Dunny Turns 30

Nadia got me an awesome cake, a nice new blue dress shirt shirt, a great watch, a pac-man t-shirt and a cool laptop bag. Lots of great loot from my great and wonderful girl.

Awesome Cake is Awesome

We had lunch together at [Insert Name of Restaurant Here], nice little Japanese place with great food, and later that night we had dinner with my folks at Tommy Bahamas, followed by watching The Vampires Apprentice – a surprisingly good movie.

The following morning we went to GameWorks with Rosenberg and Coldiron, and stayed there pretty much the whole day playing games, drinking beer, and harassing Sonic. We followed that up with a trip to The Yard House, for more beer, some shots, and good eats. Then we hit Borders, did some wandering and coffee drinking, and headed back home.

All told, it was a darn good birthday.

Curry Peanut Butter, Bacon, Banana and Honey Sammich FTMFW!

We hit up the science museum, which was fun, and the zoo, which was awesome. We also walked around Tempe, which is a fucking rathole, and Scottsdale, which as neat – if really bad for food – and did a bit of shopping (I bought a camera).

We rode a “train”, and a camel; we saw a film about Black Holes narrated by Q; we ate astronaut ice-cream, Greek food, Mexican food, and teeny-tiny portions of fish; there was walking, and sun burns; loads of driving, and a dam.

All told, it was a fun couple of days. Still, I was very happy to get back to Las Vegas – Arizona is just not my kind of place.

The evening proper began just outside the Yard House, as we waiting for the minimum six people to show up so that we could get a table. For some odd reason if you have a party of ten or more, they won’t seat you until you have at least 80% of your crew. Well, our crew are (mostly) punctual people, and showed up fairly close to the 10pm start time.

First to arrive were Rosenberg and Tabby (with the cake), and Coldiron (with his massive dome) – followed very shortly by Richard and Anna. Tada! We had seven people! Time for a table… Maybe.

Eventually, we did get a table – after much standing around, small talking and joking that the flashy-vibratey coaster thing was broken. Turns out, it actually was broken, and the wait-staff had be wondering where we were. I suppose it never occurred to them to look right outside their doors, but whatever… We were in, and we were seated.

From this point on, the total order of events get’s fuzzy. I know it was around this point in time that Sarah showed up, followed by Yanny and Geneva, and then (much later) Claire, Mike, Chris and… Um… Chris’ girlfriend?

I know there was food: Lots of food. There was drinking, although not a whole lot of drinking, considering the location and the group. There was talking, and laughter, and cake, and candles, and singing, and presents (rice cooker, picture, tea-pots, DS game), and more drinking, and then the bill.

It was a fun three hours, to be honest.

Once we got home, I gave Nadia her presents from me (DSi, iPod Nano) and then she played with her DSi for a bit before bed.

Sunday, her birthday, we had lunch with my folks, then wandered around Town Square for a while… Then we went home for a nap, and hit Fiamma for dinner. It was a pretty good dinner, two of the three courses being excellent. My pasta was kind of “meh” though.

That was followed by some more walking of the strip, and then a drive home and bed.

And that, in a nutshell, was her 25th birthday.

Now, it’s time to start counting down to my birthday.

For work, I tend to buy Twinings Earl Grey, the 25 count in bags. Yes, yes, I know bags are blasphemous, but I don’t really have the time to deal with loose-leaf at work. Plus, being stuck using a microwave to heat my water really limits my options.

I did try the English Breakfast today, and it has almost no flavor. Not very impressed. I’ve got no idea what I did wrong, either – I heated the water for the same amount of time (just to the start of the boil), I let it steep for a full five minutes, and yet when all was done all I could taste was the sugar I’d added. I don’t add a lot of sugar, but that’s all the flavor it had.

At home I prefer to use loose leaf, and switch between Earl Grey, a rather nice black-tea blend I’ve been picking up at the international market here (not sure of the name), and some yerba mata I from Teavana. I make it by the mug, generally, using my trusty electric kettle. I hope to move up to ceramic kettle at some point, but only if I know I’ll be having more than one cup of tea at a time.

