judyonthenet

Things sure move quickly for Kelvin. After getting some ridiculous offer at a competing company, Kelvin left his less-than-3-months job this week. Starting this past Monday, he’s been chilling at home with me, and he will be until middle of May when he starts his newER job in San Francisco. That’s a three week vacation for him, which is pretty nice since he didn’t really have a break between the last two jobs.

So far, most of his vacation has been this:

It’s usually SC2 beta, sometimes TF2. Unfortunately, I find when he’s at home, I tend to be (even) less productive. The dishes have amassed to the point where we may actually attempt to use the ancient dishwasher in our condo. I haven’t made bread, I stay in bed later, and I waste time hanging out with him. I notice I’m more productive when’s he playing games, so it’s probably not too bad he’s playing games all day. At least we’ve attempted at a (very short) run, so him being home makes me more likely to exercise. And we went to go see How to Train Your Dragon, which was a very fun film.

We’re thinking of taking a no-bookings roadtrip in the next couple weeks to add some vacation to his staycation. The California North Coast probably?

New thing I learned today: There’s a bed & breakfast in San Mateo called Coxhead House.

My apartment is assigned one garage space, and Kelvin uses it since, last I checked, RSXs tend to get stolen more than Priuses. As a result, I have to park on the street. It’s not too bad; I’m still pretty close to my apartment (can see the street parking from my window, actually), the neighborhood is safe, and I’m unemployed, so I can get my pick of the spaces during the day when most people are working. Our complex has three curb parking spots on private property, and there’s plenty of public curb parking, including an area where cars like to park diagonally.

Red line is red curb, dotted line is private property border

I try to park on the private curb spots, since 1) they’re the closest spots and 2) since I live in the complex, might as well use a private spot and leave more public curb parking for my complex and all the other residential homes near us to fight for. A month or so ago, I parked where the green box is in my diagram. I left it there unmoved for 5 days because I hadn’t needed to drive anywhere. We usually try to take Kelvin’s car as much as possible since he gets a guaranteed space, and getting home late could mean I’m parking really far down the street. (Kelvin likes driving his car anyways.) Back then, I found this ambiguous note stuck in my car:

“BR” I assumed were the initials of the complex I’m living in, and “HOA” I assumed was “homeowner association”. I didn’t understand what the note was asking me to do. Was I parked inappropriately and they wanted me to fix it? Did I leave it sitting there too long and they just wanted to show it wasn’t abandoned? Did the HOA think I didn’t live in the complex and wanted me to park in a public space?

I talked to my neighbor, Ed, who’s kind of known as the go-to guy in the complex. He’s friendly and helpful with everybody, so he knows most of the folks around here and vice versa. He’s lived there for a long time, and he’s also the guy who helped me rent the place. I showed him the note I got, and he said he has no idea what it’s about. He looked at my parking and says it’s perfectly fine since I live here. He told me that it was probably the nicest note he’s seen left on a car, as in the last couple months, he had gotten really nasty notes left on his car when it was parked on the same curb. It was a non-operation vehicle, and I guess somebody doesn’t like the fact his car sits there most of the time. He’s also familiar with folks on the HOA committee, so he told me he’d talk to them about it at the next board meeting.

To avoid any trouble, I avoid the private parking and stick to public parking. A couple days ago after lunch, I decided to give the private curb parking a shot again. There was recently a board meeting, so I’d probably find out about the parking situation next time I run into Ed. That night, Kelvin took me out to dinner, and we ran into Ed on the way back. He said I should probably check my car, because it looked like there was a note on it. Indeed, there was:

Holy cow. I had parked there for ONE freaking afternoon. My car was once again parked in the green spot, while there was a giant truck (one of the parking regulars) in the blue spot. The gray spot was empty. The space between our vehicles wasn’t big enough for somebody’s liking, apparently! Kelvin and Ed thought it was ridiculous and that the space was plenty for another car. There was a couple feet of curb in front of my car, but I don’t park at the very end because it might be hard for diagonal parkers to get in and out. Ed was particularly pieved, since this is clearly the same person leaving notes on his car… as well as my other neighbor’s car! (She’s a nice lady!) This person hates everybody! I felt relieved I wasn’t the only one, but now I’m a little anxious to park knowing there’s some psycho who’s crazy about car space.

