Yesterday The Wife's Main Asian, James, got married and that means Chinese Wedding Banquet because he's Chinese and that's how they roll. It was at a Chinese seafood restaurant in Foster City and was pretty great.
The idea of the Chinese Wedding Banquet is that they keep bringing out dishes one after another and they put them on this lazy susan in the middle of the table and everyone at the table wheels the thing around and gets some. Also, James featured the fine wines of the Navarro Vineyards, specifically a Gewürztraminer and a pinot noir, both of which I found to be excellent, which had nothing to do with the fact that they were unlimited and free and every time a bottle ran out *POOF* a new one magically appeared.
So The Wife and I were at our table with a group of James' friends from Cal enjoying either our first or second course (that would be either suckling pig three ways (all of which were delicious) or stuffed crab claw) when I hear singing and look up and there's a tiny woman in a pink dress singing karaoke with a wireless mic and she's heading right for us! As it turns out, Chinese Weddings Banquets feature karaoke. This seemed like a pretty swell idea and I was into it but The Wife told me that it wouldn't be "appropriate" for me to enchant the crowd with my rendition of "Folsom Prison Blues," no matter how many glasses of wine I'd had.
So we proceeded through the 8 or 10 courses (skipping only the shark fin soup because of complicated enviro-guilt reasons, which are beyond the scope of this blog post) and had a lot of wine (well, I did, anyway - The Wife drove home, thank God) and then drove back to SF and in the car on the way home agrred that "Good Things" by Rival Schools is pretty much one of the best songs ever. Two Very Enthusiastic Thumbs Up for Chinese Wedding Banquet. And our very great congratulations to James and Elaine, two great people who are much nicer than us.
In other news, you may have noticed the link to the right that suddenly appeared without explanation, but I am pleased to note and announce that The Wife has begun blogging. Specifically, she has undertaken a program of self-improvement the likes of which I could not begin to accomplish, and she's writing about her trials and tribulations doing this thing at a little blog called Leah Is Lazy. Won't you join her?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
TK's Hot Weather Refreshers
It's already above 75 degrees in San Francisco today, and in SF, that's a heat wave. People wear tiny clothes and by people I mean "girls." So that's good. Your friends say things like "Hot enough for ya?" because they think it's funny. People in the rest of the country don't realize that SF is closer in climate to Vladivostok than Ventura, and most days here it's about 47 degrees with 70 mph winds. So anything above 68 makes us get freaky.
In the interest of combining two of my favorite things, warm weather and alcohol, here are a few suggested hot weather drinks you might like:
Redneck sangria
1 bottle of cheap temperanillo or temp-grenache blend. CHEAP.
1 can of 7-Up. Don't use Sprite. Use 7-Up.
Pour wine into pitcher. Pour 7-Up into pitcher. Mix.
If you have a recording of Marty Robbins playing "El Paso," put it on.
Awkward Silence
Vodka
Fresca
Put 4 or 5 ice cubes in rocks glass. Fill halfway with vodka. Fill to top with Fresca. Refreshing!
Invented by my associate Stephen. Before he invented it a couple of years ago, no one in the history of the world had ever combined Fresca and vodka.
Incidentally, Fresca is good shit and I was happy to see it on the shelves when I moved here after living for years in a Fresca-free zone.
This Pineapple thing I stole from Farina
Farina's OK. The food's pretty good but it's wicked overpriced. However, I had this cocktail there and I was like all OMG BEST COCKTAIL EVAR DO WANT. My enthusiasm has cooled slightly, but it's still good.
Hangar One kaffir lime vodka
Pineapple juice
Punt e Mes
Pour a healthy dollop of vodka over some ice. Fill with pineapple juice. I like the little cans of Dole pineapple juice that feel like they're made out of steel. Seriously, you could probably build a house out of those. Then just a little shake of Punt e Mes over the top. Stir. Punt e mes is an Italian vermouth. I've been working on one bottle of it for like a year, since I only use it in this drink.
