Thursday: Effective Friday.

It was a rainy day today.

 And tomorrow is a holiday.

So I went to get a burrito for dinner.

 It was a tasty burrito.

Until you get to this last bit, and realize that there's no way to take any more bites without all the guts spilling out, so you just have to stuff the whole thing in your mouth.

• I had never heard of Artemisia Gentileschi until today.  That's unfortunate.
• This is probably the next phone I'll get, although it may be the generation after.  The fingerprint reader isn't really a useful feature, and I'm not sure the add ons are that big of a development.  I am surprised at how thing it is.  Looking it up, it's basically the thickness of my phone's thinnest end, but all the way.  It has something like half the volume of my phone.
• Birds.
• A bit gross, but apparently it's possible to hatch a chick from an egg without the egg shell part.
• Yeah, it really wasn't ever a contest.  It's unfortunate that so much news is pretending things aren't decided.
• This could have been more definitive, but perhaps he's trying to calm his crazies down gradually.  Or, maybe he's still crazy, too.
• I do think he thinks he deserves something, but I'm not sure it's nearly as much as he wants.

Wednesday: Blah.

I don't have anything for today, I guess.

• This is ridiculous.
• Because everyone was thinking, "I want more Wacky Races, but I want it to take place in a post-apocalyptic world."
• Pretty much.
• Things like this make me sad that Caity Weaver isn't doing this kind of hard hitting journalism anymore.

Tuesday: Overmorrow.

"What?"  They're doing one of those stupid "shut off the water at my apartment all morning" things on Thursday, and when I saw the sign while waiting for the elevator, I thought, "I think there's a word for 'the day after tomorrow' in German [übermorgen].  Do we have one in English?"  So I googled it, googled it again with "-movie", and discovered that yes, we do.

I don't know why this mango lemon bread was tastier in sample format.

Nor do I know who "Walter" is, and why his foes decided to randomly chalk things.

Election thought 1:  I wasn't a fan of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election, although I don't have the energy to go through this massive page on wikipedia to attempt to figure out why.  I vaguely think it was "not as good on lgbt issues" and "kind of sketchy on 'protect children from scary video games'".  I was happy then when Obama won, making me the sole winner of "predict who will win the election far in advance while having Pizza Hut lunch buffet with a bunch of people in grad school."  See, I remember the important details.  This time, I'm very happy she's won things, as I think she's changed positions on the things that are important.

Election thought 2:  Which means I'm also happy that Sanders is not going to continue.  I was vaguely on board with him until he started putting out details, at which point it seemed like he was just making shit up.  Looking at the meltdown of people who can post comments, but probably shouldn't, they seem to fall into two main categories:  a) "it doesn't matter, because I was an independent before, and I'll go back to being an independent, SO THERE" and b) "it was all stolen, because it's inconceivable that my opinion isn't the most popular, SO THERE."  The fun thing that I saw today as well was "the AP shouldn't have written their story yesterday, because it's not like we even know who these secret superdelegates are!"  Um.  Yes.  Yes we do.  Wikipedia is literally the opposite of "where you put secrets."  This seems to indicate a fundamental unwillingness to look things up.

Election thought 3:  The last paragraph really is important here.  I suspect that Sunday's phone call was largely a "look at reality" thing.  This is kind of disappointing too, if the internal people have really known it was a lost cause for that long.  Then again, a lot of this may be political advisers trying to bail in such a way that they can get positions in the Clinton administration.

Election thought 4:  Which is also what I suspect is happening on the Republican side.  People who really have no interest in Trump getting elected know they have to at least cling to the campaign in the off chance that he can win and they can squeeze out a job.  They can't, because he won't, but that's really the best option for a lot of people.  This is also where I'd have a link if I could find it to the fun conspiracy theory on the entire Trump campaign, but I can't remember where I read it.  The main idea is that a) he is no where nearly as rich as he's claiming; b) so the campaign was just supposed to be a thing he could use to self-promote and then bow out nicely to probably a Bush or someone; c) that didn't happen, to everyone's surprise; d) now he's just coasting along without a real campaign staff because that requires a level of delegation and thinking his ego isn't capable of dealing with.