I usually put in two lumps of sugar (I actually prefer honey to sugar, but it’s not always on hand), although I’ll toss a third one in occasionally. I like to keep my tea right on the edge of sweet and bitter – I find the mixture to be refreshing. I rarely use milk though – I don’t buy it very often, and when I do it tends to sour before I remember I have it.

As I write this, I’m struck by what a large impact tea has had on this country, a country that doesn’t really enjoy drinking it at all. One of the major events preceding the American Revolutionary War, the Boston Tea Party, would not have happened at all if it weren’t for both taxes and tea, two things most Americans don’t actually like.

I wonder if those guerrillas had targeted some other tasty beverage (or taxed food item), if we might not be the coffee drinkers we, as a nation, tend to be today. Imagine, if you will, a country free of StarBucks, a country were beat-poets hold their competitive poetry sessions in tea-houses, a land where the morning stimulant of choice takes just a bit longer to brew correctly.

Perhaps then I could go to a restaurant, order tea without having to preface it with the word “hot”, and be delivered something that is actually drinkable. Then again, I’m sure we’d have invented and “perfected” the art of instant tea, mangling it even more than we do today.

I guess I’ll just stick with things how they are.

Friday night we got some teriyaki and watched several episodes of Doctor Who (season four, three episodes)… We’re about half way through the season now, and I think Nadia is really enjoying it. It’s fun going back and re-watching some of the episodes, seeing how the various bits actually played into the overall arc of the season.

Saturday was Valentines day, and we celebrated it by sharing gifts. I got Nadia a teddy-bear (Mr. Bear is almost as tall as her), and she got me a really groovy bracelet with “Carpe Dementia” inscribed on one side, and “Rainbows and Unicorns, Love Nadia” on the other. So awesome. <3

We went to dinner at Tommy Bahamas, , a nice little restaurant at the edge of town. The food was amazing.

Sunday we exchanged seven-month gifts (mix CD for her, Indonesian language lessons for me), packed up the car and headed out to Primm for the remainder of the weekend. The drive was fun, if uneventful. Nadia munched on a Twinkie, I slurpped down a Monster Java drink (mocha flavor, yummy), we listened to some music and just talked… Good times.

Then we got to the hotel. Oy.

Turns out that they don’t do check in until 3PM – a fact that was pointed out to us by a rather surly worker. So, rather than wait around the hotel, we went to the outlet mall to kill three and a half hours.

We did some browsing – well, Nadia did some browsing, I mostly found places to sit and play my PSP. Sometimes I like to shop, sometimes not so much. I still had a great time (finally beat a few levels on n+ that had been troubling me), and Nadia had fun, so it was all good.

We had lunch at a noodle place, the food was okay. One of the items was moving, kinda of reminded me of gagh, although I didn’t say that… It tasted okay. The sauce was kinda yucky, but the food itself was pretty good.

Once we were done there, we went back to the hotel – and were confronted by the LONGEST LINE EVER. I mean, really – this line stretched half way across the casino. It was HUGE! Worst of all, some people were complaining about waiting for over an hour.

Now, it was 3:30pm – half an hour after we were told that check-in started, and people were (obviously) waiting since at least 2:30, probably sometime prior to that… Meaning we were told the absolute wrong time for check in. Worse, we too had to stand in line for an hour to check in.

An hour.

In Primm.

When we finally got to the counter, and found out the room Nadia had asked for (one king instead of two queens) wasn’t available, I blew. Calmly, but I still blew. Mostly I demanded to speak to a manager. Amazingly, a room with a king in non-smoking was suddenly, magically available! All without having to trouble a manager for anything! Huzzah!

We checked in, and crashed for a bit.

Then we hit the roller coaster. I nearly cried, it was so nerve wracking. I normally love coasters, but something about this one just made me not like it at all. Nadia loved it though, so it was worth it just to see her happy.

I got soaked on the log flume too. >_<

We hit the arcade for a little bit, then the buffet. Not much variety, but what they did have was pretty good. Then we hit the room to change (so I could ditch my wet clothes) and went back down to the arcade… Then the bar, then to bed.

