Friday, March 11, 2005
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
By The Way
In case you are wondering, the preceeding post labelled "What Better Time?" It about 3.2 pages in Microsoft Word 2000 in Times New Roman 12 pt font. Word count: 1,773
Beat that! Hahaha!
Beat that! Hahaha!
What Better Time?
To make a lengthy blog entry than when you are procrastinating on a 4-6 page paper that is due tomorrow?
There is no better time.
That's the great thing about procrastination--when channeled properly, it can actually be a pretty good tool, because it makes those other things that you have been meaning to do seem so much more important all of a sudden.
Alright, lets get down to the nitty-gritty. What the heck have I been up to recently? Well, here goes:
On Sunday, Maxx H. my friend from Maine who is joining the Air Force, came down to Boston to spend a couple of days with me. I felt kinda bad because I'm not nearly cool enough and didn't have a lot of neat stuff to show him--but he seemed to have fun anyway. It was a great time, he went shopping and exploring while I was in class, which worked out really well.
But here's the cool thing. Maxx offered to take me out to dinner Monday night--at a really nice restaurant. With the help of Dan R. (The Civilized Man) we chose a nearby italian restaurant called "Via Matta" (I was going to put a link to their website, but I think it's a monstrousity of flash movies in a pitiful attempt to be 'hip' on the internet). Anyway, we had to get dressed up a little, and we walked to the restaurant. They checked our coats and asked us if we would "like to enjoy cocktails before the meal". Declining, we sat down and were treated to the menus, which were short, but interesting--but the waiter came over, who reminded me of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, because he had a high voice, and seemed incredibly inteligent but gentle. Anyway, he recommended that we try the tasting menu.
Sixty-Five Dollars per person. We decided to get it.
It was a five course meal with (I totalled this up at the end) 19 different foods that we were able to sample. Before I get into a detailed explanation about the meal, let me say that this meal took TWO HOURS to complete... not because the quantity was overwhelming or the service was slow, but because we just had such a great time talking and eating this AMAZING italian food.
Now, the thing about this taster menu thing is that the chef gets to pick everything that you eat, (you tell them if you have any 'aversions' beforehand) so it's like a friggin' adventure, waiting to see what the next course will be. So they had some infused basil olive oil with fresh bread--which beat any restaurant I'd ever had. So we ate some of that until they brought us a plate with the pieces of bruchetta (spelling is wrong, I'm sure). We each had a small peice of each. One was a more traditional brushcetta, with tomatoes, olive oil, and real mozzarella cheese (apparently 'real' mozzerella cheese is made from buffalo milk.) and then two other types, one with a slice of parmasean cheese and orange beets, and another with some sort of medditeranean tuna stuff. All were fantastic.
And the waiter told us that this wasn't even technically the first course.
The first course was thinly sliced pork loin, (often times veal is used, but this chef feels that the pork works better) with a weird mayonassie/anchovie/caper/oil/vinager sauce and with some oiled greens on top... (I don't remember the name of the greens). It was like sensory overload for the tastebuds--after eating nothing but ketchup and hamburgers in the dining hall, such a complex flavor was so intense I almost misinterpreted the sensation as disgusting. But it was delicious--very intense, as you can imagine, but the pork was very tender and thin.
The second course was the pasta course. This was probably my favorite course, because it was soooo magnificent. There were three types of pasta, all made 'in house' (not from dried pasta). The first was an "ear pasta" shaped sort of like a tiny bowl (or an ear) with sweet fennel sausage, some sort of bitter herb (like swiss chard, but not) and a white cream sauce. The waiter served us as he described each dish, and he served us using a technique that was very interesting to watch--he took a spoon and a fork in one hand and pinched them together as if he was using chopsticks or something. And he would put a small scoop on everyone's plate, and go around, then putting a second scoop on everyone's plate--making sure it was completely even! It was kinda amusing. The next pasta was a ravioli--now these ravioli were probably 2.5 inches square, and we each got two. But served one at a time to each of us, mind you! The meat inside was venison, and it was in a more traditional red tomato sauce that was more sweet. The third pasta looked almost like wantons, but it was filled with something made from sweet butternut squash! It was such a delicious and interesting contrast from the other--I was so suprised to eat it!
