How Berkeley Can You Be Photos
We made it! Yup, it’s true, we managed to get up in time to go watch the parade — shocking, I know:p Not quite early enough to catch all of it, but a lot of it. Sooo fun:) And it was just a perfect day. I lurve Berkeley:)
A little preview of the photos — click on the animation for the rest of them:)
We went to Chaat Cafe for lunch afterwards — love them samosas:)
Butter Chicken’s not bad either.
Then we came home and took a nap:p
How Berkeley Can You Be?
Oh, almost forgot, today from 11am to 1pm is the How Berkeley Can You Be Parade, followed by the How Berkeley Can You Be Festival ’til 5pm. If we can wake up (always a challenge:p), we’re gonna try to go, cos the last time we went, it was fun:) Anyone else going? I am all about the participatory questions today:)
So Much TV
I haven’t had time to write anything cos I’ve been watching SO MUCH TV!
I mean, when the season starts, sometimes it’s hard to know what to watch, so we’ve been trying shows out. Like for example, for some reason, there’s like 3 new “creature” type shows this fall: Surface, Invasion, and Threshold. So we never actually tried Surface (yet), but we watched Invasion and Threshold. I think we’re going to stick with Threshold for a while. Invasion managed to have a hurricane and aliens and some kind of fireworks and still be sorta blah. Threshold has Carla Gugino who I first saw and liked as Nan in the PBS(?) miniseries The Buccaneers, and also it’s been ok fun, and also, it’s on Friday when there’s not much on anyhows. We also watched Everybody Hates Chris (funny!), Medium, Arrested Development, House, Law & Order (all of them), My Name is Earl, Lost, So You Think You Can Dance, Survivor, CSI, and possibly more, but I can’t think of them now. We recorded The Apprentice Martha Stewart but missed The Apprentice with the Donald — next week! Also, Yu-Gi-Oh, Justice League, Teen Titans, Full Metal Alchemist, and the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy cartoon-wise. We couldn’t do it without our Replay DVR:D
What are y’all watching? :)
The Start of the Mucho TV Posts! (Maybe)
A whole bunch of TV seasons have gotten started this month:) Lessee, House is on Tuesdays (started last week) and today was Medium and Arrested Development (funny, but I really ought to buy the dvd’s cos in a way I like watching Arrested Development all together for some reason) and I also watched Just Legal (seemed alright). Tomorrow is Law & Order: SVU and more House. Wednesday is Lost and Law & Order. And So You Think You Can Dance (but that’s not a new season, more like we’re nearing the end of its season). Thursday is Survivor (this season seems like it’s gonna be good) and CSI. And Threshold on Fridays. And Yu-Gi-Oh on Saturdays:) Have I missed anything? :p
Oh and I almost forgot: For the first time in I don’t even remember how long, the Redskins beat the Cowboys! On Monday night football! Yay! :) Gawd, I don’t care if they have a losing record, but for goodness’ sake beat the Cowboys! (And the 49ers and the Giants if at all possible). Please don’t ask me anything about football though cos the answer is I have no idea! :p
Zax Tavern and Dog News
We went to Zax Tavern with misa and neb tonight for dinner. No photos cos I forgot my camera. Anyhows, the food was super delicious!
Yut and I shared the Twice-baked Goat Cheese Soufflé for appetizer; misa and neb got the soufflé and a prosciutto salad. The soufflé was delicious, puffy with a good goat cheese flavor! I liked the fennel salad on the side too — v. unique. I like anise though, so I think if you hate fennel or anise, then it wouldn’t've been good.
Then for entrée Yut got Pork Shoulder Summer Stew. The pork was so tender and flavorful and there were beans and peas etc that were cooked really nicely — still crisp, not soggy. I got the Rice-Crusted Alaskan Halibut which I thought was pretty amazing — very tender and flaky. I liked the crustiness too. Oh and the mashed potatoes on the side. misa and neb shared the Local King Salmon entreée.
For dessert misa and I both got the pear tart with vanilla ice cream, Yut got the peach shortcake, and neb got the chocolate pavé. The pear tart was sooo good — I think even though neb liked the chocolate pavé, he said that the pear tart was better. The peach shortcake was really good, too. Our waitress said that all of the dessert items were made in-house, even the ice cream. Well it was all delicious.
We also shared a bottle of pinot noir (don’t remember the name), and I got a Sapphire and Ruby cocktail (Bombay Sapphire gin with pomegranate syrup and lime juice) which was quite good.
