Villa Tepeyac - restaurant review

There are a number of Mexican restaurants that we go to and like, but they're generally chain restaurants - Chevy's, Acapulco's, El Torito. Not that there's a problem with chain restaurants since when you find one you like, you can generally (though not always) be assured that you're going to get the same quality at other restaurants in the same chain. However, chain restaurants don't necessarily have the same flair as independent restaurants, and they don't necessarily have the same authenticity when it comes to ethnic food.

The sign for Villa Tepeya can be seen from the 10 freeway, and after driving past it a number of times, we had decided to stop in and try it. It can be a little difficult to find since it's in between two off-ramps, and you have to do a little side driving to get to it. There's a decent-sized parking lot right outside the restaurant, but that can get full since the restaurant has an adjacent party/banquet facility, so there's also another parking lot across the street that we've had to park at on occasion.

The restaurant itself has never been particularly full, but then, it's pretty large, with three main rooms. It means we've never had to wait for more than 5 minutes for a table. The host/hostess staff is very friendly, and the wait staff is friendly and helpful. I can't think of a time when we've had a bad experience there.

There's Mexican music playing in the restaurant, and it's generally not too loud in there, unless there's a large table or something. In one of the rooms, they have television sets up, so it's nice if there's a game on that you want to watch. I love the decor of the restaurant, where the walls are painted to have windows that look "outside" to nice views.

Once you're seated, your drink order is taken and complimentary chips and salsa are brought to the table. While I generally really like the pico-de-gallo quality of most salsas that you get, the salsa here is more just the sauce itself, and I really like that too. It used to be a lot spicier, to the point where I couldn't have very much of it, but in recent years, I've noticed they've toned it down some, so you can taste the great flavor of the salsa but still have some kick.

Most of the entrees come with a side of vegetable soup or salad. I absolutely love the soup there. The vegetable soup comes loaded with chunks of vegetables (carrots, zucchini, potatoes, cabbage, and usually even a small piece of corn on the cob), and the broth is just delicious. I haven't done it yet, but I've figured that if I'm sick, that would be a good place to go to just get a nice big bowl of vegetable soup.

Since we've been going for a while, a few of the servers recognize us, and on one occasion, I wanted to try something different, so I asked our server for her recommendation between two items. She said that she didn't like chicken, so she wouldn't choose the chicken dish, but she explained the two dishes to me. I then chose the steak picado (tender pieces of beef prepared with onions, bell peppers and tomatoes), which was delicious. I've also tried what is basically the chicken version of the dish - arroz con pollo (tender pieces of chicken prepared with onions, bell peppers, tomatoes on rice) - and that was equally good.

They also have various combination plates that are always pretty good, and I've also come to like their chicken flautas plate, which I had last night. The husband is generally quite fond of their chile colorado.

One other thing to note - if you ask for flour tortillas, it comes as one gigantic tortilla, about the size you'd need to make your own burrito. You basically have to rip pieces off, but be careful - it's usually quite hot.

They're generally very good about keeping your glasses filled and taking away dishes once you're done with them. The servers are also generally around a lot, so if you need something, it's easy to get their attention.

They also offer a good selection of cocktails, and while I like margaritas, theirs are quite strong, stronger than I prefer, so I don't get margaritas there anymore.

This restaurant can probably be regarded as one of those hole-in-the-wall great finds, and I highly recommend it.


Villa Tepeyac
2200 East Garvey Avenue, South
West Covina, CA 91790
(626) 339-5058
(626) 339-5271

How much is that thong in the window?

There was a lingerie fashion show in Singapore this week, and the jewel of the show was a diamond-studded thong that's estimated to be worth $122,000. Here's the article.

It's funny that they mentioned the thong would be dry cleaned before it went on display. Part of me thinks it's funny that they thought to specifically mention that and part of me is thinking, "That is SOOOOO none of my business."

Here's a picture of the model wearing the thong, as she was carried by two guys.




