Could have been better...

My turducen was okay, it was somewhat dry. I tried to baste it as best as I could. I probably should have cooked it longer than it said too. It still tasted good, especially the duck part, but I think I could have done a better job.

Cajun food

I recently ordered some Cajun food online. It came in on Friday and from what I had so far it is delicious. The craw fish boudin was good. In fact I'm gonna cook some up today. Can't wait. The alligator was good. I'm going to have the turduchen on Christmas eve. the website is Cajungrocer.com. It is well worth a visit.

It's been awhile...

Well, this month of November has had some good TV believe or not. I have been watching V the series about aliens coming to earth. It is a remake of the series from the 80's some of you may remember.(check Youtube for the scene where the woman gives birth to an alien baby, it is freakin hilarious!) Also a remake of the Prisoner was just shown on AMC. There was a alot of bad reviews on it, but I liked it. It was confusing and weird, but thought provoking too. Of course I have been watching Dexter as well. I don't think this season is as good as the others, but I must say there have been some good surprises. Hopefully it ends with a good finish.
So check out that alien birth scene from the original V. You are either going to be disgusted or die laughing at how the baby looks.

From generation to generation

I am currently reading a book by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt called Dracula: The un-dead.
Stoker is a direct descendent of Bram Stoker who wrote the original Dracula. I think its pretty cool that after all this time a book was written by someone who is descended from Bram Stoker. But there is am sure added pressure on Dacre to do well with this book. From what I have read so far it is pretty good. The first time I heard that the actress Mariel Hemingway was descended from Ernest I was shocked. I believe even Anne Rice has a son that is also an author. But there are many who live in obscurity and are only found out about their heritage through chance. So chances are if you see someones last name that looks famous it maybe...or not. Ha!

Bizzare...

I just finished reading the Bizarre Truth by Andrew Zimmern( I guess that's how its spelled) It was a good book. If you seen his show then you will like his book. I like the fact that he really respects other cultures, and tries to go for the genuine travel experience when he is abroad. He is also very humble and gracious when he talks about how he encounters people in different places who might not be as well of as we are here in America. The way he describes the unusual dishes he eats are also informative and funny well. I love the why he describes something as tasting like a fish's behind. A good read.

Update...

Some of the highlights from the book: from Minnesota sour cream raisin pie. It has sweet custard, raisins, sour cream. It basically looks like a meringue pie. Also from Minne a pie shake. That's right. An entire slice of pie with ice cream and milk thrown into a blender and made into a shake. Apparently its most effective with banana cream or key lime pie. From Wisconsin, something called Hoppel-poppel. It is browned potatoes, chunks of salami, creamy scrambled eggs all mixed together. From Louisiana something called Oreille de cochon or Pig's ear. It's fried dough that is filled with spicy boudin sausage and powdered with sugar. From Tennessee barbecue spaghetti which is laced with shreds of smokey meat. I myself one day want to try barbecue salad. There was numerous interesting foods and facts in the book. It was an awesome read.

Its been a while...

since I blogged. Oh well. There is this book I'm going to check out called 500 things to eat before its too late, and the very best places to eat them. I love that title. Theses days everything is said not to be good for you. So looking through this book, I could see there was alot of gooey and decadent things to eat. I'll post another blog later to share some of the highlights from the book.

Evidence that I need to sleep better/observations

I'm still trying to figure out if I dreamed this or if it really happened. I saw a cover of this book, and I said "Oh that looks cool, I should check it out." Now I can't think of the title or if it was one of those dreams you have where it seems real but it isn't. I really need to sleep more soundly. Anywho, I'm trying to figure out why Facebook and MySpace and Twitter haven't waged hacker wars on each other. Please do. Maybe all of your systems will implode so I won't have to keep hearing about you on TV when all I want to hear about is sports scores and real news. Hold on I'm sounding like that old guy on 60 minutes. Anyway maybe these latest social networks will fade into the sunset like myspace. Yeah its still in existence, but it really isn't relevant. Sorry I just imagined the 2000's to have something more futuristic than mini-blogs or whatever. Like life-size erasers!

