October 31, 2008 by karen Jack-o-lanterns + Obama + musical montage? It’s like this video was made for the dork in me! Check it out:
I mean, they’re no meat-o-lanterns, but they’re still pretty rad. Download the stencils here to get your own Obama lantern.
Via Not Martha
Posted in Photos on the go 
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October 26, 2008 by karen 
This weekend we were supposed to head out to Long Island for our annual pumpkin picking outing for my Mom’s birthday. It’s super fun and we tend to eat everything in sight at the farm (roasted corn, apples, lemonade, hot dogs, cotton candy, baked goods) and then we go home and eat even more for the actual birthday dinner. When the feasting is finished, we pack our pudgy selves into the car and roll on back to Brooklyn armed with pumpkins to carve. Unfortunately, this year the event was canceled due to the rainy weather.
To make up for the lack of pumpkins to carve, Alex suggested we pick one up at the farmer’s market this weekend and get our carve on that way. Great idea! As the ideas started to kick around in our heads, we started discussing ways we could eat the pumpkins or what we could fill them with. After all, it’s always about eating with us. I suggested soup. He suggested meat and other good stuff… and then he had it: Meat-O-Lanterns!
So we picked up some buttercup squash at the farmer’s market Saturday morning, as it was the closest thing resembling a pumpkin and weighed in at roughly one serving. We scraped out the insides and set them aside. Next, we carved them up and roasted the lanterns alone for 20 or so minutes while we whipped up the mix for the inside. Once they were roasted, we filled them with a cooked mix of celery, carrots, onions, buttercup squash, mushrooms, whole wheat egg noodles, ground pork, salt, pepper, garlic, sage and chicken broth. Once filled, they roasted for 15 more minutes and were so delicious! Not bad for something that looked like brains. So the next time someone says “What should we make for Halloween that’s both nutritious and slightly ghoulish?”, don’t send them to some crackpot Martha recipe. Tell them it’s all about the Meat-o-lanterns!
You can find the rest of the Meat-O-Lantern photos here.
p.s. yes, we recognize we’re huge nerds.
Tags: DIY, food, halloween, pumpkin Posted in Entertainment, Food & Drink 2 Comments »
October 25, 2008 by alex A few weeks ago, Karen and I set off for a Fall vacation. This was the plan: fly in to San Francisco for 1 night, go to Napa for 2 nights, drive up the coast of CA (1 night), spend 1 night in to Portland, OR before heading to Vancouver, BC (2 nights) and finally shooting back down to Seattle for a night before heading home.
Before we left I feared it would be too much driving but in the end it was absolutely manageable, some might even call it “super fun.”
Here are some photos from along the way:
This was our hotel in San Francisco. Normally I would show you pictures of our friends Maggie and Manlio that we caught up with but sadly I don’t have any.
Has anyone ever had one of these? Are they as insane as they look?
You can tell Hertz’s Nerverlost GPS is going to be a doozy by just looking at the unique (and initially tough to use) button layout and subsequent relationship of those buttons to the items on the screen (the alphabet above is a great example of that). It certainly isn’t ideal and though I really wanted to hate it, after a day or so I was zipping around the interface with ease.
Also, for better or worse, I think we’ve officially reached the point where GPS is no longer optional. And I’m not buying the “but then you’ll never know the wonders of getting lost (, man)”. You can keep your paper maps and your devil sticks, hippy, I’ll take a GPS any day - no matter how crappy the interface is.
Here’s a quick snap of us at the Frog’s Leap vineyard - an organic (et tu, hippy) vineyard that seemed super awesome but it turned out we need to make a reservation so we were limited to prowling the grounds without a guide.
That night we headed to Farm at the Carneros Inn, an awesome place Karen found that had really delicious food to go with their really classy outdoor bocce courts seen here:
Our hotel employed a sensor-based minibar that practically threatened to charge us for merely looking at something for more than 40 seconds. (we learned later in the trip that this technology is becoming pretty widespread.)
The next morning we went to the Domaine Carneros Estate for a wine tour (lots of wine and champagne for 10 am!). Neither Karen nor I had ever been on one of these so there was a lot to learn.
Karen’s so excited.
The vineyards at Domaine Carneros.
