We were supposed to go to a Buffy singalong tonight, but my brilliant sister-in-law didn’t go to buy the tickets until Thursday night, and of course they were sold out. So we’re going to see the Harry Potter movie instead. I also finally redesigned my Sidekick 3 skin; the first one came out really bad and satisfaction is guaranteed so I wrote to them, mailed back the bad one, and got a coupon for a free replacement. The front is going to look like this now.

Also, we went to the Original Pancake House today and had yummy pancakes - I got Chocolate Chip and A got buckwheat with pecans. I had never been to the Falls Church location; tikva and I went to the Rockville one a couple of times. I took some Alli before the pancakes; I’m giving it a try. A’s been using it for a little while but I am not sure if I will want to do it forever.

Today I got my annual serving of fried Oreos. I get them once a year at our town’s little fair, which is held on Memorial Day weekend. They are terrible, and I’m certain they are bad for you, but I have to get them every year. It’s $4 for six deep-fried cookies. They come covered in powdered sugar, which this year I got all over myself because I was eating them in the car on the way to the movies. Mmm, deep-fried Oreo goodbadness.

Yesterday, Saturday, was such a wonderful day. It started out when I overslept by an hour, but I hit the road and drove into the city to meet eyes_of_cyrene at her hotel. I got there at about 11:30, valet-parked the car, and spent the next 16 hours with one of my best friends, who I don’t get to see very often because she lives in Iowa! First we got something to eat, and went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and did some shopping at Filene’s Basement, where I got a new purse. We went back to her hotel and chatted for a while, and then we went to dinner in Chinatown. She taught me about beer! I have no idea what all I had - this was at RFD and we got lots of samples - but the one I liked the best basically tasted like raspberry juice. (She said - “yeah, except this will get you drunk!”)

We had leftovers when we were done with dinner, so we were going to take them up to the room and then go back down to the hotel bar for another drink. But she realized she’d forgotten her hat at the restaurant, so we went back and picked it up, and then went to the hotel bar. I ordered a “chocolate covered cherries” drink, and I remember it had Godiva liqueur and Smirnoff Black Cherry Twist in it, but there was something else that I don’t remember. Oh, and at no time during the night did I get carded - Gretchen said it was because we were signing, and they assumed I was deaf, and they didn’t want to deal with asking for my ID. (Or hey, I didn’t get carded Friday night either, maybe I finally look old enough to not get carded?) Anyway, we also got shots of the new Bailey’s Flavors…the caramel was very good but the mint chocolate was nothing to write home about.

When the hotel bar closed, we went back to her room and chatted for another couple of hours, and then we took a three-hour nap before it was time to get up so I could take her to the airport! Oh my god, I had such a fabulous time. I seriously did not want to take her to the airport…I wanted to keep her here! I don’t have a huge number of people that I am really close to, and virtually none of them live in the DC area. I had so much fun.

The Burger King “Manthem” commercial is back on TV, almost identical to its spring 2006 version. And it’s time for me to add my voice to those of many other bloggers who have expressed their dislike for this ad spot.

Although I have been a vegetarian since 1993, my dislike for this ad has nothing to do with the Texas Double Whopper burger itself or the I Eat Meat slogan. Many people eat meat, that’s fine with me if that’s what they want to do. My dislike stems from the appropriation of Helen Reddy’s 1972 song I Am Woman, which was used as an anthem for the women’s liberation movement which was just taking flight around that time. And even though Reddy herself said that it was a “general empowerment song,” the fact is that it is specifically about the gender divide and Burger King has cruelly twisted the song’s history. How many young Americans are not familiar with that song? Do they think it’s a catchy jingle? How many think it’s a good perversion of a classic protest anthem? Would they be so willing to endorse a corporate-generated version of “We Shall Overcome” if it was written to sell hamburgers?

Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that peanut butter is truly my favorite food. Here’s the recipe for my birthday cake - it came out delicious.

PEANUT BUTTER CAKE
1 pkg. Betty Crocker Moist Butter cake mix (I got triple chocolate fudge)
18 oz. creamy peanut butter
2 c. sugar
2 c. boiling water
Cake - prepare cake mix as directed. Makes 4 thin 9 inch layers, cool. (we made two layers)
Icing - Mix peanut butter, sugar and boiling water. Blend well. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture begins to bubble. Cook for 20 minutes until mixture is smooth and creamy. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Stir while cooling. The icing will have a glossy finish. When cooled spread on cake.