The Wife says I should try using Smirnoff Lime vodka ($10.99/bottle) instead of Hangar One kaffir lime vodka ($35/bottle) but there's no way that would work.
Cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon
Cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon
Humorous coozy
Open can of PBR. Slide into humorous coozy. I used to have one that said "World's Greatest Grandpa" on the side but I lost it.
In the interest of combining two of my favorite things, warm weather and alcohol, here are a few suggested hot weather drinks you might like:
Redneck sangria
1 bottle of cheap temperanillo or temp-grenache blend. CHEAP.
1 can of 7-Up. Don't use Sprite. Use 7-Up.
Pour wine into pitcher. Pour 7-Up into pitcher. Mix.
If you have a recording of Marty Robbins playing "El Paso," put it on.
Awkward Silence
Vodka
Fresca
Put 4 or 5 ice cubes in rocks glass. Fill halfway with vodka. Fill to top with Fresca. Refreshing!
Invented by my associate Stephen. Before he invented it a couple of years ago, no one in the history of the world had ever combined Fresca and vodka.
Incidentally, Fresca is good shit and I was happy to see it on the shelves when I moved here after living for years in a Fresca-free zone.
This Pineapple thing I stole from Farina
Farina's OK. The food's pretty good but it's wicked overpriced. However, I had this cocktail there and I was like all OMG BEST COCKTAIL EVAR DO WANT. My enthusiasm has cooled slightly, but it's still good.
Hangar One kaffir lime vodka
Pineapple juice
Punt e Mes
Pour a healthy dollop of vodka over some ice. Fill with pineapple juice. I like the little cans of Dole pineapple juice that feel like they're made out of steel. Seriously, you could probably build a house out of those. Then just a little shake of Punt e Mes over the top. Stir. Punt e mes is an Italian vermouth. I've been working on one bottle of it for like a year, since I only use it in this drink.
The Wife says I should try using Smirnoff Lime vodka ($10.99/bottle) instead of Hangar One kaffir lime vodka ($35/bottle) but there's no way that would work.
Cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon
Cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon
Humorous coozy
Open can of PBR. Slide into humorous coozy. I used to have one that said "World's Greatest Grandpa" on the side but I lost it.
Happy Friday, everyone! Stay cool! Hydrate! Hydrate! OK! OK!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Bad Brains at Slim's last night
Nostalgia about music is a funny thing. On the one hand, it's fun to think about great shows you saw a long time ago (R.E.M., Vanderbilt Auditorium, 1983, HOLLA!!!). On the other hand, bands keep touring, sometimes much longer than they should. So you go see them maybe expecting to see a spark of what you loved when you saw them as a kid, and it doesn't always turn out that way.
Bad Brains were, and are, an incredibly influential hardcore punk band from D.C. whose glory years were probably, say, 1982 to 1990 (even though they were broken up from '84 to '86). 2 notable things about Bad Brains that are maybe somewhat unusual for a hardcore punk band: (1) they're African-American, and (2) they also play reggae songs.
Stephen has long maintained that the Best Show He Ever Saw was a Bad Brains show at some place in Providence in 1986, so he and Jessica and I went down to Slim's last night to see what they could bring these days. Now, I'd never seen them in the old days (although I had a copy of "Rock for Light" that I remember enjoying) so it was all new to me. Apparently the shows back in the day were something, with lead singer H.R. doing back flips off the stage and stuff. Here he is, mid-flight:
1. It was fucking PACKED. And this was the second night at Slim's. Bad Brains are apparently still extremely popular. Punk is not dead. Or reggae-punk is not dead. Or something.
2. Median age about, say, 32 or so. Some old punx who had clearly seen Bad Brains at the Mabuhay back in the day. (I'm just assuming they played at the Mabuhay back in the day. I'd be shocked if they didn't.) And some kids! Kids with mohawks! Kids with mohawks pogoing by the bar and KNOCKING INTO ME AND SPILLING MY BEER EVERYWHERE! Damn kids! Oh, wait, that's pretty punk.
