Shit Just Got Real

Finally bought a scale yesterday and was horrified to find out that the Dr's scale did not lie. After throwing my head back and crying out FUUUUUUCK I launched into working out like a madwoman.  I did the Biggest Loser Cardio Max workout, went for a walk in the canyons for an hour, came home and did the Biggest Loser Power Sculpt workout.  That was about 3 hrs of exercise.  Today it was the Biggest Loser Boot Camp and then the Biggest Loser Weight Loss Yoga plus 90 mins of walking in the canyons. My legs stopped feeling like they were mine about 10 blocks away from home but I blasted the Rocky soundtrack and like the old down-and-out Italian Stallion, I soldiered on and made the world my bitch. It was a glacial pace at the last 5 blocks but I made it home and collapsed in the privacy of my own home instead of sprawled across someone's yard. 

I really don't understand how I could gain 15 lbs in 3 months but it happened and now that it's done this shit needs to be undone.  Last night before going to bed I weighed myself again and saw no improvement. This prompted a shopping spree of workout DVDs: Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout, Jillian Michaels Shred It With Weights, Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown, Jackie Warner Power Circuit and the Bob Harper Inside Out 4DVD set.

I weighed myself after my 3 1/2 hr regiment today and I lost 1/2 lb.  That's more like it.  To keep myself motivated I consulted James on the merits of the P90X workout and whether it was worth ordering.  Yeah, I have that coming in the mail too.  After I finish that 90 day program I am getting the "Insanity" workout per James' reco. 




As you can infer from the above, I do not belong to a gym.  This is because I do not like to wait for equipment (often gross and dirty) and they have all these rules and time limits that they impose on you.  Also, I am really vain and I do not like to suffer in public, especially when I am known to make distracting noises that makes workout time sound like sexytime.  I also drop F-bombs a lot when I'm doing a particularly hard workout, which I guess could sound like sexytime too.  Most importantly, this goes back to my misanthropic tendencies and I just don't like to be around a bunch of people. Esp. people who are dropping pools of sweat on the equipment and emitting all sorts of smells.    Judging from the below, I am really not missing out for not being in a gym.

Horror at the Dr's Office

Annual exams SUCK. Not only do they molest you all over, they also kill your spirit.  Today I went for the dreadful awful visit and immediately things started off poorly when I stepped on the scale.  Somehow I had gone from reaching my Wii Fit goal weight back in March to a weight gain of 15 lbs!!! What the FUCK!!!As the nurse kept moving the metal clanker more and more to the right on this jurassic piece of shit of a medical scale, I literally exclaimed: WHOA! It's time to make some changes in my life!!!!

This is true. I need to make some changes. Like get a new fuckin scale that's actually correct, for one! Maybe I'm in denial but I really do not feel 15 lbs fatter. Maybe 5 lbs.  So last year was pretty shitty but one of the good things that did come out of that endless shitfest of a year is that I made it a mission to lose weight and get fit. This was triggered by a breakup, which is the best motivator for me, cus I was determined to come out the winner. The fear of running into an ex and looking like a fat mess works equally as well as the need to look hotter than ever as the ultimate Fuck You to ex'es.  This all came together splendidly when I actually DID run into an ex one day back in April (at the height of Wii Fit Glory, not at the current +15 Ell-Bees Fail).

Man, this means I have to stop having ice-cream everyday.  I'm pretty sad about it. I looooove ice-cream. Esp the little globes of divinity that I've been making. And maybe I'll go back to a Lean Cuisine diet religiously. CRY!

Pandas! Let's be friends!

paIt's official! April 23, 2011, the sister's birthday, falls between Good Friday and Easter Sunday and we had been talking about going on an trip together.  And we are going to go to the Wolong Panda Reserve in China! I am giddy with excitement!!!

According to the cousin who visited back in 2006, you are allowed to go up and hug a panda if you pay an extra fee.  You bet your sweet ass that I'll be forking over good money for this shit.  I'm gonna video this, put it on my ipod, work computer, blog, phone, facebook, etc etc so I can relive this joyful moment for years to come.

