After almost 7 years at my first job out of college, I finally left to try something new. My last day of work was June 20, and I don't start my new job until July 7, so I'm in the middle of two weeks of downtime. Most people seem to think I should be taking a vacation, relaxing, whatever, but I just keep thinking about how many projects I want to get done that I usually don't have time to do, and how little time I have left to do them!
Of course, that didn't stop me from taking off on a moment's notice to visit my sister in her new digs in Seattle (Redmond, actually). She just started work on *her* first job out of college on Monday. My mom was there with her the first week before she started work to help find an apartment, buy furniture, etc. I went up when I found a $159 fare on Virgin America for Wed through Sat ... on Tuesday. Virgin America is kind of nice - brand new planes (with odd blue and purple lighting), in-seat entertainment units with 20 channels (and ability to order food from your seat, though I didn't use that), cheap fares... I may be using them a bunch to visit my sister, though the really cheap fares seem to be (of course) midweek.
Unfortunately, my sister doesn't have internet hooked up in her new apartment yet - Comcast won't hook it up until she has a TV for them to test the cable (she got a combination package). I was planning on spending my days while she was at work at the library using their free wi-fi to work on my webpage, but somehow spent most of my time researching TVs for her, driving down to Costco and Fry's, researching the TVs online, buying the TV, turning around and exchanging it for the larger one... Ah well. I did finally fulfill a longtime goal - every time I visit Seattle I want to visit Sushi Land, a sushi place my bf told me about years ago when he was contracting with a company in Bellevue, but I've never been able to make it happen. I finally did, and discovered why my bf was so happy with the place. It was one of those places with a long conveyor belt with the sushi traveling by you, and the prices set by the color of the plate. The prices? $1, $1.50, $2, and $3. The fish was good, too - maybe not the very best fish ever, but fresh and tasty and fine with me. I had sake, maguro, and tamago nigiri, two rolls (tuna & cream cheese, shrimp tempura), and sesame balls for $10. If I wasn't waiting for the sesame balls to travel around the room (I was near the kitchen, but the belt flowed in the other direction), I could have finished my lunch in about 20 minutes. Great turnover for them! We also went to Jeem Asian Restaurant in the Safeway plaza in Redmond one night (we needed dinner around 9:30pm) which didn't look very hopeful from the outside but turned out to be quite an interesting Chinese restaurant inside - extensive menu with interesting and different looking dishes on it. We got strawberry spareribs (yum) and beef tenderloin udon with satay sauce (pretty good - my sister liked it more than me). Got lunch at Noodle Land, a Thai restaurant in the Redmond town center that was quite yummy as well - good pad thai that came with every lunch combo.
Oddly, on Friday afternoon, we were driving back to my sister's apartment so she could help me carry her new TV into her apartment, and we saw a firetruck with sirens and lights blazing coming out of her apartment complex's driveway. I thought it odd to have the lights on coming *out* of a place and asked if they had a fire station in her complex - no - and then joked maybe they meant to go to the Avalon complex next door and went in the wrong driveway. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when we got out of the car, looked back, and discovered a big plume of black smoke coming out of the Avalon complex... I guess I was more right than I knew! I don't know what happened but it seemed to be a pretty big fire, judging from the amount of smoke. I think they got it under control pretty fast after they responded, but yeesh.
I got back from Seattle Saturday night just in time to go to a friend's 30th birthday party - a rather elaborate deal with hired blackjack/craps/roulette dealers and catered food since he loves gambling, that was quite fun. Beforehand, we went to dinner at Acquapazza Ristorante, an Italian restaurant in San Mateo. I liked my dish - Strozzapreti - pasta with prosciutto, mushrooms, and peas in cream sauce - but my bf was less than impressed with his veal parmigian - he said it was overly breaded.
For lunch yesterday, I returned to Frjtz's to try the two crepes I was curious about - the one with roasted pears, nutella, toasted almonds and whipped cream, and the one with the roasted pineapple, toasted coconut, etc. Neither were particularly interesting so my curiousity about Frjtz's is pretty well satisfied, and I'm likely to never go back. For dinner, I went to Kitchen Kura, a little restaurant on Irving between 16th and 17th that servers homestyle Japanese food. I loved it - they have a list of entrees, where you pick two and get a whole meal of 2 entrees, an appetizer, a salad, miso soup, and green tea for $10.50, or a la carte options. I picked the sukiyaki (which I was craving all day) and nanban chicken (deep fried chicken that was lightly breaded and lightly fried but unfortunately a bit tasteless for my taste and too much fried food after a while). My bf picked the white butter shoyu fish - mahimahi with onion and zucchini in a butter soy sauce and the nanban chicken. Given the choice again I would have totally gotten the sukiyaki and fish - both came with a delicious sweet salty sauce that I loved. Totally hit the spot and was what I was craving yesterday. Unfortunately, my bf only likes sushi when it comes to Japanese food, we've realized - not fond of noodles or the other dishes - so he didn't particularly enjoy it. Guess I can only go back when he's not around!
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Updates
Wow, haven't blogged in a while. Should probably be less wordy than usual in updating, then!
A few weeks back, I took a class down in Santa Clara for work, and they were kind enough to spring for hotel so I didn't have the do the 2+ hour commute each day. I stayed at the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, which was actually quite cute. It was designed to have a fairly tropical feel - open lobby, pool with little bungalows around it in the middle, open (though roofed) hallways, tropical-looking canopy over the beds, etc. I didn't spend any time at the pool, though I walked by it to get to breakfast each day, but it gave it a nice feel. The rooms were pretty nice as well - not huge, but comfortable with a large desk where I got some studying in. Free wireless, free breakfast. My one complaint was that the alarm clock in the room next door to me went off (beeping) at 6am one day and kept going for an hour (and I couldn't get the "Guest Services" button on my phone to work). Then the next morning, I was woken at 3:30AM by a radio alarm in that room, heard the people move around and then leave..and then at 6AM, was woken again by the bloody beeping alarm! After 10 minutes, I called the front desk (just took a chance and dialed 0) and told them that this alarm was going off, had gone off for an hour yesterday, and that I was pretty sure there was no one in there, and could they *please* do something about it. A few minutes later, it stopped. Yay! No one I know needs a hotel in the Bay Area, but if they do, I quite liked that one.
Two weeks ago, I had a fairly busy week since we had tickets lined up to see the Flight of the Conchords on Tuesday and then A Midsummer Night's Dream on Wednesday. Both were rather interesting experiences.