3. Speaking of, I went to a fair number of punk shows as a yoot, and I don't remember people being so polite. "Excuse me," the fat punk with the studded jean jacket and shaved head said as he scooted past me at the bar. Excuse me? What is this, Sunday Tea? You should be growling "Get the fuck out of my way!" Another punk bumped into me and said "Sorry." Times have changed. The beer spiller never said sorry, though. WHY DON'T YOU LEARN SOME MANNERS, YOUNG MAN?
4. The sound was pretty terrible. Very hard to make out vocals. H. R. basically swayed in place with his hands in his pockets. Hard to bust him for it, though. HE'S 53 YEARS OLD. But people seemed to be enjoying the hell out of it. Crowd surfing! They don't have crowd surfing at the stand-with-your-arms-crossed indie rock shows I go to.
5. Not knowing much about Bad Brains, I can't really comment on the music. Like I said, everyone seemed to be having a great time.
6. The cab driver on the way home was great. Old Jewish guy. "When I moved here 45 years ago, you never saw any gays! I lived at Pine and Powell! Bars used to give away free hot dogs back in those days!"
(OH ONE THING I FORGOT - one of the openers was a rapper called P.O.S. who I liked quite a bit. So, uh, check him out, I guess.)
Bad Brains were, and are, an incredibly influential hardcore punk band from D.C. whose glory years were probably, say, 1982 to 1990 (even though they were broken up from '84 to '86). 2 notable things about Bad Brains that are maybe somewhat unusual for a hardcore punk band: (1) they're African-American, and (2) they also play reggae songs.
Stephen has long maintained that the Best Show He Ever Saw was a Bad Brains show at some place in Providence in 1986, so he and Jessica and I went down to Slim's last night to see what they could bring these days. Now, I'd never seen them in the old days (although I had a copy of "Rock for Light" that I remember enjoying) so it was all new to me. Apparently the shows back in the day were something, with lead singer H.R. doing back flips off the stage and stuff. Here he is, mid-flight:
H.R. is now 53 years old. He doesn't do back flips off the stage any more.
A few observations about last night:
1. It was fucking PACKED. And this was the second night at Slim's. Bad Brains are apparently still extremely popular. Punk is not dead. Or reggae-punk is not dead. Or something.
2. Median age about, say, 32 or so. Some old punx who had clearly seen Bad Brains at the Mabuhay back in the day. (I'm just assuming they played at the Mabuhay back in the day. I'd be shocked if they didn't.) And some kids! Kids with mohawks! Kids with mohawks pogoing by the bar and KNOCKING INTO ME AND SPILLING MY BEER EVERYWHERE! Damn kids! Oh, wait, that's pretty punk.
3. Speaking of, I went to a fair number of punk shows as a yoot, and I don't remember people being so polite. "Excuse me," the fat punk with the studded jean jacket and shaved head said as he scooted past me at the bar. Excuse me? What is this, Sunday Tea? You should be growling "Get the fuck out of my way!" Another punk bumped into me and said "Sorry." Times have changed. The beer spiller never said sorry, though. WHY DON'T YOU LEARN SOME MANNERS, YOUNG MAN?
4. The sound was pretty terrible. Very hard to make out vocals. H. R. basically swayed in place with his hands in his pockets. Hard to bust him for it, though. HE'S 53 YEARS OLD. But people seemed to be enjoying the hell out of it. Crowd surfing! They don't have crowd surfing at the stand-with-your-arms-crossed indie rock shows I go to.
5. Not knowing much about Bad Brains, I can't really comment on the music. Like I said, everyone seemed to be having a great time.
6. The cab driver on the way home was great. Old Jewish guy. "When I moved here 45 years ago, you never saw any gays! I lived at Pine and Powell! Bars used to give away free hot dogs back in those days!"
