Pittsburgh, PA

We travelled to Pittsburgh, PA this weekend. What a boring ride! Luckily, the destination was worth the long drive.

How sad is this--one of the few motivations for the trip was to visit Ikea. Admittedly, Ikea was very exciting. Of course, when you live in Ithaca, you lose touch of having loads of stores within 30 minutes. Check out the map, particularly the route we travelled.

We stayed with Julie's uncle's family. Saturday night, we had dinner at Atria's, which is where Julie worked to create their awesome dishes. By the way, if you ever find yourself eating at Atria's, you should definitely order the chopped salad. It's amazing!

Cool Shirt

Frank's wife Mary found this shirt this morning which reads "I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself." Now, for those of you who a unfamiliar with the Emo music genre, check out the Wikipedia entry. Emo is short "emotional hardcore," which means that the music contains emotional outbreaks during the performance.

The concept of a music genre is becoming quite blurry as time passes. The rise of so many genres is probably due to people trying to define a new style to distinguish themselves from the crowd.

Anyway, check out the picture of the shirt.

Engaged!

Last night, I asked Julia the BIG question and handed her a wicked awesome rock. No, it's not a cracker jack ring--it's the real deal, believe me. She said yes, so keep Memorial Day weekend free! Mark your calendars.

It turns out that Julie is a closet-Trekkie at heart. A few days ago, I was flipping through the channels and Star Trek: TNG was on G4TV. I expected to hear "NO! Change it!" Instead, she started rattling off the characters names! Halfway through the episode, she acknowledged that she had seen this particular episode--"The Wounded". Anyway, so now you can figure the picture out for yourself.

Do you know Borat?

Borat is a character created by Sacha Baron Cohen. He is a reporter from Kazakhstan sent to the "US and A" to learn about American culture. His adventures are hilarious!

Borat originally had a segment from Da Ali G show on HBO. This November a full feature movie will be released--see the trailer below.

living in a fish tank

Do you have any pets living at your house? We have two cats, George and Seamus, who share the house with us. Yes, if you have pets you understand--you live in your pets' home, not the other way around. By the way, George is orange and white, and Seamus is black and white. The picture to the side was taken last fall. They rarely sleep like this anymore--cooties or soemthing might be the deterrent.

The other day, I was sitting on the floor, and George and Seamus were walking around me. It was like having sharks swimming around you in the water. Anyway, I started to think that having indoor pets is like choosing to live inside a fish tank. If you think about it, it's a pretty good analogy. Now, if I could only find the equivalent of algae-eaters. Oh wait! Julie mentioned that for cats, the algae-eaters are dogs. Yeah, pretty gross.

Here's a picture of a well-known "cat" algae-eater. His name is Bobski. I have spent a couple of weekends with him. If anything, a visit with him is memorable. He specializes in unexpected funiture modfication and occasionally shares his remodelling ideas to his owners while they are away at work. What an amazing animal! He's also had an eye-lid lift. That's right ladies, Bob's had some cosmetic surgery!

Now, I'm not certain if one could say that living with Bob is like living in a fish tank--a little more like a whale tank. But, it is a little amazing to watch animals roam around you while you're sitting still.