Journal

Who the heck thought it would be a good idea to let Antonio Banderas sing during the Oscars this evening? My ears, they bleed.

Journal

Sheesh. I make one offhand remark about how the Pope's tracheotomy could affect his traditional Sunday addresses at St. Peter's and suddenly everyone is telling me I'm going to hell.

For reasons I can't explain here, Friday is going to be a bitch.

Items Noted Elsewhere

• Amtrak vs. semi carrying strawberries - Amtrak wins. (Be sure to watch the video.) Strawberry daiquiris, anyone?
• Petition for Gapless Playback on the Apple iPod - AKA, 4100 people who should be using a Rio Karma instead.

Journal

The plan included the Badlands, Black Hills and Mount Rushmore. "I'll finally get to use my tent," I said.

"You haven't used it?"

"No. Back when I bought it, I knew a number of people who were interested in camping, but almost on cue everyone either moved or disappeared from my life."

"Really."

"Yup."

"Hit the refresh button, and now here I am."

Driving to work this morning, I noticed someone built a pair of snowmen on one of the pedestrian walkways crossing 35W. It's little stuff like that that makes me love this city.

Journal

"Well, it looks like you have the virus that's been going around," he said, scribbling a couple of illegible prescriptions on a notepad. "Get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and you should be better in three to six weeks."

"How long?"

"Sorry." He held up the notepad, tapping a finger by one of the scribbles. "Don't take that one during during the day, it'll make you drowsy."

"It's a cough syrup?"

"Yes."

"But I haven't been coughing."

"Just wait."

Items Noted Elsewhere

• Pizza delivery hits accelerator - Or, how to deliver pizzas faster by cooking them in the delivery vehicle.

Journal

I came home early today and still feel like crap. I'm not sure what I have, but it's officially annoying.

Well, this is a little belated, like just about everything in my life, but I feel I should make note of the very good dinner Lisa and I had at Vincent last Saturday. (It so happens the dinner landed on a weekend associated with a certain Hallmalk holiday, but I tried to pretend that had nothing to do with it.) Simply put, it may have been one of the best meals I've had since moving to the Twin Cities in 1996.

How could I say how good it was? Maybe I should just try to describe the food. For dinner, I had peppercorn-crusted beef tenderloin on a bed of tamarind-braised beef short ribs, taro root, some kind of leafy green (I don't think it was spinach), and a couple of other things I can't remember². It sounds like a strange combination—especially the tenderloin and short ribs—but it was very, very good. Lisa had Alaskan salmon with braised artichokes, sundried tomatoes and mushrooms in a lemon garlic broth. She liked it a lot, too, except for the fact she neglected the entree had mushrooms, which she doesn't like. (I learned of her aversion to fungi through my love of mushroom and spinach pizza from Lucé, but I digress.) After I admitted neither of us knew much about wine, our waitress made (and double-checked) a couple of recommendations, both of which turned out to work very well. As it happened, it was the first time in a number of years I could say I actually enjoyed a red wine.

Not surprisingly, desert was enjoyable as well. Lisa went with a combo of vanilla ice cream, warm chocolate sauce and small cookies that she was still talking about two days later. I went with the roasted apple stuffed with cinnamon crème brûlée, which was good as long as I didn't get too much of the broth it came in.

That said, while the entree and deserts were great, the highlight for both of us was the opening course of lemongrass-scented sweet potato soup with basil and ginger oil. As good as the soup appeared on the menu, it far exceeded expectations once on the table. How could I say this? It's one of the few cases I can think of where the word "unfuckingbelievable" could be used in reference to food, and in a completely good way at that.

So, anyway, it was a very good dinner, and I fully expect our future meals to be considerably less interesting. (Well, at least until we go to Chicago in April, anyway.)

You know what? I'm still sick. Back to bed.

Items Noted Elsewhere

• Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin on Bill C-38 (The Civil Marriage Act) - "Today, we rightly see discrimination based on sexual orientation as arbitrary, inappropriate and unfair. Looking back, we can hardly believe that such rights were ever a matter for debate. It is my hope that we will ultimately see the current debate in a similar light; realizing that nothing has been lost or sacrificed by the majority in extending full rights to the minority."
• Best opening MetaFilter Comment. Ever.

Journal

The FTD Valentine's Day Massacre: $90 for a dozen roses. Holy crap.

Journal

I finally went ahead and registered for SXSW Interactive this evening. After regretting not going last year, I'm really looking forward returning to Austin this March to hang out with fellow geeks and to learn what's next for the Web. I've gone four times since 2000, and each trip was well worth the time and money spent.

I'm considering driving down this year, mostly as a money-saving measure, but we'll have to see how that plays out.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"I'm a little hesitant to ask, as although it's the first time I've ever had this happen, I just know you're going to draw a sweeping conclusion from it."

"Uh, okay."

"I don't believe I'm going to ask this."

"Go ahead."

"Do your parents like Rice Krispies?"

Long pause. "That is not at all what I expected."

Items Noted Elsewhere

• Hunger for Dictatorship: Why the war to export democracy may wreck our own - "One of the biggest right-wing talk-radio hosts regularly calls for the mass destruction of Arab cities. Letters that come to this magazine from the pro-war Right leave no doubt that their writers would welcome the jailing of dissidents. And of course it's not just us. When USA Today founder Al Neuharth wrote a column suggesting that American troops be brought home sooner rather than later, he was blown away by letters comparing him to Tokyo Rose and demanding that he be tried as a traitor."
• When it comes to Oscar, the winners are often losers - "Over the past 76 years, the Academy Awards have repeatedly, almost methodically, overlooked great artists and enduring achievements in favor of passing fancies, fleeting trends and one-shot wonders."
• Celebration, Florida, 10 Years Later - A Slate photo essay on Disney's experiment in new urbanism.

