Someone needs to have twins so I have an excuse to buy these shirts.

This has been your daily dose of cute.

I love the smell of pizza and wings in the evening. Smells like victory.

Tonight we squared off against the three other teams to make the Trivia Final and we came away victorious! It was a really nice evening. The Windber Hotel treated all of us to a delicious pizza and wing buffet (yum city) and all the other teams were gracious, polite opponents. Awesomely, no cheater teams made the final.

This was a competition where our whole team pulled together to bring the win. Some highlights of the night were Travis whipping out the answer "sublimation" for a science question (yeah, I have no idea) and Brian burying his pain over Carolina's loss to Kentucky to answer a Datsun car question.

And I may regret this, but let me just announce to the world that the name of the ocean liner in The Love Boat was the Pacific Princess. Remember that. That question gets asked a lot in trivia contests and board games, and it netted us our first point of the evening.

"Love, exciting and new... Come aboard, we're expecting yoooouuuuuuuu...."

Trivia Night!

Sorry to those of you who have been waiting with baited breath for a Trivia Night update. Here it is.

This past Monday was the final week of regular competition for the tournament. We didn't win but we ended the evening still in first place overall, thanks in part to a round on PA trivia which Jess rocked like a hurricane. When Jess realized it was an entire round of her favorite trivia, she gushed like an Oscar winner and shrieked, "I am so HAPPY!" It was, quite frankly, hilarious, and she got 9 out of 10 on that round.

The final for the tournament is this Sunday. The top four teams will convene for a pizza party and combat to the death. Or something like that. It should be epic.

Oh, so there's this annoying girl from another team who sometimes talks to my sisters. I can't remember her name, so I call her "the annoying girl." Anway, she asked us at the beginning of the night on Monday if we were going to make it to the final. Melis told her that unless we had a total meltdown we'd make it and she replied, "Oh, well if you guys will make it in then we should too." As though her team was far superior to ours, which, whatever. I politely told her she should be sure to check the standings list to see if her team would make it to the final. I didn't mention that when she did check the list she'd see that our team was in first place and hers was in eleventh. I thought I'd let her find that out on her own.

Also, the cheater team I mentioned last week had NINE people at their table this week, when seven is maximum allowed. Travis is a math teacher and he's always hoping for a round of math-based questions that he can kill at. I was like, "Here's a math question for you: what's 7 plus 2?" Ooh, I was hoppin' mad. Yeah, that's right. Hoppin' mad.

Today!

Filming on The Hobbit finally began! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Pics are here.

Bag End looks lovely as ever, even with those Sackville-Bagginses sniffing around.

Tonight!

Tonight is the final week of regular tournament competition at Trivia Night, in which the four teams that will advance to the final will be chosen. Barring a soap-operatic bout of amnesia hitting every single person on our team, we're a lock. But I'm intrigued to find out who our competition will be. Those three lucky teams will join us next weekend for a pizza party and the final showdown.

I'm excited, both because the WH's pizza is good, and because I haven't been to a pizza party since 5th grade.

March Meat Meal

Pork roast with sauerkraut, dumplings, and mashed potatoes.

My quest to conquer my fear of raw meat continues. It wasn't pretty. While I didn't have to brown this roast, getting it into the roaster was a saga. It was unwieldy and there was a fair amount of squealing and shrieking with disgust until I was able maneuver it. But the result was worth it. It smells like New Year's Day in here.

Wow. I am old. And I love it.

Today (well, technically yesterday) I came home from work exhausted, so I took a 5 hour nap. Now it's two in the morning and I am watching an infomercial for the Time Life Easy 80s CD collection. And can I tell you? It is awesome. I have been watching for 20 minutes and I have yet to hear a song that isn't already on my iPod.

Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Kool and the Gang. Ooh, there's Jack Wagner singing "All I Need," and now we've got Lionel Ritchey in the world's sparkliest jacket singing "Hello." I am having the best time!

