Would you rather....

Eat waffle cereal (this would consist of toasting an Eggo waffle and then breaking it up and pouring milk on it) or eat a cereal, nutella waffle sandwich (where cereal would be mixed in with nutella, and then put between two waffles, like a sandwich)?

I think I would go for the cereal, nutella waffle sandwich. Have a happy new year!

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Final thoughts.

So, after over 24 days of discussing the pros and cons of various calendars, here are my final thoughts:

The Cadbury calendar is worth the extra money, particularly if you've never done a chocolate Advent calendar before. Even if you have had a chocolate Advent calendar before, this calendar was unanimously voted as the best tasting chocolate.

The "Original PeA Schokolade" calendar is not worth the $1.65 it costs. Save yourself the money and buy a chocolate bar.

If you get Hobo Gary drunk enough, he'll eat any leftover Advent calendar chocolate. (I think he's imitating the chocolate bear that he got).

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 24

I'm skipping right to the end of Advent, because I'm ready to move on to a different series of blogs (probably revolving around my analysis of 90210 episodes, which I'm watching for the first time as a 27-year-old).

I forgot to bring my Advent calendars up to Maine with me, so when I got back to New York, I was eager to finish off the Cadbury chocolate, because it was delicious. This was what I got on the last day of Advent: It says, "Santa's on his way," which sounds sort of threatening, but tastes delicious.

I was promised by the Newtster that the last day of the Advent calendar would be a Santa-shaped chocolate. Unfortunately, this empty promise was nothing but LIES. In a drunken chocolate rage, I finally brought myself to finish blogging about the Advent calendars, so I opened day 24 of the calendar he gave me, and was disappointed to see that for Day 24, I didn't get a Santa-shaped chocolate, but I got an angel-shaped chocolate. I was so disappointed that I didn't bother to take a picture, and I ate the evidence as quickly as I could. Before you get offended though, dear Newtster, be comforted in the fact that I didn't even bother to open Day 24 in the third calendar. It will remain a mystery through the ages what chocolate treat Day 24 of that calendar holds.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 21 and 22

Please excuse my lack of postings. I was in Maine, and the internets haven't quite reached that far north yet. I'm skipping out on Days 19 and 20 of Advent, because Advent is over, I'm a little tipsy, and I don't have any pictures from those days, so as far as I'm concerned, they didn't happen.

For Days 21 and 22 (or was it Days 20 and 21? I don't know, I'm tipsy), I decided that I would have friends do a blind taste-test of the three Advent calendars to see if there was an overall winner for best taste. I packaged up one piece of chocolate from each calendar, and put it into a separate Ziploc bag, stuck the three Ziploc bags into a Christmas card, and then gave them to Joe to deliver to the Newtster and Justin. Joe headed down to DC for the Wake Forest bowl game.

These are some pictures of the chocolate tasting: Justin is pleased to be eating chocolate.

I think Newton is faking his smile.

The Cadbury calendar was the best tasting chocolate for both of my unsuspecting tasters. Justin chose the super-cheap calendar I bought (which I thought tasted "vile") as number two, with Newton's calendar coming in as "the cheapest tasting chocolate I've ever had." Newton chose his calendar as the number two chocolate, and my cheap calendar as the last place.

The results of this experiment indicate that the Cadbury Advent calendar was the best tasting Advent calendar acquired this Advent season.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 17 & 18

I've only received one more response to my Craigslist ad, and it wasn't any better than the others.  I decided that it probably wasn't worth the effort to set up a time for someone from Craigslist to come pick up the calendars, and I don't really want "Daddy Blue" to know where I live anyway.  So I'm still the owner of three Advent calendars, with 6 days left to go.  Due to final exams (and not particularly loving all of the Advent chocolate), tonight I created a game out of the backlog of chocolate that I had to eat.  I called it, "How many pieces of chocolate can I stuff in my mouth at one time and eat without having to spit it back out?"  First, I unwrapped all of the chocolate I'm supposed to eat, and arranged it in an aesthetically pleasing way:

Wait, let's get a closer look at that one in the middle.

