Catch up

It's been so long since I posted... Most activities lately have revolved around the wedding, but I expected that they would. We've made some big decisions (bigger than charcoal grey) and should be in a position to make some announcements soon. It's good that we're trying to get so many big things done now, because it means that we won't need to worry about them later on and can take our time handling the small things. Apart from all the wedding stuff, here are some other things that have come up and would have been talked about on here, had I been keeping up to date...

Last weekend Richard came over and hung out for a while. He was talking to Liz who was also reading a wedding book at the same time. Sensing that she wasn't listening, he jokingly said "It's going to snow tomorrow!" Liz looked up and said "Very funny, Dad." The next morning she woke up, showered and checked the weather. Possible snow mixing with rain but probably not making it to the ground? That's pretty funny. Then, I got out of bed and looked outside - snow falling, to the ground. It turned to sleet about 5 minutes later, so, where I was at least, there wasn't anything on the ground. Except for on our back steps, which looked like a sno cone had been poured on them.

Been watching some TV too. I keep giving The Clone Wars a chance, but so far this season it has been tremendously disappointing. Continually jumping around the timeline, giving screen time to characters who really aren't that important, filling in boring story lines. Heck, Anakin has been in only a couple of episodes - he fought in one, in another he dropped Ahsoka (who hasn't died yet) off then flew away, then last week he played whipped secret husband to party-planning Padme. This is the guy who's going to become Darth Vader. I don't want to see him being told to make sure the droids buy fruit and don't get ripped off!!! Hopefully they'll turn it around soon. Starting tonight. Obi-Wan gets back on the screen after a few weeks away.

One cartoon that hasn't been disappointing has been South Park. Awesome all the way. The last 3 weeks have seen them carrying out a superhero story arc, which built on an episode from last season called "The Coon" (the Coon is Cartman's superhero persona). It told more of the back story of Mysterion (my favorite), and introduced characters like Tupperware, Toolshed, Mosquito, Iron Maiden, The Human Kite and Mint Berry Crunch, collectively know as the superhero organization Coon and Friends. One of the elements that I enjoyed about the episodes was the comics that they integrated into the story - they had the look of stylized story board sketches which I had seen for South Park before and looked cool.

We've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender as well. I'm really into the show and keep wanting to know what's going to happen next. Good thing about watching a show years after its release is that you can watch more straight away. Right now I'm liking it much, much more than The Clone Wars. We've finished the first season and are now a couple of episodes into the second. It's already created a few questions for me, which Mike, who is a season or so ahead of us, has told me are answered later. Zuko is my favorite character - he's a banished Fire Nation prince trying to capture the Avatar to regain his honor.

Behind our building at work is a canal/inlet that leads out to Long Island Sound. From the fifth floor the waterway does not seem very wide, and a few weeks ago Brian thought he could throw a rock across. He couldn't, so now Mike is keen to try. I got some rocks at the beach last weekend, and Mike and I tried yesterday. Mike landed probably 80% of the way across, me about 60%. We're going to try again, but I know I won't get all the way. From our throwing point, the shortest distance to the other bank is around 80 - 90 yards at high tide - if you skew the angle a little, it blows out to 100 yards. I know I'm not throwing a rock 100 yards!

Tomorrow is the 4th Annual Queens County Chili cook-off competition and pig fest, which means we're making chili tonight. If it's anything like last year's contest it will be a lot of fun - eating chili and chili dogs - it's a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Mmmm... chili... but what I want most of the time is peanut butter. Here in the US a lot of peanut butter has junk in it, so we try to get stuff that has as little as possible in it. Problem with that is it can get expensive. We were getting an organic one when it was on sale, but it was still more than regular peanut butter. All it was was peanuts and salt, and it was good (in taste and ingredients). But then we went to Trader Joe's a couple of weekends ago and I saw they had organic peanut butter: cheap organic peanut butter (by that I mean inexpensive). Only ingredient - peanuts. It is great. It spreads well, even straight from the fridge (the other one kind of came out in big chunks, even though it was smooth).

I'm beginning to wonder if it is finally happening - I'm getting on the US peanut butter wagon.