Fantastic Mr. Fox--Wes Anderson

I don't know how I can top a recommendation for a bar fight. There isn't much to say after that. Ricky has promised to share the story with us. I'm hoping to video tape his telling of the tale and sharing it with all of you via Friends Recommends. That should be something. Really.

My recommend today comes as a quick one. It also comes to you blind, because the movie isn't out yet. While I do have my favorite Wes Anderson movies, I've never not loved one so I don't see why Fantastic Mr. Fox--an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book--will be any different (even if it is animated). Still has a lot of that great character quirkiness W.A. is known for. A super-star cast of voices (Bill Murray, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, etc.), not surprisingly. I'll be there when it comes out on November 13. Trailer:

BAR FIGHTS!!!

This recommend is a little off the deep end today, but my brain is too beat up to recall a good book or movie.

I recommend getting into bar fights. Whether it be to protect a woman's honor, to get some idiotic douchebag to stop rubbing your head, or to let some guy know that you just don't like his ugly mug.

I make this recommend because I got into a bar fight last night, and while I took some hard blows to the top of my head, I doubt I lost any more brain cells from the punches than I did from the beers I drank. It's all worth it just to be the one to throw the first punch. Plus, if you play your cards right and make nice with the bartenders before the fight, you can get away with throwing the first punch and still be the guy who doesn't get thrown out of the bar.

BAR FIGHTS!!!

The Time Traveler's Wife

I'm not sure if anyone has read this yet/recommended here, but I've been reading the Time Traveler's Wife this past week.

As I may have mentioned previously, I love anything to do with time travel. I love when characters from the future meet people they know in the past and have to explain things. I also love when characters go back in time to "change the past", but actually realizing that everything has happened before, they are in fact just making things the same. All of this is here in this book.

Usually when I read something, it takes me over a hundred pages to get involved. This one, though, I was instantly hooked. The story involves a guy who will time travel at random to various places at any time, and just show up places completely naked, then have to steal clothes and food until he warps back to his own time. He has a condition which causes this to happen. He is also married, and sometimes when he warps, he goes to various times in his wife's life, which creates the future from where he came. He also will warp to points in his own life, and help himself out. The dialogue is all really well done, and the story itself is completely inventive. Anyway, even though I haven't finished it, this has been the best thing I've read in a long while.

In our time.

So keeping with my short stories for a short summer theme (It's almost August!) here is another one of my favorite short story collections. Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time. I've always really enjoyed this book, which is surprising to me because I really dislike Hemingway. I can't stand his novels. I find that his style of short to the point sentences wears on me the longer I have to read it. But if I only have to deal with it for a couple of pages I eat it up. Hate his novels, think the novella The Old Man and the Sea is just okay, but love the short stories. Highlights of the collection for me are The Battler and Big Two Hearted River. This is the perfect book for a camping trip. Thats that.

Recent Baltimore Restauranting

I feel like I do a lot of apologizing in this blog. The apologizing mostly comes when I miss a post that was supposed to happen either on Monday or Friday, which are my assigned times. I don't have much of an excuse most times I miss. I assigned myself these days, and even enlisted the help of three great friends to cover the middle of the week to give me more of a fighting chance to get the Monday and Friday posts in on time. This past Friday my Mac Book blew up. I didn't have any way to post. So while I am sorry, I also feel like this is an adequate excuse. I type now on a laptop I borrowed from my parents and hope that tomorrows appointment at the Mac genius bar will solve my computer problems. I am not optimistic that it will be so quick. Mac laptop problems, anyone?

Like I said in a previous post, I haven't seen many movies lately. I love movies, I just haven't seen any lately to recommend. I hope to change this soon. I am excited for THIS even thought it is a ways away. More CGI than I expected/had hoped for, but what can you do. I still have high hopes and still think I will enjoy it more than the Willy Wonka remake. That's all.