• Now if you want to talk about stolen elections, look at this fucking travesty.  Greninja?  Fucking ninja frog?  Really?
• Otomo.
• Giles.
• I am looking forward to Pokemon Go.
• Lottie Grote.

Monday: Blah.

So eleven years ago my roses were just starting to bud.

But ten years ago they had already been blooming for a while.

I tried to sort out what the weather was like using weatherspark, but they apparently shut down their very useful zoomable graphs because they would have to start paying for their map stuff, which I didn't even know existed, since I only ever used the graphs.

• Spider-Man being helpful.
• Spider-Man being less helpful.
• Road signage.
• The best Sailor Scout.
• Rewriting the bible.
• "I haven’t had a return call in 15 years."  Look, let's do the math on this one and see if maybe there's a reason someone would stop talking to you back then, Ralph "fucked up everything" Nader.
• Side point: Ralph Nader can go fuck himself.

Sunday: Ugh, even though it's a short work week, I'm still grumpy about it.

I didn't know what I wanted for lunch today, and my phone was unhelpful with its "you get ramen a lot.  Maybe get ramen?"

I almost timed it perfectly to show the island of vinegar floating in the chili oil before the soy leaked in.

And I went with the super garlicky black tonkotsu today.

 Also the other reason why ramen seemed like the right idea for today:

My kick-started ramen stickers arrived in the mail yesterday.

• I couldn't decide which line to quote.
• I still want more Pokemon snap.
• Vampires.
• Yeah, that sounds like Tony Stark.
• The third week of June.  Soon the waiting will be over.
• I remember watching this on tv.
• Kansas.

Saturday: Dear Julie,

On Thursday, this happened:

(10:36:13) Julie: http://www.pukadog.com/menu
(10:36:16) Julie: that looks so good
(10:38:27) me: Except I don't live on that island
(10:38:40) me:

(10:39:48) Julie: you're closer than I am
(10:39:53) me: 

(10:44:00) Julie: Lol

I mean, it's not really that close:

See?

And sure, there are planes that go between the two of them, but it'd be dumb to spend like $200 flying to a different island just to get a hot dog.

Right?

That'd just be crazy.

Even if they do have really great lemonade.  Fresh squeezed lemonade should really be the only way lemonade is made.

But how is the dog?

It's not bad.

I got mine with the taro/bacon bun, "hot" sauce, lilokoi mustard, and the pineapple relish on the side.  The sausage itself is good, and I should have had the pineapple relish on the dog itself, as the sweetness really brightened it up.  The hot sauce and mustard kind of got lost a bit, and I really didn't taste any spiciness at all.  So not bad, but there is one big problem with it:

Can you see it in this image?

Unfortunately, it's the whole concept. There's too much bun, making it far too big to take a regular bite.  I ended up ignoring the left bun after this picture, which became increasingly messy as I ate the rest of the dog.

"Wait, did you actually fly to a different island just to eat a hot dog?"

No, of course not, that'd be silly.  It turns out that Puka Dog is the original on Kauai, but after the owners divorced, all the Oahu (and mainland) locations changed name to Hula Dog.  Which means that there actually is a location in the Bay Area, although it's not conveniently placed.  The closest location to me is in Ward Warehouse, which I can see from my apartment.

Next to the ocean.  And a pirate ship, I guess.

There aren't many stores there that I'm that interested in, and the whole Ward complex is always so busy and high traffic that I don't usually stop in there even if it is like ten minutes away.

This picture poorly shows many things.  One, the super cute tan puppy.  Two, the even more super cute black puppy.  Three, the reflection of the weight lifting competition/show that was happening on the main stage at Ward Warehouse.

