Names from the NFL Draught

So I watched the longest first round in the history of the NFL Draft (6 hours and 8 minutes for the 32 picks), and the next two rounds, and most of the last four rounds on Sunday too. The first name drafted was JaMarcus Russell; the last name and 255th player taken was Ramzee Robinson.

There were two other names I really took a shine to: Sabby Piscitelli, a safety from Oregon State drafted in the second round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Mansfield Wrotto, an offensive tackle from Georgia Tech drafted in the fourth round with a pick they acquired from the San Francisco 49ers for their wide receiver, Darrell Jackson.

A recent customer name that caught my eye was Gary Scozzafava. That is all for now.

A Party for No Reason

After a disappointing week discipline-wise, I had a wonderful Friday. I went running after work for seven miles. Then Angela and I went to Ivanna Cone for the much anticipated Ginger Lemongrass ice cream. She sent an email to request Honey Sesame for when Klaralyn comes to Lincoln. In the return email, Amy, the proprietor of that wonderful establishment, mentioned she had made a batch of Ginger Lemongrass. So I called on Wednesday to see if it was out front yet; it wasn't going to make it out that night because the other flavors weren't moving too fast. I called again yesterday and it finally made it to the board and "wasn't some secret flavor." After enjoying our dish and cone of ice cream, Angela and I each got some to take home. It really was a very impressive board of flavors that Ivanna Cone had going: Sweet Cream Vanilla, Dutch Chocolate, Mint Oreo, Coffee, Chambord (a favorite of Ellen's), Cinnamon, Ginger Lemongrass, Coconut Pecan (Angela go some of this for home with the GL), Kentucky Chocolate (a hint of bourbon), and Basalmic Strawberry Pear Sorbet. There are some flavors I'm missing, another sorbet for example, but still very very strong.

Then we played bean bags. Michael Barrett, a man about town in the downtown Lincoln area, was walking by and joined us for a few games. Our last game was the most hotly contested. She jumped out to an 8-0 lead, but I jumped back into it with a 6 point round. Then I got ahead 9-8. After some quality rounds by each of us we were tied at 13 for like three or four rounds. At this point Angela made a comment about how "this might get a bit tedious." Well, she ended the tedium with eight points the next round to win the match.

That was our party and it was grand.

Lazy Sunday

ACT ONE

Today I had a nice leisurely time. I got up and played some Civilization II, then I walked to the library and exchanged a poor book for, hopefully, a better one. Because I didn't make it to Ivanna Cone last night, I went today and had Banana Oreo (great) and Chai (solid). Then I took my sister to work, on account of her vehicle is on the fritz.

ACT TWO

After dropping my sister off, I went to Open Harvest for some quinoa. Fortunately, I ran into Angela, who volunteers every Sunday there. For supper, I went to Parkway Lanes on recommendation of our UPS driver, Al. [Hans, my boss, after hearing a radio ad for Tam O'Shanter, said that the JournalStar rated Tam O'Shanter's burger as the best in Lincoln. Friday afternoon, Al and I were discussing our plans for the weekend, and I mentioned I might investigate the JournalStar's claim. This is when he recommended Parkway.] Al was right. It was the most delicious $3 burger I've ever had, better than burgers three times that much. And that is the glorious miracle of it. If I gave you a list of every restaurant in Lincoln that served hamburgers, what are the odds that maybe the best came from a bowling alley.

After supper, I went to the Ella Crandall Memorial Library to see what I could see. What I saw was the Oxford English Dictionary and its entries for anatopism, anachorism, anchor, and anchorite/anachoret. This brought me closure to a difference Michael and I had in word choice and half an hour away from Vil Arreola's Senior Piano Recital in Engel Hall. I spent that half hour reading in Steinway's Summer 2006 magazine. There was a nice article about "Steinway Artist" Christoper O'Riley host of From the Top for NPR. A nice moment in the article was when O'Riley mentioned the emails asking more about "this Mister Head" after he had transcribed some Radiohead songs to piano for the show. The recital was well attended and well performed. One interesting moment for me was the encore in which Vil played variations on Jesus Loves the Little Children. After his initial flourish, he would elaborate after each of the different colors that "are precious in His sight." A Native American rhythmic dance after "Red," high paired quarter notes after "Yellow," scratching on the piano wires while clapping down the coverboard for the keys and then a hip-hop rhythm and some gospel after "Black," and finally a patriot sample and some Mormon Tabernacle arrangement for "White." I was surprisingly a touch miffed at the use of stereotypes to entertain musically.

ACT THREE

When I got home, I popped A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints into the dvd player. It isn't the first movie where a man comes back to his childhood stomping grounds after leaving everyone behind (see House of D, which I preferred to AGRYS), and it won't be the last. I wanted to see it for Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey Jr., but Chazz Palmentieri was a very pleasant surprise. After the movie, I cooked up a cup of my quinoa. And then picked Marcy up from work.

POSTLUDE

Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious

Some Names for Your Weekend

Bartolome Brazoban Perez

John Hakizimana

Lotus Rockwell

Marc Mertulien

Marcelo Mardirossian

Samuel Semerzier

As you might have noticed, alliteration catches my eye. I'm also partial to more than three syllables in a surname. I've always enjoyed Armenian type names like Kurkjian, Parseghian, or for Heller fans, Yossarian. And Lotus Rockwell is just cool.

Silly Daniel.

I went to Grindhouse Saturday night. It was good. It was an event and a movie. It comprised Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez and Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino. Planet Terror was a gory zombie type romp, and according to all the reviews I read, very good for the genre. Death Proof was not regarded as well in the reviews, mainly because of the long slow discussions the characters have the first two/thirds of the movie. They all enjoyed the car chase at the end though. Having caught a few of these B-movies on AMC or IFC, Tarantino really executes his genre well too. The fake trailers in the middle of the Double Feature were Werewolf Women of the SS by Rob Zombie, Don't by Cecil Evans, and Thanksgiving by Eli Roth. There is talk that Thanksgiving will be made into an actual film at some point. If you are like me and need to see something just so you can put a notch in your belt and pass judgement, you should see this. There are other reasons to watch it, but you don't need my help if you want to find them.

So the movie finished at 12:15 AM. When I got home, I started playing Civilization II on the computer. I stopped playing at 10:30ish AM. This was generally pretty stupid. First because I've been wanting to go to Omaha for the last three weekends to look at their saute pans, for my birthday present to myself. Second because it severely adjusted any circadian rhythm I had going. Third, it was a beautiful day weatherwise today, which is rare of late. So my stupidity cost me some quality running time, which I haven't done since before my birthday the 28th. This isn't good because I have a half-marathon in like twenty days. Silly, silly Daniel.

The Best Part of Waking Up

This is the song that I heard on KRNU going to work on the morning of my birth anniversary last week.


Late Late Show Performance

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Now can you see why my day went so well?