yep

I designed this logo for a friend who just got over a bad breakup. I can't take full credit for the finger image though - I used another image I found on the internet as inspiration and guide.

Happy Chickens in my Kitchen

This is what happened when we cooked at home. No, Really.

Gathering Children

Sometimes my mail program likes to round up it's kids... not sure if it's dropping them off at the pool, or what.

Is this misspelled? Or am I a stupid Twat? (an evening at Fringale)

Fringale - Yelp.com calls it a Spanish/Basque, French restaurant, but it was pure French when we went last night.

And it was damn good.

So we're looking at the menu, and at the top it reads "Diner". I obviously can't sum up enough of my 7th grade French to remember what the French word "diner" is and it's different enough from Italian and Spanish for us to guess what it is. So we debate:

"Do you think this is misspelled? Are they missing an 'N'?"
"I don't know, you wouldn't think they would do that."
"Maybe they just missed it."
"But it's up at the top and all bold and stuff."

Then the waiter walks up, and in traditional fashion, I don't care if I embarrass myself or anyone else really, so I ask,

"Is this misspelled, or is it a French word."
"Madame, eet ees Frauncsh." (with a slight giggle)
"What does it mean?"
"Oh, eet means deener." (with another slight giggle).

So we order our cocktails and proceed to focus on the menu now that the pesky "diner" issue has been resolved and we are able to look past it.

The menu is so French (or Frauncsh). It's all very classic fare (I know this because my chef boyfriend told me). But I think I would have picked that up eventually, who knows.

I'll get to the important stuff and leave off the narrative.

dirty martini - the most perfect amount of olive juice I've ever had in a dirty martini. You wouldn't think it would be such a delicate balance, but it is and I didn't realize it until I had it done exactly right.

Campari and soda - Jason said it was also mixed just right.

Beef Carpaccio with toasted horseradish, chives, greens and a light mustard sauce. My first time with raw beef and I really enjoyed it. All the flavors were pure and simple, but excellent.

Black Angus Rib Eye with red wine butter and pomme frites - beautiful. So tender and good and the haricots vertes were yummy. I think the french fries were some of the best I've ever had, they were light and airy with the perfect amount of crunch.

Rack of Lamb with potato gratin - This wins the prize. The lamb was without any gameyness and perfectly tender. It was a wonderfully rounded plate.

Cross Point Pinot Noir 2005 - a perfect match for both dishes. Oh my god, it was an excellent wine both with and without food. Bright, but also complex and deep.

Service - Awesome. There was slight confusion among the two waiters as to who was serving our table at the beginning. But it didn't matter, we seemed to get better service because of it. We had both waiters and the hostess bringing us stuff and making sure we were happy. Our waiter in the end was perfectly French, but warm and sweet. He poured Jason some extra wine on the house when Jason asked to look at the bottle. He answered my questions about "terroir" and patiently pronounced and explained it to us. He matched the perfect wine with our food.

Fringale is a French Bistro and nothing but. They did not surprise me with inventive dishes, but they do the French thing so well and give such great service, that I was happy they don't diverge from the classics.

... and their fraunsch fries were amazing. I know nothing of their Fraunsch toast or Fraunsch dressing.

I want to love you tender

A friend sent this along today and I just can't help but comment.

First of all, how can he possibly love her tender and prove he's no pretender with a bunch of retarded-ass cheerleaders dancing right through them.

1) Who is the freaky dude at the very beginning with the head band? He's like a beardless Wolfman Jack. This is his only appearance in the whole thing... perhaps he's supposed to be the God of their freaky deaky world, perhaps he was their choreographer

2) The cheerleaders had so much potential when they all lined up in a row and had their arms straight out at different positions - some kind of fantastic fan-like thing, but they blew it when they broke off into the most lame-ass individual air guitar performances.

3) What the fuck are they doing when they're all hunched over and going back and forth in front of the camera... some of them have instruments, the rest of them look like they're just constipated and trying to walk, except for the dude who is holding the chick up with her legs spread... now that's exciting stuff.

4) The whitest soul train dance tunnel EVER.

5) The ridiculous half jumping jacks just before the Grease-like car riding off into the stellar realm. (huh?)

I'm so confused.

Livin' in the Mission

For those of you who don't know San Francisco, the Mission is a historically hispanic neighborhood. Most of it, the ghetto for many many years. However, gentrification has taken it's hold and has led the Mission into a new era.

Most people still think this part of town is dirty and scary and come here on a tentative foot. I won't lie, it really looks that way. But the further you get away from the main arteries of transportation, you find the sweet spot. A place where the majority of folks are speaking Spanish, where there are at least 2 cheap-ass produce shops on every block, where the sun shines more than it does anywhere else in the City, where kids play on the street. A place where you know your neighbors, and although they've spent their whole lives living in the house next door to you, they aren't afraid to be friendly to the new, young white people who are changing the face of their nieghborhood.

I love it here. I'm so pleased that this is where my boyfriend and I could afford to buy a flat. I'm thrilled that I can walk 1/2 a block and buy fresh produce every day. I love that my corner store dude and I are friends. I love that it is usually 10-20 degrees warmer here than the rest of the City on almost any given day.

All that makes the few minor flaws quite easy to swallow...

