The Daily Sabs

that beach is the (15 course) baume (aka randall the magic dragon)

sabs — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 22:44:03 -0700

this morning samshrew texted to see what we were up to. since the only thing for the afternoon agenda was laundry, i told her that we had nothing planned. amazingly she also had nothing planned, so we decided to all meet up and go to the beach. that sushi dog entertained us for a while, but when we got bored we left and had joe's ice cream - for the record, root beer swirl ice cream is delicious.

speaking of delicious, after beach time, randall and i came home and got ready for an early 5:30 dinner seating at baumé in palo alto. tonight was the quarterly scheelbarrow dinner (aka pitstop) and we decided to go all out and order the 15-course tasting plus wine pairing. it wasn't the most amazing meal i'd ever had, but it was definitely worth it. while i've had bits of pieces of molecular gastronomy infused meals, i'd never had one where it was the focus. i can't remember the last time i had so much fun at fancy dinner (even if it initially felt weird, stuffy, and with colorful plates out of 1997. sure it's gimmicky, but it was a blast, and luckily for us the gimmick tasted great too. plus they get bonus points for bringing us an extra dish just for photos/videos (they wanted to make sure we all ate ours right away). if it wasn't for that we never would have proof of randall the magic dragon - it was better the first time he ate it, but its still awesome, see for yourself:

okay. if i didn't make it clear earlier, i just had a 15 course menu with a wine pairing. it's time for a nap before bedtime.

but first, some random photos from today:

duckfaces and chicken trumpeters. oh what a birthday.

sabs — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:20:55 -0800

I was sitting there minding my own business, and sort of enjoying the gray lowkey birthday, when all of a sudden i heard this loud horn. At first I thought it was a car from outside, when i realized it was too loud and besides, all the windows were closed. Then I thought that perhaps it was someone who had put their speakers on full blast. Then I realized it wasn't just a series of horn noises, it was actually the opening notes to Just a Gigalo, which as you might know is sort of my jam. So when the noise got closer, and a giant trumpet-playing chicken carrying balloons rounded the corner, i knew it was for me.

I don't embarass easy, but I am pretty sure I turned a nice shade of "have you been drinking wine?" red. Especially when he said it was time to do the chicken dance. I didn't think i was going to do it, but you know, there was a giant chicken, playing the chicken dance song, and a quickly amassed audience intrigued by the ridiculousness, and well, who am I to not oblige?

So I danced a chicken dance, hugged a chicken, received lots of weird gifts (really he had this homeless person mary poppins bag full of things like a rubber chicken, a jordache purse, stickers, plastic eggs, candy necklaces, and so on), and if that wasn't enough, the gals brought me treats too.

You see, the gals here are UNBELIEVEABLE. We've sort of made birthdays a big ta-do around here. And before the chicken arrived, I actually thought we were going to do just a nice lowkey thing with maybe cake at lunch. Which you know, would've been awesome, but they don't settle for just awesome. they go for BONKERS AMAZE. and they succeeded. In addition to the chicken, they also got a huge array of the desserts from the 7x7 must eat list. Now i can cross off 5 more things.

Like i said, these gals are the freaking best.

But, before I knew that there was a chicken, I had originally planned on sharing a little bit of vintage sabs with you. This is me at age 2. It's actually my 2nd birthday party and I'm surrounded by friends, family, a cake with candles, and yet that is the face I chose to make. It's like an immigrant child passport photo. I would like to point out a few things though (1) my head was always huge (2) my hair was always unkempt (3) my posture was always poor and (4) my dresses were even cooler back then.

Birthdays are weird you know, but so far, this one's been fun.

Oh and because i know you're waiting for it. Here's the chicken in action.
I know there were other videos, but this is the one i took while he arrived.

i'm not above funeral crashing.

sabs — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:52:06 -0800

this evening my beginning improv class reached a graduation point, which meant we put on a show. it was a bit ridiculous. we'd only been practicing for five weeks, but it was fun. in fact it was way more fun than i anticipated, and not as painful as i thought it would be either. if you're wondering why i didn't remind you about the show, let's just say that i was worried it was going to be a flop.

but it wasn't. or at least it didn't feel like it. the folks that were there laughed, and for the most part it was a har har time. thanks for melissa, nicole, dk, and meegan who came out to point and mock. randall too, even if he did get in trouble for being on his iphone.

and for those of you who wish you were there, here you go. this is a wild lines game where we interact in a scene (in this case a funeral), but randomly have to say these lines we pull from our pockets. the lines are tweets our instructor put down for us, we had no idea what they were going to be.