The Wolong Panda Reserve is located in Sichuan province, an area that was devastated by the big Chengdu earthquake in 2008. I'll admit it, when I heard about the panda reserve being affected, I followed the story closely as I was very worried about the well-being of these lovable bears. Maybe even more closely than how it affected people.  6 pandas roamed off the premises and all but 1 was found.  They eventually found the body of Mao Mao (I think it means Kitty Kitty). She was crushed in rubble when the earthquake triggered a landslide that destroyed the pens that she was in.  I was pretty bummed. There are less than 1,600 pandas alive in the world, so each one is precious!

This is a video about the cubs at Wolong Panda Reserve.  How friggin cute is that??? I LURRRRV the one that slides down and gets a faceful of panda butt and grins broadly! AAAAH!! Soooo sooooo cute!!!  Oh but I do so love the chubby one that waddles and has to go umph to push down the slide. His butt with the bushy tail is so friggin cute.

The sister, niece, mom and I are gonna make some panda friends. How jealous are you????

Bro's Greatest Hits Part 1

The bro, whether intentionally or unintentionally, utters some of the most unbelievably funny shit.  I thought I'd take this opportunity to highlight some of his greatest hits in pithy maxims.

On my 30th birthday:
This is pretty much your best by/expiration date.  It's all downhill from here.

On his 37th birthday:
Bro: Haaaaiiiii [that's a Cantonese sounding sigh] You're so lucky that your life is only 1/3 over. Mine's already more than half over.
W: What the hell are you talking about????!!!
Bro:  Don't you know that women live longer? Statistically speaking my life expectancy is shorter than you so I'm halfway to dying.

On ordering only meat in restaurants:
Vegetables are under $1 per lb in the market whereas steak is $12 so you can't order vegetables. It's not a good deal.

At buffets:
[rubbing tummy in discomfort] I've eaten 1 soup, 6 oysters, 8 sushi, 1 prime rib, 3 glasses of OJ and a plate of other stuff. I should be making money on this by now. But I'm gonna get some more OJ and oysters to make sure.

On my complaint that people who talk in theaters are annoying:
Yeah! We're there to talk to the screen! Not to each other!

On people he thinks are unattractive:
He/She looks ugly. Looks like (s)he smells. Badly.

On the movie Diary of Wimpy Kid:
That kid was an asshole. It was an awesome movie.

On the movie Revolutionary Road:
That movie is basically what happens if Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Crappio [intentional misspelling. Bro thinks he's very funny and clever for coming up with this nickname] had ended up together in the other movie Titanic. He'd find out that she is a raging fucking bitch. And this is what happens. Mwahaha! HA! AWESOME!!!

On the movie Precious:
That movie was done well but it was fucked up. The happy shit they show on TV are dream sequences. Her life fuckin sucks and then she gets AIDS. Yup. That movie's fucked up.

Helping the 7 y.o. niece on her General Studies homework and explaining the difference between living and non-living things:
Bro: What is fur?
Niece: Um...living? No, non-living. ???
Bro: That was a trick question. I'm teaching you that in life there are curve balls.
Niece: What's "fur"?
Bro: It is basically something that is unnecessary, esp in HK. It is something that rich people buy to show off how much money they have.
[Confused laughter from the niece]

During his many injuries (wrist, ankle, back, finger):
It fuckin hurt! I wasn't even in the mood to take a dump!

Yeah that's right. Those are real sentences. Spoken by the bro.  And this is only a sampling of his many many bon mots.  I gotta write these treasures down when I hear them so I can share them for later on.

Globe of Perfection Part Deux

Here's my newest tasty ice cream creation--Lavender Honey Ice Cream.  The specks you see in the ball of heaven is dried lavender.  The recipe said to strain it out but being a big fan of the floral taste, I decided to leave some in.  If there's anything I believe is that too much is always better than too little.  In retrospect my recipe adjustment may have been a mistake.  It turns out too much of a good thing can sometimes backfire.  I got a spoonful that had a few blossoms and the floral bursts made me wonder if I hadn't made potpourri ice cream instead of honey lavender ice cream. Other than that, the ice cream is pretty close to being divine.

