Home by the Sea

10 years ago

2011-09-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is taken from Google's main page today.

September 11, 2001 - I woke up around 6am and got ready for work that day, like normal. I turned on the radio, to listen to Mark and Brian while I showered, like normal. They were talking about something, and I figured, oh yeah, they're doing another one of their bits, making stuff up to entertain their audience, like normal. Brian regularly talked about hoping that one day, someone would find the Titanic, and wouldn't that be cool, and when listeners would call to tell him that the Titanic had already been found, he'd "misunderstand" and say that yeah, they've thought several times they'd found it, but it didn't pan out. But someday, they were gonna find it. Mark and Brian also did a lot of prank calls, making up situations that didn't exist just to make a joke. It was all normal.

But the joke seemed to be going on too long. And there was a different tone to their voices. You could tell in the other instances that there was a smile to their voice, and if you knew to listen for it, it was obvious they were joking. But that tone was missing here. And the joke was going on too long. And the joke wasn't funny at all. Big planes crashing into very tall buildings is not funny. And then they cut to the ABC News audio feed.

And I started to realize that they weren't joking. It wasn't a "bit". Something had happened in New York. I don't remember if they'd talked about what happened at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania yet. Something major was going on, but it couldn't possibly be of the magnitude that they were talking about. That was impossible. Those kinds of things didn't happen.

When I got out of the shower, I turned the TV on to ABC. And they were showing the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, in flames. They showed and re-showed the footage of the first and then the second plane crashing into the towers. The husband and I watched, disbelieving what we were seeing. This is the stuff that disaster movies are made of. This does not happen in real life. This CANNOT happen in real life.

And the "normal" continued to be missing. Unimaginably, the first tower crumbled. I saw it as it happened on TV. And yet, I still didn't believe it. There was nothing about this that I could wrap my brain around. It's gotta be a mistake, or a dream, or something. None of this was normal. And then the second tower collapsed as well.

Sometime after that, the phone rang. When I answered it, it was someone from my work. I work in a 30+ story high-rise in the Los Angeles area. Some people were in the office early that morning, and because of the World Trade Center attacks, they were evacuating the building. They were calling to tell me not to come into work that day. I called a few of my friends who worked in the same building, to make sure they knew not to go into work as well, and I also called some other friends, to make sure they knew about what was going on in New York - some did, and some didn't.

The husband left for work shortly thereafter. He said they didn't get much work done that day, but they were all there. I sat at home all day, mostly online on a discussion board that I'm a member of, and watching and reading a lot of news reports.

I went back to work the next day. I wasn't afraid to go back to the high-rise, though we did have a number of employees who refused to go back so soon. The building is near the flight path of an airport, so small planes are normally flying by constantly. My drive home is also near a flight path to a different airport, so I always see the lights in the sky of planes approaching the airport. And for the next several days, there were no planes in the sky, no lights in the sky. It was eerie.

Eventually, life went back to "normal", at least what the new normal is after that horrific day. Thankfully, as far as I know, no one I know had a family member or other loved one who was killed that day, in either New York, Washington or Pennsylvania. But I know that a lot of people aren't that lucky. Lots of people mourn the loss of loved ones that they haven't seen in 10 years and will never see again.

The husband and I took a vacation to New York in 2006, but we didn't go to Ground Zero. I knew I couldn't take it. As we were wandering around Manhattan, we happened to walk past the fire station that had lost the largest number of firefighters on that day. And when we visited the Intrepid Museum, I was surprised to discover a 9/11 tribute section in one corner. Both of those experiences reduced me to tears fairly easily. At some point, I will probably visit the 9/11 memorial in New York, but I know it's something I'll have to prepare for.

I've noticed that for the past couple days, I've been feeling very teary. As today has approached, there are more and more stories about what happened 10 years ago, and I think it's just bringing back the memories. Lots of people take this day on a political level. I don't. I can only think about the people and what happened to them, those that survived, those that didn't, those who had family and friends who didn't survive, those who got one final phone call from someone who knew they weren't going to make it out of the towers or off the airplane.

So today, I mourn for those lost in the towers of the World Trade Center because they couldn't make it down the stairs in time, I mourn for those who ran up the stairs trying to save others, I mourn for those lost in Washington at the Pentagon and on the plane, and I mourn for those heroic passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 who brought their plane down in Pennsylvania, preventing yet another target from being hit. I send love and support to the family and friends of those who lost someone in any of those locations.

And unfortunately, I also have to think of a little girl and her family, who should have been celebrating her 10th birthday today. She was one of the stories of hope, born on September 11, 2001. But she was killed in a senseless act of violence. To her family, and all who mourn her loss, I send love and can only hope that my best wishes added to those of others can have some chance of easing the pain they must be feeling today.

I've posted this video before, but I think it bears repeating. During the Super Bowl in 2002, only months removed from 9/11, Anheuser-Busch/Budweiser had the following commercial. I join in the sentiments of that commercial, in remembrance and in honor of all the victims of September 11, 2001.

"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" - spoiler movie review

2011-07-04T00:57:00.000-07:00

I had really enjoyed the first "Transformers" movie, but I wasn't all that fond of the sequel, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". However, since the trailer for the third film, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" looked pretty good, I was willing to give them another try.

I did like this movie much more than the second movie, but I think it fell far short of the first film. The story and the film itself was very uneven, and there were a couple story points that I really didn't enjoy. I really liked Megan Fox in the first film, but not in the second film, but I did not much care for the new girl. Yeah, she's a hot model, ok, but she just didn't do anything for me. The only time I liked her was when she made Megatron jealous that Sentinel was going to take over the Decepticons. But I wasn't interested in her story or the story of her and Sam. Let's save the romance story for a different film.

Oh, but I thought it was pretty cool when it turned out that the fancy car her boss had given her was actually a Decepticon.

I also really didn't like the scenes with Sam's parents. OK, they weren't quite as bad as in the second film, but really, could they have gotten worse? It seemed like they were meant as comic relief, but instead, they were still just really annoying and useless. If I could have fastforwarded through their scenes, I would have.

Oh, and ok, the Decepticons want to transport their home world RIGHT NEXT TO Earth. Ummm, ok, is no one else thinking about the detrimental effect that would have on Earth's gravity and orbital path around the sun? I had this same question when the aliens in "The Event" wanted to do the exact same thing. I mean, I know that the rest of the story itself is completely fantastical, but if you're going to take as granted that talking transforming robots from another planet can exist, that's fine, but you can't ignore normal regular things on Earth like gravity and planetary pull and orbits and such.

They had several awesome action sequences, as you'd expect. That corkscrew Decepticon 'bot was just evil - it's got no purpose other than to just destroy on a huge scale. That whole sequence when it took down the skyscraper was pretty cool, but I found myself thinking about what the crew had to go through to shoot those sequences, especially with all the furniture and office supplies and such going everywhere as the building was getting destroyed and falling.

I was actually quite proud of myself for figuring out two plot points before they explained it, which is fairly unusual for me. When they were loading up all the Autobots onto the shuttle to leave Earth, it occurred to me that it was the perfect time for the Decepticons to destroy them - they were all in the same place at the same time! So I wasn't surprised when the Decepticons blew up the shuttle. I will say, though, that I found that scene kind of disturbing because it reminded me a lot of the explosion of the Challenger. I don't think the vapor trails were the same, but just the images of the shuttle exploding, how far above the Earth it exploded, and then the look on Sam's face when he saw it explode so suddenly and unexpectedly - it just all brought back memories of when the Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. And to me, it's never going to be ok for a fiction movie to remind me of that real-life tragic event.

However, I did know that even though the shuttle blew up, that the Autobots were not dead. They did something to trick the Decepticons and they were fine. I had thought they'd somehow managed to fake getting on the shuttle, so it was fun to find out that they'd hid themselves all in the rocket booster that broke off and therefore was not destroyed.

The fight between the titans - Optimus Prime and Sentinel - was pretty cool to watch. But while the fight between Optimus Prime and Megatron was good too, it didn't have the same effect. OK, so Megatron was killed, again. He'd already been killed in the first film. Granted, it was a much more graphic ending this time, given that Optimus yanked his spine out instead of just killing his battery/spark/whatever and dropping him in the ocean intact. But hey, who knows, maybe he can still be revived or put back together. Which would make his death (sorry, his SECOND death) even that more unimportant. But if Megatron really is dead, that doesn't work for the story either. Whether or not they plan to make another film is irrelevant - even if they don't make another film, the STORY of the Autobots and the Decepticons isn't supposed to be over, but if the Decepticons have actually lost their leader, then it's not much of a fight, is it? Before the fight, Megatron asks Optimus what he would be without Megatron there, and Megatron is right. The victor is only as good as the opponent he defeats. If the opponent is weak, if there's no great villain to fight, then the "hero" is much diminished. All the great superheroes and "good guy" characters are such because they have a worthy and formidable nemesis.

Shia LaBeouf was fine in this film. He did what needed to be done for an action film. Josh Duhamel was quite good, and I'm glad he had more to do in this film.

I've always loved the voice casting for Optimus Prime - Peter Cullen. He has an amazing voice quality, and I'm amused that he's also voiced the character of Eeyore in several Winnie the Pooh projects.

In the trailers that I'd seen of the film, there was no mention of the character of Sentinel, and it only took a few seconds of hearing him speak for me to realize that he was voiced by Leonard Nimoy, who I had not known was in the film. I actually found it a little distracting to try to separate him personally and his well-known character of Spock from the "Star Trek" universe from the part he was playing in this film. But that then made it all the more shocking when it was revealed that Sentinel, the Autobot elder, revered for having supposedly died in trying to help the Autobots win the war, had actually been defecting and had made a deal to work with the Decepticons. The turn was especially devastating for Optimus, who had been used by the Decepticons to resurrect Sentinel, since Optimus was the only one who could.

However, there is one line in the film, which, as a "Star Trek" fan, really pissed me off. At one point towards the end of the film, Sentinel is sort of justifying his actions and the deal that he made with the Decepticons. And Sentinel says that sometimes, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. The line "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a pivotal line in the "Star Trek" universe as it explained Spock's sacrifice of his own life to save his shipmates in "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan", and that point is played in future sequels in the series as well. It really pissed me off that they took that line and used it in this situation, made worse by the fact that it was voiced by Leonard Nimoy. Frankly, I'm shocked and really disappointed that he agreed to actually say that line, knowing the place the original line holds in "Star Trek" history and lore.

Overall, I wouldn't necessarily dissuade people from seeing this film, which I would have done regarding the second film, but it's not really one I can recommend too highly either.

"Mamma Mia" - 14

2011-07-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

As a followup to this blog post, we saw our fourteenth show last Saturday night (June 25) at OCPAC. OK, it's now called Segerstrom Center for the Arts, whatever. We've seen the show there before, so our "different venue" count is still at eleven. I don't think that number is going to change anytime soon since we've pretty much exhausted all the venues in the Southern California area, so adding a new venue would involve some kind of significant overnight travel.

I enjoyed this production of the show, though the mixing of the sound levels was a bit off. There were times I had a really hard time hearing Donna because her mic didn't seem to be turned up enough.

Overall, I thought the company was pretty good. The actress playing Donna seemed a bit more reserved in the first act (the song "Mamma Mia" didn't quite pop as much as I'm used to), but she really got into it in the second act. She killed both "Slipping Through My Fingers" (yep, made me cry again) and "The Winner Takes It All". I wasn't completely happy with the actress who played Sophie. She made choices in both her acting and singing that didn't work for me. She was more shrill than I would have liked. The stand-out performance though, was from Alison Ewing, who played Tanya. She was awesome.

In overhearing bits and pieces of conversations from other people, there were some who were seeing the show for the first time, after having seen the movie, so I'm glad the movie is bringing out more people to see the show.

There was a woman sitting on the other side of the husband from me, and I was amused when I heard her gasp when Sophie told Sky she didn't want to get married. She was one of those who'd seen the movie and was seeing the show for the first time, so it shouldn't have been a surprise to her that Sophie and Sky didn't actually get married, but even if it was a newbie to the whole thing, I didn't think that particular development would actually elicit a gasp from anyone.

I can't believe that it was our first time seeing the show in two years - no wonder I was going through withdrawal! Our fifteenth show is expected to be in late March/early April of next year, when the touring company is coming back to the Pantages.

Orlando trip - February 17, 2011 - Magic Kingdom and thoughts on Beach Club

2011-06-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know, it ended up taking a while to finish up the last day of this trip report. Other things needed my attention more. But, let's continue on.

For our last day at WDW, we went to Magic Kingdom, which had extra magic hours this morning, from 8am to 9am. (As a side note, I don't usually care about morning EMH because it's only an extra hour. I *love* evening EMH because it's an extra THREE hours. And we're usually up pretty late when we're at WDW anyway, and we then usually get up for park opening - whatever park we're going to - the next day, so getting up even earlier for just one extra hour isn't worth it to us.)

A cast member had a friend with her on Main Street to greet arriving guests.

As we walked past Dumbo, we noticed there was already a line. Seriously, Dumbo just has this pull on people. Must.ride.Dumbo.

We didn't go to the Magic Kingdom for morning EMH to go on rides. It so happened that we had gotten breakfast reservations for Cinderella's Royal Table for that morning. And it wasn't like we'd gotten up at some unreasonable hour of the morning right when reservations became available to get them. We made the reservation about 3 months beforehand, while we were making all of our other ADRs. I know that it's really hard to get a reservation for Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast. I think we were able to get a reservation so easily because it was during morning EMH. Maybe it's because EMH can be announced later than the 180 days when ADRs can begin to be made, or maybe people don't think about making ADRs during morning or evening EMH and just usually use the regular operating hours to make their dining plans. Of course, dining during EMH only works if you're staying at one of the resort hotels, so that also eliminates those staying off property. Getting ADRs during evening EMH also worked for us on this trip, so we'll definitely keep that in mind when planning in the future.

We made a slight detour to Space Mountain to pick up Fastpasses in case we felt like using them later. Then we headed over for our 8:30 reservation.

We checked in and were invited inside the castle. Cinderella was in the lobby, and there was a line to have a meet-and-greet and picture session with her. Once we got to her, we said hello, exchanged a few more pleasantries, had our picture taken with her, and then we went upstairs to the dining room, where we were then taken to a table.

Our server came by and started pouring orange juice for us. The husband didn't partake of orange juice for health reasons so declined when the server was about to pour his. The husband asked for water instead. For whatever reason, that seemed to not sit well with the server. He really looked visibly perturbed ("offended" might be an exaggeration, but if so, only by a little) at my husband declining the orange juice. The husband had to ask a second time a little later for water, and it was some time after that before the server actually brought him water. It was also problematic to get the server's attention when the husband wanted to have his water glass refilled. I don't remember if any other beverages were available, but I know we weren't offered anything. It would be nice if they offered tomato juice, for those who might not be able to have orange juice, but I understand that with the limited space inside the castle, even that extra choice might be too much for them to do. But I would certainly expect that they'd have water readily available for anyone who asked for it and for it not to be an ordeal just to get a glass of water.

For breakfast, there was a choice of three different entrees, which the server told us about. I wish they had some kind of written menu as I tend to do better with reading it myself rather than trying to catch everything the server is saying. There was a regular breakfast platter, some kind of French toast platter, and a third choice which I honestly cannot remember now, but might have been yogurt and granola or fruit or something like that. All I remember is that the breakfast platter was the only option that contained any kind of significant protein. As much as I love carbs, I have learned that I do need protein in the morning to get me going, and that having just carbs for breakfast leads to a crash a bit later. The husband and I both chose the breakfast platter.

They also brought out a little plate of danishes and croissants and a small fruit cup, which were good, and which I had some of, but again, heavy on the carbs. The husband's dietary restriction meant that he could have very little of the starters brought to us. They might have been better able to accommodate him if we'd told them about the dietary restriction ahead of time, but we hadn't known what to expect, and he generally doesn't have a problem with breakfast items. But, it was our mistake to not make sure by telling them ahead of time, so for anyone with dietary concerns/restrictions, I would definitely recommend letting them know about it before your arrival.

The breakfast platter was standard fare and was fine.

This is a horrible picture because my phone doesn't do well taking pictures in low light (they were doing refurb on the outside of the castle, so the windows were actually covered), but I'm using it anyway because you can at least get an idea of what the breakfast platter looks like.

During this time, various princesses were making their way around the room to visit with the guests. As you can imagine, many of the guests included children, especially little girls dressed in princess costumes, who seemed to have a really good time getting such close, dedicated interaction with the princesses. They were fun to watch.

Snow White was the first one to make it to our table. We chatted with her for a moment, and then she said "Shall we take a picture together?" to me. Well, we don't generally do pictures with characters, so I was caught off-guard a bit so just agreed. The husband and I took turns taking each other's picture with Snow White, and then she thanked us and moved on to the next table. Also in attendance at breakfast were Aurora, Belle and Ariel. We don't often go to character meals at Disneyland, but we have on occasion with friends, and it's usually without any children in attendance. The characters haven't seemed to have a problem with it, and oftentimes, they actually seemed to enjoy the change of pace of interacting with adults rather than with little children, as the "conversation" (even with non-speaking characters) can differ a bit. Most of the princesses seemed not to know what to do with two adults in attendance at the breakfast. When the other princesses came by, they would stop to say hi, we'd chat for a second, and then they'd ask if we wanted a picture. We'd say no, thank you, we really just wanted to come by and say hi, and they would then thank us for coming and would make their way to the next table.

The best conversation we had ended up being with Ariel. When she came to our table, we talked for a bit, and I mentioned that Snow White and Belle and Aurora all lived nearby, so it was easier for them to get to Cinderella's home to greet everyone for breakfast, but Ariel lived so much farther away, seeing as how they were in the middle of building her a home in Anaheim. She said that yes, she did live far away, but that they'd all had a sleep-over the night before and had a wonderful time and were then all ready to see everyone for breakfast this morning. I managed from voicing what popped in my head, which was to ask if they'd had a pillow fight last night. Those who know me will either be proud or astonished at my ability to stifle the question. We did tell her that we were looking forward to seeing her new home, and she said she was definitely swimming home to be there for that.

At some point during the breakfast, a cast member came over to ask us if a particular princess (I can't remember which) had stopped by our table yet. We said yes, and he said, good, he just wanted to make sure. That's when we noticed that he was actually keeping track on a clipboard, noting when each princess visited a particular table, to make sure that each table was actually visited by each princess.

During the course of breakfast, various CMs were going to different tables with their pictures from the session downstairs. Included with the meal was a picture package which included one 6x8 and four 4x6 pictures with Cinderella and an 6x8 of Cinderella Castle. More pictures could be purchased for an additional charge. It all came in a really pretty folder. I was a little disappointed that there was no additional sleeve or envelope to protect the pretty folder, so after we left, I stopped at a nearby store to try to get a bag. They seemed very used to this request and made a little protector out of a flat box. I think it would be really nice if the folder did come with its own sleeve, even a plain white one, to protect the outside.

Front of picture folder.

Inside left of picture folder, with a picture of Cinderella Castle.

Inside right of picture folder, where your 6x8 picture with Cinderella goes.

Back of picture folder.

Our server was rarely available during our meal. After we were done, he finally came by to check on us. I had remembered reading that the breakfast was all-you-care-to-eat, but I wasn't sure how that was going to work given that it was pre-plated. He asked us if we "would like another breakfast". Well, no, not exactly. We might have liked a little more bacon and sausage, but at this point, we were pretty much done with the whole experience, and it would have been nice if he'd come by in the middle of our meal to ask if we needed anything. Also, we didn't want "another breakfast" - can you tell I didn't like him wording it that way? - but we weren't sure if we could have just asked for more of one item or another. But with how he'd been during the entire meal, we just really didn't want to deal with him anymore, so we told him no thanks, we were done.

By the time we were getting ready to leave, they had already started the next seating of breakfast guests, and the princesses were back out to greet the new guests.

We had wanted to have breakfast there just to see what the experience was like, and overall, despite the problems, we had a good time. I think the only thing that really marred the experience was the server. We haven't had that sort of treatment in a Disney restaurant in quite some time, so it was disappointing, especially in a place like Cinderella Castle. We won't likely be returning there for breakfast unless we're with others who want to go, but if that happens, I hope we get someone who more readily embodies the Disney spirit.

After breakfast, we decided to wander around a bit, to let our meal settle. We walked past Splash Mountain and noticed that it wasn't running, and there wasn't even any water coming down the final drop.

We eventually made our way back to Tomorrowland. We are not fans of Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom (we love the Disneyland version) so generally just skip it. When we had gotten the Fastpass earlier in the morning, it was really just as a "just in case" as opposed to having any actual intent. But, we were in the area, we'd had time to digest our breakfast, and we were even still in our return window for the Fastpass, so we decided to go on it.

And a funny thing happened. I've mentioned previously that in our last two trips, 3 of the 4 times we've ridden the PeopleMover, Space Mountain has been down. Well, after we were in the ride vehicle but before we were on our way, the husband turned and said he saw a PeopleMover car stopped on the track inside Space Mountain. I didn't see it myself, and by the time we were done with the ride and made it back outside (that long exit ramp is something I hate), the PeopleMover was running fine. So, I can't positively say that our going on Space Mountain ended up breaking down the PeopleMover, but the husband is adamant that it happened and that he saw the PeopleMover car just sitting there.

The next time we're at WDW and are contemplating going on either the PeopleMover (very likely to happen, a couple times even) or Space Mountain (less likely to happen), I'll definitely send out a warning ahead of time.

After Space Mountain, we were just walking around Tomorrowland, and we happened upon PUSH, the talking trash can. We watched for a while, and then PUSH ended up coming up to me. He asked if I had any trash, and I said I was sorry that I didn't. He said that he liked my hat (I was wearing a baseball cap style hat with Haunted Mansion on the front.), so I took it off and put it on him to try it. And he said thanks for the hat and rolled away. And kept going. And he was telling people to look at his cool new hat. And he wasn't coming back. The husband and I were laughing, but when I realized he really wasn't coming back, I headed off after him. At one point, he was showing off his hat to someone and saying how cool it was, but he was willing to sell it to the person. Ummm, PUSH, stop trying to sell my hat! I kind of snuck up on him and removed the hat from him. He then spun around and was saying that there was a thief who had stolen his hat. I put it back on him, and he happily started rolling away again. I took it again and said that I was sorry, but that I needed to go because we had to catch a flight, so I needed my hat. I can't remember what he said, but he did soon thereafter continue on his way.

I love PUSH. It was actually one of the best character interactions I had on the whole trip.

We really did need to leave. We had already checked out of our hotel that morning, and we knew what time we needed to leave the Magic Kingdom to drive to the airport for our flight home. We stopped for a minute in Town Square so that I could take a picture of Roy and Minnie.

