Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Sunday, October 29, 2006
Aw man. My Huskies took ASU into overtime, the first one ever at Husky Stadium, our second overtime in two weeks. We lost. Our backup QB got a concussion, and so we were on our 3rd string QB. They decided to redshirt our freshman phenom QB, so if our 3rd string goes down we'll be down to a walk-on. Hopefully our backup will be back. After the game I took the bus to the Halloween party B was at. She'd left my costume in the van. I went as a keg of beer this year. I told B to get a costume that looked hot instead of her preference for frumpy, so she got a skintight robin hood forest huntress type thing with a very short skirt. Rowr! Harry is a T-rex and Isabel is a purple crayon. The Seahawks sucked for the second straight week, dropping them to 4-3. Sure our two best players are hurt, but we flat out didn't even bring a defense this week, giving up 4 touchdowns to Larry Johnson. Gah! Thursday, October 26, 2006
Holy glub. Last night at poker, at one point we were playing Texas Hold'em. I looked down and saw that I'd been dealt the 10 and jack of spades. High suited connectors, a good hand. I called the big blind. Flop was king of spades... aces of spades... and then queen of spades. Holy glub, I just *flopped* a royal friggin' flush. At home, not at a poker room where I'd get real money and more than likely a $100-$1500 jackpot. That's the first non-wildcard royal flush I've gotten in more than 15 years of poker. My Huskies played Cal pretty well last week, but man am I disappointed that they didn't try for two when they made that insane Hail Mary touchdown at the end of regulation. (By the way, that's the first Hail Mary I've ever seen work that wasn't a replay.) Go for two, either win or lose the game right there. I told myself "If we go for the tie and OT, Cal's going to run in a TD and Bonnell is going to throw his 5th interception". D'oh! I was exactly right. That's two close losses to top-10 opponents in which our defence dropped interceptions that would have iced the game. Gah! It'll be interested to see how bad the Seahawks suck with Mattressback out for 3 to 3,000 weeks. Here's hoping Seneca Wallace works out quickly. That would suck to be the 6th Superbowl Loser in a row to not make the playoffs the next year. B got her stove last Friday and loves it. No, LJ, it's not induction, I haven't seen them commonly available here, which means they've gotta be a lot of money. It's still way nicer than our previous stove, which I sold for $100 on craigslist. Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Ok, that Monday Night football game this week was truly amazing. The undefeated Chicago Bears were at the 1-4 Arizona Cardinals (formerly the Chicago Cardinals). With 5 seconds left in the 3rd quarter, the score is Bears 3, Cards 23. The Bears get an interception run back for a TD. Late in the game, the Bears D strips a ball and runs IT back for another defensive touchdown. The Bear's offense (which had been averaging something north of 30 points a game I believe) has been totally inept. The Cards just need to burn a few minutes off the clock, and they punt. The Bears take THAT one to the house. Score, Bears 24, Cards 23. The Bears have zero offensive touchdowns, 2 defensive touchdowns, and one special-teams TD. The Cards haven't given up yet. They drive down, get to about the 20 yard line and 2nd and 1 to go. They try two running plays up the gut and fail to convert. On 4th down with 45 seconds left in the game, down by 1, they send in the field goal squad who promptly friggin' SHANKS the friggin' field goal! Bears win, 24-23, going to 6-0. Cards drop to 1-5. Amazing. I forgot to mention something about that birthday party last Friday. Normally I always give the gift of booze. Bottle of hootch, bottle of nice wine, case of beer, something along those lines. This time, it was a friend who has never drank. D'oh! What the hell do I do? I should have bought him the first season of The Venture Brothers on DVD, only $20. However, I stuck to my guns and got him a bottle of non-alcoholic booze. Aka a bottle of water. Labeled it "non-alcoholic booze", even. (Oh, and a gift card from Barnes and Noble, I'm not a totally cheap dickwad and he's a good friend.) Our kitchen range is pretty crappy. Normally I'd call it a stove, but B wanted a new one so I had to learn the proper nomenclature of kitchen appliances. An oven is built into a wall. A cooktop is built into a counter. A combo oven/cooktop is called a range. Anyway, the oven in ours takes forever to heat up, doesn't hold a consistant temperature, the cooktop is crappy coils that aren't level, and the user interface on the fancy digital LCD panel is crap. To set the oven temp, you press "bake", then you have to hold down the up arrow for about 20 seconds to get it to slowly scroll from 325f to 450 or whatever 5 degrees at at time. Gah. Morons. B was very hot to get a range with a double oven. Instead of having a pot drawer, you can get them with second low-height ovens. We also wanted a beefier cooktop, with more burners and more flexibility. I wanted convection cooking, to distribute the heat more evenly. We ended up deciding on the GE Profile JB968, in true white. It had all the features we wanted, was highly rated by Consumer Reports, GE ovens have only a 4% failure rate over the past 6 years, and my brother who bakes almost as much as B has a new GE Profile wall oven and he loves it. It's got a temperature probe for meat that plugs into the roof of the oven, so I don't have to use my external one. Digital controls, but a keypad to type in the temperature I want. Last night we went to Home Despot and ordered it, it'll be delivered on Friday. I need to put the old one up on craigslist, I'm going to guess it's gotta be worth $100 to someone. It works, it's nice looking, and it's got "digital" controls. (gag). Anyway, B is super excited about it. I'm a bit excited as well, I can't wait to cook a rib roast in it. B can make her from-scratch rolls in the second oven at the same time, or when Mom-in-law gets back there's room to bake two pies in the lower oven. Mmmm, pie. Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Sometimes having kids is TOTALLY worth it. We were in the van tonight driving down Sand Point Way. It's a 40mph two lanes each way road, and right where it reduces to one lane each way, a fartknocker pulls out in front of me making me slow waaaay down. I comment, "Thanks a lot, A-dingle!" (quickly replacing A-hole with something else mid-word). Isabel says, "People who do that angry up your blood!" (Old Grandpa Simpson quote I've been over-using). Hahahahah. Oh shit, B and I laughed our asses off. Yes indeed, Isabel, people who cut me off like that angry up my blood something fierce. Monday, October 16, 2006
My poor brother-in-law drove 300 miles from Spokane to go to the Huskies game last Saturday, and they got beat on both sides of the ball. It was bad, but to make matters worse, our star QB broke his foot and his college career is over. We're now 4-3, and need two more wins to qualify for a bowl game. Our remaining schedule is pretty brutal, I'm guessing right now we'll either win zero or one game. This week at red-hot Cal, loss. Two weeks from now we host ASU, probably a loss. After that we're at Oregon, loss. Next we host the winless Stanford, who lost to a Division II team, possible win. Lastly we've got the Apple Cup vs WSU at WSU. Gah. I'm guessing we'll loose that too and not make a bowl game. We'll see. They may surprise me. Everyone is calling for our true freshman QB Jake Locker to burn his redshirt season and save the day. The Seahawks game, on the other hand, surprised me. We got mauled in the first half, came out of the locker room in the second half with running plays, after gaining 4 yards on 5 carries in the first half. We came back from 14 points down at the half to go up 27-21, including a field goal that clanks BOTH uprights before bouncing out. With under two minutes to go, we got an interception, ran the ball inside the 10 yard line then fumbled. The Rams drove back, and Torry Holt got an unbelievably amazing catch for a 67 yard TD to take the Rams up 28-27. The Hawks drove back and as time expired nailed a 54 yard field goal to win the game. Amazing win to take the Hawks to 4-1. The Venture Brothers 2nd season finale was last night on Adult Swim. Very damn funny, especially the cliffhanger ending. Excellent show, I can't recommend it enough. Buy/netflix/steal the first season DVDs. Saturday, October 14, 2006
Last night we had a party for one of my poker buddies at another poker buddies house. Harry started looking a little green around the gills, and successfully blew chow all over the inside of the van. We hadn't even made it to the end of the block. I think I still have barf on my watch. Friday, October 13, 2006
B and I watched this week's episode of "Jericho" last night. The show wasn't great to start with, but it just keeps getting dumber and dumber. I have very little hope. However, on the *awesome* TV show front, I've recently been turned onto "The Venture Brothers", a totally hilarious cartoon on Adult Swim. It's a parody of Jonny Quest, and oh my god is it funny. Some of the gags just about kill me. If you haven't seen it, get the first DVD off NetFlix. It's SO worth it! Thursday, October 12, 2006
Fun poker last night. We had seven, including my friend who writes the Cognitive Dissonance blog on the sidebar. He dropped $30, but had fun and hopefully improved his poker skills. We'd like to see him as a regular, the conversations were even more humorous and ludicrous. Good to have a full table again. I won $25. Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Holy glub it's been busy at work this week. I normally eat breakfast at my desk, but totally didn't get time today. Last night neither of us felt like cooking so we ended up taking the kids to Red Robin for dinner instead. At least that way B didn't have to do dishes. Afterwards we called up my brother Kurt to see if we could drop by his new hair salon. Him and his best friend's wife are opening it in a week and they've been busting hump getting it ready. I wish I had some time available to help but I'm pretty booked up myself. Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Happy 8th Anniversary to us. Eight very happy years. B and I are going to have to figure out something nice for dinner tonight. Monday, October 09, 2006
Ha! On the way to the library tonight, Harry thought another vehicle got too close to us and said we were nearly in an accident. I laughed at him, and Isabel explained, "We didn't get in a wreck because Daddy is a good driver. Good drivers make things better for everyone!" I'm not sure which insurance company uses that slogan, but I laughed to hear it anyway.
