So I suppose it's not exactly a huge surprise that Lucie and I are watching the remake of Hawai'i Five-0... it's a remake of a retro show, it's got Daniel Dae Kim in it, and it's all about one of our two favorite U.S. States. It's a fun action show with good amounts of comedy, witty lines, shave ice, beautiful scenery, and things that go bo'om.
So, there's that.
And I'm also willing to admit that maybe it's not exactly the best example of intelligent writing out there, but we've got Bones and reruns of Numb3rs for that; and it's not a wacky and fun comedy, for which we have Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother; and while it's a crime show we already have Psych and Mexico: One Plate at a Time; and it's possible I'm not too good at pigeonholing shows into their proper genre. Psych should totally be in the wacky and fun comedy. And it's also possible that we watch a bit too much tv.
But back to Five-0.
As mentioned, it's not the best comedy, or crime drama, or brain stimulant; but I'll stick with the opinion that it's the best combination of the three that's set in Hawai'i (because Burn Notice is also a good multiple-genre show but it's set in Miami, and Chuck has dibs on the Left Coast, and I already admitted we watch too much tv.). We can watch the show and enjoy the action and the clever lines, and every few minutes we can say to each other, "Man, we miss Hawai'i.". Or "Just look at how clear that water is!" Or "Where can I get one of those Waiola Shave Ice shirts?" Or even "So did Daniel Dae Kim just relocate to Hawai'i completely, or what?"
And it's also educational programming, because we can even learn new things by watching the show, such as Honolulu's crime rate is so high it's like the Oakland of the Pacific (except for the rioting -- my mental image of a Hawai'ian riot would go "Heck no, we won't... ooh! Shrimp truck!"); or that apparently Korean is the new Chinese; or it's just got to be mathematically impossible for so many people to be bobbing in the water with all of those surfers and not to have at least a dozen or two fiberglass-to-head collisions per day, 'cuz that's just crazy.
And I can also learn that Windows is throwing TONS of money into their product placement. Last episode, for example, Chin Ho tells his cousin Kono to "Bing it" when talking about an artist, and there follows a blatant scene of her whipping out her Windows Mobile phone (Microsoft's competition to Apple's iOS and Google's Android) and doing a search on Bing (Microsoft's competition to Google's Google.). Saw basically the same thing on the latest Bones as well, with a Tempe POV of her Windows Mobile phone.
Now, I don't have any real issue with product placement -- I've noticed that McGarret sports an iPhone 4 and they use an iPad at Five-0 HQ, and Chuck is an Apple fanboy who eats at Subway -- but this one's little over the top, isn't it? An extended scene with a main character's POV of the Windows Mobile screen and their search engine is bad enough, but i just can't overlook the egregious usage of "Bing" as a verb.
Bing is not a verb! It hasn't been around long enough to evolve into a verb, and throwing tons of money into advertising doesn't count. That's like the business version of genetically modified food, except that I don't really have an issue with genetically modified food. Let's call it more like the business version of Pleather.
Oh, and if you haven't heard of Pleather before... Google it.
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6 Reasons to Not Be a Vegetarian (...In My Opinion)
So I've been noticing that my entries have been starting to focus as much on food as on activities, which isn't really all that surprising. After all, looking at me and my godlike physique (I'm of course referring to the god Bacchus) one can safely assume I'm more inclined to eating than to other more active activities. More forkful than snorkel; more hork than hike; more likely to break fast than geocache; more likely to snarf than to do something active that sort of rhymes with "snarf"; that's me.
So, to that end, I'm listing here for my enjoyment (and possibly yours; but let's be honest -- if this blog were for YOUR enjoyment I'd try harder to post here more often) some of the top meals involving meaty goodness that I've had, where I've had them, and other items of interest. As my Yelp! profile says, I am a carnesseuir, and while I've enjoyed my share of vegetarian meals (Indian dishes coming immediately to mind) I really prefer meals involving something that had parents. Heirloom tomatoes don't cut it. Heirloom tomato slices on a big honkin' burger, on the other hand, are acceptable.
#6: AJ Spur's, Buellton , CA
I'll be honest -- this is a decent steakhouse, but it's more about the quantity than the quality here. I mean, the steaks are pretty darn good, but the beef is elevated as it's propped up substantially by baked beans, a large salad, side dishes larger than DeNiro's resume, huge drinks in gimmick light-up glasses shaped like boots (Ooh -- LEDs!), and an after-dinner aperitif to make the drive home more exciting; all served quickly by friendly staff as you sit beneath enough stuffed animal heads to make PETA riot.
The Solvang area is known for the quaint Danish village and for Andersen's Pea Soup (and -- at least for us -- for the Chumash Indian casino only minutes away), but AJ Spur's is one of the places we visit when we're down this way. Not quite good enough to make the Top 5, but good enough to be mentioned.