It was a beautiful day out, and while it was cold and even a little rainy at times during the beginning of our trip, it had steadily gotten warmer over the last few days, so that it was in the low 80s by the time we were leaving. The Main Street Train Station looked beautiful with the puffy clouds behind it, so I took a picture. Except that for some reason, my phone did weird things with the picture, which was taken maybe 2 minutes after I took the Roy and Minnie picture.

My phone's weird rendition of the Main Street Train Station.

We made it to the airport and our flight and arrived home fine. For the most part, this is the end of my trip report. I still have a photo essay of Illuminations that might be forthcoming as well as a trip report for our Wild Africa Trek tour that might or might not be forthcoming, depending on if I ever figure out how to properly talk about it. Suffice it to say that it was an amazing tour, and we had a great time and we highly recommend it, and even though we paid a much lower price for the tour because it was during the introductory period, we would definitely do the tour again at its current price.

I did want to talk about the Beach Club a bit. This was our fourth trip to WDW and our third time staying on property. Our first time was at Caribbean Beach Resort because at that time, we had decided we only wanted to go with a Moderate resort. We loved staying there, and it did kind of get us accustomed to staying on property. For our August 2010 trip, we had stayed at the Boardwalk Resort. We had discovered by then that we loved Epcot, so we really wanted to stay walking distance to Epcot. In trying to decide between the three Epcot resorts, we had sort of randomly picked the Boardwalk, and staying at a Deluxe resort for the first time was made easier because it was during a period when they were giving 40% discounts on room rates for APs. We'd loved the Boardwalk, but for this trip, we decided to try out the Beach Club, since it was a tiny bit closer to the Epcot entrance. (For that reason, we don't figure on ever trying the Yacht Club since it's technically further away from Epcot.)

We did enjoy the Beach Club, and our room was located near an elevator that was near a side entrance, by one of the pools, which meant it was an even shorter walk to and from Epcot. We didn't do any of the pool activities or any of the other perqs offered at the Beach Club - we had thought about doing one of the movie nights, when they show a Disney animated film outside on a big screen, but we never had time in our schedule to do that. I did like that there was almost a regular store in the resort, so we could readily buy supplies, and we really liked that they had a hot food counter, so we could grab a quick breakfast in the morning that actually included decent protein, and I liked the nice bright cheery room we sat in to enjoy our breakfast.

I liked the Beach Club a lot, and it pretty much cemented our feeling that we'd be staying at an Epcot resort for any future visits, barring some other pressing reason to stay elsewhere. But I'm torn on whether to stay at the Boardwalk or the Beach Club again. Beach Club does have the nice store and the hot-food counter, but Boardwalk has my favorite restaurant (Flying Fish Cafe) and a wonderful bar/lounge (Belle Vue Lounge - they make great Bloody Marys there), and it's nice to have the short walk back to the room from either/both if we're staying at Boardwalk. But, our room at Beach Club was closer to Epcot than our room at Boardwalk. Then again, I think I liked the theming of the Boardwalk room better, and there are other things along the boardwalk to enjoy.

I'm really not sure whether I'd pick Beach Club or Boardwalk for our next visit, because I really did enjoy both. I guess I won't have to actually decide that until we're planning another trip.

Orlando trip - February 16, 2011 - Animal Kingdom and dinner at Boma

2011-04-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

This was our full day at Animal Kingdom. We'd been there the day before for a few hours as part of the Wild Africa Trek tour, but other than riding Expedition Everest, we didn't do anything else.

We had considered going to the Festival of the Lion King show because one of the performers in a group that I like had been in the show the previous day, but unfortunately, I didn't find out until too late that he was in the early shows that day as well, so I missed it. I've seen the show before, and I like it ok, but it's not the same as the Lion King Celebration parade that Disneyland had, even though some of the floats from that parade are used in this show.

We went to the Pangani Forest to see the gorillas for a little while. The baby was out and about with his mother, so they were fun to watch. After that, it was time to go in search of breakfast. At first, we thought it might be a futile effort like it had been at Disney's Hollywood Studios, but then we saw a sign in front of Pizzafari indicating they had breakfast items, so we went inside to have a look. And we were pleased to find that they did indeed have a nice breakfast platter, so we had breakfast there.

Breakfast platter from Pizzafari.

After breakfast, we wandered around and spent some time looking at various animals and then made our way to the back of the Asia section. On our visit in 2007, I had picked up the roundie yeti, which I loved, and I was happy to see a new yeti plush that I liked. It's actually part of a collection that I can neither spell nor pronounce, but I like to refer to him as Flat Yeti.

Flat Yeti - the only one in the series I like. Yep, he came home with me.

We then got in the stand-by line for Expedition Everest because we wanted to go on the ride again, but we also wanted to see the queue again, with all its details. I love this ride!

Afterward, we looked at the other animals in the Asia section, and we spent some time with the tigers. There was one tiger in particular walking in front of the windows that we watched for a while.

Another tiger in the same enclosure came by, and there were other tigers in an enclosure on the opposite side as well. We stayed and watched them for a while, and it was also interesting to watch one of the tigers watching the tigers in the other enclosure, including trying to look around us to see the other tigers because we were inadvertently blocking his line-of-sight.

After a morning of communing with the animals, it was time for lunch. On our first visit to Animal Kingdom, in 2007, friends had introduced us to Flame Tree BBQ, which we had loved. They were unfortunately closed for refurbishment during our August 2010 trip, so we were happy that they were open this time. The food is really good, and if you walk all the way down to the bottom section of the seating area, you get a great view of Everest across the water.

Lunch at Flame Tree BBQ - half a BBQ chicken. Yummy, tender & juicy.

The husband had the half slab of St. Louis ribs.

Our view at lunch at Flame Tree BBQ seating - majestic Everest.

After lunch, we wandered around the Africa section to look at some more of the animals there and took a train to Conservation Station for a little while before making our way to the Kilimanjaro Safari to use a Fastpass we had gotten earlier. We usually do a late morning safari but we decided to try a late afternoon one this time to see if there was a difference in the animals there were to see. And we discovered that there was a difference - in the late afternoon, you don't see too many animals. Our tour was within the last hour or so before normal park closing time, and the animals have been conditioned to return indoors for the evening. It seems that they can tell from the location of the sun when it's about time to go inside, so they actually wait outside the gates to the back sections - which is why they're not roaming around the savanna for safari guests to see.

Our safari driver was funny, though. We were sitting on the right side in the very front, so it was easy to hear him, even when he wasn't speaking too loudly or wasn't speaking on mic. He pointed out all the "exotic" squirrels we saw - I don't know if he normally does that as a joke or if it was because there weren't many other animals around, but it was still funny. He was also good at spotting the few animals that were out but perhaps difficult to make out. We did see a whole group of them gathered at a gate to go backstage for the night. Disney's Animal Kingdom - the only Disney park were even the ANIMALS line up!

The best part of our safari was seeing father and son white rhinos fighting each other while mom came to intervene. Then a fourth white rhino considered charging our truck but decided against it when he realized we weren't in fact another rhino. And all of this happened while a cheetah was watching with great interest. Beautiful cat, so sleek and graceful.

After our safari, we went to look at the remainder of the animals who were still out in various locations, waiting to be taken in for the night.

Painted stork.

The park had extra magic hours that evening from 6pm to 9pm, and we just wanted to be there long enough to be able to ride Expedition Everest again at night. That's the tradition - we go on Everest twice, once in the daytime and once at night. When you're going up the long hill, you get a beautiful view of the surroundings (provided it's not cloudy, of course), and the view is different between the daytime and the nighttime. We browsed inside some stores to kill more time, then did our ride and went back to our car.

We had a dinner reservation at Boma, but we ended up at the wrong Animal Kingdom Lodge building at first, so we backtracked to get to the right building. We were a little early for our reservation, so the husband sat in the hotel lobby while I was on my cel, talking a co-worker through a work emergency. That done, we headed to dinner. I thought the experience was just ok, but both the husband and I found that the flavors of the buffet offerings weren't entirely to our liking. They weren't bad, and it's hard to describe what exactly didn't work for us. I also was a little annoyed that there were no signs above the buffet to say what things were. I like that normally anyway, but for food that's a bit more ethnic and not exactly run-of-the-mill, I would think signage would be more important. The CMs said it was fine to just ask the chefs, which I did for a couple of the items (even the soups weren't labeled), but they were busy, and I didn't think it was cool to take up their time to go through each thing on the buffet with me. Usually, we don't have any trouble finding at least a few things on a buffet to satisfy us, but this time, it was a bit more difficult. The service was also a bit spotty and the dining room wasn't as clean as I'm used to with Disney standards. I can't say that I envision ever returning to Boma.

Orlando trip - February 15, 2011 - afternoon and evening at Downtown Disney and dinner at Raglan Road

2011-04-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

OK, I said at the end of the previous day's trip report that we were going on an adventure the next day. And we did, in the morning (the new Wild Africa Trek tour at Animal Kingdom), but that's gonna take more work to put together, so I'm leaving that for the end. So for the moment, we time travel to after the tour is over.

After we were done at Animal Kingdom, we went back to the hotel for a bit to rest before heading to Downtown Disney.

Pirate Stitch above and in front of World of Disney at Downtown Disney in Orlando.

We wandered around World of Disney for a while - that store is massively huge, so much so that it's a bit overwhelming. We've taken to just going through it like a grid, one row of sections at a time. We browsed around a few of the other stores in Downtown Disney and then we went to Goofy's Candy Company. I don't think we've gone in there on our previous visits to Downtown Disney, because I'm pretty sure I would have remembered. Wow do they have treats galore, all different kinds - there were even lots of different flavors of fudge (including fudge sandwiches, which would seem a bit much).

Egg and bunny cookies - a little early for Easter, isn't it?

Treats for St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day fudge treat - mint.

Specially decorated apples for St. Patrick's Day too.

Other candy apples are available too.

These are much more "candy" than "apple".

The Butterfinger one looks good though.

Tuxedo Mickey apple is cute.

Mickey marshmallow treat pops can be dipped and decorated too.

They have giant Mickey *and* Minnie crispy treats.

On our previous visits, we usually parked on the West Side of Downtown Disney and then walked to wherever else we were going. This time, we decided to park in the Marketplace section since we were starting out there. But, we wanted to give DisneyQuest a try since we'd never been there before and since it was included as part of our premier pass. And, of course, DisneyQuest is on the West Side. You know, where we normally parked but not this time. Planning, yeah.

But...we discovered something we'd never known before - Disney offers boat service from one side of Downtown Disney to the other. How convenient! We took advantage of the service, got on a boat at the Marketplace and were then ferried (ok, boated) over to the West Side. It was a nice ride too, with pretty views. We'll definitely be doing that again.

I really didn't have any idea what DisneyQuest was or what to expect. We went inside, looked at the maps somewhat and decided to start from the top and work our way down. We spent a couple of hours in there and had a lot of fun. Everything is included with admission, so I played some really old video games like Galaga, Rampage and Centipede/Millipede. They had lots of different video games - no tokens needed. I also played some skeeball and basketball and a few other games (like what you'd expect to find in an arcade or a Dave & Busters). They also had a number of virtual reality games, but we didn't do any of that. They also have small snack bars on every level so if you're hungry, you can take a break to grab a bite to eat. We had a good time, and it's great as an inclusion for annual passholders, but I don't think it would be worth actually buying a ticket for.

We were tired from the day so decided to head over to the Pleasure Island section of Downtown Disney since we had an 8:30pm dinner reservation at Raglan Road. We'd gone there for the first time in August 2010 and loved it, so we wanted to go back. We were very early for our reservation, so we just took spots on the curb to people-watch and wait to be called to our table. We had glanced inside the bar with half a thought to go in there and wait, but the bar was packed. We were kind of surprised that they were so busy for a Tuesday night.

On our last visit, we had been seated in a side room, which was pretty quiet, and we were at a table (the only table, I'm told) with comfy easy chairs. It was a lovely dinner. This time, we were seated in the main dining room, where the entertainment stage was, so it was a very different experience, but none the less lovely. They had a group of Irish dancers, with a main stage in one section and a very small center stage where one of the dancers would perform as well. We had a good view of the main stage and an even better view of the little center stage. I also loved the house band - Creel - who sounded great. I even ended up getting their CD. We had a terrific evening with good food and great entertainment.

dinner at Club 33 at Disneyland

2011-04-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night, we had the opportunity to have dinner at Club 33 with friends. We've been there before for a special breakfast and for brunch, but this was our first time at dinner. We had a lovely meal and a good time with friends.

To read the complete review, which includes pictures, please click here.

Orlando trip - February 14, 2011 - DHS and Epcot and dinner at Cape May Cafe

2011-04-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

We were going to spend a couple hours this morning at Disney's Hollywood Studios again, but we'd learned our lesson from earlier in the trip, so we stopped at the store/cafe counter downstairs in the hotel to grab a breakfast sandwich first. After sitting in one of the lounges for a few minutes to have our breakfast, we then boarded a Friendship boat to DHS. It's a nice ride, with views of all the Epcot resort hotels along the way.

Beach Club.

Yacht Club.

Boardwalk Resort.

Swan Hotel.

Dolphin Hotel.

Our first stop was to go on Toy Story Mania again, but this time, we wanted to be able to spend time in the queue, looking at all the cool details before going on the ride. There are fun things in the exit area as well.

For a photo tour of the Toy Story Mania ride and the surrounding area, please click here.

We'd never seen the Lights, Camera, Action show before and had wanted to see it, but the first show wasn't until the afternoon, and we hadn't planned on being at DHS that long, so we'd have to wait for another trip to see it. Instead, we took another ride on Tower of Terror, and then we were done with DHS for the trip so went to take a Friendship boat back to the resort, and then we walked to Epcot.

First order of business at Epcot was lunch. We'd loved Marrakesh, the table service restaurant in Morocco, but we didn't have time for that again on this trip, so we decided to go to the quick service restaurant, called Tangierine Cafe.

It's still the holidays in the Tangierine Cafe! Guess they have to use up all their holiday cups.

The husband had the lamb wrap.

I had the sliders combo (lamb, chicken & falafel).

We sat down at a table inside to enjoy our lunch. Everything was really yummy, and we'll definitely come back. For quick service, it's probably going to be hard to decide whether to come back to Tangierine Cafe or go to our normal brats-and-pretzels lunch from the German quick service because both are so good.

We had wanted to see/hear the Voices of Liberty, but our schedule and their limited performance schedule at this time didn't mesh, so we'll have to wait for another trip to catch them. After lunch, we went to the Japan section. A friend had told us about Miyuki, a fantasy candy art creator, and we'd wanted to see her for ourselves. She makes animals from a Japanese candy substance made from rice starch. She has a little podium/work station at the front part of the pavilion, right next to the front portion of the big Japanese store. She can make a wide variety of animals, and as she's making an animal, she sort of chants through the litany of animals she can make. She starts with making a particular animal, but then she'll take requests from the audience on what other animals she should make, and sometimes, she'll ask what color too. She's a lot of fun to watch, very funny, very personable. There are several times during the day when you can see her, and she's definitely worth making an effort to see.

Miyuki making a dolphin.

You can't keep the animals, but after she's done, you can have your picture taken with the animal you requested or any of the other candy animals she's made.

Miyuki's candy animal creations.

Miyuki's animal creatures - giraffe (with hidden Mickey) and dolphin.

Miyuki's candy animals - porcupine, unicorn, monkey and flamingo. The porcupine had been at my request.

Miyuki poses with some of her candy animal creations.

After seeing Miyuki, we headed to Norway. We'd gone on Maelstrom the other night, but we weren't able to see the film because it doesn't run during evening extra magic hours, and I really like the film. We'd been told that we could see the film without going on the ride (not that I wouldn't have wanted to go on the ride again, but it was a bit of a wait, and we didn't really have time) if we asked the CM at the front. We did just that, explaining why we hadn't been able to see the film previously, and she let us wait in a section until the next time the film started.

We then went to the pavilion next door, Mexico, to go on their boat cruise, which we've never done before. And, I have to say, I don't get it. All the other country presentations, whether a ride or a movie, showed you the appeal and beauty and allure of the respective country, making you appreciate what's there and wanting to visit to see more. The Mexico boat ride - was a mess. It's themed to the Three Caballeros, though I'm not entirely sure why. I wouldn't think Mexico would need a hook to get people to want to come on the ride. I think a ride is a lot easier to entice people to go on than to see a film, like some of the other countries have. And maybe I'm biased because Mexico is relatively close to where I live, but I wouldn't think that Mexico is such an exotic location that people wouldn't know what it is and would be hesitant about going on a ride for it. I would think that most people have at least heard of Mexico and so would be interested to know more about it if they don't already. I didn't really know how the Three Caballeros tie-in would work, but I kind of expected to see a travelogue of the country, showing things there are to do and see in Mexico. Instead, it was a very disjointed, frenetic journey through Mexico that left me knowing very little about the country and no real desire to see more. As best as I could gather, the Three Caballeros are in Mexico for a concert, but Donald gets distracted by various things and the other two are chasing after him to find him in time for the concert. There are screens in various places which the different characters run through/appear in, and this is amidst scenes of Mexico with people at the beach and at parties and other places. I was trying to follow Donald et al, but in trying to look for them and keep track of them, you miss a lot of the other scenes of people just enjoying the local flavor. I think that the main part of the story, just showing the various places and things there are to do in Mexico, would have been terrific. I've not spent much time in Mexico, but I know a lot of people who have, and the fun and relaxation they've told me about were nowhere to be represented in anything that I saw on the ride. I know that ride has been there for a long time, so maybe I'm just viewing it differently, but unlike Maelstrom and the films in the other countries, it's not really something I'd recommend for a new visitor to Epcot to take time in their schedule to do.

From there, we made a quick visit to the Seas pavilion since we hadn't had a chance to go on the Nemo ride, which I love, especially since they have clam ride vehicles. (On a side note, I'm excited that DCA's new Little Mermaid ride will also have clam ride vehicles cause they're cool and cute.) The queue for the Nemo ride is cool too, as you go under the water.

Love the Nemo ride and the seagulls outside. Mine, mine, mine!

Afterward, we went to Turtle Talk with Crush since we'd never seen Epcot's version of this attraction. It's always fun to see how Crush is going to answer some of the very creative and challenging questions from kids.

We then made our way back to World Showcase and looked around at some of the shops. I was amused to see this shirt since turkey legs are a topic of great debate among Disney fans.

For Disney fans who want to shout out their love of turkey legs.

A nearby store also had a large selection of plush and clothes for Duffy the Disney Bear. I haven't yet succumbed to buying one yet, though I've been tempted. I like some of the specialty outfits, but I'm kind of annoyed that the specialty outfits are actually sewn onto Duffy. Duffy is advertised as a bear for whom you can buy different outfits for him to wear. But if you want any of the specialty outfits, you have to buy the outfit and the bear, so you could end up with multiple bears if you want different specialty outfits or if you want a bear that you can actually dress in different clothes. That's not really what I had in mind.

International Duffy appropriately abounds at Epcot.

World Showcase has Friendship boats that stop at three locations around the lake so that you don't have to walk all the way around if you don't want to. We've used the boats for transportation before, but I also like it as a ride because you get wonderful views of World Showcase while on the lake itself. We got on a Friendship boat at Showcase Plaza, in the front middle section of World Showcase, directly across the lake from the American pavilion, and we rode the boat to its first stop at Morocco. We stayed on the boat and were happy to see that as we passed the American pavilion, the Illuminations globe was already parked, waiting for the evening performance.

Illuminations globe in the daytime parked in U.S. section.

We got off the boat at the second stop in Germany and walked around a bit more in the various countries, making our way to France. A friend had told me about the orange slushiein the French section, so I had tried it on our August trip, and I loved it, so it's pretty much on my "must-have" list now. Refreshing and tasty!

Grand Marnier and Grey Goose orange slush from France.

This is a better picture of the slushie, from August 2010.

The husband had wanted to go back to our room for a bit, and I wanted to spend a little more time in the U.K., so I bid him farewell and headed to indulge the Anglophile in me a bit more. Their Beatles tribute band was just at the end of their set in the garden in the back, so I found an empty space on a curb and sat down to enjoy my slushie and hear the end of their set. After they were done, I stayed and enjoyed the atmosphere while I finished my drink. I then did some shopping in the gift shop (I'd previously found an item that I knew would make a great birthday gift for a friend so went back to buy it.), and then I headed back to the room to rest for a bit before dinner.

Dinner on this night was at the Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club. When we were booking our trip, we had been aware that Valentine's Day would fall in the middle of our trip and figured we needed to decide where to eat that night. Well, nothing says love like a good seafood buffet! ;)

We had tried to have dinner at Cape May Cafe on our first trip in late 1999, as our Thanksgiving meal. At that time, we had been unaware of the necessity of making reservations at WDW restaurants since we'd never been to WDW before and were Disneyland regulars. There aren't as many table-service restaurants at Disneyland, and with a willingness to wait some period of time, getting a table wasn't really a problem. Such was not the case at WDW, especially on a holiday. We got there early in the afternoon, and no matter how long we were willing to wait, we were told they were too booked to take any walk-ups at all. We ended up at Le Cellier that night (They were also very booked but were able to fit us in at a tiny table in between two provinces - the food was delicious and our server was terrific and friendly, so it was a lovely meal overall and the reason why Le Cellier will always hold a special place in my heart.), and we hadn't had the chance to try Cape May Cafe again, but since we were actually staying at Beach Club this time, it made sense to finally dine there.

We took the elevator downstairs from our room and walked through the lobby to Cape May Cafe - it was a very pleasant and short travel time. :)

We checked in and waited for a bit for our table. I looked around and saw a cake that was a special decoration for the day.

Pretty Valentine's cake.

Close-up of Mickey and Minnie on top of the cake.

After a while, we were taken to our table, which was actually fairly close to where the buffet stations were. Our server came out to greet us and asked if we'd been there before so he would know how much information to give us. When we told him we'd never been there before, including the story of how we tried to go there previously, he told us all about the restaurant and the food offered at dinner. He was very knowledgeable about everything as it turned out that he had been there for quite some time - I think it was at least 20 years.

There were many wonderful things included in the buffet, but the seafood was pretty much the highlight, at least for us. The seafood was obviously plentiful, but it was also delicious and very good quality. Growing up, we didn't have seafood very often, but when we did, my parents made sure we had the good stuff. Bad seafood is just not worth it. You can find places that don't charge much for seafood, but cheap (aka "inexpensive") seafood pretty much means cheap (aka "blech") seafood. But that was certainly not the case here.

A little seafood to start off dinner at Cape May Cafe.