Flight of the Conchords is a duo from New Zealand who mix comedy and music in often hilarious ways. Unfortunately, as I discovered, it helps to have familiarity with their material before going to see them live, because it was exceedingly difficult to understand what they were saying (especially since the people around us *did* know them well and kept whooping and cheering and laughing and drowning them out). I like their music, but the humor gets lost when you can't hear it. Still was an enjoyable show, I just think I would have liked it way better if I had familiarized myself with more than Business Time and one song I recognized but have since forgotten what it was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream was a restaging of Shakespeare's classic play by Indian and Sri Lankan performers. On seeing the information about it on the Best of Broadway SF website, I got the impression it was a Bollywood-esque interpretation, an extravaganza of dance, acrobatics, singing, etc that used the play as its basis. I was wrong. There were some elements of it - some dance, some acrobatics with ropes and dangling cloths, and such. But it was fairly minimal and far less than expected. Instead, the play was largely comprised of its multiethnic cast performing Shakespeare's play in seven different languages - English and six Indian and Sri Lankan dialects. I have a hard enough time understanding Shakespearean dialogue to begin with. Shakespearean dialogue performed in Indian/Sri Lankan accents and frequently interspersed with long stretches of language I don't understand is even harder to follow. Without the extremely detailed insert describing the plot, we all would have been incredibly lost. The use of the sets was fairly interesting - a big frame structure hung over with billowing white sheets that got torn and climbed all over over the course of the evening provided the background, there was a hanging platform, and ropes/cloths hanging all over the set. The guy playing Puck also was the set rearranger, wandering around and unhooking or rehooking the ropes, setting up one of the more interesting visual scenes, putting out the cloth for the actors to sit on in various scenes... I don't know. All in all it probably didn't help that what we saw didn't match our expectations of the big Bollywood extravaganza, but none of us enjoyed the play particularly much. And I've never seen so many people just get up and leave during the first act.
That same week, we had a Lost night to watch the finale. That was interesting. Lost is weird for me - it's a show where attention and memory for detail pays off big, and it's a show where the details completely slip my mind very quickly. When the finale opened I was actually confused - it'd only been 2 weeks since we saw the previous episode and I couldn't remember what had happened, who was where, and why. Strange. I enjoyed it though, and am curious to see where they go next season.
Before "Flight of the Conchords," we went to eat at the Nob Hill Cafe, a small Italian restaurant which was just about the only reasonably priced place within 4 blocks and which was extremely popular and crowded (always is pre-show at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, evidently). We quite enjoyed it - it was good, basic Italian that was quite tasty.
Before "Midsummer Night's Dream," we went to eat at Kim Thanh, a Vietnamese restaurant only a couple blocks from the Orpheum. It was also pretty good, basic Vietnamese/Chinese - we had a decent salt and pepper crab, a decent if standard wonton soup, a fairly tasty vegetables in oyster sauce, and a quite yummy pork vermicelli. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to go back, but if I happened to be in the area, I wouldn't mind going again. The waiters were nice and one helped us figure out how to eat some of the stuff.
Before Lost, we had dinner at RNM in lower Haight, where we'd eaten before, and which was still good.
Last week, I hung out with a friend and ate at the Alembic in Haight-Ashbury (Haight btwn Cole and Shrader). It's a bar with a small food menu. Literally small, both in the number of options and the size of the dishes. Yummy, though. We got the charcuterie plate, which had some tasty cuts of salami, prosciutto, and other meats. I got the Berkshire Pork Belly which was very fatty as pork belly should be, melty, yummy, bad for me, and tiny. Both my companions got the Flat Iron Steak (a special for the day), which I tried a piece of and was quite yummy. Very small portions, not that cheap, but the food was well done and the bartender (we ate at the bar) nice and friendly. It's not a place really designed for dinner - there are very few tables - but the food was surprisingly good.
Spent most of the weekend in Boston for my sister's college graduation. It rained kindly on us on Friday - as we sat down before graduation, the skies opened up, but luckily we'd been provided with ponchos that mostly kept us dry, except occasional rain that would seep in the sleeves (only happened to me). The rain stopped by the time the procession started, which was a small plus. It then was extremely hot and humid on Saturday, the day we packed up her room and moved her out. I intelligently walked from my hotel in Brookline to her dorm in Cambridge, which wouldn't have been a bad walk had I not been carrying my bags and walking in the humidity. Ah well. I do like Boston, though. We had dinner at Le's Restaurant (formerly Pho Pasteur) in Harvard Square, and I had my old favorite yellow noodles dish. So very very yummy. My sister kept stealing some off my plate b/c it was so yummy. The Pho Pasteur in Chinatown does their corresponding dish (which they call chow mein) differently, somehow. It just doesn't have that distinctive yummy sauce I've never found anywhere else. Also had a pineapple shake (ah condensed milk) which was much happiness.
What else, what else.
Ah yes. I just gave notice today and am starting a new job in a month. Only my second job since college. I'm scared and excited.
A few weeks back, I took a class down in Santa Clara for work, and they were kind enough to spring for hotel so I didn't have the do the 2+ hour commute each day. I stayed at the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, which was actually quite cute. It was designed to have a fairly tropical feel - open lobby, pool with little bungalows around it in the middle, open (though roofed) hallways, tropical-looking canopy over the beds, etc. I didn't spend any time at the pool, though I walked by it to get to breakfast each day, but it gave it a nice feel. The rooms were pretty nice as well - not huge, but comfortable with a large desk where I got some studying in. Free wireless, free breakfast. My one complaint was that the alarm clock in the room next door to me went off (beeping) at 6am one day and kept going for an hour (and I couldn't get the "Guest Services" button on my phone to work). Then the next morning, I was woken at 3:30AM by a radio alarm in that room, heard the people move around and then leave..and then at 6AM, was woken again by the bloody beeping alarm! After 10 minutes, I called the front desk (just took a chance and dialed 0) and told them that this alarm was going off, had gone off for an hour yesterday, and that I was pretty sure there was no one in there, and could they *please* do something about it. A few minutes later, it stopped. Yay! No one I know needs a hotel in the Bay Area, but if they do, I quite liked that one.
Two weeks ago, I had a fairly busy week since we had tickets lined up to see the Flight of the Conchords on Tuesday and then A Midsummer Night's Dream on Wednesday. Both were rather interesting experiences.
Flight of the Conchords is a duo from New Zealand who mix comedy and music in often hilarious ways. Unfortunately, as I discovered, it helps to have familiarity with their material before going to see them live, because it was exceedingly difficult to understand what they were saying (especially since the people around us *did* know them well and kept whooping and cheering and laughing and drowning them out). I like their music, but the humor gets lost when you can't hear it. Still was an enjoyable show, I just think I would have liked it way better if I had familiarized myself with more than Business Time and one song I recognized but have since forgotten what it was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream was a restaging of Shakespeare's classic play by Indian and Sri Lankan performers. On seeing the information about it on the Best of Broadway SF website, I got the impression it was a Bollywood-esque interpretation, an extravaganza of dance, acrobatics, singing, etc that used the play as its basis. I was wrong. There were some elements of it - some dance, some acrobatics with ropes and dangling cloths, and such. But it was fairly minimal and far less than expected. Instead, the play was largely comprised of its multiethnic cast performing Shakespeare's play in seven different languages - English and six Indian and Sri Lankan dialects. I have a hard enough time understanding Shakespearean dialogue to begin with. Shakespearean dialogue performed in Indian/Sri Lankan accents and frequently interspersed with long stretches of language I don't understand is even harder to follow. Without the extremely detailed insert describing the plot, we all would have been incredibly lost. The use of the sets was fairly interesting - a big frame structure hung over with billowing white sheets that got torn and climbed all over over the course of the evening provided the background, there was a hanging platform, and ropes/cloths hanging all over the set. The guy playing Puck also was the set rearranger, wandering around and unhooking or rehooking the ropes, setting up one of the more interesting visual scenes, putting out the cloth for the actors to sit on in various scenes... I don't know. All in all it probably didn't help that what we saw didn't match our expectations of the big Bollywood extravaganza, but none of us enjoyed the play particularly much. And I've never seen so many people just get up and leave during the first act.