The Lady Godiva look with her hair over her breasts is interesting, but I'm wondering if they somehow glued them down or something. I mean, even though she's being carried, wouldn't the wind blow her hair aside? And you'd think that a beautiful blonde woman in a diamond-studded thong would be enough to get people's attention, but they had to make her otherwise naked too? So are you supposed to stare at her hooey to look at the diamond-studded thong or are you supposed to try to get a peek at her boobs?

Ball Balance - game

I found out about this game on alt.fan.mark-brian. (Yeah, I don't listen to them anymore, but I still lurk on the newsgroup. Heck, even when I *was* listening to them, I was still pretty much a full-time lurker.)

I know most people tend to play the more elaborate games on the net or Wii or Playstation or something, but I've pretty much stuck to simpler games. I think I've learned that if I were to get enamoured of a more involved game, I'd be wasting even more time than I do now playing games. A friend gave me a game called Leather Goddesses of Phobos years ago, and it was one of those adventure games, and I loved it. I sat down one night around 10pm to play for a little bit before going to bed for work the next day, and the next time I looked to see what time it was, it was 2am. Ooops. I've actually got a couple games in my cabinet, including one called "The Neverhood" that a friend got me quite some time ago, that I've never opened because they just look too incredibly interesting. Just so you know how old they are - they're on disk.

Anyway, so I've played this game called Ball Balance periodically, and it's a lot of fun. It does take some thinking and stuff, which is my downfall. :)





You're basically given a teeter-totter with weighted balls falling, and you have to drop them in places to keep them balanced. Any three like-colored balls, whether vertical or horizontal, will disappear. Here's the instruction page.





Oh, and there are three bonus things that can fall. One will take out whatever's on the same horizontal row that the bonus ball falls in. Another one will take out whatever vertical row the ball is dropped on. And the third is a "T", so it will take out the vertical row underneath it and the horizontal row that the ball falls in.

The scale will tilt left and right according to what you drop where and make disappear. You lose if you let it tilt too far in one direction. Here's what the beginning of the game looks like.





As far as I can tell, when the level indicator changes, it then has the potential to drop balls with that weight, so if you're on level 5, it won't drop balls with more weight than 5, but when you get to level 6, it can then drop balls with a weight of 6. Of course, you still get the lower-weighted balls as well. Here's what it looks like further into the game.





I don't always do that well, but a couple times, I've gotten a fairly decent score. I'm conscious of the balances and knowing that I can't make one row disappear without making sure it's covered with another weight so it doesn't tip all the way on the other side. When I screw that up is when I usually lose. I think I need to do more three-across colors rather than a stack of colors, because that helps with the balance, but that's harder to arrange.

Here's the link to the game if you'd like to try it. Have fun!

what's yours is mine

There are a few advice columns that I read periodically, mostly for entertainment value. Sometimes, the situations in there are so incredibly outrageous that it's hard to imagine they're not made up. But then I think about people I've heard about with similar opinions, and I realize that unfortunately, there are people with opinions in this world that I cannot even begin to fathom.

This particular question was from a 40-something single woman who bought a house, and her parents lent her the down payment, which she was supposed to pay back with interest. Her position was that since her parents paid for her siblings' weddings and won't have to pay for one for her (she doesn't foresee getting married anytime soon), she thinks the down payment should be the equivalent of the money her parents spent for her siblings' weddings, and therefore, she should not have to pay it back. She wanted to know what the columnist thought.

My first reaction would be to send a letter to the parents to say how sorry I am that they apparently ended up raising at least one entitled bitch. I can't imagine knowing someone like this who would bring that particular complaint to me - you know I'd be unable to contain myself when they asked for my opinion.

First of all, I think the expectation that the parents would pay for her wedding is one thing. As far as I'm concerned, if you're in your 30s or 40s and both parties have decent jobs, you really should be paying for your own wedding. If the parents offer some assistance, that's one thing, but to expect it is another thing entirely. To me, the concept that parents are "required" to pay for a wedding is back from ages ago when people got married really young and didn't have the money for it. Heck, even if parents are paying for a wedding nowadays, it makes me cringe when I hear the bride and/or groom demand exorbitant amounts of money, so the parents even have to take out a huge loan, sometimes a second mortgage, to pay for the wedding. Umm, yeah, ok, whatever.

