New Year's Eve 2005....Beer-Walk and other avdentures!

Happy New Year, Everybody! I hope you find love, happiness, fun, health, and lots of good beer in 2006!

As the lovely Fwiz was kind enough to point out, my quadruple-posting day back on December 30th does not give me any excuse to take that many days off of posting in general. My apologies to Fwiz and the many, many others who have come to depend upon my daily pontifications to help them get through the long, cold days!

Although, that said, I don't have much to report here in my big comeback posting!

Yesterday was obviously new year's eve. I used to feel a huge amount of pressure to do something cool. Now I refuse to cave in to the pressures heaped upon us and I often opt to have a relaxing new year's eve. That is exactly what I did this year.

My boyfriend and I spent the majority of Friday night watching movies I had rented and brought over. Obviously, there were also a few beers imbibed while watching the films. We watched the Exorcism of Emily Rose. Interesting, but completely unfrightening. Laura Linney was fabulously annoying in her role as the lead defense attorney. I won't even go further into commentary on that subject. We also watched something called, "Pretty Persuasion." I had never heard of it, but was glad to have rented it. It was remeniscent, perhaps of Heathers or something along those lines. It was a black comedy involving this group of high school girls who, after getting annoyed with one of their teachers (played by the very same actor who will, from this point further have no other name except "Burger, the guy who broke up with Carrie on a Sticky note in Sex and the City.") It was pretty entertaining. Pick it up if you have the chance.

Anyway, yesterday, New Year's Eve, my boyfriend and I decided it would be fun to stroll through the city, hitting the Copley area (pictured somewhere above), and heading into one of our favorite (but infrequently visited) spots, Chinatown. We arrived in the city sometime around noon, only to discover that it was truely freezing outside. We walked along for a couple of hours, enjoying seeing the ice sculptures and revelers crowding the streets. Amazing, when you think of it, how many people brave the freezing cold for hours on end just to make sure they're in the city to see the clock stroke midnight. I give them a lot of credit for having the endrance.

Not I.

As soon as I hit the cold air, I immediately had to run into Starbucks and use the can. I hate being cold! As we meandered down Boylston Street, we decided we were quite hungry, and that we should head to Chinatown for lunch sooner, rather than for dinner, later. My boyfriend sort of had his heart set on this place called China Pearl. It isn't bad there, but there is so much thick, fattening sauce absolutely drowning every single meal in there, that I knew I just was not up for that. I suggested going to Japanese Hot Pot, instead. My arguments for Japanese Hot Pot (you get nice hot soup, it is perfect for cold weather, it is healthy and fresh and delicious) all helped me to acheieve victory in the "where-to-eat" debate, and we ended up at Hot Pot.

If you have never been to a Hot Pot restaurant before, try to find one and go. Check ou the picture above. This is exactly what the place looks like. Each seat at the counter has its own built-in pot slot right in front of it. You can order whatever kind of broth you like (the regular, clear broth is included in the price of the meal), but other broths, such as Tom Yum or Kimche can be ordered for a couple of dollars more. A couple of dollars well spent, in my opinin. The flavorful broth greatly enhances the meal!

I ordered my soup with chicken. If you have ever seen in the BRILLIANT film, "Lost in Translation" you might recall the scene where Bill Murray and Scarlet Johanson are in a restaurant ordering soup, and the pictures on the menu all show a bunch of raw meat rolled up. She can't tell the difference between the menu items, and he just randomly points to one and orders two of them.

Thankfully, the menus in this place show pictures and English text. (You never want to take a leap of faith with an Asian menu, believe me!) I ordered chicken, and my boyfriend ordered a beef/pork combo. You have to be able to cope with the fact that your meal comes to you in the form of a series of pieces of very thinly-sliced, and nealty rolled pieces of raw meat. Of course, I always get a little skittish about letting the chopsticks with which I will eventually eat, be used to put the raw chicken into the now boiling tom yum broth in the pot before me. We've all seen the Clorox Wipes commerical where the woman talks about the bacteria in raw chicken, and how she would never let anything she would then eat with come into contact with said bacteria. But then again, in Chinatown, no skittishness is allowed. You have to be ready to take that chance! Chinatown is like a different universe, baby! None of the Clorox commercial rules apply there!

Anyway, the soup was delicious. The chicken cooked up beautifully, the greens, corn, tofu, tomato and rice noodles make for a great combo along with the meat, and the soy sauce, scallion, garlic and kimchi accoutrements served as "toppers" round out the meal perfectly.

Oh, how could I forget that we were so cold on the way to the hot pot dump that we stopped off at the Rock Bottom Brewery for a couple of Munich Gold lagers?

After Chinatown, we took a detour to Borders Books, where I had no trouble spending the giftcard I had received as a Christmas gift. My mother also begifted me with a few books from the Amazon best-seller list, as she does every year, so I have enough great reading material for at least a few weeks now!

After the foray into Amazon, we decided to head back to my boyfriend's place to settle in and get warm. It was only about 6:00 when we returned to his place. We watched another of the films I brought over. Crash. I liked the movie very much, but seriously didn't understand the subplot revolving around Don Cheadle's character. Can anybody clarify? I swear, I wasn't drunk. I had probably had the equivalent of about 4 beers for the entire day. Add to that the fact that I had been walking in the blustery cold all day, and you have to understand that there's no way I could have been anything less than completely alert.

I just didn't get the Cheadle part.

Anyway, like the true old woman I've become, I had a difficult time staying awake until midnight, but I did manage to see 2006 get ushered in on live television.

I watched some of the NYC Times Square coverage. All I have to say is JESUS CHRIST, MARIAH CAREY, COVER IT UP!!! THIS IS A FAMILY NETWORK!!!!. Is it me, or is Mariah just getting bigger and bigger and wearing smaller and smaller clothes? She has really begun to annoy me. The poor bastard who was hosting with her was swaddled from head to toe in full wool winter gear, hat, scarf, huge boots, etc. And there was Mariah, busting out all over in a bikini top!