Christmas Sports

Jerome Simpson plays for the Cincinnati Bengals. His method of getting into the end zone to score a touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals, was pretty unusual, but definitely worth a look above.

No Boxing day football for me this year. What we did get though was a three NBA games in a row and a big local derby in the NFL between Green Bay and Chicago Bears... on Christmas Day. Have to say I was pretty surprised that there was so much going on on Christmas Day. I kind of gave some of the basketball a go, but to be honest, I'm not really having it. You can't really deny the fact that someone leaping from 6 yards out to dunk a ball as hard as they can through a basket is pretty fun, but just strolling around taking it in turns to score doesn't really have me on the edge of my seat.

Green Bay, with a metro population of around 300,000 are pretty much the best team around at the moment. I love the fact that with the smallest metro population in the NFL they are more than likely to win back to back Superbowl's and that their local rival (Chicago) has a population of just under 10 million. Green Bay beat Chicago 35-21. Chicago did though, with two of their quarterbacks injured had a chap that a few weeks ago was coaching high school football and hadn't played NFL football for 4 years. He did a pretty good job considering, and may have earned a contract for next year. Good one Josh McCown.

Kielbasy and Coal

After the easiest drive back from Ohio on Monday, the following day we took a drive with K's dad up to the "Coal Regions" of PA. The primary purpose of this trip was to go to Kowalonek's to get a big order of Kielbasy and various other related meats for all the family. The secondary purpose was a bit of a field trip for K including drives around Centralia (her mum's hometown) and Shenandoah (her dad's hometown) and various coal dependant towns and former towns in-between.

First port of call was Kowalonek's. Having left Bethlehem at 7.30 we arrived a bit after 9 and there was a queue outside the door. This was to be expected. While waiting in line we were given a $1,000,000 bill by a chap who then went on to talk about the million dollar question. Any guesses? Yep. What is going to happen to you when you die? We were being hit up by someone asking us if we were going to heaven in the line for some Polish sausage, probably the first and last time I will experience such a scenario.

When we actually got into the shop the ticker was on 10. K's dad pulled 36, a bit of a wait, but it was pretty fun overhearing how much people were spending on cured meats ready for the holidays. $156.27 here, $89.70 there. One chap ended up hauling out three boxes of the stuff, potentially not all for him and his family.

I was amused by the above sign and the shop's obvious desire to encourage people that they can eat Kielbasy all year round not just at Christmas and Easter. We were assured they are only ever as busy as they were when we were there during the holidays, but it would seem that the seasonal business is enough to keep them going for another 100 years and a few more generations.

After a bit of breakfast we stopped in the (former) town of Centralia, inspiration for some of K's writing. There are only about five or six houses left after an underground mine fire meant the town was pretty much razed to the ground when the local government bought out everyone that lived there at the time. We had visited once before, but this time it felt particularly sad and bleak, probably not helped by the weather and time of year, but still sad to think of what was a thriving place overgrown and pretty much deserted.

We passed plenty of derelict mining buildings all over the area, but also a good few working mines as we made our way back down from the area back to Bethleham.

Buses and Peanut Butter

Yesterday we decided that we needed some food and that we quite fancied going to see the new Diablo Cody/ Jason Reitman film, (Young Adult) in the evening; this meant four separate bus journeys and because of this, a COTA day ticket. Firstly, we needed to get change so that I was only paying the correct fare and not giving them a dollar more than I needed to. With my four $1 bills in hand we proceeded to wait a while for our Number 2 downtown bus to arrive. While waiting, we were treated to some (seemingly typical) terrible Ohio driving. Quite simply, in this case, one car was going slow and the car behind wasn't paying attention so drove into the back of him. There was no damage but they just hung around for a while holding up the traffic to the bemusement of all on-lookers.

There is usually a whole load of different things happening on the bus and yesterday proved no different. In chronological order, here is a rundown:

- Someone tried to sell me a Big Issue type publication and he was surprised I heard him as he said he was so quiet, so he repeated himself. I still didn't want one and he seemed to just keep talking to himself/ me.

- Two ex-soldiers tried to outdo each other with Iraq stories.

- A drunk sat in front of us (at 2pm), so drunk he seemed close to the point of passing out.

- People talked about the pirated Abba CD they are going to give for Christmas.

- Four Santas and a rudolph were off for a night on the town singing modified carols including the "F" word. The bus driver had to tell them to watch their language.

- A smile from the bus driver.... A rarity.

