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Doorman at the Smuggler's Cove:"It's OK, I don't need your license. I recognize you."

Uh oh.

My company's Congressperson came to visit at lunch today. At the Q&A, I asked: "What do you think is the disadvantage of having a large federal budget deficit?" She quickly pivoted to talking about Medicare. Apparently there is no disadvantage to having a deficit. Sell your bonds.

On another note, what's a nice place to spend the night in Santa Cruz? Assume that I don't have an arsenal of nukes with which to attack my creditors.

EDIT: Don't trust position data from free Droid LJ apps.

We are having some amount of garage sale today, until about 2.  If you've ever wanted something junky from our collective houses, now is the day to offer us fifty cents for it.

I suppose you could just come by and hang out in the Berkeley sun as well.

It was obvious to me that the weakest part of Avatar was the plot, but lazyass that I am, I waited for a gent named Peter Suderman to suggest improvements to it.

(And honestly, Mr. Cameron - why shaft the one part of the movie that costs nothing?)

My boss beautiful wife is making me watch the Grammys and I just saw Lady Gaga for the first time.  Oh.  My.  God.  Gold lame hoof covers are back.  Let's hope we get to the part where the youth murder us in our sleep soon.

Do we need Lady Gaga?  I think Better Midler is still alive.

Edit for more contempt:
Also, isn't Alanis Morisette still alive, Beyonce?

Edit for love:
The Black-Eyed Peas on the other hand create their own lunacy rather than exhuming ancient hits.  I liked it.  Boss: "OK, they've gone on too long now."
Bonus negative points for using the word "nigga".

More:
Has Elvis Costello had work done?

I am currently enjoying our President's poor grasp of economics. I believe he just called for more money for trains. Sorry, space program! Locomotives are the future!

Better than the last guy? Yes. Better than nothing? No.

Smooth!  Also dead.

"I'm a CCA Grad!"

I will grant that they are very good sandwiches.

I eagerly read all the buzz about the Google Nexus One and it did a fine job of convincing me to buy a Motorola Droid. And now I am testing a free LJ client. So far it is awesome. If this posts OK, I will have basically zero reason to use Twitter. So right away, money well spent.

The song which just came onto Pandora was "Bromas" by Tristeza. Which is a weird pairing, because BroMas at Chi Beta is going to be totally divertido y alegre this year. We're decorating the keg and everything. Mas tarde, dudes!

-Four restaurants have been added to the Top 100 Acceptable restaurants: In Point Reyes, Osteria Stellina, and in Las Vegas, the Society Cafe at Encore, CarneVino, and Bouchon.  But not the Bouchon in Las Vegas: "the one in Yountville would never bring the bread and then take five minutes bringing the butter!"

-In Point Reyes we rented a one-room cabin with a big room that looked out at marsh reeds and sky and nothing else.  I finished Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs" and some of McSweeney's Panorama.  That's a big McSweeney's!  I probably overdosed a bit on preciousness there.  Amongst the highlights were the comics section, the big foldout on how to make ramen, and the local happenings section, which married Herb Caen and Dave Eggers at his tiny-print finest.

-Mario Batali's CarneVino (Italian for "MeatWine") was an Experience.  Our waiter Brayden was voluble and eager to share his knowledge.  He was also about six years old. We got to listen to him explain to the next table at great length about Slow Food, which is something you can buy at a Farmer's Market.

But Anyway!  He was nice enough, and brought a couple great things that were neither meat nor wine, and some generous pours of good wine, and a huge piece of COW which was beautifully red and lightly seasoned and filled us with contentment.  It is not a typical steak house - it is really all about the Meat and Wine parts.  It's like if some impresario got Jaco Pastorius and Vinnie Colaiuta to make a drum and bass album.

-The Society Cafe on the other hand was mostly modest American food, just done well.  But the burger with deep-fried shrimp and yuzu mayo rocked my world.

-The suite at the Wynn came with a scale, so I know that I gained about 4.5 pounds over the course of the stay.  That would be about 15,000 excess calories.

Hitched!

We thought getting married at City Hall and having a small reception at my, wait, our house would keep us from spending a ton of time, money and effort.  Ha ha ha.  We did make it through without going crazy, thanks to our immediate families and a couple old friends who swept in for the week and did it for us.

The ceremony was great.  The judge, Jim, said some well-honed words, we answered the questions right, our very closest teared up and smiled in appropriate amounts, we took some nice photos, and got out of there in under half an hour.  Then a few more friends accosted us as we left for some hijinks as documented at the link above.

The reception was even better.  A fine proportion of our excellent friends got to meet each other, and hopefully all manner of entertaining, productive, and joyful things will ensue.  At the least I know that someone might start playing the accordion.  Cupcakes were eaten, and my new favorite cocktail the Diablo was promulgated.

Then towards the end, a couple of scalawags named McPuzo and Trotsky played, which I can recommend as an effective means of encouraging one's guests to leave.

My one regret is that we did not manage to rid ourselves of our redundant possessions, more about which in a subsequent post.

Called Home!

Irresistible
My lap a Scarface mountain
post-powdered donut

As long as I'm posting about comestibles, I must say the El Diablo I just made with Reed's Ginger Beer has simulanaeously changed my mind about cocktails with tequila and cocktails made with creme de cassis.

There's a "Bay Area Top 100 Restaurants", but it's hamstrung by all sorts of non-dining constraints - geographic and ethnic diversity being two.  I would give my own list, but I am way too non-picky.  Half of my list would be various Del Taco, In-n-Out, and Popeye franchises.

Enter my fiants, who can demote a restaurant from good to intolerable in the span between settling up and parking the car.  But she is not fickle!  Rare is the eatery that makes it back into her good graces.  My preliminary list is actually way shorter than one hundred.  In alphabetical order:
Beretta
Chez Panisse
Chow
Dosa
El Toro
Gioia
Hog Island Oysters
Luka Tap Room
Nopa
Nopalito
Picante
Riva Cucina
Sea Salt
Thai House Express
The Front Porch

Did I miss any, darling?

Bad sign!

It seems that the 'computer-simulated cat' story is only true in terms of neuron and connection quantity; CAT is still smarter than IBM. POO.link

He is friendly to humans and will come up and flop on his back in front of you, begging to be petted. If he didn't also inflame my sinuses, I'd definitely want him.

To other cats, he's a bit of a bully. Really, this is a cat for someone who wants one cat.

Black, long-haired, nine years old, healthy. Currently called Bela, but he's a cat, so who cares?