Second of all, if the parents agree to pay for a wedding, that's one thing, but to then transfer that money to something else? What if she was a drug addict? Since her parents didn't have to pay for a wedding, should she be entitled to have that money to buy cocaine or crack?

So if a friend invites me to dinner for which the friend is paying, I can feel free to decline the dinner but say that since the friend probably would have spent X amount of dollars on my dinner, the friend can just give me that money outright instead?

The entitlement issue is one that I think about often, because it comes up all the time in many different topics. You can expect more rantings about that in a future entry.

But a particular situation came up recently that brought back something I'd been thinking about anyway. I was talking to a friend before our recent trip to Las Vegas, and of course, we speculated on how it would be possible to win a huge jackpot, one big enough to be able to quit. The friend made a comment about me giving the friend some of the money. I was really surprised by the comment, as this was someone who really should have known better. I responded that I wasn't sure why I would have to share the jackpot with the friend, and the friend said that if I didn't have to work, that way, the friend wouldn't have to either.

I can't remember what I said, but I think I made it pretty clear that I wasn't going to feel obligated to share if we won any kind of significant money. It was pretty amazing to me that the friend even broached the subject, and I don't think it was meant to be a joke. But it went along with something I'd thought about anyway when it came to money.

In previously fantasizing about winning the lottery when it's some huge bazillionish number, I've thought about what I'd want to do with the money. But then it also comes to - who would you share the money with? And who would expect you to share some of the money with them? I'm not sure that my parents would exactly "expect" some of it, but I'm sure they would be terribly hurt if I didn't do something nice for them with some of the money I'd won. And in their case, there are a few things I'd be more than happy to do for them. There is some family that I'd want to share with, but not all family. I'm presuming the family I wouldn't share with would be pretty angry about that. Would I have some kind of obligation to share with anyone who is family? Would I be looked upon horribly if I didn't? I could see if someone was homeless or in a really bad situation, but when it just comes to having nicer things and not having to work, I don't feel I'm obligated.

There are also friends I'd be inclined to share with for various reasons, but obviously, not all friends. Would those who don't get anything (or much less) be angry and refuse to be friends with me anymore? Is this a kindergarten thing where if you're going to share, you have to share with EVERYONE? I suppose I could see how someone would be mad if they saw me sharing the money with some friends but not them, and in the same situation, I'll admit that I'd probably feel jealous, but I can't imagine actually confronting them with it or refusing to be friends with them anymore. Now, if they were flaunting it - "I'm giving X friend $1,000,000 and I'm not giving you a thing" - that would be different. But I honestly can't think of anyone, family or friends, where I'd really *expect* them to share any of their winnings with me.

But heck, I've already run into this entitlement situation, and it wasn't a matter of a lot of money or winnings. After I got out of college and had been working for a while, I was happy to start having some semblance of savings. I don't usually discuss money with friends, but I happened to be talking to a male friend that I thought I could trust, and I mentioned how happy I was that I'd been able to put a little away - $2,000. Now, that's not a lot of money, but when you've been living with pretty much nothing in the bank, it was a big deal to me and something I was proud of. His reaction was to say that it was a lot of money, and we could do a lot with it. I was taken aback at the "we" comment. First of all, we're just friends, and you're not entitled to my money. Second, even if we were dating (which was not ever a possibility in either of our minds), you still wouldn't be entitled to my money. He and another mutual (female) friend and I used to hang out quite a bit, going to movies and dinner and such. He didn't have much money, so when we'd go out, she and I would sometimes pay for the friend so he could go. Well, after a while, we got tired of it - we had enough to pay our own way, but not necessarily enough to pay for another person, so she and I started going out on our own, which he didn't like. Ummm, ok, so since you don't have any money, that means we can't go out either? The last straw in the friendship was when he and I were at the L.A County Fair one year, and he saw something he really wanted. It was a type of collectible, so it wasn't something he needed, and I was stupid enough to lend him $50 to buy it. Now, I'm not one to talk about buying things you want and don't need, but I also only spend money I have. $50 wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was something he said he'd pay me back. And time went by and nothing. I would ask him, and he was noncommittal. Even if I said something about $5 or $10 a week or a month until it was paid off, he never agreed to it. It became clear that he had no intention of ever paying me back, and coupled with other things, I was done with him as a friend.