Fun weekend. Friday night B and I watched "Munich" on On-Demand, it was pretty good if a little crazy. Don't mess with the Mossad. On Saturday morning we got up, got packed, and out of the house in 90 minutes. We went for breakfast at Sunflour Bakery, one of our favorite breakfast joints, then drove to Ocean Shores. The weather on Saturday was great, sunny, mid-60s, breezy. The resort was pretty nice, about what I'd expect from an tribal casino. Any place with slots is going to have more money than places without. Our room had a nice view of the ocean. After we got checked into our room we took the kids into town to find a place to eat, ending up at a fried fish shack called the Sandcastle. I spent half of lunch in the truck listening to my Huskies play at USC. After lunch we walked out onto the beach. The sand was very fine, very nice to walk in barefoot. There weren't very many people, either. We flew the kids' kites (Isabel has a turtle and Harry has a clownfish, both given as birthday presents by their uncle Kurt) but there almost wasn't enough wind for them. Both kids quickly got bored with kite flying so we started digging in the sand and building sand castles, and running in and out of the waves. Brrrr cold north Pacific water. B found two jellyfish stranded on the beach, each the size of a pie, pretty gross blobs of goo. I went back to the room and caught the 4th quarter of my Husky game. They were down 20-26 with less than 2 minutes to go, drove down to the 15 yard line, but the officials didn't stop end the previous play until there were only 2 seconds left on the clock, even though the ball had been down for a few seconds. We didn't manage to get the snap off in time for an attemtp at a game-winning touchdown, gahhh! So close. USC is going to have their hands full playing the Cal Bears. After the kids came in we got ready and went to the pool. B did end up sitting in a chair reading for about an hour, while I played with the kids a ton. The pool was very nice, only 4' deep the whole length but very warm. Isabel can now swim across the pool without her swim jacket, and can easily swim forever with her swim jacket. Harry still likes to hold onto me or the sides even wearing his swim jacket. While we were in the pool a guy and three girls came in to swim. It quickly became apparent that they were two couples since they were basically making out at the one end of the pool. One of the gals was very butch, it cracks me up. They both had amazing bodies, however. How much extra do you have to pay to have hot lesbians making out in the pool, anyway? After swimming we got dressed up and went to the fancy restaurant there for dinner. The kids did an amazing job of behaving, since the service was a little slower than I'd hoped for, but they were troopers. The food was excellent and cheap. I had an appetizer of amazing razor clams, a cup of awesome chowder with smoked trout in it, a caprese with awesome mozzerella but terrible tomatoes, and seared ahi for the entree. Very tasty. The kids each had a giant frigging slab of fish-n-chips, I mean they each must have had over half a pound of halibut breaded and fried... uff-da! The total on the meal with wine and my 3 beers was $81. The waitress reminded me I could just take my beer with me as long as I kept in the hotel. WooO! Kids were not allowed in the casino, so B had a grand plan of sitting them on a couch in the hall near some slots so she could gamble... We both laughed at how well THAT would go over. The kids and I went back to the room so B could play some nicke slots. She won fifty cents. It was basically 8 o'clock bedtime at that point, so we got the kids into jammies and B put them to bed (we'd brought their sleeping bags, Isabel has Helly Kitty and Harry has Spiderman) and I went down to the poker room to play some cards. They had two tables (out of 4) going, and were running something I had never seen before, a 3-8 'spread' game. Blinds were $1 and $3, but you could bet or raise anywhere between $3 and $8 at any time. My first hand was 99, and a nine came up on the flop, and I made about $60. I didn't get a hand for a half hour, then hit a few to take me over $220. A guy two seats away hit a royal flush, paying him about a hundred bucks in the pot, plus a $560 royal flush jackpot, plus when midnight hit he won another $50 for the high hand of the day. He'd practically just sat down, too, another guy had