Fresh Fish

I went to the supermarket this weekend to buy some fish for dinner. I've been trying to eat more fish because it is healthier and less fatty than the other land roving animals (although it doesn't mean that I'm going to turn down a side of ribs.) I was appalled at the poor selection of fish at the supermarket. Even at my favorite fish market, the selection of fish was very poor. I have decided, instead, to try to buy fish directly from the source. I am going to take advantage of our proximity to Half Moon Bay and make a trip out to the fishing docks and buy some fish directly from the fisherman. I'll let you know how my outing goes ... TBD

Peeping Tom

I am such a peeping tom. I derive great pleasure from looking into the lives of others . My latest obsession is watching my target through a webcam. Who am I watching? Get your head out of the gutters people. I am watching Coco of course! We got a webcam to watch her movements throughout the day and it is highly addicting. I can sit and watch it for long periods of time, just seeing what she finds to do to entertain herself when we are away during the day.

This is what she is doing right now:

It appears she's just sleeping in the corner. Ah well, not that interesting but you just have to catch it at the right moments when she is moving around her pen

Edit: Ok, here is a better photo of her playing around

Donkeys

Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen fame has a penchant for calling all the contestants donkeys whenever they make a dumb mistake. I've always thought him a bit peculiar for using that terminology but that may be a normal British colloquialism? Perhaps donkey is one of the few acceptable words which can be broadcast over network TV, as opposed to calling the contestant a dumb ass or some other choice vulgar words.

True to the donkey-nature of people, I found it really funny to find this site http://www.stumblingdonkey.com/. It is a website about all the happy hour spots in SF. You may be a donkey in Gordon Ramsey's eyes but at least you know how to find the local watering hole. :)

BBQ Pork Buns - 叉燒包

There's been a huge uproar in the Asian community ever since the article about cardboard buns came out. Nearly everyone has heard about it and everyone is incredulous, myself included.

On a related topic, I have been looking for my favorite brand of frozen BBQ pork buns (cha siu bau) in the supermarkets and I haven't found it. It looks like there has been some distribution problems because it's been a few months now and the Weichun brand of BBQ pork buns is no where to be found.

What's the solution? Well I don't feel like venturing out to another sub-standard brand of buns -- they might contain cardboard in it! -- and I'm getting tired of finding other things to eat for breakfast. The only thing left to do is make them myself. I made them once, a long time ago when I was in college. It's time to pull out the recipe book and try to make them again. At least with this batch (which probably makes like 30+ buns) I'll know that there isn't cardboard in it. With that many BBQ pork buns I'm sure that I'll have lots to spare -- who wants to come eat them with me? ^_^

Misbehaving Baby Deserved to be Kicked off Plane

The media has turned the whole story about a woman kicked off a plane because of her baby into a huge deal. The short story is that a woman's baby kept saying "bye bye plane" and the woman refused to make the baby stop saying those words. The stewardess then told the woman that she had to take the baby and get off the flight.

I completely agree with what happened. How many times have you had to endure a long flight with some disruptive kid or baby kicking and screaming during the whole flight? It is really annoying and you want the flight to be over as soon as possible so that you can escape from a kid who is making a huge scene. When the mother refuses to try to make her kid behave, then the mother is at fault. Flying on a plane is a privilege, not a right. Just as when you go into a store, the store has the right to refuse service to certain patrons. The airlines, in my opinion, were refusing the woman the right to service.

While "bye bye plane" seems innocuous enough, it could have serious ramifications in today's world. Now that 9/11 has happened everyone is a bit more paranoid and anything which is said which can be construed as related to terrorism will be heavily scrutinized.

I don't feel bad for the woman and I am actually sickened by how she doesn't understand that her lack of consideration for others caused her to be booted from a flight.

Airlines won't let you have liquids on the flights; do you really think that you will be allowed on the flight if you or members of your party are causing a scene?

Jamba Juice Secret Menu

We all know that In and Out has a secret menu. They don't try to hide it and you can find plenty of references to it on the web (I always like my burgers animal style.) I was just made aware of Jamba Juice's seret menu. O.o Yes, Jamba Juice has a secret menu of smoothies. Whoa..

