On Sunday I caught myself watching some NFL Europe. When I tuned in, Cologne was ahead of the Rhein Fire by 14, but it looked like RF was making a comeback. Then Bex got ready and we had to leave to do our Sunday afternoon stuff.

Well, the Rhein Fire came back and won it. I guess this is Packers news because the Rhein Fire's quarterback is Scott McBrien, a Green Bay backup quarterback.

I guess I just don't get Green Bay's QB situation. How many do we have? There's Craig Nall and Doug Peterson who have been on the roster for a while, we traded for J.T. O'Sullivan from New Orleans last year, and then we have that other guy from Southern Mississippi. Where does this McBrien guy fit in? Are we going to be releasing like three QBs before the season starts?

Note to self: Figure out how David Plotz got this gig. Follow in his footsteps.

A weeklong barbecue pilgrimage. You bastard.

On the plus side, he mentions going to the new Oklahoma Joe's, which is dangerously within driving distance of my workplace at lunchtime.

(Thanks go to Bex for the heads-up on this article.)

So that was a good weekend. Friday night Bex was off to one of her indie rock shows, so on the advice of the KC Drinker mailing list I went to Friday Night's Rambo Hash. The Hash House Harriers bill themselves as "A Drinking Club With A Running Problem", and the group lived up to its billing.

I arrived a bit before 7:00 and was pointed to the beer. After putting a few away the hares took off to begin marking the trail. One of the members explained things to the newbies, then we set after the hares. Hares mark the trail with spots of flour and with various chalk markings. A particular kind of chalk marking means that the trail can go from that point in any direction. There may even be false trails that force you to backtrack, which is nice for getting the pack back together after some in the group have run ahead on the trail.

We followed the trail for a bit, stopped for a beer break after the first few miles, then did another short loop before coming back to where we started for further libations. Virgins, myself included, had to down a beer. Beer chugs were also doled out for various reasons, including Multiple Digit hashes (your 22nd hash, etc.), new shoes (I should have been busted on this, but I was spared (spared?) because this was my first and I hadn't been warned.) Then songs were sung, beer was drunk, and the group moseyed up the road to a bar for further debauchery. Myself, I headed over to the Ribbon Room since I haven't been in there for quite a while. I must have had quite a bit to drink at the hash as the Ribbon Room Jam Session was sounding pretty good to me. Finally I made it home.

The hashers were a fun group. Ages ran from 21 to I'd guess mid-late 40's, and we had 25 people at Friday's hash. As a bonus, it was cool to finally meet Ike and LaToya who run the KC Drinker site. They seem about as fun as I had assumed they would be, and Ike is planning the next event, the King Kamehameha Day Hash on June 11. I'll be there, too.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday all were pretty much dedicated to house stuff. I fixed the long broken upstairs toilet, then we completely rearranged the computer room. I'll spare you the details, but I really like the new layout. I now have a couch down there, a TV hooked up to my computer I can use to watch downloaded TV shows, and things just look nicer. Plus there's now room for Bex down there.

To get the couch in we had to remove the railing overlooking the computer room. We haven't put the railing back on yet, and it's all I can take not to jump from that landing down onto the couch.

On Saturday I finally picked up my copy of the new Mark Bilyeu CD. I've really only given it one listen. It is a bit odd to hear Mark without the rest of Big Smith, but it was definitely worth the price of the CD for studio versions of "Burn Brightly", "Don't Need So Much", and "Finally Free", which I always liked hearing at Big Smith shows.

Dang, I need to make it out to Silver Dollar City in Branson: This weekend's shows at the Bluegrass and BBQ Festival out there are the last listed Big Smith shows on the calendar.

Wakarusa in a few weeks, and Bex and I hit our one year anniversary very soon.

I think I'm going to go embarrass myself with these folks this evening.

Drinking and running. It's a winning combination!

Does Firefox actually render The Dreaded Blink Tag?

Wow, mine actually does. I thought that had officially been removed from most browsers.

You'll take my Wüsthof 4582 8" Chef's Knife when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

My quest to become a 75 year old man continues unabated. Last week I finished up my Bridge for Absolute Beginners class, and last night I played my first round of duplicate bridge. In a field of eight pairs, my pair finished tied for third. So I was in the top half, anyway. I also earned 0.17 master points.