After I photographed the 25 pieces of chocolate that I should have eaten by today, I asked Joe how many pieces he thought I could eat at one time. He guessed 20. I guessed 14. Then I started with the Cadbury ones, because they taste the best, although they score very low on the Schnell! Scale. They are not from Germany, so I do not feel the Schnell! Scale is an appropriate method of evaluation for Cadbury. The Cadbury chocolate scores very high on the "Jolly Good!" scale though, probably 4.5 Jolly Good!s out of 5.
I even wore a shirt from Germany in anticipation of eating all of that German chocolate.

After stuffing in ten pieces, there was room for no more.


Now I just have to figure out what to do with the other 15 pieces I was supposed to eat.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 14-16

You'll have to excuse me for the lack of updates, I'm in the midst of finals right now, and will finally finish tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.  Rest assured dear reader, I feel like my brain has been beaten up over the past week and a half, and I would have greatly preferred to be eating chocolate and blogging about it to studying.  

I will be back either tomorrow night or Thursday to finish off Advent in style, and let you know the fate of the Advent calendars.  

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 13

I think you all know by now that the answer to the question I've been asking for the past thirteen days, whether the chocolate in my Advent calendar is worth eating, is a resounding no.  With that in mind, coupled with the fact that I am now the owner of three Advent calendars, I decided I should share my bounty with others this Advent.  Isn't that what the holidays are all about?  In that spirit, I posted the following ad on Craigslist last night (sorry, I think you have to click on it to make it bigger):


So far, I've gotten three responses, in the following order. I will let you decide who should get to experience the remaining joy of Advent.

1. Mr. Blue sent me the following e-mail: "I like Chocolate. I can eat the whole month at a sitting. -Daddy Blue"

2. Miguel S. said, "i would love it!"

3. Kristen F. wrote, "sounds good what is your address for pickup?"

Personally, I was hoping for something a little more interesting. I expected better from the readers of Craigslist. I'm not going to give my sub-par chocolate to just ANYONE. Unless you think otherwise, I will hold out for someone who seems in more desperate need of some Advent cheer.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 11 & 12

Finals unfortunately coincide with Advent, which means that some days it's difficult to take a few minutes away from studying and do something with my Advent calendar chocolate. After my exam today, I came home and ran some errands. To make up for having to write about two days' worth of chocolate in one post though, I decided to do something extra special. I bought two more Advent calendars.

I had noticed that our trusty neighborhood deli was carrying this one for the low price of $1.69. Good deal, or waste of money?

This calendar is also from a German company, and it has a picture on the back of the package that I could color, if I was into that sort of thing. I only ate the chocolate from day one on this calendar, and I'm not quite sure what it was. Maybe a snowman with some stuff?

It actually turned out to be a good thing that this piece of chocolate was so small, because it was vile. The worst Advent calendar chocolate yet. If this is your only choice for an Advent calendar, I would suggest you just take your $1.69 and buy a king-sized Hershey bar and ration it out over 24 days.

My second Advent acquisition was this delightful Cadbury calendar:

This was a pricey $4.99, but definitely trumps all other Advent chocolate that I've tasted this Advent season. It's extra exciting, because since I acquired this calendar on the twelfth day of Advent, it means that I'm free to eat 12 pieces of the chocolate, which I just might do. Joe did not try the chocolate from the other new calendar, but he agreed that the Cadbury calendar has chocolate of a quality that he'd eat even if it wasn't Advent.

Here was what Cadbury gave me for Day One:

It's either a Yule log, a wrapped piece of candy, or a whistle (Joe said whistle, I still don't see it).

Here's what Days 11 and 12 in the original Advent calendar had in store for me, respectively:

Funky tree


Bell?

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 10

Today's chocolate is a fancy g-shape:


I didn't want to just eat the chocolate, so I made some hot chocolate, and decided to see if adding the Advent calendar chocolate made the hot chocolate better or worse. I used some Land-O-Lakes premium quality hot chocolate that Joe's mom picked up for $1.99 (for 12) at the Christmas Tree Shop.

