Foodie Adventures with Nach: Day 3

Nach came back safe and sound from his Thursday Philly trip, ready to go adventuring some more bright and early on Friday morning. At one point he was trying to suggest that perhaps we could start a little later in the day. Memories of the terrifyingly long day we had on Wednesday had him talking crazy when he uttered that suggestion, but that would mean fewer hours to eat. Weighing the pros and the cons, we set out early once more but it was not early enough…

Kimbra and Her Magical Frock in Limbo

It's true.

Kimbra has more than half a song in spite of what many of you clowns may believe.

Not only does she have more than half a song (as featured on Goyte's one-"hit" wonder song that was all the rage this year), but her album is 50 times better than that of the aforementioned Goyte.

It's an album that's actually 50 times better than most but I'll leave the gushing for the end of year review.

Thus, even threatening me with housing her concert at Webster Hall could not deter me.  Webster Hall's not that awful and it certainly is no Terminal 5 which I would have more than likely passed up.

But with TD5, Active Goat T., Alex and H1 in tow, I'm incredibly happy that TD5 and I did not pass up the opportunity to see the fantastic Kimbra.

We began the evening at Kenkas (sorry B.!) and ate a bunch of our favourites but nothing spectacularly strange as with past ventures being that Beetchie was not with me.  I don't think that gives me an excuse for going there without her and I won't tell her that the food was really good that night.

Especially our awesome fries which is fast becoming the only place to eat fries.

After a satisfying meal (and some trauma to the Active Goat's fragile, young mind of the aesthetics on display at Kenkas), we traipsed on over to Webster Hall for the best $20 concert I've ever attended.  In fact, I knew the evening could be nothing but awesome considering that's the cheapest I've ever paid for a concert.

That alone is amazing in itself.

Ushered upstairs, we were met with the sounds of opener The Step Kids.

We've seen some pretty horrendous openers in our time but The Step Kids should not be lumped with the lowest of the low.  They were more middle ground, I suppose.  Musically, they sounded pretty good but they were a bit too much funk and too much on a 70's vibe for my taste.  I mean, what business did these white boys from Connecticut have being so psychedelic, funk?!  It was funny save the forced falsetto of one of the vocalists ever so often.  That was done too much and everything just sort of blended into one song.

They did have an awesome little stage show though with the lights... 

...which you cannot really tell from this picture.  You can be assured that it was cool though.

After exiting stage right, and then brushing past us in the crowd (yeah, the drummer with some girl squeezed his way past us after their set was over), we had a little bit of wait while Kimbra's roadies set up her stage.  It was the point when her second microphone stand was set up complete with her boo boo tambourine that TD5, H1 and I lost it.

Some smoke machines later, a dimming of the lights and the extended opener version of "Limbo" playing over the loud speakers that things got under way.

It was quite the thrilling little builder of anticipation...I know I was excited as it's one of my favourite tracks.

There were lots of purple lights and soon, Kimbra came dancing out and straight into "Limbo", and she was dressed in an outfit that many considered doing for Halloween.  I loved its weirdness and the blast of multiple colours that Kimbra came dolled up in.  Soon, H1 dubbed the giant purple thing draped over her shoulders as "The Magical Frock" and so it shall be remembered from this day forward.

Our time spent with Kimbra felt incredibly short even though she played just about every song from her album but I guess time flies when you're having fun, which is exactly what we did.  We danced, yelled, screamed, cheered and marveled at Kimbra's genuinely excited demeanour.  The girl was so happy, it was too cute for words.

Scary at times, too.

 To recap as we always do, here are the highlights and lowlamps -

The Lowlamps

1.  I was expecting hipsters.  Hipsters are lowlamps for sure but what I was not expecting was probably one of the rudest crowd I have ever encountered.  I don't know what the fans could be categorized as but they were not hipsters.  Hipsters, at the very least, are polite and tend to stand around not doing much.  The jerks at this concert were pushing their way to the front, cutting off a lot of us and standing way too close to us and others in an attempt to get up to the front.  These people exist at all concerts but it was particular horrendous this night.

2.  The Great Herding of Webster Hall.  Marketing or herding, it was awful.  After Kimbra was done, there was a herding situation of epic proportions that had us going down flights of stairs and into a section for "more live music", the bar area (in which we almost lost TD5 because he was very tempted to sit down and have one) and an eventual street escape.  It was ingenious and pure evil at the same time.