I never used to have much time for peanut butter, in fact I was kind of disgusted by it. Times are changing though and I kind of like the stuff now. The reason(s) for this are the Buckeye Candies you see above. They are pretty much very creamy peanut butter dipped in chocolate and they are great. More recently I have also been enjoying Hershey's Take 5 bar. These seem to have a combination of peanut butter, chocolate, caramel and pretzel; it's really very good. I'm not quite at a Reese's Peanut butter cup stage quite yet and actually spreading the stuff on a slice of toast is a long way off, but I'm opening up more peanut butter related candy avenues for exploration. Of course you'll hear more as I continue my American candy exploration...

MY Top 20...

So, I'm a bit of a sucker for end of year lists. I like and hate them in equal measure. With this being the first year that I have had a blog at the end of a year I couldn't really resist the temptation to do one of my own.

Here it is:

1. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for my Halo

2. Real Estate - Days

3. Tune Yards - Whokill

4. Pete and the Priates - 1000 Pictures

5. Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo

6. F**ked Up - David Comes to life

7. Woods - Sun and Shade

8. Smith Westerns - Dye it Blonde

9. Metronomy - The English Riviera

10. Low - C'mon

11.Bill Callahan - Apocalypse

12. Veronica Falls - S/T

13. Lets Wrestle - Nursing Home

14. Mazes - A Thousand Heys

15. Wilco - The Whole Love

16. Wild Flag - S/T

17. White Denim - D

18. Destroyer - Kaputt

19. War on Drugs - Slave Ambient

20. St Vincent - Strange Mercy

In reality this could probably have been kept down to about 15 or 16 albums that have been released this year, but I kind of like the round "20". I'd say the last six or so are albums that I either thought I'd like more or just haven't listed to enough. I also wanted to like the Battles, Wild Beasts, Peaking Lights and Deerhoof albums from this year more. I think the Peaking Lights is starting to grow a bit more, but sorry chaps, it didn't happen quite soon enough.

On the other hand, had the albums by Beach House and Deerhunter that came out last year have come out this year then they would most certainly have made the list. I'm sure Bradford Cox is gutted.

And finally, if I had the money I would have already have brought albums by The Bats, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Stephen Malkmus and Iceage by now. But I don't and K's mom's christmas list request will do the job for them.

OK, maybe I'll write about Christmas soon!

Getting Wet and watching Diners, Drive Ins, Dives.

Today it rained all day. We didn't have any food for dinner. I went out with the help of the Hembrows' discarded NYC street vendor bought umbrella. It kept the rain off my head, but the lack of any discernible drainage on any sidewalk meant wading through puddles all the way there and back. I was, though, looking forward to an announcement from our favorite local gig promoter. Knowing that nearby locals Guided By Voices have a new album out in January and are playing some dates in Europe in May, it seemed not too much of a leap to think that they might stop here in Columbus sometime soon. Apparently Los Campasinos were the band... I don't hate them (I'll leave that to Kristen), but they certainly weren't what I was hoping for.

After our semi-regular dose of Seinfeld re-runs, it's a Monday night marathon of Diners, Drive-In's and Dives. Your larger than life host Guy Fieri gets around the US and even a bit of Canada trying to find surprisingly good/crazy food in not necessarily great surroundings. One particularly crazy place tonight in St Paul MN, featured STUFFED (with blue cheese) burgers called Juicy Blucys. Or, if that sounds a bit much, how about some Spam Bites... Featuring: spam, cream cheese and pickle breaded and deep fried.

Sadly, there haven't been any featured in Columbus so far, but I've already got a couple marked for our first trip to Cleveland in the new year. Check here for a video of the first DDD place we got to in Washington DC.

There, Thanksgiving and Back

A week ago we picked up our hire car and headed off eastward towards Bethlehem PA. The 400 mile drive was supposed to take 8 hours, but the rain didn't stop and it was dark, so we took closer to 9 hours. Part of the journey took us along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which after my visit to the museum of American History I knew to be the oldest in the US (I think). We paid our $12 or so and made use of one of the two rest-stops en route. You definitely have more choice when you leave the highway, but the Midway rest-stop was pretty ropey and the mushrooms on K's pizza looked grey in the wrong kind of way.

Before we got the Thanksgiving on the Thursday, we had the pleasure of seeing Rich and Vicki on the final leg of their round the world jaunt. K enjoyed her 10 year high school reunion and the three of us enjoyed a burrito (one each) at Tulum (K's favourite, much-talked-about burrito bar) and a slightly overpriced drink at The Bookstore, which was a pretty well done speakeasy cellar type place and certainly one of a kind in Bethlehem.

Thanksgiving day brought a bit of American Football before the feast, seeing Green Bay continue their unbeaten run at Detroit. For the first time the 26 pound turkey was cooked in a bag (in the oven). All went down well and K and her mom probably tied the battle of sweet potatoes.

