Who-Cakes

We originally had no plans for St. Patrick's day, and since it was Dan's first day back from vacation we decided to go to lunch. His only requirement: Irish beer. So we went to Opal Divine's Marina, and they had a pipe band playing. It was pretty fun. I realized when I saw the pipe band that I should have worn my Utilikilt, so I went home, changed, and wore it for the rest of the day.

I called Shaunna while we were there, and we decided to try to go back after work to hang out. I called/talked to like 15 people and invited them. After work we headed up there and they were completely full. No parking, a huge group of people waiting to be seated, so we called a few people, and no one was going to come out. So we bailed and went to IHOP for dinner instead. Why IHOP? One word, Who-Cakes.

In honor of the Horton Hears a Who movie, IHOP has some new menu items. I ordered the mayor's meal with Who-Cakes. Shaunna ordered the Beezelnut Splash. Check out me contemplating the Who-Cakes.


Yes those are green eggs and ham. Sam I am not. The Who-Cakes are covered in pink and blue syrups (Who-Juice?), with a bubblegum flavored lollypop stuck in the middle of the stack for, I don't know, support maybe? Also, check out the size of that ham steak. Mmm, salty.

The waiter thought it was hilarious. I came in in my kilt, and ordered the only menu item covered in pink sauce. Now that's manly.

Is it as good as it looks? You'll have to try it for yourself. It took a really long time to come, I can only assume it's because of all the Whos they had to round up and juice in order to make the syrup.

Yes, I'm holding the top Who-cake, the one completely covered in Who-Juice. It's hard to see in these pictures, but the Who-cakes are also sprinkled with little miniature candy-shell covered chocolate chips. I think these might have been Who-houses.

Am I going to eat it, will it fit in my mouth, will it fit in one bite, will I Who-it back up?

Here goes.....hey does anyone else notice that line running down the side of my face from about my glasses to the corner of my mouth? What the hell is that? I gotta start moisturizing or something. Sorry, on with the saga of the Who-cakes.

It's in there, but will it stay? And how does it taste? From the look on my face, even I can't tell! It actually wasn't bad, but the chocolate chips were kind of bitter, and were not mixing well with the syrup. Excuse me, the Who-houses were interfering with the Who-juice. I keep breaking the imagery.

They are really sweet, so unless you have a sweet tooth, or have a child you want to sugar up, you should avoid them.





Shaunna asked to see the aftermath, not pretty. It was about this point that I wondered what all of this Who-food was going to do to me. Afterall, I'd never eaten Who before, and whenever my vegan friends eat something with meat thay get ill. I wondered if I would have a similiar reaction to Whos. Only time will tell if this all ends in tears and Who-poo.

Weekly Plant Update

The Aerogarden is doing well. Our anti-kitty defense system is working well, keeping the kitties at bay. It's only been a few weeks, and now all the pods have sprouted. It won't be long until we get to start harvesting!

Remember awhile back we were posting about a game we were playing called Mass Effect? Well they just released the first of some downloadable mission packs via Xbox Live, and we downlaoded and played it this weekend. It had been about a month since we'd last played it, and I had almost forgotten how sweet it is. I love that game.

Slow Saturday

Jean had a tough workout plan for me today, but she changed it when I told her about work. I spent some time hanging out with Andrew, and then worked out. I should have no trouble sleeping tonight. Shaunna, Laine, and Kay spent some time shopping for the wedding, Shaunna got a great deal on some apothecary jars. They wore pink cowgirl hats and got lots of attention.

We finally got around to watching the latest Resident Evil movie, which we've had on DVD for weeks. We also played some guitar hero with 2 guitars, Fifi is good at the bass parts.

Kitty-topia

My office at home is called 'Man-topia'. But lately its been the kitties favorite hang-out, as you can see, they're clearly squatting. We got them the cube a few weeks ago, and they take turns using it to hide from Bill. The only problem with the setup is the amount of hair they leave behind. It takes continual cleaning to remove it all.

Tonight was our weekly Friday night dinner, and it was Pi Day, so Laine made us a vegan Pi pie for dinner. It was good, like a shepard's pie, but no meat. We left early as I figured out that from 6am Wed to 6pm Fri I worked 54 of those hours, sleeping only the other 6. I'm pretty sleepy.

So, AT&T didn't get things fixed during the night. We discovered an old T1 that they were supposed to shutdown 6 months ago. We got back up on that line at about 8pm. We're still waiting on them to fix the DS3. This has been crazy. At least tonight I got to come home and get some sleep. Since Dan is out I have to go in Friday as well.

At some point you stop missing the sleep, and its easier to just stay up. I'm getting too old for this.

The System is Down

So remember that whole holding down the fort thing. Yeah, well shit hit the fan today. The network connection to our Mission Viejo office is down. We used to have a connection from there to here, and from there to Waco, an internet connection, and a backup internet connection. Fully redundant. Until ops management complained about the cost, so we removed all the redundancy, and the local internet connections. And now they're paying for it. And none of us is sleeping....

