Wednesday, April 23, 2008

HRC driving me crazy

The PA race was the worst. I'm so happy to see that the NY Times is seeing the light and basically retracting it's Hillary endorsement from months ago! I'm on board for all of their criticism. Also CNN is the worst. No matter what happens, the best political news team on television is going to make it dramatic and critical and important! No one thought Obama was going to win PA!! It's not that big of a deal! (More here.)

Obama is campaigning with a strategy not just willy nilly roaming all over the country. That's because the person with the most delagates is supposed to win. That's how it works. It's not like, whoever wins Ohio or Pennsylvania automatically deserves to get the nomination.

Jon Stewart is so funny though. This is what he asked Obama in the interview:

"Do you have a concern that you could win the nomination at the Convention and defeat John McCain in the general and, you know, go to the inauguration and Hillary would still be running? Do you feel... Do you have any concern that Senator Clinton would continue the campaign?"

I learned a new word the other day. I was playing Text Twist on Matt's ipod, and one of the words I missed was "fracas." It didn't even look real to me, but it's totally a word, as I found out, and it means "a noisy quarrel." I think that's appropriate, the word sounds like it should mean some kind of scuffle. Like: "Matt caused a fracas at Jeff's apartment on Hoboken St. Patty's day and ended up with a messed up face."

Then yesterday, it was used in two totally different blogs I read on the internet. SO COOL!

Monday, April 21, 2008

Could it have been less obvious??

If you plan on seeing The Crying Game, stop reading because I'm going to talk about the plot, though I feel like spoiler alerts shouldn't be mandatory for films/shows from more than 5 years ago (I was not happy at all when npr told me who killed Laura Palmer two years ago when I was watching Twin Peaks for the first time, though looking back, I really didn't have the right to be too upset).

Am I the only person around today who didn't know what the "twist" was? Probably, as Matt told me (I wasn't allowed to see Ace Ventura when it came out and still haven't, whatever, don't freak out, but apparently it gives it all away). But seriously? In 1992, were audiences actually surprised that Dil was a man? That was just about the first thing that I noticed. Oh well.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Week of fiestas and siestas in the Iberian peninsula

Matt's deserted me for the past few weeks to do celebrities' biddings and let them touch his shoulders, so finally here's the recap of my trip last month to Portugal and Spain! As I already mentioned, we did very well for ourselves, covering 3 towns in Portugal, and 2 in Spain over 7 day, and averaging 4-5 meals per day. I also found some amazing hostels. And when I say "hostel," I mean hostels where you have a private room, private bathroom, towels, hairdryer, balcony, and daily maid service for 28 euro each.

Because our pilot chose the word "severe" to describe the turbulence expected for our overnight flight, I did not sleep a wink and spent the whole trip over squeezing Matt's hand and hoping I might be doing it hard enough that he would wake up and console me and feel bad for me. But that did not happen.

We started in Lisboa. When we got into the city at 7 am, we dropped our bags off at the Lisbon Lounge Hostel (2 major thumbs up!) and got on a train to Cascais (pronounced kahsh-kah-eesh). Portuguese has lots of 'sh's and 'gshh's.



Cascais is a ritzy suburb of Lisboa on the ocean where they have cute little shops and FREE BIKES. Just give them your passport number and hostel info. So we hopped on the bikes and bopped around the town, ate a picnic lunch by the ocean, and rode up the coast for an hour.




We spent the next day (Easter) in Lisboa, which was pretty empty because of the holiday. We roamed around, climbed to the castle where you pay to enter and explore and get 360 degrees of the area.



In the evenings, we decided to opt out of the clubbing because I don't think I could have kept my eyes open until 2 am when supposedly everything comes alive. Instead, we found the Irish pub (which the guy in the hostel told us was not really very cool to be), and watched the soccer games. Then we got a bottle of wine (average price, you know, like 3-4 euro) and played Rummy 500 and spit at the Lisbon Lounge.



Next we flew to Sevilla (1 hour), and met up with MARTHA!



We ate more menus del dia and explored and walked around. The Plaza de Espana was expansive and gorgeous. The semi-circular plaza contains monuments celebrating the main cities of spain.



