an ascetic lifestyle of leisure

Over the weekend we saw Prince Caspian, which was seriously packed with action. We loved it. We also saw Iron Man, and loved it. I sort of miss the days I'd see small independent movies, but I never hear about them because I don't read the LA Weekly religiously anymore. So I'm sure I'm always missing small, beautiful movies.

As was arranged a few months ago, we cooked dinner for Sean and Tonya at Morris Manor since they just recently had a kid. Apparently most other people who signed up basically brought pizza or something, but we went all out. We prepared penne gorgonzola e radicchio with baked salmon and stir-fried broccoli, a dish very similar to a meal we made before. For appetizers, brie, crackers, and grapes. For dessert ... s'mores! Sean gave us glasses of an unbelievable red from a winery named "L'Aventue". I need to look that one up.

Yes, yes, honeymoon summary coming someday.

My car passed 186,282 miles recently, which is the distance light travels in one second. My car took fourteen and a half years, despite my best efforts at keeping up.

Good old Toyota. The clearcoat has vanished, the rear view mirror flipping mechanism is broken, I had to repair a radiator crack with JB Weld, the air conditioning is erratic, there's chips in the windshield and scratches in the paint, the throttle body sticks, the steering wheel foam is totally destroyed, the roof liner is scratched, the upholstery is faded and worn, the window cranks have broken knobs, the interior door handles are cracked, I'm missing half the knobs on the HVAC controls, and yet overall it never fails to start, never stalls, never strands me, never lets me down, and still gets 30 mpg. I had to replace the alternator early in its life, and that was the extent of major reliability issues. I've replaced the brake pads once, the front struts once, the brake bulbs countless times, gone through four sets of tires, had a radio stolen, had a rear window smashed in a break-in, been in one collision, and spent more on insurance than I ever paid for the car.

Very few things give me satisfaction like owning something that is durable, useful, and well-designed. (Maybe that's why I got married. Hee hee!)

Holly sprained her ankle last weekend while teaching some choreography, so that was a little exciting. Fortunately, a week later, she is limping around without the aid of crutches and is sassy as ever, so I don't think there will be any lasting effects. She had a great deal of difficulty letting me do things for her. Stupid ho. I mean, uh, she's an independent one. And now we know exactly how to get to the emergency room whereas before had I chopped off an arm or something we would have driven around very bloodily looking for the fairly poorly marked emergency entrance. Emergency entrance! But only for the very observant! Darwin is king around here!

I've been working out a lot so I can do aerials, and I'm really noticing the effects on my body and appetite. I've always been the skinny guy type so I'll probably never build a lot of muscle, but I have definition where before there was only undef, as it were (perl joke for you geeks out there).

And last night we went to Drew's 31rst b-day at the HMS Bounty, which is a hilariously old-school LA kind of place with red leather booths, dim lighting, amazingly stiff drinks and cheap food. Holly's Irish coffee was like coffee-flavored whiskey. My Tom Collins was more like Mike Collins, famous astronaut, than Phil Collins, famous bald high-pitched singer. Surprisingly the hipster to middle-aged barfly ratio at the Bounty was fairly low despite being in the southeastern corner of Hollywood. I'd go back for dinner. I guess I did kind of eat dinner there since I scavenged all the food off everyone else's plate (see above re: appetite).

We are back from our honeymoon. I am writing up an extremely long journal entry detailing every bit of awesomeness, but it won't be forthcoming for a while.

Max was vomiting a lot after he came back from the hospital. We were reluctant to leave him for so long, but he spent the week being cared for by my coworkers who love him very much. They took him in to the vet on Friday and the vet discovered a massive bacterial infection preventing his stomach/bowels from processing food. So he cleared that up, but discovered that Max's esophagus was basically too scarred for him to eat. We saw him on Saturday morning and he had lots of energy, but was emaciated.

How scarred the esophagus was, the vet didn't know, so he sent a probe down Max's throat this morning to take a look. Unfortunately Max passed away under anesthesia, so after sunshine comes rain.

I will miss the little guy. I wasn't really an animal lover before him. He was the greatest dog ever.

