Connections

A few months ago, I was perusing the Wall Street Journal (Hey, I'm in Business School!), when, lo and behold, there was an article on the front page about a girl I used to go to High School with. Talk about random! Apparently, she's now a big-time socialite in NYC. The article had her picture, and even mentioned the name of my old high school.

While not quite as solid or close as a connection, (okay, it's tenuous, at best), I was still pretty excited to see this article in the New York Times. I've known about the Gyroball for two years or so. That's when I interviewed Ryutaro Himeno, the scientist mentioned in the article, about the pitch for a work-related project, well before the pitch became news in the States (the project, unfortunately, never went anywhere, but I still have the video). Random, but cool, nonetheless. For me, at least.

Rock 'N Roll, Old Skool Japan style

On Friday night, I went to my first concert since coming to the Bay Area. Earlier in the week, I was sitting in a cafe, perusing one of the local weekly "alternative" newsrags, when I came across the name "Yoshida Brothers" in the concert listings section. The Yoshida Brothers I knew were two brothers (naturally) that played the shamisen, a traditional Japanese 3-stringed instrument. They had gained quite a bit of fame in Japan for their style, both of playing and looks.

It turns out these were the same Yoshida Brothers (really, how many groups could there be with that name?) and they were playing at Yoshi's a jazz club/sushi restaurant in Oakland. After doing a little digging, I found out that some of the Japanese students in my program already had plans to go, so I invited a (non-japanese) friend along, and we went to the show.

I'd heard a few of their songs before, and had even used one as background music in a video I created for my old company. Plus, as I found out from one of the Japanese guys I went with, they have a song in the new TV commercials for the Nintendo Wii. Anyway, I thought I kind of knew what to expect going into the show (although, my friend had no clue), but I was totally blown away. Basically, they rocked. While the set was pretty short (just over an hour), and a few of their songs were nothing special, they had several songs that were amazing, both more "traditional"-sounding ones, as well as the more modern take on Shamisen for which theyre known. The coolest was probably this awesome shamisen-drum "battle" between one of the brothers and the percussionist they had brought along. And at times, the way their fingers were flying over the strings it really seemed like they were playing guitar, not an instrument that's hundreds of year old.

Funny Japanese tv clip

This is obviously a really old tv show, but that doesn't make it any less funny. In the last clip, someone shouts "Look out!".

Whoops

A couple of months ago, I finally got a wok. After my cooking class in China, I really wanted to start using one, and cooking Chinese food in my little fry pan just isn't the same.

Today, in light of the Chinese New Year, I decided to have Chinese for dinner, and so I decided it was finally time to season my wok. For those of you that don't know, if you have a carbon steel wok, you have to "season" it. Old woks get really dark, because the oils and flavors have built up over time (supposedly, this is a really good thing).

Everything was going well, until after two turns of adding oil I decided to turn up the heat to kind of "sear" the oil in, as one particular site suggested. This wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that the wok was SO hot that when I touched a paper towel to it, to spread some oil around, the towel started to smoke. I quickly took it away, but didn't realize bits of the towel had apparently come off into the wok. So when I added a bit of oil from the bottle, the inside of the wok caught fire.

Fortunately, the fire went out on its own. I just hope there's no damage to the wok. I'd hate for tonight's stir-fried vegetables to taste like paper towel.

Oh well, at least I know my smoke alarms work....

Mmmmmm..... Bacon!

My Dad doesn't eat pork. Not only that, when I was little, he stopped allowing pork in the house. So, with the rare exception of breakfast/brunch outside the house, I grew up on Turkey Bacon.

If you've never had turkey bacon, it's kind of like a mix between greasy meat and cardboard. Sounds appetizing, huh? Now, in what surely must be some kind of Freudian development, I'm a bacon fiend. I mean BACON, the real stuff. The stuff from pigs.

For the past several years, my policy has pretty much been "Anything tastes better with bacon." Hamburger? Check. Pasta? Check. Salad? Check. Ice cream? Well, maybe not, but I did have a bacon-flavored cookie at a restaurant in Tokyo last month (to go along with the mango and cream "egg", but that's another post).

Despite this fact, I don't really cook bacon THAT often. I guess it's a result of not eating breakfast very often, a habit which I'm trying to change, on the weekend, at least. A few weeks ago, I was up at Tahoe with one of my classmates, Jun, and Jason, the husband of another classmate. Being three guys, it only made sense to have a big breakfast on Sunday morning, before our second day of snowboarding, which, of course just HAD to include bacon.

Jason was in charge of breakfast, and he turned out bacon that was so crispy it crumbled. When I asked him the secret, he said he learned from his Dad to cook it really slowly, so that all the fat cooks out (I think that's why). I had always thought you cooked bacon at high heat (which, admittedly, might have also had something to do with my impatience and desire to EAT THE BACON NOW!!!)

This morning, I tried it the slow method. It probably took 20 minutes, which was just KILLING me. But my my my my, was that some good bacon! Definitely worth the wait! The amount of grease/fat that came out was borderline disgusting, though -- it practically filled the pan! Guess in the past that was all going straight through my system.

I still have one slice left, as well as a few slices in the freezer. Yesterday, I found a recipe online for kale and bacon. Guess what's for dinner tomorrow night?

Yes, I'm well aware

I know, I know. I've been awfully quiet these past few weeks. Chalk it up to part laziness, part business, and part trying to get this thing I call a life in order. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to my (semi-)regular updates sometime in the near future. Until then, check out these websites to take a look at some interesting seminars I've been involved in at school lately:

http://marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/
http://www.areyoureadytosucceed.com/

Disappointing

So I've caught a good part of the game (I was cooking chili earlier, so missed some of it), and if not all, at least most of the commercials. For once, the game has been BETTER than the commercials. The first quarter was pretty exciting, but I've only seen a few commercials that I thought were decent, and a bunch of crap. And, I'm not sure if this is just a local thing, but there's been a ton of really really bad local commercials. Not sure what the deal is there, but I find it hard to believe that some cheesy law firm in Reno paid $2.5 million (the going rate for a :30 Superbowl spot).

As an ex-advertising industry guy, it's downright painful! Maybe next year.

Tahoe, Baby!

I'm in Tahoe right now (South Lake, to be precise), watching the final quarter of the Superbowl. I came up yesterday with two other guys, one of my classmates and a classmate's husband. A bunch of us rented a cabin for the season, and this weekend has been my first trip up.

We spent yesterday and today at Kirkwood, a mountain resort nearby. I recently bought a new snowboard and the other day finally bought a helmet and a beter pair of goggles. I've been really looking forward to getting a lot more time on the slopes, as opposed to just going snowboarding once or twice a year, so I'm really excited about having the cabin and a season pass. We only boarded 3 or 4 hours each day, but I could already feel I'm getting better. And despite the fact that I'm ridiculously sore (and I know it's only going to get worse tomorrow), it was a lot of fun.

Hopefully I'll be up next weekend, too. And the next. And probably the next. And the next after that, too.