Also recently I've been thinking of giving It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia a second chance, because the first chance didn't leave a great impression. I'll be back with an update on that. In the meantime just watch Arrested Development in it's entirety again. I can't imagine that getting old.

Something I have been doing is eating. July is a birthday packed month, including my own and eating out seems to be a thing that happens around birthdays. I'll keep these short, but a couple of recent highlights for me for Baltimore eating (these aren't ranked, just numbered for organization):

1. Lumbini Restaurant--322 N Charles Street--Heather and I went here for lunch on my birthday. I'd been to this Indian buffet before, but as far as the downtown Indian buffets go this is my favorite. I used to love Akbar, but then there was a weird sewage rumor and although I'm not sure if it was true or not I haven't been back. Not saying I won't go back, I just haven't been. Sewage rumor or not I prefer the Lumbini Buffet. There is more of a selection (especially for vegetarians), their Chicken Tikka Marsala is great (which is the dish I judge all Indian buffets by), AND they have chai tea with the buffet. Most places don't do this, but the chai really ties the meal together. Really. Chtry it. Also, this is cheap. I think it was $8.99. I'm not sure, but it was well worth it.

2. The Yabba Pot--2433 St. Paul Street--One of Baltimore's well-known vegan restaurants. I am not a vegan and I probably would have never picked this restaurant. Heather is a vegetarian so it was her choice for her birthday. I was pleasantly surprised. While it was all vegan, I left full and happy. They call it soul food. I guess that generally implies spicy, which a lot of it was. You basically go into the place, tell them how many sides you want (sides are basically what they call any kind of food there), and point to them. Then you go eat. Heather and I each got six sides and rice which is like the Rolls Royce of Yabba Pot dining. I couldn't finish, and for a vegan meal I was pretty full. If you are feeling adventurous or in the mood for some sort of healthiness check it out. Maybe skip the ginger beer. It was OK but the plant outside seemed to enjoy it more than we did. No sign of alcohol in this place if that is your thing.

3. One World Cafe--100 W University Parkway--Another very vegetarian friendly place (you can tell that Heather had a birthday in July too!) This was also great. Maybe the greatest part, aside from the coffee, was the wide range of vegetarian options. You could get almost anything. Heather got a meatball sub. Seriously a vegetarian meatball sub. You can even get that. I got some kind of noodles in some kind of sauce. It was good. Also cheap. I've never been impressed by vegan desert and this place didn't change my opinion of that, but the meal was good. If you are up by Hopkins, and you are feeling more like a hippy than normal you should definitely check it out.

4. Lebanese Taverna--719 S President Street--If you are down in Harbor East during lunch time you should only go here. I'd been for dinner and I loved it. I went for lunch and I still loved it. I got a shwarma (sp?) which is a lot like a chicken souvlaki with rice and salad and it was $7.99 I think. And it was awesome. I felt full, but still ready to run a race after it. Not at all heavy, but filling. If you park in Whole Foods lot and buy anything from Whole Foods you get your parking validated. So we ate at Lebanese Taverna which I already mentioned was awesome, and then I got a Naked Juice from Whole Foods and got my parking validated for free. Maybe my favorite place on the list, but that shouldn't knock down the other places. I just really like this one. Really. For real.

Grayson by Lynne Cox

Boy, Thursdays do really sneak up on me. I had a lot of things that I wanted to recommend in this space, and I also wanted to dedicate a post to things I've checked out because of this blog, but I don't thing I'm going to do either of those.

Recently, I've begun taking full advantage of my mornings -and boss' willingness to look the other way- by coming into work anywhere from a half an hour to two hours late. During these extra hours I read, exercise, cook and eat breakfast for as long as I can. Yesterday, during my morning procrastination session, I picked up a newly-purchased book called Grayson by world-record breaking swimmer, and author, Lynne Cox.