As my future as a hip hop dance crew grows more dubious by the day, my prospects as an ice cream maker gets rosier by the hour. Ben & Jerry, Baskin & Robbins, Haagen & Dazs, and Cold & Stone better watch out cus as soon as I save enough capital, I'm gonna set up shop and charge people $6 per ball.  If there's anything I know about this town, it's that people like twists on mundane stuff.  We are willing to pay a premium for it as long as there's a high end take on it. This has led to a slew of expensive burgers, cupcakes, coffee and cocktail joints. In fact, the higher price signifies you know what you're doing and instead of feeling ripped off for paying $6 for a scoop of ice cream, people feel very happy and gratified that they are getting an awesome "artisan" experience.  I will definitely be using organic ingredients and calling that out big time because people go ape-shit over that stuff.  The portions will be more like French scoops and not American gigantaur size.  The anemic size ensures maximum profits for me and easy conscience for my customers since they can rationalize their indulgence if the serving size was small.  It's really a win for all involved.  I will artisan the shit out of this ice cream business.

Imma Dragon Kick You in the Neck

The bro has always been a kung fu and comic book aficionado and because the sis is a much more demure and ladylike even back in the day, I ended up being the unfortunate and unwilling sparring partner/victim.  To be fair, this is not always to my detriment.  Since I do not fashion myself a kung fu disciple, correct form and fighting stance are of no concern to me and I was always willing to fight dirty.  I am told by the fam that I was often quite ruthless and would claw the shit out of the bro with my natty little 8 y.o. nails.  However, I would like everyone to know that the bro is no hero either and he would often launch sneak attacks when I least expected. This almost always happens when I'm reading or watching TV on the couch and he would ambush with a dragon kick--literally sticking his fuckin foot up my ass. Being a portly dude he of course was unable to execute the flying dragon kick with the panache illustrated above by Bruce Lee or in his many many HK action comic books. Usually he would be pretend-reading or pretend-watching TV and the next thing you know, we are engaged in combat and he would have his foot up my ass.  It was some fucked up bullshit.

This week has been filled with annoying people from all walks of life that were asking for a good swift dragon kick Bruce Lee style.  While mentioning this in convo I was surprised that not everyone has been properly schooled in this specific from of asskickery and hence I felt I needed to share this important tradition in my peep's rich cultural history.  If I weren't so old (the acupuncturist said I might be developing arthritis in my wrist) and so cheap (looked into it a few weeks ago but balked at the prices), I would be signing up for some martial arts classes with the specific goal of perfecting a flying dragon side kick right now. I'm quite convinced that if I could kick like that I would be leading a completely different life. To start, that's how I would make my entrance and exit everywhere I roll.  More importantly, skillz like that would have guaranteed my place in a badass dance crew. In my young adulthood it was my dream to be a rap music video ho.  Now that I'm old and 2x the age of the dancers, I regret not ever belonging to a dance crew whenever I watch movies like Step Up 3D or shows like America's Best Dance Crew.

While lamenting the missed life path of a music video ho and dance crew member, Jenny cruelly reminded me that we never went down that road because we weren't that good. She reminded me of the time when we signed up for classes in a studio in Hollywood where actual pro's go and we were older than everybody and were the worst dancers in the class.  Prior to that dream shattering event we had assumed that we would pick up choreography with no problem and that back up singing/dancing was a very real and viable option for both of us.  I had effectively wiped that soul crusher out of my mind until now.

I still maintain that I could be an extra in club scenes. I might not be able to be in the dance battle scenes, but I can totally be one of the extras who are onlookers. I can totally spectate and shoulder shrug/side step til kingdom come. Ya heard, Hollywood?? Imma ready for my moment.

Globe of Perfection

This marvelous sphere of Nutella Gelato to the left is a creation from yours truly.  NO THANKS to yet another shit ball of a recipe from foodnetwork.com. It's 0 for 3 and I've had it with their crap.  This time I followed some cyanide tip from Giada de Laurentis and it came out like frozen chocolate colored ice and completely lacks the texture of real ice cream. So after some consultation with the internet (thanks to Nancy for letting me know about this NYC ice cream blog) and some ice cream tips from several cookbooks, I managed to cobble together my own nutella ice cream recipe on my second attempt and I made magic, as seen on your left.

