Gallo Pinto

Traditional rice and beans dish from Central America

It's taken me 27 years to realize this...but I just realized/understand the thought process/laws of physiology that leads to me getting waaaay too drunk when i am sitting at home by myself getting my drink on.

1. tasty cocktails (like screwdrivers for example) are tasty.
2. tasty cocktails, on account of their tastiness, are drunk very quickly.
3. Hence, many cocktails are drunk in a short amount of time.
4. having drunken many cocktails in a short amount of time, the alcohol hasn't the time to be processed and assimilated.
5. with no visible result after numerous drinks in a short time, more drinks are spitefully had in order to achieve non-sobriety.
5. 75 minutes later: Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am.
6. pop in Lost in Translation DVD
8. ??????
9. profit!

You get such few chances in life. And when those chances do come, the window of opportunity is so short. A moment's hesitation, a flicker of doubt or a lapse in concentration and an entire universe of possibilities just disappears.

"be kind to everyone you meet, because everyone is fighting their own battle"

I asked myself, "Don't you have anything better to do right now than to sit on a mountain and watch the sun set over a warm Hawaiian Saturday afternoon?" The answer was: No. No, I don't.


For the first time ever, I went to that cluster of shops and stores at the end of the street for a smoothie . I saw lots of young, physically fit people gathered at the smoothie place and the coffee shop next door. The people coming and going were wearing sweat stained yoga pants, running shoes and shorts, and had their bicycles propped up against the wall next to them as they enjoyed their eight dollar Acai & granola bowls. They were all relatively young and good looking upper middle class types engrossed in their topical conversations. I asked myself, "Do I want to identify with this lifestyle group?" The answer was: No. No, I don't. So, I hopped back onto my rusty stolen bike and rode home smoothie-less.

charismatic spontaneity, city lights, ball tingling madness, engineering school, hawaii is not too small you jerk, pretzel breath, love triangles and dancing by the yellow light of a public park bathroom.

Reprise of a Reprise

New Rule: Forget the gun in a locked room with evil dictators situation. It is now your moral obligation to kill any property manager you see at any time, at any place. It's open season on property managers, whenever you find one, you are morally obligated to kill him/her. Bonus points if you do it as painfully as possible. Go!

RepriseJune 29th 2010 : An Ethical Dilemna

What do you do, now, if you were locked in a room with Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Charles Manson, George W. Bush, a property manager and you had a gun with 100 bullets in it?

What is the right thing for you to do if Jesus himself came down in the second coming of christ and politely asked that you shoot the evil mass-murdering dictators, if 72% of the american voting public voted in favor of you shooting the evil mass murdering dictators and if the United Nations Security Council arrived at a unanimous declaration in favor of you shooting the evil mass murdering dictators. What do you do?

The only answer, the only morally, ethically, righteously acceptable thing for you to do would be to shoot the property manager 100 times.

And then bludgeon the corpse with the gun until it breaks into tiny pieces in your hand.

Me 1 : Bums 0

tl;dr My bag got stolen by a bum. I found him. I got it back.

Pet Peeve #26b

When I am working in the parking lot, there is nothing more I hate then when a customer pulls their car into the lot and decides to do a u-turn to reverse into the stall instead of just pulling in head first. More often than not, it takes them ten times longer longer to get into the stall. They'll go forward, then reverse, then forward, then open the car door to check if they are within the lines (they usually aren't), then a couple of more gear shifts before they consider themselves parked. and the kicker is after all that maneuvering, they STILL aren't parked evenly within the lines. They'll be too close to one side or crooked, which causes a domino effect of all the cars coming in aftewards to park their car too far over and by the end of the day, you end up losing an entire parking space because the asshat just HAD to reverse into the stall. And since the cars are double parked in two rows, the second row of cars will be misaligned; causing all kinds of problems when moving the cars around.