I had never heard of Lynne Cox, or any of her books or world records, but something about this cover made me buy it. I initially wasn't going to read this book yesterday, but it was short (153 pages) and looked like it would be easy to read. Grayson ended up being the first book I've ever read from beginning to end completely uninterrupted.

Grayson is autobiographical, but it reveals only about 3 or 4 hours of Lynne Cox's life. When she was 17 and an already accomplished swimmer, she was out for her usual morning three-mile swim off the coast of California and encountered a baby whale. It quickly became evident to Cox that the whale was motherless. What follows is the search and struggle to find the whale's mother.

To be honest, reading Grayson was like watching a PG movie. The big smiling, cartoon whale on the book cover makes it clear from the beginning that Grayson is no tragedy. However, as both Cox and Grayson struggle to stay afloat in choppy waters a mile and a half off shore, you can't help but get caught up in the drama. Grayson is not about a whale finding it's mother, it's about the energy and attitudes that connect all living things, even different species, despite language barriers, cultural differences or physical challenges.

The other really captivating aspect of this book is Cox's descriptions of the animal life beneath the surface of the ocean. As Cox gets washed further and further from shore, she acts as a tour guide to the oceanic metropolis that is just too far off shore for casual swimmers to be familiar with. She encounters sea turtles, jellyfish, dolphins, tuna and plenty of other fish I had never hear of. Each encounter adds an element of wonder and drama to whole story.

Part (I think) of why I really enjoyed Grayson was because I read it in almost real time. The story begins at some point between 5 and 6am, (I started reading at 6:30am) and ends approximately at 10am (I finished the book by 8:30). As the sun was coming up in the book, so it also was from where I was reading it. I highly recommend trying to do the same. I felt it added a sense of reality, like it was all actually happening while I was reading, ala Never Ending Story.

I thought I'd end with these lines from the book which occur right before Cox decides to journey farther out into the ocean to help look for the baby whale's mother:

"Many people are happy with things as they are. They are comfortable with what they already know. But if I didn't move outside my comfort level, how would I ever experience anything new, how would I ever learn, or see or explore? I believe that each of us has a purpose for being here, that we have certain gifts and certain challenges we need to learn from and fulfill for our lives to have meaning and richness."

"I'm going to swim with him"


It's not at all eloquent, but right on!

A New Movie

So Adam was asking about good movies, and I haven't seen a whole lot lately, besides Bruno, (which I don't think I can discuss without ruining some of the best gags in the movie) but this one looks amazing:



It's playing at the Charles right now. Right in time for the anniversary of the moon landing.

I love Sci-Fi movies. People trapped in space, robots turning against humans, ships controls failing...love it all.

There was a Netflix movie I got based on someone's recommend here...Sunshine, and it was pretty great. Directed by Danny Boyle who directed Slumdog Millionaire, about a crew who basically have to dump a hydrogen bomb into the sun, because the sun is dying. Some stuff goes wrong on the way, and they encounter things they don't expect...anyway, I won't ruin it. Here's the trailer for that one:

Just Do It

This is sort of a stange one, but bear with me. I have made a decision to get back to some of these lists that I have been neglecting for the past couple of months. But that takes a little bit of time and won't happen today. Today I have a special treat for you. You might not find it a treat, but I really love it.

Great friend, artist, film maker, musician, etc Nick Prevas (magnificentlore.com for more info) taught high school art and film making at Carver this past semester. Carver is a magnet school for the arts in Baltimore so it attracts a lot of really talented students. Prevas has a lot to say about his experience teaching there, but today's recommends is something great that came out of it.

The following video, entitled "Just Do It" was made by two of Nick's students in his film making class at Carver. I don't know anything about them...I don't even know their names. I know them as Chas and Steven. This might not be for everyone, but these guys crack me up. I think they are the next generations' Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, just give it time.

Before I even saw the video Nick had pretty much reenacted the entire thing so I knew what I was looking for. While you are watching also keep in mind that they showed this at the years-end video festival for parents, faculty, and students alike. That is funny to me. Without any further babbling here is "Just Do It":

Upside Down Recommends

What a week here at FR! Everybody got a post up on time, except for me today. Maybe we're back on track.

