Assorted random notes

[oyceter]

1. I finally downloaded IE 7. Tabs! Thank you! Also, yay for the IE FoxyTunes add-on, which made the entire upgrade completely worth it, even though I'm still weirded out by the fact that it appears on top. On the other hand, I snorted when I discovered that IE actually lets third-parties charge for add-ons and that there are nearly none that I want.
   
   Mostly I want IE to work like my now-customized-to-death Firefox. So I'll be keeping an eye out for something like Greasemonkey, the download statusbar (one of my newest Favorite Things Ever), the web developer toolbar, Super DragAndGo (my absolute favorite extension ever for all time), Focus Last Selected Tab, and, of course, good old Tabbrowser Preferences. IE, I just want my tabs on the bottom because I'm weird like that! That's all!



2. Went to a wedding over the weekend, which I generally dislike as it makes me feel extremely single. I am usually very comfortable and happy with my single-ness, so I wasn't all gloom and doom about it (gloom and DOOM?), but still. On the other hand...
   
   The table I was sitting at emptied very quickly, so much so that it was just me and a friend. This normally would be a bad thing, as I would be sad and lonely and glaringly single, but! All these people were foolish enough to leave before the lobster course, the squab course, and the fish course (all Chinese-style). MUHAHAHAHA! You really don't want to know how much I ate. It wasn't gourmet stuff, given that it was a giant wedding reception, but still! Lobster! For me! And a giant circle of little wee roasted squab in a ring around the edge of a giant platter. I ate two. And then grilled sea bass! And there were so many leftovers that the restaurant passed out boxes, so I have another squab sitting in my fridge, along with a ton of noodles!
   
   Free food. So exciting.



3. Also, I happened to be one of the only two Asian people (and the only Chinese person) at my table, which was sort of funny, as the wedding was mostly Asian. All my coworkers seemed to be very excited about the menu, except for a few things, like sea cucumber (which I don't even eat). I think someone asked me if all Chinese weddings were like this (food-wise), and I was very bad and scared them by gleefully telling them about the platter of rooster testicles served at my cousin's.



4. On yet another fooding note, rewatched some Firefly with cofax7, laurashapiro, P. and two other friends without LJs and ate a ton of tasty stuff, including Cofax's very good coffeecake and T's chocolate orange muffin cake things. I just sat there and sniffed at the strong chocolate-citrus scent for a while, it smelled so good. And there was veggie frittata (homemade) and pasties (not homemade but really good! Pasties with scrambled eggs inside! It was sort of like kolaches!) and mimosas and fresh-out-of-the-oven popovers (mmmmm). I brought cheese and chocolate, as I was too lazy to cook. OMG! World! There are Vosges chocolate bars at Whole Foods! Best thing ever! I've found I really love dark chocolate with a hint of spiciness, and that I particularly love milk chocolate with sea salt. It (the milk chocolate + salt) sounds so odd and is yet so tasty.
   
   I also splurged and got four kinds of goat or sheep cheese -- I like goat cheese, and when I found three of the cheeses I had already picked were goat or sheep, I decided to just go with the theme. Cheese included: tartufo cheese with little shavings of truffle and an incredibly wonderful smell, fresh goat chevre made locally, aged manchego, and drunken goat cheese (it was the name! I couldn't resist).



5. I noticed in the pilot of Firefly, there's a background scene with grilled dog being offered. Part of me thought, "Yeah! We eat everything!" and part of me thought it was true and part of me flashed back to Frank Wu's Yellow, in which he has a chapter on Chinese people being accused of being dog eaters as a mark of perpetual foreign-ness and otherness. I'm not sure what the majority of me thinks; must ponder more.
   
   It is so good to be able to watch stuff live with people who are not me commenting on assorted race and gender issues; most of my RL friends in the immediate area a) are not fannish and/or b) probably think I am a raving liberal maniac based on my politics.



6. I also finally dropped by Kinokuniya and picked up the latest volume of Nana. It's rather sad. I have been at vol. 5 for about three years now, and yet, I continue to buy them in Japanese and tell myself I will catch up. I also got the final volume of 20th Century Boys, as the final two chapters are not scanlated. I really doubt I'll be able to make any sense of it in Japanese, given the content, but I will go insane if I can't read the last two chapters!
   
   I learned that Urasawa Naoki is writing a series called Pluto sort of with Tezuka Osamu except not really because Tezuka is dead but still! Wikipedia tells me it is a re-writing of Tezuka's Astro Boy with robots and attacks and OMG! Urasawa Naoki gets to write Tezuka AU manga fic! It is a collision of genius! I am now tempted to hunt down everything Urasawa has written, particularly Yawara, which is apparently about a young girl learning judo.
   
   I also learned that I am shamefully incapable of walking past sales: "Self! You don't need a copy of Treat's collection of essays on Japanese pop culture, even if it is 50% off. It is still $10 and you are on a budget! And it's in hardcover. Also, most importantly, you own it already."

Comments

[hysteriachan.livejournal.com]

That chocolate site just broke my brain with ohwowwantnow. o_o (Have you ever had this (http://www.greenandblacks.com/uk/productdetails.php?pageid=27&cid=6&pid=10)? ginny_t introduced me to it, and it's ever so good... and looking at their site for the link showed me that they have a cherry chocolate bar, which I've never seen. ;_;)

Also, "chocolate orange muffin cake things" sound incredibly good. Why must it be Monday morning, with no source of yummy things in sight?

[lybra87.livejournal.com]

My, and the Chinese weddings I usually go to only have veggie, chicken, etc. There's shark's fin too which I shun, and the best dish is the fried rice or noodles. ^_~

About the whole dog eating thing; well honestly I'm more fond of them as pets than nibbles, but I reckon every culture and people eat funny things the rest of the world screams WTF?! so all is good, since everyone does that :B

[estara.livejournal.com]

I think Yawara the manga is licensed, I know that Yawara the anime is licensed (Live-evil got up to episode 46 or so, of 80+), but you might be able to get that other sports manga by him, with the female tennis player... I think it's called "Happy".

Mangascreener are scanlating it.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

1. Ooooh, I will have to go customize my Firefox to have tabs at the bottom!

3. I've eaten sea cucumber. I never think of myself as an adventurous eater. I thought it was only okay.

4. Spicy chocolate!!!!!! My beloved cafe had this fantastic extra dark chocolate with a bit of spice in it called Aztec chocolate. Best. Chocolate. Ever. Then it closed and I have been deprived ever since. I will hit the Whole Foods on my way to work.

5. The dogs bit in Firefly always bugged me. I've been tone-deaf to most racial issues in that show, but that one always pinged me like WHOA.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

So great to see you! And so very jealous of the wedding banquet! And yeah, I pretty much can't shut up about race/gender issues while I watch TV. It's wonderful to have likeminded people around. (:

BTW, S. is glamsith, but she hardly ever posts these days.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Squab and lobster = I miss Taiwan!

[oyceter]

Vosges is so awesome! Some co-workers gave me a few bars and got me hooked. I've tried the Barcelona, the spicy one, the wasabi one, the Himalayan one, the cardamon one and the Naga bar, and they're all delicious.

I've never tried Green and Blacks before! Those look so good!

[oyceter]

I don't personally eat dog, but I figure I'd try it if offered, just for the heck of it. It's really interesting looking at people's reactions to different cultures' cuisines as a subset of xenophobia or lack of xenophobia too!

Not that the refusal to eat different food is xenophobia, since I think it's often personal, but I've seen enough versions of "Oh my god, you eat [whatever], you guys must be barbarians!"

[oyceter]

Oh, that's awesome! I only wish his series weren't so long so they wouldn't take such a chunk out of my wallet...

[oyceter]

1. Hee! You don't have to, of course! I think I just do because I like having the tabs near the buttons on the Windows taskbar, but that's a personal preference.

4. I love spicy chocolate!

5. *nods* Yeah, I can totally see that. I'm a little divided between being offended and not, since part of me takes great pride in eating things most people wouldn't touch with a ten-foot-pole, but another part... well, yeah.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

1. I'm for anything that means I have to mouse less! Signed, artist paranoid about RSI.

5. Yeah. I was thinking about why it bugged me so much. I think it's because I feel like the filmmakers wanted the emotional reaction (in their white audience) to be "Ew! How shocking!" Showing the Asian-ness not only as other, but icky-other. Or so the intent read to me. The use of chopsticks in the show, OTOH, doesn't bug me.

[oyceter]

Ah, thank you!

I like people talking about race/gender (and class too!) very much!

[oyceter]

Me too! Though I am going to try and con my parents into feeding me expensive food when they are here.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, class for sure. It's a hobbyhorse of mine and yet I often don't think to comment on it WRT TV, because most of the shows I watch deal with it not at all. Which is a bad thing.

I really need to do that Heroes post on class!

[oyceter]

Oooooo, post! Is it what you were discussing with heresluck a few weeks ago? I heard a bit from her and am very interested!

[lybra87.livejournal.com]

I guess it's when people start making personal judgements on other people just based on the food they eat, that's when things get messy.

On the other hand, there's the excessive cultural pride over their own food, where it's "OMG you must try this I don't care if you're allegic or anything, you're a total loser not to" and if you don't love it straight away, it becomes "How can you not ♥ it? You have no taste. You're dumb." Which can get rather annoying too.

[chomiji]

4. I love manchego! Try eating it with tart apple slices sometime (Braeburns are ideal). Did you like the Drunken Goat cheese?

6. So your 20th Century Boys were scanlations? I was meaning to ask whether they were available in English.

- Cho

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I hadn't gone into any depth on the subject, but yeah, I was dithering a bit to her about it. (: My thoughts, they are vague. Maybe once the show starts up again.

[oyceter]

I very much liked the Drunken Goat cheese!

6. Yup, scans. The series has been licensed, but Viz has agreed not to release it until Monster is finished coming out here, which will take a while, as it is 18 vols. I should have some info on dl-ing in the vol. 17-19 report, though it's not directly linked just in case.