Adventures in Gastronomy

I’ll be running a huge law conference next weekend so this past weekend was my last spell of “time off” until May 12th. Ugh.

On the plus side, I did have a relatively lazy weekend. Friday night was typical dinner/games night with Randy and a bunch of friends: Chris, Pete, Zach, Mickey (sp?). We even pulled out my old Game Cube for various games of Monkey Ball (Monkey Target, Monkey Fight, Monkey Race, Monkey Dogfight, etc…). However, in the end it was only Pete and me who seemed to enjoy it for the trippy wonder that it is.

Saturday, was when the real laziness set in. After a bit of shopping/exchanging, I got together with the same friends from Friday night, and more (Jeff, Scott, Deano), and went to the Ramrod Center for the Performing Arts to see the Gold Dust Orphans newest play: The Postman Always Comes Twice.

It was great fun and everybody seemed to love it. Except Randy, who appears to lack the camp gene.

Post-theatre, we played some pool at the bar and watched some scary old queen vogue alone on the empty dance floor. He’d simply prance from corner to corner as if a model on a cat-walk (occasionally slipping his shirt off his shoulder to reveal his tank-top). She was having a ball. I sometimes I wish posessed that level of inhibition.

But not always.

Sunday continued the lazy theme and after shopping for groceries, we got together with friends (Ben and Sandy) in Southie for dinner to drink wine, eat pizza, and look at pictures of Sandy’s recent trip to Germany (I WANT TO GO).

Now it’s Monday…and all I have to look forward to is an upcoming weekend where I’ll be working 12-hour days. I think I’m getting sick. cough. cough.

April 30th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 2 Comments

I met with my financial planner for the third time earlier this week and after a month or so of providing her with my entire financial history, current status, and long-term goals, she presented me with a fancy-shmancy binder. In it, she’s calculated my current net-worth and determined whether I’m contributing effectively into my retirement and savings (I am).

In fact, the best thing she told me was that at the rate I’m going, I could retire at 65 and continue an identical quality of life as I have now until I reach 95 years old. However, I plan on working until I reach closer to 70 years old (since I believe people who remain physically and mentally active stay healthier much longer) and that would mean that my retirement savings would bring me to 150% of my current quality of life.

I may have touched up upon this in a blog posting ages ago – but this is a huge relief to me. My parents didn’t have 401(k) plans in their day. In fact, the pensions they both have are pitiful (my Dad’s would end upon his death leaving my mother with nothing). Fortunately, they have social security….something I don’t anticipate existing in my retirement years (an article just this week predicted that social security funds would be exhausted within just a few years of when I’d be retiring).

For that reason, my financial planner made her assumptions based on social security no longer existing. On the plus side, if it still exists (and it better since I know very few people with enough in their personal savings/retirements plans to survive) I will be in even greater shape.

The binder she gave me also provided different scenarios for investing, and now I’m stuck with the task of deciding how to invest what I have in my 403(b) – which is basically a 401(k) for academic environments. My current investments, which I picked cluelessly when I started at Harvard, have actually done okay over the years. It just scares me.

Nobody in my family has ever invested before (like I said, my parents had no 401(k) plans) so this is a whole new world. My parents, born during the depression, were raised to put what little money they had into savings accounts; it was safe and they’d always have access to it. The world of investing scares the bejeezus out of me and confuses me all to hell. I keep thinking I’m already a step ahead of where my parents were at my age. And I’m not such a greedy S.O.B. that I “must” maximize everything to be as rich a possible. But I think my fears and apprehension keeps me from being the “moderately aggressive” (in terms of investments, at least) person I should be at my age. The simple idea of my money dwindling – even if just temporarily – freaks me out. If it’s going to disappear, at least let me spend it and buy something I can enjoy.

Like a Japanese Toilet.

I still want one. Bidet function? Check. Massager? Check. Seat warmer? Check. White-noise? Check. Fan? Check. With this kind of investment, you just can’t lose.