moved over just before and was hating life at that point. I slowly started chasing straights and flushes and not just playing hands made on the flop, and eventually quit at 1am with exactly my starting $100. I need to stop playing drawing hands so much. At least I wasn't some of the people who just kept buying rack after rack of 100 one-dollar chips, losing them, and repeating. A ton of that money went to feed the rake, however. The next morning the kids got up and crawled into bed with us, then Isabel and I decided to go for a walk on the beach. It was much more typical Washington Coast weather, overcast, windy, and a misty drizzly sorta-rain. After our walk Isabel's pants were soaked, so we went to the truck, I bundled her up in a blanket, and we went into town to get some hostest powered-sugar donettes, bananas, and juice for breakfast. We went for another swim, (nobody else at all at 9am on a Sunday), then packed up and headed for home. While driving back through Aberdeen (town motto is now, I kid you not, "Come As You Are" (Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was from Aberdeen, small wonder he had a drug problem)) we were going down the highway, I don't know if it's 101 or 109 at that point, but it's through rundown methed-out business districts at 30mph forever. We went over a bridge of curved grated bridge deck, slippery as snot, and as we got to the other side a car in the next lane behind us totally lost it, overcorrected, and slammed through a chainlink fence into some business yard. It didn't look like they'd gotten seriously hurt or anything, but B was going, "Oh my gosh! That was scary! Are you kids scared? OOOoo! Micheals!!" That last part excited as we passed yet another outlet of her favorite craft store. I nearly died laughing. "That was scary Ooo Michaels!" Holy hell. On the way home we stopped at a family Mexican restaurant in Olympia for a tasty lunch, but B ordered sopapillas for dessert and we got some fried flour tortilla chips dusted with cinnamon and honey. That is NOT what I'd call a sopapilla, which are strangely hard to find for something so damn delicious. We also stopped by IK-K-K-KEA, which sucked. I needed some spare shelves for my new BILLY cabinet, since I found two more boxes of glassware. B knew we were missing wine glasses, and I knew we were missing martini glasses and brandy snifters. We were both right. Anyway, IKEA sucked since it was their annual sale so the place was ludicrously more packed than normal, and they didn't have the FLIT bookends I wanted. Their computer says they have 80 pairs, but nobody could find them. Gah! I did get my shelves, so the sidetrip wasn't totally wasted. Friday, October 06, 2006
In a few days it will be B and my 8th wedding anniversary. Every year for our anniversary we go on a little (or not-so-little) getaway trip. 1999: Week in Hawaii, and I mean the *real* Hawaii, the Big Island, with volcanos and liquid hot magma. 2000: Weekend to Vancouver, BC, Canada, eh? B was hugely morning sick with Isabel. 2001: Lopez Island, WA with baby Isabel 2002: Ocean Shores, WA with baby Harry 2003: Victoria, BC, Canada, eh? No Kids Wooo! 2004: Portland, OR No kids Wooooooo! 2005: Week in NYC. Woooooo! Even with kids we had a blast. Normally we alternate picking a location and keep it a secret from the other partner, but huge things like last year's trip to NYC are beyond hiding, and this year we don't have babysitting since my mom-in-law is on her own two-month vacation, so we decided to just take the kids with us to the coast. We're staying at an indian hotel/casino, so Isabel has a grand plan that I'll go play poker while the kids play in the pool and B sits on a lounge chair reading. Sounds good to me! We'll be flying kites on the beach and having a grand time. Thursday, October 05, 2006
Man, I was happy to have poker last night after not having it last week, but I got totally boned to the tune of $60. WOPR's "luck" of two weeks ago moved to me apparently. Tuesday, October 03, 2006
I got the van back yesterday afternoon, all fixed up with a new alternator under warranty. They also fixed a couple of recall items that I'd been ignoring. B didn't get a chance to go to her jazzercise class last night so after dinner Isabel decided we needed to go for a family walk, which was fun. I'm really enjoying 'Studio 60', I hope it does OK in the ratings. Monday, October 02, 2006
