The Adventures of Chris

Stupidest quote of the night: “It doesn’t look that crowded” ~ Chris at 11:52pm

Corniest quote of the night: “My wristband is group Q…for Quirrell!” ~ random teenage girl

Lamest people of the night: teenagers who drove by, yelling out plot spoilers

Most annoying aspect of waiting: Barnes and Noble turned off their air conditioning

Number of drawn-on lightning bolt “scars” I saw: 4

Number of pages I thought the book had: 709
Number of pages the book actually had: 759
The time that I discovered my mistake: 6:30am

Time that I started reading the book: 2:06am
Time that I finished the book: 8:26am

Other notes:

- I just wanted to clarify that I didn’t preorder and line up for fear of not being able to find the book. It was mostly because I wanted to read it that night, not the next day. After so many years, I didn’t want to wait to find out how the story ended. Plus, I’ve got the ability to stay up, so why not reap a benefit from it?
- I read an article about how a generation of people “grew up” with Harry Potter. The article cited college students reminiscing on when they read the first book as a young child. It made me feel old.
- I wondered if my kids would read HP some day. Would I tell them things like “I remember when the last book came out, I lined up at midnight and your uncle drove with me to the bookstore to get it.” Then my kids will say “DAD, you were almost 30 years old, why were you buying a kids book??”

Here are some pictures of the store at midnight.

The next post contains plot spoilers, so I password protected the post so as not to ruin anything for anyone. The password is the inscription on Harry’s snitch (one word, no spaces). Pretty sneaky eh?

The last few weeks have been largely dominated by soccer. First, I spent a few days down at UCLA while Chelsea (a famous soccer team based in London) were practicing there. These are pictures that included me, my brother, and a famous player. No, really, they’re famous. Seriously.

Then I went to the Galaxy vs. Chelsea game, where David Beckham made his debut. I’m not sure how I feel about his popularity. I’ll admit he’s good at set pieces and long passes and crosses, but he’s really not that good a player, and he’s not going to improve the Galaxy, unless you count having Arnold Schwarzenegger in the crowd as an improvement. If he always has that expression on his face, it might be. This guy holding his sign was just begging to be on tv. I don’t know why. I’d never admit publicly that I spent $1400 on Galaxy tickets.

- I’ve blocked out 1145pm-12:30am this Friday/Saturday to be down at Barnes and Noble to line up for Harry Potter. I put in a preorder with Barnes and Noble the day after my last blog entry. The funny thing is that I felt stupid for not preordering at Borders when I found out that they would only distribute books to preorderers at midnight. Then I called Barnes and Noble today and, when I found out that they were still taking preorders, I felt dumb because I’m sure they’re going to have a billion copies anyway. I just can’t stand the prospect of not being able to find a copy over the weekend. On a side note, I found it interesting that I’m so much more hyped about the final book than the much more well-read Susan, who is the person who got me into Harry Potter in the first place. Of course, the real reason is that I like seeing big fights, whereas Susan is much more mature about these things.

- Steph and I tried Casa Bianca pizzeria in Eagle Rock. Everything Yelp and Citysearch said is true. The pizza is good and the wait is long. We had some zucchini sticks to start. I’m not a zucchini stick connoisseur, but I can say that the batter wasn’t too salty, which is a good thing. We split a pizza topped with pepperoni, sausage, and tomatoes. I have to say, the pizza itself looks really good at Casa Bianca. When the waitress put it down, both Steph and I said something to the effect of “wow that looks good.” The crust is well done - thin enough and chewy enough. The tomato sauce isn’t overpowering or salty. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the sausage, which had an overpowering fennel flavor. I’m just not a fan of fennel. For dessert, we split a cannoli, partially because I wanted to compare it to the ones I had at Mike’s in Boston. I can say that Mike’s cannoli is definitely better than Casa Bianca’s. I’d go back to Casa Bianca for a sausage-less pizza, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to wait an hour to get it. Prediction: take out order

- I got to sort of knock Matteo’s off of my restaurant list. I say “sort of” because I tried its lower end, sister restaurant, Hoboken (it supposedly serves similar stuff and even used to be called Matteo’s: A Taste of Hoboken). The calimari fritti was fried just right, with the right amount of crispness, but it could have been more well seasoned (my brother, who’s had the dish before, said it was less seasoned than usual). As I do with most Italian places, I ordered the spaghetti with meat sauce (they even put “our specialty” next to it on the menu). The sauce was a bit less hearty and more watered down than I imagined, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The sauce had a bit of spiciness to it too. It was unique, and I can see why its their specialty, but I’m not clamoring for more at the moment. Speaking of Italian, I really have to hit Angelini Osteria while I’m in L.A.

- I was looking at the list of 99 essential L.A. restaurants that Shannon linked to. I’ve eaten at 22 of them. That seems like a pretty puny number. One thing about L.A. - I’m less inclined to try restaurants here than in the bay area. It’s because of a combination of things - parking difficulties, crowds, snobby staff and snobby patrons. This is all on top of my impression that at least some of the people at these restaurants are superficial people who are food posers (i.e. people who just want to try the “hot new place”). I guess people in the bay area can’t afford to be as superficial though…because they’re uglier*.

- I am now officially a fan of Top Chef. I’ve added to it to the shortlist of tv shows that I make a point to watch (Scrubs, The Office, Entourage). It’s really the first reality show I can stand because it spends more time focusing on food making rather than personality clashes or sexual tension. I was kind of disappointed that Lia got kicked off this week. She was one of my favorite contestants because she was talented, down to earth, and got into a dispute with Hung. That’s on top of the fact that her first name is also an anagram of my last name. Now I’m hoping Tre wins, and that future guest judges will repeatedly call Hung “Hank” just to spite him further.

* Statement relates to a general, overall perception and does not pertain to any personal friends/acquaintances living in the bay area, most notably, Susan. Statement also pertains to a nebulous, subjective criteria known only to this blogger. Categorization of the bay area population as such does not limit nor does it preclude said population from being rated by others as being more or less attractive than populations of other areas, including, but not limited to, that of Los Angeles.

I realized today that I missed the deadlines for preordering Harry Potter on Amazon for June 21st delivery.  This is after missing the deadline for preordering at Barnes and Noble and Borders.

Borders is having a midnight release party, but they’re only going to have books for preorderers.  Barnes and Noble said they might have some books for general sale, but that they weren’t sure.

I’m so mad.  I should have just preordered the book at a store.  I was so cheap about it, but, after all of these years, what’s a few bucks to find out the ending sooner?  I could have figured out the end by 5am on June 21st.  Now I could be reduced to fighting 12-year-olds for a copy.   This isn’t how I imagined life as a 28 year old.

http://www.simpsonizeme.com

Nintendo Mii

Nintendo wins.

1)

I saw My Cousin Vinny for the first time in its entirety. That movie is actually really good and really funny. Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei were great, and, as an added bonus, Ralph Macchio still looked like Daniel LaRusso (if you’ve seen Curb Your Enthusiasm, you’ll know that he doens’t look like Daniel anymore). I hate to admit it, but I think I liked the movie even more because of the legal humor. I want to make an mp3 out of the part where Ralph Macchio asks Joe Pesci how many times it took him to pass the bar (”third times the charm right?…not for me it wasn’t.”)

I think the movie automatically became great when Joe Pesci wore this outfit to court

2)

Why didn’t anyone tell me about splatter screens? If you haven’t heard of them, they are circular wire mesh screens that you put over pans to keep oil from jumping out of the pan. They come in sizes ranging from 8′’ to 13′’. The idea is that the wire mesh is so fine that it will block most of the oil droplets from escaping, but will still allow steam and heat to escape while cooking. WHY didn’t I hear of this before???

3)

I rewatched the Good Eats episode about omelets. I had no idea that omelets are better when made with room temperature eggs instead of refridgerated eggs. I want to take a few cracks at some room temperature omelets, and maybe a frittata.

Some pics from our dinner at Wood Tavern in Oakland.

Course list

- Butcher Block (pork rilletes, Fra Mani Salame Toscano, House Smoked Duck Breast)
- Triple Cream French Cow’s Milk cheese, Petit Basque Spanish Sheep’s Milk cheese
- Grilled Double Cut Pork Chop, Smoked Bacon Morel Mushroom Succotash, Yukon Gold potatoes, Marsala sauce
- Grilled Flatiron steak, roasted red fingerling potatoes, red peppers, cippolini onions, artichoke salsa

Comments

- pork rilletes was a bit bland, but I think that’s the way it is
- I can see what the fuss is about Fra Mani salame. Great flavor and texture. I’m not a salame (or salami) expert, but I’m fairly sure that this salame was what most salame should taste like.
- The artichoke salsa on the flatiron steak tasted really unusual. I’ve never had anything like it. It was good…but so unique that I don’t think you could love it.
- Eating juicy pork in restaurants just makes me more and more frustrated when I see super dry pork at the markets

I saw Ocean’s Thirteen the other day.

My comments:

- Al Pacino’s character is Willy Bank, not Willy Banks. I read so many reviews that listed his character’s name as Willy Banks. I can’t believe those reviewers would mess that up.

- I realized that the crew has to be in Vegas. Ocean’s Twelve was automatically less cool because they were in Europe.

- No guys look better in suits than George Clooney and Brad Pitt. It’s unbelievable.

- I liked the way that they integrated Toulour and how they handled Terry Benedict’s role.

- The way to atone for a totally illogical plot point that is not to cover it up, but to immediately follow it with subsequent illogical plot points. That way, the viewer is totally overwhelmed and can’t isolate or think about individual plot points. Then you put George Clooney and Brad Pitt in suits, in Vegas. Then you have a movie.