Lately, I have seen a lot of these "HE>i" bumper stickers. My only response to them is: I know. I know God is better than you, as if I need a sticker on your car telling me what is obvious. Douchebags.

Strength. It cannot be taken.

Strenth. It cannot be given.

It is earned by onself.

And no other.

When the world is your adversary and you are standing alone on the field of battle, that is when blood and sweat is shed in the name of perseverance.

Persevere.

Stand.

March.

No matter if victory is attained, there is greatness in mediocrity.

that which makes us weak.

that which makes us strong.

They are one and the same.

When there is nothing left to do but look back at the accomplishments of life, don't worry about those hopeless moments when killers and evil men were the victors, because you can proudly know that you stood apart and triumphant in your will.

Dance.

Cream cheese and the american dream

what does cream cheese and bagels have to teach you about life?

When I was in college I developed a love for cream cheese and bagels, especially with coffee. In fact, my morning coffee and bagel was often the highlight of my day. The funny thing is that I never really liked cream cheese or bagels before college. I don't remember when I decided it was a pretty delicious combination and that I never wanted to be without it again.

Anyway, at all the coffee shops on campus, the cream cheese come in little one ounce plastic containers. This is just barely perfectly enough to cover one bagel. Once I sat down with my coffee, bagel and cream cheese, the ritual would start. I would have to first judge where the halfway mark of the little bucket of cream cheese was so I could designate half of it for each half of the bagel. then I would start to carefully spread it over one slice of the bagel. It is important to make sure the cream cheese isn't too thick or too thin on the bagel. If it's too thick, you end up using all the cream cheese before both halves of the bagel are covered. And if it's too thin, you end up with an unsatisfying bagel.

There are so many things to consider, like the temperature of the bagel slice. If it happens to be a toasted bagel, you have to let it cool down before putting on the cream cheese, otherwise the nice thick creamy cream cheese starts to melt and become runny, which is not good eats. Another important factor is the symmetry of the slice and the thickness of the bagel. A badly sliced bagel would have an uneven thickness so you'd have to account for that as you apply the cream cheese. if you put a thick layer on the thin part of the bagel, you end up wasting the precious cream cheese and the flavor will be off when you bite into it; it will overpower the bagel's flavor. And if you put too little cream cheese on the thick part of the bagel, you end up with a bite that lacks enough flavor. It needs to be balanced. And since I almost always get an Everything bagel that has garlic, onion, poppy seeds, and sesame toppings, I have to consider that balance of flavors as well. Because obviously, the side with all the toppings on it would require less cream cheese since there is already so many flavors going on. Whereas the other slice, the bottom half of the bagel, could use more cream cheese to compensate for the lack of toppings. Eating bagels is an art, really.

And god help you if you get a bagel that is too thick and beefy. In this worst case scenario, there is nothing you can do to salvage the situation. You will either have parts of a bagel with no cream cheese on it, or a bagel that is wholly covered but with an unsatisfying amount of cream cheese.

And some of you may be thinking to yourself, "hey you cheap asshole, why don't you just buy two cream cheeses and not have to deal with all that ?" And that brings me to my point hinted in the title. What does cream cheese and bagels have to do with the American Dream?

Nothing. but the bagel eating ritual I describe is an interesting reflection of my particular attitudes towards life. I am a pragmatic, anti-materialist and anti-consumerism follower of the Less-is-More philosophy. If I owned a home, I am the type who would decorate it with a spare aesthetic. So, in terms of eating bagel and cream cheese, I take what I am given in life and try to make the best out of it. I realize I could buy two containers of cream cheese and make my bagel eating experience much less of a contest. But, I enjoyed the challenge. it's like a game. Where's the fun in just recklessly spreading as much cream cheese as you could want on your bagel, devouring the whole thing and then running off to class? I prefer the joy of sitting down to a mindful and almost interactive experience with my food. Plus, you appreciate the flavors more when you are the one who carefully crafted it. It's a ritual.

