Every Day an Adventure

Oren and Carl and I went to Mashiko for the omakase (chef's choice dinner) tonight. It ruled. I have finally gotten back at Carl for Kevin's kaiseki birthday dinner in April.

Seriously, though, if you're going to spend $55 and 2.5 hours at a Japanese restaurant, you might as well do something like this. Like last time, I took notes on the courses we got. We specifically said "No oysters or mussels, please", so these were the courses:

1. Rockfish sashimi with tobiko and sunamono in ponzu sauce
2. Tako, um, "suviche"? I don't know what that is, it was basically essentially octopus salsa. I'm not kidding.
3. Hawaiian albacore tuna tataki with green onions and shiso
4. Nigiri Sushi -- Bluefin tuna, Aji, and Geoduck.
5. Mushroom sautee
6. Chiai - some sort of tuna-like steak, grilled in spicy sesame sauce
7. Tempura shiso with fish on top and a three layer thing with tako, ankimo, and cucumber
8. "Dessert roll" with eel, avocado, kabocha, egg, etc.
9. We ordered "dessert", well, I ordered plum wine sherbet and Carl ordered a nigori sake called Hitori Musume because the name amused him.

The octopus salsa was actually tasty, but weird. The albacore tuna tataki was FANTASTIC. And oddly, the Aji nigiri sushi, which is sort of like mackerel, and I hate mackerel, was actually really good - a function of both the fish, the sauce on top, and a shiso leaf between the rice and fish, maybe. The mushroom sautee stuff was just that -- mushrooms stir-fried. It wasn't bad, but sort of a waste of a dish, and I'd rather have had something else that wasn't boring. Chiai was fabulous, like chunks of spicy tuna steak. The dessert roll reminded me of the snowflake roll I got last week, and the plum wine sherbet was just great again.

I'm not sure what I would have rated as my absolute favorite thing. Probly the tuna steak and the albacore tataki.

Anyway, it is the last day of the year. I honestly don't know what I'll end up doing tonight -- sorry to those throwing parties, but my first priority is to spend it with Carl since he's my best friend and all, so I'm going to defer to his expert opinion.

I did write another song, but it isn't to new music. I will go post that now too and further clog your friends page.

I woke up this morning with a horrible stabbing pain between my shoulders, and it's persisted all day -- something between my left arm and the middle of my back, really. Every time I move or twist my back, or even breathe deeply, etc, I get a stabbing pain. It sort of sucks. I can mostly manage by sitting very still and sitting up. I think I got this from a combination of volleyball and reading a book with my neck bent down, straining my back.

Anyway, I sat at home a while because I wasn't sure I could drive like that, but after a few Tylenol and some mineral ice decided to leave anyway. I drove to Southcenter, which didn't take very long, but actually getting AROUND the area took FOREVER. I went to ACME Bowl for an hour or so and played some IIDX, but there were these two teenage guys also playing, inbetween their ITG games -- one of the guys was playing 5-Key and acting like he was just THE SHIT because he could pass all these songs. (The other admitted he wasn't so good and played 2-stars on Light 7.) I went up and played, with what of course I consider my mediocre-to-poor skills, meaning that I passed two 5-stars and a 6-star on 7-key, got 100% on the 6-star so I got an extra stage, and the guys were just like "well, um, *okay*." I played like four games before I got bored of waiting around so much and wandered off. (The most amusing part was when I passed Ballad For You 7K on normal speed, no hi-speed, because I screwed up when trying to put it on HS3 and clicked too many times.) I wonder if I'm just getting too old, but I just never feel like talking to random strangers I see playing Bemani anymore.

I went to IKEA after that. I think I decided what I want to replace my broken dresser with -- a narrow tower of 5 drawers and a narrow wardrobe with shelves -- I don't think it'll look particularly right, but I think it'll function the way I want, since I currently just use the working drawers of my dresser to store socks and underwear, and I've been keeping t-shirts on two bookshelves (but I really need the shelf space back for actual books). Problem was, though, that despite the Tylenol lessening the pain, I still effectively had a dead left shoulder, so I couldn't actually LIFT the stuff. The other problem was that it looks like they only had one of the wardrobes in stock. Oren offered to go back with me tomorrow and help me lift stuff and also actually cart it home in his car, which is much larger than mine (which may also have been a problem), so hopefully we will do that and they won't be out of stock.

