3-16-2011

When Nicole gets excited, she likes to knock over trees with her bare hands. I do my best not to encourage this behaviour since I like trees, but clearly she's pretty excited about tonight's dessert. We went out for Thai food with my parents. My father was very happy to show me what he's been doing with his fancy new iPad 2. Steve Jobs would be so proud. This is Black Sticky Rice Pudding and it's one of Nicole's favorite things (this is just what the internet calls it. The menu had a more authentic sounding name, but I can't remember what it was). Fortune cookies were a bonus dessert that Nicole is also very fond of. Then we had dinner with Snake Snake, but I won't post any other pictures because he's fond of eating gross stuff.

3-15-2011

Are you sick of Bearcubapalooza 2011 yet? Because we aren't. It's only Tuesday and we're still going all out. Today, "going all out" means buying tons of dresses. Like all of the dresses. For real. Then we ate all of the dessert. Because it's Dessert Week. Tonight's stop is Presti's Italian Pastry in Little Italy for cannoli. It looks kind of funny pluralized without an s, but "cannoli" means more than just one. I told you we ate all the dessert.

3-14-2011

Although Bearcub Birthday Extravaganza requires a week long celebration, the actual calendar date is today. So tonight we got all fancy for fancy food from Fahrenheit. These fried mushrooms with truffle oil were my favorite. Continuing Dessert Week, here are mascarpone filled eclairs. I know I post too many pictures of food, but get ready for even more because this week is just getting started.

3-13-2011

Today is day two of Bearcub Birthday Party All the Time Week. Today Nicole's family drove us to Pickle Bill's so Nicole could eat crab legs. Four buckets of crab legs. I ate "fameous" fried pickles. Nicole's mom just got eaten. We also drank champagne and made new friends. I kind of wish these people were my friends. Even though she already had the restaurant cake (above), Nicole also had a birthday cupcake at home. This brings up two points. First, the candles are indeed correct. Nicole is actually only turning one year old. Second, all this over indulgent dessert eating is actually part of a preordained event we're having called "Dessert Week." Yesterday it was the cotton candy, today cake(s), and every day for the rest of the week we'll be eating various other desserts. Why you hating?

After nap time, we went to see Tony Preto look pretty and play music. Blurry birthday shots and dance party all night. Why you still hating?

3-12-2011

Baby Lily called today to tell Nicole that it was time to open her present and begin Bearcub Birthday Celebration Week 2011. Her rabbit teeth mean she was satisfied with Nicole's reaction to her gift. Our cats were also very satisfied with the gift (if you include the packaging). Mushroom announced to the neighborhood that she had cotton candy and they don't while Sienna was in and out. This is a way better gift than what I got for Nicole. Who doesn't want a machine that turns these pink rocks into candy? Cooking candy for breakfast. Another pinkies out food. I thought we should probably go to a diner to have real breakfast before continuing our cotton candy mission. See, the machine not only runs on pink rocks, but can turn pretty much any kind of hard candy into cotton candy. That's where this place comes in. What are we doing here? Filling baskets of course. I can't even explain how many aisles of full of candy this store has. It's like the Costo or Ikea of candy. They have bulk candy that you buy by how many pounds you want to add to your gut. They have so much candy that Nicole had to call people to even know what to do with it all. Remember that empty basket? This picture doesn't really show how full it got. It got so heavy that I think Nicole only quit shopping because her arm got too tired to hold it anymore. This is what rootbeer candy that I smashed with a wrench looks like. This is what rootbeer cotton candy floating in the atmosphere looks like. Mushroom likes it, but not as much as Sienna. Neither of them like cotton candy as much as Nicole likes her new birthday shoes. Then we did dinner and art show stuff that I didn't take pictures of. Nicole had me drink the horse because she liked how the bottle looked. I like how this looked.

3-11-2011

After a number of word of mouth recommendations to come here, we took Cheeseburger Tour to Burgers-N-Beer. After hearing so many people rave about their burgers, we were curious to know why they were so special. First, they come on garlic bread, and though it looks like a normal burger patty, they're actually stuffed with stuff like cheese or peppers. I think the pinkie out is Nicole's gesture of approval. I also learned that onion rings with honey mustard are worth clogging arteries for.

3-10-2011

Do you remember my co-worker's head from 4-12-10? Well that head came to work today looking like this. Do you remember that knife I got last weekend? I think you know where this is going. "Look! It's working!" "Maybe we should try something sharper." Now I'm not quite sure when or how it happened exactly...but this is pretty clear proof that I'm not old enough to be allowed to own sharp objects. Sorry, Jared. "All better now!"

I can't get away from things that look like bloody crime scenes today. I spent my night making a mess in an empty diner.

3-9-2011

So I've posted before about going to see bands just for the nostalgia factor. Seeing Mineral play a show would be the absolute ultimate for this, but I doubt that this will ever happen. The second best band to me would probably be The Get Up Kids. They just released a new album, so I was really on the fence about going at all. I didn't want to go see one of my favorite bands ever just to have my memory of them ruined by...we'll I'll try and explain better as we go. So after researching the setlists of their most recent shows online, I was satisfied that they would play enough of their "classics" for me to impulsively throw down on ticket money. Long story short, the show was really fun. Lots of hand claps and sing alongs which can only be expected from a crowd full of people who have spent the last fourteen years in love with some of the catchiest and most fun teenage angst ridden songs ever written. The only bummer were the new songs. I feel really bad saying that though so let me try and clarify. To the crowd (including me), The Get Up Kids are totally reminiscent of formative years and teenage experiences. I mean, all the lyrics are about formative years and teenage experiences. So it's fun to take a step back in time and fondly recollect those feelings and memories. To the band, I think the situation is significantly different. The band didn't lock themselves away in a high school year book, they grew up just like everyone else...probably more than everyone else really with all the touring and public attention as the "big deal band" of an entire musical genre. So after a long hiatus doing real life stuff, I feel really bad that they would slave away trying to write, record, release and tour on music that I'm sure is much more relevant to the current state of what they're about, just to have drunk dudes that wish they were still in high school yelling "play your old shit!" in the middle of a song (I swear that wasn't me...though I might have been thinking it too). I'm sure the last thing the band really wants to do is play the same ten songs they've been playing for the past fourteen years over and over again. A few times in the show I wondered if they were kind of just over it. I don't really know why I'm getting all introspective writing all this nonsense about the career arc of a band, so here are the pictures from the show. Needless to say, I still love TGUK.