Ingredients are:

2 cups of cream
1 cup of milk
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of nutella
5 yolks

FYI on how much Giada's recipe sucks, she said to use 1 cup of cream and 2 cups of milk and 4 yolks. I guess that might be ok if you're looking for ice cream without the cream part of the equation but what the hell is the point if ice cream doesn't coat your tongue with the fatty feel of buttery creamy goodness.  Then again, she is thin and stunning, so she has that going for her.  Either way, I have learned the valuable lesson that thin cooks should not be trusted and like psychics and fortune tellers, Food Network is for entertainment only and their advice is not to be taken seriously. 

Instructions:
1. Heat the cream, milk and 1/4 cup sugar on low heat. Don't boil it! Just heat it.
2. Whisk the yolks with 1/2 cup of sugar in a mixer.  It really helps if you have an electric mixer otherwise you're gonna have to beat the shit out of it by hand and that's tiring as heck.  You're gonna have to keep going until it's very light yellow and if going by hand it's gonna be a heck lot of heavy duty egg beating a mano.
3. Slowly mix in the heated cream mixture into the eggy mixture (technical term is custard) Once again, don't be overzealous and go high heat on this shit. You're making ice cream, not pancakes.
4. Flip all this shit back into the saucepan on low heat and keep stirring it until it's real thick. Giada says 7- 10 mins but she is wrong so don't listen to her.  It took me more than 20 mins. She also says keep going until "it coats the back of a wooden spoon", which is really vague so the first time I did it I just had the timer going and clocked in 10 mins.  But I should have trusted my own instincts. Everyone's had ice cream before in their lives, just think back to what melted ice cream looks like and approximate that consistency. Forget about this "coat the back of the spoon" b.s.
5.  Add the nutella and keep stirring until it melts into the mixture. I find it helps if you warm up the nutella beforehand by putting it in a double boiler. I don't actually have a double boiler so I put the nutella in a bowl and the bowl in the middle of a pan of water and turned the stove on low/med heat.
6.  Let the nutella custard mixture cool and then put in fridge til it is chilled completely
7.  Put this stuff in your ice cream maker and churn for 15-20 mins
8. Enjoy this creation that is called gelato (that's Italiano for soft serve custard based ice cream) or stick this in an airtight container and freeze it for a few hours to make the Christmas miracle that we know of as ice cream

As you can see, I'm already a better ice cream maker at attempt #2 than a so-called expert on TV. This has boosted my confidence so much that I announced to Nancy that I'm going to have my own ice cream parlor one day.  I might also look into writing cookbooks in the meantime.  

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Dubya's Klassikal Musik Korner

Having a ridonkulously talented musician as a mom is frustrating because while I have a deep appreciation for music and the desire to kick some ass in making some bangin tunes, the desire and the actual skill level are not in congruence with each other.  I've had years of music lessons, first in piano and more recently in cello, and I still have a long way to go.  One of the egregious musical crimes I commit on a daily basis is that I don't keep time when I play.  This is because playing with a metronome is hard and the clicking of the sucker is a constant reminder of how off I am so I only do it when my teacher make comments on how I should practice with a metronome.  It comes out to be every other week or so.  So it's pretty fucked up when I have to complain about someone else not being in time.  What I'm talking about is the Kaiser Permanente TV spot that seems to be on heavy rotation on weekend TLC and HGTV where they use Clair de Lune in the background.  I feel like my ears are molested every time this is on.



Folks, this is the actual music.

What the hell is up with the super quick eighth notes in the second measure in the TV spot? I don't approve at all. And don't these people have thousands and thousands of recordings to choose from? And this is the one they pick??? I am beyond offended.  Even I can do better than that.  I'm sure Edward Cullen would agree with me.  Edward Cullen is a sullen vampire from the Twilight series of films and books who seems to listen to Clair de Lune all the time. 

Here's me playing Clair de Lune. I learned this many many moons ago so I made a lotta mistakes in the middle section and I probably wouldn't earn the Good Job! Pandaba/Badz-Maru sticker from my teacher today but at least I can handle the first two goddam measures. Sheeeit.





