Probably More Than You Wanted to Know

And the real reason I showed up today . . .

2009-12-19T02:00:05Z

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is . . .

Neil Patrick Harris

plus Nathan Fillion

plus OMG musical numbers.

I really should act on movie recommendations more quickly. This is marvelous.

LJ, I never really loved you and this isn't helping.

2009-12-19T01:47:12Z

Pop-up ad content?

UNAVOIDABLE POP-UP AD CONTENT?!!!11!!!?

BAH, I say. And again I say BAH!

A Mexican Chinatown

2009-11-02T00:12:15Z

Sounds fascinating, right?

This mythic place is in Mexicali, capital of Baja California Norte, and according to the interwebs is a result of influxes of Chinese laborers to build railroads and irrigation systems. It's also only a couple hundred miles away. Roadtrip!

The ride out was interesting. At least 75% of the traffic was RVs or border agents. I suspect the RVs were heading out to Arizona, but OMG, the border agents. Once we reached the desert they were everywhere. About every half a mile we'd see one in their white SUV, slowly driving along beside the highway dragging a skid made of four tires. Every high point in the landscape had a watch tower. It was fairly creepy.

Finally, we arrived in Calexico and drove around for quite a while before finding the one parking area that didn't have a two hour limit. This was the first serious hint that this was not a tourist-friendly area. Crossing into Mexico was, as usual, very easy and completely uneventful. Immediately upon entry it became even more than obvious that tourism is not on Mexicali's priority list. No helpful kiosks. No helpful signage (even in Spanish).

The people were perfectly nice, even though we were the subject of significant interest. Two obvious foreigners wandering the streets somewhat aimlessly? I'd stare too. But no one was threatening in any way, and only a couple asked for money.

Overall the visit was pretty dull. La Chinesca wasn't all that Chinatown-ish. We did eat a a buffet style Chinese restaurant, which wasn't bad and tasted surprisingly like what you find in the States. There was also a shop with lots of imported Chinese tchotschkes, and that was about the extent of it.

Still, several interesting things were learned.

1) My Spanish is better than I thought
2) It's easiest to get pesos from an ATM
3) You must watch where you walk. Deep, open pits are common in the sidewalks
4) Sears is a seriously upscale department store down there
5) Next time I go to a border town, it'll be TJ. A higher risk of beheading is worth a two hour shorter drive and more interesting things to see.

Who Are You on True Blood?

2009-08-21T01:54:16Z

You Are Bill

You are a complex and often misunderstood person. You have a bit of a tortured soul.
You are extremely old fashioned, well-mannered, and polite. In many ways, you are a fish out of water.

You have many people in your life pulling you in different directions. You try to do the right thing, no matter what.
You'd like to live a simple, uncomplicated life with the person you love - but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Who Are You on True Blood?

Two of My Favorite Things: Thrift Stores & Food

2009-07-12T17:59:34Z

One of the nice things about California is the tradition of closing early the day before a holiday. This allows me my ritual holiday thrift store tour wherein I hit some stores that are usually too far away to get to before they close. My most recent trip was very fruitful, and one of my new treasures is a copy of Great Home Cooking in America, copyright 1976 (a good year for americana).

CONTENTS

Part I: Our 200-year Heritage of American Cooking
Chapter 1: American Food Originals
Chapter 2: Southwestern Specialties

Part II: From the Old Country to the New Land
Chapter 1: The Heritage of English Cooking
Chapter 2: The Heritage of German Cooking
Chapter 3: The Heritage of Dutch Cooking
Chapter 4: The Heritage of Scandinavian Cooking
Chapter 5: The Heritage of Eastern European Cooking
Chapter 6: The Heritage of Italian and Other Mediterranean Favorites

Everything in this book looks tasty, but I'm starting with Boston Baked Beans because a) the recipe is early in the book, so I saw it right away and b) I already had everything necessary except the beans. At the risk of copyright infringement, here's the recipe:

2 cups dry navy beans
6 cups water
1 tsp salt
1/4 lb salt pork
1 medium onion (optional)
2 tsp dry mustard
1/3 brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup molasses

- Wash beans. Combine beans and cold water in a large kettle. Bring to a boil; boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 1 hour. (Or soak beans overnight.)
- Add salt; simmer about 1 hour or until beans are tender. Drain, reserving 1-3/4 cups bean liquid. Add water if necessary; set aside.
- Cut a slice from the salt pork and put it in bottom of bean pot or Dutch oven. Add beans. Place onion in center of beans.
- Mix mustard, sugar, and molasses into reserved bean liquid; pour over beans.
- Cut 3 gashes in remaining salt pork; place on beans, rind side up.
- Cover and bake in 300º oven 5 - 7 hours, adding more water as needed. Remove cover from bean pot the last 30 minutes of baking so pork rind will brown and become crisp.

Makes 6 servings.

A Little Slow on the Upload

2009-05-29T22:15:09Z

Today I finally got around to uploading the pics from this year's National Train Day excursion to San Juan Capistrano. It was originally to be a reprise of last year's Santa Barbara day trip, but those nasty fires prompted Plan B.