I thought these giant machines looked awesome.
Each of the machines/robots in the bottling process was labeled with their name/role. I imagine they could make a pretty neat Pixar short about this whole process.
That grape looks awfully happy considering it’s about to get squashed!
So many barrels.
The caves at Del Dotto Estates (our second wine tasting of the day). The outside decor was super Married to the Mob, if you know what I mean. The wine caves (where the tasting happens) provide a great contrast to the soaring marble columns, etc. in the front.
Considering we were tasting wine form 10am on, I think we developed a great system to keep us (and everyone else on the road) safe. Our method: Karen drinks all the wines and I just taste them.
That approach brought us here to Taylor’s Automatic Refresher.
This may very well be the best burger I’ve ever had. Also, this is where Karen tried to spin one of their trays on one finger:
Later that afternoon we mosied over to Francis Ford Coppola’s Rubicon Estate.
Though we were told that the tasting would be $35 each our pourer decided to put it on the house - 4 more wines for nothing! Yay! After having the wine we spent some time exploring the impressive building and grounds.
It was in that building with a gravel floor that Karen decided she was going to make a gravel angel ™ and I was going to capture that singularly bizarre moment.
Happy times!
For everyone!
After two days eating and drinking in Napa (we also had a great meal at the famed Martini House) we hopped in the car and started driving up the coast, determined to make it as close to the Oregon border as we could in one day.
We packed a drive time snack of soppresata and cheese…
…and stopped at a few scenic stops along the way.
I was blown away by the sight of my first Redwoods.
Look at how big they are!
We loved them so much we needed to hug.
One more beach stop before we headed inland a bit as the coastal route (and its hairpin turns was taking forever)
Had dinner at an average seafood restaurant in Trinidad with an above average view and then ended up crashing in Crescent City at the Hampton Inn.
If only all the hotels were this good about service.
The next day took us up to Portland with a couple of stops along the way. One stop was at a place called It’s a Burl - an amazing place filled with Gaudi-esque elaborate wood carvings.
The whole place was so detailed.
Pretty sweet treehouses, no?
And doghouses to match!
Said dogs. The little one was super cute and named Fanny Mae.
Just a crazy wooden bicycle.
After spending about 45 minutes at this place we bought a little wooden mirror and got back on the road, making it to Portland by about 5pm. We check into our hotel, the Modera , and then took them up on their offer of a wine tasting beside their outdoor firepits.
After 4 glasses of wine we hopped in a cab over to Clark Lewis (thanks for the recommendation, Micah!) for a really delicious dinner. I mean, would Karen be this happy if it wasn’t that delicious? I don’t think so.
After dinner we thought it might be a good idea to find some karaoke so we ended up at a place called Chopsticks.
Though the sign clearly states that it is a asian food restaurant, we saw nothing of the sort. This place was awesome in the weird ways that might make Chuck Palahniuk talk about it. At first the tracks people were singing had us a little worried. Deep cut after deep cut got us thinking this might not be the Patience/Don’t Stop Believing kind of crowd.
It took a little while (and a couple of PBR tall boys and one fateful shot of tequila) but it all worked out. Karen belted out Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing.
I later dropped a little Somewhere Only We Know (for the indie crowd) and Patience (for the fans).
The next day it was off to Vancouver (and all the rain it brings with it). Sadly it rained for both days we were there but we still were able to get out and check out the city. Lucky for us, our hotel happened to be right on the corner where the Japadog girls set up shop every day. For those that don’t know Japadog makes the absolute best (and most unique) street dogs you’ll ever have.
Don’t believe me? Just ask Ice Cube (he’s had 10 of them!). Or Jin from Lost (he prefers Veggie). Don’t forget Steven Seagal!
While we were walking around on Granville Island I saw this warning sticker that made me think that touching this box might make me break into a Thriller-like dance.
Here’s us not letting the rain get us down.
Even though it was pretty rainy, we managed to get some good shots:
Floating gas station!
Jellyfish
We ate piles of seafood at this place in Yaletown called Rodney’s Oyster House. The food was amazing and the service lots of fun.
We made a trip to the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park (could have been the nicest city park I’ve ever been to. I love Central Park and Prospect Park but this one gets huge points for being on the water. We saw dolphins, beluga whales, otters, sea lions and more. I forgot how much I loved aquariums as a kid.
