My blog

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• Dancing Storm Trooper

  Friday, Jul 11, 2008 2:05AM / Standard Entry

  T'was 2:30 am Wednesday night (technically Thursday morning) and I had just returned from what was supposed to be a simple gathering to honor a friend of ours (Steve L) but turned into a night of Friday-like debauchery at a local KTown bar.  While tending to my liver in these wee hours, I found myself navigating through the wonderful world of YouTube and came across this funky little video of a Storm Trooper dancing throughout Tokyo.  The collision of nostalgia and contemporary hip hop crunk was too much.  I cried...
  
  
  
  

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• Happy Songs of Childhood

  Wednesday, Jul 2, 2008 6:32AM / Standard Entry

  This morning I woke up a bit "off".  Perhaps it was the fact that I went out with some friends till 2 AM on a Monday night (a stupid move, i know, but one which makes the accountants at the Sapporo company very happy).  Anyway, something inside me just seemed a bit "off".  I wasn't blue nor depressed yet I wasn't feeling fresh nor optimistic.  I was in some sort of phantom zone of blahh.  I felt like stale bread needing a bit of olive oil dipping sauce.  But what was that sauce?  I attempted to eat a semi-rotten plum thinking that the sugars might lighten my day.  No dice.  I decided to walk the stairs in my building instead of taking the elevator in hopes that the increase in heart rate may trigger a mild endorphin rush a take me to that happy place.  Didn't work.  I even dabbed Tiger Balm on my temples and under my nostriles thinking that a little bit of aromatherapy might do me some good.  Did it work?  NEIN!  All I got was a fiery Tiger burn in my left eye due to a rather stupid finger slip from my temple while attempting to apply this mysterious topical ointment and a flashback of my grandparents and their love for covering 1/3 of their bodies with Salonpas patches.  When all options to right my emotional status seemed bleak, I found what I was looking for on the internet... Rick Astley.  I don't think it was the actual, physical sight of the great 80's rock icon that put a smile on my face.  I think it was more the nostalgia factor, a flashback to a time when my hair was high and my outfits were of the pastel variety.  A time when proms were in darkened school cafeterias and boys and girls were not yet man or woman.  A time when a first kiss with your sweetheart was such a foreign feeling (and perhaps foreign smelling due to the food still stuck in their braces).  I could go on forever but I think we all have our emotional triggers into our past.  So, if you've had a long day and/or feeling a bit blue, I present to you the great Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up".  Hopefully it'll give you a jubilant injection of glee and perhaps lift your spirits even if just a bit...
  
  
  
  

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• the REAL MONGOLIA...

  Wednesday, Jun 25, 2008 7:59PM / Standard Entry

      I know it's been a while.  After a rather exhausting 2007, I decided to spend some time doing what I love most.  No, I did not spend the past 5 months locked up in a eucalyptus-scented steam room making hot simultaneous love to Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan (though that would be rather excellent).  Come the turn of the 2007/2008 new year, I made the decision to throw my asian, over-achieving guilt out the window and just travel.  Now you must understand that I'm not that small-town farm boy who has never left Kansas.  I have been lucky enough to travel to some pretty cool places in my lifetime.  So this wasn't one of those "I've never left my home town and haven't seen shit besides the state fair, mama" kind of thing.  But for some reason, something inside me snapped this past new years.  My inner Jacques Cousteau, my desire to explore the vast unknowns of our planet, somehow attacked me with the strength of 1,000 meerkats in heat.  And with that, I grabbed my passport, my wallet-sized pictures of Kristi and Michelle, and departed on a rather random journey that has lasted on and off throughout 2008.  In the past 5 months, I have been to Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Mongolia, England, Netherlands, Canada, and Olympic Gardens.  I literally just got back from a trip 10 days ago and I'm already trying to engineer an excuse to go to Argentina before August.  What is wrong with me?  I need help.  I think I might have been roofied with a vile of travel-crack by some naughty seductress at my local tavern.
  
  Oh whatever.  I shant not worry.  Like any forest fire, it'll burn itself out once there is nothing else left to burn.  And for me, that would be cash.
  
  Which leads me to MONGOLIA.  If you have never been, I highly recommend you visit asap.  Why?  Well, I could spend hours pontificating on why this land-locked nation is one of the most fascinating and misunderstood places on earth.  And we could discuss the fact that many of us have committed incest in our lives due to the recent scientific discovery that much of Asia's population's ancestry can be traced back to just one man, Genghis Khan.  Oh yes, think twice before you get naughty with your significant other...you might just be making love to your sister.  Instead, I present you this video documenting the journey of 4 lads into the heart of Mongolia.  Enjoy.
  
