So Ralph and I are in food coma. Dinner was quite satisfying. I dare say I might have eaten too much, but it’s hard to tell when portions are served in courses. But after we left Sezmu (which i keep typing as Sexmu), Ralph, Cody and I returned home to play a little bit of Guitar Hero II…the game I bought as a Christmas present for Ralph but had to give to him early because he was like a little kid, begging to be able to play with it “now.” I lasted 2 whole days of listening to him hint and cajole before I gave in. Eh, just means I only need to wrap coal for him and I’m done.

Okay so we had dinner at Sezmu tonight with Cody. I called it the company Christmas party since Cody is one of the people I’ve farmed out work to (he’s the only local one). So it was kind of a decadent dinner. Fortunately since we had to wait for our table for a little bit (honestly, it didn’t feel that long because we ordered our drinks and were talking), we got two of the snacky foods for free (the house-marinated olives, of which there were at least 4 varieties of olives and the sweet potato chips with a chipotle seasoning). For drinks, Cody started off with a Mandarin Cranberry, I drank Passionnés and water all night and Ralph had Pom Collins all night. By the end of the evening Cody was having a Pom Collins as well.

For appetizers, Cody and I both got butternut squash soup with cocoa mascarpone and carmelized onions. Ralph got the fried calamari with pickled vegetables and thai basil sauce. All were excellent. The thai basil sauce was better than the typical marinara/cocktail sauce you normally get with fried calamari.

For secondi’s, Cody and I got the seared scallops with some kind of puree and grilled king mushroom. Absolutely excellent and I don’t even care much for cooked scallops. i prefer my scallops raw, spicy and in a maki handroll. Ralph got porkbelly and lentil soup which was just as excellent. I bet if they didn’t call it pork belly, it would just appear as a nice fanned cut of pork.

For our main dishes, Cody and I got hapu-upu-u (or something like that. a hawaiian sea bass) with sweet potato gnocci, green beans and a few swishes of a green sauce (that looked like the thai basil sauce, but didn’t have as much flavor). It was tasty, though cody and I would have preferred more of the sweet potato gnocci and Ralph’s made tastier chilean sea bass at home. However this was still very good. Ralph got the veal osso bucco with chestnut spaetzle and some kind of greens.

Dessert. YUMMM! Cody got quadruple chocolate cake which was REALLY GOOD, and came with two mini scoops of two types of chocolate ice cream and a chocolate malt. The malt was tiny, but it was nice to have a dessert with three separate items. I got the burnt caramel pots de creme garnished with these crispy melted sugar tubes that also came with chocolate chai with homemade vanilla bean marshmallows, also very tiny. I know, i know, why didn’t i get the chocolate? because Ralph’s favorite dessert that I make is also caramel pots de creme and I wanted to see how different theirs were than mine. Flavor-wise, not different at all. Texture-wise, there’s was a little firmer. Kind of like mine if mine ever have the chance to sit over night and firm up, which they never do. They’re usually eaten that same night or even right after the 2 hour chilling minimum. Ralph got the cheese platter and a glass of tawny port. He was in absolute heaven with the blue cheese. it was very nice. I didn’t find it over-powering at all. The cheese plate came with two other cheeses, lavosh and a tiny bit of what they called “honeycomb” but it was really honey from comb (thicker than store-bought honey, but no wax honeycomb, which ralph and cody were both looking forward to).

It wasn’t a cheap meal by any means. Not something you’d go to fairly often, which is a shame since it’s within walking distance of the house, but they were fairly packed for a saturday night. Service was excellent and almost worthy of a fine dining restaurant. The only things that prevent it from being so was the waiter faltered a bit when reciting the 4-course chef’s choice special and, now this is being even pickier and really inconsequential but it usually makes me so happy when the servers at 4th St. Bistro use them, they didn’t have crumb sweepers. No bread was offered anyway. Oh yeah, and one of the orders of drinks for ralph and cody took a bit long. But one of the waitresses offered to take our photo when she saw me taking pictures of cody and ralph, which I find to be rare.

The menu supposedly changes weekly, but don’t rely on the web site as the menu on there is totally different than what we saw tonight. The food is considered “New American.” Ralph and I thought the wine was way too pricey, so we didn’t get any. All in all, we were all very happy with the experience, but it’s not something that can be indulged in often. It is wonderful, however, to see a hip, tiny restaurant, worthy of S.F. in our neighborhood. It’s even better when that restaurant obviously has a slight leaning toward seafood. Without taking price into consideration, I’d give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I just got into it with a client. An egotistical, over-bearing jackhole whose account I am more than happy to say “buh-bye” to. No longer will I have to listen to him talk about how wonderful he is or talk over me (because, you know, anything I have to say is not important, even when it’s answering his question). No one is blaming me. They say I’m better off without the self-centered prick who has his head so far up his ass he can’t access his free Yahoo email account. His crappy posters can’t burn to dvd fast enough.

