Saturday, March 31, 2007

Don't tell ME what to do

I just got an e-mail from Ticketmaster titled "Don't miss Rush".

Listen, you, I'll miss Rush if I damn well feel like it.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

H-h-h-home

I'm home right now for the rest of the week of Spring Break. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch with those of you in Vancouver recently to put together plans to meet up, as I have been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest1. If you wanna get in touch, drop me a line.

But the real reason I'm writing anything down now when I should really be sleeping is that every time I fly home for a holiday, I always forget whether or not I packed a towel, and end up bringing an extra towel back to Berkeley. So this is a written reminder to myself, on the only thing that I read every day2, that no, you did not bring a towel, so don't bring any more towels back to Berkeley.

Also, you should probably buy a couple of new towels when you do get back to Berkeley, as they really aren't that expensive and yours are starting to look kind of sad. I hear Target has towels.

1. I stole that from Regan.
2. What, I'm a good writer, okay. Sue me.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The first step

I wrote this.

Wish me luck.

Current Music: The Shins - Girl Sailor

Friday, March 16, 2007

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Get your jazz on

Tomorrow (that's Thursday, March 15) the jazz ensemble I play in, UC Jazz Intermediate II, is playing our noon concert for the semester. It'll be 12-1, either outside on Sproul Plaza or inside Naia lounge. If you're free and feel like taking in some intermediate jazz, drop by and I'll blow you a kiss or something.

Any (clean) panties thrown will be returned.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

What Was Wang A Few Hours Ago

I wish I had the time and energy to write a proper WWTW but I just don't. However, a couple of hours ago I was at a department function (it's visit week and lots of students are visiting for a couple of days to check out the department). I decided to order the chocolate raspberry layer cake for dessert, because it looked to be the biggest thing on the menu (and because I wasn't paying for any of it). I got it and it looked pretty good, with some whipped cream and a mint leaf on the side as well as a few dabs of raspberry coulis on the plate for decoration. I took a bite of the cake, which was pretty good. I dipped the next bite into the coulis, and put it in my mouth.

Hm. Something's wrong here.

I took a closer look at the sauce and thought, "That doesn't quite look right." It was salty, for one thing; it didn't taste of raspberries, for another. I tried to place the flavour. Was it kumquat? Was it some kind of sour plum? That would explain the saltiness. I tasted it again. "I mean, it could be kumquat," I told myself. I dipped another forkful of cake into another dab of the stuff and took another taste. "Really does taste a bit like sour plum," I thought. I took a closer look. I was dumbfounded.

Is this ketchup?

"No, no way," I told myself. It couldn't be ketchup. It was a very nice restaurant, and I was raised in a blue-collar industrial suburb. "It must be my own low mind that is causing this. This is clearly a sauce whose complexity and aroma is lost on my untrained palate," I convinced myself. I took another bite.

Fuck. It's ketchup.

But! I wasn't paying for the meal, so I thought it would be gauche to complain, especially because there was still enough doubt in my mind that it really was some kind of savoury plum-and-kumquat concoction. In any case, it wasn't doing any favours to the whipped cream or chocolate raspberry layer cake. I avoided it and tried to dig as much whipped cream out from the ketchup-kumquat-plum-whatever it was next to, and ate on in silence.

A few minutes later, though, a professor said "Did they serve us chocolate cake with ketchup?!" and I just let loose. "So I'm not the only person who noticed!" Other people said "No way!" and I said "Go ahead, taste!" Shankar took one bite and said "Oh, yeah, that's ketchup." I was hugely relieved that someone else had been in a position to criticize. Yes! The emperor has no clothes! The emperor has no clothes!

Unfortunately, by this point my own self-doubt had caused me to eat three of the five dabs of ketchup, mostly with my cake. So now I'm the idiot who ate his chocolate cake with most of the ketchup that was provided.

On the plus side, this has solidified my reputation as the guy to whom "all the weird stuff" happens to.

Current Music: Ron Sexsmith - All In Good Time