I'm not going to go into the usual excuses for not posting as frequently. It's all been said before.

I met my new nephew Camden a few weeks back when my sister visited from Texas for a week and a half. He's a little character. As any baby should, he sleeps most of the time, and when he's not sleeping he's expecting food. In between meals and naps he's very playful ... auntie Hil has a knack for calming him down and getting him to goof around (whoda thunk?). Over Sunday dinner she and i were teaching him to throw a split-finger fastball. Between that training, Hilary and Jeff's gift of an A's jersey, my competing present of a full Chelsea kit, and dad Jared's penchant for the Cowboys, Cam has a bright sports future. V and i will be heading off to Texas in the next month or two to see him and his parents at their home in Dallas. For those wanting more pics of my cute first nephew, have a look at my dad's site.

V and i are now the proud owners of a Wii after Kevin secured us one in SoCal and fedexed it up north to us. And i'm sad to report that no fancy glowing or other Temple of Doom-esque magical phenomena were to be seen when i installed the console next to the PS3 and Xbox 360. We picked up a slew of games to put the fledgling system through its paces, including Cooking Mama Cook Off, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, and Bust-A-Move Bash! for Veronica, plus Wii Play to snag an extra controller. Cooking Mama is amusing, although at first glance not quite as engrossing as the DS version. The most memorable aspect of the game is the ridiculous broken English of the female narrator, in which the game almost revels. When doing a good job on a recipe, you're treated to a gleeful voice exclaiming "Waaandefurrr!". Raving Rabbids is downright insane, in the mental illness sense as opposed to the manic fun definition which best describes the multiplayer Bust-A-Move. I also bought The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess to give Nintendo's killer app a whirl. I haven't gotten to that yet however since i've been engrossed in slaughtering mythical beasts and dismembering zombified Greek warriors in God of War II on the PlayStation. We did have a couple of Wii gaming sessions with Phil and Naomi over the long Memorial Day weekend. That was mostly spent with Wii Sports, where i have yet to reacquire my knack for using ball spin to get strike after strike on the bowling lanes. My tennis chops are mostly intact, however. V had some fun designing Miis, figuring out how to manipulate eyebrows to make it look like the character has horns. This technique resulted in the most colorful character in our little village, the green-eyed, goateed, horned devil Beelzebub. With that inspiration, i went on a spree to create Jesus, Hitler, a piss-poor version of George Dubya, a skeleton, a petite bug lady, and a bald Princess that looks somewhat like the Empress from The Neverending Story. Quite the rogue's gallery.

Apart from helping P+N load some spare furniture into our garage, i spent a significant portion of our long weekend in front of my grill. I made some kebabs from Whole Foods, then got ambitious for Memorial Day and made more kebabs as well as burgers and sausages, plus Gardenburgers for Naomi. I also tried out a recipe from my parents, mixing sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus, artichoke hearts, and onions in olive oil and wrapping them in aluminum foil to be cooked on the grill. That turned out scrumdiddlyumptious. Throw in some salad and new potatoes fried in olive oil and rosemary, beer, and ice cream courtesy of P+N and we had quite a holiday feast. It was so good Veronica convinced me to grill again the next day after i returned from work and my softball game.

That's right, the Rays season has begun with the Memorial Day one-pitch tournament. The tourney is a bit different than our regular league ... you pitch to your own team, and each batter gets one pitch and only one pitch. So if your pitcher throws you a lousy ball or you foul it off, or do anything other than put your one ball in play, you're out. Makes for a quick game. We won our first game of the tournament by forfeit, and then put in an admirable performance in our second match, going down 7-3. We were leading 3-0 early on, but some defensive miscues put us in a hole. I was responsible for two gaffes, first getting ambitious trying to throw out a runner at third and lobbing the ball out of play, then dropping a ball at first that would've ended an inning in which we went on to give up 2 runs. I did well at the plate though, having regained a semblance of the hitting form i took for granted in childhood. All in all i'm proud of how our team played, and look forward to improving upon our rookie campaign last season.

We also hung out some more with new friends Frank and Jennifer on the Sunday evening just prior to Memorial Day. Following our joint interest in culinary adventures, we went to Tarboosh in downtown Redwood City for some Lebanese delicacies. Instead of catching a movie at the theater down the street, we instead opted to head back to our place for some coffee, Beard Papa cream puffs, and the end of V for Vendetta on HBO. I selected the latter and sincerely hope it didn't depress the hell out of everyone.