It seems like I’ve spent most of the day cleaning out and backing up files. So to treat myself, I made a yummy afghani dish (kadu) and we’re going to work out after dinner settles.

Last night, we watched Lucky #Slevin and Brick. Both were pretty good. I had orginally planned on working on some of my paintings, but my arms would start shaking if raised for too long due to the trip to the batting cages.

Tomorrow I take Buddy to the vet because he’s been grinding his teeth whenever he stretches, then work, work, work. Hopefully Cody and I can have an art night tomorrow night. He sent me such a sweet email after going to an all-you-can-eat sushi lunch with me friday (before which he brought me presents!). In the email he sent me some of the latest photos he took while walking Chance and thanked me for keeping him inspired. Do I have the rockin-est best friend in the whole wide world or what!?!??

So I had the bright idea of suggesting a client and I meet at the batting cages for our quick meeting. We were both having a crazy week and thought that swinging a metal bat at baseballs would help relieve some of our stress. We each decided to pay for 60 pitches, most of which we both hit. I’ve not picked up a bat since middle school, so I was quite happy with hitting a majority of what was thrown at me, but I’m paying for it. For the rest of the day after the batting cages, my right-hand grip was rather weak. This morning though, both arms were sore and my grip is still poor. I had a heck of a time brushing my hair this morning (which is waist-length and requires a large paddle-type brush) and trying to reach behind me is a slower-than-normal process. However the bruise that threatened to form on my forearm is already vanishing, while after her first 20 pitches, my client/friend already had a decent bruise appear from her watch.

All in all, we both agreed that it was a great way to have a quick meeting to end the week and we plan on doing it again…but with gloves on…and she suggested softballs…at a slower pitch.

The interweb’s demons did bad things to my domain, and I just now got it all straightened out. So since my last post, I left my job and started working for this REALLY cute miniature schnauzer with pond algae breath. Okay, I’m not really working for him, more like he supervises me whether I want him to or not. I’m definitely keeping busy. Much busier than I thought I would be at less than two months on my own, which I’m very grateful for.

So this is the painting we got on our vacation. We love it. If you go to jordanbent.com, you can see his other works. If I remember to find a specific email, I’ll have a plugin that let’s me post links :P

If you click on it, you can see it closer up but it distorts the image a bit.

Yesterday I was given some rather shocking and heart-breaking news. A peer, a friend, announced that he has Lou Gherig’s disease. Patrick is only 31 years old. So talented in a variety of media (design/film/music), you can see that he lives life to the fullest in his work and I’ve always admired him. Please donate to his foundation, which was set up to bring awareness of this disease to people. Go to www.patrickobrienfoundation.org (a direct link can be found at themayocynic home page also).

The other people in the community where we all became friends, despite heated differences of opinions on many issues, are all finding wonderful ways to help spread the word. There have been times I’ve been quite upset or saddened by things said on Newstoday. There have been times where it was constantly so mean-spirited and aggressive that I would step away for a day or two. But for the most part, I’ve felt that the majority of people there have been some of the most amazing people I could ever hope to meet. Both in talent and emotional capacity. I remember when one person was sounding rather suicidal, many people from Newstoday – particularly one in Canada – made long distance calls to the Bay Area to try and talk with him. Another person was downright broke and hungry…and someone else on Newstoday ordered and paid for a pizza to be delivered to him. Another guy ocassionally offers to do a random act of kindness for the next person who posts. More often than not, I can remember the poster asking for a donation to a good cause and not something for personal gain.

I haven’t met most of these people face to face, but I love them. They remind me that maybe the world isn’t really full of just the assholes I often come across. That there is still decency and good to be found, even on an online forum. We’re like brothers and sisters there. We fight, boy do we fight, but we still love each other because of bonds that run much deeper than we can describe. We at Newstoday are not for everyone. Some n00bs have left after just a day or so because, as I see it, they weren’t thick-skinned enough. But I swear they are amongst some of the greatest people I’ll have the privilege or desire to know.

We love you TF, Transfatty, Patrick. And we’re with you all the way.

On Thursday morning during our trip to Cabo, Ralph and I decided to go to the glass-blowing factory, having fallen in love with nice glasswork while in Venice. Since Thursday was also going to be the night that the two couples on the trip split for dinner to have a romantical evening, Ralph and I both put on less tourist-bum looking clothes in case we didn’t make it back to the room to freshen up before dinner.

