Pappadeaux's & the Ginger Man; Practice; Batman Beyond; Khyber & Snakes on a Blog; Minty drinks; Woodrow's; Cooking
8/14
We were interviewing a postdoc candidate in lab, and I was asked to take him to dinner, which seemed like a good idea at the time.
This was right around the time of all the "heightened airport security" bullshit, so after I ran home to get my car and picked up the interviewee, I had to take him to get bubble wrap so he could pack his laptop in his luggage. Then I had to run back up to school to pick up my lab mate that was joining us.
The trouble with dinner was, our interviewee he was (originally) from Algeria, and because of the culture he was raised in, didn't "like to be around drinking". So no beer on the lab budget, tragically. I took him to Pappadeaux's, as he seemed willing to try something new. Lab Mate (who happens to be a little dense) managed to order the cold shrimp and raw oyster plate—without realizing that the oysters were raw. Smooth. Seemed like such a waste. I tried one, but I wouldn't necessarily say that I enjoyed it. Thankfully, I had ordered crab cakes for us as an appetizer, which were good. Our interviewee went with fried crawfish; labmate went with some kind of plank grilled fish, and I tried the blackened catfish (which was actually disappointingly bland). Lab Mate also has an annoying habit of hearing things, misinterpreting them, and spitting out the misinformation at a later point, so I spent a good portion of the evening correcting some of his notions about the US, Texas, Houston, BCM, and the lab for our guest.
I talked them into getting the sweet potato pecan pie for dessert, though, so it wasn't all bad.
Then I had to take interviewee back to the hotel, and then David home, and finally, finally, made it back home to enjoy the rest of my birthday. Cindy came by and picked me up to take me out for beer at the Gingerman.
8/15
Band practice. I continue to suck less. We pick up a few cool covers. Jeff has a nice original called "Satellite" that's a waltz. Rocking occurs.
8/16
At some point I had borrowed a DVD with the first few episodes of the animated Batman Beyond on it. I had not long before that rediscovered my love for the excellent DC Comics animated TV shows (Batman, Superman, Justice League) and so was glad to get to fill in this missing piece.
I think I had previously watched the DVD, but since then I downloaded a bunch of episodes off of BitTorrent and so I spent my evening working my way through them. The show was entertaining, but probably the least so of the four cartoons. It seems to be a bit far from being a masterpiece, but I can't help but wonder if the feature-length movie corrects some of that—particularly, darkening the tone a bit, which is a bit kiddie because of its teenaged protagonist.
8/17
Graham and Angela hadn't made it to my birthday party, and offered to make that up to me by taking Cindy and I out to dinner. We ended up at Indian restaurant Khyber, which was quite tasty.
Afterwards, we had a date with Will to see Snakes On A Plane (seems overly pretentious to capitalize that). The movie delivered what was on the tin, and did so in a completely entertaining manner. So, surprisingly not criticisms from me.
Well, more tits wouldn't have hurt it. I mean, it was just that kind of movie. Oh, and that music video at the end was just awful.
8/18
Despite the best efforts of Kristin to get us up to the Prole, Cindy and I opted for a cheap night in. Cindy brought over some mint leaves and we made mint julips (which were good but would have been better with seltzer instead of plain water) and mojitos. TV was probably watched.
8/19
Matt, who had previously left school, was back in town for the weekend and wanted barbecue. He, Graham, Char, Will and I hit up Goode's for some sauce-drenched goodness before wandering across the street to Goode's Armadillo Palace for a round.
Notes indicate that I went to Woodrow's that evening. No more details available.
8/20
Notes would seem to indicate that I spent the evening cooking. I think (think!) that was probably the evening that I tried a couple of Alton Brown gazpacho recipes. One was sort of a dip that used Bulgar wheat in addition to the traditional tomato and bell pepper flavors. The other was fruit-based, but in the more traditional cold soup form. The tomato-bssed dip one didn't really turn out very well; it just never quite tasted good.
The fruit one, on the other hand, was pretty good. I should have cut the cucumbers, and I was short on walnuts, but the grapes, white grape juice, and apples combined well with everything and it ended up being tasty—especially after I added my own touch, one (carefully) seeded habanero.
The next night I would try an Alton Brown macaroni and cheese recipe, which turned out badly thanks to my managing to fuck up tempering the egg into the sauce. A suggestion for the recipe was to take a bar of the final product, chilled, and batter and fry it, which redeemed it, though I would imagine it would redeem just about anything.
