Friday: Q171

 

It has been almost 200 days since I last had ramen.  This was super spicy, but the chashu was delicious.

Saturday: Birthday

And I finished my book.

Saturday: Wasted day

Doing nothing.

Except trying the new ramen place.

It's in the plaza with the grocery store that closed, which now has signs up for the new grocery store that's moving in.

The ramen is good, with a different flavor profile than the usual place I go to.  This place isn't technically open yet, but that apparently doesn't mean anything.  If this soft opening is how they do things when they're fully open, I'm going to have to decide which ramen place to go to to get ramen.

And then a few hours putting together more of the puzzle.

Followed by video game stuff.

This is a bit close, lady.

Ok, so this game does have nice views.

• The new ramen place.  Sumi Ramen.
• Book making.

Saturday: A good lazy day

With ramen!

Mmmm!

 And puzzles!

It's coming along nicely.

And getting used to new browser settings.  That's less cool, as it requires remembering passwords and dealing with funky "not-quite-right" fonts and things.  Oh well.

It turns out Herodotus has a story in this game as well.  So I completed that.

Also, I saw a quest marker nearby:

Yeah, no.  I'll deal with this after I "finish the game."

 I probably only have another hundred hours left to go.

Sunday: I stayed up too late playing video games.

Whoops.

I also got ramen.

And then bought bird eye chilis and pineapple, because I was going to make tacos for dinner, and wanted to make a spicy sweet salsa.  I didn't, because I got lazy.

And Caroll Spinney died, which is super sad.  This is from when I met him, probably close to 15 years ago now.

 I watched the rest of my show backlog, which is good, because the new episodes started today.

The new episode of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Saturday: I'm doing a good job of relaxing on weekends.

Wake up, get clean, go out to get lunch.

Ramen was the stolen suggestion.

Check some news.

See, this is funny because all the superheros on the Flash that have special powers got them from "Dark Matter".

And then video games.

Promises.

My birb.

Another romance checked off.

Not pictured: How much I fucked up someone else's life completing this quest.  Total Oedipus situation.

And then I avoided the story some more and explored the north.

• Gawker was murdered.

Sunday: I kind of want ice cream

Today was a ramen day.

And then I bought good veggies, and came home to make a big tub of pot roast.  It is super delicious, and full of yummy goodness, and I'm glad I made it, but it'd be a bit better if the weather was cooler.

• Good.
• This seems reasonable.
• Everything is awful.

Monday: last day

This has been a reasonably lazy trip, partially because I'm the only one with dedicated time off.  That's worked out well for me, as I think this means I'll be able to go home ready to finish up the outstanding issues, and ready to solve more problems.

Also ready to eat more ramen!

And maybe ready to draw?  Probably not Baby Beasties, however.

• This is the writer of the "Princess of Pluto" comic that's gone around on tumblr.
• Video game good guy.
• Always great when famous people have to steal art.

Sunday: I think I might actually not feel sick tomorrow.

Everything has faded into a weak ear ache and a small sore throat.

Yeah.  I've been sick.  You don't have to rub it in, Android.

I think it was today's ramen that helped heal me.  Or something boring like "time".

• The Castlevania show is good, although I've only watched one episode.  I'm also sad to learn that my season 1 bluray only has four episodes because that's all there are in season 1.
• That's ridiculous.
• I like filler episodes.

Saturday: Still sleepy.

So it's a good thing I've been lazy all day.  I did get groceries, though.

And ramen.

Wednesday: I feel like I'm close on this bug issue.

Even taking a half time vacation feels like it's a good thing.

It sounds like live stickers may be a thing of the past.  :(

e.

Corn in ramen seems obvious in hindsight.  Butter in ramen?  I'm dumb for not thinking of that ages ago.

• Huh.  I clearly need to do more research into this topic.  I thought things were better.
• That's unfortunate.  That was my default "I need to get some groceries on the way home" stor

Saturday: This is actually really easy to make.

First I needed to get lunch.

Ramen with Pichu.

Then a stop next door at the K-grocery, and now I have things to make bulgogi tomorrow.  I got two types of meat (tenderloin and flank), and the remaining ingredients for this version.  If I had a food processor, this would have been a five minute recipe for the marinade.  In any case, the meat is in the fridge ready for tomorrow.

• Paczki day is this week, and I'm concerned this might be the only place I can get paczkis.
• Nutmeg isn't even that great.
• I'm so unhappy this series is cancelled.

Saturday: I should be cleaning and doing productive stuff.

Instead, I spent most of the day watching TV and being lazy.  I did go shopping, but every place was crazy busy.

