Salad

Joanna and I made this delicious salad the other day. It contains pears, blue cheese, baked walnuts, a variety of lettuces, and a mustard/olive oil/salt and pepper dressing. It was amazing!

Joanna was very helpful in making the dressing,even if I had to show her how to whip it up (despite her earlier claims that she made whip cream a few days ago -- a claim I am now very skeptical of). After we finished eating the salad we ended the meal with a delicious cupcake from Sprinkles. Joanna had the lemon flavor, while I had the double dark chocolate cupcake.

Until next time!

Adventures of Luke (the WBC aka "leukocyte")

Over winter break (about a month and a half ago now) I took my new WBC plushie with me. It was an exciting adventure, one that I meant to post about some time ago.

Luke in an airport seat!

It started (like so many trips) with a wonderfully long wait at the airport. This was my first time through an airport since the introduction of the oh-so-scandalous full body scanners. I was psyching myself up for the confrontation, but it never came. When I finally made it to the front of the line I saw 4 full body scanners, but none of them were powered on. Victory? Luke made himself at home in one of the "generic black pseudo-leather airport seats" and I proceeded to wait for my plane to take off.

Luke on the bed.

The flight culminated in my arrival in Saint Louis, where I met my family. We quickly jumped in a rental car and sped to to local Marriott. It was a special type of Marriott that (I presume) is meant for business people who travel frequently and spend more than a few days at each location. They were almost mini-apartments rather than hotel suits. Once we arrived, Luke quickly settled in on the bed. Perhaps you can sense a pattern (Luke is extremely lazy when there aren't viruses or bacteria around to keep him occupied).

With the family situated, Christmas arrived and we had our traditional Christmas breakfast of "frogs." This all American recipe is essentially deep fried bread dough covered in honey butter. Delicious. Sadly, Luke wasn't able to enjoy these since 1) He's a plushie and 2) WBC's don't eat. Both of these are rather insurmountable obstacles to enjoying delicious breakfast foods and I sympathize with him.

Frogs (Luke not pictured)

Our time in Saint Louis finished, I got on the plane and returned to my birth state (California) for the rest of the break. Coming home is always bittersweet. I love returning and seeing my friends, but after a week of parental nagging loving I'm ready to leave and be an adult in the "real" world again. Luke also exciting to get back and immediately ran or "chemotaxied" (haha, lame microbiology joke) up the stairs to my room.

Luke moving up the stairs.

It had been about 6 months since I had been home so it was neat seeing my room almost untouched from when I had previously departed. Little details like the placement of a pen on the desk, the rockband equipment in my closet, and the various pictures around my room really brought me back. It's funny how good the mind can be at remembering random things. Luke, of course, didn't care about any of this and immediately jumped up on the windowsill to take a look outside. It was great to get home and I look forward to going back again next Christmas!

Luke and the view outside.

Christmas Gifts!

Since Mark is leaving to spend Christmas with his family, we decided to exchange gifts since we wouldn't have a chance to do so closer to the actual day. That, and we're both like little kids on Christmas morning when it comes to gifts. Mark got cologne, a Serenity t-shirt, superman boxers, a white blood cell plushie, and a wine-rating notepad and Jo got a necklace.

From Jo: Mark was really excited to exchange presents, and while I tried to make him wait a little (though we knew neither of us would last till anywhere near Christmas morning), I was pretty excited to exchange gifts as well. The goal was to wait till the evening, but wrapping and tissue paper started flying not long after we met up. I put some good effort into wrapping his gifts, too. Finished products from Christmases past tend to look like a five-year-old got her hands on too much paper and tape, but his time around the wrapping looked quite good, if I do say so myself. I was almost more proud of the wrapped gifts than I am of my recently acquired college degree, hence the waiting- I wanted to keep the gifts nicely wrapped for as long as possible, but obviously that kinda failed.

Mark's gift to me was gorgeous- a lovely white gold and diamond necklace on the most delicate little chain :) I pretty much knew I was getting some sort of necklace, since Mark tried to be sneaky and ask me, "hypothetically," what length chain I prefer. Smooth, M. ;) Unlike me, he took the easy way out and had professionals do the gift-wrapping, so the whole thing looked great. The pendant is probably no more than half an inch big, the entire thing is very delicate looking and I love it. It probably won't be switched out very often, since it can go with anything. I don't think any description of mine would do the necklace justice, so I've included a picture ->

I managed to be more discreet with my presents (Mark has pictures below). They were all things I sort of stumbled across that reminded me of him, that I thought he'd enjoy. I love giving silly little gifts that I know will bring a smile to the person's face. We both like the show Firefly and the movie based off of it, Serenity, so when I saw the tshirt I knew I had to get it for him. The white blood cell plushie is because Mark is a nerd and thinks white blood cells are badass- I just thought the plushie was cute. He enjoys his wine so I liked the jokey knock-knock wine rating pad, and the superman boxers I got because a) it's his favorite superhero, and b) all the Christmas ones kinda sucked. The cologne took some guesswork, since the only scent I know Mark likes is his shower gel :P After sampling 5 or 6 different colognes on myself, I chose Bleu de Chanel cause I liked the musky smell. I walked out of Sephora that night triumphant (though when don't I walk out of Sephora triumphant in some way?) and reeking of dude. Worth it!

From Mark: Finding the necklace was tricky. I've never actually purchased jewelry before, so I decided to go to several jewelry shops before making a final decision. Strangely, the first shop I went into ended up being the one I purchased the necklace from. The other shops weren't very noteworthy (just your run of the mill jewelry store in a shopping mall type), except one that was called an "Estate Jewelers." I don't remember the name exactly, but I presume the "estate" part of their name was meant to indicate that all their jewelry was used. I didn't realize this going in, however, and was shocked to see several old men (apparently close to death) standing around the a fairly dilapidated store. One of them showed me a few necklace pendants, but it was all mostly old and tacky. You would think that if you were going to get used jewelry then it would be at least a higher quality than something you could buy new. I awkwardly left and went back to the first store I went into and purchased the necklace.

The gifts I got were more exciting (or at least, original). My favorite was probably the Firefly shirt. It references a line from Wash, the pilot of the ship and comic relief. The scene the t-shirt references involves Wash playing with plastic dinosaurs and enacting a rather dramatic scene between a T-rex and a brontosaurus who have migrated to a new area and are talking about how they will claim this land for themselves and start a new civilization. The T-rex, however, betrays the brontosaurus and attacks him, prompting the brontosaurus to deliver the line pictured on the t-shirt.

Another amazing gift Joanna got me was a pair of Superman boxers. I'm a sucker for all things Superman and I also enjoy themed boxers (is that a thing?). I presume she figured this out after I went to great lengths to procure a pair of M&M boxers while at the M&M factory in NYC. Or maybe I just come across as the type of guy who enjoys weird boxers. I'm hoping the former. To compliment this gift, Joanna also got me a "Rate That Wine" notepad (for all those times when I lounge around my apartment drinking wine in my boxers). You can see an example of the notepad here.

As if that wasn't enough, she also got me a WBC plushie. I'd like to clear the air and explain that the website that sells the plushie has the WBC grouped in the "microbe plushie" catagory. This isn't accurate. White blood cells are not microbes, and I think they would be rather hurt if anyone every tried to classify them as such. It would be like confusing Superman for Lex Luthor. He probably wouldn't appreciate it. Despite this critical error, the plushie is amazing and surprisingly accurate. It even has different sized cell surface markers! /nerd off

The major gift, however, was definitely the cologne. I'm not really sure if I can convey how good it smells with just words. Sadly the internet has not evolved to the point of scent-transmission. One day, perhaps, we will get there, but that day is not today. I guess I'll just some it up with "it smells really good and a lot like man." I think that's pretty accurate. The bottle is also super-snazzy. The cap has a magnet so it clicks shut in a satisfying way

Overall, I would say I made out quite nicely! Merry Christmas =)

HP7 Midnight Showing

A few days ago, we braved the crowds at one of the larger malls in the area to catch the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1.

From Jo: I got to the mall earlier than Mark, since we were meeting there for dinner, and picked up the tickets that I had preordered for us. There was already a good amount of people in line, camped out on blankets and in lawn chairs. Keep in mind, this was at 5 pm. :O

We had dinner then came back around 10:20 for the movie. We were going to dress up (read: I was gonna make Mark dress up with me), since we had been Harry Potter characters for Halloween.

However, that didn't quite work out since Mark had "accidentally" thrown out his costume with a bunch of boxes (he says he threw the costume on top of the boxes when he got home Halloween night, I say he didn't want to go out in public in that robe again). So he was to wear the glasses and a scar, and I my cape, and we would be a ravishing if not fully convincing pair of wizards. But that didn't happen either- when got there, he pulled out his pathology review book, I pulled out a Mid East politics book, and all was forgotten as we crept up in line, noses buried.

We made it into the theater with 10 minutes to go, and so we started in on the candy stash we got earlier: Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs (I was very pleased that my first card was Dumbledore, definitely a sign), Milk Duds, and popcorn. The movie itself was pretty good in my opinion- I don't reread the books before the movies, so I thought the general plot was very well executed, with a lot less aimless wandering around in the woods. The best part of it though was the depiction of the tale of the Deathly Hallows. It was beautifully done, and was my favorite part of the entire movie. When it ended I wished they hadn't split it up into 2 movies; I would've definitely sat there another 2.5 hours to see the ending. All in all, one of the better Harry Potter movies, and I enjoyed it immensely... even if it meant I wasn't getting up till 2 pm the next day :\

From Mark: Dinner and a movie is a pretty standard date for most couple, so going to a midnight showing is a great way to mix things up.

We had dinner at a Gordon Biersch brewery in the mall and both ordered burgers. I also ordered a beer sampler since I haven't had most of their beers. Overall their beers are pretty good, but nothing to write home about. Out of all the ones they let me sample, I liked the Heff the best.

After dinner we went to a specialty candy store in the mall in hopes of finding some Harry Potter candy. They had chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, as well as some weird blue bubble gum that ostensibly turns the chewers mouth blue. I refused to try that, since I have dignity. Joanna had no problems chewing it, though. We also bought about $20 of candy we didn't need (marzipan, milk duds, etc). I'm pretty sure the store owner thought we were fatties or something.

We eneded up getting in line about an hour and a half before the movie started and the line was already very, very long. The original plan was to play a DS game together while we waited. I wasn't able to finish my work for the day, though, so I had to study in line. Eventually the theater started letting people enter and we excitedly rushed in to secure semi-decent seats.

Once the movie began the crowd did a little clapping and cheering, but was otherwise quiet for the showing. Overall, I loved the movie. I think it really says something that the movie was over two hours long, but felt very short. The movie even did a better job of the dreaded "Harry & Co. go emo in the woods" scene than the book did (mainly because the movie trimmed it down). I also liked how the acting has greatly improved in this installment. The trio, in particular, give the best performance they have one screen yet. The show stealer, however, was Dobby. Every scene he was in was excellent. The ending had Joanna tearing up and I would by lying if I said I wasn't very sad.

Once the movie was over we drearily made it back to our cars and went home. The next day was more or less a blurr powered mainly by caffeine. It was worth it, though!

Intro

My boyfriend and I have been tossing around the idea of starting a blog to talk about our dates and perhaps get ideas for interesting stuff to do. We're starting this blog to keep a record of various dates we've been on, our thoughts on movies, restaurants, etc. that we've been to, and reviews of certain products we've tried out (mainly in the video game category, cause we're nerds like that). We figured it would be nice to have something to look back on and perhaps get some feedback of cool stuff to try. Hope you enjoy :)