For a while there was a stream of reverse recommends going on around here, where everyone would trash something that another person seemed to like. Rachel Getting Married seemed to be a big one to be reverse recommended. This post is not a reverse recommend.

I have been really out of the loop with movies lately. I didn't even know what Bruno was until late last week. The only movie I have seen recently is Gran Torino which was good, but not 8.4 stars good like IMDB would suggest. The acting was a little bit weak/awkward at points but I still enjoyed it.

What I am looking for from you is some modern movie recommends. These can still be in the theater if you like, or they can just be a movie that came out fairly recently. I'd like to get back in the movie loop, as I really love movies. What do you have for me? If you recommend a movie I will definitely see it, and then it will definitely get a Friends Recommend post all to itself. Not that it's any kind of motivation for you, but a little help please? A little help from my friends, please:

Magic Bullet

Since food posts are so popular here, I thought I would keep with that theme. I highly recommend the Magic Bullet Blender.



I don't even have one, I have a knock-off brand, and the quality is certainly poor, even the knock-off is an amazing kitchen tool. I use mine almost every day to make smoothies. This thing makes smoothies in less than a minute. Don't believe this everything-in-ten-seconds crap they sell you on TV. It takes nearly a minute to get a well-blended smoothie, but that's still pretty damn fast.

You can quickly mix fruits that you wouldn't -or at least I wouldn't- normally mix together. Cherries + Mangos= Great smoothies. Banana + Blueberries = Great Smoothies. Peaches + Strawberries = Great Smoothies.

I stock up on fruit and make a bunch of smoothies and then freeze them. That way I can have a smoothie anytime I want one -well, about a half an hour after I want one-and it keeps the fruit from rotting in the fridge before I can eat it all.

Not only does this thing make great smoothies, but it also grinds coffee beans, a big plus if you drink a lot of coffee at home like I do. I've used it to chop onions and other vegetables. It doesn't make consistently-sized chunks, but it' a lot faster than a food processor and with way less cleanup.

Did I mention how easy this thing is to clean up? All of the mess is on the blade, and in the cup. That's all the cleanup needed. It is so great. My one suggestion is to not leave a dirty cup in the back of your car for a week, because once the fruit dries on the cup, it takes another week of soaking before it can be properly cleaned.

I'm certain that this thing makes plenty of other great stuff, but it's worth it for the smoothies alone. It is such an easy, affordable, quick and tasty way to eat healthy. A smoothie for breakfast is so much better than cereal, yogurt or an english muffin.

Go get a Magic Bullet, or better yet, do what I did and have your mom buy you a knock-off brand for your birthday.

Napping

In today's recommend, I'm going to talk about the importance of a fave activity of mine: napping. I've been reading a few things about naps and one thing I came across says this:

Snoozing for a half-hour can be an enjoyable way to promote physical well-being, and naps have been known to improve your mood and memory. A 20-minute nap can sharpen your senses and revitalize you, while a ten minute nap can leave you feeling more cheerful. Falling into a light sleep during the daytime can feel meditative. The thoughts you have as you are taking a nap and the dreams you experience may offer you insights about your life that you may not have at night when you are in a deep sleep.

- DailyOm.com

I personally recommend a 50 minute nap for even more sharpened senses. More from DailyOM.com:

In order to fully enjoy the benefits of napping, you may need to give yourself permission to nap. Feeling guilty about snoozing or worrying about your to-do list won't do you much good when you are trying to take a nap because your thoughts or feelings will keep you awake.

No problem here. Let's continue:

If you go to an office, try to crawl under your desk for a nap.

This sounds great, but I probably would be fired.