She does not know which are the best warehouses.

Just when I thought I was past the point of finding new things in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I just noticed that Lydia is wearing red shoes to her wedding.

And isn't that just like Lydia? Shoes as scandalous as the wedding itself.

Cheaters do prosper. They get free wing dings.

I certainly know how he'd handle this.

In our Trivia Night exploits we have encountered many delightful things. Camaraderie, delicious stromboli, the sweet taste of victory, and free appetizers purchased with the gift certificates we won. There is one thing, however, that we do not enjoy: The cheating. The blatant cheating.

There are various tournament rules applied to Trivia Night, the first one being that you shall only have seven members on your team. Several teams routinely break this rule (It’s rule #1, people.), having eight and sometimes nine people present. It’s obnoxious and, frankly, insulting. And the management has demonstrated a total inability to curb this activity.

Instead of getting angry about it, I have thus far chosen to adopt a Mr. Bennettish air of derisive detachment. For example, when they announced that our team got 9 points out of 10 in Round One and a cheater team got a mere 5, I snidely remarked, “Hmmm. Eight people and only 5 points. How disgraceful.” And this snide derision had been enough to sustain us. That is, until the top three teams tied for first place last night and we entered into a bonus tie-breaker round. A few extraneous people from other losing teams decided to shuffle over to one of the tiebreaker teams and join them for the tiebreaker round.

Yes, you read that correctly. Not only too many people, but ringers from other teams! (Although I don’t know if someone from a losing team could technically be called a “ringer”, but you get my point.) The brazenness of their cheating even upset Brian, and we had had just about all we could take, so Melis shouted across the bar, in the righteous voice of the enraged, “Hey! Guys! You’re not on their team!” And when the cheating cheaters didn’t respond, she shouted again, “Hey! Stop helping them. You’re not on their TEAM!”

Now, if you’re reading this and you’re a member of my family, you understand completely her reaction and can only wonder at her restraint in not flinging jalapeno poppers across the barroom. And you know that, at our family gatherings, game-playing infractions far inferior to this would get you tossed out into the dark Pennsylvania night, post-haste. Jessica, Kevin, and Travis, however, are not quite as hardcore as the rest of us. They were... shall we say mortified? Kevin pulled his hat down around his ears and I think Jessica actually retreated into her scarf. I’m not sure what Travis did because I was concentrating on trying to set the cheating team’s beers aflame with only the power of my furious gaze as Melis demanded for a third time that they STOP.

So imagine for a moment my disgust when the cheater team won the bonus round. Life is so unfair sometimes. My only comfort is that their dismal performance in the tournament overall will keep them out of the final round, and our hefty lead is still quite hefty.

Still, I can’t help hoping they choke on the appetizers they order with that first place gift certificate. Wretched, wretched cheaters.

CORRECTION: I've recently been informed that I was incorrect. Kevin was NOT mortified. In fact, he was screaming along with Melissa. Awesome.

"Hoobastank is here! No? No."

I think Zach G has taken a place alongside Christopher Walken and Jon Hamm in the pantheon of SNL hosts that I really, really love.

I declare he is a delight.

The way you were was headache-inducing.

Yeah, I'm gonna need an Excedrin after this.

I just watched The Way We Were for the first time and, can anyone tell me, did you find this movie as insufferable as I did? I'm thinking specifically of the Katie character. She was shrill and immature and whiny and every wretched adjective. I have so much stress in my shoulders from hunching over in disgust. And I'm so disappointed because I thought I was going to be treated to a classic love story, which is just the thing for a cold, rainy evening. Oh, I was so played.

I want to know, was this film really the classic it's often hailed as? Because, if so, it's aged about as well as a beach party movie. Or was it really never that great to begin with? Is it one of those movies that's totally overrated but nobody wants to say it?

