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tomdo98@aol.com |
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Archives
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July 2007 Archives |
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07/31/2007 Pacific Star Restaurant and I Recognized One of the Patrons
Living in Northwest Austin for 10 years, I've passed by a sign that says Pacific Star Restaurant about 1000 times or more. My GF and I decided to try someplace new to eat so we went there last Sunday.
In my mind I pictured the decor would be like Red Lobster or something. It's actually not even that fancy. It's probably either as fancy or less fancy than Long John Silver's but you do get a waiter
We got the crawfish etouffee and the stuffed halibut. The etouffee was infested with bell peppers which my GF normally hates but she powered through it because mixed in with the other flavors, it was relatively mild. For frozen crawfish tails they weren't bad. They were good sized and tender. The halibut was generally a pretty good choice. It's hard to go wrong with that crab cake like stuffing. My GF was a little scared of the halibut because it was the whole fish and therefore it had a lot of bones. I believe most American restaurants filet fish in such a way that there are no bones.
What was actually more interesting about that place other than the food is that I recognized one of the patrons but I couldn't quite place who he was. I find it interesting how the mind works sometimes. Often times, all the information is in your brain but you have to find the right path to it. Sometimes, to not make yourself go crazy, if you can't place the person right away, you might tell yourself, well, it probably just LOOKS like a person I know but I don't really know this person. But then you think, percentage wise, I rarely forget a face.
It wasn't coming to me so I decided to try and forget it. Hours go by and maybe 3 times an hour I tried to figure out where I'd seen this person. I tried to make new neural patterns by going through all the places that I've been. Mandy says the only place she hasn't been without me is Jujitsu and Pool but I've already gone through those venues in my mind and this guy isn't from those plaecs. I then try to figure it out with an even more vague method by just going through emotions. I say out loud to my gf, "I feel like he' s a nice guy. Real helpful." That sounded completely kooky to me so I didn't feel like that was working either.
All of the sudden, as I'm about 1.5 hours into the movie Zodiac, I yell out, "The liquor store!" Pretty sick huh? I recognize the guy because he's the clerk in my neighborhood liquor store. Helpful, nice, that's him. I was there just a few days ago to buy some rum and a bottle of Clos De Bois white wine. |
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07/27/2007 Amateur Hour At Local Hot Dog Eating Competition
I wanted to do a documentary about the creation of a competitive eater from the very first time they tried to eat as much as they could to winning local circuits and beyond.
I thought perhaps I knew a guy who had a gift. Everyone might know a guy like this. It's a guy who will order and finish humongous entrees at restaurants and maybe two bowls of chips and salsa. It's the guy who will not only be a member of the clean plate club, but will actually eat the food off of other people's plate. He's not quite the "are you going to finish that guy?" He's more the guy that you could offer him leftover food off your plate and he'd eat it. Just today, my friends and I went to Luby's. He just got a plate full of turkey, stuffing, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes. He was delightfully surprised that he could get mashed potatoes, stuffing, and mac and cheese at no extra price since a normal meal just comes with two sides. He thought his stuffing was one of the sides but I explained to him that it's part of the turkey and doesn't count as a side. After he finished all of his foods, he sits there thinking that he's sort of full. My friend didn't finish her chicken marsala because she thought it was too sour so she offered it to him. He declined but to be funny she just puts it on his plate. He finishes it. So that's Todd, big eater. But is he merely above average or something special?
A few months ago, I tried to goad him into seeing how many hot dogs he could eat. I just wanted to see what his potential was and if he actually has the gift. At first, he's sort of into it when this other guy said he'd compete with him. Later on, Todd completely backs off and said it's kind of gross and would only do it if he could eat turkey dogs and wheat buns. At this point I'm thinking, whatever. What competitive eater sits around worrying about calories and eating healthy of all things.
We all kind of drop the subject until the Fourth of July came around. I don't know if he had a change of heart due to the patriotic holiday or because the world famous Nathen's hot dog eating competition was about to take place but he agreed to do a hot dog eating competition as long as we found him some competitors. We found him three other guys who were basically just going to be token competitors. No one thought any of them had a chance.
I video taped the competition so check back later to www.tommybear.com for the video conclusion. I'll post it once I finish doing the editing.
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07/25/2007 The Restaurant Leaf and My Salad Has As Many Calories As A Big Burrito
Sometimes I'm not sure when to use the word restaurant. Normally I would normally only use the word restaurant when I'm describing a place that has waiters and yet McDonald's will say, "their family of restaurants." McDonald's certainly does not have waiters.
My co-workers want to go to this place LEAF all the time for lunch. I'm getting a little sick of it but I'm generally kind of easy going when it comes to food. It's kind of like a Subway for salads. You can either get a pre-designed salad or make your own. The pre-designed salads might be a Cobb salad that will have traditional ingredients like bacon and eggs for instance (you can check out their pre-mades here). Since salads can be such a subjective, personal thing, we all like to make our own. You get a salad maker assigned to you and you start off by deciding what sort of lettuce you want.
