Lately I’ve been doing a bit of rock climbing. It’s been pretty wild. I think what makes me enjoy it so much is that it’s a pleasant blend of physical ability and strategy; as oftentimes you need to move your arms and legs in specific sequences to most easily climb the wall. My bud Jesse and I have been going weekly for the past few months, occasionally joined by others, and we’ve come to recognize a few regulars around the gym.

There’s Tall-Lanky-Old-Guy whose go-go-gadget reach seems a little unfair
there’s Tiny-Foreign-Short-Haired-Girl who climbs 5.11 (very very difficult) walls, but probably only weighs 6 or 7 lbs
and then there’s No-Shirt-Boy

Two oddities about no-shirt-boy.
1. I’ve never actually seen him climb anything at the gym, I’ve only seen him stroll around without a shirt
2. You’d think that being the only person in the gym without a shirt, that he’d be in great shape. Such is not the case. he’s kind of frail looking.

I don’t look down on no-shirt boy, I just don’t understand his rock climbing mantra.

Now, I’ve been known to avoid certain appliances in the past. specifically: the Iron.

However, lately my clothes have been especially prone to wrinkles, so I decided to unleash the power of the iron upon those unwanted creases. My Iron has 7 steam settings. Each for a specific clothing material. While I usually don’t use the settings (I leave it on 3 - dry) today, I was ironing my linen pants, and decided set my iron to steam setting 7: “Linen.”

The results were amazing! These pants are perfectly flat! Are there any other miracle appliances that I should know about?

There’s a brand spankin’ new IKEA opening up today not 1 mile from my apt. This afternoon post-work I’m going to attack the store armed with a gift certificate from my sister. This is really a monumental event as I have never before participated in the IKEA experience.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to buy, or if the purchase will be made today. But… I will get something. and it WILL be exciting.

4 IKEA haikus:

Oh, IKEA oh
how I long for your sweet sales
cheap wholesale products

When I need some stuff
And I want to buy it cheap
‘I’ ‘K’ ‘E’ ‘A’ please

I expect a crowd
at today’s grand opening
I want IKEA

Sweedish retail chain
For ‘merican consumers
Lots of wealthy blondes

On those especially tough days at work, I crack open a kool aid packet, add some water cooler water, and oversaturate my solution with sugar. The end result is a taste sensation that keeps me wired for the duration of the day.

Today’s flavor is: Tropical Punch.

My sister Alicia is the closest to RockStar that any of us DiDonato’s have achieved thus far. (I’d like to think I hold a close second with the recent 8ofBass performance at wpi… but it’s a stretch)

anyway, this summer she’s doing some substituting for the flute in the Boston Pops. and this Tuesday, Bono will be singing with the group.

my sister is playing back up for Bono.

I am speechless.

At work today we had a free pizza luncheon in celebration of meeting a deadline that was looming ominously over our heads. As usual, I insisted on stuffing myself with as much free eats as my stomach could hold.

This made me notice that no one else in the room was really cramming the foodstuffs. I think my behavior stems from my college mantra of never knowing when my next meal might come. Like a primitive beast, I would inhale as much as humanly possible in fear that my next decent meal might be days or weeks away.

now that I have a more regular eating schedule, I’m curious how long I will continue with my previous strategy of ‘eat until it hurts’.

In an effort to make this particular website a bit more friendly, I have switched to the software wordPress. You’ll get the same friendly banter, it’ll just look different.

And…. the comments should be good to go.

my rents have a phone from the 70’s. it’s this yellow thing, mounted on the wall, with the rotary wheel and a long twirly cord.

It hasn’t really worked for the past 3 years.

my mother, sent out an e-mail to her children asking if we’d be devestated if they got a new phone. I replied that it’d be fine with me. The winning response goes to my sister Alicia who admitted:

“If we got a new phone I would cry endlessly for a week and wear
sackcloth and eat bitter herbs.”

that right there is pure genius.

mike d: Quinnipiac?
jill: no way. I knew someone who went there and got fat.
mike d: what about yale.
jill: (sarcastically) because their french program is great.
mike d: How about Wesleyan?
jill: ha ha, I don’t want to go to a school with a name like Wesleyan.
mike d: well, what about fairfield?
jill: no michael, no one goes there.
mike d: I have friends who go to fairfield!
jill: (sympathetically) they’re not real.

co-worker, regarding indiana: “I’d imagine it’s similar to Arkansas. You have to line up six women along the wall to get a full set of teeth.”

well, it’s official: I am going on my first business trip.

“but to where?” the ladies across america ask
No… not California, nor Vegas. not even Washington D.C.

Indiana.

What’s in indiana? Very little. But, I’ll be there from the 2nd through the 13th of August putting together a giant piece of machinery. two weeks!?!? I suspect that this will be very near torture. Don’t get me wrong, there will be all sorts of perks:
1. free food. And believe me, I’m going to eat like a king.
2. free laundry. I’m going to be bringing all of my dirty clothes with me.
3. frequent flyier miles.
4. discover cash back bonus becuase I purchased the tickets myself

then… there are the un-perks
1. late hours of work
2. a weekend… lost (we will be working through the weekend)
3. early mornings
4. traveling

I am a bit excited. But a bit nervous too. Hopefully I’ll have frequent access to internet. sigh.

I was chatting with C.B. last night and we exchanged the following words…

mike d: hey buddy, what are you doing Tuesday?
c.b -caught off guard- : … oh um, when’s… tuesday?

I really didn’t know what to say. how do you respond to a question like that?

in other news, my sister came and visited yesterday. She stayed over and made pancakes this morning for my roommate and I. It was fun.

