mcgoose

Pam sent me an e-mail about This American Life Live!  So I went last night to a movie theater in Warwick.  It was kind of cool to watch something live in a movie theater.  And what we were watching was a performance/presentation in a theater.   And the people in the theater that we were watching knew that there were people in movie theaters all over the country watching.  And the main person that we were watching was Ira Glass, who I have heard on the radio a billion times but who I’ve never actually seen speak.  So that was all pretty interesting.  And some of the pieces they showed were really interesting too.  Debbie- your employer’s building was shown clearly in one of the pieces.

McGoosers- I want your input. Some days I need a little psyching up on my drive to work. While Morning Edition is informative and enlightening, it rarely pumps me up. Sometimes WBRU has a few good songs, sometimes another local station has a good one. Ideally, a real zinger comes on as I’m driving the last 2 blocks in to work. But to ensure real pump-up success, I need to be prepared with my iPod or a CD. I made a “Drive to Work” mix a few years ago but it’s a little tired. It is high time for a new one. This is where you come in. What would you put on a “Let’s Get Fired Up!” mix? They don’t have to all be totally rockin’ out songs, a little transition is always good.

Really? RI’s Vote might actually matter? Our primary is coming up this Tuesday and the candidates have been visiting our little state. Last weekend Hillary Clinton was here (and I think she might even have been in my neighborhood) and today Barack Obama was here. I went and waited in the cold for a long time before getting to hear Obama speak at a rally. There were a lot of very excited people there.

Last Saturday I had some friends over for lunch. I thought it might be nice to have some wine along with the soup and bread and cheeses, so I bought this. I don’t know much about wine but this one was good. It is Mad Fish Shiraz. Now on the cheeses…. I have two recommendations: aged gouda and “Drunken Goat” (I got both at Whole Foods).

I don’t think I’ve posted in a year or so, but thought you might get a kick out of my recent purchase, pictured here. I read about it in the Times, and since I do love a good soft-boiled egg, when I saw one at the grocery store, I had to buy it. $7 well spent, in my opinion…You just fill the bottom with water, and put some eggs in the tray, and set the microwave to the appropriate time based on how hard you want the egg.  The best part is that it looks like a giant egg!!  Sure when all is said and done, it doesn’t really save that much more time over boiling the water the old-fashioned way, but so far, it’s resulted in eggs just perfect for dipping soldiers in!

Ask and ye shall receive, Liz. Here is my darling niece-puppy Millie. Two pictures from Thanksgiving week. One pre-haircut and one post-haircut (we didn’t trim her back or legs so she looked like she was wearing a furry bear costume, very cute).

And, yes, I realize most of you are anti-canine and dog-centric blogs probably won’t be so popular with the McGoose crowd.  But I’m not sure if anyone reads the blog anymore, so I’m just posting away….

As anyone who has met my father knows, he is an interesting character. When I went home for Thanksgiving, I found that he had taped this sign to the back door:

First of all, I like the picture. Second, it’s amusing because my parents don’t have a dog. But my father is slowly becoming a doggy daycare provider for friends and neighbors. Here are three of the four dogs we had at Christmas:

I’m not usually a fan of little dogs, but I really liked this little Yorkie. He had spunk and didn’t yap.

I highly recommend the Starbucks Snowcap Brownie. It is full of yummy things. I was eating one the other day and decided I should post about it. I went online to find a picture from the Starbucks website but couldn’t find one. So I took a picture of the remaining bite of mine…. This picture really doesn’t do it justice. You should buy your own, or at least look at them in your local Starbucks.

Yesterday Liz and I made some cookies. In preparation for the endeavor, we bought all sorts of fancy ingredients (meringue powder, gel food coloring) and equipment (pastry tips, pastry bags) at a cooking store in NYC. The cookie-making was quite a production. And we learned some things in the process. Like it’s better to have multiple #4 and #6 tips than a whole set of cake decorating tips and decorating rhino cookies is tough.

I left Liz with many more cookies to decorate…

Following in the great athletic role-model footsteps of Elizabeth, I “completed” my second indoor triathlon on Saturday. Dubbed the “Alathon”, not to be confused with Alanon, this triathlon includes 19 laps in the pool (950 meters), biking until the bike calorie count reads 888 (this is the “modified” part, I only did 444, which took something like 50 minutes), and a 5-mile run (again “modified” as I walked it instead of ran it). As odd as it might sound, it felt good to do it. Maybe next time I’ll do the full Alathon, with 888 calories on the bike. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Maybe I’ll need to get a triathlon wetsuit like in the picture above. Those people just look so cool (click on the picture for a better view, it’s worth it). Of course, I’d have to get the gym to lower the pool temperature by about 20 degrees to allow me to wear my wetsuit without overheating.