Your lettuce base selections are: Romaine, Spring Mix, Baby Spinach, Cabbage Mix
Then you can choose six other ingredients. Today, I chose eggs, bacon, cherry tomatoes, candied pecans, goat cheese, and avocado (the avocado is cut from a fresh one right in front of you.) I added Italian Meats (tasted kind of like hammy salami) for $2.50 more and topped it off with a strawberry balsamic dressing. (View the entire selection of choices here.) This is all mixed up for you in a very generously sized bowl.
I think my co-workers like to go because it feels kind of light and healthy and to them. Maybe their salads are but my salad wasn't healthy at all. I have two different meats in mine (bacon and Italian meats) and a bunch of that goat cheese. It probably already had as much ham and cheese as a Philly cheese steak sandwich. I think the avocado is high in fat and the hard boiled eggs just keep the calorie count up. If I had to guess in a non scientific way, I'd say my salad was at least 900 calories.
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07/24/2007 I Was A Teenage Intramural Bench Press Champion and My Max
In college, all of the sponsored jff (just for fun) sports were called intramural sports. Those were sports anyone could play and it covered all skill levels and a whole spectrum of activities. It covered anything from softball to badminton. I've never been really good at any sport. I could always play and be scrappy and aggressive but I was never a standout at anything.
One day I noticed a posting for an intramural bench press competition. Now that was one thing I thought I was above average on. I always felt like I had a good weight to strength ratio but I had no idea how I stacked up against other people. I didn't look like Gunther on the world's strongest man competition or something but I wasn't sure I needed to be when I read exactly what kind of competition this was.
This wasn't a straight max out competition like you might see in the Olympics. This was only for the bench press and it was a competition to see how many times you could bench press your body weight. I had no idea how many times I could press my body weight, I wasn't even sure exactly how much I weighed.
I decided to do some "training" and see if I could execute a good number of reps. I checked my weight, 160. My friend Steve and I headed to the UT's rec center and I gave it my first try. I benched 160 lbs about 27 times with no pressure. I decided it wasn't too shabby and trained for about another week.
The day of the competition was the first and only time I've ever "cut weight" in my entire life. I didn't really cut weight. I just didn't drink anything and barely ate anything until the afternoon when the competition was about to take place. I got my weight from 160 all the way down to 155.
Since I had been training at 160 lbs during the week, I thought I would really be able to excel pressing 155. It turns out that weight cutting didn't help me any. They grouped people in 10 lb weight classes so I was grouped with people that weighed 160 lbs. What was also weird about that grouping is everyone from 150-160 had to bench 160 lbs. I didn't think that was fair or made any sense. I think if you're 150, you should be allowed to bench 150 but still compete with 160 lb people. At least choose the medium and make everyone bench 155. But it's not like I was about to complain.
So I went first. In training I could do 27 reps. Here in actual competition, I think I was trying really hard to have good form so they wouldn't dock me any points and I ended up only doing 25. The next closest person to me could only 23.
It was my only intramural "championship" of my college career. I don't think my team won a single game in flag football and I think we only won like 1 or 2 games on my basketball team. The best thing about being an intramural champion is that they take your picture, maybe put it on a wall in the gym, and give you a t-shirt that says intramural champion. I still have that hideous, oversized t-shirt today but still proud that I won it.
I guess you could say my bench press career never went anywhere. It pretty much ended right there. The strongest I ever got was about 4 years ago when I got my maximum bench press up to 350 lbs. That's when I realized my body just couldn't take that kind of strain. Either that or I just needed to drink more milk. I remember around that time I could just feel my joints hurting more and more after every workout. One time it even felt like my forearm bones wanted to snap. Enough was enough. What was the point? What do I really need anyways? All anyone needs is functional strength and to maintain muscles and weight that's optimal for their bodies.
Now when I bench press, I keep it heavy and steady but I never try to increase it by much anymore. I'm just a regular guy now for away from the cameras of bench press glory. |
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07/23/2007 The Bob Bullock Museum In Austin Texas Is Really Boring
I took art lessons for a number of years in Fort Worth in the local museum when I was middle in school. It was in the Museum of Science and History. It's actually kind of fun to take art lessons in a museum because you can use the museum's pieces as subjects in your art work. They also changed their exhibits all the time so there was always something new you could use. I remember drawing or painting wolves, samurais, dinosaurs, and Texas artifacts to name a few things featured in that museum. I would often get dropped off there before classes actually started and I think I remember finding that museum pretty interesting and fun most of the time. One of the things that made the museum interesting were the different types of exhibits. I mean they did a whole exhibit on wolves once and had really cool stuffed wolves and ravens in various environments. They even added a werewolf to talk about the mythology surrounding wolves. Even their permanent collection was pretty cool. Their big piece was the T-rex bones fighting the brontosaurus bones.