Not content with the usual choice of three deserts, the anti had been upped to a choice of FIVE. I started out with the traditional slice of Apple and Pumpkin pies (above). We got to some Pumpkin Roll later on too, no complaints. After a bit more football on TV the English element got out for a walk. The sun was out and there was no real need for a jacket. Later in the evening we spent (maybe a bit too long) watching Pumpkin Chunkin on the Discovery channel. Essentially this is a competition to see who can fling a pumpkin the furthest. I think one or two may have gone beyond 4000 ft and they seemed to come from some sort of air rocket type set up.

After a spot of breakfast at Billy's Dinner on Friday morning, the Hembrows were off on the bus back to NYC. We decided to avoid any potential pepper spray or gun attacks and not take a Black Friday shopping excursion.

Saturday meant a drive to a fairly nearby IKEA to squeeze some flat pack furniture into our Nissan hire car. It was much the same as the one in Bristol, though maybe a little less busy for a Saturday. We also went to a Christmas Craft market thing down near the steel stacks in Bethlehem. They either made a poor choice on the artists (?) they selected or the painted eggshells at $60 weren't quite doing it for me.

The highlight was a large christmas tree adorned with thousands of "Peeps" (above). The Just Born candy company (from Bethlehem) makes all sorts of marshmallow shapes for all the holiday seasons. We made sure to pick up a few snowmen...

The drive home started in sunshine, but ended up in the same torrential rain we had left behind in Ohio a few days earlier. The highlight of the journey was using our Giant Eagle grocery rewards to pick up gas at $1.19 a gallon rather than $3.39. We felt smug.

Them Apples

A couple of weeks ago we went to our newly re-fitted local Kroger supermarket. They are usually pretty good with free samples, but when they have just re-opened a store it seems, even better still. I started with some sushi, followed by some cake and then two or three different varieties of cheese. I might have messed up the order with which I consumed the freebies but I was grateful for all that was on offer.

We needed apples, and I have to say that thus far here in Ohio I haven't really found any variety that I am particularly loyal to. We've mostly erred on the side of Gala's, not all that tasty or juicy or crunchy, but kind of cheap. So, in this newly refitted shop I was game for an apple change. It looked like Honeycrisp were on offer. They looked big and red and shiny and at under $2 a pound it seemed rude not to pick up four.

I can quite comfortably say they were the best apples I've had. I used to think Pink Ladies were as good as you could get (maybe a bit of competition from the Jazz), but no, Honeycrisps are where its at. As the name would suggest they're super crisp and crazily juicy. Somehow though, the juice seems to stay well within until you crunch into the flesh. A good quality.

What to think then when you're told that there is a better apple? Apparently this is the case. Bred from bits of Honeycrisp and Zestar apples, people that try the new SweeTango can't quite find the words to describe how good it is. This weeks New Yorker food issue features a story all about bringing new apple varieties into the world and how the whole process works out. Check out this video here.

I still haven't tried one, but am on the hunt for some and hoping it's not too late in the season to find them, which it may be. I May just have to wait until next year....

Washington DC in 3 1/2 Days

Here follows a run down of our recent trip to the capital. Should you find yourself there anytime soon it is presented in the helpful(?) form of a guidebook...

GETTING THERE:

We arrived at BWI airport, one of the three Washington area airports. This involved us changing flights at Cleveland on the way out and Newark on the way back.

ORIENTATION:

I, personally, found Washington DC pretty confusing to walk around. More than once we started out in one direction only to find the numbers were going up when they should have been going down. Also, the diagonal streets that cut across the regular grid system didn't help me out too much either.

GETTING AROUND:

We used the metro quite a bit. It was a pretty simple system and we got around easily. It is against the law to eat or drink anywhere on the system. We didn't see anyone doing so, and as a result it was very clean. You pay per journey and the cost varies as per distance and time of day.

SIGHTS:

Approaching the Lincoln Memorial from behind you get a pretty good sense of the immense size and scale of the monument. From here it's a pretty pleasant, flat walk down the Mall taking in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and any number of others as you make your way down to the rather phallic Washington Monument. If visiting in the next few months, though, you'll find the Reflecting pool empty. It was leaking pretty badly and costing the city a lot to keep it topped up.

Beyond the Washington Monument you start to hit the numerous and free Smithsonian museums. You'll find Kermit the Frog and Julia Child's kitchen in the Museum of American History as well as all manner of other things. Further down, and the National Gallery of Art is split between the east and west wings. Visiting the East (pictured above), we thought the building and installations potentially impressed more than the art on the walls.

After about a two mile walk, no problem in the November sunshine, we reached Capitol Hill. Exploring at the weekend means avoiding the wildly unpopular congressmen and women and it all looks quite serene and pretty against the blue sky.

You can of course stop at the White House and peak through the railings, too.

SLEEPING - Budget

Our friends Matt and Laurie's basement apartment floor very close to the Dupont Circle Metro Station. Our hosts were very happy with the Buckeye candies, Cloud Nothings CD and Ohio State tat they received as payment.