April 27th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 5 Comments

Don’t you hate how you’ll have a very vivid dream that makes perfect sense and you can recall it quite clearly for the first 30 minutes or so after you wake up…only to think about it an hour or so later and all of the facts have become distorted and nonsensical?

Well, that’s what happened to me last night. For some unknown reason, I had a dream that involved Robbie Williams hitting on me in an elementary school (we were both adults…but for some reason we were in an elementary school environment that had no children present). There was some sort of assembly taking place and we were in the back on some sort of deck when he start flirting and kissing me. It didn’t progress much further than that since we were in public after all. Well, okay, there was some over-the-clothes groping, but it ends there, I swear.

Oh, and one more thing…Robbie Williams was black.

It made total sense this morning. Now it just seems bizarre – like any album Tori Amos has made after Little Earthquakes.

Whenever dreams such as this take place, I try to piece its origins together. The best that I can think of is that Randy pulled up the Colin Ferrell home-made sex video off the internet over the weekend and, well, Colin is Irish (kinda’ close to English) and the woman he was having sex with was black. And the elementary school most definitely didn’t have to do with a fondness for children since, well, truth be told, I’m actually not fond of children. However, I have been scanning my Mom’s old photos onto my computer and many of those photos were elementary school photos (class pictures, school plays).

Either way, I woke up with a smile.

April 26th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 5 Comments

Randy and I went to the Gay and Lesbian Travel Show at the Park Plaza Castle last night. Yeah, I know – we travel enough as it is. But I love swag so I wanted to see how many freebies we could snatch.

(did I just say snatch?)

Anyway, by the time we left (after chatting with people from RSVP cruises and Marriott and various other travel related companies) I went home with numerous brochures, a stress ball, a few key chains, 4 cans of some new-fangled sparkling vitamin water/soda, two necklaces, a rainbow painted rubber duckie, a beach ball, a pin, some lube (it is a gay travel show, after all) and some 10% discounts on American Airlines…

…and this photo of us hijacking the Travelocity gnome:

Now, let me just say that I’ve owned that shirt for many years (too many, probably). Why hasn’t somebody told me that I look ENORMOUS in it? Look at me – I look pear shaped! I’d like to say that the problem lies within the Polaroid Instamatic camera and not with my heightened poundage or bulky choice in clothing…but the truth may simply be that such a camera lacks the ability to Photoshop before it spits out the image.

On the plus side, Randy and I both signed up for countless raffless for free cruises, hotel stays and flights. Maybe we’ll win a little something to make me feel better about looking like Dom Delouise.

April 25th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 4 Comments

I forgot how warm it can get on sunny days (it’s been so long!), so on Monday morning I lifted 5 of my 7 windows wide open to get some fresh air into my home. By the time I got home from work last night it was 78 degrees inside (and over 80 outside). As day turned to night, I kept the windows open in hopes that the evening darkness would cool things down.

It didn’t.

Well, that’s not true. By the time I woke up this morning it was down to 73 (still too warm for my tastes). However, leaving the windows open had another unexpected effect. Of course, in my description it’s not going to sound pleasant in the slightest…but in some ways it really was – please work with me.

You see, a garbage truck came down my little dead end street at 6:45AM and parked itself outside my living room window as it loaded it’s cargo. Now, if you’ve ever seen my street you’ll realize it’s not a street but a narrow “court” (or, as my friend, Chris, calls it, an alley). Consequently, if I was adventurous (which I’m not) I could easily lift the screen to one of my 2nd floor living room windows and walk onto the roof of the truck.

I didn’t do that. But what did happen was that the smell that drifted into my apartment was diesel (not trash – I never smell any trash). And that smell immediately brought me back to Paris. It’s probably tragic that I associate traffic smells with Paris instead of the aromas of their bakeries – but that city is quite congested and the diesel smell dominates.

Anyway, it put me in a good place…and then it also dawned on me that in one month from today (on my birthday, no less) Randy and I will be flying to Europe. YAY – just 30 more days until I can smell all the exhaust fumes that i want! WOO HOO!

