Taking on the Ben and Jerry's "Vermonster"

Friday night, one of our friends ran an "ice cream crawl" for his birthday. We started at a specialty dessert restaurant called Finale in Harvard Square, moved on to local chain J.P. Lick's, and finished with the massive Ben & Jerry's "Vermonster," a mega-sundae that you need lots of help to consume. (This also spreads the obligation around a little, given the dish's amazing $35 cost!)

We got five different flavors in the big plastic tub, more than a dozen scoops of ice cream, and heaped on five toppings above and beyond the automatic hot fudge, nuts, and whipped cream. Our best topping choice was bananas (tastes great with vanilla or chocolate) and our worst was gummy bears, which freeze up and become crunchy gum, a poor texture match for the ice cream.

The picture shows me contributing my stomach to the task. It took about 40 minutes to reach the final step, a cup of syrupy soup. Fortunately, the birthday boy knocked it back without a second thought, saving us the less-than-appetizing task. The store keeper took our picture for the wall of those who'd consumed the whole thing, which always took a handful of folks, and sometimes several. (One amusing photo does show a team that failed, sad faces on display.)

The month of football and dirty streets

There's no avoiding it now, we're in football season. We threw a perfect spiral of a Patriots birthday party for our friend Josh last week to celebrate. One of the attendees chipped in with an amazing pigskin-shaped cake. (Our fine triathlon filly Sunessa enjoys one end of it in today's picture.) Unfortunately, the Patriots forgot to join the party festivities, losing at home to the Dolphins. @#($@#*@$(!

We've attended a fair amount of live music lately. Perhaps it's the spirit of Rock Band growing within us! Leading up to November's election, politicos focus on talking points. We use ROCKING POINTS.

Point 1: The Cult - "She Sells Sanctuary." We caught these guys at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, RI. The lead singer tossed four different tambourines into the audience during the show. (Less dangerous that it sounds, as he gave them some height and people caught them easily.)

Point 2: Lifestyle - "Everyone's in Love with You." They're connected to the Boston synthpop band Freezepop via the lead singer and drummer. Lifestyle headlined a night of 80s-style pop-rock music at the restaurant & club called Church. Their next show will be an all-New Order cover gig at local club TT the Bear's on November 1.

Point 3: Dear Leader - "Everyone Looks Better in the Dark." Another (sort of) derivative band, as the former lead singer of The Sheila Divine (Aaron Perrino) moved on to this new project a few years back. Their "shiny guitars and swooping vocals" sound is remarkably consistent--for lack of a better word. If you like it, no question that you'd really like it. We think of them as biggest in Boston, but they're also very popular in Belgium. No kidding.

Point 4: Freezepop - "Brainpower." The video gaming show Mega64 made this video for Freezepop's first Rock Band song. It's incredibly silly, as everyone raised on video games should be. We caught them most recently playing a huge (5000+ people) stage show at PAX in Seattle.

Oh, and don't forget about October's dirty streets. Tree leaves are everywhere right now, sidewalks get slick with a damp brown carpet, and we await the chance to see colors change away from town. (The ones in our neighborhood go right from green to blech.) We'll drive up to Ogunquit, Maine, in a few weeks--expect some nice photos from the drive!