As I type, the homies are camped out on my front stoop because it is too warm on their front stoop across the street. They are blasting some thump thump music and lighting off the occasional cherry bomb left over from July 4th. My house is shaking from the sounds. I'm annoyed, yes I am. But when I think of the alternative – the stuffy apartment high on a hill, where all my neighbors in their 70's were either not friendly at all, or a little too friendly. Where I had a tiny little balcony that got sun for about 1/2 hour every day and my kitchen was the size of a port-a-potty. When I think of all that, I'm so grateful for the scary looking dudes hanging out on my stoop playing shitty music.

The Mission's charm may ward off those faint at heart, but it takes my breath away at times.

I'm Sick In the Head

I like crap tv... I'll admit it openly these days, mostly because I cannot hide it any longer.

If you had asked me two years ago what I watched on tv, my patent response would be, "Oh, I don't really watch much tv. There's an occasional home improvement show (even though I don't have a home, or any desire to improve my apartment), but that's all."

But now, oh wow, can I spend some time with some crap-a-licious shit. I try to justify it with the fact that I work at home and often will watch crap reruns while working. It's a nice way to while away the many minutes my computer spends thinking about saving, moving, rendering, etc.

Should have seen trouble coming when defending the validity of Project Runway to my non-crap-tv-watching boyfriend, who is utterly appalled and now resigned to accepting my tv watching habits. His most horrifying moment was when I came home yesterday with a DVD recorder to replace our broken VCR, in order to record So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) and watch it with some other sick friends. He hid his disgust quite well.

My crap repitoire:
*Project Runway (season premiere tonight... oh yeah)
*SYTYCD
*American Idol
Hulk Hogan's Show (whatever the hell it's called, it really doesn't matter)
Run's House
Super Group
Making the Band III
All the stupid MTV date shows
Road Rules/Real Word Challenge (and the new Fresh Meat)
(* shows that I have, at one time or another, watched on a regular basis)

No doubt I'm missing a few.

I have steered pretty clear of the Survivor-type shows, but I seen a few episodes of it, as well as The Great Race, and Fear Factor. For some reason they don't hold my attention. Fear Factor has got to be the worst, that dude from News Radio is so annoying, and the contestants... well, how can I possibly get involved if I never really get to know any of their personalities? Who do I love? Who do I hate? These are very important issues when watching the crap.

I blame all this on watching too many MTV videos when I was going through puberty. There are still MTV videos, right? If so - I should probably be recording them.

Running does NOT do a body good

I'm training for a marathon.

I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth.... EVER. In fact, I remember telling a boyfriend in college that "Running is the stupidest thing in the world. I mean, why get all sweaty and pant-y when you can walk anywhere you want to go and still look and feel good." (heh, I said panty)

But I decided to join a running group last Fall because getting and staying in shape is a huge challenge for me and it seemed if I were committed to a group with my current boy that will-power would soon follow.

It worked... I went to all the trainings, but a lot of times because I knew I'd get a world of shit from my boyfriend. In the end, I ran a 1/2 marathon, felt really good about the accomplishment, and lost some weight. That was all good.

The marathon thing - whole other story. Yeah there's that whole sense of accomplishment, and I've lost a little weight, but this shit is hard.

Running long distances sucks for your body.

I'm not from Kenya, and I'm pretty sure my Czech, English and French ancestors never ran for anything accept to catch the croissant truck (but they probably had to run for the lives on one or two occasions - no offense to any Czech, English or French who might read this... oh who am I kidding.).

My body just ain't into anything over 16 miles.

The knees give out, I feel bloated, I'm in pain for days, I suffer from anxiety leading up to the run, I can't drink as much, I have to wake up ass early on the days of the run so I can eat 2 hours ahead of time to avoid peuking, I chafe.

There's some dude out there who is running 50 marathons in 50 days. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? I mean, being in shape is good and all, but can you even imagine having dinner with him? What would you talk about? Everything in moderation, dude.

If I make it across that finish line, it will only be because I will feel like I can eat and drink whatever the hell I want to for the week afterwards... and I'm gonna.

My Front Stoop

I finally had my living-in-a-city-with-no-backyard-front-stoop-barbeque. Didn't realize what I was missing until the thought popped into my head a couple weeks ago.

It's a perfect plan...

Your friends come over, possibly some of your neighbors too. Everyone brings beer or food (or both if they're really generous, or have just thrown a BBQ of their own and have stuff left over). They all sit around on your front stoop/sidewalk, entertain you, and make you look really popular in front of your neighbors (who really don't give a shit how many white people you know).

There's no way NOT to meet expectations.

Since it's just a front-stoop-bbq and expectations are likely low, I feel no need to serve anything spectacular, so prep is easy as pie. One quick run to the store for hot dogs, sausages (if you're feeling all gourmet and shit), buns, a case of beer, and a bag of chips and you're pretty much done.

No one messes up your house.

Clean up is so easy! I mean, no one has been in your house expect to pee and probably to snoop a little bit. Perhaps there are a few footprints to mop up (if you're so inclined), but other than that - the entire mess is contained outside. We had an extra little help in our clean up, when the English Homeless Man came by and cleaned out all our empty bottles and cardboard. He even offered to condense our two recycling cans into one to make it easier on us.

I highly recommend the front-stoop-que. We got a little love from our neighbors (especially when we gave them a left-over case of beer), we got to hang with our friends for a low-stress holiday, and we didn't have to venture much further than our front door.