Something unexpected, the guy that was accepting applications for his army of evil has decided to publish them. You'll notice there is someone named Bob who applied for the Lieutenant position. It's not me. I don't "Pip, pip!" or claim to take anyone's place in a Scrabble game with death.
After seeing the number of people that were selected I'm glad I missed the deadline. Who wants be a Lieutenant over 3 people?? (Although it might be fun to be over the "Minion of Distracting Jubblies", but I'm sure that would get old eventually.)
This morning I caught part of a Japanese movie called "Shall We Dance?" about people ballroom dancing. (It's about more than that, but you get the idea.) This really isn't a movie review since I didn't see the entire film, but I saw enough of it to know I want to rent this movie. It was amazingly cute and didn't feel contrived at all. It didn't take very long for me to become connected with the characters and care about what happened to them. (Impressive considering I started watching in the middle of the movie.) Anyway, I'd recommend it just based on what I saw.
Something else that was kind of interesting. One of the characters in the movie, Mai, looked ok, maybe even slightly unattractive, normally but it was amazing how attractive she seemed when she was dancing. Her grace and apparent enjoyment of the dance made her quite attractive. I've also noticed the same thing at clubs too. To me, a girl is always really attractive on the dance floor if she dances well and looks like she's having a good time doing it, regardless of how plain I might find them normally. Ever notice peoples attractiveness go up a couple of notches when they do something specific, comment.
[archived comment]
Steve: I've often found very plain women to become downright gorgeous just off of certain personality characteristics alone. It also works the other way, where a very beautiful girl can become quite f'gly (it's a valid contraction) based on personality shortcomings.
[I saw this movie last Friday night when I should have either been packing or sleeping so I could wake up early to pack. I wasn't in the right mind set for a French art film since I was just watching it to hopefully see some boobs.]
I didn't like "Irma Vep" when I finished watching it. I watched it and waited for what I assumed was a profound message at the end of the movie that I never got. It wasn't until I started thinking about how I was going to write this review that I think I started to understand what the movie was about.
On the surface "Irma Vep" is a movie about French people trying to remake a classic French film with an unlikely star, Hong Kong action actress Maggie Cheung. As I was watching, I was wondering why all the remarks (from French people) seemed to be "French art films suck," and to a lesser extent, "French political films suck and are boring too." A lot of the characters were even going on about how great action movies are. It was bizarre. Then I saw the really strange ending and I was completely lost. I thought that maybe some of the characters earlier comments about French art films being self serving to their directors and only for "intellectuals" was foreshadowing the fact that this movie didn't seem to have a point. It was like the director was saying, (imagine this with a snooty French accent) "Look how cool am I. I can talk about how bad French art film is and then validate it right in front of your eyes."
I know I missed the point at first, but I think I saw this film out of context. To understand the context you would have had to have known the popular opinion on French art films at the time. After I realized that the movie's target audience was the general French movie going population at the time, it started to make sense. All the sentiments about how much French art films suck were probably just a mirror of the popular opinion at the time and I think the director was attempting to show the audience how negative and silly those comments seem. In the movie it seemed downright trendy to trash French art films. One of the ironies of the film was while a French journalist was interviewing Maggie Cheung about her role in "Irma Vep" [the movie within the movie] he thinks that she, as a Hong Kong cinema star [from probably the most action oriented cinema in the world], would be happy to bad mouth French art cinema with him, but instead she defends it. Practically the only positive words about French art cinema in the entire film, and they're made by a Chinese, non French speaking actress. I think it was to illustrate the fact that French art films aren't only for French people, and that their value can be seen by anyone in the world.
I believe the movie's real purpose is to express different sentiments about French cinema, and to provoke thought. The more I thought about it, the more this movie was in defense of French art films, not trying to make people feel intellectually inferior because they didn't get it. All in all, I would have to say that the movie was at least entertaining when I didn't understand it's purpose, but believing that I understand what the director was trying to accomplish I would say that he did a pretty good job. There were a lot of little subtleties that would take too much time to write about. I may even watch "Irma Vep" again to see other things I probably missed the first time.
All done.
I still have at least one more trip I have to make back to my old apartment. I could have finished with it last night, but Lynn didn't want to stay up late last night, so now she's going to stay up late tonight instead. We have to move all the miscellaneous items that are left, clean up the kitchen, then go home and pack for Friday (since I'm not going to be home Friday to pick up my bags). To make it even more fun, I have to woke up early tomorrow so I can leave work early so we can eat dinner before we leave for Vegas. I can't wait for next week; it'll be so much more relaxing moving in than moving out.
Hong Kong Cinema Classics to Make Triumphant Return
Of course I'm still waiting to see "Shaolin Soccer". I think I'm going to have to get a region free dvd player if I ever want to see it in a timely manner.
It's another sad day for the mp3 loving community. Audiogalaxy is no longer sharing music. There is one thread on their bulletin board that I find kind of interesting though. How global was AG? Represent your city here.... is sort of like reading through the guestbook at a funeral.
I am now officially an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. I can now legally marry people in Arizona. Scary.
I also applied to be a Lieutenant of Evil in somebody's army, but I missed the deadline so my application was rejected. Too bad, I think I would have made a much better Lieutenant of Evil than a Reverend.
If you haven't looked at the Distraction section at the bottom of the page lately, check it out. I've probably added a few new things since the last time you looked.
Today I'm all sore from moving the heavy stuff into my storage unit yesterday. It doesn't feel unpleasant though. I miss feeling sore all over since I don't work out any more.
Later today I get to pick up Lynn from the airport. This weekend she went back east to attend a family reunion and I actually missed her so I'll be happy to see her again.
Right now I'm having a hard time concentrating on work. This weekend I smoked a Natural by Drew Estates cigar and it was an interesting experience. The scent of the smoke was unbelievably good, even if the taste of the cigar was only ok. It did however convince me of the worthiness of the brand so today I was on their web site and learned they're the same people who make Acid cigars. (I tried an Acid cigar once and thought it was a little too weird for me, but I'd try another since every cigar in the line is different. I just haven't done it yet because Acid cigars can't be stored in a humidor with regular cigars since they have such strong and unique scent that they'd "infect" the other cigars with their scent.)
Right now I've got a list of Natural cigars that I want to try, and I'd rather be home smoking.
Basically all I did this weekend was pack and move stuff. It sucked, but it's almost over (whether I get it done or not). Yesterday Steve was helping me move, and when he walked into Lynn's apartment (now mine and Lynn's apartment) he was like "Whoa!". I guess we was surprised by the boxes all over the place. I asked him if he thought it was cleaner than the last time he saw it (which I believe it is), and he said it was, just a lot more cluttered. It'll probably be cluttered for at least the next week and a half. This week I have to finish emptying and cleaning my old place, and then this weekend we're going to be in Vegas, so I'm not going to even be able to start on those boxes until next week. Oh well.
This weekend I also managed to watch a couple of movies. I'll write about them when I have a chance.
The cats are either getting better at avoiding the "tape mines," or they're actually learning not to climb on the counters. Either way, they hit one while impatiently bothering me about their food this morning and it was pretty amusing. (Maybe that'll get them to stop pestering around feeding time, but I doubt it.)
I set up my "tape mines" for the cats Friday night, but the cats didn't seem to step on any. Well Saturday one of the cats finally landed on one and it had the intended affect of freaking the cat out. Maybe they'll actually learn to stay off of counters now.
Last night I was at Tinderbox in Mesa buying cigars, when I decided to look at their humidors. They have a multi-leveled display table, and I didn't see anything I was impressed with on the first side. On the second side however I found a large humidor with an Ashton logo on it. (Normally I abhor logos, but Ashton does make my favorite cigar and other cigars I enjoy a lot, so it didn't have the normal effect.) I opened it up, lifted it up, and examined it. It was unbelievably solid and the best constructed humidor I've ever seen! The hardwood was solid, the joints lock-miter, the grain was continuous from base to lid, the lid was very heavy, the box was as tight as a drum when closed, the lid had rounded edges, and the inside edges were finished. (Basically all the details I look for in a quality humidor were there.) I found the manufacturer's name plate in the lid, and it was made by Michael Dixon humidors.
Although I was tempted by the overall beauty of the Ashton box (even though it was a bit plain for my tastes), I didn't want that particular humidor. I could clearly see a thumb print on the lid where someone must have accidentally touched it with some high-gloss lacquer before the lid was fully finished. (The box has a natural looking light orange/brown color, so the beautifully deep lustrous orange thumb print on the lid was very obvious. It also made me wish the box had that finish instead of the one they chose.) It was a good thing I saw this humidor though because now I know where I want my birthday present (humidor) to come from.
This is the humidor I want.
So I got home to find that my cayenne deterrent was effective and my philodendron still had it's last leaf attached and unharmed. It seems whichever cat is responsible for chewing it's leaves is vindictive though. My bamboo plant, which it previously ignored, had been turned over and there were a couple of bite marks in it's otherwise perfect leaves. That cat better hope I never catch it because at the very least I may leash it to something while we're away. More likely I'd devise some punishment so devious that it would scare the cat so badly that it would be permanently skittish.
[Actually, I just thought of something to keep the cats off of things they shouldn't be on. I can leave tape sticky side up so that when they jump up on tables, counters, whatever... they get the tape stuck to their paws. It'll drive them nuts and if it happens enough times, they'll learn. I'll set it up tonight. *grin* Opposable thumbs rule!]
Today I found out I won't be taking pictures for that soft porn site. I heard the guy was adamant about taking the pictures himself. At first I thought it sounded like he had some sort of fantasy about taking nudie pictures, but then I suddenly got worried that it might be that he didn't trust my photographic skills. I was a little bummed, but I talked to the girl and it seems he misinterpreted her help for thinking she didn't have confidence in his skills. (He doesn't have any skills, but that didn't stop him from getting offended.) At least I feel better about the rejection since it's about his bruised ego.
Read it or risk facing a BODYSLAMM! [Link removed because Ice Kitty took down her web site. -6/23]
Today my manager put in her one months notice. If she is the reason work has been feeling shitty to me lately, then problem solved. I guess I'll find out in about two months.
It began yesterday. I got to Lynn's to find that one of the cats chewed a leaf off of my philodendron. (Unfortunately the philodendron doesn't appear to be the least bit poisonous to cats because neither cat appeared a bit discomforted, much less deathly ill.) Anyway, my philodendron only has three leaves on it because it was near death since I didn't know how to take care of it, but I figured it out before it died, and it's been coming back.
I was pissed, but I couldn't punish either of the cats for it since I don't know which one did it (and even if I did, it probably wouldn't know why it's getting punished so that would just be pointless). This morning I woke up and found that one of the cats chewed the second leaf off. I still couldn't punish them, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to. Since the plant only has one leaf left I wet the top of it with a little water and coated with a healthy layer of cayenne pepper. That should teach the little destructive fur-bearing bastards not to chew on my plants.
I might be taking pictures for a soft porn site on a possibly regular basis. It's funny how this came about since I approached someone about posing (so I can practice shooting models) and they just so happened to know of a site looking for a photographer. It's not exactly the sort of work I set out to do since I'm more about erotica than porn, but it should be good practice nonetheless.
I should find out tomorrow. Wish me luck.
It seems I'm going to make a visit to a city before I finish my story about the last time I was in that city. That's what happened with my December New Orleans trip when I unexpectedly went to Mardi Gras, and it's the same this month when I unexpectedly go back to Las Vegas for DJ's birthday. The plans are definite now. We have plane tickets, hotel reservations (for a room with a large marble tub), and tickets to the Cirque Du Soleil show Mystère. I still need to make reservations at Emeril's New Orleans Fish House (since Lynn's birthday present to DJ is hopefully an unbelievably great dinner like we had in April). I can't wait, but I need to hurry up and finish the page for my April Vegas trip.
