Weekend in the Bay Area

Spent last weekend touring the Bay Area. Visited about 20 wineries. It was good times.

Gotta love 65 degrees in December!

Ledsen Castle

I want a PacMan Mac!

"The rest of the world can go back to being completely jealous of America. Our majority white country just freely elected a black President - something no other democracy has ever done. Take that, Canada! Where's your Nubian-Warrior President? Your head of state is a boring old white dude named Stephen Harper. And mine is a kick-ass black ninja named Barack Hussein Obama!" - Bill Maher

Halloween!

Yes - I was the Grassy Noel for Halloween.

Fallout 3

I realize I've been seriously slacking on my blog updates lately. I've been kind of on a big console gaming kick the past month or so (not that it's preventing me from blogging...)

Anyway, just picked up Fallout 3 today, which so far I'm really enjoying. I really enjoyed the first two, and it's been about 10 years since the last Fallout game was released. I've always dug the interesting concept behind this game - it's a GURPS based RPG that's set in a post-apocalyptic 1950's era wasteland. Creepy and well done.

Other games I've been playing lately are Metal Gear Solid 4, Disgaea 3, and Dokapon Kingdom.

In case you haven't noticed, I play a lot of video games =) The past 18 months or so have seen a dramatic decline in the amount of console games I've had time to play - primarily because I'd been spending so much time playing World of Warcraft. Well, our guild is taking a bit of a break until Wrath of the Lich King launches next month, so I'm cramming in as many games as possible before then.

Try, Try, Try

Pop tart
What's our mission
Do we know
But never listen
For too long
They held me under
But I hear
It's almost over
In Detroit
On a Memphis train
Like you said it's
Down in the heat and the summer rain of
The automatic gauze of your memories
Down in the sleep at the airplane races
Try to hold on
To this heart
A little bit longer
Try to hold on
To this love aloud
Try to hold on
For this heart's
A little bit colder
Try to hold on
To this love
Paperback scrawl your hidden poems
Written around the dried out flowers
Here we are still trading places
To try to hold on
Pop tart
Can you envision
A free world
Of clear division
For too long
They held us under
But I know
We're getting over
In Detroit
With the Nashville tears
Like you said it's
Down in the heat with the broken numbers
Down in the gaze of solemnity
Down in the way you've held together
To try to hold on
To this heart
A little bit closer
Try to hold on
To this love aloud
Try to hold on
For this heart's
A little bit older
Try to hold on
To this love aloud
And we are still alive
Try to hold on
And we have survived
Try to hold on
And no one should deny
We tried to hold onto the pulse of the feedback current
Into the flow of encrypted movement
Slapback kills the ancient remnants
That try to hold on
Try to hold on
To this heart alive
Try to hold on
To this love aloud
Try to hold on
And we are still alive
Try to hold on
And we have survived
Try to hold on
Pop tart
You never listen
Skinned knees
Try to hold on
Stop start
What's our mission
Skinned knees
Try to hold on

-Smashing Pumpkins

WiiFit Update!

Been doin' WiiFit for a few months now. I started off at 210.5 lbs. How's it going? Watch the video to find out!

Japadog!

We came to Vancouver this weekend to see the Stone Temple Pilots, which turned out to be a great show.
Last time we came to Vancouver, we looked all over for Japadog - the Japanese themed hotdog stand. Last time they were closed, but this time we succeeded! These hotdogs were fantastic! I had the misomayo, which is basically a mayonnaise that is flavored like miso. Katie had the terimayo, which is a terryiaki style hotdog. Add some wasabi mayo and come back for seconds!

Vij's

This is the entrance to Vij's - a very good Indian restaurant in Vancouver, BC that I've mentioned before in this blog.

Vij!

Vikram Vij serves up some cassava fries as an appetizer while we wait for a table.

Black Diamond Cookoff

This is the second year we've competed in the Black Diamond Cookoff. This year the team was myself, Josh, Rob and Damon.
Similar to last year, I am under the impression that the judges are a complete joke. There were 7 teams competing in barbecue, and 13 in the chili cookoff.
I had the distinguished honor of finishing 13th in chili, which I find amusing. Last year I also finished last, and our team finished in last place overall.
It probably sounds like sour grapes, but anyone that knows anything about food that actually tasted our stuff could in no conceivable way say that our stuff was the worst there. Quite the contrary, in my biased opinion, my chili was very good. Now, I could handle not winning. But last place?
There were some chilis there that were made basically of hamburger and tomato sauce. My chili was made from scratch. While i would rate it a 5/10 on the spicy scale, it was easily the spiciest chili there - which may mean that the other folks are pandering to the judges, who must not like spice.
Frankly I'd rather keep doing it right and losing than make bland paste.
Oh well, we still got to cook, eat and drink all day in the warm July sunshine!