After another day in Vancouver we headed to Seattle for one last night. Little did we know we’d spend almost 2 hours sitting in the car waiting to cross the border.
For our last night o the trip we went to a place called Kushibar for some delicious Takoyaki and Ramen…
…and then for some drinks at the McLeod Residence, a place I’ve been wanting to visit since our SXSW friend Buster told us about it.
We also got to see the mirror we had heard so much about. Here it is in action:
That marked the end of our trip and a great one it was. While this post was a long one, I didn’t even include all the photos we took. If you’re interested in seeing more you can check out all of my photos here and all of karen’s here.
Posted in Family, Food & Drink, Photos on the go, Recommendation, Reviews, Thoughts, Travel No Comments »
October 25, 2008 by alex Awesome little post from Boing Boing:
Wassup 2008: A brilliant parody short from 60frames. Apparently this is the original cast, reunited. Wow, cool. (via Boing Boing)
Posted in humor No Comments »
September 27, 2008 by karen My friend Meghan and all her dudes (her husband and two twin sons) stopped by this morning for a visit and we got to talking about how in grade school every year around Halloween time, our teachers would show us a movie about a kid and his mom who move from the city to the country and buy an old mansion, where they discover a witch already lives. Nothing interesting there. The kid befriends the witch—expected, right? But then, this is the weird part—the witch makes the kid pancakes. Magic TRIPPY pancakes. How do you know they’re trippy pancakes you ask? Fast forward to 14:35 and then 15:12 in this video to see for yourself.
Then the kid tells his mom how great the pancakes are and she eats them and she LOVES the trippy pancakes (who wouldn’t?). What’s the next best thing to do? Open a pancake parlor of course so that everyone can be happy! And they do and they live happily ever after with the witch. It’s really a great movie, but maybe you had to watch it in the early 80’s when you were 8 years old to truly appreciate it.
I loved this movie when I was kid, and spent a good number of years explaining it to various people (”and then they eat these pancakes and they get all happy!”) who didn’t understand, so I was thrilled to find it online after all these years of singing it’s praises and oddness. But what I love the most about this movie is that somehow our school teachers thought this was a reasonable movie to repeatedly show in school year after year.
Posted in Entertainment 1 Comment »
September 19, 2008 by karen 
We did! Alex and I came in 4th out of 500 teams on Saturday afternoon, much to even our own surprise. We woke up bright and early on Saturday, headed over to Webster Hall and started the race around 10 a.m. The place was packed—over 1,000 people showed up!
We needed to finish 10 out of 30 possible tasks. Over the next 3.5 hours we completed the following:
1. Find 9/10 things on a the city chase list before you can even get your clue sheet. What?! How am I going to find a live animal? Sasha where are you? Or a stranger who is the same height as you, like this lady:
2. Hopped on a train to the spy shop on 34th street. Over walkie talkies I had to tell Alex how to find spy cams in the store.
3. Headed over the Joshua Tree on 3rd avenue. All those months hanging out at that lame bar is going to pay off I thought. Um, what? There’s another a Joshua Tree? ON 46th STREET on the WEST SIDE? Gawd!
Cross town bus to 8th Avenue and hoofed it up to an even lamer Joshua Tree and had to take photos of us getting kissed by two people simultaneously; swap my shirt with someone else—take a before and after photo; simultaneously share food with someone else; shake hands with someone in a uniform and get a piggy back ride from someone.
4. Headed downtown to an art gallery near 14th street where we had to create some painting and pitch it to the gallery owner. He wasn’t really buying, but he finally gave in.
5. Jumped on the F to the East Side Company Bar (awesome bar btw), where Alex had to fish for change in a bowl of hissing coach roaches and I had to hold an 8 feet long albino python, named Butterscotch, down my shirt* while he finished finding his change.
6. Ran up to Mason Dixon where I rode a bull (yes, again). And downed a beer—that will help with the next task…
7. Which was karaoke at Arlene’s Grocery where we offered our best rendition of Living on a Prayer. After we finished, the guitar player said “can we take that song off the list?” Why? Because we were so awesome?