I missed Josh Wink on Friday, but according to Noah I didn't miss anything.
This weekend I drank lots of Coke, but I also lifted lots of heavy things up stairs so it all balances out.
That's about it for the weekend. Boring.
Today I'm a little sore, but not as sore as you'd expect someone who's out of shape. I now officially live with Lynn. It's interesting because as I've moved boxes of stuff into her place, her normally messy apartment has gradually gotten cleaner. That's good since I can't stand living in a disheveled place. Now hopefully the cats don't attempt to eat anything of mine. (At least anything that's not mildly poisonous to them. If they're going to eat my stuff I want them to at least learn a lesson.)
Well so much for not drinking soda. I had a Coke with lunch today. It was Mexican food though and the only thing that goes better with a Coke than Mexican food is a cigar so you can hardly blame me. (Hmm... I think I'm going to smoke a cigar now too.)
If you still don't believe that the entertainment industry isn't overly obsessed in controlling your actions read Fingered by the movie cops and marvel at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) monitoring the internet to make sure you aren't doing something they would disapprove of and how they have legislation written so they can take immediate action against you. (Be sure to read both pages since the second page seems easy to miss.)
Tonight is Josh Wink @ Freedom. It should be interesting since I don't have any idea what kind of set he'll be playing.
This weekend I get to start the tedious process of moving.
Two weeks from now I'll probably be in Las Vegas to celebrate Lynn's friend DJ's birthday. I'm not sure how fun it's going to be with a group of people and without a car, especially since the last two times I was in Vegas with a group of people, I didn't really have a good time. This might be different since DJ likes food and seems pretty confortable with the idea of never visiting a buffet.
FYI, I'm good and everything is fine. (Work is still annoying, but that's nothing new.)
Today I was going to write about my trying to give up soda (just for a week) starting yesterday and almost failing less than 6 hours into my experiment, but instead something happened last night that made me question my trust in Lynn. Long story short, it was a situation that had a perfectly plausible explanation if I chose to believe it, but it got my paranoid engine started and reduced me to looking for proof one way or another to keep from going crazy. I'm inclined to believe Lynn now, but the mind flip required to go from looking at Lynn as my sweet, loving fiance to conspiratorial bitch was easier than it is trying to return to normal again. It's like trying to reset a trap that's been sprung and right now I feel too exhausted from the whole ordeal to do it.
Some of you still haven't read the 06/10 post by Gustavo on The Rebel Alliance Network. It was so funny I almost cried and fell out of my seat. Even after rereading it! Read it now or I might have to BODYSLAMM you! [Link changed since Reverend decided to take down The Rebel Alliance Network. - 1/23/03]
I hate being at work lately. This last month it seems like everything is a secret and things seem to have a constant low level negative feeling about them. Maybe it's time I start looking, except job opportunities aren't what they used to be right now. Who knows.
I finally found a photo project I would like to do that doesn't include naked women. Yesterday as I was walking out of my apartment complex I saw something that made me want to start a new project. There were two guys in the doorway of one of the apartments replaying a scene I've witnessed many times before. They both had their shirts off and one was sitting while the other guy was shaving his head with a pair of clippers. If you walked into our college dorm on any given night you might have seen the exact same thing. I wanted to take a picture of it; I was feeling nostalgic. When I reached my car I was thinking about how that idea could be expanded since a couple of pictures of someone's head being shaved doesn't seem like something I could really try to get published. I was on the freeway when it came to me; I could do a photo essay concerning the impending retirement of my barber (which is still like 6 or 8 years away). The essay portion of it would be me reminiscing about how it was I found my way to his shop (or something like that), and include various hair cutting pictures from the different time periods. It seems like a good way to flex some writing and photographic muscles.
I'm also seriously considering making a restaurant review web site. I keep thinking about how I could just include something like that on this geocities site, but this account is too limited. The restaurant review site would be a hell of a lot more useful if you could search it.
We'll see if I ever start and finish either project. I'm really good at starting projects without finishing them. (Remember that short story I was writing or the Europe trip page?)
Steve: So you speak Chinese?
Andrew: Yes, I taught myself Cantonese.
Steve: Why did you teach yourself Cantonese?
Andrew: I have a fetish for Chinese women.
Here's what's really funny about that. Steve wa gakusei no nihongo desu kara, onna no nihonjin ga suki desu. [Steve is a student of the Japanese language because he likes Japanese women.]
I had a much better turn out for dim sum than I thought I would on Saturday, but in some respects things also didn't work out as well as I hoped. There were a dozen people at my table, and that didn't include Ken and all his guests who were sitting at a separate table. I enjoyed having everyone there, but there were too many people to make it the usual intimate dim sum experience. Someone I didn't even know started ordering, and we had all sorts of food on the table before I knew it (some of which I definitely wouldn't have ordered). Since there were only 3 or 4 people with lots of dim sum experience, most of the people needed explanation as to what was actually on the table. As it was, I think it may have made things a little uncomfortable for some people, which is not the type of experience I wanted them to have.
It always seemed the larger the group the more fun dim sum is, but next time I'll stick to a maximum of 8 people. It's still a big group, but it's also manageable.
[Addendum]
I didn't think the dim sum at Jade Palace was any better than the dim sum at C-Fu Gourmet. There are some things that each of them make better than the other, but it's not overwhelmingly in favor of one or the other. I think I'll stick to C-Fu Gourmet since some of the things they make better are among my favorite dim sum items (and they even make a couple of things no one else does), but if their dim sum seems to be dropping off in quality like their food seems to have lately, I'll leave them for Jade Palace real fast.
I finally added a couple of pictures to my Mardi Gras trip page.
Fox is going to be making a live-action Dragonball Z movie. That should be interesting to see.
I'll keep this short since I've been to Frank & Charlie's before and just list what I know about the place.
Good
Ok to Bad
I believe that covers it.
Tomorrow I get to meet with all sorts of people I like at a chinese restaurant I've never been to before (Jade Palace in Chandler) for dim sum. It should be fun unless the group is so big that it becomes more of a chore. I don't think it will, but I've only had dim sum with about a dozen people once before, and we were in a back room and Gordon's wife handled all the ordering.
I'd seen a few movies I had yet to review, so here they are all at once.
All I really knew about "Shiri" was that it was an award winning action movie from Korea. I don't think I'd ever seen a Korean movie before, so it sounded interesting. The movie definitely suffered from "Rambo syndrome" where someone (in this case the bad guys) could take out 15 people shooting at them and never get hurt. That in combination with the fact that the action sequences were kind of drawn out was annoying. At least the story was better. I don't think it makes the movie worth recommending, but it at least made it interesting (and I didn't want to fast forward through it like "Tokyo Raiders").
[It does make me wonder exactly what awards this movie won in Korea because I really didn't see anything award winning about it.]
Movie: "Dong jing gong lüe" ("Tokyo Raiders")
"Tokyo Raiders" looked like it was going to be a cool martial arts movie, instead it was boring. While watching it I started to fall asleep, so I stopped it and finished watching it the next day. It didn't get any better. I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters or the situation they were in. There was nothing really compelling me to finish the movie other than my own stubborn belief in seeing a movie to the end.
I thought "Zoolander" would be one of the stupidest movies I'd ever watch, but surprisingly it wasn't. It was very stupid, but intentionally so, and not in a way that made me want to throttle someone. This movie was actually entertaining, not great, but entertaining. If you like movies that are funny, but not in a laugh out loud sort of way, this may be the movie for you.
My description didn't do the ring justice so here's a visual aid.
Yesterday I finally told Lynn about this little site. I was worried about her reaction since I took forever to tell her. Luckily she didn't seem to care. Even better, she didn't ask for the URL.
When I heard that New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza announced he was not gay, I thought it must be a New York thing. I knew a guy from New York who heard that a rumor was spreading around his home town that he was gay so the first thing he did was call up everyone he knew and deny it. The funny thing is most of his friends hadn't heard the rumor and probably wouldn't have believed it if they had. Of course the fact he even made the phone call and the way he sounded during that phone call would have convinced me he had something to fear. I think more people would take it seriously if you're denying it than if you just ignored it, but that's just me. Maybe they're thousands of New Yorkers who believed the Mike Piazza rumor, but after his announcement they're now convinced he's straight.
Something even more amusing about the whole ordeal is Mike Piazza's statement after denying being gay. "In this day and age, it's irrelevant." That's why he bothered to deny it, because it's irrelevant right? It reminds me of the, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." episode of Seinfeld.
Finally, to round out the absurdity of it all, the above article shows what a bunch of silly bastards baseball players can be. It discusses whether an openly gay player would be accepted in baseball. I don't see how a heterosexual guy staring at your Randy Johnson in the shower is any better than having someone openly gay guy on your team. Maybe having a gay teammate would force them to scrutinize their own borderline hetero/gay actions?
Speaking of A&W root beer floats, I went to the A&W in Oak Creek (it's right next to Mandarin House) for a root beer float, and they had a sign up that they will no longer serve floats in mugs on the weekend. What!? I had to get my float in a regular cup. It definitely didn't taste as good as usual. I was bitching and trying to figure out what to do, since I have to have my float in a mug or it's not going to be worth having, when Lynn suggested bringing my own mug. I think that's what I'll do. I mean, I have cigar paraphernalia, so why not root beer float paraphernalia? I'm sure they'll appreciate my devotion to the true root beer float.
Normally I don't like to go near Sedona (accept for an A&W root beer float), but now I've found some place to eat around there that I like. Mandarin House is in Oak Creek (just south of Sedona) and worth checking out if you don't feel like driving to Flagstaff to go to Asian Gourmet. They have good jasmine tea, and their hot and sour soup is actually a combination of hot and sour instead of just being sour. We had two really good entrees: the empress chicken, a smoky and spicy dish, and the Szechwan shrimp, a delicious lemony sauce with heat and sweet. The only thing I didn't like were the crab puffs. They were a whole lot of cream cheese and no crab.
I was really impressed with Horsemen Lodge in Flagstaff the first time I went there, but the last couple of times have been a major disappointment. The second to the last time we got a terrible New York Strip steak, and I learned why no one (besides Horsemen) uses oak for barbecue. This time I was appalled by the fact that their German potato salad was missing smoked bacon. It only has like four ingredients! Either someone majorly screwed up or their German potato salad has gone vegan. Ever have just cold potatoes and vinegar? It sucks. Our steaks were unseasoned, and the cuts weren't even very good. I don't know what happened to Horsemen Lodge, but they are now off my list of restaurants worth eating at.
Little Thai Kitchen is one of my favorite restaurants in Flagstaff. I basically try to go there every chance I get, including this last weekend. We started lunch with curry filled won tons, beef sate, and a house salad. The house salad is just a little bit of greens with a peanut sauce, but their peanut sauce is really good. The won tons were decent, but they needed chicken. The beef sate surprised me. Usually when I've ordered it, it's too bland for my taste. This sate was mild, but it had an excellent grilled flavor that made it really worthwhile. Next was tome yum gai, a soup made chicken and mushrooms, flavored with lemon grass and coconut milk. It was damn delicious. We only had one entree; Bangkok noodles, which are noodles with chicken and fresh spinach served in a peanut sauce. I made the mistake of ordering it spicy and couldn't take all the red chile they put on the noodles. I just need to remember to never do that again because it's otherwise a very good dish. We finished our meal with coconut ice cream and banana slices wrapped in rice paper and deep fried and topped with honey. It's one of the best desserts ever and even if the food at Little Thai Kitchen sucked, it would be a good reason to go there.