The Bob Bullock Museum in Austin isn't nearly as interesting. There were no werewolves or dinosaurs to be found. All they had were random things like this griphook.
Know what a grip hook is? Care? Me neither. (In the early 1900s, Daniel Webster Martin developed the Martin Grip Hook, a device to assist with loading logs onto a truck.) The museum was littered with boring little things like this that came with pages and pages of words to read. The Bob Bullock museum had exhibits about the oil boom (yawn), some Indian tribe, and settlers or something. There was also a science exhibit where they had a big rocket engine in the room. Not as exciting as you might think. I just couldn't get behind anything.
That museum was actually so boring that I want to go to a fun museum like the one I went to when I was a kid just to prove to myself there are some museums that are actually fun.
Dinosaur in the museum of Science and History in Forth Worth, TX.
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07/18/2007 Nerdy Stuff Blog: Gif Animator
So I try to learn new tech stuff now and again. That's how I was able to do that super basic animation of Lisa and I dancing below in Flash format. That little flash animation got me thinking when I saw this guy's Myspace profile image of Soul Glo. II thought I'd try my hand at making a little .gif animation image of own. An original!
So here's the guy's profile pic. You might remember the fake commercial from Eddie Murphy's "Coming To America."
Here's my crack at it using existing photos I have. Don't be surprised if I start taking pictures of you in succession. My gff and her bff doing the waterloo thing.
Jowlie
Thang getting a beer
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07/17/2007 I Thought I'd Mesmerize You With Our Dancing
Lisa and I practicing for dancing on Broadway. You gotta work on those extensions.
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07/17/2007 Watching Middle East News Is Like Watching a Boring Michael Bay Movie
I watch Headline News on CNN every weekday morning and every almost every day I see some sort of explosion, someone shooting someone, or some sort of conflict in the Middle East. I can't even pay attention most of the time when these things come on because there's been so much action over there for years that I can't keep any of it straight. Maybe something's going on with the Palestinians, Hamas, Al Jazeera or something. I usually either glaze over or look at the internet or something when Middle East news comes on.
Sadly enough, it barely registers as reality to me. It's like I'm watching a really boring Michael Bay movie with a bunch of explosions that aren't exciting to me because I've been completely desensitized by it. If I think about it, I of course know that those explosions are causing real harm to real people but I'm in my cushy surroundings here where there aren't bullets whizzing by. I do not take for granted how safe I am here compared to the Middle East but it doesn't mean that I necessarily care about what's going on over there.
Does that make me an irresponsible or dumb American? Maybe. In contrast, I was very interested in the troubles England has been having lately with terrorist mainly because I can empathize better with the English. England looks a lot more like America than the deserts do in Iraq. Deserts? I only know of the deserts in Arizona and Nevada. I don't know anything about people who live in deserts. |
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07/16/2007 Be A Restaurant Critic Like the Guy in Ratatouille - The Steak Review
After watching a lot of Top Chef (Bravo reality cooking show) and Ratatouille (that has a restaurant critic as its chief nemesis) I feel like I could be a restaurant critic. Well not really but I know what I like.
That critic in the cartoon Ratatouille made some good points about what it means to be a critic. A good critic, no matter what industry they're critiquing, must be very selective in what they like. If they like everything, then they're just a simple oaf and why would I listen to the opinion of someone who likes everything? When a critic only likes 1 out of 10 films for instance, then I know there's a good chance that one film is worth watching.
I normally like most things that I eat and have a pretty high tolerance to mediocre food but I could also hold food to a higher standard if I needed to for the sake of being a critic. Of course most restaurants I go to are pretty low brow and cheap, but I don't exactly have the wallet to evaluate high end French cuisine or something so I'll just have to evaluate the common man's cuisine. Cuisine $30 and under.
For this little blog blurb I think I'll just evaluate some steak places around here in Austin.
Outback Steakhouse - (11600 Research Blvd) This is by far my favorite steak place for more reasons than just the steak. For one, it's cheaper than its snootier counterparts but still delivers a tasty steak that is always cooked the way I like it (medium rare). I always get the 12 oz ribeye and my gf always gets the 7 oz filet. Since the ribeye is fattier cut of meat, it can always be hit or miss as you go from steak place to steak place because some places will have ribeye that seems to have more fat than meat. A filet, on the other hand, should have almost no fat at all and should be extremely tender. Since you pay more for the filet and get less meat, it better be right on the money. Outback seems to always get our cuts of meat right. Outback also gets points for being very booth friendly. Almost the entire restaurant is comprised of booth seating except for the large party tables. For one on one dining, nothing beats a booth. With dinner you get a very good salad that is made up of fresh lettuce (which I used to take for granted until other restaurants on this list seemed to serve me lettuce right from the core of the iceberg). I always get the baked potato with everything on it and it comes with a savory, salty skin that I find myself often eating. The bread (Honey Wheat Bushman bread ) comes out hot and fresh and is always a delicious compliment to the food. The atmosphere is upbeat without being obnoxious. For a casual steak it's always Outback for me, mate.