We went to hear David Wilcox play a concert at McCabe's on Saturday. He is still the best singer-songwriter I have ever heard (not that I'm a connoisseur of the genre). Not only are his lyrics and use of metaphor amazing, but he is GREAT at playing his instrument, a part of singing/songwriting which many people neglect. He played a new song that we'd heard at the house concert a few months ago, "Captain Wanker", and basically forgot all the words, and spent about ten minutes riffing and vamping on stage while summoning up bits and pieces of it. Since the song hadn't yet been released on record nobody in the audience knew the lyrics well enough to help him out. Far from being a trainwreck, it was fascinating to listen to his mental thought processes exposed like that.

Kevin Nealon was sitting a few rows ahead of us.

Max is back home, although vomiting a lot and generally weak of body, though not of spirit. Hopefully over the next few weeks he'll regain his strength and his proclivity for dashing about everywhere in hopes that everywhere contains something edible. He was particularly put out after we went to Sean and Tonya's pool party and he instantly tried to eat some cat food that was apparently good for urinary tract infections in cats and EXTREMELY good for making dogs ralph. Guess Max doesn't really equate eating random food with near-death experiences. This is why we have computers and roads and buildings and tools and literacy -- because we don't eat everything in sight. Unless we're American.

We go on our honeymoon Thursday. Holly still doesn't know where we are going, unless one of the hundred people I've let in on the secret have accidentally told her.

It will be the Greatest Trip Ever. Afterwards, using the aforementioned computers and roads and tools and literacy, we will never have to leave the house ever again.

Fantastically busy at work because I need to get SO MUCH done before we leave for our honeymoon next week. But a little Max update:

He came home with us for the night and slept in our bed and he wags his tail thumpingly hard when he sees us, and he ate a little bit of baby food and a little bit of kibble, and seems to be stronger day by day. He even poops and pees again.

He still doesn't high-five me on command though. That's my 'Max is back to normal' metric. Who wants a dog that can't high-five?

We are in the process of sorting out how to pay for all this, and let me just say HOLY CRAP OW. Our house, despite being powerwashed and freshly refurbished by Holly's parents and their best friends, will not be painted for a while. Between the honeymoon, home repair, landscaping, and Max crisis, this is probably the most money I have ever spent in a month minus car and house purchases.

Speaking of honeymoon, American had better not screw me on the flight to (redacted).

Last night Tom and Jack and I went out to the Cat and Fiddle for "boy's night out" which consisted mainly of needling each other and me asking for advice on being a good father and husband. I used to hate asking for advice, but I've come to realize that other people have great things to say once you get past the initial banality. (Come on, if someone asks you for advice on a subject you start general and then get more and more specific, right? The general stuff is obvious.)

Their visit has been quite a rollercoaster. The Max crisis didn't let us spend as much time with them as they wanted, and they felt horrible for Max escaping while under their watch. But I think we all bonded this week.

Our third Max visit found him conscious and walking, albeit feebly. He was obviously terribly nauseated -- you could hear his insides gurgling and he would retch every so often, although nothing came out until near the end of the visit when a huge flood of brownish black fluid poured out of his mouth, down his neck cone and onto the exam room floor. Amidst the fluid were unidentifiable round bits that were probably undigested kibble, some half-gnawed leaves, and hair.

He did respond to our voices although he was barely able to sit and lift his head. He did respond to the commands "sit" and "stay" , but I guess a Pet Rock would have done that too. He does seem to have his senses, somewhat dimmed with pain and nausea. When I left the exam room to go talk to the vet he staggered to his feet and attempted to follow me out the door, which broke my heart.

We transferred him today to our regular vet (the hyper expensive emergency vet was ... hyper expensive). We had originally thought we could take him home but the emergency vet said his liver enzymes are rising. I did a little research on that and my skimming indicates that could mean liver damage, but there are other possible causes too. Regardless, the liver is a tough little fucker and I have high hopes that Max will come home soon.

Holly, on the other hand, is wracked with despair. My wife is a sensitive soul.

Max is doing a lot better now. His seizures have stopped and his breathing is now unlabored. Although he's still comatose he moved his foreleg as if trying to get more comfortable once. And we can see his eyelids twitching as if blinking. The vet told us that he has been semi-alert today and while unable to stand, he did look around. There are still roadblocks in the form of pneumonia, so he will probably be in emergency care for another day at least. So we are daring to hope. Thank you all for your well-wishes.