Since I ran into Ed, he also told me talked to the HOA about the parking situation. He was told they don’t leave notes like that, as they have official slips to leave notices. Also, my parking was within rules. I went back and looked at the notes… they’re totally written by the same person! (Look at the capital As.) So this crazy neighbor who wants to dictate how and where everybody parks pretends to be the HOA, and when that doesn’t work, they leave anonymous vulgar notes. What a douche!

I really want to find out who this jerk is. There’s several angry neighbors who would like to have a talk with this coward. I’m really disappointed to have a person like this living among us… everybody else I’ve meet have been so nice! (I would totally move my car for anybody who asked me NICELY, regardless of their parking skill.) Since my apartment looks out to all the parking, I’m contemplating doing a surveillance camera project to kill some time, have something to focus on, and fulfill my pissed-off psycho stalker desire to figure out who this asshole is.

New thing I learned today: Madonna has a single called “What It Feels Like For a Girl“.

The latest episode of Glee was devoted to Madonna, and “What It Feels Like for a Girl” was the only song I didn’t recognize. btw, that episode was FREAKING AWESOME.

Who doesn’t love Professor Layton, a man of intellect AND action? When it was announced that bobbleheads would be released in conjunction with the release of the Professor Layton film, I bookmarked the preorder page and eventually bought a Professor Layton bobblehead so he could nod at me at my desk.

Professor Layton the bobblehead comes in a nice, glossy box that’s printed like a building. There’s a picture of Professor Layton and Luke in one of the inside walls, and the figure itself is cased in large pieces of plastic. The figure also comes with a riddle card (the card is labelled ????… i have no idea what that means).

Using my ghetto Japanese skills and kanji dictionary, I think the card translates to something like:

How many are there?
In front of the kitten there’s one male cat, behind the female cat there’s two male cats.
Behind male cat there’s one male cat and one female cat.
Behind the kitten is one female cat.
Now, what’s the lowest number of cats that are here?

Professor Layton himself is well constructed and doesn’t have that “cheap” feeling. The plastic is sturdy with a matte finish. It’s mostly painted well, with the Layton’s simple smiling face flawless.

I’m not a fan of the spring used in the neck. It’s very stiff, and as a result, his head doesn’t shake very well and requires a bit of disturbance in order to move. He just doesn’t have the same bobble-ness as, say, the Fallout 3 Vault Boy bobblehead.

The base feels a lot cheaper than Professor Layton. I remember in promo pictures the figure wasn’t attached to a base, so I tugged on Professor Layton a little bit to see if he can come off. I got one foot up… leaving a glue shaped footprint behind and permanently detaching his left food from the base.

I ordered the Professor Layton FuruFuru figure back in February from NCSX. When I first heard about the figure, it was supposed to be shipped in January, but it was delayed until the beginning of April for some reason. The Layton Revoltech figure that was scheduled for March came out on time, and I got it before getting the FuruFuru figure. (More on the Revoltech figure in a later post.) As a result, the FuruFuru figure was a bit underwhelming compared to the craziness of the Revoltech figure. I sort of wish I had gotten the Luke FuruFuru figure instead as now I have two Laytons and no Luke. (But gosh, Luke is so annoying.) This figure still makes a pretty nice desk decoration, regardless.

New thing I learned today: The Professor Layton movie, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, takes place after the fourth Professor Layton game.

A couple Christmases ago, I asked for a bread machine for a Secret Santa gift. My sis-in-law, Kimi, was my Secret Santa that year, and she gave me the bread machine along with a bread machine recipe book. I made a few loaves of Outback bread, but got bored with my toy. The next time I used my bread machine again was a couple times during the holidays: once to make dough for sweet potato rolls, and another time I used it to make the blankets for pig-in-blankets.

Then in February, Kimi sent me a forwarded email from Amazon. There were a bunch of bread book recommendations because she had ordered my bread book through Amazon, and she had asked, “make anything good lately?”