#5: Texas Roadhouse, Union City , CA
Yes, this is a restaurant chain, but don't let that stop you from trying this place out. Very high quality steaks (Lucie prefers the New York, while I opt for the ribeye) that come in sizes ranging from a petite 12-ounce to Let's-Flip-The-Flintstones'-Car huge, cooked very simply and very well (although in my case, "very well" means "rare"), with two large sides, yeast rolls that are frighteningly addictive especially with the accompanying honey butter, buckets (literally!) of roasted peanuts in the shell, and margaritas that come in glasses the size of shot puts (and almost as dangerous.)
A hint if you go here -- order the sweet potato loaded with brown sugar and toasted marshmallows. Save it for last and eat it for dessert.
#4: QN4U, Clovis , CA
Okay, I've only been here once, but my brother-in-law swears by this place (and even has a table with his name on it -- a nice brass plaque showing both their appreciation and his obsession nicely.) The one time I was here, though, I had the "Texas Tommie", a meal that frightened my wife, astonished onlookers, entertained the heck out of me, made angioplasty centers within a hundred and twenty mile radius perk up expectantly, and quite possibly caused a disturbance in the Force.
It's a foot-long hot dog, stuffed with jalapeño peppers and cheddar cheese, wrapped in bacon and deep fried, and smothered with onions, bell peppers, more jalapeños, and spicy brown mustard. It overflows one's buns in more ways than one, and when paired with the macaroni and cheese is NOT a meal for the health conscious or faint of heart.
I want another one, but I think I'm not allowed to by anyone who knows and loves me.
#3: Samba Brazilian Steakhouse, Las Vegas , NV
I'll be honest -- I don't remember too much specifically about this place, since we last went in 2006, but other Brazilian churrascarias we've visited since then (a nonaffiliated Samba in Fresno and Maceio in San Jose
#2: Hot City BBQ, Los Baños , CA
This should be rightly listed as #1 on my list, but Alexander's wins by the obscure You-Can't-Compete-With-Kobe ruling. In all other categories, though, I'm going with Hot City
Incredibly friendly staff, tiny hole-in-the-wall atmosphere, a great combination of spicy and sweet in their barbecue sauce, and very nicely cooked meats. The pulled pork is moist and full of flavor, the chicken tastes just like grilled chicken, the ribs vary from above average to excellent, the French dip sandwiches are excellent (Lucie likes the tri-tip French dip; I prefer the prime rib variant), the hot links are spicy and flavorful without being so hot you can't enjoy the flavor, and the steak is flat-out incredible.
It's a generous cut ribeye, cooked to perfection (for me, a nicely seared Pittsburgh rare) and served still sizzling with a baked potato, surprisingly gourmet salad, and a few pieces of grilled French bread; seasoned very simply with salt and a sprinkle of parsley on top, they allow the meat itself to have all the spotlight, and rightfully so.
Use the bread as a sponge to soak up the leftover meat juices when you're done, use the fat you remove from the steak to flavor the baked potato, and -- I cannot stress this enough -- keep coming back here to eat. A small hole in the wall restaurant, hidden from the main thoroughfare, without much signage showing the location; this place is a hidden gem that deserves to survive, and prosper, and grow. And keep providing us with the top-notch beefy awesome we've grown to love.
#1: Alexander's Steakhouse, Cupertino , CA
Still the most expensive meal we've ever had, and still one of the best as well; we haven't gone back since our first visit in June 2007 but still remember this place fondly. We keep making plans to go back, but for one reason or another the plans have fallen through, and that's a shame.
I mean, the fact that we haven't returned has definitely been kinder on our finances, but sometimes being incredibly overly extravagant is totally worth the months of ramen that follow.
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139? Really?! (...on One Shelf?!)
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| Indian casinos |
Ah, the shot glasses... for years now, I've been collecting shot glasses from special events I've attended (the Gilroy Garlic Festival); trips we've taken (Monterey, Pismo Beach, San Diego); a myriad of Casinos (Vegas, Tahoe, Laughlin, and all of the Indian casinos we've hit throughout California); and shot glasses that were given to me as presents (which I appreciate and the memories of which I'll hold on to, but the storage of which is threatening to bury us every earthquake that comes along.)
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| Cities and Stuff |
I take pictures of the glasses arranged by theme, and after a quick count am startled to find that I've managed to amass a total of 139 shot glasses.
This is not conducive toward a clutter-free domicile.
This is a sickness which needs to be stopped.
...But first, a trip to IKEA!
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| Misc. |
DRIIVE, SCHLEPP, BUKSHËLF, HÕM. ÜNBACHS, ÜSSEMBAL. PRÖÇËÊÐ.