That same week, we had a Lost night to watch the finale. That was interesting. Lost is weird for me - it's a show where attention and memory for detail pays off big, and it's a show where the details completely slip my mind very quickly. When the finale opened I was actually confused - it'd only been 2 weeks since we saw the previous episode and I couldn't remember what had happened, who was where, and why. Strange. I enjoyed it though, and am curious to see where they go next season.
Before "Flight of the Conchords," we went to eat at the Nob Hill Cafe, a small Italian restaurant which was just about the only reasonably priced place within 4 blocks and which was extremely popular and crowded (always is pre-show at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, evidently). We quite enjoyed it - it was good, basic Italian that was quite tasty.
Before "Midsummer Night's Dream," we went to eat at Kim Thanh, a Vietnamese restaurant only a couple blocks from the Orpheum. It was also pretty good, basic Vietnamese/Chinese - we had a decent salt and pepper crab, a decent if standard wonton soup, a fairly tasty vegetables in oyster sauce, and a quite yummy pork vermicelli. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to go back, but if I happened to be in the area, I wouldn't mind going again. The waiters were nice and one helped us figure out how to eat some of the stuff.
Before Lost, we had dinner at RNM in lower Haight, where we'd eaten before, and which was still good.
Last week, I hung out with a friend and ate at the Alembic in Haight-Ashbury (Haight btwn Cole and Shrader). It's a bar with a small food menu. Literally small, both in the number of options and the size of the dishes. Yummy, though. We got the charcuterie plate, which had some tasty cuts of salami, prosciutto, and other meats. I got the Berkshire Pork Belly which was very fatty as pork belly should be, melty, yummy, bad for me, and tiny. Both my companions got the Flat Iron Steak (a special for the day), which I tried a piece of and was quite yummy. Very small portions, not that cheap, but the food was well done and the bartender (we ate at the bar) nice and friendly. It's not a place really designed for dinner - there are very few tables - but the food was surprisingly good.
Spent most of the weekend in Boston for my sister's college graduation. It rained kindly on us on Friday - as we sat down before graduation, the skies opened up, but luckily we'd been provided with ponchos that mostly kept us dry, except occasional rain that would seep in the sleeves (only happened to me). The rain stopped by the time the procession started, which was a small plus. It then was extremely hot and humid on Saturday, the day we packed up her room and moved her out. I intelligently walked from my hotel in Brookline to her dorm in Cambridge, which wouldn't have been a bad walk had I not been carrying my bags and walking in the humidity. Ah well. I do like Boston, though. We had dinner at Le's Restaurant (formerly Pho Pasteur) in Harvard Square, and I had my old favorite yellow noodles dish. So very very yummy. My sister kept stealing some off my plate b/c it was so yummy. The Pho Pasteur in Chinatown does their corresponding dish (which they call chow mein) differently, somehow. It just doesn't have that distinctive yummy sauce I've never found anywhere else. Also had a pineapple shake (ah condensed milk) which was much happiness.
What else, what else.
Ah yes. I just gave notice today and am starting a new job in a month. Only my second job since college. I'm scared and excited.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Randomness
My group at work has been suffering a slow attrition recently. And it's kind of evident more attrition will be happening in the future from the frequency of "work from home" emails we get, from people who used to never work from home. Sigh. What's ironic, though, is I probably look like I have a bigger slew of "excuses" to not be at work than anyone, what with the gum procedures, the orthodontia, and now this surgery. And I *haven't* been interviewing! I bet they're wondering how one person can have so many things wrong with her and need to be at all these different appointments all the time =P.
I've been wasting a lot of time recently while recuperating, poking around the Web. It's really fun all the old stuff you can dig up on YouTube, etc. And it's really weird to see how new generations of people are discovering some of my youthful obsessions. Back when it came out (and admittedly, still now), I was a huge fan of "Newsies," the Disney live action musical about newsboys on strike, starring a young Christian Bale. I was also a huge fan of "Roundhouse," a Nickelodeon sketch show that starred four of the background actors from Newsies. Apparently there's a whole cult following for "Newsies" that's still active today (just check out NewsiesFreak.com), but what's really amusing (and disturbing) is how many fans seem to be teens who weren't even alive when the movie came out 16 years ago. I suppose it makes sense b/c anyone like me, who liked it back then and still likes it but isn't actively involved, won't be the ones you see posting online.
But what really amuses me is something I just stumbled upon yesterday:
Blood Drips Heavily on Newsies Square, which apparently was a movie made via video camera by Michael Goorjian (aka Skittery, aka the guy on Party of Five), Max Casella (aka Racetrack, aka the guy from Doogie Howser), Trey Parker (aka Kid Blink), and Ivan Dudynsky (aka Dutchy, aka the guy from Roundhouse), on the set of the Newsies. It kind of shows what happens when you get a bunch of teen/early 20's guys together running around a movie set goofing off - you get a horror movie spoof starring Mark David (aka Specs, aka another guy from Roundhouse) as Don Knotts, who's pissed he's not allowed to be in "Newsies" and goes around killing off the Newsies one by one, as each exhibits dirty mouths and proclivities usually not emphasized in a Disney production. They somehow got everyone involved - there are cameos from the film's director, various assistants and crew, and almost everyone in the film (including Christian Bale and Bill Pullman). The production values are incredibly low (very amusingly so) and this possibly is only funny to those who are fans and know who these guys are. But it cracked me the hell up when I found it on YouTube, partly b/c I didn't know any of this background and was just like "what the hell is this??". Apparently Michael Goorjian found it when going through old tapes a while ago and gave it to a friend to put up for sale on the Internet, and when they got a lot of interest, ended up putting up the website I posted above to sell it. You can get it for $25 on VHS or DVD. Or you can go to YouTube:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
The other thing I found out that I never realized - two of the Newsies are in the Rent movie. One is "Steve" in the "Will I Lose My Dignity" song (played "Mush" in Newsies) and the other is one of the guys at the table in "La Vie Boheme." Funky.
I've been wasting a lot of time recently while recuperating, poking around the Web. It's really fun all the old stuff you can dig up on YouTube, etc. And it's really weird to see how new generations of people are discovering some of my youthful obsessions. Back when it came out (and admittedly, still now), I was a huge fan of "Newsies," the Disney live action musical about newsboys on strike, starring a young Christian Bale. I was also a huge fan of "Roundhouse," a Nickelodeon sketch show that starred four of the background actors from Newsies. Apparently there's a whole cult following for "Newsies" that's still active today (just check out NewsiesFreak.com), but what's really amusing (and disturbing) is how many fans seem to be teens who weren't even alive when the movie came out 16 years ago. I suppose it makes sense b/c anyone like me, who liked it back then and still likes it but isn't actively involved, won't be the ones you see posting online.
