One of the local restaurants around here has a Trivia Night going once per month (I think). A group of my co-workers decided to try it out this month. Well, all I have to say is, there is a lot of stuff I have no clue about. Geeeeeeezus.
We started out tied for last out of six teams, but every round we went up a level, so by then end we were tied for first (!!!). But we lost in sudden death.
Drank some drinks, ate some food, tried to answer some questions, was fun:)
Did y’all hear about the South Korean dude who gamed ’til he dropped? Yeah, so did I. In fact, a lot of my friends emailed me the article. What are y’all trying to say?!
You know, my whole life, I’ve been under the impression that as far as toilet paper goes, anything’s pretty much fine as long as it’s two-ply. I was WRONG!
This is the two-ply Quilted Northern that has been causing some chafy-ness. Seriously, it’s like if I were using a nail buffer, not for its intended purpose.
Detail shot of the Quilted Northern. Seems innocuous enough, doesn’t it? But it’s not!!!
For comparison, this is ONE-ply Charmin. I can’t even begin to describe how much better it is.
I don’t know if it’s cos I got a bad batch of Quilted Northern or what, but I doubt I’ll ever buy it again. EVER. This is the second brand of toilet paper that I’ve had to cross off my list since I passed my first quarter century:p The first was that Cottonelle Ripples stuff. It wasn’t chafy, but it broke apart too easily. I’d put up a picture of that stuff, but there’s no more around these here parts:p I don’t know if it’s me getting more sensitive (no more so-called resilience of youth and all that sort of thing) or what. But yeah, so now I have only two brands of toilet paper to count on that I can think of, Charmin and Angel Soft. I’m becoming a brand name whore:p Well, as long as it’s not Ripples or Quilted Northern, I’ll try something else if I see it, but for now, I’m thinking about labeling the remaining rolls of Quilted Northern “Emergency Earthquake supplies.” You know, along with the emergency Spam.
For some reason lately, we’ve been playing a lot of Warcraft games with bunnies hopping around. The maps have been available for a while, but we just never tried ‘em. The first screenshot is from a minigame inside the Skibi TD map, and the second is from the intro to Funny Bunny’s Egg Hunt. The Easter Bunny is smoking a cigar:p You can click on the picture and it’ll show a larger version of the picture:) Sooooo cute! :)
Also, Mike sent me this link today, this is not WarcraftIII, might be World of Warcraft. It’s a little geeky video that’s pretty hilarious:) Hehe, the guy says “Leeeeeeroy Jjjjenkins” with such panache. Anyhows, it’s all v. dorky, but funny.
We went to Kirala yesterday for dinner with Laura and John. It’s our fave Japanese place, basically. Some people say that it’s overrated, etcetc, but I think it’s pretty yummilicious:)
We got there right before they opened for dinner, so we waited in line for a little. This gave me plenty of time to take photos of shoes:D
Yut’s sandals.
Laura’s shoes.
3 of our shoes in one picture. John came a little later, after I’d already started snapping away, so no outdoorsy shoe pictures.
But no worries, I got it after we sat down:p
This was our waitress, she was great:)
The table, looking pristine, but empty.
But not for long. Actually we got some robata stuff before this, but we ate it all before I could take photos:) Oh sushi, how I love thee. I don’t think I have anything useful to say about sushi cos I basically rave:p The roll on the left with the shrimp tempura sticking out is their version of a Dragon Roll, basically a shrimp tempura roll with Unagi and Avocado around it, then there’s a Spider Roll, then Rainbow Roll — a California Roll with different fish and avocado all around it, then there’s two Spicy Tuna Rolls which I think are really good here, then 4 Unagi and 4 albacore tuna nigiri.
We ended with tempura green tea ice cream.
After dinner, Laura and John left for home, but Yut and I went to Berkeley Bowl, which is this cool, but v. crowded grocery near Kirala.
When we go to Berkeley Bowl, we generally walk all around the perimeter areas, but skip all the aisles cos it’s crowded and we want out:p There are just so many carts, it’s like rush hour sometimes.
Onions and shallots and garlic and potatoes and etcetc.
I think we are close to the last cherries of the season. Still yummy though:) These Sweetheart cherries look just like Bings to me, not that I am an expert on cherry varieties:p The light colored cherries are Rainiers, and you can’t see them, but there’s Lapin cherries, too.
More produce. We like the fruits at Berkeley Bowl cos there’s always like 20 million varieties and choices.
Sausages:)
Wines — I know it’s blurry, but I swear I wasn’t drunk! I was just walking towards it as I snapped the photo:p
Then we went home and played games. And that was the whole evening:)
Every time we go to 99 Ranch Market nowadays, I always go to the snacks aisle to check if there’s any Green Tea Pocky. Lately though, they haven’t had any, it’s weird. But the last time we went, they had Men’s Pocky (“ALL NEW!” — I’ll say:p).
