Pacific Peak Merlot

As I've mentioned recently, we've been expanding our knowledge of wine. One of the issues we've come across is that to get good wine, you have to spend a little bit more than you'd want to for a glass or two a day. So we've been looking for an OK wine to stock around the house. We've recently come across Pacific Peak Merlot, which is a fairly mild wine that Laurel's Corridor Fine Wine stocks in the "double" (1.5L) size. This newspaper column describes it thusly, "You can even taste a very slight hint of plums in this one. It's pretty light but has good balance and no major faults."

Hellboy

Ben and I went to see Hellboy yesterday. It was very enjoyable in the don't-think-about-it-too-much-before-it-falls-apart sense that X2 fell into. The violence was a bit excessive, but the hundred or so 8-year-old in the movie theater with us didn't seem to mind.

Afterwards, we came back here, met up with George, Paul and Doug for some board gaming. We played the Settlers of Catan -- well, I suppose technically the Seafarers of Catan expansion. George doesn't play Settlers any more, so we started it before he got here. Unfortunately for him, he showed up about 2 minutes into what turned into a 3 hour long game. We then followed it with a game of Carcassonne.

How to Tell You've Been Living Too Long in DC....

Parents, if your kids answered in the affirmative to today's Washington Post KidsPost Fact,

Did you know that Condoleezza Rice took figure-skating lessons for years as a child?

it might be time to involve them in some activities...you know, soccer, music lessons, that sort of thing. Not so much the Young Republicans.

It just seems like a weird fact nobody's kid should really be expected to know.

The Godfather Party

Ben had never seen the movie The Godfather when he bought The Godfather DVD Collection. He decided it was worth having a viewing party for the movies. That was a couple of years ago. Since then, Ben has bought and moved into his own home. He showed it off last weekend with a Godfather party.

We bought him a propane grill as a housewarming present and helped set it up. After grilling of food and much drinking of beer, we sat down to watch the movie. I think I was the only other person there who had not seen the movie. We had to rewind a couple of times as people sometimes talked over the key scenes in the movie, but overall it was fun to watch with a crowd.

I enjoyed seeing the movie, both for the movie itself and for all of the references (e.g., "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.") that I will now understand when people make.

Drywall Party

OK, I'm a week behind on this, but last weekend George came over to help us and show us how to put up some drywall in our laundry room. Somehow, our contractors had found it within the scope of finishing our basement to put up a wall and insulate it, but not to drywall it. Ben stopped by later to help.



Before and after...or...halfway through.



Christina learns how to cut the drywall.



They put me in charge of guarding the T-square. (Photo Credit: Christina)

Up to #18

Christina and I went over to the Santa Fe Cafe Tuesday night for a little NTN playing. (And 1/2 price hamburger night.) Unfortunately, we couldn't play because they hadn't had the charger for the game boards plugged in for the past several days. Sigh. That place is really going downhill.

Since we were more interested in NTN than 1/2 price hamburgers, we made the drive up to Damons Arundel Mills, where we enjoyed a NTN-filled (and smoke-free) dinner. As a result, I made it up to #18 on the Santa Fe list (ironically), and Christina made it to #48. We've debated the ethics of turning in #47 for having a name that violates NTN's terms and conditions against offensive names. More likely, we'll just have to find a new location if things keep up.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Friday night, we went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on opening night. After the aforementioned trip to the wine store, we had a nice dinner at Remomo. In theory, the Dining Miles should top up Christina's account enough to get a free ticket to Mexico. Anyway, after I had read one reviewer describe ESotSM with, "This is the best movie I've seen in a decade," it seemed worth a shot. It's by the same guy who did Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, so if you saw either of those movies, you have an inkling of what you're in for. But just an inkling -- one piece of advice I'd give you is not to read anything about the movie -- just go see it. Part of the fun of the movie for me was figuring out what exactly was going on. (As in a puzzle, not as in a muddled plot.)

I don't know that I'd describe it as the best movie I've seen in a decade, but it was definitely an excellent film. One I'd definitely watch again. 5 stars.

Wine Cellar

After watching Simply Wine With Andrea Immer we headed out to Corridor Fine Wines in Laurel last night to pick up some wines. Now that we have that and our wine chiller, I wanted to keep better track (so I can remember we liked in the past). I found bottlecount.com. You can see our "wine cellar" here. In particular, the idea of getting a California Sangiovese and a Concha y Toro Casillero del Diablo came from the show.

Tourney Update

Well, Day 1 of the tournament wasn't too kind to my picks. In retrospect, Dayton, Southern Illinois, BYU, Arizona, and Princeton weren't the best underdogs to pick. In retrospect, Nevada and Manhattan were. I picked 5 underdogs? And none of them right? Yeesh. I'm off already today, with 2 underdog picks already backfiring on me. Fortunately, I didn't pick the underdogs very far through, so I still have all of my second round picks alive.

Tourney Time

Well, the NCAA tournament has started again, and this year both of my alma maters are in the NIT. Well, Georgia was in.

My picks are here. I picked 4 ACC teams in the "Elite Eight". Hmm.

Render Unto Caesars

We had a nice weekend vacation. Saturday night we headed to Newark, Delaware. OK, that wasn't the major part of the vacation. We mainly chose it because it was on the way to Atlantic City, and it had a Hampton Inn, which allowed us to notch our 20th Hilton Hhonors night of the year.

The next day, we headed off to Atlantic City and Caesars. Huh. I just noticed that the web site refers to it as "Caesars", not "Caesars Palace." I guess that's only for the Vegas location. Christina's friend Heidi was celebrating her 40th birthday, and we joined in. We had a lot of fun, but I didn't pull out the camera until Monday morning, as we were leaving the parking garage. Sorry.

I had never been to Atlantic City before. I found it like what I imagine Las Vegas would be -- if you put it in New Jersey. Sigh. Still, it whetted my appetite for a potential visit to Las Vegas this December for a math conference.

Where have I been?

Inspired by Jeanene's post, I am creating maps of places I've been to. I'm only counting overnight stays as visits.








I've also added these to the bottom of my travel page.

Christina has her own maps.