EATING

ShopHouse - Dupont Circle. This place is apparently a spin-off from Chipotle (a McDonalds does Mexican). It was cheap ($20) for two rice bowls and two drinks. Someone said Asian Fusion and that fits. I had grilled chicken on rice with eggplant and some spicy stuff. I was full.

Kramerbooks and Afterwards Cafe - Dupont Circle. The full menu looked pretty interesting, if not a bit pricey. We didn't have time for dinner so just stopped for some pie. The pie was very good, Boston Creme and Blueberry, but at $7.50 a slice, not quite worth it. The bookshop looked good though.

Tortilla Cafe - Capitol Hill. Offers Mexican and El Savardorian fare. It was $6.95 for a Pupusa platter. I went for the pork stuffed option and K the cheese. Really tasty, filling food.

Lauriol Plaza - 18th St NW. The biggest restaurant I have ever been in. Stacked up over three floors with numerous tables outside too. The five of us spent about $100 and that included margaritas, main courses and chips and salsa. You had to shout to be heard such was the atmosphere, my crab and shrimp enchiladas tasted fresh and I left nothing behind.

Pizzeria Paradiso - M Street, Georgetown. We had to wait a while to be seated, but the pizza was crusty and lovely. They also have a particularly extensive (for a pizza place) beer selection. The Ommegang Abbey Ale is a great Belgian style beer brewed in NY state; at 8.5% though maybe only one for lunch is necessary.

Baked and Wired- Thomas Jefferson Street, Georgetown. One of about 5 or 6 different places in Georgetown you can buy a cupcake. We went for the Banana cake with Peanut butter frosting (pictured) and the lemon cake with raspberry frosting. The sponge was light and the icing thick. They could maybe do with a few more seats though.

Bar Pilar - 14th Street NW. We were here for brunch and it was just OK really. The bacon bloody Mary was pretty unique, but meant that that the total bill was a little bit more than dinner the night previous.

Ben's Chilli Bowl - U Street NW. From what I had read, the place that everyone needs to go to when they visit DC. I got the most popular: Chili half smoke. This is basically a smoked hot dog, with beef chilli on top. I made sure to eat it quickly so as not to lose most of the chili down my shirt. Very satisfying. We paid for our food, unlike the Obamas and Bill Cosby who always eat free.

ENTERTAINMENT

Avalon Theater - Connecticut Ave NW. Built in 1923, this not-for-profit neighborhood cinema and cafe is full of character and charm. Our reason for visiting was hearing K's fave, Joan Didion, speak about her new book, Blue Nights. The event was put on by the Politics and Prose Bookshop, something they do every night (though rarely at this massive place).

Positive Force DC. Is an activist collective seeking radical social change, personal growth and youth empowerment. They organize benefit and free concerts among other things. While we were in town they put on Ted Leo and the Pharmacists in a huge church basement. You got $2 off admission if you brought a tin of food with you. A fun show and thousands of dollars raised for Positive Force.

SHOPPING

Red Onion Books and Records - 18th Street. Pretty small, easy to miss shop. Well stocked with mostly vinyl, a few books and not too many CD's. Was pretty happy to find the first Fresh and Onlys album.

Crooked Beat Records - 18th Street. A bigger store having recently made the choice to stop selling CD's. They seem to be doing fine and I could have bought a lot more than an old Kurt Vile that I was very happy to find.

There were other shops in the city, but these were really the only ones we visited....

Rafa Marquez and not giving Blood

Rafa complete with ponytail and chest hair

We're currently in the midst of the strange MLS play-off system at the moment. It certainly drags the season out a bit, giving those teams that finished about 20 points behind the team with the most points the chance to keep their season going a bit longer. Last night was the second leg of the New York v LA game. LA were a goal ahead from the first leg in New York a few days earlier. The headlines from that game were more centered on the antics after the final whistle, which can be seen here.

So to summarize, Marquez throws the ball at Landon Donovan and there is a melee resulting in him (Rafa) going to ground in a manner that would suggest he had just been hit by something or someone pretty hard. He wasn't. Unsurprisingly this didn't do his popularity here in the US much good. That he is the second highest paid (supposedly $4.5 million for the season) behind Beckham doesn't help. Then towards the end of September he said:

"I think this is a team game and unfortunately there isn't an equal level between my team mates and I."

Maybe you should have thought about that before you took the cash, eh mate? He could learn a lesson or two from his team mate Luke Rodgers, who, straight out of the third tier of English football, has partnered Thierry Henry to score 11 goals this season. He scored in the 4th minute last night, then nearly got sent off. LA won 3-1 on aggregate and Beckham was pretty good.