The main reasons we went camping were to leave town, escape the heat, and to enjoy the woods. One of the other reasons was to look at the wedding set that Lynn was crazy about that she had seen the last time we were in Flagstaff. Saturday we went to The Artists Gallery, and the set was still in the display case. Lynn decided she really wanted a matched set of rings so she spoke to Wil McNabb (the designer) about it. He said he didn't have any more of that particular opal, so it would be impossible to make a matching mens ring. (That's a shame since that opal was one of the more amazing pieces I've ever seen. It was predominately green with specks of red, and it changed color to blue depending on the light.)
Lynn decided that matching rings were more important to her than that cool looking opal so Wil showed us pieces of raw opal he had in his collection to see if we liked anything. I looked and most of them were green and crystalline and not to my particular tastes, but there was a deep blue opal that turned green or purple depending on the light that I really liked. Lynn thought it was beautiful too. Wil wrote up a work order for the set, but I need to make an appointment with him about the design. At the time we weren't sure what we wanted, but after we talked about it off and on all day Saturday, we agreed on a white gold setting with a satin finish to compliment the blue opals (and the diamond in the engagement ring). Now I just need to let Wil know so he can get going.
[Funny thing happened; we went back to The Artists Gallery on Sunday to see if Wil would be in since we knew what we wanted, but he wasn't there. We both looked at the yellow gold set with the green opals and weren't nearly as impressed. We liked the set we designed together better.]
So I had a good time camping in Flagstaff and I've got a lot to write about. I've been trying to write about it today, but I've been too busy at work. I'll get increments out as I have time.
I had a very strange dream last night. Actually, it was more like a nightmare. It wasn't a scary dream nightmare, but more like a nightmare where I felt lost, depressed, and helpless throughout the whole thing.
It started with me, Dan, and Lynn going to a music event. I don't know where we were going, but I was driving and we were all pretty excited. I parked at what looked like a big hotel. We got in there and I was looking around the lobby and when I turned around, Dan had some GHB. I don't know where he got it from or why he had it, but he did. I looked at him and Lynn told me that they were both doing it, and that I should too. I took a capful of the liquid and swallowed. One of them asked me if I could feel it, and as I was about to answer "no" it hit me like a wheel barrel full of bricks. Suddenly I had a difficult time remaining upright and I couldn't focus where I wanted to. It was very disorienting. I told Dan and Lynn that I was going to go to the bathroom and be right back. I didn't like the way I felt and I was hoping that splashing my face with some water might help snap me out of it.
It was hard for me to make it to the bathroom. My coordination was sloppy and I couldn't even focus on where I was going. I finally made it to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face and tried to look at myself in the mirror. As I was standing there I heard some girl gasp and I turned to see a woman with her hands up to her face and a black guy sprawled out on the floor with nothing but a red shirt on. I also noticed that what I thought was a bathroom was really the size of a ballroom and it just happened to have a sink by the entrance. I was amazed by the fact that I unaware of how large the room was and that there were other people in the room with me (much less whatever strange things they might have been doing). I decided it was time to go.
As I was walking back to where I had left Dan and Lynn, a couple of security guards rushed past me towards the "bathroom" speaking into their headsets about how this incident was going to cause them to close everything down. When I finally reached my destination, Lynn and Dan were no where to be seen. This wasn't good. I was screwed up on some drug I didn't know a thing about, unable to think straight, and now I was alone. I looked around as best I could, and all I saw were other people falling down and having trouble standing. I was wondering where the hell all these people got GHB from.
Security starting moving people out the door, so that's the way I went. I figured that if I stood at the entrance while security kicked everyone out, I was bound to run into Dan and Lynn. I got outside and I couldn't seem to just look straight ahead. I kept looking up into the orange parking lot lights and the night sky. I don't know how long I waited, but I never ran into Dan and Lynn. I was really depressed. I had my car keys, but I couldn't remember where I parked the car, couldn't look around because my body just wouldn't allow me, and I knew that if I somehow managed to find the car there was no way I could drive home since I could barely even walk.
[I'm not sure how it happened, but now it was daylight and I was driving by myself down the freeway.]
I was driving home on the freeway, but I didn't know where home was, I just knew how to drive there. I didn't even think while I was driving. It was like I was in a daze, aware enough to keep the car going where it should, but not of anything else.
Eventually I turned off an exit and made my way back to my home town. When I saw the little town I lived in, I was acutely aware of how depressed the place made me. I made a series of right and left turns and pulled into my driveway.
[These parts are really sketchy.]
It was night and I was driving around in a pickup truck. I saw another pickup chasing a car. I don't know why, but I followed the truck that was chasing the other vehicle even though I didn't know the people in either vehicle. I remember something about the car stopping and I got out to help them, but there was more to that scene that I forgot.
In my dream I think I was dwelling on a memory because I was a little boy, and I was at my dad's bird cage store. He had me by the arm, and he was yelling at me for something, but I wasn't paying attention. There was a man in the store who wore a seersucker suit, and had a monkey in one of the bird cages. As a little boy I remembered thinking it was odd because monkeys don't belong in bird cages yet this man had his monkey in a sea foam green bird cage. He just sat there ignoring my dad yelling at me, much like I was. I knew this was an important memory because it occurred to me that the man with the monkey was central to something that was going on in my life currently. It seemed someone was after me for something, but I didn't know what.
[Now back to stuff I remember pretty well.]
It was daytime, and I was pulling into the driveway of my house. I walked into the house and on the floor was our black cat head cleanly severed from body and lieing in a puddle of clear liquid that oozed from its body. I was going to ask my mom what happened when I looked further into the house and saw the brown cat and border collie both in the same state of decapitation. My mom came out looking hysterical, saying something about when she came home the animals were all fighting each other, and then her explanation became gibberish. I couldn't stay in the house. I had to leave. I couldn't take seeing the bodies of our animals. I told my mom I was leaving, and as I was heading for my car I heard a noise behind me. The headless body of the black cat had gotten up and was following me. It tried to rub up against my leg and I was yelling at my mom to get this thing off me. The cat suddenly stopped being interested in me and instead headed back towards the front door of the house. From out of the house stepped a black cat that looked exactly like the one that followed me, except that its head sat on top of its neck, but it was slowly slipping off. I asked my mom, "What the hell was this!?" She said that the cat that followed me was the neighbor's, not ours. It didn't make me feel any better as the headless cat was playing with the one whose head was steadily sliding off. I went back to my car, and brown cat came after me. I was in my car, and it was in the driveway, but I could see that its head wasn't really attached either. I revved up car and started backing up, and the cat followed my car. I was repulsed. I threw the car into gear, and ran over the cat. Once I was sure I was over the cat I put the car into reverse, and tried to mangle the body as much as I could to make sure it stayed dead. As I was driving away I wondered if the reanimated animals had anything to do with the GHB.
I'm not sure what I was doing next, but I think I was killing time around town. I went to this shady guy's house and was asked if I was interested in something "special". He took out a deck of tarot cards and told me these were very special tarot cards because they were developed in a secret government project, and they could change the future. He suggested I buy them to make my poker game better.
I was on my way out of town for what I was pretty sure was the last time. I looked at it and knew I was in Scotland. (I don't know how I knew, but I knew.) I was looking at the town and watching the people, when I saw a tall, slim girl of about 12. She smiled at me and I smiled back, then she lifted the side of her skirt and showed me her thigh, and her mom (who was walking behind her with groceries and a kid in her arm and a couple of kids in front of her) hurried her into the house. I realized that she was whoring for her family, and that depressed me, and I knew I was going to be happy to never see that town again.
I was trying to leave town, but I had to turn right onto the freeway, but there was only one lane going in my direction (while there were four going in the other) and everyone in my lane was going about 60. I turned wide when I had a chance, which put me into oncoming traffic. No one seemed to be coming at me so I stayed in the lane as I got up to speed. By the time I had merged into the lane, the freeway expanded to two lanes going in my direction.
I don't know where I drove, but I didn't have to go too far. I got out and started my way up to a building. There was a stairway that led up to the building, but they weren't stairs but iron cauldrons filled with various iron spiky shaped things. The tips of the spiky things were blunted so that they didn't go through my shoes. While I was climbing up the cauldrons I heard a news cast talking about how "England was prepared to deal with criminals by any means necessary." I was almost to a landing when I noticed that the spiky things in the cauldrons no longer had the tips blunted so I had to be extra careful not to puncture my feet. I made it to a landing when the news caster who was droning on about how England was more than willing to kill people if necessary, stopped and asked, "So that's why you're here aren't you Mr. Oppenhiemer?" (Apparently that was my name in the dream because it startled me, and I was looking around to see where the voice was coming from.) The voice told me and Mr. X (I didn't catch his name in the dream) to step back. There was a black guy behind me that I didn't notice while I was climbing the cauldron stairs, and he said, "I'm not Mr. X, I'm Mr. Y." The voice didn't seem to like that because a shot rang out and the back of Mr. Y's head blew out. That scared me shitless. I didn't know what this voice wanted, but I knew it was willing to kill me. The only thing I could think of were the tarot cards so I said, "If you only knew what your counterfeit tarot cards are being used for." (I thought it was pretty funny that they could change the future, and the only use that guy could think of for them was poker. How short sighted was that?) Anyway, at that moment I woke up.
So I'm not sure what it means, or why I wrote about it, but it made enough of an impression on me this morning that I actually remembered it. (I hardly rememeber dreams.)
Yesterday I attempted to make green chile for the first time in my life. Without a recipe or any real idea how to make the stuff other than what I assumed to be the ingredients, I started. I had roasted some green chiles (a first for me), chopped a few serannos, browned the beef, sweated some onions, cooked some garlic, made a roux (also a first), and put it all together. It was a big mess and it didn't look a thing like green chile. I was seriously even reconsidering whether I was going to bother tasting it before I threw it out. Well after cooking for three hours it started to bear some resemblance to chile. I tasted it, and it wasn't bad, but it was missing something. I ended up adding some cumin and tomatillos and let that cook for a while. It was better, but something was still missing. Lynn suggested using lime juice to add some acidity. I didn't like the idea of putting lime juice in green chile, but I agreed that some acid might do it some good so I spooned up some of the green chile and dribbled a couple of drops of lime juice in the mixture. It wasn't bad. It added that needed something to the initial flavor, so I poured the lime juice into the chile until it seemed to be in the right proportion and let it cook for another hour.
When it was done it bore a striking resemblance to my favorite green chile served at Sylvia's La Canasta in Phoenix. I feel rather proud of that. (It could have been hotter, but that's easily solved.)
Work has got me down the last couple of weeks. I don't know what it is, but I don't feel like being here anymore. Hopefully the feeling will pass when I get the large project that's coming my way. At least I'm enjoying my personal life. This weekend I took a trip to Lee Lee, probably one of only two Asian supermarkets in Phoenix, and went a little nuts. I got a couple of bottles of sake, a bottle of honey & ube (plum) wine with actual ube floating around in it, ume (purple yam) ice cream, jasmine tea, jasmine rice (unlike jasmine tea, it's not scented or contain jasmine), and the hard to find Henry Weinhard's Vanilla Cream Soda. I tried one of the sakes; it was lightly flavored with ginger so it didn't have the normal sake "straight alcohol" taste. It was decent, but it didn't make me a sake fan. The other thing I tried was the ume ice cream. That was odd. It didn't have much a flavor, which I didn't mind, but the small bits of yam in it were disturbing. It reminded me of eating tapioca pudding (which I so don't like).
Anyway, I get to go camping this weekend in Flagstaff. I can't wait.
Me and Lynn still don't have our date set yet, but Lynn went looking at wedding dresses this weekend and found one she really likes. We also know what songs we're going to dance to. (We chose two, since we couldn't agree on just one and we can do whatever we want to anyway.) They're Jane's Addiction "Summertime Rolls" and Sarah McLachlan "Ice Cream". How cool is that?
In their latest effort to bail water instead of fix a leak Record biz sues file sharer Audiogalaxy. It really sucks since Audiogalaxy is my favorite place to download mp3s. Looks like I'm going to have to find another way soon.