Holly's parents and their best friends are visiting here for a week. So far they have decided to reconstruct much of my back porch and fix up numerous other small problems with my house that have been piling up. Apparently a vacation for them consists of handyman stuff. Best in-laws ever! (Except I went to hardware stores four times this weekend.)

Unfortunately today Max escaped from the back yard and we spent forty minutes driving around looking for him. Our awesome neighbor Lisa heard us yelling his name and deduced that he was missing, and found him three blocks over. He was strangely excited when he got home, but I thought nothing of it, so I went back to work.

About half an hour later Holly's mom called and said Max was trembling and refused to sit, and she took him to an emergency vet. They think he ate some snail bait and has metaldehyde poisoning. Holly is real torn up. We visited him about 8:30 pm tonight and he was lying on his side having seizures and breathing raspily. He didn't seem aware of our presence, although the vet had given him massive sedatives to control the trembling.

The night vet said that Max was in better condition than most pets brought in with snail bait poisoning, so we are optimistic. If you see Holly online tomorrow, give her some love. Max is really important to us.

ATA going bankrupt is the very definition of schadenfreude. In 2001 they screwed me inbound and outbound on a flight and I vowed never to fly them again. Here's to you, sucky airline. May you forever rust in peace.

Wil was here for a few days so we went to 7 Grand with his friend Craig. Tatsu and Amanda and Mike all went too, because why not? Over the course of the night we tried Ardbeg, Glenrothes, Auchentoshan, and A'bunadh. The bartender also made a "Gold Rush" at Wil's request for the best cocktail he knew. Apparently it's 12 year old Elijah Craig plus honey plus something else which I can't remember.

*edited to fix spelling

Holly is taking over the team she was on last year. Their auditions were Friday. Some pretty strong candidates showed up -- which is good, because their song this year is going to be bone-crushingly difficult. Only a few people from last year will return to the team and Carol, the co-leader and choreographer, is stepping down and moving across the country. So my wife has suddenly assumed a lot of responsibility.

Sunday were callbacks and after a rigorous morning workout at the Y I attempted some prep work on an aerial with Holly and felt pretty good. Usually my back is too jacked up to even think about something like that. So I think I am getting stronger. That night we went to the Bill Elliott gig in Santa Monica which was a lot of fun. Even though we've heard the songs 1000 times before and the live arrangements sound almost exactly like the record, it was still great to hear the band in form again.

But now I am sore and super tired.

Oh yeah, Saturday I went go-karting with tatsuoiye and mentalflossboy and their friends/girlfriend. I did much more respectably this time around, earning third fastest lap time and second best average time in the heat (although only fastest lap time counts). In fact I set the fastest lap on the second lap and it lasted until the ninth lap when Keith finally blew past it. I have some ideas on how to handle the course better the next time we race. Hopefully next time we won't have to wait THREE HOURS to race like this time.

I lived in Pasadena many years but never managed to get to the Raymond on Fair Oaks because my interest in fine dining developed later. Plus as a poor college student it's hard to justify ten bucks on a glass of wine when you don't even drink. (I drink now. I blame dancing.)

Glass of "semillon" wine, L'Ecole No. 41 (Columbia Valley Washington state). This white was extremely clean and paired amazingly well with seafood. Unlike many whites there was no acidic aftertaste.

Amuse bouche of buffalo mozzarella, basil pesto, and a blanched (?) cherry tomato. Since mozzarella caprese is normally served with a thick hearty slice of tomato and not much tomato skin, having a complete crunchy tomato on it changed the texture completely. The flavor wasn't that remarkable.

Pan seared Maine scallops, English pea foam with organic mushroom ragout, micro herbs
This appetizer was heavily peppered. The pea foam by itself was not a foam a la Ferran Adria -- it was more a frothy whipped puree of pea soup. The scallops were creamy and tender and the mushrooms surprisingly hearty for being thin stalks.

Holly ordered the butternut squash soup with roasted pumpkin seed oil, but they were out. Magically, the manager brought us a small cup of the very last dregs of soup. It was scaldingly hot and the roasted basil leaf on top complemented the creamy butteriness of the soup. This was provided to us for free with apologies (!)

John Dory in, uh, some sort of cream sauce with corn kernels and diced potatoes and black truffle. This is a moist flaky white fish that had been expertly baked so that the very edges were sharp and crunchy. Again, it was heavily peppered, but not enough to be objectionable. Remarkable with the wine.

