Brrr!

This is the temp outside.
Feels like -10.
This sucks.

Hooray Weekend and Hooray Beer!

The weekend starts early tomorrow and the adventures will include one young Kevin, who will be here visiting. We'll start the festivities with a hockey game tomorrow night and the first of what will be many, many beers. I'll keep you posted -- I can do that now that I got a new cell phone with a QWERTY keyboard. Here she is in all her glory.

And she better be pretty effing glorious, considering the time we spent at Best Buy yesterday. They should have put us on the payroll; they pay time and a half on holidays apparently.

How Our Christmas Went

Sorry it's been so long since the last update -- I was sick as a dog this past weekend and Jim took mighty good care of me.
Here is the picture essay from our schmancy trip to Boston for Christmas.
Jim looks like a serious bouncer in this picture, outside the Parker House where we stayed on Christmas Eve.


You'd think I'd never seen room service, as excited as I am here. Most everywhere in Boston was closed on Christmas Eve, hence the room service. It was delicious, by the by.






Presents! I love presents!!!!





Here I am in the Public Gardens, with the statue from Make Way For Ducklings, a great book that takes place in Boston. Note mama duck and all her babies on their way through the park. There was a line to have my picture taken with the statue, if you can imagine. And no, I didn't knock any kids out of the way to get in front of said line. I wasn't the only adult there either.

After this, we went to late lunch/early dinner at Beacon Hill Bistro, where I had amazing fish and seafood and Jim had lamb that he raved about. After one last drink at the Parker House, it was into a cab and back to our real lives in Medford. Such fantasies aren't meant to last and even Cinderella had to face reality at midnight.

Christmas Wrapping

Here's a great Christmas song from 1981 by The Waitresses. You may want to fast-forward through the first 45 seconds or so until the lyrics start (here are the lyrics for those of you keeping score at home). And yes, the BloodKillerDeathMan likes The Waitresses.

Where's Boston?

The forecast was for a dusting and so far, we have about 5" today. I know you all are gonna get sick of all these weather-related posts as though this blog were some sort of weather.com outpost on these here interwebs, but I can't get over all this snow.
This is the view out my office window. Normally, what's on the other side of the Mystic River is Boston -- the Prudential Building is like my personal North Star.
When I looked out today, I saw a whole lot of nothing. Then it got dark at 4:00, as it is wont to do this far north.
Now the drinking commences.
Note: it's 9:00 and still snowing. Is this normal?

How We Will Spend Christmas

We decided not to go anywhere for Christmas this year, so I made a plan for some real Boston fun. We have reservations for Christmas Eve night at the Parker House, home of (you guessed it) the Parker House roll and also the Boston Cream Pie. Malcolm X worked there and JFK was a huge fan. It is consummately Boston.
On Christmas Day, we're having what promises to be an amazing 5-course, prix fixe dinner at the Beacon Hill Bistro, about which the Boston Globe had this to say:
"The food and feel of the restaurant are like a soft but seductive melody, insinuating itself into your memory, calling you back."
I can't wait.
We'll let you know how it goes.

Season Tidings to all in the Airline Industry

Disclaimer: If you're a MOM, you shouldn't read this!

In the spirit of this special season of crowds, foul weather, cursing, and the most time-honored of travel traditions - getting our rights and personages violated - I have ordered myself a few special x-mas gifts! Make your own bumper stickers from www.makestickers.com! But seriously, I am really tired of the airport theater and I will not tolerate this shit anymore.



Delta airlines will always have a special place in the hell of my heart for their inhumane and classless treatment of Laura and I during her recent family crisis. That's why I ordered TEN of these.




There are a million stories about the bullshit violation of rights, so I will spare you ours (and C.T.s). But I felt this was quite appropriate. (Only got 5 of these)




I just thought this one was kind of cute! Hey, 'tis the season to get fucked... by the TSA. I ordered 5 of these.




Laura asked me to lay off the profanity, so whatever...I got five of these babies!


And the best part is: I ain't even bullshittin'.

Snow!

This is what it looks like outside our apartment. It started snowing at 12:30 and hasn't let up. As of now (6:00), it looks like about 8" have fallen. It's beautiful, but also treacherous. Jim is still out on his way home and I have admit, I'm a little worried about him, Colorado snow-driving experience and all. I got out of work and walked home as usual. Days like this make me especially grateful to live so close to the office.
It's supposed to stop around 9:00 and the predictions of 6"-12" look spot on right now. I don't think I've ever seen this much snow fall at one time.
Oh, apparently there's another storm heading our way late Saturday/early Sunday. Living in New England is an entirely new experience for a girl like me.

Open Remarks to the Red Sox Nation

You all are effing nuts. Effing crazy. Effing insane. Laura dragged my butt out of bed at 9:30am (okay, that's not that early, but still) to log into the Red Sox website because tickets went on sale at 10:00am.

Me in my kerchief, and her in her cap, sat at the terminals all effing day. We waited in their "virtual waiting room," which refreshes every 30 seconds and tells you if you have been randomly selected from the millions to be one of the privileged few (the audacity!) to be allowed to buy tickets. all effing day. Finally, at 6:30pm (and after some technology trickery...) we got standing room only tickets for a Saturday game and awful bleacher tickets for a Tuesday game, both at ridiculous prices.