We were interviewing a postdoc candidate in lab, and I was asked to take him to dinner, which seemed like a good idea at the time.
This was right around the time of all the "heightened airport security" bullshit, so after I ran home to get my car and picked up the interviewee, I had to take him to get bubble wrap so he could pack his laptop in his luggage. Then I had to run back up to school to pick up my lab mate that was joining us.
The trouble with dinner was, our interviewee he was (originally) from Algeria, and because of the culture he was raised in, didn't "like to be around drinking". So no beer on the lab budget, tragically. I took him to Pappadeaux's, as he seemed willing to try something new. Lab Mate (who happens to be a little dense) managed to order the cold shrimp and raw oyster plate—without realizing that the oysters were raw. Smooth. Seemed like such a waste. I tried one, but I wouldn't necessarily say that I enjoyed it. Thankfully, I had ordered crab cakes for us as an appetizer, which were good. Our interviewee went with fried crawfish; labmate went with some kind of plank grilled fish, and I tried the blackened catfish (which was actually disappointingly bland). Lab Mate also has an annoying habit of hearing things, misinterpreting them, and spitting out the misinformation at a later point, so I spent a good portion of the evening correcting some of his notions about the US, Texas, Houston, BCM, and the lab for our guest.
I talked them into getting the sweet potato pecan pie for dessert, though, so it wasn't all bad.
Then I had to take interviewee back to the hotel, and then David home, and finally, finally, made it back home to enjoy the rest of my birthday. Cindy came by and picked me up to take me out for beer at the Gingerman.
8/15
Band practice. I continue to suck less. We pick up a few cool covers. Jeff has a nice original called "Satellite" that's a waltz. Rocking occurs.
8/16
At some point I had borrowed a DVD with the first few episodes of the animated Batman Beyond on it. I had not long before that rediscovered my love for the excellent DC Comics animated TV shows (Batman, Superman, Justice League) and so was glad to get to fill in this missing piece.
I think I had previously watched the DVD, but since then I downloaded a bunch of episodes off of BitTorrent and so I spent my evening working my way through them. The show was entertaining, but probably the least so of the four cartoons. It seems to be a bit far from being a masterpiece, but I can't help but wonder if the feature-length movie corrects some of that—particularly, darkening the tone a bit, which is a bit kiddie because of its teenaged protagonist.
8/17
Graham and Angela hadn't made it to my birthday party, and offered to make that up to me by taking Cindy and I out to dinner. We ended up at Indian restaurant Khyber, which was quite tasty.
Afterwards, we had a date with Will to see Snakes On A Plane (seems overly pretentious to capitalize that). The movie delivered what was on the tin, and did so in a completely entertaining manner. So, surprisingly not criticisms from me.
Well, more tits wouldn't have hurt it. I mean, it was just that kind of movie. Oh, and that music video at the end was just awful.
8/18
Despite the best efforts of Kristin to get us up to the Prole, Cindy and I opted for a cheap night in. Cindy brought over some mint leaves and we made mint julips (which were good but would have been better with seltzer instead of plain water) and mojitos. TV was probably watched.
8/19
Matt, who had previously left school, was back in town for the weekend and wanted barbecue. He, Graham, Char, Will and I hit up Goode's for some sauce-drenched goodness before wandering across the street to Goode's Armadillo Palace for a round.
Notes indicate that I went to Woodrow's that evening. No more details available.
8/20
Notes would seem to indicate that I spent the evening cooking. I think (think!) that was probably the evening that I tried a couple of Alton Brown gazpacho recipes. One was sort of a dip that used Bulgar wheat in addition to the traditional tomato and bell pepper flavors. The other was fruit-based, but in the more traditional cold soup form. The tomato-bssed dip one didn't really turn out very well; it just never quite tasted good.
The fruit one, on the other hand, was pretty good. I should have cut the cucumbers, and I was short on walnuts, but the grapes, white grape juice, and apples combined well with everything and it ended up being tasty—especially after I added my own touch, one (carefully) seeded habanero.
The next night I would try an Alton Brown macaroni and cheese recipe, which turned out badly thanks to my managing to fuck up tempering the egg into the sauce. A suggestion for the recipe was to take a bar of the final product, chilled, and batter and fry it, which redeemed it, though I would imagine it would redeem just about anything.
Labels: band, bars, beer, cocktails, cooking, movies, restaurants, TV
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 1:20 AM
