Rockets; Sabrina; Spider-man; Dinner and bars; Mexican martinis

4/30

Cindy had gotten games to one of the Rockets playoff games (against Denver, if memory serves). In the spirit of being adventurous and sharing in her interests I agreed to go, but once again I'm reminded that sporting events are just not my thing. Combine large groups of annoying people, bad parking, over-priced beer and food, and you don't get a very happy Ward.

I seem to recall going to the Proletariat afterwards, but for the life of me I can't remember why...

5/1

Jeff had started his new job at school, so we went for lunch for the first time in the year or so since he'd last been employed there.

5/3

Sabrina and I hadn't hung out in a while, so we hit up Chuy's. Afterwards, it was the release night for Spider-man 3, so a group of us went. The movie had some cool bits but was ultimately disappointing, on the level of X-Men 3. Actually, come to think of it, the entire trilogy and the X-Men trilogy were parallel, quality-wise. Decent opening chapter, spectacular sequel, then tanked the third time around. Wonder why?

5/4

A colleague of Cindy's was moving away so a big group went to dinner at Pico's in Bellaire. Their "authentic" cuisine was good, though it hasn't exactly blown me away. Afterwards we hit up Gingerman to meet up with another friend of Cindy's, and then went to Poison Girl.

5/5

My quest for the perfect margarita recipe has never really gotten off the ground. I've tried a few variations, and once again we came back to the recipe we had found online for Trudy's Mexican martini. It's never quite right, though. Never quite smooth enough...

5/6

Despite the fact that my committee meeting was behind us, the pressure was on to get two papers out, so I put some work in Sunday afternoon (though I can't remember the exact reason).

MLK; KILLER ICE STORM OF '07; El Tiempo & Bukowski

1/15

In a cruel twist of fate, I spent my day off mostly sleeping, as I had some symptoms that some would think might indicate that I was sick. So I slept it off, had some green tea, some emercen-c, some fruit juice, slept it off some more. There were better things I could have been doing, but at least I wasn't at work.


1/16

Things got cold, as in below freezing, which means, of course, that civilization is at risk of grinding to a halt. And, God willing, no school.

Dan called me up and he was braving the apocalyptic weather for some drinks at Rudz. At the time, the weather hadn't quite worked its way below 32, and the precipitation was minimal, so I figured I'd risk it. We also made a stop off at the Proletariat before calling it a night.

1/17

Of course, God was not willing (or at least school wasn't), so I was greeted by this message:

Weather Update: College open
posted 01/17/2007

Update: 5:30 A.M. - Jan. 17

The College is open and conducting normal business operations. Employees who live in northern, western and 290 areas, where there have been higher accumulations of ice, should contact their supervisors about arriving late to allow time for roadways to be sanded, ice to thaw and travel to be safer.

All employees are encouraged to be cautious in traveling to work. Employees unable to come to work due to personal situations must contact their supervisor and arrange for time off.

Dicks.

1/19

Cindy came over for Grey's Anatomy and we attempted to make snake bites, but we never could get the Guiness to layer properly on top of the cider. One day I will learn...

1/20

I was lazy Saturday afternoon, then ran around taking care of some errands, in the process finding some bargain GameCube games. I gave up on going out to Susan and Jerry's, and instead came home.

I stopped off to get the mail, and, moments later my phone rang; apparently Oliver was in the complex. He was going out to dinner with some friends to El Tiempo, which I had only been to the one time, and he invited me along, so I decided to join them.

I ended up not really knowing anyone, which was definitely awkward, but hell, them's some good fajitas.

They were then going to meet up with some people (including ones I actually knew), but I figured I'd try to catch up with Cindy.

We were going to go to the MFAH for one of their shindigs, but we arrived late and the line was around the block. Some people were buying museum memberships to jump to the front of the line, but they were pretty expensive and it just wasn't worth that. I had lobbied against it from the beginning, feeling strangely antisocial, but Cindy had told her roommate we would meet them there. But you can't argue with the facts, so we left.

Instead, we went and rented a movie and then picked up some ingredients for sangria. The sangria turned out decently, but I think I can probably do better in the future.

The movie was Factotum. My familiarity with Bukowski is only really due to Modest Mouse; their previous album had a song named after him, and their song "Long Distance Drunk" was based on a short story (which I actually read). The movie was pretty good. The story arc wasn't particularly strong, but the acting and dialogue were good and I'm guessing it gave a pretty good feel for Bukowski's style.