As I mentioned, there were many things on the menu, but since we were enjoying the seafood so much, we didn't have too much of the other offerings, other than mostly vegetables. Here's a photo tour of some of what's offered at the dinner buffet.

An overall picture of the front section of the square buffet station.

It's all about the seafood.

Steamed clams.

Steamed crab legs.

Steamed mussels.

Deep-fried calamari and pasta.

Carving station.

Chicken and ribs.

More food choices.

Mac and cheese.

I think this was technically in the kids' section, but I love mac and cheese so I took a little bit just to have a taste.

They had buckets that you could take to put your seafood shells and meat bones in, and the server would periodically clear the contents.

You could also get drawn butter for your seafood, but I actually like the taste of seafood, so drowning it in butter is not my thing.

Carrots are kind of boring, but I love green beans, so I think I mostly just took green beans.

Cabbage with bacon. Mmmmm, this was YUMMY.

Of course, after dinner, there were some dessert choices as well.

Cookies and brownie bites.

Mini cupcakes and more cookies.

They also had a few sugar-free options available. There were none sitting out, but when we asked our server, he said they had some he could bring out. I don't remember exactly what they were, but they had two different options, and he brought out one of each and would have brought more if we'd wanted it.

Overall, it was a wonderful meal, and definitely worth the 11 year wait. Our server was terrific (very attentive to our drink refills and other needs, very professional but also friendly), and the food was delicious, and we definitely had our fill of seafood. The cost of the meal wasn't actually as much as I'd expected since I figured that the inclusion of the seafood would mean a higher price, but it wasn't really that much more than a normal buffet. I can't say if the buffet would be considered a good deal for someone who isn't partial to seafood, but for a seafood lover, I can say that without a doubt, it's a terrific price for all the good seafood you can have during this meal.

We had made sure to have an early enough dinner time where we could enjoy our meal (we figured that the seafood would dictate a longer mealtime than normal) and still be able to get back into Epcot to see Illuminations one more time. We ended up hurrying a little bit at the end and to get our check closed, and we made it to Epcot ok but without enough time to get to any of the spots we might normally choose. Instead, we ended up to the left of the U.K., which still gave us a decent view of the show.

As usual, we watched the show and then stayed to listen to all of the exit music. I was a little sad because this was going to be our last time in Epcot on this trip, and it's going to be a little while before we're going to make it back to WDW. Disneyland is home, but Epcot is a second home.

After we were done at Epcot, we walked to the Boardwalk Resort and spent some time at the Belle Vue lounge/bar there. We'd stayed at the Boardwalk on our August trip, and we'd really liked it. A friend had recommended the Belle Vue, so we'd given it a try. It's a nice place to hang out, enjoy the atmosphere and drinks as well. So far, they've made the best Bloody Mary I've had.

We spent some quiet relaxing time at the Belle Vue, and then we walked back to our room. The next day, we were going on an adventure.

Orlando trip - February 13, 2011 - Magic Kingdom

2011-04-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

Four days into our trip and we finally made it into the Magic Kingdom. We'd thought about dropping in for a quick hour or two on one of our other days, but our schedule just never really worked out that way.

The weather was still a bit iffy. No rain, but I'd brought a jacket because I knew we'd be there for the entire day, and it was going to get cold at night, but then it got to be fairly warm even before noon. So I looked for a locker to rent to put away my jacket.

I had remembered there being lockers on Main Street, right underneath the train station. Nope, no more real lockers there just fake ones. I looked on the map, and it appeared that the only lockers were outside the main gate. Well, that didn't seem to make much sense. I asked a CM at the info booth at the end of Main Street, and she confirmed that the lockers were indeed outside the park. OK, seriously inconvenient, so I decided to not get a locker after all. I ended up discovering at the end of the day that the lockers were in fact INSIDE the park, just inside the turnstiles to the right, before the train tracks. I must have misread the park map, but having the CM give me the wrong information didn't really hope. Oh well, at least I'll know for next time.

We'd grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich in the morning from the bakery on Main Street, and then it was on to the rest of the park.

Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom.

We headed to Splash Mountain so that if we did get wet at all, at least we'd have time to dry in the sunny warm air. I'd recently read about the new lap bars on Splash Mountain but had forgotten until we'd gotten close enough to see them. I didn't find them intrusive or bothersome. I do like the Magic Kingdom's version of this ride better than Disneyland's because it's brighter and prettier inside.

After we got off the ride, we saw Mickey and Minnie at their photo op nearby.

We then went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. From our last visit, we'd thought that it was an identical track to Disneyland's but just a mirror image, but after riding it again, we realized it wasn't exactly the same. As we were half-way through the line, the right side loading station closed for some reason, so only the left side one (which we were in) was loading. That meant that people after us would have a much longer wait.

Afterward, we took a raft to Tom Sawyer Island to do some exploring, as we'd not been to their island before. There are some really nice views from the island.

View of Big Thunder Mountain from Tom Sawyer Island.

View of the Haunted Mansion from Tom Sawyer Island.

The Liberty Belle passing in front of the Haunted Mansion.

Some of the walkways on the island are a bit convoluted and result in dead-ends, which was a little annoying since you had to then backtrack. We wandered everywhere we could to at least have a look.

And then we arrived at the fort. And I was confused when I saw this sign.

Is "scavage" really a word? Or maybe it was just a word that Tom Sawyer made up? I mulled over that question for a while thereafter. And then on the way back to the dock to return to the mainland, I saw a map that showed where everything was on the island.

Sure enough, a map by the dock says it's "scavenger's fort". Is this another Disney sign error?

Next, we headed to the Haunted Mansion.

The view of the Haunted Mansion from the front.

The view of the Haunted Mansion from in line, through the trees.

I hadn't noticed from our previous visits that the Ghost Host in the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion circles and moves around while talking in the stretch room. That was a really cool effect, even when standing on the side. I'll have to try it sometime while standing in the middle. However, it was still weird to not feel movement in the stretch room since the room does actually stretch upwards. I'm too used to feeling the rumbling under my feet at Disneyland's stretch room since it's actually an elevator that descends.

In comparing the two, I like the exterior of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion better because you get a great view of the majestic mansion as you walk up the garden path. At the Magic Kingdom's, most of your view is shrouded by the many trees, and you're also entering in the sort of basement part of the mansion. However, I do like the interior of the Magic Kingdom's version better since they pretty much have everything Disneyland's does and then more. I love the library and the sitting room and especially the upside-down stairs room.

It was then time for lunch. We decided to try Harbour House. I had the Garden Harvest Salad, which sounds like it should be completely vegetarian but actually comes with chicken. I enjoyed the salad very much. It had a lot of ingredients in it, especially more than the lettuce and carrot shavings that you normally get. I was very pleasantly surprised at what a great meal this was, especially for theme park food. Big thumbs up!

Garden Harvest Salad (which comes with chicken) at Harbour House.

After lunch, we went to wait for the Celebrate parade. The Magic Kingdom had several parades running that day, but it was the only one we were really interested in seeing. It was a very nice parade. There were some very cool floats with nice details and lots of characters. It's definitely something worth catching.

Mickey and Minnie on the lead float.

Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket.

Snow White, her Prince and Dopey.

Peter Pan, Wendy, Alice and Mad Hatter.

Cinderella and her Prince and her fairy godmother.

A better picture of Cinderella.

Ariel and Prince Eric at the front of the last float.

Belle and the Beast on the last float.

After the parade, we headed to Country Bear Jamboree, which is still at the Magic Kingdom. The Disneyland version was replaced several years ago by a Winnie the Pooh ride.

The Magic Kingdom has the original version of the show, which I like ok, though I do prefer the Vacation Hoedown version or the Christmas show, but neither of those is an option for me to see anymore.

After that, we headed to Tomorrowland and rode the PeopleMover, otherwise known as the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. I love that ride and miss having it at Disneyland. And people must cringe every time we go on the PeopleMover because between our February trip and our August 2010 trip, Space Mountain has been down 3 of the 4 times that we've ridden the PeopleMover, which goes through Space Mountain at one point in the ride.

Space Mountain with the lights on because the ride is down.

Another view of Space Mountain with the lights on inside.

Space Mountain with the lights on from our August 2010 trip.

The Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor was open when we were there in August but we didn't have a chance to visit, so we wanted to try it this time. While you're in the queue, there are signs about being able to submit jokes for the show. I was amused that there was also a sign as a release for the submitted jokes.

The lawyer-influenced side of me found this to be very funny.

I enjoyed the Laugh Floor, which is basically Turtle Talk for adults since it uses the same technology as they do for that show. I can't say it's something I'd do on every visit, but it was a lot of fun.

We then headed over to it's a small world, which in the case of the Magic Kingdom version, is entirely properly named because it's a much more regular sized ride and facade than the Disneyland version. It unexpectedly became a longer ride when in the middle of our journey, our boat stopped as the boats in front of us had also stopped. After sitting there for a few minutes, the work lights came on, though the music stayed on. Our boat was stopped right before the Mexico/South Pole section, and an emergency exit was directly to my right. Soon, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that said "a cast member will be with you shortly", so I took that to mean that we were going to be walked off the ride instead of the boats momentarily starting up again. Shortly thereafter, the music was turned off, but the animatronics were still moving, which was a little weird. Some time after that, a cast member in hip waders did come through the emergency exit and was conversing with another cast member.

And I thought, great, we've been repeatedly breaking Space Mountain. Now we've broken another ride.

Now, mind you, our boat had stopped at about 7:20pm. We had planned to see the 8pm Wishes fireworks show. At this point, it was 7:40pm, and I really just wanted to get off the boat. This was the only time in our schedule when we could watch Wishes on this trip, and I really didn't want to miss it. And yes, I was very much conscious the entire time of the emergency exit that was RIGHT THERE.

Go towards the light - the emergency exit beckons.

One puzzling thing was happening during this time. I was tweeting about being stuck on it's a small world, and a few of my friends were answering with responses that I thought were odd. I felt like I was missing something so asked. Turns out that earlier that day, it had been reported that Disneyland was being sued by a man who had been stuck on it's a small world several years prior, and he was claiming various damages and distresses from being stuck on the ride. In reading the details later, I thought his claim was completely idiotic, but it was funny that we were stuck on the same ride (albeit in a different park) on the same day his lawsuit story hit the news.

After some discussion among the cast members, they started helping people out of the boats, and since we were right by the exit, we were luckily among the first. With about 10 minutes to go before the fireworks, we were helped off the boat and led through backstage (including the area where they fix the boats from it's a small world) and into the back part of Fantasyland. Everyone also received a re-entry pass good for any one Magic Kingdom attraction that was good for the next 2 days. We didn't end up being able to use the pass, but it was nice of them to give them out.

We quickly headed to Main Street to find a decent place to watch Wishes. We made it with only minutes to spare. There would have been many others who unloaded after us who would have missed the fireworks.

After the fireworks, we made our way down Main Street to Tony's Town Square Restaurant, where we had a dinner reservation. We'd only eaten there once before, breakfast during our 1999 trip, and we'd enjoyed it. We had a lovely dinner at Tony's. The food was wonderful (the husband had lasagna, and I had the lamb shank and polenta, which were yummy), and our server was spectacular. He was from Morocco, so we ended up talking to him about the restaurants in the Morocco section of Epcot (which we like a lot) as well as other Moroccan restaurants and other subjects. He was very nice and friendly and personable and also took very good care of us.

We were seated in the middle of the main dining room, right next to/in front of the Lady and the Tramp sculpture in the restaurant, so during the course of dinner, there were a lot of people coming to take a picture in front of the sculpture, so it was fun to watch them. All in all, we had a lovely dining experience at Tony's.

After we were done with dinner, the extra magic hours (which ran from 9pm to midnight that night) were already in full swing, so we went to enjoy the rest of the time in the park. We went on a number of rides, including Pirates of the Caribbean and Philharmagic. We did find an odd souvenir item in the gift shop at the exit of Philharmagic.

Is it supposed to be a Donald pinata or a decoration? It felt paper-mache but there didn't seem to be room to insert candy/toys.

A friend responded that she didn't know what it was supposed to be either, but she'd remembered seeing them at the Mexico pavilion gift shop in Epcot. We saw them there on a later day as well, but I still don't know what it was.

The end of a lovely (and long) day at the Magic Kingdom.

Orlando trip - February 12, 2011 - Sea World and dinner at The Wave

2011-04-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

We took one day out of our Orlando trip to visit Sea World Orlando. We'd only been there one time before, and that was during our 1999 Orlando trip. We arrived just in time to hear them playing the National Anthem. For many years, I had an annual pass at Sea World San Diego, but I haven't been back in a little while, so I had forgotten that they start their operational day by playing the song. It was nice to hear, and it's a nice tradition.

It wasn't raining but it was very cold and windy during the day, so I was glad that I'd brought gloves and a heavy jacket. I think I had the jacket off for a total of only about 20 minutes all day.

Our first stop was the underwater viewing for the dolphins.

After wandering around and looking at a few more exhibits, we headed over to the Whale and Dolphin Theatre to wait for the Blue Horizons show.

I thought the show was ok, but like many of the shows at Sea World parks nowadays (at least based on my last trip to Sea World San Diego and my one trip to Sea World San Antonio several years ago), the shows are more focused on the humans than the animals. For some time now, Sea World parks have had aerial and water acrobatic groups performing in shows. I like them fine, but I prefer them to be just in shows by themselves, so you know what to expect. If I'm attending an animal show, then I actually expect to see animals and not so much people. This show was a combination of both, which always makes me feel like I'm not getting enough time to see the animals themselves.

After that, we headed over to Sea Lion and Otter Stadium for the Clyde and Seamore show, which stars two sea lions, a river otter and a walrus. This was a show I loved at Sea World San Diego. They've had various incarnations of it, just to have a loose story that allows for the antics that usually happen. There was one show that I didn't particularly care for (think a combination of Toontown and the Tool Time segment from the TV show "Home Improvement"), but otherwise, the story usually involved a captain/crew (human and sea lion) with a ship crashing into a desert island and the other human and other sea lion who have been marooned on the island for some time. Hijinks then ensue.

I still really enjoyed the show, even though they've been using the same jokes for at least 20 years.

Next, we went to Wild Arctic to see the animals there, but particularly, the polar bears. Hanging out with a sleeping polar bear at Sea World is something that's very familiar to us - we'd spent many hours doing just that at Sea World San Diego with Charlie, Cenja and Flake, the one male and two females down there. Sea World Orlando also has three polar bears, including Klondike and Snow, siblings who were born and hand-raised at the Denver Zoo and then transferred to Sea World Orlando because the Denver Zoo didn't have the facilities to continue caring for/housing them.

The third polar bear, Johnny, was out in the time that we were there. He was sleeping for quite a bit of the time, and then he woke up later to play with a toy near a large glass pane, so the crowds gathered around to watch him.

In trying to figure out what to have for lunch, we decided to check out a special event they were having. They had a series of events happening on consecutive Saturdays featuring barbecue, beer and bands inside the park. Each week featured a different band, and you could purchase a ticket that included food, beer and a good seat to see the band. You could also purchase the food and beer separately, and the concert was otherwise free for general admission. The band that day happened to be Huey Lewis and the News. We decided to check out the barbecue, where different items were being offered by different outside vendors. We each found some barbecue offerings that appealed to us and had a nice (and delicious) lunch.

After lunch, we headed to Shamu Stadium to wait for the show "Believe". There was a 4-month-old baby killer whale who was bopping around during the show. That was so cute. Otherwise, I thought the show was fine, though I was surprised that the trainers still weren't getting in the water with the killer whales yet. It makes for a very different show, but it's still wonderful to see those amazing creatures. Afterward, we went to see if there was a way to just see the killer whales. I'm spoiled because at Sea World San Diego, you can get really good views of the killer whales without attending a single show. It's not like that at the other Sea World parks. I'm sad when the only way to see them is in a show, when there's no way to just view them. There was some construction going on in the back of the section, and it looked like they were building something that resembled the Dine with Shamu set-up at Sea World San Diego, but I couldn't tell if there would be any way to just watch the whales. I guess I'll find out whenever we make a return trip.

We made our way to Pacific Point, where the sea lions and harbor seals hang out.

On the way, we saw this group of flamingos.

Pacific Point is actually quite a large location, with many sea lions.

Sea lions at Pacific Point.

You can purchase fish to feed the sea lions with. The sea lions are very much used to this.

A sea lion waiting to be fed.

Unfortunately, the local birds also know about the abundance of free fish, and they're ready to snatch the fish before the sea lions can get them. Sea World San Diego has a similar problem with sea gulls.

There are almost more birds than sea lions at Pacific Point, which makes feeding the sea lions difficult.

We then made our way to the penguin encounter. It's always fun to spend some time in there just enjoying watching the penguins. It's a nice place to hide out in the summer because it's nicely air conditioned, but since they keep the same time zone as their original home, they're always on the opposite season from us. In the middle of our summer, it's bitter winter there, so it's cold and dark, and the penguins aren't doing that much. In the winter time here, though, it's summer time there, so it's much brighter and the penguins are much more active.

Summertime in the Penguin Encounter.

On our way to the last exhibit for the day, we passed by a different species of flamingos near the entrance.

We went to Manatee Rescue, and I always enjoy seeing them, but it makes me sad that they're there because they've been hurt severely.

Some of the rescued manatees who live there.

That was the end of our day at Sea World. Overall, I did enjoy the visit. There were a couple of roller coasters and other rides in the park that we opted not to do. I got to spend some time with the animals but not nearly as much as I would have liked, especially with the killer whales. It's been a few years since I've been back to Sea World San Diego, so I'm hoping to make a visit later this year.

As we were leaving, the clouds over the Orlando skies looked painted.

We headed back to Walt Disney World, and we wandered around the Magic Kingdom resorts and the lobby of the Grand Floridian for a bit. We then went to The Wave at the Contemporary to check in for dinner. We'd not been there before so had wanted to give it a try. Dinner was fine, and the food was good, but the restaurant didn't make that much of an impression on me one way or the other. I'd be ok with going back, but it's not really someplace I'd be choosing to return to given that there are many other dining locations at WDW that we've not yet been to.

Toy Story Mania at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World

2011-04-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

Both the Disneyland Resort and the Walt Disney World Resort have the Toy Story Mania attraction. The rides themselves are exactly the same, but while the queue in the Disney California Adventure (DCA) version has some cute stuff in it, the queue and surrounding area at the Disney's Hollywood Studios (DHS) version is amazingly detailed with lots of things to look at and admire. Because of the climate, queues at WDW tend to be much longer and generally indoors, so they can be a bit more elaborate than queues at the Disneyland Resort, but they've really outdone themselves on this attraction. Following is a photo tour showing the highlights.

To get to the area, you pass through the entrance to Pixar Studios.

Notice the string of monkeys across the walkway between the two buildings.

The DCA version doesn't have Fastpass, but the DHS version does. Love the sign at the exit of the Fastpass distribution area.

The sign is written on a button!

To the left inside the Pixar Studios entrance is a series of buildings with little shops and kiosks for souvenirs and snacks. There are numerous fun things to look at amongst all that.

A Speak and Spell toy is hung by a jumprope from the building.

The ceiling of the little store area has a mini Battleship setup.

An outdoor vending area has a set of collectible spoons and plates on the left side behind it.

On the right side, there's a thermos and a box of cereal. There's also a lunchbox behind the thermos bottle but it was difficult to get a full picture of it.

Green army men are lowering a Scrabble board from the building where the Toy Story characters have a photo op. This is directly across from the attraction itself.

Once you enter the attraction, the queue is full of fun things to look at.

Dominoes and tinker toys in the queue.

Another view of the dominoes and tinker toys. A drawing by Andy is on the back wall.

One wall has Candyland. A section of the ceiling has a checker board, and there's a stack of checkers just to the left of this picture.

Giant Viewmaster reel of Peter Pan.

The back of the Peter Pan Viewmaster reel explains what each scene is.

And there's a giant Viewmaster reel of Disneyland too! I *love* this!

There are giant crayons in the queue. Yes, they're different colors and labeled. They also have varying tips that show different amounts of usage. That's a great little detail.

There's a Scrabble board on the ceiling too. Yes, and monkeys everywhere.

There's also a Chutes and Ladders board on the ceiling.

Tinker Toys container and one Sorry piece in the queue.

The famous Pixar ball!

Andy's drawing of Mr. Potato Head.

The moving/talking Mr. Potato Head can only be seen if you go through the queue. In the DCA version, he's outside, so you can see him just from passing by.

The signature Pixar lamp provides a spotlight for Mr. Potato Head. Notice the spirograph papers on the wall on the left back and the map puzzle in the back.

Lincoln Logs are used to make the structure that holds the 3D glasses for guests to use during the attraction.

This sign instructing guests to get their 3D glasses made me laugh.

The sign to the entrance for guests in wheelchairs is a postage stamp.

In other words, "cast members only".

Tinker Toys and Christmas lights over the loading and unloading area.

Once you load into a vehicle, then you're on the attraction, and then you end up in the same place as where you loaded. The loading/unloading area is actually inside Andy's room.

At the end of the attraction, you see the Pixar ball again as well as some games and books.

At the end of the attraction, you can see that the Christmas lights are plugged in.

The exit area and loading/unloading for guests in wheelchairs.

The exit area has a giant nightlight!

*Love* the Little Golden Book of Tin Toy at the exit.

There are other things in both the queue and the exit area that are a bit more difficult to get a picture of. For this attraction, it's worth the effort to spend a little time exploring both.

cat and dolphins playing together

2011-04-09T00:43:00.000-07:00

Yep, when I saw the title of the youtube video, I thought it was weird too. How on earth could a cat play with a dolphin? But - they can. And it's too cute for words.

I love cats. I love dolphins. Both playing together = me entirely too happy.

Orlando trip - February 11, 2011 - Epcot

2011-04-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

It was a bright and early morning, but I was excited - I was going to get to spend the whole day at Epcot! Future World is open a couple of hours before World Showcase, but it's nice that they have the entrance from the Epcot resorts open with the main gates. You can walk through World Showcase to get to Future World, and it's actually really nice to have a good view of World Showcase while it's that empty.

The only other people around are others also walking to Future World.

We went to Test Track, which was only a 10 minute wait at that point, but we just went to get Fastpasses, and then we went to the Land Pavilion for breakfast. We'd eaten there on our last trip, and they have several different good breakfast options. I like the atmosphere in there as well, with plenty of seating available, so it's a good way to power up and ease into your day.

Breakfast platter at Sunshine Seasons in Land Pavilion.

