With Lent over, nothing’s holding me back.

Last night I had:
Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake
Chocolate Covered Strawberries
and White Challa Bread Pudding

Desserts fit for a king.

Yesterday I was hoping for some APO visitors from WPI. Sadly, they had to cancel. But, as a result I made 7 pounds of the most delicious pulled pork ever. It’s so tender and amazing. It’s the kind of meat that I think would turn Rick Richter away from the dark side of vegetarianism.

Vegetarianism. We omnivores tend to look down on you lowly green eaters. Yet really? I don’t know why. I don’t THINK most vegetarians scorn their meat eating friends. Except for those super liberal extreme vegetarians (warning: stereotype) who don’t take showers or shave.

Perhaps I will stop poking fun at my leaf loving friends. I’ve gotten a lot better in the past few months. I have recently embraced soy products as a source of protein and I no longer mock tofu. But… I do still occasionally sneak into the houses of vegetarians at night and vandalize their vegetables with pro-meat slogans.

Jill and I were standing in the checkout line at a Mens Clothing store. Jill noticed a cologne on the rack named Pi.

Jill: ooh look. Pi cologne.
mike d: neat. That’s about as geeky as a cologne can get. I like it.
Jill: I wonder what it smells like. numbers? Calculators?

Once again, my favorite economist has written an article for MSN slate, enjoy it here.

Today has been very strange. I started the day be de-boning a pork loin. Have you ever de-boned a pork loin? it’s a huge task. First, thaw the meat as much as possible. Then pull out the cleaver and hack away at the mass until your fingers are icy cold and there’s meat and fat everywhere. Finally throw the whole thing in the crock pot and leave for the day.

After de-boning, I came to work and had the pleasure of putting away about 50 ancient drawings in the archives. I whistled the Mario Bros theme music to keep myself entertained.

And now, I sit, snacking on chocolate. Trying to figure out why some mechanical drawings are way outta whack.

Well, Firstly, I think I should point out that my WPTopsite position has taken a serious dive. But, don’t worry friends. I will continue to edit my banner as often as possible even when I’m at a lackluster #3.

Secondly, Lent is over. And now I am free to consume all those things which I so desperately wanted during the last 40 days. I’ve already had a substantial amount of chocolate and desserts.

And Lastly, I’m going to try to reach a new level of super-activity for the next few weeks. Running, climbing, lifting, speedbagging… it’s going to be epic.

Here’s a photo of Bono singing in front of the Boston Pops. That’s my sister’s head eerily floating in John William’s hands.

A few months back my sister Alicia performed with Elton John at Foxboro during the opening of the patriots football season.

That’s my sister playing the flute on the left. That’s Elton John rallying the crowds on the right.

I think that picture is awesome.

I finally put together all my finances and handed in a HUGE packet of receipts, print outs, and forms to my boss.

mike d: “Tom, I’ve finally put my expense reports together.” (pulls out huge stack of papers and throws them on desk)
Tom: “oh God!”
mike d: “this one’s from Kentucky, this one’s from Georgia, this is another one from Georgia, and these two are phone bills from last October and August respectively.”
Doug (from adjacent cube): “tell him that you were planning on investing in gas futures with the money before the explosion in Texas and that for every day that passes until he gets your refund, you are demanding 500% interest to compensate for lost profits”

I had a dream last night. And it was bizarre.

I was in a stadium. I was there with Jill and my family, and I have no idea what we were planning to see.

While we were there, a newscast came on informing us that the Earth was being invaded by aliens. Suddenly a huge alien bomb explosion ripped apart part of the Earth and gravity got all weird. The Aliens, wearing creepy white space masks, started landing and pouring through the stadium which had turned into a strange steel tubing compound.

Enter the USArmy.

An epic firefight began. Aliens killing Americans, Americans killing Aliens. But, then something unexpected happened. The moon crashed into the Earth.

Every once in awhile there’s a scene in a movie that is so awesomely explosive that everyone remembers it. The destruction of the death star in Star Wars, the Aliens destroying the White House in Independence day, the tragic death of Jack in Titanic… really the examples are endless. But nothing compares with this dream. Never have I seen something so awesome as the Moon crashing into Earth. I tried making an MSPaint image of the action, and I couldn’t do it justice. So you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Anyway, back to the dream.

The Earth broke up into pieces, with lava exploding forth all around us, and chunks of earth flying off into space. The continent sized chunk that we were on broke off and started flying through space. As we hurtled away I couldn’t help but wonder why the atmosphere hadn’t desolved. And with that, I woke up.

Today I’d like to review and compare two documentaries that I’ve recently seen, “Born Into Brothels” and “Gunner Palace”, hereby referred to as BIB and GP.