Anyway, after that course, the waiter came over and started talking to us, and we learned that he had gone to Cornell University! Ivy League! I mean, I think that's pretty cool. He said he had done management for a long time, but when he got married and kids, he wanted a job where he could be home during the day. I tell you, our waiter was totally cool. At the end of the night we joked with him that his tip depended soley on whether he could whip the table cloth out from underneath all the dishes! He laughed and said that he never learned how to do that, but he knew the trick about how to get a cork out of a bottle with a napkin.
So the third course was fish. There were two types of fish, both cooked to perfection. One was a mediteranean version of a snapper, and it started with an O (they threw so many unique and interesting foods at us that night that I forgot a lot of them. Sorry) and the other was Salmon on a bed of leeks. That fish was amazing, I don't know what else to say.
Fourth was a cheese course, where we had three types of cheese--all were very exotic, italian cheeses, but I wasn't too fond of them. There was a blue cheese from goats milk, a soft cheese and some other hard cheese that I liked with the sugared alomonds. It was an interesting course.
Then we got about a 2 tablespoon serving of Passion Fruit Sorbet (Also called gelato) 'to cleanse the pallatte' before dessert. Let me tell you, that was the best non-dairy Ice based desert I've ever had, and it wasn't even the desseret. The three desserets that they brought out were pretty good, the cooked custard being the hands down winner, complete with fresh cranberries. It was delicious. There was also a really really light (almost tasteless at first) cake type thing and a very rich peice of chocolate pie (I don't say cake because the consistancy of the chocolate part reminded me of a brownie.)
But like I said, this is a meal I will never forget, and I still can't believe that Maxx paid for me to eat a $65 dollar meal. Dan had come along, by the way, and had said he would split the bill with Maxx. The total with tax and tip was about $240! What a once-in-a-lifetime (well, actually, I hope not) experience!
Alright, moving onto other and probably less monumental business--I tried out to be a host for the 24th annual Evvy Awards on Sunday, and I think I nailed it. I really hope I get a job as either a host or the person(s) who come out and warm up the audience before the show. I probably won't find out until the the end of march or something.
I've been doing a pretty good job keeping up with all my papers, excluding the one that I have due tommorow that I should be working on right now, and it should be interesting to see how these last 48 hours before I leave school to go to Utah for spring break turn out.
Anyway, I was messing around with a program called "Soundtrack" for Mac's, and in about 20 minutes I made this. It's not AMAZING, but I do really like the part where the drums come in about 30 seconds into the song. But lemme know what you think! I plan on working with that some more, and someday maybe I'll buy some space to make a nice website and post all my media creations... but not right now.
Let's see, what else is new? Oh, well, the suite that I we (J-Pizzle, Dan, Joe and I) are trying to get looks like it is going to work out. I can't WAIT until next year when I have a single within a suite that faces the Boston Common. It's gonna rock.
And here's some great news for all the Harrisonburg High School Alums that read my blog--The budget for the new TV Studio in the new Harrisonburg High School came through! Seth Stratford of the Tech Ed. department and I had put together a proposal with all the equipment that we need. ALL! They approved EVERTHING!
I'm really really really excited about this. This is a huge deal and a huge step forward for Harrisonburg. I'm really glad that Irene Reynolds is the Principal, because I think she has a great understanding of these sorts of things, and want's to make sure our kids have access to communications equipment--a huge field, so that they can discover if it's something that they really like!
By the way, for the tech nerds out there, heres a list of some of the coolest things that the studio is going to have: A souped up G5, 10 copies of Final Cut Pro HD, 5 Firestore FS-1's (devices for encoding in realtime from a camera into footage usable by FCP) and 3 Canon GL-1 cameras for the studio! It's going to friggin rock!