Side note: See what I mean about Pandaba and her tutu from my earlier post? and also how Badz-Maru is of indeterminate species? When I was young I bought my own stickers that I brought to lessons cus the teacher's stickers were ugly and I didn't want it in my book. I had my own at the ready and picked out for when she deemed my playing sticker-worthy. By young I mean in my 20s, not when I was 10. Scary, I know.

Badass Motherfucker of the Week

Earlier this week I had an exceedingly gluttonous lunch at a fine eating establishment called Umami Burger.  Ironically this restaurant that celebrates artery clogging food items is located in a trendy overpriced where the rich and skinny whitefolk purchase their $500 jeans and $200 t-shirts.  You'd think it would be the worst juxtaposition and pity the fool that came up with this combo but you would be wrong. This is because we are in the town that embraces overpriced "quality" casual wear and thus also a town that is giddy over overpriced casual food.  Normally I would be looking upon this with disdainful scorn but good eats is good eats, and I do loves me some fried shit and tasty, delectable meat in between delicious buns, and this is some real shit right here.  I will show you how real real can get.  Between the boss-man and myself, we polished off the signature Umami Burger, a Truffle Burger, French fries with house ketchup, sweet potato fries with garlic aioli and cheese stuffed tater tots.  The boss-man said in apprehension when I told him all the fried stuff I planned to get, "You are shitting me, right?" and told me no way.  That's when I threw down and said: Oh Yeah? Watch me! and ordered up all that fried stuff.  It was fuckin amaaaazing! By the way we really had no trouble finishing the food.  Well maybe a little trouble, but we powered through it like real soldiers.  Wha-whaaaaa~~~!!

However, this heroic tale is not about me. This epic triumph is merely a prelude leading up to the real Badass Motherfucker of the Week, and the honor belongs to Takeru Kobayashi.  While fondly recounting my own conquest, I was reminded of the real champions of competitive eating and remembered record breaking Kobayashi, who recently made headlines (aol headlines, not real news headlines) over July 4 weekend when he got arrested.  He bumrushed the stage during the annual Nathan's July 4 hot dog eating contest on Coney Island.  The ex champ was barred from competing because he refused to sign an exclusive agreement that ties him to this one eating league and so he tried to crash the party and force his way to chow down some hot dogs on stage once the feastin began. 

This got me to thinking how a relatively small man of 140 lbs can manage to eat so much and I got to doing some research on the google.  According to the internet, Kobayashi takes all this very seriously and trains everyday. By training I don't just mean eating, which he does by making sure he has at least one meal that consists of 20 lbs of high fiber food such as cabbage and drinks gallons and gallons of water in order to stretch his stomach out, but he also works out like an outta control batshit crazy mad man. The guy is fuckin ripped!!! He has an 8-pack! Allegedly he can bench 300-400lbs, exercises for 3+ hrs a day, and has 9% body fat.  He says he doesn't want fat on his tummy since that prevents his stomach from stretching out.  He holds several world records--58 bratwurst sausages in 10 mins, 41 lobster rolls in 10 mins, 100 char siu baos (bbq pork buns) in 12 mins, 20 lbs of rice balls in 30 mins and too many more to list.  The guy is awesome in that I am in complete and utter awe.  I'm also very scared and grossed out, but awed nevertheless.

As I'm writing I am seeing the local news report that charges against Kobayashi are dropped. Go America! Go justice system!  It's a great day for good ole American freedom and for eaters worldwide. 

Dreams and Aspirations

Yeah that's right. Just cus you old don't mean you stop dreamin.  I haven't, and you shouldn't either.  Not a week goes by where the topic of winning the lottery doesn't come up in conversation. As a proactive doer, I took action and got myself a ticket on Saturday.  I even made a happy discovery that you can use the numbers and prepay for future drawings.

The lottery also figures in heavily in my sister's life plan as she has identified this as the way for her big meal ticket or as she calls it, 大茶飯.  I don't remember a time when we did not dream about winning the lottery. When we were kids we even have a song and dance that goes with 大茶飯. We hatched plans on running away and going on adventures which the sister immortalized in a series of cartoons she drew. Unrelated note, most of the cartoons involve a likeness of me, who was a boy by the way, and a likeness of her and for some reason the recurring theme besides running away on adventures is an abusive one where I give her a black eye.  To clear my name, I was never violent towards my sister! Only the bro! and let's face it, he was asking for a beating most of the time. 