"The Storm Riders" was one of the most unique kung fu movies I'd ever seen. It seems like the future of modern kung fu movies. It was beautiful, had an interesting story, and the special effects were amazing. There were two things I didn't like about the movie: one, the story seemed to abruptly jump around, and two, there weren't enough fight scenes to really show off the special effects. I read that 40 minutes was cut from the international version I saw which should account for both faults. If I'm lucky I may get to see the director's cut and view "The Storm Riders" in it's full glory, instead of the hollow, but good international version.
[I forgot to mention that this movie had one of the most unexpected twists I've ever seen in a fight. One of the characters rips his own arm off for ammunition against a superior foe. It was amazing to see that kind of pragmatism in regards to staying alive (even if it was only in a movie).]
"Original Sin" was another movie I wasn't interested in seeing the in theater, and I should have stuck with my instincts. A friend rented it and brought it over, and if I didn't know that you saw Angelina Jolie's breasts in the movie, then I wouldn't have watched it. Angelina's breasts weren't nearly enough to pull off this movie. The acting was ok, I didn't care for the story, and the jerky editing really annoyed me. Basically I should have stopped watching it after the first 15 minutes.
Last night I got roped into going to Afendi Cafe, a Mediterranean restaurant in Tempe, even though I don't care that much for Mediterranean cuisine. (I have a few very specific things I enjoy, and everything else I can live without.)
Well neither of us had been there before so we did the usual appetizer, entree, dessert thing. We started with an order foul mudammas, which was nice and spicy and served with some delicious pita bread. Then they brought out our dinner salads, which were topped with an amazingly tart vinaigrette which I loved. Our entrees were kefta and garlic chicken. The kefta were good, with an interesting sort of cinnamon flavor to the beef, but it tasted better with a dash of salt. The garlic chicken was great. The item which I liked best though was the rice that came with both entrees. It had bits of crunchy pasta and a hint of lemon to it. I've always been more of a noodle person than a rice person, but I'd go to Afendi just for the rice. I liked it that much. Finally, I was thinking of ordering creme caramel for dessert, but they had homemade baklava, and i had to try it. I ordered the walnut baklava, and it was pretty good with a sort of sugar cookie flavor, but I prefer the walnut baklava at Haji Baba.
I had my reservations about eating at Afendi, but it's nice to be wrong in such a delicious way. I'll probably be back this Friday. (They have a belly dancer on Fridays and Saturdays.)
I'd been dying to see "Star Wars: Episode II" ever since it opened last Thursday, but I finally got my chance to see it last night. Well, I can at least say it was much better than "Star Wars: Episode I". This movie was entertaining, the special effects were amazing, and Jar Jar Binks wasn't featured nearly as much.
That being said, I find it interesting that all of the computer generated locations were believable, but the romance between Annakin and Padme seemed completely artificial. This Annakin could act a lot better than kid Annakin in "Episode I", but to me he could never really pull off the big scenes. (Ok, he couldn't pull off some of the small scenes too.) Instead of feeling his anger and frustration, all I felt was anger at the people who keep casting Annakins! I guess I shouldn't blame the actor too much since part of the responsibility falls on the poor dialog and poor directing too. I think George Lucas is probably a genius for some of the things he's done, but writing and directing are not his strong suits. He really should hand the writing and directing reins over to someone else so at least one of the Star Wars prequels compares with the originals.
Anyway, I'll still go see Episode III whenever it comes out no matter how bad it appears, but not because I and II were that compelling, but because it is Star Wars, and maybe they'll finally get an Annakin that can act.
Remind me not to go back to Claim Jumper unless it's for their chicken tortilla soup. I've been there a dozen or so times and I've found relatively little to be impressed with. I think the problem is the first time I went there I had the chicken tortilla soup, and was really impressed with it. The rest of my food wasn't that good, but the soup really made an impression. Ever since then I think I've been under the belief that they must have something on the menu equally as tasty as the soup, but that's not been the case. Basically, they charge you well for oversized portions of mediocre food. It's like a buffet, only without the vast array of bland food to choose from.
Anyway, if you think I'm being hard on Claim Jumper, here's a list of the really good things I've had there (because a list of the so-so things would take up too much space): chicken tortilla soup, calamari, and rotisserie chicken. That's it. Enough said.
Last night I had dinner at Peruanitos (a Peruvian restaurant) in Chandler, and it was a really good experience. I started the meal with a pisco sour, which to my best guess was pisco (a Peruvian brandy), lime juice, and sugar. It was delicious, but not as powerful as a mojito from Havana Cafe or a margarita that I'd make myself.
For the appetizer we had a sampler plate with papas a la huancaina, carapulera, arroz verde, and a chicken dish I didn't get the name of. My favorite was the chicken dish I didn't get the name of. It had a spicy Indian flavor, but reminded me of chicken pot pie at the same time; sort of a spicy comfort food. The carapulera is a dish with pork, peanuts, and potatoes which sounded better than it tasted. It wasn't bad, just not great. The arroz verde and papas a la huancaina were both tasty in an Indian sort of way, with the cilantro rice tasting a lot better than the creamy potato dish.
For entrees we had halibut with garlic sauce and, I think, lomo soltado de carne (steak with potatoes, tomatoes, and onions). The halibut was fried in a nice and salty batter and topped with cooked garlic. It was great, but it put a hurt on my breath. The lomo soltado de carne was really good in an oddly chinese way. I might order it next time I'm there.
I tried to order their ice cream made out of some sort of amazon melon for dessert, but they didn't have any. Anyway, it was all good and I'd definitely recommend Peruanitos to the open minded eater. (Just stay away from their tap water. It tastes like ass.)
"This pain is elevating, as the hurt turns into hating.
Anticipating I will fuck the feelings again.
My hurt inside is fading.
This shit's gone way too far.
All this time that I've been waiting,
oh, I cannot breath anymore.
For what's inside awaking.
I'm done. I'm not a whore.
You've taken everything and
oh I cannot give anymore."
-Korn "Here to Stay"
Just when you think that good angry music has gone away, Korn comes back to save the day. The first time I heard "Here to Stay" I didn't like it. It sounded a lot more heavy metal than I'm used to Korn sounding, but like their previous releases, it grew on me. Now I get goose bumps during the intro.
Don't believe it then read Cheap pen cracks 'copy-proof' CD. I'm glad to hear that it doesn't take much to bypass Sony's copy protection. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has always said that mp3s are hurting their album sales, but the only data I've ever seen them provide are diminished record sales (which could literally be due to anything, including a slumping economy). I always thought the RIAA should put more effort into finding a way to give consumers what they want versus trying to diminish the current rights of consumers by selling deliberately impaired products. I believe they deserve to have their efforts foiled by a minimum of low tech knowledge and a marker. It's karma.
This weekend I checked out "Boogie Nights", a movie about people involved in the '70s porn industry. I didn't see it in theaters because it didn't look interesting then, but Dan was giving me the dvd so what did I care? Well I should have stuck with my instincts because I care about wasting over 2 hours of my life on a dumb ass movie that tried to make a serious drama about an industry that had notoriously bad acting, weak plots, and cheesy production. It didn't fit; I didn't care about most of the characters and it bored me after the first hour. Eventually I started watching it like porn; on fast forward, just slowing down during the interesting parts. (I didn't slow down very often.)
Anyway, I recommend this movie to people who enjoy "long downward spiral" type films, and self mutilators (because they're used to torturing themselves).
[I wondered why Dan was never able to finish watching this film, and now I know.]
This weekend I had a chance to go to Dan's house in Surprise and bbq. It was pretty fun. We stopped at Butcher Bob's and grabbed some steak. I think it's the first time I've had to opportunity to bbq prime New York strip steaks, and even though they were a little more expensive, they were worth it. The steaks were beautiful; they had the perfect amount of marbling so that the meat was moist without being fatty. We also stopped at a nearby bakery (unfortunately I don't remember their name) and got a fresh apple pie and a loaf of sourdough. The sourdough was just they way I like it, not too sour with a tough crust surrounding beautifully fluffy bread. The apple pie was unique in that it had lemon rind in the filling, so some people liked it while others thought it was a little too weird. I thought it was weird at first, but the taste grew on me. It all made for a fine meal, which was made even finer when we smoked some Ashton Aged Maduros "No. 20"s on the back patio.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at bbq the same way again, but I'm going to look for a butcher on my side of town.
I've been up since 5 this morning. I coughed myself awake this morning (typical), but for once I couldn't get back to sleep. Every time I would try to lay down, my cough would jerk me painfully awake again. After a couple of attempts, I decided to just stay up. This cough has got to go.
You know, you'd expect for someone who's been home 3 days this week that my apartment would be cleaner, but you'd be wrong. Even though I haven't been wasting my time with daytime tv (see Babble) I've been catching up on my reading (and I hope you noticed some writing too). As you read earlier, I finished "A Cook's Tour" and now I'm halfway through a book called "Bicycle Days" about a college graduate spending the summer in Japan. It's quite interesting, even if it's only fiction.
Speaking of my apartment, soon I'm going to have to give notice, find a temperature controlled storage facility, and box everything up. I hope I can deal with the "living with someone else" thing again. It's been a while.
Well, I'm off to sample the finest flavor packets ramen has to offer. (Mmm... pork flavor. Or is that beef flavor?? I can't tell.)
Last night, as I was coughing uncontrollably, I thought to myself that some hot tea would really help the back of my throat. Well, one or two birthdays ago my mom got me a really cool tetsubin (a Japanese iron tea pot) and some time after that I bought some Jasmine tea. I've only ever used it once or twice, but this morning when I started coughing again, I brewed myself a pot of tea and it worked better than I hoped. It only stopped the cough for a little while, but my throat felt at least 10 times better. Hooray tea!
Now this isn't something I normally do, but I thought it was amusing, so here it is. This is an excerpt from an email I received from Steve about his hurried quest to see Star Wars last night after a late showing of "Escaflowne", and his review. Enjoy. (Did I mention that Steve hated "Escaflowne" too?)
"12:15 - I leave the parking garage and head out towards the Esplanade.
12:30 - Make it to the Esplanade no problem. Not many cars in the
garage, I figure I'm in luck, or maybe just a lot of young-uns whose
parents dropped 'em off. I get lost because I can't find the correct
staircase, so I end up in some alley near Camelback Road. I run to the movie
theater, only to find out NO SHOWING for 1:00. Damn. On to Metro!
12:45 - Metro Center, I park, run up to the box office (which I drove
by and saw people in) and again, NO SHOWING for 1:00. Suck! Ok, I'm
going to Deer Valley.
1:00 - Deer Valley, I jump on a parking spot because they are so scarce
up there. Run to the box office to yet again find NO SHOWING for 1:00.
C'mon! I could've sworn I read that any of these had 1:00 a.m.
showings, but apparently my memory pulls through for me again. Ok, I'm not
giving up, I'm just cutting into preview time now.
1:18 - Bell Road/AZ 51 Harkins. Drive by the box office, yes people
inside, showtime of 1:00 a.m. on the board, finally! I park quick, RUN
up to the box office, and I'm not exaggerating, my foot hits the
sidewalk (and I run quick) and the punk kid in the box office closes his
window! Fuck! I knock on the glass and make the praying hands motion and
he gives me this shit ass grin, nods his head 'no', and waves his finger
with the same motion. ARGH! I was gonna kick the glass in and lay
some smack down, if you can smell what the Rock is cookin'... So I turn
and walk away before I make any hasty NJ gestures...