Yes, there is National Train Day (May 9 this year). Yes, most people on the train that day had no idea there was such a thing. Yes, I slightly regret not buying an "I Ride Trains" t-shirt. (heh!)

The outgoing trip was lovely. We met a PhD student who's writing her thesis on the ascendancy of modern Cuban art. She had great stories about her trips to the island and life there. There was also a surprisingly cool film student who was on his way to Huntington Beach to pick up his car that died there. Plus there were Deadheads. Lots of Deadheads. I didn't even know there was a Grateful Dead to follow around any more.

San Juan Capistrano is a nice little tourist town. They have several cutesy, overly expensive shops and, of course, the mission. The mission is much larger and prettier than I expected. And the "Great Stone Church", which was partly felled by an earthquake in 1812, is HUGE.

More pics from the Mission are linked here.

I regret not taking pictures inside the chapel, but it felt . . . wrong. Even I have my acting like a tourist limits, and it's still used for services. Also, I'm pretty sure that M. is going to hell for peeking in the giant gilded ice bucket by the altar that presumably holds holy water. Well, maybe not ONLY for that, but I bet it's a factor.

Of Course!

2009-05-15T02:12:14Z

You are James T. Kirk (Captain)

James T. Kirk (Captain)		45%
Spock		12%
Data		7%
Will Riker		5%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		0%
Mr. Scott		0%
Chekov		0%
Uhura		0%
Mr. Sulu		0%
Jean-Luc Picard		0%
Beverly Crusher		0%
Geordi LaForge		0%
Worf		0%
Deanna Troi		0%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		0%

You are often exaggerated and over-the-top
in your speech and expressions.
You are a romantic at heart and a natural leader.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Sheepses!

2009-03-18T04:29:56Z

Yeah, this is pretty much it

2009-03-09T16:18:20Z

You Are An INTJ

The Scientist

You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems.

Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized.

You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others.

Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you.

In love, you are always striving to improve your relationship.

You have strong ideas of what love should be like.

At work, you excel in figuring out difficult tasks. People think of you as "the brain."

You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer.

How you see yourself: Reasonable, knowledgeable, and competent

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Aloof, controlling, and insensitive

What's Your Personality Type?

I had him at "donut"

2009-03-01T06:08:56Z

My friend M. has been feeling a bit deprived since his doctor has mandated lower cholesterol levels, and mentioned donuts as a contributing factor. I warned him I would not be a good influence, and proved this when I didn't protest going through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru a couple of weeks ago. I have further demonstrated I will not impede the occasional slip by suggesting a visit to the Donut Man when he called to find out if I wanted to do something.

Long before I moved to California, I had heard stories of the Donut Man -- magical stories of wondrous pastries, told with rapturous looks. All the stories are true. Them's some good donuts.

We drove the 30-ish miles from my house to Glendora. We cruised up and down a couple of miles of Route 66 because the Google directions were wonky. We stood in line with a likely meth-head and her boyfriend (or john, perhaps?). We marveled at the abundance of trailer parks. We scratched Glendora off the list of places we'd consider moving to.

Next on the agenda was a stop in Little Tokyo on the way home, since M. wanted to pick up some Japanese candy for his ESL class. Apparently a shopping center/mall in the neighborhood has the largest Japanese supermarket in the US. This market is indeed quite impressive. I'm planning on going back to stock up on emergency supplies. They seem to have a dried version of almost anything you could want, and M. was particularly excited to find single-serving packs of freeze-dried coffee that included sugar and creamer in the mix.

By then the sugar crash was hitting hard, so we stopped in at Aoi, one of the little restaurants in the area. It reminded me of my favorite greasy spoon diners, only with Japanese food. The food was not outstanding, but not bad either, and the owners were incredibly sweet.

Little Tokyo is really quite nice early on a Saturday evening.

Yay German Class!

2009-02-10T16:45:16Z

I was a little concerned about taking a night class at the community college, but it's all good as they say.

The instructor is very cool. He's about my age, a doctoral student at UCLA, and entertaining as heck. He involved everyone, answered questions efficiently and helpfully, and even dropped a few "colorful" terms that might be useful if say, you're looking for a hooker in Dresden. Actually, that's not the scenario he set up, but still. No other language teacher I've ever had would even mention something along the lines of "if you don't pronounce 'listen' correctly, you could be saying 'whore' instead."

And since when are most of the college students twelve years old??

Country Comes to Town

2009-02-03T22:29:56Z

My brother is getting married in New Jersey at the end of March, and my assignment is to make a list of things I want to see when we visit "The City" Anyone have suggestions for a first timer?

If I recall . . .

2009-02-01T03:58:00Z

durgablue is the big fan of Flight of the Conchords, no? Well, lookie who's playing Tampa in April!

Flight of the Conchords Tour

Imagine if I had stuck it out in Kung Fu class!