Well, the Seahawks seriously choked last night against the Bears. Looks like we're back to sucking. We went to Ikea yesterday and aquired a third "Billy" bookcase in oak with matching glass doors. Back when I bought the first two my choices were faux oak, dark brown, black, and white. The next year they added beech, which looks way better, but with glass doors they're $200, so I'm not about to pony up $600 for three of them. Anyway, the kids helped me assemble it and I got to unpacking boxes of booze glassware. All told I unpacked 134 pieces of glass for drinking booze: a dozen large mugs, at least a dozen Imperial Pint glasses, some stemware, a shitload of shot glasses, and a bunch of 6oz glasses I've gotten from various local beer festivals until they all went to plastic taster cups. Also in those packed boxes were some cocktail plates, our football-shaped chip-n-dip dish, and the kids' giraffe growth-chart quilt. D'oh! Things we've been looking for! Last night I ended up going to NotMe's house for pizza and B went with the kids to her friend's place for that dinner party. NotMe had a ceramic jug of Georgian wine (the former Soviet state, not the peanut state) that was super sticky and syrupy, basically port. The pizza was awesome, but after Hasselbeck threw his second terrible interception I figured out we were getting totally pants-ed and I didn't want to stick around. I drove over to B's shindig and heard the girls playing in the backyard, so opened the gate. One of Isabel's friends smiled at me and said, "Hi Eric! Are you here to take Isabel and Harry home?" I replied, "No, I'm here to tickle you!" The girls all screamed and ran in every direction, it was hilarious. They all got chased down and tickled. I made sure to get them all totally jacked up, no point in having them calm and serene if you can have them screaming and running through the house. When it was time to go the kids wanted to ride with me, and we passed B in the van. A minute later we were home and B called saying the van had just broke down. The battery charge light was on, apparently the alternater took a crap. I called Kia's 24-hr roadside assistance and they told me they'd have a tow truck out in 40 minutes. I went home since I was only 3 blocks away, and 10 minutes later the tow truck driver called to say he was there. Damn fast service. Anyway, the dealership has it now, I need to check and confirm it'll be ready this afternoon. Sunday, October 01, 2006
This week the Husky game vs the Arizona Wildcats was not going to be televised. The UW Athletic Dept. arranged an internet feed of the Arizona scoreboard screen, and set up some projection screens in the UW's basketball arena, open to the public for free, using the radio broadcast for audio. Somehow I don't think they expected 6,500 people to show up. The single concession booth was completely overwhelmed, and pretty much every single seat in the house that had any view of the screens was filled. I was going to go by myself, but B arranged for her sister to come babysit so she could accompany me. We got there about 15 minutes late and the joint was jumping. The crowd was the hardcore Husky fans, and they were screaming and yelling and having a grand time. B and I got some seats where we could barely see a screen edge-on. The audio was truly awful, not very loud and very very muddled, so basically nobody around me could hear anything. The scoreboard video is NOT very good, they had crazy angles a lot of the time, and spend most of their time getting crowd shots. Boy howdy that Tuscon crowd was MUCH uglier than the average fan they show at a UW game. Another disadvantage of the scoreboard video feed is you never get to see the score, or time, or any of the other stats the scoreboards have. We had very little idea of what the exact situation was or even what quarter it was most of the time. At halftime I figured we'd just bag it and I'd listen to the game on the radio at home. It was pretty fun, but would have been WAY better if they'd just had the audio clear. It would have been very nice if they'd predicted the crowd correctly and had a few more screens covering the sides and had all the concessions open, too. I'm glad I went, the Huskies won (scoring 21 points in less than 6 minutes of the 2nd quarter, then nothing but defense) and are now 4-1. That gets them ever closer to a winning season and a bowl berth. |
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