Why I hate rythmic clappers

The male figure skating competition was fierce. Those dudes skated their little hearts out, and the guy with the snake on his costume really killed it. However, I have to note one thing that really annoys me during any type of dance or musical performance or competition. At almost every event I've been to, whether it was a concert, recital, dance performance, or anything with music, when the music gets really lively and the musicians get to breaking it down, without fail, there is always a group of people who start clapping rhythmically to the music. I hate this. First of all, the music is usually good enough that we don't need the added clapping. Second, this group invariably starts clapping off beat, which throws off the performer and results in the performer awkwardly trying to follow both the rhythmic clapping and the music at the same time. If you are a rhythmic clapper, PLEASE STOP!

Survivorman vs. Bear Grylls?

I was wondering last night, while watching part of an episode of Man vs. Wild, who would have a better chance of actually surviving a real survival situation; Bear Grylls or Survivorman. I used to be a serious Man vs. Wild watcher. For a while, I was like one of those folks who watches WWF and is adamant that everything is real, and that those men in tights are really fighting each other. I thought Bear was really roughing it, and every episode was a close close call. It was always so suspenseful to watch and see whether he would make it or not. Would he become dehydrated, fall off a cliff, be eaten by a pack of hyenas? These were all serious possibilities in my mind. Somehow Bear always pulled through. I thought his kick ass survival skills were behind that, until I saw the episode where he had to float down a rocky whitewater river. Bear looked normal in the scene prior to floating down the whitewater, but then, in one camera angle, he seemed to have a very distinct square padding under his sweatshirt. Oh, surely Bear couldn't be wearing a life vest! I rewound and watched that scene in slo mo a few times, and there it was. Bear was a phony. He was wearing a life vest. This was months before his "survival scandal" broke and one of his crew members admitted that he often sleeps overnight in hotels, and has crew members helping him through the episodes, so I think I called it. I was disenchanted.

The next season, the Discovery channel started adding disclaimers before the show, alerting people that Bear sometimes has the crew helping him, and is "presented" with survival situations. Well, that was pretty lame to me. This season seemed to be all about him eating nasty stuff like bugs, larvae, various types of animal feces, and then describing the taste. Bear was trying to regain his kick ass-ness through eating. This was not going to work.

I then started to think back to all of the episodes of Survivorman I watched, waaaay before Bear came on the scene, and how I had compared Survivorman to Bear, and thought he was whiny and much less of a survivalist than Bear. I realized that Survivorman was probably bitching because he was actually putting himself in survival situations. Granted, he never whittled a boomerang out of a branch and then hunted rabbits with it, but he was actually out in the survivalist trenches, trying to do his thing, while Bear was probably sleeping on a Sealy Posturepedic. Survivorman would begin a task, like setting traps and then returning in a few hours to find he hadn't caught a thing and his bait was gone. Sure, he would then complain and give up, but at least he was (at least we now think) authentic. Bear is a phony. What do you think?

My try at homemade tortillas

I was reading on someone else's blog that she only makes homemade tortillas, because they taste better, are healthier, and are more economical. The taste better part appealed to me, so I found a recipe last night and made them. They are pretty easy to make. You mix some flour, baking soda, water, oil and salt. Then you knead it and separate into little balls. I did all this and was thinking by this time that it was pretty simple. I could do this all the time, and save lots of money! But then I got to the part where I had to roll them out. Obviously (or maybe not obviously, but obviously to anyone who knows me) I do not own a rolling pin. I like to cook, but I don't bake at all, other than baking pre made cookie dough. So of course, a rolling pin is nowhere to be found in my kitchen. So, I rolled these suckers out using a cup. I floured the cutting board, my hands, the cup, and each piece of dough. It was still a real b#$!ch to roll these things out. they kept sticking to the cup, or just shrinking back to their original size, but whatever. I managed to get like 10 of them rolled out. After that, I heated them in the pan and they were ready to go. I must admit, they were pretty good, but there's no way I'm going to be regularly making my own tortillas. I'll take my $3.69 and get a pack of Mission tortillas as needed. Thank you very much. I'm going to start taking pictures of stuff and adding it to this blog, but bear with me. I didn't have the foresight to take a picture while I had dough and flour all over my hands, but I'll get there!

Edited to add: I just posted this and then noticed a typo, so I fixed it. I also noticed that it says I posted this at 3:42 p.m. Maybe it was 3:42 p.m. somewhere, but where I am, it was 6:51 p.m. I don't write these posts during my work day. I'm not sure what's up with Blogger.com's clock, but I assure you, it's almost 7:00 p.m.!

Jury Duty

I recently did my civic duty and appeared for jury duty. I had been dreading it, and used up all my postponements, so I just packed up my jury summons, woke up ass early to get all the way downtown by 8:45, and went with the flow.

After having served my two days, I highly recommend it.
Here is my review:

The room they kept us in was very comfortable. It did feel like we were all on a really big plane going nowhere, since the chairs all faced in one direction, and there were chairs along the wall as well as in the middle of the room. However, the seats were comfortable.

