Hey Dexter fans, it's a Dexter Moon Bun!

(P.S. Last week, I got my greedy little hands on a Pris Moon Bun. ♥)

About to find out if SGU is a BSG ripoff.

If I ever find myself on a cooking show, I hereby do solemnly swear that I will not use the following phrases:

"let's get these bad boys in the pan"
"just hit that with a little [insert seasoning]"
"how [cool|awesome|beautiful|tasty] is that?"

More TBA later. It's okay if you call me a snob.

No Reservations on the Travel Channel at 9pm Central time.

This new episode airs Monday Feb. 16th, 9p Central time

Teaser trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdrBQL6gsio

I'm working on a hyperbolic crochet piece. The exponential growth of stitches makes it a good busy work project, perfect for couch potato time and following the Australian Open (which is messing with my sleep schedule).

Sort of a sea green lettuce coral thing:

One of my favorite quotes from Twin Peaks:
"When two events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must pay strict attention."

That doesn't apply directly here, but it's a quote that always comes back to me whenever I make little connections.

We tried watching that Spain Food Road Trip show featuring Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow. (I didn't know Gwyneth spoke Spanish fluently.) It's not bad when they get to the food or talk about regional culture, but there's just way too much time spent listening to Batali go on and on about whatever. On his own cooking show, and during Iron Chef, I don't mind him because he mostly talks about all the places he's been and how all those experiences influence his cooking. But the incessant rambling on this road trip show is very annoying.

( the Bittman connection; Into the Wild, Angel from Montgomery, Eddie Vedder )

Currently researching Tamagoyaki.

(p.s. Tamlyn Tomita is still acting, where's Macchio? Oh, I guess he is still doing stuff.)

Now I'm trying to figure out what a Dumbledore Calrissian costume would look like.

Looking forward to the debate tonight.

Right before that we get to catch up on the first episode of Sanctuary.

I have to find a recording of the opening ceremony, definitely want to watch the rippling box thing again. Based on past television coverage, I wasn't expecting much, so I've been pleasantly surprised at what I've seen so far. I guess we haven't had cable for the previous games; I really like that you can watch the non-marquee sports on the other channels. So far I've seen badminton and handball matches, which I thought I'd never see.

I'll be completely satisfied if I can see table tennis and some velodrome action. That gold medal sabre fencing girl was pretty annoying, but otherwise it hasn't been too crazy with the usual USA #1 bull. Phelps hype or not, I have to admit that I was really rooting for the men's 4x100 freestyle team. I only caught a little of the backstory about how the French were talking trash, so it was awesome to see the anchor surge in the last 25m to barely pull off the upset.

Seems like they've toned down the number of cheesy athlete profiles, which I think is great for coverage.

So the men's final match finished very quickly today and there are 3 hours left in the scheduled coverage. Rather than show tape of all the finals (doubles, mixed doubles, juniors) from this year, now they're showing Federer vs. Nadal from last year's Wimbledon. They actually didn't show any (or at least very little, not when I watched) doubles action on ESPN2 either over these last couple weeks. They could have easily shown tape, even late at night or early morning on ESPN, but instead you get hours of poker or whatever other bullshit.

This is really annoying and frustrating. I fully expect similar crappy coverage for the Olympics this year from whoever is broadcasting. We'll get several half hour specials on one gymnast's "road to glory" and not see one second of badminton, handball, velodrome, or any other "unimportant" sport. I'd be mildly satisfied with highlight reels of the other sports, but you seriously can't even get that, just hours and hours of athlete stories. Just put that stuff up on your stupid Web site, so viewers can get that whole "360 experience". I understand you want to get people into it with the personal side, I really get that, but the level to which they shove the stories down our throats is just too much.

If there's an Olympic cable package, we'll probably get it and just completely ignore the network coverage. I remember talking to a former coworker who lives in Vermont, and for the winter olympics he would just tune in to the Canadian stations for much better coverage.

After our camp training last night, we had a drink and hung out with nhyrvana briefly before heading back home. We got home around midnight and I knew Bravo would replay the Top Chef finale several times after the original airing, so I got to watch it.

