Wednesday: Pastrami and Prairie Dogs

Pastrami.

While trying to figure out what to have for lunch yesterday, the subject of pastrami came up.  Pastrami is, of course, the greatest of all meats.  However, not all pastrami is equal, and getting bad pastrami can be a serious disappointment.  The sandwich place by work has reubens as one of their main sandwich options, which is where delicious pastrami is ruined with sauerkraut.

I decided to try their deli pastrami sandwich, done up to be as similar to the SFO sandwiches I've been getting.

Pastrami and swiss with mustard on rye.

I really like that they use marble rye.  It makes this closer to the best sandwich ever, which I don't have a picture of.  No, even after looking through old cell phone pictures for twenty minutes, I still don't have a picture of that sandwich.

It was a tasty sandwich.  This one.  Also that sandwich, but this is the one I have a picture of and ate today.

They cut their own meat, so some of it was super thick.  Since it was warm, it was still perfectly tender.

I suspect that this is now going to push "chicken philly" out of my top choice, as that replaced "Cuban".  

Prairie Dogs.

Way too early this morning, Julie send this link to a snacky prairie dog.  "I have pictures of prairie dogs!" I thought to myself before going back to sleep.  After an hour looking at old pictures, it turns out I have fewer than I thought.  I do have pictures from more than a decade ago, which is weird.

Those are cows.

That was once an allosaurus, which is totally not a prairie dog.

These are prairie dogs.

That's a stegasaurus.

Prairie dog village!

Prairie dog party!

Prairie dog house!

Prairie dogs!

No.  Buffalo.

Bears are far bigger than prairie dogs.

Pterosaurs aren't even dinosaurs.  I think this is an Ornithocheirus?

I think the end result of this is that I should put together a "zoo" post with all the different animals I have pictures of.

Links.

• Dear Tomorrow Me, listen to this and see if you like it, and then  look up the band more.
• His codename was "Dave"?  The codename he chose himself?
• That's good.  Hopefully the release dates will come out soon.
• W.T.F.
• Red pandas should be everywhere.
• I saw episode two of this last night.  I really want her to punch more people.  
• Trains.

Tuesday: Huh. That wasn't what I expected.

I mean, I never would have expected that googling the name of the jackass wifi access point on the same channel as me with "Honolulu" would tell me that it's my neighbor directly up one floor from me, her name, and that she's a paralegal.  That is legitimately more information than I was expecting to discover.  I guess I could leave a note.  "Hey, don't use channel 11, dumbass."

Today's salad had a lemon in it.  I don't quite know why.

 I took that picture when I thought I wasn't going to have anything to post about.  I would have stretched out that wifi story more too, except while reading the internet today, I found this link.

• This one.

The reason this was so weird is because this is a poem that I remember from when I was a kid.  Because I have it in a book of poems for children.

See?

I have always been annoyed that that first verse doesn't rhyme.  I have been annoyed by this for thirty+ years.  And it's not a "oh, it's not supposed to rhyme" thing

Because the rest of the verses rhyme, even if v3 rhymes "me" with "me."

Plus, the choice of words make it look like it's supposed to rhyme, except English is a bastard language that doesn't have consistent pronunciations because rove and love come from different origins.  In any case, when you're like five, and are just learning how to read things, and you get to this poem, and then find out that "roving" and "loving" are not pronounced the same, it's kind of a massive disappointment.  It's like reading is just a cruel game.

Until you turn the page (ignoring The Old Horse in the City, because I never liked that one either) and find Vachel Lindsay's stuff, which is structured in such a way that everything rhymes and reads as it should to a five year old mind.

Plus: reasons to learn what a griffin is that young.

And this one uses a cookie metaphor.  Also at this point you've seen three opening lines from Lindsay, and see that all three are moon metaphors.  

• Here's the Vachel Lindsay wikipedia page.  I checked it before writing the post to make sure he wasn't horrible or something.  It looks like the answer is "better than expected."
• You have had a cruel prank played on you, raccoon.
• As have you, chipmunk.
• You...just keep doing you, fox.

Monday: Sick day

Last night before bed, I used my ear gun thermometer thing to see if I had a fever.  "99.8" it claimed.  "Oh, so that's not really a bad fever, I guess."  I replied.  Then I spent the rest of the night drifting in and out of crazy nightmares.  So when I woke up and realized that the sun was coming up, I decided that I was just going to take today as a sick day, and see if things work better tonight.

And I went to get the magic meal that cures everything.

I did spend some time today trying to science at things, but the things were strong again science, and so it didn't work as well as I had hoped.  Given that I spent about ten minutes on the math-y/science-y bits, this probably isn't that much of a surprise.

• This is pretty much bullshit.
• Things like this are why I really like Team Rocket.
• I'm not sure why neighborhood was immune from power outages, but I'm not going to complain.
• Dogs.
• I'm kind of sad that this is the last in this series.  I know I've made fun of the first one, made fun of the third (I think?) one, and I think I livetweeted mockery of another one, but it's really not a terrible series, especially if you realize it's designed for kids.