1/21

Not much going on Sunday. Did some cleaning up and such, and played some DS.

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.

Movie with Will & Ben; Rudyard's; Midlake @ the Proletariat, Rudyard's again, and GRAB; Thai and Clerk's II; Lady in the Water

7/19

Since I was stuck at home, I was glad when Will called about doing something. Only in the end, it turned out that he was going to be hanging out at Ben's place, which was in my complex.

We watched the very... um... poorly adapted Bulletproof Monk, which I can only imagine worked better as a comic book.

7/20

Cindy's a big Rudyard's fan, so we went for beer...

7/21

Denton-based Midlake was playing an early show at the Proletariat, so Cindy and I met Dan and Kristin up there to catch the show. Their adventurous indie rock showed definite potential, but I ahven't gotten around to really exploring them further. I was very surprised, though, to see the place completely packed.

Afterwards, we went to Rudyard's (again) for some dinner. I stuck to appetizers, and went with the "nuts and bolts", which I had always wanted to try. I got my choice of several fried veggies (and other fried thingies), and I went with fried mushrooms, cheese, zuchini, and eggplant.

What I learned was that it was too much fried food for any one man. I made some crack about being able to do this since I had just been to the cardiologist. With some help, we put it all away.

The time came for a change of venue, so we went to check out GRAB, where there was more drinking, pool, and (gasp!) a little dancing, which was roundly criticized by Cindy. That's why I never do it, baby.

7/22

Since I was carless and couldn't go out to Susan and Jerry's, I decided to spend the afternoon with Cindy. We started out going to the Taj MaSpec's downtown. Cindy wanted to start a liquor cabinet, so we picked out some standards for her (vodka, rum, whiskey). I picked up some barware I had been wanting since seeing the bar episode of "Good Eats". I picked up a Boston shaker (the shaker itself with no strainer or lid; just use a pint glass as a lid and open slightly to strain), a muddler (good for julips and mojitos), and a great little jigger/pony. I picked up some beer, too, and we browsed the food selection.

We came back, had some drinks, and then decided to go for Thai at the Original Morningside Thai Restaurant. Sadly, we didn't realize it was BYOB. The restaurant was in a house. It was about 7:00 or so, but the place wasn't crowded at all, and in fact was maybe a little too quiet.

We started with the cheese spring rolls, which were good but had too much (read: any) onion. Next up was Tom Ka Gai, which was good, but I suppose hard to mess up, and then a red curry with beef. Everything was good, but nothing particularly unique or compelling. But I've felt simliarly about lots of other Thai restaurants in the village, and this one, somehow, is probably my favorite so far.

I'm not sure what other morningside Thai restaurants there are, but it's good to know we were at the original.

Afterwards, Cindy and I had settled on seeing Clerks II. I suppose I enjoyed it while I was watching it, but it really didn't add much to the original, except a new happy ending, which necessitated first destroying the original's happy ending.

I can't figure out if Kevin Smith just doesn't have it anymore, or if I've grown past enjoying his particular brand of dick and fart jokes, but something just wasn't working.

Also, watching conversations about "ass to mouth" with one's girlfriend can be awkward.

7/23

Cindy was up for seeing Clerks II but not Lady in the Water; Will was the opposite way, so he and I went to see Shyamalan's latest. We started by making a few trips to Double Dave's pizza buffet, and then played some arcade games before the movie.

The movie itself was probably the least interesting of M.'s that I've seen. There was no really mystery or no twist (or if there was, it was too obvious to be surprising). I didn't really see the point to creating an extremely simple mythology. The camera work, as usual, was great, and there were some reasonably funny character moments, although the characters were a little flat.

The film critic character, however, was a complete straw man, and was in the film only to server M.'s ego. That one left a bad taste in my mouth.

Dallas; Waco; Car Bullshit

7/14

The drive to Dallas was farily uneventful; some rain, some music, and a stop for caffeine and gas were among the highlights. I rolled into town, checked out Bryan's new place, and soon Phil joined us and we took off for Lower Greenville. Phil suggested Stout (Thanks to Bryan for the assist on the name) where we started the beer drinking and ordered a few appetizers (though they were disturbingly seafood driven).

