2-21-2011

Do you remember the totally awful Mr. Freeze character that Arnold Schwarzenegger played in the 90's Batman movie? Everything is like that today but for real. This doesn't look natural.

2-20-2011

Welcome to the next installment of cheeseburger tour. Nicole is making sure that every weekend I'm having the most fun possible being the worst vegetarian ever. Today, we're going to Whitey's Booze N' Burgers. They've been open since 1953, and apparently have a lot of regulars. They're most famous for their chili which looks like minature tacos, but their burgers are also quite good. This is Nicole's "burger" (apparently there was some sort of cheeseburger buried in the bottom of that). Beyond the food which was great, the highlight of my dining experience was the claw machine lobster tank. I'm not sure if it tops the one I found on 7-23-10 though.

2-19-2011

Have you had your morning coffee yet? Because it's Saturday morning (above), the weather is the nicest it's been in months, and we're going adventuring in the woods. And by that I mean looking at eagle's nests and beaver dams and taking pictures of eachother. This post will have lots of pictures of Nicole doing stuff like walking around and taking pictures of things in the woods. Furry hats, coffee, and 35mm SLRs are required. More taking pictures of taking pictures and walking. Nicole is very happy about this. We found dead frogs that were frozen around the edge of the lake. I'm not quite sure how Nicole feels about that. Lots of things are still frozen but some of it is starting to melt. The rest of the animals are probably hibernating in places like this beaver dam. Though they might still be out doing things. At least some things are starting to be green again. This is Nicole spontaneously taking off her clothes and jumping around because her green shirt matches the moss (this makes perfect sense once explained right?). This is blue. We actually have a policy and protocol for found feathers and where they're allowed to be in the house. Here are some of Nicole's film pictures. They're more interesting than the ones I take. Speaking of me taking pictures, have you ever wondered how ridiculous I look taking all of the random pictures I post on here? This is pretty much how silly and contorted I get on a regular basis. Nicole looks better and takes better pictures like this.

I would say that Nicole should start a photo blog to replace this one, but she's not very interested in hauling a camera around everywhere. She's much more into garbage picking and reclaiming random lamps to fix (notice even her necklace is a chandelier). Also note the white elephant lamp she found. Seriously, a giant white elephant lamp. Who has this stuff? And if you have it, why would you ever throw it away? Rather than lamp hoarding, I fed my Craigslist addiction and added to my stock pile of film that was about to be thrown away. Then we had dinner.

2-18-2011

So today I'm turning my blog into a cooking show (aka I was bored so I harassed Nicole with my camera while she was cooking dinner). The first step is to accidentally buy chocolate milk but use it anyway (above) to make Chocolate Milk Vegetarian Corn Dogs. The next step is to pour some fake butter in with the chocolate milk and other batter ingredients. At some point, cut some vegetarian hot dogs in half and stick sticks in them. Dip the hot dogs into the chocolate batter and carefully put them into the fryer to fry them. You should probably take them out of the boiling oil before eating them. Be sure to take pictures of how pretty they are first though.

2-17-2011

So today's post is a kind of sad and really gross, so if you're sensitive to sad/gross things you might want to skip today (you know who you are).

The past few days on my way to work/lunch, I've seen this huge bird eating an animal carcass in the middle of a field. Naturally, I'm attracted to anything out of the ordinary, but never had the time to pull over for pictures while the bird was there. I felt like it was kind of morbid, but I told myself that death and scavenging are necessary parts of the natural cycle of life. Tonight on my way home, I saw a giant deer crossing the street headed towards the field. I was really surprised to see it intentionally go right over the the (gross) carcass. It was really sad seeing him investigate the body of his dead friend.

2-16-2011

Bath time.

2-15-2011

You can tell Spring is almost here because the wild fruit loops are starting to sprout.

Since I had so much fun getting yelled at last time, I went creepy motel exploring again today. No one got mad at me this time, but it reaffirmed my initial wondering who actually stays in these places and how do they stay in business?

2-14-2011

Happy Valentines Day!