I just liked this view.  It was kind of rainy today.

• Chickens.
• Wonder Woman.
• Video games.

Friday: I don't remember what my title was going to be for today.

Maybe something about how annoying it is to restart this game after a good run.

Probably not about this firetruck next door, as it didn't happen until about 8:30.

Also, you can see that not many people evacuated.

It might have been something about how super creepy official lego set squirrels are.  Look at this.  That is terrifying.  Oh, there's a different model?  Wow, that's so much better.

• Disguise.
• I like how Photoshopped Obama got dressed in hospital scrubs for this.
• This seems like a bad idea.
• Blah blah, the same old economic arguments on how we could be far better than we currently are if people weren't stupid.

Thursday: This is a short post because of that stupid game.

Thanks a lot, Julie.

It also seems to really kill my tablet battery.  I also just learned that I'd unlocked things that probably would have made it easier to play.  I'll see tomorrow.

• This is why DCAU is the best version of the DC characters.
• This looks like a place I need to check out.  Maybe this weekend.
• This just in: billionaires are dumb.

Wednesday: Psycho-cut.

I just don't understand people.

• Greece will eventually default and everything else is just making people suffer because the debt holders refuse to accept reality.
• This is the best xkcd in a while.
• Jigglypuff.  I'm 99% sure this is from that series of "find Pokemon" books.
• Anubis.
• Rational conversation.
• I would like more Peggy Carter.

Tuesday: And now I want BBQ.

Because I had it four years ago.

Sorry, you didn't get to have any, Kimchi.

• "Mulled fartweed."
• Bears stack.
• Congratulations!
• Link to last time I linked to this Evangelion meme.
• This would be the best CaH hand.

Monday: Memorial Day -or- Operation Steak is go.

This was kind of a response to yesterday's disappointing lunch, so I decided that steak is pretty tasty, and that I should drive out to the east end.  I almost kept going to get Greek, but I just had that a couple of weeks ago.

I finally got a good table that looks directly out onto the ocean.  Also onto a bunch of cars, but when I tried to mask the cars out, it left two holes and didn't look as good.

French onion soup.

And yeah, they kind of super overcooked the asparagus.  

• Kitty.
• Whoops.
• That is a pretty impressive smash, Pat Parker, War Nurse.
• Plague.
• The important bit of information is that Bill Kristol gets paid telling people things that are wrong, and that business would be hurt if Trump is elected.  It's in his own best interest to have some else elected.
• Iceland.

Sunday: Operation Fuck That Place and Their Shitty Food is unfortunately go.

Last week, I went to that Pancakes and Waffles place and was disappointed in their chicken and waffles.  I decided to try them again today to try the monte cristo.

It was awful.

A MC is supposed to be lightly breaded and deep fried to make a crispy outer crust with hot cheesy insides.  This was covered in horrible thick breading and then fried until everything was completely soggy with grease.  I couldn't finish even half of it.  I had their fries, which were also limp and soggy with grease, and had never had any salt added.

Tomorrow I'm going to get something good for lunch.  I don't know what that is yet, but today was such a disappointment that I need something to make up for it.

I then stopped at Target, but forgot to take a picture of the murder cave they've converted their parking garage into.  I think they've switched their old lights to LED, but something isn't working right, because pretty much all of them were off.  It was also rainy today, which didn't help.

Super rainy.

Rainy to the point where part of H-1 was flooded.

• Trickery.
• Wet bear.
• Wet animals are funny.
• Mary Anning.
• Hatsune Miku.

Saturday: Operation Peanut Butter is go.

Last week, I talked about peanut butter on burgers, and how it was something that had never occurred to me before.  So I went to HBC today to give it a try, since they do good burgers there.

"We're not going to have fries for fifteen minutes."

"Um, ok?  I'll go get groceries and come back then," since I was going to get groceries afterwards.  In any case:

It turns out that putting peanut butter on a burger makes it super messy.