April 24th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 2 Comments

What a beautiful weekend. The weather was ideal, the activities were great. I don’t have a single complaint. Well, maybe one – but we’ll get to that later.

On Friday night Randy and I got together with a bunch of friends for dinner, conversation and games. We played Pictionary and my team (me and Chris) won. I’m not normally one to gloat, but I also want to add that Randy’s team never made if off the start box. Nope – they didn’t move one square. I’m just saying.

Anyway, here’s a picture of the game nights (names have been omitted to protect the not-so-innocent):

On Saturday, Randy and I drove up to New Hampshire and he bought two kayaks. He plans on forcing me to exercise at some point. He also bought me a bike since he’s really pushing the whole exercise thing on me. But more on that later.

Saturday night we got together with friends, Ben and Sandy, and Randy cooked a turkey….by throwing it into a big boiling cauldron of peanut oil in the back yard and frying the damn thing whole. It was much more moist than any turkey I’ve ever had (and not greasy at all, surprisingly). But it was still turkey and I’ve never been a big fan. I wonder if you can make deep-fried Twinkies with that thing?

After dinner, Randy was still in a Pictionary mood so we played again. This time, he was on my team and we managed to win. Just never ask him to draw “Tic-Tac-Toe.” You’d think that would be an easy one…but he decided to draw the game “Connect-Four” instead…but as a board game. Well, at least that’s what it appeared to be. Needless to say, we didn’t get that one correct.

Sunday we met up with my friends Bryan and Jason for dim sum in Chinatown. Then, finally, it happened: Randy got me onto a bicycle and I, gasp, exercised. I’ll be honest, I expected to only make it a few blocks. And I think Randy was equally nervous that I’d be a miserable S.O.B. the entire time. But to the surprise of both of us, I think I enjoyed it. We rode along the Minuteman Trail which runs from Somerville/Cambridge to Bedford (by way of Arlington, and Lexington).

We didn’t do the whole trail since it’s 22 miles round trip. But we did go to Lexington Center which, according to online maps is about 6-7 miles. Round trip that would mean we rode a total of 12-14 miles. And, just as dog years are adjusted with the 1 year=7 years ratio, Karl miles follow the same formula; so our 12-14 miles was actually the equivalent of 84-98 Karl miles.

Are you impressed? I even have some photographic evidence!

Here I am before we set off on our ride. Isn’t the hat great? I felt so sporty.

And here I think I look rather fetching in my cycling gear. I inherited the shorts from somebody I’d previously dated. Who knew I’d find a use for them? And I’m glad I had them…the between-the-leg padding works miracles.

A day later, I’m not in any pain. Well, at least my legs aren’t in any pain. I am feeling the residual between-the-legs pain. But I realize it would have been much worse had I not had the padded cycling shorts on.

So there you have it – my sole complaint for the entire weekend. And it wasn’t even that bad!

April 23rd, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 6 Comments

I hate cell phones. No, I detest them. I can’t stand listening to other people’s conversations. I can’t stand phones ringing in restaurants and theatres. I can’t stand oblivious drivers (and pedestrians) unaware of what’s going on around them and practically causing accidents wherever they go. I can’t stand people calling me and wanting to chat.

…and I can’t stand the fact that I left my cell phone at home last night and haven’t had access to it since heading to Randy’s last night.

It makes no sense. I groan every time the damn thing rings. Half the time I have it with me (particularly at night) I turn it completely off. Yet somehow the fact that I don’t have access to it is driving me crazy. I just don’t get it.

I keep wondering if it’s ringing. Are there test messages? Has there been an emergency?

Of course, once I get home tonight and realize that nobody has called and nobody has sent a text message, I’ll sigh with relief and then turn the thing off to save the battery.

April 20th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 3 Comments

Is there such a thing as TOO much light reading? You see, I think I’ve become a magazine addict. I’ve blogged about this before, I believe, but the problem seems to be getting worse. Off the top of my head I can’t tell you to how many magazines I subscribe (or pick up when I’m out and about), but the stack of magazines next to my sofa just continues to grow.