But what really amuses me is something I just stumbled upon yesterday:
Blood Drips Heavily on Newsies Square, which apparently was a movie made via video camera by Michael Goorjian (aka Skittery, aka the guy on Party of Five), Max Casella (aka Racetrack, aka the guy from Doogie Howser), Trey Parker (aka Kid Blink), and Ivan Dudynsky (aka Dutchy, aka the guy from Roundhouse), on the set of the Newsies. It kind of shows what happens when you get a bunch of teen/early 20's guys together running around a movie set goofing off - you get a horror movie spoof starring Mark David (aka Specs, aka another guy from Roundhouse) as Don Knotts, who's pissed he's not allowed to be in "Newsies" and goes around killing off the Newsies one by one, as each exhibits dirty mouths and proclivities usually not emphasized in a Disney production. They somehow got everyone involved - there are cameos from the film's director, various assistants and crew, and almost everyone in the film (including Christian Bale and Bill Pullman). The production values are incredibly low (very amusingly so) and this possibly is only funny to those who are fans and know who these guys are. But it cracked me the hell up when I found it on YouTube, partly b/c I didn't know any of this background and was just like "what the hell is this??". Apparently Michael Goorjian found it when going through old tapes a while ago and gave it to a friend to put up for sale on the Internet, and when they got a lot of interest, ended up putting up the website I posted above to sell it. You can get it for $25 on VHS or DVD. Or you can go to YouTube:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
The other thing I found out that I never realized - two of the Newsies are in the Rent movie. One is "Steve" in the "Will I Lose My Dignity" song (played "Mush" in Newsies) and the other is one of the guys at the table in "La Vie Boheme." Funky.
Monday, February 25, 2008
So tired...
I feel like I haven't slept enough in over a week, which is odd given that I've actually spent a fair amount of time in bed. But after getting back from Whistler (where I didn't sleep well any night even though several nights we were in bed for 9-10 hours), my sister came in town for the Game Developer's Conference and stayed with us all week. I love when she visits, and we had fun (even though she ditched us the first night to go to dinner with friends - my bf and I went hunting the lunar eclipse (stupid clouds) and then grabbed Korean bbq at Pine Restaurant (sadly kind of disappointing this time - they overcooked the bulgogi) and desserts at Golden Island (yummy!)). But we put her in the master bedroom and my bf and I slept on the bed in his office, which should have been fine but some combination of sleeping on the opposite side of the bed as usual, his computer being on, the windows not being as insulating in that room, and his iPhone causing his speakers to buzz during the night led to insufficient sleep, or insufficiently restful sleep each night. Or maybe it's just that I never slept enough to make up for Whistler. At any rate, Friday night my mom flew into town (she'd been visiting my grandma in LA) so we were busy getting dinner (at Dragonfly in the Sunset - very yummy, they all liked it), lunch (at Canton Seafood Dim Sum Restaurant on Folsom and Hawthorne Lane), attending the Chinese New Year's Parade in Chinatown in the cold windy rain (after spending much of the afternoon browsing the touristy stores and sort of looking at the rather uninteresting street fare), and getting dinner (at Ploy II - mental note: Pumpkin Curry was watery and bland), so that was fairly tiring. Saturday night my sister and bf played Halo 3 happily while my mom read the paper and I updated my website. Sunday was lunch at Pho Hoa, hazelnut milk tea at Verde, followed by 3 hours of karaoke at Gamba (while my mom was hanging out with my aunt), and then dinner at my aunt's before taking my sister to the airport. So, a very full weekend (at least for me). I guess it makes sense I'm still tired despite getting almost 9 hours of sleep last night (and getting into work rather late). Maybe I should go to bed super early tonight. Zzzzz....
Friday, February 1, 2008
Getting progressively stupider.
Last year, when we moved from big house in the suburbs to smaller apartment in the city, I finally went through and purged the 4-5 boxes of school stuff I've been moving with me from one place to another (and I've moved 4-5 times in the last 7 years). I reasoned that after 7 years, if I still hadn't pulled out a single bible of class notes or looked at anything I'd produced in my 5 years of college+M.Eng, then I never would. As I went through my boxes, though, I stopped to read through some of my old assignments, tests and papers, and ended up feeling both very stupid and very confused. I had no recollection of ever learning like 75% of what I read, and was rather blown away by how intelligent I apparently used to be.
I just had a similar experience - my manager recommended I sign up for this new mentoring program at work that's supposed to be good for career advancement, and to apply, you have to fill out this application form and submit a resume. Some of the questions ask about how many papers I've published, presentations I've given, classes I've taken at work, etc... Whenever I finish doing anything, I think I just purge it from my mind, so I started going through my old emails to see if I could remind myself what papers I'd written. I started reading some old email threads and was actually both impressed and saddened by some of my emails in these threads. Apparently I used to know how to do stuff, and analyze stuff, and whatever... Somehow I came away from those projects thinking I'd contributed nothing and knew nothing, but when I read these threads, apparently I knew *something*. But now I don't remember it.
I suppose in a couple years I'll look back at what I've done in my current project and be impressed by what I knew and figured out how to do. But at the moment, I feel ignorant and inexperienced and like I'm just implementing what other people tell me how to do.
Why can't I ever feel as intelligent *now* as I do when I look back at myself? And why am I getting progressively stupider? Sigh...
I just had a similar experience - my manager recommended I sign up for this new mentoring program at work that's supposed to be good for career advancement, and to apply, you have to fill out this application form and submit a resume. Some of the questions ask about how many papers I've published, presentations I've given, classes I've taken at work, etc... Whenever I finish doing anything, I think I just purge it from my mind, so I started going through my old emails to see if I could remind myself what papers I'd written. I started reading some old email threads and was actually both impressed and saddened by some of my emails in these threads. Apparently I used to know how to do stuff, and analyze stuff, and whatever... Somehow I came away from those projects thinking I'd contributed nothing and knew nothing, but when I read these threads, apparently I knew *something*. But now I don't remember it.
I suppose in a couple years I'll look back at what I've done in my current project and be impressed by what I knew and figured out how to do. But at the moment, I feel ignorant and inexperienced and like I'm just implementing what other people tell me how to do.
Why can't I ever feel as intelligent *now* as I do when I look back at myself? And why am I getting progressively stupider? Sigh...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Better dot those T's
This rather disproportionately amuses me - as I was deleting ER from the DVR after watching it, I caught part of KNTV News reporting on apparently another collision with the Bay Bridge by a boat. I swear I heard the anchor say that the Coast Guard was determined to make a better response after being so criticized for their response in November, and that's why they were making sure to "dot their T's". It's always important to cross your i's and dot your t's!
On a much less amusing note, apparently figure skater Christopher Bowman has died. He was only 40 years old, found dead in his motel room, suspected of a possible drug overdose. Bowman was a bit before my time, but one of the prime competitors for a while of my favorite skater, Kurt Browning. Kurt was quoted as saying that Chris Bowman was the skater he was most scared of coming up in the ranks, because he had such a huge talent, and that if he had gotten his act together, he would have easily beaten Kurt. What I've always heard is that Bowman was a huge talent but hugely troubled. It's just so sad that he doesn't seem to have been able to overcome his demons. May he rest in peace.
