We saw The Two Towers last night - great flick. I don't think I can wait until next year to see the Return of the King. Oh well, I'll have to tide myself over with Phish on New Year's ;-)

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and gets everything they wanted from Santa. Time to make my yearly pilgrimage to Church...Kara and I were talking about protesting, but it didn't go over to well with my mom.

Ann and I did a wide variety of things today. We bought some toys for my baby cousins at Henry Bear's Park in Arlington. Then we ate lunch at Carberry's. After that, we tried to see The Two Towers, but were shut out. We decided to see Die Another Day instead - yes, it was pretty cheesy, but entertaining and worth seeing as a matinee.

Later we went to Anna's Taqueria in Davis Square for dinner. We then met Doug and Kristen at The Burren where the Tarbox Ramblers were playing. Excellent Guiness, excellent music, excellent company. All in all, a great night. If I don't post between now and then, have a great Christmas!

One of those gifts could be yours...

Saw a great movie tonight: Igby Goes Down. It stars Kieran Culkin, Macaulay's younger brother, as "a Holden Caufield for the 21st century" (that's my attempt at a lame movie review quote like they put on the posters). It was a great black comedy, especially if you enjoy seeing rich people behaving badly. The best part was it only cost us $6 each at the discount theater.

By the way, Trent Lott should resign. Not that it is that surprising that he is a racist, but I expect politicians to at least make an effort to lie.

Dubya's plan to prevent forest fires? Sell the trees.

Is Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale the best beer in the world? As I sit here and sip, I have to think that the answer is yes.

Mark my words - I will make a pilgrimage to Chico. It's one of the five pillars of beer geekery.

I think I finally got the archives for this thing working. Now you can read every post we've ever made. And comment on them. :-)

Funny. And scary because it's true.

I love The Onion. This article had me cracking up and Ann asking me "what's so funny?" from the other room.

Man, yesterday's election sucked. About the only good result is that Ann and I can say we were married by the first lady-elect of Pennsylvania now.

Ann and I threw on some Ween and carved our pumpkins. Can you guess which one we each did? Now Ann's roasting the seeds...mmmm...salty.

What time is it? Mesmerizing...

Bill Simmons, my favorite writer on ESPN.com, wrote an article saying that Red Sox fans should forgive Bill Buckner. He makes some pretty good points, but deep down I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the pain.

We bottled our Pumpkin beer last night - we named it "Throw That Pumpkin at the Tree Ale" in honor of the Ween song "Roses are Free" Thanks to Jake for the suggestion.

Our dryer died. Our neighbors moved out so we were using their dryer (on their electric bill...), but that was never going to last, so we had to buy a new one (it was a lot cheaper than the price on the web). Ahh...the joys of married life.

On a more interesting note, we had a great beer last night - Hitachino Nest Lacto Sweet Stout. A sweet stout is brewed with lactose - that's why it is otherwise known as a milk stout. I love English translations of Japanese. Check out this page that suggests which Hitachino Nest beers one should pair with Japanese food. Classic. (Of course their English is a lot better than my Japanese)

We're brewing a pumpkin ale today. If you have any suggestions for the name, we'd love to hear them. Leave a comment if you do!

Ann and I went to see Medeski Martin and Wood at the Orpheum Friday night. They are probably the most consistantly spectacular band playing today. Their sound has changed a lot over the years - I'm listening to their first album as I write this (which was all acoustic) and it's hard to believe that they are the same band we just saw, with 7 keyboards, 3 bass guitars and a nearly infinite amount of percussion. Watching them play really gives me chills - it's like watching Jackson Pollock paint - controlled chaos.

Of course, the night wouldn't have been complete without a bunch of drunk idiots screaming at the top of their lungs and attempting to clap to the beat - this was especially welcome during the acuostic encore. We even saw a girl doing some liquid acid in the aisle next to us. I guess great music can't remain a secret forever. Maybe I'm just getting old and ornery.

Google has done it again. Their new Google News page has news from every source imaginable and with no annoying ads! It's like the internet used to be! Yes, in case you are wondering, I am a nerd.

Our president is smart:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."
—George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (as bad as this is, the audio is even worse)

If he fools us twice and is elected again, shame on us.

Want more Bushisms?

In a further attempt to copy everything that Jake does with his blog, I've added a comment system to this page. This means if you have anything to say about any of these messages, click the comment link at the bottom of each post.

Hope you all enjoy the links to your left. Of course, they are probably more useful for me than you.

ObA&DC: We watched The Royal Tenenbaums tonight - it was pretty good. Can't say I loved it, but it beat whatever else was on TV tonight, and Bill Murray always makes me laugh. Directed by Wes Anderson, but not as good as his previous movie, Rushmore. It followed the same formula as Rushmore - introduce some quirky but lovable characters, tear them down and then build them back up. If you've seen neither movie, you should definitely check out Rushmore first - it's a modern day classic. And you cheap bastards out there who don't want to rent a movie can probably catch it on Comedy Central sometime.

Ann and I had a pretty eventful Friday night. We pretty much did everything Arlington had to offer. We started off with a dinner at Punjab, an Indian restaurant in Arlington Center. Then we headed over to the fireworks at Spy Pond, part of Arlington's town day celebration. The fireworks were pretty good, and in fact the whole experience reminded me of the 4th of July fireworks in Concord, NH where I grew up. This shouldn't have surprised me too much - both towns have about the same population and probably about the same fireworks budget. Before the fireworks Ann and I saw an amazing display of pubescent hormones - it seemed every middle school student in town had a can of shaving cream and they were all smearing it on one another, with particular attention being paid to the opposite sex. From a purely sociological standpoint, it was downright primal. The smell of shaving cream filled the air for at least a 200 yard radius around the kids. Crazy stuff. Ann also saw some of the first graders from her school - they had a great look on their face that said "What are you doing here? You don't live in the school?" - it truly freaked them out to see her in that context.

After the fireworks we went to the Boston-area premier of the movie "I am trying to break your heart" at the Regent Theatre - a movie about the band Wilco. Wilco is a band that Ann and I have been really digging lately - we've bought up all of their albums except one in the past couple of months. They're genre is called alt.country. If that doesn't really help you figure out what Wilco is all about, think of them as a country Pavement. Anyway, the movie was great - it chronicled the making of their latest album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," (which has won acclaim from critics all over the place) and the fact that their label dropped them after they gave them the album. Bad idea - it later debuted at #13 on the Billboard charts. Anyway, I think the sign of a great documentary is if you come away from it saying "I didn't know...but now I do." If you want to really lose respect for the corporations running pretty much all of the American media see this movie.

Okay, sorry we haven't updated our blog in a month, but our lives have been pretty boring. We only got married and went on a honeymoon.

Actually, our wedding was probably the best day of our lives, and I've never been happier than I was on that day. When Ann and I were holding hands on the altar I could truly feel our hearts beating as one and I knew that our life together would bring us lots of happiness. If you are planning a wedding, all of the headaches and discussions will definitely pay off in the end. And I will definitely have a much greater appreciation for other weddings after living through almost two years of planning our own. As soon as I get on the ball, I will scan in more pictures. For now you'll have to be happy with one of our favorite pictures in the bunch.

While I am handing out unsolicited advice/wisdom, everyone who is looking for a place to go in the Caribbean should go to St. John. It is an amazingly beautiful place and two thirds of the island is completely undeveloped in the Virgin Islands National Park. The year-round population is only 5000 - compare that to neighboring St. Thomas at 50,000 - which would you choose? As you can probably imagine, the beaches weren't too crowded. The National Park was great - there was a 1 mile trail that left right from town past some creepy cacti to a secluded beach at which Ann and I made up 50% of the sunbathers. On our way back we set the camera timer and took our picture at the overlook above Cruz Bay. As you can see from the picture, we were hot, sweaty and in love - which makes for a great honeymoon!

So we get home from Logan Airport on August 19th and find this in our e-mail boxes! The hiatus is over! And I just found out yesterday that my mail order was fufilled for the New Years Eve show! Sure, we are in section 418 (which stands for the approximate number of feet above the stage we are), but as I said to Ann, we're in the building! Everything's coming up Millhouse!

And we shouldn't forget to mention Ann's new job as a first grade reading specialist at the Brackett School. It's only a ten minute walk from our house and she'sloving it. That's all for now...more later.

Friday night Ann and I went clubbing at Avalon. Okay, so we didn't go to gay night at 11, we caught the Vida Blue early show at 7. Despite what you may have heard from the naysayers, Vida Blue was excellent.

They aren't Phish, of course (but they did bring some of their equipment), but how can you not love seeing Page on stage? It was a special feeling, just like seeing Mike play with Trey at Great Woods this summer. Call me a sentimental idiot, but something about seeing anyone from Phish play music just makes me feel giddy.

Vida Blue really gives Page a chance to stretch out, and while some of his lyrics are a bit...unsophisticated...his keyboard playing is first-rate. Page truly has his own sound which sometimes got overshadowed in Phish - you really get a sense of what each of his 8 keyboards sound like. If you go to the show expecting Medeski you will be disappointed, but if you go in with an open mind you'll have a great time. Page's rhythm section (or is the whole band a rhythm section?) lay down a great base for his techno/funk/classic rock explorations, and Oteil sings a damn good "Manic Depression." Hearing Page sing through the voice changer on Zepplin's "No Quarter" was a dream come true.

Of course it didn't hurt that it Paul Languedoc and Chris Kuroda were along for the ride. As you can maybe see in the Kuroda Pic, Chris has a piano keyboard that he uses to control the lights. It was amazing to watch him work, because you can never get that close to him at a Phish concert. He even brought the high beams!

All in all it was a great night, and well worth the price of admission. If only they could have had a better beer selection!

Ann and I had a great weekend in NYC - we sat in the front row for two Sox-Yankees games (thanks to Ann's parents). Friday night we saw a rain-delayed game in which Pedro beat the dreaded (or in Ann's case beloved) Yanks. On Saturday we saw the Sox lose in the 11th inning thanks to the craptacular Doug Mirabelli's inability to get a hit with the bases loaded - twice. It was still an extremely exciting game, and Ann's mom sweet-talked the ball boy into giving us two game balls!

Sorry that we don't have any digital pictures of the games- we lent our camera to our friend Kate who was apartment hunting in Atlanta. Aren't we great?

This shouldn't surprise anyone, but now we have proof - Mac users are smarter!

Are Mac users smarter? - Tech News - CNET.com "With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population presents a very attractive target for marketers, both online and offline," the research group said.

Here I am, joining the blog revolution so I don't get left behind by my friend Jake Morrill. Of course, I'm way to lazy to make my own template, so you'll have to suffer through this generic one from blogger.com.

Ann and I just moved on Tuesday to a new apartment in Arlington. We loved Jamaica Plain, (especially JP Licks!) but we couldn't afford to rent a two bedroom there. Now we live in a duplex with half a garage and half a basement! Those of you living in the Boston area know what a luxury this is. Probably the coolest thing about our new place is its proximity to two of Arlington's biggest attractions: the Minuteman Bikeway and Blue Ribbon Barbeque.

Anyway, our new address is:
Ann Sharfstein and Dan Mielcarz
40 Coleman Rd.
Arlington, MA 02476-6241

And our new phone number is: (781) 646-2838.
Our email addresses remain the same: Dan.Mielcarz@alum.dartmouth.org and Ann.Sharfstein@alum.dartmouth.org.