I am a dramatic wus

I am no fan of discomfort and my pain tolerance is lower than a 3 year old toddler.  When I was little and had no idea of how anything worked I thought I was literally going to die when I was running and got out of breath.  In my primary school I refused to run because I thought being out of breath is a sign that I had heart disease and from all indication that I saw on TV on HK, one minute the old guys are gasping for breath, the next thing you know, the dudes are tumbling over and are shortly hospitalized. The one time I tried to do some situps and light exercise I felt sore the next day and bitched about how much it hurt for a whole week afterward and pretty much decided that being active was not for me from that point forward.  I have a distinct memory of telling my PE teacher that I can't overexert myself because I had heart disease and being laughed at. Not only that, the callous bitch also shared this tidbit with other teachers and had them laughing at me too.  HK teachers are normally humorless and joyless except for when they can derive humor and joy from innocent children's suffering and humiliation. 

Now that I am a grown ass woman I have a better understanding and know that I won't actually expire when I exercise, but it does not mean that my tolerance for discomfort has developed in any way.  To add to this mix, I am aware of more potential ailments that I could be having. Luckily, I have a good friend who is a MD now and can call her to discuss my problems.  There was this one time I thought I was literally expiring and wouldn't make it through the night and I called her and she told me I had gas.  We had a contentious debate because I was convinced that I had something far more grave like a failed kidney or pancreas or cancer and she would regret her shitty diagnosis when it ends up being terminal.  But then the gas attack passed and I was ok and so I hung up went back to bed.  A few months ago I thought I had brain lesions (it was a sprained ankle, long story, and I ended up in the wrong so no need to go there). Last month I thought I might have carpal tunnel because I had these blinding, shooting pains in my wrist. I think Dr. Friend is pretty sick of my complaints, esp regarding pain since she has a damn high pain tolerance herself and anyone possessing less than that was just being a pussy.  Although she is normally very empathetic, she does not consider pain a real illness.  This is someone who once broke up with a dood b/c he winced when he sprained his ankle.

My awareness that I over-react to my pains, injuries and ailments does not stop me from dramatization.  This week I am doing thumb position exercises on the cello and since I don't have calluses built up on my thumb yet, the piercing pain literally makes me sweat, wimper and cus. It might just look like a thumb sliding up and down the string, but this is how it actually feels.

Photo from The Empire Strikes Back

For those of you who don't know, this is Luke Skywalker after getting the shit beaten out of him by Darth Vader and on top of getting his ass kicked, his hand gets sliced off and that's why he only has a stump on his right and his hand is floating with a sad unlit light saber handle near the middle of the screen.  You can tell from the face he's making that he is not boyfriend material for my Dr. Friend.

Social Niceties and Survival Skillz

Last week was the company picnic and of course I did not attend.  This is because I am somewhat of a misanthrope. In general, I do not subject myself to situations where the quotient of friends to non-friends is less than 1.  I make exceptions if it's an opportunity for me to display my gift of song/skillz on the dance floor and if there's awesome free grub.  Most of the time though the only place I like to go is home.

Small talk ranks high among things that I do not do. It's up there with sports and drugs.  Sometimes there's no escape and there's just nothing to do but nod and smile and repeat the last 3 words the other person said.  Over the years I have developed a coping mechanism that I call the Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  DB&B is a memoir-turned-movie about a guy who used to be an asshole and then suddenly got paralyzed and lost all mobility and motor control except for one eye, and as a result had to retreat into his inner world of torment and imagination.  It got some Oscar buzz which means nobody saw it, and it was doubly cursed since everybody spoke French, except for the main guy, who blinked his one eye. 

Years ago, before I learned this important life skill, I was at a party at my friend's house and I was cornered between my good friend James and another person we went to high school with.  At this point we had  finished the grubbing part and moved on to the hanging out part so I couldn't break away to stuff my pie hole.  From earlier encounters we had already covered the basics of catching up and discovered our divergent religious paths--she was religious, I'm not. at. all.  So here we were, kicking back in the living room, she's trying to get a conversation going again and I really didn't want to participate and was trying to figure out how the F I was going to get out of this jam.