The map that our hotel gave us showed the factory very close by, so we decided to just walk over. After one block past the main tourist drag, we were getting into some pretty shabby-looking territory. We weren’t too concerned though, because the glass factory was just right ahead, right? bah! We walked almost twice as far as we needed to and still nothing. Trying not to look too lost and even more out of place than we already did, we stood on one street corner and tried to discretely look down the streets to see if anything looked like it would be a glass-blowing factory.

“What are you looking for?”

We turn around and a man with a mild limp, carrying a 9-iron, is walking in the opposite direction of where we were originally heading.

“Glass-blowing factory,” I answer. He waves us over to follow him.

“Tommy Montoya,” he introduces himself, shaking both of our hands. We tell him our names and start walking with him, Ralph standing between me and Tommy-holding-a-9-iron.

Tommy: So where are you guys from?
Ralph: Nevada. Not Las Vegas though (which seems to be the only place in Nevada that most people think of).
Tommy: Aaaah. Are you Japanese (looking at me)?
me: No, I’m Filipino (I didn’t think telling him my true Filipino-Russian mix would matter).
Tommy: Aaaahh, sayanora! And what about you (looking at Ralph)? Full gringo?
Ralph: Pretty much, yeah. Full gringo.
Tommy: German?
me: Mainly Irish (I responded because Ralph isn’t much of a talker when it’s someone he doesn’t know and I didn’t want the guy to take offense).
Tommy: Irish! A salam malakim (to Ralph)! Sayanora (to me)!

It’s quiet for a minute. Tommy is walking with a swagger, Ralph is keeping an eye on the golf club and I’m keeping track of our surroundings. It’s easy to still see part of the road we were initially on that leads back to the strip, but the streets are becoming more narrow and less paved. I tell myself that the second we start turning down alleys, I’m going to try and gracefully bow us out of the rest of our little walk. At one point, in the middle of streets of dilapidated houses and mini-markets, a much nicer, well-taken-care-of house is situated along our route. As we pass it, Tommy crosses himself.

Tommy: Sooo, that’s a nice shirt (he says to Ralph). Is it Tommy Bahama?
Ralph (chuckling): No, it’s not Tommy Bahama.
Tommy: It looks nice, expensive. Are you sure it’s not Tommy Bahama?
Ralph (chuckling again): No, “Target.”
Tommy: Awww, c’mon it’s Tommy Bahama. Hey, do you want to go to the moon? Do you want to feel good?
Ralph: No, we’re good, thank you.
Tommy: C’mon, you must be looking for something, yes?
Ralph (chuckling): Just the glass factory, thank you. We’re good.

A little bit more walking, while Tommy keeps vaguely offering things to “take care of ” us, or yelling authoritatively in spanish to guys going into mini-markets and who nod their responses back. The mini-markets are getting fewer and far between, which is making me look for the best way back to the original street should we need to get there quickly.

Tommy: C’mon man, what you guys want? I have it. Ice, weed, X, anything. What do you guys want?
Ralph: We really just want to get to the glass factory.
Tommy: Meth, you like meth?
Ralph: Nope, just the glass factory.

Thankfully, we turn a corner and the glass factory is right there, coming out of nowhere like Brigadoon. Shuttle vans going in and out. Tommy yells something in spanish to all the drivers that pass by us. We stop before the courtyard gates.

Tommy: See? I got you here safely. Maybe you should give me a nice tip, yes? [Ralph, already reaching into his pocket, is taking out money.] Are you sure I can’t take care of you, amigo?
Ralph: No, but thank you for taking us here.
Tommy: No problem, amigo. You let me know if you want me to take you on the way back or take you to get some weed or acid. All the cab drivers know my name and have my card if you need me. [Holding out his hand to shake] I’m Tommy Montoya of Tommy Montoya Enterprises. I’ll get you anything you need.

Then Tommy walks back the way we just came, the sun glinting off the head of the 9-iron as he swings it around with one arm.

me: How much did you give him?
Ralph: 100 pesos. Enough to not show disrespect, but little enough to show we weren’t scared.

Well, we’re back from our week in Cabo. There were the good, the bad and the ugly moments that I’ll probably write about but at the moment, I’m just too tired to even think of starting something worth anyone reading. We did, however, walk away with a beautiful painting by a very talented artist. I’ve done a half-hearted search for a site or blurb on him, but no luck yet. Regardless, I’ll post a photo of our purchase in another entry.

Other highlights will include our conversation with “Tommy Montoya,” dinner at NickSan, discovering a fabulous restaurant and smoked Marlin. As you can see, almost all of it revolves around food, which is one of the things that bores me to tears about Cabo. Photos are few, because there was very little to take photos of, which really annoys me considering I got pulled over inside the Cabo airport for exceeding my camera and film quota for entering Cabo.

F-word, is it just me or does a bowl of cereal sound really good right now?!?!?? *patters off…*