OK… I have to admit I wasn’t that excited for the dinner at La Fondue but I was proven wrong. The food was really good and now I’m a convert to foods I thought died in the 70’s.
Ok, to be fair, I was a little dumb. Why did I expect to NOT like fruit, cheese, and meat? Sounds like the perfect menu so I’m not really sure why I was surpised. 
But come on. American Idol is silly this season. I agree with Simon every time he remarks that he has no idea what the show is all about this year.
And Paula… really? Someone needs to help her.
PS- I am willing to go out on a limb and make a prediction for 2008. Now that Hikade is free I bet he shows up on next season’s American Idol. Sadly my follow on prediction is that even as crazy as he is he won’t even stand out.
I recently bought and installed the new Slingbox Pro so I could access the Comcast DVR w/HD over the web. I do think the picture is clearer but I don’t know that for sure but what I will tell you is that something is odd. The controls seem sluggish and some of this I have to think is the Comcast DVR is slow. Oh well… I have a dream that at some point in the future content will stream over the web when we want and the quality will be perfect. For now I have a DVR hooked up to the web and a video iPod that I try and always keep content on so it’s there when I’ve got down time and I’m away from the house.
I have my dream.
Ding! I’m on lvl 64 now so that makes 5 lvls in less than 2 weeks (plus the normal work thing 
). I saw a whole mess of 70’s today including my first 70 on a flying mount that buzzed me and then took off.
I love hanging out with people in their home and seeing how they live. What I love more is a great, home cooked meal. Tonight I got to do both when we went to Steve and Sarah’s for dinner and Sarah cooked up a crazy good meal. There were cheese quesadillas and bruschetta for starters and then a really good gnocchi with sun dried tomatoes and prosciutto. Then we had this awesome chocolate cake that was almost flowerless, served with vanilla ice cream and a raspberry topping.
Their friend Claire was in town and joined us. I met Claire when we went to brunch in Los Gatos a few weeks back and think she’s a riot. If you know my friend Adrianne from college then just think her and you’ll be pretty close. The additional plus for me with Claire is that she’s a techie (she had a t-shirt that said, “Speak geek to me” in English and Japanese) and has a couple characters in WarCraft. She’s pretty cool.
If you have Skype 3.0 you can access “Skype Extras” and one of the newest is a version of Deal Finder for Skype. It uses eBay.com data so it is really targeted at US users in this version.
Try the new version of Deal Finder for Skype and let me know what you think. To get it in Skype: Tools > Do More > Get Extras and you’ll find it under Miscellaneous.
Have I not told you about this awesome new accessory from Jawbone? Rob from CanDo sent me an IM telling me to buy this and after watching the online advertisement I went out and got it. I was on the phone with my mom tonight and she didn’t hear any of the background noise that was going on. Sweet.
Yes, I bought the Warcraft expansion and I hit lvl 60 as of 1AM Friday. My goal had been to hit 60 before it came out but I didn’t end doing that. I was actually kinda bored with the game and needed 200k xp (yes, all my female friends reading this just said, “Whatever… geek” and then moved on to stylehive.com. Oh wait, that was Max that did that.) So I started a new char and ignored the final level goal.
The new expansion, Burning Cruscades, came out Tuesday at midnight and the crowds were nuts so I bailed and figured I’d get it at lunch Wednesday. I finally got around to playing for an hour on Thursday night and then crashed (see previous dinner post for the reason I started so late) and then picked it up again Thursday night after dinner with friends.
For dinner this week we tried Kaygetsu in Menlo Park. To say that there wasn’t much that appealed to my tastes “as displayed on the menu” is an understatement. The reason for the quotes is that if you know me you’ll enjoy the back story.
The person picking this week was really kind and came to me with the restaurant and a concern that we check the menu and make sure I’d be ok. They were going to try the fixed price, 7 course meal (see below) that was 98% seafood so that wouldn’t really work for me. We checked and sure enough there was one beef dish I would eat.
When we actually sat down to order we noticed the beef dish was only served med rare which is also not good for me. We asked the server to cook it well and were told that the chef wouldn’t consider it because people who had ordered it that way before later complained that the dish was ruined. I begged and told him there was no way I would complain so they relented. I think the fact my friends were having a 7 course meal and I would have sat there for 3 hours with nothing finally swayed them. Later we ordered a 2nd round of it just so I could keep up with them.
(Side note: I should have told them the story about the incredible seafood starter served at our wedding where Alice and I both don’t eat seafood. That’s a sign Alice cares more about other people than I do… I would have served beef and pork with maybe a chicken option and told people to suck it up. But that’s just me. )
The exact dish I got was this:
Roast beef, kaygetsu style roast rib eye of kobe style beef with salad, served with tamari soy sauce (Apparently kaygetsu style means med rare)
The dessert I got was awesome too:
Mochi ice cream mango mochi ice ceam
Here is the menu the guys got:
Winter Kaiseki Course Menu (Last Updated on 12/11/06)
Course 1: Saki zuke (starter)
dried mullet roe with daikon radish
salmon roe with grated yamaimo potato
flounder, marinated in kelp,
mountain caviar, dashi gelatin
stuffed shiitake mushroom
gingko nuts in pine skewer
rice cracker coated shrimp, deep fried
snap peas in sesame/tofu sauce
Course 2: Takiawase (slow cooked dish)
daikon radish with white miso sauce
wheat gluten, tied kelp, plum shaped carrot
koimo potato, snow peas, yuzu citrus
Course 3: Tsukuri(sashimi)
daily assortment
Course 4: Mushimono(steamed dish)
king crab, tofu, leek, chrysanthemum greens
enoki and shimeji mushrooms
served with ponzu sauce
Course 5: Yaki mono(grilled dish)
kinki fish, dried and grilled, topped with caviar
pickled vegetables
rice cake wrapped with seaweed
Course 6: Gohan mono (rice dish)
rice, cooked with
chicken, age tofu, carrot and lotus root
red miso soup with asari clams
Course 7: House-made original dessert
black sesame, thickened with kudzu gelatin
fresh fruits
This Gawker post struck me as funny. I think it might be the fact that Google can’t seem to do anything wrong yet when you let people in there are all kinds of opinions. Guess they have to tweak their sensitivity algorithm a little more.