What the heck izzat?! I’ve never heard of men’s chocolate before, so I had to try it. Then I realized that they were having a Pocky SALE. Well, you can imagine what happened next.
On the other hand, why imagine:p Since we were buying all these pockies anyhows, we went to another shop to buy some green tea pocky:p
The yogurt pocky box was half the size of the other boxes, so of course, I bought two:p
Once I started the box, it was gone in a flash. I think I could give them competitive eaters a run for their money in pocky consumption:p Yut had a chance to eat maybe one before they were GONE. Although he was playing DOTA on Warcraft and he doesn’t LURVE pocky, so it was his own doing. Yeah, it’s true:p
I just opened the men’s pocky, and I think it’s just dark chocolate. Dunno why that’s men’s, but whatevs. I did talk Yut into eating a few extra cos I mean, it’s Men’s pocky! The green tea is still the best. Although the yogurt was really good too:)
Oh speaking of them competitive eaters, we went out for dinner today and got raw oysters, and we ordered 18 for the 2 of us (Hama Hama, Kumamoto, and Malpeque, 6 each) and I was slurping away, then I said, “I wonder if I could eat as much as Sonya Thomas in oysters.” Only I just looked up her (world) record and it’s 46 DOZEN in 10 minutes, and I just don’t think I could do it. Or maybe I just can’t do it to myself. I looooove oysters, yum:)
Btw, Takeru Kobayashi beat Sonya Thomas in the finals of the US Open of Competitive Eating. They got through rounds of cheese fries, spaghetti bolognese, italian chopped salad, potato skins, and then finally an appetizer platter with chicken tenders, chips and dip, buffalo chicken burger, etcetc. Scary! Sonya was really strong ’til then end, when she just looked like she’d had about enough. I think they should’ve done the finals a day later:p
Oops, I made a mistake yesterday, the Alka-Seltzer U.S. Open of Competitive Eating is on ESPN, not ESPN2.
Yeah, Sonya Thomas is totally tiny! Besides being only 5 feet tall — actually, I don’t know, I’m taking your word for it:) — she only weighs like 105 lbs:p And she’s the #1 ranked American, #2 in the world. Not bad.
Complete “Eater Profiles” available at the Internation Federation of Competitive Eating website. There’s a very unfortunate photo of Eric Booker, amongst other people. Seriously, if I were Eric Booker, I’d be like, take that photo down! Or maybe he’s trying to be extra groady and scary:p
Watching Takeru Kobayashi eat is amazing. I think he set a new world record for spaghetti with sauce today. He just shoveled that stuff down!
We watched the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest during dinner today (ESPN2). Luckily, the actual eating part didn’t happen til the end of dinner, cos doooooood!
To win, you have to eat as many Nathan’s Famous hot dogs as possible in 12 minutes. The world record holder is Takeru Kobayashi of Japan (53½ hot dogs, set in 2004). He still won this year with 49 hot dogs, but didn’t beat his record. (He said that he was disappointed and maybe next year. Holy shit:p) Second was Sonya Thomas with 37 hot dogs, a new American record.
We couldn’t look away, but at the same time, it was awful. I mean, some of these people were dipping their hot dogs into water (to make the bun easier to eat) or lemonade in at least one case, and there was just this watery bready drool all around the mouth and wow. Ew:p
Anyhows, for the next few days, ESPN2 will be broadcasting the Alka-Seltzer U.S. Open of Competitive Eating. I might have to try to watch. Not during dinner though:p
This is another photo from Saturday night. Just cos it was a really yummy drink — I didn’t even think I wanted any more drinks, but Julie and Al both recommended this. You can’t tell, but it’s actually on fire. V. pretty blue fire:) And it tasted like lemonade:D
The TV was on, tuned to Animal Planet. We were watching a dog show (Jeffrey the Pekingese won best in show), but didn’t switch channels after that ended, so we ended up watching one of the Animal Planet’s Most Extreme series episodes, Most Extreme SWARMS! One of the swarms they highlighted was the Christmas Island Red Crab, most extreme swarm #5 or something. There was just this humongous amount of crab going crazy, but the whole time the narrator was going on about the migration and spawning and then the babies coming back, I kept saying, “Are they edible?!” “But don’t people eat them?” “Are they good food?” “That’s a lot of crab!”
IT’S LIKE I’VE BECOME MY MOTHER!!!
Then I spent time on Yahoo! and Google search searching for “eating Christmas Island Red Crab” and “cooking Christmas Island Red Crab” etc. Egads, the madness, it doesn’t stop:p
Anyhows, I think maybe people don’t eat them because they’ve had some poor spawning seasons in the last few years or something, plus an infestation of some sort of non-native ant that liked to eat them crabs. I couldn’t find descriptions of what they’re like, eating-wise, but it sounds like they are edible. And now you know:p