The Highlights

1.  Our girl, Kimbra! Her vocal range is nothing short of spectacular.  She sounded great live and even better than on disc (if even possible!) changing up songs just enough to be interesting and not jarring.  Her personality on stage was playful, joyous and again, she was just so darn cute.  I think it's safe to say that TD5, H1 and I can highly recommend seeing her live if anyone is afforded the opportunity.  I really do hope this girl is going to get a lot more exposure than she is being given.

2.  Webster Hall's Sound System.  Everything sounded so incredibly awesome which H1 rightly pointed out at some point during the evening.  It was clear, and fantabulous.

3.  Two Microphones? Kimbra's vocal prowess is so intense that the girl needs two microphones to sing with.  Two.  At the same time.  It's a spectacle.  I say vocal prowess, while others might say she's a wide-mouthed frog.  Same difference?

4.  That outfit.  The purple Magical Frock that completed the outfit was just dynamite.  It wouldn't be a Kimbra concert without some weirdness/artistic madness and insane hand gestures on her part.  At one point the Magical Frock got away from her shoulders which she mentioned too as "having never happened to her before...must be New York". 

1. 5.   "Settle Down".  Apparently, we weren't playing along.  By "we" I meant the fools in the crowd.  We were supposed to be singing along and we didn't (TD5, H1 and I did) but no.  Anyway, she restarted it and the entire performance was the best.
   
   
   The Kimbra at Webster Hall on October 19, 2012 Set List:
   
   
   1.  Limbo
   2.  Posse
   3.  Good Intent
   4.  Plain Gold Ring
   5.  Two Way Street
   6.  Marigold
   7.  Old Flame
   8.  Warrior
   9.  Something in the Way You Are
   10. Settle Down
   11. Cameo Lover
   12. Come Into My Head
   
   
   Encore:
   
   
   13. Withdraw
   14. Call Me
   As you can see from the set list, I got the better song.  Or rather, we had never heard that song before but it was quite the danceable fun song that I cannot wait to get on a follow up cd or something.   I managed to get the better song over H1's.  Heh.  I think I got choked for that at some point.
   
   In closing, (I don't know why my blog post just got messed up - unrelated but I cannot seem to fix it) it was a great night with lots of fun with friends and to Kimbra: Our hearts are already open.
   
   

   

The End of Days, Part VI: The Takoyaki Stand, The Best Fries, and a Failed Toy Run. Again.

As one final adieu "until next time, of course!" with Beetchie in the Summer, we went to our old haunts in St. Marks.

H1 and Beetchie are obsessed with takoyaki, as I'm certain I've mentioned before.  What's not to obsess over though? Takoyaki's pretty fabulous what with its gooey, chewy, salty masterful texture and flavour.  We have yet to find another stand that makes it fresh outside of Tokyo but are thankful enough to Beetchie to have discovered this one.

Never you mind the hipsters on the street.

Redeeming Our Good Name at Kenka: Adventures of the St. Marks Kind, Part I

Last Saturday was a good day.

Last August, around the 13th was not.

It was fun times seeing Beetchie (Yay! Summer break!) and she successfully completed her 2nd full year at Vet School.

In fact, Beetchie and I had a pretty great meal and an afternoon/evening full of...no misadventures.

It sounds very suspect and we're just hoping that no build of negative energy is trying to happen again like that day in June back in 2006 when the bakery in Brooklyn exploded.

We went to Barnes and Noble, Pet Co., Kenka, Toy Tokyo and got cream puffs from Beard Papa.

It's all the great things we usually do when we hang out at Union Square and St. Marks.

Of course, Kenka was involved and I am pleased to report that a repeat of the Taro and Raw Squid Incident did not occur.

Thank goodness for that.

We started out with the Angler Liver.



For me, it was a little bit too strong on the fishy-ness but add some garlic and even the not-so-scallion-tasting scallion and it was amazing. It was very smooth.
Beetchie rather enjoyed it on first bite and even more so when she later discovered that we did the Angler an unkindness by eating it. We were unaware that it is on a Watch List...trying to be protected from the Japanese. Of course, the Japanese. And us.

Next we had Neck of Yellowtail which was quite good. Beetchie had fun with the fatty bits on the bone.



Grilled beef intestines are always yummy times and this set was extra so because it was quite laden with the seasoning that just stuck to it.



The Kimchee Udon was a little bit of a disappointment but not like the disappointment to come but still, I like udon so I was okay with it and then Beetchie gave me like the only bit of fatty pork in there because she hearts me:



We sat around hungry and ordered more.

Knowing fully well that this is always a bad idea, we sat around and became less hungry.

When those two dishes came, well it was over for us.