Now I need to decide whether I'll play in the upcoming Pro-Am game with the future father-in-law. He's a very good player, and to describe me as amateur is probably being charitable. It would certainly be interesting, but I think that some more practice would be nice before jumping in with the big fish. I know that the few hands I played in the match yesterday I went set because of my bad card play.

Anyway, the whole thing is moot if this is the Pro-Am he's talking about. I'll be in Lawrence for Wakarusa on June 18th. The event the weekend of July 16th sounds pretty cool, though. I'll play three tourneys on a Saturday.

Also, it would be nice to have some more players my age in the games, though. All you people with the hipster friends, can you start spreading the rumor that Bridge is the hot new game that everybody is playing? I'd be most appreciative.

Well, what the heck, everybody's doing it.

The first ten random songs on my playlist:

1. Squirrel Nut Zippers - Fat Cat Keeps Getting Fatter
2. Tortoise - Five Too Many
3. The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize
4. Big Smith - Quarry Anthem
5. Brother Iota - March of the Bow-legged
6. Bill Hicks - Tommy
7. The Cure - A Letter To Elise
8. Chase - Boys And Girls Together
9. Grateful Dead - Mama Tried, 5/8/1977
10. Pearl Jam - Jeremy

I actually used to own a copy of Daddy's Boy, the book by Chris Elliott. I don't know what happened to it, and I really wish I still had my copy. It was quite funny.

Apparently I can get a new one used for $0.46 at Amazon, though.

Be sure to make your way over to With Cheese! for marc's list of titles from the Ayn Rand Institute of Children's Books.

So some senators came up with a compromise by which some judicial nominees will get a vote and others will not, but the filibuster rules won't be altered.

Well, if it's pissing off James Dobson it can't be all bad.

Yes, as marc points out in the comments, tomorrow is in fact the long-rumored release date for the NewsRadio Season 1 & 2 DVD. Of course, it comes out as I am once again broke, but this one will absolutely be purchased by me at the first opportunity.

It's well over a year since they originally said this would be released, but they pushed it back so they could record a ton of episode commentaries. I'm usually not much for listening to the commentary tracks, but I bet these will be pretty good. Plus, ten minutes of outtakes. And $28 for a full season DVD set? Awesome.

I'm currently getting caught up on the second season of Deadwood, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the first season. Season 2 has so far not disappointed.

I also haven't been reading Heather Havrilesky's Salon column on TV lately, so I missed her May 1 column, which she writes completely like a character from Deadwood; Al Swearengen in particular, it sounds like.

I am a computer programmer by trade. I work in an office full of other computer programmers.

Not one person in the room I work in has seen the new Star Wars yet.

We got on our flight last Wednesday morning at 6:30AM. We were off the plane and in a cab in the city by noon. Bex got a call from a friend of hers almost right after we were on the ground. Her friend is a writer for a magazine in New York, and he had tickets to see a production of Glengarry Glen Ross with Jeffrey Tambor. Unfortunately he only had one ticket to spare. Bex said I could take it and go with her pal, but I chose not to because I didn't want to step right off a plane and hang out with people that I don't know without her being there. In retrospect, I wish I had gone, but I’m weird that way.

But we made it in, picked up a key from Danny, and headed over to the apartment we'd be staying in. The apartment was in Hell's Kitchen, and this was the view from the window. We got unpacked and headed out to see the city. We had lunch at a pretty decent Thai restaurant called Tiny Thai. My only complaint was that they didn't ask for a level of spiciness, and I could have used mine with a bit more kick. It was still and excellent meal, though. Good soup, and good tiny little spring roll.

We headed through Central Park on our way to the exhibition at the Japan Society. On the way, we saw the public portion of the exhibit. As near as I can tell, the name of the piece is V W X Yellow Elephant Underwear/H I J Kiddy Elephant Underwear. You can’t see the panties on the elephant, nor can you see the cute little pile of elephant dung sitting behind the larger elephant. I am amazed that I did not take a picture of the elephant dung sculpture.

We made it over to the Japan society for the actual exhibit. It was a nice history of Anime, Japanese monster movies, Hello Kitty, and art inspired by such things. No pictures allowed inside, so here is a picture of the building it was in. One of the things they went briefly into was the weird thing you see in anime and manga where pedophilia seems to be somewhat mainstreamed. That's always kind of creeped me out, and it was interesting that they at least addressed it. I wish they had used the term “Lolicom” (Lolita Complex) a bit less, though.

