The Daily Sabs

This afternoon I snuck away from work to head over to fog city news, a
tiny little magazine shop and home to more chocolate bars than you can
imagine. No really, despite their tiny size, they supposedly have the
largest selection of chocolate bars in all of San Francisco. So why'd
I go there?to pick up a delicious chocolate bar of course!

You see fog city news loves their customers and even have a membership
club (it's free and pretty much it means they'll email you when
specials occur), and today they had special Xocolatl de David
chicharron bar made with 4505 meats chicharrones. There were only 60
bars available and some even had golden tickets for a fance pig
dinner. you had to be a member (yes they even checked) and you could
only buy one bar. Sadly, I did not receive the golden ticket, but I
did get to taste the bar and that was alright by me.

So how'd it taste? Well the texture was a bit like a crunch bar, only
saltier and with a slight porky flavor. I liked the novelty of it (and
prefer it to the Vosges bacon bar), but sort of wish the chicharron
flavor stood out more. It's actually a really subtle bar, the
chocolate is smooth and rich and sort of overpowering, but when you do
get a bite, wowee zow it's neat. The spice and flavor first pop in
your mouth and then melt away.

Ps. How is it that I can leave the house looking so fresh and clean,
but come lunchtime look like a disheveled mess?

I love three day weekends, and get so sad when they end. However, if
they have to come to a close, they might as well end with good company
and good food. Tonight anneh invited Randall, Eric, and me over for
dinner; she made tangerine tofu and asparagus risotto. We drank wine,
chatted and gorged ourselves silly. Now to get to bed at a reasonable
hour. Boo on weekend's end.

When I got up this morning Randall said we should go do something. For
a quick second I thought I was dreaming still, not only were last
night's dreams ridiculous, but Randall never suggests outdoor events
when there are new video games to be played. I think he knew that I
might put him to work on the backyard, so decide to preempt my
suggestion. Even so, it was nice to get outside.

So we called up samshrew and chris (we had super tentative plans to
hang out with them anyway) and decided to head up to sonoma. I got
some dogfriendly suggestions from Molly and off we went. But before we
made it across the golden gate, we realized it was lunchtime. So we
pulled over in Sausalito and us some delicious Fish. Sam and chris had
never been, so it was a tasty treat. The trout blt was more like omg.
Seriously one of the best sandwiches I'd eaten in quite some time. In
fact I want another right now.

Once we had our fill, we headed north to armida, it was super lovely,
but oh so crowded. Randall and I started a tasting but it was taking
forever to get the next glass so we left and headed to arista (another
Molly suggestion). This one was fantastic. We bought a bottle of the
gerwutz, and found a nice picnic table spot in the shade (their
grounds were really pretty). The folks were also super friendly when
sushidog got away from samshrew and bolted through the tasting room
looking for chris. So bonus points for them.

After we killed the bottle, we realized it was already 4:30, so we
headed to matrix (we passed it on the way and there wouldn't have been
enough time together anywhere else). I was glad we did. Their matrix
zin was nice and peppery, as chris put it, perfect for a steak. Plus
once the crowd died down a bit, they polled the room to see if
everyone would be okay with having a dog inside. There were no
objections so sushi pup got to join us too.

Finally, before we headed home we stopped into town for a coffee.
Somehow, I ended up with ice cream instead. It just seemed to round
out the experience.

Ps. Once we dropped s&c&sd off, we actually made a quick stop at giant
robot. The current trees group exhibition has a lot of cool things in
it. Sadly the ones I wanted were either too expensive, or already
bought. But great to see regardless.

Tonight Randall and I met Tim and Sharon for dinner at Absinthe. We
were supposed to meet them and Orion and his gal at patxi's, but Orion
flaked and so we changed plans. While there I ate the most delicious
beef cheeks. I also enjoyed the mint pea sorbet, but mostly I loved my
drink. They know how to serve them up right there. In fact, randall's
were served up so right that I ended up driving home.

See dk, I do know how to drive a car.

this morning randall and i left the house at the same time, and since he was taking the 101, i had him drop me off at church station. i got to the platform and then waited. and waited and waited. The sign said next muni 23 minutes, but the announcer kept saying there was one at west portal (which would've been 5 minutes). I probably waited about 15.

When the train finally arrived, i hopped in and we went speeding towards Van Ness station. Only we never really got to Van Ness as the train in front of us had issues. Once their issues were clear, we had issues, and so we waited and waited and waited some more. Then we were at the platform, but the doors didn't open. The driver said she couldn't open anything but the front car's front door (does that seem crazy to anyone else). So we had to wait while a technician came to check out our propulsion system (which was why we weren't moving), and for the main office to "release the doors." That took at least 15 minutes. Then the doors opened, and the technician was working on it. It was a total dilemma, get off and go take the F train (a 20+ minute journey) or stay and wait. In the end I stayed and waited. It took 10 more minutes and I kept wondering if I made the right choice. I think I did, but who knows. Either way, it was a long journey.

I got to work 60 minutes after I left my house. Randall got to Redwood City in less than that. In fact I'm pretty sure he made it from Church station to Redwood City in the time it took me to get from Church station to Van Ness. Interestingly enough, I noticed someone reading the paper in the train, and the frontpage had a story on how the employee overtime is draining muni. I dunno, insert your own bad joke about delayed trains and overtime here.

ps. "the 101" ? shit, do i live in LA or something?

Tonight anneh and I headed on down to the longshoremen's union to
catch a "secret" yeasayer show. It was a fun early night for us
oldsters (plus it was free and had an open bar!). Now we're sitting
around and eating hot donuts at bob's (we can cross off that apple
fritter from the 7x7 list). Nom nom night!

Today was anneh's birthday and to help her celebrate a crew of us
headed out to velvet cantina for drinks and dinner. A good time was
had by all, and I, for one, ate too many chips. It's funny, I don't
think i've ever been to velvet cantina when it wasn't a birthday. It's
definitely a festive choice.

Happy bday anneh!

Ps. Hard to believe we were in la this morning.

Today Randall and I hopped on a plane and headed down to LA. Chris's
film is screening at the LA Asian pacific film festival, and we
decided to come down to support. Besides we kept telling bao we were
coming to visit and a trip was long overdue.

After an afternoon of catching up, tito's tacos, and checking out
bao's place, we checked into our hotel, had a quick drink and then
went out to hunt for dinner. We didn't actually have to hunt hunter/
gatherer style, but we did cast a wide net. We originally thought we
go to sara's ham hung recommendation. But the English only menu was a
bit crazytown and Randall played the veto card. I was bummed at first,
but we went a block down to Honey Pig and my bummers went away. Honey
pig was Korean BBQ extreme complete with buzzers at the table to let
people know you need assistance. The food was pretty great, but sadly
the gimmicky pig shaped lighters they gave us at the end of the meal
was my favorite part. Honey pigs = Happy pigs!

Okay gotta go, it's time to go mingle at this really weird film
festival party.

I know, it's a tough life.

This evening Randall and I drove to the San Bruno to visit AAA. You
see, our pals A+A recently added a lowercase a to their family and it
was time to pay them a visit. We showed up on their doorstep with
little star pizza and a bag of frozen homemade potstickers. I figured
a meal would be the best thing to bring to sleepdeprived new parents.

As for the little a, she's cute and has a great button nose. But don't
worry folks, i still don't want any of my own. For now I'm totally
content with just pinching the fat cheeks of other people's babies.