Well, I think that's a suitably lengthy post. I expect hordes of comments. There are some friggin' sweet things going all, both for Harrisonburgers and for me, so you should have something to say!
Until I post again! (which may or may not be in a couple of days)
There is no better time.
That's the great thing about procrastination--when channeled properly, it can actually be a pretty good tool, because it makes those other things that you have been meaning to do seem so much more important all of a sudden.
Alright, lets get down to the nitty-gritty. What the heck have I been up to recently? Well, here goes:
On Sunday, Maxx H. my friend from Maine who is joining the Air Force, came down to Boston to spend a couple of days with me. I felt kinda bad because I'm not nearly cool enough and didn't have a lot of neat stuff to show him--but he seemed to have fun anyway. It was a great time, he went shopping and exploring while I was in class, which worked out really well.
But here's the cool thing. Maxx offered to take me out to dinner Monday night--at a really nice restaurant. With the help of Dan R. (The Civilized Man) we chose a nearby italian restaurant called "Via Matta" (I was going to put a link to their website, but I think it's a monstrousity of flash movies in a pitiful attempt to be 'hip' on the internet). Anyway, we had to get dressed up a little, and we walked to the restaurant. They checked our coats and asked us if we would "like to enjoy cocktails before the meal". Declining, we sat down and were treated to the menus, which were short, but interesting--but the waiter came over, who reminded me of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, because he had a high voice, and seemed incredibly inteligent but gentle. Anyway, he recommended that we try the tasting menu.
Sixty-Five Dollars per person. We decided to get it.
It was a five course meal with (I totalled this up at the end) 19 different foods that we were able to sample. Before I get into a detailed explanation about the meal, let me say that this meal took TWO HOURS to complete... not because the quantity was overwhelming or the service was slow, but because we just had such a great time talking and eating this AMAZING italian food.
Now, the thing about this taster menu thing is that the chef gets to pick everything that you eat, (you tell them if you have any 'aversions' beforehand) so it's like a friggin' adventure, waiting to see what the next course will be. So they had some infused basil olive oil with fresh bread--which beat any restaurant I'd ever had. So we ate some of that until they brought us a plate with the pieces of bruchetta (spelling is wrong, I'm sure). We each had a small peice of each. One was a more traditional brushcetta, with tomatoes, olive oil, and real mozzarella cheese (apparently 'real' mozzerella cheese is made from buffalo milk.) and then two other types, one with a slice of parmasean cheese and orange beets, and another with some sort of medditeranean tuna stuff. All were fantastic.
And the waiter told us that this wasn't even technically the first course.
The first course was thinly sliced pork loin, (often times veal is used, but this chef feels that the pork works better) with a weird mayonassie/anchovie/caper/oil/vinager sauce and with some oiled greens on top... (I don't remember the name of the greens). It was like sensory overload for the tastebuds--after eating nothing but ketchup and hamburgers in the dining hall, such a complex flavor was so intense I almost misinterpreted the sensation as disgusting. But it was delicious--very intense, as you can imagine, but the pork was very tender and thin.
The second course was the pasta course. This was probably my favorite course, because it was soooo magnificent. There were three types of pasta, all made 'in house' (not from dried pasta). The first was an "ear pasta" shaped sort of like a tiny bowl (or an ear) with sweet fennel sausage, some sort of bitter herb (like swiss chard, but not) and a white cream sauce. The waiter served us as he described each dish, and he served us using a technique that was very interesting to watch--he took a spoon and a fork in one hand and pinched them together as if he was using chopsticks or something. And he would put a small scoop on everyone's plate, and go around, then putting a second scoop on everyone's plate--making sure it was completely even! It was kinda amusing. The next pasta was a ravioli--now these ravioli were probably 2.5 inches square, and we each got two. But served one at a time to each of us, mind you! The meat inside was venison, and it was in a more traditional red tomato sauce that was more sweet. The third pasta looked almost like wantons, but it was filled with something made from sweet butternut squash! It was such a delicious and interesting contrast from the other--I was so suprised to eat it!