Like crazy messy.  But it works far better than I would have thought.  I think a bit less would be easier, both in terms of mess and balance.  The bites with lots of bacon work best, and the grilled onions worked well.  The burger really needs to be seasoned more, as well, to get the salty/sweet combo.

Also, HBC now has one of the magic infinite flavor Coke machines which is nice.  And I did get fries, they just weren't out when I started on the burger.

• What?
• John Dowland is underrated.
• See?
• Diana.

Friday: At least it's a long weekend.

I said I was going to steal this photo, and I did.

As I was leaving work later than expected, I couldn't figure out what to do for dinner.  Then some asshole decided that "if I turn on my turn signal, you have to let me go straight instead of turning, despite being in the left turn only lane."  This fuckface then decided that it's best to drive seventeen fucking miles an hour.  That was when I decided that what I really wanted for dinner was a burrito, and that I should just do that, even though it meant a lot of driving.

So I did.

But this is also the point where I'm going to mention three useful driving skills that too many people don't seem to grasp.

1. Turn your turn signal on before you plan on turning.  I have nearly been hit so many times because some asshole decided that if you turn the signal on after you start turning, it magically makes you immune to crashes.
2. Hazard lights do not mean, "I know I'm illegally parked, so it's ok."  No it's not, and you're a fucking moron.  That's a goddamn street you're blocking.  Good job, asshole.
3. If there are two lanes to use, do not drive the exact same speed as the person next to you.  Create spaces so people can get around your stupid ass, since you've both fucking decided to drive seventeen fucking miles an hour.

Links.

• I briefly read the original paper, but after realizing it was going to be like a hundred pages of shitty writing, I assumed this was likely the case.  Hundred page single author papers tend to either be a thesis or a crackpot.
• Probably a good idea.
• Republicans are dumb.
• I didn't think of the climate issue, but the equator trench seemed like a bad idea to me.  Maybe tomorrow I'll try to math at that.
• Mark Evanier on Captain America.

Thursday: I saw a cat today.

It had a kitten with it.  I did not take a picture because I was in my car.  I also discovered that my proposed fix to a bug does in fact fix it, and that the alternate fix does not.

• Puns.
• Poor name choices.
• I do this too.

Wednesday: I have a big pile of movie ticket stubs.

See?

And all the links are about comic books, because I didn't want to discuss psychopaths so I closed those tabs.

• This is incredibly stupid, DC.  At least some of the themes are better than they have been in more than a decade.  But the Watchmen stuff, and having three Jokers?  Buy a plan.
• Stunningly, though, DC does not win "dumbest comic book thing of the day."  Marvel does that with a "Captain America has secretly been a bad guy for ever."  No he isn't, Marvel, and you should fire the person who came up with that idea.  This is just a stupid gimmick, and I would have thought "had a giant fucking movie blockbuster" would minimize the need for gimmicks.
• And can we talk about the "secret meeting" flyer?  That's stupid, too.
• But, then again, Marvel did publish this today, so they do bring their average back up.

Tuesday: Decade old bunny.

No, sign, that's a baby bunny, not a baby blanket.

• Just keep this story in mind.
• Seth Abramson is a bad journalist, and should not be employed.
• Peter Thiel is a fascist bag of shit, and is exactly the reason we should not have billionaires.
• This is good news.  This merger never made any sense.
• I will probably get this book.
• The Seal of the United States.
• Japanese mascots vs. doors.
• Yeah, Luke probably isn't super happy about that.

Monday: Draw a panda day.

Here's last year's DaPD, and one from four years ago.  Also, in checking, I discovered that I missed yesterday's anniversary.

I realized that there's no constraint saying it has to be an Ailuropoda melanoleuca, so I went with the Ailurus fulgens, which is totally one of my favorite animals.  This was my reference, and I'm not super happy with the face and butt.  "It's close enough!"  Thanks, red panda.