The famed (and lovely) song is the best thing about it, by far. It is much like Cats in this way. I was so happy when it ended half an hour earlier than my DVR told me it would. I kept checking the timer and I thought I would die. Blessed, blessed credits.

Do you hear the popstars sing?

So, this week at Trivia (where we’re still womping the competition, BTW) Jess, Melis, and I discovered that we had all been watching the 25th Anniversary Les Miserables in concert that PBS was showing the night before. We all agreed it was delightful and the musical is amazing and we’re shocked it’s been 25 years since its debut. Then followed this conversation:

Melis: (incredulously) Did you see who Marius was? It was Nick Jonas.

Ali: You know what? I thought that. I thought, “The new Marius looks like one of those Jonas boys, but surely he can’t actually be one of those Jonas boys because, well, obviously.”

Melis: Well, he was. He’s Nick Jonas.

Ali: Are you certain about that? That doesn’t seem right.

Melis: Allison, it was Nick Jonas.

Ali: I’m just going to check to be sure.

(looks up article on Google)

Ali: Oh my, you’re right! It was. It was indeed Nick Jonas!

Melis: You didn’t believe me?

Ali: I wanted to check.

Melis: You didn’t believe me.

Ali: I thought perhaps you had a read an article in which someone said, “Gee, the new Marius looks a lot like Nick Jonas” and you, being tired and bleary-eyed, got confused.

Melis: No.

Ali: I thought that scenario was more plausible than Nick Jonas actually being the new Marius.

Melis: You didn’t believe me!

Ali: It’s Nick Jonas!

Melis: (gives me the hairy eyeball)

So, that went well. Also, after that conversation, I’m dangerously close to being able to tell the Jonas Brothers apart. I’m not sure what to do with that.

I KNOW, right?

This was my favorite part: the curtain call where four Valjeans (including the original, Colm Wilkinson)
sang "Bring Him Home" together.

One more step away from slackerdom...

Today Mom finally taught me to make sauce. I suppose it was high time I stopped getting my sauce fix at my parents' house and just learned to do this on my own. I am, at least in theory, an adult.

You know that wonderful aroma that fills the house when you walk in and your mom's making a big batch of sauce? I will now be able to replicate that childhood bliss in my own home. So that's awesome.

Laziness accusations in the comments from cousins who have been doing this for years already or those who just like to be snarky (I'm looking right at you, James) are unnecessary. I am fully aware of my indolence.

Attention BSG fans! So, basically, James.

Aaaaaahahhhhhhh! Big news!

So, I heard Ron Moore was doing a new show and I pricked my ears up.

Then I heard that Jamie Bamber would be joining the cast, and I was delighted.

Then I heard that James Callis would also be joining the cast and I got really excited.

NOW I hear that Tricia Helfer is joining and I am just plain freaking out.

Apollo! Baltar! Six! Aaaaaaahhhhhhh! Can I get some Aaron Douglas in here? This is too awesome. This is like if Andre Braugher, Kyle Secor, and Clark Johnson got together with Paul Attanasio to make a show. About homicide detectives. In Baltimore. This is fantastic news, is what I am saying.

The only thing that could possibly go wrong is that it's on NBC. With the way they mismanaged Southland, I just don't trust them. Jack Donaghy agrees with me.

Please do not watch this if you're in a location where it would be unseemly to guffaw.

Swedish director Johannes Nyholm made a short film about a middle-aged woman getting smashed and trashing a bar while on vacation. Cast in the starring role? His baby.

It's the clip-on earrings and fanny pack that really make it work.

Final Cake

I had my last cake class last night and I must say I'm happy to be done. I'm tired of all this baking, and by the time I leave class I feel like I'm covered in sugary frosting. But it was fun and I learned a lot, like how to pipe borders and make drop flowers. I also learned that I'm terrible at ribbon roses, but I've made peace with that.

Jules was delighted to see her name on a cake and exclaimed, "It's my cake. Can I taste some icing?" So I let her sticker fingers in it because I can deny her nothing.