DOM (Pig) vs. ING (Lion)

I think it came out quite nicely,

and I learned how to use Illustrator and InDesign 

a bit more in the process.

(And if you disagree, please reserve your opinions,

because I spent at least two and a half hours getting it this close,

and then I walked home, mostly starved, 

and in drizzling rain, without any appropriate rain attire.)

It looks fuckin' good.

I used the colors from a more updated logo, 

with the eyedropper tool!,

which is why they look a bit off from this one

though this one was our main model.

My design team (Wee/Jon) also preferred having a line.

My mom thinks we should include the year,

but Wee and I think that by including the year,

we won't be able to reuse the shirts as an investment for other times

Dom might choose to run the marathon.

We'll see.

I found the pig online,

and I used Illustrator to fix him up into the pig that I wanted,

and that's what took like two hours.

That you can't just highlight the image and select the color

to change the selected image to that color is beyond me.

(Hint: Use the sparkler/magic-wand thing.

Then press: Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, A, B, start,

and you're closer than I was a few hours ago.)

Thanks, random Internet person, for posting the pig though.

I tried drawing a Picasso-like pig,

but it didn't look anything like the ING lion's style obviously.

It's not that Dom loves pigs

as much as he adores eating them,

but a slab of orange-y woodcut-looking bacon

looked stupid.

Now it's time to make some T-shirts

in time for the big race!

The Lemon Ice King of Corona

Watermelon and Lemon

Once upon a time,

in the magical land of Corona, Queens

there was a king.

After Popo's delicious birthday dinner,

we decided to visit the king

to continue our celebration 

and feast on his lemon ice

(and dozens of other flavors of ice).

Our carriage and driver luckily found a place to stand

while we stepped out to get some.

We were craving blood that night too, I guess.

We were chanting for the driver to perhaps take out

the very slow peasant cleaning out his horse's behind,

because, well, didn't he see us trying to pull into the really tight standing spot behind him?

(The ass.)

Shockingly, Popo also agreed to "Get him!"

And that was hilarious!

Thankfully no blood was shed in front of

The Lemon Ice King of Corona.

He might have had us all beheaded, hung, or worse--

not given us any ice at all!

The other kind of funny Popo-story about this place is:

Out of context, she was saying something about how

Corona Ice is very good, superb, and exquisite.

I was so confused.

This was a woman who never drank and shouldn't ever drink.

And she was drinking a really crappy beer and raving about it?

And then I realized she meant the Italian ice!

It's a good walk away from Popo's house,

but when we were like two- or three-years-old,

apparently my cousin Steven (dude on the right) and I 

used to walk there with my dad.

Anyway, we ended the night with sweet, delicious ice.

I think lemon was the best flavor.

Next time I think I'd get even a smaller size too.

I can't wait until it's warm again for ice!

Sticky Fingers: Is It Worth the Glitterbang?

I read about Sticky's Finger Joint in one of my food e-mails,

and as luck would have it, I got a discount from one of those online coupon-type deals.

Here's what we got:

The Salted Caramel Pretzel (3)

$10

TENDER CHICKEN BREAST BREADED WITH CRUSHED PRETZELS! SERVED DRIZZLED WITH HOMEMADE SALTED CARAMEL SAUCE, THEN TOPPED WITH PRETZEL STICKS AND SPRINKLED WITH PRETZEL SALT. DELICIOUS AND STICKY!

This was great--definitely something to try again.

The pretzels got a little lost, but it was delicious and sticky.

I used the chocolate BBQ dip for this one.

It was a good.

Fried Green Beans

$4

GREEN BEAN FRIES (ADD WASABI GLITTERBANG + 0.50)

Jon felt it was a little too coated and not crispy enough.

I liked it, and I'd get it again.

The glitterbang was good.

The Naked Vampire Killer (3)

$12

A FINGER WITH ENOUGH GARLIC TO WARD OFF ALL BLOOD SUCKERS! MARINATED, GRILLED FINGERS ARE SERVED ON A BED OF ROASTED GARLIC. SERVED WITH A DOT OF GARLIC AOILI, CLOVES OF BLACK GARLIC AND OUR VAMPIRE GLITTER.

It's naked because it's not coated.

It's a vampire killer because there's a lot of garlic.

I feel like it could do a bit more garlic.

In the vein of killing, I thought the mango death sauce

would've been a good complement.

The mango death sauce was

WAY. TOO. SPICY. though.

I don't remember the vampire glitter at all.

I don't know.

Jon and I wouldn't recommend it.

Try another one.

Idaho Truffle Fries

$4

HANDCUT IDAHO POTATO FRIES (ADD TRUFFLE GLITTERBANG + 0.50)

These were like every other truffle fry.

Nothing too significant.

