More Good Times!

It's a theme. :)
We went to Trivia Night at our local bar last night. It was great!
I got so see some friends that I havn't seen in a while (specifically, Gina). I may have to update my little ad in the sidebar, as I suspect she's about to start reading my blog.
I also met a new friend. The more Trivia nights I go to, the bigger the group seems to get. We only sort of fit at one table last night, but, upon reflection, that's probably the smallest sort of quibble. I'm feeling slightly wretched today from a surfit of cheap PBR last night. Only very slighty wretched, though, so I'll count it as a win.

What is it with PBR? I use dto hate cheap beer, but I really like Pabst Blue Ribbon. Maybe the blue collar nature of my new job? It seems like mechanics (bike or car) ought to like PBR.

A mystery for the ages.

'sall for now, I guess.

Good times!

We had a totally unexpected bonus thanksgiving dinner on Sunday!
I really wanted to make the pie that Anne and I didn't get around to making on Thanksgiving itself, but I didn't wnat to eat the whole thing. I decided to call our friends Jon and Wendy so that they might share in our pie bounty.
As soon as I got Jon on the phone, he counter-invited us over for turkey.
An impasse.
We decided that the course of least resistance was to make the pie, then transport it to the vicinity of the turkey.
That we did.

And a good time was had by all.

Also, we got to meet Wendy's old roomate and friend. She seemed very cool.

Thanksgiving

So, I'm working today (Wednesday) and Friday, so Anne and I can't go out of town for Thankgiving. At least, we can't go to visit my family in IA. Anne's family isn't getting together, so we can't go there, either.

I am going to make a turkey. And cranberries.
Not really a full blown th"Thanksgiving Dinner" but all of our favorite things.
Well, my favorite things.
Turkey, mashed potatos, and cranberries. :)
I'm making some good cranberries, not the foul stuff that comes in a can, and looks like red translucent dog food. The kind that starts with actual cranberries.

I might make pumpkin pie. I have not yet made up my mind on that front.

It will be a good time. I'll make turkey, and make Anne quit working ~2, then we will eat, and retire to the couch for a nap. Good times.

I can hardly wait. :)

Free rice!

Visit www.freerice.com!
It is at once a chance to be snotty about your vocabular, a good way to wast time, and a chance to feel as though you are doing good, without any actual effort on your part!

The best of both worlds, huh?


So, it's the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm bored at work.
Why are we open until 8 today?

Nobody knows.

Post number 100!

Here I have the 100th post in my blog!
I've been keeping it nearly two years, that's about one post a week on average.

However, many posts have nothing to say. Like this one.

Never

Umm... Happy Halloween?

These two links are much scarier than... Well, they are scarier than much else.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/08/5093/

http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=TopStories&id=20071111/47368c50_3ca6_1552620071111-1867809218

The first one is long, but the second short.
Really, read them both. It's making me consider that move to Finland I was wishing for in 2004.

Downtown ride, pt. 2

Read my previous entry first!!


After we got finished downtown, Anne and I decided that we didn't want to be done. We rode around aimlessly for a bit, then we decided to head up to the Delmar loop. I enjoy the loop, the only downside is that it is full of hipsters. I have little patience for many of these hipsters.
However, I do enjoy the loop. We rode to the far end and got some bubble tea. Yum, bubble tea. It's like drinking sweet iced tea, but big chewy lumps periodically shoot up your straw and try to kill you. Really, it's a good time. I'm pretty glad that the bubble tea joint is so far from home, as it's expensive, and I would want it all the time if it was handy.
Not much is harder than riding a bike one handed in crowded traffic while negotiating with an open drink in the other hand when that drink is doing it's best to kill you, so we parked our bikes. Adequately armed with our semi-lethal drinks, we felt ready to venture to the den of hippies surrounding the drum circle in a small plaza. There were some folks dancing around, and some hippies drumming. About like you might expect from a drum circle. We watched a guy dancing with flaming batons, which was pretty cool. The pictures turned out Very cool.

Feeling peckish, it was decided that Thai soup was the better part of valor. Boba were chewed, cups discarded, bikes recovered, traffic braved, Thai restaurants located, and soup ordered. Hot Thai soup is brilliant stuff. I must learn to make it.

All thing must eventually end, and the dark and cold finally drove us in the direction of home. We took Skinker over to Lindell, then cut through Forest Park some distance. Anne decided our lights were inadequate to cut through the park fully, so we took a more typical route homewards.

All in all, it was a great (and impromptu) time. I'm glad that I had the camera, as it spurred on the blog entry.

Downtown St. Louis

Anne and I rode downtown yesterday.
It was a really good ride. I don't expect it to be 70 degrees out in mid-November, but it was beautiful. We really didn't want our (putatively) short ride to end, so we just sort of kept going. The plan had been to go downtown to look at the cool old buildings. And to laugh at the homeless people. (just kidding) On our way there, Anne pointed out of all things the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily circus train!


They still have a train?!

Less than fully impressed with the train itself, we decided to ride on. Shortly after that, we came upon a much more impressive sight. Some Elephants!! Being paraded along Taylor! This was adequately impressive, that we were forced to stop for some photos.




So, after our unplanned adventure, we eventually made our way downtown, it was beautiful. We looked at City hall, the Christ Church Cathedral, the Central Library, and the WWI memorial. They were cool. It was the perfect moment of late afternoon, where everything is golden.
I think that the City Hall is Really cool. All third empire looking and ornate. They don't build buildings that cool anymore.
Something I noticed in downtown, there are lofts, and there are people, but there are no shops that sell what people need. We saw nary a grocery store, or general store, or pharmacy. Maybe those will follow the people. Right now, that seems to me to be the biggest obstacle to living downtown.

We saw the Christ Church Cathedral. I remember years ago, Anne and I went to an SCA event there. I remember how cool it was, and how sketchy I thought the neighborhood was. Huh. How our ideas change. What made us think that? Sure, there are homeless people around there, but they're mostly harmless. It seems like a fine area to me, now.




There is so much cool old stuff. I love the WW memorial. It looks so art Deco, it's just fantastic. Doesn't this guy look like something out of "Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow"?


More to come, as always, my Flickr page has many more pictures.

I don't normally do these sorts of things but...

INTJ - "Mastermind". Introverted intellectual with a preference for finding certainty. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 2.1% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

I have always been facinated with the Meyers-Briggs typology. Mainly, that it tends to really describe people and is very re-testable. I've hovered between an INTP and an INTJ since I have been interacting with psychology. Most notable, I've always scores between 45-55% on both the perceiving and judging, so the test would seem to indicate that I'm borderline between those two.

Something I finally got around to

There is an abanodoned church in (slightly) North City, which I have driven and ridden by many times. I kept saying I should go and take some pictures of it. I kept meaning to, but never got around to it until yesterday.
well, I finally rode up to get some photos. It's at once very cool, and not as neat as I had imagined. Some work has gone on there, so there was less cool old debris, and more construction debris than I had hoped. On the other hand, it was a pretty decent building, and it looks like it might be something again one day.
And, without further ado, here are some pictures.

Fuck them!

I should keep this cartoon in mind. I'm too much of a homebody.


Also, check out XKCD!

The Old Crow Medicine Show

Our friends Stephen and Stacey invited us to a concert last night.
It was Awesome! With a capital Some!
They had sprung for better seats at the pagent than Anne and I normally would, as we're so cheap.
Seriously, it was really good. I'm glad we went!

Also, Anne is in the process of getting organized on something she's wanted to do for a while.
I'm proud of her for rushing out to have adventures.