A National Geographic documentary re-narrated. One of my favorite videos that Edo sent to me. Watch the honey badger pass out from a cobra’s venom and get right back up to continue eating it.  

Wakasaya–a Japanese chirashi rice bowl chain scattered throughout Japan with the exception of two locations in Los Angeles.  Awhile back, Paul mentioned this restaurant offered a free $50 sushi bowl if one finished it (including giant sized miso soup) under 15 minutes.  His first attempt at glory concluded on the wall of shame for merely finishing the entire bowl and soup.  Only one person so far at the Sawtelle location has finished the entire bowl and he looked more dead than alive in the “after” shot.  After weeks without seeing Paul, I mentioned the sushi competition on his facebook wall to which he replied “BRING IT ON!”

I mustered a few optimistic friends interested in joining this mission to eat the bowl of sushi under 15 minutes; however, upon personally viewing the size of the bowl and the concoction of seafood inside it, not to mention the mass of rice and gooey squid, we all immediately opted out, leaving poor Paul a lone solider to consume Blunderbore’s sushi bowl.

To put it into perspective, I photographed the sanely sized bowl i opted for to the left next to Paul's bowl (12" diameter)

blunderbore bowl contents

I can only wonder what he's thinking

Then Paul add's the giant bowl of Miso (yes, you have to finish the miso soup under 15 minutes too) to his rice to slurp it up.

Alas, the bloated rice prevailed over Paul's engorged belly. Next time, Joe might join him.

"it's about this big"

Ed discussing black matter, coincidentally, while sitting in black matter.

This is what Joe ate: negitoro, ikura, and uni

I ate this: sake, ikura, and uni

Paul and Lisa on the "Wall of Shame." Finishing a bowl with enough sushi to feed a Japanese army is hardly shameful.

The boys

Naka doing something other than listening to J's oration about anime.

Ed and Paul don't drink much, they just have a bottle of scotch with their name on it stored at Karaoke Bleu. You never know when you might need to top up.

Hahn showed us how not to pose for the camera.

Instead, one must drop the head, and stretch out the neck like a vulture. Seriously, it works! It's like the hand-on-the-hip-to-slim-your-arms trick. Instead, it's supposed to narrow your face (but the photographer needs to be in sync with the shoot too.)

So we all tried the trick.

Yes..

all of us. But he neglected to advise against stupid facial expressions.

Jane Oh (check out her website http://janeoh.com/ -- laura bush bought her skirt!) got her make up did.

Beautiful <3

This is me keeping myself occupied by taking a photo of my mug from below. I must have blown out the boogies beforehand.

It's not the size of the ball that counts, it's the "pop" it makes in your mouth.

If you want to satisfy an omakse craving with a decent, quick and relatively cheap option, go for Nozawa’s Sugarfish.

James Jean updated his twitter while I fiddled with my new camera.

TORO TORO! Hand Roll. Looks like an abstract version of something corporeal.

Yellow Tail that's not so yellow.

Just for the Halibut (thanks Mari)

Tinkered with intensity levels on my camera. Model: Sake (salmon)

It's Tuna

A more realistic version of the Tuna sushi "no sauce"

Sake with sesame seeds

Wasabe Peas

Another Tuna dish one always begins "Trust Me" with. Sugarfish offers a lot of Tuna dishes (my least favorite fish)

Random man who mad-dogged me when I took a picture of him.

from sitting on them on the chair.

Car shopping is akin to eating at your favorite restaurant knowing that your ex-boyfriend owns it.  It’s like a love-hate experience–you have a corporeal need to satisfy your craving, but dread to see him, much less communicate with him.  Car shopping is kind of like that, but a whole lot worse.  I love looking at cars, even when I don’t intend on buying one. And asking questions and learning more and smelling that lovely new car smell and hearing the sound of the *thunk,* from the door closing.

I was absolutely disappointed when not one, not ONE person at the Nissan dealership could tell me anything useful about the GTR (emphasis on don’t intend on buying one, but looking).  What’s worse than ignorance is false intelligence.  I can’t believe people would make up information or neglect to mention that a car is a 2010 vs. 2012.  Urgh, so frustrating.  I mean, pick up that glossy GTR brochure and f*ing read it, so you don’t look like a dipshit when someone asks you “how much torque does it have?”  All you have to do is regurgitate the answers from the brochure.  Anyway, I can’t afford a GTR, but I tagged along with a friend to test drive one since she’s planning on getting one.  The no-frills car drives like a dream.

OK, so my car shopping was distracted by that super car test drive.  After going to a couple of dealerships of various brands and asking a few questions and getting a few shat deals, I felt suffocated–like I wasn’t asking the right questions and I felt like I was being taken advantage of but couldn’t prove it.  So I did as any normal retarded person would do and googled “car leasing tips and facts.”  After hours of research, I compiled all the factors of a sales agents’ quote in the form of a spreadsheet.

Basically, to determine your lease payment you need to add the depreciation fee, finance fee, and sales tax.  In order to obtain all these numbers, you need all the details you see in the spreadsheet above.  I also discovered some interesting facts about the seemingly official fees.  It’s always important to ask which are the official fees and dealer fees.  Official fees are non-negotiable, but ones such as acquisition, disposition, and documentation–might have some negotiating room.  Anyway, I can go on forever about the details of a lease, but I’m not even sure if all this is accurate.  I think one of my formulas must have been slightly off, but I was accurate most of the time after inputting all the numbers I requested from the sales agents, but again, sometimes off by + or – $5.  Funnily enough, after creating this spreadsheet, I noticed websites that sell these spreadsheets to help you calculate your lease.  Oh well, at least I learned a lot.

After all the shopping and comparing quotes, I was able to understand how the sales agent came up with his quote and negotiate accordingly.  Some were even impressed that I knew what the hell “net cap cost” meant.  Little did they know, I had learned all this info (certainly not everything) minutes before I had called them.  Anyway, it’s always good to know what’s going on so you don’t get taken advantage of.  Especially for women.  I’m generalizing when I say that many (not all) car sales men sure as hell love taking advantage of women–empirically speaking.

At the end of all that crap, understanding the numbers above will help you identify between someone who’s taking advantage of you, or someone who genuinely wants to give you a great deal.  Then you can use that great deal as a negotiating weapon.

_____

I love documenting everything I eat, especially the photo-worthy dishes.  Thus, Mari got me a camera today as a gift to depict my experiences a lot more accurately than the pixelated food photos from my blackberry.

I didn’t get to use it until late tonight, so I took a picture of my very first and favorite decanter in the world (thanks Mari <3):

and of course, my boy (mastiff/boxer):

who has the most giant shits, second to horses.

One of my favorite prose tricks is potty word substitution. It’s easy to sound vulgar and ignorant if one swears too much; so the trick is to use synonymous words to the more harsher versions, aka euphemisms, while maintaining inconspicuous vulgarity and ignorance.

before: shit, fuck, bitch, cunt, dick

after: poop, screw, meanie, pee pee, weenie

With that said, I think one should only use cunt sparingly–purely for necessary emphasis.  It’s such a harsh word and sounds so dirty aka oh-so-fun-to-say, but still, it’s really harsh.  Here are some practical applications:

(f)-  Your best friend’s wife cheated on Mike with Tommy who impregnated her and then dumped her shortly afterward.
That cunt deserved it.

(m)-   You caught your boyfriend sleeping with your best friend on your bed.
Those cunts.

Love,

Beefstewnoodles

that my inspiration to blog tonight comes from none other than a bitter old ingrate whose resentment about his unsuccessful food truck manifests in threats, entitlement issues, and pure spite.  Now had this been a couple years back, I would have gladly provided this individual’s crappy truck’s name; but I’ve since slightly matured and thus will only use this entry for ranting.

But I can’t get into depth, because it will certainly give away the identity of this crap person who threatened me during an event I hosted and originated, which resulted ultimately in not-so-fortunate things for it.  That’s Karma for you jerkoff.  Then, here I am, minding my own business, trying to help some people out who want it, and then BAM; here comes this thing who leaves a nasty message on my voicemail months after zero communication.  Maybe he needs his incontinence diaper changed.

These people must not possess an iota of sensitivity, conscience, much less a heart.  Otherwise, why would these bored, impotent wackjobs incessantly find ways to pester people like me who want nothing , absolutely-tootly NOTHING to do with such sort.  Does unresponsiveness give you a polite hint that I don’t want any f*ing thing do with you?!

Good God, go away!  I wish they had human-sized electric bug swatters.