It's Been a While

I really haven't felt the need to blog lately. It's been almost two months since my last post. In my head, I thought it was more like one month. Things have been developing at quite a pace lately. Schoolwork was piling up for a little while, and there have been bureaucracy issues that Ali can't take care of herself, so that's what I've been up to lately. I did see a nice Cantonese film a few weeks ago called Ngor dik dzui oi or L for Love, L for Lies. Okay, that took me half an hour to track down the correct title. Nobody said imdb.com has every movie logged. I think it can safely be said that I'm not a fan of romance movies - that is, unless they are Cantonese or Korean. I can't get enough of certain soap operas, the only way to stop that is to cut cold turkey. Give it a week, and try to start watching again. The soap won't make sense. I won't give too many details or comments about Ngor Dik Dzui Oi because it's been a while since I saw it, and I don't recall what I thought of it, except that I liked it. Then I saw some Hayao Miyazaki film that I thought I'd seen before, but couldn't quite remember seeing certain parts. That's what happens when you watch a movie possibly drunk, and then try to watch it again. And last week, the Cantonese channel, which changed formats recently played a movie about a mahjong player who is haunted by a curse. I'd seen it before I had cable and couldn't really follow it because of bad reception, but this time it was good, if you like freaky movies. It's part of a three-story film called Scare 2 Die. It took me forever to find that out, so much so that this is a two-day post now. Damn! I also got free passes to another movie which I will get to later in the post.

Speaking of watching movies while possibly drunk, my local has been ripped down. It's been quite a while since I've been down there, but I went down last week and the whole block was vacant, save one place on the corner. See, I don't go out drinking very much anymore because of a certain former classmate who seems to be everywhere I go. I don't want to run into him when I'm drunk because the last guy who did that ended up dead. Anyway, about this little place on the corner. Wonderfully quirky. I'd like to think it's just like the restaurant I would open, only I'm not that clever. For the record, my old local has moved up the street, but has gone decidedly upscale. After a slight mix up in the toilets, I decided to go back to the quirky place. I have all kinds of memos on my handphone, and most of them I can still understand, but they're not all relevant. I will attempt to recreate that evening hence.

Keep in mind that I had just come down the street, and to my surprise it looked like it had been bombed out. It was a Twilight Zone moment, but I went with it. Apparently, this new place that I had never noticed before has actually been on that very spot for the last three years. I had just had a stupid, stupid argument with Ali, and I was there to get my drink on. First up - Mill Street Coffee Porter out of Canada. It was my first porter, so I have nothing to judge it against, except maybe a New York Times audio slide show which left me with fanciful notions of chocolate in my beer. No such luck. It had coffee which I didn't like. I probably would have been better off having a bottle of old Lyle's Christmas bitter in Tattenhall Green, Wolverhampton. What a Christmas that was, too! If this porter is what I have to benchmark from, then it will also be the last porter I have.

Second - Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar from Oregon. The only reason I ordered this was because the beer card said that it was 24 oz., and because it had the word `nectar` in the title. It was not 24 oz., it was 21 oz. This was not the only mistake on the menu, they referred to Ricard Pastis as Richard Pastis and this was also not the first time I had been given undersized tankards for my ale. I alone am the vanguard of correct weights and measures. Nobody else seems to care. It's not hard, restaurant managers. If the bottle says 21 oz., then that is what you must put on your menu to be safe. But maybe I'm being unreasonable. The 1 and the 4 are like right next to each other on the number pad, and the 21 oz. bottle is the same size as the other 24 oz. bottles except for a slight tapering at the shoulder which could conceivably hide 3 oz. A trick of the eye, that's all. And I shouldn't forget that they comped my edamame. The beer card alluded that there were nutty notes and brown sugar in the taste of this beer, and I guess `hazelnut` is right in the title. Well, I don't know where in Oregon they get their nectar for this beer, but it was plain awful. There was a nutty aftertaste... of unsalted peanut shells. I've tasted a lot of wierd food people, so I know. And technically peanuts are not a nut, but a legume. They don't grow on trees.