I will say it a final time. You are all fucking nuts.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

...at least, that's what they say. A lot has transpired since our last post, so here are some pictures to help explain.





MA drivers licenses








Laura and my Father, Faneuil Hall








Thanksgiving with Laura's family in Wilmington, NC






drinks...


...with C.T. and Sam (and Petey and Lulu-Belle)
















Woodie's final resting place














Back to Boston...









... for coffee, and drinks










with Sally & Rob

Woodie

Allow me for a moment to tell you a story about a man named Morris Wood, known as Woodie. He was my father and also my Dad. This picture is of us, on my first day out of the hospital and in the world. Do you notice that I'm wearing a corsage?
He bought me flowers at least once a year, every year of my life until he had a stroke. When I was a freshman in college and it was my birthday, I got a bouquet; I thought it was from my boyfriend. It was from my dad.
I loved him best of all men I ever knew until I met Jim.
I got to the hospice on Saturday night and he was still awake. I held his hand and he grabbed on tight, gave me the OK symbol and went to sleep. He never woke up. He passed away this morning with my brother by his side. I am relieved more than sad; my dad is finally free of this struggle. Our mortal bodies are shitty, hollow vessels for who we really are. I know that now more than ever.
Here is his obituary. He was a handsome fella in his day.

3:00am, the technology hour

Woke up in the middle of the night to write some software. First, I got re-acquainted with an old favorite radio station, radius fm. You can listen to them streaming live out of Belarus at http://www.100fm.co.il (just click the headphones icon).


Then I decided what I want for Christmas: a bluetooth laser virtual keyboard. This thing is tiny and transmits a holograph of a keyboard which you can type on and is picked up by your handheld or pc via bluetooth.




Finally, I started a google calendar for our Thanksgiving trip so everyone knows what the heck we're doing. The iframe below won't do much, so to really see our agenda, please click this link.

Boston taking hold

Hard Evidence that Google is Lying

Google is considered a trusted source by the public, and has been heralded as one of the most upstanding websites for use and dissemination of information in this new age. However, not everything Google says can be proven to be true. Or is true.

Google published "Zeitgeist" year-end statistics for 2006. It clearly states in black & white (well, green and black, anyway) that the "Top Search in 2006" are 1. bebo followed by 2. myspace. There are, of course, eight more, but lets focus on these two.

Google has another tool, called Google Trends. This is a pretty neat tool which allows a user to enter search terms and see how often they were searched for in a period of time. This tool has many shortcomings you can read about on their discussion board. Nevertheless, it still claims to have valid data.

When one enters the terms "sex, bebo, myspace" and views the results, it is clear that "myspace" was a more frequent search term in 2006 than "bebo", and that "sex" was searched for more than both of them.
(Siobhan's Note: Does this surprise anyone?)

These two sets of data, both published by the same author - Google - claim to be correct but are in direct contradiction. I posted a question about this on the tool's discussion board, but no Google representative has stepped forward to address it. Perhaps, as one reader notes, "Googleology is Bad Science."

I await a definitive answer for the folks at Google, or anyone else with insight, for that matter.

Funny pics

The cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. The sign reads: "No tottering on one foot with arms akimbo on the cliff ledge as it crumbles away beneath you." As you can see, that's exactly what I'm doing...










And now, Lulu-Belle the dog, going to a costume party as Carmen Miranda:

Finally, someone she can watch football with

Some of you might remember Joe. Now I'm off the hook for beer & baseball (thank God, did you see the last post ?!)

For Hooker

Sunday Fun Day in Mass.

Rolling Medford-style.
We completed our chores and are now setting out to drink as many champagne supernovas as we can.
Observe my beloved showing how klassee we are.

Friday night in Boston

Finally, after a long week of work,we were able to go out and paint the town (Boston). We went to Chinatown and had some delicious treats, and then strolled around. It was cold, so I bought a $4 hat on the street. We walked around and looked at some fancy-pants apartments and found a pedestrian mall near Tremont.



Oh yes, and we went to a "historical" site where one of Boston's previous four town halls had been turned into a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Also, in the garden, Laura's shadow stole a smooch from mine.....

Finally, we made it to the Hub Pub in a neighborhood called Downtown crossing. Old men with hard hats and college dames talking about playing Beirut made up most of the social atmosphere.

After some beers and a little Jameson we went around the corner to a dive called the Sidebar, which is hooked onto another bar called the Dubliner, where we had some shots of Maker's and some pretty rowdy conversation.

Finally, we wondered around to Faneuil Hall, which was like Georgetown meets Adams Morgan. Needless to say, we didn't stay there long.
LW note: It's amazing to me how a place like the Faneuil Hall area can be so cool during the day and then be filled up to the very brim with douchebags at night.

Bored, so I'll post some interesting pics

Another day in paradise. Want to see what a small town in Belgium is like? Then check these pics. I miss friends to talk to, but I do love these times alone too....


A windmill in Brugge, Belgium. Brugge is the most romantic place on planet Earth.







Amsterdam can be great, and also insane