Oh my

Hello? Is the world still there? I ask because the Cardinals will be playing in the Super Bowl. Whoa. Today's game was good but I was thinking they were going to lose after the Eagles took the lead. Forgive my doubts but I still remember McNabb with a broken ankle beating the Cardinals. As long as both teams show up this year's Super Bowl should be a good one. World beware! I think the Cards have a good chance of winning.

Long Beach

I spent this past week in Long Beach at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. As you might guess the meeting was really far out! I heard interesting talks about art and education and read some interesting posters discussing current work. At the meeting I was able to talk to people I hadn't spoken to in many many years. That was nice.

With the busy days there was no time for sightseeing except for a brief walk to get a better view of The Queen Mary. If I had known it was a hotel I might have thought about staying there. Wonder how much they charge for steerage class rooms?

Happy New Year!

I rang in the New Year eating pizza and junk food and watching Japanese monster movies. With my Christmas loot I bought copies of Destroy all Monsters and Gamera: Defender of the Universe. Destroy All Monsters was extremely cheesey, like a well-done episode of the old Dr. Who series, though it didn't have enough monster mashing through Tokyo for my taste. The Gamera movie is only about 10 years old and was actually really good (for a Japanese monster movie).

When sharing my NYE plan with someone I remembered when I was younger that WOR out of NY would air Godzilla movies in the days following Thanksgiving. I'd sit and watch them while eating hot turkey sandwiches. The memories. Maybe next year I will eat Japanese food and watch Japanese monster movies. This could be the start of a new tradition.

Rays win!

Okay baseball fans, it is your duty to watch this series because you are fans of the game and not fans of the dreaded Yankees, etc. You may not like it, but it can only be good for the sport.

On a different note: Bills win! They haven't been this good since they were beat in the super bowl. I'll let you figure out which time!

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday I went to a birthday party for my friend's daughter. She turned two and loves Elmo. Yes there was Elmo everywhere. I walked in and was stuffed rotten before I really had a chance to sit down. There was an entire table full of food. I ate chicken kabob, pasticcio, spanakopita, salad, cake and cookies. Mmm. The hosts were even kind enough to send me home with three plates of leftovers so tonight I was essentially able to recreate last night's meal. Note: one plate was just cookies and baklava. It is an interesting home to be in because you can hear Greek, Hindi, Russian, and English being spoken simultaneously. Sometimes I feel like I've been dropped into a bad ethnic joke where the punch line is "they eat a lot of tasty food". This was a great way to end a not so good week.

No more adventures!

I'm with C-3PO on that one. Last night I arrived home at about 10:30 pm after being gone all day to discover a flooded apartment. Yikes! The person two floors above me decided to leave their taps open all day. There was about an inch of water on my kitchen floor and bathroom floor. Half of the bedroom carpet was soaked, it was like walking through puddles to get to the bathroom to check it out. Water had leaked from the ceiling onto my bed as well. That being said I only threw away my collection of plastic bags, my toothbrush, a cucumber, and a throw rug (that was about 20 years old anyway). Thankfully my book collection survived unscathed. The maintenance guy came out and used a wet vac to suck up as much water as he could and today the apartment manager promised to call in a carpet cleaner. I hope that happens. This was shame because yesterday was a really good day otherwise.

My Trip

I want to apologize to my thousands of readers. I appreciate your concern over my absence from the blog sphere, but be assured I didn't die, I was just busy.

On to the important stuff! The weekend of September 20th found me in San Diego visiting Dr. Lisa. What a fun trip! I ate lots of goodies including lobster burritos, California burritos, fish tacos, shrimp tacos, and a tasty fruit filled scone. One night we ate dinner at a restaurant that seems to go out of its way to hide its name. There we shared Japanese pub food (Izakaya). I really liked the dish of deep fried eggplant with ground beef in a ginger sauce. Mmm.

It was nice to see parts of San Diego, especially the water and the big ships parked in the water. Aircraft carriers are big! big! big! I was happy to walk along the beach and wished I could have packed it up and brought it back here. At least the temperature is finally going down.

This weekend was quick, but it was fun. Hopefully I didn't annoy Dr. Lisa too much so she'll let me come visit again.