After breakfast, we rode "Living with the Land". It's a pretty simple boat ride, where they talk about agriculture and climates and such, and I can't really explain why I absolutely adore this ride. It's one of the rides I have to go on twice during my visit. I don't think I've been on it at night since we usually do Future World in the daytime and World Showcase at night. I'll have to try that on a future visit to see if an evening ride is any different during the outdoor parts. One of the highlights of the ride for me is seeing the greenhouses. Last time, we did the "Behind the Seeds Tour", which is a walking tour that actually takes you inside the greenhouses, and I loved that too.

Giant lemons are grown in the Land Pavilion greenhouse.

Cucumbers grown in a different way.

After that, we headed back to Future World to use our Test Track Fastpasses. I love this ride, and I wish that Disneyland's short-lived Rocket Rods could have been more like it. For me, it's also the perfect Fastpass ride. The first time we rode it, we purposely did the stand-by line so that we could see everything in the queue. There is a lot to see there with all the testing and such, but it's not something I'd be interesting in looking at repeatedly, so for every subsequent ride, we've done Fastpass so we can bypass the usually-long line.

Getting close to our turn to board Test Track, and other riders are returning from their trip.

We took a ride on Spaceship Earth (I know some purists object to the change, but I like being able to listen to Judi Dench narrate the ride.), and then we headed back over to the Land Pavilion to ride Soarin'. It's exactly the same version as the Disneyland Resort has (at Disney California Adventure - DCA), which we're very familiar with, but we wanted to see how the rest of the attraction was at Epcot. There were some pictures along the queue, but I was surprised that the queue wasn't nearly as good as many of the other queues at WDW. The queue for Soarin' at DCA is much better - the show building is more like a plane hangar. The one at Epcot really just looked like a building. But we enjoyed our ride anyway.

OK, here's a side note that most people won't care about. One thing I'd noticed on our last trip and which was reinforced this time is that many of the visitors to WDW are fans of Vera Bradley and her purses/backpacks/bags. From the time we landed at Orlando Airport and throughout our visits to the various WDW parks and Downtown Disney, you could not help but spot her designs everywhere. I don't know the breakdown of people who visit WDW, so I don't know if Vera Bradley is just very popular with the international crowd, or if it's an East Coast affinity, or if for some reason, Vera Bradley fans just happen to flock to WDW, but the variety of styles and patterns that you see on people all over WDW is just really astonishing.

OK, enough of that detour. On to World Showcase! We wandered around for a bit and then ended up at the counter service place in Germany for lunch. That happens to be a favorite of ours.

A bratwurst each and sharing a pretzel.

There aren't very many tables available in that area, but we were lucky enough to find a family about to leave a small table, so we sat down as they left. With our bratwursts and pretzel, we wanted some mustard to go with it. We were in Germany, so surely they had some decent mustard we could have. Well, the packets right by the counter service turned out to be just regular yellow mustard - I don't remember if it was French's. The husband decided to go into the shops because he figured he'd at least be able to buy a small jar of good German mustard. He came back empty handed. We were really disappointed that in the Germany section, there was no good mustard to be had. I needed a bottle of water, so I went to the little kiosk at the front of the Germany section, and lo and behold, because they also sold pretzels, they actually had a basket of Gulden's mustard! At least that had a little extra flavor than regular mustard, but it was surprising that it was the only random place you could get it.

We enjoyed our lunch and the atmosphere of Germany. It was a bit windy and cold out, though, so after we were done, we went into the gift shop to look around. They have a whole section of Arribas Bros. and other jeweled figurines as well.

Arribas Bros. sculpture of Cinderella Castle at Germany - $37,500.

Ariel is pretty, even though she'll cost a pretty penny or two or more.

I was amazed that the Sorcerer Mickey was the same price as the combined Tigger and Pooh piece given the size differences between the two.

After meandering a bit, we headed to the Japan section of Epcot.

The beautiful Japanese pavilion.

The taiko drummers - all female - were playing, so we stopped and listened to them for a while.

The taiko drummers in Japan.

We then continued on our way and went to France. We'd never seen the film there before, so we stopped in to see that. The theatre was gorgeous, and because of the screens set-up, I ended up referring to it as half-Circlevision. Some of the music reminded me a lot of the opening to "Beauty and the Beast", before the narration about the prince starts. I enjoyed the film and would see it again.

We made our way around World Showcase, stopping and looking at various things, until we got to the Canada section. We'd not seen their film before either, so we wanted to do that. Their film is a true Circlevision film, narrated by Martin Short. I'm not terribly enamoured of Circlevision films because while the views are beautiful, the simulated motion bothers me a bit, and you're also standing during the film. I liked the film ok, and I enjoyed the panoramic views of Canada, but I'm not sure it's a film I'd be likely to see very often. (The China section of Epcot also has a film, also a Circlevision film, but I'd seen it when Disneyland still had a Circlevision theatre, so we skipped it at Epcot.)

By this time, it was getting close to dinner time, so we headed back to the U.K. section for our 6:55pm dinner reservation at Rose and Crown.

When we were taken to our table, we laughed because we were being sat at EXACTLY the same table that we'd had the previous August. We'd not had a reservation then, but the Anglophile in me really wanted to go to Rose and Crown, and we ended up having a late lunch there as walk-up. How weird that we ended up at the same table as last time.

I'd had the fruit and cheese plate last time, and I had enjoyed it very much, so I had that again.

This picture is from our August 2010 visit - fruit and cheese plate with Stilton, Irish cheddar, mushroom brie, grapes, dried cranberries, candied walnuts and onion jam.

I don't remember what else I had for dinner, but I do remember that we had a lovely time. Our server was very nice, and I was just really enjoying being in the English environment.

After dinner, we went to wait for Illuminations, and we were in between the U.S. and Japan so that we could have a good view of the globe. One of the giant torches was right in front of us.

My picture of the lit fire pot in front of us looks like a picture of a solar flare.

I love Illuminations - the fireworks, the songs, the globe, all of it. If I was local to Orlando, I'd be planted at Epcot on many, many evenings to watch the show. The show always seemed much shorter than I remembered from the last time I saw it, but I realized that night why I thought it was a half-hour show. It's because we always stay through ALL of the closing music, which includes Tapestry, which adds a good 10 minutes at least.

Unlike the night we arrived, we didn't have to leave after Illuminations ended because Epcot had evening Extra Magic Hours that night, from 9pm to midnight. If I don't have to leave Epcot yet, I'm not going.

We hadn't planned on riding Mission: Space that day. We like the ride but even with the smoother "green" side, it can be a bit much for me to take. However, a friend had tweeted me earlier in the evening to tell me that his older son (who I'd met) was actually working the ride that night, and his son tweeted me to come by, so we figured, what the heck. We only chatted with him for a minute or two since he was busy working, and then we went on the ride. Afterward, we headed back to World Showcase, and along the way, we saw a lot of people waiting around for Test Track. It had been down for at least half an hour during EMH, so I felt badly for all the people waiting in line for it to re-open.

We went to the Norway section to ride Maelstrom. I enjoy the ride, and we go on it every visit. I love seeing the polar bears! At that time of the night, there was very little wait time, but I was sad that the film at the exit of the attraction doesn't run during EMH.

But I was happy to discover a t-shirt for the attraction in the gift shop, so I bought that.

Maelstrom t-shirt.

By this time, it was close to midnight, so we just leisurely strolled through the rest of Epcot on the way back to our room.

Orlando trip - February 10, 2011 - DHS and Winn Dixie

2011-04-07T01:56:00.000-07:00

We were up relatively early this morning - remember, coming from SoCal, it was 3 hours earlier than normal for us. Our plan was to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios (DHS), which happens to be our least favorite of the WDW parks, and we knew we weren't going to have enough that we wanted to do to take up a whole day, so no need to be there at park opening. The park opened at 9am, and I think we were figuring on getting there around 10am.

We walked out to the boat landing and waited for a Friendship boat to take us to DHS. One of the benefits of staying at an Epcot resort is that you can visit 2 of the 4 WDW parks without having to drive or taking cumbersome WDW transportation. Epcot is walking distance, and DHS is only a Friendship boat ride away - you can walk too, but that's a much longer distance. I've liked the Friendship boats because there are many of them running, so you're never waiting for long, and I've not noticed the boats to be completely full. They're also relatively short rides.

On this day, it was a bit rainy but very windy. I had brought an umbrella for us, but the wind made it difficult for both of us to be protected with the one umbrella, so the husband ended up buying a WDW umbrella at DHS so that we could each have our own umbrella. While it definitely came in handy that day, we ended up not needing umbrellas for the rest of our trip.

We had planned to grab a light breakfast at DHS, but that proved to be more difficult than we expected. There weren't many places listed on the park map that listed breakfast items, and many of the snack bars and such weren't open yet. Starring Rolls had mega-bagels and muffins and croissants, but it was just a carb heaven. There was no protein to be found, and the husband and I both need more than just carbs for breakfast. We'd already gotten our Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania, and when we wandered by the ABC Commissary, we saw that they'd be open shortly, so we just decided to wait and have an early lunch.

As I mentioned, there aren't too many of the attractions at DHS that really interest us, and we didn't want to wander around the park, in the rain and wind, only to have to be back at the ABC Commissary in a short time. So we sat down right outside the restaurant, in a spot that was covered by overhang and umbrellas on the tables so the chairs weren't wet, and we waited.

We were amused to discover that the music being played at that location was various TV theme songs, so we played "name that tune". There were some songs where one or both of us recognized it quickly, and there were others that took a little longer or not at all. For the ones that neither of us could name, the husband pulled out Shazam on his phone to figure out what the song was. The "Barney Miller" theme was pretty easy considering I watched it all the time, but I was actually surprised that even though I did watch the show every week, I still recognized the theme to "Baretta" pretty quickly.

Most people would probably find it odd that we "wasted" that much time just sitting there when we could have been going on rides and such, but it actually felt nice to do that. It reminded me of the little things that we do back at Disneyland, that day guests are usually too busy/hurried to stop and enjoy.

Once the restaurant opened, we went inside. The ABC Commissary has a pretty limited menu - I think I had a burger. We'd eaten there before, and while the food wasn't spectacular, it was decent enough for a meal. It has the added benefit of having plentiful indoor seating, which is welcome whether it's sweltering and 90% humidity outside or if it's rainy and cold outside. They have TVs that show clips and behind-the-scenes footage from several ABC shows, which currently include "Modern Family" and "The Middle". It's a pretty short loop, though, so we had our meal fairly quickly and then left.

It was time to use our Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania. We've gone on the Disneyland Resort version of the ride many times, but we'd only been on the DHS version once before. The queue area is really incredible with lots of fun toys and games and other things to see while you wind your way through the queue.

We had a good time on the ride, and then we headed over towards Tower of Terror. On the way there, we passed by the center of the park, and I love the topiaries there from Fantasia.

Sorcerer Mickey topiary is surrounded by brooms threatening to throw flowers at passersby.

We stopped and browsed through the shops along Sunset Boulevard.

Disney going old school with t-shirts about vinyl records.

This t-shirt of Mickey made out of balloons made us particularly laugh.

The wait time for Tower of Terror wasn't too bad, so we got in line. This ride is one of the few reasons why I visit DHS. I enjoy the Tower of Terror at the Disneyland Resort, but I do love the "third dimension" aspect that the DHS ride has.

After the ride, we browsed the gift shop. They have quite a bit of merchandise with the Tower of Terror moniker, but I wish they had more merchandise for the Hollywood Tower Hotel. They only have bath items, like towels and robes and such. I would love if they had t-shirts and polo shirts with just the Hollywood Tower Hotel name/logo on it, like any other regular hotel might have.

Scaffolding on the Hollywood Tower Hotel. No, it's not just part of the decor.

This is the exit of the Hollywood Tower Hotel/Tower of Terror gift shop. I love that whole little courtyard area.

As we walked back down Sunset Boulevard, we perused the shops on the other side of the street. I was sad to see that what had previously been the villains shop was now just a regular gift shop again, filled partly with Jack Skellington merchandise only.

But I also noticed that in the little corner section, they advertised a giant Mickey crisp. Wow, we don't have those back home.

Giant Mickey crispy cake - $49.95.

They also had these funky little icon toys, some related to Disney and some not.

Nothing like a small plastic hamburger keychain sticking out its tomato at you.

It was mid-afternoon, and by this time, we were done with DHS. We went to the boat dock to catch a Friendship boat back to the Beach Club.

Walking back to the main building from the boat dock, we noticed one of the nice topiaries on property.

Pretty butterfly topiary at Beach Club.

We had considered whether we wanted to go into Epcot or even through Epcot to take a monorail to the Magic Kingdom, but we were in need of some supplies for the rest of our stay, so we decided to just go off property for that. On our walk to the parking lot, the views were still very pretty.

One of the views at Beach Club, on the way to the parking lot.

The husband had located a Winn Dixie that wasn't too far away, so we went there. I'd never been there before, but after wandering around a bit, I thought it was really an amazing store. I wish we had these stores back home!

We picked up what we needed, and a few things we didn't. I saw a display for these, and they were calling my name. I got a 2-pack of each to try. I had some while I was still in Orlando and some that I brought home with me. They were all very tasty.

We then headed back to the Beach Club to relax for a bit before our 8:15pm dinner reservation at Flying Fish Cafe.

Go here to read the Flying Fish Cafe dinner review.

Flying Fish Cafe - dinner review - February 10, 2011

2011-04-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

We had been to the Flying Fish Cafe at the Boardwalk Resort once before, the previous August. We had the then-new Chef's Tasting Menu experience. And we were hooked. When we decided to make a return trip to WDW, we made sure to book the Chef's Tasting Menu at Flying Fish again.

We checked in for our 8:15 reservation. On our previous visit, we had been there on a Sunday night, when Executive Chef Tim Keating wasn't there, so we hadn't met him yet. This time, though, since it was a Thursday night, he was there, and he introduced himself to us (the man is REALLY tall), and we were shown to our seats at the counter. There were four places set up, but the other two people never showed. How sad.

The setup for our places at the counter.

With the Chef's Tasting Menu, you don't order at all. The menu for the evening is created by the chef dependent upon what ingredients are available and the chef's cooking whim. If you have any food allergies/preferences, you can relay that ahead of time. The husband has a very strong aversion to cilantro, and we had stopped by the previous night so that the husband could ask that no cilantro be used for us. Chef Keating mentioned that immediately upon meeting us, assuring us that no cilantro would be used in our evening's meal.

Shortly thereafter, another manager came by to say hello, and he had specifically wanted to meet the person who had asked for "no cilantro please" as he was also very adverse to cilantro and wanted to meet a kindred spirit. We learned later that he was the area manager of food and beverage for the Boardwalk Resort.

This was the menu that we were going to be enjoying.

First was the amuse bouches. Usually, it's a singular noun, so I was kind of amused that in this instance, it was a plural noun. But then, once the dish was delivered, it made sense because there were two separate items.

Free-range "egg shake" and sturgeon caviar with yellow tomato & basil relish.

Both items were very tasty, and I loved the presentation of the funky cup and dish.

The Tasting Menu includes wine pairings for each dish. Previously, you could add the wine pairings for a nominal fee. I am not much of a wine drinker, so I didn't add the wine pairings and just ordered a drink on the side. They now no longer offer that option since the wines are included. We had told them I wasn't interested in the wine pairings, so they were instead bringing me alternate non-alcoholic drinks to have with my meal, which were still very nice. However, I had decided that I was going to be ordering a drink on the side anyway - I had previously had the blood orange margarita, and it was simply amazing. I couldn't very well pass up the opportunity to have it again.

Blood orange margarita.

The first course was orecchiette pasta with Main lobster.

Lobster with orrechiette pasta with fennel, oven-dried sweet peppers, arugula and lobster roe crema.

This was really an amazing dish. Many times, courses that claim to contain lobster only have little shreds of lobster meat that are almost indistinguishable from the other ingredients. That was not the case here. There were nice big pieces of lobster meat, and all the different flavors went very well together. In a larger portion size, this would have made a great entree as well.

The second course was duck prosciutto with scallops and duck confit.

Duck prosciutto with scallops, duck confit, duck-roasted salsifis and tiny onions.

Again, this was a really amazing dish. The scallops were very good, perfectly cooked, but the piece of duck prosciutto on top was incredible. We also liked the root vegetables that were underneath the scallops. We noticed that there were slivers of turnips in the mix, and we mentioned to Chef Keating that we really liked them. He said that he hadn't originally planned to put them in, but he just decided to at the last minute. This dish would also have done nicely as an entree.

Next up was the palate cleanser, so this is a good time for a sidebar.

The counter seats are in front of a side part of the open kitchen. Sous chefs are preparing courses for other people in the restaurant, and that's also where Chef Keating was preparing our courses. Yes, he was actually cooking them himself. We had seen the menu, so we could see that the items he was cooking had the same ingredients as what we were having. It was really nice to be able to watch him actually cook what we were then going to be eating. Once the dishes were prepared and plated, he was also the one to bring the dishes out to us. As he set them down, he explained what everything was, and if we had questions, we were able to ask him. He was very forthcoming with answering our questions, so it was a really good opportunity to ask about many of the things we were eating as well as other food-related questions.

At one point, we were discussing cilantro again, how some people like it (me included) and some people absolutely hate it. Micro greens are fairly commonly used nowadays, and it can be hard to tell the difference between micro cilantro and micro basil or micro parsley or an assortment of any other micro greens. I asked Chef Keating if there was a way to recognize the micro cilantro so that the husband would know whether or not he needed to pick it out of a dish without having to actually taste it. Chef Keating went away for a couple minutes and came back with a palmful of micro cilantro to show us. He said that when he ordered them, he liked his grower to let them grow out a tiny bit more, until the leaves actually start to form a bit more, but most people use them when they're barely sprouted. The husband did get a good enough look to note the shape of the barely-showing leaves, enough that he can actually now spot the difference between micro cilantro and other micro greens.

OK, back to the actual palate cleanser. Chef Keating came by with two small glasses. He put one down in front of the husband, and he was about to put the second one down in front of me when he saw my blood orange margarita and eyed it confusedly. He said he thought I didn't drink alcohol, since I had declined the wine pairings. I told him that I just wasn't much of a wine drinker, but alcohol is fine. At that point, he took the glass that he'd put in front of the husband and set it in front of me instead, and he said he'd be right back. We saw him go to the bar, and he was there for a minute and then came back. He then set the second glass in front of the husband. The palate cleanser was a lychee sorbet, but since he thought I didn't drink alcohol, he had omitted the lemoncello from my glass. Once he realized that alcohol itself wasn't the issue, he went back to have them put lemoncello in the second glass. Lychee sorbet and lemoncello - two of my favorite things, together. Mmmmm, it was heavenly.

Palate cleanser - lychee sorbet with lemoncello.

Then it came time for the main course - veal tenderloin with crepe of mushrooms, goat cheese and leek.

Veal tenderloin with Cascade Mountain wild mushrooms, goat cheese and leek crespelle "package" (aka crepe).

The crepe was underneath the slices of the veal tenderloin. Everything was cooked very nicely and was delicious, and the ingredients of the crepe were a nice accompaniment to the tenderloin.

Since it had been cleared up that I wasn't adverse to alcohol, just most wines, they brought me a cranberrytini to pair with my entree. Mmmm, another yummy cocktail. (I'll admit that with so much to eat and drink already, I ended up not finishing either the blood orange margarita or the cranberrytini, but each was very tasty.)

Cranberrytini.

Finally, it was time for dessert - white chocolate and passion fruit semi-freddo with cherry compote.

White chocolate and passion fruit semi-freddo with a chocolate feuillatine and caramelized cherry compote.

I am not normally a fan of white chocolate, but the flavoring was very light in the dessert, and I really enjoyed the cherries.

It was a spectacular meal, but our experience wasn't over yet. The bartender came over to check on us to see if there was anything else that we needed. I mentioned that it was only my second time in the restaurant, and on our first visit, we never made it past the counter, which is at the front of the restaurant, so I had no idea what the restaurant itself really looked like, so I really just wanted to walk around for a bit if that was ok. He assured me that was alright and asked if we knew the story behind the theming of the restaurant. When we said no, he offered to take us around the restaurant to show us and explain, and we gladly took him up on his offer.

While the Boardwalk Resort is themed to the boardwalk in Atlantic City, the Flying Fish Cafe is actually themed to Coney Island in New York. He walked us to the back of the restaurant so we could see the side rooms there, and he showed us the architecture on the walls which simulated the curves of a roller coaster. Atop the curves were painted murals of a roller coaster train and riders. Other architecture at the front of the restaurant and used to divide the space also resembled a roller coaster track. He explained that the name of the restaurant came from a roller coaster that had been at Coney Island - one of its cars was named Flying Fish. There's also a decoration of sorts that descends from the ceiling at the front of the restaurant that's an homage to the famous parachute jump at Coney Island, and there's a depiction of a giant ferris wheel at the back wall of the restaurant as well. He also showed us various decorations around and above the bar that also went along with the same theming as the rest of the restaurant.

We thanked him for showing us the restaurant and telling us the story of its theming. We were sorry that it was time for our night to end, but we wanted to say goodbye to Chef Keating and to thank him for an incredible meal. He had already gone in the back to do other things, and a manager was nice enough to go get him for us. When he came out, we talked a bit more, and we asked him how he'd arrived at Flying Fish. He said that many years ago, when Disney was first building the Boardwalk Resort, that space had been intended to be leased out to an outside restaurant chain, famous for a particular dessert, but then Disney decided they needed another signature restaurant, and the Flying Fish Cafe was born. Chef Keating said that he and his family had enjoyed dining at Flying Fish, and he had been a guest chef for a couple of years at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival, and several years ago, Disney was looking for someone to come in and take over the executive chef job at Flying Fish and offered it to him, which he jumped at. He loves working at Flying Fish.

We talked a bit more about some of the dishes we'd enjoyed that night, and discussion got around to radishes and other root vegetables, which we enjoy. On our prior visit, we had the opportunity to chat with some of the sous chefs who had been cooking in front of us, and they had told us that Chef Keating was particularly enamoured of radishes, of all kinds, and he likes to use them in his cooking. He confirmed that and rattled off a list of different radishes that he had in the kitchen's stock in the back. I mentioned watermelon radishes to him because I remembered having seem them listed on a regular menu on our last visit, and they had sounded intriguing. He explained them a bit to us, and then he actually ended up showing one to us, including cutting into it to show us exactly why it's called a watermelon radish. He sliced off a bit for each of us to try. I'm not skilled enough to describe the flavor, but we like radishes and turnips and such anyway, so we enjoyed it.

