#81 - for openers...

sports sports sports sports! sports sports sports sports! i sure do love sports recently. after a monday postponement, today was opening day at fenway park for the boston red sox, as they took on a team who knocked the sox out of the playoffs last year & has turned out to be their most formidable opponent as of late--the scrappy, young tampa bay devil rays.

as i work in times sq & don't have cable, especially the kind that gets red sox games, i decided to make my way over to the closest place carrying the game...the time sq espn zone. since moving to nyc in 01, i've only been in here twice, both for red sox games. one time, the sox game was starting just as a knicks playoff game was finishing up, which meant copious meatheads abounded for the first couple innings & the other time, the bartender abandoned me for a good 20-25 minutes just as i was finishing up my beer & getting ready to head out. let's just say that she got left an "estimated amount."

today, i got out of work early & made it over there by about 4:30, just in time to catch the tail end of the 2nd inning. i headed up to the bar, grabbed myself a $10.02 25oz sam adams boston ale & took a seat at a table on the ground floor level, which was basically empty save for a couple of people watching the sox & a couple watching some futbol. being able to chillax by myself in the middle of crazy ass times sq, drink a sam & watch the sox was much needed sanity-wise.

& they had wireless there, which meant i could play with my stupid ipod while watching the game!...& ted kennedy threw out the first pitch to former red sox outfielder/hall of famer jim rice and pedroia & varitek homered, beckett pitched well & the sox won 5-3, so it's a good start to the baseball season.

#81 - for openers...
snack: calbee hot & spicy chips
drink: paldo aloe vera drink

by the time i got home after the sox' victorious win, i was in the mood for some snacking, so i broke into my recent chinatown haul & went with the bag of calbee hot & spicy chips. when i cracked the bag open, an odd but savory odor escaped & wafted up into my nostrils. basically, they taste like a less-appealing mesquite barbecue chip. that ain't spicy, calbee. i know you are from hong kong, but that doesn't mean that you can't be spicy. it's ok. go nuts next time.

ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew. [pause] ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew. this paldo aloe vera drink is all glllllllllggggggg & slither in my mouth because it has floating chunks of aloe & gel pieces & pulp in it. it is like flies have landed & since drowned/gone into diabetic shock in my tasty, fruity beverage & i haven't been paying attention & next thing i know, they're [barf] all chilling & wriggling round in the back regions of my throat, urging me to drink more aloe drink to wash them down. but then there are more flies & i puke in my mind! that is what it is like.

so...i've got some bad news. i grossed myself out to the point that i went to the kitchen with the goal of straining out the flies. that didn't turn out so well. basically, i just washed my kitchen counter with aloe. that's good for it though, right? softens it up? soothes burns?...looks like i'll just have to settle for a tall cool glass of apple & eve natural style apple juice instead. no flies in that. maybe a worm or something, but if there is, it's so liquefied that i'll never know. go sox!

#80b - final four (in two parts).

ncaa final four game #2 features the villanova wildcats (ranked #11 by the ap during the season) vs the unc tar heels (ranked #2 during the season). it's one of those classic matchups where one team (villanova) has a really good defense and the other team has a badass offense, so something's got to give somewhere or the world will collapse in on itself. here's what sort of matchup we're looking at...

the villanova wildcats are a team with a storied ncaa tourney history. back in 1985 (a time when i actually still cared about ncaa basketball), led by coach rollie massimino, they became the lowest seeded team to win the championship when they defeated big east opponent georgetown, who was led by patrick ewing.  this year, they're one of two big east conference teams (along with uconn) in the final four, led by senior forward dante cunningham & guard scottie reynolds.  jay wright (their coach) has only been coaching the team since 2005 & this year, he's the only final four coach who's never been to the final four before, so good for him...he can check that off his list.

the unc tar heels are led by all-everything senior forward tyler hansbrough, who besides holding the ncaa record for free throws made, has won every award ever, done well in the classroom & helped out in the community more than you did.  overall, the team averages 90 pts per game & has five players who average in double digits.  after losing to kansas (the eventual champions) in the tourney last year, they were ranked #1 at the beginning of the season and #2 at the end & as the announcers announced during the game, they're "on a mission."

basically, unc whooped ass from the get-go.  villanova cut it to nine by end of first half, but by the time the game came back for the second half, i had sort of stopped giving the game my undivided attention.  here's what i do recall...villanova never had a chance & the game was never close.  if i was michigan st, i'd be scared right now.

