Immensely sad. Just found out the father of my sister's friend passed away. I made my first camera purchase from his photo store. Of course, my sister is even more distraught. She actually called during her work to tell me. Meanwhile, I had ten thousand things to do, including stuff that threatens my graduation so I felt bad that I couldn't really talk to her. She wants to call the friend but she doesn't know what to say. What do/can you even say that would make any difference? I have this sudden flashback to my father's death now and it was suddenly more painful than the first time around - I nearly started crying which certainly would've been a sight as I was still walking around on campus. This whole month has just been bad, bad bad.

The anxiety and stress is quite unbelievable. I keep thinking I'm either seriously going to get a fucking ulcer or some blood pressure problem. I haven't woken up one morning since the end of march without intense grumbling/aching from my stomach which points to extremely high acidity. Am going to try and keep this under control. Again, I return to a higher power for some spiritual guidance and comfort.......


Recommended Tunes For Today:

+ Blind Roosevelt Graves - I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind On Jesus

+ Johnny Cash - Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode cover)

+ Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night

+ Gary Jules - No Poetry



+ David Ryan Harris - Strong Enough (Temple Bar 12/06/06)

+ T. Rex - The Motivator

+ Bill Evans - Who Can I Turn To



+ Jamie Cullum - 21st Century Kid

Pic of the day:

Found a new food blogging/restaurant review site. Sample of some of the food porn you can find there (actually this pic isn't from the site but I wanted a pic of duck breast and the one on the site doesn't skow up):

Link to food blog site


I googled "peaceful picture' and got this.

Haha

Fredric March is awesome and immensely underrated. Read this article here for proof. He was such a talented actor: watch Best Years Of Our Lives if you don't believe me. He is often overlooked because he always played the regular men, successful and not too noticeable but it is just those characters that takes considerable talent to play them off convincingly. In real life this guy was pretty awesome too - liberal back when it wasn't too cool to be one. His looks weren't too bad either.


When you think classic romance, you think Fredric March.


Other things for today:

My sis and mum came for their regular weekend visit today. Brought in all the things I always somehow leave behind whenever I go home. This time, it was the phone charger. Luckily my friend has a similar phone and I was able to borrow hers for a charging "session". Makes me realize, w/ great irritation, how dependent I am on my cellie. She also brought in some yummy savory Japanese crackers and my netflix dvds. This week its

- Whale and The Squid (very excited about this one - I saw ten minutes of it a theater and have been thinking about it ever since)

- Junebug - am looking to Amy Adams performance

- Secrets & Lies - Have been looking forward to it since it came out, way way way WAY back when.

I'll let you know what I think of them.




I know this is probably quite disgusting to some but I'm really jonesing for one of these right now.


Recommended Tunes For Today:

+ Brand New Immortals - Satellites
(I doubt anyone has heard of this band. Short-lived and not particularly good looking, they played easy-on-the-ears pop tunes.)

+ David Ryan Harris - Nothing More To Say
(The lead singer went on to do some solo stuff. I suspect most of the work during Brand New Immortals was his stuff)

+ Teenage Fanclub - Sparky's Dream
(listened to this band freshman year a lot)

+ Mogwai - Kappa
(another group I listened to a lot of during Freshman year)

+ Wilco - Via Chicago
(From the Trees Lounge blogspot who so ingeniously took inspiration from Sufjan Steven's 50 states/50 albums project to do his own take of it, posting songs about all 50 states by various artists famous and not. This one is from the Illinois post - of course.)

+ T. Rex - Planet Queen
(glam rock-alicious)

+ Sondre Lerche - On The Tower
(My sis loves the way KCRW's Nic Harcourt says Sondre's name. Then again, she pretty much loves the way he says anything. Nobody else has got that special British/Australian/New York mix accent going on)

+ Grandaddy - The Go In For The Go-For-It
(It took me a long while to really give this band a listen. I know - I'm an idiot)

Pics for today:


Tee hee. Its Fry and Laurie.


Good. God. I can't work when you're looking at me like that!!!

Didn't realize its been a while since I posted here. Well, to bring it up to speed....

I did indeed fail a class but it was not as earth shattering as imagined. I didn't care about the class anyways and it didn't do as much damage to my gpa as I thought it would. Not that I want to repeat that again.

Spring Break was sorely needed and really made me realize how much I missed my family. Everyone needs something that reenergizes them. Didn't do too much over break, lots of eating and wonderful meals like I planned, hanging out w/ sister and mom and rest.

Memorable meals:

- Angelina's on Main Street in my little town of Alhambra with some really good chicken fried steak, to die for yams, mashed potatoes and gravy like it should be, brown, meaty and greasy, some hush puppies and cooornbread mmmmmm.

- Ajisen noodle on Valley w/ really good ramen and a vast array of side dishes of fat shrimpalooza dumplings, california-like sushi rolls w/ cruchy popping roe and kewpie brand mayo, little chunks of battered n fried chicken - perfect w/ a light sprinkling of salt pepper and a squeeze of lemon.

- Many meals of Japanese food in our mini search for really good tempura.

- Daikokuya in Little Tokyo. I had heard so much about it as the best bowl of ramen in LA that I had to go try it. The soup was perfectly milky with tons of pork flavor and the ramen was chewy and toothsome, the pork w/ just the right amout of fat swirled in it, a lovely milder version of the chinese tea egg cooked perfectly and all with a generous pile of green onions which my mom particularly enjoyed a lot. Their sides are not as fantastic though - tempura a little skimpy and oily, gyoza good but nothing to write home about and the sausages had a lovely snap to the skin served w/ mustard and onions but the flavor was pretty disappointingly regular. Will definitely go back again to try their rice bowls which looked really good and california rolls, looking fresh and large. Along with a giant bowl of ramen of course.

A pic of the interior of Daikokuya.

- Phoenix Inn on Valley, which isn't an inn so I don't know why they named it that, but its been a long time since I went and I knew it was going to be good, since there is always a crowd when you pass by but I was pleasantly surprised at just [i]how[/i] good it was. We had my favorite the honey walnut shrimp, which is a very whitey dish to order but I can't help loving it and the shrimp was fried w/ a spectacular coating that was crunch but light and not the least bit oily, the walnuts were fresh and the coating of sugar not too thick - perfect, and I've eaten this dish a lot so I had much to compare to. My mom ordered the fried stuffed tofu, similarly fried w/ that delicious coating and my sister got the pinapple beef expecting something different but it was just the regular bell pepper pinapple beef deal which was still very good and well made - just that we wanted to try something special.

Am mourning the loss of you tube, if indeed they are going away permanantly. Horrible. I don't know why those fucking idiot companies went after them. You couldn't download the videos, I don't remember any being more than a few minutes long and they hardly did anything to deter anyone from buying videos and dvds if they had anything to do with them....damn! I'm very pissed about it. There was a hilarious Fry & Laurie bit I wanted to watch again today.

House is on full time now until the end of the season which is a dream. Veeeery sexy Hugh Laurie and his ripping biceps in tight t-shirts and 3 day old stubble. Phwoar!

New quarter, more stress but I feel slightly more apt to handle it this time around after the good bit of rest. There is one class I've taken that seems extremely interesting. Its a comparative media class called Robot Boys and Patchwork Girls about the human body in the technological era, meaning cyborgs, manimals, robots, androids etc. First lecture we watched a bjork video and another chris cunningham video - how awesome is that...

Okay thats it for now.

Recommended Tunes For Today:

+ Elliott Smith - Waltz #2 (XO)
(aww, I miss him)

+ A.C. Newman - On The Table
(fantastic album)

+ Saul Williams - Black Stacy
(What a scorcher!

+ Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentleman - You Got To Be Careful
(Heard this song on House from the first season during the little spar between Vogler and House and I was just caught but the absolute funkiness of it. I rarely get songs from tv shows and when I do, I hate admitting to it as it seems so very O.C-ish but for this one song, I couldn't help it)

+ Architecture In Helsinki - Kindling

+ Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Steal A Ride
(I just got me the Howl Sessions)

+ Paul Simon - Kathy's Song
(the better half)

+ Bob Dylan - Rocks and Gravel
(From the Freewheelin Outtakes. Something about the driving guitar melody that I just love)

+ The MInus 5 - Daggers Drawn
(my new discovery. Very good band! Don't know why I ignored them for so long)

+ Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
(oh c'mon, its Radiohead. Those who can hardly do wrong)

+ Ibrahim Ferrer - Nuestra Ultima Cita
(Love this guy)

+ Jimmy Gordon - Rattlesnake Bite
(I don't know how the blues got into my blood, but its there all right)


Pics of the day:


The major crushing continues...::drools::

And just to make it seem like I'm not completely obsessed w/ the man:


I really want to try this Thai beef jerky


Am reading this for my "cool" class right now