Psych

James Roday and Dule Hill (formerly of the West Wing) are awesome in this! As imdb.com says, “A novice sleuth (Roday) is hired by the police after he cons them into thinking he has psychic powers that help solve crimes. With this assistance of his reluctant best friend (Hill) the duo take on a series of complicated cases.” At the end of each episode, the actors do short pieces, usually some silly song and dance number. You can tell these two actors are a perfect match. I’ve liked Dule Hill since his part as Charlie, the President’s personal assistant on the West Wing (“You know when you told me not to wake you unless the building was on fire?”). I would say this isn’t quite as well written as Veronica Mars but it’s close. I might have to look into other Steve Franks ventures. Big Daddy didn’t do it for me, but perhaps future things.
Speaking of the West Wing and series as well written as Veronica Mars, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will be starting soon. We saw the pilot this weekend. This is going to be yet another masterpiece by Aaron Sorkin. Matthew Perry (Friends) and Bradley Whitford (West Wing) work perfectly together and no Sorkin series would be complete without Felicity Huffman, who makes a brief appearance in the pilot, OR Josh Molina who I’m sure will show up sooner or later.

So, in this golden age of TV when there’s just too many good shows to watch, make sure these two are on your list. Psych will be in rerun mode until January, but Studio 60 is just about to start. Oh, and if by some dumb luck you haven’t discovered Veronica Mars yet, what are you waiting for? It’s the best thing since Sorkin left The West Wing. Oh and then there’s The Office and Boondocks. Just too much good comedy for TV. Nice after so long without ANY decent sit-coms.

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Opening Day…

Today is opening day for the English Premier League. It would be absolutely wonderful if I’d have done my research but given that I just had one thistle of a week I hope you’ll forgive me.
Still, as play starts today I have to give my season’s prediction so here’s what I’m going with having done no real research at all this pre-season…

1. Chelsea
2. Manchester United
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal
5. Blackburn
6. Tottenham Hotspur
7. Bolton
8. Reading
9. Newcastle United
10. West Ham United
11. Middlesbrough
12. Wigan Athletic
13. Everton
14. Aston Villa
15. Manchester City
16. Portsmouth
17. Charlton Athletic
18. Fulham
19. Watford
20. Sheffield United

As for the league below, I’ll predict a one-two punch of Crystal Palace and Norwich City with Birmingham City returning to the Premiership after a season down. It will be nice to see my Canaries on FSC next season. They just have to get some help on the right flank in midfield. Now that Green is gone and we still have some money from the Ashton move to West Ham, it’ll be nice to see us get a decent midfielder. Can we afford one of Chelsea’s 15 Midfielders? Yeah right. Like anyone is going from Chelsea to NCFC.

So far today I’m looking close. Portsmouth won which was a bit of a shock as did Reading which made me happy. Arsenal surprised me with a 1-1 draw against Aston Villa who has a storied history as one of the most successful English clubs in history but has been VERY weak the last few years. Norwich tied with Derby County to earn their 7th point and they still can’t score on the road. 2 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss. Nice, but I’m hoping for more confident feet up front from some of the outside midfielders like Lee Croft.

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Seven Short Years

Last night Victoria and I celebrated seven very short years as a married couple. Over 13 together. We had a good time.
I picked her up around 4pm or so and we had a little over an hour before the movie started so we headed over to a little british store she saw last time she was on India Street (her parents took her to Indigo Grill which I hear is a great place to eat). ANYWAYS. This store is a bit larger than the one we went to in SLC but not by a lot. Surely there’s candy, pop and the few grocery items you can’t find in the states like HP sauce and various citrus curds. Also there was plenty of British memorabilia type stuff like phone booth salt and pepper shakers, toy double decker buses and a few flags, banners and stickers with which one might be able to proudly claim their British heritage. Sadly, no football related items. Even if it’d been something like ManU or Liverpool I might have gotten something but not a single thing. Not even a newspaper other than the Union Jack and I’m not totally sure that’s British.
I got me some Scottish spiced biscuits and we headed out to the movie. Little Miss Sunshine is a movie which has gotten rave reviews from nearly all the critics (Jim Ridley of the Village Voice didn’t care for it, whoever he is). I will say this much: Victoria loved it. I thought it had it’s funny moments but maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. I laughed here and there but it wasn’t as hilarious to me as it seems everyone else found it.
Anyways, after the movie we headed to Crest Cafe for dinner. Now Crest Cafe is a place we found a few years ago and went there for dinner on Valentine’s Day. We loved the place so we’ve gone back there for various other Valentine’s Days or Anniversaries. This year was no different.
My problem? Every time I go, I forget I don’t care for their pesto sauce and I always order something with pesto because normally I love the stuff. So I get a Fifth Ave Burger with Pesto which is nothing more than a burger, a bun and some condiments on the side (Lettuce, red onion, tomato and a pickle). They give you horseradish mustard (can’t stand horseradish) and ketchup but this time it just didn’t help. I ate most of it anyways but I have to remember there are far better things on their menu.
We left Crest Cafe after paying our $18 bill with a $4 tip for $22 total. Given the $16 we paid for the movie this is turning out to be a much cheaper evening than I anticipated, so I suggest a little dessert. Victoria points out that Corvette Diner has a Soda Fountain. Cool with me, that’s basically the sort of thing I’m thinking of, so we head over there. Turns out that while there is a soda fountain they only let you sit in that area when it’s real busy or somethin. Anyways, they put us at the bar and we get a root beer float for her and a hot fudge sundae for me. Neither of us can finish even half our order thanks to dinner so we pay the tab and head home.
It was just a great night of hanging out together and having fun. Can’t wait to do this again. Perhaps next time for no other reason than to just go out and have fun together.