After seeing that show we walked down the shoreline to where we were going to eat dinner. I was fascinated by this power plant and took a lot of pictures of it. I think this is probably my favorite picture. I just find it cool that even something as functional as a powerplant had some thought given to aesthetics. I'm guessing that that is more a function of the time it was built than the fact that it was built in New York, but I certainly could be wrong about that. Anyway, Bex snickered as I happily snapped pictures of a freaking power plant.

We walked by one of Bex's old apartments. This picture was taken in a park that her old place overlooked. This is a chalk drawing on a hopscotch board. If you can't see it, the text reads "My House". I just found that cool as hell. I would love to have grown up thinking that my house looked like that. The park cages were another sort of weird thing, but I suppose necessary. All these parks are right on the streets, so they’re fenced in with big iron fences and signs telling you to keep the gates closed. I guess that’s the only way you can let your kids run around without having to worry about them running into the path of a crazed cabby.

Wednesday night Bex and I ate dinner at 9th Street Market. We met Danny and Andrew and bought them dinner for being nice enough to put us up for the couple days we spent in the city. The food was decent but nothing memorable, and the service was atrocious. The less said about it the better. Here is a picture of Bex and I taken that night. I'm not as good at the crazy face as I used to be. (By the way, did I mention that when I changed banks and threw out my old bank’s debit card I realized that for the first time since like 1993 I don’t have a single crazy-face picture in my wallet? What is the world coming to?)

I'd hate to say that this was what I was most looking forward to on this trip to New York, but I'm tempted to. Wednesday night we saw MC Frontalot at The Slipper Room, and he did not disappoint. He busted rhymes, and his beats were indeed sick. There was a band on before him who played Doors covers and generally did their best to piss me off, but once they cleared the stage the true geeks started crowding the dance floor. It was a pretty good turnout, and the Front says that he expects to have his very own Saturday night show sometime soon. Even the guys from Gizmodo were there. After the show Bex was wiped out (well, we were up at 4:30 that morning), so we headed home and got to sleep.

Thursday morning started with a trip to Barney Greengrass for a bagel with some proper lox. OK, the waiter talked me out of the lox and into the basic nova, but it was still pretty damn good. The fish was tender as hell, and somehow they put the bagel together so that everything didn't ooze out of the sides after you took the first bite. This is a skill that nobody around KC seems to have mastered. Barney Greengrass will ship cured fish to you, but it’s not cheap, and it doesn’t keep forever. On the plus side, I have since received local cured fish suggestions from Bex’s dad.

Then I was cut loose for the day. I walked back through Central Park then to see what I could find. I didn't really have any plans for Thursday, so I was just wandering a bit.

I ended up on the outskirts of Chinatown, then headed north from there and ended up in the Village. I knew I wanted Korean food, so I fired up Vindigo and found the closest. The closest was a restaurant called Temple. I found out later that Bex and her friends used to eat there a lot when it had a different name. Apparently the incarnation of the restaurant they used to eat at closed down, so an NYU food science grad student bought the restaurant and ran it for school credit as she finished her degree. That's just such a cool story, and from the date on the review I read I would assume she is graduated now and apparently running a pretty successful restaurant.

Now this right here was really one of the highlights of my trip, so allow me to expand on this food for a bit. I'm a big fan of Korean food to begin with. This was particularly good, definitely the best Korean I've eaten anywhere. The Panchan consisted of four dishes: Ginger/Garlic marinated mushrooms, sliced cucumbers, shredded daikon, and some basic cabbage kimchi. The shredded daikon was kind of subtle, with just a hint of fish sauce. The cucumbers were excellent. They were spicy, but not in the way that I'm used to from Korean food. It was a sharp, immediate spicy, kind of like a serrano pepper. The cabbage kimchi was OK, but nobody beats the kimchi they make at Cho Ga here in town. The highlight of the panchan was definitely the marinated mushrooms, though. They were moist, tender and just steeped in garlic and ginger. That is something I absolutely have to work on making myself.

The lunch itself was a fairly basic dolsot bibimbap. The one thing that struck me with this was that they had blackened sesame seeds in the hot sauce that came with my rice dish. It was very good, but that's a dish that is difficult to do poorly.

