mmmmmmmm... i love free gourmet food.

thank goodness we're not in japan, where they are experiencing a severe butter shortage.

on a very different note, i'm starting to get really excited about our quick swing through michigan and my trip to NY. it will be good to see whoever we're able to cram in! if you're around a2 on sunday night, we're meeting at charlie's (the former 'la shish') at 5 pm for an early dinner.

i wish i had enough money to buy this dinosaur skeleton, which apparently didn't meet the minimum price at auction. can you imagine how great this would look in our living room?

i had the nicest drive in to work this am: sunnysunny day, there were a bunch of eagles (or hawks, maybe) flying along sharp park road, and i heard pat benetar on the radio. :)

apparently a rare turtle that had been considered extinct was found in vietnam. i always get a kick out of these sorts of stories. there are photos of a few other rare creatures, including the giant squid, here.

hooray for explorers!

i got a kick out of this LA weekly analysis of coachella, including their use of YouTube data. i just wish i was going to the festival!
ah well, at least i got to attend a passover seder.

this event that the nyc parks are putting on sounds really neat: they'll teach kids to play old-timey games like stickball and double-dutch.

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the water is pretty rough here in pacifica this morning. it's the first morning that i can think of when there aren't any surfers in the water.

all i can say is hooray!

steve sent me this video, which is a great discovery commercial. now i have the song stuck in my head...

i just watched most of the comedy central show "root of all evil" with lewis black where they debated which is the root of all evil, youtube or porn. i really enjoyed it, and highly recommend checking it out on comedycentral.com. here is the final verdict in case you don't have the time to spare to watch the whole thing:

i've decided that my favorite feature on sfgate.com is the ship traffic log. ooooooooooooooooh, big ships!

steve's folks were here this weekend and we had a really nice visit. we had the most amazing weather! it was in the 80s and i got a bit too much sun driving around in the convertible and sitting out on the montara state beach (you can see some photos of the coastline here, but please note that we were not at the nude beach part!)

we did see some nude sunbathers from a distance, which i think freaked out steve's mom a bit. :)

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i really liked this little article about the internet being paid for by advertising (duh!), but mostly because it features a company one of my favorite new yorker magazine advertiser categories, horizontal corduroys.

this is what they would make me watch in hell:

This week, the TV network Great American Country (GAC), launched a new one-hour weekly series, Drafting Partners Wednesday night at 9p that matches up a NASCAR driver and a country music artist. Each learns about the other's profession, family life and both show off their favorite country music videos.

i LOLed at this today:

Goalie Clearly Living In Net

ann was here from NY last weekend to visit, and she helped me find some much needed hip but work-appropriate new clothes. i am still in need of some new things that work well at my new-ish job, though. i wish it were warmer here in springtime, so that i could justify lots of cute little dresses like this one:



sooooo cute!
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on a very different note, i'm still adjusting to life in the 'burbs, and thought i'd share some random thoughts i've been having about it tonight (can you tell steve's out of town? i'm an insomniac and spending my late-night-hours on the computer?).

i am a bit sad about leaving the city, and don't like the idea of driving back and forth to go in for events or to see friends, but i feel a little swell of happiness when i drive home. i come around the bend in the highway and see the ocean over the highway's curves, pass the pacifica city limits sign and then curve around again and see pedro point in the distance. that makes me happy.



i like the silly little white oval bumper stickers i've seen a few times that are take-offs on the european country stickers, and have "PCFCA" in them. cheesy, but i dig it. (and yes, i tried to find an image online to show you, but had no luck).

i try to get at least a minute in the morning with our view, especially on days when i know my evening plans will keep me out after dark. i am trying to drink less coffee, so my original plan of having a cup of coffee while relaxing with the view in the am has been altered, but i still try to at least stop for a few deep breaths before racing out the door to the office in the morning...

the little shopping center down in linda mar (at the bottom of the hill and then across cabrillo highway) isn't unique at all -- there are strip malls like it all over the country. however, i think being at the very southernmost point of civilization (just north of devil's slide and a bunch of parkland) somehow makes the merchants and employees there all super-friendly, as though they're darn glad you came this far and are there at their little store. the donut shop proprietor gave me a free donut when i walked by (gee, just what i needed), the radio shack employees wanted to talk to me for FAR too long about our video game/tv hookup (hey, um, dude, i just needed some cables), the safeway employees seem to always want to chat (one bagger talked to us for several minutes about her experience eating apple bananas in the past), and the little old man at the hallmark store (wearing a hallmark store apron!) wished me lots of luck with the shower when i bought bridal shower invitations. i think there is such a thing as small town charm, since most of my in-city retail experiences were more akin to waking up bored/sleepy/annoyed salespeople and trying to charm them into helping me.

similarly, i'm entranced by our local paper, the pacifica tribune, which comes out on wednesdays. perhaps after living here awhile it will lose it's charm on me (somehow i never found my tiny town's newspaper charming when i was growing up) but for now i get a kick out of it when it arrives on our doorstep each wednesday.

goodnight, all, from our home on top of the hill!

you know i very, very rarely do this, but please consider supporting this petition to urge senators to co-sponsor the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.

thanks!

i love the featured videos on youtube.com today. hooray!





i also really love onmilwaukee.com today, especially this great piece of journalism about scott baio commissioning a bronze chachi bust.