Similar to what you're supposed to do in bear attacks, I laid down and stayed down.  But instead of pretending to be dead in a bear attack, I pretended to be asleep.  This totally got me out of talking and I was congratulating myself on my own ingenuity but James who I was really tight with, knew that I was acting, and was fuckin pissed at me for leaving him hanging like that and so periodically would poke and prod me to show that he knew whassup and that I better fuckin stop playing and bail him out.  As in the cases of bear attacks, if the bear comes and checks you out and starts pawing at you to check whether you're truly dead, you're supposed to roll with its punches and not let on that you're pretending.  So I tolerated the violence that James was unleashing on me and stayed the fuck asleep.  To this day he is still incredulous that I left him hanging as I did.

Daily Wonders

I go to bed excited about consuming coffee and breakfast in the morning. Sometimes I begin looking forward to it seconds after finishing dinner.

Anytime is a good time for swing time

Swinging is the shit. I love it. Me, you, and everyone else in the world loves it and that both unites and divides us. Back in the day when I was a kid in primary school in HK, recess was friggin short, like 15 mins and the whole school took it at the same time so there weren't nearly enough time or swings to go around.

To top this off, I had a conflict of interest as I also fuckin loved to eat . We had a shitty snack bar managed by a coupla old cranky guys who spoke with a thick country accent and dirty fingernails that disturbed me even as a child. Despite the abysmal customer service and questionable hygienic standards of the operation, I was still pretty excited about grubbing and almost everyday I would pick the eats over the swing and would run my chubby little butt to the skanky snack shack to grab me some snack(s).

One day in the middle of Mandarin class, I asked for permission to go to the restroom and as I made my way to the facilities, I made a detour to the playground and decided to jump on the swing. We only had Mandarin class once a week and the teacher was an elderly lady who never remembered anybody's name. While 99.9% of teachers in HK are humorless and joyless disciplinarians, Mandarin Teacher somehow escaped that mold, very possibly because she was not a trained teacher and was only there part-time to teach weekly classes by virtue of her impeccable Beijing accent. This means I didn't consider Mandarin a real class or her a real teacher and really didn't feel qualms at all for cutting out in the middle of class and making a go for the swings. It was awesome. I swinged the shit out of that bitch.

From then on whenever Mandarin class got too boring or whenever I damn well felt like it, I would go for the swings under the guise of a bathroom break. This lasted for a few weeks. The jig was up when some classmates got hip to what I was up to and wanted to join in. It was easy to get away with shit when it was just me but it got suspicious when a bunch of critters go missing for 5-10 mins. We got busted.

That's the way it goes. You get a good thing going. Then bitches come and fuck things up for you.


Photo courtesy of Emily, who saw this and said it reminded her of me

I love Pandas!

I love pandas! Today while talking to Nancy I was reminded of my "thing" for 熊貓, that's the proper nomenclature in the native tongue, which literally translates to "bear cat". At one point I joined a fb group called "Fuck college. I wanna be a panda." They are quite possibly the most adorable creatures to walk the planet and most definitely are the cutest and most lovable creature from China. They don't want any trouble. All they want to do all day is sit and eat a shit ton of bamboo.

When I was growing up, Sanrio of Hello Kitty fame came up with a character called Badz-Maru. I never knew what species he was supposed to represent but the Sanrio website says he is a penguin (he does not look like a penguin, they did a much better job with Tuxedo Sam, which I lurrrrved). But what makes him interesting is not his indeterminate origins, but the fact that he always rolls at least 2 deep in his posse and one member of his crew is a panda called Pandaba. I did not know Pandaba's back story or gender either but he/she rocks my world. Just take a look. No matter what the rest of the posse is dressed up as, Pandaba is inevitably rockin the tutu. The guys could be out on a picnic, space travel, whatever, Pandaba stays strong and commits to that tutu outfit and half open eyes.

While cribbing this photo from the Japanese Sanrio website, here's what I found out about Pandaba. Pandaba is a she, from a rocky mountain in China, has "quite a twisted personality, and she responds well to flattery", her skills include speed eating dumplings and can fit 100 in her mouth in one time! and she listens to rap music. Wow. Tell me we are not the same person/panda!