On a much less amusing note, apparently figure skater Christopher Bowman has died. He was only 40 years old, found dead in his motel room, suspected of a possible drug overdose. Bowman was a bit before my time, but one of the prime competitors for a while of my favorite skater, Kurt Browning. Kurt was quoted as saying that Chris Bowman was the skater he was most scared of coming up in the ranks, because he had such a huge talent, and that if he had gotten his act together, he would have easily beaten Kurt. What I've always heard is that Bowman was a huge talent but hugely troubled. It's just so sad that he doesn't seem to have been able to overcome his demons. May he rest in peace.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Munch munch munch
More eats from last week, which was probably one of our most satisfying weeks for eating out yet.
First up, one of my bf's former coworkers notified us kind of last minute that he and his wife were going to be in town a week ago Friday night, so we acted quickly to locate a Nob Hill restaurant (where there hotel was). We came up with Fino Restaurant (624 Post St btwn Taylor and Trader Vic Alley) in the Andrews Hotel. This ended up being a cute little Italian restaurant that had pretty decent food. Apparently the bolognese sauce on the wife's pasta was a bit overly sweet (I suspect I would have liked it) but they seemed to enjoy their Fettucine Carbonara, Caprese Salad, and Caesar salads... My Polla alla Saltimbocca was delicious, though I've never had it with avocado on top before. My bf seemed not to enjoy his Salsicce e Penne as much as he had hoped, but that may have been due to a high stuff:pasta ratio - I think he wanted more pasta. Overall, I wasn't blown away but it was a good meal.
Saturday, I got my hazelnut milk tea and Chinese pastry fix down in Mountain View, and then went to a friend's place for her Halloween pumpkin-carving party. We got lazy and didn't bring a pumpkin, but it was fun watching everyone else's pumpkin take shape. There were some pretty cool ones, especially a very cool Bowser (doubly cool 'cause he designed it himself instead of using a pre-existing pattern). I always thought of jack-o-lanterns as just being a face but we got a pirate ship, a tropical island, a Pikachu, and a haunted house/castle...pretty neat! Evidentally I stuffed myself too full of pastries and milk tea and didn't have much appetite for dinner, but there was a pumpkin cake-thing there that was super delicious. Had a layer of something like pumpkin pie filling on top of a yummy cake. Kept sneaking bites of that all night.
I have no memory of Sunday, but I think Monday was the day I got an urge for pho, so we decided to check out Pho Clement (239 Clement between 3rd and 4th) in Inner Richmond. That was a happy meal. They have an extensive pho menu, but like most pho places, for some reason did not offer a combination of brisket, steak, and flank. However they said you could create your own pho combinations, which I promptly did. Based on my bf and my experiences, medium is just about the perfect size there - the large was too big, the small looked tiny, but medium was nice and filling. I got a pineapple shake which was very yummy (if a trifle strong with the pineapple) while the bf got a mango shake which was great. Both our bowls of pho really hit the spot - good tasting broth (I actually didn't have to add the plum sauce or whatever it is they leave on the table for once), yummy meat, good noodles... It was just good, basic pho. The place is nothing fancy to look at - as someone on yelp says, standard Vietnamese pho cafeteria setting - though they do have a nice big flatscreen which was showing the football game. To my pleasure, it also wasn't particularly full, so we got very fast service and seating. Sometimes nice restaurants are what we're looking for, but sometimes something warm and comforting is really the way to go.
Thursday was my bf and my 11th (eep) anniversary, so we decided to get a nice dinner to celebrate. After House of Prime Rib and NOPA both said they only had reservations available after 9, we turned to Zoya (465 Grove between Gough and Octavia), a restaurant we had previously tried to go to on a performance night (it's near the opera and all the other performing arts venues on Van Ness) and weren't able to get in. That turned out to be a great choice, and a near-perfect meal. The venue is a little odd - it's a little almost tower/turret like thing stuck to the end of a Days Inn. There is a bar on the first floor with some seating but the small dining room is actually on the second floor - up some fake green grass covered stairs which also leads to the upper floor of Days Inn rooms. However, once you go through the curtain covering the door, the dining room itself is in a cute little round room, with nicely set tables (though not too many of them!), little candles flickering, and windows around looking out on Grove St. The service is a little bit slow, because there is only one very sweet waitress who had to go up and down the stairs to carry up all the food, drinks, etc, as well as to check if anyone was there and bring them up to seat them. However, as I said, she was really nice, and we weren't in a hurry that night anyway. We don't typically get appetizers, entrees, AND desserts in the same meal, but we decided to splurge that night, and it was definitely worth it. I got the butternut squash soup with creme fraiche - I love butternut squash soup and while this wasn't the best I'd ever had (it was a little on the bland side), it was still a nice starter. The bf got their poke - ahi tuna with all sorts of stuff mixed in and fried wonton skins to scoop it all up with - and absolutely loved it. My aversion to cilantro made it hard for me to enjoy it, but it did seem a good appetizer. For entrees, I got the roasted chicken breast quarter with marsala pan sauce and porcini risotto (or something similar - that's what's listed on the website) and it was absolutely delicious. The chicken was moist, tender, and flavorful, the broccoli rabe tender and not at all bitter, and the risotto flavored just right - not bland, and not overpowering, just delicate and yummy. My bf got the Australian lamb loin chops with pomegranate molasses and pearl couscous with cumin herb oil and his only complaint was that there wasn't enough meat - they gave him two smallish chops and when he'd eaten it down to the bone, he would have liked more. But the flavors he said were very good. The dessert menu looked great so we decided to go for that as well - I got the chocolate pot de creme with strawberries, which was quite yummy, with the strawberries blending beautifully with the chocolate rather than seeming a bit too tart. The bf got the blueberry in grand marnier with graham crumbles, and one scoop each of Tahitian Vanilla and Scharffen Berger Chocolate Gelato, which was also delicious. Just a happy meal overall, and one that didn't leave us feeling too stuffed, which was nice. I definitely recommend this restaurant, though make sure to go on a non-performance night, or make a reservation ahead of time, because the space really is quite small.
On Friday, we weren't in the mood for anything heavy, and decided to go for sushi. A quick browse on Yelp turned up Wayo Sushi (1407 Van Ness), which got very good reviews. Wayo Sushi is definitely not a high-selection sushi place - the roll menu was quite limited and the nigiri was limited to the standards - but the prices were very reasonable, and the fish was quite good. We ended up getting 3 sets of sashimi (6 pieces each for about $9-$9.75) - hamachi (which reminded me strongly of amberjack, which I love), maguro (fine), and shiro maguro (as usual melt in your mouth). We also got a mango salmon roll - I only had one piece b/c I had stuffed myself with the wakame salad (yummy, good quantity for only $3.75) but it was quite good. Overall, I thought it was a reasonably good sushi place - nowhere you'd go if you're going for exotic, but a nice place to stop for reasonably priced, fresh fish.
Afterwards, we walked down like 10 blocks to Grove St to go to Citizen Cake (399 Grove St at Gough) since the bf felt like some dessert. I thought I was too stuffed to get anything, but as usual couldn't resist. I ended up getting a scoop of the banana toffee peanut butter (and possibly some other stuff) ice cream, which was quite good. My bf got the lemon meringue tart, which was also good. He also brought home a giunduja (sp?) something or the other, and a mexican wedding? cookie... I got to try the first which was kind of like a nestle crunch but with hazelnut overtones - pretty yummy. I think he enjoyed the latter?
Beyond that, we've actually been cooking and eating at home for the most part. But that was a good week for restaurant choices!