(OH ONE THING I FORGOT - one of the openers was a rapper called P.O.S. who I liked quite a bit. So, uh, check him out, I guess.)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Did Taylor Swift really lie about illegal immigrants? Or something?
There were two high-profile, shocking breaches of etiquette in the past week or so, both of which people need to generally chill out about at this point.
The first, of course, was South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelling "You lie!" to Obama during The O's speech to Congress on health care. If Wilson was responding to Obama's claim that proposed health care legislation would not apply to illegal immigrants, he was wrong, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that it's generally agreed upon that one does not shout out interruptions at the President during a speech to both houses of Congress.
But here's the thing. The man apologized to the President, and the President accepted his apology. Fair enough! Let's move on. It's a sideshow at best, and Wilson's Democratic opponent has already benefitted. To keep this thing alive, by calling for censure and the like, is counterproductive. In fact, if you're a Democrat, it's probably harmful. Americans like the powerful to get taken down and be forced to grovel, but only to a point. Once you keep going after someone, sympathy starts to build. Can you imagine Joe Wilson as a sympathetic figure? Keep this up and it'll happen.
The second was Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards. It seems that young Taylor had just won the award for Best Female Video, when Kanye took to the stage and expressed his contrary opinion that, no, Beyonce should have been the winner.
(P.S. I saw Taylor Swift in the airport once. She's 8 feet tall and sparkles like rock candy. People went "Ohhhhh, Taylor Swift" when she walked by. I asked my sister who she was.)
Well, people were OUTRAGED. BOOOOOO KANYE!!!!!
Think about what that means. People got upset because one multimillionaire interrupted another multimillionaire during the presentation of a fake award for a music video on a channel that doesn't play music videos. Seriously, if this really upset you, I hope to God you're a 13-year-old girl, because otherwise, you have much better things to get outraged about.
I'm with Gawker. I think the whole thing was staged.
Nevertheless, I'm glad that at least we got this out of it:
UPDATE: Anna Pickard of the Guardian thinks the Kanye thing was staged too. Conspiracy theory gathering steam! Now waiting to learn how ACORN was involved.
The first, of course, was South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelling "You lie!" to Obama during The O's speech to Congress on health care. If Wilson was responding to Obama's claim that proposed health care legislation would not apply to illegal immigrants, he was wrong, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that it's generally agreed upon that one does not shout out interruptions at the President during a speech to both houses of Congress.
But here's the thing. The man apologized to the President, and the President accepted his apology. Fair enough! Let's move on. It's a sideshow at best, and Wilson's Democratic opponent has already benefitted. To keep this thing alive, by calling for censure and the like, is counterproductive. In fact, if you're a Democrat, it's probably harmful. Americans like the powerful to get taken down and be forced to grovel, but only to a point. Once you keep going after someone, sympathy starts to build. Can you imagine Joe Wilson as a sympathetic figure? Keep this up and it'll happen.
The second was Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards. It seems that young Taylor had just won the award for Best Female Video, when Kanye took to the stage and expressed his contrary opinion that, no, Beyonce should have been the winner.
(P.S. I saw Taylor Swift in the airport once. She's 8 feet tall and sparkles like rock candy. People went "Ohhhhh, Taylor Swift" when she walked by. I asked my sister who she was.)
Well, people were OUTRAGED. BOOOOOO KANYE!!!!!
Think about what that means. People got upset because one multimillionaire interrupted another multimillionaire during the presentation of a fake award for a music video on a channel that doesn't play music videos. Seriously, if this really upset you, I hope to God you're a 13-year-old girl, because otherwise, you have much better things to get outraged about.
I'm with Gawker. I think the whole thing was staged.
Nevertheless, I'm glad that at least we got this out of it:
UPDATE: Anna Pickard of the Guardian thinks the Kanye thing was staged too. Conspiracy theory gathering steam! Now waiting to learn how ACORN was involved.
