Category: Daily Life

MW2 Causes Baldness

This past weekend was spent playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on my 360. It took me 3 days to finish it on regular difficulty. I decided to try it on veteran difficulty, both at work and at home. Let me just say, I’m ready to pull my hair out on the Rio level. It’s just me basically going from one checkpoint to the next, dying about a hundred times in between. Good game though. Well made.

Flabby Arms and V

Yes, 2 topics in one blog post!

Did upper body exercises at the gym today. Didn’t realize that the month I spent not exercising has created a very flabby me. I couldn’t do some of the things I did before with ease… Ok, sorta with ease. I was able to do a set of 10 easily 1-1/2 months ago. Today I was barely able to do 5. It was sad. I need to make going to the gym a very routine event again.

Watched the new V with my sister tonight. Oh my gosh, it was much better than what I anticipated. Definitely going to be catching it every week now.

Halloween Weekend

So I had a rather exciting weekend (plus Monday). It involved kidnapping my sister three times.

When I woke up on Saturday, I decided that food was in order, but I didn’t want to make something. I needed to leave the house and I thought of no better way of spending my time dragging my sister out with me. She was about to eat some ramen, but I managed to convince her that going out for ramen was much better than eating the instant stuff. Unfortunately, we left for food at around 3:30 PM when all the restaurants we wanted to hit were closed. Food was finally in our tummies at around 4 PM, but it was not-quite-tasty ramen from the Express in Marukai. Quite disappointing.

Laura needed to go home to get ready for her party and I needed to get ready to go to the Galaxy in Santa Ana. I showered, and dressed up in my bloody tooth fairy costume. A coworker thankfully went with me. We went to see Elviss Simmons and the Memphis Strutters (and Dead Man’s Party). I was really hoping to hear Weird Science, but my coworker and I didn’t stick around for that. We need to hit another party back in Torrance and it was already midnight by that point.

The party we went to was another coworker’s. Lots of food still left, and the party punch was pretty good. New Dan was there as well. I haven’t seen him since Web of Shadows. It feels like a long time ago, but it’s only been a year.

On Sunday, I saw Cirque du Freak: the Vampire’s Assistant with Laura. Her husband was going to come, too, but he had too much stuff to do, so he bowed out. I really liked the movie even though I thought it strayed a bit farther from the books than I would have liked. It would have been really hard to stuff 3 books into one movie, so I can see why they made the changes that they did. One interesting thing Laura pointed out; the actor who played Steve got a higher billing than the actor who played Darren. I found that odd as well.

On the way back to our cars, we decided to check out the Circus Vargas tent that was set up at Del Amo Fashion Center. It was $30 for decent adult seats. I wanted to see it because I haven’t seen a circus since I was a little kid, and Laura wanted to see it because… I think because she couldn’t remember ever really seeing it. She said that she just knows that she did, but she didn’t remember it. The last showing was today (Monday) at 7 PM. I left work early so I could make it back to Torrance in time to get decent seating.

The circus was more exciting than I remember it. I know that they can do amazing feats of acrobatics, but knowing and seeing are two entirely different things. Laura asked me what I wanted to do if I was in the circus. She wants to be costume designer/make-up artist. I said trapeze artist. Such an unlikely answer from someone who’s scared of heights, but I really loved the bars as a little kid.

I really want to see Cirque du Soleil now. More acrobatic feats of wonder, please!

Best Partners

The last two nights I’ve been trying to recreate a drink I saw on the Japanese TV show called 相棒 (English title: Partners). I wasn’t there to watch the beginning of it, but only the last 15 minutes where the old lady finally got the drink she came to Japan for, a drink called “Best Partners”. Her husband is English and they met in some little Japanese pub many years back. Anyway, the bartender was the murderer with the special drink being the link tying him to the murder. I don’t know how that works, but yeah.

Anyway, the drink contains gin, mint liqueur, and umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum). Um, sounds delicious to me! :9

I bought gin and creme de menthe. Umeboshi I have buttloads of at home.

Try #1

  • 2 oz gin
  • 1 oz creme de menthe
  • 1 umeboshi

GROOOSSSSSS. That went down the drain.

Try #2

  • 3 oz gin
  • 1/2 oz creme de menthe
  • 1 umeboshi

GROOOSSSSSS. I finished it, mostly because I already wasted 1 glass of alcohol already.

Next night…

Try #3

  • 2 oz gin
  • 1/4 oz creme de menthe
  • 1/2 oz umeboshi paste
  • 3 tbs of simple sugar (although I don’t know if it was accurate proportions as I just mixed sugar and hot water together)

Better. My dad says it tastes like medicine. :\

I also made a drink called Tequila Pink. I didn’t like it. There were also ants in my grenadine, so after I took what I needed (sans ants), I poured the rest down the drain. >_>; I also poured half of the Tequila Pink drink down the drain as well.

Knott’s Scary Farm

I haven’t been to Knott’s Scary Farm in years! There were a lot of new roller coasters that I’ve never heard of. I think the last time I went was sometime before the Xcelerator opened. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to go on all the rides, and some rides were shut down for mazes below them. Got plenty of screaming done and I expect my throat to be slightly sore in the morning.

In Hawaii

Aside from the old lady sitting to my left who smelled faintly of dirty diapers, my flight to Honolulu was uneventful. Read the book I purchased on the flight.

The anger (well, not really angry, more disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed) started when I got my luggage. When I pulled my suitcase off the conveyor belt I smelled umeshu. Uh-oh. The bottom of the suitcase was sticky on the outside. Double uh-oh. When I got my rental car, I opened up my suitcase in the trunk. Triple uh-oh. TSA decided that they needed to check my luggage because, you know, a jar of plums in liquid really looks suspicious. They did an awesome job of repackaging everything, too. And when I say awesome, I mean really terrible. Don’t they have better things to do, like, oh, I don’t know, not failing real security tests?! America’s #1 defense in our nation’s airports. Checking for bottles of alcohol.

Temporary suspension of bitterness….

So I ate lunch at Angelo Pietro with Pikko. I got the spicy beef and eggplant spaghetti. Delicious. :o~ Pikko ordered a raw potato salad and wow, I didn’t know raw potatoes could taste so yummy! Too bad there isn’t an Angelo Pietro restaurant in Torrance. I would totally eat there. A lot.

Back to bitterness…

After lunch, we went to my rental car so I can give the leaky jars of plum wine to Pikko to take home. It was then that I found out that the large bottle that was supposed to go to her was completely empty. I opened up the poor repacking job and saw glass shards mixed in with the plums. OK. That made me a bit more angry. I think I would have been cooler if the alcohol was the only thing that was lost. But the plums, too?! That was a lot of plums! The smaller jar that was supposed to go to Pikko’s brother was still intact. At least I manage to get some alcohol to them.

Sigh.

Did laundry already. I had to wash the new bag I bought for this trip. The tag inside said do not wash. Great. I hope it’s not ruined.