Homer Draper

I love Mad Men. Mary loves The Simpsons. I am extremely, extremely sad that season 2 of Mad Men is over, but it was an amazing finale. A friend sent me the video of the Simpsons spoof of the Mad Men intro and it is quite fantastic. Check it:



And here is the original Mad Men intro:



Simply brilliant. If you've never checked out Mad Men, I can't recommend it enough.

Sunken Gardens

I made the trip to the Sunken Gardens in St. Pete today. Fairly easy to find, only $8 for admission, and it was pretty neat. I suspect there is probably more in bloom in the "spring" or "summer', but there was still a lot of color going on in places. I pretended to be a photographer and took a lot more shots than I'm currently posting. Just wanted to get a few of my favorites up and I'll post the others later. I don't actually know what each flower is off-hand. They weren't always labelled and if they were, I was exactly paying attention. It was actually a hot, humid day. It must have rained earlier, as some flowers and plants were still damp and parts of the pathways were wet.

Rock On Cello Men!

Nicki, I'm not sure if you still use Emusic, but if you are check this group out -- Apocalyptica -- if you haven't heard or listened to them already. They're a Finnish cello metal band. My kind of juxiposition! I downloaded the Cult album and so far, five songs in, I really like it. I researched them after I heard one of their newer songs on my XM radio this morning ("I don't care" from the 2007 Worlds Collide album). I guess they're mostly famous because of their Metallic cover songs. Cult is composed mostly of originals and I like it. Think it will be good work listening music.



Since I have Friday off (a rare gift from work!) I'm thinking about going up to St. Pete and checking out the Sunken Gardens. If so, I shall take my camera along and play photographer.

Oh, so far, no luck with World Series tickets. I should know better than to believe promises!

Hip Hip Hoo-RAYS!

Not since the 1995 season when I was a young, rabid Braves fan have I been this excited about a World Series. I got to go to Game 6 of the ALCS, and while that particular game ended in a loss for the Rays, it was still quite an experience. The amount of people packed into that stadium was unreal. I've been to a few regular season games in the Trop over the years, and never has there been just a crush of humanity like I experienced trying to get to my seat! And while I had never before experienced any dislike for Boston Red Sox fans, that night, I began to dispise the ones sitting in my section! How dare they come to our ballpark and root against the Rays! (More particularly, I began to consider throwing my drink and popcorn at the ones who felt the need to be rude and say condenscending things about the Rays as the Sox started winning the game. I mean, really, it's one thing to cheer on your team, it's another to be spiteful about it). Needless to say, there were several fights witnessed in the stands (and bathrooms).

I had the opportunity to go back for Game 7, but I had to decline as I had to work the next day and knew I would get home way too late if I went. I sent B off with my blessing and was intensely jealous that he got to be there and experience what it felt like when the Rays clinched the ALCS championship. I was at home, biting my fingernails, and experiencing a jubliation when that last out of the game was called that I haven't felt in quite some time.

I'm hoping I get to go to one of the World Series games this week. Take me out to the ballgame, please!

Indie

I have exploring new avenues of music for the past couple of months and have found my tastes to be veering into the more Indie persuasion. I have also been "rediscovering" music that I liked, but wasn't heavily into back in the day. The main example of this would be Matthew Sweet. While swapping DVDs with a co-worker, she is loaning me some CDs from their extensive music library. When she brought in some Sweet and Wilco for me, she also brought in the latest album from Spoon. They are fantastic! Here is one of my favs from their album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga:



I look forward to getting the rest of their stuff. I have pretty much had this album on repeat since I first put it in yesterday.

For a trip back in time, here is some Sweet:

A perfect weekend - A picture heavy post!

It's pretty rare that I would ever say that I am having, or have had, a perfect weekend, but I think this weekend calls for it. Beginning on Friday, I went out to a yummy dinner with my friend Laura and then went to see Bill Maher's new movie, Religulous. I posted my review of it up on BoO. Then on Saturday, I went for my acupuncture appointment, which is always wonderful. I have been pain free for two days now, it has been great. Also, Saturday was my five year wedding anniversary. The weekend was much like this one, weather wise, and throughout the day we tried to recount where we were in our blessed day. We went out and did some shopping, which included Halloween shopping. Dominick is going to be Thomas the Tank Engine (*sigh*) and we went back and forth and finally decided on being hippies. Again. We did it before a few years ago and had a lot of fun. So now that Dominick is old enough to go out and about, we figured, why not. We went home, tried on our stuff, then headed out to my favorite Italian restaurant for dinner. We stayed in (since we didn't have a sitter) and after D went to bed, watched many episodes of my new favorite show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Brad got me the first two seasons on DVD along with the first season of Life for my gift. I got him three mail order subscriptions to his favorite comics for three months. We are geeks.). Today was pretty low key. We went to a local farm for their Harvest Festival. They have a huge pumpkin patch and lots of things to do: a petting zoo, corn maze, pumpkin launcher, tire races, petting zoo, train ride, a huge slide, food, all sorts of stuff. We spent about two hours there and then headed home and got some lunch. Shortly after I got a phone call from one of my dearest friends Dan, who became a father 8 weeks ago. He and the family stopped over for a while and it felt marvelous to see them and get caught up. I miss being in touch with him regularly as he has been an anchor in my life for a long time. But, life happens and here we are.