my top player picks: reggie redding, villanova - funny name, didn't die / tyler hansbrough, unc - 18 pts, 11 rebs, upheld humanity

#80b - final four (in two parts).
snack: humbles olive oil, lemon & feta baked hummus chips
drink: weyerbacher old heathen imperial stout

as in part a of my final four coverage, i'm treating myself to a snack & a drink from the home states of this game's two participants--pennsylvania & north carolina. i know, i'm clever. i'm also lucky enough to have been able to find snacks & drinks to fit my theme. for a snack, during this game, i'm munching from a bag of humbles olive oil, lemon & feta baked hummus chips. they're made by good health natural foods, a boringly-named company out of greensboro, nc. you can reach them on the internet at www.goodhealthnaturalproducts.com. i believe you can also find them online at www.wehaveaverylongwebaddress.com.

ain't no potatoes in these badboys! they're baked & made from hummus/chickpeas & bear a slight resemblance texturewise to the popchips i tried just the other day.  if they weren't $3 a bag, i might just eat them all the time.  for the aforementioned reasons, they're healthier than your average chip & the olive oil, lemon feta flavor is both subtle & pleasant.

if you drive just about an hour or so north of the villanova/philly area, just past the non-jesus affiliated bethlehem, you'll reach easton, pa, where my second beer of the night, the weyerbacher old heathen imperial stout, is brewed. weyerbacher has been around since 1995 (& once had a brewpub in downtown easton) & brew a bunch of crazy-named beers--the blithering idiot, the imperial pumpkin ale, the slam dunkel.

in the spirit of the wraith-like figure on its front label, the old heathen is quite the dark beer.  since i'm a heathen myself, i enjoyed it, but since i'm a heathen, i didn't embrace it. it wasn't all that special anyhow...stouty enough, i suppose.

that's it!  til monday night & the championship battle!

#79 - pop.

i don't even know what's considered pop music any more. back in the eighties, it was clear. everything was pop music (for the most part). these days, every year they're all "& the grammy award for best pop album goes to...duffy! (2009) or steely dan! (2001) or joni mitchell! (1996) and i'm all "wait, didn't taylor swift/N*SYNC/hootie sell the most albums last year? they're all pop, right? why didn't they win? clearly they had the best pop album of the year."  joni mitchell's considered pop?

(please note that lil wayne actually had the best-selling album of last year, but he's cool in my book & taylor swift scares me, so she gets held up as last year's pop example.  she seems too "perfect" to really be perfect & she's not even disney, so that frightens me...some anti-christ shizz or something going on there).

so what exactly is considered pop music?  there's u.k. indie pop like belle & sebastian or blur or the divine comedy & u.s. indie pop like death cab for cutie or vampire weekend or the magnetic fields.  there's the more mainstream u.s. rock stuff like fall out boy or the foo fighters or green day.  then there's the more blatantly pop stuff like the jonas brothers or justin timberlake or kelly clarkson.  all of them could be considered pop, even though they're all quite different. 

basically, someone needs to clear this up for me ASAP, before my genre-programmed brain explodes all over my keyboard.

#79 - pop.
snack: sea salt & vinegar popchips
drink: jones fufu berry pure cane soda

tonight, i'm rocking out to some "pop music"--a little weezer & a little kanye west--and having a bag of sea salt & vinegar popchips.  they're one of five flavors made by a company out of san francisco that has recently expanded distribution to the eastern part of the u.s.  these popchips are supposed to be awesome because they've taken chip healthiness to the next level.  they don't fry their potatoes.  they don't even bake them.  they pop those puppies, making them through heat & pressure.

the resulting chip has a not-unpleasant light fluffy texture somewhere between a rice cake & a ritz cracker.  without the grease you'd get from a regular ol fried chip, the flavor definitely stands out better.  in this case, it's salt & vinegar, which you could sprinkle on pretty much anything non-living & i'd probably still eat it.   on the popchips, you get a good dose of salt & vinegar, but without the choking kick-back that you get when a salt & vinegar chip is too damn powerful...i'm looking in your direction, lays.

since i'm going all healthy & natural with my snacks today, i'm having a jones fufu berry pure cane soda along with the popchips. for you midwesterners...POP!  i call it "soda," my boston-based grandmother calls it "tonic," others call it "coke," you call it "pop."  to each his own, but "pop" is just silly sounding.

all the jones sodas are made without the usual soda corn syrup tastiness (they use cane sugar), which gives their beverages a slightly unsettling taste.  i've tried their blue bubble gum and strawberry & lime flavors and essentially, they all taste like derivations of the same berry flavor that's in the fufu berry flavor.  berries?  yawn.  they're nothing spectacular.

i think i need to get away from their berryesque flavors & try out the new orange cola flavor or sample one of their holiday packs before completely pooh-poohing their pricey, natural sodas away.  last year's halloween pack had a candy corn flavor!  that rules!  what doesn't rule is their past thanksgiving packs, which have included turkey & gravy, green bean casserole and mashed potato & butter flavors.  that's just gross & disturbing & makes me want to pop the one who thought that making those flavors was a good idea square in the kisser.  POP!