1:20 - Disheartened I'm walking back to the truck, but wait, as I just
am out of sight of the box office guy (as I walk close to the building)
I start running. I systematically check all the outside doors. I pull
the ones with handles and try to pry open the ones without handles with
my fingers. Son of a bitch, all the way in the back one was very
partially cracked (without a handle) and using the force I managed to pry it
open right into a Star Wars II showing. Out of breath and adrenaline
pumping, I took a seat three rows back in the stadium seating section,
right on the aisle. I missed like a half an hour, but caught a really
kick ass action flick. It was a little cheesy, seemed like it was
written just to lead up to the original movies, but damn it, some bad ass
action and Natalie Portman is flipping hot! ;) I liked her costumes...
;) Pretty decent flick, I'll definitely see it again, especially
seeing as how I didn't pay for it the first time."
"Escaflowne" the series had the distinction of being the only "giant robot" anime that I liked, so I thought I would give the movie a try. (Let me state for the record that I never thought the movie would be the same as the series. I'm familiar with how the Japanese make movies based off of tv series; with their own timeline outside of the series and events that had already happened or would never happen in the series.) With that said, I hated the movie.
I thought it sucked on many levels. First, the anime itself looked very crude. (I'm not talking about the backgrounds which were pretty damn good.) The characters liked pretty juvenile, and there were lots of times it didn't look like they didn't even finish drawing the characters. Second, the story left a lot to be desired. A lot of things were presented without any explanation, leading me to believe that the only way you would have understood is by watching the series (which the movie really differs from). Third, the direction sucked! The way the director made quick cuts, meaningless scenes, and flash backs that come out of no where was so annoying. It was like watching a Cirque du Soleil video production; you know there's probably something worth watching, but if the camera never stops jumping around all you're left with are a multitude of meaningless shots that don't do any favors to the overall performance.
Those things being said, I didn't find anything in the movie to like, hence my overall disgust for it.
Last night we headed to Nielsen's Frozen Custard in Mesa for some (surprise, surprise) frozen custard. I didn't realize they made sandwiches too. We had to try them, so we ordered a pastrami sandwich and a roast beef with guacamole sandwich, in addition to a chocolate frozen custard with almonds. (Let me say that I thought roast beef with guacamole sounded gross, but it was really tasty. I'm not sure why that surprised me since I like carne asada tortas with guacamole.) The sandwiches weren't as good as Mc Gurkee's in Phoenix, but I did like them better than most places. Next time I'm in the mood for a sandwich on the east side, I can see going to Nielsen's.
I've finally finished reading "A Cook's Tour". I still don't completely care for Anthony Bourdain's writing style, but the book was definitely entertaining, and there are times when Bourdain's writing is enough to make you howl with laughter. (Like when he talks about vegans, reshooting scenes for the camera even though he's dead drunk, or when he's just put something hideous in his mouth.)
I also found it interesting where the tv show and the book deviated. For example, when Anthony Bourdain is in Japan eating breakfast at the ryokan, in the book he describes it as, "Nothing, not bugs, not iguana, not live reptile parts, not tree grubs, nothing I'd ever eaten would approach the horror of these few not unusual Japanese breakfast items." On the tv show, after he's eaten the only three items he can make it through, he's forced to say something like, "This is so delicious."
Usually the show wasn't all forcing Anthony to lie for the camera; there were a couple of episodes where the show proved better than the book. The one that strikes me as the most obvious is the French Laundry episode, which was at least 10 times more convincing about how great Thomas Keller and his restaurant is, than the book. When Anthony Bourdain looks like he's ready to cry because the food is so good, his words fail to convey the same joy. Seeing the expression on all of the chef's faces and their reactions as course after course of brilliant food is brought out for them is all you really needed to see.
Anyway, reading the book and watching the tv show is an experience that I would definitely recommend. How often do you get to compare a written and visual record of the same events?
Yesterday it was a runny nose; today it's coughing. At this rate, it shouldn't take too long before I get over this (assuming there aren't that many more symptoms to go through). The only thing that's killing me is the fact that I can't get a good nights sleep and every time I wake up in the morning it feels like someone stuck me in a tumble dryer along with a bag of wooden blocks and left me in there for an hour or two. That bottle of Aspirin is finally proving useful.
Yesterday I had a delicious Vietnamese lunch of spring rolls and pho (beef soup) at Khai Hoan in Tempe and it made me feel a lot better. Last night I was hoping to have a good dinner too to see if that wouldn't also help expedite my recovery. I couldn't decide on what sort of food I was in the mood for, so Lynn and I went to Charleston's in Chandler since I've never been there before and we weren't sure what kind of food they served.
When we walked up we caught the scent of hard wood smoke. I was intrigued. After we were seated the waiter told us the specials of the day, one of which was salmon, so I ordered it grilled. (Somewhere in the world Anthony Bourdain is groaning about my ordering fish on a Monday. I forgot and didn't remember until just now as I was writing this.) When my salmon arrived it was overcooked and rubbery. It also needed salt. (Lynn ordered the prime rib, and we both agreed that it wasn't seasoned nearly enough.) Needless to say, I'll never go back to Charleston's ever again. I have a major pet peeve for restaurants that are afraid of seasoning meat. I paid you to prepare it so salt it before you cook it! Also, overcooking salmon is a serious crime against all things meat, and restaurants that do it should be punished.
I hope to make up with my stomach today by giving it something very special; Nielsen's Frozen Custard. That should satisfy it for a while.
Last night I discovered the horror that is a head cold. Even though I didn't have a runny nose during the day, when I went to sleep I could feel a slow glacial movement in my sinuses that made them burn just like when you get water up your nose. It was very unpleasant, and kept me from getting decent sleep until about 4 this morning.
Wow, I actually finished the text for my Mardi Gras page. I'll get around to adding the 3 or 4 pictures I actually took later.
"Standing in the shower thinking
is my woman afraid of me?
She's seen how far I've twisted;
it's just cause I can trust her.
And ever since we met
she understood so she let
me twist her good.
I twist her good."
-Jane's Addiction "Standing in the Shower... Thinking"
I'm sick today, but I don't feel bad, just sort of spacy. The scary thing is that I'm beginning to enjoy it.
For Mother's Day I took my mom to Tucson just so she could have lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant in Tucson, Cafe Poca Cosa. We got some tasty margaritas, delicious sample plates with one beef, chicken, and veggie entree, and the best chocolate mousse I've ever had.
Afterwards I took her to the Mission San Xavier, and I have to say it was one of the most interesting churches I'd ever seen. It had a baroque feeling of just having too much to look at, but the type of grandeur was different. Then we took a trip up to Mount Lemon, looked around and didn't see anything, and returned to Phoenix.
I started feeling a sore throat coming on yesterday. Everyone say, "Thanks Noah."
I chatted with Noah today and his ears are still ringing. (Believe it or not, so are mine.) I guess that means we just have a head start for tonight with Timo Maas @ Freedom.
Yesterday I waited in my work parking lot at 6:15 PM like me and Noah discussed earlier and he got there at 6:45. Our flight was at 7:50 so I wasn't too worried. (Noah actually had a pretty good excuse; someone tried to steal the headliner for an event he's throwing and he found out about it right before he was going to leave.) Anyway, Noah was really sick, but he decided to stick it out for the show. Much respect for that. We decided to park in terminal parking to save some time. I was hoping that it wasn't going to be too much more than extended parking, but they charge $18 a day. (I'm not sure what the daily rate for extended parking is so I don't feel too bad.) We got to our gate, and were surprised that there were probably only 35 people total on the flight. The flight was nice because it was almost like we had the plane to ourselves.
We arrived in Vegas without incident and headed towards ground transportation. I thought The Luxor might have a free airport shuttle, but there wasn't one to be seen. There were plenty of shuttles willing to take you to your hotel for $4.25, but I was determined not to pay for what I expected to be a free service, so we walked. It took us about 40 minutes of walking to reach our hotel. (Noah pointed out to me a couple of times of how stupid it was to spend the money for the plane ticket and hotel room, just to get cheap on a $4 shuttle ride.) Remind me never to do that again.
We checked into our room, and Noah gambled a bit before we hit the club. I was glad we had line passes because there were about 50 people waiting in line when we got there. We got in the club and heard the opening dj before we hit the entrance. He was playing some crappy clubby progressive. We got inside and took a look around. The club looked pretty good with it's techno/Egyptian theme and hot dancers, but not as good as Sanctuary in Scottsdale. Eventually the dj played some good techno which got me dancing for a couple of songs, then he changed the style back to progressive. I didn't take long for either me or Noah to figure out we didn't like the dj. He kept changing styles every three songs, and it usually wasn't for the better. At one point I was so disgusted I went to get a drink from the bar just to distract myself from the music.
I was at the bar when I heard Steve Lawler come on with some hypnotic tribal house. I only sat long enough to finish my beer, and then I was on the dance floor through the entire tribal portion of Steve Lawler's set. The tribal drums had me enthralled. I was just dancing, having a great time, and didn't care about anything. About halfway through his set Steve Lawler switched to progressive. It was good stuff, but I wanted to listen to it more than I wanted to dance to it. I stayed through the rest of the set, since it was good music, and then some other dj came on and played some bangin' minimalist techno bullshit that I didn't like so I called it a night at 3 in the morning.
I woke up two hours later and took a shower. By the time I was ready to go it was 6 in the morning, and that worried me because our flight was at 7. Me and Noah got to the cab stand outside of our hotel to find there were no cabs. I was really getting worried. Some foreign guy asked me if we were waiting for a cab, and I said yes. He asked if we were going to the airport, and as soon as soon as he said, "Sure." to the question of whether he wanted to split a cab with us, a cab pulled up. When we got to the airport, the meter read less than $9, but the foreign guy gave the driver $10. I thanked him for that since it was completely unnecessary.
When we got into the airport, we saw a really long line to get into the "B" gates. That got me worried again. Luckily our flight was leaving from a "C" gate, which almost didn't have a line at all. (We could look left and see all the poor people in line for the "D" gates though. Heh.) We got to our gate with more than enough time to spare, boarded our plane, and I was able to catch a nap from Vegas to Phoenix.
We got back to Phoenix without incident (even though I wouldn't have known if we did have an incident) and Noah dropped me off at work, which is how I came to be here with my ears still ringing. I have to say that it was definitely worth it. I had a great time, and I thought Steve Lawler kicked ass. Hell, even Noah liked his set, and Noah is as picky about his djs as I am about good food.
I can't believe I forgot to write about "Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy"! I saw it last week and it's actually a pretty entertaining documentary. It covers Ron Jeremy's life and his unbelievable career in porn. It's funny, interesting, odd, and reveals things you probably didn't want to know about the porn industry. Anyway, don't go if you're offended by nudity, porn, or suffer from feelings of inadequacy.
Steve Lawler in Vegas (Tonight!)
I can't wait for tonight. I'm sitting here listening to disgustingly happy English pop music.
"Every day he got closer.
He knew in his heart he was over.
'I'd love to stay here and be normal, but it's just so overrated.'"
-Blur "Tracey Jacks"
Life is good.
I ran a little over 1 mile last night. Woo hoo!
Steve Lawler in Vegas
So our hotel room in Vegas is reserved, our flight to Vegas is booked, and we've got a plan. We're good to go. Too bad I wasn't sure where I put my frequent flyer card so I spent my entire lunch going through my apartment looking for it. (I doubt I'll fly enough to get a free ticket this year, but you never know. I thought the same thing last year, and I ended up with a free ticket for Mardi Gras.)
I can't wait to go. Now if only these damn hiccups would go away.
Today I went to Taco Bell to discover that they no longer sell the club chulupa. I was so stunned I didn't even know what to order. (I've ordered a club chulupa plus some other piece of crap for as long as they've been offering club chulupas. What was I going to do now?) I sat there silent while the drive-thru guy kept asking me what I wanted. How could they stop making the club chulupa? How could they get rid of the crown jewel of the Taco Bell menu!? Don't they realize that was the only REALLY good thing they've ever made???
