Strange Days Are Here Again

I have previously documented the strange goings-on that occur during my lunches, and today that theme was continued loudly and proudly. Today, as I was driving to get my lunch, there was a man standing on the corner with a giant sign. His sign was covered in mostly illegible, small writing.
However.
In the middle of his sign, in giant letters, it said, "YOU NEED THERAPY!"
But that is not even the best part. What could be better you ask? The fact that he was wearing this:
With this kicky hat:

This town continues to bring the crazy awesome.

I Got A Man And A Plan

Tomorrow we are finally going to move the rest of the stuff from Ventura up here, including my sofa, hooray! No more cramming two to three people in a chair that is just shy of being a love seat. Now as soon as my bookshelf gets here, I can put away all the clutter and we will have an actual home. If my bookshelf would ever ship from wherever UPS is holding it hostage, that is. Overstock.com told me that it would leave their warehouse in 1-3 business days, and I should receive it within 5-10 business days from the day I order. So, I have two more days before I can fill out the "Where the hell is my shit?" form. Great. I would be way less concerned if the UPS page showed more than "billing information received". Sigh.

In other news, Ricardo and I picked a year in which to get married. We're planning for the summer of 2010, which will be smack dab in the middle of law school for me, so that should be all kinds of fun. Even more fun is that I have no idea what I want as far as wedding stuff. I never really thought about it. So I bought some magazines and did some researching. It turns out that most places need to be reserved about 18 months out. But here is where I am running into entirely self-created stress. I will be applying for law school at the end of this year, and that means that I will not know where I'm going until about April of next year. Then law school will start next August. So I will have from April-ish 2009 until Whatever Day We Ultimately Pick to plan everything, or about 12 months. Which may seem like a long time, but when you consider that I will be in fucking law school for those 12 months, you can begin to understand why I want to start planning things now, even though I kind of can't. The type of wedding we have will ultimately depend on where we end up living. If I end up in LA or San Diego, that is vastly different from San Francisco or Oregon. Different venues, different colors, everything would be somewhat different. And I am not really liking the idea of planning two simultaneous weddings...

As far as the inevitable question "Why don't you wait until you finish law school?", there are a few answers. The shallow answer is that when I finish law school I will be thirty (!), and I'd like to get married before then. The deeper answer is that this is a compromise between me, who would rather wait, and Ricardo, who would just a soon go to Vegas tomorrow. And keep in mind that the next question is "Why don't you get married before law school?" So the ultimate answer is that the reason we picked 2010 is that it is a good balance of time that is acceptable to both of us. I don't really give a crap if it is acceptable to anyone else or not.

Soundtrack Of My Life

Pamala sent me this fun diversion a while ago, and I have sort of become obsessed with it. Here's what you do:

Put your itunes on shuffle and answer the questions/topics below with the name of the song. No skipping songs! Those songs are the soundtrack to your life.

Ok I need to make one addendum. I have a lot of Classical music on my ipod, so I am going to skip those. While they could be great for a soundtrack, it just isn't as much fun.

Here we go!

Opening Credit-Can't Cry These Tears by Garbage. This is a very tone-setting song. She's talking about trying to find love but it's nowhere and she is sick of looking and over it and she's done crying.

Waking Up-Let It Die by Feist. Wow what a sad song to wake up to. But I guess it could be interpreted as waking up to the reality of a relationship being over.

First Day of School-Het by The Pixies. An all around awesome song.

In Love-Basket Case by Green Day. An oddly appropriate song. I have great memories of this song, including one time when myself and a stranger yelled the lyrics across an apartment complex to each other in call and response fashion. Good times indeed.

Fight Song-Out Of My Mind by James Blunt. Oh come on. Am I fighting in slow motion here? Lame. I am a much better fighter than this.

Breaking Up-Shiver by Maroon 5. This is one of the more appropriate song on this list. It's about a hellish relationship. Not really about breaking up though, so maybe not all that appropriate after all.

Prom-I Loves You, Porgy by Billie Holiday. All together now-Aaaaaawwwwwwww...

Life-Black On Black by Heart. One of the greatest bands ever. This song is so awesome. Probably my favorite Heart song. I am rocking out over here.

Mental Breakdown-Let It Roll by Train. Yes, I have Train on my ipod. And it is not nearly the most embarrassing thing I have either. As far as appropriateness, it is marginal for a mental breakdown.

Driving-Anywhere You Go by The Gin Blossoms. How great is that? A song about following someone for driving to.