4th of July Camping!

So my grandmother owns a lot of land out at Ocean Shores. Katie, Josh and I were intending on going camping this weekend, but as all of the good camp grounds were already booked by folks more prepared than us, we decided to instead trek out to this property to camp out there.
What greeted us was about 150 feet of wooded brushlands, which took us about an hour to clear. I'm pretty sure most people would have just given up and turned back, but never to be detered by work or logic, we forayed onward!
Unfortunately all our work was for naught, as the next morning we were greeted by the Police, informing us that in order to camp on our own property we must have both a valid camping permit, and ready access to utilities - neither of which do we have.
Still, we managed to have one good day of camping. And over night it decided to start pouring on us, so we were getting rather soggy anyway.
Makes you wonder what this country is coming to when you can't even reside on your own property without the police harassing you.

Man Conquers Nature

Viola! Instant camp site!

El Diablo!

El Diablo is why Tango is famous. It was featured on the front page of the Seattle Time's Sunday food section a while ago with a full page shot. It's a cake, but with the consistency of chocolate mousse. It's served over a burnt maringue and caramel sauce, accompanied by toasted almonds. But what gives it the kick is that it's dredged in cocoa powder and cayenne pepper!

So here's how you eat this thing - you spoon off a chunk of the cake, then drag it through the caramel and maringue, making sure to pick up an almond on the way to your mouth. The sweetness of the cocoa and caramel play nicely with the saltiness of the almond. Then, once you've interpreted those sensations, you get a mild cayenne burn at the end. It's awesome. Cool it out with a nice Malbec, and you're in heaven.

Queso Azul

Tango is a tapas restaurant. Tapas is a Spanish style of food that has become very popular over the past few years. Basically it's a menu arrayed with small servings of various dishes. This Queso Azul is one of my favorites there - it's a blue cheese souffle with a berry compote. I could eat about a million of these.

Tango!

Before we went to Tony Bourdain's show, we (Kyra, Josh, Katie, Scott, Heather and myself) dined at one of my favorite local restaurants: Tango.

Tony Bourdain in Seattle

If you hang around me for any period of time, odds are you're sick of hearing me quote Tony Bourdain. I've learned a lot about food and the culture surrounding it by reading his books and watching his shows. A few weeks ago Tony came to Seattle and did a lecture at The Moore. He talked for about an hour regarding his show No Reservations, as well as other topics food related. Then he took a question and answer for about half an hour. Unfortunately I couldn't really think of anything relevant to ask the man, but that didn't seem to stop most folks.

CarneVino is Mario Batali's newest restaurant. Very, very good food here - I highly recommend the Ossobucco.

Vegas!

Scott, Elli, Stephanie, Eric and myself spent last weekend in Vegas. This was Eric and Stephanie's first time in Vegas. I think they had a good time, but clearly we didn't drink enough!

Dirt

Today we moved 10 cubic yards of top soil. How was your day?

WiiFit Video Update

Click here to see an introduction to WiiFit.

WiiFit

Working for Precor, I try to take advantage of the perks that I have available to me. We have a pretty awesome free gym less than fifty yards from where I work.

I also maintain a fairly healthy diet, and am fairly conscious of my overall physical health.

That being said, I’m always looking for fun new ways to stay motivated. I have definite goals in mind with where I want to get to physically, and while I’m well on my way, I’m not there yet.

As such, I was frequenting IGN yesterday, and came across this blog about WiiFit.

I’ve owned a Wii since around Christmas time, and I’ve found it pretty fascinating. Some games employ the motion sensitive aspects of the machine to better use than others, but overall it’s a pretty unique experience.

It would be fun to see where this sort of thing goes in the future. Certainly the power of computers is processing data – and I think a more interactive approach to health that involves personalized data tracking of things like weight and overall health is a fun way to keep the user involved and motivated.