It also was not cool that Kenka put cheese spring rolls on the menu and when they came out, they were tiny bits of fried spring roll skin wrapped around as Beetchie called it, string cheese:



And then! How could one go wrong with fried pork on a stick, right? Somehow, that managed to be bad. I was already full but sticking very-much-tasting-like-a-killer-onion onion in between the tonkatsu...HIDDEN, in the tonkatsu will do me in. And it did:



So, we may have gotten a little over confident by our successes and then got effed over but we still had a pretty good meal and it was not near a total loss.

Beetchie and I even got new T-shirts! The staff (all changed...wha'?) were wearing new company shirts that were so cool that we had to get some too.

Luckily for us, they do in fact sell their shirts and also, our little Japanese guy assured us that it did not say "I am an asshole" on it.

We'll see if that's the truth if we wear it in Tokyo sometime and we get whispered and "oho ho ho ho'd" about.

Oh yeah, and it's becoming a regular thing but my cotton candy was bigger than Beetchie's again.

Memorable Quote of the Evening:

While eating my cotton candy, man on street says to me: It's still not better than Coney Island.

Well, really I don't know what he was talking about because a. it was grape flavoured and b. there is no more Coney Island. Bwahahahaha.

Update: Scrap the talk of no misadventure! Apparently, Union Square was full of bees! You know what means, they followed us... let us not speak of this to anyone.

From 1010wins.com:

May 24, 10:47 AM EDT

Buzz off! Bee swarm traps workers in NY game store

NEW YORK (AP) -- Thousands of bees swarmed outside a New York City game store, trapping employees inside for hours.

Worried employees looked out the window of the Manhattan store while talking on the phone as the bees clustered Saturday afternoon. A sign in the window warned: "Look! ... closed due to bee infestation."

Most passers-by avoided the GameStop store near Union Square, one of the city's busiest shopping areas. But Edward Albers tried to help. Dressed in regular clothes, he lured many bees into a box without getting stung.

Eventually, police bee specialist Tony Planakis arrived in protective gear and used the scent of a queen bee to collect the rest of them.

The store has reopened. The bees are being taken to hives upstate.

Defeated at Kenka by a Root Vegetable : St. Mark's Misadventures I

What the eff.

Beetchie and I have been through a slew of dishes at one of our most frequented eateries. Some of the dishes have been excellent, some of them have been rather unpleasant tasting and some 'odd'.

Here's a quick recap for those who may not remember: Beetchie and I have downed frog, bull penis and my ultimate worst at the time - turkey testicles.

Notice I said, "at the time".

I have a new favourite to hate.

Before I continue, please bear in mind that Beetchie and I have never been so revolted by a dish that we could not finish it. In spite of her loathing of the bull penis' gelatinous texture, I ate it. In spite of my loathing of the turkey testicles popping in mouth, she had one extra to finish it off and in both instances we got our $6.00 worth of money in our stomachs.

The day has come, when Kenka has 1UP'd us. Twice.

If only it could be so simple as a little green mushroom that gives you extra life and not a poisonous cross bone purple mushroom that poisons you.

That is what we got last night, friends. A whole lot of cross bone purple mushrooms that poisoned us in the form of raw squid and julienne taro.

For. Shame.



"Notice how tiny the dish is?" said Beetchie, when our raw squid came to us.
"Yeah...", I replied.

The reason? It tastes of the smell of a fish that's been caught and gutted right on a pier. It was Briny, and when in the mouth initially, it just hit you. As Beetchie pointed out, chewing it just made it get tougher.



I kept eating it because I realized that I could cut the taste some by eating with some cabbage. Thank goodness for the Japanese and their obsession with cabbage as a garnish/vegetable side but alas, there's only so much anything can do to cut the taste of raw squid. Instead of feeling nauseous every time I put a piece in my mouth, I decided to stop after half of it was gone.

As a side note, I can taste the raw squid today if I think about it.

Next up were the croquettes. I don't know what the love is for some croquettes with the Japanese but it was a welcome dish. We got the creamy style.










We followed our delicious croquettes with a delicious side of beef intestines in a miso sauce. However, they were a bit too salty. They did however, work well with our salmon onigiri.












The salmon onigiri was a bit of a disaster because I don't think I will find one as good as the 3 for 150 yen we found on the streets of Ueno (the first neighbourhood we stayed at in Tokyo). It was disastrous because it was massive with not enough salmon and that was dry. Oh how I missed my fatty pork filling. ::tear::













Our fifth dish was the Hotate Butter. You can't really go wrong with scallops cooked in butter as we discovered years ago from this place but somehow it managed to be slightly off. For some reason they fancied up the scallops and decided they'd dabble in the arts of presentation. I miss the plain old plate. It just adds so much more backstreet shadiness/Yakuza to the mix when everything's kept simple.