Anyway, after that course, the waiter came over and started talking to us, and we learned that he had gone to Cornell University! Ivy League! I mean, I think that's pretty cool. He said he had done management for a long time, but when he got married and kids, he wanted a job where he could be home during the day. I tell you, our waiter was totally cool. At the end of the night we joked with him that his tip depended soley on whether he could whip the table cloth out from underneath all the dishes! He laughed and said that he never learned how to do that, but he knew the trick about how to get a cork out of a bottle with a napkin.
So the third course was fish. There were two types of fish, both cooked to perfection. One was a mediteranean version of a snapper, and it started with an O (they threw so many unique and interesting foods at us that night that I forgot a lot of them. Sorry) and the other was Salmon on a bed of leeks. That fish was amazing, I don't know what else to say.
Fourth was a cheese course, where we had three types of cheese--all were very exotic, italian cheeses, but I wasn't too fond of them. There was a blue cheese from goats milk, a soft cheese and some other hard cheese that I liked with the sugared alomonds. It was an interesting course.
Then we got about a 2 tablespoon serving of Passion Fruit Sorbet (Also called gelato) 'to cleanse the pallatte' before dessert. Let me tell you, that was the best non-dairy Ice based desert I've ever had, and it wasn't even the desseret. The three desserets that they brought out were pretty good, the cooked custard being the hands down winner, complete with fresh cranberries. It was delicious. There was also a really really light (almost tasteless at first) cake type thing and a very rich peice of chocolate pie (I don't say cake because the consistancy of the chocolate part reminded me of a brownie.)
But like I said, this is a meal I will never forget, and I still can't believe that Maxx paid for me to eat a $65 dollar meal. Dan had come along, by the way, and had said he would split the bill with Maxx. The total with tax and tip was about $240! What a once-in-a-lifetime (well, actually, I hope not) experience!
Alright, moving onto other and probably less monumental business--I tried out to be a host for the 24th annual Evvy Awards on Sunday, and I think I nailed it. I really hope I get a job as either a host or the person(s) who come out and warm up the audience before the show. I probably won't find out until the the end of march or something.
I've been doing a pretty good job keeping up with all my papers, excluding the one that I have due tommorow that I should be working on right now, and it should be interesting to see how these last 48 hours before I leave school to go to Utah for spring break turn out.
Anyway, I was messing around with a program called "Soundtrack" for Mac's, and in about 20 minutes I made this. It's not AMAZING, but I do really like the part where the drums come in about 30 seconds into the song. But lemme know what you think! I plan on working with that some more, and someday maybe I'll buy some space to make a nice website and post all my media creations... but not right now.
Let's see, what else is new? Oh, well, the suite that I we (J-Pizzle, Dan, Joe and I) are trying to get looks like it is going to work out. I can't WAIT until next year when I have a single within a suite that faces the Boston Common. It's gonna rock.
And here's some great news for all the Harrisonburg High School Alums that read my blog--The budget for the new TV Studio in the new Harrisonburg High School came through! Seth Stratford of the Tech Ed. department and I had put together a proposal with all the equipment that we need. ALL! They approved EVERTHING!
I'm really really really excited about this. This is a huge deal and a huge step forward for Harrisonburg. I'm really glad that Irene Reynolds is the Principal, because I think she has a great understanding of these sorts of things, and want's to make sure our kids have access to communications equipment--a huge field, so that they can discover if it's something that they really like!
By the way, for the tech nerds out there, heres a list of some of the coolest things that the studio is going to have: A souped up G5, 10 copies of Final Cut Pro HD, 5 Firestore FS-1's (devices for encoding in realtime from a camera into footage usable by FCP) and 3 Canon GL-1 cameras for the studio! It's going to friggin rock!