Houston's - (2408 W Anderson Ln) - My meal at Houston's started off with much fanfare as my GF and I thought the tasty Caesar salad was an omen of delicious things to come. For a minute there I thought, this is how people just a little richer than me live. You pay a little more money and you get a lot more quality. Oddly enough, the steak and the fish of the day, the halibut, was grossly overpriced and under-qualified. The fish was about $30 and very tasteless. Maybe that's how halibut is normally prepared but I found myself salting the thing like a smoker with no taste buds. What I also found very strange was the $30, 7 ounce filet was very fatty. If I wanted fat I would have ordered a porterhouse from some truck stop. While eating there, I found myself craving the simplicities of the Outback chain.
Salt Grass - (10614 Research Blvd) - Has a casual atmosphere similar to Outback but with a country feel rather than an Australian feel. The steaks have never been disappointing. Always a good alternative to Outback.
Texas Land and Cattle - 1101 S Mo Pac Expy - Haven't been here in a while. I can't remember anything except the enormous sweet potato you can get as your side.
Hoffbrau Steakhouse - (613 W 6th St) - Like a steak fast food place. The cheap cuts of sirloin are swimming in a puddle of water that some might mistake for juice.
Dan McKlusky's - 10000 Research Blvd (closed but the one downtown might still be open) - Used to be my go to place for romantic steak dinners. The one up north is closed.
Steak and Ale - (2211 W Anderson Ln) One of the first steak places I can remember being able to afford. Can't remember if I like it or not.
Old San Francisco Steak House (closed) - I used to love this place. They'd start out by bringing you a block of cheese as big as your head. This big block of cheese is also reused and every time they take it to a new table, the slice of a bit off the top layer. This place used to have people dressed up like they were in a saloon in the wild wild west and it even had a girl swing in an enormously long swing back and forth every half or so to ring a bell practically attached to the ceiling.
Sirloin Stockade -(1723 N I H 35) Buffet with steak. Where PO people eat.
Veranda - (2525 W Anderson Ln) - This place had the worst Caesar salad I've ever eaten. The lettuce was white and bitter and swimming in a lot of water. The filet was tough as nails and the salmon was dry as a bone. |
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07/12/2007 Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics Needs Some Work and Wayne Brady
I thought FOX's "Don't Forget the Lyrics" had a great premise and was going to be a good show. It was a show where people who can't sing would sing and then fill in the missing lyrics. The premise was so good that Cyndi tried to mimic the show by singing parts of a song and then having the other person finish it. I realized right away that I wasn't very good at it because I usually just make up lyrics instead of looking them up when I can't hear what the artist is singing . It's also hard to conjure up a song a cappella with no music or a guide track. So that game wasn't very fun. I thought the show would be better.
"White people love Wayne Brady." That's what Dave Chappelle has been saying for years. I think Wayne Brady is funny as hell for some reason and I haven't even seen him in that many things. So you have karaoke, which I love, and Wayne Brady, which I like. That seems like a formula for good fun.
Here's Wayne Brady doing the funniest thing I've ever seen him do. This segment is normally longer but this is all I could find on YOUTUBE.com.
The show seems to work better in formula than in execution. For the premiere episode, they apparently handpicked a pretty, outgoing girl to be their first contestant. The prettiness sort of dilutes her obnoxiousness but I'm sure they were trying to find the biggest clown out there who really knows lyrics and melodies. As far as this show is concerned she did. She hammed it to easy songs like Joy To the World, Material Girl, and Walk Like an Egyptian. My GF and I played the game ourselves by pausing the TIVO and then filling in the blanks on paper. She lost when she said the waitresses "mopped the floor" instead of "crossed the floor" during the Walk Like an Egyptian portion.
We both had no clue when the Jackson Five's ABC came on. I don't know a single piece of lyric on that other than "ABC, It's easier than 123." So the way the game works is that they have the contestant sing and sing until the music stops and then there are a bunch of blank spaces on the screen where words are supposed to be. There was one part where they had the girl sing for like 2 verses. I believe there was even a bit of a musical interlude. I like watching non professional karaoke singers as much as the next person, but I like to see a lot of different people. The FOX show had just this one girl on the entire show and had her singing songs way too long.
The show needs to be a lot sharper. It needs to feature a lot of different people in a single episode and needs to have people that are not only really outgoing but also people who might be really shy and quiet as well to mix up the dynamics. I'd like to see shy people break out of their shell to try and win a million dollars. It's also not necessary to have the people single more than half a verse.
Wayne Brady didn't have much to work with on the show. He couldn't really sing like he does on Whose Line Is It Anyways? Once in a while they would show him mouth the words. Not so funny. There was another bit where he pulled someone from the audience to dance with while the singer sang, but since Wayne and this guest wasn't dancing in unison, it wasn't very funny.
