never ending pancakes

this morning my sister treated us to an ihop breakfast. ihop is an "international pancake restaurant" famous for its pancakes, of course, with the come-hither invitation that goes "come hungry, leave happy." we left home at about 10:30am, which already made it brunch rather than breakfast.

i was still half-sleepy when we got there. a lot of people were still having their breakfast. my parents and i ordered a meal consisting of egg, bacon, sausages and shredded hash brown while my sister ordered their "savory steak omelette" (see picture below). it was a huge omelette wrapped around shredded hash brown, tomatoes and sliced steak. we each had a plate of "never ending pancakes", which basically means you get unlimited refills of their fluffy pancakes--three at a time! i could hardly finish my plate, so when we ordered another plate, we had it wrapped to go (along with my sis' unfinished omelette). they had about five different flavored syrups to choose from, and i regretted choosing the traditional strawberry syrup instead of trying something else.

oh yeah, today is martin luther king jr. day, a national holiday for americans.

i saw part of the ellen degeneres show this afternoon and LOTR's sean astin (samwise gamgee) was her guest. they had this little game with the audience where ellen reads a list of random characters from LOTR and names of anything having to do with cheese, and you have to distinguish each item by saying either "LOTR" or "CHEESE" within a span of 30 seconds. funny yet tricky. she pronounced "legolas" as "le-GOAL-as" instead of "lego-LAS." the prize: this LOTR game gift set and a kiss from sean astin.

have a headache. must be from the winter freeze outside.