After my own soccer efforts this afternoon, one of the nurses that plays suggested that people give blood at the medical center. With nothing much else to do and the chance of a free t-shirt and voucher for the zoo, I went down. Turns out being British, there is a good chance you might have mad cow disease and so they don't really want your blood. I offered to give my gifts back in a kind of awkward way, but they said to keep them. I did, but am going to feel a bit of a fraud wearing my OSU v Michigan Blood Battle t-shirt...

Pumpkins and Parades

As I walked down the street today (Tuesday, the day after halloween) I saw a good few bit of smashed pumpkin and then a little closer to campus a false mustache abandoned on the pavement. Halloween was over for another year and I had survived the festivities pretty well OK.

Our halloween fun started on Saturday when we got the chance to help the kids downstairs and their mates with carving their pumpkins. We were a bit late and the real hard work (scraping out and emptying the pumpkins) had already been done. The kids weren't all that impressed that they weren't allowed to use the knifes, so they had to make do with instructing the adults on how they wanted them to look. My new mate Devon was keen that his looked like Ozzy Osborne. I did my best and gave him some round glasses and a grumpy face as instructed. He (Devon) seemed happy enough. Pumpkin carving was carried out with Guns and Roses and the Jackson 5 on the stereo at the 10 and 11 year olds' request.

Last night the kids, parents and a few more friends headed out for trick or treating. K and I stayed behind in order to hand out candy to the kids that stopped by. There was certainly a greater uptake than back in Bristol. The kids seemed to range anywhere from 1 to about 17. They were pretty pleasant and grateful and didn't take too many from the bowl.

Last Friday was the OSU homecoming parade. Apparently this is an opportunity for graduates to come back and go and watch the football team play and maybe do a load of other stuff that we didn't really find out about. The parade wasn't all that popular really. There were lots of people in cars waving. These people seemed to range from the mayor and head of the college down to the people that weren't quite good enough to be homecoming king and queen. When they had all gone by we got some people representing their fraternity and sorority groups and then finally when THEY had gone by we got THE BAND. It was very exciting and even though K was a little disappointed that they were just in their sweats, they gave it a good go, especially as it was getting colder and darker by the minute.

When they were done, we headed home and stopped to pick up some nice warming Stouts and Porters from the local bottle shop / drive-through beer distributor.

Crazy Baptists and BBQ

There had been rumors that they were coming and it proved to be the case yesterday on a sunny Tuesday morning. The crazy people from Westboro Baptist Church were continuing on their crusade to share their bizarre and pretty offensive rhetoric about gay people and how dead US soldiers were struck down by God for representing such a depraved nation. Louis Theroux spends some time with them in two documentaries he has made, the first part of one is here.

Apparently they had decided that OSU was a particularly gay friendly institution and were therefore worthy of their attention. So there they were on the corner of 12th and High Street, police behind them, across the road from them and a few more down the road for good measure.
There were only four of them. There always seemed to be a lot more of them when Louis made his films. Maybe times are getting tough and they couldn't afford the vehicles or gas to drive over from Missouri. I reckon there were probably about 200 OSU students counter-protesting and generally doing their best to drown out the crazies. It seemed that it was too good an opportunity to miss for some Michigan bashing. The idea that the Westboro folks were Michigan alumni was pretty good. I have to say that I'm looking forward to how "Beat Michigan Week" pans out later on in November; yes that's right, a whole week dedicated to beating another college football team. There were also plenty of signs suggesting that Shirley (the leader of the gang) was a certain number of things that I won't repeat now...

On Sunday K and I decided to put her vegetarianism to the test by heading to what has been called the best food truck in Columbus by some people. I went for the grass fed brisket with a side of mac and cheese and baked beans. The beef was pretty amazing, lightly smoked, just breaking to pieces and served with homemade Dogfishhead ale barbeque sauce. I ate it quickly and didn't waste too much time with the Baked beans which were also smokey and had little chunks of pork in between too. K had mac and cheese and greens, not the best of choices for her. Will be going back.

A Sandwich and the World Series

Having previously outlined my intention to check out the Pickled Swine food truck on an earlier blog I made good on that promise after one of my (not quite daily) trips to the local supermarket when I saw that the truck was just one block down the road. After a bit of deliberation I went for the “Angus Young”. Made on rye bread and with roast beef, goats cheese, spicy bacon aioli, tomatoes, greens and braised red cabbage making up the generous filling, and at $9 it wasn’t cheap but could certainly have been shared. I didn't though. Just so you know, I am getting exercise playing soccer three times a week, not just eating.

The world series started on Wednesday and the St Louis Cardinals took the first game; evening it up for the series last night though, the Texas Rangers won 2-1. It's pretty exciting and close stuff and having read my “Watch Baseball Smarter” book I'm pretty much on top of what is going on. I am, though, still finding the physique of some of the athletes that whack it into the stands and trot around for a home run pretty funny. Look out at some stage for a top 5 of Steve's chunky baseball stars.

