My quite-delayed flight back from Boston landed only an hour ago and
I’m now at the office getting caught up on my email and all the other
things I have to do as the holder of the best damned job in town. Some
quick updates:
- Country
fried steak and beer on Friday night for dinner with Wendy. Country
fried steak (a.k.a. chicken fried steak) is an underappreciated
American classic.
- Saturday afternoon wedding ring shopping. Like shopping for a
china pattern, it was a yuppified pre-nuptial ritual I thought I’d hate
but actually enjoyed.
I’m going to check in with Wendy before reporting her choice of wedding
band. For my own band, I’m leaning towards the two-tone style: a little
more flash than typical, but not so flash as to be ridiculous.
Something sort of like this, possibly with the colour scheme inverted:
- Saturday evening dinner with Wendy and “my other Mom and Dad”.
New Englanders, bless ‘em, will gladly eat ice cream even in the dead
of February! That’s civilized.
We talked wedding plans with them, and I have resigned myself to the
fact that I am not getting shot out of a cannon at the ceremony in
September. I’ll have to save it for some anniversary when we renew out
vows. I plan to get shot out out of two cannons then!
- Saturday night belated birthday party for Erin Judge! It was held
at her friend Lisa’s place, a lovely old place with interesting nooks
and crannies bristling with Apple and Sony technologies. “Our place
will be a lot like this,” I told Wendy. I gave Erin the full accordion birthday treatment.
By the way, allow me to offer my belated congratulations to Erin on her
appearance as “Mrs. Lucy Ricardo” on the cover of last fortnight’s Improper Bostonian! The likeness is uncanny.
- Sunday dim sum with the Berkman blogging group. It’s always fun
to see Jessica and the gang, and I’ll never tire of the lobster hat she
wears to those gatherings.
- Sunday afternoon chez Wendy, watching J-Lo and Matthew Modine in The Wedding Planner.
which was on TV. You’re not going to get smarter watching this movie,
but it was fun, and I figure I might as well watch wedding movies,
seeing as I have just over six months of bachelordom left.
- Oscar night! I never watch award shows, except possibly as
background sound while doing something else. Award shows I tend to
treat like most TV or movies: why watch fictional characters do
something interesting when you could do something interesting yourself?
I’d rather spent my dotage recalling the fun I had, not the fun had by
characters on TV shows and movies I watched.
Wendy’s professor Mika came by her place to watch the ceremonies with
us. We were all impressed by Hilary Swank’s very backless dress, and
Chris Rock did a great job poking fun at everyone from Dubya to Michael
Moore (I loved his joke that Michael Moore could’ve done Supersize Me himself, seeing as he’d already done all the research).
I like Carlos Santana, but his riffing was overpowering and superfluous to the song from The Motorcycle Diaries.
I suspect that they got Banderas and Santana to do the song out of fear
that nobody would give a crap about a song in Spanish, but they
should’ve had Jorge Drexler on solo guitar. I guess the Academy didn’t
get that Elliott Smith’s solo performance of Good Will Hunting’s Miss Misery was a hundred times better than the overwrought Celine Dion performance of that execrable Titanic love theme.
It looks as though ther Academy has some sense,after all: they didn’t give “Best Picture” to The Aviator just because it was “about time” Scorsese got an Oscar.
- It’s never any fun saying goodbye to Wendy. I’m looking forward to the day when we go to airports for the purpose of travelling together rather than away from each other.
Gotta go get caught up on work. More later!
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Clearly I need to continue your movie education. That was Matthew McConaughey, as opposed to Modine, in “The Wedding Planner”, the same guy you watched with me on Friday night in “Dazed and Confused” - you know - “I keep getting older, but they stay the same age.” Hehehe.
You can tell ‘em about my potential ring choice.
I hated leaving you at the airport this morning.
I’ve always taken it for granted that the couple got matching rings. Is this a recent thing or has it always been around?
BTW, I imagine you’ll have some comment on the passing of Jef Raskin, e.g.:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/software/40955.html
I think I’m glad you opted not to go for the cannon. I know there’s an excitement to it, and maybe it’s more AKMA’s area of expertise than mine, but I have to confess I’ve never officiated at a wedding which involved a cannon before… *g*
Insert joke based on “cannon/canon” pun here…
Milan beat me to the joke. . . .
I just want to point out that after more than a quarter century, the leaving stuff gets pretty poignant at a whole new pitch. Especially when you’re going to be apart for six weeks or so — not that I’m feeling sorry for myself tonight or anything.
I like that sample ring image a lot as-is, silver-with-gold rather than gold-with-silver. I prefer gold as a garnish, not an entree.
You know, I thought so too, but it turns out that it’s not true.
I had hoped we’d find ones that at least kind of coordinated, and we still may, but what will go with my engagement ring and what will look nice and manly on Joey will have to be quite different.
Poor AKMA.
I think there is also a special difficult-ness to being apart during our engagement. It’s more practical than emotional though. I mean, dude, Joey should have had to listen to the florist ramble for two hours on a double dose of migraine medication too! But seriously, I empathize. The phone, as opposed to the beloved, next to one’s pillow just isn’t enough.
So your wedding ring won’t have “One Ring to Rule Them All” engraved in elvish around the band, then?
We are honoring a bunch of different traditions regarding our wedding, and one of those is that the ring have no discernable beginning or end.
Of course, that’s not why.
It might be possible to get Scott “Inversions” Kim to write the Elvish in his trademarked symmetrical way so that the ring had no beginning nor end, but having Scott Kim and Lord of the Rings on the same ring might be too much nerdiness packed into one place.
Raises the question: can one have a canon about a cannon?
bnk
I’ll probably opt for white gold as opposed to silver. The coloruing’s close, and gold doesn’t tarnish (which is why electrical contacts are gold-plated, even though silver is cheaper and a better conductor).
Ouch.
Joey,
Dunno about you, but when I looked for a wedding ring I had very specific requirements…
1) not too gaudy
2) something slightly unusual
3) practical when typing a lot.
I finally went for a style of ring called “curtain ring” this is a plain ring with a circular profile, so it is a classic torus. was quite popular in the 19th century but not seen so much now.
So many mens wedding rings are very wide and so can cause a problem when typing. I did not want to have to keep taking it off…