Somehow i remained completely ignorant of the fact that Chelsea's summer US tour would take them to my doorstep at Stanford Stadium in July until last week, when asked whether i wanted to get tickets with some of my Stanford chums. Shocked, i organized my own collective to attend and splurged on tickets in row D near the midline. Matthew rightly commented that he was surprised i was going given my recent distaste for the Blues' management. But i would have to swear off the team for good in order to miss them when they're playing a scant five miles from my house and just down the street from my office. I haven't exactly been impressed with Chelsea's purchases early in the offseason, including another questionable impact striker in Claudio Pizarro and a few projects in Steve Sidwell and Danny Philliskirk. However, perhaps these low key acquisitions speak to a new adherence towards establishing continuity and chemistry within the squad. Yeah, and maybe monkeys might fly out of my butt. Quiet, Wayne. We still need help in defense, so hopefully some quality back line signings are forthcoming. V and i also looked into checking out Chelsea against David Beckham and the LA Galaxy, but the crafty American side have made it so you can only get those tickets by buying them as part of a larger bundle including several crappy MLS games. Seeing as it's also Beckham's first match with his new club, it looks like we won't come by those tix without paying through the nose. Oh well. To be honest, i'm a bit perplexed why Beckham is currently being touted for knighthood. As i recall, members of the '66 World Cup squad were knighted for finally bringing the cup to England. What has Beckham done? Fuck all with the England squad. He did win titles and a treble with Manchester United in the 90's, but those days seem long gone now. Is he being knighted for being an omnipresent nasally-voiced pretty boy socialite? Ooookay.

Whereas the weekend before was occupied with grilling, this past weekend was decidedly arty. On Friday night i caltrained up to the city to have dinner with Jenz and Veronica prior to Jenz's showing at Polk Street gallery Ktizo. We inspected her photos and other pieces on display before absconding with her friend Kristen to Berkeley for the Arcade Fire's performance at the Greek Theater. A majestic show, recounted in full on my concerts page. On Saturday after i got in several morning hours with GoWII, we took the typically overjoyed doggie over to Foster City to the dog park. At this point when we get off the 101 at Hillsdale she knows where we're going, and gets very excited and impatient. Because of a festival we were forced to alter our route their slightly, which got Tara worried as from her viewpoint it looked like she was getting shafted out of her dog park visit. All's well that ends well, though. Returning home, we readied to go out clubbing at Leisure and New Wave City, but i just wasn't in the mood and opted instead to relax at home. V made a good remark on Sunday that i have trouble committing at clubs. If i don't make up my mind to dance (or get silly drunk, à la the picture at right ... i honestly have no recollection of when or where Jenz took this), then i end up being a wallflower. Good analysis, although i'm not sure how to translate that into increased enjoyment at clubs. V slept late on Sunday while i watched some TV. Unfortunately one of our trees is growing into the receiving path of our satellite dish, meaning our cable reception is getting more and more spotty. I'll have to call our gardener to trim back the offending foliage. In the afternoon we drove up to Somarts in the city for V's old friend Marcus's showing at the Queer Latino Arts Festival. He was showing a very interesting shellacked pair of jeans and boots that he had decorated. Afterwards, we had a lovely tapas dinner in the Mission at Andalu, before returning home once again to lonely Tara and whiling away the rest of our evening.

I finished watching the last 1.5 hours of the second Pirates of the Carribean movie, the hopelessly convoluted Dead Man's Chest, yesterday afternoon. Phil and Naomi correctly commented that it appears this film was written as it was filmed, the only feasible explanation why a new symbol, key, treasure, villain, or ship is introduced every five minutes, each with less relevance to the plot than the last. V came in halfway and i futilely attempted to bring her up to speed ... what a joke. I loved the first installment of the series, and would've been fine if that had been the end of it. But of course, the conventional corporate filmmaking wisdom is that if one movie made money, then keep milking the cash cow until it's dead. Never mind that the followup stories make absolutely no sense. Despite my dissatisfaction, i'm halfway inclined to go see the third installment At World's End, to try to glean some much-needed but probably absent closure from the story.

We contracted a handyman recommended by V's friend Stephanie to finally decarpet our bedroom and refinish the underlying hardwood. That's scheduled to begin this Thursday, meaning sometime before then we'll have to remove all the furniture and assorted crap from in there. Our new handyman Salvador asked if there was any wood damage to be repaired, to which i pleaded ignorance. We'll find out on Thursday. V's already drawing up a list of future projects for Salvador pending successful completion of this chore, including redoing our bathroom floor and remodeling the front porch.

Tonight i'm off with my Radiation Physics partner-in-crime Dave to see the A's take on the Boston Red Sox at the Oakland Coliseum (technically "McAfee Coliseum", but that sounds so retarded i refuse to follow the naming rights). I haven't been to an A's game in years, so i'm curious to see how the stadium has evolved. Dave is a Connecticut import and as such is a big Sox fan, and we're sitting with a group of his friends who are also Sox devotees. I'm torn whether to wear my Sox hat and suffer the inevitable abuse from the Oakland faithful, or get an A's cap and support my childhood team, alternately being abused by my pro-Sox group. My penance for taking in an A's game is missing the next-to-last show by Pacific Northwest indie punk outfit Pretty Girls Make Graves, a brilliant band who have decided to call it quits after three evolving albums and a number of great performances. V is going and will get to see the finale of the innovative and tragically short-lived group.

You'll notice that i reworked the front page of the site, in an attempt to put a more useful synopsis of current posts to all different areas of fac13, including the journal, concerts, album reviews, and photos. I also added a link to my RSS feed at the top, another effort to get the word out regarding recent posts. Take them as you will.