Okay, so maybe I don't know what Yakuza behaviour is like (thank goodness) but I have experienced, and with great fondness, just sitting in a dinky hole in the wall place full of comfort, with a Hattori Hanzo of a chef and a few 'on their way to being drunk but harmless' Japanese buisnessmen. The food's great and simple because the experience is great yet simple.


And another thing before I carry on with the food misadventures - what the hell happened at Kenka?! The servers had all changed. The Chefs looked different to me as well and ::gasp!:: one of the servers was white! It's possible she was mixed but if that's the case then she really sucked up the white there. Beetchie missed the bitchy girl that hated on us every time we got there and I missed my guy who nodded and smiled at me like a smart-ass when I ordered the bull penis. Oh, and this one girl judged us when we couldn't finish the squid, "You don't like that?". You know what you, shut the fuck up! I'm sure she doesn't even like it. The ass.


Back to the food with the next dish being grilled fishies filled with roe. It tasted like grilled fish and that was that. There was nothing too spectacular about it other than the fact that the fish seemed to be talking to us.


















We were not satisfied and opted to get two more items. We decided on fried oysters (which was rather disappointing - it too, tasted of ocean but not strong like the squid) and taro. Taro was probably the worst suggestion I could make (and Beetchie was distraught that she whole-heartily agreed) and this was the other dish to slay us and made us admit defeat.







 If there's one Japanese word/dish I need to learn let it be this one, so I know to avoid it like the god damned Plague.


Of all the things, Yamaimo Senbongiri is by far the most embarrassing and vile thing we've ever eaten there. Who knew that a root vegetable could be evil! I've decided that I will only eat taro mashed, deep fried and stuffed with meat i.e. I will only eat it at dim sum.


The texture was slimy but to the point of it almost being as though it was cut up and then spat upon by a 3 people who had massive collections of spittle. Honestly, you'd think Beetchie would be okay with dish considering she drank the Water of Thousands of People's Spit last year in Tokyo. Heh, heh. Sorry B., I had to go there.

Here's some video to better demonstrate why:



Beetchie likened it to the taste of vomit. I likened it to nothing because I tried 2 pieces and have since repressed that memory.

Can you believe Beetchie actually kept eating it, first trying to give it a chance by suggesting maybe we didn't eat it right - proceeded to douse it in soy sauce and wasabi? That didn't help the situation either.

At least no one can say we're not fighters.

Ugh.

We left unhappily and with our little cups of sugar for the Cotton Candy Machine.
Even that turned out to be a failure.



Currently listening to: "Bullet in the Head" by Rage Against The Machine.

Goodbye for now, Zarnyx; Greetings, Sariel

The Ipod Quest was fulfilled as planned on Tuesday.

To my Zarnyx, you're still awesome and never gone. Here's your mini-photo tribute:



And Sariel...oh the things you will soon endure. But it'll be good times, all of it.

I have to say though, there are a few things I like better about Zarnyx, my 4th Generation. Even though he was black & white, I liked that I didn't have to use the backlighting. Now I HAVE to use the backlighting.

I also liked that I could keep the click wheel volume on and I didn't have to hear it once I had my headphones in but it annoyed everyone else. Now, I can hear it through the headphones! Curses!

What I do find amusing about Sariel though, is the fact that when I'm scrolling through my extensive library, the alphabet comes up as it goes through the list.

For those interested, Beetchie and I also went to Kenka. We didn't feast upon anything 'odd' this time but here's what we ate:

a chunk of stewed pork
eggplant in tempura sauce
grilled salted salmon
some sort of not-as-good-as-the-regular okinomayaki thingie
fried chicken wings

It's Official!

I am finished with the specials on the Kenka menu.

But honestly, who knew that bull penis would be the lesser of two evils?
Turkey Testicles - the second most vile thing on the planet.

Speaking of the first most vile thing, I don't know why I do this to myself but I had to be an asshat and try Durian ice-cream. It was as expected. And let us never speak of this again.

The other thing on the Kenka menu that I finally ate was an entire fried frog. it tasted of chicken and fish combined. It was good stuff actually.

Song and quote of the day:

"It's time to face the truth, 'cause I'll never be with you...

That's how I feel about.............









David Beckham." - Sons.

HOchie 1 "Do you guys feel my industrial strength fan?"
Tones "OOOOOHHHHH gOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUd!!!!"

Currently playing: "Who Wrote Holden Caufield" by Green Day.

Good Times with Friends and the Not-So Good Times with Strippers

"Cute but evil."

I certainly can be sometimes.