Upon closer inspection, it appears today's chocolate might be a sled with a present on it, with a tree in the background. Or a fancy g.

Behold the g in the hot chocolate powder:

When the hot chocolate is all stirred up, you can't even tell the difference, by looks anyway.

Actually, it appears that the hot chocolate with the Advent calendar chocolate (the mug on the left, with the circles), is a bit smoother. Joe was extremely paranoid that I was sneaking him the mug with the extra chocolate, but I just like to have a control for my experiments. In the end, I think he was disappointed I didn't give him the extra chocolate-y hot chocolate, because mine was most definitely superior. He claimed that mine tasted more like fake chocolate, but isn't all hot chocolate powder pretty fake anyway?

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 8 & 9

That's right, I missed a day. If it weren't for Joe, I would have missed two. At that point, having to eat three pieces of chocolate probably would have been so overwhelming that this blog would have died right there.

So, here you have Day 8, a smiling moon:


And Day 9, a guy riding a horse:


Joe, always the gentleman, generously volunteered, "I'll eat one if you eat one." I couldn't convince him to eat both, so I took him up on the offer, which was better than the alternatives. He ate the moon, I ate the horse.

I've never had a chocolate Advent calendar before, and I don't have time right now to research the history of chocolate Advent calendars, but I'm a little curious about the shapes of the chocolate. I figured they'd have a little more to do with Christmas. It's not like I want a baby Jesus shaped chocolate (actually, I do), but one shaped like Santa or a reindeer would strike me as more fitting than an airplane or a guy riding a horse. Or a moon. Here's an idea of the chocolate shapes everyone else is getting in their Advent calendars.

Now that I'm back on track, I'll try to cook up something a little more fun for Day 10.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 7

My first final exam is tomorrow morning, so there's not much time for blogging. But I couldn't leave you hanging for Day 7. I ate the chocolate today, and since I hadn't eaten anything recently, the taste was mildly offensive again. Luckily I had some other German chocolate* around the house that served as a delicious chaser. Anyway, today's chocolate scores pretty high on the Schnell! scale, at a 4.2 out of 5, mainly because this is one scary Christmas goblin!

Scary Christmas goblin tells me it's time to get back to studying.

*My favorite German chocolate is Ritter Sport, which is easy to find in the U.S. these days. Of the Ritter Sport varieties, I like the kind that has cornflakes in it, and the kind that has a shortbread cookie/graham cracker thing in the middle. Perhaps one of my favorite things about this brand is that on the back of the German wrappers, it says, "Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut." which translates into, "Quadratic. Practical. Good." Leave it to the Germans to entice people to buy their chocolate by advertising it as quadratic and practical, rather than, oh, I don't know, DELICIOUS? The U.S. wrappers aren't much better with their, "Quality. Chocolate. Squared."

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 6

Today was a study-filled day for me. My desk is in the bedroom, right next to the window that leads out to the fire escape. I've caught some pigeons staring at me through the window before, but today there were two pigeons fighting on our fire escape. One managed to knock the other one down from the railing onto the "floor" part of the fire escape, and then followed him down and bit his neck for awhile. I called Joe into the bedroom to check it out, because it was pretty funny. Then it gave me the idea of what I should do with today's chocolate.

I opened the chocolate today, and I'm not really sure what it is. It's sort of reminiscent of a bird, and I decided that once again, this calendar is predicting the future.



Since I'd be sitting at my desk all day, I figured I would put the chocolate right outside the window so I'd be ready with my camera when the pigeons would surely fight over this Christmas delight. In order to be able to accurately judge whether or not the pigeons liked or would even eat the chocolate, I put a small piece of bread next to the chocolate, because any good experiment should have a control. The bread was leftover from my breakfast, and I consider it to be a "high quality sandwich roll," meaning that it's probably higher quality than the chocolate on the taste scale, but certainly falls well below the chocolate on the Schnell! scale.



I sat at my desk studying all day, and the pigeons didn't come back. As I was waiting for my pictures to upload to the blog, I googled "Can pigeons eat chocolate?" and found some disturbing information. It turns out that chocolate is quite toxic to birds (even milk chocolate which has a lower content of theobromine, which is what poisons the bird) and can cause vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, and death. Granted, it may not be as explosive as leaving Alka-Seltzer out there, but I think I'm going to go now and clean up the chocolate so I don't have to clean up dead pigeon.

I would say that the results of this experiment are that the chocolate in my Advent calendar is not worth eating to the pigeons of Sunnyside, but ultimately, I will just admit that it is inconclusive.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 5

While I was studying for finals today, I realized I was a little hungry. I went into the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets, and the only thing I found worth eating was a red lifesaver. After I ate that, I figured it was as good a time as any to eat today's chocolate. I opened Day 5, and boy did Santa have a present for me:


Can you tell what it is? I silently giggled with delight when I saw my surprise: the elusive boot. I was trying to be quiet so that Joe wouldn't realize I was eating chocolate and blogging instead of studying for my corporate tax final. But don't worry Joe, I was thinking about corporate tax while I did this. Here's my proof:


Today's chocolate gets a 3.9 out of a possible 5 on the Schnell! scale, mostly for the boot shape that photographs so well with my corporate tax book.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 4

My most recent tester wasn't feeling well today, so my original day 4 plan was thrown off a bit due to changing my schedule around.  Don't worry, though, there are twenty days of Advent left, so there will be plenty of time for shenanigans.

Today I ate the chocolate.  It was surprisingly easy to get out of the packaging, maybe because I know what to expect.   I was hoping that my bravery of returning to the chocolate would be rewarded by getting the seemingly elusive chocolate boot, but instead I got some candle thing?  Not really quite sure.  


The chocolate started melting as soon as I touched it, but this time when I ate it, it tasted much better than last time. I think the possible reason for this is that I ate a bagel right before the chocolate, and didn't brush my teeth in between, so the bagel flavor enhanced the chocolate. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I'd be willing to eat a second piece.

Confiserie Heidel, a German company and the maker of this product, notes that to them, "top quality" means a high amount of creativity, in both the recipes and the packaging. Until I read that, I was thinking a high quality chocolate would TASTE good, but silly me, this chocolate is top quality because of the creative packaging and crazy shaped chocolates (boots?!?!). So these past few days, I've been unfair in my assessment, since I wasn't aware of the standards under which I should be judging my chocolate. From now on, I will use a more appropriate, German standard of judging. On this new scale, which I will call the "Schnell! scale", the chocolate gets two Schnell!'s out of a possible five.

Maybe next year I will get an Advent calendar with French chocolate.

(If you look closely, you will see today's chocolate making a cameo in Paris)

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 3 continued...

My most recent tasting volunteer has spent the past few hours spewing up Day Three's "tasty" treat.  The food poisoning could have come from something else, but I'm going to go ahead and blame the "high quality milk chocolate."  

Will this misfortune mean the end of the Advent calendar tasting?  Does the calendar really predict the future?  If it does, does a retarded snowman really mean future food poisoning?  

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 3

It turns out that the airplane chocolate did bode well for our friend Hobo Gary yesterday. To continue with that spirit of passing on goodwill (by goodwill, I mean bad chocolate) to others, today Joe volunteered to tell me whether the chocolate in my Advent calendar is worth eating. I will live-blog his comments as he eats it.

Like the rest of us, Joe had a hard time getting the chocolate out of the calendar.

"How am I supposed to get this out? It's not totally exposed? Ahh, here we go."

He immediately started laughing upon seeing the front of the chocolate (because once you get the calendar open, it's the back of the chocolate that you see). It took me a minute to get a clear picture of it.

"Is it a retarded snowman? Hurry up, it's totally melting! Seriously, it looks like a snowman that had a frying pan smashed against its face. And it's totally melty."

According to Joe, "this doesn't taste as bad as the first two days made it seem.....I mean it's not good....but I don't get pine trees or anything like that. Gary must have been on something." Well, Gary is a hobo, what do you expect?