wednesday nights are the best (now with video)

sabs — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:55:36 -0800

this is probably a bad idea, but it seems like genius right now. genius.

you see, this evening i headed over to anneh's house for our usual top model mockery, but this time instead of doing a photo shoot, anneh had the brilliant idea of making a movie instead. thus we ended up condensing tonight's episode into a 2minute piece of art.

ps. there are SPOILERZ.

pps. for the record, we had it ready on time, it just took forever to upload.

floating somewhere beyond time and suspended in space (too good to be true)

sabs — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:07:34 -0700

there are a lot of reasons today's photo is late, but none of them are really worth going into.

tonight burger and i went to see jarvis cocker at the fillmore. while there we ran into chuckles, summer, blake, margaret, bean and his fiance stephanie. all of us aging britpoppers trying to keep the magic alive. the show itself was just so-so, i can't say i actually like anything but the cover of the new album, so it wasn't very captivating. the best part was actually the encore. probably because it featured an impromptu reading of bean and steph's wedding invitation, and a rendition of can't take my eyes off of you (see for yourself below!). and partly because it was just better.

ps. i just made a new rule, in a pinch, as long as the photo was taken that day it's still fine. it's a copout rule, but oh well. it's not like anyone knows all the crazy rules except me.

and now without further adieu, jarvis and the wedding invite:

Don't look down. That's 103 stories.

sabs — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:25:07 -0700

I played hooky from the last session today and headed over to the
sear's tower. I know it's called the Willis tower now, but in my mind
it will always be the sear's.

When I got there, the guy told me it was going to be a three hour
wait. The line was moving really quickly, so I assumed he was crazy.
He wasn't. It took 25 minutes to get in to the first elevator. And
then at that point there was a 2 hour wait. Luckily money can buy
happiness in certain circumstances and this was one of them. For
double the price you could buy a fast pass that puts you less than 10
minutes to the top. Folks, my time is worth $15. And in about 30
minutes, I was 103 stories up.

I got some cool picks from the new observation deck (dude, it's all
glass even the floor!), but felt this video was really a better way to
show you what was going on.

And yes I know it's touristy as hell, but well, I am a tourist.

Be careful what you ask for folks (happy birthday juju!)

sabs — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:35:06 -0700

This week's musical street number is special for juju. The rest of you
might as well move along. That is unless you like watching me embarass
myself. Oh wait, you probably wouldn't be here if you didn't.

Ps. I am not yet sure this will actually be a weekly series. Won't it
lose its novelty?

Pps. Sorry for outing your age juju. It just went well. Also it was
randall's idea, so blame him. I thought you were younger, but then I
did the math and realized I am old too. Happy birthday my besto pal!
Xoxo!

Walking down the street singing my song (aka gigolo)

sabs — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:30:07 -0700

The weather is great today, I've got a song in my step and lingering
karaoke in my heart. This is my jam.

Ps. This wasn't my favorite take -- yes I did a couple takes as I
walked to work -- but the iPhone doesn't seem to have an undo video
trim and I trimmed the best one (where i walked past people) the wrong
way. Boo.

Pps: sorry about the construction noise too

Too stubborn to learn for reals (aka sorry if it's outta tune)

sabs — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:20:06 -0700

After an egg filled mission street foods, Randall and I walked home
for a special thursday edition of nerd friday. Randall is playing a ye
olde indiana jones video game, while I pretend to play the guitar.

I say pretend because I have no idea what I'm doing. I play the bass,
not the guitar. I know no chords and can barely remember the string
names even.

However I like to tinker around and spend time making my own dumb
rythyms. Maybe some day I'll take a lesson, or at least look up a
chord, but that sounds productive so I doubt it'll ever happen.
Besides I am stubborn and just like to do what I want.

Ps. Sorry it's so bouncy, I had the camera resting on my knee.

Never gonna be funny

sabs — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:05:05 -0700

This evening burger dropped by for a little visit. She introduced us
to food party (google "food party ifc" if you're curious), something I
thought randall would love, but he only seemed to find mildly amusing.

After we watched the first fp episode, burger and I went to the
backyard to chat. I was going to take a pic of us lazing about but
decided to try the video feature instead. That was a mistake. We tried
to be funny and they just turned out terrible. No, make that horrible,
stupid, and dumb. Just downright dumb.

But folks, that never stopped me before, and I guess it shouldn't stop
me today. So here's the least lame video of the evening. And yes, this
was the least lame. I'm not proud of that either.