royale with cheese and shoes

For dinner the Wife and I ate in the car on the way to the Sheraton Hotel. I had a quarter-pounder. She had a big & tasty. Junk food is my weakness. At the Sheraton, we helped Debbie put a few hundred auction items in order for this weekend's fund-raiser. Afterwards we went shopping downtown.

We ended up at Banana Republic where I picked up 2 shirts. The Wife found a couple tank tops and a little purse. I spent some time observing the way that people tried on shoes. It's funny how some ladies really don't care what size they really wear as long as the shoes are on sale and look cute. I overheard one lady ask the sales lady to bring out the last 2 pairs of a certain style of shoe, size 6.5 and size 9. I'm guessing her real foot size was somewhere inbetween.

Another behavior I found intriguing was what I call the 'pretend-to-forget' move. I saw a handful of ladies doing this. One girl's animated nature stood out in particular. She'd put on the shoes and stand in front of a mirror. Taking her time, she looked at her feet from different angles. She'd turn away and pause for a second. Then she'd whirl around and look genuinely suprised at her reflection, as if she was the guy from Momento who would have to carry polaroids of her outfit around with her. I guess she was trying to get a 'first-reaction' on the shoes. Sometimes she'd want a second opinion, so she'd do it again.

odd creatures.

another one of life's disappointments

The Wife and I had lunch at a hot dog cart at Redmond Town Center today. This is the first time I've ever had a wiener from a cart and I must say that it was a bit of a let down. I've always thought that the bulk of the cart would be the weeny sauna, that pot of almost-boiling water where the weenies marinate. I think I was misled by a Seinfeld episode. The actual weeny-pit was pretty small, no more than a gallon or two with maybe a 2 dozen frankfurters (typing out weeny is no-longer fun). I had always imagined that you'd open the metal top and look inside and it'd be like Raiders of the Lost Ark with a cavernous pit filled with writhing weenies (it's fun again!) and the vendor would risk his life every time he had to snatch a weeny, as if he were Steve Irwin finding a rattlesnake nest. But instead, the skinless sausages were just bobbing up and down like the quaker-oats guy in Cocoon.

Oh but this non-Irwinian vendor was making a killing today when everyone wanted to be outside. He was charging $3.50 a pop for the hot dogs, plus extra if you wanted grilled onions or cream cheese and there was a constant line of people. I'm not too big on cream cheese hog dogs, but he had a pretty good selection of weeny condiments: Hot mustard, deli mustard, yellow mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, onions, tabasco, siracha, horseradish, sauerkraut, pepper and salt.

no time to chew...

Have you ever pulled on a thread and your whole sweater fell apart? or tried to pull out a splinter in your finger only to find that the splinter somehow is lodged to your major finger artery, the fingorta?

Well that's what happened today to us. We had a leaky sink that had rusted through that we were going to replace... only when we pulled the sink out, half the tiles decided they wanted to come too. So now we're replacing 2 sinks, 2 faucets, the entire counter-top and adding some moulding to the counter. Methinks we're up a creek without a paddle. Just like what'll happen when we go white-water rafting in a month. soooooo screwed.

*edit* from comments i got from various people this weekend, it seems that this blog actually has readership. I apologize.

mystery meat

:: stomach roll call ::


I had a costco frankfurter for dinner last night. It was of the polish variety. I've never really thought about hot dogs too deeply, but obviously someone has. Click here to see what the definition of a hot dog is from the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Some highlights:
"Frankfurters (a.k.a., hot dogs, wieners, or bologna) are cooked and/or smoked sausages according to the Federal standards of identity."

"They are link-shaped and come in all sizes -- short, long, thin, and chubby."

"The finished products may not contain more than 30% fat or no more than 10% water, or a combination of 40% fat and added water."

"The definition of "meat" was amended in December 1994 to include any "meat" product that is produced by advanced meat/bone separation machinery."

"Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM) is a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing beef or pork bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue"

I'm having hot dogs tonight too.

Gah Lei Gai

:: Stomache Roll Call ::


I made curry chicken last night (gah lei gai is the cantonese pronunciation, it's also my aim name). Last night after volleyball I came home and the Wife was working on the computer. So I took it upon myself to cook us lunch for the today. Our fridge had some old carrots, half an onion, leftover yogurt and heavy cream from some smoothies, a few potatoes and some chicken thighs. Have you ever just thrown stuff in a pot and called it curry? It was like I was in college all over again

The Wife also made some mango pudding last night. It was delicious. We've been on a mango binge: mango Pudding, mango white rabbits, dried mango, mango lassie. Suprisingly, Mango Lassie isn't a cross between Chris Kattan and an intellegent border collie that saves little Timmy from the well. Mango Lassie is a smoothie type drink.

Ingredients: 1.0 cup cubes Ice
1.0 cup chilled Pineapple
2.0 cups plain Yogurt
1.0 chilled Mango

Directions: 1 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom peel & chop mango chop pineapple Place mango, pineapple, 1 tsp cardamom, yogurt and ice cubes in a blender and blend until smooth Dust each serving with remaining cardamom Yield: 3, 12 oz. glasses

Serving directions. Drink from the belly button of a super model. just kidding.

You'll go down in history... like Columbus

:: stomach roll call ::


We went to the Union Bay Cafe yesterday. I was particularly exciting about adding to my 'meats-I-have-eaten' repertoire because the menu I had looked at in the Entertainment book had two rabbit dishes. Unfortunately, the menu at the restaurant had changed. Luckily for me, they offered some venison medallions.

I am a man conflicted. I've never felt the urge to be a vegetarian and I enjoy the taste of meat. However, I felt a mixture of guilt and delight when I thought I'd be eating bunny. Is that wrong? I know eating Bambi isn't much better than eating Thumper, but let me tell you that venison tastes g-r-r-r-reat. I'm not sure exactly how to describe the taste other than it has a darker, smoky taste compared to beef. The texture seemed just a little more firm than beef but isn't chewy or tough. I recommend it. Supposedly venison is also healthier for you than beef because it has less fat. Obviously those reindeer games pay off.

*update* Siska had duck breast. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake and a pistachio and chocolate layer cake.

What's in a dong? and why am I thirsty?

Two unrelated topics:
What's in a dong?
Well, from what my grandfather told me, the dong was created as part of the same festival that the dragon boat races came from. The story I learned is that a Chinese scholar, beloved by the masses, was so distraught by the happenings in China that he threw himself into a lake to protest. The people raced out to save him in their boats (memorialized by the dragon boat races), but no one could get to him in time. The people didn't want the fishes to eat his drowned carcass, so they threw rice wrapped in banana or te leaves into the lake to give the fishes something else to gnaw on.

What is actually inside the leaves varies by person, but in my particular dong there was rice, small shrimp, peanuts, ham, lop-cheung (chinese sausage), and an egg yolk.

why am I thirsty?
It is recommended that you should drink 6-8 glasses of water each day. I drink about one and a half nalgene bottles each day. I'm not sure if I drink the recommended amount, but the last week I've been very aware of how much I drink and if I feel dehydrated. The main reason is that I've been reading a book entitled 'Skeletons of the Zahara'. It's written on the true account of James Riley and his crew. They were an American ship that wrecked off the African coast in 1815 or so. They spent 2 months in captivity in the Sahara desert. Just reading about how hot it was and the lengths they went to find water makes my mouth dry. They would follow their masters camels around to try and catch the urine in their hands to drink. They would spend the nights catching snails to squeeze out just a little bit of water from them. They lost over half their body weight in 2 months to dehydration, starvation and sickness. So, drink your 6-8 glasses of water daily, it's good for you and you don't have to follow a camel around to get it.

My Six-Inch Dong

I took a picture to document my six-inch dong. There is a tape measure in the picture so you can get an idea of the scale. Six inches is actually quite large for a dong. Unfortunately, I didn't have any other dongs around to include in the picture to show that it's larger than average, but my grandmother said that my dong was the biggest she had seen... ever.

:: See it here ::