Monday March 1, 2004

Oh yes, many are asking, so I’ll just write about it briefly: Viennese Ball was great!  The dancing was tremendously fun.  The dance troupes were brilliant.  The pacing was surprisingly pleasant and I didn’t feel like my feet were dying at the end, nor that the tux was overwhelming.  It was fantastic to see so many friends there — my drawmates, my freshman year Bible study leader, people I realized I really missed from my old dorms, so many familiar faces…  I can’t help but smile every time Jieun describes, with that glint in her eye, how her first Viennese Ball was a [dramatic pause] “magical time.”  I can’t quite tell whether she’s being sarcastic, but it doesn’t matter.  It was totally worth it.  =]  I had a lot of things to learn coming out of it too… unexpected life lessons, I suppose.  I didn’t see that coming at all.  But that’s good too.  I needed to learn those things.  Better now than later, I believe.  Anyway, I can’t believe I almost passed up Viennese for the sixth year in a row!  What was I thinking?  >_< 

Monday March 1, 2004

I tried to eat a whole rack of baby back ribs all by myself tonight at BJ’s Brewery in Cupertino with the Baylight men in celebration of the last days of Ted’s bachelorhood. The entree included a New England clam chowder and mashed potatoes with gravy and mushrooms. They had a pretty good grapefruit-lemonade too. I almost made it. I think I could’ve crammed in those final 5 or 6 ribs down the hatch, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed them much, so I ended up saving some of the ribs for lunch tomorrow. Guess I can save that last can of emergency Spam (TM) for another day. =] However, I was eyeing that tall glass of grapefruit-lemonade that Young had. I don’t even think he touched it. We were all about to leave and I was just about to say, “Uh, are you going to drink that?” but then he went ahead and took that obligatory swig before getting up from the table. Doh, too late.

Then I went home and couldn’t help but take a giant spoon to the leftover Cheesecake Factory cheesecake in the fridge and finish off the half-eaten donut out of the box that I managed to save from the depths of the trash can into which Dong and Janice were about to toss out these sugary delights after service today. Good thing they found me. They got to join a half-eaten box of Krispy Kremes that somebody must’ve brought home this morning.

That reminds me that after I saved the donuts, I joined a bunch of the Baylight gang to lunch at The Board Walk. Funny how I’ve passed by place on El Camino probably 100 times, and I’ve never noticed it before. It was pretty similar to The Oasis in Palo Alto, except that the floor was actually a boardwalk, peanut shells did not lie strewn about the floor everywhere, and they probably would’ve actually disapproved had I taken out my pocketknife to carve “niftyken was here” on the tables and walls here. I had a turkey and monterey jack sandwhich and a HUGE caesar salad that was supposed to be the side dish. The sandwhich was totally dwarfed by the greens. Somehow I ate it all.

Oh yeah, Saturday. I had brunch with Grace. Homemade pancakes and scrambled eggs. People from next door came in one after another to grab a hearty portion of the tasty treats. =] For dinner, I went to Pluto’s with Kang. I had no idea the chicken would cost a dollar more than just the regular Farmer’s Greens salad. It tasted like tofu for some reason. Yum yum! ^_^

While watching The Making of The Passion of the Christ and Enemy at the Gates at home with Ed, I couldn’t stop munching Sam’s container of Trader Joe’s “TASTE” Assorted Nuts and other crunchy things. Things I like in the mix: honey roasted sesame sticks, cajun corn sticks, iso peanuts. Things I didn’t care for in the mix: pretzel balls, roasted salted corn nuts (I used to love these things, especially Cool Ranch flavor). Things I couldn’t find in the mix even though it listed it in the ingredients: tamari almonds. (Okay, Baines House, who ate them all?) Wow, this posting is totally unchronological. And since when do I ever talk about food? This is probably more food than I typically eat in a week.

Monday March 1, 2004

Just wanted to continue the Spam posting (No pun intended.):

I followed up the Can of Spam (TM) for Friday lunch with the following for Friday dinner at Fook Yuen (no, those were not four letter words) Seafood Restaurant in Millbrae: jelly fish and BBQ pork cold cuts, wontons in hot and sour soup, Fujian fried rice (Fujian province in China, not Fuji the island or anything like that), crispy fried noodles, salted fish & chicken with bean curd, prawns with glazed walnuts, steamed scallop & tofu in spicy XO sauce, cashew chicken, sweet and sour pork.  And I ate it in a tuxedo amidst lots of friends on our way to Viennese Ball.  (I think that’s the first time I’ve eaten *anything* in a tuxedo…)  I still wonder what would’ve happened had I decided to be weird and make reservations for us in our formalwear at the Jamaican fast-food restaurant nearby, Chicken Chicken…