Joe further commented that the chocolate, "just had a terrible, terrible texture. It was just mushy. There was no snap. I'm not feeling the Christmas cheer by eating it."

Before letting Joe get back to mastering the Verve Pipe's "Freshman" on the guitar, I had a final question for him. Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating?  "No."  

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 2

Today I headed to D.C. for an interview with The Tax Man, and I didn't want to start my day with another piece of this chocolate. Since our friend Gary stayed with us last night, I cheated a little bit, and made him eat the chocolate for day 2 on this Advent calendar adventure. He didn't want to blog, so I live-blogged his comments while he ate the chocolate.

Gary struggled to get the chocolate out, but as he was opening it, he exclaimed, "It's an airplane! Oh my god, I'm flying on an airplane tomorrow. This bodes well for my endeavors." He then noted that the chocolate gets melty immediately.



He then ate the chocolate, and immediately made faces for about a minute straight, and observed, "There's something weird there.....it tastes like....pine trees. There's a hint of pine trees. It's also kind of mealy."



So, Gary, would you recommend this Advent calendar? His response: "No, not at all. Oh wow, I hope this doesn't change my fortune for the worse. Maybe this calendar predicts the future."

Thank you, Gary.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 1

I awoke eager with anticipation. I got out the camera, and I tore open Day 1 on the Advent calendar. I was a little disappointed to see that the chocolate was unwrapped, which meant I had to eat it immediately in order to give an accurate assessment. I took a few quick pictures, and wrestled the chocolate from its plastic home. I was hoping that on Day 1, I would get one of the boot-shaped chocolates pictured on the back of the calendar, but instead, I got a candle. That's fine, whatever, maybe I'll get a boot tomorrow.


So, to answer the question.....is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? No. It tastes like they took the leftover Easter chocolate (you know, the kind that has that slightly funny taste) and melted it down into an Advent calendar.

Stay tuned for Day 2....maybe the boot will taste better? Or maybe I'll have a mystery guest blogger to get a second opinion. The possibilities are endless.

Less dinner blogging

Joe is back now, and with his return, I will probably be cooking less. Or, I'll just be making buffalo chicken nachos, so there's no need to blog about dinner again. Since I've been posting a lot about food lately, you might be concerned that I will not be updating the blog as frequently. Fear not, dear reader(s?), for on December 1, I will be starting a 25 day series entitled, "Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating?" In that series, I will tell you daily whether the chocolate in my Advent calendar is worth eating.

Joe and I were getting beer one evening last week, and saw a bunch of Advent calendars filled with chocolate. He asked if we should get one, to which I responded with an emphatic "No!," with the reasoning that the quality of the chocolate in a cardboard calendar is not going to be stellar. Joe returned from his weekend trip with a gift for me from the Newtster and Newtstress of a chocolate-filled Advent calendar. They bought this one for me, reasoning that the package says "high quality milk chocolate."

Here is a picture of my new Advent calendar riding a rollercoaster.


Thanks Newtons!

I did notice the nutritional information on the back of the calendar. A serving size of Advent calendar chocolate is 12 pieces, and there are two servings in my calendar. I was under the impression that you are supposed to open the calendar one day at a time. Perhaps this chocolate is just so delicious that I will not be able to resist eating twelve days' worth at once? Tune in on December 1 to find out!

Joe is out of town, so Mandy is cooking dinner and stuff

Joe is gone for the weekend, leaving me to fend for myself in the kitchen.  This is actually a good thing in terms of my sense of adventure in the kitchen, because I prefer to be unsupervised while cooking.  I can be particularly self-conscious while cooking things like chicken, because I can't stand touching chicken. The only way I'll touch it is if I'm wearing gloves, which now that I think about it, is pretty weird, because I don't wear gloves to ride the NY subway, and that's probably a lot dirtier than any chicken I might touch. Anyway, I don't think I've actually cooked chicken myself since living with Joe.  Until tonight.  I was feeling particularly carnivorous on my way home from a long day studying at the library, so I stopped and got some chicken.  I got home, and got out the rubber gloves, and got to it.  