I ended up getting a couple of other chulupas, but it just wasn't the same. While I ate and moped, I thought to myself, "Where's the bacon man? Where's the bacon?"
This weekend was pretty mellow. I saw Noah at Ichi Ban on Saturday. I had a pretty good time, but our waiter pissed me off. He spilled a full cup of sake and didn't replace it. Bastard.
I started the first step, in hopefully a long series of steps, to getting back in shape. This weekend I got to do a little running. I got ¾ of a mile done. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make it a full mile. (I can't believe my legs are still sore today though!)
The episode where Anthony Bourdain visited the famous French Laundry restaurant in Napa, California was one of the most interesting episodes to watch. You get to see Tony get all nervous and giggly as he meets the chef de cuisine and owner of French Laundry, Thomas Keller, and you get to watch him and three other chefs swoon over the food they're being served at French Laundry.
(I am now thoroughly convinced that I'll have to make a trip out to French Laundry some time.)
There was one moment that I would love to have photographed and framed. Thomas Keller made a dish for the first time specifically for Tony, a custard made of tobacco and coffee, to appease Tony's smoking habit so it wouldn't interrupt the 20 course meal Thomas Keller was feeding him. When the waiter brought back the dishes from that course, you could see Thomas Keller and two of his sous chefs look at the bowl to make sure it was empty. It was cool to see Anthony's culinary idol, checking to see if Anthony Bourdain actually enjoyed the food that he had made especially for him.
Wednesday I get to see Steve Lawler @ Ra in Las Vegas. Me and Noah are going to leave work Wednesday night, hop a plane to Vegas, check into our room in the Luxor, check out Steve Lawler, get some sleep, hop a plane back to Phoenix Thursday morning in time for work. Then Friday is Timo Maas @ Freedom. Woo hoo!
I saw Noah spin at Ichi Ban (Tempe - University, W. of Mcclintock) last night. It was a really good set. Now he's a resident there and he'll be spinning there on Saturdays. Check him out.
I haven't been writing much lately because I've actually been busy with work. If I'm lucky this won't last too long.
Heh. Spoke too soon. Both my lunch and dinner plans for today have been canceled.
A channel I've been digging even more than IFC lately has been the Encore Action channel. I've been seeing kung fu and crappy anime movies on their channel lately. (Love the kung fu, hate the crappy anime, but maybe they'll work up to better anime.) To make things even better, I just saw an advertisement that they're starting to play female kung fu movies on Saturday night. Kick ass!
Wow, I feel the love. It's Tuesday, but I've got lunch and dinner plans for the entire week. (If you know how important food is to me, then you realize the value I place on bonding with people over food.)
So I spoke to Noah and he told me that the second day of Coachella had pretty much the same vibe as the first. From what he told me, there were no surprises as far as how anybody preformed. Peretz (Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction fame) sucked and couldn't beat match. Paul Oakenfold was gay. [Noah's words, not mine.] Tiesto sucked. BT sucked. The only people Noah said were pretty good were Cut Chemist and Prodigy. (Actually, he said Prodigy totally kicked ass and put on the best show of the event. Good thing I'm not a Prodigy fan.)
The one thing that did suck about it all is that Ryan went to Prescott yesterday, and he goes back to Canada today. I hardly spent any time with the guy while he was here. : (
I'm back a day early. Here's the story.
Friday - The Trip
Friday night we all met at Noah's apartment just before 11 PM so we could leave for our hotel in Palm Springs. (That was the closest we could get to Indio at the last minute.) Nine people were there: myself, Noah, Ryan (Noah's friend from Canada who went with us last year), Ben, Lisa Marie, Megan, Josh, James, and Manfred. Ben, Josh, and Manfred were going to drive so, I didn't have to drive like I thought I was. Noah, Ryan, and myself were going with Manfred, whom I've never met before. (He had the weirdest accent which I couldn't figure out. It turns out he's from South Africa and spent about six years in Singapore, which really screwed it up.)
We left Noah's apartment at 11, but had to stop on our way out of town to pick up the last guy going with us, Robbie. After the 20 minutes it took to finally get him in the car, people remembered they were hungry and we stopped at a Taco Bell before leaving town. It was 12:30 by the time we really got on our way.
I was trying to sleep in the back of the car, but the way Manfred drove kept waking me up. Every time he changed lanes or hit the bumps on the side of the rode because the wind pushed the car that way, I woke up sure we were about to crash. It was very disconcerting. Manfred got tired about halfway to Palm Springs and Ryan took over. Even though I know Ryan's good to drive at night I still couldn't sleep. Every once in a while we would drive through some vicious cross winds that would push the car in alternating directions and wake me up, certain we were going to crash. I think having a fiancee has made me a little more cautious with my life.
We arrived in Palm Springs, which is a couple of miles past Indio, and checked into the hotel at about 4. Ten people squeezed into one room, but only one person actually had to sleep on the floor. Two people slept on each of the double beds, two each on two inflatable beds, one on the couch, and one on the floor. I was on one of the inflatable beds. Too bad I forgot to bring a pillow and blanket. Noah had an extra blanket and Lisa Marie had an extra pillow that used. (That's good because I would have froze otherwise.)
Saturday
We woke up a little after 9 in the morning. That's when I learned that sleeping in a room with ten people is easy; waiting for everyone to get showered is hard. We got some lunch, and got to Coachella without much event. The line into Coachella was significantly shorter than it was last year and we all got in in about 5 minutes. We waited at the entrance for Manfred because he bought his ticket online and had to wait at will call. (Will call sucks at these events. Don't ever do it. First you have to wait in the will call line to pick up your tickets and then you have to wait in the regular line to get in.) While we were waiting, Ryan and Josh were played frisbee and almost hit a few people with the frisbee. Eventually some random guy asked Ryan if he could play with them. It didn't take long before random guy started running through crowds of people and almost taking people out. Finally, random guy actually knocked another guy out of his sandals (because of how hard he ran into him) going for the frisbee. Ryan ended their frisbee game and sent random guy away.
After Manfred joined us, our group split up. We went to the main stage and saw KRS One for a little while. It was interesting, but we were in the mood for something a little more electronic, so we went to one of the tents and saw Lee Burridge. His set was decent, but too repetitive for me. We went back to the main stage and sat in the grass while listening to G Love & Special Sauce. I enjoyed their set a lot and even sang along to "Cold Beverage". When their set was almost over, we went to hear Kosheen.
The only song I've really heard from Kosheen is "Hide You", so I didn't know what they'd be like. The first couple of songs they played were mellow and sort of trippy, like Portishead. (I think the lead singer for Portishead has a better voice though. It seems better suited for that particular type of music.) After the trip hop stuff they started playing drum and bass. That was impressive. (I've never heard drum and bass live before. I liked it!) It didn't take long before they switched to another style, which was all the excuse we needed to go to the tent next door to hear Groove Armada. It was really good stuff. Groove Armada played the only set I actually danced to.
After leaving Groove Armada, eating jerk chicken (which was really only chicken covered in a spicy barbecue sauce), walking around, losing everyone in my group, seeing flame throwing robots demolish shopping carts, finding Lisa Marie and Manfred, we headed off to see Dan the Automator. (Losing the group didn't bother me. I've been to more than enough events with Noah to trust that I'll see him before the end of the night.) We got to the tent Dan the Automator was playing at just in time to see him leave. (It turns out that Noah, Ryan, and Josh were in the back of the tent, but we didn't see them.) We stayed put in the tent to see Z-Trip's show. I totally dug it. It was a lot of hip hop vocals over alternative music (like Greenday's "Brain Stew" and Tool's "Sober"). The best part of the show was the end though. Z-Trip started playing Beck's "Where It's At", then stopped it saying, "I'm not going to play that. I changed my mind (and I can do that you know). Wouldn't it be much cooler if Beck were here to play it?" Then Beck came out with his bass player (Justin) and played "Where It's At" with Z-Trip cutting it up. It was the best moment of the night for me.
After Z-Trip, Lisa Marie and Manfred went to hear Bjork and I went to the tent next door to hear Sasha & Digweed. It was nothing special. Sasha & Digweed played what I expected; nondistinctive progressive. I decided to go see Bjork when I ran into Lisa Marie and Manfred coming to see Sasha & Digweed. I went with them to hear Sasha & Digweed, but it wasn't long before Manfred decided that they weren't playing anything interesting enough to stay. (They did play that Solid Sessions "Janeiro [James Holden remix]" track that I totally love though.) We headed for the main stage to catch the last bit of Bjork's show, and ran into Ben. (Three down, six to go.)
After Bjork was done we got as close to the stage as we could get to see The Chemical Brothers. By that time my legs were completely sore from walking, standing, and dancing. The Chemical Brothers actually played their own music this time and put on a much better show than they did at last year's Coachella. I enjoyed it, but I couldn't wait to have a seat either.
After the show we met up with practically everyone (the last person didn't show up, but luckily WE found her) and drove about an hour and a half to our hotel in 29 Palms. I actually fell asleep on that drive.
Today
I woke up to find the air conditioner blowing cold air directly at me. Everyone else woke up and we had to play the "call your place in the shower line" game. While I was waiting for my turn Manfred called me outside and said that he was going to leave after breakfast. He had had it with the trip and had other things that he needed to take care of anyway. My legs were still a little sore from yesterday, and I wasn't looking forward to a cramped ride in the back of someone's overstuffed car while a sleepy driver made the 4 hour trip home tonight (because we didn't have a hotel room), so I told him I'd go with him. (If I went with Manfred, that left four people per car, which meant three people didn't have to be crammed into the backs of one of the cars.) We ate lunch and the rest of the group went to Coachella while me and Manfred came back home.
I'm disappointed I missed a couple of the djs today, but I'm old and not up for two days of abuse. One day is fine, but I really don't think I would have enjoyed today much. I probably would have spent most of the time laying in the grass instead of dancing. Anyway, I noticed the vibe that we had at the first Coachella was missing. This Coachella wasn't as fun. I tried to figure out why that was as we were driving home. Was it the lineup? Was it the people we were with? I think it was the size of our group. Ten people are just too many people to deal with. It made things like showering and leaving any place a pain in the ass.
Oh well, live and learn. This will probably be the last event like this that I go to.
I'm off to Coachella. I hope you enjoy my restaurant review/Iron Chef spoof below.
[Kaga raises his right hand into the air and tightens his fist like he's grabbing the sky by the balls. The Iron Chefs rise gracefully through the floor surrounded by mist, like some sort of culinary vampires.]
[FranknCharlie points at Iron Chef BBQ who is wearing a deep maroon outfit and an apron
which says "As for barbecuers, tongs with do it." (Must have lost something in the
translation.)]
[Kaga whips off the sheet covering the theme ingredient with a flourish.]
[The chefs both work feverishly to finish their burgers when the time runs out. FranknCharlie's steak tar tar glacé isn't ready so it can't be used.]
[FranknCharlie stands there while the judges each look at their plates of
burgers and fries.]
[The chefs are both forced to stand under hot lights and look directly at them for 10 minutes straight. Finally Kaga and the panel of judges enter. Both chefs look up at them, tense.]
[Kaga points at the relieved Iron Chef. Lots of bowing and shaking hands. The theme to "Backdraft" starts playing.]
I've finally finished the text for my 12/01 trip to New Orleans. I still have to add the pictures to it, but you can read it now.
"Frailty" started out very well. Actually, it was a pretty good movie almost the entire time. The acting was great and the story was the kind that sucked you in. The problem is that I think the last five minutes of it were so bad that it affected how I feel about the entire movie. At least with "Y Tu Mama Tambien" there was more than enough in the movie to make me appreciate it despite the bad ending. The ending of "Frailty" almost made me hate the entire story, and it was actually a good story. For most of the movie I was imagining the horror this kid was going through. The situation of thinking your dad has gone crazy and he wants to kill people would be awfully hard to deal with, especially if you're just 12 years old. Too bad the ending ruined what could have been a really good intellectual horror.
