Feng Zhu

I was reading an article about an XBOX2 game in development and I happened on a name I recognized, Feng Zhu. When I was in high school, this dude was known as THE MAN when it came to art design. My art teacher, Mrs. Lee, spoke glowingly of him but since I never interacted with him (losers like me keep to themselves) I never thought much of it. But today I googled him and DAMN, is he awesome. Star Wars Episode III, BloodRayne, Guild Wars, James Cameron... holy cow. He even has his own freelance design studio, Feng Zhu Design, in Santa Monica.

I can't help but feel like I've been wasting my life in comparison. Excuse me but I'm going to listen to depressing music and mope for a while.

Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud

I was browsing the Project Gutenberg (they offer e-text of public domain books) for some random stuff and happened on this little gem:

Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud


Yep, that's right. A soon to be new feature of this blog will be analyses of my weird dreams. I'm excited and frightened at the same time.

The Feeling of Power

This is a really good short story by Isaac Asimov that I read a couple of days ago. I thought about the kids I tutor at Eucalyptus Elementary School when I read it. I'd paste the text here but I'm not entirely sure his work should be in public domain. Instead I'll link to the website that carries it (let them worry about the copyright issues).

http://downlode.org/etext/power.html

Barbeque #3: Happy Independence Day

I had to make up for not having BBQ on Sunday. So from 3 to 7, we grilled potatoes, asparagus, bell peppers, turkey sausage, London broil, tri tip, chicken wings, pork spareribs, and corn. We had way too much food but that just means leftovers for the rest of the week.

By the way, illegal fireworks are so much better than the safe and sane ones. As long as you're not the one lighting them of course.

Fireworks At Almansor Park 

The Aftermath 

The Smirmoff Girls 

Wanker's BBQ London Broil 

Chicken Wings and Onion and Beer Tri-Tip 

Ngoc Grilling Some Bellpeppers 

...To Picnic Table for 9. 

From 9-year Old Ping Pong Table I Never Use... 

The Streak is Broken... No Barbeque Today

Just pancakes and leftover minestrone soup.

Nothing more to see here... move along now.

Dream Journal: Magic Numbers

Ngoc is getting an Infiniti G35 Coupe. She and I are haggling with the salesman over the price. After some time, the salesman hands back his final offer on a slip of paper. It reads very clearly to me: $33,725. Ngoc gets angry and then walks away. I follow her out and ask her why. She says that she didn't mean to buy the car but she just wanted to compare the price to the one she bought which was $2,000 more.

[Ed. Note: Strange that I should see that number so clearly. Most times, I have a hard time reading numbers, letters, or figures in my dreams because they shift everytime I read them. Looks like I'll be buying lottery tickets this week.]

I also had a dream about a game but the details are so fuzzy, I can't even say what kind of game it was.

Barbeque #2

Whew, close one today. A scheduled BBQ got moved to another day and I suddenly found my self BBQ-less! I looked up a Vodka-Citrus Salmon and hopped over to Vons to get some fixin's. It took us a while to peel off the skin and get all the pin bones. After mixing 1/2 cup of orange juice, a 50 ml bottle of Vodka, lime juice, whole mustard, rosemary, and basil, the salmon was marinated for 2 hours. They came out looking pretty good but it tasted pretty fishy. I'm not a big fan of fishy fish so I'm going to have to give this a thumbs down. I think it might be time to step up and buy seafood that costs more than $3.79 a pound.

The Cattlemen's BBQ sauce on the chicken was pretty good however. I also made a minestrone from the pork stock I had yesterday. A couple of cans of vegetables, beef stock, and stewed tomatoes later then its mmm mmm good.

Barbeque #2: Hickory Smoke Chicken and Vodka-Citrus Salmon 

Dream Journal: An RPG Game and a Bus Trip Through Downtown

I'm playing some kind of RPG game where a group consists of seven people. There are no graphics per se because what I am seeing is live action. The problem is that I have saved right before a critical encounter in the game but when I reload it seems that I have forgotten the name of the save file. I reload multiple save files but every one is wrong (and involve the group I'm restoring getting their butts kicked). I finally realize that each game I reload corrupts the save file set a little bit so I've lost my original save point by all that restoring I did.

Now Ngoc, her sister and I are at the Burger King at the corner of Sunset and Grand Ave. We're waiting for something or someone but they're late and we have time to kill. I suggest we go to a Walmart that is in the heart of downtown. The best way to get there quickly is with the bus. We get on one but it heads in the wrong direction. We try to get off but there are so many people on the bus we can't move.

The Barbeque Marathon Begins

My goal for the 4th of July break is to have or attend four consecutive barbeques from Friday to Monday. Monday is the main show while the previous three are the opening acts that warm up the audience (me and my gut). I get Tuesday off as well but that is not in the works for two reason. The first is out of respect for the Independence Day that has passed. The second is that the levels of carcinogens in my body would be right about critical mass and I'm not going to tempt fate!

So today is my usual Friday BBQ. Ngoc and I had gone to the Farmer's Market for breakfast so I stopped by Cost Plus World Market to pick up a bottle of Walkerswood Jamaican Jerk Chicken marinade. I would not recommend it. I marinated some chicken thighs in the sauce for three and a half hours and then dabbed some more on during grilling but when I bit into the chicken it still tasted bland. It also has a weird sweet and sour/ginger aftertaste working against it and suprisingly is not spicy at all. Sorry three strikes, you're out.

I would however recommend trusty old K.C. Masterpiece Spicy Original for ribs though. I've tried many others before but so far it has been Ol' Dependable (my next bottle is a Cattlemen's Hickory Smoke so we'll see after if K.C. still retains the crown).

Barbeque #1 Menu: Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Grilled Asparagus, and BBQ Pork Spareribs 

Barbeque #1