I ordered the edamame because they had a house version for 50 cents more. In the end, it was comped so the price didn't matter, but the taste did. It sounded intriguing on paper, and it was good for the first few pods but man, stick with the regular edamame. I also ordered the mame because there was a two drink maximum unless I ate something. They didn't tell me that at first. And even though I had planned on stopping after the Rogue, I felt cheated. I wouldn't say that the experience was 0 for 2 so far, but I had to try something else. Bring on the Gouden Carolus, a dark Belgian beer that really is 24 oz. when you convert the pretentious EU labeling. 75 cL. What is that? It boasts of a caramel, liquorice flavour. I must say that as soon as I tapped `liquorice` into my handphone I forgot all about it. Even after a week, I was trying to figure out that taste combination. All I could come up with was a barely plausible turkish delight. The bottle came with a snifter. I guess. I told the waiter to cut me off, and I listened to a girl at the next table gab to her friends about how amazing her new boyfriend is. Ali doesn't do that. The Carolus was as advertised. Success! I can go home now. But wait, I'm getting chatty. I must be drunk. It's not actually time to go home yet. I went to use the toilets upstairs. I could still walk up stairs, that's a good sign.

What? The quirky kids who decided to move to the city and open a restaurant decided to broadcast radio plays into the toilets instead of annoying music. Well done! During my follow-up investigation last night, I discovered that the audio is not radio plays, but books on tape or whatever they're called. Last night, I went in to the toilets, and a Berlitz language lesson was playing. I was too sloshed to recognize what it was, but stupidly guessed it was Romanian. These kids had also decided to host a farmers' market on Sundays. That's over for the season, but I thought it was a great idea especially in that part of town. Not a big sense of community there.

I had a whole bit about Magnum, P.I. ready last week, but it's gone. I've been watching a lot of it lately, because you know, I don't have a job. Anyway, this show really sucked. Sure, it's Hawaii and the guy drives a Ferrari and the theme music is kinda cool, but come on. I never realized what a pussy Magnum was until I grew up and started watching the show again. I wasn't really allowed to watch it as a kid. As soon as Magnum came on, it was time for bed. You want to know a really good detective show? Banacek. That's right, George Peppard as Banacek. Can't go wrong there. Somebody told me he was a poof, and I believed it all up until about three months ago. You can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia, but there's no indication on his bio that he was gay. I don't know, maybe he was just a really good actor, and could play gayish or play roles with a certain air.

That's about all the text messages are going to help with this post. The rest are stale, or irrelevant except to mention that there were a lot of girls there last week with the skinny jeans/high heels combo. Until last week, I thought that look was out. One of the girls sporting this combo with yellowish leopard print heels was actually quite fetching, and possibly half my age. I'm getting old, and she is a smoker so there's no reason to discuss her any more. On the way home, I saw a nice black and white cat milling around a gated entry way. He didn't want to be pet. The door was ajar, and he ran inside. I was so drunk that I forgot the date, and actually texted reminders to myself that were three days late. Stupid. Special recognition for Ferdon, the manager from Bismarck who seemed like a really nice guy, and to Lulu the waitress who told me a lot about the restaurant. I stumbled home and got sick. Funny, everything I drank was dark but when it came up again, it was clear. Ali pulled my head up by the hair and at that moment tried to get me to promise something as follows:

"Are you never gonna drink until you go to haka?"

I wasn't so much drunk as I was weak. I totally knew what was going on and also knew that she was talking gibberish. There's no way she was going to take advantage of my weakened state and try to use fancy Japanese words on me now. "What's haka?"

"Until you die!"

"No deal". We have an agreement that theoretically we don't drink, except on special occasions she will allow me to have one or two. Even if I say no, she acts so surprised. It's actually not that complicated. I just have to watch what I'm doing and not make an ass of myself.