• Squirrel.
• Badger.
• Mr. Cat.
• Alice Roosevelt.
• Two questions from this news:
• Does this mean they're introducing Mephisto, who was a big part of the Infinity Gauntlet comic?  I thought everyone assumed they'd just use Loki for that, since it'd be easier.
• Wouldn't you change your name if your name was "ERIK KILLMONGER"?

How have I never heard of this before?

Tonight's first Bob's Burgers episode started with a customer commenting how much he liked Bob's burger, even though it had peanut butter on it.

You can put peanut butter on a burger.

I mean, sure, I've put it on bagels with bacon, and made a macadamia butter for mahi-mahi, but this is just something I've never thought of.

This was the first result when I googled it, and that sounds very good.  Burger + cheddar + bacon + peanut butter should work just fine.  Further searching led me to see that Teddy's will put pb on a burger, and that it's actually just on the menu at HBC.

I should try one sometime.

Sunday: I'm reasonably sure my talk for tomorrow is finished.

I have the benefit that it's not me presenting finished work, but work in progress.  So there's the magic wand of "no clue why this is wrong, but I plan to find out."

Also, yesterday twitter was all atwitter about Mars being at opposition last night.  I got up about 1am to take pictures.  I had planned on using my camera, but its battery was dead, so I ended up doing the bulk with my phone.

This was the best looking shot I got with my camera after letting it charge for a few minutes.  It clearly makes a difference in what you can see with larger pixels.  There's a bit of wobble in this one, which means I should really look into getting a small tripod.

In any case, this is the mosaic I was able to produce from the phone pictures.  You can click through to see the details, or look at the next few blowups.

Way over on the right side (West) is Jupiter setting.

Here's Saturn (on the left, just below the diffraction spike from the moon), the Moon (duh), Antares (that faint smudge about a fifth of the way up from the bottom), and Mars.

Then sleep, then waking up, then checking my phone and seeing google telling me how long it would take to drive and get ramen.

I mean, it's not like I had a real plan for the day, so hey, why not?

Obligatory best shot of Diamond Head from the Safeway stairs.

I also checked my mail, and my Federal tax refund was there.  Yay extra money.  Double yay having phone app depositing, so I don't even need to go to a bank to cash it.

• Two years ago when I saw "The Wind Rises," I mentioned that people did all the sound effects.  I seem to have been mistaken, because I guess it's just this one guy.
• Now I want cake.
• I don't think I can describe this without ruining the joke, so click the link, because it's literally shorter than this sentence I'm using to not describe it.
• All with the power of ball bearings!  Also, given modern overfishing, that "Complete Angler 1958" is horrifying.
• "Cherry Blossoms & Birds".
• Post-apocalyptic bees.
• Just because everything is horrible everywhere, Europe has its own fascism problem.

Saturday: Somewhat disappointing.

I woke up today super early, which was then followed by an unexpected phone call, one of the main detail of which was Julie talking about how good corned beef hash is, and how I had like six hours in which I could totally go to the Pancake House to get it.

I then went back to sleep, because fuck being up at 8am.

When I woke back up again, I did a search pancakes on yelp, and discovered a new pancake place, helpfully named "Pancakes and Waffles".  The important thing that this led me to discover is that they do chicken and waffles.  That pretty clearly settled the point that I was going to be driving to Waimalu, even though that's halfway across the island.

I went with a new face covering technique today, but it turned out a bit creepier than I expected.

Here are the two main problems with the chicken and waffles:  the waffle is too squishy, and the chicken is too hard.  Flavor wise, it's also a bit muted.  It's not bad at all, just not quite perfect.  The waffle probably needed another 15-30 seconds or so to fully set the insides.  The chicken is thighs, but it's a bit overcooked and dry, which kind of kills the flavor.  The other main problem is that tabasco isn't the best hot sauce for C&W.  Cholula was my choice at 24 Diner (as seen here, and here, and here).