Watching quite a bit of baseball, it was only a matter of time until I felt it necessary to have "a team". A couple of issues affecting this decision are, firstly: K's family. Her dad is a big LA Dodgers fan, but I can't really get behind that as they're never on TV here in Ohio and LA is pretty far away. K's uncle and cousin are big Cardinals fans. They are a bit closer to here and I do happen to know a bit more about them (and they have a player named Albert Pujols! That's pronounced "poo holes"! - ed.), but they are in the World Series and reaching for that potential glory so quickly seems a bit much to me. Being here in Columbus, the local team, the Clippers, are the feeder team to the Cleveland Indians. Having watched a few of their games and being amused by the fact that one of their players was called Carlos Santana wasn't quite doing it for me. The team hammering them now and again though was the Detroit Tigers. I'm sure they'll be pleased to know that they've got my vote. They have the best pitcher in the game (Justin Verlander) and a good few people that can smack it into the seats; Detroit is also pretty local being just a 3 hour drive away...

Cycle Paths and Sky(kind of)scrapers

With K wrapped up in grading papers, Sunday afternoon seemed as good a time as any to check out the cycle path that runs close by. I decided that I would head south towards downtown rather than north to Worthington. Mostly this was because it was closer, but also I hadn't been to see the river and the tall buildings next to it.

Most of the Olentangy trail was fairly dull and involved lots of cris-crossing over the river and under the highway and back again and in some cases back again. With downtown in sight the trail ended and the Scioto Greenway began. I kind of just followed it until it stopped, taking in as I did some pretty nice views of kind of tall buildings and a good few birds. Is this a Heron? Possibly.

I kept going and there was a bird viewing area and there were a fair few to see. It was all pretty pleasant and then I ended up on a pavement crossing the river. In my mission to make up some sort of loop, I tried pretty hard to work my way back along the other side of the river. The lack of any discernible path held me back somewhat, so I turned, retraced my steps and kept going until I found another bridge to try my luck with. This time it worked and I was able to follow the river on the west side for a while. It didn't last long, and after a while I was back on the original trail heading home.

My journey was, though, briefly interrupted when a cop on one of the bridges above called me over to stand beneath him while he shouted at me. Fortunately he was just enquiring as to whether I had seen a car on the cycle path that he had had reports of. I hadn't. With that he thanked me and I was on my way.

Pumpkins and Other Food

They started to appear a couple of weeks ago or so, now they are everywhere. I'm talking about pumpkins. I have never seen them in so many different shapes and sizes as outside the local supermarket (above). They are even available in small, just-for-a-pie sizes and at 89 cents it seemed rude not to. The guy on the checkout didn't seem to know about the smaller, cheaper size though and when I got home, I realized he had charged me a big fat $4.99. I took my pumpkin and receipt back the next day and got my $4 back, thanks very much Giant Eagle.

As well as the pumpkins themselves, all manner of pumpkin-themed and -flavored goods are available. Back in the UK, the window in which K was able to get her pumpkin latte always seemed pretty narrow. Here though, if a coffee shop doesn't have a pumpkin option they are very much the odd ones out. I don't know much about coffee, but K was particularly excited to pick up 1/2 a pound of pumpkin blended beans at our local Cup 'O Joes. My personal favorites so far are the "mini pumpkin bobbs" we picked up the other day. They're kind of mini whoopie pies and very good indeed.

On Sunday at our first slightly trendy flea market, as well as there being lots of vinyl and thrift store type clothing stalls, there was also a couple of places for lunch. I can't remember what it was called, but my sandwich was made up of: pulled pork, fried plantain, pinto beans, lettuce and a lovely avocado sauce. I took up the option of (vegan) homemade hot sauce and creamy garlic aoli. It was very good. It didn't come from a food truck, but there are plenty of them around. They seem to offer good, interesting food from a van, rather than the usual cheap, boring, bad food you get from a (burger) van. I am particularly keen to try "The Pickled Swine" offering all sorts of lovely pork goodness. I'll be sure to let you know how it is.

We stepped into the nearest convenience store and chose a couple of candy bars for dessert. I went for a Zero. Not sure exactly what it was about the candy that made it a Zero, but there it was. It was pretty good, although the nougat was covered with white chocolate, not fudge as I understand it. I will have another soon enough.

Old Beer and (new to me) Old Beer

We had gradually been noticing more and more signs in the bars and bottle shops around where we live talking about the impending arrival of a new (to Ohio) beer. It was Yuengling and it was going to be coming all the way from.... Pennsylvania. That'd be the same Pennsylvania of about 140 miles away. It seemed pretty strange to us that in the beers's 182 year life it had never been available for sale in Ohio.