* White Gummi: peach juice + soymilk + lime, raspberry, orange, and pineapple sherberts + one scoop of mango
* Pink Star (tastes like the pink starburst): lemonade + soymilk + raspberry sherbert + frozen yogurt + sorbet + fresh strawberries
* Strawberry Shortcake
* Sour Patch Kid: lemonade + lime, pineapple, raspberry, and orange sherbert; fresh blueberries
* Fruity Pebbles: soymilk + orange, raspberry, pineapple, and lime sherbert
* PB & J Sandwich: soymilk + frozen yogurt + strawberries + blueberries
* Tropical Tango
* Pacific Passion
* Now and Later
* Berry Depressing
* Apple Pie
* Skittles
* Lemonade Lightnin'
* Raspberry Dreamin'

If you do some research on the web you will find there are even more than the ones I've listed above. I think I'm going to have to make a pit stop over at Jamba Juice to see if any of the secret menu items are worth my time (and calories)

Weekend Warriors - Part I

We had a very productive weekend. Ming wired the entire house with Cat5e (internet) cable and coax (TV.) I'm so proud of him. He did a lot of research beforehand and this past weekend he put it all to use and ran a ton of wires everywhere. We now have internet and TV abilities in every room.


Ming in his work gear.


Ming fishing. Note the coax cable at the end of his fishing line.

The job looks totally professional and he did an excellent job. I was his helper and did little things here and there. I helped hook up the cat5e cable and did some hooking up of the patch panel.


The connectors in the wall


The patch panel which is ultra neat and tidy

Ming also put all the stereo speakers into the walls. Now we have speaker wire in our walls rather than running everywhere on the floor. Yay! One day when we upgrade to some Definitive speakers we'll be all ready wire-wise

This was weekend warrior part 1 because it was mainly Ming doing his thang. Part 2 will be me *gasp* sewing. I've decided to sew some placemats for our new dining table.

Ratatouille Recap

I've finally seen Ratatouille and, unfortunately, I must say that I am disappointed by it. It reminded me too much of the Incredibles and did not seem like it would appeal to kids.

The drawing of the humans in Ratatouille is exactly the same style as that used in the incredibles. In all of Pixar's other movies the humans look different due to different styles of art being used and it has always made the characters refreshing and easily identifiable. If I were to take one of the human characters from Ratatouille and place him in the Incredibles, I'd have no idea that that character wasn't in the original Incredibles movie.

The antagonist is always the same. The chef in Ratatouille contains the following characteristics which match that of the antagonist in the Incredibles: short, arrogant, and evil(a given.) The continuous usage of short characters (also with Edna Mo in the Incredibles) is getting really tiring. Brad Bird, the director of both movies, is starting to lose his edge of creativity and is re-using the same concepts over and over again.

The beginning intro of Ratatouille also contains a small flash segment of the characters. In the Incredibles they did the same thing with introducing the various supers.

Overall, the movie seemed to be geared towards foodies rather than towards young children. I consider myself a semi-foodie (I try to keep up with what's happening in the food world) but even I was a bit tired of all the excruciating detail they went into for the food. Yes, I get it. You guys did your research about food but stop talking about the food and get back to the plot of the movie! I am sure most of whats in the movie went over the top of kid's heads (do they really care that ratatouille is considered a peasant's dish?)

I am sadly underwhelmed by Rataouille. It is true that I had high expectations of the movie but not so high as to be unattainable -- Pixar has done so well with its other movies and I've always been impressed by the uniqueness of each.

If you must see this movie, wait until it comes out on video

Kwik-e-Mart

The Kwik-e-Mart is in Springfield Mountain View. 7-Eleven and the Simpsons have partnered together to transform several stores into Kwik-e-Marts. I was really excited to find out that my neighborhood 7-Eleven will become a Kwik-e-Mart.



I plan to make a pilgramage there and have a
- pink donut with sprinkles
- squishee
- Krusty-os cereal

I will pretend that neither of the aforementioned items have any calories. ^_~

This marketing gimmic is one of the more innovative ones and I'm glad to hear that people have a sense of humor about it. It's a great marketing tactic and shouldn't offend anyone (it isn't as though the cashiers of the 7-Elevens sound like Apu.)

Transformers the Movie -- Too Commercial?

I was a kid in the 80s and, as everyone else, grew up with Transformers. I used to have a lot of them and my brother and I would play with them for hours. We used to watch Transformers on TV. Transformers, like GI Joe, was a childhood favorite toy.

With the CGI version of the Transformers movie coming out (the cartoon version of the Transformers movie came out in the 80s) I am definitely looking forward to it. I read an article on yahoo however that has made me start to have second thoughts. GM is the sponsor for the movie and they have "premium" mentions in the movie. Does this mean that my beloved autobots and decepticons will basically be nothing but a 2 hour commercial advertising GM cars? I hope not!

These days it seems like advertisers are wrangling their way into everything. I love watching Top Chef but this season seems to be nothing but dropping sponsors names. It gets very distrating hearing Kenmore Kitchen and storing things in Gladware over and over again.

I hope the Transformers movie won't suffer from this blatant commercialization and will be a respectable movie.