Actually, before putting on my chicken gloves, I got out all of the ingredients I would need to make buffalo chicken nachos. Then I put on my chicken gloves, and used Joe's ginormous knife (which coincidentally, I also don't like to use while being supervised. Turns out, it's pretty fun to use though) to cut the chicken into small pieces. I threw them in a small frying pan with just a tiny bit of olive oil, and cooked it until it looked done. Then I threw in a bunch of buffalo sauce, and let it simmer while I grated some cheese. I threw the cheese and chicken on some chips, threw it all in the oven for about 5 minutes, and voila!


Photos may not look super appetizing since I used the camera in my MacBook. But trust me, they were buffalicious!

Tales from the Subway, Installment #1

Given that there are over eight million people living in New York, I'm bound to run into some interesting folks on my daily subway commute. I recently purchased a new phone, which has a camera that can take very inconspicuous pictures. Starting with today's entry, I will begin to document the things that my fellow commuters do that annoy, amuse, or invoke any other emotion in me. After I took the picture for this first installment, I realized I have no way to get it off my camera and onto my blog. Don't worry, I immediately ordered a data cable, and I will show you the first offender posthaste.

The first thing about today's unsuspecting commuter that caught my attention was that he was doing what I like to call the Three Seat Spread. Some men are more considerate and will opt for the Two Seat Spread. Either way, it's a common move among men on the subway. They sit down in one seat, and immediately spread their legs as wide as they can so that they're now occupying two to three seats. I'm not sure if they're trying to air out the groin or what, but trains would be a lot less crowded if you guys would just close your legs, or if MTA could just post some of these signs:

image from Gothamist, logo designed by Catherine Weaver.

So, this dude was doing an impressive Three Seat Spread, and was talking on his cell phone. He was talking at a volume which made it impossible not to eavesdrop, and I think he was secretly hoping that everyone around him would overhear the conversation. He was telling his poor friend (if there was actually anyone on the other end of the line) that he was just returning from an audition for the show 30 Rock. He was auditioning for the part of a writer called Asif, who the other cast members refer to as "As if"......right, I'm sure it'll be funny when the episode airs. Three Seat felt pretty good about the casting, because he got to read about three scenes, and was there for awhile. He's also auditioned for 30 Rock before, and the casting director brought him back for this audition, so he thinks they like him. However, when he was waiting to be called in, there was another guy in the room who looked exactly like him, and who was talking twice as loud as he could (Doubtful, Three Seat, I won't believe it until I hear it). Three Seat was a little concerned while he was waiting that there was no way he would get the part over this guy, but feels good after the audition.

Autumn in Little Romania

Not to be outdone by other bloggers who also take pictures of fall foliage, I brought the sub-par digital camera along on our outing to the farmers' market last weekend to capture some fall colors. This first one is a picture of the street perpendicular to ours.



Not only do we have colorful fall trees, but once you walk out of our building and go about 20 yards to the corner, you can also see big buildings and stuff.


Now most of the leaves have fallen off the trees, and to be truthful, our block doesn't really have a lot of plant life on it. On gray and rainy days, sometimes I pretend I'm living in an eastern bloc country while I walk home. I refer to our neighborhood as little Romania to Joe, due to the new Bucharestian (?) restaurant that opened a few doors down, and the abundance of other Romanian shops and restaurants nearby. So, come visit us in NY, and save yourself the cost of a plane ticket to Europe!

I'll tell you what I want....

There is an unfortunate development to report about the residents of apartment 6N.  When their baby is screaming non-stop from 12 a.m. until 1:30 a.m. on a Monday morning, they use the well-known song of a well-known British band to calm the baby down. Sadly, not the Beatles.


That's right, the Spice Girls.

I can cook dinner and prepare supper and stuff and things, too

I complained to my favorite food blogger that he doesn't post often enough.  Since he's not fulfilling my request, I'll just blog about food myself.  I am known to be a very picky eater.  I stopped eating meat completely when I was about 11, and only started again when I was 21.  The decision to be a vegetarian had nothing to do with any morals or ethics on my part, I just didn't like the taste or texture of meat.  I started eating chicken again at 21 while studying abroad.  I was getting irritated that my vegetarian meal was taking so long to prepare, and there was already fried chicken on the table, so.....  Now I also eat bacon, pepperoni, turkey, and....I think that's it?  Anyway, for a good portion of my life, I survived on Cheerios, raw vegetables, fruit, PB&J, and grilled cheese, and that's about it.  I still like all of those, too.  Now I have also incorporated pizza, pasta, and chicken in there.  It's a miracle that I'm alive.  

Anyway, here is the beautiful lunch that I made myself last weekend:

While it looks daunting, this is really quite simple to re-create.  Just get some bread, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce, and BOOM!!  It's a sandwich.  Goes well with Octoberfest beer.  

More wine

I bought this $5.99 beauty at the local wine store:

I really tried to rotate this picture, but it'll just be faster if you tilt your head for a second.

There was a two for $9.99 special on this bottle, but I wasn't ready to commit to two.  This is a pinot noir, from Georges DuBoeuf.  I took a few years of French in high school, so I know that Georges DuBoeuf loosely translates to "George of the beef."  I enjoyed this much less than any red variety of three buck Chuck.  It was a fairly non-descript, unoffensive wine, but my one complaint was that due to the "pretty" design, it was impossible to tell how much wine remained in the bottle.  

Sunday sounds

It's been a lazy day underneath apartment 6N, but upstairs, it's been quite the exciting day. My best guesses indicate the following activities:

• three-on-three basketball tournament (the hardwood floors in our building are pretty sweet)
• jam session involving some drums. This was no match for the likes of Androewood, but definitely a vast improvement over past repeat performances of The Verve Pipe's "The Freshman."
• foot races, including preliminary heats, and then finals. Perhaps inspired by the marathon today, the residents of 6N decided to have their own races. The course seemed to be a loop running through the living room, up the hall into the bedroom, a quick lap around the bedroom, through the kitchen, and back into the living room. The catch to this short course was that they were all wearing high heels. Tripping and falling to the ground ensued.
• roach stomping contest. Roaches move quickly, can't always get them on the first stomp.

Joe and I had the luxury of living on the top floor in our last apartment building, so we have been spoiled by not having upstairs neighbors. I've wondered sometimes if the walls in our new building are just really thin, and that maybe the residents of apartment 4N think that Joe and I are really loud. To test this theory, I just used The Google to search for "Tales from below apartment 5N" and found nothing, so obviously we are the superior upstairs neighbors. Since thin walls are clearly not the issue, we'll just keep using our roller skates to get from one end of the apartment to the other just a little bit faster.

Thanks, Bob

I'd like to give credit to Bob, since I stole his bit about the whimsy thundering across my keyboard.  I almost spit my beer on my keyboard when I read that.  

First months under 6N

I've been living under apartment 6N for a little over two months now, and have yet to put any names or faces with the noises I hear. I'm pretty sure their cast of characters includes the following: dog, baby, couple who enjoys sexy time, guitar, steel-toed (and heeled) boots, an interior decorator who constantly rearranges the furniture, and someone practicing for the roller derby.

We had a few more pressing problems when we moved into the apartment (OMG roaches!), but one day the super dropped by with the door handle to our fridge, and I asked him about a crack in my bedroom ceiling.  He says it's just the paint, but I'm pretty sure it's gotten bigger and worse in the time we've been here.  If this is any indication, I'd say I'll be meeting the neighbors in about two more months, when they come crashing into my bedroom.

Hey there, neighbor

Since everyone I know is starting to blog, I decided to re-join the fun.  I don't really enjoy cooking like some people do though, so this will not be a food blog.  As the name suggests, I will speculate as to what the upstairs neighbors could possibly be doing to make noise 24 hours a day, but I'll also write about whatever I want.