Missing Stromboli Theatre 3000

It's been a long, but memorable, week.

Saturday, I baked coconut macaroons before GM and AE came over. AE brought the order from JugglingStore.com, which we'd ordered two weeks ago. now have six of the seven juggling "bean bag" style balls I ordered. The yellow Dube stage ball for contact juggling is a really ugly shade of yellow, reminiscent of mashed banana, suitable for banana bread, quite unlike the bright canary yellow that I expected. When you were expecting your favorite color and it isn't, it's a little shocking.

GM brought over some popcorn and made it on my cooktop. I hadn't made any sort of popcorn since I moved in, so that was exciting. We watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and the movie was the Pod People. I think it was the best one I've ever seen. I haven't seen that many, but it was pretty funny. We also watched an MST short on Home Economics, which would have been funny without the traditional MST heckling. Afterwards, we went to Vinny's for dinner. They lost GM's stromboli and he didn't get it until we were almost finished, but we had a good time. We also tried the spinach artichoke dip, which was quite good.

Mr. Clean Saves the Day

Last night, after work, I met AE and GM at Chai's for dinner. This time, I tried the shrimp and rice bowl with Thai yellow curry. It was very good, but a little spicy. AE got us an order of gyoza dumplings, which were a nice treat. Afterwards, we went to Shade Tree Coffee. They have about five flavors of ice cream. I got a scoop of their delicious chocolate, in a standard sugar cone.

We planned to go see violinist Joshua Bell, who was playing as a part of the Duke Artists' Series. We cut it a bit close, timing wise. Tons of people were trying to get in the parking building, so even though the coffee shop wasn't that far from the auditorium, it took quite a while to get in and find a space. Then we just flew down the sidewalks to get there in time. It was if I'd had a flashback of being late for class. We got there at exactly 8pm, but the performance didn't start for another 15 minutes at least. The concerts always used to start approximately on time, but that was before they had the parking building. The concert was excellent and Bell received the first full standing ovation that I've seen there in a long time.

The most exciting thing this afternoon was discovering the joy of using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. My mom had told me how wonderful they are at removing soap scum and she was right. They, however, are also extremely proficient at removing smudges from walls. I've been looking for something that would safely take handprints off my walls and they did the trick.

This evening, I met JJ and JA at Starlu's, which is a new restaurant near South Square. Unfortunately, we didn't have reservations and tonight was a little close to Valentine's Day. Fortunately, Pao Lim's Asian Bistro wasn't far away. We had a great time talking and I got to have dumplings, a spring roll, honey walnut shrimp and coconut ice cream for dessert.

When I got home, I got to see Duke lose to Maryland in basketball one more time.

Food and Ham

The memorable aspects of this past weekend were, of course, food related. My parents and I went to Taverna Nikos on Friday night. I had a somewhat unusual meal in that I ordered a crab cake appetizer, which included a small salad. For my entree I had the taramosalata or fish roe appetizer, which comes with pita wedges and an identical small salad. I've been wanting to order that again for quite a while, so I was thrilled to combine it with a delicious crab cake.

Saturday, GM, JH and AE came over and I fixed pasta with shrimp, bacon, garlic and basil. It was good, but the pasta was a little clumpy and needed a little more pasta water. We then watched an episode from the first Black Adder season while all doing a little contact juggling and then went to the nearest Maple View Farms location, for ice cream. It was definitely a fun afternoon.

Sunday, the main event was going to Vinny's Italian restaurant, which just opened about a half mile away from my house. It's a small chain restaurant, with most of the locations in North Carolina and southern Virginia. I ate eggplant parmesan, which was excellent.

Tonight, my dad and I went to the Durham FM Association meeting. The program was supposed to a talk, by Rachel Brady, on visualization, but the connection between her laptop and the projector wasn't working. After a tremendous effort, it was decided that she would try again at next month's meeting, with a different projector. I still had a good time, talking to several of the hams, before and after formal meeting.