We decided to get a backup tape of the production system in Mission Viejo brought in to Austin, so we could get up and running on the cold site system if necessary. I met Garo at the airport at 11pm, and now we are restoring the tape. Now to wait for AT&T to finish up...

Work Closing

So, now its public, I can talk about it. Work is closing.

Austin Business Journal

Austin Statesman

Houston Chronicle

Holding Down the Fort

At work Dan is on vacation, and I'm holding things down by myself this week. Should be interesting to say the least. Today wasn't so bad, but then again it was only Monday. The weather today was weird, rainy, chilly, a complete reversal of last week. I went for a run tonight after Shaunna said that I wouldn't. It was a little chilly, but after about 1/2 mile I was warm enough to run in just my t-shirt. I passed another guy who was out running, and our routes took us by each other 3 times.

I gave Bill a bath after running, which he pretends not to like. He doesn't want to get in the tub, but once there he drinks some water and then stands there passively until we're done. Then he steps up on the edge of the tub, waiting for me to dry his upper body with a towel. Then I help him out of the tub, he shakes water everywhere and then steals his towel and runs off. After his baths he is extremely frisky and runs around prancing, growling, and tugging his towel away from me. He only calms down again once we put his collar back on.

SXSW and Old Friends

SXSW is in town, and there's a whole lot of extra people around. My friend Eddie is in town all the way from Mexico City, and believe it or not he drove. Eddie and I grew up together in San Antonio. He went to NYU for film school, and since then has been working on putting together a network of contacts for making his films. I knew Eddie would work in film from the first week we met, and it's awesome to see him still following that dream. He spends his spare time working on scripts, one of which he's been revising for about 5 years now.

Anyways, he was at a screening and meet and greet that got out at about 12:30 Saturday night (or is that Sunday morning?), so we met at Opal Divine's for some late dinner (early breakfast). It had been about a year since I'd seen him, so we spent a long time catching up. He came back to house, he hadn't seen it yet, and we stayed up until about 4:30 chatting. So today I slept in most of the day, and took a nap. I think I might be getting old.... We're going to try and meet up later this week.

Out with the old...

We are going to take part in the neighborhood yard sale in May. I have wanted to do a yard sale for a year now, but could not get it together. This is going to be a great one, we invited Laine and Andrew, Berta and Charlie, and Mike and Kay to join our yard. Plus the neighborhood association is doing a ton of advertising, so the turnout should be awesome.

David helped me clean out the dining room cabinets and I started cleaning out the closet in my office. It looks like I could easily make $400 bucks, and I have not even moved to the other parts of the house yet. I am also a freak, because when I know that a closet or cabinet is full of random stuff it bothers me. Just knowing that stuff is clean and organized gives me a piece of mind.

Speaking of my random quarks... David and I went to World Market today and discovered that they no longer carry our bedroom furniture. We are one dresser shy of a complete set. I have been slowly gathering the pieces and was gong to be done, but now that is never going to happen. David called all the stores in Texas, and no one has it. This is going to eat at my brain. I am the kind of person that will notice a very small detail and obsess over it until I literally snap and have to fix it. I am going to have to find something that fits, but at this point, I am not sure where to start. I will update on the crazy as it develops.

Long Drives, Bad Weather

So I have not been able to keep in touch with a few of my friends. I need to get better about that, but I always seem to fall into a pattern when I get busy/stressed. I had planned to call Morgan on Tuesday, but she beat me to it and called me. Friday night was free, so we made plans to meet for dinner. Morgan and her Hubby Chris live out in Bastrop and are busy building a house. Not like they are busy instructing people who are doing the building, nope, they are literally building it themselves. Chris is an electrician, and Morgan owns a nail salon, and on the weekends they build a house. Suddenly my life does not seem as stressful.

We had planned to meet in Elgin, but the restaurant we had planned on going to was tiny and packed, so David and I drove the rest of the way into Bastrop and we had dinner at Nancy's. They make the best steaks, I was so full I could barely drive home. It was good seeing them, but they kept hinting that we should come out one weekend to help with the house... I am pretty sure I do not want to do that, but I am sure we will at some point.

Green Queen

So I have been pretty obsessed with my garden. Some of the plants are already sprouting, and instead of attributing that to the fact that the Aero Garden gives the seeds everything they need to germinate, I think it is because I talk to the seeds. I talk to them in the morning and in the evening I sing them a little grow little seeds grow song. I am going to take another picture of the garden when it is time to take of the plastic domes from the seed tubes.

So after 5 "easy pay" payments the Dyson is officially ours! I believe I have already expressed my obsession with HSN in a previous post, but I really need to stay away. They try to suck me back in... I logged on the the website to make sure Dyson payments had all been made and they had a huge ad catered to me about the current specials. Damn advertising! I did not cave though.

We had Hot Dogs and Veggie Dogs with the Youngs tonight. I believe that Hot Dogs taste better when they spin, like at the move theaters or gas stations. That is why I got a Hot Dog spinner at Wal-mart a couple of years back. I love this thing, it makes the best dogs, and people will gather around it just to watch them spin. Plus you can turn it on low and have easy access to hot dogs all day long.... just what I need, readily accessible meat products.