( brief thoughts on the results )

After my little bike crash, I met up with pt and we had lunch at Bentoh's downtown. The food was moderately priced and very tasty. I had the salmon bento [not served in box form]. You get two pieces of salmon, either grilled or blackened; I asked if I could have one of each. Apparently, no one has *ever* asked for this, and I got the look from the owner like I was a crazy man. He then explained that the blackened fish was much better, but I told him it was my first time there and I wanted to try both. Whatever.

The fish came with a huge mound of brown rice and a veggie mix. I thought it was really good and am glad I got one of each. The blackened was tasty, but a little salty, so I could balance things by taking bites of each. pt got a salmon Caesar salad, which was about as good as you can make it, also a huge portion. I'll definitely go back there, it's a nice spot where you can get something other than the standard sandwich/bar food fare available downtown.

On the way home I stopped by Food Fantasies with the hope of scoring some microwave Indian food to go with the naan we have in the freezer. We need some good Heroes-watching food. They had a few Tastybite varieties, but they cost $3.69 for each 10oz. box! As is common with the specialty organic food stores, they really mark up stuff that doesn't need to be. Was also looking for some dashi miso paste but they only had some specialty miso for around $7. Miso soup is supposed to be cheap, people!

pt suggested checking out an asian mart a couple blocks away. This was an authentic hole-in-the-wall place, so I knew right when I entered that I'd find something good for tonight. I got the miso paste I wanted along with green tea pocky, rice stick, various sodas (sugar cane, guava, and lychee), and sizzling rice! It looks like mini rice crispies cakes. You're supposed to fry them in oil, then throw them into soup, then watch them sizzle.

So no Indian, but Chinese/Japanese for tonight. Sorry Mohinder, Hiro will take front stage for a bit. I have really high hopes for the sizzling rice.

The cable/Internet service transfer went smoothly. We got the digital service for the same price as the basic service in C-U. The On Demand stuff could be a real time waster. Big bonus: we now get the Sci-Fi channel!! Now I can change all of my account address crap instead of waiting on the phone.

I go back to Urbana yet again this afternoon to finish cleaning/trashing/moving stuff that I should have taken care of before the big move. I fucked up and procrastinated, as usual. I promised not to do it again, so we'll see how that goes in a few months.

The move itself was okay. It was just pt and I and her parents, who drove down for the day to help us. We really needed a 20' truck instead of a 15-footer. The couch was worse than I remember, but it could be that we had four guys carrying it before. The dreaded base cabinet was actually okay, mostly because my mother-in-law suggested taking the countertop off first, which made a huge difference. I think loading time was 3 hours and unloading was 2 hours. And, khamsin, you should tell SB that we got a Budget truck and I was very pleased with it and the service. The 15-footer drove just like a large van. I canceled my UHaul reservation but found out that the $5 processing fee just to reserve the truck online was nonrefundable. Bastards.

We did a good job of thinning out our possessions this spring, but concluded that we still need to get rid of at least another 10-15% of crap in every category of stuff we have. I could probably get rid of 20-25% of my stuff.

So after happy our in Champaign on Friday, we'll get to go to our first Springfield Farmers' Market Saturday morning, then The Unpacking will continue, then I'll look for temp work for the rest of the summer and get my stuff together for the substitute teacher application in prep for the fall.

Totally unrelated, but the Williams sisters are playing doubles again at Wimbledon!

Ninja Warrior Marathon!

Even if you're a LOST hater, you can still appreciate this Locke painting.

Did anyone tape this week's episode of Heroes? Our VCR didn't record it for some reason.

I've tried watching it online several times and the stream just hangs after a few minutes. Of course, the commercials have no problem streaming.

I had relatively high expectations for the premiere of Heroes and I can't say I was disappointed. Yeah, it's basically X-men, but I'm interested to see what they do with it in a weekly television format. I think the characters are interesting enough and the couple plot twists introduced in the first episode were pretty good. I've cut back on how much TV I watch, but I think this show may make the short list.

( Inspired by the show, I worked on my levitation technique. )