The Daily Sabs

Every election cycle, I get my absentee ballot and say hey I should fill this in now. But every election cycle I find myself filling out the ballot the night before. This time was not an exception. Randall and I always fill ours out together and our politics are so opposite (a little like our taste in 80s films) that we actually call it nullify the vote night. Every so often we'll agree, but hey I guess opposites attract.

Speaking of 80s movies, did you love license to drive? I did. Little birds over at photoshop style somehow found out. You should go check it out and follow them while you're at it too, ok?

geoloc

Today's drawing comes to us courtesy of Randall. As you can tell, he was excited by the PSN store returning. That or he couldn't draw game of thrones, because that's really what we spent the evening watching. Mostly because we finished season 3 of the wire yesterday and aren't quite ready for 4 (gotta let that shit sink in). Yes, I am fully aware of the fact that I'm watching too much teevee these days. Let's just not talk about that.

I took today off to do some 826 stuff and dragged Randall with me. He's not sure he's up for hanging with the kids, so I wanted him to see what's up. Afterwards, we stopped by missions cheese for a sandwich and some mac and cheese. They were out of a lot of stuff already, but it was tasty. If I lived or worked right there it would be dangerous.

Later I decided to live the life domestic. I doctored up a cupcake recipe adding vanilla bean yogurt (pics later I haven't done the frosting yet) and then got inspired to make dinner.

One of the dishes at benu was a jasmine chicken with dates. It was served cold and was very delicate. I loved it and was inspired to do a tea chicken of my own. I used some of the delicate Taiwanese tea morm gave me and roasted a chicken with oranges and dates over it. The flavor profile was good (maybe a little heavy handed on the dates), but the actual tea flavors could've been a little bit bolder. I'm excited to try it again though.


geoloc

geoloc

While I don't think I have gameteam plague, I also am not feeling 100%. Randall and i were supposed to head to the new mccormie compound for alexander's birthday, but since Randall thinks he might also becoming down with the plague, we thought infecting all those kids would be a pretty big party foul. So instead we stayed inside all day. I did a few chores, but mostly i slept, lazed about, read, and watched tv. I felt like I should've been more productive, but just couldn't muster up the motivation.

Ps. Randall is hackzoring a scumm vm for his iPhone in order to play maniac mansion and zak. I heart this nerd.

Pps. I'm on a reading kick. New book suggestions please.

this morning, while i was making my grocery shopping list, i thought it would be fun to invite some folks over for impromptu dinner party. chicken was on the menu, and i promised kate that the next time i made one, she and josh would be the first on the invite list. our table holds exactly four people, so it worked out perfectly.

because we can't have a large dinner party, i never invite folks over for eating. -- in fact, this was the first time i even used my tord boontje holiday plates that i bought oh, four years ago. -- however, i'm starting to feel comfortable with the casual party of four, and tonight was an excellent reason why. good eats, good company, good conversation. those kids are so cute and fun that i didn't even have to rely on backup plan. although if josh knew that my backup plan was video games, maybe he would've demanded it.

thanks to kate and josh for braving the weather, and paying the toll (literally, not figuratively) for hanging out with us tonight!

the only thing i regret about tonight is not taking a picture of the chicken before i hacked at it (seriously someone needs to teach me how to carve these things - i seriously suck at it). it was beautiful golden brown and the skin was perfectly crispy. you can't tell that from the hacked at picture here. who wants to teach me how to carve?

i don't know why i'm giving randall the stare-eye, he must've done something ridiculous. or i did. not sure. either way it was a nice and lazy sunday. chores were done, video games played, dinner grilled, couches surfed (jasper or roland?), and emmy madness dealt with.

One hint: it's not me. Mostly I thought this would be a funny way to
notify Randall of the jury letter that arrived today. Something tells
me he's not going to appreciate it, especially since he probably
doesn't read this site and you will all know before him. But it's been
a slow day of gardening, cooking, and grooming, and who wants to read
about that?

Randall likes voting though, so he probably won't mind paying the
price. Also he loves law and order so he'll probably secretly love
being on a jury.

So hey Randall, i think you might have jury duty. A scary official
looking court letter with jury room info on the outside arrived for
you today. Just fy(and everyone else's)i!

this evening randall and i headed over to baker and banker for a postponed birthday celebration. since we don't do fine dining much these days (thank you economy!), we decided to go ahead and splurge on the chef's tasting menu. i really enjoyed everything, and while it was all perfectly done, i actually thought it was a bit under seasoned. it didn't stop me from eating it though, it was definitely a great meal. the kicker though, was the dessert - a perfectly cooked (as in crispy on top, gooey on the bottom) peanut butter blondie, with bacon brittle ice cream and a stripe of chocolate. it was such a smile-inducing dessert, that it was sort of ridiculous that the dessert itself looked so unhappy. but then again, that made me smile doublyso.

ps. it took almost an hour to get home today. apparently someone was hit by a muni train at my station. the news is pretty unclear, i'm not sure if it was an accident or on purpose. either way pretty awful, i wonder how the scene will look in the morning.

pps. we were totally sat next to former mayor willie brown. i wasn't 100% sure (it was dark and i didn't really want to stare), but it was confirmed when he got up leave and put on a ridiculously fancy hat.

this evening it was my turn to make dinner, so i went with my favorite standby, potstickers. this time i used ground pork, chives, cilantro, bok choy blossoms, chili peppers, garlic, and ginger. i should've put more bok choy, but had never used it before so i wasn't sure how it would work out. verdict = great.

the best part of working from home is that the commute at the end of the day is fantastic. no muni, no crazy people, and no walking up that hill. it also means that dinner can get on the table before 7pm. tonight dinner was grilled steak and asparagus, served with wheat toast and salad. afterwards, randall made chocolate chip cookies. man, i wish every afternoon was wah afternoon.

as an aside, i would also like to mention that while we both worked from home today, randall and i were in separate rooms. this means we still used IM to communicate even though we were only 20 yards away. we also each had our own music playing. standing between the two parts of the house was a ridiculous audio assault. chopin vs. galaxie 500: sounds good in theory, not so much in practice.