We had an emcee of sorts, who every once in a while would give us updates on when lunch was, what the trial situation was, etc. They have it set up so that you can take breaks whenever you want, as long as you signed out. Lunch was from 12:30-2:00. There were two rooms with laptops that had internet access. There was a water cooler with free Poland Spring water. There were vending and soda machines in the back of the room. The jury duty emcee handed out a list of local restaurants and banks.

I lounged around and read my book and drank coffee. I went out to lunch both days and had some nice Vietnamese food and Chinese pastry from the baker on the corner.
This really beat working.

Don Coqui, great food, but it was obvious that the tip was already added to the bill

I went here for a group dinner last Saturday night. It's located on Cedar Street in New Rochelle. It is a large building with a couple of different levels. There's a bar area, a lounge area, and a dinner seating area. It seems to be a popular place for group and special event dinners. We arrived on time for our reservation, and waited at the bar for a while until the rest of the group got there and we were called by the hostess/waitress or whatever. After the entire group was there, we waited about 20 minutes at the bar before the hostess came by and led us to another room. I was thinking "great, we are about to eat!". I was pretty hungry by then. Anyway, we were led to a lounge area to keep waiting. This was ok, I guess. So after about another 20 minutes or so, we were finally seated.

The restaurant is pleasant looking with lots of white tables, chairs and linens. Since we were a group of 12, we had a prix fixe type deal set up in advance. There were special menus printed up acknowledging our celebration. That was nice. Not so nice was the waiter. He brought out our appetizers, which were so tasty that I filled up and didn't finish my entree. There were little pieces of fried pork and fried chicken, crab legs, clams casino, empanadas with shrimp as well as beef, plantains with bacalao salad, and a few other things I can remember. All that stuff was really good, and since we had all been waiting over an hour (and most of us had eaten light in anticipation of a heavy dinner), we scarfed it down quickly.

When he brought our our drink order, he spilled beer all down my back. First of all, he didn't apologize. Second, when he realized he had spilled it on me, I had to ask him for napkins not once, twice, three times, but FOUR times before he finally brought 3 god damned napkins. He was sporting a heavy attitude, but whatever. I was with a group, so I decided not to get nasty with him.

Finally the entrees came. I had the red snapper fillet in plantain crust. It came with a few grilled veggies, and some mashed yucca. The fish was flavorful and tender, and the crust had just the right amount of crust. The vegetables had a nice grilled taste, and weren't overcooked. The mashed yucca was a nice idea, but the texture was odd. It was a little sticky. I guess yucca doesn't lend itself very well to mashing.

The waiter never came by to ask if everything was ok. Luckily it was.
It was obvious that his tip was already included in the bill. I know sometimes people are cheap with their tip, but his service was so underwhelming that I would have almost been inclined to speak to the manager to reduce the tip. But, again, I was with the group. All in all, the food here was surprisingly good. I would eat here again, and steel myself for crappy service. Entrees are in the upper teens to low 20's, and the portion sizes are large.

Nha Trang, Thai Son, and Don Coqui

I might as well start this off with some solid reviews. First off, Thai Son and Nha Trang, both on Baxter street, in Chinatown.
I had jury duty on Monday and Tuesday (jury duty review to follow) and had an hour and a half to kill for lunch. Anyway, both of these are Vietnamese restaurants which specialize in a type of Vietnamese noodle soup called "Pho". Pho consists of a clear (or dark beef) vegetable or chicken broth which usually comes with a protein, some rice noodles, and some vegetables.

At Thai Son, although the restaurant was pretty crowded, I was seated immediately, and a cup of hot tea was placed in front of me. The waiter came by to ask me if I was ready to order before I had even taken off my coat, but ok, whatever. He came back in 30 seconds to see if I had finally decided. After I asked him no more than two questions, he was completely exasperated and walked off to put in my order of shrimp noodle soup. The soup came out right away, scalding hot, with a side of fresh bean sprouts, a lemon wedge, and some kind of anise-y flavored herb that didn't look as though it had been washed before making its way to the plate. The soup was pretty good, but after about three shrimp, I noticed that some of them hadn't been cleaned. Gross. That was it for me. Luckily I had eaten most of the broth and noodles, so it didn't ruin my lunch, but I wouldn't eat shrimp from there again. I should mention that the shrimp were large enough that they should really have been cleaned. The bill came to $6.80. not bad, but with unclean shrimp, I can't recommend this place. The service was quick and efficient, but not friendly at all.

The next day, I went to Nha Trang, which is right next door to Thai son. The service was a little less angry, and just as fast. My soup came out right away, along with the bean sprouts, anise, and lime this time. Everything looked a little cleaner, including the shrimp. They didn't bring any free tea, but that was an ok trade off for the cleaned shrimp. Again, the meal came out to a little over $6. I would go to this place again.