Food, Movies, and Pain

One of my most defining characteristics is my unnatural love for Subway sandwiches. Just thinking about the messy goodness of an Italian BMT on wheat with lettuce, tomato, olives, pickles, cucumbers, jalapenos, mustard, oil & vinegar, and salt & pepper, makes my mouth water like a fountain. Thus, when I saw the tv ad last night for a $5 footlong special, I instantly knew what I was having for lunch today. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. I've never had to wait so long for a sandwich, but at least it was well worth it. I even saved the other half for lunch tomorrow until I realized I have a group lunch scheduled. Here's to hoping it won't be too soggy on Wed.

Speaking of delicious foods, we ate dinner at Lefty's on Saturday with Ryan's parents and his brother Kevin. Lefty's is a Chicago style pizza joint, originally discovered (amongst our circle) by Dave Frankel, culinary pioneer. I've never been a huge fan of Chicago style pizza - it tends to be too heavy, too cheesy, and too oily. However, Lefty's pizza manages to be decadent without crossing the line. Ryan's dad orders it with mushrooms, green bell peppers, and jalapenos baked into the cheese and with extra tomato sauce on top. The best part is we always have leftovers so Ryan and I get to eat pizza for days.

After dinner, we went to watch 21, the movie based on the book Bringing Down the House, which is about the MIT Blackjack team that won millions of dollars through card counting. I didn't have high hopes for this movie since the previews seemed way too glamorized. However, I was excited to see scenes from MIT and learn more about the story. As expected, the screenplay was ridiculous (skip to next paragraph if you dont want spoilers). In particular, the MIT professor who leads the team turns out to be an evil jerk, who steals from his students and bars them from graduating just for disrespecting him. Um what? How did someone like this become an MIT professor in the first place? Additionally, the actors were annoying, particularly the two Asians on the team, and the main characters were way too attractive to be believeable. It was mildly entertaining but pretty disappointing that a great story was dumbed down so much to make it "attractive" for the masses. At least the movie has motivated us to learn about card counting in preparation for our trip to Vegas in June. Mama needs a new pair of shoes! No really, I do...

On Sunday, Ryan and I drove down to Ocean Beach at 8:30am. Ryan had a soccer game so I decided to take the opportunity to do my long run around Mission Bay. I met my coworker friend Rob who is training for the marathon and we ran 10 miles at a 10:55 min/mile pace, according to Rob's Garmin. He had ran 12 miles at a 8min/mile pace prior to meeting me so I'm sure he welcomed my sluggish company. I would have liked to run faster but all I had to eat was one of those Gu energy gels. We only stopped twice to blow my nose and once more to eat my other energy gel so I'm pretty satisfied with the run. Unfortunately, my left knee was killing me the rest of the afternoon. On top of that, someone kicked Ryan very hard in the shin/ankle area and he was so bruised that he was unable to stand on his left leg. Luckily his sister brought over crutches, which of course reminded me of the time I broke my ankle in NY and had to commute to work in Greenwich, CT on CRUTCHES. During that period, my arms became as muscular as a circus strong man. A frightening sight indeed.