Back home and other stuff!

Yes, I'm back from AZ. Conference was fun, if largely pointless. But being trapped at one of the nicest resorts in AZ (the J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge) with a shopping center across the street that has a B&N isn't exactly hell. Especially since I love the desert -- the one non-urban environment that has ever really appealed to me is the desert. Walking at 5:45 in the morning through the gorgeous desert landscape in the back of the hotel (they had a desert botanical garden, even!) was just amazing.

Had three lovely dinners -- since Mom lives out there, I got to eat everything from nouveau Cuban to contemporary seafood to Southwestern. Yum.

My laptop is partially borked, so very little online time from the resort, alas.

Nice irony: On the plane ride back from the resort, I read Bentley Little's The Resort, about a haunted resort in Arizona. :-)

Props to glenn5 for giving me a ride back from the airport on Friday, which was much appreciated.

Alas, I brought something nasty back with me, which led to my wandering the house at 2:30 on Sunday morning with a 102.5 fever while wearing about ten layers of clothes to keep out the chills. It's mostly gone away, but I still feel a bit icky. I suspect it's a mild ear infection.

Oh, and needless to say, if you said it on LJ this week, I don't know about it. Email me if I need to know anything. Unless there's an axe murderer standing behind me -- that's important enough to justify a phone call.

I've never played those Deer Hunter video games (I prefer old-fashioned denial about how my venison makes it to my plate, thank you very much), but if this is what they're like, I might have to pick one up.

Oh, and forget all the expensive stuff on my wishlist (conveniently linked from my userinfo page in case you choose not to forget it). This is what I really need. $6 worth of the best comics character ever created. To quote Jamie from Megas, "What do you call a big head with little arms and legs?"

Oh, and I missed two sports controversies while I was away. Quick takes on them: Anyone upset over the MNF/Desperate Housewives promo needs a life and a blowjob. And Ron Artest got what he deserved. Almost.

yummy food memories

Food items from the trip:

Dinner on Tuesday (at Deseo, a nouveau Latino restaurant owned by Douglas Rodriguez, a James Beard winner): salmon ceviche with fried dill and horseradish cream, a wonderful fried oysters dish with spinach, and a tamarind-cured marlin salad served in mini taco shells.

Lunch on Wednesday: Fish and chips at the Rock Bottom Brewery. I'd never been there before, but it was quite yummy. And the fish they use is salmon!

Dinner on Wednesday (At Eddie V's Edgewater Grille): Fresh Long Island Oysters to start with (yum!), followed by grilled crab-stuffed shrimp. Both amazing, although my mom's parmesan-crusted lemon sole may be the best sole I've ever tasted. Ronnie, a family friend, had a nice steak. We split a Godiva molten chocolate cake for dessert that night.

Breakfast on Thursday: I ate at Mark MIller's Southwestern-themed restaurant in the hotel, and did the buffet thing. Aside from the usual items, the best things I ate were the duck and mango omelet, the chicken and jalapeño sausages, and the blue corn pancakes.

Dinner on Thursday: We went to Michael's at the Citidel, long one of my favorite Arizona restuarants (Shadesong, it's where we had my 30th birthday brunch). I had the lobster ravioli with white truffle butter and portobello to start with, followed by the roast duck and foie gras on an onion tart. Finished it off with a eggnog creme brulée.

Yes, there is something to be said about having relatives who want to pay for the meals on a trip. :-) Phoenix/Scottsdale has become a damned fine area to fail to lose weight in.

Aaaagh!

Mrs. Doubtfire 2. Because God hates me. A lot.

Two notes on Bentley Little

Spoiler-free, but fun notes on The Resort.

First, "Philip Emmons," Bentley's pseudonym, makes yet another appearance in the Bentleyverse, as a Cassandra-like figure. And we hear about the movie-version of Death Instinct (an early novel written under that pseudonym), which, according to a movie critic character, appears to be an under-appreciated classic.

Yeah, I dig in-jokes. Especially ones that don't overwhelm the actually plot.

The trend that ate my mail pile

Entertainment Weekly has, no fewer than three times in the past two months, included a bonus DVD (advertiser-supported), offering up the entire premiere episodes of Huff and House, and info and music videos from The Real Gilligan's Island. It's a trend that I fully expected to continue, with obvious tie-ins in EW and other media-oriented magazines (People, Rolling Stone, etc) offering movies and music dvd samplers, and even less tech/movie focuses mags offering some samples (Woman's Day offering a promo for Women Behaving Badly, etc).

But today, I got the latest copy of my high school alumni newsletter.

And there, in the middle of it, was a DVD: Collegiate: The Movie.

I kid you not.

I'm just floored.

No, I haven't watched it yet. But I will.

(Oh, the other nifty item from that newsletter: Mark Danielewski, author of House of Leaves and brother to singer Poe, is a Collegiate alumnus)