(...Aaaaaand I've just killed that joke, beaten its corpse with a shovel, and mocked its descendants. Sorry.)
Lucie and I go through my collection, choosing only those shot glasses whose sentimentality outweighs the clutter factor; and then we narrow our control limits, and go through them again.
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| Destinations & Events |
We end up keeping one glass from each trip to Hawaii, one from the Ponderosa (which might be long gone but shall be forever to be remembered in 2-ounce increments), a glass from the Philippines, and a few others; ten glasses in total.
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| Destinations, Part 2 |
I also end up having to get rid of 63 CDs and 12 Dreamcast games in order to get everything to fit into the shelves, drawers, and carousels to which they've been assigned; but for some reason it's the shot glasses that are the hardest to lose.
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| The finished product. |
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46 Inches of HD, 56 Inches in Front of the Sofa
So our new tv arrived on Saturday. It's nice and shiny and expensive and thinner than expected, and HUGE. Just like my head, except THIS is in HD.
It's also quite high tech in that it has just one coaxial connection, just one component connection, and about a dozen HDMI connection ports, which also means that I no longer have the capability to plug in anything other than my cable box and our Blu-Ray Disc player. Hmm. So now I need to spring for a cable box with an HDMI connection so I can free up my single component port for my Wii... or maybe for the iPod connection player... or for the Sega Dreamcast that we uncovered when cleaning up the living room... or for the receiver that we're now going to have to buy so we can actually use all of our older technology (though I find it rather difficult to consider an iPod or any gaming console newer than a Sega Genesis "older tech." I do have a Sega Genesis somewhere in the bedroom, but we haven't expanded our cleaning frenzy upstairs yet so it's still buried and waiting for me to uncover it like I were Indiana Jones itching to play Star Control.)
So, as so often happens with this sort of thing, new tech purchases beget still more purchases. Good thing we'd already planned to forego our Hawaii vacation this year.
But, the TV.
If you've never watched high definition TV, people say, you've never really watched TV. I say this is untrue -- if you've never watched high def TV, you've still watched TV... but it sucked.
46 inches of HDTV, with a flat panel LED LCD screen, 1080p scan mode, 240Hz frame rate, 16:9 aspect ratio, OMG:IC vision reaction, DIY support tabling, and several other spiffy-sounding groups of letter and numbers I either don't remember or am too lazy to make up. I've never seen anything this realistic (unless, of course, you count reality, in which case my statement still stands, but reality's a very close second.)
Combine that with the Blu-Ray player and even our old DVDs look entirely different. For example, I now know that Nathan Fillion's nose has 1,873 pores. First seen on our new Blu-Ray copy of Serenity, verified on the DVD version of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog as well as a couple episodes of Firefly. For some reason, it turned out to be a very Whedony breaking in of the new hardware.
Man, I am SO gonna kick but if the subject of nasal pore quantities comes up the next time I play Trivial Pursuit.
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It's also quite high tech in that it has just one coaxial connection, just one component connection, and about a dozen HDMI connection ports, which also means that I no longer have the capability to plug in anything other than my cable box and our Blu-Ray Disc player. Hmm. So now I need to spring for a cable box with an HDMI connection so I can free up my single component port for my Wii... or maybe for the iPod connection player... or for the Sega Dreamcast that we uncovered when cleaning up the living room... or for the receiver that we're now going to have to buy so we can actually use all of our older technology (though I find it rather difficult to consider an iPod or any gaming console newer than a Sega Genesis "older tech." I do have a Sega Genesis somewhere in the bedroom, but we haven't expanded our cleaning frenzy upstairs yet so it's still buried and waiting for me to uncover it like I were Indiana Jones itching to play Star Control.)
So, as so often happens with this sort of thing, new tech purchases beget still more purchases. Good thing we'd already planned to forego our Hawaii vacation this year.
But, the TV.
If you've never watched high definition TV, people say, you've never really watched TV. I say this is untrue -- if you've never watched high def TV, you've still watched TV... but it sucked.
46 inches of HDTV, with a flat panel LED LCD screen, 1080p scan mode, 240Hz frame rate, 16:9 aspect ratio, OMG:IC vision reaction, DIY support tabling, and several other spiffy-sounding groups of letter and numbers I either don't remember or am too lazy to make up. I've never seen anything this realistic (unless, of course, you count reality, in which case my statement still stands, but reality's a very close second.)
Combine that with the Blu-Ray player and even our old DVDs look entirely different. For example, I now know that Nathan Fillion's nose has 1,873 pores. First seen on our new Blu-Ray copy of Serenity, verified on the DVD version of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog as well as a couple episodes of Firefly. For some reason, it turned out to be a very Whedony breaking in of the new hardware.