8. Off to find something that sells meat pies. Ran past it—and then back again, where Alex had to throw back a pie filled with chicken hearts. The judges were so impressed with his speed.
9. Up to Crif Dogs! Remember the menu and then recite the ingredients in a… Chihuahua dog. Er. Cream cheese? No?! Back to remember the menu again! Ok, got it. Sour cream! Jalapenos! This place is racist!
10. Time to find something called Lucky on Avenue A. We ran all the way to 14th street before we realized we headed in the wrong direction, so we headed back down again and found some bar where we need to beat box. I am not kidding. I mean, have you seen my itunes? Ugh. I was awful. I pretty much sounded like I was making fart noises the whole time. Alex was awesome though. They even tried to make me freestyle! FREESTYLE? I don’t even know what that means.
We finally finished our 10 tasks in 3.5 hours and we were racing back to the finish line at Webster Hall. We assumed tons of teams were in front of us, but as we got up to the hall, everyone standing around said “You’re the 4th place team! Go upstairs!” So we ran upstairs, clocked in, had a few beers and then headed home to celebrate with our secret weapon homebase (aka Micah at his computer).
Sweaty Team Kane Street.
* Have I ever mentioned that I made “snake stomping shoes” in my 3D art class in college that had nails for traction? I really hate snakes (but this one was actually super nice).
Tags: citychase, race, Sports Posted in Photos on the go 2 Comments »
August 16, 2008 by alex 
The World’s Largest Urban Adventure Series will turn the Big Apple in to a giant obstacle course as teams of two navigate their way around competing in physical, mental and humorous challenges. The NYC event promises to be a full day of laughter, adventure and discovering the diversity and character of New York City.
Whether searching Soho, exploring Central Park or traveling the largest city in the U.S. on public transit, participants will be pushing their comfort zones in a fun, adventurous way. You need to be a part of it, New York City Chase is the final leg of the U.S. Series so get your partner and sign up today. Limited space available. The winners will advance to our National Championship for a chance to represent the US in the World Championship in Morocco.
How long do you think it took me to sign Karen and I up for City Chase after a friend at work sent around the information?
If you guessed “less than 3 minutes” you’d be right. Everyone knows that Karen and I enjoy competition (Subway Wars, anyone?) and have also been know to enjoy a spot of reality television here and there so you can imagine my excitement at reading about this 1 day mental + physical + squeamishness (?) challenge that was going to take place right here in New York City.
The race costs $190 per team and there are 15 events of which your team has to complete 10 in order to win. Karen’s already getting her baby on and calling that we’re going to skip any of the “eat something gross” challenges. Meanwhile, I want to practice by digging up earthworms in the backyard and feeding them to each other.
The other excellent part is that they fully encourage the use of mobile technology as well as remote team members that can act as a research dept. for you while you’re running around the city. On that note, I have the honor of being able to announce that our good friend (some might call him an Internet master) Micah is going to be a pivotal member of Team Kane Street during the challenge. Our hope is to get him an unmarked van he can sit in as he follows us around from challenge to challenge but we may have to settle for him (and his assistant Carmen) setting up Command Central at his place in Park Slope.
Anyway, this is what we’re going to be doing on Saturday, September 13th and so should you! Grab a partner and go get signed up !
Posted in Events, Friends, New York, Thoughts 2 Comments »
August 16, 2008 by alex 
There’s something really clever about this. (Boing Boing)
this bubblegum machine in the East Village that has been savvily modded to dispense ideas for fifty cents apiece, each absolutely guaranteed to be actionable or your money back. Buy a moose, it might tell you, or Invent a Jump-To-Conclusions mat! Start a fire! Get a circumcision! Kidnap your ex-girlfriend! Shave a chicken! Breed a budgie with a mule! The possibilities are endless.
Posted in Thoughts No Comments »
August 16, 2008 by alex What’s sad is that this would never ever fly in our country.
I particularly like the way he captures the subtle mannerisms really well.
If you like it, there’s a second commercial posted here.
Tags: video Posted in humor 2 Comments »
August 3, 2008 by alex Makes me really appreciate having run NYC with Karen last year and makes me really want to run another one.
Check the whole post here.
Tags: presentation Posted in Sports, Thoughts No Comments »
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