There's something else on the menu that makes me think I'll be driving to Waimalu again fairly soon. 

You can almost read it on the menu there.

Or I can copy from the online menu:

That looks like a 100% proper Monte Cristo, complete with jam.

It has been nearly a decade I think since I last had one.  I suspect that's probably about the correct healthy frequency.

• It's like a "how can we fuck up the DC comic universe any more?"
• "There are three Jokers."
• "Doctor Manhattan created the New 52 universe."
• I mean JFC.  That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, and I read the concepts behind the last shitbrained reboot.
• Here's the right way to do confusing retcons.
• Kitties.
• Birb thief.
• Sam Wilson, The Falcon.
• Steven Universe.

Friday: At least I got that taken care of.

It turns out that the end result of last week is that I had to have a filling replaced.  Plus x-rays and a cleaning.  The one good thing is that my love of those plastic flossers means I don't really have bad teeth.

That bird was back, wandering around like it owns the place.

Yesterday I heard that people have been in contact with animal control people, and it sounds like they're working to find it a real home.  Today I heard that it's apparently the survivor of a pair that lived in the area, after the other was hit by a car.  I'm sad for you, giant bird. :(

But you still can't live at work.  Even if you've decided you totally can just live at work.

And I didn't have anything to eat today because of when my dentist appointment was scheduled, and the time it took for the anesthetic to wear off.  The only thing the dentist mentioned was that I should try to stick to soft food for the next day while the filling reaction completes.  This led to the problem at the end of the day of deciding what I wanted to eat for dinner.

What's the most delicious and softest food around?  Lasagna!

• Well that's depressing.
• It's old news, but it's still worth taking time to recognize someone who achieved something great.
• I think the translation is that we're going to cause a robot revolution by making robots do something and then commanding them to undo that work.  Whatever the point, I just like how nervous the red robot looks in the last panel.
• Kaiten yakiniku.  It's probably a good thing that this likely doesn't exist in the US.
• Black Panther.
• Team Cap.
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

Which reminds me of something that I realized this morning, based on yesterday's Vandal Savage discussion.  Vandal Savage is immortal.  Stab him, he just laughs at you.  He can't be killed (they do in that TV show I was watching, but that's because they're done with the story, plus he was fighting time travelers, and that kind of ruins the point I'm about to make).  Hive, over on Agents of Shield is also immortal, although he doesn't have the ability to withstand nuclear bombs, as we saw on Tuesday.

Anyway, the point:  if you're immortal, and are fighting somebody who's not immortal, just stop it.  Go away.  Hide in your castle, send a letter saying, "sorry about the trouble, let's just call it all off.  Have a good life!", go on game shows and win both showcases.  Because you can.  Your enemy is going to die, because they're not immortal.  You don't have to get your evil scheme done today.  Again, VS had the issue that he was fighting time travelers, and had immortal opponents as well.  But Hive could have returned to Earth, told Gideon Malick to play it cool, and sent the Shield people a "sorry you killed me, let's be friends anyway" note.  Wait for them to all die, or for the government to stop funding them, or whatever.  Convert a few Inhumans slowly, build up a good team with a good cover story.  Stop excessively murdering everyone in your own organization.  You know, sane things.

This is largely what the vampires in the VHD world did.  They outlived most people, genetically engineered humans to be less of a threat, and the outlived everybody some more.  Then they fought a war against invading aliens, and continued their strategy of "outlive the fuck out of everyone."  Eventually the majority got bored with outliving everything and being awesome, and either left the planet (to go outlive somebody someplace else), died from boredom, or went someplace quiet to avoid running into D.

Because doing something loud inevitably means you kill someone, that person has a friend that runs into D, and D comes in to listen to your taunts before killing you (and like 80% of the time, the friend too, because everyone dies in VHD).  D then leaves to go outlive everyone else.