It is America's oldest brewery and we know this as we had stopped one time in Pottsville to check it out (above). According to the weekly Columbus Alive, Ohio is going to be the fourteenth state in Yuengling's national distribution network and the last state bordering PA to get the beer. We're hoping that it'll fall into the lower of the seemingly two tier beer pricing that seems to exist in bars here. In that, if you order a "domestic" draft (Coors, Bud light or Pabst Blue Ribbon) you'll be looking at about $3 a pint. If you think of yourself as more of a connoisseur and don't want to be drinking five or six pints you might opt for a "craft" beer and pay more like $4-$5. That Yuengling is domestic but has discernible taste might mean being able to afford more than two pints!

I'm also keeping an eye out for beers that feature in my "300 beers to try before you die" book when we are out and about. As well as providing me with good cheese, Trader Joe's also came up with Anchor Steam Beer. At $10.99 for 6 it wasn't all that cheap, but when faced with a box to tick and a new beer to try it seemed rude not to. Though not quite as old as Yuengling, the label tells us it has been brewed in San Francisco since 1896. My book tells me Steam Beer is unique to San Francisco and that it "refers to a style where both ale and lager techniques combine to produce a beer with the richness and fruitiness of an ale with the quenching character of a lager."

More beer and cheese news soon, maybe.

Guns in Bars and GOOD cheese in Easton

I hadn't thought to buy the Columbus Dispatch before but the above headline made it impossible not to part with $1. Apparently here in Columbus you were already allowed to carry a concealed weapon if you have the appropriate license. This new law means that you could now carry your weapon into a bar. The one caveat... You can't drink alcohol. That's OK then, as long as when you take your gun into the bar and ask for a beer you tell the bartender that you have a concealed weapon and so you can't have a beer. Hmmm.

After the usual Saturday morning (Everton and Bath City both losing) our friend Molly, who had a car for the weekend took us off to the much talked about Easton. My favorite description prior to our visit was; "it's like a Disneyland for adults". It was. Les Wexner a local billionaire ($3.2 if you're interested) along with help from Arnold Schwarzenegger and some other friends had developed the area into a town centre made to look like a "Classic American Main Street". There were fountains and an excellent old school style trolly bus to help you between the different bits of the "town". It probably looks a lot like regular town centers used to before the idea of an out of town mall with loads of free parking came about and everyone headed out of main street to the mall.

The chance to do some food shopping with a car to take home some heavy stuff was good and we tried another new (to me) store. Trader Joes was pretty great, there were plenty of free samples and lots of stuff seemed cheaper than the places we had shopped so far. Of course whenever we try a different store we need to give the cheese fridge a good going over. It didn't take long to find the English Cheddar. This time though it actually was English, from the Dorset coast apparently. The signs were good, some salt residue at the ends and a good looking color and shape. What about the price? Well, for some reason it was a few dollars cheaper than the stuff from Vermont. I cracked it open when we got home and we weren't disappointed. It was tangy, creamy and crumbly. I now have my supplier.

Pop Hardcore and the last bus home

Check out the ticket above. A few things to mention. Firstly the fact that the show was at a music diner. We had been to the diner before and it seemed fairly small. Heading past the bar to the back, though, there was a pretty big stage and plenty of room for maybe 250 or so people. Secondly, one of the strangest things to us anyway, was that you were allowed into this bar to see the show if you were under 21, but you had to pay $3 on top of your not all that cheap $13 ticket. Not sure if the 20 year old me would be happy I could at least go or pretty hacked off that I had to fork out another $3! Finally the ticket would seem to suggest that we would be able to see all of F**ked Up and head off for the last bus during Wavves's set.

After a sprightly opening set from the Witches of Kelso (a local band sounding not unlike the Butthole Surfers at times) we were told Wavves would be on next. Disappointed to say the least. How much you enjoyed their set would depend upon your opinion of "slacker rock". After not that many tunes we decided that we weren't all that impressed. It seems that there are only so many times you can sing about being bored, going to the beach, smoking weed and just generally not being all that happy. That you're 22, live in San Diego, tour the world and get paid $30,000 to knock out an album on garage band apparently doesn't seem to cut it for Nathan. Lots of people lap it up though and leave when he is done.

FU set up in pretty good time and ripped into "The Other Shoe" from their 76 minute rock opera David Comes to life. Pink Eyes (above) was relatively restrained and took until at least the 5th or 6th tune before he joined us on the floor looking back at the stage. The t-shirt was lost much sooner though and the normal pose assumed. They really were great and just have so much going on; three guitars all playing amazingly intricate lines... Thinking back to how popular those really bad nu-metal bands (Linken Park, Limp Bizkit...) were a few years ago, FU really should be massive. Maybe their name is holding them back. Having started about 11.15 the clock was ticking on our 12:0something bus.