And buying two cream cheeses is so inefficient. It's a waste of money (you really don't need THAT much cream cheese for one bagel), it's a waste of food and it's fattening. And it's too American of a thing to do, to just throw money and resources at the problem until it goes away. It seems to show a lack of self-discipline and an inability to appreciate what you DO have.

When the cream cheese and bagel proportion thing works out well, it's a nice feeling. It's a small joy, but if you can't enjoy the little things how will you know to enjoy the big moments of real happiness?

Anyway, let me bring this around full circle and finish by saying that after college when I entered the real world, I realized most grocery stores (Safeway for example) sells cream cheese in TWO ounce containers. TWO OUNCES! When I first saw this, I thought "oh joy! I don't have to worry about cream cheese and bagel imbalances anymore! I am rich! I have an abundance of cream cheese resource. Time for decadence!" Or so I thought. After that first bagel with two ounces of cream cheese was when I fully realized what a joy it was to have only one ounce of the stuff.

Goddamn it, Internet.

I love reading poetry and lyrical writings, but I am hesitant to read new things. I have a fear that I'll discover something beautiful and clever. Because whenever I do I think, "damn it, now I'll never be able to come up with that myself". It will forever be something I can't create myself and that makes me sad in a wistful kind of way, I feel like doors are suddenly closed to me. Not that I consider myself a lyrical genius, or even a lyrical competent, but I just like myself better when I know that something I write is wholly mine.


case in point:

Don't you feed me lies, about some idealistic future
Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures
-postal service.

Rhyming "suture" with "future" in a love song? Genius. Pure unadulterated genius.

I love it when i'm at the bar and thinking about putting some songs on the jukebox, but before I get a chance to get up and put money in, the song I was going to play starts. Someone else had spent their money playing the song I was going to choose!

If You Could

choose the way you were to be executed, how would you go?


Me, I would choose to be thrown into a giant clothes dryer and dried to death.

the other day at work, a man with his wife and daughter came in for a late dinner. I was working the closing shift and they were "that" last table. They came in pretty late and even phoned before to make sure we were going to be open. I usually get pretty upset and annoyed when customers come in so late, but he ended up being very nice and easy going which made me less hostile, plus, they ended up ordering lobster and wine. When he asked for the check, he paid with a Centurion American Express card (aka the "black" AmeX card). He was very happy with the food and service. How do I know he was happy with the food and service? because he wrote "great food and service!" on the receipt.

He tipped $100 bucks on a $230 check. I was grateful, not for the money, but for the fact that human beings like him exist and I occasionally get the privilege of meeting one of them in person.

Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Croatia...All these countries Orwell'ed, when they should have Huxley'ed.

Wealth, Women and Wisdom

Temporal tempest. Fate flinging faint forgotten faces in to focus. Maudlin memory makes musing music a must. Change, come and conquer. Change comes and conquers but cannot camouflage character, character continues. Teens or twenties, tired traveler teased and thwarted time and time, by time. Losers in lust look at lovers in luck and lament the Lord's lame love. Doomed, the decision to dither daily in delusion and daydream is definitively decided.

Happy Valentines Day!

Today, while at costco, I saw a girl I had a crush on in high school. Good times.

Oh god I'm so alone.

Life!

Apparently, I was on the local TV news on Sunday evening. I was approached by a female reporter while I was working the lunch shift that day and was asked some questions about the estate owner's plan to renovate the building my restaurant was in.

After her casual in-person questions , she very casually asked me if I could say all those things I just said to her on camera. I very casually said yes. And that folks, is how it's done.

So, we stood in the packed parking lot and did our little interview. This was my first television interview but I wasn't nervous. Between the contempt I have for the institution of local news and the annoyance I felt at being interrupted during a really busy lunch hour, I was not impressed by the experience. But I will say that the interviewer had really pretty brown eyes and a reassuring smile, which helped a lot.