A week ago Mitch, X, Beetchie and I went to Kenka for dinner.
Why am I evil? Because anyone who doesn't really eat pork and/or is tall then 60% of the menu at Kenka is not for you nor are the tiny chairs they make you sit your ass on. Ahahahaha. Poor Mitch. He has every right to curse me.

He didn't like the pork gyozas but that's only due to the fact that he is crazy. And it took a long time for him to finally decide on what he should have but he ended up eating a ginger-flavoured beef dish. I think he actually enjoyed it...

X had ramen and we shared our grilled buttered scallops.

Beetchie and I had awesome times (note the not so awesome times we had at the last trip to Kenka):
Una Don (grilled eel over rice) which was soooo good. Grilled eel is awesome.

Fried flour balls with octopus. They burnt us being that we stupidly tried to devour them immediately but mmmm...There's nothing like fried flour and mayo.

Stingray fin, chewy goodness.

Salted Pork Ribs - need I say anything else?

With time to kill we talked, drank cocktails that involved bizarre concoctions and photos were taken of X drunk off her ass after one sip of said cocktails. She wasn't really but the picture says otherwise.

We headed out to see The Street Bohemians, a band in which apparently I have stock - the bassist (Melissa the crazy Mongolian) and lead singer (No.8) are my friends. Being this their first public performance, I figured I had no excuse but to go but I certainly was trying to find something. Har Har.
Lured by the potential of seeing strippers, quote "If the set is going downhill, I'm going downstairs to the strippers", we trooped off to the Pussycat Lounge in the Financial District.

Those SBs were pretty decent. Musically, the band sounded great. They were comfortable with each other.
No. 8 was a little shaky on the vocals at the start but being the first gig, she was a little nervous but became more confident further into the set.

Battler as always amazes me by the strength and clarity of her voice, her sheer coolness and antics on stage and of course, her bass skills. I have a heterosexual girl crush on her as a rocker. Yep. She knows. And she puts that compliment right up there with the "You make me sick" comment I made to her a few weeks ago. She assures me she'll treasure them forever.

As decent as they were though, I informed them that the next show I attend will be at Madison Square Garden or else no dice. I don't think No. 8 was very impressed by me but meh.

On to the strippers!

With a name like the Pussycat Lounge and a crowd of young, business men you'd think good times were abound but as the title of this entry already implies - that was SO not the case.

We did have quite a selection of strippers though. Let's see...there was the one that was 3 months pregnant. Then there was the one who was a tranny (oh yes, we saw the back of that when she/he turned around...). And then there was fried eggs...

Impressive the way she could alternately move one boob up and down after the other but we're not sure what kind of fried eggs Beetchie has been eating but she claims that's what that display reminded her of.

After we decided it wasn't even worth it to do dances of our own to show up the strippers and collect their dough (quite frankly, I think the pregnant one would have slayed us had that gone down), we all set off for home. Beetchie and Mitch back to Crooklyn and X and I to her place on the UWS.

After washing away the disappointment of my first stripclub via a well needed shower, X and I did what we do best. We talked until ungodly hours in the morning until finally falling asleep.
And then came the police and ambulance sirens...

And then came X screaming at me that it was my fault something was going down at 3.30 in the morning...
It really wasn't my fault but we figure I've some kind of dark, negative energy surrounding me that I need to be taking care of and hence, a usually quiet neighbourhood turns into chaos.

Luckily our building was not going down in a fiery explosion but perhaps something like it (or whatever warranted police and ambulance services) at the building next door. And then there was the poor old man who was attacked by a crazy dude wielding electric saws at the subway stop right after X's.
I had nothing to do with any of that but pretty soon people aren't going to want to hang around me anymore...

Thursday saw a whole lot of nothing happening save extreme tiredness from the fun-filled night of scary strippers the night before.

Friday - Pirates of the Caribbean. We gathered as much of the clan as we could to go see this unnecessarily long, not enough Johnny Depp, sorry excuse for a movie.
And even though the movie (starring Beetchie as the Kraken) was not fantastic, having the friends together, sitting in an overpriced midtown diner and then in the theatre is equivalent to the best times this Hochie can have.

Stupid things like walking with Stupid Franz to Toys R' Us and having incriminating photos taken at Barbie's Dream House make these times memorable (but note to self, destroy photos).
Beetchie, Battler and I sat together and we laughed our asses off the entire time because of the idiotic comments that always pass our lips when we're together watching a film. I know, people hate us. We're just like Mystery Theatre commentators. We're horrible.

Saturday involved the Adidas Store, Chinatown, shady neurologists, The Chicken Arcade, Shanghai dumplings, rice pudding and a scary-assed rat.