Man, I am SO gonna kick but if the subject of nasal pore quantities comes up the next time I play Trivial Pursuit.
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1 New Living Room... in the Same Old Crappy Apartment
So we've been thinking about upgrading the furniture in our living room -- our original collection of stuff I had when I was fresh out of high school, used furniture bought when Lucie and I first moved in here 10 years ago, and things that are even older and less sentimental has been used to death. The love seat is falling apart; the hidden bed in the sofabed has long since collapsed and is being supported by bricks and shelving boards; the entertainment center is sagging in the middle (which is okay, since it's being supported by our old TV which stopped working a couple of years ago and is still in its compartment); and the bookcases being used to hold our VHS tapes (yes, we still have some!) and our DVDs can barely be seen by the stacks of DVDs in front of them, since we ran out of storage space a long time ago. The sofa seats are about an inch and a half below the wooden front of the sofa (from the collapsed bed) so the circulation in our legs gets cut off if we dare sit down for more than five minutes.
It's not the best living room out there, to be certain. Sure, we've tried to hide all of these sore spots by being borderline hoarders and burying everything under magazines, assorted paperwork, VHS tapes, blankets, and dust bunnies so large they could be used by English knights to assault French castles; but somehow this doesn't strike us as an optimal solution. Our second plan is to skip our vacation this year and spend a boatload of money we probably shouldn't on getting rid of our old stuff and replacing it with better furniture, additional storage, and other items we've been meaning to buy.
Sure it's not as relaxing as another trip to Hawai'i, but it's also a lot less expensive. Or, at least a little less expensive. Or, maybe sort of comparable.
Pretty sure we didn't spend THAT much more on this than we would have on airline and hotel fees.
*sigh*
So we schlep some furniture stores and settle on a dual recliner sofa on a really good Memorial Day sale. On the way home from that, we stop by Best Buy "just to look" at new TV sets, and walk out the new owners of a large-screen TV and a Blu-ray Disc player. I remind myself that I am not now, nor ever have been, the poster boy for the word "willpower."
And then we head to IKEA.
If you've never been to IKEA,count yourself lucky it's a huge do-it-yourself Swedish mental acuity test in which you WILL be humbled. It disguises itself as a furniture store for people who own SUVs and hand tools. Everything is given a Swedish name in ALL CAPS and LOTS OF CONSONANTS, everything needs to be assembled (I'm pretty sure I saw a yardstick that came in four-inch lengths), and is boxed in identical brown boxes so you need to ignore the Swedish names and memorize eight-digit part numbers.
Anyway, we're looking for an entertainment center and a new computer desk. After several trips through the showroom, a perusal or two of the IKEA catalog, and approximately eight hundred and seventy miles of hiking through the East Palo Alto IKEA (during some point of which I swear I looked out a window and saw the Golden Gate Bridge beneath us), we finally decide what we want.
We pick up the HEIMLICH entertainment center in dark brown, add the BORKBORK bookcase and computer desk in the same dark brown, grab several GNORTHAUS storage bins that will fit into the BORKBORK's cubbyholes, arrange to have everything SHIPTTE to us because we don't own a U-Haul truck, eat some MITTBÅLs for lunch, have a fun LAUSTKAR incident because the parking lot is HUUJE and my brain stopped working, and we finally get home BROÅK and SOR.
The couch arrives the following Saturday, about the same time I finally manage to assemble all of the IKEA pieces; our TV is set to arrive next Saturday; we make new friends at 1-800-GOT-JUNK and have them make two separate visits to haul away our old furniture and appliances; We replace the trashed curtains in both the living room and kitchen with new ones; we donate about a dozen boxes of items to the Salvation Army; and I'm reminded once again just how old I am and how bad my back can get.
But at least now, when my back is hurting me, I can recline on our new sofa and watch some TV in comfort. Oh, and use the vibrating doohickey in the sofa to get a back massage at the same time, 'cuz in addition to having no willpower, I'm also a sucker for a gimmick.
.
It's not the best living room out there, to be certain. Sure, we've tried to hide all of these sore spots by being borderline hoarders and burying everything under magazines, assorted paperwork, VHS tapes, blankets, and dust bunnies so large they could be used by English knights to assault French castles; but somehow this doesn't strike us as an optimal solution. Our second plan is to skip our vacation this year and spend a boatload of money we probably shouldn't on getting rid of our old stuff and replacing it with better furniture, additional storage, and other items we've been meaning to buy.
Sure it's not as relaxing as another trip to Hawai'i, but it's also a lot less expensive. Or, at least a little less expensive. Or, maybe sort of comparable.
Pretty sure we didn't spend THAT much more on this than we would have on airline and hotel fees.
