Today, July 7th, 2008 the geohash was in Concord, MA. The actual spot was less than 10 miles from work, so I figured I would leave early and check it out. On the way there I rolled my car past 9900 miles. I’ll hit 10,000 this week, probably on the way to Wed. Night Dinner, which is way out in the boonies this week, but offers the chance at real Texas barbque. See the link for more story and more pictures. Here’s a map:
I had a rather unplanned Fourth of July, but all in all it went pretty well [map]. I woke up and saw that my friend Sparky’s away messages was a map to where he and some of the other xkcd Cambervile Meetup Thread forum users were going to spend the day. After having lunch I gave him a call and got invited to come down. I’d also been invited by Erik to watch the fireworks from his roof deck at the foot of Beacon Hill, so a plan to do both quickly emerged.
The xkcd fourm users had a nice spot staked out in the median of memorial drive. I arrive around 3pm and found them just wrapping up a game of some sort. They had plenty of games including Scrabble, Boggle, Flux and Carcassone. Being as bad a speller and I am I played a lot of the latter two, and none of the former two. I generally dislike flux, as there is essentially no strategy when it is not your turn. On the first game I lucked into the take another turn card on my second turn and managed to use scramble keepers to end up with two keeps for which I had a goal.
I felt kind of bad for ending it so quickly with newbies playing, but I guess you have to learn that can happen sometime. I won another game of flux, I think we played 5 games, but all of them were short. In one game one of my opponents got the The Rocket and Chocolate, which should totally be a goal. I’m thinking it’s like a chocolate easter bunny but sold in a NASA gift shop.
Around 7:30 I made my way over to Erik’s roof deck. He had some other friends of his, mostly from community boating, over. We took dinner up to the deck and were surprised to find that we were the first people up there. Usually the roof deck is packed with various friends of everyone who lives in the building, but at this point there was no one else up there. 
Later on there was a small group of kids my age as well, and during the show there were one or two other tenants up there, but it was by no means crowded at any time. To avoid walking up and down the stairs to let people in, Erik devised a plan by which he would throw the keys, attached to bright yellow string, down from the roof.
The fireworks were perhaps the least impressive I have ever seen. This was because there was not any wind to be found in the area. The smoke just sat heavy right over the barge eventually obscuring the entire show. Now, as an auditory experience it was still exciting. Someone described the show as more of a “Oooooh” show and less of an “Awwwwe” show, emphasizing the lack of pretty things to awe over. I took the T home after the crowds dissipated, after learning my lesson last year. All in all it was a much better day that it could have been.
After the thunderstorm today I took a walk. It was nice and cool, and wet out and the whole thing was rather enjoyable. As per usual, the Google map:
For dinner last night we went to Sorento’s Italian Gourmet near Fenway Park. I’d been wanting to go here ever since my college robotics team ended up not going to it for a team dinner when they were here. It took so long mostly because we had to wait for a week when the Red Sox were out of town, or going down that way would have been a real pain in the neck. The wait was worth it, in my opinion; I also heard good things from some of my table neighbors. I initially felt badly because of the three or four restaurants on the block Sorento’s was the least crowded, by a lot; the other places were packed, we couldn’t get in with 13 if we tried, and Sorento’s had two people in it other than us. I’ve now decided that it must just be somewhat more expensive than the other places which consisted of Mexican and Thai food because we enjoyed it.
There were 13 people at dinner, which I don’t think is Wednesday Night Dinner record, but it’s up there. I got the Shrimp Parmesan, which none of us had ever heard of before. There was a debate over exactly what the dish would entail. Lots of little shrimp mixed around and covered with cheese, or larger fried shrimp in cheese, or some kind of shrimp patty in cheese… we were pretty much only sure that there would be shrimp and cheese. It ended up being large non-fired shrimp with cheese in the sauce. There was a little too much cheese, which made it heavy, but it was good. There were also good reviews of the pizza. I don’t think anyone tried the Persian kabobs that were on the menu. 
In other food related events at dinner, Krishna managed to get an air bubble trapped under his the lemon in his water. My only complaint is that it took roughly 40 minutes in an otherwise mostly empty restaurant to prepare our meals. Granted 13 is a large group and they did manage to bring them out pretty much all at once, but we wanted to make a 9:10 showing of Wall-E, that we missed.