First up, one of my bf's former coworkers notified us kind of last minute that he and his wife were going to be in town a week ago Friday night, so we acted quickly to locate a Nob Hill restaurant (where there hotel was). We came up with Fino Restaurant (624 Post St btwn Taylor and Trader Vic Alley) in the Andrews Hotel. This ended up being a cute little Italian restaurant that had pretty decent food. Apparently the bolognese sauce on the wife's pasta was a bit overly sweet (I suspect I would have liked it) but they seemed to enjoy their Fettucine Carbonara, Caprese Salad, and Caesar salads... My Polla alla Saltimbocca was delicious, though I've never had it with avocado on top before. My bf seemed not to enjoy his Salsicce e Penne as much as he had hoped, but that may have been due to a high stuff:pasta ratio - I think he wanted more pasta. Overall, I wasn't blown away but it was a good meal.
Saturday, I got my hazelnut milk tea and Chinese pastry fix down in Mountain View, and then went to a friend's place for her Halloween pumpkin-carving party. We got lazy and didn't bring a pumpkin, but it was fun watching everyone else's pumpkin take shape. There were some pretty cool ones, especially a very cool Bowser (doubly cool 'cause he designed it himself instead of using a pre-existing pattern). I always thought of jack-o-lanterns as just being a face but we got a pirate ship, a tropical island, a Pikachu, and a haunted house/castle...pretty neat! Evidentally I stuffed myself too full of pastries and milk tea and didn't have much appetite for dinner, but there was a pumpkin cake-thing there that was super delicious. Had a layer of something like pumpkin pie filling on top of a yummy cake. Kept sneaking bites of that all night.
I have no memory of Sunday, but I think Monday was the day I got an urge for pho, so we decided to check out Pho Clement (239 Clement between 3rd and 4th) in Inner Richmond. That was a happy meal. They have an extensive pho menu, but like most pho places, for some reason did not offer a combination of brisket, steak, and flank. However they said you could create your own pho combinations, which I promptly did. Based on my bf and my experiences, medium is just about the perfect size there - the large was too big, the small looked tiny, but medium was nice and filling. I got a pineapple shake which was very yummy (if a trifle strong with the pineapple) while the bf got a mango shake which was great. Both our bowls of pho really hit the spot - good tasting broth (I actually didn't have to add the plum sauce or whatever it is they leave on the table for once), yummy meat, good noodles... It was just good, basic pho. The place is nothing fancy to look at - as someone on yelp says, standard Vietnamese pho cafeteria setting - though they do have a nice big flatscreen which was showing the football game. To my pleasure, it also wasn't particularly full, so we got very fast service and seating. Sometimes nice restaurants are what we're looking for, but sometimes something warm and comforting is really the way to go.
Thursday was my bf and my 11th (eep) anniversary, so we decided to get a nice dinner to celebrate. After House of Prime Rib and NOPA both said they only had reservations available after 9, we turned to Zoya (465 Grove between Gough and Octavia), a restaurant we had previously tried to go to on a performance night (it's near the opera and all the other performing arts venues on Van Ness) and weren't able to get in. That turned out to be a great choice, and a near-perfect meal. The venue is a little odd - it's a little almost tower/turret like thing stuck to the end of a Days Inn. There is a bar on the first floor with some seating but the small dining room is actually on the second floor - up some fake green grass covered stairs which also leads to the upper floor of Days Inn rooms. However, once you go through the curtain covering the door, the dining room itself is in a cute little round room, with nicely set tables (though not too many of them!), little candles flickering, and windows around looking out on Grove St. The service is a little bit slow, because there is only one very sweet waitress who had to go up and down the stairs to carry up all the food, drinks, etc, as well as to check if anyone was there and bring them up to seat them. However, as I said, she was really nice, and we weren't in a hurry that night anyway. We don't typically get appetizers, entrees, AND desserts in the same meal, but we decided to splurge that night, and it was definitely worth it. I got the butternut squash soup with creme fraiche - I love butternut squash soup and while this wasn't the best I'd ever had (it was a little on the bland side), it was still a nice starter. The bf got their poke - ahi tuna with all sorts of stuff mixed in and fried wonton skins to scoop it all up with - and absolutely loved it. My aversion to cilantro made it hard for me to enjoy it, but it did seem a good appetizer. For entrees, I got the roasted chicken breast quarter with marsala pan sauce and porcini risotto (or something similar - that's what's listed on the website) and it was absolutely delicious. The chicken was moist, tender, and flavorful, the broccoli rabe tender and not at all bitter, and the risotto flavored just right - not bland, and not overpowering, just delicate and yummy. My bf got the Australian lamb loin chops with pomegranate molasses and pearl couscous with cumin herb oil and his only complaint was that there wasn't enough meat - they gave him two smallish chops and when he'd eaten it down to the bone, he would have liked more. But the flavors he said were very good. The dessert menu looked great so we decided to go for that as well - I got the chocolate pot de creme with strawberries, which was quite yummy, with the strawberries blending beautifully with the chocolate rather than seeming a bit too tart. The bf got the blueberry in grand marnier with graham crumbles, and one scoop each of Tahitian Vanilla and Scharffen Berger Chocolate Gelato, which was also delicious. Just a happy meal overall, and one that didn't leave us feeling too stuffed, which was nice. I definitely recommend this restaurant, though make sure to go on a non-performance night, or make a reservation ahead of time, because the space really is quite small.
On Friday, we weren't in the mood for anything heavy, and decided to go for sushi. A quick browse on Yelp turned up Wayo Sushi (1407 Van Ness), which got very good reviews. Wayo Sushi is definitely not a high-selection sushi place - the roll menu was quite limited and the nigiri was limited to the standards - but the prices were very reasonable, and the fish was quite good. We ended up getting 3 sets of sashimi (6 pieces each for about $9-$9.75) - hamachi (which reminded me strongly of amberjack, which I love), maguro (fine), and shiro maguro (as usual melt in your mouth). We also got a mango salmon roll - I only had one piece b/c I had stuffed myself with the wakame salad (yummy, good quantity for only $3.75) but it was quite good. Overall, I thought it was a reasonably good sushi place - nowhere you'd go if you're going for exotic, but a nice place to stop for reasonably priced, fresh fish.
Afterwards, we walked down like 10 blocks to Grove St to go to Citizen Cake (399 Grove St at Gough) since the bf felt like some dessert. I thought I was too stuffed to get anything, but as usual couldn't resist. I ended up getting a scoop of the banana toffee peanut butter (and possibly some other stuff) ice cream, which was quite good. My bf got the lemon meringue tart, which was also good. He also brought home a giunduja (sp?) something or the other, and a mexican wedding? cookie... I got to try the first which was kind of like a nestle crunch but with hazelnut overtones - pretty yummy. I think he enjoyed the latter?