*sigh*
So we schlep some furniture stores and settle on a dual recliner sofa on a really good Memorial Day sale. On the way home from that, we stop by Best Buy "just to look" at new TV sets, and walk out the new owners of a large-screen TV and a Blu-ray Disc player. I remind myself that I am not now, nor ever have been, the poster boy for the word "willpower."
And then we head to IKEA.
If you've never been to IKEA,
Anyway, we're looking for an entertainment center and a new computer desk. After several trips through the showroom, a perusal or two of the IKEA catalog, and approximately eight hundred and seventy miles of hiking through the East Palo Alto IKEA (during some point of which I swear I looked out a window and saw the Golden Gate Bridge beneath us), we finally decide what we want.
We pick up the HEIMLICH entertainment center in dark brown, add the BORKBORK bookcase and computer desk in the same dark brown, grab several GNORTHAUS storage bins that will fit into the BORKBORK's cubbyholes, arrange to have everything SHIPTTE to us because we don't own a U-Haul truck, eat some MITTBÅLs for lunch, have a fun LAUSTKAR incident because the parking lot is HUUJE and my brain stopped working, and we finally get home BROÅK and SOR.
The couch arrives the following Saturday, about the same time I finally manage to assemble all of the IKEA pieces; our TV is set to arrive next Saturday; we make new friends at 1-800-GOT-JUNK and have them make two separate visits to haul away our old furniture and appliances; We replace the trashed curtains in both the living room and kitchen with new ones; we donate about a dozen boxes of items to the Salvation Army; and I'm reminded once again just how old I am and how bad my back can get.
But at least now, when my back is hurting me, I can recline on our new sofa and watch some TV in comfort. Oh, and use the vibrating doohickey in the sofa to get a back massage at the same time, 'cuz in addition to having no willpower, I'm also a sucker for a gimmick.
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2 Festivals and a Road Trip in Less Than 48 Hours
The last few weeks have been more physically and emotionally draining than we'd prefer; cleanup week at my work, extra long days at Lucie's work, me spraining my wrist (while it's true that one doesn't forget how to ride a bike, I'm living proof that one can get pretty rusty on that whole stopping thing that goes with it), various amounts of stress from several sources, and a general lack of sleep that's been getting worse... so this weekend I really want to get the hell out of Dodge. We don't want to spend a huge amount of money by going to a casino (though that *was* among the first ideas we tossed around) so we end up deciding on taking a day trip out of town and spending some other time doing something fun.
We've been looking forward to Nikkei Matsuri, an annual celebration in San Jose's Japantown that's scheduled for this weekend. We'd originally thought it was for the full weekend, but it's slated for Sunday only; as luck would have it, however, Cupertino is having their Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend as well, right across the street from our alma mater De Anza College. The Cherry Blossom Festival is an annual festival celebrating the gift of 200 cherry trees given to the city by its sister city of Toyokawa, Japan, in 1983. The trees were planted in Cupertino's Memorial Park, and there's an arts and crafts festival held there every year celebrating the Japanese culture (and, apparently, kettle corn.)
This sounds like fun. This also sounds suspiciously like a lot of walking around, which sounds suspiciously like exercise, but it also sounds better than hitting the treadmill at the YMCA, so we're in. We cruise into Cupertino, home of Apple Computer and World Domination Headquarters, and manage to find a parking spot -- in the shade, no less -- pretty close to the park entrance, which we take as a good sign. We wander in, poke through the stalls, and spend a little money. We get Japanese themed bookmarks and have our names written in Japanese calligraphy; we stop by a pottery stand where Lucie buys me a coffee mug and I buy a present for someone in the family; Lucie gets a nifty jade bracelet; I buy some homemade jalapeño fudge and some mocha fudge that gives me the caffeine jitters just by smelling it; I buy a Barbie-sized kimono for my niece Elizabeth's dolls; and Lucie buys some new bling, a shiny new ring with peridot, onyx, and diamond for $30 (which makes me suspect that the stones might not be real, but it still looks nice.)
After a while of wandering through the park, we start thinking about dinner... and if you've driven all the way out to Cupertino, it's only a couple more miles to Monterey for dinner, right?
Yeah, well... I sucked at geography.
It's been years since we made a trip to Monterey, and we miss it. It's still early enough to get in a nice walk along Fisherman's Wharf once we drive down there, so we head over the Santa Cruz mountains and cruise south along the Pacific Coast Highway. We make a quick stop at the Thistle Hut in Castroville where we grab snacks and some fresh strawberries, and get into Monterey around 4 or so. We take the time to drive down Cannery Row, seeing if anything's changed since our last visit, and nothing seems amiss; our favorite winery, the chocolate store, the chili pepper themed store, the Del Sol sunglasses store, and of course the Monterey Bay Aquarium have all managed to withstand these harsh economic times propped up on the mountains of money thrown at them by tourists such as ourselves. We head back to Fisherman's Wharf and find good parking.