Chef Keating also ended up showing us the micro greens that they get for the restaurant, and I was a bit stunned when he said that the micro greens come all mixed together, so in order to fulfill the husband's "no cilantro" request, Chef Keating himself had picked out the micro cilantro from a handful of the micro greens so that he could use the rest as garnish on our dishes. I didn't know it all came mixed and was amazed not only that the cilantro had to be picked out, but that he'd done it himself. I jokingly said to the husband, "See what you made him do," but Chef Keating was quick to respond that no one "made" him do anything. It was what needed to be done, so he did it.

It was fairly late by this time, and the restaurant was almost empty, so we thanked Chef Keating again and finally left. I don't expect I will ever be able to order off the menu at Flying Fish (even though the regular menu looks terrific too) because I can't imagine going there and NOT doing the Chef's Tasting Menu. It was an absolutely amazing dining experience. It wasn't just the delicious food but also the opportunity to have that much time to speak to Chef Keating as well. I am lucky enough to have experienced some pretty wonderful meals, but I have to say that I think this one night tops them all.

At the beginning of the meal, you get a little fold-out menu.

Left side of the fold-out.

Right side of the fold-out.

The picture on the left looks like it's taken at the Land Pavilion at Epcot. During the course of the meal, a picture is taken of your group with the chef, and at the end of the meal, you get a souvenir menu with your picture in the spot where the lettuce picture was previously.

The Chef's Tasting Menu is currently being offered Sunday through Thursday. (Note that at the link provided, Chef Keating is in the middle of the picture.) There are two seatings per night: 5:45pm and 8:15pm. Up to six people can be accommodated at each seating.

And, as if this review isn't long enough as it is, I have to indulge and include the pictures of our meal from our prior visit on August 8, 2010. You can stop now if you want.

The decorations in our section of the counter seats. It was beautifully set up, and I kind of missed having that this time.

The pretty charger plate.

My view of the open kitchen right in front of us.

Down the counter a bit is more wood being fed into the stove.

Special tasting (before the amuse bouche) was tiny heirloom tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella and basil oil.

My drink was a blood orange margarita.

The amuse bouche was warm Belize peninsula shrimp cocktail with seaweed, tiny greens and wasabi caviar.

The first course was clam and orrechiette pasta with tiny heirloom tomatoes, piquillo peppers and prosciutto cracklins.

The second course was tuna with asian greens, snap peas, artichokes and varietal squash.

The palate cleanser was lemoncello gelato on semi frozen strawberry slice defrosted with lemoncello.

A different view of the palate cleanser.

The main course was lamb shank with corn pudding (with polenta) and mushrooms.

Dessert was apricot and tupelo honey delice fantasie with almond gelato and chocolate accents.

My cappuccino came with a biscotti.

The Chef's Tasting Menu on August 8, 2010.

Orlando trip - February 9, 2011 - arrival and Epcot

2011-04-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was mostly a travel day. We left SoCal in the morning and arrived in Orlando around 6pm. After picking up our luggage and our rental car, we headed to Walt Disney World. Our last visit had been August of 2010, so it was nice not to have to deal with the sweltering heat and humidity this time.

This picture is actually from our August 2010 visit, but my attempts at taking a similar picture this trip failed miserably.

We were staying at the Beach Club this time, so we arrived there, checked in and then got settled for a couple minutes before walking to Epcot for dinner. Can I just say how much I loved being able to do that?

Walking towards the France section of Epcot.

We had an 8pm dinner reservation at Les Chefs de France. We'd not eaten there before and were interested in trying it out. We ended up with a nice little window table with a lovely view outside, just about across from the Grand Marnier slushie cart. A friend had told me about that place, and I'd tried one of their slushies on our prior visit - YUM!

We actually had two servers, a female who was the trainee and a male who was the supervising server. The trainee mostly took care of us and took our order, and the supervisor just watched and corrected when needed. One of the little details about the Epcot restaurants that I love is that they have people working in the restaurants (at least the servers anyway) who are from the country that corresponds to the restaurant. Both the trainer and the supervisor had French accents but we had no problem understanding them, and besides, I'm kind of a sucker for European accents. They were both friendly and attentive without being intrusive.

I started with the French onion soup (which is really just called "onion soup" when you're ordering it in a French restaurant...), and it was very tasty, but it was a bigger portion than I expected.

For my entree, I had the trio of fruits de mer (scallops, tiger shrimp, mahi mahi), which was kind of like a cioppino, which I happen to love.

The seafood was plentiful and nicely textured, not overdone, and the broth was delicious. We had a lovely meal and would definitely go back.

We try to time our first night at WDW to be at whichever park is having evening Extra Magic Hours so we can spend a little time in a park. Unfortunately, EMH this night was at Animal Kingdom, which still meant it closed earlier than some of the other parks with regular hours. Since we were staying at an Epcot resort, and Epcot is our favorite WDW park, we had decided to just have dinner at Epcot. We picked Les Chefs de France partly because we did want to try it and partly because of its location - from there, we knew we might be able to see flashes of Illuminations and maybe hear some of the soundtrack as well. We're *huge* fans of that show. We were well into our meal by the time Illuminations started at 9pm but there wasn't really much of the show we could see and we were also enjoying our meal. However, I could hear muted strains of "We Go On" from our table, and it already started me tearing up. Ever since the first time I heard that song, it's always made me cry just because it's so beautiful.

After finishing our meal, we went outside and stood by the edge of the water listening to the rest of the Illuminations closing music - which at that point had gotten to the entire full soundtrack of Tapestry of Nations. We stood and listened to it all the way through. Even without having been able to see Illuminations that night, it was still a thrill to be able to stand looking at World Showcase at Epcot, listening to the Tapestry music.

After the music ended, we walked back to our room and retired for the evening in preparation for the next day's activities.

Noir Food & Wine - dinner review - March 4, 2011

2011-04-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

Last month, the husband and a friend and I had occasion to try out a new restaurant. Noir Food & Wine is located on a smaller street in Pasadena, very close to the IceHouse Comedy Club. There's a multi-story parking structure across the street, so parking there is very convenient. We walked across the street and went to check in at the restaurant for our reservation. The layout of the restaurant is a bit odd. There was really no check-in podium that we could really see, so we kind of stood by the door until someone came to talk to us. We were trying not to be intrusive to the diners seated near the door. The restaurant has several rooms, and our host told us that there were a couple of tables open that would fit our party, so it really just depended on which room we wanted to sit in. The open table in the main room we had entered was fairly close to the door, so I asked to see the other tables. He led us to the adjacent room and showed us another table, and then he went outside another door that brought us back onto the street and then went in another door that led into another room and showed us a table in the corner there, which we decided to take. It turns out that room was fairly new, having just recently been opened to seat customers. There was also a patio area in the back that was expected to be finished and open soon, and there would also then be a connecting door from the other rooms, so that you didn't have to go back outside to enter this last room. It was a bit weird but still charming.

We sat down and started to peruse the menu - or should I say, menus. The restaurant basically serves tapas - small plates meant to be shared so that you can order multiple dishes. There was a main menu and then an "additions" menu, which are pretty much the specials. The server mentioned that the menus, especially the "additions" menu, change very often since the chef likes to use whatever ingredients are fresh at the farmer's market at any given time. After reviewing the menu, we decided on a number of courses that we would all mostly share, minus courses that any of the one of us didn't necessarily like.

We decided to start with some tastings from the "fromage and charcuterie board" - that would be the meat and cheese platters. There are a selection of different meats and cheeses, and you can order a selection of several items on a plate. In previously looking at the menu online, I had noticed the prosciutto listed as one of the meats, but on the actual menu, it was listed as an item that you can order separately. We decided to order the prosciutto plate (sliced San Daniele prosciutto with grilled ciabatta bread) and a 3-item sampler plate as well. We ordered one cheese (I forget exactly what kind it was), and two meats, one of which was the salami in cocoa powder, which we thought sounded interesting. The plate came with various accompaniments like nuts and dried fruit. The meats and cheeses were all good, but I thought the sampler plate portions were smaller than I had expected. I think the salami in cocoa powder was good, but there were only 4 slices of that. I don't think I'd be inclined to order a meat and cheese plate again. (I'm describing all of this because it completely skipped my mind to take a picture of either plate.)

The menu listed a "Noir specialty butter", described as follows: "Chef Claud Beltran has selected this premium, organic butter from Vermont Butter Company. This european style butter is ultra-sweet and a perfect addition to our ciabatta bread." We had wanted to order it to try it, but they were unfortunately sold out of it, so we decided we'd have to order it on a future visit.

For the other dishes we ordered, we decided to have them come in courses, since it would work out better that way. The husband and our friend shared a bottle of red wine - I think it was from Spain, though I could be mistaken. Noir only serves beer and wine, neither of which I partake of much, so I just had water with my meal.

The first course were the salads. We decided on a frissee and cucumbers salad from the regular menu and a blood orange salad from the "additions" menu, partly because the husband and I LOVE blood oranges.

frissee lettuce and Persian cucumbers with dijon Maytag Bleu vinaigrette

The frissee lettuce was fresh and the cucumbers were nice and crunchy, and I really enjoyed the dressing on the salad.

blood orange salad with Windrose Farms spicy asian greens and sesame soy vinaigrette

The blood orange salad was very nice as well, and the blood orange slices gave it a really nice extra flavor.

Next up were the "starters".

seared scallops with heirloom cherry tomato salad and parsley puree

The scallops were *very* tasty. They were cooked perfectly, and the dish was beautifully presented with the nice complimentary colors. The cherry tomato salad was a nice accompaniment to the scallops.

crab fritters with black pepper aioli and Carolina mustard sauce

The crab fritters were a little boring to look at, but they were very tasty, especially with the choice of the two dipping sauces.

grilled octopus with parsley and yellow tomato salad and caper vinaigrette

I very much enjoyed the octopus. It wasn't too mushy or rubbery, as it can sometimes be.

And then came the "entrees".

half cornish game hen with rosemary risotto and sauteed summer squash

I was the one most interested in trying the cornish game hen, in spite of the rosemary risotto, neither of which I'm particularly fond of. I liked the crispiness of the hen, and it was pretty tasty, except that the part I tried had been sitting on the risotto, and some of the rosemary had seeped in. The husband and our friend enjoyed the risotto portion of the dish.

seared Hudson Valley foie gras with Korean pears, pomegranate seeds and pomegranate syrup

I am decidedly a fan of foie gras, but I'd never had it seared before. My phone doesn't do a good job with taking pictures in low light, so the picture doesn't begin to do justice to the dish. The flavor of the foie gras was delightful prepared that way. Foie gras is very rich, so it was nice to have the pears to offset that a bit and to add to the overall flavor. It's definitely a dish to be shared. Even with three of us sharing the dish, we each had plenty. You can't really eat too much foie gras at a time because the richness can be unpleasantly overwhelming.

grilled Australian double chops lamb with roasted sunchokes and Tom Lun sauce

I am normally a fan of lamb, but I'll admit that because there was other stuff to eat, I didn't get around to trying the lamb chop until it was a bit tepid. I did still enjoy the flavor though, and it was very tender. The husband had his taste when the dish was still warm and he said it was very good. We all did like the sunchokes, though we didn't know what it was. Our server told us that it was the heart of a sunflower. We decided that we hoped to have it again on another dish.

brussel sprouts sauteed in garlic, shallots and orange zest

The husband and I are particular fans of brussel sprouts, so when we saw that it was on the menu as a side, we had to order it. They were prepared very nicely, not overcooked and still with good flavor and texture.

We probably ended up ordering too much, just because there was so much we wanted to try. I know we didn't finish one of the salads, and there was quite a bit of the cornish game hen left on the plate.

But, we definitely had to leave room for dessert!

Noir bananas foster with vanilla gelato

This was off the regular dessert menu. It was pretty tasty, but the husband did have one complaint, which he did end up relaying to our server. He asked if it was cooked in the same oil as the crab fritters, and the server said it was actually cooked in an adjacent section, but it's possible some of the oil could have crossed over between the two. The husband said that he could actually taste some of the crab on the dessert (we noticed how much the dessert looked like the crab fritters as well), which wasn't a particularly pleasant combination. The friend and I didn't notice the crab flavor as much. The server said she would relay his comment so that the kitchen could be more careful about not having the flavors mix.

passion fruit panna cotta creme brulee

This dessert was on the "additions" menu, and I liked it very much.

All in all, it was a lovely dinner. The dishes came in groupings, as we'd asked the server to do, so we were able to enjoy each set of dishes before the next set came, and we had time in between for conversation and fun. Our server was very nice, and she was very knowledgeable, as we ended up having many questions for her, both about the food and otherwise. She was friendly and forthcoming throughout, and we never felt rushed, even though we were one of the last to leave that evening. It was a lovely meal, and it's a restaurant I definitely intend to visit again.

Noir Food & Wine
40 North Mentor Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91106
(626) 795-7199

Hello Kitty has some new looks

2011-04-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of friends who are into Hello Kitty, and I'm well familiar with her myself. So when I found out about a series of pictures of Hello Kitty in various familiar attire, it was just too funny not to post about.

There are a lot of really cute pics, but here are a few of my favorites.

With a new Smurfs movie being released this year, this Smurfy Kitty seems very apropos now.

And who says only boys can be Space Rangers?

Mickey Kitty!!!!

There are a few Star Trek pics, but I like the Spock one best.

And of course, if there's Star Trek, there's gotta be Star Wars too, right? These are my faves of the group.

There are also a number of pics in other franchises (like X-Men and Watchmen) as well as comic book characters, other well-known characters from various media and just random fun.

But. I think this one is my absolute favorite.

Make sure to go to the actual page where this pic is housed (just click on the pic) to read the description/disclaimer. It's funny.

Hello Kitty is taking over the world!

chocolate milk for adults

2011-04-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

I'd previously heard a couple of ads for Adult Chocolate Milk, and I'll admit I didn't quite know whether to think it was legit. It sounded kind of fun and interesting but didn't catch my attention to find out anything more about it.

Coincidentally, a friend found a bottle at BevMo and though she'd never heard of it before, she thought it sounded cool, so she bought me a bottle as a gift. Last night, a few of us shared some for a taste test.

I love the way that the bottle is packaged. It's also pretty easy to open, and the little plug also works really well to re-seal the bottle if need be, even enough to keep it from spilling anything in transport after it's already been opened.

But cute bottle and all, the test comes in the testing. And Adult Chocolate Milk passes that test with flying colors. We all agreed that it was pretty delicious. I wouldn't say that it entirely tastes like actual chocolate milk - it's not really chocolaty enough for that. But there is a nice smoothness to it, with nice flavor. I'd say it's probably a lighter version of chocolate milk. But yeah, it's oh so alcohol-y. You can definitely taste the "adult" part. It was actually a little stronger than I had expected, though I don't know why I expected it to be that way. I think the "chocolate milk" moniker tricks you into expecting something light and easy. Yeah, be careful that you're not just downing this particular chocolate milk and then going off for a drive.

When I had previously told the husband about having received this, I was wondering whether it should be chilled before we had it. I don't generally chill other liquers, and this doesn't require being chilled, but the husband suggested it might taste better chilled. So I did put it in the fridge for a couple hours before we tried it. The glass bottle helps with the chilling process too. I guess it would taste ok at room temperature, but again, the facsimile to actual chocolate milk makes it seem like it would be better chilled, since tepid milk is blech, at least to me.

So we were trying to figure out what foods might go well with this, because we can't live on chocolate, milk and alcohol alone. The first and immediate suggestion was a cookie, but I don't think anything sweet would really go well with it, since it's already sweet - not overwhelmingly so, but enough that I think you don't need to be adding more sweetness with it. Milk goes well with cookies because the plain milk cuts the sweetness in the cookie. Chocolate milk would be just too much of a pile-on. So we rejected any sugary foods - cookies, cakes, pies, cupcakes, etc.

And then, I came up with an idea - a peanut butter sandwich! I've always liked having milk with that since the milk helps cut the stickiness of the peanut butter. And the taste of peanut butter and chocolate together is like having a Reese's peanut butter cup. Adult chocolate milk and a peanut butter sandwich is definitely a combo I'll have to try in the future.

Adult Chocolate Milk is definitely being added to my list of things I can potentially bring to parties and to have around the house as well.

And yes, this is a totally real product, today's date notwithstanding.

Angels on wheels

2011-03-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

One of the basic tenets of the United States is the First Amendment - freedom of speech. That doesn't mean that you can say WHATEVER you want, WHEREVER you want, WHENEVER you want, but for the most part, it means that you can say things that are offensive and objectionable and hurtful and despicable. Awww, the First Amendment is the proverbial double-edged sword. It protects not just your right to free speech, but it also protects the free speech rights of those who are the polar opposite of you in any kind of thinking.

Polar opposite of good taste, decency, humanity - that's a good description for the so-called Westboro "church", who find it appropriate to protest against homosexuality at the funerals of military personnel killed in the line of duty, as well as other high-profile funerals. They're pretty much media whores. Which is fine in itself - there are lots of media whores in our society. But I can't imagine how hurtful their signs and chantings and disruptions are to the families of soldiers who are having a hard enough time saying goodbye to sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, comrades, good friends.

The courts recently upheld their right to do such protests. While my heart breaks at the thought of them being given the right to spew their hate and rub salt in the wounds of those already mourning the loss of a loved one, my head understands that it's the correct decision, that EVERYONE's right to free speech must be protected.

Today, a friend posted a link to a video of a group called the Patriot Guard Riders who have taken it upon themselves to do something about these protests. They are invited to military funerals and set themselves up as a curtain to protect the families from seeing and hearing the hate being spewed by the protesters. God bless these people for what they're doing.

You might need a tissue, or two, or a box. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I don't have the ability to embed the video, so here's the link to click to watch the video.

Tapestry of Nations - once was all it took

2011-03-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

In November of 1999, the husband and I made our first visit to Walt Disney World. We were already big fans of Disney and regular visitors of Disneyland, so it was kind of weird to be in Disney parks that were so completely new to us. We had a lot of friends who had been to WDW before, so we asked them for some opinions and recommendations.

We knew that we wanted to see Illuminations at Epcot, and one friend gave us a suggestion on where we could have a good view of the show without having to stake out a spot for hours beforehand, so we took his advice, and it all turned out really well. (Loved Illuminations, btw, still do.) Another friend had suggested that we see the parade that was running at the time at Epcot's World Showcase - Tapestry of Nations. It sounded interesting, but we weren't sure we'd really be able to fit it into our schedule on that trip. As we sat in the Mexico section of World Showcase, waiting for Illuminations, I got my first introduction to Tapestry. The parade was on the other side of the lagoon, which is huge, so I never got a very good look at the floats and puppets (giant puppets, for lack of a better description), but what really got me was the music, which was played over the speakers. I was mesmerized by the music and the narration. The husband and I decided then and there that we had to MAKE time in our schedule to see the parade on another day.

We sat in the U.K. section of World Showcase, just after the step-off point of the parade. And seeing the parade itself was even better than just being able to hear the music. I remember sitting on the curb and watching as the gorgeous and beautifully-colored puppets walked by me. The puppeteers were amazing, and the crowd was just loving the interaction with them. Some might know my affinity for drums and drummers, so you can imagine my reaction when the giant drums rolled past me. The husband said I was just staring at them in awe.

I'm a big fan of Illuminations, and Fantasmic at Disneyland, and numerous fireworks and shows and other parades at Disneyland. But I think Tapestry of Nations is definitely in the running for my favorite Disney entertainment ever, which seems odd considering I only saw it that one time. But it just really touched me. If I'd been living anywhere local to Epcot at that point, I would have been at Epcot on many nights to watch Tapestry and then Illuminations.

We didn't return to WDW until January of 2007. I knew that Tapestry was long gone and was sad that I wouldn't be able to see it. We went to the same spot to watch Illuminations, and after the show was over, the husband and I stood around talking to friends that we were there with. And then I heard it. At first, I didn't know where it was coming from or if it really was. And then I was sure - they were playing the soundtrack of Tapestry over the speakers. I knew the music well because after we'd seen it on our first trip, we bought the WDW CD that had Tapestry and Illuminations on it. We weren't near a speaker at that point, so I ran over to where there was one and I stood there and listened to the whole thing. Yeah, I'll admit, I completely abandoned the husband and our friends. He did tell them the story of our Tapestry experience, and they completely understood me being engulfed by the music.

Currently, the music to Tapestry (minus the narration) is played as the third song of the exit music set after the conclusion of Illuminations. When we were at WDW last month, there were 3 evenings when we were at Epcot, twice to see Illuminations, and once at dinner, ending just after Illuminations finished. All three times, we stood there and listened to the exit music, including the entirety of the Tapestry music. No, it's not like that's the only place I can hear it - I can (and do) pull out the CD to listen to. But it's a completely different experience hearing that music as you're standing in World Showcase looking out at the lagoon and the various pavilions of different countries.

A few months ago, the husband found an amazing video compilation of Tapestry. It doesn't really do the parade justice, but short of seeing it in person and letting the entire experience and music wash over you, nothing really can. I love being able to watch the video and re-live that particular moment of sitting on the curb, soaking in those amazing performances. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Huntington Gardens - tea and grounds

2011-01-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Last year, a friend took me to the Rose Garden Tea Room at the Huntington Library as a birthday gift. We ended up going in late February, on what turned turned out to be a bit of a rainy day, but we had a good time anyway. We wanted to go back on another day when it wasn't raining but we never got a chance to do that. They also offer a Tea and Tour combination package which sounds interesting, so I may do that sometime.

The following is a photo tour of our visit.

The scones that were brought to our table after we were seated.

The beautiful decor of the room we were in. There are two dining rooms.

More of the decor and the tea setup. The sandwiches and such are set up as a self-service buffet.

The condiments for our scones.

The lovely view from our table.

A sampling of what's offered at tea.

This is just a random picture that I took by accident, but I like it, so I'm posting it.

Dessert!

The room has filled up since we arrived.

There was a choice of several teas offered, and our server was very good about keeping our teapot full, which we very much appreciated. It was a lovely tea all around.

After tea, we decided to walk around the gardens, even though it was raining, harder sometimes than others. There was very much to see, so we chose a few places that we were specifically interested in.

Japanese Garden - I've always loved Japanese gardens, so this was our first destination. I was not disappointed.

Chinese Garden - My friend mentioned that the Chinese Garden section was relatively new, so we headed over to take a look there. We walked around for a bit, enjoying the beautiful sights, and then we spent a little time in the covered area, just looking out at the rain and chatting. A very nice way to spend an afternoon. The last picture is the view we had while chatting out of the rain.

There is much more to the Huntington Gardens than just the two areas. I'm hoping to go back at some point to see more of the grounds.

82nd Academy Awards winners and show

2011-01-04T13:09:00.000-08:00

Let's do the time warp ... again......

