Starry Wisdom

I’ve posted my photos from my japan trip:

gallery

I’m back from Japan as of Sunday. I’ll have pictures and a detailed trip report out eventually. Capsule summary: great trip.

I’m about ready to head out to Japan. Be back on 9/30.

The past week has been busy. I will give you all an outline:

Saturday 9/8/2007 (technically the week before, but so bet it): I went up to SF and unlike most times, did not bring a camera. I ventured far and wide across the city, without using my car. I bought 5 books for 13 dollars at Green Apple. I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX 3D (for the review fans: this was pretty decent, and it did a better job of adaptation than the 4th movie. The 3d was a bit lame. 6 out of 9 rabbit turds). I had a couple of pints and dinner at the silly bar Zeitgeist. All this by 7pm, when I returned home like the old man that I am

Sunday 9/9/2007 – laundry day. But then I went and done burned my right hand while cooking dinner. Bad enough that I went to the ER (hey, it’s my dominant hand). Sadly, I broke my non driving trend to do this. I had been 6 days up until then. 2nd degree burns on the top joints of 3 fingers, first degree on more parts of my fingers and my palm. Exciting

Monday 9/10/2007 – Nothing interesting

Tuesday 9/11/2007 – I went back to San Francisco to see Ben Gibbard in conversation with Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) as part of City Arts & Lectures. This was really great. On youtube you can find bits. In particular the musical bits with Handler on the Accordion are very interesting. This was a very good show/lecture/whatever you want to call it. I am going to see a similar (but probably not quite as musical) event with Oliver Sacks next month.

Wendesday 9/12/2007 – boring day

Thursday 9/13/2007 – I watched the first part of “Prime Suspect 7” and Little Dieter Needs to Fly from netflix. 10 out of 11 rabbit turds for the film. Reviews of Prime Suspect is awaiting the second disc.

Friday 9/14/2007 – Annie’s Mac and Cheese for dinner
Saturday 9/15/2007 – I went and saw Shoot ’em Up in the theater. This review is rather subjective, and it presupposes you like action films: FANTASTIC. Basically the plot was as bare bones as could be to support non stop action. This was effective because the actors (Paul Giamatti and Clive Owens) were really able to hold their own and give life to characters that were just a tad over 1 dimensional. 5 out of 6 rabbit turds.

Later on, in the evening, I went out and had dinner at the local, closest taqueria (which is mediocre) and then went to a nearby bar and had a couple pints of Newcastle. Then it became 10pm, and the 24 year olds were too annoying, and I fled home like the old man that I am.

Really, I am.

Here is the rundown of yesterday:

Wake up, have breakfast, go get on 9am Caltrain to SF.

Get off at the 4th and king station, and walk up and grab the 38 Geary bus.

Get off at 6th and Geary. Walk up to Clement.

Buy 5 books and a map at Green Apple for 13 dollar. Buy 2 more books for 4 bucks at the crazy warehouse store.

Get on the 38 and head back to downtown.

Setup the wireless on an iMac at the apple store and futz online for 10 minutes.

Look at expensive CDs at Virgin Megastore.

Read for a bit in the park area between Metreon and SFMOMA.

Go see Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix in Imax 3d. The first scene in the movie was great in Imax.
The 3d sequence near the end was a bit silly. The movie dragged a little bit, but it was fairly solid. I think it was 11 out of 14 rabbit turds.

Get on a Metro Streetcar and go to the Mission.

Pick up the book I couldn’t find at Green Apple at borderlands. I didn’t see Ripley this time :/.

Walk up Valencia and get some food and a couple of beers at Zeitgeist. It was a warm and sunny day, so it was very happening.

Decide that I am too lazy to sit and wait for the 7pm Caltrain, so walk down to the BART station. While in the station, reading, a woman sat down near me with a small dog in her messenger bag. The puppy seemed to be very interested in getting out of the bag. I chatted with her a bit about her dog. Take BART to Millbrae.

Hop on the Samtrans Bus down El Camino to home.

All this was over by 7:10PM. Jam packed day.

Oh yes, I am the master of public transit!

Here is what I had for dinner tonight:

3 pattypan squash
1/2 cup corn bread crumbs (crush chunk of corn bread from grocery store)
1/4 cup grated parmigiano reggiano

Preheat oven to 350.
Boil a bit of water in a pot. Put squash in pot and cook covered for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile – grate cheese and crumble bread into bowl. Mix.
When squash is soft, take out of water. With paring knife, cut off tops. Score inside and with a spoon or melon baller, scoop out the middle flesh, and mix it in with the bread crumb mixture.
Stuff the mixture back into the hollowed out squash shells, overfilling them. Place in oven in baking dish for 15 minutes.

I adapted this from a recipe I found online. It was pretty tasty but next time I think I’ll add some sauteed shallot to the stuffing mixture. Of course, the amount can be varied. I had more than enough stuffing, so I’m sure you could make several more squash. This was a meal for me, but one or two would make a fine side dish.