2009-01-29T22:48:12Z

Heeeere Piggy Piggy Piggy

2009-01-22T17:15:27Z

I had thought that with all of the development near my parents' house in the last few years that the wild pigs had found somewhere else to hang out. Apparently not.

My Dad sent these pictures today:

"Hiking" in L.A.

2009-01-19T02:45:55Z

Michael talked me into walking with him in Runyon Canyon Saturday morning. It was a beautiful, cool day and my butt was kicked good. Which is really not a bad thing because a) it's a good thing to bust my delusions of physical fitness and b) it's a good thing to do something about my lack of physical fitness. I can walk all day on flat surfaces, but this place has some serious grade.

Also, my 365 project has (not surprisingly) bit the dust. However, I do bring a camera along more often than I used to. Here are some pics from Saturday in the park:

The Pacific from our parking spot

Downtown

The Hollywood sign

SLACKER!

2009-01-13T03:34:52Z

Yes, I have been taking pics every day. I've just been lax about posting them. And to spare everyone having to look at 365 postings, here's the Flickr link for future reference:

Flickr Link to Lisa's 365

Day 2

2009-01-09T03:45:06Z

It's gonna be a long 365 days. I was tempted to give up already.

Day 1

2009-01-08T03:03:27Z

So very MySpace, I know. It's been a long day.

That's a great idea! I'll steal it!

2009-01-08T00:59:11Z

While perusing teh interwebz, I noticed that the charming Edgar Wright has stated he will be posting a picture a day to his MySpace blog. So me, who was flirting with the idea of doing a 365 project anyway and clearly has too much time on her hands, said: "I'll try that!" First one goes up tonight, since I don't usually carry a camera around.

I'm such a bandwagon jumper on-er.

I have officially been away from Florida too long.

2008-12-20T02:19:12Z

Tonight I was chased out of the shower by a roach. Pathetic, I know.

Happy Birthday Stin!

2008-12-03T22:25:45Z

Hollywood, never boring

2008-11-30T20:18:15Z

Today on my way back from the Hollywood farmer's market I saw the most original panhandling scheme I've come across in a long time.

Near the intersection of Franklin and Western was an obviously homeless man wearing a nasty hospital gown over other nasty clothes. He was standing *in* the road with a sign saying "THEY DROP ME OFF". I wish I had my camera with me.

This is a reference to the scandal of the downtown hospital(s) dumping discharged homeless people on Skid Row while still in their gowns, sometimes still with ID bracelets on. Howevah . . . this hasn't been happening for some time now, and no hospital is going to drive five to ten miles out of their way to drop a crazy person at the border of Hollywood and Los Feliz.

Points for creativity, though.

"This protest brought to you by the number 8"

2008-11-17T01:42:27Z

Yesterday morning I went with a group of friends to the march against Prop 8 (that's the ban on gay marriage) in downtown L.A. I've never done anything that could remotely be considered "social activism", but this seemed as good an event to start with as any.

We took the subway from Universal City, and it was PACKED. Any other time I've been on the train there have been maybe thirty people per car, but yesterday morning there was standing (as in unavoidable physical contact) room only. This is such a freakish occurrence, that most people were taking pictures of the crowd. And what continues to puzzle me is why none of the escalators downtown seem to work -- ever. Ugh.

We established a position in a shady spot near 1st and Spring where it was almost a party atmosphere as everyone waited for the event to start. Finally, the speechifying began and then continued till I thought they would never stop. The shade abandoned us and people kept getting crankier and crankier as the speakers kept coming. Did I mention it was over 90 degrees? There must have been at least ten people that took the podium as we stood in the street for two hours past the alleged start time. Eventually the crowd was chanting "March! March!" instead of "Yes we can!", and someone wisely decided to start the crowd moving.

So we marched -- all the way to Phillipe's for lunch. Militant radicals we are not.

I was surprised at the overall politeness of the group. I have no idea exactly how many were there, but the number was in the thousands I'm sure. It was a good experience, and I met some lovely people. Some of the best signs were:

"This protest brought to you by the number 8" (With a picture of Bert and Ernie captioned: "39 years of marriage")
"If I can't have my wedding, I'm not going to do yours."
We can't ALL marry Liza Minelli
"I assume the gay chickens will remain caged" (Referring to an animal rights proposition that passed.)

I drank the Kool-aid again.

2008-11-14T00:54:23Z

I was a bad, bad girl today and bought a new computer.

For a long time now I've had the creeping feeling that at any moment my more-or-less ancient Dell is going to bite the big one and take a pile of stuff that I value with it. Plus, I've been wanting a laptop again since shortly after I bought the aforementioned tower (coming up on eight years ago -- eeep!).

So, now there is a tee-nine-cy MacBook patiently waiting in the corner. My dad, one of the original Mac fanboys, will be proud. Our first computer ever was an Apple IIe that I loved to use to play Pong. (See -- I really am an old codger.)

I am both excited to have a new toy and slightly nauseous that the credit card balance is going the wrong direction.