Monday, September 14, 2009
I'm going for my Presidential Fitness Award
In an admirable effort at self-improvement, The Wife started fitness boot camp today. I'm not sure exactly what it entails, but it involves getting up at 5:30 a.m. three days a week and sounds like an awful lot of work. To show solidarity, I decided to start running again, something I haven't done regularly in maybe 5 or 6 years. Actually, definitely 6 years because I went looking for my running shoes and then remembered I left them at the old apartment where I lived with my ex-wife.
So anyway, I decided to start small, with a modest run of 1.5486 miles (according to Gmaps Pedometer). Now, I'm not a total fat tub of lard or anything. I walk a lot just in daily life, and until fairly recently I was doing exercise walks of 3 to 3 1/2 miles at least twice a week. But, as you know, running is different. Anyway, I made it the first 3/4 mile without having to stop and then walked for a bit and then ran the rest of the way home. Did the 1.5 miles in about 18 to 20 minutes. So I obviously need to go farther, because that's not even going to make up for the Egg Beaters, slice of toast, and half a grapefruit I consumed immediately afterward. I guess I need to go for at least 30 minutes at a time to start.
In other news:
- The 2 cases of wine left over from the wedding that I shipped back from my Dad's place arrived totally unscathed. I can recommend the Spirited Shipper for all your wine shipping needs.
- Went to Mini Bar on Saturday night. Everybody says the service there sucks, but we didn't have any problems at all. Seemed fine to me. As advertised, it's pretty small but it wasn't crowded so it felt fine. The only downside was the drunk guy who started a conversation with me by saying "My girlfriend is a bitch" and explained that she was mad because he has been doing blow at the Cal game. Who does blow at a football game anyway?
- Man, is Mad Men getting good now or what? What a great fucking show. (SPOILER ALERT If you haven't seen the last 2 episodes and you get all freaked out if you know what's going to happen stop reading now.) We were just positive that baby was going to be stillborn, so that was kind of a disappointment. And was grandpa dying just a huge deux ex machina because that plot wasn't going anywhere? I don't get it. And you just know Don is going to bang that teacher. Just a matter of time. Also, January Jones, sigh.
So anyway, I decided to start small, with a modest run of 1.5486 miles (according to Gmaps Pedometer). Now, I'm not a total fat tub of lard or anything. I walk a lot just in daily life, and until fairly recently I was doing exercise walks of 3 to 3 1/2 miles at least twice a week. But, as you know, running is different. Anyway, I made it the first 3/4 mile without having to stop and then walked for a bit and then ran the rest of the way home. Did the 1.5 miles in about 18 to 20 minutes. So I obviously need to go farther, because that's not even going to make up for the Egg Beaters, slice of toast, and half a grapefruit I consumed immediately afterward. I guess I need to go for at least 30 minutes at a time to start.
In other news:
- The 2 cases of wine left over from the wedding that I shipped back from my Dad's place arrived totally unscathed. I can recommend the Spirited Shipper for all your wine shipping needs.
- Went to Mini Bar on Saturday night. Everybody says the service there sucks, but we didn't have any problems at all. Seemed fine to me. As advertised, it's pretty small but it wasn't crowded so it felt fine. The only downside was the drunk guy who started a conversation with me by saying "My girlfriend is a bitch" and explained that she was mad because he has been doing blow at the Cal game. Who does blow at a football game anyway?
- Man, is Mad Men getting good now or what? What a great fucking show. (SPOILER ALERT If you haven't seen the last 2 episodes and you get all freaked out if you know what's going to happen stop reading now.) We were just positive that baby was going to be stillborn, so that was kind of a disappointment. And was grandpa dying just a huge deux ex machina because that plot wasn't going anywhere? I don't get it. And you just know Don is going to bang that teacher. Just a matter of time. Also, January Jones, sigh.
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