Holly had "Crispy Long Island Duckling": sautéed breast, leg confit, sautéed vegetables, sweet potato ”risotto” and cherry port sauce. The thickly sliced breast was moist and tender and not too fatty as duck goes. Sweet potato risotto reminded me more of a thick chowder than a risotto. Sauce was ridiculously tasty.

We passed on dessert. Too often I find that the desserts in fine restaurants are commonplace. For some reason every restaurant has creme brulee, an apple tart, some variation of chocolate, and sorbet. There doesn't seem to be much creativity left in the patissiers of the world. To the Raymond's credit they offered an intriguing "French cobbler" which used pear cognac, but we were full.

This was our six month anniversary dinner. We talked a lot about her team audition and choreography ideas, not so much about our happiness, but that happiness need not be spoken of. We feel it constantly. Except when I'm grouchy. Or she is. She is the best wife in the world, because she is reading this as I write, and she said that I had to insert the line "or she is". How do you know when you made the right choice? When the put-downs are equal opportunity experiences!

Oh yeah, we went to Carol's kid's birthday and I went go-karting and improved my average lap time by two seconds. That was awesome. But not as awesome as dinner. The Raymond is a converted cottage, well decorated, and 'intimate' meaning 'you are sitting in the lap of the person at the next table'. But it's worth every penny. Why did I wait 20 years?

In the past week I have called 4 landscaping companies to get an estimate.

First one never called back.
Second one initially estimated $1700 then called frantically for the rest of the day until he lowered his estimate to $1000. Despite this I am reluctant to go with him because he seems kind of fly-by-night.
Third one set up an appointment time, and did not show up. (Half day of work missed.) I call them back and they say they will call me back to figure something out, but have not called back.
Fourth guy never responded to my initial call, so I called him again and he set up an appointment for this morning. He doesn't show up, so I call him. He obviously forgot, but will come over in 15 minutes.

I want to give people money, and they don't seem to care. It just makes no sense to me how these companies stay in business.

For some reason the AARP sent me a membership application. The application process didn't seem to bother checking on my true age, although I vaguely recall that the minimum age to join is 50. I briefly contemplated giving them the money and seeing if I could get senior citizen discounts at movies and restaurants. I mean, I'm Chinese, right? I could be 20, or I could be 50. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? Would a server be insulting and really ask? I could cuss them out in Chinese, because Chinese people are mean and irascible.

Alas, I am too ethical. I think it would be pretty funny to be a card-carrying member of the AARP at my age though.

Played foosball at the Pint with Jai for the first time in a dog's age. Although I'd only lightly practiced the day before, we owned that table for at least eight games. Felt good to dust off the old skills a little bit. My five bar is really rusty though. I did execute a Pappas pass at one point which impressed the hell out of players, although the spectators of course are always blown away by the speed and execution of shots. I think a lot of people don't understand how deep foosball technique is.

Here is some video of one of the world's best players (and someone else, I don't know who, but he's good too) just goofing off a little and being flashy, but not playing a real game:



And here is the same player executing methodically in a real tournament against arguably the world's best player. Note the vastly different playing style.



The difference between hacks, bar players and world champions is that in a game played by champions, the ball is never loose more than a second. The game is all about control, both psychologically and physically.

Had a hilarious and triumphant computer game moment. (Most of you may now skip to the next entry.)

I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2. There is a capture the intel map called mach4 which has a long bridge between the two bases. I had been playing on the server for literally hours and neither team could break the 2-2 tie to win. I had been playing so long, in fact, that I had 244 points. But finally my team snuck the intel out to the exit of their base whereupon the intel carrier died. The enemy team began to load up the intel with mines.

I spawned as a spy and cloaked and ran out to get the intel. Just as I touched it, I jumped. The detonating mines PROPELLED me across the entire length of the bridge. Conveniently I landed behind a medic/heavy combo who had been dominating me for the past few minutes. I backstabbed both of them and then immediately got sniped, but a teammate got the intel and captured it, and we won.

160 kills, ~100 deaths, some ridiculously large amount of fun.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordjulius/2292386459/

Last Wednesday we met up with Truman at Daily Grill downtown and had a great time hanging out with him and Shannon, our personal downtown tour guide. A quick showing of the Standard and a deeper investigation of the wonders of 7 Grand ensued.