So in summary, pandas rule. I fuckin love pandas.

Dinner Party Recipe Roundup

Over the weekend I had the bro and cousin Ga Wai's fam over for dinner and as is my style, I went the whole nine with my food selection. I l.o.v.e. to eat and when you love something, you gotta learn everything about it and try to do it yourself. And no half-assing either. It's gotta be hard core all the way. This is a trait that the MaMe passed on. Make no mistake, I am hardcore--from cooking/entertaining to my 10k cello practice time goal. But I don't even come close to the iron will, unwavering commitment to perfectionism that my mother shows in all aspects of life: from her perfect pitch, memorizing the Qs and As to her U.S. citizenship test despite not speaking English, to making the best chicken soup, tying the perfect bow, and cleaning a dish to sparkling spic and span.

So here's what was on the menu: Portabello and button mushroom salad over baby argula with shaved Parmesan, white truffle oil and coarse sea salt; Italian bread baked from scratch; wild mushroom and shrimp risotto with fresh thyme; clams with cajun andouille sausage, sage and Thai basil; peach cobbler (from scratch) with Haagen Daaz creme brulee ice cream.

I cribbed the salad idea from La Poubelle, from when Emily and I went after finding out that our favorite watering hole was closed for a private party. This turned out excellent!

The clams was an idea I got from Steelhead Diner. The last time I made this dish it was a lot more flavorful and this time it was a tad too watery, probably cus I put too much water in. I blame this from not having the right pot. I normally would use a wider pan but I used a 4 qt saucepan this time around. And I wanted to make sure that everything cooked so I filled up the pot with water.

The risotto was a combination of 2 recipes I found on epicurious and turned out excellent.

The last 2 baking items were from the Food Network website. I have very mixed feelings about it. The Italian Bread was Emeril's recipe and had a user rating of 5 stars. It turned out ok taste-wise and gave great tips on how to make a crispy crust but it took 30 more minutes than the recipe said. Also, he failed to mention the enormity of this sucker! I'm talkin the size of a 6 mos. old baby! The texture was also more dense than I normally like, def would not give this 5 stars.

The peach cobbler was Paula Deen's recipe. A whopping 862 ratings of 5 stars. Maybe my taste differs greatly from the rest of the users but this was maybe a 3 if I were being generous. She asked for a whole stick of butter and it was a lot. It was still oily when I served it. Paula Deen, you let me down. Southern food is your expertise. 862 foodnetwork.com users, you let me down too.

Art Installation

I've been playing with the idea of putting up paintings at my place instead of sporting the ascetic bare walls for the last few months but I haven't been able to find anything that really speaks to me. And when I did find something I mildly like, the price tag was prohibitively high. Like thousands of $$$. Then a few weeks ago, at my bro's behest, I watched 10 mins of the Bravo reality art contest show, which features a bunch of a-holes and d-bags, and pretty much confirms all the worst stereotypes I already have about artists--annoying and full of shit, which might even be forgivable had they possessed a crazy amount of talent. However, as with most a-holes and d-bags, this is not the case. So while the bro was kicking back and busting his gut with deep belly laughs, I'm sitting there with scornful distaste thinking that I could do what these mothereffers are doing, but minus the assholery and jackassery. Sadly also minus the TV appearance but that is what the internet is for.

Last week I serendipitously came across a 40% off coupon for any item at Michael's, and it was a golden opportunity to get my supplies. One of my trademark characteristics is that I love bargains and I love to shop. Some say I am cheap as shit but what they don't realize is that this is trait that is deeply ingrained in my people. You will be hard pressed to find any Asian person who does not love value. Anyone can buy something full price, but not everyone can find the best price. To my peeps, you are an idiot if you pay full price. By extension, the deeper the discount you score, the more you command respect. It is a value that my parents instilled in me from birth. This is also taken to Olympian heights in the case of my bro.

I had to take a bus to buy the canvas since it was too big to fit in my car. It was not a very pleasant walk from the bus stop to my house while lugging that 60" x 48" canvas in 100 degree heat but I did save $40. Savings is even more substantial when compared to what I would have to pay for a gallery painting. All in all, this has been a win. Here's what the finished products look like.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194485&id=611088068&l=490b3efc61