Stickys Tropical Slurp

$3.75

Organic mango and Guava juice mixed with natural spring water.

This was yummy.

I had carried two of them though

one in each hand

in the rain

from the location

to the subway

on the subway

to home.

It wasn't really that worth it to transport.

Sauces Choc Chip. BBQ                                                 Mango Death Sauce

So about the meal and the glitterbang,

is it worth it?

The short answer is: definitely if you have a coupon. 

(Descriptions and prices copied and pasted from their website.)

Colony. Onward.

There are quite a few places I've always passed by

and never went into in midtown like

the peep shows and XXX video stores,

the men's hat shop where the New York Times building now sits,

and Colony.

Mostly I didn't go to those places because

I didn't think I'd feel comfortable,

so I maybe stared as I passed by

and that's all.

Oftentimes in the last few years,

I passed by Colony.

They sold music scores and bought CD collections. 

(I think it was something like it had to be at least 300 CD or more

that you had to sell to them

or something like that.

Now that's a collection.)

I love the idea of records,

but we have so many books to transport already

whenever we move.

(I've lived eight places in the last eleven years:

4 dorm rooms,

4 apartments.)

We nearly always end up with more boxes of books than any

of our other belongings.

Collecting another set of things

that can easily be transported,

saved, used, and organized,

like records,

seems ridiculous.

Maira Kalman's piece from the New Yorker a few weeks ago

below drives home the point:

"So where are we? . . . No more paper?"

Like Fats on her wall,

we have Murakami, Wallace, Rowling, Pynchon, and Batali and others,

plus tons of children's books, lining our shelves 

to build walls in our small apartment.

A house room of paper.

"No time to mourn the past.

Onward . . ."

He Can Has a Bucket!

I'm basically taking the photo and my facts from this New York Times article.

For some reason 

I really adore 

this 234-pound, 

15-week-old baby.

His name is Mitik,

but his friends call him Mit.

I hope this isn't some weird 

subconscious-brainwashing thing

to start loving things named Mit,

because there's that other famous Mitt, 

who in a contest of 

cute baby animals 

would definitely lose.

"We say he is small, but scrappy--the perfect New Yorker."

Qu'est-Ce Que C'est

A bad day for me.

A good day to listen to Talking Heads.

Sushi Zo Dinner in LA

LA is a terrible city.

The omakase at Sushi Zo,

however,

was amazing.

Fish has not tasted this good

in a long while.

Sweet.

Beautiful.

Each piece felt like they dissolved

like the best pieces of candies from the sea.

These fish didn't die in vain.

I can't believe I ate this much.

About three quarters through the meal,

I thought I needed to give up.

But I forged ahead

with the fear of missing a really delicious-tasting fish.

We were there for about an hour and a half.

We sat at the bar near the head chef,

but we couldn't see anything.

At least we weren't as far away as the tables though.

The whole place was designated for omakase only.

Jon thinks he was sitting nearby a famous Japanese actor,

and I can't remember otherwise.

Don't get me wrong though. 

The place is not "scene-y."

It's in a mini-mall next to a Starbucks.

It's very clean and comfortable.

Most people were taking their time drinking and eating.

Also teasing the chef for the number of courses

and for the whole "no soy sauce" instruction

(since most people drown their fish in soy sauce

so that it tastes like it drowned [rather than lived] in the ocean--gross).

The sushi were well-dressed in soy sauce 

or truffle salt 

(a few pieces had this, 

and some combinations were surprising; 

I didn't know

it'd go so well with wasabi) 

or other seasoning.

And they were excellently prepared:

not too big or too small,

each bite broke the food down so it washed my mouth

with delicious flavors,

and I didn't have to chew a lot.

(I'm thinking of the one time I spent ten minutes chewing an octopus tentacle

at a different restaurant many years ago,

trying not to be a wimp about eating things I'd normally not eat--

that's love for you.

Ten minutes of chewing!)

The rice was good: 

loose (as it should be), 

small (so it's not as filling), 

and well-seasoned (sweet, and not just a vessel for mirin).

The Tamago (Egg Omelet)

was delicious too.

Sweet and eggy and light.

A great sushi chef can really screw up the meal by

having sucky tamago.

The odd thing though was that we started our meal with miso soup,

and we didn't get any hot green tea to end the meal as at other places we've been to.

It seemed unusual, but the sushi were the stars

so it all made some sense.

I'm a little worried that there isn't a place in NYC

with as good straightforward omakase sushi.

Kanoyama's omakase last year was really good,

but it was more sashimi and other stuff.

It's like apples and oranges.

We headed to the Vons

in the same mini-mall to get ice cream

for dessert.

Life Is Still Shore Good

Crabs!

Sausages, onions, and peppers!

Shore food.

Mmm . . .

Too full for melons.

