Life and times...

I really did not have much time to write a substantial entry for today. My weekend was kind of busy, because Marty came from Indianapolis to spend most of it with me. He arrived by about 10:15 on Friday evening (he had been able to leave work a bit early.)

On Friday evening, I went to the "opening" of an exhibit of photographs by one of my colleagues at a local art shop. It was quite nice, and I got to see a number of friends and colleagues, including Tim whom, I have recently come to realize, I have now known for close to ten years. However, as is often the case at such events (and that's why I usually hate them), I did not really get to have any significant conversation with anyone. I think that I managed the diet end of it pretty well by having just one beer, but I did have some cheese which, as we all know, if fairly high in calories (but it was damn good!).

At this event, I had talked for a while to a couple whom, actually, Marty and I had invited for dinner on Saturday evening. We left together, at about 7:30, and they were going to have dinner at a local restaurant, and asked me if I wanted to join them, and I gladly agreed to do so. That place was OK, not great, of course. I just had the soup and salad bar, and limited myself to a bowl of minestrone and a salad (just lettuce and tomatoes.) I was back home by about 9:00, and relaxed until Marty's arrival.

It was great to have Marty around for about a day and a half. On Saturday morning, I blew off the weekly Weight Watchers meeting - but I will attend another one tomorrow night. Marty and I had to prepare the dinner for our four guests, so we took off for breakfast at Perkins' at about 9:25. After breakfast, we shopped for the ingredients that we needed to make our dinner. We had planned on duck in olive sauce (canard aux olives), rice pilaf, mushrooms, and celery au gratin. We went to a couple of stores, dropped off the stuff at my place, and drove to a crappy mall about 20 miles from where I live, where there is an Ollie's Bargain Outlet store. I bought The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher for a mere $6.99, as well the 2005 edition of the Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever for $2.99. Marty got himself a cookbook, the same copy of the Videohound, and a 2008 road atlas.

By the time we got back home, it was way past lunch time, so we made some chicken salad sandwiches, and had a quick lunch. As we were ready to take a well-deserved nap, I realized that there was a message on my voice mail, I checked it, and it turned out that the couple with whom I had had dinner the night before had to cancel out on us, because the wife's mother (who lives with this couple) had to be taken to the hospital. I hope that it was nothing too serious. I will find out tomorrow at school. We were, therefore, left with only two guests, but it was fine.

After a one-hour or so nap, we began cooking. Our guests arrived at about 7:15, and dinner turned out very well, we had fun with our guests and drank tons of wine (probably not good for the Weight Watcher that I have become...). However, my kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, and we had to do some thorough cleaning after the guests had left. We put in a serious team effort, and were done by about 10:30. We were bushed, and were in bed by 11:00.

We got up at about 8:00 on Sunday morning, and it seems like Marty was getting a cold - he was not miserable, but a bit sniffly. We watched the Sunday morning news shows (and, yes, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama on Meet the Press), and the opening skit of last night's SNL, which I had recorded on my DVR - the REAL Sarah Palin made an appearance, and you finally get to see how uncanny her resemblance with Tina Fey is (Palin appears a bit into the pseudo press conference, which she is watching with Lorne Michaels, the producer of SNL - some fun stuff happens then too):



Speaking of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, Tina was on Letterman on Friday night, and discussed her impersonation of McCain's running mate. First of all, she strongly indicated that she really did not want to do it at first, but then was convinced anyway (there's a funny line when she says that her 11 year old kid saw Sarah Palin on TV and said "that's Mommy!"). Anyway, here's part of that interview - I couldn't find the entire clip on You Tube:



Anyway - all good things, I guess, have to come to an end, and Marty had to leave for home on Sunday at noon. He will be back for Thanksgiving and I will be going to Indianapolis around December 20 or so, after having visited Claire and Jeff in Providence.

My semester is officially half over, so it's good news. But the second half is always a bit more difficult to manage than the first one. Wish me luck!

This can't be f***ing true!

I was just watching a recording of the Letterman show from this past Friday (February 22), and there was a new feature titled President Bush Tries to Look Interested (and damn, who would not love Dave? I personally have a huge crush on him!).

I absolutely had to share this with you and, of course, found it on You Tube. I kid you not, this is true - I believe that Dubya is in an audience with the President of Mali:



One more reason for counting the days until this Bozo is out of office!

For another good clip from this past Saturday's edition of SNL, an endorsement of sorts of Hillary Clinton by Tina Fey, click here (the clip has been taken down from You Tube by NBC, I assume, that's why I am giving you the direct SNL link.)

Read the next two post below, since they are still both pretty recent.

It's going to be a tight race....

In the aftermath of Super Tuesday, according to CNN, Hillary Clinton has a grand total of 632, and Barack Obama a grand total of 626 pledged delegates. If you add superdelegates (i.e. "who are not bound by the decisions of party primaries or caucuses."), Clinton has a total of 825, and Obama 732 delegates. That's a far cry from the 2,025 needed to win the nomination. It's going to be a long haul, and nothing yet is decided on the democrats' camp.

I still prefer Hillary a tad better than Obama. I know that what's often stressed about him is what an agent of change he would be, and that he is a breath of fresh air, reminiscent of JFK (probably one strong reason why he is getting the endorsement of the Kennedy Clan.) To read more about that possibly erroneous analogy (which appeals to the emotions, rather than to the reasoning power of the electorate), read this very interesting piece by Ted Wimer. And you should also read a statement penned by The Kennedys for Clinton.

On the Republican side, it seems that McCain has pretty much won the race (at this point, still according to CNN, he has a total of 598, Romney 259, and Huckabee 166 pledged delegates.)

I have a feeling that it's going to be McCain against - well, who knows yet... McCain is a double-faced sneak, and a hell of an opportunist, with all the due respect that I have to pay him for his wartime bravery (but there's been a lot of brave men, many POWs from the Vietnam era, who never had a chance to bask in the limelight as McCain did.) His stance on the Iraq war is beyond absurd, and he scares the crap out of me. And I am very afraid that, whoever his opponent is, he might have a chance of winning. There was some talk last night, on ABC News, that he might "have to" pick Huckabee as his running mate, because, all of a sudden, Huckabee matters again, and will bring McCain the evangelical vote. Amen.

In a totally unrelated newsflash, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (yes, that would be the Beatles' Guru) "died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop. He was thought to be 91" (Source: CNN.) I think that, in his memory, I am going to go and meditate on the results of Super Tuesday.

Speaking of which (because writing "Super Tuesday" made me think of the Superbowl) - David Letterman's stuff on Monday night about the Patriots' defeat and Giants' victory in the Superbowl was extremely funny. I frankly don't know how he can get away with saying stuff like, during the game, whenever the camera focused on New England Patriots' coach Bill Belichick, he would go to the TV and give him the finger! I guess it will be a cold day in hell when Belichick accepts an invitation to be on Dave's show.