After lunch I headed up the street to get a quick beer. I drank a Guinness while a few hipsters drank their PBRs and a bartender regaled us with stories of her audition for an improv comedy troupe the day before. A bartender who wants to be an actress? Do tell.

After that, I wandered some more. I went into some shops and shopped for a new bag. (I think I'm ready to upgrade to a messenger. I'm thinking about this one.) I got lost trying to find the financial district and ended up turned around down south, but I finally made my way over to Lil' Frankie’s where we were meeting Bex's old New York friends for dinner.

It was quite a turnout. Bex's friends are a motley assortment of writers, musicians, non-profit workers and all around good people. The pizza was excellent. I had the special, which was a sausage pizza with broccoli rabe and mushrooms. Very tasty, and I put the whole thing away. We stayed for a while chatting with her friends, then we gathered outside for this group shot and a few of us went to one of Bex's old hangouts, Big Bar. After a few beers it was time to give my feet a rest. We retired by midnight.

The rest of the trip took place on Long Island. We were in town for the wedding of a friend of Bex's. I won't post wedding pictures here, but this was taken on a trip to the beach that some friends of Bex's and I took while Bex hit the outlet malls in the area. The beach was pretty... I always expect east coast beaches to be more rocky than sandy. Though this certainly was pebbly, Boris managed to get around on without shoes.

The wedding was spectacular. Everything about it was perfect... The setting, the after ceremony cocktails/appetizers, the food, the band, the brunch the next day, all were absolutely top notch. I thought that I had lost weight walking around on Wednesday and Thursday, but if I did I put it all back on at the wedding. Congratulations again to Matt and Emma and we hope to see you in KC soon.

All in all, it was a very fun trip. Since we only spent two days in the city, I feel like I just barely got an idea of what I would do with more time in town. The food was certainly the highlight of the trip for me, and things weren't nearly as expensive as I had expected. Certainly rents are high, but food seemed comparable to what you'd spend at a decent restaurant here in KC, and $5-6 Guinness seems to be the going rate around here too.

No, I don't think that Bex and I can afford to move out there just yet, but this trip certainly got me thinking about going back to school so that we can. That's down the road now, though. We'll definitely have to take a longer trip up there sometime soon.

The Cure is surprisingly good working music. Also, I had forgotten how good Wish was.

Oh man, this is just begging for a contest:

Red Hook beer has decided to become more hep. So they're redesigning their labels with large fonts and "beer drinker verbs", like "imbibe", "tilt", and "tip".

OK, so what are your favorite beer drinker verbs? I'll get the ball rolling with "vomit", "swerve", and "stumble".

Awesome! It looks like Arrested Development is going to be renewed for another full 22 episode season! (found here.)

No time for a full writeup. I have a lot of pictures, and if they come out I hope to post them, but with Bridge tonight I can make no promises.

Long story short, I had an excellent time. We saw the exhibit at the Japan society, which was awesome, we saw MC Frontalot, I did a lot of walking, ate a lot of food, then capped it off with a lovely wedding at which I ate enough to negate any possible weight loss from the previous three days of walking.

Now I'm back in KC trying to figure out how I could possibly afford to live in New York. (Short answer: I can't.)

Thanks again to Danny and Andrew who put us up Wednesday and Thursday and to Boris and Rebecca who provided transportation from the city out to the wedding. Matt and Emma, it was a lovely wedding, we hope that you're having fun in Italy, and certainly let us know when you'll be in KC.

Everyone else, it was great to meet you and hopefully I'll have some pictures from Rebecca's pizza dinner up here eventually. We hope to make it back soon and of course anybody is welcome in Kansas City anytime. Thanks for the great weekend everybody.

Well we made it in safe and have made it through our first day in New York. After waking up at the ungodly hour of 4:15, we made it to the airport by 6:30. I've never flown Midwest Airlines before, but their all business class seating is pretty much awesome. Two across seating, and there's actually a console between the two first-class size seats. It is awesome... Unfortunately, the only routes they fly that I might take advantage of are KC - Dallas and KC - Green Bay. They don't fly to Houston or to Chicago.

But we finally made it in to LaGuardia at around 11:00. We had to run by the workplace of our gracious host to pick up a key to the apartment, then it was over to Hell's Kitchen. We dropped our stuff off and headed to lunch. We ate at Tiny Thai, a Thai restaurant just up the street. It was good Thai food, though they didn't ask about heat levels, and I could have used mine just a bit spicier.