Maybe.

Ma doing the dishes.

Happily!

Feeling shore good.

Rain clouds on our way back north.

Fun in the Sun in September!

Ahh (look up) . . . that's better.

Outside, 

it is gloomy.

Freeeeeeezing.

Dark.

Gross.

It's 5:30.

Last month Dani and I went to the pool,

and it was SUNNY!

Hot!

Awesome!

In fact, SUPERAWESOME!

I hate wearing layers of clothing

and still feeling cold.

Try, You Like: New Music (to Me)

I found this on the "Tuneyards" Pandora station.

The Metropolis edits are cool too.

I love the scene that's cut back and you see the city.

Wee and I were listening to this when 

we were returning from Target

the other night.

It's on one of the local stations.

It was big band orchestra hour or something awesome.

Life Is Shore Good

This summer has passed by wayyy too quickly.

The water was so warm the weekend this photo was taken.

So warm!

(Dani swam well, Mr. Kero. Really well. Not struggling at all.)

Life is "Shore Good"!

We got doughnuts-ice-cream sundaes.

Yeah.

It's a doughnut and ice cream in a sundae form.

What?!

Hetal had very high heels on when she came from her friend's engagement party.

Like ten inches.

(Okay, more like five.)

She borrowed my shorts and flip-flops for a "shore good" life.

Dani told us her small bear/raccoon story,

which was hilarious.

She attacked Hetal with the small bear/raccoon stuffed animals

that night.

Jon's ankle and wrist were swollen from his falls (yeah, two of them that week),

but that got him out of going to the beach.

I love the summer!!!

Traveling with Baby Chase, His Terrible Parents, and Other Things About Flying That Suck

I'm feeling like a major poop today.

Our flight back (LAX to EWR) yesterday/this morning was suboptimal.

There was a toddler

who would just

NOT

SHUT

UP.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHing

into my ear

EHH, EHHHH, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH!

for four of the five and a half hours of the flight.

I've never hated a baby before,

but, Baby Chase,

you are on my shit list.

Your useless parents, too.

Your parents should've tried the following:

1) drugged you--there's a lovely thing called Benadryl that makes kids tired 

and miraculously a side effect is that it makes the people around you on a cramped airplane

not want to throw you and your parents off the plane 

or give you something to really be upset about.

::punches fist in palm::

(MAKE NOTE: Sleeping babies are adorable; red, crying ones suck.)

2) apologized profusely to the neighboring passengers, for having terrible luck of having given birth to the Devil's spawn, and bought them DirectTV and headphones and/or alcohol for the flight.

(I saw something like this on TV. I thought it was brilliant.)

3) entertained you more--you were obviously bored, so was I. 

But what did your dumb dad do with his tablet? 

He watched a movie until the battery died instead of playing a dumb game with you.

Which is why your dumb parents should've had some BOOKS.

(I have many recommendations.)

Option three is a bit risky, but if you're averse to drugging your kids,

it's a good option--but only if you're up for the task.

If your entertainment requires sound though, bring headphones for your baby.

I don't want to be listening to some drowsy man sing Twinkle Little Star

every time your kid hits an image of a star or something.

(As a side note: If you're a good person, you don't give kids toys with noise.

You leave it up to their parents to decide 

what obnoxious sound they can tolerate for hours on end.)

I myself am too cheap to do option two though I feel that would be totally baller,

which is why I'd go with option one IF I desperately had to bring a child on a plane.

Which leads to the obvious question of: Why do people bring babies on planes?

My parents always drove to their destination with my siblings and me when

we were too small to reliably behave like humans.

I don't see why more people can't do that.

Anyway . . .

the plane was booked to capacity due to a noon flight

being rescheduled to an hour after our flight took off.

I don't understand why more people didn't just want to wait the extra hour

because what happened was that our flight was an hour late taking off anyway.

The airlines really need to figure out a balance between

not charging for carry-ons and getting everyone's shit on board on time.

Because the Tetris game of fitting everyone's shit into a nearby overhead bin is what delayed us.

(Jon and I checked our bags--squishy backpack-type luggage

that fit BEAUTIFULLY in overhead luggage bins

--because I have free bag-check privileges.)

Also airlines need to figure out how to NOT punish people

who checked their bags and don't have any overhead storage as a result.

(Jon and me.)

Because waiting to leave the back of a plane when you've got all your shit ready to go

for twenty minutes (at least)

with Baby Chase or similar useless people,

who cannot take down their hundred pound carry-on from the overhead bin,

is soul-sucking.

Fact is that sitting at the back of the plane can save your life

(the middle will crack in half and you can fall to your death

and the front of the plane will go up in flames).

But what about the soul-sucking?

What about the

soul-sucking?

Baby Chase,

soul-sucker extraordinaire.