2-13-2011

Why is Nicole putting on her coat and giving me beckoning faces with such blurry urgency? Probably because if I keep taking stupid pictures, we'll be late for brunch (yes, it's Sunday). I know I post a lot of pictures of food, but you may not know that Nicole sings songs about everything she eats. Especially if it makes her tongue change colors.

On the way home, Nicole American Pickers-ed a broken lamp. Garbage reclaiming happens almost as often as going to brunch. It doesn't work at all. Probably because of stuff like this. Ever since exploding a wire in our wall (and the year she spent helping to rewire the whole house because of it), Nicole is now a proficent amature electrician. She's actually really good at it.

After fixing the lamp, we went to go eat strangly shaped pretzels. Just like 10-7-10, Nicole got Cavs tickets from her job. We got to sit in the same (awesome) seats and see the same (not very good) team. However, just like last time, my favorite giant Asian named Yi was in town. I like basketball games. The players are so graceful and make such effortless faces while they knock each other over. Jazz hands. Mo Williams sitting on Mo Williams lap defies the laws of physics almost as much as small white Shaquille O'Neal who apparently still plays for Cleveland. Really though the fans alone of the worst team in the league kind of make going to games worth it. It's way better than staying home and watching The Jersey Shore on TV...even if it's sometimes like watching a full on train wreck. Like when little kids reenact the Michael Jackson knife fight from Beat It (actually that was kind of awesome). Besides, we won free Chalupas! Nicole really just goes for the cotton candy. Tony and Barb just go places to be photogenic. Especially when we raid suites to take pictures on the way out. Hooray for sports and athletic merchandise.

2-12-2011

So where are we going today while following this polar bear in the back of a pickup truck? We were too sick to do it last weekend, but now (almost) healthy again, we're continuing cheeseburger tour! I'm really going hard with this "I'm allowed to eat meat sometimes" strategy on the weekends. Today we're checking out Hamburger Station, another local legend burger place, but rather than a drive-up style place, this one serves more White-Castle-esque slider sized burgers. These are cool because you can eat 10 of them and not really eat that much, and you can also pretend that you're huge while doing so. Beyond the bags of onions and potatoes to make you think that your ingredients are cooked fresh daily (who knows how long those bags have been sitting there), the real draw to this location was the rumor of a table with saddles for chairs. We didn't see the table at first and though that this was just a vicious rumor, but no, you can actually sit in a real saddle while you eat miniature cow patties (that doesn't sound right). I don't know if I'm stressing this enough...a table surrounded by four real saddle chairs. As for the actual food, it was very good (other than the fact that they used an entire bag of onions on our burgers). This is still the champ though...even if this particular location looks like a gas station.

After that, we went on a pilgrimage of thrift and antique stores. We love shopping for junk (I'm pretty sure that's the same vintage of rolling chair that we have at work). Today, I was especially attracted to religious items like this Free Mason Bible, an old Apocrypha, and this heirloom Bible. I'm not sure what Nicole was looking for. Maybe this futuristic organ. Long story short, after following one shops directions to another a few times, we got lost. In the middle of nowhere. This happens to us kind of a lot.

Now I wasn't too sure about posting this last bit, but I think it's really funny, and I almost busted my face open on the ice trying to take it...so here. A few things to point out, this was in the front window of a thrift store for second hand, used stuff. If that wasn't enough, notice the anti-theft sensor tag. Do they really have such a shoplifting problem of transparent pink underwear that they need to implement loss prevention security precautions? (I don't think I want to know the answer to that). Happy Valentines day everyone!

2-11-2011

Cat fight.

2-10-2011

Our quest for seasonal junk food came up empty handed. But on the bright side, Nicole is looking into financing a new jeep with four wheel drive.

2-9-2011

So I posted last year (2-15) about the Chinese New Year meal that my dad makes every year. Since we were too sick for the actual day this year, we put it off until today. Above is a giant pile of tofu for my vegetarian side, but there was plenty of meat to cook in baskets for normal people.

2-8-2011

Clock.