While I thought all of the food was great, the part I liked the best was its evenness. Sometimes I’ll go to a really good restaurant where say the appetizers are really spectacular, but the entrées are just ok. Or where the entrées are good, but the desserts are so-so at best. Or whatever. But at Zax, I really felt like everything was on the same (high) level, even the service. I was happy with everything.
And now for the nintendog news:) misa brought her dogs snowflake (pembroke welsh corgi) and coffee (shiba inu) so our dogs got to play:) misa’s done a lot more competitions, but we take our dogs on more walks so we had picked up more stuff:) Yut told us that his dog ♥Boxy♥ was the smartest cos she knows the most tricks, grrrrrrrr…
Mechanical Doesn’t Do It For Me
I was doing homework the other day, and I realized: I love sharpening pencils. I know when I have to go sharpen my pencil that I’ve done a good chunk of work — I feel like I accomplished something. When I’m writing with a pencil, I check my tip a lot to see if it’s about ready for a sharpening yet. I mean, don’t wanna waste by sharpening too much, but you know, don’t want a dull pencil either. The closest a mechanical pencil comes to this is clicking to get some more lead out, and that’s just not the same.
I especially like the little manual sharpeners, for some reason. I like the way they sharpen so neatly, and the scritch sound it makes. Electric sharpeners are okay too, cos I love the smell of newly sharpened pencil, and they’re so efficient. I don’t like the shape of the sharpened pencil as much though. So in August, when they had the back to school specials, I figured that was as good an excuse to pick up a pencil sharpener as any, so I did; look, it’s almost a quarter full already:)
One of Those Weeks
I woke up this morning to the sound of dog bark. Not loud, but insistent. First panicked and confused thought: Oh no, I forgot to turn off my DS and now my poor Dog is famished and parched and mad at me!
But it turned out the sounds were coming from outside. Whew.
–EDIT–
I just realized, Dog was in the Dog Hotel, it would’ve been ♥Boxy♥ who would’ve been sad and angry at Yut:D So I was ok either way. Muahahahahaha! :)
I Love Outsourcing
People complain to me about how Dell outsourced their customer service to India or whereever, but doooood I’m lovin’ it.
Used to be, I’d call Dell about an issue, and all I would get was attitude and misinformation. A lot of the people working at Dell were condescending bastards, always talked down to me. HELLO! I’m female! NOT 5!!! Not that everyone was bad, some of them were really nice and knowledgeable, but they were the exception.
But this past year or so, the Dell folk have been great. They’re patient and understanding and really want to help. Also, they respond to emails, and chat, and phone calls; it’s amazing. So as far as I’m concerned, well if they couldn’t get good help here, and had to go to India, then that’s that. Cos I’m much happier lately with Dell than I have been.
(Thanks to Karishma and Rajat and Sujan and everyone who helped me this weekend with my order. Yes, I am lame and I needed a lot of help.)
Monday
Today I woke up and brushed my teeth, washed my face, put on some clothes and ran out the door.
Halfway to work, I realized I forgot to brush my hair! I don’t have cool Asian hair (you know, thick, stick straight, etc) so this is bad. Oh well, I finger combed it, that’ll just have to do. It coulda been worse, at least it’s not one of them humid hot days.
Bride and Prejudice
We rented Bride and Prejudice this weekend, was pretty good:) The director is the same as Bend It Like Beckham. I liked Bend it Like Beckham better, but this was still pretty good. The first song and dance production was really good. Naveen Andrews looked especially great, they should have had him in more scenes! We kept on wanting to call him Sayeed (sp?) cos that’s his character on Lost. The second musical number in town, when three of the girls were shopping just didn’t seem to flow great, and I was afraid that I wasn’t going to like the movie cos the musical parts were going to be all jarring, but then I got into it and the rest of the numbers were great fun:) I especially liked when it was a big dancing scene with lots of colors and intricacy — Yut and I joked that if I were to try any of those dances I would probably kill myself and him by tripping horribly. The dubbing was pretty bad though — I’m not sure if they did their own singing:p
I was sad that Colin Firth wasn’t in it; he could’ve had a Mr. Darcy hat trick! Also, I liked how a few lines from the book were paraphrased/incorporated into the movie. Jane Austen is a genius: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” :D I think that must be one of the wittiest (and most famous) first lines in a book ever.