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Progress?

Well, something doesn’t seem right. I’m having a hard time staying within the 2240-2590 calorie totals that sparkpeople has me at in order for me to reach 150lbs by 2008. It’s really hard, if I stay away from junk food, to reach 2000 calories. Easy as pie to hit 2400mg sodium though. I’ve been sticking under 2000 for both most days but hitting my sodium ceiling is easier than hitting my calorie minimum. I’m afraid of sending my body into “starvation mode”.
I don’t feel overly tired during the day and my body doesn’t hurt but I’ve gone from 285 to 276 in about two weeks and lost almost 2 inches off my waist. That just seems way too fast to be healthy. One thing I’ve been too low on is fiber. I just don’t know how to reach 30g of dietary fiber a day. Even if I eat beans, which are some of the best sources of fiber, I’d have to eat roughly 3 cups of beans every day and that would send me high on fat and sodium. ARGH!
Anyways, I’m taking exercise more seriously. I figure it’s healthier to pay attention to losing my body fat than focusing on weight. I just can’t afford a gym and I’m not willing to visit my physician or local gym every month to get it checked. So, I’ll figure more exercise will help me lose body fat without losing muscle. If I can maintain my lean body mass and lose body fat, and keeping my weight loss to about 1-2 pounds a week I think that’s a good part of becoming more healthy. Of course a balanced diet helps a lot as well.
Till later…more updates to come.

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Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

So it seems there was a water main break on Tuesday and it took until 6pm tonight for the city to let us know there are high amounts of coliform and e-coli in the water and have now told us to boil our water.

Went out to Albertsons tonight and the place was nearly empty of water. I saw people taking 8-10 cartons of 35-16.9 oz water bottles a person. I figure the rest of the county has water so we just bought one case and a couple gallon bottles. If we need more, we can go other places to get it. Worst case scenario, we just start boiling our water (which is what we’ll do for brushing our teeth).

I’ve never dealt with this sort of situation before so it’s added a little excitement to our evening. BTW, speaking of this evening, The Prado. I can’t recommend this place enough. Victoria’s parents took us there on their dime. Our anniversary is the 14th and that’s the only reason I can think of that they’d do this. Still, it was greatly appreciated.

Victoria and I traded our usual dishes. I had grilled chicken and orechiette pasta with pancetta, red onions and toasted pine nuts in a gorganzola cream sauce while she had the pork prime rib center cut with aged white cheddar mashed potato croquette encrusted with panko and served with a medley of squash, wild mushrooms, fennel and blue lake beans served in a roasted apple demi. As I’ve said here before, if Autumn had a flavor, this dish would be it.

I’ve had the boullabaise, the seafood paella, the jumbo shrimp, the prime rib, ahi and now the orechiette pasta. It’s all terrific. I’ve had nearly all their appetizers and desserts and they’re all amazing. Favorite appetizers are the crabcakes or calamari fries and favorite dessert could be the tres leches or grilled pineapple financiers. The prices range from $10-13 for appetizers, $17-30 for entrees and about 8-9 for desserts. We have had drinks there in the past when we still drank and for those that partake, their martinis are awesome.

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Aidan James Weist is born!

Jennifer had a long, hard and exhausting labor. Sunday to Thursday in all. Aidan was born at 6:52pm, at a length of 20.5″ and 8lbs 5oz. Alex was by her side the entire time, both of them staying up 45 hours straight at one stretch. Still, baby was born and all went well.
Jennifer has recovered quite quickly and they are all home and doing well. I’m going to give them a call in the next week or two. I want to give them some time to settle in at home and recover a bit further before I call. I’m just so very happy that he has come to the world healthy and that he and Jen both recovered very well. They seem to be recovering and happy and healthy so I couldn’t be happier. More to come.

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