Bass
Keys
Guitar
Chucks

Jim Suptic
two
three
four
five
six

Robert Pope
two
three
four

Ryan Pope
two (note the Steve Zissou looking creeper in the background. That's their keyboard player. I think they're embarassed of him because they made him play the whole show in a dark corner in the back).

Matthew Pryor
two
three
four got me spotted

3-8-2011

After yesterday's Blue Screen adventure, it's only fitting that I would wake up to another colorful message.

This is not a donut. It is a Pączki. Every year, people observe a hallowed day of gluttony called Fat Tuesday. This is the kind of religious behaviour that I can get into. In addition to the international celebration of Mardi Gras, there's also a much more localized Midwest tradition of Pączki Day, introduced to the region by Polish immigrants. You can read all about this on Wikipedia (which is where I'm getting my information from anyway), but all I'm saying is that there's a Fancy Donut religion and I'm way into participating.

3-7-2011

Childhood Jon looks over my work computer as it Blue Screen of Dies. Happy Monday!

P.s. I'm uploading more cat pictures because I think they're funny.

3-6-2011

I woke up this morning and saw something strange on my car. Upon further investigation, the flock of turkey vultures that live in my back yard came back from their seasonal vacation too soon, and got snowed and freezing rained on their backs all last night. The big birds were shivering cold and having a hard time flying (without crashing into cars).

Here are some more since it seems like they're flying again now.

3-5-2011

I took way too many pictures today, so I'm going to try and keep this as concise as possible. We woke up way too early on a weekend to get in a car and drive to the tropical paradise of Erie Pennsylvania. First stop was a place called Big Woodie's with digital signage advertising throwing stars, pepper spray, stun guns, and swords in the window. They weren't lying about anything. Especially the swords. It was a bit like being a kid in a candy store...but it was literally a candy store too. I almost bought this knife from this gentleman. Knives are made for cutting things, but luckily Antoinette was already considering bleeding a lot today. Considering this. This is what a tattoo shop looks like in a power outage. The power came back on and stayed on for Joel to draw flowers with his flower machine and Antoinette to bleed some more. Maybe she took a nap. I wandered around with a camera (imagine that). I found tubes and Ben. Woody went to the spa to get his legs shaved, and Victor colored. Yesterday I said Cheeseburger Tour was canceled this weekend, but that was only partially true. This is the Erie Co-Op's cafe, the home of my favorite lentil and nut veggie burger ever anywhere. Ladies eat with their pinkies out. I think this face means Nicole likes it, even if it's not made out of animal. Knives Out the gang. We stayed until night time then it was back in the car with shanks and Shamrock Shakes. The End.

3-4-2011

Unfortunately Cheeseburger Tour is canceled this weekend. We'll be doing other stuff so it just wont be possible. To make up for the lack of ritualistically eating a copious amount of meat this weekend, we're eating a copious amount of meat tonight! I think that short of Brazilian barbecue, which is the absolute ultimate in carnivorous decadence, Korean barbecue comes in as a close second. So of course, that's where we're going. Beyond the giant pile of meat that you grill yourself and cut with scissors, I'm really into all the little pickled dishes that they give you on the side. And the garlic. So much garlic. I guess there's a whole technique to how you're supposed to combine the ingredients into a little lettuce wrap/ball/bite. I'm bad at all of that. I just make this then shove it in the gaping hole in my face. I suggest everyone does this as much as possible. I don't know why there aren't more Korean barbecue restaurants all over the place around here. I really think someone should just rename all of those hard to pronounce dishes and make a truck load of money selling this stuff to all the white people in the suburbs. On the topic of renaming things, my blog should really be called I Eat Every Day.

3-3-2011

Get your sweet tooth and insulin ready everyone, your glucose level is about to explode. I'm always really into seasonal foods. It's fun to eat fresh ingredients and know that you're having them at their peak time of year. Normally this concept only applies to higher end restaurants, but at this special time of year it applies to the lowest level of fast food in the world. McDonald's. Clovers are apparently in season, so it's time celebrate with electric green, Leprechaun flavored milk shakes. This is pretty much a national holiday to me. Seriously, look at the tubes full of Leprechaun concentrate pumping into that ice cream. Even the Jetsons didn't imagine technology like this. To top it all off, they put a cherry on top now. The last time I got one of these it came in a paper cup and wasn't nearly this flourecent.

Speaking of things topped with cherries, Nicole has gone cupcake crazy. In addition to the same marshmallow vanilla bean cherry ones she made last time, she also made new chocolate s'more with graham cracker bear ones (is that vegetarian?). A landscape of cupcakes fading off into the distance.

I'm sure you don't care about pictures of my cats playing and being crazy, but Nicole and I think they're hilarious, so I'm putting them on here anyway. Sorry if that makes you mad.