So as much as I'd love to win the lottery, there's a part of me that would also dread the hassles that would come with it and the hurt feelings that would inevitably arise from friends and family who don't feel they got enough of it. (There was a television show on a few years ago called "Windfall" that followed a group of friends who collectively won a humongous lottery - about $20 million each - and the problems that arose after the winnings. I loved that show. Cancelled after a few episodes. *sigh*)

Money can solve a lot of problems but it can also create many others.

ON AIR

I know. I said I'd never do it. I really didn't think there'd ever be a reason to do it. But heck, I have a website, and I have a blog. So doing podcasts is just the next reasonable step, right?

Yeah, I know. But I get the point of podcasts now, whereas I didn't before. I used to not understand the point of sending text messages, and I do it all the time now, and when OTHER people tell me they don't get it, I can actually tell them what it's good for.

I didn't really get Twitter at first either, and I'm still not entirely comfortable with all of it. There's a lot I don't know about it. But I'm understanding it more, and it's fun, and I get why it works.

Same for podcasts. I think the reason it's so appealing to me now is that I've had a partial writers' block for some time now. There are/were three reality shows that I am/was watching: Big Brother, Survivor and Celebrity Apprentice (which is now over, hence the need to include the past tense in the earlier part of this sentence). I'm still watching them, and I'm even still taking notes, but for whatever reason, I haven't been able to convince myself to write about them in weeks. I've obviously written about a lot of other stuff since then, but when it comes to that, I am just refusing for whatever reason. But with podcasts, I can just talk about them, like I was talking to a friend who had watched the shows or to a friend who had missed the shows.

Podcasting also has one advantage over blogging and websiting - inflection. Sometimes, it's hard to get the right tone when writing, and sarcasm and such don't always come through correctly without a voice, but with podcasting, you can get every nuance.

I don't know how long the podcasting will last. It depends on how I feel it's going and the feedback that I get from it. If I like it but everyone else hates it, I'll probably still do it. If I hate it, but others like it, I might still do it. If me and the world hate it, then it's kaput. It's just going to be a work in progress.

Or maybe I'll have trouble doing that as well - what's the audio equivalent of writers' block?

In any case, if you're interested in checking out the podcast, please go to this link.

Thanks, and I hope you'll give it a listen.

strange new worlds

As I mentioned previously, we were in Las Vegas about a week ago, and the Hilton Hotel's Spacequest casino is a favorite of ours, and we also enjoy looking through the Promenade shops at the Star Trek merchandise. On this visit, we noticed a postcard advertising that a Star Trek convention was scheduled to be held at the Hilton in August. Wow. It of course makes perfect sense, but can you imagine the convergence of Trekkies/ers that are going to be there come early August? This is the first I've heard about it, but apparently, they've been holding an annual Star Trek convention at the Hilton in Las Vegas since 2002. I wonder if the Hilton warns other guests booking for that time about the convention and what to expect from their fellow hotel guests. I can imagine the surprise that some people might have when they encounter groups of costume-adorned people wandering around the hotel. When we went to Celebration IV, the Star Wars convention, last year, there were designated hotels that people going to the convention could book, but at least they were pretty spread out among a number of hotels. In this case, I would expect the concentration of people would be staying at the Hilton directly since it would be most convenient and since I would expect there would be some kind of special convention rate.