Monday we got up, got cleaned up, and were gonna hit Baker, but it was rainy and my wipers weren’t working correctly… So we went home.

A great weekend, all told…

Warp Core Breach : Best Drink in Existence

I’ve found it! I’ve finally found it!

After months of looking, I’ve found the fabled recipe for the Best Drink Ever: the Warp Core Breach, once proudly served in Quarks Bar and Grill at the Star Trek Experience.

I remember one night, a month and change before the place shut down, Rosenberg and I hit the place up for a visit… and we got to talking to the bartender, who promised that the recipe would find it’s way online.

Well, today I had a bit of slow time at work… I did a Google query, and found it nestled deep on a Trek BBS somewhere on the interwebs.

So, here it is, straight from someone purporting to be an actual STE Bartender:

Bacardi Select
Bacardi Dark
Bacardi 151
Bacardi Limon
Captain Morgan (Bacardi Spice)
passion fruit punch
raspberry razzmatazz
Lots of Ice
A Small amount of Dry ice

To make a full size of one of these drinks, evenly mix equal parts of the different rums to about a quarter of a pint and top up with raspberry, passion fruit (tropical type) punch, ice and dry ice (best to put that in first).

I’m torn between trying to make this myself – and failing epically, or giving the recipe to someone at PT’s and asking them very nicely to make one for me. They do make the Sonic Screwdriver (or just bluedriver), so I don’t see why they wouldn’t make this too.

Erica, our normally perky, if somewhat forgetful, waitress dropped by to gather our food and drink orders. Nothing too complicated was ordered – chili, chicken fingers, sliders, a steak sandwich (well done) and two strip steaks (medium-rare, french fries, no beans – one with a side of mushrooms, one blackened). After reading all this back, she wandered off to place the order and we settled back to converse over our adult beverages.

A while later, two people we’d never seen before brought us our plates – and there were a lot of them. Almost immediately problems were noted: Coldiron and I had no fries, but did have beans and rice. We mentioned this, and they promptly ran away to grab us some fries.

I eyed my steak warily, as something about it looked off – but what, I couldn’t say. I cut into it – and it was gray. A dark gray, the kind of gray that lets you know it’d been cooked. A lot.

Geneva noticed almost immediately, and said something about sending it back.

“No,” I said, “I don’t mind well done now and then.”

I took a bite.

And fought very hard not to spit it out. The steak was not only cooked more than I had expected, but the whole bottom was burned. Not charred, but burned. Bad enough that it made it inedible.

About this time our fries had arrived – so I quickly explained that my steak was overdone, and would it be a problem if, maybe, they could bring me one that was medium-rare?

Apologies on all sides ensued – and I was assured that a new, rarer steak would be out forthwith.

And it was – I was shocked at how quickly they had managed to cook and bring out a new steak. Rosenberg said it was the same steak, but I thought he was just joking around. But, no! Upon closer inspection, it was the same steak, only flipped onto it’s other side!

I, quickly, called over someone to point this out – and after a bit of explanation along the lines of:

“Is this steak wrong too?”
“No, this is the same steak.”
“Cooked the same?”
“No – the steak you just brought me? It’s the steak you brought me the first time.”
“Huh?” o_O
“One steak – this one – has been given to me twice now for being over cooked.”
“Oh… Shit…” >_<

So, the steak went away, and about ten minutes later a newer, larger, rawer steak was brought in it’s place.

And it was yummy.
And free.

In short: It looks like a school in China has quarantined everyone due to an outbreak of cholera. So far this hasn’t hit the major news networks - despite the quarantine having gone on for over three days now.

Reports were getting out via blogs and social networks – such as lack of food, water, medical treatment, information going either direction – and, as of yesterday (I think), their net access and water were both suspended.

I’m not entirely sure just how real this situation is – As with all things, it could be a massive hoax – but if real, it’s chilling, and a damn fine example of how easy it is to manipulate and suppress information despite the speed at with it can be disseminated.