I'm baaaack. With Bookmobile Wednesday.

It's been nuts.  No time to think except to help Garry move in and watch back to back episodes of GG.  Blair and Chuck are super hot together.  So terrible and so awesome.

Anyway, I've been utterly truant with my posting.  Here's the last two weeks' worth of things I checked out from the bookmobile.  I am on a fantasy novel kick, hence the Tanith Lee, M.M. Kaye and Francesca Lia Block.  And may I recommend the Sick Puppies.  A bit whiny yes, but both the male lead singer and the female bassist are just too beautiful, it makes my heart ache.  Enjoy!

Gossip Girl is like crack cocaine.

 L:  argh, what does a girl have to do to get online episodes of gossip girl?
they're not posting the lastest eps online anymore!
argh!
 me:  oh really?
i didn't know they ever did
garry got them somehow
 me:  we're almost caught up
 L:  nice, good job!
 me:  we watched like 4 episodes last night
 L:  that was pretty fast
 me:  yeah =P
 L:  they go down so easily
 me:  we're totally obsessed
it's like a drug addiction
all I can think about all day is when i'll get my next hit


Random thought

Why are all the young-people TV shows out there about either unrealistically precocious high schoolers, or completely realistically immature 20- and 30-somethings?

Why aren't there any shows about people in college, where I'd say... people actually behave more like human beings than anywhere else?

Yes, when i'm obsessed with something, i'm really obsessed!  All I can think about right now is... i can't wait for this day to end so I can go home and watch another 6 eposides of Gossip Girl. =P

Give me a break

Why can't kids these days have nice, normal names?  Traditional names?  I couldn't really believe it when I saw the credits for Gossip Girl, which Garry has gotten me hooked on.  Some of the ridiculous first names these actors have:

Leighton (a girl)
Blake (a girl)
Penn (a guy)
Taylor (a girl)
Chace (a guy)

I mean for real...Chace?  With a C?  How pretentious do you have to be?

When (if) I have kids, I'm giving them sensible, Biblical names.  Like Mary, Rachel, Jonathan, David.  For real, people.

Nice surprise

After years of being a loyal Netflix subscriber, I recently put my account on hold because I had to concentrate on other things.  I forgot that I scheduled for it to start up again, so I had a nice surprise in the mail today: Muriel's Wedding .  So I watched that instead of going to the gym like I was thinking of doing.  I don't think I knew it was Australian.  It was bittersweet.  Well done, but I don't know if I would recommend it to everyone.  It sure made me feel sad and happy at the same time.  Weird.

The fobbiness continues.

Today, after a nice dinner at Alegrias  (Spanish tapas near the Marina), my friend Jenny and I drove across town to the Richmond district.  There we steeped ourselves in super-Asianness at Kowloon Tong Dessert, a Hong Kong-style dessert place.  She had the taro and sago in coconut milk, I had the mung bean soup.  But what I really wanted was either the sesame mochi or the mango-sago-coconut grass jelly thing.  Ah well, next time.

We're staying at the Westin St. Francis in Union Square tonight (on her company).  Money.  Ollllld money.

Nutmeg remembers me.

I went over to Garry's old apt for the first time in more than four months.  I was afraid the cat, Nutmeg, an adorable stray kitty that his roommate adopted, would not remember me.  She has hazel eyes, a mishmash of gray and sand in her coat, and she's one of my favorite animal creatures in the world.

But I let her sniff my fingers, and in a minute she was rubbing her furry head into my hand.  Dear cat!

Hong Kong Bistro

I don't mean to be such a fob lately, but I had to share.  This is quite possibly the most meta experience you can have around these parts.  Asian-ized Western food (the same way Panda Express makes Americanized Chinese food) eaten in California, on a street with a bunch of Asian restaurants.

So great.

We had the curry chicken (and carrots, potatoes and taro) over spaghetti noodles.  Creamy and delicious.  Plus hearty wonton soup (generously plump wontons stuffed with pork and shrimp), gai lan (Chinese broccoli) drizzled in oyster sauce, and some of the best fried chicken wings dusted with spicy salt and smothered in onions.

Paired with Coke (Garry), warm lemon & honey water (Asta) and hot Horlicks (me). I love the metal barrel-shaped mugs they come in, the same ones they use in HK.  

For an authentic Hong Kong diner kind of experience right here in the States, there's nothing like Hong Kong Bistro.  Now that I think of it, I shoudl have devoted a whole Foodie Tuesday post to this.

Foodie Tuesdays: Absurdly Processed Meat Products

I like to think I'm not that much of a food snob.  I certainly don't need to spend a lot of $$$ on food to be happy--I get just as much joy out of a $1.50 plate of noodles as I do out of the $240 I spent on a meal at French Laundry.  I rarely rule out foods entirely.  Even eggplant and okra, which I usually abhor, I will give a chance depending on how it's cooked.  I guess that's just it.  A food has to be made with purpose and authenticity for me to really enjoy it.

The exception being processed meat.

I don't care what you all say.  I love processed meat products.  Maybe because they are nothing but fat and salt that come in neat oblong little packages.  Maybe because they have the consistency of meat flavored jell-O.  Whatever it is, I can't resist.  Who cares if, as it says on about.com, they lead to cancer?  Below are some of my favorites:

1. Vienna sausages
2. Carl Buddig deli-sliced meats
3. Spam (especially in masubi and kimchi fried rice)
4. Baloney
5. Dino-bites
6. Imitation crab
7. Fishballs
8. White Castle Burgers

Update: Dude! How could I forget Slim Jims!