Ahh, Cham!

I went to Cham Korean Bistro last night, and they had some pretty good food. It's in Pasadena. I had the bimimbap with ahi tuna, a watermelon salad, and rice cakes with meat. They were all very good. i also had some barley tea which is said to help cool you down especially during the summer. It replaced another Korean place called Seoul brothers which was pretty good. I'm glad they open up this new place though. the prices weren't too bad. The manager was cool in that he was trying to explain the dishes and what they were like. So a very good experience.

Enough already!

When is this crappy weather going to end?! I'm going to try to make this post longer than 140 characters because I despise Twitter. I know its summer but this is ridiculous. I mean can't there be some coolness in the evening? Alright I think that is more that 140. Or not. Whatever.

Yesterday was craptacular...

Man, what a day. At least its over with. I just recently bought a laptop, and so far its been pretty cool to use. I don't have Internet access at home, but I can go to various places such as libraries(wink, wink) and connect to a wireless network. I also have been learning Korean through the Rosetta stone software, which is one of the main reasons I bought the computer. I know it sounds silly that I got a computer and don't have Internet access, I just don't feel like doing that. I could not believe the amount of people who went to the Huntington to smell a flower that reeks like a dead body. Back to learning a new language its pretty fun, I think you have to get a sense of the culture before you try learning its language. I have read books by Korean authors, watched TV shows, have eaten their food, so I'm a little familiar with the language. I think that is probably one of the reasons I'm enjoying it so much. By the way anyone out there should check the Arcadia Public Library website, and sign up for the Adult summer reading club. I think that's a very cool idea, although I think some of the prizes should have bee life sized erasers, and
pencils that smelled like black licorice. Ummm...black licorice. But hey what do I know?

Rain...

is the best. Not neccesarily to drive in though. I went to the Huntington library yesterday, and it started to rain. It was cool. It made the surroundings look completely different. And all this in June. I got an email from the Huntington today saying that the corpse flower is going to bloom next week, and they are allowing members to see it on Tuesday. I'm not really sure if I want to go and smell a flower that smells like a corpse. I'd rather go buy food or watch a movie.

An amazing film...

I watched over the Memorial day weekend a film called: Into Great Silence. It is a film about the Grande Chartreuse monastery. It showed how the monks who live there go through their prayers, rituals, and their basic life. There is no commentary as the film goes along, no music. At times there is dialogue such as when a blind monk is being interviewed. I never thought a monastery would allow a person to film within their walls. Apparently when the director asked them if he could film in 1984, they said "Not now... maybe 10, 15 years. Well it took 16 years. I believe it was worth it. Not every person might like it though. There are moments when you are waiting fora sound, but there is only silence. Myself I enjoy the solitude of life, so it was not boring for me to watch. It is almost three hours in length. Like I said, you may or may not like the film

Good Vaca

I went to a couple of cool markets during my restful period. I went to the marukai in West Covina. It has lots of cool stuff to eat. The seafood they had there was amazing. They had different types of sashimi,soups,candy drinks...Man, I was a kid in a candy store. I got a membership too. It's only $10 for a year. The prices were good, and it looks like they had daily specials on certain items. I also went to Seafood city in Eagle Rock. I finally had Balut!!!(which is basically a duck egg that has the nearly developed embryo in it) It was good. I don't think its for everyone but I always wanted to try it since I saw it on Bizarre foods. The market was at the bottom floor of a mall which I thought was funny. You can have some duck embryo on one floor and go up to Macy's to buy a bottle of cologne(which I did by the way. Two in fact) I stopped here after I went to Emir's Garden at Griffith Park. The garden is a real peaceful place. It is up a hill which you go up to through a fire trail. When you get up top, there are benches where you can sit and its really nice and tranquil. Ah, memories.

Goodbye Litter...

Well that didn't take long. I deleted my Twitter account. The whole "phenomena" was getting annoying. I mean EVERYONE has to do it? No, thanks. Maybe I should have tried it a little longer, but I don't care. If there are people out there who are into it,so be it.