If the show doesn't tighten up pretty soon, it won't be on the air for long.
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07/10/2007 11 Quickfire Movie Reviews
Reno 911 ** - Kind of funny if you like the series. Sort of funny if you've never seen the series. Not any better than the episodes on Comedy Central.
Breach *** - Based on a true story about a wannabe FBI agent (Ryan Phillipe) trying to catch a traitorous agent (Chris Cooper) in the act. Chris Cooper shines like he always does and Phillipe is adequate as the hero. There are some true tense moments in settings as plain as your office cubicle.
Fantastic Four **1/2 - Not a bad inclusion in the movie, comic book genre. It's definitely better than Ghost Rider. Michael Chiklis's the Thing creeps me out. The fact that a man encased in rock with a booming gravelly voice can have a girlfriend is really silly. Alba hasn't looked very good to me since Idle Hands. The dynamics of the foursome as a dysfunctional family is amusing and the introduction of the Silver Surfer is kind of cool.
Evan Almighty 1/2 - Steve Carell is really dialing it in in this semi-biblical tale. The movie is actually EXACTLY like the SANTA CLAUS (starring Tim Allen) except instead of Allen trying not to be Clause, Carrell is trying not to be Noah. Many of the same plot gags are present in both movies. In Clause, Allen's hair turns white and he can't get rid of his beard and gut. In Almighty, Carell's hair turns white and long and he too can't get rid of his beard or biblical clothes. It's one of those movies where there's a character behaving like such a lunatic you wonder why the paddy wagon didn't pull up earlier.
Ocean's 13 *1/2 - Who's double crossing whom and what fancy gadget are they going to use, blah blah blah. Who really cares anymore?
Shrek the Third ** - Better than Shrek 2 but there's nothing like the original Shrek. Instead of an edgy ogre, Shrek has become Raymond-like as he tries to juggle his wife, a kid on the way, and his buddy pal Donkey. Pretty pleasant movie with enough laughs to keep you interested.
Hot Fuzz ** - Who doesn't love dry dry dry English humor mixed with a touch of physical comedy? Me neither. I thought Sean of the Dead was fantastic but I think I've seen one too many cop spoofs. Naked Gun or Loaded Weapon, anyone? I'm just really sick of buddy cop movies and I guess this is supposed to make fun of them but in the end, it's just another buddy cop movie.
The Astronaut Farmer no stars - This might me the worst movie I've seen this year. Let me break down this plot for you in a few sentences. A man (Billy Bob Thorton) mortgages his house and 32 acres of land so he can build a full size rocket in his backyard. It appears he's building this rocket because of some guilt that occurred when his dad died and because he got kicked out NASA or something. The man is married and has two young children and is going to lose his house and land just so he can launch a full size rocket from his backyard. Just so he can show that you should follow your dreams and let nothing stop you! This is the most destructive behavior I've seen since the Pursuit of Happyness where Will Smith makes his kid live in a shelter just so he can gamble on some internship. This movie almost stirs up anger questions like, Why would his wife let him spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a spaceship that might kill him. Arrrrgg!
The Hoax ***1/2 - Now this is a good movie that is based on a true story. It's about a man who gambles on the fact the Howard Hughes was so withdrawn from the public that he wouldn't even bother to denounce a fake authorized autobiography about himself. This man, Clifford Irving, went so far as to record fake interviews and have his wife try to cash a check written to Hughes at a Swiss Bank. The lengths this man went to to complete his hoax is unbelievable.
Art School Confidential * - Movie started off pretty good as we follow a kid leaving high school and watch him as he struggles through art college. The movie takes a strange turn when we find out there is a serial murderer in town. The movie would have been a lot better to me if it didn't include the stupid crime drama portion and if it just focused on the awkward kid trying to find his style in the world of fine arts.
The Proposition ***1/2- Don't be turned off by this movie's western look. Here's the proposition: Guy Pierce and his little brother have been captured by the Popo. The PoPo says, we'll give you a pardon if you kill your villainous older brother. In the meantime, we'll keep your little brother here. What's a middle kid to do? Guy Pierce delivers a scintillating performance.
American Dreamz *- I had low expectations when I was watching this movie but apparently I didn't lower them enough. Hugh Grant spoofs Simon Cowell and American Idol in this unwatchable movie that also stars Mandy Moore.
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07/09/2007 Me in the 90s
In the 90's I learned that Vietnamese people like gold. Not just gold, but 18k gold. We find that 14k is just not yellow enough. My mother got me my first gold necklace when I was in middle school. In high school I wore a gold necklace with a cross. I crushed my cross by bench pressing on it. It was hollow and kind of cheap. Later on, I replaced it with a solid cross that had haysuess on it.
I kind of got crazy with gold once I started making a lot more money than what I was used to. I think I felt like it was like a status symbol or something. It was during those crazy dot com times and I guess I wanted to flaunt my new paycheck like all those dot com people were doing.