#76 - a long december-ists.

if there's one band i've been completely conflicted about (other than NIN, pearl jam & modest mouse), it's been the decemberists, who just (physically) released their fifth full-length, the hazards of love, this week. it's their 2nd full-length with capitol records, after the debut on hush records, which was re-released by kill rock stars, who then released their next two full-lengths & an EP before the band departed for capitol. a quick rundown of their works...

castaways & cutouts - this was their debut album & it was solid, which led to the much-deserved initial buzz & attention. as someone who at one point had dreamt i'd be an architect, i instantly loved the fact there's a song on the album called "here i dreamt i was an architect." there are other standout songs as well--"july, july," "odalisque"--& the songs are replete with the well-written instrumentation & story-filled lyrics that have become synonymous with the band.

her majesty the decemberists - i've always thought that their sophomore album (which is actually the shortest of their five full-lengths) drags on. unlike the rest of the albums, there are no songs on here that really stuck with me, although other folks really seem to enjoy songs like "billy liar" & "los angeles i'm yours."

the tain - this eighteen-minute five-part EP was recorded over four days & other than a few flourishes on the first two albums, was the first time we really got to hear the band's metal side, starting with the opening track.

picaresque - their third album starts off with "the infanta," a solid opener & features a handful of songs that both contribute to the overall feel of the album & stand alone well as songs--"the sporting life," "the bagman's gambit," "16 military wives." at the time, i felt like this was their most solid album from start to finish.

the crane wife - "the perfect crime no. 2," off of this album, might be my favorite booty-shaking decemberists song of all. it's got a discolike beat to it & i have this one positive memory of a cute girl quietly singing along to the chorus of it as it played on the radio of a van that was bringing a bunch of us back to the city after a daylong film shoot down in jersey. out of all their albums, this is the one i've gone back to the most, as it also includes opportunities to both sing along ("o valencia!") & rock out ("when the war came").

the singles series - near the end of 08, almost two years after the release of the crane wife & at a time when the band was still getting back into the swing of things after cancelling a tour & going on a short hiatus, they released this three-volume set of singles as the "always the bridesmaid" series. for me, the highlight is "valerie plame," a song about the former c.i.a. operative who was exposed by the bush administration after her husband's "what i didn't find in africa" piece in the ny times revealed holes/lies/exaggerations in their reasoning for invading iraq.

the hazards of love - from what i've heard via industry chatter, the path that they took leading up to this album (canceled tour, a colin meloy solo release, time off, the singles series) was the right choice. things weren't going in the right direction mentally. so now we have the new album. it's definitely the hardest-rocking of all their albums, which is more in tune with my current tastes, so currently, i'm digging it. at the same time, the album feels like one hour-long song, as the songs tend to blend into each other, so we'll see how long my love of the album lasts.

...so i continue to be conflicted about the decemberists. at times, i really get into their songs or find myself lost in the journey of one of their albums, with its suites & multi-part songs & ambitious storylines & whatnot, but sometimes, i just can't take it. i can't take it & colin meloy's voice becomes whiny & the songs become too sea-shantyish for my tastes & i end up wanting to find an accordion just so i can smash it against the wall.

#76 - a long december-ists.
snack: pringles onion blossom restaurant cravers
drink: belhaven twisted thistle i.p.a.

as i went back tonight & listened to the decemberists' catalog from beginning to end, hoping to eventually come at some sort of ultimate judgment/epiphany about them (an epiphany that never came), i snacked from a can of pringles onion blossom restaurant cravers. pringles, who in the past few years introduced "pringles select" flavors & "pringles stix" (an item i have yet to see), have recently come out with a number of "restaurant craver" flavors--onion blossom, mexican layered dip, cheesy fries, cheeseburger, slow cooked bbq, mozzarella sticks & marinara. some flavors have died off. some have survived.