June was Wednesday Night Dinner Classics month, an attempt to increase the number of people coming to dinner by going back to old favorites instead of trying out newer, ever more unknown places. I’ve been remiss in my reviewing so I’m going to cover them all now in one fell swoop. The roster:
Pizzeria Regina is a Boston based chain, which means we can go there, but we make a point to goto the original one in the north end. it is the kind of place that has pictures of all the famous people that have been there on the wall. At our table was a signed picture by the cast of The Practice and Leonardo DiCaprio. I was unaware that The Practice was set in Boston until the presence of the picture implied it.
I was also unable to identify the picture myself, but I was not alone, we had a group of four that night. We got two pizzas, which were good, but not enough to stratify me. I would go back, but I would order more food if I did. We did have room afterwards for some Gelato afterwards. I’m not sure, but I somewhat doubt, if I’ve ever had Gelato before. I took the initiative and ordered first selecting watermelon flavor, which was good, but I should have gone with multiple flavors as it got old after a while.
Wednesday Night Dinner rarely ventures out beyond the reaches of the T, in fact, we almost never leave Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, & Somerville. There was one place in Waltham though, that Priam insisted was part of classics month. It is a little hole in the wall, authentic Guatemalan place, complete with soccer and Spanish soap operas on the TV. The food was well prepared and tasty. I got the Pollo Asado, which came with lots of rice. It is generally very difficult to find good latin food in Boston (although not as difficult as BBQ), and this place was certainly above average. Now, I’m still not convinced that it was worth driving all the way to Waltham for, but I did enjoy it.
This was an interesting place; a restaurant specializing in BBQ and seafood. All five of us ordered from the BBQ side of the menu. I got an Eastern Carolina style pulled pork dish. It tasted very much as it should with all that vinegar. It actually is the best BBQ I’ve had in Boston if you are comparing to how it is supposed to taste, although; I do prefer the Texan style. As usual in Inman some of us, but not I, got some Christina’s ice cream afterwards, I just drove home.
We apparently really love Inman Square, despite that it is hard to get to. This time I walked, it took less time than expected, only 30 minutes; I’d estimated 45mins. I was quite early, and everyone else was late, we sat down around 8pm. I ordered the Cuban sandwich, which was a good somewhat mustardy hot sandwich with pickles. I don’t like pickles so I asked for it without. I was told that the pickles were not removable; a fact I found hard to image. This leads me to doubt the hand made-ness of the sandwich. If you hand make a sandwich how hard can it be to not put pickles on it. Once I got the sandwich they were easy enough to remove, and it was acceptable. The French fires were excellent, having obviously entered the store as potatoes! They are the best fries in Boston that i have found so far, from my perspective. Unfortunately my negative impression of the rest of the place may prevent me from going back. On my walk back home I called up my parents who told me all about their recent Mediterranean cruise.
July 1st is apparently Canada Day. It seems like they are just copying us, but don’t tell my Canadian room mates’ that. This was the Canadians’ first full day back in Boston after a few week long European tour. It’s good to have them back, and so we celebrated with a BBQ, fireworks:
and of course, a Mario Kart 64 Tournament. I threw away an easy in to the final round and had to crawl my way from the losers bracket back to the top for a surprising finish. You may think that from this post and the last one I win all the Mario Kart 64 tournaments we have. This is unfortunetly not the case, I just keep quiet when I lose.
I’m back to my usual habit of spending all summer watching all of a particular TV show in order. Actually, it is not really just a summertime thing. I started it the summer I lived alone in Columbus for an internship and I always had a show I was watching all of until I finished How I Met Your Mother, in February. I didn’t pick up another show after that. I guess I actually had things going on for the last five months and didn’t need a show.
Anyways, I recently started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I tired to watch all of it with a girl in college, but we got through about 2 episodes before that fell through. This time I’ve managed to finish off nearly 34 episodes in two and a half weeks. There are some problems with blogging about a show that went off the air 5 years ago. Mostly that anything interesting, like cameos by people who went on to do other things are well documented on imdb and pretty much anyone else who might care about the major plot points already knows them. With that in mind there are still some things that surprised me.
I’ve seen the show before, enough to know that I’m going to most readily identify with Willow. That is at least until she comes into her own in the latter seasons. What surprised me more was how I identified with Jiles, the library/watcher and the relationship story line with another teacher, Jenny Calendar. In fact, I was sort of surprised to see that kind of thing at all. It is somewhat unorthodox for a parental figure in a teen drama to have such an important relationship so early in the show. But they did it well, and made it much more important that it seemed; a hallmark of good story telling.