Well, I think that's a suitably lengthy post. I expect hordes of comments. There are some friggin' sweet things going all, both for Harrisonburgers and for me, so you should have something to say!
Until I post again! (which may or may not be in a couple of days)
More Will Come...
I'm really sorry, but I have all this paper to write tommorow, and I haven't even started it, so I just want to drop a quick line to let you know that I am going to post a BIG update in the near future (probably while on break) and tell you about Maxx's visit and my final projects and my most amazing meal ever.
So like I said, more later.
Ezra
So like I said, more later.
Ezra
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Quick Update after my Radio Show
Just got back from my radio show on WECB (Emerson College, Boston) 99.9FM or channel 65 on your on campus TV and I wanted to make a quick update to assure you all that I am not dead. Just a heads up.
The radio show went well tonight, as we borrowed Becka's laptop to record the show in digital format directly to a harddrive.... however, her laptop is so archaic, that it ran out of space on it's 4 gig hard drive before the show was over. So it's a good thing we were rolling cassettes as back up, just in case.
If you are interested in listening to old episodes of my radio show "After Midnight" go to http://www.aftermidnight.cjb.net and download our show in a rather decent sounding .mp3 format. The file sizes are pretty managable too, as we split the show into one hour pieces AND encoded the .mp3 at 64kb instead of the standard 128kb.
If you don't understand that, don't worry, it doesn't matter, it just means that the file size is smaller.
So Maxx H. comes to visit tommorow and I audition for Evvy host... fun times straight ahead!
The radio show went well tonight, as we borrowed Becka's laptop to record the show in digital format directly to a harddrive.... however, her laptop is so archaic, that it ran out of space on it's 4 gig hard drive before the show was over. So it's a good thing we were rolling cassettes as back up, just in case.
If you are interested in listening to old episodes of my radio show "After Midnight" go to http://www.aftermidnight.cjb.net and download our show in a rather decent sounding .mp3 format. The file sizes are pretty managable too, as we split the show into one hour pieces AND encoded the .mp3 at 64kb instead of the standard 128kb.
If you don't understand that, don't worry, it doesn't matter, it just means that the file size is smaller.
So Maxx H. comes to visit tommorow and I audition for Evvy host... fun times straight ahead!
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
I've Started A Script...
Last night, I went down to Suite 724 (home of J-Pizzle, Joe, Dan, Robbie and Jason) and was suprised as heck to find Dan, Pizzle, Becka and Joe watching the pinball machine episode of the old Nickelodeon show "Are You Afraid of the Dark".
I was mesmorized. Quite possibly the lowest budgeted TV series ever, besides the fact that it was made during the trasition years from the 80's into the 90's in CANADA! So you can image what ghastly clothes these nerds were wearing.
Anyway, the night got more and more humorous as we sat bemused by the hilariously un-scary tales which flashed through these kids imaginations. One of the skits even shows the GRIP in TWO SCENES! It's great.
It was as if we had all been stuck by the same lightning bolt: for our MA202 final project, we would work together to make a parody of the show involving J-Pizzle'a hometown of Nahant, Massachussetts, which has some abandoned WWII bunkers, built to protect Boston Harbor from the Nazi's. This is going to be a sweet show.
What else is going on in my life? Well, I'm feeling a little better now that the plague seems to have left me. I'm pretty much back to normal, but I am still trying to take it easy--I don't want a relapse.
I'm listening to Men Without Hats Safety Dance and it's certainly waking me up this Wednesday morning.
Thanks to the miracles of E-File, I filed my Federal, Maine and Massachusetts taxes, and I'm going to get a sweet sweet refund. Feds: $0 Ezra: $423 (Not counting Medicare/SS which no one will get back); Maine: $0 Ezra: $172; Massachussetts: $0 Ezra: $27
Yeah! Money! I plan on using the money to do two things--one, buy myself a Panasonic PV GS120 miniDV camcorder, which, after some research, seems to be a great camera for the lowest price.