As the clock struck midnight we left a little annoyed, but happy that they had played a good load of stuff we wanted to hear. Got the bus home 5 minutes later having decided that the 2+ mile walk would have been a bit much.

Soccer Saturday and more Cake

I managed to get up early enough to catch the first part of my soccer disappointment for the day. ESPN was kind enough to provide coverage of Everton's visit to the Etihad stadium, where they tried to play nine at the back and a midfielder up front. They did OK for a while, but unsurprisingly couldn't hold out and couldn't score, losing 2-0, if you care. More worryingly, Bath City couldn't carry forward any momentum from their encouraging mid-week display, letting in a second minute goal and losing 1-0 at home to the mighty Kettering.

And so to Crew Stadium for their matchup against the LA Galaxy. As expected, the Galaxy's mid-week Champions league trip to Costa Rica had taken its toll on Beckham and new boy Robbie Keane and they didn't make the trip to Columbus. With a large majority of the crowd trying their best to "Blackout the Galaxy" (see below) the game was set for a home win.

Even though the Crew created the majority of the chances, they didn't score. Neither did LA, until the the third minute of injury time. Columbus managed to force a corner and everyone, including the keeper, was in the box. The chance for a last kick of the game equaliser was passed up when the Crew corner taker failed to clear the first defender and get the ball in the box. Terrible.

This is a picture of K's birthday cake which I, her lovely husband, got for her... a day late. The chocolate cake and mint icing was a hit, mostly.

Macaroons and Getting Followed

So, this blog is turning into a bit of a what I did at the weekends kind of thing. Mainly, this is because searching online for jobs and going to do the shopping during the week don’t seem to warrant too much comment. I did apply to the Northstar cafe, previously mentioned on this blog. After a semi-informal interview I was left to decide if I wanted to work weekends and commit for a year in order to cash in on my one week’s paid holiday and go back for a second interview. I haven’t decided yet.

Yesterday was K’s birthday and we decided after her classes were done for the day that we would head down to the area of town they call the German village. It was particularly exciting as it meant that we were able to head away from High Street. Pistacia Vera provided us with a choice of 12 different macaroons; we took 6 and, somewhat boringly, the vanilla bean won out as the favourite.

After stopping to run the gauntlet of the 36 rooms of the Book Barn, we got down to Skillet for some “Rustic, Urban” food. My pork shoulder broke down as soon as I showed it the fork and K couldn’t finish her fried green tomato thing. The side of sprouts was actually really good too!

The Ravari Room was our destination for evening drinks where we had sadly just missed Wolves in the Throne Room a few days earlier.... A good load of K’s new writing buddies showed up and we enjoyed the beer and conversation. Rather weirdly though we were followed most of the way home by this guy:

He was making a lot of noise and only really gave up on the pursuit when he got to our road and our local neighbourhood cats intervened.

Microbrews and Party Cake

We took our second trip to the North Market to eat, drink and be merry (their words) at the 6th annual Microbrew festival. $20 got us a commemorative pint glass, a $5 food voucher and 10 tasting tickets. Sadly, it didn't get us a beer hat or a Erbe t-shirt.

We worked our way around 7 different Columbus brewers/ brew pub type places and took it in turns to queue and taste. Hoster brewery has been around since 1836 in some shape or form and I'd been keen to try their (relatively) famous Gold Top Dortmunder larger. It was pretty good, and I'll get a full pint some time in the future. Barley's Scottish Ale also went down well with me and Elevator's Nut Brown Bourbon Aged Ale went down with K. It was crazy busy and after a while we just settled for a final pint and hopped back on the bus.

Having not mastered the art of shopping without a car we woke on Saturday morning to find that we had no food and so decided we'd head out for a bit of light breakfast... We wandered down East Hudson street and took our place in the line outside Jack and Benny's. It was a good, fun place with all staff members resplendent in OSU red. We spent a lot of Saturday unpacking our recently arrived shipment from home and generally got lost in boxes and packing paper.

Later in the evening everyone (connected to the OSU English Department) was invited to Nicole's birthday party. We had been told that it wasn't important that we didn't know who she was, but that we should aim to come dressed as a song. I very lazily went for "My name is Jonas" by Weezer and K modified her green beret with two raspberries. "Killer Queen" was as scary as A-ha's "Take on me" was impressive. The real high point of the gathering though had to be the cake: six layers of multi-coloured wonder. Proceedings pretty suddenly took a dive when some serious dancing to Justin Timberlake resulted in a dislocated knee for a 2nd year PHD student. The ambulance arrived fairly swiftly and not much later we also left with all limbs in the right place.