We had EGGO syrup with it’s new ‘perfect pour no drip’ spout. Pretty ingenius I think, but I would hardly say it’s perfect, there were still the ellusive syrup strings flirting with the cap post-pour. I think that the ‘no drip maple syrup spout’ is the last true quest of the scientific community. They’ve all tried it. Aunt Jemimah moved to the raised nozzle after playing around with the side spout. EGGO uses a plastic shield with slits for the syrup to pass through when the bottle is squeezed.

The Vermont folks seem not to care, and usually just have a bottle with a standard top. But really, has Vermont ever made a scientific contribution to the world? (ben & jerrys doesn’t count).

Upon discovering the solution to this epic problem, I think the rest of humanity’s problems will naturally fall into place.

My place of work provides free coffee, tea, and water to their employees, now this is definitly a plus. But I have discovered a new way to take advantage of these free-stuffs. The solution is simple: Wherever there is free coffee, there is free milk.

For the duration of my time with this corporation, I will be eating my breakfast cereal at work.

Imagine all the free milk I will consume! And as I pour gallon upon gallon into my cereal bowl, my wallet will become thicker and thicker with all the savings. It’s like finding a free milk coupon in the sunday circular each and every week! I’d be nuts not to take advantage!

Take that corporate america!

::takes a big bite of milky Total Cereal::

The highlight of the weekend was most definitely North shore music theater’s production of Beauty & the Beast. I went to the show saturday night with my lovely girlfriend and we were both extremely impressed.

I think it’s only in town for one or two more weeks. But if you like Disney, do everything you can to attend. www.nsmt.org is the website.

We were tossin’ the disc again today. It was a bit windy.

I hit another child… this one in the head.

I don’t know what the deal is. My co-workers try to blame my throws. But I swear it’s the wind. God wants to punish those little kids, and he uses my frisbee as his means.

thankfully this little girl didn’t start crying. It was a bit of a lofty throw, and it sort of coasted into her noggin, so it wasn’t too fast. Instead of the bawling that I was expecting, she turned around and gave me an evil eye like none I have ever witnessed.

I suspect it’d be similar to the type of response you’d get from a woman if you called her fat.

In an effort to save 1 dollar per pound, I took up the daunting task of trying to make my own honey roasted peanuts… from dry roasted peanuts. Let it be known, this is not a simple task.

Wednesday, I made my first attempt. a little butter, a little honey, a little water, plenty of sugar, and 30 minutes in the oven… and out came some delicious peanuts. sadly they weren’t as crunchy as the true honey roasted peanut. One might say they were ‘tender.’ So last night I tried again. This time, I would sautee the peanuts.

Bad idea #1: trying to sautee honey roasted peanuts.

It didn’t work. at least not well. I added some constarch on my second attempt and ended up with one chunk of peanuts, all glued together with the honey and cornstarch. It tastes okay, but you have to chip off chunks of peanut with a sturdy knife in order to eat.

if anyone happens to work at Planters. And you Happen to know the proper recipe for honey roasted peanuts. I won’t frown upon a betrayal of your company if you tell me what the secret formula is.
man. those nuts are f-i-n-e fine.

Every day for lunch, three of us leave the work premise and zip down to the beach which is only 5 minutes away.

Lately, we’ve been tossing a frisbee around for our 1 hr lunch.

Lately, our throws have been getting closer and closer to the kids playground.

Today, I struck a child with the frisbee.

the little fella didn’t cry or whine, no… he just laughed. mockingly. at my poorly aimed throw.

Yes, I outsmarted Ken Jennings last night.

The answer was:
“By changing the second half of the word football, you come up with official name of this sport”
and it showed a mini-video of some people playing hacky sack.

The question was, of course, “what is footbag?”

Ken Jennings didn’t know it.

point goes to mike d.

My good friend J. revealed a Killer snack to me recently. It’s a simple combination of raisins and honey roasted peanuts. The honey roasted goodness gets all over the raisins, and the moisture of the raisins get all up ons the dry peanuts. It’s stellar!

Unfortunately, honey roasted peanuts are noticably more expensive than regular peanuts. For this reason, tonight, I am going to attempt to ROAST MY OWN PEANUTS. well, maybe not tonight. But soon. I will update all of you on the success of this project upon its completion.

Unrelated side note:
I went rock climbing last night and jammed my middle finger with authority. It’s all swollen and now it hurts to type the letter ‘K’.

The verdict is in: my teeth are free of cavities and plaque.

Normally, I’d be excited about this. However, I’m a bit wary of my dental hygenist. Last time I was getting a cleaning he said: “well, as long as you floss once in awhile…”

“floss once in awhile”? Have you ever come across a hygenist that has not been grossly militant regarding flossing? In my opinion this really undermines his integrity.

I’d much prefer that he order me to use non-flavored listerine and floss 3 times daily with 14 guage wire than have him simply accept my current dental habits. Some have argued: “but mike d, perhaps your teeth really are perfect.”

Pish Posh. Perfect teeth are plot for fairy tales. no more than that.

Mom: mike, are you going to take your blender with you?
mike d: I have a blender?
Mom: yeah, we got you a blender a long time ago. it’s in the basement. you can take it with you to your new place

I equate this with winning the lottery

dun dun dun

I’m pleased to announce the exciting start to mikedidonato.com.
Like the birth of a child, the creation of this website fills us all with
visions of an exciting future. One full of frequent blog posts,
hilarious comments, and quirky side features that can keep you
entertained for hours.

If you have any suggestions for this site, please feel free and
comment on this particular post to throw in your two cents.

Rock on!