(At the rehearsal dinner for our wedding. Dan did a reading for us.)

Now we are winding down for the night and winding down a really wonderful weekend.

I finally have some fall pictures to share. I thought it would be neat to follow the course of fall by following a couple of trees in our neighborhood to show how much it changes before winter hits. The huge tree is a couple of houses down and has always been my favorite since my parents first built this house. The second is a tree outside of our sliding glass door out back.

Week 1:



Week 2:



Week 3:



What I love about weekends like this are the clear blue skies and how awesome it makes the leaves look.
And here are two shots I got from the pumpkin patch. I was mad because even though I put two new batteries in the camera, it kept dying. Guess it's time for a new one!




That about winds things up for this weekend. Since this has been a trip down memory lane a bit, I'll close with a picture of me and Mary from 5 years ago, I only wish it was a little closer ;)

musings

stained glass windows aren't up quite yet. they're even prettier when I cleaned the dust off them.

I learned one of my best florida friends is pregnant. I find I'm very happy for her and a little sad for me.

work is insanely busy. all the rest of this week (including saturday probably) and next will be annoyingly busy. I already had one mini panic/anxiety attack at work, wondering if we'd get it all done on time.

I'm not wild about music videos but I wanted to share a song I came across recently in my effort to branch out and find new music to listen too. I like the lyrics to this song and it's a catchy beat. Thea Gilmore and "this girl is taking bets"

Reviews and shtuff

I finally sat down and wrote up some reviews for Band of Outsiders. You can check them out here. Choke, Burn After Reading and some DVD reviews.

I am currently recovering from a nasty headache from last night. Saturday I had my third accupuncture appointment and felt lovely for the rest of the day. No pain in sight for the weekend. Then I fell asleep on the couch Saturday night with my head tilted to one side and that is usually enough. Last night I could barely get off the couch and the pain hadn't gotten much better when I woke up this morning. So with some hot water pounding on it in the shower, Advil, lots of Traumeel, it seems to finally be getting better. I'm really hoping that the acupuncture will be the cure all for these pains. If not, I think my last resort is to go to the doctor and see if there is something else going on.

I was hoping to get out and take some fall pictures this weekend, but it just didn't happen. This weekend looks to be more promising and since we are probably going to head to the pumpkin patch at some point, I think I will get plenty of pictures then. It is officially fall and I did a lot of work in the yard yesterday: pulling overgrown weeds and bringing pots in for the winter. I love fall so much, the crisp air and the changing leaves, but it means a long and brutal winter is right behind it. But I try not to think about it too much. It's how us New Yorkers make it through :)

Not much else to report. I have been meaning to post that if you are on Twitter, you can follow me on there as well. Here I am.

Friday video

Found via Dooce.

Fall is here

Fall has officially arrived in upstate NY. It is my favorite time of year: the air turns crisp, the leaves change colors, pumpkins, apples, apple cider, donuts, Halloween, it's just a fun time of year. Of course, it ushers in the long haul of winter, but I enjoy fall while I can. It has been raining a lot, so I don't have many pictures to post, but it is supposed to be a perfect fall weekend this weekend, so I plan on getting out and taking lots of pictures to share. My five year anniversary is coming up and we managed to luck out and get married on the one good Saturday in October that year. Sunshine, leaves peeking, perfect temperatures, it was great.



I did go to see Choke this past weekend and it was awesome. I have been slacking on writing reviews for BoO, so I will be doing that very soon. It was a great adaptation of the book and managed to get every plotline from the book into the movie without overdoing any of it. The performances were great as well.

Had my second round of acupuncture and it was just as good as the first. I have had one or two headaches since then, but I am thinking that it's just going to take a good amount of visits to get the pain under control. Until that point, I am going to buy a big tube of the Traumeel she gave me (as she calls it, "the elixir of life") and carry it with me all the time. I can't believe how well it works. Screw IcyHot or anything like that, this stuff relieves the pain within minutes, it's insane. So I have another appointment this Saturday as well.