Did I mention the Ticketmaster web site sucks? Yesterday I was trying to find a Ticketmaster location, so I went to their web site to look for one. I couldn't find location information to save my life. I just wanted to by a ticket locally, not online, which is what the entire site seems built around.
So the only way I could find a location was by asking people which businesses had Ticketmasters in them. That's a lot of trouble to go through just so they can charge me $25 for the privilege of buying a ticket from them.
So I finally got my ticket for Coachella yesterday. There's still no one I really want to see on the first day, but at least there are some DJs I want to see on the second day. Cut Chemist, Mixmaster Mike, and Bad Boy Bill all look promising.
I know I haven't mentioned this before, but Noah and Lisa Marie were selected for the Coachella documentary. In exchange for video taping their trips they were supposed to receive two tickets and VIP passes each. Instead, they only received a total of two tickets and VIP passes. What a load of crap.
Something local that I'm really forward to is on May 10th. Timo Maas is returning to Freedom! I can't wait.
The QWest Dex site sucks ass! You'd think since QWest does the white and yellow pages for Arizona (and quite a few other states), their web site might actually work half way decently. Well it doesn't. Their search sucks because you have to match the first word exactly, so if there's a space or a hyphen or anything weird, it doesn't work. And after you do find what you're looking for, they hardly have maps of the locations.
Someone showed me the Yahoo Yellow Pages which works a hell of a lot better.
It looks like my Yahoo account is accepting email again.
I went to Frank & Charlie's in Chandler for dinner the other night. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was my first time there, but they made some damn good food. The shtick the waitress gave us was that everything on their menu is homemade and made to order. I can almost believe it.
Dinner started with a salad that was mostly iceberg lettuce. Nothing special. They also served garlic buns, which were really damn tasty. I could have eaten about 30 of the rolls with butter and been happy.
For dinner I had a New York strip steak, half a rack of baby back ribs, mashed potatoes and gravy, and some steamed vegetables. The steak was excellent. The wood flavor had really permeated it without overpowering it. [The wood they use to grill with is almond wood. I had to ask.] The baby back ribs were so tender that they fell off the bone. The barbecue sauce on the ribs was tasty and sweet, but I thought it could have used a little heat to round out the flavor. The mashed potatoes were sort of rustic, but they were quite tasty. The only disappointment on the plate was the vegetables. I enjoyed they way they were seasoned, but they looked like they'd been sitting for a while. (I really don't think they were made to order.)
So I'll be going back to Frank & Charlie's this Friday for lunch.
[There was a manager walking around, checking on people that night and I thought he looked familiar. When I looked at his business card it said his first name was "Jeff". I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who used to be a partner in The BBQ Company, which is the best place in Phoenix for a hamburger. If it's him, that would explain why the food is so good. The funny thing is that Frank & Charlie's actually serves better food than The BBQ Company.]
My Yahoo email account is now rejecting emails for no particular reason. This is worse than not being able to get into it since now people might think my account has been canceled. Even worse, Yahoo doesn't make any kind of support email address plainly available so I don't know where to report this problem. Bastards.
I'm actually considering a Hotmail account now.
Ok, I think I finally got "Marvel vs. Capcom" out of my system for a little while. It's tough
playing that game using a keyboard. It's hard to get the combos that have a diagonal in them
to work properly.
--
I'm almost done with my 12/01 New Orleans trip page! One final set of revisions and I can
post it. After that, I still need to edit and proof my short story. (I haven't read it in
a week so I hope I still think it's worth putting up on the site.)
--
Coachella is this weekend. I should probably buy my ticket. I noticed that they aren't allowing backpacks. That seems pretty stupid considering that the high in Indio is supposed to be about 85º, but the low is expected to be 55º. If you dress for one, you're not going to be comfortable in the other, so it would make sense that you would put the extra gear in a backpack. (It's certainly not going to fit in the allowed fanny pack, but that's just me.)
[Ok, I just wrote the Coachella people about it. I wonder if they'll respond.]
--
I finally got to see the full length of "Double Happiness". I saw a portion of it on IFC some time ago, before I had to leave for work, and I never saw it on IFC again.
Anyway, "Double Happiness" is a movie about Jade, a young Chinese-Canadian woman, who lives with her traditional parents and how she deals with living with parents who have a different value system than she does. The movie also showed the challenge of an Asian actress trying to get real acting jobs and the type of stereotypes she has to contend with.
Finally, one of the things I found most interesting about the movie was the perspective it provided on what different people think really being Chinese is about. For example Jade's mother called her son, and spoke with an unfamiliar woman who didn't speak Chinese, and got all upset because his son was "living with a white girl" (but she was really Asian). Another scene involved Jade's inability to read Chinese and a lady from Hong Kong accused her of not really being Chinese.
I think a lot of the movie actually applies to any ethnic group which has emigrated to another country, which might be why I found it so interesting. I don't think this movie would appeal to everyone, but I think it's effective in what it's trying to convey.
Layne Staley, the lead singer of one of my all time favorite bands, Alice in Chains, was found dead in his apartment. The police said he'd been dead for about two weeks from an apparent heroin overdose. Stupid bastard. I can never understand what makes people think heroin would be a good idea. Anyway, you can read the details on Launch or your music site of preference.
"Iron Monkey" is one of the best kung fu movies I've seen. It almost ranks right up there with "The Legend" for sheer silliness and great fighting. If you're a fan of the genre, go check it out.
I caught "Travel Sick" last night and I was a little disappointed that it didn't have a thing to do with food. It was sort of amusing though. Grub Smith was in Los Angeles and one of his challenges was to pick up a gay guy for sex in the same public bathroom that George Michael was caught in. Luckily he failed. Anyway, I don't think the other challenges were nearly as interesting, but I did get to see what happened to Grub when he failed a couple of challenges; He got a bikini wax.
[To get a general idea of how painful it is, watch the video for Markus Nikolai - "Bushes (Norman Cook Remix)".]
I haven't been able to get into my Yahoo email account for a couple of days now. Their mail
server keeps NOT responding. Email isn't vital to me, but damn it sucks not being able to get
into your email.
--
I still hate people. Saturday night someone threw their car door open and left a dent and a white spot where they scraped the paint off of my driver's side, rear door. My car alarm went off but I didn't hear it. Wish I had.
I hate the fact that people are too stupid to realize that there's a car right next to
them when they whip their car doors open. Bastards.
--
For a salad that goes by the name of "Spring Mix", you would expect that it wouldn't be 75% Iceberg lettuce, but it is.
Someone I know sent me a copy of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) and some video game ROMs and I've been having too much fun playing some of the classic video games such as "Defender", "Galaga", and "Punch Out" ever since. It's been hard not getting caught playing games at work. (Ok, I probably got caught a couple of times.)
Last night I needed to work off some tension, so I smoked a cigar and did some rollerblading. I woke up a little sore, but I did feel much better.
Today at work has been a pain. What started out as a simple job that I was working on yesterday has turned into a rewrite of a fairly complicated piece of code. I've been trying to work on it today so I can get it over with, but the server decided to lock out my account from the network, and something major broke on the web site, so I was troubleshooting that.
I did get network access back and I passed the web site issue off to the network people, so right now I finally get to pick up where I left off last night.
Looks like I'll be working some tension off again tonight.
"And the angel of the Lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber, and took me on high, and higher still until we moved in the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he bore me unto a vast farmland of our own midwest, and as we descended cries of impending doom rose from the soil.
One thousand, nay, a million voices full of fear. And terror possessed me then and I begged, 'Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?' And the angel said unto me, 'These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots. You see, reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust.'
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one millions terrified brothers and roared, 'Hear me now, I have seen the light, they have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul. Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses!'"
-Tool "Disgustipated"
I don't feel like dealing with people today.
Not really, just cigars. Last night I stopped by Tinder Box in Mesa and went crazy buying cigars. I decided to try more cigars from the Cusano lines, and buy some of my favorites too. I ended up with 11 total. It's a good thing I didn't get any more, because my makeshift humidor is full to capacity. I can't wait to get started. (Want to see a list of what I got? Go to the cigars page.)
I do have to mention that the cigars at Tinder Box all looked especially well taken care of. Quite a few of the cigars had a nice oily sheen to them that you only see on cigars that have spent an extended amount of time in their perfect environment. It's an impressive sight to see so many shiny cigars.
"Y Tu Mama Tambien" (which translates to "and your mama too") is a Mexican movie about the relationships of two teenage male best friends and an older lady who enters the picture. I don't want to say too much about the plot since there isn't a whole lot, but it is rather significant what happens in the movie. I'll say the acting was very well done, and the movie was sometimes funny, touching, and disturbing. I enjoyed the it most of the time, at least until the end. It kind of lost me in the last five minutes, which explains why I think it was a movie worth seeing, but not a great movie.
[There was narration in this movie that I found very similar in purpose to the narration in "Amelie". It's still novel enough that I enjoyed it, but if I see it in one more movie, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate it.]
Oh yeah, I forgot a warning. This is not a family movie. If you're offended by nudity, sex, drug use, or anything else, then you'll probably want to avoid this movie.
Two words: vanilla Coke!
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I don't normally get to watch "Futurama", but I did catch it last night. Good thing too because
the title for the show was "30% Iron Chef". (I would have been heartbroken if I missed that.)
Basically Bender (a taste impaired robot) challenged Elzar (a four armed, alien Emeril) to a
culinary battle, so they took it to Kitchen Stadium and fought on "Iron Cook" ["I'm a shoe in.
I'm 30% iron." -Bender]. You have to love it on premise alone. If that isn't enough, they
also managed to include the line, "Domo arigato Mr. Roboto." Heh.
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I saw a new program on Comedy Central called "Travel Sick". You can read the little program summary on Comedy Central's web page, but I'll just say that I saw the Korea episode and it was pretty amusing, even when it had nothing to do with food. You might think it's like "A Cook's Tour" knockoff, but it's not. It's more like a cross between "Jackass" and "A Cook's Tour".
I'll have to watch the next episode to see if it's as addictive as "A Cook's Tour".
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I took my mom to Bahama Breeze the other day. Neither one of us had been there before, so I went a little crazy ordering. I didn't do too badly in the respect that I only ordered one appetizer; the conch and shrimp fritters. The fritters were served with a mustard sauce that worked pretty well with them. My only complaint is that the conch wasn't chopped up fine enough and ended up being pretty chewy.
Our entrees were the pork medallions (which I ordered so I could compare them to the ones from Havana Cafe) and one of the days specials, Mahi Mahi. The pork medallions came with rosemary mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and a corn and black bean salsa which were all soaking in a brown sauce. The brown sauce was excellent! It tasted like the kind of brown sauce you get from German restaurants; namely exactly the way a brown sauce should taste: meaty, nice round mouth feel, and if you were to add vegetables to it it would make a great stew. The pork was tasty by itself, but everything (except the salsa) served as a good compliment. The potatoes were pretty damn good, and I dug the creamed spinach. (My mom swears she tasted coconut in the spinach, but I didn't taste it. It's possible they used a small quantity of coconut milk and my mom's tastebuds are just more attuned to coconut.)
The Mahi Mahi came with a roasted pepper sauce, angel hair pasta, and some other stuff. I didn't care for any of the other stuff. It was all very plain, and I think it was meant to soak in the sauce, but it wasn't my entree so I didn't feel right about running the angelhair through the sauce to pick it up. The Mahi Mahi had a nice grilled flavor, but parts of it were charred, and I didn't care for that at all.
I did go a little crazy on dessert. We ended up getting creme brulee and a slice of key lime pie. The creme brulee was ok. The sugar wasn't burnt, but it also tasted like there wasn't any sugar in the custard. I like my creme brulee just a little sweet. The key lime pie was great. Extraordinarily tart and sweet at the same time, eating it gives your entire face a work out. I'd order it again.