Not the ramen place, luckily.

Although I do think I'm going to make croquettes for this week's "big cooking thing that gets me food to pack for lunches and whatnot."

 I also probably should try to get rid of as much stuff in my fridge as possible, since I'm leaving on Friday.

Santa Claus visited my neighborhood, but he made it seem like something was burning down.

• I learned about it here.
• I spent some time looking up how the different bits of my dishwasher are supposed to work.
• This is sad, but I guess if she wants to write other things, that's what she should do.

Saturday: It's not very good pork belly

I don't know why they decided to make it "thin cut" pork belly, or why the package has to have quotes around "thin cut" like it's actually super fat or something.

I did get gyoza today.

 Although it took me longer than expected to get there because I still don't know all the roads.

And a reasonably decent ramen.

It's not as flavorful as I would have liked, and the noodles were a bit tough.  Balancing that out is the absolute best char siu I've ever had.  Three nice big chunks of delicious pork belly.  So this pork belly was just fine.

The pork belly at Wegmans was the problem.  I bought a package, but I wasn't happy.  I want super thick slices like the ramen place had.

• Which means I'm probably going back to the same shopping center tomorrow to look here.
• Good.  Investment residential is a horrible problem, and taxing it more is a start.

Saturday: Ramen

But they don't have kotteri anymore, which is sad.

Spicy tan tan is the next best thing.

• Pikachu tail.
• "I'm unhappily pregnant with new evil."
• This is brilliant.
• Holy crap.

Sunday: I made a phone call and vacuumed. That counts as productive, right?

And I got ramen.

It's been awhile since I had ramen.  They've redone the menu and raised prices, but that's how it goes.  I also think they've changed the recipe for the umakara, maybe?  It seemed better than usual, but maybe it's just that I haven't been for too long.

Safeway still has the best view of Diamond Head.

I didn't buy anything at Safeway, because after picking up some stuff, I decided I didn't want to wait in a mile long line because they don't want to open more that four lanes.  So I grabbed my bag from the basket, dropped the basket on the ground, and left.

• I had never heard of this until today.
• I know very little about Game of Thrones, but I don't think that matters to see how cool this is.
• Everything is better with Sailor Moon.
• Chronological is the best order.
• Imagine a future in which we have super smart AI robots, and all they want to do is be our friends.  This would clearly be the best future.

Saturday: I am still tired.

Today's main plan was to go see Iolani Palace.

We had an actual docent led tour, and it was far superior to the headphone self-guided tours.  There is more information and production in the headphone tour, but the guided story from the docent was a much better experience.  I don't know what the rules and times are for the two, as as we were finishing up, headphone tour people were already in the palace as well.

Then we got ramen for lunch, and I didn't take a picture, but Julie did.

The next goal for the day was to have an afternoon at the beach, to let Ramona have something fun to do after being quiet and listening at the palace.

This is a cake monster that is sand flavored cake.  It is very large, and can eat people whole.

I didn't know that people actually used metal detectors to find things on the beach.

I've seen four so far on beach visits.

Then dinner.  The original plan was Nico's again.

I was able to stick Fire Dog in the gym there.

But ultimately, we switched over to Uncle's to see what they have.

They have Parmesan crusted Mahimahi is what they have.

It's good.  I think they're slightly more upscale than Nico's, as they don't use styrofoam boxes at lunch, and do not have plastic chairs.  Julie disagrees, due to the presence of art and caricatures on the walls.

I powered up Rhydon specifically to take the top position in the gym.

And then after grinding forever, we opened up enough space at the Magic Island gym to stick in our people.

And I found Houndour, nearly a month after finding the evolved form.

Sunday: I had to make sure I got ramen at least one last time this year.

It was super festive.  And I just now realized I could have used one of the stickers to more completely obscure that person's face, instead of waiting to take the photo until she had turned away a bit.

It's true.  I love ramen.

 Then, I was listening to good music, and didn't want to stop, and so, whoops

I ended up at Target.

Not that I needed anything from Target.  I have clothes in California.  I don't need food, because I'm leaving home soon.  I had no reason to go to Target.  I got water and some candy.  And a cold drink.

• Prequels.
• Kamala Khan is wonderful.
• This is ridiculous, but is so much better written than 90% of comic books.
• Star Wars.
• Bear.
• I wish people were better, so we wouldn't be in this situation.
• And now I'm hungry again.  Thanks, Japan.
• This is from the anime where Jesus and Buddha live together.  Thanks, Japan.
• Not even kidding.