Beyond that, we've actually been cooking and eating at home for the most part. But that was a good week for restaurant choices!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
My trip to Seattle
I went to Seattle this weekend for a friend's birthday. We were his surprise gift. It was a pretty fun trip. They've recently renovated their house massively and it was interesting to walk through and see how it had changed since the last time I saw it. I also had a lot of fun petting their dog, who was a very sweet dispositioned lab who was very open to me petting him endlessly. I can get a bit odd around other people's dogs and babies. I get very happy if they like me, and will do whatever it is I was doing to make them happy for as long as they stay happy, which means a dog that will stick near me can get pet for like 1/2 an hour or an hour as long as he stays there. Or I'll hold the baby or play peek-a-boo or whatever as long as the baby keeps smiling at me and staying happy. And I get vaguely sad if the dog shows no interest in me or the baby cries when I'm near. Must be some sort of insecure desire to be liked at work there. Kind of pathetic!
Our friends are season subscribers to the Seattle Repertory Theater, and were very enthusiastic about the production of "Twelfth Night" (or "Twelfe Night," as they billed it) that happened to be ending on Saturday, so we all went to see it. It's not a good idea to try to watch Shakespeare when tired, because, at least for me, it requires a certain degree of focused attention for me to follow the dialogue. It was a fun production, though. "Twelfth Night" always requires a suspension of disbelief that I have difficulty with - not that an unrelated actor and actress are supposed to look so alike that no one can tell them apart so much as that they're indistinguishable when one is a head taller than the other. But this cast did a great job of playing the stunned disbelief and slightly scared confusion when Sebastian and Violet were revealed to be two separate people. The cast was very good overall. The production was interesting in that they didn't make any attempt to place it in time - some of the costumes looked period, some more modern, and the sets was rather abstract (the back drop was basically this big wavy wooden deck that looked like a wrecked ship but also just doubled as a hill or the back of a room). The lighting was also really beautiful - they had the whole back lit up like the sky in various colors and achieved some really gorgeous effects with it.
Saturday night, we went to see "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" which was quite a good movie. Very slow paced, very long, but executed extremely well. Brad Pitt made a convincing charismatic yet manic Jesse James, succumbing to paranoia and depression and knowing it. Casey Affleck was creepy and compelling as Bob Ford, torn between his hero-worship of Jesse James, his hopes for notoriety and fame, and his disillusionment and bitterness towards the hero who does not behave towards him as he had hoped. The movie made an interesting but fairly subtle case for the idea that Jesse James both was aware of and welcomed Bob Ford's betrayal, deliberately setting aside his guns and turning his back on him, and not reacting even as he could see the reflection of his shooter. This was supported by Jesse's apparently self-hate for his losses of control and violent outbursts, and just the sense that he was increasingly weary of it all. Don't go into this movie expecting much action, but as a character study and historic piece, it was quite interesting.
We also had some good food in Seattle. For brunch Saturday, we went to the 5 Spot and had a super-yummy French Toast. Instead of maple syrup, they had this caramel sauce and it was really good. Very sugary on a very thick piece of French Toast. For dinner, we went to Trader Vic's, where I had a quite yummy (if very slightly undercooked) duck breast, tried our friend's BBQ rib appetizer (pretty decent), and then split a very good chocolate lava cake, as well as banana fritters with ice cream. Dinner Sunday was at Blue C Sushi which I quite enjoyed. Sushi on a conveyer belt (with booths as well as a sushi bar alongside, which was interesting) makes it very easy to just keep taking and taking (not to mention staring at the conveyer belt instead of talking to your friends) but the prices were quite good (at least compared to the places in SF!) and the quality I really enjoyed. Not a huge, huge selection, but had enough that I liked - good Shiro Maguro, very tasty Sake, interesting Sockeye Salmon (forgot the Japanese name), pretty good Tamago, a yummy shrimp tempura roll, tasty seared tuna, yummy sesame noodles (with a peanutty sauce)... get the impression I ate rather a lot? I think I ate more than twice as much as one of our friends, who apparently wasn't very hungry. I like getting sushi in the Northwest - if you can find the right places the food is often very yummy, fresh, and quite cheap!
Our friends are season subscribers to the Seattle Repertory Theater, and were very enthusiastic about the production of "Twelfth Night" (or "Twelfe Night," as they billed it) that happened to be ending on Saturday, so we all went to see it. It's not a good idea to try to watch Shakespeare when tired, because, at least for me, it requires a certain degree of focused attention for me to follow the dialogue. It was a fun production, though. "Twelfth Night" always requires a suspension of disbelief that I have difficulty with - not that an unrelated actor and actress are supposed to look so alike that no one can tell them apart so much as that they're indistinguishable when one is a head taller than the other. But this cast did a great job of playing the stunned disbelief and slightly scared confusion when Sebastian and Violet were revealed to be two separate people. The cast was very good overall. The production was interesting in that they didn't make any attempt to place it in time - some of the costumes looked period, some more modern, and the sets was rather abstract (the back drop was basically this big wavy wooden deck that looked like a wrecked ship but also just doubled as a hill or the back of a room). The lighting was also really beautiful - they had the whole back lit up like the sky in various colors and achieved some really gorgeous effects with it.
Saturday night, we went to see "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" which was quite a good movie. Very slow paced, very long, but executed extremely well. Brad Pitt made a convincing charismatic yet manic Jesse James, succumbing to paranoia and depression and knowing it. Casey Affleck was creepy and compelling as Bob Ford, torn between his hero-worship of Jesse James, his hopes for notoriety and fame, and his disillusionment and bitterness towards the hero who does not behave towards him as he had hoped. The movie made an interesting but fairly subtle case for the idea that Jesse James both was aware of and welcomed Bob Ford's betrayal, deliberately setting aside his guns and turning his back on him, and not reacting even as he could see the reflection of his shooter. This was supported by Jesse's apparently self-hate for his losses of control and violent outbursts, and just the sense that he was increasingly weary of it all. Don't go into this movie expecting much action, but as a character study and historic piece, it was quite interesting.
We also had some good food in Seattle. For brunch Saturday, we went to the 5 Spot and had a super-yummy French Toast. Instead of maple syrup, they had this caramel sauce and it was really good. Very sugary on a very thick piece of French Toast. For dinner, we went to Trader Vic's, where I had a quite yummy (if very slightly undercooked) duck breast, tried our friend's BBQ rib appetizer (pretty decent), and then split a very good chocolate lava cake, as well as banana fritters with ice cream. Dinner Sunday was at Blue C Sushi which I quite enjoyed. Sushi on a conveyer belt (with booths as well as a sushi bar alongside, which was interesting) makes it very easy to just keep taking and taking (not to mention staring at the conveyer belt instead of talking to your friends) but the prices were quite good (at least compared to the places in SF!) and the quality I really enjoyed. Not a huge, huge selection, but had enough that I liked - good Shiro Maguro, very tasty Sake, interesting Sockeye Salmon (forgot the Japanese name), pretty good Tamago, a yummy shrimp tempura roll, tasty seared tuna, yummy sesame noodles (with a peanutty sauce)... get the impression I ate rather a lot? I think I ate more than twice as much as one of our friends, who apparently wasn't very hungry. I like getting sushi in the Northwest - if you can find the right places the food is often very yummy, fresh, and quite cheap!
Friday, September 7, 2007
Testing 1, 2, 3...
Can anybody hear me?
Yay for updated Firefox at home, now I can update blogger!