Two, I plan to pay for the repairs that I will undoubtedly end up needing on my truck over the summer. (Shocks, Dampner Arm, Transmission Mount). Granted, this money will not go all that way, but I'll figure something out.
Have a non-salacious day!
I was mesmorized. Quite possibly the lowest budgeted TV series ever, besides the fact that it was made during the trasition years from the 80's into the 90's in CANADA! So you can image what ghastly clothes these nerds were wearing.
Anyway, the night got more and more humorous as we sat bemused by the hilariously un-scary tales which flashed through these kids imaginations. One of the skits even shows the GRIP in TWO SCENES! It's great.
It was as if we had all been stuck by the same lightning bolt: for our MA202 final project, we would work together to make a parody of the show involving J-Pizzle'a hometown of Nahant, Massachussetts, which has some abandoned WWII bunkers, built to protect Boston Harbor from the Nazi's. This is going to be a sweet show.
What else is going on in my life? Well, I'm feeling a little better now that the plague seems to have left me. I'm pretty much back to normal, but I am still trying to take it easy--I don't want a relapse.
I'm listening to Men Without Hats Safety Dance and it's certainly waking me up this Wednesday morning.
Thanks to the miracles of E-File, I filed my Federal, Maine and Massachusetts taxes, and I'm going to get a sweet sweet refund. Feds: $0 Ezra: $423 (Not counting Medicare/SS which no one will get back); Maine: $0 Ezra: $172; Massachussetts: $0 Ezra: $27
Yeah! Money! I plan on using the money to do two things--one, buy myself a Panasonic PV GS120 miniDV camcorder, which, after some research, seems to be a great camera for the lowest price.
Two, I plan to pay for the repairs that I will undoubtedly end up needing on my truck over the summer. (Shocks, Dampner Arm, Transmission Mount). Granted, this money will not go all that way, but I'll figure something out.
Have a non-salacious day!
Monday, February 21, 2005
I'm Sick. Isn't that AWESOME?!?!
Seriously, the reason that I haven't updated in a while is because I've been sick and haven't done anything.
I am thankful that I got sick on the weekend so I actually have the opportunity to rest and get ligitimatly well. Of course, I've been sick since friday and it's monday now, and dispite my constant guzzling of fluids, avoiding of junk food, sleeping frequently, only leaving my room when I absolutely have to, I am still sick. But I think I am a little better.
It is snowing here in Boston, there are about 4-5 inches on the ground, and the weatherfolks are predicting that it'll keep coming down until Wednesday morning. I hope they are right, because I don't want to have to miss classes tommorow. Yeah, like I said, I bet I'm still not 100% well by tommorow. But I'm trying.
Realizing that you have to wait for some more forms before you can file your taxes is annoying because I want my refund so I can buy myself a digital camera. I really think I deserve one, and besides, it's part of my education--I'll be using it for media projects. We'll see.
I'm going to lay down some more, but hopefully I'll post again tommorow. If not, too bad, I'm sick and might not feel like it.
I am thankful that I got sick on the weekend so I actually have the opportunity to rest and get ligitimatly well. Of course, I've been sick since friday and it's monday now, and dispite my constant guzzling of fluids, avoiding of junk food, sleeping frequently, only leaving my room when I absolutely have to, I am still sick. But I think I am a little better.
It is snowing here in Boston, there are about 4-5 inches on the ground, and the weatherfolks are predicting that it'll keep coming down until Wednesday morning. I hope they are right, because I don't want to have to miss classes tommorow. Yeah, like I said, I bet I'm still not 100% well by tommorow. But I'm trying.
Realizing that you have to wait for some more forms before you can file your taxes is annoying because I want my refund so I can buy myself a digital camera. I really think I deserve one, and besides, it's part of my education--I'll be using it for media projects. We'll see.
I'm going to lay down some more, but hopefully I'll post again tommorow. If not, too bad, I'm sick and might not feel like it.
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