General

411: Hosting my first dinner party in months. Listening to: James Brown covering “Georgia On My Mind” It’s Matsutake season. To be more accurate, it’s the end of the season, which lasts only about a month. Notice how that doesn’t induce any weird reaction in you. That’s because you’re not Japanese. At my favorite Japanese…

411: Guiltily swilling my martini and puffing a stogie. Listening to: Public Enemy, “911 is a joke” I just learned about a cottage industry of companies that buy up defaulted debts of poor countries and then attempt to foreclose on the assets of that country around the world. If you’re Pakistan and your economy is…

411: Fogging up the glass display case at Cakelove Listening to: The sweet sweet sound of a ’97 Honda Civic before I talk it’s owner into buying after-market exhaust I just had “the chicken“. It was good. It took me an hour to find the place, and then I waited in line for forty minutes…

411: On Boston metro T train, in town for a wedding Listening to: The conductor (quoted exactly below), since the batteries in my iPOD are dead. Next stop, Fenway Park! Ya’ know, whenever I go by Fenway, I think of my father, and how he used to take me to the games at Fenway when…

411: Changing planes in Charlottesville… I’ve been traveling for 12 days. I left 12 days ago to go to Boston to see Sarah, and then I got the funeral call. When I left the funeral, it was Wednesday, and I thought it silly to fly back to DC and then fly up to Boston 12…

I recently logged over 100 entries, covering several years of my life, so a little soul-searching is appropriate. And, of course, I need a place to put this quality photo at right of Matthew Lesko. People know that I blog. This isn’t a problem. I actually tell people I blog in the hopes that they’ll…

411: Crossing the Mighty Mississippi in a rental car, Kid Rock blaring, ignoring the casinos (which don’t have poker rooms anyway) “All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you.” A bunch of different things have converged in the last few days, as I pondered what…

Watching: Discovery’s “World Poker Tour” off the Tivo Last night I dropped by Tono Sushi with an out of town guest. Sitting at the bar with Alan, we were looking forward to head chef Hiro’s creativity. In that photo, Hiro’s the guy on the far left. (It’s not unusual to see Hiro run back to…

I hate to say it, but my dentist is a pretty good guy. I don’t mind going to see him. Well, let me rephrase that. I don’t mind having my dentist take an ice pick to my teeth every six months because I believe it’s less painful than periodontal surgery, or the grief that would…

I spend a lot of time on airplanes nowadays. I caught the commuter flight from Logan to National last night. I asked for and got the window seat, which is the best thing in the world. I never understand people who aren’t drawn to that view. Astronauts go to school and train for years of…