BIB caught my attention even before the Oscars. I saw the preview before “Hotel Rwanda” and thought it looked fascinating: woman goes to Calcutta, teaches children of the lowest caste to take artistic photos. Will the children rise up and out of their poverty? If only for the exploration of how art brings beauty into life, it looked worthwhile.

So Nancy, Hadas, and I checked it out after a fine meal at Pho Lemon (spicy curry tofu, yum). I left the theater with more complaints that praise, however. BIB did show that art lifts us up. But the documentary was not art itself: shaky camera work made it hard to view, and incomplete background information made for confusion during the first half of the show. Where exactly was this taking place? How long had the filmmaker been there? And differentiating between the children became a little difficult, especially when some of the girls happened to look alike.

Believe it or not, I don’t feel that BIB truly showed the destitution of the brothels of Calcutta. The shots were not wide and didn’t fully encompass the area. One did become emotionally involved with the kids, though, especially with Avijit, the boy whose artistic talent brings him prizes and good fortune, only to be held back by the confusion of the Indian bureaucracy. (By the way, at first I totally spelled bureaucracy wrong. That’s a tricky word to spell!) The ending was not quite an ending, since life never has an ending when you’re right in the middle of it; I was saddened but not surprised by some of the epilogues. On the other hand, there were a few children who surprised me in their tenacity and ability to get out of their situations. Even though BIB won the Oscar for best documentary, I wouldn’t recommend seeing it, unless it’s on video and you really, really enjoy photography.

GP was a movie I didn’t expect to enjoy, but I actually did. It was made a year ago, and thus it was filmed before most of the American casualties in Iraq had occurred. GP is a picture of the lives of soldiers in Iraq, one that hadn’t been presented as well in “Fahrenheit 9/11.” This was less of a political missive and more of a video diary of Charlie Battery, a group of soldiers who live in and work out of a decrepit old palace in Baghdad. They have a pool, a band, and some parties, but for the most part, they spend their days in fear that an IED on the street will blow up their poorly armored vehicles. They break into houses at night, searching out members of Hussein’s party; sometimes civilly, sometimes violently. The variety of people serving over there was fascinating: women and men, people of all ethnic backgrounds. I thought the film portrayed quite well the different reactions the soldiers receive from the Iraqi people — some help and serve as translators and informants, some join groups that are being trained to police Baghdad (”Only for the money,” said one soldier), some throw rocks and build bombs and aim to get Americans out.

I got bored a couple times during the movie, but I think that’s because the soldiers’ lives actually get a little rote at times. There were a couple things that stuck with me — first, a soldier commented that he doesn’t feel like he’s protecting the USA anymore - he’s now concerned with protecting himself. And at the end of the documentary, we learn that a few soldiers we met in the previous eighty minutes have died in various altercations.

I recommend “Gunner Palace.” It’s very easy to forget that 1500 American military have died in Iraq already — these are our fellow citizens, and their stories should be heard, whether one agrees with the war or not.

last night I went food shopping. I was in the produce section filling up one of those little plastic bags with broccoli crowns, when I turned around and my shopping cart was gone.

Did someone take my food?

Instead there was another cart, with different food; notably, a pineapple and a bag full of poorly chosen bananas. I looked around, no one was in sight.

Was my food abducted?

I hastily rushed down the aisles surrounding the produce section. nothing…? I only had my back turned for a moment, how could someone have so skillfully switched carts with me. I speed walked down aisle after aisle looking in people’s carts. Wait! There! by the toothpaste. A cart filled with produce including two ripe bananas and a bag of 8 perfect oranges.

“excuse me, I don’t mean to be a bother,” I said, “but I think you may have taken my cart by mistake?”
“oh! I’m sorry! I do that all the time,” the confused woman replied, “where did I leave mine?”
“back in produce.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. produce… imagine that.”

I really don’t know how she was so speedy in escaping the produce section. Perhaps my broccoli selection process is more in depth than I imagined, or perhaps this cart switch was no mistake at all. Perhaps she recognized my superior skills in the art of produce selection and wanted to rob me of the highest quality fruits and veggies. If so, she underestimated the bond I share with my cart. I am a shopping fiend.

Evie and Micah (aren’t they Vermont? cute?) have invited me to play guitar at their upcoming wedding.

They are expecting me to play a nice quiet Pachabel’s Cannon. But I think it’d be much cooler to bust out Led Zepplin’s “whole lotta love” (MP3) during the procession. Not only is the song fitting, but I think it would make the whole wedding more memorable.

Then, after the vows are exchanged, I whip out Barry White’s “Can’t get enough of your love” (MP3) for the recessional. Just close your eyes for a second and picture the audience congregation swaying to the sweet musical rhythms of B.White. Oh man. That’d be great.