We spend an hour or so wandering aimlessly down the wharf, sampling various recipes of clam chowder (well, *I* sample the chowder; all that cream based soup isn't something that agrees with Lucie) and getting rid of what money we have left over from the Cherry Blossom Festival. I find a cool silver ring with abalone inset that actually fits me, so I buy it -- I've developed a rule to live by that says if I like something and it actually fits me I don't try to talk myself out of it too hard. You don't often find a size 16 ring that isn't a simple printed band or something festooned with skulls, so it's a rare find indeed.
We eat dinner at the Old Fisherma's Grotto, our favorite place to eat in Monterey -- their calamari is some of the best we've had, and I haven't tried something there I didn't like. I'm temped to return to what I had last time, the parmesan and pesto salmon which was outstanding, but I go for something different and order the seared ahi plate and Lucie goes for the macadamia nut crusted halibut and coconut shrimp. I also feel a little wild and order the Grotto Pineapple, an obscenely large drink consisting of rum, rum, orange juice, ice, and rum, served in a large hollowed-out pineapple and topped off with rum. And maybe some rum.
It's strong.
We stop by the candy shop on the way back to Meg, where we get some caramel apples for us and a huge bag of salt water taffy for my co-workers; we make a quick detour into the coffee shop and I grab a double mocha for the road; and we head on back home. Traffic is a little more unnerving coming back into town (for some reason the inland-bound direction along Highway 17 has always seemed much more winding and dangerous to me) but we make it back safe and sound, and call it a day.
Sunday arrives, and it's time for the Nikkei Matsuri in Japantown. We manage to find parking that's not too incredibly far a walk and wander through the small setup, perusing the various arts and craft booths (we're fairly sure we recognize the same lady from whom I bought the Barbie kimono from yesterday's Cherry Blossom Festival), I'm both entertained and frustrated by a stall showing Japanese theme T-shirts (a Sumo wrestler shirt with the logo "no gut, no glory" that doesn't actually come in the sumo sizes I need, a shirt with the slogan "miso soup for the soul"), and we admire the origami crane earrings and Christmas ornaments that must have taken hours of work to make. We hit the food booths and sample the wide variety offered -- tempura, teriyaki burgers, BBQ beef short ribs, teriyaki chicken, udon soup, gyoza, pork and shrimp yakisoba, lemonade, and sesame chicken salad. Some of it's very good; and some of it's average, but nothing is worse than that, which is always a pleasant surprise for food stalls manned by youth groups and neighborhood charities.
We find some open seats in the shade (we've been amazingly lucky when it comes to finding places to park and/or sit this weekend), enjoy the live music followed by the San Jose Taiko demonstration, and finally head on back to Meg. I make a quick detour into the Hawaiian shave ice place where I get bubble gum and grape shave ice that matches the tie dye I'm wearing, and we head on home.
As the weekend comes to a close, we end up with little to no work done around the apartment but a much better outlook on life.
Works for me.
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We've been looking forward to Nikkei Matsuri, an annual celebration in San Jose's Japantown that's scheduled for this weekend. We'd originally thought it was for the full weekend, but it's slated for Sunday only; as luck would have it, however, Cupertino is having their Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend as well, right across the street from our alma mater De Anza College. The Cherry Blossom Festival is an annual festival celebrating the gift of 200 cherry trees given to the city by its sister city of Toyokawa, Japan, in 1983. The trees were planted in Cupertino's Memorial Park, and there's an arts and crafts festival held there every year celebrating the Japanese culture (and, apparently, kettle corn.)
This sounds like fun. This also sounds suspiciously like a lot of walking around, which sounds suspiciously like exercise, but it also sounds better than hitting the treadmill at the YMCA, so we're in. We cruise into Cupertino, home of Apple Computer and World Domination Headquarters, and manage to find a parking spot -- in the shade, no less -- pretty close to the park entrance, which we take as a good sign. We wander in, poke through the stalls, and spend a little money. We get Japanese themed bookmarks and have our names written in Japanese calligraphy; we stop by a pottery stand where Lucie buys me a coffee mug and I buy a present for someone in the family; Lucie gets a nifty jade bracelet; I buy some homemade jalapeño fudge and some mocha fudge that gives me the caffeine jitters just by smelling it; I buy a Barbie-sized kimono for my niece Elizabeth's dolls; and Lucie buys some new bling, a shiny new ring with peridot, onyx, and diamond for $30 (which makes me suspect that the stones might not be real, but it still looks nice.)