The hour rolled around for the concert du jour, so we made for Deep Ellum (where I hadn't been since... oh, maybe the Guster show of 2003). We were there to see Camera Obscura do their best Belle & Sebastian impression at the Gypsy Tearoom/Ballroom. Phil and Bryan were confused by the number of people in full punk regalia going into the ballroom, but I figured there was no way a bunch of alternateens were showing up for a twee pop band. Turns out that Rancid (Bryan confirms) were playing in the ballroom (the larger of the two), whereas CO were playing the more intimate tearoom (which I preferred anyway). The two halves of the venue did share a bathroom, though, which made for an interesting juxtaposition of P!O!P! kids and punks.

I opened a tab and got to work. Phil had brought some cigaretes along so I indulged (haveing reached that level of drunkeness). I picked out a new t-shirt. The band was solid live; pretty much reproducing the album. It was enjoyable, but didn't really add anything to the experience.

Phil took us back to Bryan's, and then Bryan, Lisa and I made a TC run.

7/15

Slept nice and late before Bryan and I started the lamb we were going to have for dinner. The next order of business was lunch, so we went once again to Lower Greenville for some good mediterranean at Ali Baba, the highlight of which was the creamy humus and crispy falafel.

Good Records' new digs were nearby, so we went in to check out the space. Space was one thing there was plenty of, particularly around their new stage, which I'm sure makes for great in store performances. As usual, the selection and curation of the stock was top notch, and I was wishing that I had some spare funds to pick up a few things.

Next to the liquor store, where we bought supplies for Mexican Martinis, I picked up a bottle of Lindemann's Framboise for Bryan to try, and I had a random encounter with Tromboner Justin Lewis from high school.

Then the grocery store to get some veggies to go with dinner and a few other items, and then back to Bryan and Lisa's palatial apartment to start the cooking. I did some grilled veggies tossed in olive oil, seasoning, and tequila, and we had a nice dinner.

Some Dr. Mario was played (I might have even won a game), and then we did some swimming over at the house of some of Lisa's relatives.

7/16

Slept in, and then Kelly and Phil came by after church and we went for lunch at Old Monk (thanks again, Bryan—do you remember what we drank?), a charming British pub-ish sort of setup. Phil, Bryan and I all ordered some good beer. After looking at the menu, I settled on the burger with my choice of fancy cheese. I couldn't resist trying the Irish whiskey cheddar, which did indeed make for a tasty burger.

After that, it was time to take off, so I got on the rode to Waco.

Along the way, an eighteen-wheeler about three cars ahead of me had a blowout, and the tire was pretty much unavoidable. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but after travelling 35 south to Waco, I made a turn only to hear a scraping sound. I pulled over and noticed that a plastic piece under the car was hanging down so I reached down and put it back into place, but then my eyes caught a rather large dent in my front bumper, and cracked plastic in my grille.

Damned 18 wheelers. Fucking NAFTA. If they're not trying to kill me, they're trying to fucking damage my car.

Anyway, I tried to ignore that for the time being and enjoyed some time with my parents. Once they had decided to call it an evening, I undertook the tedious task of sorting through some of my old comics to find some stuff that I wanted to bring to Houston to reread and to pass along to Will.

7/17

I had not made time for my yearly cardiology appointment in Waco over the Christmas holiday, so I took Monday off to accomplish that. Once I had gotten a clean bill of health and packed up my stuff, I met mom for lunch at Panera before heading back to Houston.

On the way I fired up the bluetooth headset and started making calls about getting my car taken care of. After dropping my luggage off back at the apartment, I went once again to take my car to the body shop. They informed me that they were busy but that they had a sister shop that would work on it, and I could even just leave the car there and that they would take care of everything. It sounded good to me (but too bad it wasn't). I called up Char to come pick me up, figuring that he probably didn't have anything better to do.

In the process I offended Cindy by not having called her first, which I did because I knew she wouldn't be able to get away from school. Of course, I was right, and I think she realized it after she thought through the logic of the situation.

So anyway, the Ward car curse continued to haunt me, and since the accident was classified as a road hazard rather than a real accident, no rental car this time around. On the other hand, the deductible was to only be $50, which was a huge relief. Still, two trips to the body shop within four months was not cool...