Friday my parents closed on their new townhouse in the Valley, so we went over to my mom's imminent ex-apartment for a celebratory dinner. Although my Dad was delayed 20 hours due to a sleet storm in St. Louis, he made it to the signing in time.

Saturday we went to Disneyland courtesy of Holly's former supervisor, who now works for the Mouse. She got us in free and then left us to our own devices. I don't know what that phrase means but apparently our devices included eleven rides in ten hours and intermittent rain that made the California Screamin' roller coaster seem even more thrilling. Although it's easy to hate Disney, they are the best at what they do. You might even argue Vegas owes everything to them.

Sunday we won a gold statue. As you can imagine, everyone at work was thrilled today. The line to take a photo with it was very long. The statuette is surprisingly heavy and surprisingly devoid of features. Essentially it's a collection of curves that randomly describe a humanoid shape. Although the studio has now won two of them, the actual statuettes remain the property of the visual effects supervisors who won them, so we don't have a display case or anything. Alas.

Rhythm and Hues, 2008 Oscar for Best Visual Effects - Golden Compass

I hope to get a photo with the statuette at some point.

How quickly a long weekend vanishes into memory. I had to consult my wife's journal to remember what we did. The existence of her journal makes me wonder whether it's irrelevant to mention things in here that she's mentioned there.

But I love to hear myself talk, so!

We hosted Jerry from Dallas for a day. Visiting DJs at Lindygroove either stay with Lance or us, and since half the visiting DJs seem like our friends, we usually wind up as the taxi/chauffeur service. We don't mind of course since invariably we have fun. Although I don't know Jerry well, we had a fun time and he did a great job at the dance. Incidentally Holly won the speed dating jack and jill, which I thought should have been called a 'jill and jackoff'.

To celebrate our five month anniversary (does anyone celebrate such a thing? are we retarded?) we ate, once more, at Fabiolus. I believe I have eaten there at least 50 times now. For a change I ordered pork chops instead of penne radicchio e gorgonzola, and was quickly reminded why I always order pasta there. The pork chops were somewhat overcooked although the porcini mushroom sauce was delicious. Instead of passing out once we got home like we always do, we watched the entire three hour Battlestar Galactica miniseries. I found it surprisingly fun to watch, and now we are watching the actual episodes of the series little by little.

Saturday night we went to Apache, the annual Ricketts House party of debauchery. It was weird being almost double the age of everyone else there. The live jazz band was quite good, if mellow, and we danced a lot, but hardly talked to anybody. It didn't feel quite the same without the roaring bonfire in the middle of the courtyard. They don't have the little wooden tables anymore, and the booths now just contain single chairs -- this setup encourages a comparison to lapdance chairs, which I guess doesn't seem too far off the target for Apache (minus the existence of any girls to give you lapdances, this being Caltech). They also don't seem to have the oil lanterns anymore. Instead they use maglites and glowsticks, both of which are utterly useless at illuminating adequately. Thus the steam tunnel trip is a lot hairier than it used to be. The exit at the top of the ladder is much narrower as well ... or maybe I'm just much, much older than I used to be.

Sunday I spent a lot of time on car "maintenance". That is, I washed the S, changed the Focus air filter, replaced most of the windshield wipers on all three of our cars (which turned out to be a huge pain since I bought the wrong wipers initially), and most importantly, added power steering fluid to the Corolla. This turned out to entirely eliminate the moaning, wheezing noise the car made whenever I turned the wheel, since apparently there was NO FLUID LEFT. The absence of horrible noises almost makes a car feel brand new again. If by 'brand new' you mean broken dome light, broken interior lighting, broken AC, peeling clearcoat, oxidation, minor oil leaks, and broken door handles, that is.

That night we met up with Karen for her birthday dinner at Panda Inn. Most of the dinner conversation revolved around revolting food stories, or so it seemed. She let us continue borrowing Battlestar Galactica even though we've had it more than a year. We did return the Veronica Mars though now that Holly's watched it all after I gave up on it.

Monday Holly went to Carol's while I lolled about in a Peet's futilely seeking a free unsecured wireless network. Afterwards we went to Mike and Michelle's to watch the HD-DVD version of 300 on their HD TV. I was thoroughly entertained by the movie.

Maybe we should cram less into long weekends.