After a while of wandering through the park, we start thinking about dinner... and if you've driven all the way out to Cupertino, it's only a couple more miles to Monterey for dinner, right?
Yeah, well... I sucked at geography.
It's been years since we made a trip to Monterey, and we miss it. It's still early enough to get in a nice walk along Fisherman's Wharf once we drive down there, so we head over the Santa Cruz mountains and cruise south along the Pacific Coast Highway. We make a quick stop at the Thistle Hut in Castroville where we grab snacks and some fresh strawberries, and get into Monterey around 4 or so. We take the time to drive down Cannery Row, seeing if anything's changed since our last visit, and nothing seems amiss; our favorite winery, the chocolate store, the chili pepper themed store, the Del Sol sunglasses store, and of course the Monterey Bay Aquarium have all managed to withstand these harsh economic times propped up on the mountains of money thrown at them by tourists such as ourselves. We head back to Fisherman's Wharf and find good parking.
We spend an hour or so wandering aimlessly down the wharf, sampling various recipes of clam chowder (well, *I* sample the chowder; all that cream based soup isn't something that agrees with Lucie) and getting rid of what money we have left over from the Cherry Blossom Festival. I find a cool silver ring with abalone inset that actually fits me, so I buy it -- I've developed a rule to live by that says if I like something and it actually fits me I don't try to talk myself out of it too hard. You don't often find a size 16 ring that isn't a simple printed band or something festooned with skulls, so it's a rare find indeed.
We eat dinner at the Old Fisherma's Grotto, our favorite place to eat in Monterey -- their calamari is some of the best we've had, and I haven't tried something there I didn't like. I'm temped to return to what I had last time, the parmesan and pesto salmon which was outstanding, but I go for something different and order the seared ahi plate and Lucie goes for the macadamia nut crusted halibut and coconut shrimp. I also feel a little wild and order the Grotto Pineapple, an obscenely large drink consisting of rum, rum, orange juice, ice, and rum, served in a large hollowed-out pineapple and topped off with rum. And maybe some rum.
It's strong.
We stop by the candy shop on the way back to Meg, where we get some caramel apples for us and a huge bag of salt water taffy for my co-workers; we make a quick detour into the coffee shop and I grab a double mocha for the road; and we head on back home. Traffic is a little more unnerving coming back into town (for some reason the inland-bound direction along Highway 17 has always seemed much more winding and dangerous to me) but we make it back safe and sound, and call it a day.
Sunday arrives, and it's time for the Nikkei Matsuri in Japantown. We manage to find parking that's not too incredibly far a walk and wander through the small setup, perusing the various arts and craft booths (we're fairly sure we recognize the same lady from whom I bought the Barbie kimono from yesterday's Cherry Blossom Festival), I'm both entertained and frustrated by a stall showing Japanese theme T-shirts (a Sumo wrestler shirt with the logo "no gut, no glory" that doesn't actually come in the sumo sizes I need, a shirt with the slogan "miso soup for the soul"), and we admire the origami crane earrings and Christmas ornaments that must have taken hours of work to make. We hit the food booths and sample the wide variety offered -- tempura, teriyaki burgers, BBQ beef short ribs, teriyaki chicken, udon soup, gyoza, pork and shrimp yakisoba, lemonade, and sesame chicken salad. Some of it's very good; and some of it's average, but nothing is worse than that, which is always a pleasant surprise for food stalls manned by youth groups and neighborhood charities.
We find some open seats in the shade (we've been amazingly lucky when it comes to finding places to park and/or sit this weekend), enjoy the live music followed by the San Jose Taiko demonstration, and finally head on back to Meg. I make a quick detour into the Hawaiian shave ice place where I get bubble gum and grape shave ice that matches the tie dye I'm wearing, and we head on home.
As the weekend comes to a close, we end up with little to no work done around the apartment but a much better outlook on life.
Works for me.
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1.5 Bites Away From a Coronary... From Kentucky Fried Chicken
So this is a break from the usual "I did this" or "we went here" or "I remember this" post... but I'm still posting it because I would definitely put this in the "I really really want (and yet don't want) to do this" category, if I had one.
I'm talking here about the new KFC "Double Down" sandwich, with bacon and two kinds of cheese and a mayonnaise-based sauce, slapped between two pieces of fried chicken instead of a bun.
This is horribly unhealthy. This is proof that most Americans are overweight for a good reason. As one comment online I saw said, "food should not look like a hate crime." It's anywhere from 540 calories (according to KFC) to 1225 calories (according to the UK's Daily Mail -- but maybe that's a metric conversion or something), 10 grams of saturated fat, over 1300 milligrams of sodium, and carries with it a large amount of shame in addition to the wedge fries and large soda as part of a meal deal.