OK, not really. This isn't about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". But I was doing some cleaning up and realized that there are a number of blog posts that I drafted and was very close to finishing but never did so never posted them. And they're kinda old but still worth posting, I think. Like this one, which is about the Oscars from last year. (Hey, I didn't have enough in my draft regarding the Super Bowl game/ads from last year, so I just deleted that. You're welcome.)

*****************************************************************

First, the awards.

Best Picture
The Hurt Locker

Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique, Precious

Best Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker, written by Mark Boal

Best Adapted Screenplay
Precious, screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher

Best Animated Feature Film
Up

Best Score
Michael Giacchino, Up

Best Original Song
"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)", Crazy Heart, Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone

Best Film Editing
The Hurt Locker

Best Art Direction
Avatar

Best Cinematography
Avatar

Best Costume Design
The Young Victoria

Best Makeup
Star Trek

Best Visual Effects
Avatar

Best Sound Editing
The Hurt Locker

Best Sound Mixing
The Hurt Locker

"The Hurt Locker" ended up with a total of 6 awards, and "Avatar" received 4 awards. "Crazy Heart", "Precious" and "Up" all received 2 awards.

I am decidedly not happy about the increase of nominees from 5 to 10 in the Best Picture category. Sure, it means additional films get nominated, but for me, it dilutes the category. 1943 was the last time there were 10 nominees in the Best Picture category. I want to know which films were in the top 5, the ones who would have still received the nomination had they not expanded the nominee list.

Random comments about the show:

Kathy Ireland - She had really weird hair.

Maggie Gyllenhall - Very pretty blue dress.

Sandra Bullock - Her dress was pretty but her hair and makeup were kinda weird.

Helen Mirren - She had a beautiful dress and looked great.

Sarah Jessica Parker - Weird dress

Cameron Diaz - Pretty dress

Miley Cyrus - The bodice of her dressed looked like an undergarment, and she was standing hunched over.

Kate Winslet - Beautiful, classic look.

John Hughes tribute - Liked it and that it included Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick and the kids.

Zoe Saldana - She had a weird train on her dress.

Queen Latifah - She had a pretty dress - sparkles!

Charlize Theron - What was with the bodice of her dress?

Michelle Pfeiffer - Beautiful dress

tributes to Best Actor and Best Actress nominees by co-stars - Better than last year.

2010 movie year

2011-01-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the annual tally of movies I saw the previous year.

new films - 43

"It's Complicated"
"Avatar" (3D)
"Invictus"
"The Book of Eli"
"Extraordinary Measures"
"An Education"
"The Young Victoria"
"Crazy Heart"
"A Single Man"
"Alice in Wonderland" (Tim Burton/Johnny Depp) (3D)
"Hot Tub Time Machine"
"Waking Sleeping Beauty"
"Chloe"
"How to Train Your Dragon" (2D)
"Clash of the Titans" (3D)
"The Secret of Kells"
"Iron Man 2"
"Babies"
"Letters to Juliet"
"Prince of Persia"
"The A-Team"
"The Karate Kid" (2010 version)
"Toy Story 3"
"Despicable Me"
"Predators"
"The Kids Are All Right"
"Salt"
"Inception"
"The Expendables"
"Never Let Me Go"
"Easy A"
"Secretariat"
"RED"
"Due Date"
"Unstoppable"
"Skyline"
"Burlesque"
"Tangled"
"Morning Glory"
"TRON: Legacy"
"Black Swan"
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (3D)
"True Grit" (2010 version)

reissued films - 6 - I'd not seen "American Graffiti" before, so this was my first time seeing the film.

"Fantasia 2000"
"American Graffiti"
"Toy Story"
"Toy Story 2"
"Beauty and the Beast"
"Back to the Future"

43 new movies last year is significantly up from the 34 I saw in 2009.

Random notes:

I loved, loved, LOVED "Alice in Wonderland", pretty much everything about it.

I loved "How to Train Your Dragon", even though it was a Dreamworks release and I normally don't like their animation style, but this one was different. It's a very strong contender for Best Animated Feature this year.

Yes, you've heard it in many other places, but seriously, "Inception" was mind-blowing good.

"The Expendables" was just a boatload of fun.

It was a good year for arthouse movies - "Chloe", "The Kids Are Allright", "Never Let Me Go" and "Black Swan". Lots of lesbianism sex and nudity as well, I'm also realizing.

There were two duds in the bunch - "Due Date" (even though RDJ was in it) and "Skyline".

"Burlesque" has apparently gotten lots of bad reviews, but I loved it - the singing, the dancing, even the acting. And hey, Stanley Tucci was in it, and that's always a good thing.

Here's my movie wrapup post from 2008 and here's the wrapup of 2009 movies.

Who knew a water bottle could hold so much power?

2010-12-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

The story started almost a month ago. I follow the Star Wars Twitter feed, and a story came through about Katie. She's a little six-year-old who had taken her Star Wars water bottle to school, and the boys were teasing her about it because they said Star Wars was for boys. There were already a few things that made her different from all the other kids, and she was willing to hide her love of Star Wars so there wouldn't be one more thing that was different about her.

Suddenly, Katie burst into tears.

She wailed, "The first grade boys are teasing me at lunch because I have a Star Wars water bottle. They say it's only for boys. Every day they make fun of me for drinking out of it. I want them to stop, so I'll just bring a pink water bottle."

I hugged her hard and felt my heart sink. Such a tender young age, and already she is embarrassed about the water bottle that brought her so much excitement and joy a few months ago.

I cried when I first read the story, and I start to tear up every time I re-read it.

Katie's mother writes a blog for a Chicago outlet and wrote about what happened to Katie, hoping to get some responses and support for her daughter. I suspect she had no idea what was about to happen.

Her blog story was picked up by another website. And from there, it went viral. It quickly spread throughout Twitter and Facebook and other outlets as people found out about Katie's story. Girls and women everyone who shared Katie's love and who had been through what Katie went through shared their stories as well. And some people associated with Star Wars also found out about Katie, and she received support and offers from many of them. One interesting part is that there's another female named Katie who loves Star Wars. She's written a couple of episodes for "The Clone Wars", the Star Wars animated series. And she's also adopted. Her dad happens to be George Lucas.

Katie's story was posted on the official Star Wars blog. And other websites picked up on the story as well.

And while there was an outpouring of support for Katie from the Star Wars community in particular and the geek community at large, it wasn't just about Katie or Star Wars. It was about an experience shared by many, singled out for being different, for going against the norm, being picked on just for being who you are. There's been a lot of discussion about bullying in schools and elsewhere lately, and I think this was just a situation that resonated in that same vein. We've all been there, just like Katie, and not just when we were kids. Even as adults, there may be interests we have that others don't share and therefore decide to make fun of.

Katie's mom wrote an update about the situation. I particularly love the story about Katie talking to the little boy who likes My Little Pony. Yeah, tears again.

CNN even picked up on the story. This article is about the misperceived balance of males and females in geekdom.

"It's always been very gender-balanced. It has this misconception that it's about the guys living in their basements. Our audience has been about 50-50," said Dave Howe, president of the newly rebranded Syfy network (formerly SciFi). "I think it's one of those urban myths that's existed for a very long time: They are the stereotypical sci-fi fan, and people ignore women and families ... dating back to when we were all at school."

And this CNN article has a good summary of Katie's story, with some extra tidbits as well.

Today, December 10, Katie's school is having Proud To Be Me Day. A movement arose to support Katie and others like her by wearing Star Wars paraphernalia today. So today, I will be wearing a t-shirt that someone gave me for my birthday multiple years ago. Yes, I was well into adulthood, and the person who gave me the t-shirt was actually my boss at the time, who has since become a friend, because he knew how much I like Star Wars.

Be proud to be you. #MayTheForceBeWithKatie

Mr. Stox Restaurant - restaurant review

2010-11-21T22:24:00.000-08:00

Our first dining experience at Mr. Stox Restaurant was around this time last year. We'd been meaning to go back but just hadn't gotten around to it, but for a special occasion, we made a return trip to the restaurant on Saturday night.

We checked in for our reservation and were promptly taken to our table. Our server came by to introduce herself, give us menus and to take our drink order.

There were a few things on the appetizer menu that sounded really good, but I remembered how good the "lobster latte" (aka lobster bisque) was from last time, so I had to have it again. The husband started with the same thing. For an entree, I chose the venison while the husband chose the veal tenderloin special.

We also each ordered a martini. They bring the glass and the full shaker to the table and serve the martini at the table. That was cool.

The bread basket was brought out, and one of the bread choices was red, which I had some of, but I never got around to asking what kind of bread it was.

The lobster latte was brought out, and the first thing I did was smell it. Mmmmm, it had the same wonderful aroma that I remembered from last time. And it tasted just as good. It's hard to really describe the bisque without making it sound weird, so I'm just going to go ahead and sound weird. The bisque is so good because you can almost taste the lobster shell and sea in it. I like lobster but I'm not a crazy fan - I actually prefer crab generally rather than lobster. I've had lobster bisque before, and I like it, but it's usually fairly light on the lobster flavor - it usually tastes much more refined. I actually like the taste of seafood, and I prefer crab and clams to be steamed rather than cooked in any kind of overpowering sauce because then I can't taste the seafood. I decline butter when it comes to snow crab or lobster because again, it masks the flavor. But with this lobster bisque, you really get the flavor of the lobster itself. It's very robust, not just a faint lobster flavoring. And there are plenty of lobster bits in the bisque itself to add even more flavor.

Lobster latte - "warm and silky lobster bisque topped with glazed cream".

Next up were our entrees. The husband had the special, which was veal tenderloin on black truffle risotto with chanterelle mushrooms. He loved it. I had decided on the venison (cooked medium rare) with broccoli rabe and purple mashed potatoes. The venison was delicious - it was hard for me to pass up having it because not many places serve venison. The broccoli was nicely cooked, still flavorful and slightly crunchy. I really appreciate perfectly cooked vegetables because so often, vegetables tend to be so overcooked so that there's no flavor or texture left in them. Maybe more people would like vegetables if they had them properly cooked. The purple mashed potatoes were fun to look at and they were tasty too, a bit firmer than normal mashed potatoes, which I liked.

Venison with purple mashed potatoes and broccoli rabe.

For dessert, the restaurant offers a complimentary Baked Alaska for those celebrating an anniversary (the dessert is not otherwise available on the regular dessert menu), and since the husband had indicated what we were celebrating when he made the reservation, the restaurant was already aware when we arrived.

Baked Alaska.

I'd never had Baked Alaska before. I liked the meringue on the outside and the chocolate ice cream inside. I couldn't really tell what the base of the dessert consisted of, but it was firm. The dessert was sweeter than I had anticipated, especially with the fruity sauce surrounding the dessert. I think the dessert would have been really good paired with coffee or tea, to cut the sweetness. Unfortunately, I had ordered a chocolate martini to go with dessert, so it ended up being sweeter than I normally prefer with the two combined. (The chocolate martini was different than I'd had in other places. There were swirls of white chocolate at the bottom and sides of the glass, and then milk chocolate around the rim, as well as a rolled-up bit of milk chocolate inside the glass. The contents, which were clear, were then poured in - I'm used to the contents being kind of muddied with chocolate. It was much more alcoholic than I'd had before, but it was still a nice martini.)

They had earlier brought a mylar balloon to put on our table (I noticed several "happy birthday" balloons on other tables, so I expect those were provided by the restaurant as well.), and at the end of the meal, they also took our picture and then came back with a paper picture frame with the picture in it. That was a nice touch.

The outside of the picture frame.

The inside front of the picture frame.

At the front desk and on the table, there's a copy of the restaurant's quarterly newsletter, so the husband and I had been reading parts of it during the course of dinner. They have a lot of special dinners and events/outings through the restaurant. They also have a special Thanksgiving meal, and one of the choices for dessert was mincemeat pie. I've heard of mincemeat, both in the context of the pie and in the expression "I'll make mincemeat out of you", but I've never known what mincemeat was. I never assumed that it was something that necessarily involved meat - I mean, I know what sweetbreads are, and I even really like sweetbreads, but if anyone is expecting actual bread when they order it, they're in for a bad surprise.

After we'd finished our dessert, our server came back to check on us to see if we needed anything else. So, I asked her what mincemeat was, since it was in the pie. She didn't seem particularly enamoured of it. I asked her if it really did contain meat, and she said that the version served by the restaurant did, though some do serve mincemeat that has no actual meat in it. She said that they used filet of beef in their mincemeat. I said that I had heard that mincemeat was highly spiced - not necessarily spicy as far as hot like Tabasco sauce, but rather, just containing a lot of pungent spices. She agreed. She then stopped another passing server to better explain mincemeat to us. The second server also expressed an extreme dislike for mincemeat, though neither of them had actually had any, but they weren't interested based on the description. The second server asked if we liked fruitcake, and we said no, so she said we wouldn't like mincemeat either, as it was bits of meat combined with things like candied fruit. A manager who was walking by also ended up taking part in the conversation. She also had never actually had mincemeat but also didn't think it sounded particularly appetizing.

The assistant server/runner that had also been helping us during our meal walked by at one point, and since we'd chatted with him a bit earlier, I also asked him if he had ever tried mincemeat. He said no, and that it also didn't sound appealing to him. We were then amused when he returned a few minutes later, with a small gravy boat on a plate, with some mincemeat inside for us to try. He had gone to the kitchen to ask about the mincemeat, and since they had some already, he brought some out to us.

I couldn't so much *taste* the meat per se, but you could definitely tell from the texture that it was little cubes of beef. And yes, it was very sweet from the fruit, and while I couldn't necessarily identify the spices, there was a very robust flavor overall. The manager and our server and the other server all came by, and I tried to convince them to try it as well, but none of them would. I didn't think it was horrible, and it probably wasn't quite as weird because it was just in the gravy boat. It would have been a lot weirder having a whole slice of pie with that as the contents.

I'm glad I was able to try it, though, as I can now say that I know what mincemeat is. And we ended up having a good time talking to the various staff members about it.

We had a lovely dinner with wonderful food and friendly and helpful staff. They were diligent about checking with us to see if we needed refills or anything else, but they were never obtrusive. I also like that there's a live pianist providing music - you don't often see that in restaurants anymore. The restaurant is very elegant, and the service is impeccable, and most people are dressed appropriately so, but from our last visit, we had been told that they do have many people who come to the restaurant in casual attire, which they expect given the restaurant's proximity to the Disneyland Resort and Angels Stadium. We were told that during baseball season, it's not uncommon to see many people at the restaurant dressed in Angels gear having dinner before or after the game.

The lobby area was nicely decorated for the fall season with many pumpkins, including several fairly large ones. We were told last year that they go all out with decorations for Christmas, and they have carolers as well. The manager we spoke to mentioned that the Christmas decorations go up right after Thanksgiving and confirmed that they still have carolers, so we're hoping to make a return visit during the holidays this year.

The restaurant offers valet parking for a fee.

Mr. Stox Restaurant
1105 East Katella Ave.
Anaheim, CA 92805
(714) 634-2994

Halloween costumes

2010-10-24T19:27:00.000-07:00

It's one week until Halloween, and some people might still be trying to figure out what costume they want to wear next weekend, whether it's little kids going trick-or-treating or adults going to parties.

Some costumes are very popular, so you just end up being one in a crowd of them, which must be very unsatisfying. So how do you find a costume that's funny and entertaining and eye-catching, but at the same time, not be seeing duplicates of your same costume everywhere?

Let me suggest this one.

It's probably not a costume that PETA would approve of, but otherwise, it seems to draw a lot of positive attention and comments. ;)

I'm a dumb wife

2010-10-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

I don't know when it happened. I don't think it happened all at once. I think it was more gradual. And I've known about it for a while now. But, I think it's time to admit it publicly.

I have become a dumb wife.

There are the simplest things that I don't know how to do because I haven't had to, because the husband takes care of it.

Now, I haven't always been this way. For many, many years, I did things myself. Sure, I'd need the occasional help, but otherwise, I'm perfectly capable of planning and booking trips. I did it many times. But that particular muscle has APPARENTLY atrophied.

Today, I looked at planning a very short solo trip. OK, I figured out when my departing and returning flights could be. That wasn't so hard. But then, I came to the hard part - transportation. And I realized that I've never had a rental car before, at least not while on vacation. Sure, I've had to get rental cars on occasion when my car has been in the shop or otherwise unavailable. Not a problem, never been an issue. But when I've been on vacation, I realized that I've never gotten a rental car before. I've been to places where having a car was actually more of a burden since parking was an issue and there was public transportation aplenty so getting around was pretty easy. I've been to places where I could have used a rental car, but it wasn't completely necessary or vital, so I chose not to splurge on the rental and found other means to get around instead. I've been to places where the husband or someone else was driving a car. And I've been to places where I had my own car since I drove there instead of flying. There was one occasion when I would have had to get a rental car, when I had planned to go to Pennsylvania - Hershey, to be exact - but those plans had to be changed because of circumstances, and I ended up going to New York instead.

I know it's not hard to have a rental car. I've seen the husband do it. Like I said, I've had a rental at home. So I'm not sure why I feel some anxiety at the thought of having a rental car on my own out of town. It can't be that hard. I speak English. I'm a reasonably intelligent person. I have a phone that gives me access to pretty much everything, so even if something happened, like the car broke down, it's not like I'd be stranded somewhere with no means to obtain help.

Maybe it's the actual driving around that worries me. Having a rental car at home is one thing because I'm still driving to places that are familiar to me. When I've driven somewhere else in my own car, at least there's the familiarity of being in my own car, and I'm usually prepared with maps and such. The thought of being in an unfamiliar location in an unfamiliar car and being responsible for getting myself wherever I need to go seems to make me nervous. Usually, it's the husband who's driving in that circumstance, and while I might lend some assistance in looking at the GPS or whatever, it's not just me trying to figure out how to get where I need to go. But even then, again, it can't be that hard. I'm a reasonably intelligent person. This should not be that daunting a task.

There's a tiny part of me that feels a little bit of anxiety about the flights themselves. I have flown solo several times in the last few years, but usually, the husband and I are going somewhere together. But again, I know how the whole flying thing works. Just because I'm not flying with someone shouldn't make a difference.

Except that I have to now fight NOT to be a dumb wife.

I'm not entirely sure yet whether I'll actually be making the trip. It really depends on circumstances and whether timing and scheduling work out. But, even though I feel some trepidation, I'm pushing through them. "Dumb wife" syndrome should not stop me from visiting friends.

Happy Halloween from Disneyland!

2010-10-03T04:40:00.000-07:00

OK, I know, Halloween itself won't be here until the end of the month, but the Halloween event at the Disneyland Resort known as Mickey's Halloween Party started on Friday, and this year, the event has moved from Disney's California Adventure to Disneyland. The husband and I went to the event. Want a peek at our adventure?

The event wristband. I've somehow developed a fixation on wristbands.
I blame Celebration V.

Ghost Mickey with the Lilly Belle parked behind it.

The Evil Queen at the villains photo op seems none too happy to be taking a picture with the costumed guests.

OK, technically, this wasn't part of the event. There's a pumpkin carving area where they make the most amazing characters, and it's open throughout Halloweentime. Isn't this Yoda awesome?

OK, if you want to read the full write-up, which includes information about entry procedures, decor for the party, trick-or-treat stations, photo ops, list of open and closed attractions and dining locations, the treats available at the treat stations, event merchandise, the new event-exclusive cavalcade, suggestions for making the most of your evening, and the inevitable question of "Is it worth it?", as well as extensive photos, including the event park map, click on this link.

we still remember

2010-09-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

For everyone whose lives were irrevocably changed nine years ago today. We remember.

Eat Drink Fun - the Los Angeles Times Celebration of Food and Wine

2010-09-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Times held their first Celebration of Food and Wine this past Sunday, September 5. I'd seen the ads on Facebook, and it sounded fun, but I was hesitant to attend. I'd heard about other events involving food trucks, and most of what I'd heard made me shy away from them. The operative word seemed to be "overcrowded". People either couldn't get in at all or, once they were in, spent two or three hours in line just to purchase food, and it was hot with very little room to move. That wasn't my idea of a good time.

The husband mentioned this event to me a couple weeks ago, and then another friend mentioned wanting to go, so I figured, OK, I'll give it a try. If nothing else, I'd be in good company.

The event was held at Paramount Pictures studios in Hollywood, with the celebration running from noon to 8pm. We arrived at about 1pm and parked at Paramount's Gower parking structure. The parking fee was $7, and the website had instructed that cars would not be allowed to turn left to enter the parking structures, so we'd made sure to be traveling southbound to enter the structure. It made sense not to allow left turns so as not to add to the traffic congestion of everyone trying to get to the event, but they must have changed their minds, because as we were entering the structure, northbound traffic was being allowed to turn left into the structure as well. We parked on the third floor and then walked down. We thought we would have to walk to Paramount's main gate, so we were pleased to discover that a side gate into Paramount was open. We walked through part of the lot and then got to the designated entrance to the event. We had printed out and brought our admission tickets, which they scanned. The ticket had said that once it was scanned, we would be receiving wristbands, so I was a little confused when the volunteers just sent us on our way and told us to have a good time. I asked them about the wristbands and discovered that you only got wristbands at the front if you had paid for the VIP entrance. There were tents shortly inside the entrance (and elsewhere on the lot) where you got a wristband after showing your ID to prove that you were over 21 and could therefore partake in alcohol. There seemed to be other people confused about this as well, so it would have helped for the ticket to have proper instructions printed on it, and signs or verbal instructions specifically directing you to the tents would have been nice too.

We went to the ID tent and got our wristbands.

We all got a wristband and an "X" (red or black) on our hand - we never did figure out what the "X" was for.

We browsed the little booklet a bit but decided to just dive into the event. And in the first groupings of trucks that I saw was the Dim Sum Truck! I've eaten there once and *loved* it, and I was eager to introduce the husband and friend to them, so we headed there first.

We knew that we had a long day of eating and drinking ahead, so we had to remember to pace ourselves. I could have had a full lunch at the Dim Sum Truck, but instead, the husband and I shared an order of the crab and scallop dumplings (2 per order), and we each had a duck taco. They were both as good as I remembered from last time. The husband really enjoyed the duck taco, but unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that the crab and scallop dumpling had cilantro in it (lots of it), and he HATES cilantro. He tried to eat some of it but couldn't pick out the cilantro, so he quickly gave up, which I benefited from since I finished his dumpling. Our friend had the dumplings as well (she doesn't have an aversion to cilantro) and enjoyed them.

First stop - the Dim Sum Truck.

The line for the Dim Sum Truck at 1:20pm.

We sat on a nearby curb to enjoy our snack, and we had a chance to glance around a bit. The B-tank of the studio (with the "blue sky" behind it, which this day was painted to be a bit cloudy and overcast) was the location for the main stage as well as a number of other food trucks. There were a couple that we would return to visit later in the day.