Sunday: I think I may be getting sick.

I've generally felt like crap all day, and I don't have a good reason other than "maybe sick?"

It didn't help that they screwed up my order at lunch. Taro rolls are delicious, but they're too squishy and spongy to be a good burger bun.  The fact that they "toasted" the bun until it was burnt didn't help either.

It was also jerk day at the burgery.  Group one was two guys who ordered, and then sat at different tables, but scooted their chairs so they could talk to each other.  This blocked the aisle, and used up an extra table.  When their food arrived, they moved to one table, since they couldn't eat, talk, and still sit at different tables.  Jerks.  Group two was a guy and his girlfriend.  I nearly hit the guy when he jumped out of their car.  First, they parked on the street, instead of in the lot.  Second, he jumped out of the passenger side, so she was driving.  Third, there was no one in front of me, and no one behind me.  Therefore, he got out of the car at the only bad time he could have.  When I got inside, she was sitting at a table while he was waiting in line.  She pulled her credit card out of her wallet, gave it to him, which he then used to order a burger for himself and nothing for her.  Pretty much a jerk.

• Nice to see that Russian occupied Crimea is totally a lawful place.
• As is the south.
• Taqueria Goku.
• Bento bunny.
• Dog and cat are friends.
• Daisies.

Saturday: Regular everyday Saturday

After that curry pan link yesterday, and after waking up too late to go to the one bakery that sells them here, I decided to get just curry.  This had its own complications:

They sounded so good.

Seven shrimp shumai for $1.70.  The problem with this is that after eating a big thing of curry

Like this.

there really isn't room for seven shumai.  

Also I decided to try out the panorama thing on my phone.

• I think they're dancing for Bon.
• "Holy fuck why are your hands knives?!" "Lady, I don't know and I don't care, I just want you to end the neverending pain of having knives for hands!"
• WTF, shoes?
• Science birb.
• Dog victory.

Friday: It's weird watching old DVR shows and seeing commercials for failed movies and products.

Dear Whole Foods Cola, why do you taste like nutmeg and only nutmeg?

• These stories are absolute shit.
• I will wait to see if this actually happens.
• This looks like a far superior RaspPi replacement, without the IO pins I never use anyway.
• Darkplace was brilliant.
• See, in this episode Flash and Lex Luthor swap bodies, and they both have to deal with that without letting the people on the other side learn that they've swapped bodies until they can get back.  Flash does this while swapped.
• Since Bob's Burgers is really the only good show on Fox, this is good news.
• I don't need clubs for fancy clothes to love curry pan.  I just need more places that sell curry pan.

Thursday: A conclusion.

The squishy mattress topper I ordered after the debacle this weekend arrived today.  I really need to give it a while to check it out, but after laying on it for a few minutes organizing links, I've come to the following conclusions.

1. It is very squishy.
2. Next time I change sheets, I should probably put it under the old mattress pad, even though it comes with its own other squishy topper cover.  It was enough of a pain to wrestle it to get it on tonight, but after thinking about it, it doesn't make sense to sandwich the old pad between two squishy things.
3. It might be a bit too squishy in the butt area.
4. Conversely, a bit not too squishy enough in the back/shoulder area.
5. Moving on my bed now had a marshmallow feel.
6. It is quite squishy.

Yes, I did steal this gif from a buzzfeed article.  No, I don't feel bad, because just look at it.

• Specifically, this article.
• Finn and Jake, with the truth.
• On the topic, I've been clearing out DVR stuff this week, and because of that I was able to watch the new Adventure Time on the day it came out for once.  New relaxed Peebles is totally a "you were wrong, jerks," to all the conspiracy people on the internet.
• I guess this will be something else to DVR.
• Yes, all the Ghibli characters have similar faces, but it really doesn't matter when they all have their own personalities.
• How many things are perfect here?
• 1. Squirrel Girl.
• 2. He brought over the bottom-of-page secret text from the Adventure Time comics.
• 3. Plan 3.
• 4. Kate Beaton-esque Strange Tales picture on the third page.
• 5. "Particularly spidered men."
• 6. Everything.

Wednesday: Three things.

First, a new place for lunch.

Chicken Caesar salad.

It wasn't a super special salad, but it was pretty tasty and reasonably big and filling for lunch..  I think this is going to be my "I feel like having something healthy" place in the future.  It's a bit slow, but that's mostly due to the fact that there were a bunch of people inside.

Second thing, when you see lights in the sky that don't move from one day to the next:

It's actually just Venus and Mercury in the evening sky.  Mercury is there, but a bit small and hard to see in the image.  It's just below Venus.

Third, a bunch of links.