Flashback-Wrong Turn by Jack Johnson. A very "meh" song. Which could be appropriate, since I don't really have flashbacks, since I don't have a lot of memories to flashback to. If that makes sense.

Birth of Child-I Melt With You (cover) by Jason Mraz. A completely inappropriate song. Holy crap.

Final Battle-Now At Last by Feist. Eh, not really that great. I mean, I love Feist and all, but this song is about finding love and is all mushy. Not great for battling your foes.

Death Scene-Stranded by Heart. Yay Heart! And I guess this song works. Kind of. If someone else is dying maybe? Ok fine, it totally doesn't. But I still love Heart.

Funeral Song-Nugget by Cake. Ohhhhhhh-kaaaaaayyyy...I don't know how well a song where the chorus is "Shut the fuck up, learn to buck up" would go over at a funeral.

End Credit-Killing Floor by Howling Wolf. A nice rousing blues tune to yell out weird names to your friends to. I'm ok with this song.

Overall, this was not the best mix that I've done. I'm tempted to do it over, but I will resist. Oh, and for there record, there actually weren't any Classical songs that popped up, so this is completely accurate.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

So we finally got our cable set up this weekend, and after Ricardo spent three hours centering the screen of the tv, which, to be fair, is 46 inches, and requires a lot of finagling, I can tell you that DVR is the greatest invention ever! I'm recording things left and right. I am in televisual heaven. Interesting program on National Geographic about what will happen after we all die, but, oh no, it's on at 11 pm? Bam, record that shit and watch it when I want. Rock of Love marathon on VH1? Got it! Awesome.

Now I have to go procure a storage unit today, so we can move all the stuff that we want, but not necessarily right now, out of the apartment, and then I will be truly happy. Our living room is a disaster still, boxes stacked all over the place, some of them half unpacked and random things all over the damn place. I can't even look at it anymore. I tried to start going through some boxes yesterday, but I got so overwhelmed that I had to go lie down. There's just no place to put anything. I ordered out kitchen/dining table on Friday, and it should get here sometime this week. I hope. It's so purty:

Right? I can't wait for it to get here. No more milk crates for me! Now I just need a big bookshelf and about 70% of the clutter will have a home. But, of course, now that I actually want to buy a bookshelf, the only ones on craigslist are crappy ones. What happened to all the awesome ones that I used to see when I was browsing? Work with me people!

Gearing Up

My favorite holiday is coming up this month, and I am in a bit of a quandary. St. Patrick's Day, that holiest day of drunken dogma, will require more than just the typical beer consuming endeavor. In general, I have a hard time consuming enough beer to get me seriously tanked, so I need to get my wee little hands on something with a nice high alcohol content. But, I still have quality and taste standards that must be met. So, let's break it down:

The obvious first choice of Guinness does have a lot going for it. Somehow, Guinness only contains 198 calories per imperial pint (20 fl oz UK), fewer than an equal-sized serving of skimmed milk or orange juice and most other non-light beers. However, imported Guinness tastes nothing like Guinness in Ireland, which makes me very sad when I drink it. Plus, there is the matter of being able to consume enough of it. In spite of not containing that many calories, it is a very filling drink, but it does have a slightly higher than average abv, at 7%. I am on the fence about Guinness.

In general, I am not a fan of lager. On a warm summer day, a nice cold Harp can be refreshing, but there are other summertime beers that I enjoy much more, mostly of the Mexican variety (hello Modelo...). Also, when I drink lager, I end up going to the restroom about every five minutes, which pretty much negates the meager 5% abv that Harp has to offer. Harp is officially out.

I tried Smithwick's a few times in Ireland and England, and largely I found it to be more on the bitter side than I prefer for an ale, but that could be only in comparison to the smooth and delicious Guinness that was available at the time. However, I haven't tried it as an import yet. It only clocks in at 4.5% abv, which makes it officially out. Sorry Smithwick's, maybe another time.

This is a cream ale that is brewed by Smithwick's, and it is reportedly even more bitter. And the abv is 4.3%, the lowest abv on the list, making this one right out.

God, do I love a good red ale. I am drooling over this photo right now. It doesn't help that I am also starving. I would kill for a glass or Murphy's and a giant pile of mashed potatoes, with a side of soda bread right now.

I just made the horrifying discovery that there is no Wikipedia entry for Murphy's. I don't know what to dooooooo... It does only have an abv of 5%. This site I found rated Irish red ales, and the following was the highest rated beer:

It's got a higher abv than Murphy's, at 5.9%, which certainly makes it more appealing. I am very curious to try this one, but it may be very difficult to acquire. We shall see.

Of course, there is always the alternative: