I'm in Maine.

I'm in Maine for a few days studying for final exams. It's very relaxing, because there are no upstairs neighbors, and no drum sets. I figured the short study vacation would be a good idea so that I can get a little extra sleep, and have a quiet place to study. The library at school isn't really an option for me because it's more like a dungeon with books than a library; it's always freezing, and it's underground, so it's pretty dark.

It's been a pretty relaxing day here so far. I started out the morning by studying for my tax fraud & prosecutions exam. I even had a study assistant!

After studying for awhile, I took a break to do some laundry. My other assistant helped me fold. She wasn't much help.

Then I went back to studying, and am just taking a break now to update my blog. My assistant says hello. She wanted to guest blog, but she was getting too much fur on my computer.

I kind of forgot that Maine has distractions too, and these ones like to follow me around and try to sit on me.

Fun with Craigslist, part one of a possible series

I love Craigslist. It's been a great website for me over the past five years on which I've found places to live, sold furniture, sold used textbooks, and tried to unload some extra Advent calendar chocolate. I consider myself a fairly savvy, smart user of Craigslist, so the occasional terrible incidents that occur to some users of the website do not deter my use of the website. For example, when I was trying to sell my car on Craigslist, I got an offer from a guy to buy it, but unfortunately, he was only available to look at the car after 10 p.m., and he wanted ME to bring the car to HIM in some parking lot in Silver Spring, MD. His e-mail even mentioned that "if he were a female, he would be suspicious and probably wouldn't go." I have a super active imagination and would have thought of that same scenario on my own, so of course I didn't go, and I wound up selling my car to CarMax. And hey, my car wasn't stolen, I wasn't kidnapped and/or murdered, and I even got to put some money in the bank!

Sometimes when I'm looking for something specific on Craigslist, it's easier to post what I'm looking for and let people respond to me with their offers. When we moved to New York, Joe and I, with the help of the Newtster's father, posted an ad on Craigslist looking for people to help unload our moving truck. Within 5 minutes we had to take the ad down because of the huge response. Now that Joe and I are certain that we're moving back to DC, I posted an ad on Craigslist looking for an apartment in a few specific neighborhoods.

I've posted ads on Craigslist looking for apartments before. In posting these ads, I've found that many people cannot read, do not read, have trouble reading, or in their excitement to be on the internet, just disregard what they've read. In my ads, I'm very specific about my price range, date on which I want the lease to begin, and neighborhoods in which I'm willing to live. The ad I posted today was no different, and in it, I even requested that if the apartment wasn't in one of the three listed neighborhoods, to please not waste their time and my time by responding with an apartment located somewhere else (like fabulous Silver Spring!).

I received this response to my ad from Wendi within about two minutes of posting: "Hi, was wondering if you're still looking for housing." The subject of the e-mail was "Re: $1400-2400 Need apartment starting July 1 (Cleveland Park/Mt. P/Columbia Heights)."
I decided to respond to Wendi's e-mail solely because she used the correct form of "you're." That's right, I discriminate based on spelling. I responded, asking for specifics of the apartment she was offering.

Wendi again responded within two minutes, and said, "Hi there, nice to hear from you. Well that's good because I have many
places available for you in the area. What's your exact price range? How soon were you looking to move? Before I show you any listings I'd like to get a feel of what you'd qualify for, we can do this by getting your credit score. Our office has a relationship with a credit report company to give our clients free credit reports, if you'd like to get one through our partner go to http://creditreport365.net/?clientID=232842 or you can get one through your own means, just please get this to me and we can get you into something. I look forward to speaking with you." Please keep in mind that the subject line of this second e-mail was again, "Re: $1400-2400 Need apartment starting July 1 (Cleveland Park/Mt. P/Columbia Heights)."

Well, well, well, Wendi! Isn't this so helpful of you, trying to expedite the process by getting me to immediately submit my credit report. I'm glad that you also have so many places available for me in the area. It's also nice that you wanted to know my price range and how soon I'm looking to move. It's always smart to triple-check, you can never be too sure.

I figured I'd do Wendi a favor, in order to give her a slightly better chance of drumming up business from people like me in the future, so I sent her this response:
"My exact price range and the time I'm looking to move were actually in the subject line of this e-mail, and were in the ad that you responded to. Based on your not noticing that and/or not bothering to read them, I'm unsure of your level of competency to help me find an apartment. Best of luck to you." I haven't heard back from Wendi, but I'm sure she'll get back to me as soon as she's finished responding to every other "housing wanted" ad on Craigslist.

I do realize that sending snarky responses to people who respond to my ad but haven't read it is a waste of my time, but sometimes I just can't help myself. Besides, I'm fairly certain the person on the receiving end of the e-mail isn't reading it.

Have you seen this show?

I don't have cable television, so I don't get to watch a lot of the new t.v. shows coming out these days, or see the previews for them. Most of my t.v. watching is done on the internet, so I'm often blissfully unaware of the new programs coming out. You can imagine my surprise when I was riding the Metro North train with Joe last weekend and saw a poster for this:
At first I thought it was a joke, because it reminded me of the episode of 30 Rock where there's a Survivor-esque reality show called "MILF Island." Then I realized The Cougar is going to be a real show. And now I'm thinking that I should get a job where all I have to do is come up with absurd television show ideas, because certainly I could come up with something better than The Cougar, right?

Speaking of 30 Rock, every time I hear a commercial for the show "Cold Case," all I hear is "Gold Case."

Throwing around the ol' leather pumpkin

Until last night, I think the last time I played basketball was in seventh grade gym class. On that occasion, I wound up getting the ball smashed down into my face and my nose started bleeding profusely. I was sent to the school nurse because my gym teacher feared that my nose was broken. Luckily, my nose was not broken, but I had to stay in the nurse's office for so long that the school day ended and I missed my bus. Normally that wouldn't have been a huge problem, but my best friend was supposed to come over after school and since she was unaware that I had been battered by a basketball, she just went home when she couldn't find me. I haven't played basketball since then in protest of having my childhood playtime stolen from me.

Sixteen years after that experience, Joe's basketball team required the services of one female so that they wouldn't have to forfeit all four games. I was extremely displeased that they were unable to find another girl, but I grudgingly agreed to play. I am pleased to report that we won one out of four games, which means that my attendance wasn't a total waste. Here are my statistics for the evening:

Games played: 4 (11 minutes apiece)
Points scored: 2 (I was very pleased with this)
Nails broken: 1
Times I almost threw up on another player: 1
Times molested by a girl on the other team: 1-2
Knees skinned: 2

My knees haven't looked like this since I would fall off my bike when I was learning to ride.


I am happy to report that once I got over my nerves and the feeling that I was going to be ill, I had a decent time. I even told Joe that I would be willing to play again, should the team ever require a female.

Finals are coming up, let me tell you about my toothbrush

I've been meaning to blog about this for some time, but it's kept slipping my mind. I wanted to let you all know that I'm a professional toothbrusher now (as opposed to my former amateur status). My parents usually give me money for Christmas, and this year was no exception. Now that I'm all grown-up, I decided that I'd put some of that money to good use on the most ridiculous electric toothbrush I could find. After a great deal of research and reading what other toothbrushers thought of various products, I settled on the Oral B Triumph with SmartGuide. (picture courtesy of OralB website)

I ordered my professional toothbrush, and anxiously awaited its arrival. After several more days of just average toothbrushing, my professional brush arrived. It took me about fifteen minutes to assemble everything and read the instructions. As I was going through the instructions, I was pleased to find that my toothbrush came with four different modes: Normal, Sensitive, Massage, and Polish. Of course after reading these modes, I became extremely excited to try my new toothbrush so that I could find out what this Polish mode of brushing teeth was. I think it was only after I excitedly told Joe that my fancy new electric, computerized toothbrush had a European setting on it that I realized it was actually a "polish" mode, and not "Polish." Oops.

Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with my professional toothbrush, and it does give my teeth that nice, after-the-dentist feel. Given that I immediately sprang for the professional model rather than a cheaper electric toothbrush, I couldn't really tell you the difference, or if it's really worth it. It seems to hold a charge for a long time, and the "computer" component of it is pretty fun. By "computer", OralB really means "timer", in that after you've been brushing your teeth for the recommended minimum 2 minutes, a smiley face appears on the screen to indicate that your teeth are now happy. The computer also flashes an angry red toothbrush at you if you're brushing your teeth too hard. I was most interested in this feature when I ordered it, but it turns out that you have to be pushing really hard to be brushing too hard. This means that if you only have a mild curiosity whether you're brushing your teeth too hard, likely you're doing just fine. Granted, I'm a lawyer (pending admission ceremony to the bar, of course. None of this constitutes legal advice as to which toothbrush you should choose!), not a dentist, though, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt. The computer will also tell you when it's time to replace the brush portion of the toothbrush.

I think this was one of my best uses of Christmas money to date, because I probably wouldn't have spent that much of my own money on a toothbrush (although I'd like to note that I got it for an excellent discount price, but still much more than the typical $3 I'd pay for a manual toothbrush), and I like being able to say that I'm a professional toothbrusher.

A New York weekend

Two of my favorite "New York" foods are pizza and bagels. Joe has blogged about our pizza making attempts, and we're getting closer to making great pizza, but the crust still isn't quite right. With that almost success under our belts, I set out to learn how to make bagels. Joe, who grew up in New York, has a much more refined bagel palette than I do, but my lower standards mean that I'm often more satisfied with my bagels. I think he had his doubts about homemade bagels, but that just made me more determined to try it.

First, I did a lot of reading up on various homemade bagels. I settled on this recipe, which takes two days to make, but most of that time is inactive while your bagels hang out in the fridge. I liked this recipe because I had all the ingredients on hand and it has a longer fermentation period which helps the bagels develop more flavor. Also, it required much less kneading than other recipes, which is always a plus for me, since I do all my breadmaking by hand. In case you decide to make this recipe, I just used honey instead of the barley malt syrup.

Then I made the dough. It took about 15 minutes, then it went in the fridge for a couple hours. Then I got to take the dough out of the fridge and shape it into bagels. There are two methods I've read about for shaping the bagels: divide the dough, roll each piece into a ball, then poke a hole in the middle; or divide the dough, roll it into a rope and then wrap the rope around your hand. I chose the rope method. It required putting a little bit of water on the dough to seal it together. These bagels went back into the fridge and stayed there overnight.

I took the bagels out this morning to do the old boil and bake. They had to come to room temperature for about 90 minutes, then they went into the pot. This was my favorite part of the whole process.
Then they went into the oven and baked for about 16 minutes. I flipped them over a little more than halfway through. If you want to add toppings to your bagels, you do so after you boil them and before you bake them. I tried making a couple of salt bagels for Joe, but with kosher salt instead of sea salt or pretzel salt, since it was all we had on hand.
Mmmmmmm, bagels.
See, they even look like bagels!

Joe said the bagels are "good, but maybe they could be chewier. I thought the outside crust was good." Those of you who know Joe know that this is a glowing review, and I do agree with him about the chewier part. Overall, this recipe was easy to make, and it's sure to impress anyone when you tell them that you made the bagels.

Google Analytics

I forget most of the time that I signed up for Google Analytics on this blog, mostly because I go for long periods where I don't blog, and then I blog a bunch for a few days. Also, I haven't told that many of my friends that I have a blog, because then I might feel real pressure to keep things interesting. So tonight I logged onto Google Analytics for the first time in months, to see what people are searching for when they stumble across my blog. Here's what I found:

1. tales from below apartment 6n This is the most popular combination that makes someone land on my blog. I imagine that most people living in an apartment 6N are pretty wacky. What's your tale?

2. "drums" + "apartment"+ "noise" You too? Pretty terrible, huh?

3. 30 rock asif Are you the guy that was taking up 3 seats on the subway? Or are you just the guy who wound up with the part of Asif and you're trying to Google yourself? If you're the former, please close your legs and keep your voice down next time. New York thanks you.

4. apartment noise upstairs Apparently noisy upstairs neighbors are a common problem. Do yours have a drum set and five people living in a one-bedroom apartment?

5. asif 30 rock Dude, just audition a third time. You said the casting directors really liked you. Hey, I know! The show is set in New York, maybe you can convince the writers to write a character who takes up too much room on the subway.

6. drums noise apartment Maybe I need to get a drum set of my own? Poor apartment 4N.

7. laws against playing drums in upstairs apartment Are you in NYC? If you find any exact statutes against drums in upstairs apartments, please let me know! Or if you're apartment 6N and you happened across this blog, I totally found the noise ordinance and the management company will be sending you a noise complaint shortly!

8. advent calendar chocolate How did this have the fewest hits? I figured my blog was the number one source for all things Advent chocolate. Maybe next year.

Better than an Advent calendar, but barely.

Last weekend, Joe and I went to the Irish deli near us to get sandwiches, and while we were there, I was reminded that there is another chocolate-eating holiday coming up. I love how several religious holidays revolve around Chocolate...I guess you eat it for 24 days at Advent, give it up for 40 at Lent, then eat 40 days' worth of chocolate at Easter. At least that's how I practice Catholicism, aside from the giving up anything for Lent part. Anyway, given that the Irish deli is, well, Irish, they import a lot of candy, chips and other packaged foods from Ireland. Given that this is the same place where I procured my delicious Cadbury Advent calendar, as soon as I saw the shelves of Cadbury Easter candy I knew I had to try some out, because this stuff was just too novel to pass up. I love me some Cadbury mini eggs this time of year, so I opted for the chocolate Cadbury egg that was supposedly filled with mini-eggs.

Here it is out of the box. It was approximately 1/2 beer tall.

What a cute bunny!

This is where the disappointment started to set it. I opened my egg (conveniently I just needed to lift off the top), and found a pathetic package of 8 mini eggs inside.

Fine, whatever, I still like mini eggs, and there was a pretty good amount of chocolate to eat from the big egg anyway. Oh, but wait, what's that? All my mini eggs are cracked and look like rejects from last Easter?

Well, that's just unacceptable, given that this imported Easter treat cost me $3.99 (2.96 Euros or 2.33 obsolete Ireland Pounds). Luckily, the side of the packaging tells me that if I'm not completely satisfied, I should return the product to Birmingham, UK, or Dublin, Ireland. I went ahead and ate the big chocolate egg, because that was just fine (and it tasted remarkably similar to my Cadbury Advent calendar), and I figured that might be kind of messy to mail back. I will, however, be returning the eggs to their Irish home. Hopefully they do not hatch into chocolate chickens by the time they return home! I will of course let you know how the situation resolves itself.