One crucial element to a good nap is a comfortable couch. I have this old couch from the 1970s that I like a lot. You are going to want to get something that has soft cushions that you just sink into. You also are going to need to make sure that before buying your napping couch, making sure that it's as long as you are. Let's get serious–trying to stretch out on a love seat just isn't going to work. Also, I don't recommend using a futon (not comfortable enough) or a bed (too comfortable). You don't want to create the atmosphere of night time, otherwise you'll wake up at 8 pm, and will be up all night. So, make sure you leave a light on, OK? I also read that if you do decide to get into napping, it's good to have a set routine. I try to nap the same time everyday. Afterwards, I feel like a new man, ready to take on the rest of the day. When I skip a day napping, and I have to be out late, and up early, there's a major difference in how I feel the next day, than if I hadn't skipped...so get your nap in!



***Also, fave snowball flavors: Cherry, Lime, Skylight.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

To me nothing screams 'BEACH BOOK!' like a good short story collection. You can read a story, jump in the ocean. Read a story, fly a kite. Read a story, talk to Aunt Beth about your adopted cousin Nathan. Read a story, play whiffle ball Home run derby with your nephew. You get the idea. So over the next couple weeks I am going to recommend my favorite short story collections.

Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find is a great read. I know, you hear the title and you think it's some sort of Sandra Bullock film. But it's not. It's a collection of Southern Gothic tales filled with distorted Catholic imagery. The collection is named after the first story in the book. Its about a family with a pushy grandmother that gets murdered by a serial killer named the misfit. There's a good chance that you've read it, as it has been anthologized in plenty of high school literature text books.

That's it. Short stories= short recommends.

Ziggy's Snoballs

Near the conclusion of a family gathering yesterday Heather and I decided to have a good, old-fashioned foot race. She decided actually and I reluctantly agreed. After giving her a good five foot head start I proceeded to race her into the ground in front of my whole family. In front of my uncle, two cousins, and father anyway...far from my whole family. The word was that I ran like lighting, Forrest Gump, or a nerd. I'm not sure what the final decision was. We'll go with lightning for the sake of this blog. This post isn't about footraces, although I do recommend a good foot race anytime you have a worthy competitor close-by. I'll take anybody anytime of day and I urge you to challenge me to that.

Foot races are summery. After this footrace I realized that I hadn't really done much of anything summery this whole (summer). July is half-over and I haven't even had a snowball from my favorite Russian snowball stand which is only blocks away from my house. There are plenty of things that I like to do in the summertime, but I think this summer has felt a lot less like summer (even though it has been pretty hot out) because I haven't made it a point to do most of them. Some of my favorite summer things that have been missing this year:

1. Ziggy's No-Balls
2. Sunday Baseball/Softball
3. Ocean City, no matter how dirty
4. Pretty Boy Reservoir
5. Andy Nelson's for lunch
6. Rita's Italian Ice
7. Wild Wood NJ

Now that I think about it I haven't even been in a pool yet this summer, and summer is more on the way out than on the way in. Some of these things I need to take care of fast. Ocean City might not happen, and I'm OK with this. I suspect that I would gladly substitute
Switzerland for OC any summer of my life. Swimming in Pretty Boy Reservoir, no matter how illegal it becomes, is something anyone living in the Baltimore area should do at least once a summer. If you don't know where to go, I'll give you the spot. The other things on the list (minus Wild Wood) I can take care of pretty easily.

Possibly the biggest hole in my summer fun has been no visits to my good friends Ziggy and Ziggy's wife at No-Balls snowball stand in Parkville. It is called no balls because a sign that should read Sno-balls has been without lights in the first "s" for as long as I've been going there. Without going into a series description of what I get there (because everyone has different no-ball tastes) I will just tell you that they are hands down, without any competition the best snowballs that I get in Baltimore. You want a delux delight reeces peanut butter cup snowball? You got it. Ziggy's got you covered. Even if it makes the thirty people behind you really mad because Ziggy puts everything he's got into that four dollar snowball, and it always takes at least two minutes to make. You like the standards? They've got the standards, and they shave their ice so it always tastes better. Can't decide on one standard? Get three flavors rainbowed! Man, this place is awesome. Just talking about it makes me want one. How do you get there? You can't really google it because I don't know the technical name of the place (it might be Ziggy's, but it might not). It is pretty much on the corner of Old Harford Road and Putty Hill, just up the hill from the Charcoal Grille. More detailed directions are available upon request.