The main stage, with the blue sky backdrop.

Now that we'd had a little to eat, it was time to go check out more of the event. The husband had looked at the brochure and seen that the tastings were all in the New York Street area, so we headed back there.

Backtracking a little - when we had gotten our wristbands, we were handed a plastic glass and 8 tickets. We were told that the tickets could be exchanged for wine tastings, and if people wanted more, they could purchase more, though I don't know what the price was. I knew there was going to be wine sampling at the event, but I figured there would be maybe a dozen or so, somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm not a big wine drinker (there are a couple of dessert wines that I like), so I figured I'd probably end up giving my tickets to the husband and our friend, since they're very into wine, and I figured they'd want the extra tastings. Well, we were very surprised to get to the New York Street area and discover that there were booths bordering the entire area. Some were for wineries, some were for food vendors/restaurants, some were for other alcohols and some were for various other interests. I hadn't really expected it to be quite as elaborate and involved as it turned out to be. We were wondering how we were going to ration our 8 tickets, but as we started making our way through the various tents, we discovered that many of the vendors weren't even taking tickets. They were either pouring samplings into your glass (and they all had jugs of water so you could rinse out your glass from whatever was in it previously, and there were trashcans aplenty as well, to dump out any liquids you didn't want), or they had little glasses themselves that they poured for you. Of the various wineries that the husband and friend tried, I think only one asked for a ticket. I spent a few of my tickets on some of the hard liquor vendors, but some didn't ask for anything at all. By the end of the day, even though we'd had plenty to sample, we each still had about 4 tickets each.

We made our way around to the various booths. At some wineries, the husband and/or our friend would want to try the wine. Sometimes, they'd see that the offerings weren't to their liking or it was too crowded and they couldn't even see what was being offered at all, so they'd pass that booth altogether. We didn't mind waiting for something we wanted, but we didn't want to wait in a line, not even knowing if we were going to want to try what they had.

We stopped in at Voskos Greek Yogurt, and they had samples of some of their flavors. I opted for the strawberry, which was very tasty. I liked that the yogurt was a thicker consistency than normal as well. I was interested in the honey vanilla as well but didn't want to ask for a second tasting. I figured I'd just go buy some at some point. Their website lists a number of stores near me, both at home and at work, that carry their yogurt, so I'm looking forward to trying more of them.

We also stopped at a booth marked Melissa's, which we didn't really know what it was. Turns out the company has a line of produce, and they were letting people sample yellow potatoes cooked in some kind of sauce which I don't recall but was very tasty, and they had a side of tiny grapes as well.

There was a very small stage that we'd passed to get to New York Street which only had room for about 3 chairs on the stage. There was another stage set up in the square of the Times Square section of New York street. That stage was bigger and was more like a demo stage. There wasn't much shade to be had, though, so it would have been pretty hot to sit and watch a demo. Some people did have umbrellas with them.

We then made our way to Blackmarket Bakery / Marche Noir Foods. The husband and friend were quite enamoured of the wine flour pasta (I think it was a cabernet pasta), but I was more entranced with the cabernet brownie. The husband had a taste of the sample, but I finished the rest. To be honest, I couldn't taste the cabernet all that much, but the husband and friend said they could. I just knew it was pretty yummy, and I'm not even a fan of cabernet.

We then wandered around some more and saw a sign for Starr African Rum and decided to try that. It was a little crowded, so we waited a bit, and as I began to hear bits and pieces as I got closer, I was a little confused about what I was hearing. The guy was talking about ice and how it worked, and I was thinking that maybe their brand of rum made ice different or something. It turns out that the Starr African Rum people were paired up with another company that made some kind of special ice that didn't melt as fast and so wouldn't dilute your drink as much. When we got to the front, the demo guy showed us two containers that he'd poured of the rum over ice. He gave all of us a taste of the rum from one container, that contained regular ice. He actually gave quite a bit more than a "taste", in my opinion. I sipped the rum, and WOW, it was strong. And then I noticed that he was talking about the other container and he was explaining how the second container had the ice that they make, and he wanted us to try how the rum tasted with that. And he started pouring for people. And I quickly realized that it wouldn't make any sense to combine the two tastes because that would defeat the purpose of the taste test. And I looked around, and everyone else had finished their rum. I still had quite a bit in mine. So, not wanting to waste the rum or be disrespectful by throwing it out, I did the only reasonable thing - I downed what was in my glass, probably about a shot full. Oh boy. So when he got to me, my glass was empty, and he poured me some more rum. And yeah, I could tell that the second taste was a lot colder, but I'm not a liquor expert - I mostly just have them in mixed drinks. The husband said he could definitely tell a marked difference in the two tastes, with the second being much better. I ended up finishing off what was in my glass again, so my first intro to the "wine" portion of the celebration was basically downing two shots of rum. Cheers!

It was a bit warm out, and the sun was shining down, though it wasn't scorching, and we were all wanting some water. It turned out that water was hard to find. We figured the food trucks would have water to sell, but all the lines were pretty long. We'd seen one location that had alcohol for sale by the glass and water as well, but that was back in the front of the event. We ended up giving up on the water quest for the moment.

There was much more alcohol to be had. We ended up at one section of the tents where there were several liquor vendors side by side. The first was Lunazul 100% Agave Tequila, who had little shot glasses that they were pouring their tequila into. We all had some of that. Then there was the Evan Williams Honey Reserve Bourbon, which I didn't partake in, but the husband and our friend greatly enjoyed that. They too had little shot glasses that they served the drink in. Third in the row was Blackheart Premium Spiced Rum. When I got to the front, the guy asked if a wanted just the rum straight up or a rum and Coke. I thought a rum and Coke sounded good. So he took my glass, poured in a good bit of the rum and then added about half a can of Coke to it. When he handed me back my glass, it was about 2/3rd full. It was pretty tasty, but it was definitely more than I expected to get.

Towards the latter part of this adventure, the husband went off in search of water. He ended up making his way to the back, to the Sweets Truck, who had large bottles of SmartWater, so he got some from there. I've never had the chance to try the Sweets Truck, but thanks for the hydration help.

At this point, we decided that it was time for some actual food. The snack we'd had earlier was good, but with the alcohol we'd just consumed, food was definitely in order. We had seen a truck in the B-tank earlier that the husband wanted to eat at, so we made our way in that direction. Along, the way, I noticed some people had bags from various vendors, and I was thinking that a bag would come in handy, with the various glasses and such that we'd collected. I hadn't thought about bringing a bag with me since I didn't think I'd need it. I saw some people with one of those nice recyclable bags from Don Francisco's Coffee, so we stopped in to try some of their coffee (the Hawaiian Hazelnut was delicious, even though it was hot coffee on a warm day) and to get a bag as well. The bag came in very handy for carrying around our things for the rest of the afternoon.

Along the way, we stopped and looked at the menu for Campanile Restaurant, and the husband and I also stopped for a sample at Tantalum Restaurant, which was calamari. Our friend passed on it since she's not a fan of calamari. The husband really liked it, and I liked the texture of the calamari, but the sauce was a bit more than I normally prefer. Still, it was tasty.

Sample of calamari from Tantalum Restaurant.

As we got near the Nom Nom Truck, the line was still really long, so the friend and I gave up any thought of eating there.

The line for Nom Nom Truck at 3:20pm.

The husband had decided he wanted to try the Ragin Cajun Truck, so we all ate there instead. I was telling the husband that I wanted to try the gumbolaya (gumbo and jambalaya mixed together), and he said that the containers looked pretty big, so we should share one. When I looked at the containers he was pointing at, I was surprised to see they were the large styrofoam containers that you'd get for a large soup, so I agreed we should share one. After we got our food, we decided to take a seat on the ground in the B-tank in the shade to enjoy our lunch.

The serving size of the gumbolaya was indeed quite large, and it was very tasty. There was a lot of rice, and also good servings of sausage, with a spicy kick to it all. It was a terrific lunch and easily shared by the two of us. And it only cost $6. That was the most surprising of all. They have a restaurant in Hermosa Beach, and we're definitely planning on trying them at some point.

Gumbolaya from Ragin Cajun - a lot of good food for not a lot of money.

There was some kind of cooking demo going on the main stage at that point, and I'll admit we were only vaguely paying attention. We were just enjoying our food and the gorgeous day out and the wonderful atmosphere and just having a good time.

In Paramount's B-tank, eatin' and chillin'.

After a bit of a respite, it was time to head back to New York Street to check out a few more things. I'd wanted to try the sparkling sake from Gekkeikan, but they were out by the time we got there, so I had their plum wine instead. Mmmm, that was really tasty. I'll have to pick up some of that. While the husband and I were waiting in that line, our friend got in line for the Fiji water Cafe. We'd seen it earlier but didn't really know what it was, and it had a very long line, so we'd skipped it. When she got in it, it wasn't very long, and it turns out they were giving away little bottles of Fiji water, and they had bacon-wrapped matzo balls as well. After we were done, we got in that line, but they ran out of the matzo balls, so we just got water, which we appreciated. I did think it was funny though. I wouldn't have expected Fiji water to be giving away food, just water, and of all the things you could possibly wrap in bacon, they chose matzo balls? Someone was definitely having fun with that. Our friend said it was pretty tasty though. And they did hand out recipes so you can make it yourself.

We wandered around to another street and stopped by this little place called Delicious Wishes of Beverly Hills. With that kind of name, how could it not get our attention? And then we saw what they had, and we got in line. They are basically cake balls truffles - bite-sized cake balls dipped in chocolate. Oh my goodness. They had several different flavors to choose from, so it was a very hard decision. I opted for the red velvet cake. And yes, it was as yummy as you could imagine. The husband had a bite of it. Our friend chose the peanut butter ball and was in heaven. I see on the website that they also have an "almond joyous". That one is so screaming my name. And yes, I'll admit it, as I was talking to the women there, I did ask them where their business was located. OK, in my defense, I was focussed on the product itself, and after initially seeing the business name, I wasn't really thinking about their name. Also, at other businesses before and after this, I usually asked where a business was located if I was interested in them, to see how easy they might be to get to. The woman very nicely told me they were located in Beverly Hills. Do I get credit at least that once she said it, I totally admitted that I was an idiot for not remembering the name of their company and for asking where they were? No? OK, fine, I'm an idiot. I'll accept that. But, the fact that they're in Beverly Hills means they're not all that far from where I work, so I could totally stop by there without too much of a hassle. However, I noticed that their website doesn't list an address (unless I'm being an idiot again and am totally missing it), so I'm not sure what the deal is with that. I may have to investigate further.

We also stopped by a booth jointly occupied by La Brea Bakery and Kerrygold, and we had a little piece of baguette with some cheese, and as the woman was explaining the cheese, I realized that I'd purchased that cheese before from Whole Foods and really enjoyed it.

The husband sampled some Russian Standard Vodka, and he enjoyed that.

Earlier in the day, we'd seen KOOKSOONDANG-BEKSEJU USA, INC., and they had a Korean rice wine. I tried some of that, but it wasn't really to my liking. I did, however, enjoy watching their dancing bottle mascot, who was posing for pictures with everyone.

Dancing Korean rice wine bottle, ready for a photo op.

We ended up going to the back of the New York Street area, and the husband had found the little inside area where Don Cardona Tequila was located. He'd already tried the tequila there, so our friend had the tequila and cranberry juice and seemed to enjoy that a lot.

We sat outside that area for a bit as our friend was enjoying her drink. There was a small stage set up nearby, and it looked like a demo had just finished up, so I went to check it out. The husband and our friend were a bit surprised when I came back with, not food, but a drink. I said that I'd had a Spanish olive while I was waiting, but they said that didn't really count as food either. They asked what the drink was that I had. I said I didn't know. The guy doing the demo was just pouring a bunch of stuff together and mixing it up, and people seemed to really like it. I had to wait through him making three batches before I could get a tasting cup, so I figured, what the heck, I'd try it. The husband and our friend both laughed at me. It was pretty tasty, though, and the husband tried some. He said he thought it was basically a margarita of some sort. I mentioned that the guy doing the demo had other alcohol he was letting people try. I said he had a Jamaican rum that sounded good. The husband thought that sounded good too, so he went back with me. We both got a little cup. I took one whif of it and WHOOOAAAAA. I was getting a contact high just from the sniff. I decided that with all the alcohol I'd already had, it probably wasn't in my best interest to even taste that, if I was getting that effect from just smelling it. Our friend had a taste of it, and then I gave the rest to the husband.

We wandered around a little more and looked at a few things. Then the husband noticed that the Thai place we'd seen earlier had re-opened so he and I got in line for some curry. Our friend passed, not being a curry fan.

SedThee Thai Eatery had yellow curry with rice and potatoes and carrots. They had a vegetarian version and one with chicken. We both got the chicken. I love curry, but oftentimes, it can be very bland. That was definitely not the case here. It had a very nice flavor, and a good mix of ingredients, and it had a definite spicy kick to it, kind of lingering, building as you had more of it. I really enjoyed it. We saw that the restaurant is located in Glendale (yes, I asked them where they were located), and we're definitely planning to visit.

Yellow curry with chicken from SedThee Thai Eatery.

A little more wandering around, and then it was time for dinner. Yeah, I know, we'd been munching bits and pieces all day, but we'd also been drinking, and we knew that just tastes here and there wasn't enough - we needed some more actual food.

We headed back to B-tank, and our friend noticed that the line for the Nom Nom Truck wasn't that bad, so she and I decided to split a combo from there - 6 inch banh mi and 2 tacos. We were going to get pork banh mi and lemongrass chicken tacos, but they were all out of chicken, so we got pork in both. The husband was going to get food from Wahoo's Tacos, but he came back shortly after and said they were out of fish tacos. We went back to sit where we'd sat to have our lunch, and the husband went in search of other food.

I'd never been to the Nom Nom Truck before. I'd only heard about them for the first time maybe a month or so ago. I was at Volcano Tea one day and saw that they had a co-promotion with the Nom Nom Truck. I looked them up and started following them on Twitter, but I hadn't had chance to try them yet. I was glad to see they'd be at this event. I'd never had banh mi before so this was my first time, and I really enjoyed the sandwich as well as the taco. (Don't know what banh mi is? I didn't either until I read this.) I loved the mix of flavors, and the seasoning on the pork was very tasty. I'm looking forward to trying the lemongrass chicken next time.

6 inch pork banh mi and pork tacos from Nom Nom Truck.

The husband came back from Uncle Lau's Island BBQ with a pulled pork slider and Korean kalbi beef sliders. He seemed to enjoy those.

We enjoyed our meals, more conversation, reminiscing about the day's events and just generally having a good time. At about the end of our meal, She & Him took the stage, so we listened to them for a little while. I wasn't familiar with them but recognized the "She" of the duo - Zooey Deschanel, who played Trillian in the film of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Their music seemed nice enough, ok to listen to, but it wasn't something that grabbed me or made me want to find out more about them. I liked Zooey's voice, but the sound mixing wasn't very good, so she was drowned out a lot by the instruments, so it was hard to really hear her very well most of the time.

It was getting late in the day, about 7pm at this point, and the sun had gone down past the buildings, so the friend and I were getting a little cold, so we decided to head out.

I reminded the husband that he'd wanted to try dessert from Nana Queen’s Puddin' & Wings Truck - yes, I do think they have a weird name for their business. He had the Coffee Toffee Nana Fingers - lady fingers with coffee toffee-flavored pudding and banana slices. He really enjoyed that.

I was kinda looking for a little something for dessert as well - and then I remembered that the Dim Sum Truck was on our way out. I checked to see if they had any more egg tarts, which they did, so I got one for me and one for our friend. Yum.

Ending our day with egg tarts from the Dim Sum Truck.

We could have exited through the side gate, the same way we came in, but we decided to leave via the main gate so our friend could get a picture of the famous gates.

Picture of Paramount's gates from event website.

It was about 7:30pm by the time we left the parking lot, headed for the freeway. We had a wonderful day. We'd purchased the general admission tickets in advance for $55. General admission at the door was $65. There was also a VIP package available for $125 with some added perqs, and we'd thought about that but they were sold out by the time we considered buying them. In hindsight, I'm glad we didn't end up going VIP. They did seem to have some extra vendors and events and a seating area with tables and chairs, but I was pretty happy with what we got. We went through quite a number of vendors but didn't have time to get to every single one that we would have wanted to. And I'm pretty used to sitting on the floor from having attended numerous other kinds of events, so I didn't really need a table and chair. We had a great time, without spending the extra money. There were still a lot of things we didn't have time to do - attending seminars and going into the "wine chat" area - all we saw was the sign outside, and we never got the chance to go inside to see what it was all about.

With the few issues that I mentioned when we first arrived, everything else seemed to go pretty well. I liked that there were trashcans readily available everywhere. They also had port-a-potties available as well. The only thing I would like to be different next time is that water be more readily available. I appreciated that Fiji was giving little bottles of water away, but I would have been happy if there was easy access to bottles for purchase. Two tents in the entire location (and we never did find the second tent - it wasn't where the map said it was supposed to be) isn't really enough, given that the food trucks would have lines. You can definitely count on warm weather during Labor Day weekend in Los Angeles, so with the heat and the drinking people are expected to be doing, having water more readily available is probably a good idea.

Speaking of the food trucks, I knew from experience that most of them don't accept credit cards and only accept cash, so we were prepared for that. It seemed that many others weren't, so in the future, if you're planning on visiting a food truck, be sure to have cash ready. They did also have third-party ATMs available on site.

The other thing to keep in mind about the food trucks is that they do run out of food. Usually, they're only out for a couple of hours at a time, and they're probably not quite as busy for so long as they were at this event. I'm sure they were well-stocked but if you want something, it's probably a good idea to get it earlier rather than later, and if they run out, don't be upset at them - there's only so much they can carry in their trucks.

We had a wonderful time at this event. It was generally very well run, and the attendance level was busy but comfortable, not overcrowded at all. Paramount Studios was a terrific venue to hold this event - spacious so everything wasn't all crammed together, and it was an added bonus to have the New York Street surroundings in the tastings area. If this becomes an annual event, I can definitely see this becoming part of our Labor Day weekend tradition.

dim sum from a truck

2010-07-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

There is no reasonable explanation for why I've been a little obsessed with the Dim Sum Truck. I love dim sum, but I don't live in a dim sum wasteland. There's a place not too far from where I live that I can get pretty good dim sum (and I go on a periodic basis), and within about a 10 minute drive, I can get to dozens of places where I can get good dim sum and even places that have really great specialty dim sum dishes. I am not dim sum deprived.

Several months ago, I learned of the Dim Sum Truck from their Twitter feed, and I started following them. I looked at their website and saw pictures of the things they served, and it mostly looked like good, normal dim sum, with a few new things as well. But they were never near where I was. In the past few weeks, they've been parked for lunch at various times at places by where I work - but I lamented that they were there on Saturdays, so not so much convenient for me. Because, you know, there's nowhere for me to go on a Saturday to get dim sum. Right.

And then, at the beginning of this week, I saw their new schedule. And I saw that one day this week, they were going to be THISCLOSE to work. I had to go right? Because, while there are plenty of places for me to get dim sum by home, there's really nowhere for me to get dim sum by work. So if dim sum is going to make itself available to me just a short drive away, then I'm obliged to go check it out, right? (Come on, go with me on this.)

OK, so lunchtime rolled around, and I got in my car to drive to where they said they'd be. And I didn't see them. I drove past, turned around, and drove back the same way I came. Ahhh, and then I spied them - they were on a side street. I made my way to them but had a bit of trouble finding parking because they were on a residential neighborhood with restricted parking. I get why that's good for the people who live there but it's a pain in the ass for anyone trying to go to any place nearby. I finally found a little space not too far away, parked the car, and then made my way to the truck.

Found the Dim Sum Truck!

They offer more items than are listed on their website. Either they just haven't gotten around to updating their website with all of their offerings or they do a lot more specialty/available-when-we-can items so they can't keep their website current. I'll admit that when I went to look at the website, I was a bit disappointed at how sparse their offerings were. Not so much the case when you actually get to the truck though. They had a small listed menu and then a bunch of other items individually displayed with a picture of the item. It took me a while to look everything over and figure out what I wanted. In the end, I decided to try the lotus leaf sticky rice, chicken bun, the specialty dumpling of scallop and crab and the duck taco.

They asked if I wanted it for here or to go, and I said to go would be easier, so my order was given to me in a covered to go container. They had disposable wooden chopsticks and napkins and sauces that you could get as well. I just got the chopsticks and napkins since I was going to eat in my car.

Clockwise from top left - chicken buns, scallop and crab dumplings, lotus leaf sticky rice and duck taco. (Please excuse the bluish coloring - that's a function of my camera phone and not the food itself.)

The chicken buns were pretty good, with chicken, mushrooms and ginger inside.

The scallop and crab dumplings were de-licious. They were made with real crab, not that k-rab stuff. Seriously yummy. I'd definitely recommend it, and I'm sure to have it again.

Inside the scallop and crab dumpling.

I unwrapped the lotus leaf and used the chopsticks to separate the insides since the rice was mostly on top. It had a good mixture of ingredients, usually chicken and Chinese sausage and stuff. The flavor was really good and nice texture too. Very tasty - *almost* as good as my mom makes. :)

Inside lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice.

Here's a link to the picture on the site that shows the contents better.

The best discovery, though, was the duck taco. I had seen their tweets about it, and it had seemed a bit odd to me. I mean, come on, it's a dim sum truck, and they have tacos? Ummm, ok. I hadn't really planned on ordering it, but when I got there and saw the picture, I figured why not. Oh.my.heck. Totally unconventional, but this thing was seriously tasty. It had some shredded vegetables (can't remember what exactly they were) and bits of roasted duck meat inside, topped with duck skin. There was already a sauce in it, but there's extra sauce that comes with it. I can't really describe it to you, but if you like Chinese roasted duck, I seriously recommend that you try this.

The total for my lunch came to around $12. It was a bit more expensive than regular dim sum, but most of the truck food is pretty much like that, given operating charges for them and convenience to their customers, so that's ok. It was really worth it though.

The most unfortunate aspect of my finally trying the Dim Sum Truck is that it's really just expanded my obsession with them, me being all dim sum deprived and all.

more "Glee" casting news

2010-06-25T08:43:00.001-07:00

Late last night, I happened upon a blurb about someone having been cast in "Glee" next season. And she seemed familiar somehow, but it took me a while to figure it out.

Ohhhhhhhhh, I recognize her because I wrote about her about a year and a half ago!

There was APPARENTLY some kind of snafu regarding a premature announcement, but this is the blurb that I saw officially confirming her hiring.