Perhaps I shall keep you updated as I go!

YouTube

No actual new picture today, but perhaps something more interesting. Several weeks ago I acquired a new HD video camera, and had been making videos ever since. Here's a link to some of the video I've edited:

http://www.youtube.com/user/OphidianX

Unfortunately YouTube currently makes you compress the file size, so it's significantly lower quality that it looks directly from my camera, but with technology improving all of the time, perhaps eventually it will look better.

Say Cheese!

Granville Island market in Vancouver, BC.

View from our room

Too bad the clouds are obscuring the mountain.

View from our room

City of Glass

They call Vancouver, British Columbia the City of Glass - and it's pretty easy to see why. Though only slightly larger than Seattle in population, there are about ten times as many high-rise condos, as downtown Vancouver is built on an island.
It's Josh's 30th birthday next week, so Josh, Katie and I went up to Canada for the weekend. We stayed at the Marriott Pinnacle in downtown Vancouver, with a splendid view of the water and the local mountains.
The above picture was taken on from the Banana Republic on Robson street.

We arrived Friday evening, and had dinner at Vij's, a very popular Indian restaurant that was featured on Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations. Although they told us it would be a 90 minute wait for a table, they put us in a nice area of the bar - and every 10 or so minutes the waitresses come around with various sample foods on a platter. In reality the wait was under an hour, and we were rather enjoying the beer and samples!

It really was the best Indian food I've had (try the beef short ribs!) - I bought their cookbook, as well as some of their take out food. We went a little nuts on the wine though, spending like $200 on wine. Oh well, it was good.
There are two restaurants in one building (Vij's, and Rangoli). Rangoli is more a lunch cafe style joint. Along the walls are these giant refrigerators like what you'd see in a convenience store. They have pre-packaged food from their restaurant that you can take home and heat up (which I plan on doing for dinner tonight!)

Satruday we had breakfast at Inlet's, a restaurant in the lobby of the Blue Horizon Hotel on Robson St. I had a BLT style eggs benedict with avocado - I really liked it, though Katie says she remembers the food being better.

Later that day we strolled around Granville Island - we visited a really cool marketplace that in some regards was even more impressive than Pike's Place. We also went to Granville Island Brewing company and sampled much of their wares, as well as doing a tasting at a local Sake manufacturer. We walked around the main shopping areas of Robson St - we tried to find Japadog, a Japanese style hotdog stand that Tony Bourdain went to on his show, but after an hour of searching, we found out they weren't set up when we were there. Instead we went to Cafe Crepe, which are all over the place. They were OK, but not great. I had this foot long hotdog with a bechamel sauce on it - good idea, but not well executed. I plan on improving upon it.

That night we had dinner at Sanafir on Granville St. While we were walking around Granville Island I picked up one of those free tourist magazines called "EAT". I saw an add for Sanafir inside which billed it as Vancouver's newest and sexiest tapas bar. I promptly made reservations under my alter-ego (Cornelius Ambercrombe) for 9:30pm. One crazy ass cab ride later, we're inside what I would describe as a dance club tapas bar. The ambiance was quite nice: hot chicks in skimpy outfits, club music, candle light - and the food was very good. You order a style of food (say, "Beef"), and they bring you three dishes from that style from along the Silk Road route from the Medeterranean to Asia- one dish from Lebanon, one from Tripoli, and one from somewhere I don't remember. We had the Beef, Chicken, and Pork dishes - plus a few other random ones from an ala cart style side menu. The drinks were weak though, and we skipped desert because nothing on the desert menu sounded all that appealing.

We left Sanafir around midnight and headed over to Shenanigans - an Irish bar. Figuring Monday was St Patrick's day, we figured it would be fun. Basically that place sucked - a bunch of 19 year old tards drinking green Moslon - we choked it down, went back to the hotel and crashed.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Paul's Place Omelettery Restaurant - which was a pleasant surprise. I picked up a dining guide in the hotel lobby, and it was the only breakfast place listed (I suppose they want you to eat breakfast at their lobby restaurant). Josh and I both ordered the Cornbeef Hash, which was excellent. Katie had some apple pancakes which she really liked too. The food was freakin' HUGE, though still very good.

After that we pretty much pulled out of Vancouver and headed home - overall, a fun weekend!

Raine is a Guitar Hero.