Sevilla has lots of gorgeous hand painted ceramics, so I bought several dishes for my home.



We went to a sort of pathetic flamenco show. Not because the performers were bad, but it was a huge bar that contained probably 80% american students studying there (many with their parents, presumably giving them a cultural experience ...) and everyone was blathering and chatting and being so loud while they were performing, it was ridic. We had lots of sangria though, so that was great.

The next day, we went to the Arab baths. This is basically a spa where you spend 1 1/2 hours, splitting your time between 4 pools of differing temperatures (boiling hot to freezing cold), as well as jet pools, a sauna, and getting a massage and drinking tea. This experience cost us 30 euro (16 without the massage). It was serene and calm and relaxing and lovely. We had to wear protective footware to keep the floors clean.



We took a day trip to Tarifa (on the strait of Gibraltar, 35 min boat ride from Tangier). Tarifa is WINDY. It's a major kite surfing location, and it has a surf-town USA vibe. We had lots of fun seeing Africa and talking about how we could see Africa and trying unsuccessfully to fix our hairstyles. We also played with and hugged random dogs in the streets.





Roamed around at night, explored the streets, tasted the local ice cream, looked at Africa.



We had our nightly feast around 10 pm, and ordered tapas galore and local spanish cheeses as well as an extremely large pan of paella. By the time it came we were all stuffed. But it was so fresh and delicious that we all but licked the pan clean.



We had another day back in good ole Sevilla and then went back to Lisboa for a our last day. We decided to go to the SUPER ridiculously charming town of Sintra, in the mountains for the day. We did a hike through a park up to the fortress and had an amazing lunch and soaked in all of the quaint beauty and food and cobblestones and weaving.



Best last day ever. We came home, sadly, and I'm still adjusting.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Expelled: What is it??

Matt saw an ad for something called "Expelled" with Ben Stein, and clicked on it. We both assumed it was a new game show ("Expelled is written in the style of graffiti, and Ben is wearing a schoolboy uniform), as we watched the flash intro to the site, which had "Bad to the Bone" playing in the background and called Ben the "rebel of his generation," we realized it's actually a movie, and we both assumed it was a wacky comedy about Ben as the rebel teacher at a high school.

Next we watched the trailer. It's ACTUALLY a documentary (perhaps Michael Moore-style) about the scientists behind intelligent design and how they've been unfairly persecuted and ostracized in the scientific community for challenging Darwin's theories! What?!? This is BIZARRE.

So I want to read the original paper about Intelligent Design that caused all the stir, but I'm soo skeptical about this movie, and I never knew Ben Stein was so political. Just because you have a different opinion doesn't mean you deserve to be heard when it comes to science, I'm sorry, but not having your paper accepted to Nature isn't a denial of your free-speech rights. The trailer really frames the controversy this way, as if all these poor scientists have been discriminated against. I hope they actually tell us why!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Doing what I want

So this will probably be the only post of the year relating to sports.

Matt had to leave Monday night for an "M" shoot in London. Ooooh! So I have the place to myself for almost a week. This means I get to cook for myself--salads, seafood, pork! It's also practically 70 degrees today!

Sooo, I take the dog for an extra long walk, being especially assertive in the crosswalks (you MUST yield to me even if you're racing to the Turnpike/Holland Tunnel!!), and come home and start watching the real wives of New York City. This show is out of control. One of these women has two sons named Francois and Johann. Their dad just said that it is easier to get into Harvard than to get a 3-year-old into a private preschool in the city. I'm not so sure about that ...

Then I make myself a BIG salad w/ tomato, cucumber, chicken, red pepper, MOZZ, BACON, and AVOCADO. I always say that practically anything is better with melted cheese all over, but I'm also thinking of extending this to bacon and avocado. This is ridiculous. Matt doesn't appreciate big salads the same way I do for some reason.

Now I'm watching the big game. Rutgers is beating UConn 21-8 or whatever the lingo is. AHhh!

OK, I also just watched this video, which made me very very happy. I want everyone to watch it. Feel good. Love women. Love yourself. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. For some reason my previously 'eh' opinion of Larry David has just risen 5 million percent.