We then began our first day of wandering. Bex had a grooming appointment at 3:00, so we worked our way towards the salon, wandering by Central Park, then heading up 5th Avenue and back down Madison. After Bex's appointment we went and saw Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture at the Japan Society. It was an excellent exhibition that I don't have time to post my thoughts on right now.

From there we headed down to the UN and walked along the East River, then downtown to meet our hosts for dinner at 9th Street Market. I had a vegetable pot pie, and Bex had the pork chop. They were both excellent, though the service was less than stellar. We started dinner at 7:00 and weren't out of there until about 9:00, mainly because it took pretty much forever to get dessert and our check.

Then the big night, the MC Frontalot show at The Slipper Room. There was an absolutely terrible band on before The Front took the stage, but they finally stopped. (Doors covers? Ugh...) Frontalot had a crew of suitably nerdy looking fans there. Though the house was not packed, it was full enough that I had to give up my seat to be able to see the stage. Frontalot puts on an excellent live show, and I thought it was even better than the show he has available for download. He even played one song that I was not familiar with. The song was about a collectible card game that he played once called "Gather: The Dorkening".

But then waking up at 4:30 caught up to us, and we took a cab back to the apartment we're staying in. I was impressed by how much ground we covered yesterday. It took us quite a while to get home in a cab, but we had walked all the rest of the day. If I lived here, I probably would lose weight; Firstly because I'd walk more, and secondly because I wouldn't be able to afford food.

OK, it's time to head off to have a bagel with some lox. Hell yeah.

Tomorrow Bex and I head off to New York City. She has plans for me including meeting some of her NY friends, attending a wedding, and eating food at various restaurants.

I had to add one item to the list:

Hell. Yeah.

This is the first and probably last bit of baseball commentary you'll hear from me this year.

Remember in 2003 when the Detroit Tigers took a run at the worst season record in modern baseball history? The record is currently held by the 1962 New York Mets, who finished the season at 40-120, for a .250 winning percentage.

As of today, the Royals are 8-24, for a .250 winning percentage.

Is it too early to start wondering if we're watching the worst team in the history of baseball?

Damn, I am glad I no longer work there.

Now my only hope is that layoffs over there don't get bad enough that it starts to affect property values around here.

On some level it upsets me that a new Nine Inch Nails album has been out for a while and I haven't listened to it yet.

On the other hand, this remix (mp3) of "The Hand That Feeds" is good enough that it think it renders the album moot.

You will download it and listen now.

No, the offseason isn't treating Green Bay well. We have players with legal troubles, a contract holdout and worst of all, the Viking fans are getting cocky.

I was kind of hoping that my Man Bag would make it in by lunchtime today, but I guess I won't be able to try it out until this evening. This winter I added some blazers to my wardrobe, and I've been spoiled by all the pockets I had. Now that summer is approaching, I'm not sure that I'm going to want to wear a blazer. I still want the storage for all the crap I lug around with me, though. Enter the Man Bag.

I swear, it's not a purse.

Next week I'll be heading up to New York City for a wedding. Bex will be (mercifully) leaving me alone for the majority of the day on Thursday while she shops and visits some friends, so I have a day solo in NYC. What do I do with myself for a day?

I've only been to NYC once, and that was when I was about six years old, so this is really my first trip. Does anybody who's been out there have any suggestions for things to do during the day?

Well, looks like I won't be drafting Javon Walker early in Fantasy Football this year.

If I'm reading this right, Favre is threatening Javon Walker with seeing fewer balls come his way next year:

“If Javon wants to know what his quarterback thinks, and I would think he might, I’d tell him he’s going about this the wrong way,” Favre said. “When his agent tells him not to worry about what his teammates think and all that stuff, I’d tell him I’ve been around a long time and that stuff will come back to haunt you.”

Yeah Javon, those pretty stats that make you think you should get paid this year instead of next could disappear in a hurry. I'd be careful with these games; I'm sure there are plenty of people still smarting over the McKenzie mess, and we're not hurting for wide receivers this year like we were for cornerbacks last year.

Well, the war has been over for some time, but the official documents of surrender hadn't been presented... Until now that is.