Let's run down the gold I used to wear on a daily basis while I was consulting. An 18k gold rope chain with a jade Buddha. An 18k gold ID bracelet in a thick herringbone style. An $1800 gold Tag Heuer watch. And a thick as your knuckle gold University of Texas class ring.
Almost as soon as I got off the road and stopped consulting, someone stole 2 pieces from my gold collection. My fancy watch and my class ring were stolen when my car got busted into. I actually ordered a replacement class ring but I couldn't get the same design that I had back in 1997 so it never really felt like my old class ring. I stopped wearing that thing completely. I tried to go to EBAY to get the exact same watch that I had before but I got outbidded on different auctions at least 10 times. I'm sure the watch that was stolen from me got on Ebay. In the end I had to get a lower class of watch (a Gucci watch.) It doesn't have the same cache but I guess it's still a nice watch. I stopped wearing the ID bracelet and the necklace for a while now. My mom had gotten me that jade Buddha when she was in Vietnam so I tried wearing it for a while. I had to stop wearing it because I got so many comments like "Are you Buddhist?" I am not Buddhist. I just thought it was a pretty piece of jewelry. Maybe people thought I was trying to push a religion on them.
So the only gold I wear now is my Gucci watch. But it's more to tell time than for showing off. It's not like it's very expensive or anything. I might have to replace it with a silver watch. Even though MONEX thinks gold is a good investment, I know almost no one who has any gold jewelry. People have white gold, silver, and platinum these days.
Gold diagram
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07/06/2007 September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2002
Let's play the game of "Where were you on Sept 11, 2001?" It's sort of like of our generation's where were you when JFK got shot? It's one of those events where everyone in America knew exactly where they were when they found out about the attacks and it's something that no one could have possibly missed. You can miss something like the earthquakes during the Oakland World Series but this wouldn't miss your radar. Maybe the Amish found out a little late since they don't have TV or radio but I'm sure it came down the grape vine ultra fast.
On 9/11/2001, I was working in San Jose, California at the time as a consultant. I was based out of Austin, TX where I still live. California has a 3 hour time difference from New York so that means I was still in bed when all this went down. I turned on the television in my Double Tree hotel room to see the images of the smoking twin towers. Both towers had already been hit. I still needed to go to work so at the time I didn't really know what was going on. I wanted to sit there and watch the news but I figured I could get more info at work from the web. What's sort of interesting about that is I went to my normal source for news, Yahoo.com, and all they had was plain text on their site with some news about the twin towers. Nothing at all like the cluttered Yahoo page that I'm used to. Not a single piece of graphic or links to anything else. I don't even think their famous search feature was up for a while. No one at work could be very productive that day. We just all stood around talking and saying things like "I heard this happened and I heard that happened. I heard they took 20 planes. I heard they shot down a plane in Pennsylvania." My employers sent us home after an hour and me back to my hotel room. The only thing I did that day and night was watch the news over and over. I think a friend of mine was actually trying to bug me to go out and get something to eat. I didn't want to go anywhere and miss any of the news coverage.
(My consultant buddies pictured 9-11-2002)
The next day I remember looking at the skies wondering what I'd do if a plane came barreling down at me or into the building where I worked. Of course every airport in America was shut down 9/12/2001. There wasn't a lot of activity at work the next day either. Everyone was going over escape routes, fire drills, and hypothetical disaster situations. Being a consultant that traveled 100% of the time, I would take two flights every single week. One flight on Monday morning and one flight on Thursday. If anything else was going to go down in the US, I wanted to be stuck at home with my friends and in my own pad and not stuck on the road in some dank hotel room (the room was actually very nice and came with fresh baked cookies.) That means I wanted to fly out on my normally scheduled flight on Thursday which was the first day the airport was scheduled to reopen.
Flying out was crazy that day. The security lines were wrapped around the airport. They also had some really weird rules once you got on the plane. I remember trying to be really obedient and not cause any disturbances. One of the rules they had on the plane was you could not approach the cockpit at anytime. All front bathrooms were closed and there was only a small period of time during the middle of the flight where you could get up at all. They basically did not want anyone out of their seat during the entire 2.5 hour flight if possible. I was glued to my seat and was really antsy the entire flight. I wanted to take a nap to make the time go by but I felt like I needed to stay awake in the event some terrorist showed themselves and I would need to do a group tackle or something. Of course nothing happened and I made it home safe and sound.
On September 11, 2002, I was in Princeton, New Jersey. To show just how American and courageous we were, a group of us consultants decided to drive up to the World Trade Center site. We were going to show them that we weren't scared of you crazy terrorists! By the time we got there, we had missed most of the "festivities" because we arrived after the president had already left. There were still an army of cops there though. It looked as if the city had declared martial law because it seemed like there were a flood of cops and cop cars everywhere you looked. The city wasn't too tense although I think that most of the people in American wasn't sure when the other shoe would drop. But then I think most of us thought that it would be pretty silly of terrorists to strike on a day that has everyone on the highest alert.