the onion blossom flavored chips have a strange taste to them but they've managed to survive regardless.  also, as the can is of the "super stack" variety, it's so tall that it doesn't even fit in any of my plebian kitchen cabinets. i'm assuming that pringles is in cahoots with outback steakhouse & their infamous bloomin onion dish & as such, taste & convenience are secondary concerns.

the first thing you taste when eating these chips is a putrid & overpowering horseradish flavor that, once it eventually dissipates, leaves you with a faint, underwhelming onion taste. it's not in the least bit pleasant...i did use the word "putrid," after all.  still, since i'm a trooper, i kept eating them anyhow & discovered that by the tenth-or-so chip, my taste buds went into some sort of defense mode where, for their own good, they lied down & played dead, succumbing to the taste.

luckily i had beer to wash the taste away. in the spirit of "the hazards of love 1 (the prettiest whistles won't wrestle the thistles undone)," the 2nd single released off the hazards of love, i picked up a bottle of belhaven twisted thistle i.p.a.  given the name & label, i was sort of expecting a flowery taste, but nope. as far as i.p.a.s go, it's not really anything out of the ordinary, so if you're looking for a fun experience with this beer, the only way you're going to get it is to down a bottle quicklike & play a few rounds of "say twisted thistle tens times fast" with your friends. alcohol + words = awesome!

#75 - girlfriend!

you ladies drive me absolutely crazy! and it's not always in an entirely awesome fine young cannibals way! i thought i knew what was going on with you but it turns out i'm still clueless, an amateur at reading you, often tentative about approaching you. don't even get me started, girlfriend!

as far as relationships go, i've barreled my way through a series of long-term relationships, one after the other, pretty much straight through since junior year of high school (barring the post-relationship periods). i've definitely earned the title of "serial monogamist." this, of course, doesn't include my first two+ years of college, the period of my life where i was most successful in getting my swerve on.

my first long-term relationship was in high school, when i was in a dysfunctional relationship with an insane girl that my friends lovingly referred to as "afro bitch." after the early college swerve-on period, late college brought a relationship with a redheaded girl from the midwest with the last name jones. i even moved down to florida & lived with her for a brief period. in sin! sin! then i moved back to boston & dated another redheaded girl from the midwest with the last name jones.

after that, it was off to brooklyn, where i knew absolutely nobody & as such, decided to test the waters of the craigslist dating scene circa 2001. it worked out pretty well for a while, as i ended up in a relationship with a cool girl i met through a craigslist ad that offered "bonus points for modest mouse fans." that was followed by a long relationship with a jersey girl who i met in nyc the exact same week i moved from nyc back to boston. after a few months, i moved back to nyc, but i'm a heathen (among other things), so that didn't work out...& that takes us to my current single state.

oh! guess what i just figured out?! if you take the "r" out of "girlfriend," you get "girlfiend." i'm just saying is all. oh. wait. that also applies to "boyfriend." never mind.

so yeah, i thought all that long-term relationship experience would be helpful in figuring out you ladies, but nope, i still have trouble reading you...plus, it's sort of killed my game. i'm working on that though.

#75 - girlfriend!
snack: zapp's spicy cajun crawtators potato chips
drink: presidente pilsner

last night, while i reminisced about all the girls i've loved before, i fed from a bag of zapp's spicy cajun crawtators potato chips. these chips, made by a company out of louisiana, are their top sellers & are infused with the "taste of a cajun boiled seafood feast." i've never been to such an event myself, but i assume it involves a copious amount of spicy & tasty bottom-feeders, crazy cajun accents & a crowd of people with spicy fish breath.

the crawtators are a well-put together potato chip. they're not very greasy & have a nice, solid, kettle-cooked feel to them. also, they have a slight, fishy taste to them that blends in well with all the cajun spices. oh! and also, according to their website, oprah has recommended them on her show, so i'm hoping that when she is crowned as our new overlord/ruler/demigod, our common enjoyment of these chips will spare me her wrath.

you ladies drive me to drink! well, not really, but it works well with the theme, so i had myself a cold 22 oz presidente pilsner to complement the spiciness of both the crawtators & my wistful memories.

back in college, during the period that will from this point forward be known as the "swerve-on days," i had a roommate from hong kong who drank nothing but presidente & carlsberg until he got a 0.0 GPA & flunked out & was replaced with some french dude. as one born in n.h., i was astounded by his crazy foreign beers. now, i think of presidente as a pretty meh beer. i don't care how many dj tiesto-involved concerts they put on. it's still going to be a bland, uneventful beer...nothing like you ladies though...you ladies are spicy!