Doug's Sounding Board

It was a mellow stay at home NYE watching movies and comforting the dogs as the explosions sounded. Unlike previous years where there are a few fireworks, this year there were a lot of explosions. Deeper and louded booms than you normally get on the 4th of July. The dogs weren’t freaking out but they weren’t really appreciative either.

Now that we’re in the new year I can get back on a more regular eating schedule that consists of more regular foods. I didn’t do too poorly over the holidays though; I gained 0.4 pounds from the day before Thanksgiving (November 21) through today. Now I just need to get myself to the gym.

When I was walking by the almost completed Woodstock’s Pizza I saw they had a sign with their URL on it. I visited and signed up and in return they sent me an evite to try them out last night (they open today) so Nicole and I went.

When we walked in they handed us each $10 in Woodstock dollars and reminded us to be patient since everything is still new. We used the W-bucks to buy our pizza and drinks. The fountain drinks weren’t working yet so we got juice boxes.

It was very busy and even with a new crew our pizza came out in a timely manner and it was good!  The seating is good, the outdoor seats have heat lamps, inside there are I think 4 high-def screens, 3 or 4 arcade games, and music that is a little too loud when you’re trying to order.

I’m switching my preferred transliteration from Channukah to Chanukah.

Lately when walking the dogs I’ve been doing off and on running. The dogs think it’s great since walking is never fast enough. There’s a 0.4 mile straight stretch that I’ve been able to run the whole way and this morning I decided to time it to confirm that the dogs were going at around a 7-minute mile pace. It turns out the 0.4 miles are done in 115 seconds which is just under a 5-minute mile pace. No wonder I’m pretty tired by the end of that. My legs feel good, it’s getting the air in me that seems to be the trouble by the end, though today was better that other recent days.

For the anti-fitness, I finally found my cinnamon roll recipe and have put it on-line so I won’t lose it again.  So now those of you who like them won’t have to wait for me to get around to making more.

Some Girls – An older meet the crazy family kind of movie with. The characters don’t always seem to make sense but it doesn’t matter because something funny will come along to distract from that.

Man of the Century – A black and white semi-period piece. For awhile it seemed like it was going wear out the novelty but it managed to stay good to the end. I would like to have seen the silent movie title cards from the beginning breaking up the scenes.

The World’s Fastest Indian – It’s always nice to see what inspirational obsession can get you and this movie shows it well. I’m not sure why this one went away so quickly, it’s really good.

Blade: Trinity – I think I have to put this one above the second one. The directing isn’t as good, but you also don’t have a silly 15-minute CGI vampire professional wrestling match like at the end of the second one. Also Jessica Biel plays well opposite Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds shows me what Dane Cook whishes his movie career was, and Parker Posey as a vampire!

Rocky II – I’d seen every Rocky movie but this one. I liked it! I liked that it started right where the first one left off. I liked the money (what little there was) going to his head and buying everything. I liked the unfurnished house. I liked the story.

 Never Too Young To Die – This is one of those movies that knows it is bad. It’s mostly really bad, but the last 15 minutes are something I think people should see. Gene Simmons as the she-male/transvestite, John Stamos, Vanity, Robert Englund.

It took only one day to start feeling like autumn/winter. One day after the time change and the fog came and it was overcast all day and it got dark early to go with it. Finally!

Well, first the rain and then the heat, a few thousand weeds and grasses decided to start up. The weeds I can pull but I can’t go pulling individual blades of grass and single-leaf clover.

A gopher has  moved into the yard. I think it’s feeding on the new bounty of weeds since the previous gophers moved out after decided we didn’t have anything good to eat. The gopher isn’t keeping up.

We haven’t had to turn on the heat yet.

Yesterday Nicole and I went for the season close of the Bay Meadows race track. The weather was perfect in our odd November heat wave since we were shaded and were also able to make use of an unused box. A surprising number of horses were scratched throughout the day and it was good to see them looking out for horse safety that way. Of the $20 used for betting we left with $8 which is pretty good. Now if they could just get rid of the smoking. Many of the smokers stand by the doors so you have to go through the smoke to get in or out, bleah.

On October 12 we saw Weird Al at the Golden State Theater in Monterey. Now that he’s become somewhat popular he plays bigger venues and they also tend to be seated which allows for better control of the stage production but it’s not quite as fun as being in a free-form audience.

Highlights for me:

• Al looked like he was having the time of his life on stage, singing with a big smile on his face.
• Althought the stage was about the size of the Catalyst stage he still managed to ride a Segway out for White & Nerdy.
• He had a medley of his older songs that must have gone on for 20 minutes with about5 quick changes thrown in there.
• During “Wanna B Ur Lover” (he pickup line song) he came out into the audience and sang them to women in the aisle.
• He did his version of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful,” which is “You’re Pitiful” while stripping off wardrobe. One of the shirts read “Atlantic Records Sucks” since they didn’t allow him to put that on his album.
• When the bomb drops in “Canadian Idiot” streamer cannons shot red and white streamers into the audience.
• During an “Al TV” interview with Michael Stipe he asks him for lyrics for a song they can collaborate on. Michael Stipe says “Everybody’s got cell phones, get real.” At the start of the encore Al sings the song he made out of it. Also everyone took out their cell phones and waved them like lighters.
• For his encore he performed “Albuquerque” which I had always hoped to see in concert but never thought I would since it’s about 11 minutes long on the album. He extended the doughnut section for another minute or two.

We got a chance to see George Carlin on Sunday and it made for the perfect end to the weekend. Previous times I had seen him albums had been recently released, but this show was leading up to an upcoming HBO special so the material was all new. Enough so that he had his notes on stage with him. He even explain what the paper was for up front and surprisingly it didn’t hinder his performance at all.  He would hold the paper in his hand for a given topic and glance as needed (rarely) without slowing down and then the paper would be put away. His voice isn’t quite as crisp as it used to be but his mind, his writing, and his delivery are still sharp. I even liked him giving the audience 3 jokes and breaking down why they worked as jokes showing he has a strong knowledge of the inner workings of humor which was also shown in the Aristocrats. I look forward to seeing him the next time he comes around.

That was a great finale and I made something that won me a steeping teacup!
(spoilers at the end)

I made a  dessert appetizer composed of graham cracker, semi-sweet chocolate, and boysenberry butter. It ended up being a lot less sweet than I thought it would be which was a good thing since I was worried about it being too sweet. To make it I started melting chocolate chips while I got to work on the graham cracker pieces. I cut the graham crackers into quarters since ther perforations weren’t deep enough to break evenly by hand. I put the chocolate on one end of the graham cracker sticks in an attempt at a very shallow bowl and to leave an easy way to hold it without getting chocolate fingers. The best application I came up with was to use an espresso spoon to blob the right amount on and then do a swirl with the bowl in the center to spread most of the chocolate to the outside. The boysenberry butter was about 6 or 7 tablespoons of salted butter softened with boysenberry syrup added until it tasted “right”. I think that was about two tablespoons. The butter was then applied with another espresso spoon.

The final if the show I thought was great! I liked the live reveal in Chicago (where season 4 is filming right now). I liked the sous chefs they were provided and how they were delivered. It seemed to give a better look at the preparation and cooking than previous finals in Top Chef. I liked the head-to-head matchup of the food. I liked having many guest judges for the meal, and I liked the outcome! Going into it I thought Casey had an edge with her flavors as long as she didn’t panic, and Dale would be a contender if he stayed away from dough (altitude) and spicy (smoking has killed his hot receptors). I figured Hung would be excellent and finally able to bring his flavors which is exactly what happened.