We made our way to the World Trade Center site but there wasn't anything to see. The site was completely cleared out by 2002 and there was huge fence surrounding it. It just looked like a neatly dug hole at that point ready for some fresh construction. One of the things that I did find very interesting was the area of where both those mammoth buildings stood wasn't very large. I guess I imagined some huge, expansive foundation but instead, it looked like those buildings were erected in a very efficient, slim manner in the middle of a very compact city.
I wanted to take some pictures at the site but thought it would be kind of stupid to stand there in a normal picture pose with big cheesy smiles. I told everyone to put on a sad, thoughtful face. Unfortunately, Jim didn't hear the direction and slapped on a goof grin. He did a lot better in the second pic (shown above) but then I had to take the picture myself and couldn't be in it. Actually now that I look at it, I didn't do a great job either. I have a slight smirk or something.
One very odd thing did happen that night. After we left the WTC sight, we went to a local bar where some people were waiting for their pick 3 lottery numbers to be broadcast on television. The winning numbers were 9-1-1. Just now I was wondering if someone gave us inaccurate information or if I misremembered it. I Googled it and sure enough, that's what happened. Pretty creepy
http://www.saliu.com/bbs/messages/911.html (link to someone's blog who also remembered the pick 3 numbers were 9-1-1) |
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07/05/2007 Miss Skeeters
That would be my pun for mosquitoes. So last week, as my gf and I were hunting for swimming pools, she had the bright idea of going to her old apartment complex's swimming pool. It wasn't a very good pool at all. There were a bunch of leaves in it and the pump looked really weak to the point where I wasn't even sure if it was on. It was the only pool out of about 3 or 4 that we looked at that didn't have anyone in it. Slow day? Maybe.
We decided to go ahead and give the pool a twirl since we were already there. The pool was a little colder than I expected on that semi warm day. We crack open our Modesto beers and submerge ourselves in the questionable pool. Not 5 minutes into it, we are surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes. It wasn't quite a swarm like you might see on a cartoon but there were any where from 10-15 mosquitoes following us around. We futilely tried to swim away from them but they were locked on to us and followed our slow motion get away. I killed two on my GF's face. She killed about two or three on mine but not before one of them bit me on the bridge of my nose. That bite swelled to unusual proportions quickly. I was bitten several more times on my back and eventually my legs as I got the hell out of that pool. It was like some low budget horror movies where you can't shake the creatures ready to devour you.
For some reason, even though I got bit like 6 times, my GF got bit zero times. I've known this about her. Mosquitoes don't appear to like the way she tastes. The odd thing is, those mosquitoes in the pool were hungry so it's not like they were repelled by her to the point where they wouldn't even land on her. I killed one on her forehead and one on her cheek and yet, she didn't get bit once.
I tried to Google this phenomenon but there were no clear answers.
From random website http://www.wisegeek.com/why-do-mosquitos-bite-some-people-more-than-others.htm
"Scientific research has shown that if
you are frequently bitten by mosquitoes, it is because of the smell
you give off. Mosquitoes are attracted to the smells of certain
people. If a person is rarely bitten, then his or her body gives off
a smell that masks the scent that attracts mosquitoes.
There's really no point in me figuring this out or researching it. It's not like I can change the way my body emits these chemicals. I'll just have to wear more OUTDOORS OFF and avoid dirty pools of water. |
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07/04/2007 Pool Hunters and Tennis Hunters
I live in a 4-plex. It's like a duplex except there are four units per building instead of two. I live in a 4-plex because it's cheaper than a duplex but costs about the same as a small apartment and the 4-plex is a lot bigger. I pay the same price for my 2x2 (2 beds 2 baths) duplex as I would for a 1x1 apartment. The main drawback to the 4-plex is that there are no amenities. I don't get a swimming pool, tennis court, or fitness center. One time I lived in a really nice apartment that even had a racquetball court and golf net in addition to the three others.
Me and my GF like to hack around on the tennis court from time to time and even cool off in a pool on a hot summer day. Unfortunately, she lives in a duplex and I live in my aforementioned 4-plex, both of which have neither a pool nor a tennis court. What are we to do? Well, we do know that most apartments have at least a pool, and a bunch of apartments have a tennis court. None of are friends have these things. So what do we do? The only thing we can do. We go play tennis and swim in pools attached to apartments that we have no affiliation with.
What's the worst thing that can happen? Get thrown in jail for trespassing? Nah. That'd never happen. Asked politely to leave? Possibly. I would venture to say that 99% of apartment employees have no interest in policing their pools and tennis courts. It would be extremely insulting for these employees to ask someone who actually lived at the apartment to prove their apartment credentials. I also feel that since I am a minority, in a pinch I can play that race card and accuse them of only discriminating against Asians or interracial cuples. I'd yell out, "Hey! Did you ask those white people if they lived here!?" That would obviously be a very ugly way to use my heritage but I have to save that to fight the extreme embarrassment of getting thrown out of the pool while everyone is watching. The only way I could envision getting thrown out is if we are behave extremely obnoxiously.