Well, embarrassingly, the answer was no. In fact, the only time I ever used the book she gave me was for making those pig-in-blankets with the dinner roll recipe. How frickin’ lame is that? I’ve been sitting on my ass since August being the lamest apartmentwife ever. I can’t find a job, our apartment is still a sty, and I can’t even put a bunch of crap into a machine and push a button.

So I decided I was going to make every damn bread recipe in this book, Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway. All 138. And I’m going to post every stupid loaf I make. Yes, I’m going to pull a Julie & Julia, except with 1000x less effort and 1000x more boring. (Give me a break, I can’t cook worth %^$&.) I’m posting bread as proof I made it, but most of the bread is going to look the same… so yeah.

Bread #1 – Basic White Bread
This is the first recipe in the book. Most of my breads will pretty much look just like this one.

You can see the bread’s tushie-hole where the kneading blade pops out in the middle pic.

In between this bread and the next bread, I made a wheat bread (disaster, no comment) and French bread using the recipe book that came with the bread machine.

Bread #2 – Irish Potato Bread
Made this for St. Patty’s Day to go with my corned beef. Like white bread, but a little moister, I think.

So far, I’d been using a 5.5in serrated utility knife from our knife set to cut bread. After mauling all our previous breads very similarly to the second picture above, I decided to invest in a real bread knife, as well as a bread box.

Bread #3 – Brown Bagger’s White Bread
This is supposedly a good sandwich bread. It’s got more ingredients than the regular white bread, but other than that, I can’t tell them apart.

Bread #4 – Herb Bread
Gosh, this bread was noms. It has onion and random herbs in it, so it’s really flavorful and nice to snack on.

Look carefully, this one actually looks different from the other ones!

This was also the first bread I cut with my spiffy new bread knife!

Bread #5 – Dennis’s Blarney-Stone Bread
This bread sounds Irish, but I don’t know what’s Irish about it. There’s no potatoes in it. It’s got oats and honey in it, but it’s about the same as regular white bread.

I think I’m going to start tackling some breads that aren’t boring looking white breads. I’d like to attempt wheat bread again and maybe even some ryes. The thing that sucks is that the nearest Safeway to me doesn’t have many options for flour. In fact, I’m pretty sure it used to have bread flour, but when I went to the store a couple days ago to get more, the bread flour’s spot had been replaced with graham crackers (in the middle of flour and corn meal, wtf)! So now they don’t even have bread flour. I’ll try the fancy shmancy grocery store that’s down the street from us next. I usually avoid that place because they’re Whole Foods-level pricey.

New thing I learned today: Bread flour has additives that help yeast work and makes the dough more elastic to retain gas better. These characteristics help make for better shaped loaves and softer breads.

Sorry for the lack of posts last week, wasn’t in the mood for blogging. I’ve also tried to avoid blogging during “work hours”, but I give up today :P

I went down to Los Angeles to attend Sandra’s bridal shower, and Sandra and Owen let me stay with them the entire weekend, along with giving me rides and taking me to a bunch of yummy places to eat. Outside of flying (don’t get me started), the weekend trip was fun and not too crazy. Much thanks to Sandra and Owen for such hospitality!

btw, Sandra asked what I wanted to do while I was in LA; I said I just wanted to try good food. She delivered, so if it seems like all we did was eat, then… well… yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Friday
Flew into LAX around 10PM, where the first thing I heard in the background when I exited the gate was “I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan…“. (Thank you LAX for getting crappy teeny bopper music stuck in my head for the rest of the weekend.) Sandra picked me up, and we headed straight to Hakata Ramen for a late dinner.

Sandra and appetizers

I’m told that you know a place is good if you have to wait a long time to sit down, and this was certainly the case for Hakata Ramen. We had to wait a good 45 minutes or so to get seated, but we were entertained by conversation and a TV with advertisements for more Japanese food (must… get… yakitori…). The ramen was indeed delicious. Their pork broth is flavorful, yet not too heavy, which is rare. The noodles are flour noodles instead of egg noodles. Very reminiscent of Maru Ichi, but with much thinner noodles.