I'm wondering what it's like for the people working the Promenade shops when the Star Trek experts descend on the place. On one visit we made with friends some time ago, the husband and one friend did the Star Trek Adventure (when they only had the Klingon one), and another friend and I wandered around the Promenade. One person working in the shops kept trying in impress us with his knowledge and experience as it pertained to Star Trek, but for differing reasons, it didn't work on either of us.

In talking about the convention to friends over the weekend, I had mis-remembered that the convention was going to be in September. It turns out that we will most likely be making another trip to Vegas this year, in September, and I was wondering if it was the same weekend. There's a tiny part of me that would have thought it was interesting just to pop in and sight-see the convention goers. However, since the convention is in August and we wouldn't be going until September, that's now a moot point. But at least that means we'll be able to play in the Spacequest casino in relative peace.

In my previous life, I attended Star Trek conventions for a couple of years, and they were fun. All the conventions were run by Creation Entertainment, and I went to a few non-Star Trek conventions run by Creation as well. Creation as a company has their upsides and downsides when it comes to conventions they put on, but everything I know/experienced was from multiple years ago, so I have no idea what it's like now.

In the Promenade area, they have a replicator that's supposed to be able to produce foods from different cultures. The sound was working, but the picture was not. I'm thinking they might want to get that fixed before August.

Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade - at home!

The husband and I are both huge fans of the Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade. Because of the husband's interest, we own the set of Electrical Parade floats that came out as part of the Walt Disney Classics Collection quite a number of years ago. We have also been collecting the pieces in Robert Olszewski's Disneyland Main Street U.S.A. miniatures collection, which is basically a miniature reproduction of Main Street and various attractions in Disneyland, since the first release in December 2002 of Sleeping Beauty Castle.




On Saturday, March 29, the first set of five floats from the Electrical Parade in the collection were released. The pieces are apparently modeled similar to the Classics Collection pieces. You can definitely see the resemblance between the two.






The Olszewski floats change color, as do the Classics Collection floats. They really do look remarkable together. Here's a video that shows the two sets of floats performing together (7.5 MB). You'll want to turn the sound up for this.


Yeah, I know, we're geeks.

15 (ok, really, only 5) minutes of fame

Have you always wanted to be a radio talk show host? Are you at least 18 years old? Are you good at presenting your opinions? Has anyone ever told you that you have a great voice? Well, here's your chance! 97.1 Free FM in Los Angeles is holding a contest called "America's Next Great Talk Stud" (though presumably, it's open to women also, not just men). They give you a demo topic, and you do a 5-minute "show" on the topic and then submit it. If they like it, they'll play it on the air and put it on the web where people can vote for it. At the end of the year, the person with the highest-rate show will get two hours on the air. I'm presuming that the demo topic changes periodically - not sure if you can submit more than one show.

Here's the link for more information.

OK, I know, I'm a dork, but reading the official contest rules made me laugh.

I've got a bad feeling about this

Ever since I became interested in/liked/loved/been obsessed with Star Wars, my interest has encompassed all manner of Star Wars-related stuff, including things like toys and DVDs and random other things that have drained my bank account.

Well, on our trip last weekend to Las Vegas, I found something else Star Wars-related that is going to further drain my bank account.




Yep, Star Wars slot machines.

Oddly enough, the first place I saw them was at Spacequest, the space-themed casino at the Las Vegas Hilton, home of the Star Trek Experience adventures (Klingon adventure - good; Borg adventure - bad) and Quark's Restaurant (home of the ever popular warp core drink and newest addition to the drink family, James Tea Kirk) and the Promenade shops. (The Spacequest casino is one of our favorites, and we always make a point of spending some time there and browsing around the Promenade when we're in Vegas. It indulges my still-existing Star Trek interest, and I love the Spacequest casino because it's got nice atmosphere and usually fun slots and great music. BTW, they have a Star Trek-themed slot machine too, which the husband played for quite some time and really liked. If he wants to talk about it, he can be guest-blogger for the day sometime. Or if you're interested, just ask him about it.) I thought it was pretty funny that the Star Trek-adjacent casino had Star Wars slots. They had two different ones there, one for Star Wars, and one for the Dark Side. The Star Wars one was based on the first film, and they had the various characters as the wheel entries. If you won a particular bet with a particular character, it would play a little snippet of a scene of them from the film, and during the spins, it would play various themes from the movie. There were also two bonuses, one that was a Death Star Bonus, and if you hit that, then the Death Star above the machine would spin and determine what bonus points you got. There was also this cool lightsabre bonus where if you got both Vader and Ben Kenobi on one of your played lines, it would trigger the lightsabre duel between them from the first film, and you had to pick which one would win. Both times I got it, I picked Ben, and both times, Vader won. I was wondering if it was programmed that way because the film was that way, but I saw other people get the bonus where Ben won.