Only 20% of the tennis courts we've seen are locked and I only know of one place where the pool is locked. What are the alternatives if we don't go to apartments? Public tennis courts? No way. We stink and it's too embarrassing to constantly ask for ball help. Public pools? FORGETABOUTIT! They're packed with children and pee pee. Don't judge us for just wanting to cool off and get a little exercise once in a while. My GF just bought some pool noodles. That'll be fun. |
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07/03/2007 I Used to Love Pro Wrestling and I Didn't Realize A Bunch of Those Guys Died
With all the Chris Benoit news coming out, I started to reminisce about the old days of pro wrestling. When I was a kid, I loved pro-wrestling. I'd watch all three federations (WWF, NWA/WCW, and WCCW) and I couldn't get enough. Back then, people kind of assumed wrestling was fake but you never really knew for sure and the organizations would never admit it. I kind of liked it better when they pretended it was real. Some wrestlers would precut themselves before barbed-wire matches to show the audience some real blood or they would pull their punches a lot less than they do today to sell the act better. Of course pro wrestling has always been fake. Maybe back in the 1800's it was real, but I'm pretty sure once it hit TV airwaves, it was all scripted. For years people thought the Jerry Lawler/Andy Kaufman thing was real but it the end, that also turned out to be fake.
There were other ways wrestling was a lot different back then. A lot of guys had great physiques in the past but there were plenty of flabby contenders. Wrestlers like The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase and the Honkey Tonk Man didn't have a drop of muscle tone to their bodies but could still get the crowd riled up. Somewhere along the way, wrestlers got bigger and bigger until every one of them were huge monsters. Even the guys that started off with just a decent body ended up blowing up big time once they reached the big money stage of the WWF. I guess no one wants to watch a bunch of flabby guys wrestle.
I was reading an article in today's local paper about an old wrestler I used to follow, Lex Luger, and I found out that a bunch of wrestlers I used to watch on TV and emulate on video games and in my living room were dead. Most of them had some sort of heart failure due to drugs and many of them were only in their 40s. I was shocked to hear that Randy Macho Man's former manager and wife, Miss Elizabeth, died years ago. I think I vaguely remember hearing something about it but I had certainly forgotten. I remember they staged their wedding during one of the pay per views. These wrestlers that I recognized that died aren't as big as say, Hulk Hogan. They're more wrestlers a fan would know. I just assumed they were all broke or living in suburbia. I guess once the big bad wrestling machine is done with them, their steroided and coked up heart eventually just peters out when the Tv cameras are no longer watching.
Here's how some of them died: "Mr. Perfect", Curt Hennig On February 10, 2003, Hennig was found dead in a Florida hotel room, just before a scheduled wrestling match. The Tampa Coroner's office and the Tampa Medical Examiner's office declared acute cocaine intoxication the official cause of his death. His father said a lethal combination of steroids and painkillers contributed to his death. Died at 44.
The Big Boss Man Died in his home from a heart attack in Paulding County, Georgia on September 22, 2004 at the age of 41.
Miss Elizabeth In the home Lex Luger and Miss Elizabeth shared, police found pills of hydrocodone and alprazolam (Xanax), as well as anabolic steroids, testosterone, and Saizen. The subsequent autopsy showed that Miss Elizabeth died of an accidental drug overdose, having ingested some of the medications with vodka. Died at 42.
Ravishing Rick Rude Rude died on April 20, 1999 after suffering heart failure. The believed cause of death may have been an overdose of Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and steroids. An autopsy report showed he died from an overdose of "mixed medications". In 1994 he testified that he had used anabolic steroids to build muscle mass and relieve joint pain. Died at age 40.
Road Warrior Hawk Hawk died on October 19, 2003 in the early morning in his home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. His friends said that he and his wife Dale had recently bought a condominium near their current home and were packing their boxes the night before. Hawk said that he felt tired and went to take a nap. When his wife checked on him at about 1 A.M., he had died of an apparent heart attack. He had battles with alcohol and drugs throughout his career and was an admitted steroids user. Died at 46.
Eddy Guerrero An autopsy revealed that Guerrero died as a result of acute heart failure, caused by undiagnosed arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Although Guerrero had not taken alcohol or illicit drugs for nearly four years, his past excesses contributed to his heart failure. At the time of his death, he had recently used narcotic painkillers. Died at 38.
Bam Bam Bieglow On March 3, 2007, the Tampa Tribune reported that autopsy results showed that Bigelow's death was due to multiple drugs found in his system including toxic levels of cocaine and benzodiazepine (anti-anxiety drug). Bigelow was also suffering from a heart problem, specifically arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Died at 45.
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07/03/2007 Quick Pics
Some quick pics from Friday.
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