Vactaion time!!

I got some time off next week. Part of me wants to go out and do stuff, the other part just wants to stay home and hibernate. Since I don't have a computer at home, I will be completely Internet free. So I don't have to read email that has nothing to do with me. I honestly don't care if I just spend the week vegetating and doing nothing. I have been tired for some reason alot lately. Not just physical, but mental. I tell you those of you out there who have short memories are blessed. Anywho,(love that word) it will be nice to be away from EVERYTHING for awhile.

One person is going to get this....

Sir...Sir...Sir,Sir,Sir...Sir,Sir,Sir...Sir...Sir...Sir,Sir,Sir. Well, if you let me explain...Sir,Sir,Sir,Sir...Sir. Well, now Sir,Sir,Sir...Sir. Oh, man that was an instant classic. Sir...

For some reason...

I watched alot of golf yesterday. Now mind you I don NOT like watching golf at all. But since it was the Masters, I wanted to see what the Augusta National golf course looked like. The scenary was pretty amazing. I like nature, so seeing alot of green, trees and water is always cool to me. Don't get me wrong I still really don't get the basic elements of gold, but it was enjoyable to watch the scenary

And the Oscar goes to...

First the Oscar pool, now March Madness? Well, congratulations young blood. Once again you surprise me. I don't know how you did it, but you did. You are probably reading this and saying "March madness? What's that? Is that when all the leprechauns go crazy?" Anyway it was fun, it went right down to the wire. Congrats, and as they say there is always next year. "Child support?!" What I got to give child support for?!(haven't had a inside joke for awhile)

Books to Movies

I am always interested in how books are turned into movies. Books like Appaloosa to me translated fairly well to the screen. American Psycho was also good on film. Of course there were alot more descriptive and hideous scenes in the book, but that is to be expected. Also the ending was different from the film. So it can make things confusing. I recently read the Watchmen, and though it was pretty good. Now someone recently told me that the ending is completely different from the book. I guess I can understand how filmmakers want to be original with their screenplay and not rely too much on the book. I think the trend these days is that if a book is really popular then it has to be mad into a film. I don't know. i always like it when you use your imagination to picture what a scene is like from a book. Sometimes when you look at film that comes from a book "You just go..Oh so thats how this setting or charcter look like? It can be disappointing.

Twitter

I have no idea if and how often I am going to use this, but I created a Twitter account for myself. It seemed pretty easy to set up. I'm following a show called PTI on it, and also following the New York Giants. Apparently alot of NBA players are using twitter to update everyone minute by minute about their lives. I still don't know what to think of it.


https://twitter.com/lukewarmsoda

Random reading

I am currently reading Freakonomics(Thanks for the suggestion D) I liked the common sense approach that the authors bring to the book. It was always a book that I wanted to read. It reminds me of the books that Malcolm Gladwell writes where he talks about how certain trends in culture originate from a simple beginning. The authors of freakonomics even have a blog: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ It is definitely worth checking out. Hopefully the post about the rejected chocolate sin tax in Scotland NEVER gets proposed here. Apparently there will be a sequel to this book, should be interesting. I have also read a recent book called Moriarty. It is a fiction book about Sherlock Holmes arch-nemesis Professor James Moriarty. It was a fun read. In one of Sir Conan Doyle's books, Moriarty and Holmes fight on top of a waterfall where presumably they both fall and perish. In Doyle's later work Holmes is said to survive the fall, but not Moriarty. But in books by other authors Moriarty is said to also have survived the fall. The book I read tells of how Moriarty survived the fall and is trying to keep his criminal empire from falling into other hands. I like how modern day authors try to retell older stories from the past. Sometimes it works, other times not so much.

wes alasa tuna

I tell you at the end the translation of that title. I saw an interesting website that I found about from a magazine. It was about labryniths. http://www.labyrinthsociety.org/. They even have a labrynith locator that tells where labryniths are near your city. I thought it was pretty cool. Its pretty interest seeing the diverse way labryniths are conceived. Okay so the translation of the title is: Whistle us a tune. So now you know.

Mah-Jongg

I recently bought a mah-jongg set. It is pretty cool. I'm hoping one day I can find some hand-held electronic versions of the game. I'm going to check out a book about the game and its history. I don't care what anyone says. It is NOT a game just for old women. Its fun for the whole family!! Okay, I'll stop.

A gripe

I understand that Youtube has a right to remove videos from its site or to make videos unwatchable on people's blogs(like mine) But what is the big freakin deal?
I'm not making any money out of putting its videos on my blog. Arggh! Oh well.

Of course...

That movie, and I'm not going to type out its name, actually made it to number one. Why? Whatever. If that is the type of movie that people feel they can be entertained by, then go right ahead and watch it. You just wasted a couple hours of your life, and you can't get it back. You!!!!(yet another inside joke)

Taken and an urgent plea

I watched the movie Taken this week with Liam Neeson. It was really good. It was kind of formulaic, but I always enjoy seeing him get mad. It's too funny. Of course he is also a good actor. Now my urgent plea. There is a movie coming out this week called "He's just not that into you" Please, please to everyone. Do not watch this movie. It is based on the book whose premise is a good idea, but it is so damn pretentious. Of course a woman should not be with a guy that takes her for granted and treats her like crap, by the way guys should also leave women who treat them like crap. It goes both ways. I'm sorry but anything connected with that awful Sex and the City should NOT be seen. So go watch Taken. Make it the number one movie again this week. That is all. End communication

Eyewitness to a great feat...

Today I saw the most astonishing stupendous magic trick ever. It was done by a co-worker and everyone was mesmerized! Get this,he made a matchstick dance! I know, I know control yourselves. It was so spectacular that words fail me at the moment. I don't know what he will do for encore, but I think he might do the where my thumb go trick. That will definitely bring the house down. On a totally unrelated note I think I can sign the entire alphabet. My fingers are weird, or as someone delicately put it, "I didn't know you had stubby fingers", so my signs might look a little crooked. I hope one day I will be able to communicate a conversation in sign language.

And continues...

Yesterday I tried rabbit and ostrich. They were both damn good. Ostrich was like diced pieces of sirloin. The rabbit reminded me of pork riblets. I had the night off from my Pasadena gig, so I decided to try some more exotic meat. I'm glad I did. I'm going to keep trying to look for places that serve unique food. I was really shocked
to see how ostrich meat looked like. Anyway it was nice to be off work, and be doing something I enjoyed.

The adventure continues...

I just had some kangaroo meat and snake meat. I got takeout from a place in Rosemead called Phong Dinh. The kangaroo was really good. Real sweet and lean. I can't really describe the snake meat. I liked it, but it has a taste all its own. I found out about this restaurant from a November issue of Los Angeles magazine. There was a huge feature article on Asian foods,stores, restaurants in Los Angeles. One part of the article talked about exotic foods that Phong Dingh included on their menu, ranging from kangaroo and snake meat. So I decided to go there. I was just too curious. As I looked at their menu they also had ostrich(Which I initially wanted, but they had ran out...go figure) So I looked at their menu, and they had alot of cool stuff like boar, alligator, water snails. I mean it was like a zoo! Sorry, don't get me wrong I love animals too, but I do like trying different kinds of food.
All in all it was a very cool experience

Goodbye Space My

And good riddance! As much as I liked seeing Gossamer on my page, and reading my hiliarious bio, I'm done. Hopefully I won't attempt to get on Facebook or some other "social" networking site. I have been wanting to delete my profile for awhile, but I had enough. When you hear about certain people having a profile or whatever, it just makes me not to want to have one. Can't do it, won't do it!

Playaway!

Im listening to one of those playaway books. If you don't know what they are, here is a web site explaining: http://www.playawaydigital.com/ I don't know why that guy has a cheesy smile while listening to one. I guess cheesy smiles somehow have their place in life. Anyway, I usually don't listen to audiobooks, but this format is pretty cool