Our experience at Bahama Breeze was made all the better by our waitress Deb. I had ordered a mojito, and it tasted like the fresh mint wasn't properly bruised. Deb asked me how I liked it and I told her what I thought. Well, she actually listened and asked me if I wanted another one. I told her I didn't (because I figured they just wouldn't make a second one correct either). Well, she came back five minutes later to let me know that she had the manager take the drink off of my bill since I wasn't happy with it. (I'm not used to wait staff paying that much attention or even caring. I was impressed.) Throughout the meal she checked on us, updated us on our order if we were waiting on something, and was still somehow nonintrusive. She also managed to talk us into the key lime pie. Basically she went above and beyond her normal duties, and I'll definitely try to sit in her station next time I go Bahama Breeze.
I went to one of the Scottsdale Culinary Festival events yesterday. It was the "Great AZ Picnic" where they sell $1 tickets, and you walk around to different booths and exchange your tickets for various food or drink items. I enjoyed it for about 10 minutes, then the heat got to me. I didn't know where the event was, and I didn't dress properly for something being held outdoors in the Phoenix heat. The dark t-shirt/jeans combination was killing me.
There were a couple of things that we ate that were worth while. Auntie Em's Frozen Custard had a booth that served vanilla frozen custard with fresh strawberries that was pretty tasty. There was another booth by the Resort Chefs Association (or something like that) that served a "jerk chicken salad". It was cool, refreshing, and quite tasty, but I disagree with calling it jerk chicken since the chicken definitely wasn't jerk. It was spiced, but it wasn't anywhere near jerk spiciness, and they weren't the correct seasonings for jerk anyway. I did think the salad was perfect for the hot weather so I might try to make it someday. It seemed like a simple recipe. (It was a leafy green salad topped with mixture of lentils, some black beans, corn, and chopped red onion all mixed up in a vinaigrette, and that was topped with grilled chicken breast.)
That's it for the good food. There were other booths that looked like they had good items, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.
Something very rare happened this last weekend. I had a cigar that made me update my
Top 3 Cigars. (It was a real pain too. I had
to rewrite my description of #3 in addition to writing about the new cigar.) There is
definitely something to be said for the satisfaction of finding a cigar that good.
Especially considering how long it took.
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I got my car washed this weekend, and that was pretty satisfying too. It's nice to see a group of determined people taking care of your car. I'll post a picture of my squeaky clean vehicle when I find the cable that my camera uses to download pictures to the computer.
Incidentally (and this is probably all in my head), I think my rims look a lot more silver
now. I'm pretty sure that can't be the case since my car was washed when the dealership
installed the rims, but that's the way it appears to me. I'll see about getting some third
party verification.
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This week my mom found her cat, "Chance", outside dead. She thinks someone killed her.
I liked that cat. It's the only cat that ever came when I called it.
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I smoked the other OpusX cigar I had this weekend. I suggest reading about it if you ever plan on buying an OpusX. (I can't believe the OpusX cigars are as highly regarded as they are. I can't imagine my experience is completely unique.)
The Ashton Aged Maduro "No. 20" claims yet another victim. That makes 3
people (not including myself) who've been introduced to the "No. 20" that now
count it as their favorite cigar. (Tasty as hell, less than 1/3 of the price
of the cheapest OpusX I've smoked, and 1/100 the pain the in ass. Sounds
like a great deal to me.)
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I'm currently writing a short story. It'll probably take me a week to finish
it, and if it's any good I'll actually post it. (Hell, I might post it anyway.
If it's really bad, it might be worth a laugh.)
--
So today a friend got some good news so I took her to Havana Cafe to celebrate. (Havana Cafe is rapidly becoming one of my favorite restaurants.) We started with a round of mojitos (delicious rum cocktails), and appetizers of pastelitos de carne (seasoned beef wrapped in puff pastry) and empanaditas (onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, and choice of meat [chicken was our choice]) served with salsa. The pastelitos were amazing. The beef had many different flavors working for it, including raisins. The empanaditas were pretty good too, but without the salsa they would have been bland.
For lunch I had half an empareda (a Cuban sandwich of cheese, turkey, and ham) and a bowl of black bean soup. (There were a couple of sides, but they aren't worth talking about.) The sandwich was ok; I didn't care for the ham. The black bean soup was outstanding. (I have to learn how to make beans that good some day.) The other entree was masas de puerco (fried bits of pork), with fried ripe plantains. The pork bits were nice, but they seemed like they were missing something. When they were eaten with the mild sauce that was served on the side, they were quite a bit tastier. The fried plantains were very good.
Finally, we got an order of torrejas for dessert. The description read something like fried Cuban bread custard, served with a strawberry sauce, and topped with cinnamon sugar. When they came out they were very sweet and delicious, but familiar. It took a couple of bites to figure out that it was french toast. A lot lighter and fluffier than regular french toast, but definitely french toast. No complaints though since they were such a tasty variation of french toast.
Hopefully I'll be able to make it there more often (even though I might go broke eating and drinking that well).
I know, I know, but the "What Muppet Are You?" quiz was actually amusing. Besides, my result becomes more accurate every year. My cooking abilities increase while my vocabulary seems to go down... err.. decrease.
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Yuoo ere-a zee Svedeesh Cheff! |
The Monkey Show is closing for the summer. : (
Here are a few statistics that were sent in their newsletter.
| Total weeks of operation: | 20 |
| Total number of shows: | 84 [I wonder if the show where the projector blew was counted.] |
| Average attendance per show: | 12 |
| Total tickets sold: | 1008 |
| Number of "sold-out" shows: | 10 |
| Total number of people who "walked-out" before the shows ended: | 12 (Jerks!) [Jeff wrote that, not me.] |
| Total pounds of organic popcorn: | 75 [It was great!] |
| Total number of organic "Blue Sky" sodas sold: | 163 [I didn't care for the soda.] |
| Total number of video tapes sold: | 45 |
| Total number of stolen video tapes: | 1 |
| Total amount of change found in the seat cushions: | $2.10 |
| Number of mysterious stains on the furniture: | 3 |
| Strangest thing found in the seat cushions: | "D" size battery [Maybe it had something to do with 1 of the 3 mysterious stains?] |
| Number of people who were discovered "passed out" after a show: | 2 |
| Total number of articles written about the theatre: | 10 |
| Number of times the theatre was featured on TV: | 1 |
| Number of people who came to the show wanting to see real monkeys: | 4 |
| Number of people who left the show because there were no real monkeys: | 2 |
| Total number of weekly Newsletter recipients: | 467 |
A couple of things I'd like to know:
The total number of people who thought "The Disappearance of Baron Dixon" was a documentary.
The total number of people who've seen "Punk James" more than once.
The total number of people who know that Robert Anderson
(of "Punk James" fame) is a very talented painter.
The total number of people who know that Jeff, Ryan, and Suzi are all talented artists.
The total number of people who narrowly missed being considered passed out just because they
woke up right at the end of the movie.
Well, I've heard from a few people now (women included) that the rims do actually look like metal. To the women who thought they looked plastic, "You are the weakest links. Goodbye."
I'm back and alive (albeit very tired). I'll just say I had a great time for now and start writing it up.
"Italian for Beginners" is a Danish movie about a group of people who take an Italian course (for various reasons) and how it leads to changes in their lives. (I totally relate considering I was watching the movie with two people I met in Japanese class last year.) Well, the story was engaging and the cast was outstanding. It felt like you were actually watching the lives of these people. The editing was pretty good too. There was a scene where the hairdresser is washing the hair of a guy she's just met for the first time, and you can tell that she's attracted to the guy. I think it was through skillful editing, although it had to be well acted too, that you saw the attraction conveyed through her touch. The difference between how she washed the other customers hair and how she washed this guy's hair was subtle, but with the focus that was being placed on it, it appeared obvious.
The only gripe I had about the movie was the cinematography. It was the shaky, hand held variety which I found it distracting at first, but as the story sucked me in, I stopped noticing it. A very small gripe considering how much I enjoyed this movie. Besides, how many movies have a cool Lutheran pastor?
It takes me about 2 months to write about a 4 day vacation.
It seems to take me about 1½ months to write about every 2 days of vacation for longer vacations.
I'm going to Las Vegas this weekend. If there's anything worth writing about, you'll probably see it in 2 months. ; )
It takes me 4 days to eat a pound of good chocolate.
I almost never finish a pound of bad chocolate. (It gets thrown away before I finish it.)
Just a little something to break up the day.
When "Resident Evil" started out, it was actually pretty creepy and quite interesting. You had a woman who didn't know who she was or what was going on, getting taken away by a group of soldiers who weren't willing to share everything they knew. When there was mystery and a psychotic computer, the movie firmly had my interest.
Then it became a zombie movie. It was just 40 minutes of shooting things and plot holes after that. The only real redeeming quality was that Milla Jovovich was pretty sexy. That being said, it's not a good reason to see this movie, but it is entertaining. For a little while anyway.
[Believe it or not, but "Blade II" was much better.]
"Can't wait 'till this day is over.
Can't wait for this day to be done.
Can't wait, feel the end is closer.
Can't keep me holding on.
'Cause I'm drawn by feeling. The night is calling me.
I'm ready to start living where music flows free.
Take me or leave me. I am what I will be.
Live young and so free. Make this reality.
Break through and feel it, just like the first kiss.
And now you won't miss, life is [garbled] could please be this, yeah.
Midnight, the real me.
I'm shining. Oh, can't you see?
Midnight, I'm letting myself go.
I'm lost in the river. The night takes control."
-Uncut "Midnight (Marcus Intalex & S.T. Files remix)"
Simon Says Dance 2 was a kick ass party, and I'm not just saying it because Noah was throwing it. They did a really great job. You couldn't even tell that the venue changed at the last minute. (I'm not familiar with the old venue, but the bowling alley it was in was pretty cool.) Even the vibe was good (and you can't buy that). The only problem I had was that I wasn't into it. I ended up having to go by myself at the last minute and that threw me off. All the people I hadn't seen in forever were there, but most of the time they were busy doing something related to the party, or in between doing something related to the party.
The music was really good, but there were a couple of people I wish I could have seen. Ariel, because Noah's talked this guy up as a really kick ass jungle dj. Noah, because I haven't seen him since he started spinning jungle. Pastey, because I haven't seen him since he started spinning period, and he likes good party music. Ethereal, because she was pretty cool the last time I heard her. I heard Ariel's and Ethereal's sets were bad ass, but Noah and Pastey didn't get to play because the venue change reduced the number of stages one and shut the party down two hours earlier. Soon though. Very soon.
"Buffalo '66" is twisted. The story is simple, but twisted. It's about a guy who gets out of jail and kidnaps a girl to say she's his wife to impress his parents who don't even know that he was in jail. Interesting to watch most of the times and tedious at others there was enough to keep my interest. It's not a great movie, but like "The Delicate Art of the Rifle" and "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai", it's worth watching despite its lulls and faults. If that's not convincing enough, then how about Christina Ricci as a blond?
Just ate some lunch and I'm not feeling better yet. Hopefully I will later today. I forgot to mention that my car now has a license plate and rims. (Some people have told me that the rims look like they're plastic, but they're women so whatever.) I also forgot to mention that I got a box of really good See's Candy for Easter, saw an interesting movie, and I drank bad milk and lived.
This was a pretty busy weekend. After months of not going to a show, I see two in the same weekend. I saw Dieselboy, Goku, Emile, and Technical Itch with MC Jakes. I'll write about Simon Says Dance 2 later today when I feel more up to writing, but I did write small reviews of the djs. I also wrote a review of the Padron Anniversary "Imperial" that I smoked this weekend.
I need to eat some lunch.