So I went back last night, and almost did just that. I was supposed to go back and try the tequila reposado, but I didn't feel like tequila. Instead, I was going to have one beer, and one only. One 24 oz. beer. I ordered myself a 3 Monts. This is a french beer, lighter in colour than the beers I had last week, and also comes with a snifter. I can't actually call this the champagne of beers because there is already another beer that makes that claim, and is on offer for like $35.00 a bottle across town. And I can't actually say it's a champagne because it has hops in it. Otherwise I would say it. I was reminded instantly of Veuve Cliquot du Ponsardin brut. I'm not a big champagne drinker. Sorry to the really hot chick who came to my wedding and gave us a bottle as a gift. If only you hadn't made a silly best-friends promise to Sissy, and I wasn't too shy about being eaten for breakfast. It was a nice gift. Foolishly I drank it, and could not replace it when Ali immigrated. There was some kind of shortage. It's back in stock now. Back to the 3 Monts. It was very crisp, and dry like champagne, but it did have a slight hoppy taste to it. Don't get me wrong. If I could choose between this and champagne, I'd choose this. But that's moot because the chances of this beer being offered alongside champagne are slim.

I don't know what it is about these beers. It could be the alcohol content, or it could be the fuckyou size bottle that it comes in. I was careful to choose a moderate alcohol content, but I still got sloppy. I singed the hair on my left arm on a table lamp as I reached across the table to pour more beer. It must be the 24 oz. I got home okay, but there is something about Belgian beers, and 3 Monts that just kicks you in the head. Not in a hangover kind of way, but in a somebody-spiked-the-punch kind of way. Anyway, I got home okay.

I haven't been writing lately because I've been trying to concentrate on school, and quietly trying to finesse my way into a job. My instructor is hiring, but it's a bureaucratic nightmare that's being dragged out for as long as possible. The job would be at one of the universities. Not one of the Ivy League ones, and I wouldn't be teaching but the job definitely seems to be one I'd like. The problem is that because it's a job at a university, they have to post the job across the state. I'd be competing against hundreds, if not thousands of people to get it. The job would be in forensic accounting. At a university? I know, it sounds weird but they have some things they need to look into. It's been seven weeks since he announced to the class that the position was open, but I have yet to receive a job description. This is a job worth waiting for. How many times have I passed up good opportunities for fast-money? Too many, that's how many.

What else? Foxy has been learning a lot about animals lately so I thought it might be a good time to take her to the zoo last week. Too early. She liked to look at the animals, but as soon as they came to within ten feet of the fence, she would freak. Even the miniature ponies that roam free. She knows about ponies, but she doesn't want to touch them. We met a family that had brought their 20-month old to the zoo. Their kid had no problem with the animals. I guess I should have waited until next year.

We took Foxy to a real farm for Enzo J's second birthday. We got to see lots of people, and animals and lots of stuff. Foxy had a good time. I had a buffalo burger and cake. Enzo J has two different coloured eyes. Not spooky or anything, just one is dark brown and the other is brown. I never noticed that before. Enzo's nephew won a trip to Italy to tour the Ferrari factory at Modena. It looks like Sissy and Enzo J might have to go too. Bobby's probably off to Greece next summer, but that's looking like less and less of a cert. And I'm trying to get things together so Ali can visit Japan a respectable two times a year.

I've been spending a lot of time cooking for Ali and our friends. It's not cheap, so the initial flurry of activity has died down a bit plus I was getting behind on my assignments. I'm ahead of the game for now so I thought I would blog a bit and sit down this weekend to watch Lewis Hamilton win the Formula One Drivers' Championship. It's a shame that Felipe Massa isn't going to win it. He's worked really hard, but Lewis has worked just a bit harder.

On top of all of Ali's government bureaucracy, we've been having a little trouble with the condo association. It's over for now, but it sure took a lot of time and effort just to get to that point. And it might all get brought up again, whenever the condo board vice president feels like it. Jerk. Nice guy, but jerky vice-president.

Ummmumumumum... oh yeah. The movie passes. I entered a draw to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno, knowing full well that I wouldn't be able to see it because I have class on that night. So I gave the passes to Randy and Kat. Actual viewer quote: Hilarious, dude! But Randy says that about a lot of stuff. The movie stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as two friends who need some quick cash and decide to make a porn film. I have no doubt that because Seth Rogen is in this film, that Randy's comments are accurate. Jim Norton and Traci Lords make appearances, directed by Kevin Smith. I hope Randy appreciates this because I gave up the opportunity to win free passes to see Guy Ritchie's Rocknrolla for this. Who am I kidding? That also would have taken place on Wednesday, when I have class. What to do on Hallowe'en? Dressing Foxy up in a lion costume and taking her around to Orange Peel's place for a party.