First, Mitch and I went to the Adidas store in one last attempt to acquire some France World Cup gear for the final. Let us just say this - if there's a shirt on display in the window, you better believe you should be selling it to me if you're out of stock and if not, then take it out of the damned window. Asshats!

We pissily made our way to Chinatown, met Beetchie and ate Baos. Mitch then left my ass to go take a three hour nap and Beetchie and I headed to her appointment with a neurologist.

Now, I'm not saying said neurologist didn't have creds on her wall...wait..did she? Ha, she did. She did. But there was something so suspect about the whole thing. Maybe it's just that everyone was being extra mean to the 1/2 breed Asian HoChie but I don't know. I guess you just had to be there.

And for those of you reading this and are concerned about the welfare of Beetchie (yes, that means you Beetchie - you're probably the only one concerned...ooo! I'm kidding. I heart you?), I think she'll be okay. She better be.

In typical fashion, with time to kill before dinner, Beetchie and I decided to float around someplace to build up an appetite. And how better to do so than to visit a Chicken Arcade. I am still a little fuzzy on why it is called the chicken arcade but I know it had something to do with live chickens and games... Now, it's just a regular arcade but there are pictures on the walls of various chickens to prove that chickens once played a vital role in that dark place.

Beetchie proceeded to kick my ass in Street Fighter Puzzle and racing. I crashed many times as expected. Then there was Miss Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man and we both sucked.

Dumplings - what I wouldn't give to go to a Dumpling House in Taiwan... We did the next best thing which was to go to a Shanghainese restuarant. It was the first time I had Shanghai style dumplings and even though the soupy goodness inside went down my throat too quickly and it was hot, oh man was that awesome!!!!

After dinner, we made an attempt to find "Rice to Riches", an upscale rice pudding dessert spot if you can believe that. Who knew rice pudding could be high class? Our attempts were fruitful and we feasted upon rice pudding of the cookies and cream variety (this after we sampled damned near 5 types of rice pudding this place had to offer including banana and rocky road).
And then it happened - I lost Beetchie...

To this!!!!!!


















I hate it that this is the last I saw of her - Oh Beetchie... I always knew that a random rat on a swing would get you...I always knew... =,(



Anyway, about Sunday (I'm all about fast recoveries):

The final in the 2006 World Cup.

As all know, I was supporting England because I figured that if I had to support a football team, it should be the best looking one. Someone commented once that they didn't understand my loyalty to England considering I was more supportive to that country having not been born there nor never been for more than a few days than the bastards who were actually born and raised there. My response, "Stockholm Syndrome".
And then when England went down, I supported Germany.

And then Germany went down and I could care less but Mitch insisted that there be a World Cup lime at the HoChies. Mitch was backing France and I decided I wanted them to win rather than my enemy team Italy.
I am now being blamed for the Zidane headbutting incident because my voodoo doll "Spider Boy" worked WAY too well when I was shaking it on behalf of a hopeful victory for France. His job is to tangle the enemy in a web just long enough for you to escape or do something. Well...I guess Zidane decided he needed to headbutt that ass.

And France lost.

So the dolls worked but not quite the way they should have...

That's me.

"Cute but evil".


Memorable quotes:


MC "I like my tea black like me."

Me "Rhinna has man hands!"
MC and Frass "Oh gawd, it's true!"
Frass "Doh worry, all she need is some ponds. She from Barbados."

During the game of dominoes -

MC "Wait, I can't play this...these numbers go up to 9. I can't count past 6."

Frass "I don't know how to play...oh, ok. So I match whatever number is on the tile . Um, what should I play?"
Me "What do you mean 'what number'?! The only number you can play - 9! It's double 9 on the board!!!! Stupid Frass..."

Battler, on Transformers the Movie "You guys don't understand, I've been waiting for retribution for Optimus Prime for 20 years!!!!!"

Currently listening to: Lots among the Muse playlist including my new acquistion "Crying Shame" and then, "Analyse" by Thom Yorke.

It's Time to Play The Music, It's Time to Light The Lights, It's Time to Meet The Muppets on the Muppet Show Tonight...

X and I saw a Live Action Muppet!



We always thought Janice was a vegetarian, goddamned dirty hippie until we saw her eating copious amounts of pork dim sum in Chinatown today...

And I swear this was before the turkey testicle, so I was not hallucinating. And X didn't have it, so she wasn't hallucinating. In the interest of privacy and protection of the Muppet we are unable post said picture here.