I woke up this morning, rolled over to the laptop, and typed this up (yes my typing is worse than normal here):

Fri Aug 31 07:00:04 2007
<nyar> ph god
<nyar> weird dream
<nyar> i woke up at like 4:30
<nyar> to pee
<nyar> and was warm so i had trouble sleeping
<nyar> i put on the mythbusters superhero show from tivo
<nyar> well i fell asleep and it TOTALLY infected my dream
<nyar> and in it
<nyar> they used SLIME MOLDS to steal from their arch enemy
<nyar> because slime molds could move prettty fast and aslo sort of have f
aces
<nyar> and were fucking creepy
<nyar> BUT they had a wrangler who discovered thst they love money, espevc
ially coins
<nyar> so they snuck them into a rich womans house via hiding them in choo
late teddy bear shells
<sdanon1> haha
<nyar> and the slimes broke out and ran around the house stealing money
<sdanon1> i have that recorded, i should watch it
<nyar> and the mythbusters and wranglers were on the roof
<nyar> using mirrors to watch stuff happen
<nyar> and eventually the rich woman enemy found outthat she was infested
and called someone to get rid of them
<nyar> but someone the wrangler’s brother was the one she fcalled so he su
cked up all ther slimers
<nyar> and they cleared over 1200 dollars
<nyar> in coins and some misc jewerly when they sorted out the m,oney from
the slime
<nyar> and it turns out
<nyar> as long as they each got 5 pennies
<nyar> the slimes were happy
<nyar> (shiny pennies)
<nyar> iw ish this was real
<nyar> but man
<nyar> what an od dream
<nyar> OHHH
<nyar> soi woke up to an auction show on my tv
<nyar> which was stil on
<nyar> a few minutes ago
<nyar> and i had integrated that in as they were AUCTIONING OFF the items
they stole

Saturday I went to the The San Francisco Photography Meetup meeting. This was actually very interesting, and there was nothing super scary I didn’t know about hiding in there. THankfully, angioma resection is easy, since they have a clear outline, an the damage done in the surgery was jut taking out all the crap that had already damaged by brain and cause a bunch of scar tissue to dorm. Therefore, I work jsut as good as Ti Couz in SF. They have a nice and varied menu, so just about anyone can find something. And their fresh squeezed orange and carrot juice combo is delicious.

Sakae – A sushi bar. I ignored this place for a long time, because it was a dive. Boy was I wrong. My favorite sushi place, evar. Oh, it’s not at all cheap, but it is close. They sold me my Macbook Pro, which I love. And some speakers that look… well… interesting. And a bluetooth keyboard. A+!

Burlingame Radioshack – Closest place to get something to eat, a funny thing happened. A young mother, pushing a stroller, was walking behind me, chatting on her cell phone. SHe was telling whoeve she was speaking to about her kid’s milestones:

“He got his first tooth in”
“Yesterday he ate his first solid food’
“Oh! And he had his first little boner. At least the first one I saw. I was changing his diaper and I was a bit saddened that it didn’t come with rice, as the menu seemed to imply. However, it came with some excellent hummus, slightly salty but tasty baba ghanoush, and a large bag of rice. Oh, meat is on sale one week:

<todd> Safeway has tri-tip for $3.49/lb this week, with a coupon for $5 off a minimum purchase of $20. That’s almost 6lbs of beef for $15.

Suddently your dinners get a lot more interesting. You can also buy the 18count package of eggs when they are on sale for really cheap:

<dpk2> yeah, safeway online has 60 eggs for $7.49. thatsalotta eggs.

Yes, I just would have spent over a weeks worth of food dollars. But I have protein to last me ALL MONTH. I also notice that sweetcorn is on sale, 10 ears for 2 bucks. You can freeze corn. This might even be cheaper than buying a bag of frozen niblets. Etc, I’m sure I can find lots more examples.

Here’s my point- living on $21 for food a week would suck. However, it’s not quite as dire as the politicians are making it out to be, for anyone with half a brain. It would be dull, and repetitive, but not necessarily completely devoid of nutrition.

I saw the Simpson’s Movie tonight. I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. I mean, everyone I know who’d seen it said it was quite good. But the TV show has been so awful the past few years. Well, they did the movie right. It wasn’t just a 3x longer than normal episode. It was a well integrated movie. And the funny parts weren’t all in the trailers. 9 out of 10 rabbit turds!.

Also, 1 rabbit turd is given to the Alvin and the Chipmunks preview, since it featured eating of chipmunk turds. -1 rabbit turds to Fred Claus preview for being so awful.

I got a letter in the mail when I got home at 10:30 last night. It was from Blue Cross. It stated more or less:

The following services were determined to be not medically necessary:

We will not pay!

Meh. So they don’t want to pay for not paralyzing me eh? I was a bit mad, so I called them up ASAP (thankfully they have people there 24 hours…). I tell them I want to file an appeal. They ask me for what. And I tell them “for the claim you deemed not medically necessary”. “Which claim is that?” I describe it, and look it up, and it turns out it was paid 5 days before the letter was sent out. Why? Because one hand wasn’t talking to the other. So they mixed their signals. I told them “this is pretty embarrassing for you guys, but thanks for paying”, and hung up.

So, they caused me needless stress – luckily for only 15 or so minutes.

DUMB.