Monday I called the insurance company to cancel the check and issue us a new one.
Tuesday we received an envelope with the check and this note in it:
“Found this on the street. (Pacific Ave)
In Front of Borders.
Figured you could use it.”

There was no identifying return information. Thank you anonymous
nice person!

I don’t remember the prompt in the checkout process that led to the card, but I remember what I wrote: “Send me a limerick.” The card contains “limerick” printed on a blank label-sticker stuck to the inside.

That’s customer service!

So Fullpower’s had good food, good music, it was easy to socialize with everyone, there was a pile of games to play with, holiday trivia, co-worker trivia, guessed for number of Hershey’s Kisses in a jar (894), of how many marshmallow’s are in 3 jars (563), and for how many bows in the jar (82 I think). The Kisses were won by my cube neighbor and he doesn’t like chocolate so they are in my cube. I separated out the mint ones this morning so they don’t contaminate the rest. I won the marshmallows but I don’t like marshmallows so they’re on my desk too. Oh yeah, there was a series of boxes to guess the contents of too. For the kids there was a magic show and face painting and toys, and later Santa Claus came in with Mrs. Claus to give gifts to the kids. The whole thing was just right.

Thanks to for watching the dogs and cat for the weekend, and thanks to for letting the dogs out Friday afternoon.

We drove because flying is too expensive right now. The drive there was uneventful. We stayed Thursday night in Buttonwillow and continued on to arrive for lunch on Friday. Friday night we went to wander the strip. After watching the Atlantis animatronic thing in Caesar’s (bad animatronics and bad sound) we tried to get out to get to some other casino. 15 minutes later we managed to find an exit.

From there we went to Paris where I won $5 on The Price is Right slots. We were hungry but the restaurants there had a 2-hour wait so we went in search of a less popular place to eat. Standing outside it was about 90 with a strong breeze which felt nice and after the crazy guy walked by we decided on Bally’s. After a few minutes we found Chang’s and had good chinese food.

After dinner we played Hot Hot Penny slots where Julie won $70. From there we wandered to the Bellagio and got some gelato and watched the fountains for a few songs.

Saturday morning my Uncle Dave and his wife, Carol, picked us up and we went to breakfast at Arizona Station. It was good to catch up with them since it’s apparently been 13 years since last we met. After that it was an afternoon of laying around. Nicole and I drove north of town to look at Red Rock so we took the scenic rout and looked at scenery. Scenery that day included a dead body. Two police trucks and two other trucks were parked in a turn-out and there was a sheet over the body. There was no sign of an accident so we were thinking heart attack. When we got back Nicole went to the Liberace museum with Fish and had a great time. That night we went to Starbucks for the internet to look up possibilitied for Nicole staying longer, but it ended up that she was coming home with me on Sunday.

Sunday we had breakfast at Blueberry Hill (good pancakes) and then got ready for the drive home. We learned that going through Barstow Sunday afternoon is a bad move.

The population has tripled there in the last 6 years.

I think the police there are the busiest of any police I’ve seen. They either have someone pulled over or they are rushing to go somewhere with sirens on.

There are no minor accidents, when the wreck they do it right. Lots of crazy drivers too.

I only have a few pictures of the desserts because I got too busy.

brought the Dr. Delicious cake and it was by far the best looking chocolate there. Suitable for service in a restaurant easily. It was delicious but it wasn’t very deadly

Joel and brought chocolate mousse made with 72% cocoa. Rich and addictive, but also not too deadly. Unfortunately, Nicole threw the rest away when she had all she wanted instead of saving it for me.

brought mummified life-after-death truffles, mummified in white chocolate. He reported that it was a big hassle to do the mummification and looking at it, I would agree. The results were really good though and several people chose these as deadliest.

made Igor bars from The Dork Tower. They weren’t deadly at all but they were good and creative and much loved by some.

Dan made cereal bars which were like Cocoa Pebbles crispy treats with a layer of fudge on top. Dan himself considered these the 4th deadliest.

Shelley made the Hershey Syrup cake with glossy fosting and this got a number of votes for being the deadliest and was declared the ideal chocolate cake by some.

I made three recipes. I was just going to make two but since I didn’t know who was coming or bringing anything I feared lack of variety. Unfortunately the ones I made didn’t make it to the tasting table until 30-60 minutes after everyone was already tasting so people were already at chocolate saturation and they were only tried by one or two.

I made a brownie brandy trifle with the help of Julie. I couldn’t find instant mousse so Julie made chocolate fudge pudding for it. It was well liked but it wasn’t deadly. Looking at the other trifle recipes after this one, I don’t believe any will every be deadly.

I made a simple chocolate pie. It was very good even though I didn’t quite mix it up correctly. For Nicole it surpassed the Hershey cake as her favorite which means it didn’t really go overboard. It went really fast at work.

Finally I made a recipe that claimed to be deadlier than death by chocolate and tasting the results I personally have to put this one first one the list of deadliest so far even though I overcooked the base a little so it didn’t stick together or the top. The look of shock people get when they pop it into their mouth often followed by an exclamation show its potency. Oh yeah, I messed up the top too since I was ina hurry and used unsweetened chocolate instead of semi-sweet. But I realized my mistake and added some sugar to the right level before it was too late.

Because of the staggered introduction I have to list three recipes that will come back for the final rounds…
Hershey Syrup cake with glossy fosting
mummified life-after-death truffles
deadlier than death by chocolate

Stay tuned for Mortal Chocolate II in a few months.

Thanks mo!

I still have to put the medicine cabinet and towel rack in Dar’s bathroom. Or yeah and the humidity sensing exhaust fan too.

This year on our honeymoon I was in a cd store and looked for it and found instead another LTJ Bukem album. Then shortly afterwards I picked up “Journey Inwards”.

Yesterday Nightfall posted about Method-One so I downloaded the mp3 files I found there and liked it a lot. (We’re talking LONG mp3 files.) Today I asked mo what else I should be getting. She told me: Dieselboy, DJ Dara, Kaos, Goldie, and Grooverider. So I went to Streetlight and picked up a geeky sounding album from Dieselboy called “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide”. I’m enjoying it muchly.

Thanks for the pointers!

Thanks for Gerald & Julianne for the “Intellivision Lives” compilation for Gamecube. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet but I’m so looking forward to a good game of Sea Battle.

Thanks to Dan for lunch at Saturn on Friday also.

And very very big thanks for Darlene for her more than generous gift for mine and Nicole’s birthday combined. Someday we’ll get there!

My parents for sending me the books “Yiddish With Dick & Jane” and “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?”

My Aunt Rita for sending me the DVDs “Gross Pointe Blank,” and “Shallow Grave,” and “Schindler’s List” (when it gets here)

Nicole for getting me a book on Jewish art called “Jewish Art” and the book “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus”

My sister for sending me the DVDs “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Orgazmo” (special edition), and “Jersey Girl” which taught us both that there’s more than one Jersey girl movie

And to Dan Galpin for bringing me some Original Cinn.