About that TT... We shall think of it this way: If I were to be stranded on a deserted island surrounded by a life time supply of turkey testicles as my only sustenance, I would rather die.
The taste was not the problem but the popping sure was. Ew.

Kenka's was a bit of a disappointment today. I will never eat pike again. The scallops were far from buttery smothered grilled goodness and the plum wine tasted like maraschino cherry syrup. If I wanted to drink cherry wine, I would have ordered cherry wine. I believe the order was for PLUM wine. Eh, maybe I'm just not a plum wine connoisseur which is quite possible.

The sad part about the whole thing was that in an effort to end dinner on a high note, I had to eat the rest of my salad.

Salad.

All in all, it was alright times. It was definitely good times that I got to see and spend time my friend of 12 years (who I had not seen in about 5), bond with X, see Marie and hang with everyone's favourite Beetchie.

Currently playing: Headache from bitter cold wind that blazed my tail today.

And the gOOd times continue...

...this after a week of craziness in the work place. Work does that sometimes. It sometimes produces 'buckets full of helluh' for me. But anyway...on to the gOOd times!
Beetchie and I stormed Toy Tokyo again today after work. Did I not say to mark my words that I would storm again soon? I got all I needed for my Halloween costume and a few Christmas pyos for some people. But Beetchie, being very awesome, brought me, 1 or 2 bags of fun times. One filled with stuff from her European trip (and I feel a little itchy...fleas from Germany perhaps?! Aha) including Belgian chocolate and the love of my life...printed on a T-shirt. "Bells". Future husband that.
In bag or 2, I received birthday presents. It's my birthday month...good to see people remember. Kidding. And I say that because she might read this one day...heh heh. But seriously, she gave me toys. And not just toys...Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit toys! "WOOOOOoooooooo!" Goddamn I love those rabbits. Why I can't find any pictures of them though is beyond me.
Then we trekked off again to Kenka for some eats. And eats we did eat. A quick evaluation of the selection today:
1. Japanese Beef Curry (over rice) = B- (curry should be spicy, not sweet - apparently the Japanese can conquer lots of things but curry, not so much)
2. Pan-fried pork with kimchee = A (for the extreme spiciness, for the pork as pork is most always good times and for another fine display of showing up Koreans by the Japanese)
3. Onigiri with salmon = Ummm, as expected. It's rice and seaweed. It's good but it's rice and seaweed. The salmon however was quite tasty. The salmon gets a B+.
4. Grilled Quail = A (nothing like eating little skewered birds)

Then we headed off to the Japanese grocery for our ritual 'let's buy something new to eat'. Well we couldn't make up our minds so we bought a new drink instead. Two, actually. The first was this tiny can with a cactus or something on. Bitter Melon flavour..."Ew! Melon!" Yeah, we were not really concerned about the bitter part when bought it. But we certainly were when we were drinking it. Ooo, the aftertaste. Let's not talk about it. And by the time we got to the second drink, we couldn't handle anymore. Turns out the second one wasn't so bad but bitter melon had us reeling. All we could do at that point was stuff down a specialty pumpkin cream puff to forget our Bitter Melon woes.
5. Specialty Pumpkin Cream Puff = A+ (How to fanagle getting more of those pumpkin cream puffs within the next week...)
6. 2nd Japanese drink = meh. Taste like gatorade mixed with tang to me. So I guess it really deserves a B+ since tang and gatorade are B+ kind of beverages. But what does that make B+ + B+ = this is why I failed Math.
7. Bitter Melon Japanese drink = U (for Unsavory)
8. The Bitter Melon packaging = T (for Trickery)

It's raining again. We're hoping no mini-pool parties are thrown in the basement tomorrow.

Quote of yesterday, since it's now way past my sleepy time and I'll regret it at work tomorrow, was this "I'm not like other people. I don't like pain. It hurts me." - Daffy Duck.

Currently Playing: "When You Wear That Velvet Dress (Live at Foro Sol Autodromo in Mexico City, Dec. 1997) " by U2

Let's Go Back...To The Before Time

As in September 24th, 2005. Don't worry, it's not that far back. I'd like to recall some good times that happened the week leading up to October. Seeing Corpse Bride with my friend Beetchie. The movie itself was alright. It wasn't of the "Nightmare Before Christmas" variety/quality storywise but animation wise, well...We don't expect anything but greatness.

Good times, I believe I said. I'm getting to that right now. Beetchie and I went to St. Mark's right after the movie. We strolled over there from Union Square and found ourselves in the most hideous, boring street fair. We talked about her three week adventure in Europe this past August. The bottomline: Spain is full of thieves. Germany is full of fleas.