They like their ginger, apparently.

After dinner, we went back to Sandra’s, where I chatted with Owen (who had awoken from his bear nap) and Sandra until 3AMish. I think I should talk to them more online, because we apparently had a lot to catch up on!

Saturday
Bridal shower day! I woke up in the morning to Sandra’s super nice friend and maid-of-honor, Patty, coming into the apartment with Sandra’s altered wedding dress. I hung out with Owen while Sandra and Patty did their bridal tailoring stuff in a different room. When they were done, we headed off to the bridal shower, which was completely organized by Patty.

Sandra took Patty and me down to Santa Monica, which is where Anisette Brasserie is located. While Patty set up (I tried to help but she’s rather… insistent), I chilled with Sandra at the bar waiting for guests to arrive. Once everyone was there, it was bridal shower time! Anisette Brasserie has generally nice ambiance, but the manager had seated us in a small area upstairs, which was even nicer. It was isolated, looked over the entire restaurant, and had a great view of the kitchen. We dined and played shower games.

What makes French hamburger French?

The freebie bread was really good (and indulgent), very buttery and flakey with touches of cheese. For lunch, I had the Croque Madame. It’s kind of like a French grilled ham & cheese sandwich with an egg on top, except the middle isn’t really grilled much and the bread is incredibly bad for you. I wasn’t a fan of the weird French cheese, but other than that, not bad.

Patty + three members of Owen’s zany family

Sandra gave all attendees these very fancy all natural soaps from Soaptopia. Kelvin’s been wanting to try all-natural soaps, so this was conveniently nice. I’m not a big fan of handmade soaps because they tend to have pleasant smelling natural scents. That may sound weird, but it bothers me a little when soap smells good enough to eat. Like maybe I’ll find myself eating soap or something. And these do smell heavenly.

I got to have the extra one!

After the bridal shower, I was feeling zombie-ish because of all the heavy eating we’ve been doing. We dropped by Owen’s aunt’s place to pick up baby pictures for their wedding slideshow, and then the rest of the afternoon was vegging in front of the television, recovering from the heavy eating. Eventually, we managed to get our butts off the sofa to grab dinner. San Mateo is seriously lacking in Korean food, and I wanted something easy on the stomach, so we went to get tofu at BCD Tofu House.

Sandra and Owen munching on fish

With the grumpy tummy and the chilly weather, it really hit the spot. I was pleasantly surprised by the fried fish they give each person as a snackie. For dessert, we got more fermented goodness at Yogurtland. Back at Sandra’s place, Owen seemed offended that I had never watched Zoolander, so he made me watch it. It was, um, entertaining… Orange Mocha Frappuccino!

Sunday
Everybody got up late, so the original plan of dim sum for brunch was out of the picture. Instead, we went to Don Antonio’s for Mexican food. It was sooooo good (and heavy), and I really like the freebie chips and salsa. It wasn’t even a hole-in-the-wall place, so it was a nice place to sit down and chat.

Mmmm…

After lunch, we went to Little Osaka to shop at toy stores and get some boba. We also dropped by Sandra and Owen’s friendception venue, since Owen hadn’t seen the place in person before. The venue also sells cupcakes, so I grabbed a couple red velvets for the road.

Having consumed heavy Mexican food and a large cup of milk tea, I did more resting on the couch back at their place. (I’m always amazed at how much nothing I enjoy doing.) Owen played Fallout 3 and Sandra napped until it was dinnertime. I wanted something light again, so they took me to get some Tender Greens. Very fresh and crisp salads.

Owen’s half-blinking in this one. Sorry Owen!

Sandra dropped me off at the airport right after dinner, and five hours later (after stupid delays and self-inflicted airport drama, such as forgetting cell phone at Sandra’s place), I was finished with my SoCal diversion and back in the Bay.

Thanks again to Sandra and Owen for taking me places! See you next month!

New thing I learned today: Gruyère is a hard cheese made of cow’s milk, and it is the cheese commonly used in croque monsieurs/madames.