Best of luck to Micah and Evie!
(interesting fact: The website that reached its peak in 2001, www.emode.com, put Evie and I at a 94% compatability after we took the relationship quiz. For this reason, we consider each other soulmates. Should that day arise when Evie gets frustrated with Micah, I will be there waiting.)

I’m thinking about talking to the rock climbing gym manager guy to see if they need any extra workers on weekends.

Pluses & Minuses

PLUS! I think they do need extra people on the weekends
PLUS! working at a rockclimbing gym would instantly increase my coolness by 2 points
MINUS! Work already takes a huge amount of time and is obviously my first priority. Would I have time for rock responsibilities?
MINUS! I would hate for this job to intefere with my Jill visits
MINUS! I would also hate for this job to intefere with future band gigs
PLUS! workers get free membership, thus providing a potential for HUGE savings (upwards of $700 a year)
PLUS! I love rockclimbing so much

those are my thoughts.

Tonight I Climbed My First 5.11

update: in climbing the 5.11, I managed to seriously smack my left knee which has swollen considerably and hurts quite badly.

mike d: did you see my mikedidonato.com wallpaper?
jill: yeah. you have no mouth
mike d: I put the mouth in, and decided it looked weird. so I took it out.
jill: you also look weirdly fat.
mike d: I was suppose to look muscular.
jill: nope. fat.

The Question

Shaun,

I have another question! Can you ever accumulate such a large buildup of static electricity that when you touch something metal, you will receive a serious electric shock? Like, SERIOUS shock?

Your curious sister,

Meghan

Comment by Meghan McQuaid — 1/25/2005 @ 3:10 pm

(more…)

I was checking out Jonabad’s site when I saw his link to Racinglimos.com

As I zipped through the site I saw something of interest, racinglimos wallpaper. “I should have a wallpaper.” I thought to myself.

And so I made this: Wallpaper.

It’s 1024 by 768. Now, you can wake up every day to mike d saving the day by right clicking on the image and choosing ’set as background’

Here’s a picture of the route I was describing in an earlier post. I’ve circled each of the usable holds in small orange circles.

That, my friends, is an exciting route.

Today I went climbing with Pindar, and I tried an even more exciting climb. Perhaps I’ll get some pictures on Monday when I return to the gym.

I am suffering through a mild bout of insomnia. For the past week I’ve had a hard time falling asleep before midnight or 1am despite being extremely tired. Then after a fitfull few hours I wake up around 5 and can’t fall back asleep.

This is very unlike me. I think tonight I will make an extra effort to calm myself and start the relaxing process early in an effort to kill the sleeplessness.

::yawn::

The Battle

Shortly after sharing a McDonalds lunch with Godzilla, the 50 foot tall Kurt outfitted himself in Halo armor and went after his true target. Godzilla led Kurt back to his lair thinking they would partake in a fun game of Yahtzee but instead Kurt pulled out a gun and blasted away Godzilla’s best friend. As the purple beast collapsed, the children of the world let out a cheer so loud and full of happiness that the joy manifested itself as a shield for Kurt and protected him against Godzilla’s nuclear breath.

Secrets

this weekend another season change will occur. Thus, it’s time to reflect on the direction of mikedidonato.com

I think I need a new format. Something a little more professional without sacrificing one ounce of Microsoft Paint. As I scan through the many websites of WPTopsite I notice a driving trend of ‘these people are definitely more skilled than I in the world of webpage stuff.’

Despite this, I think mikedidonato.com will triumph because of MSPaint and good natured rocking.

Speaking of which, you can expect the Kurt/Godzilla MSPaint battle soon.

I’m back from Georgia! My flight was delayed numerous times, and I have a new loathing of airports.

I’m glad to be home. specifically, I’m glad to be able to return to a regular weekly schedule. It’ll be nice to get back into climbing, home improving, and rocking. Needless to say, I need some good rocking. ‘The incident’(see previous post) was a major blow to my manhood and I need to regain my previous level of cool. I will do so by listening to Jimmy Hendrix nonstop for the next 96 hours while eating hot dogs and beans, pumping iron, watching basketball, and flossing my teeth with a power saw.

I’ll probably take the pink flower out of my hair too and put on some jeans instead of this yellow ‘country girl’ dress.

I have taken a severe blow on the WPTopsite site. I suspect this is also a result of ‘the incident’. So after you feel comfortable that I have returned to the same level of awesome as before, hit the icon in the upper right and vote your soul away. There’s a title that needs to be regained. As soon as mikedidonato.com finds its way to the top again, I will throw up a new exciting MSPaint banner.

Lord help me!

Today, as I peeled my banana, I absentmindedly sang a line from a new song by Lee Ann Womack.

Lee Ann Womack is a… ::gasp:: …country singer.

please kill me now, I am shamed beyond repair.