprised to discover, after purchasing this, that it's a double album - and even more surprised to discover that both CDs are apparently exactly the same. Or maybe they just tricked iTunes into thinking they were the same. I'll have to investigate further. UPDATE: After investigating further, it appears that iTunes was simply confused and they are in fact entirely different CDs. iTunes was so sure they were the same, I could only get it to copy three songs from the second CD, even after renaming it, so I guess I'll actually have to wipe the entire album from iTunes' memory before I try to load the second disc again. Very strange.)
Slayer - Reign in Blood
Supergrass - I Should Coco
U2 - The Joshua Tree (Believe it or not, neither poppy nor I owned this album until now.)
3 Inches of Blood - Fire up the Blades (Yay, screamy metal!)
The Sword - Gods of the Earth (How could I resist an album with track titles like "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and "Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperzephyrians"? I've only heard a couple of the songs on this so far, but they were both fantastic, so I'm pretty excited.)
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
Beastie Boys - To the Five Boroughs
Lit - A Place in the Sun (This is the CD I bought by mistake that poppy already owns; I copied it when I got back.)
*I should point out that most of the CDs were only "new" to me; many were actually used. Thus the cheap prices. |
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