On the Dark Side one, all the characters were Empire characters and droids and such, and you'd get snippets of those characters if you won with them. They had a bonus where Vader and an Imperial guard were there and you picked planets, but it just gave you points depending on what you picked. I was disappointed - it's the Dark Side - you should be blowing up planets for points! I only got the bonus when I was in a casino that was loud with the machine sounds turned down, so I have no idea what Vader or the guard was saying. I wanted to play it again in a quieter place but didn't get a chance to.

I saw these same slots at New York, New York, but they also had a third one, themed to The Empire Strikes Back. It had characters from the film, and it played scenes from that movie when you hit certain characters. There was a Jedi Training bonus where you were on Dagobah with Yoda, and you picked the various objects that Luke had to levitate, including a rock, R2 and the x-wing. If you picked correctly, you could end up picking all of the objects and really scoring big - I managed to guess correctly once and get all of them. There was also a Bespin free spin bonus that was triggered if you got both Han and Leia on lines that you were playing. Once triggered, you got transported to Bespin with Lando talking to you, and you got as many free spins as you could until both Han and Boba Fett showed up on the same spin. At that point, the wheel Han is on is frozen, with the picture of Han in carbonite, but the entire row becomes wild cards, and then a bonus wheel spins to determine how many free spins you get, and that many free spins goes, and you earn whatever you can. One time, during the free spins, I managed to get Han and Boba Fett again, so I had two wheels that were frozen and all wild cards. I scored really high on that one!

Of all the games, I liked the Empire one best, and it's also the one that paid off the best. The Empire gave me a total of about $30, so I was happy. The Star Wars one was cool because of the lightsabre bonus. I really wanted to like the Dark Side one, but it really needed more extras to make it more fun.

I'm not a big gambling person, and it's not like I couldn't just put my DVDs in and watch the movies themselves, but it was fun playing slot machines themed to Star Wars. I'm hoping they'll do a Jedi one as well.

We had been making annual visits to Las Vegas, but our last trip was in Spring 2004, and I had made a short 24-hour trip in August of 2004 but did very little gambling because of the time constraints. The Star Wars slots apparently came out in 2004, according to this article. Here's a link to a page that has video of the Star Wars and Dark Side machines. You get just a quick glimpse of the Empire one - it's the one with Yoda sitting on top. Here's another article about the machine, with a screen capture shot. And here's a more involved article taking you through the Star Wars machine step by step. I'm going to have to read through that article thoroughly before our next trip.

I could completely see myself playing on those machines for hours, just feeding money in as needed. They're penny machines, but you can bet several dollars at a time, if you play all the lines for the max amount.

Hmmm, wonder when our next Vegas trip will be.

kittens, kittens, kittens

I'm feeling a little off and having serious writer's block at the moment, so to address both problems, I'm just going to show you some of my favorite youtube videos with kittens.


This one is my absolute favorite. I love the little kitten in the box as well as the ones trying to get in. Too cute.





This little baby is really sweet. You have to watch with the sound on.





This one is just really funny with the kitten falling asleep. She's also doing the kneading thing that Orkid still does, even as an adult.





This one is funny because a little kitten is being terrorized by a bunny.





And just for good measure, here's a picture of Orkid on the first day we brought her home, when she was just a couple months old.