Then we milled around the Japanese grocery trying to decide to buy one item neither of us had tried. There were lots and we felt a little overwhelmed but finally we agreed on a strawberry type pancake thing. It was decent but meh, I think we've had better.

Then we stormed Toy Tokyo. And I will storm it again sometime soon, mark my words! We had fun and we bought tons of Gloomy Bear things (hence the picture at the beginning of this post)...Postcards and toys. I love the dead white boy. I know it's wrong. I know. I'm sorry. Truly.
We were having a hard time finding Luigi paraphernalia for Beetchie to have signed by the man himself - Shigeru Miyamoto san. For those of you who don't know and I'm sure there are many though it's not right. He is the creator of such legendary Nintendo games as...Wait for it. The Legend of Zelda (ooooo....ahhh), Mario and Donkey Kong. To put it this way: he's often described as the spielberg of video games.

The signing was on the day after and Beetchie and I had every intention of going early on the day of the signing to line up. However, after overhearing our conversation about looking for Luigi, a patron of Toy Tokyo approached us and said, "oh, you guys are going to the signing by Miyamoto tomorrow, right? You should probably go soon. My friends are already lining up there." What? No...

So with this in mind we traipsed some more in St. Mark's on a hunt for Luigi (Toy Tokyo can give us Yoshi and even stinkin' Toad but not Luigi...Poor thing, he gets no respect). We came up zilch. I was sorely disappointed to see that a mario pocketgame which I rocked as a kid back in Trinidad (and no longer had in my possession) was being sold in this vintage videogame shop for 129 dollars.

We then went to Kenka - this funky Japanese restaurant in St. Mark's which Beetchie fondly refers to as "the one with the raccoon with the big balls and red glowing eyes out front". It was quite good. Next victim...uhh, friend who comes around, they're coming with.
Dinner was followed by cream puffs are too good for me to talk about right now because it makes me sad that I don't have one to stuff into my mouth right now...
After the ...Dessert...Yes, dessert...We made our way to midtown to scope the situation with the Nintendo store. When we got there at 8.30 pm - like the guy said, people were waiting. People had been waiting from as early as 7 a.m. Freaks.

So what do we do? We became freaks too and camped out! Securing spots 46 and 47 in line was good times and thank goodness we didn't give it up considering when we left after the signing over 1,000 people were waiting to see the Man and he was supposed to do only 200 signings. So yes, I became a 48th & 5th Avenue Ho. Sleeping (using the term lightly because at most I got only 30 minutes of sleep before an idiot whose name was ironically Isaiah started preaching about the Zelda series) on the street next to my good friend and some random kid from NJ.

With no Luigi to have signed, Beetchie opted for the only worthy thing at the stupid Nintendo store - a 1UP Mushroom t-shirt. I bought a copy of "The Wind Waker" as backup. But thanks to the other awesome HOchie - my little figure of Link was brought to me the next morning. I happily went with him to the signing. Fiddling in front of the Man who was wondering what the hell I was going to give him to sign since I had nothing in my hand and finally fishing little Kujaseph (that's a gross misuse of a name to give Link, I know) out of my pocket to have signed. I gingerly put him on the table in front of Miyamoto san and Link unceremoniously decided to throw himself down. Miyamoto balanced him and started signing away but could not give me his English/Japanese signature. Instead I got it in Japanese and I was confused as to why the Man was drawing on Link's little green hat. Oh, and I was laughed at when I brought Link out of my pocket...either because a/ Miyamoto thought I was cute or b/Miyamoto thought me an idiot. I suspected the latter so I had to research the internet to ensure he actually signed his name and not 'To Idiot" on it.

After being on the street and dirty for so long, Beetchie and I wandered angrily (thanks to the messed up subway runnings and that thanks to the damned yankees game and ha, they're not in the w series anyway...muwahahaha) over to her Aunt's sushi restaurant for some good time lunch. Unfortunately I was not very hungry so I could only manage one roll but it involved soft shelled crab and eel. What was really good was that lychee iced tea. Mmmmmm.
Ok, so finally after being on the street and dirty and in a sushi restaurant and dirty we parted ways and I went home. Took a shower. Came out smelling like 5th Avenue as opposed to 48th & 5th. Went to bed soon after...went to work the day after. Was persecuted for my insanity. Came home. Got incredibly ill. Stayed home for two days due to the cold I mostly likely got from the random NJ kid who sat next to me on the street. Went back to work...still ill but had no more days to spare. But it was still worth it!

October 1st: It's Saturday!!!! And I was taken to dinner by the family and it was awesome. Ah, good times...good times.

Goo'day.

Music currently playing: "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" by The Cast of Avenue Q.