The whole thing was over in less than 5 minutes. I played "the game" a little when she threw me a bit of a unexpected curve ball asking me what I thought about the landlords (considering how potentially disruptive and costly the construction project could be for our business). As much as I hate property managers, landowners and the ruling class, I wasn't going to bad mouth my landlord on the record, to a reporter, on camera. And that folks, is how you sell out/perpetuate the institutions of social repression.

After we finished, I was glad to go inside and get back to serving customers. It was really busy. I didn't think much more it. I honestly didn't expect that interview to make it on air. I figured they were looking for filler in case of a slow news day. But over the next few days, quite a few customers told me they saw me on the news. Although the thought came to me every time, I did not ask any of them if I did okay on the interview. I don't want to know because I hate watching myself on video. And the possibility that I looked stupid on TV makes me panicky. So I am going to assume I did an intelligent, articulate, awesome interview and looked sexy as hell while doing it.

If no one else wants to say it, I'll be the first one to say it. Hawaii, and the travel industry in the West, are pretty excited about the potential of the burgeoning Mainland China Chinese tourist market. I'm here to say, "fuck that."

New rich, upjumped Chinese peasants are the worst customers ever. They are rude, uncouth, rough and lack any appreciation of Western dining social norms. And worst of all they are bad tippers, they'll drop 300 buck on drinks on a food tab of 200 but they tend not to tip or tip poorly because it's not how it's done in China.

They are unbelievably disrespectful of service workers. In China, lording over the waiter/waitress is part of the dining experience you pay for. Shit is going to hit the fan when those demanding old Chinese men clash with tired, grizzled, young, female, $7/hour American service workers.

They'll chain smoke in their hotel rooms, they won't tip, they'll spit, they'll be demanding, they'll ask for free stuff, they won't queue properly in lines, they'll put their food waste on the table (cuz that's how they roll in China), they are LOUD...and they just don't care. how can you appeal to a person's sense of decency and propriety when their idea of of what is proper is ferocious survival of the fittest in a quasi-free market, semi-lawless, managed-capitalist economy?

what kind of people are we, the chinese? that we can build a powerhouse economy in the 30 years since Mao died and to do it all under a communist government? what does that tell you about the Chinese people? they just don't' give a fuck man, they'll do whatever they want. Want to build the worlds biggest dam? Drown a thousand villages and destroy countless archeology sites. Need 100,000 sneakers by next Tuesday? I can get it to you by Sunday. Need a new hotel built? Done. In less than a week. A new highway will destroy the endangered Asian Blue Necked Crane's habitat? I'll build that highway and serve you Roast Blue Necked Crane at the highway ribbon cutting ceremony, fucker.

Not to say that Chinese people are inherently bad customers. There are lots of cultural and anthropological forces at work. For example, in a country with over a billion people and over 160 cities with a million people, everyone has to develop very thick skin at a young age. If they so choose, Chinese city dwellers can make New Yorkers hold their pockets.

Also, because of the Communist Cultural Revolution very traditional and strict Chinese social norms were replaced by a godless communist creed. And when strict communist central planning started to break down under the pressure of capitalist forces, millions of young, uneducated Chinese men began to migrate to the major cities to find their fortunes. This created a HUGE population of young, single men, concentrated into congested urban living conditions. And all of them without a dominant, binding, coherent ideological structure that spelled out the rules of harmonious social interaction. Like what happened to dating and gender roles of america in the 60's, the Chinese had unknowingly destroyed long established social rules of etiquette and found themselves in social anarchy (say what you will about the repressive nature of these old norms, they did at least provide structure). Which is why, I believe, we have the arrogant, uneducated, mean, sexist, classist, cheap, uncaring Chinese tourist we find today.

Of course, not all Mainland Chinese people are like that. There are plenty of well educated, polite, considerate and gracious Chinese people too. But they are in the minority.

Does The West, as a collective economic region, really want to depend on these kinds of people for revenue?


PS: Fuck the koreans too. The Japanese are cool.