Journal

I got word from my uncle in Madison that my grandmother's move home did't go as well as hoped and that they're transferring her back to a nursing home. The new nursing home looks to have some very strong credentials, but, ultimately, it's still a nursing home, and that kind of worries me. I've been trying to find a positive spin to put on all of this, but I keep thinking of my other grandmother's last years back in the late 80's. She spent a fair amount of time in a nursing home as well, and I remember thinking on my visits back then that it wasn't a particularly good way to live.

Then again, I haven't seen the new nursing home, so what do I know.

There's no way to make a good transition after an entry like that, but on the bright side I did get notice from Red Roof Inn this afternoon that I won a free night at any one of their motels. I guess all those years of dropping business cards in fishbowls has finally paid off.

Bush To Amtrak: Drop Dead

The Dear Leader has proposed the elimination of all funding for Amtrak in the administration's proposed 2006 budget. Meanwhile, plans for road and air travel include funding increases.

• National Association of Railroad Passengers: 2006 DOT Budget Would Eliminate All Intercity Passenger Rail Service - "The Administration's Fiscal 2006 budget proposal eliminates all funding for Amtrak [and] would end virtually all intercity rail passenger service in the nation, including through service on the Northeast Corridor between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. This places the burden of funding intercity passenger rail entirely on states that do not have the financial resources to assume such an unfunded mandate."
• New York Times: Amtrak Financing Nearly Eliminated - "The budget provides no money for Amtrak itself, but it does include $360 million to maintain commuter service that uses Amtrak tracks in the Northeast corridor if the railroad goes bankrupt."
• Philadelphia Inquirer: Bush proposes eliminating Amtrak funding - "The budget provides no money for Amtrak itself, but it does include $360 million to maintain commuter service that uses Amtrak tracks in the Northeast corridor if the railroad goes bankrupt."

Journal

Well, it was an interesting weekend. Friday brought a night of drunken karaoke at a hick-filled bar down in Eagan. (It wasn't Bob's Country Bunker, but it was close.) The woman emceeing kind of sounded like a guy, but we gave her the benefit of the doubt until she started singing Staind with one of the deepest voices any of us had ever heard. That said, no one was able to locate an Adam's apple, and, after a while, most of us were too drunk to care. The place reeked of burnt butter, the apparent result of a popcorn-maker fire earlier in the evening. I hadn't been around for that event, though, so I guess there's not much I can report there.

Saturday and Sunday were a little more conventional, with a trip down to Madison to hang out with Lisa. Saturday was pretty much restricted to a fairly disappointing meal at the Angelic Brewing Company and a couple of hours at a local bookstore. Sunday brought a visit to the Elvehjem Museum of Art (Lisa used to work there), a failed trip to The Plaza Tavern for a Plazaburger (the bar was closed), and a couple of hours standing on Lake Mendota to take in Kites On Ice. All in all, it was a good weekend, if a short one.

You know, only in Wisconsin would people go out in cold weather, stand in the middle of an unprotected lake and pray for wind, but I guess that's one of the reasons you have to love the place.

Items Noted Elsewhere

• Muppets Over Time - This is absolutely gorgeous. I really hope there's a higher-quality version out there somewhere.

Journal

I just spent the equivalent of three week's rent on a hotel room for my brother's wedding in July. That Radisson better be good.

Interesting side note: Blue Hotels vs. Red Hotels.

I'm not sure what happened to the man I supported for governor back in 2002. First Tim Penny joined the Cato Institute, and then this evening Bush invoked him in the plan to torpedo Social Security. I liked the fact Penny was a fiscal conservative, but if I wanted a Libertarian I would've voted as such.

Items Noted Elsewhere

• New York Times: Judge Accused of Exposure Sees Other Side of the Bench - Ever wonder what judges wear beneath their robes? How about penis pumps?

Journal

Other than being alternately sick, then healthy, then sick again, it was good weekend. Saturday brought a trip down to Madison for Robin and Andy's second-annual Post-New Year's New Year's Party. It was an enjoyable evening, with nice folks and good conversation. A mild bit of drama resulted from Lisa and I labeling Anne Frank as "smutty" during a game of Apples to Apples (we were aiming for the irony vote, which didn't go over well), and there was a separate incident involving some posturing about wrestling in the basement, but other than that it was a moderately low-key event. (For comparison, last year's PNYNYP included a long dancing set by Andy that drew the attention of a large number of Central Wisconsin farmers.)

Sunday was fairly uneventful, and not nearly as interesting. It mainly consisted of me unintentionally insulting Robin while discussing blogs¹, driving back to Minnesota, trying to take care of some stuff for work, and eventually collapsing in bed in the midst of a Sudafed-induced fog.

"Haven't you ever had a good Valentine's Day?"

"No."

"Even with _______?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"She wasn't amused by me wearing black."
 

"I can hear you typing very seriously."

"I'm blogging this."

"I know. That sounds like a threat."
 

"Valentine's Day isn't a real holiday," I said, bordering on a rant. "It's a Hallmark holiday. A condom holiday. A florist holiday. A restaurant holiday."

"See, you've got the right idea."

Items Noted Elsewhere

• New York Times: Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes - "In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue. Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities."