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Was a great night. I found two free movie tickets that I was given for Christmas. Don’t you love it when that happens. I swear, every time I get free movie tickets as a stocking stuffer, I die a little inside. But as the awards season was coming full circle, and my movie intake was considerably smaller than last year, I was pleased to find the free tickets lying around. For the past two years, I had seen all of the best picture nominees. This year I was slacking, and hadn’t even seen four. Tree of Life was phenomenal, Terrence Malick continues to be one of the most daring, and emotional directors of our time, in my opinion. Moneyball was great too, it did have a little social network vibe to it, mainly due to the treatment Aaron Sorkin created from Michael Lewis’ book. And I really loved Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s best movie since Match Point. And maybe on par with Annie Hall. It’s really good, and everyone should like it. If you like Allen movies, you’ll LOVE it. I had yet to see The Artist (the probable best picture winner) and a handful of other nominees. I don’t care how good people say it is, I really have no desire whatsoever in seeing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’ve been really dying to see The Descendants. I’ve been a fan of Alexander Payne for a long time, and George Clooney completely devotes himself to his character every movie, so I expected this movie to be really well done. By the way, take some time out to watch Sideways, such an amazing movie. If you aren’t convinced that Paul Giamatti is one of the best actors out right now, than this movie will do it for you. So will Big Fat Liar.

But I digress, I know my stream of consciousness blogging isn’t exactly a model for clarity, but welcome to the mind of a twenty something male diagnosed with ADHD, so for that I apologize.

So I took Morgan out to see The Descendants last Thursday night (she has amazing taste in movies too; one of the many qualities I love about her). We debated our dining arrangements beforehand; it was our goal at the beginning of the year that when we eat out, we eat out at restaurants that A.) are locally owned, and unique to the DC area, or B.) places that we haven’t been to yet. We decided on Nando’s, which if you haven’t had it…..whoah. It is incredible. The chicken was amazing, cooked to perfection, and very affordable: I had a huge meal for only 11 dollars, and it filled me up. I had it slathered with the hot sauce. Extra hot seemed too much. And it was definitely hot enough.

After dinner we went to the movie, which was great. Such an amazing movie, but it was really depressing. All of the actors involved we’re phenomenal. Keep an eye out for the girl who plays Clooney’s eldest daughter. She was really good. The more tense moments in the movie (and there were a ton) were really heart wrenching, yet there was still a lot of charm in the movie.

Back from a busy weekend. So, lets see what I did.

Friday, left the office at 5:30 and drove to the Caribou Coffee on Pennsylvania Ave.. I felt a little disloyal straying from the usual Vanilla Latte from Starbucks. Plus, I remain 12 beverages away from getting a gold card. Blast. Well, anyways, I pulled up into a space RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STORE. I’m sorry to be so pleased, but occurrences like this in the district are few and far between, so let me gloat for a minute…

OK, I’m done.

Well, I met up with Morgan and Kara at Caribou; Kara had just flown in to lovely Washington for the weekend, and had spent the whole day sightseeing , visiting the various monuments, sitting through the vastly entertaining and informative tours (“This is the Lincoln Memorial. It is a monument and memorial for Abraham Lincoln.” Really? Are you sure?).

After catching up a little and downing a Caramel Highrise (which is OK; I’m still sticking with Starbucks), we drove back to Moe’s apartment, opened up a bottle and drank some more, talked some more, and proved our mettle by destroying all of the college scholars in College Jeopardy. Yep, we’re badass. After I exhausted all of my brainpower nailing the final jeopardy question (who is King Soloman? BAM, winner winner Sheen dinner.) we got ready to go out. We weren’t planning on doing anything too crazy; long gone are the days when a night club filled with drunk grads, semi slutty looking sorostitutes, and bros upon brahs upon douches could keep me entertained. We opted instead to show Kara around to some local hot spots.

We went to U street, which houses one of my most favorite places in the city. Yep you guessed it: Ben’s Chili Bowl. This glorious establishment is like heaven on earth. I swear the chili must be made of angel’s shit or something. It’s that good. I opted for the half smoke, loaded, with cheese fries that I split with Moe. Moe had the same thing. As did Kara. We just wanted to show her how much better this shit is than the shit they have in Cincinnati (Skyline Chili). During the meal, I actually met Ben Ali’s wife (the aptly named Ben’s wife) she was so sweet, and actually gave me extra napkins. G status.

After Ben’s, we walked the long two blocks to Busboys and Poets (and in below reezing, blustery weather, yes. Two blocks IS a long way.) The wait was supposed to be 20 minutes, but it was packed in there, and it was more like 45 minutes. I think they forgot about us. Oh well, I’m not complaining. We got to look around the bookstore inside of the restaurand, which was awesome. We were all engrossed in the Banksy book, which showed off all of his street art in the past 10 years. I was in the middle of a book of poetry by Gil Scott-Heron when we were finally called to our table. I ordered the Big Daddy (a cup of coffee with three shots of espresso; I had to drive all the way back to Alexandria so I needed it) and an Amstel. The girlfriend had something akin to a Blue Moon, which was quite tasty, and Kara went with some sort of specialty mixer. For desert, Moe and I went with a cheesecake, which was amazing. So rich and flavorful, yet really light, airy, and fluffy. It was drizzled with a strawberry syrup and a sliced strawberry, which was amazing. Kara went with a chocolate cake, which looked so rich and heavy, and I couldn’t even bring myself to try any, it looked to daunting. After a couple of hours, we returned home, and called it a night.

I’ll follow up later today on the happenings of Saturday. Right now I’m lying in bed, listening to Grizzly Bear, about to flip on Parks and Rec on Netflix. Another question, anyone know why every NBC show is on Netflix instatt EXCEPT Community?!?!?!?! It’s killing me. Any information will be greatly appreciated. Hasta luego.

sb

So I’m back for the first time (not a Ludacris reference) in around 9 months. I guess unthought there was no better time than 4 PM on a Friday to post my first blog post in nearly a year. I guess boredom at work will do that. Now, you may be expecting some deep and prophetic blog post about finding myself, or at least a crazy story or two that has occurred in my life in between posts. Alas, that is not the case. So maybe in a brief recap, I’ll catch all of the non existent readers of my ever popular blog on the happenings in Sam’s World these past 10 months:

-graduated school from South Carolina with a solid and stellar grade pour average (which I forgot, but for the sake of this post, let’s just say its around a 4.3)
-moved in with my parents, as most future billionaires do
-started a job at a prestigious law firm, doing very important things to help keep this machine afloat (including stuffing file jackets and refilling my coffee mug; now you all know why I’m blogging right now)
-I’ve been happily dating my girlfriend for 10 months (this is the only fact where I’ll refrain from some snide or sarcastic comment; she really is amazing)
-I’ve been to numerous sporting events around the nations capital, pumping money into the best teams in the country. Seriously, wanna know why the redskins won 5 games? Thanks to me and my $210 ‘donation’ for three obstructed view seats, next to 40 screaming Jets fans. J-E-T-S indeed.

Part two will come later today. As will a picture of our amazing seats at Fed Sux Field. I KNOW you all are on the edge of your seats…stay tuned

sb