So here's my question for the readers. What are your absolute favorite summery things to do? Things that if you didn't do them, it just wouldn't feel like summer. Sound off.

*Disclaimer: The snowball pictured is not a Ziggy's No-Ball. It isn't even a snowball that I would ever purchase myself. But it is the best I could find. No marshmellow here.

Here's Your Chance + Dog In Hat

Ricky, you can take today if you'd like. I'm really looking forward to these recommends you are waiting to get out. If I posted today I would probably just tell people to come to The Windup Space tonight at 9pm, and no one wants to hear about that.

Just in case Ricky doesn't post, to make it worth your trip to FR today here is a picture of a little dog in a littler hat:

My apologies

I apologize to everyone for not having a post last week. I was out of town and was denied the internet access that I was expecting. Regretfully, I am neglecting my duties this week as well. I have been in a three-day training that continues today. The fact that I am posting this (from work) at 6:49am should indicate my dedication and desire to not just leave you hanging. I feel like I have some good recommends to make.

I'll make up the post, I promise, even if I have to steal one of Adam's days. I hope I didn't ruin the blog for two weeks and possibly forever.

Food from my vacation

So I've been on vacation a lot lately. Part of the fun of being on vacation is going to places you wouldn't normally find around here for eats. So I've outlined a few good ones that I did while away.

Sonic
These places aren't in Maryland at all, but boy do they have some nice food on their menu! I've been here a few times, and it's really hard to decide what to get. They may have the best drink selection of any fast food place I've ever been to. What they do well:

1. Shakes. My favorite is the Orange slush treat. It's really amazing. Tastes like an orange creamsicle. The flavors available for the shakes alone are something you'd probably only find here.
2. Breakfast all day long.
3. Lime Aid. Comes in several flavors. Also, slush versions.
4. Tater Tots. Instead of fries!
5. The drive-in style ordering.

In 'N Out Burger
This is my favorite fast food place of all time. I love this place more than any other. I don't expect everyone to agree, but if you ever are in California, for God's sake, find one. The burgers are great because everything about is fresh. I strongly urge you to try the regular burger first. It has lettuce, tomato, thousand island, etc. The fries are shoe string style. Crunchy and delicious. Looking at their menu is the complete opposite of Sonic. They only have 3 combos you can get. A single burger/cheeseburger/double cheeeseburger. Sometimes it's nice not having to pick from so many things. The bad thing is they are adamant about not expanding anywhere east of Nevada. Something to do with their strict meat storage policy.

Cracker Barrel
So for our beach trip that Myers and I took, we kept talking about how we were going to stop at Cracker Barrel on our way back. The more we talked about it, the more excited about it I got. I had one of the best turkey dinners there back when I was younger. As it turns out, the turkey dinners are only served on Thursdays. What I got instead was a boneless chicken breast dinner, and it was pretty delicious. I'll go here again when I want chicken or turkey with mash potatoes, and corn muffins. Also, have you played this peg game they have there? It's pretty fun.

5 Things on Both Sides

Ricky was out of town this week, or on vacation, or something. And I don't post on holidays. And everyone had off on Friday, right? If you didn't have off on Friday and you were looking for a Friends Recommends post I am very sorry. I don't know who you could be, but I am sorry. Also, I was in Buffalo/Ithaca for wedding things all weekend and hadn't thought much about F.R. So while we are being honest, this is a pretty off-the-cuff kind of post.