And yet, it's still healthier than a Wendy's triple Baconator or a personal pizza from Pizza Hut. Go figure.
But I digress... back to the sandwich at hand.
I know this is unhealthy. I know that thinking about actually taking a bite of one is foolhardy, and wrong, and frightening, and greasy, and fatty, and tasty, and intriguing, and it's just daring me to try it, and you need to understand that this is coming from ME, someone who once ironed a shirt while I was wearing it (although in my defense, the iron was on low and it was only to get rid of a few wrinkles I noticed after I had already struggled getting the cufflinks in, and I was wearing an undershirt which worked as a buffer, and it worked, thankyouVERYmuch) so maybe the urge to eat healthy and do things that are in my best interest just isn't a very strong one. But man, can I type some awesome run-on sentences.
So yes, I know it's wrong, but I so want to try one.
Or at least maybe a couple of bites of one, because I think everyone can agree it's pretty much a heart attack waiting to happen. But I am strong, and I have a cast iron stomach, and I've developed an amazing tolerance for all things deep fried, and I already managed to survive eating a "Texas Tommie" bacon-wrapped and deep fried hot dog from QN4U so my arteries have already shown their nonstick attributes, and I plan ordering the Double Down while riding an ER crash cart through the drive through like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove anyway with the defibrillator paddles already duct taped to my chest so all I have to is fall onto the power button with my convulsing body to get my heart working again, so really... what's the worst that could happen?
Well, for starters... I could actually like it.
Oh, man. Let's hope not.
.
I'm talking here about the new KFC "Double Down" sandwich, with bacon and two kinds of cheese and a mayonnaise-based sauce, slapped between two pieces of fried chicken instead of a bun.This is horribly unhealthy. This is proof that most Americans are overweight for a good reason. As one comment online I saw said, "food should not look like a hate crime." It's anywhere from 540 calories (according to KFC) to 1225 calories (according to the UK's Daily Mail -- but maybe that's a metric conversion or something), 10 grams of saturated fat, over 1300 milligrams of sodium, and carries with it a large amount of shame in addition to the wedge fries and large soda as part of a meal deal.
And yet, it's still healthier than a Wendy's triple Baconator or a personal pizza from Pizza Hut. Go figure.
But I digress... back to the sandwich at hand.
I know this is unhealthy. I know that thinking about actually taking a bite of one is foolhardy, and wrong, and frightening, and greasy, and fatty, and tasty, and intriguing, and it's just daring me to try it, and you need to understand that this is coming from ME, someone who once ironed a shirt while I was wearing it (although in my defense, the iron was on low and it was only to get rid of a few wrinkles I noticed after I had already struggled getting the cufflinks in, and I was wearing an undershirt which worked as a buffer, and it worked, thankyouVERYmuch) so maybe the urge to eat healthy and do things that are in my best interest just isn't a very strong one. But man, can I type some awesome run-on sentences.
So yes, I know it's wrong, but I so want to try one.
Or at least maybe a couple of bites of one, because I think everyone can agree it's pretty much a heart attack waiting to happen. But I am strong, and I have a cast iron stomach, and I've developed an amazing tolerance for all things deep fried, and I already managed to survive eating a "Texas Tommie" bacon-wrapped and deep fried hot dog from QN4U so my arteries have already shown their nonstick attributes, and I plan ordering the Double Down while riding an ER crash cart through the drive through like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove anyway with the defibrillator paddles already duct taped to my chest so all I have to is fall onto the power button with my convulsing body to get my heart working again, so really... what's the worst that could happen?
Well, for starters... I could actually like it.
Oh, man. Let's hope not.
.
9.5 Hours of "Willpower" in the Silicon Valley
So it's Saturday, April 3rd, and the iPad has been on sale since 9 this morning.
...And I haven't broken down and bought one yet. I just got a bonus at work so we could theoretically afford it, but I've resisted. I've held strong and refused to cave to the little inner geek in my head screaming at me to get it GET IT GETITGETITGETITNOWWWWW...
But no. NO.
Not me.
I've got WILLPOWER, dagnabbit.
I am STRONG.
.
And, uh, they were sold out when we stopped by the Best Buy.
Oh, man; I'm so weak.
This is gonna hurt...
.
...And I haven't broken down and bought one yet. I just got a bonus at work so we could theoretically afford it, but I've resisted. I've held strong and refused to cave to the little inner geek in my head screaming at me to get it GET IT GETITGETITGETITNOWWWWW...
But no. NO.
Not me.
I've got WILLPOWER, dagnabbit.
I am STRONG.
.
And, uh, they were sold out when we stopped by the Best Buy.
Oh, man; I'm so weak.
This is gonna hurt...
.
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