I’d cleaned it up a bit before Mark’s arrival from Paris, but within the past 4 days it’s already back to chaos again. The scariest thing is that as of earlier this week, I had three unread issues of Out magazine, two unread issues of Instict magazine and two unread issues of the Improper Bostonian (among others).

I’ve tackled one Out and one Improper…but that still leaves me with multiple issues of Instinct, plus issues of Passport, Advocate, Blender, Out Traveler, Budget Travel, Conde Nast, Harvard, and Harvard Law Record, and Entertainment Weekly to go through. Things all started going down hill a few months ago when Randy had some United Airlines frequent flyer miles that were about to expire. So, he ordered a bunch of magazines for himself with the points…and offered me some points, too. I’ve not even begun to receive some of them yet, either.

At this rate, I’ll never tackle any of the books I’ve bought in the past 6 months. And there is just not enough toilet time in the world to read all of these magazines before the next issues come out. It doesn’t help that I read the Metro newspaper on the way to work (instead of reading items my magazine mountain). It also doesn’t help that I stay at Randy’s place half the time and get pre-occupied with the magazines that he subscribes to.

Collectively, we give all of our finished magazines to his ex…and that stack is currently quite large. But at least that removes the burden from us and transfers it to him.

April 19th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 4 Comments

…that spring is actually going to hit us by this weekend. Granted, that bird is wet and shivering in a tree at the moment, but it did say that we could be in the mid-70’s by Monday…and sunny!

I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll probably strip down to shorts and a t-shirt once we reach 55. Twenty degrees more than that will be so foreign to me I’ll be breaking obscenity laws.

April 18th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 1 Comment

What happened at Virginia Tech is simply scary. Why does it seem that so many incidents of major violence occur at places of learning (whether it be colleges or high schools)? At least, that’s how it seems to me. Since I work in academia, maybe it’s just that I can relate to it a bit more. I mean, in some ways I can see it happening to me since I’m in a similar environment day in, day out.

Then again, maybe such murders take place in suburban office parks and hospitals, too, but I just don’t remember them since that isn’t my life? I don’t know. I suppose it’s all about association.

Then again, how does that explain my irrational fear of fast food restaurants? Yep, you heard me…I can’t enter a fast food restaurant without thinking I could get gunned down. I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t like fast food and go years without entering a Mickey-D’s or BK. And during the rare instances that I do go (usually road trips) I’ll either use the drive-thru or request that we eat on the road and not in the restaurant. There must have been a fast food mass-murder over the past 20 years to put that thought into my head.

Anyway, as expected, the media is running with the Virginia Tech murders and putting the stupidest people on the news. This morning I witnessed a woman from Texas (natch) who said this wouldn’t have happened if we had LESS strict gun laws (as a side note, her parents were shot to death in Killeen, TX back in 1966). She believes that guns SHOULD be in public high schools and post offices and anywhere else people want to carry them and believes gun murders only happen in places where there are gun restrictions (she’s a concealed weapons advocate – if you can’t tell).

I think that’s the WORST idea. Our public school teachers are over-worked and under-paid. If anybody is going to crack under pressure some day – it’s them. And they aren’t any less flawed than any other person (hence the occurances of teachers having sex with students….teachers make bad decisions, too). The last thing we need is for them to have access to weapons in their class room. We also don’t need STUDENTS having access to the weapon (how hard would it be for a few kids to sneak up on the teacher and steal the gun?).

Ugh – I don’t know. Coincidentally, when Mark was here last weekend we were talking about murder rates. In Paris, the murder rate (not necesasrily by gun) was 2 per 100,000. In recent years Boston is hovering around 12 per 100,000…and we’re one of the safer cities in this country! I know crime happens everywhere, but for this Texan to claim that gun violence happens only in places where guns aren’t allowed is ludicrous.

Ok – I’m off my soapbox. I need a drink.

April 17th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl . Comments: 4 Comments