Here are Five things I've been enjoying a lot lately (in no particular order). And here are Five things I have been checking out, but not enjoying so much lately:

5 Things I Like:

1) Dirty Projectors--Bitte Orca--I already wrote a blog post about this one. But I checked it out another time coming back from Ithaca to Baltimore today and it only gets better. I really recommend this one.

2) Blond Redhead--Misery is a Butterfly--I've had friends try to get me into Blond Redhead a couple of times in the past. Initially I thought they were terrible, and then with some Huff recommends I started liking them. Then another friend very recently recommended this album and I've gone from tolerance to being a legit fan. Certainly worth the time.

3) Arrested Development--OK this should have been a number one. Good thing this list wasn't in any kind of order. I had really liked Arrested Development before (having seen random episodes here and there) but only when I watched the entire series all the way through did I really appreciate it to the fullest. This is comedic genius and could very well be the funniest thing I have ever experienced. I was sad to see the last episode but can't wait for the movie.

4) Igor Stravinsky--Currently rediscovering my favorite classical composer, and finding new things to love about it in the process. For newcomers to Stravinsky's music The Rite of Spring and The Firebird are often recommended classics (rightly so) but try something like Symphonies of Wind Instruments for a very short but great introduction (I think the whole piece is under 10 minutes). Youtube clip:



5) Pavement--Quartet Offensive is doing a Pavement cover show at the end of August at The Ottobar, so we've been listening to a lot figuring out what we want to play. I don't get tired of them, especially Brighten the Corners.

5 Things I Haven't Liked So Far:

1) Of Montreal--Skeletal Lamping--Ugh, I should have listened to brotherHop about this one. What a disappointment after Hissing Fauna. I'm not sure what it is (maybe I sort of am) but I don't like it.

2) Eels--Hombre Loco--In it's defense I have only listened once. But this thing got pretty rave reviews, and I've been an Eels fan in the past. This one just isn't doing it for me right now. Hopefully it could grow on me.

3) Xiu Xiu--The Air Force--That's all I have to say about this one. Didn't get it. Tried hard, but still didn't get it.

4) Running With Scissors--Augusten Burroughs--Well, it's been over a year since Heather and I listened to this book on tape on a trip to and from Ithaca. I was trying to think of the last book I hated, and this was it. Sorry, not so recent.

5) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia--I definitely won't say that I hate this. I'm not even in a position to say that I don't like it yet. But it is a show that was talked up to me so much by so many people that when I saw a couple of episodes I was really disappointed. I have the first two seasons on DVD sitting in the shrink wrap, so maybe once I watch a full season it will turn around. Right now it is a pretty big fail, though.

Vacation Mysteries

Hey everyone,
Just got back from California. What a fun place!
Anyways, near where we were staying, there are two places that seem really interesting. One is called the Winchester Mystery House, the other is called the Mystery Spot. We went to neither of these places, as it turns out, because of time issues...but we talked about them quite a bit because their stories are strange...

The Mystery House


This place was occupied by the widow of the Winchester rifle inventor. She moved in in 1884, and for the next 38 years, carpenters and builders worked 24 hours a day adding additions to her house. They were building up until her death. This widow visited a psychic who told her that she had to build a room in her house for every person that was killed by the Winchester rifle. As long as the workers were building, she was told, the spirits would leave her alone. Up in the attic, there are still doors and windows that were never installed because she died while all of this was ongoing. As you can see from that picture, though, this place is massive. Besides building lots of rooms, she also had things like stairways that led to nowhere, and optical windows so she could look through without her glasses on. This place is right outside of San Jose.

The Mystery Spot
This place had maybe the worst vacation brochure I've ever seen. That's probably why I grabbed it in the hotel we were staying in. Anyway, this place is 10 minutes north of Santa Cruz. This place is supposedly where gravity works differently. Some people theorize aliens buried something under it to make gravity go nuts. I don't really understand that part of the story, but I found this video that you should watch, which explains a little better.