GINI Wine Tasting

The wine tasting group I belong to finally has a blog: http://www.seatourist.com.

Don't ask me why the name seatourist is used.. ask Andrew.

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I went to this hair stylist recommended by Tyatt and a few others. I told the guy "whatever hairstyle, long or short, something you think fits me" and I got this:

Micro-Lobsters

So Tyatt was very excited yesterday. She was like "Oh my gosh I have to tell you this. I found this page for Michael Lobster".
"Michael Lobster?"
"Yeah.. Micro-Lobsters.." (oh.. right.. not some guy.)
".. they are like tiny red lobsters and you get this tank of them and you don't have to feed them."
(right.. I have heard of self-sustaining ecosystems-in-a-tank before)
"and then they shrink!"

What?! I thought it was a hoax. She then showed me this page and the more I thought I was a joke. But it wasn't, apparently.. Even a prominent Hawaii newspaper talked about them. Now I think that's quite a cool thing to add to my cubicle at work.

And the shrinking part? If you don't feed them they eat micro-alge and bacteria, but being mal-norished next them they shed their shell the new shell will be smaller because the micro-lobsters have slimmed down. :)

Japanese Plum Wine

Tyatt and I first tasted plum wine on our JKH trip back in 2002. We had it at a crab restaurant in Sapporo called Sapporo Kani Honke and we fell in love with it ever since. It's hard to find good plum wine here in Toronto though -- we've never had better plum while then in Sapporo and PLEASE do not buy that crap sold by the LCBO. Through Mr. Kaji at Kaji Sushi we found a brand that is palletable: Hakusan plum wine.. made in Napa Valley though.. but good nonetheless.

Anyways, today while surfing I found a website that gives a simple receipe for DYI plum wine. Now if I can find the ingredients shown.. :)

Random pictures

So I was reading slashdot today and in the comments to a story today is a link to a page that uses google image search, and posts queries using common digital camera image-naming conventions. The premise is that many people do not bother to rename their pictures before they post them on the net, and by searching these camera-generated filenames you can truely come across random pictures!

That was an interesting experience. I went to check it out, not expecting much. In fact objectively speaking it *was* nothing much. Many many ordinary pictures of ordinary people doing various oridinary things. Pictures of kids with icecream all over their face and neck. Kids running around play spots. People on stage giving a speech or singing songs. Performances of groups of people. People having dinner, at a party, drinking [insert your favourate alcholic drink].

But on further reflection, that's not ordinary. I don't know these people.. that makes the pictures ordinary.. I bet if I asked them they can tell me a whole story behind the picture! Oh yeah that guy drunk themself to the point of passing out because he.... Yeah this was her presentation on .... and she completely aced it. Tonite was his birthday but so and so didn't show up... I felt like I suddenly met a shitload of people and they all told me a short snippet of their lives when I saw one picture of their countless albums.

hmm.. yeah.. it's very zen.. I should sleep soon.

Crime and Punishment

So with my $25 Chapters.ca gift card my HPYs gave me, I bought a literary classic «Crime and Punishment» by Dostoevsky. Well.. and also «War and Peace» by Tolstoy, but I've only started to read the first one.

I've only finished reading the introduction written by Joseph Frank.. dunno if that's the guy who did the translation or what.. but what he did was to provide the historical and personal context up front to shed light into the mind of the author when the novel was written. Anyways, this should be my GO train reading for the next while.. at my rate of reading (15 pages a day) I am guessing maybe a month?! Doh.

Thanks HPYs!

Oh, so why the Russian authors? In Grade 11 I took this English course in which everything we read are from Russia or Eastern Europe: Tolstoy, Kafka.. etc. Well except «Waiting for Godot» by Samuel Beckett, who's Irish.. but what the hey. In fact «Waiting for Godot» is still my favourate play, while Kafka is still one of my favourate authors.

Then again, go browse through my novel book case and you'll see an interesting collection of authors: Orwell, PKD, Kafka, Asimov. Now add Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Cervantes.. You tell me :)

Chef DB?!

So I was searching online for some Toronto restaurant info and HMMMM! I came across this website that attempts to catalog all the chefs that work(ed) in Toronto and cross-references them with restaurants around town. It is a bit incomplete, tho.. must be work in progress.