Although, I know know why I was unaware of the story line. *Spoiler Alert* She dies in episode 217, the first real character that they kill, who stays dead at least. I generally hate shows that kill of real characters. I suppose that is because I like character development driven shows, and it seems silly to waste the capital built into an already beloved character. But one goes into a show like this with an open mind.
This spring I decided to replace my usual generic sweet treat of some sort of ginger based cookies with strawberries. It was a great idea, they are so tasty. Unfortunetly they don’t last as long as the cookies and so they probably end up costing more. Without the guilt associated with such an unhealthy snack holding me back I can fish off a batch in two nights. The other week I had the great idea to go strawberry picking, which would net me enough strawberries to last a pretty long time I bet. But now, I’m told, the season is pretty much over around here. Anyways, HealthPoints++; for me.
Updated to a photo from this year by the same user, old one here
There were fireworks outside of my window tonight. Somerville may very well be the only city in the country that celebrates the Fourth of July in late June on an annual basis. This did make it somewhat easy to find pictures from last year’s event on flicker. Another, non CC one here. The fireworks are supposed to be viewed from Trum Playground, a few block to the northeast of my apartment, but I never actually remember to go; although, I did read about them in advance this year thanks to the Davis Square Live Journal Group. Last year I was just really surprised when there were random fireworks.
The view from the front windows of the house isn’t so great. There are lots of trees in the way, and some of the shots don’t make it over the roofs of the houses on the other side. But there are plenty that do make it high into full view. There is something different about watching fireworks from your window. I mean other than that it’s a perfectly acceptable, unique, and anti-mundane activity to do alone, in the house, when no one else is home, as was the case tonight. Totally worth pausing, in this year’s case, Buffy the Vampire Slayer to watch.
Perhaps I’m just nostalgic. You see in 1994 when I lived in Mobile all summer long there were fireworks outside my bedroom window on Friday nights. There was a non-major league affiliated professional baseball franchise, the Baysharks, playing at the local college field. After every Friday game they would launch fireworks, win or lose, and my bedroom window was the best seat in the house.
It was then, and probably still is the best thing about baseball. I’m actually sad that the Red Sox don’t do anything like that. Now, they clearly don’t need fireworks to sell our their stadium like Baysharks did, but I still think fireworks would be a good addition. I especially like the idea of shooting off fireworks under only certain conditions. Like when they win the game. That way the whole city can instantly know the good news without turning on their television. Last summer I was at a roof deck party and everyone was trying to check the score on their cell phones as the game ended. We could see the lights at Fenway, if they launched fireworks on a win, we could have enjoyed ourselves a little more and relied on high technology a little less – a welcome reprieve.
I don’t remember what I thought about while I watched the fireworks from my windows as a child. Perhaps I was just dazzled, but I remember making it a point to watch them all. Granted they were short shows, shorter than tonight’s which must have lasted half an hour to forty-five minutes. Tonight I just thought about how much better it’d have been had my admittedly long shot plans panned out and I could use the event as yet another in a broad sequence of fun activities to impress my girl, stretching out from June through August. And how, my team winning an award at work – with an accompanying awards dinner – wouldn’t suck because it gives me exactly 28 days to find a date. *gulp*
Last Sunday while playing a game of Settlers of Catan with Knights and Cities my friend Post rolled a corner. I went on to win the game of settlers, but we gave Post an honorary win for the dice roll. Which really, will be more memorable than the game. Of course, if it ever happens again I’m going to have to buy some new dice.
I mean, statistically speaking, it should be the most exciting thing that happened all week. This was of course a week in which the Boston Celtics won their 17th NBA Championship, Tiger Woods won the US Open in some sort of playoff sudden death thing, and I went to the beach after having dim sum for the first time. All somewhat unlikely things, but without crunching the numbers I’m going to go with the dice roll as the rarest event of the four.
It’s a good thing all those sporting events happened last week or that list would have been really short. Things with me have been pretty normal, following the familiar patterns of which I have grown tired. My new mantra, of sorts, is that I am moving in September.
I have, however, failed to make friends with enough people to avoid moving in with some more craig’s list randoms. Last week I started looking and I found a seemingly low probability find (aka it sounded awesome). They responded quickly, to say that they were busy and would let me know when they’re free. I’m thinking that was a line since I haven’t heard anything. But I’m not jaded on the housing search yet, hopefully I find a place before that happens.