  
  
  

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• alivenotdead.com Anniversary Video

  Monday, May 19, 2008 3:22AM / Standard Entry

  Video for alivenotdead.com's first anniversary party:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJXhs_KkWy4
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

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• The Hunt for Vietnamese Catfish...

  Sunday, Nov 25, 2007 11:53AM / Standard Entry

  For the past several months, our very own Dustin Nguyen has been raving about taking us to a restaurant with the "the most amazing Vietnamese baked catfish in the whole wide world."  I suppose for the avid catfish connisiuer, such a claim would demand immediate culinary action and exploration.  Unfortunately for Dustin, such palatable love for this feline fish falls on deaf ears.  You see, I really do not care for any fish of the scaleless variety, and I especially do not like catfish.  Much like the sea slug and the geoduck, it is no accident that such a fish is classified as the "poo of the sea".  My theory is simple...you are what you eat.  Eat poo = you will taste like poo.  I personally do not like the taste of poo.  Follow such logic in the realm of grass fed beef...Eat grass = taste like grass.  Hence the gamey flavor of some grass fed cattle.  Please note, I do not wish to appear harsh towards the catfish as a whole.  I'm sure if I were a sea critter, I would find the catfish a fine friend and a good buddy in which to explore the undersea kingdom with.  But this is not about fish friends...this is about eating fish that has poo-like flavor.
  
  The catfish - a vessel of aquatic poo.
  
  Given Dustin's incredible passion for us to taste this "best ever" catfish, I decided to broaden my dietary horizon by agreeing to travel 1 hour to Little Saigon to Favori Restaurant - home of "the best Vietnamese baked catfish in the whole wide world."  Joining us on this adventure was 3 other fearless eaters...Angela, Julie, & Juliet.  This would be a trip of either great gastronomical epiphany or group suicide.  I would imagine a trip to eat Japanese Fugu (blowfish) would have the same giddy anticipation of life and death.
  
  Angela, Julie, & Juliet.  They smile now.  But would they still be smiling after eating sea poo...we would soon find out.
  
  Let's cut to the chase, we did not die.  In fact, that was some damn good catfish!  Best I have ever had.  But it did not start that way.  The method of eating this catfish is culturally anchored in the Vietnamese style...you basically wrap the fish in rice paper and various exotic greens to form a south east asian burrito of sorts.  Now I am accustomed to this form of labor intensive eating, having a great love for Nem Nuong...roll your own spring rolls with beef, chicken, or pork with exotic veggies.  Now if it was the catfish I feared, such paranoia retarded my senses towards the plate of exotic greens.  Usually the greens are a cornucopia of carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, and variety of mint leaves.  Nothing unusual.  Except for this rogue green that looked very similar to that of a mint leaf but is clearly not.  That leaf and bastard vegetable of the devil is known as the Pennywort.  If you have never encountered it, take heed now.  Do not eat it...EVER.  It looks innocent enough, much like a non-veiny mint leaf.  So docile and innocent it looks, perhaps even pretty.  But take a bite and it paralyzes you with a flavor of rotten fish.  Why the hell this restaurant would serve such a horrid vegetable with any fish dish is beyond me.  It's like McDonald's serving a Big Mac with rotten beef/crap flavor buns.  Needless to say, my first roll contained only 2 ingredients...catfish and a fist full of Pennwort.  I thought I had bitten into a spiced trout head that had been rotting in the summer sun for 4 days.  I almost vomited.  Being a somewhat socially graceful friend, I turned to Dustin, smiled and told him it was amazing.
  
  This is the Pennywort.  A bastard of a green that was created by the devil.  Consider yourself warned.
  
  Given the fact that everyone else was in blissful awe of their catfish rolls, I figured that something had to be wrong.  After a bit of forensic deduction I was able to narrow down the culinary criminal to the Pennywort.  Damn that green.  Damn it back to where it came from...a pig's anus.  After ridding all of our plates of this vile offender, the rest of the meal was pleasant.  So, to Dustin's credit, this was the "best baked Vietnamese catfish" I have ever had.  But then again, it was the only baked Vietnamese catfish I have ever had.  Love the catfish.  Forever hate the Pennwort.
  
  You see before you the great Favori baked catfish.  Below it hides the dreaded Pennywort.  Do not let it's good looks seduce you.
  
  

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