Here's another article about her joining "Glee", and here's a third article.

It's interesting that she has kind of a different look in each of the pictures used in the different articles. I'm not sure which one is most recent, but I'm looking forward to seeing her work in "Glee".

"The Karate Kid" - spoiler movie review

2010-06-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

For a lot of people around my age, "The Karate Kid" was definitely a common reference point. "Wax on, wax off" entered the general everyday lexicon. Pat Morita, who'd previously been known as eccentric owner Arnold in "Happy Days", then became revered as the venerable Mr. Miyagi. Ralph Macchio is probably best known for playing the title role.

It was a heartwarming story with a lot of humour, and while the outcome was expectedly predictable, it was an uplifting story nonetheless that you couldn't help getting caught up in. I saw "The Karate Kid, Part II", which I loved, but I didn't have any interest in the third or fourth installments of the series.

Fast forward to 25 years after the original film, which I think is when I first heard that they were doing a remake. Ummm, ok, not really all that interested, especially when I heard that Jackie Chan was going to play Pat Morita's role. I have very mixed opinions about Jackie Chan, because I've really liked him in some films, but mostly some recent Chinese ones, like "The Forbidden Kingdom" where he usually has a little more serious role. I have not seen and am not a fan of his buddy comedies. Based on the information I had, I wasn't interested in seeing the new version of the film.

And then, a couple of months ago while I was at the movies, I saw the trailer for the new film of "The Karate Kid". And damn if it didn't look good. I'm not a fan of Will Smith, and I've seen very few of his films, so I'd not seen his son Jaden Smith in a movie before either, but Jaden actually looked pretty good as the new kid. And Jackie Chan wasn't in a buddy movie, and I liked what I saw of his scenes. And I was surprised that I wanted to see this film after all.

Overall, I will say that I enjoyed the film. Even without having seen the original, for these kinds of films, you pretty much know where it's going to end up. The story is really about how you get there.

Dre lives in Detroit with his widowed mom Sherry, but they move to China when her company transfers her. Sherry tries to get Dre to learn Chinese, but he's completely unreceptive. He is not happy about the move to a totally foreign country where he doesn't even speak the language. On his first day, he takes a shine to a local Chinese girl, which runs him afoul of Cheng, the leader of a local gang of bullies. Bad turns to worse as he suffers a few beatings at their hand, but he is saved from an even worse beating by the building handyman, Mr. Han. Dre convinces Mr. Han to accompany him to Cheng's kung fu school to try to get the bullies to leave him alone, but Mr. Han is incensed at the motto of "no weakness, no pain, no mercy" taught by the instructor. Mr. Han gets the instructor to get the kids to agree to leave Dre alone because they will meet at an open kung fu competition instead. Mr. Han has the difficult task of teaching Dre kung fu to be able to compete, but ultimately, Dre does get the lesson that kung fu is not just about fighting, but it's about a way of life and about how you treat others.

Now, I will admit that it's been years since I've seen the original film. I remember the basic gist of it and some details here and there, but that's about it. The husband confirmed that most of the story of this version parallels the story of the original, with minor changes here and there.

In this story, it did take me a bit to warm up to Dre. In many ways, he was a whiny, punk-ass kid. Yes, it's extremely difficult to move to a completely different place, one where a totally different language is spoken, a language you don't know, and the culture is totally different as well. And getting picked on by a gang of bullies is no icing on the cake. But, he then makes this stupid move to get this barrelful of gross water thrown on them, and he's identified as the person doing it. OK, I can maybe see him wanting to do it to get back at them, but then have the good sense not to get caught! He's already afraid of them, hiding so as not to be seen by them on the same street, and he does something that he knows is going to entirely piss them off? He does a valiant job of trying to run away from them, which he fails at, but even if he'd succeeded, it wouldn't have mattered. They knew he'd done it. If they didn't catch him then, they'd have come after him the next day in school or after school. He'd be screwed one way or the other. After that, it took a while for me to muster up sympathy for him, other than that they made the bad guys so one-dimensionally mean, so in comparison, yeah, he's the better choice to root for. (The husband assures me that Daniel did a similar punk-ass move in the original movie as well.)

In the original film, Mr. Miyagi had Daniel do tasks around the house (like painting his fence and washing his car) to teach him the motions that he would be using in karate. In the new version of the film, Mr. Han has Dre drop his jacket, pick it up, put on his jacket, take off his jacket, and hang it up, with the motions repeated ad nauseum, and these are the motions that he ends up using in kung fu. When Dre doesn't understand why he's been made to do this for so long instead of being "trained" and expresses frustration at that, and Mr. Han finally shows him what all the repetition is for, the moment of wonder and amazement from Dre that his body is responding on its own by using these movements is as inspirational as when Daniel had the same realization in the original.

Ultimately, you get to the competition, and as expected, the finals are between Dre and his nemesis Cheng, with Dre prevailing in the end. Dre uses a move he'd seen earlier by a woman at the place where Mr. Han learned kung fu, but to me, it really just looked like Dre used a Jedi mind trick on Cheng. One difference from the original is that after Dre wins the competition, Cheng asks to be the one who gives him the trophy and does so graciously. He also leads the rest of his teammates in a show of respect to Mr. Han, a move that shocks and infuriates their instructor.

There is one change made from the original story that to me greatly detracted from the new film. In the original, I can't remember how old Daniel was supposed to be, but he was in high school. In this film, Dre is 12, a few years away from high school at the least. Jaden himself is just shy of 12 now so was 11 when the film was shot, but he looks a lot younger, like he could be 9 or 10, so Dre's younger age also dictates the young ages of his peers. The side story of the blossoming romance between Dre and the local girl is a bit uncomfortable to watch, given their young ages. Additionally, the beatings that occur, whether the several times where Dre is the recipient or many times during the competition, are difficult enough to watch in and of themselves, but to know that they're being administered by and received by kids of that age makes the beatings even more brutal. Watching teenagers beat up on each other is bad. Watching kids do it is borderline horrifying, especially when it comes to Cheng's teammates, who administer punishing blows to their opponents, and their instructor, who has no qualms about instructing one of his students to purposely try to break young Dre's legs. I am presuming that the younger age was dictated by the fact that two of the producers on the project were Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, father and mother to Jaden Smith, so with Jaden playing the title role, high school age wasn't really possible. As I said, I did still like the film, but the younger age of the characters made some of the plot points much more problematic for me.

I did appreciate some of the subtle nods to the original film. At one point during Dre's practices, he strikes the pose of a crane, Daniel's winning move in the original. There's also another scene, when Dre first meets Mr. Han, where a fly is buzzing around Mr. Han while he's having lunch, and he's tracking the fly with his chopsticks. But then, from out of nowhere comes the flyswatter for the kill. And then he uses his chopsticks to pick the dead fly off the flyswatter and throw it away, wipes the chopsticks off on his pants, and resumes his lunch. Kinda gross, but funny anyway.

Most of the fight sequences involve a lot of quick editing, which I'm presuming is because the actors aren't actually well versed in kung fu. Mr. Han's fight scene with the kids is done with more medium shots so you can see what's actually happening in longer scenes, but then, Jackie Chan would have had no problem with his part and coordinating the others' parts. I still like films when I can see all of the martial arts action, but I know, that's not really the intention of this film.

One of the complaints I have heard brought up is that while the film is called "The Karate Kid", Dre actually learns kung fu in the movie. I get that the filmmakers wanted to tap into the recognition value of the original movie title - "The Kung Fu Kid" really doesn't have the same ring to it. The title usage doesn't really bother me, but there are two instances in the film where it's kind of addressed. In one sequence, Dre is watching and practicing with an instructional video on karate, and later in the film, his mother makes some comment about "karate, kung fu, whatever". I don't think most people make a distinction among the martial arts, and I think that's what the filmmakers were counting on, with a nod via Dre's mom's line. I was just really happy that while they kept the familiar title, they also stayed mostly faithful to the original, if not to the letter, at least in spirit. I've been pretty unhappy with the recent slate of movies that purport to be film versions of old television shows but have characters that are nothing like those that we were familiar with, and yes, I'm squarely pointing the finger at "S.W.A.T." and "Miami Vice" as the worst examples I've seen.

Jaden does a good job, but I really thought Jackie Chan was terrific. He had some moments of humour, but I do like him in more serious roles. He pulls them off very well, and there's a riveting scene when it's revealed that his wife and son were killed in a car accident, with him at the wheel, when he lost control because he and his wife were having an argument.

I think the film is enjoyable enough, for those who have seen the original and those who haven't.

don't stop believin'

2010-06-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

I remember hearing something in passing about some new show. I didn't remember the name of the show. I vaguely had an idea of what it was about. I didn't catch my attention, so I didn't watch it when the pilot was aired.

But then, my friends started talking about it. And they really seemed to like it. And they said the pilot was available online. And they said I'd like it. So I gave it a try.

And that's how I was introduced to "Glee".

I've loved the show since I saw the pilot streaming online. And the weird part about me liking the show is that I normally don't like covers of songs. If it's not the original, I don't want to hear it. But for the most part, they've been very faithful in their covers of their songs, and on the occasions when they haven't been, I've liked the new arrangements. Of course, it helps that they're always so passionate when they sing the songs. It's also introducing me to new songs I didn't know and reintroducing me to songs I haven't heard or thought about in a long time, sometimes, in decades.

I like the various storylines that are going on, but really, the hook for me is the songs themselves.

Tonight was the finale of the first season. And wow, did they do an amazing job. I've liked some of the episodes more than others, but the finale was spectacular. I'd read a news blurb earlier in the day about Jonathan Groff having gotten hurt during a number, so whereas I hadn't gone to look at the CD to see what songs would be sung tonight, I did end up finding out one song they did.

And I'll admit I was a bit shocked. They were really going to take on something as iconic and classic as "Bohemian Rhapsody"? Lots of people attempt that, but trying to do justice to Freddie Mercury is no easy feat. I was curious to see what they did. And wow, it was more spectacular than I had expected. I thought Jonathan was good at singing the song. He didn't try to imitate Freddie, so I liked what he did with the vocals. The choreography was cool. But to intercut the performance with Quinn being taken to the hospital and be in the throes of labor was genius. Her motions and sounds and screaming fit right in with the song, and the cadence and rhythm of the song matched the frenzy of her struggling through labor and then finally giving birth. Much as I hate to use the word, it was the ultimate mash-up.

I loved that the series went full circle by starting with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and ending with a medley of Journey songs, including one of my favorites, "Faithfully". And what was even funnier was that I totally recognized the venue where the regionals were being held - it was the Saban Theatre, the new home of Paley Fest, where "Glee" had a panel this year!

Here's the "Faithfully" segment.

It was sweet that Shelby was the one to adopt Quinn and Puck's baby, appropriately named Beth. (How cute was Puck tearing up when his daughter was born?) And the last song was a truly great ensemble piece, and yes, it made me cry.

Here's a compilation video with some of the cast members about their journey (pun intended) through the first season of the show.

The show has already been picked up for a second and third (yep, you heard that right) seasons, so I'm looking forward to more "Glee"!

make it "Sir"

2010-06-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

First, there was the rumour.

Then, there was the confirmation.

And now, it has actually happened. Patrick Stewart was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace earlier this week.

It's too bad that Xavier was killed off in the "X-Men" series because that means that Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen won't be in another movie together again as Xavier and Magneto. (Yes, there's supposed to be a prequel movie featuring those two characters, but there's no way they can be played by the two of them again.)

But to see the two of them on stage together? Now that would be a dream. I'm not a huge fan of "Waiting for Godot", so I'd prefer to see them in something else, though I'd pretty much settle for anything. I'm trying to figure out which Shakespeare play would best accommodate both of them.

goodbye Jack

2010-05-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

It started on November 6, 2001. Just shy of two months past the horrible events of September 11, 2001, a new show premiered, and it had the unfortunate luck of having the first 15 minutes of the first episode involve the hijacking of a plane which was then blown up. There was enough concern that there was a warning and disclaimer before the episode aired. Not a very good omen for a new show, one would think.

That's how "24" started. And I've been screaming at the TV on a regular basis through 8 seasons of the show, as twists and turns became commonplace, and I was riveted to the TV throughout. It was frustrating to get a couple new episodes at a time and then nothing, but because of the format of the show, 24 episodes depicting one consecutive hour at a time, in real time, more or less, they couldn't really show reruns. So it worked out really well when they decided to start the show late into the season, in January, and then just run the show continuously to the end. "24" was the first to do it, and that programming decision was then adopted by other shows, like "Lost" and "Heroes". I liked getting it all continuously, but it was also weird to only have "24" from January to May, and at the end of the season in May, it was a bit startling to realize that there would be no more new shows until the following January, a long 8 months away.

The show ran over the course of 9 years but only had 8 seasons because a strike by the Writers Guild of America resulted in the postponement of season 7 for a year.

And tonight, the final two hours of season 8, the final two hours of the show, aired. And it was an amazing ending. Everything that needed to happen, did happen, and not all of it good. The writing was incredible, and the performances even more amazing. Cherry Jones as President Allison Taylor and Necar Zadegan as Dalia Hassan were really incredible in the last two hours, though they've been good throughout the season. Mary Lynn Rajskub as Chloe O'Brian didn't join the show until the third season, but she's been a lifeline for Jack, and we've rooted for her. And then, of course, there's Kiefer Sutherland. There would be no Jack Bauer without him, and without Jack Bauer, there would be no "24".

But, those aren't the only people who've been memorable in "24". Anil Kapoor was fantastic as President Omar Hassan in the early parts of this season. Gregory Itzin was terrific in reprising the role of President Charles Logan. But there were many that came in seasons before: Carlos Bernard as Tony Almeida and Reiko Aylesworth as Michelle Dessler; Dennis Haysbert as President David Palmer and James Morrison as Bill Buchanan; Sarah Clarke as Nina Myers; Paul Schulze as Ryan Chappelle; Jean Smart as Martha Logan and Glenn Morshower as Aaron Pierce; Shohreh Aghdashloo as Dina Araz; Kim Raver as Audrey Raines; and who could forget Louis Lombardi as Edgar Stiles.

I've cried during episodes of prior seasons, and I cried a couple of times during the last two hours, and the show ended where it needed to be. There's no happy ending for Jack. That's not how it works for him. He's been stabbed, he's been shot, he was THISCLOSE to being killed, and now, he's on the run from 2 countries coming after him, with no resources. Yeah, those are generally the cards that are dealt to him.

Hit the road, Jack. Don't you come back no more.

Cast photo from the first season of "24".

Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer from the final episode of "24".

we'll always have Paris - as long as there's a DVD player around

2010-05-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

My niece's job involves regular periodic travel to Paris. Sounds exotic and glamorous, doesn't it? Lots of people would be thrilled to be required to visit Paris on a regular basis, all paid for by work, no less. Well, unfortunately, it's not quite that "dream come true" for her. Her visits to Paris are strictly work only, with no time to play before or after or even while she's there.

She told the story not too long ago about one particular trip to Paris. She was in her hotel room relaxing for a bit before going to bed, and she had brought her portable DVD player with her. She was watching "Sex and the City". And she said there's a scene where one of the characters is in Paris, by the Eiffel Tower, which is brilliantly lit up at night. And my niece recognized the irony of her being in the same city as the Eiffel Tower, but instead of being able to see it for herself, she was watching it on a little DVD player in her hotel room.

My brother has told similar stories about his business travels. He's been to England and Germany and France (not Paris, but Toulouse, where coincidentally, another friend had previously spent a lot of time for business as well), but he's never had the opportunity to sightsee in any of those places. He's there for work, and about the most local flavor he gets is dinner and maybe drinks in a nearby restaurant.

I would think it would be hard to be at all these places and not be able to have any time to just explore.

But then, the only "business trip" I've been on is driving to San Bernardino for a convention. Ooooo, yeah, glamorous indeed.

record Cal - ifornia roll

2010-05-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

OK, so I found out about this article from November 2009 where a record-setting California roll was made by Cal students. OK, that seems funny, and had this happened when I was back in school, I'm pretty sure I would have gone to see it just because it would be funny. Hmmm, but thinking back some more, I didn't eat sushi back then, so I might not have cared after all. Who knows.

Anyway, as I was reading the article, odd thoughts popped in my head. Yeah, I can hear the comments that the peanut gallery is making in response to that.

First off, the article says they made a sushi roll. But then it says they made a California roll. The sushi snob in me doesn't consider California rolls (which I will eat on very rare occasions under very particular circumstances) to be actual sushi since there's no fish or other seafood in them. But, ok, I know that's just a personal quirk of mine.

The article then goes on to say that the students "got their hands fishy". Ummm, and how would they do that making a California roll? The article then continues with a list of the ingredients that were used to make the roll, which include 180 pounds of fish. OK, so they used fish. But that no longer makes it a California roll. A California roll is avocado, cucumber and Krab. There are a lot of variations of this, and in some places, they use actual crab rather than Krab, but then that's specified, and the roll is then given a different name. If actual fish is being used in the roll, then it's just a roll of whatever fish is being used (like a tuna roll, salmon roll, yellowtail roll, etc.). It's not even a California roll with , because I've had that before, and that's a California roll with pieces of fish layered on top. The article doesn't say what kind of fish was used, which I find a bit annoying because I want to know.

So, I don't understand why they called it a California roll. I wondered if it was because the roll was made at Cal, but when they mentioned the previous record-setting attempt in Hawaii, they also called that a California roll. I wonder what ingredients were used in that. Since it was in Hawaii, I wonder if they used Spam instead of Krab.

All these thoughts popping into my head from such a short article.

And yes, many of the comments on the article annoy me. So many people have complete misconceptions about what goes on/went on at Cal because of its history. And even when stuff happens/happened on campus, it's not like every single student participated. But that's a rant for another time. And I also object to the snarky comments about the students APPARENTLY not having anything better to do with their time. Because, you know, a couple hours on a SATURDAY afternoon are going to ruin their lives. Puh-leeze.

"The Complete Metropolis"

2010-05-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I read some headline about a restored version of "Metropolis" being in the works, and I was confused because several years ago, I'd already seen a restored version of the film. I had somehow missed the prior news that about 25 minutes of the original film had been discovered, and that footage was being inserted into the restored version that I'd previously seen.

The film student/film geek in me is so excited about this. I've loved "Metropolis" since the first time I saw it in college, but it's definitely not a film that everyone is going to be interested in, mostly because of the film style. (And no, I've never seen nor ever care to see the version they did some time ago with modern rock songs added over the original footage. PASS.) The new footage was shown in Berlin at a film festival back in February, and I'd heard that they were planning a limited theatrical screening schedule as well as a DVD release. I'm pretty hopeful that the theatrical screening would include something in the Los Angeles area, so I'll be able to see it on the big screen before getting it on DVD.

Here's an article about the newly restored film.

that takes the cake

2010-05-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

I saw this link about "20 party cakes gone horribly wrong", and yeah, some of the cakes are just incredible. On the one hand, if a friend is making you a cake, it seems a little mean to make fun of them, since they were nice enough to make you a cake. On the other hand, in some of those cases, it would be hard not to at least react. And in the case of a purchased cake, well, then all bets are off since they should be professional!

Cake #2 actually made me say "oh my god" out loud. I cannot imagine showing up at a baby shower and seeing that.

For anyone who knows me, cakes #5 and #7 are particularly near to my heart, but cake #5 makes me smile more.

Maybe it's just me, but when I saw cake #12, my first thought was that it looked like a camera with a long lens, not, a ... you know.

The picture for cake #16, though, just makes me giggle.

I find the story of cake #20 amusing, but my favorite is actually cake #1. Maybe that's not the writing on the cake that they intended, but the wannabe-geek in me thinks it would be cool to have a cake with code on top!

May the Domo be with you

2010-05-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

The StarWars.com Twitter feed had a link to a promotional video the other day, and the inclusion of "Domo" in the tweet of course caught my attention.

I *love* this video!

I am presuming that in Japan, the television station that carries "The Clone Wars" is the same one for whom Domo is the mascot, so it makes sense to have him in the promo. It's too cute, except that it doesn't really fit into his character, seeing as how Domo really just wants to sit around watching TV and seems like a fairly non-violent sort, but in any case, it's funny to see him wielding a lightsabre.

BTW - Happy Birthday, Uncle George!

first a tauntaun, now a wampa

2010-05-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

OK, I've already documented the epic story of the tauntaun sleeping bag.

Well, now, the Star Wars shop has available...wait for it...a wampa rug! Yep, like a bear rug but made from a wampa instead.

I don't think it's anywhere near as cool as the tauntaun sleeping bag, but I do think it's funny. I'm just wondering why slave Leia from Jedi is laying on a rug of a wampa that appeared in Empire.

The space slug oven mitt amuses me too. That might turn a few heads at a barbeque.

And for good measure, since Howard from "The Big Bang Theory" likes to wear funky belt buckles that make me uncomfortably stare at his crotch to see what belt buckle he has from episode to episode, I think he totally needs one of these.

brunching at the Club

2010-05-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, we had the opportunity to have brunch at Club 33 in Disneyland with some friends. I'd been there for a visit and a snack a while ago as part of a special activity I was participating in, and the husband and I had been there for a special event breakfast about five years ago, but this was our first visit for a regular meal.

Click here for pictures and details.

there are no words

2010-04-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to the Kevin and Bean radio show on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles for a number of years now, and Ralph Garman is a member of their show. Among other things, he does their entertainment news segments every day. Ralph has also done some movies and television shows and does a number of voices for "Family Guy".

I didn't hear the segment itself last week, but I heard the blurb in passing that Ralph had announced that he and his wife Kari had become parents to twins, a baby boy and baby girl. Both were born very premature, by two months, but I didn't hear much else about it. I hadn't even heard that they were expecting, since I only get to hear bits and pieces of the show, but I'm not sure if they even announced it on the show or not.

Today, Bean tweeted a link to the show website with news that had been announced on the show today, news I hadn't heard. Over the weekend, Ralph's and Kari's little boy, Lincoln, had complications arise, and he passed away on Saturday. Their little girl, Olivia, is presumably still in the hospital and not yet able to go home.

I cannot imagine what Ralph and Kari and their families are feeling right now. And I'm sure that everyone on the Kevin and Bean show is devastated by the news as well. As Bean wrote on the site, all their loved ones want to help them, but there's really nothing they can say or do that will ease the pain of losing their little boy.

From an appreciative listener and total stranger, I'm sending out my prayers and best wishes to join those of all the other appreciative listeners and total strangers to Ralph and Kari and their families and all their friends who have been so terribly hurt by Lincoln's passing, and to little Olivia as well, that she will grow stronger and be able to be taken home by her loving parents very soon.