• I inadvertently clicked on ModBlog in my feed reader, even though I’m still at work, but I went ahead and looked anyway - the pictures were already downloaded. I’m glad I did, because I noticed that I’m linked to in a post made on the 10th. A bunch of the people I nominated for Bloggies left comments on that post, but Shannon apparently felt it was worth a blog post of its own. The ensuing conversation is a little confusing, though. Some people don’t seem to realize that I am just a nobody, making preliminary nominations. If those nominations weren’t already closed, everybody who reads ModBlog could have run out and nominated it too. I do think it’s a good topical blog, that’s why I nominated it…if I only nominated blogs I thought would win, every category would be full of Dooce.
• I finally woke up for the day around 3:00pm.
• I found a pho place that apparently has vegetarian pho! At least these reviews seem to think so. We used to go to Scent of Saigon which is pretty near home, but one day we went there for dinner and it was a Thai restaurant. Everybody else uses beef broth. We’re going to try out Pho Bac on Monday, though - it’s near A’s work, and she has work on Monday but I don’t, so we’re going to go there for lunch. I also got a recipe for vegan pho from my friend Ryan, who writes VegBlog. If Pho Bac doesn’t pan out, we’ll try making it at home.
• Diet Hot Chocolate Delight: 1 pkt Diet Swiss Miss hot chocolate (made with water) + 3 pkts Splenda + 3/4oz Godiva chocolate liqueur + 1oz Walden Farms chocolate syrup. It wasn’t too bad for about 100 calories. It would be more if you used regular chocolate syrup or non-diet hot chocolate, of course.

Tonight we went to Tortilla Flats for dinner; we made sure to mention to the manager on duty that their website was broken. We ordered a pitcher of margaritas, though, so I am quite funny right now. What’s amazing is that I won bingo! They have trivia nights on Sundays, and I sort-of won that once before but there was a tie so I made our friend C chug the beer for mee, but tonight was bingo night and I won that outright. What’s amazing is that it was free to participate, as opposed to the only other time I play bingo ever, which is on a cruise ship and NOT free.

I had filled up on hoppin’ john earlier in the day and I wasn’t planning to eat, but after a margarita and a half, the chips and salsa weren’t enough and I ended up ordering nachos (which were nowhere near as good as I was expecting). But it was fun to win bingo; in addition to a plastic lei and a round of tequila shots for my table, I also got an Ernest Borgnine Night t-shirt (apparenly he patronizes that restaurant) and a “Big Bingo Winner” Tequila Flats t-shirt, which was the only prize I’m actually happy to have won - even though nobody back home will know what Tortilla Flats is.

Anyway, boroparkpyro called while we were at the restaurant, and we’re having lunch tomorrow before my 3:00pm bus. Hopefully he didn’t detect on the phone that I’d already had a couple of margaritas, and doesn’t think I’m crazy! Tonight was fun and lunch tomorrow should be too.

I really wanted to go to Tasti-D-Lite after dinner, but I was persuaded to settle for a pint of ice cream from a deli, because of how drunk I still am.

• I have been watching The Lost Room on Sci-Fi. It is ultra-good, but I am going to miss tonight’s CSI:NY because of it, which makes me sad because tonight’s episode is heavily deaf-themed. But The Lost Room is just that good.
• My new addiction is Sugar Free Chocolate & Caramel Creme Savers, by the people who make Life Savers. Just 9 calories each and SO good…they taste like chocolate pudding! I think I am eating more than I should be in a day, though.
• I no longer want to win Blingo movie tickets. I used to get a bunch of them, but I hadn’t in a while until yesterday. I was given the choice of a movie ticket or a $10 iTunes card, and I chose the former; I should have chosen the latter. They don’t send movie vouchers in the mail anymore - you have to pick what movie you want to see, and what showing, and then you put in a code and print out the ticket. I pretty much never know what movie I’m going to see in advance; the old way was much more convenient. I sent the code to an unemployed friend in NYC, who will get more bang for the buck than I would have.
• Nobody has tagged me on 43 People. Tag me? I need to be classified! (And if you want to meet me, put that down too.)

If you buy a Coke product with a “My Coke Rewards” logo and you’re not planning to redeem it yourself, please pass the code along to me as I am trying to collect them. I don’t usually go for this kind of thing but for some reason I felt the urge to participate.

One of the great commercial flops of the early 1990’s was Crystal Pepsi. Only seven years after the failure of Coca-Cola’s “New Coke” formulation, PepsiCo got the idea to market a cola drink with no coloring. The product was original: existing clear sodas were usually lemon-lime, like Sprite and 7-Up, rather than cola-flavored. But despite an aggressive marketing campaign, Crystal Pepsi went flat as quickly as - well, soda.
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