• 2015 is the year Evangelion takes place.  Since waiting for Day of Second Impact to do all the memes would involve a lot of waiting, they're here.
• Congratulations!
• Here's the scene that won't make it make any more sense.
• The English cast is pretty bad.
• I still like the end of End of Evangelion better, as it's more appropriately final.
• I wouldn't have thought that was the case.
• Gifs.
• Stills.  I really should re-watch the series.
• I've preordered the first trade volume of Squirrel Girl.
• Red panda.
• Chipmunk.
• Truly outrageous.
• Erte designed towels?

Tuesday: I was going to talk about math, but I already forgot that I was going to do laundry today.

I'm kind of hungry for tacos.

• Cybersquirrel.
• Snow leopards are silly.
• Bunnies.
• Hey you, Pikachu!
• CES is this week, along with like every other conference in existence.  The most important thing from this is that Lenovo has new laptops, and they've put back the real mouse buttons.  I'll have to wait for the actual reviews to come in to see what the battery life is like, but it looks like I'll be getting a new laptop this year.  The X1 is available now, but I'm not sure paying $1100 just to have the thinnest laptop in the world is necessary.
• I made this point last year, but here's a clear chart, and oddly enough, it's for MSU.  TL;DR: tuition is increasing because state legislatures are not funding colleges at the levels necessary to do their jobs.

Monday: Is it time for a vacation yet?

"Is there a reason we put the demon pit in the study?  It's kind of distracting."

• Kit-Kats.
• This is a bad idea.
• I liked Cilan and Iris.
• Centaurs.
• Squirrels.

Sunday: That didn't work as planned.

I've been meaning to get a squishy mattress topper for a few months.  I saw last night that Macy's was having a sale this weekend, so I decided to see what they had today.  At this point, you've seen that there's a map below, so you can tell it didn't go as planned.

I found one that seemed sufficiently squishy, and with the sale, it was 60% off.  Since mattress toppers are priced like they're made of diamonds, this was a good deal.  The only problem was that they only had it in king and California king sizes.

Does anyone actually own a California king bed?  Based on the counts of bedding I've seen for that size, either no one owns one, and that bedding just sits around until it spontaneously combusts, or everyone else in existence has one, and that's why I can never find anything for my bed.

In any case, I started looking on my phone to see if it was available at another Macy's.  One of the salespeople saw me doing this, and asked if I needed help.  She printed out a list of stores that had it, and pointed out helpfully that the one in Kahului had six of them.

Note to that salesperson and people who don't know Hawaii geography: Kahului is on a different island.

In any case, Pearlridge was listed as having five.  They had zero.  I then drove to Windward mall, which should have had two.  They also had zero.

This was the point where I gave up, and let Jaclyn order it through their system to be mailed to me.  No squishy topped bed for me tonight.

Ala Moana was listed as not having any, but I probably should have checked there, since the Macy's inventory system is apparently well stocked with lies.

They also sold owl pillows at Pearlridge.

• That's cool, and I expect that this will be a place where I lose an entire day next weekend.
• Direct link to the art exhibits.
• Bunnies.
• Squirrel.
• Princess Kaguya.

Saturday: Returning home.

I think I read this book at least a dozen times during this trip.

The first thing I should remember for the future is that the 9:00-ish flight from SFO to HNL doesn't require getting up at 5am.  Although it probably scales with traffic and things, I had at least an hour leftover.  The second thing is that the United premier security check point is F1, and was pretty much empty.

Also don't forget that SFO has tasty pastrami sandwiches.  I should get these when I have connections, as well.

 Then there was a flight.

This was the point in the flight where the guy sitting next to me started trying to place phone calls.  He then tried to send a text message, and was confused by the "you're not connected to the network" messages.  This is why I prefer to wear headphones for the entire flight.

Honolulu!

 By this point, it'd been a long time since that pastrami sandwich, so I went to get lunch.

Even though we had gyoza for New Year's, I still got them with my ramen.

I've started to go through my list of things to link to, and worked through about half of my RSS starred links.  This only leaves about 150.  Here are the first set of old links to link:

• Animals.
• Bears hate Christmas.
• Ok, WTF Tuxedo Mask?
• Bento art.
• Those look delicious.
• I like 6000+ year old music.

Friday: you owe me $5.35, San Francisco

Because the stupid Bart machine didn't give me my card back. Stupid jerk machine.

I'll do captions tomorrow when I get home.  I really wish I had another week of vacation, but I need to go home and work. Stupid capitalism.

Thursday: new year's day

Today was the last totally unscheduled day of this trip. This meant doing things that just seemed right.

Like making fun of the laziest sermon topic ever.

Getting Mediterranean food for lunch.

Yes, that was something we've already done.  This was a different place, so it's OK.

This was followed by some random downtown walking, including the bookstore I didn't buy anything from.

 

Although I did have to read a book in a language I don't speak. Or read.

We then did pizza again for dinner after more walking. I didn't take a picture, but it was very similar to the last pizza. 

Once we got home, we watched Totoro, which was of, as no one else has ever seen it.

 

And then we fumbled through folding Totoro origami.

I did not make the Kinoko no Yama robot, as it's technically paper craft, which involves cutting and gluing.