Just in time to complain...ANTS! We've been invaded by ANTS! Damnit! I know what I'm doing tomorrow, I guess - lots of killing, buying ant traps and gel, and cleaning our dining/kitchen areas thoroughly to eliminate any scent trails. They're just in the dining room right now, coming in through the balcony door. Hopefully they won't find the kitchen before tomorrow. We've sprinkled cinnamon all over to throw them off, but those little buggers are sneaky, walking on walls and such. And there are a hell of a lot of them. Ugh. I hate ants.
Yay for updated Firefox at home, now I can update blogger!
Just in time to complain...ANTS! We've been invaded by ANTS! Damnit! I know what I'm doing tomorrow, I guess - lots of killing, buying ant traps and gel, and cleaning our dining/kitchen areas thoroughly to eliminate any scent trails. They're just in the dining room right now, coming in through the balcony door. Hopefully they won't find the kitchen before tomorrow. We've sprinkled cinnamon all over to throw them off, but those little buggers are sneaky, walking on walls and such. And there are a hell of a lot of them. Ugh. I hate ants.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Ticketmaster sucks
Not that anyone needs to be told this, but Ticketmaster sucks.
Just ordered two tickets to the Jimmy Eat World concert in October. The face ticket price was $26.50 so two tickets would technically be $53. After Ticketmaster fees, what with order processing charges, "convenience fees", etc, it came out to $75.40.
Next time, I'm just going to take a bus up to the Fillmore and buy the tickets in person.
Just ordered two tickets to the Jimmy Eat World concert in October. The face ticket price was $26.50 so two tickets would technically be $53. After Ticketmaster fees, what with order processing charges, "convenience fees", etc, it came out to $75.40.
Next time, I'm just going to take a bus up to the Fillmore and buy the tickets in person.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
OSC
As an avid Orson Scott Card reader... tee hee!
Nighttime Stories
Also, as a geek/developer... tee hee hee!
Funny photo
While I'm at it, I love this one:
Sandwich
Nighttime Stories
Also, as a geek/developer... tee hee hee!
Funny photo
While I'm at it, I love this one:
Sandwich
Fuzzy strawberries
You know those horror movies where something causes time to speed up and you see stuff going bad and then decaying at an accelerated rate?
(Ok I have no idea if such a movie actually exists, but bear with me)
Well, I got a mini-experience of that with the batch of strawberries we bought at Costco on Saturday. When we bought the strawberries, they were mostly a lovely shade of red, with maybe a spot or two of squishedness where they were pressed against the plastic. That's normal, right? Within a day or two, I was already noticing that some of the strawberries were developing squishy splotches and probably were going bad. Fine, that's somewhat normal I guess...
Monday morning, I picked through the carton to bring some strawberries to work. I noted that they seemed to be going bad fairly rapidly, and told my bf we probably would have to throw out a lot of them soon. But by "going bad", I meant there were some black splotches on a lot of them and it was hard to find more than 8-10 mostly good ones.
Monday night, we get home and I discover to my shock that the entire carton is overgrown with mold spores, like it'd been sitting out for weeks and weeks. And then, when my bf went to pick up the carton and throw it out, a huge rush of strawberry juice came spilling out, puddling on the counter, dripping over the cabinets, and splashing on the floor. Somehow, in the course of one day, not only had mold grown all over the strawberries, but it'd eaten through the strawberries or something enough that they'd basically decayed in the case and turned to juice. I've never seen anything like it. Ugh.
Guess we're not keeping strawberries around our condo! So far the carton of Clementines that were sitting next to the strawberries seem fine... yay for self-contained fruit!
ETA: OK I've been googling and apparently we should have left the strawberries in the fridge, and even then they probably wouldn't last more than a couple days. Still, I didn't think it was *that* fast!
(Ok I have no idea if such a movie actually exists, but bear with me)
Well, I got a mini-experience of that with the batch of strawberries we bought at Costco on Saturday. When we bought the strawberries, they were mostly a lovely shade of red, with maybe a spot or two of squishedness where they were pressed against the plastic. That's normal, right? Within a day or two, I was already noticing that some of the strawberries were developing squishy splotches and probably were going bad. Fine, that's somewhat normal I guess...
Monday morning, I picked through the carton to bring some strawberries to work. I noted that they seemed to be going bad fairly rapidly, and told my bf we probably would have to throw out a lot of them soon. But by "going bad", I meant there were some black splotches on a lot of them and it was hard to find more than 8-10 mostly good ones.
Monday night, we get home and I discover to my shock that the entire carton is overgrown with mold spores, like it'd been sitting out for weeks and weeks. And then, when my bf went to pick up the carton and throw it out, a huge rush of strawberry juice came spilling out, puddling on the counter, dripping over the cabinets, and splashing on the floor. Somehow, in the course of one day, not only had mold grown all over the strawberries, but it'd eaten through the strawberries or something enough that they'd basically decayed in the case and turned to juice. I've never seen anything like it. Ugh.
Guess we're not keeping strawberries around our condo! So far the carton of Clementines that were sitting next to the strawberries seem fine... yay for self-contained fruit!
ETA: OK I've been googling and apparently we should have left the strawberries in the fridge, and even then they probably wouldn't last more than a couple days. Still, I didn't think it was *that* fast!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Sad, lonely thief
On Sunday night, I got a phone call from American Express' customer service department, questioning a suspicious charge on my credit card from Friday. When I denied having made that charge, they questioned me about another charge that also looked suspicious. At this point, I called up my online statement and discovered a third charge, 10 days earlier, that I knew I hadn't made either. AMEX was really good about it - they transferred me to customer service who issued me a new card, closed the old one, and took all three charges off of my bill. So, I'm AMEX-less for 7-10 days or whatever, but at least AMEX caught it and was totally cool about it.
The charges?
Zencon Dating
Match.com
Second Life
So my credit card info was stolen by a single geek who likes computer games?
Even funnier is, I googled zencondating and all that came up was a number of links reporting rip-offs or scams... but all the reports were of people who tried to sign up for zencon dating, paid them, and then couldn't access the account, get customer service, get their money back...
Does this mean my credit card thief stole my info so he could get ripped off?
The charges?
Zencon Dating
Match.com
Second Life
So my credit card info was stolen by a single geek who likes computer games?
Even funnier is, I googled zencondating and all that came up was a number of links reporting rip-offs or scams... but all the reports were of people who tried to sign up for zencon dating, paid them, and then couldn't access the account, get customer service, get their money back...
Does this mean my credit card thief stole my info so he could get ripped off?
Blister packs/clamshells
I think blister pack (or, according to Wikipedia, clamshell) manufacturers are in collusion with scissor manufacturers. And bandaid manufacturers. Hrmph.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Canadian parents
I wonder if Canadian parents have particularly high expectations for their kids or something. I'm listening to my iPod and Alanis Morissette's "Perfect" came on ("we'll love you..just the way you are..if you're perfect") which reminded me of Barenaked Ladies' "What a Good Boy" ("We've got these chains that hang around our necks. People want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath."). Parental pressure, eh?
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Wordiness
I've decided after scanning through some friends' blogs that I babble too much and use too many words in a given post. Who's going to want to read that?
And by creating a post just to say that, I'm only proving the point. Especially b/c there's something else I want to blog about in a bit...
And by creating a post just to say that, I'm only proving the point. Especially b/c there's something else I want to blog about in a bit...
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