I drove to Oren's and we went to Mashiko for dinner! Wheeeeeeee Mashiko. This being my second time there, I ended up ordering the "Mashiko Bento", which says "shrimp and vegetable tempura, chef's choice of meat dishes, and sushi roll or sashimi". Well, in my idiocy and complete randomness I also ordered a Snowflake roll, which was a fried roll involving eel and avocado, rice and nori, and then fried in coconut flakes or something. It was really sweet and really tasty -- very different from what I'm used to in sushi rolls, but really good. The bento also ended up coming with tonkatsu, and some barbecue ribs, and some baked swordfish (I think), and tuna sashimi, salmon sashimi, octopus sashimi, and... a mussel. I really don't do shellfish so that just grossed me out. Oh, there was also some seafood salad that looked like salsa, which also tasted funny to me. Overall though, everything I had was absolutely delicious and wonderful, but it was just too much food and I ended up giving a bunch of it to Oren, who had wisely just gotten a sushi combo.

I think when Carl is in town, we have to go back to Mashiko and get the omakase -- I owe it to him for making me go to kaiseki at Chaya a few months back.

Afterwards we watched the final two episodes of 逮捕しちゃうぞ the live-action series, which really was pretty good. In the final episode, Tsujimoto and Kobayakawa are driving along and they see two guys having car trouble, and they stop to help them, but suddenly recognize them: "Oh my god, it's Motoki and Takahashi of the Giants!" And the funniest part is, it actually WAS Daisuke Motoki and Yoshinobu Takahashi... they fix their car for them and are all like "Okay, now you guys owe us tickets to opening day!" It was a totally random cameo and pretty funny.

Ok, I should sleep. In theory tomorrow will get new furniture. Hopefully won't wake up with dead left arm and back pain again.

Today, I finally got sushi. Kevin spent the day wandering Seattle, mostly hanging out at the library. (We got lunch at Soup Daddy, which didn't have any soups I wanted!) After work, Oren picked us up, and Jack came with us too, and we went to the Fremont Blue C, which apparently is out of eels. How on earth can you be out of eels? I've got a hovercraft which is...

Well, anyway, we sat around at Blue C for a while, and afterwards came back to my place, where Oren and I demoed Katamari for Jack, and then the four of us played a game of Ticket to Ride. I won, 'cause I'm cool like dat.

I feel very, very much like I have no time. It's probably because I waste too much time.

Sunday, we went to see Felix pitching against the Orioles. We sat in section 127, row 12, which was amazing, but the Mariners lost, which was not amazing. I got a cool picture of me and my friend Conor being the uber Felix fans we are.

Nick and I walked around Greenlake after that, and we went to Blue C for dinner so I could show it to him. Then we chased the sunset, but didn't catch it in time. I forgot how early it gets dark here now.

We were supposed to go swing dancing, but didn't; we were too tired.

Today, after work, I got dinner with George and Jarrett and Megan and Josh at the Elysian Brewery, and then George had to go to the airport to go home and all.

Dan Wilson announced his retirement today, so I wrote some alternate lyrics to "Danny Boy" for him:

Oh Danny Boy, the fans, the fans are calling
From seat to seat, and down the first-base line
The summer's gone, and pennant hopes are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and we'll be fine.
But come ye back when summer's high at Safeco
Or when the mood is hushed and scores are low
'Cause we'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, we'll miss you so.

Last night I got home around 9, and I crashed around 9:45, which is why it's 7:30am and I've been awake for an hour already.

Not much to say, though. Yesterday morning's chai came from Joelle's Cafe, across the street from IDX. This was the first place they actually asked if I wanted nonfat milk or soy milk or whatnot, so I got nonfat -- the result is pretty much the same generic chai every other coffeehouse has. Dammit, I want Taste of India to open a chai stand downtown.

(Yes, I really do pass by at least ten different coffeehouses in a 5-block walk from the bus to work. Why do you ask?)

I had a program I was working on at work. Jack asked me how long it'd take. At the time he asked, I was still getting my head around it, so I said "I'll be done end of tomorrow?" Then I actually started writing the script, and I was done by the end of the day. That's a good feeling. It's frustrating to be in a stage where I know I don't know enough to really be effective, but it's kinda cool to still be doing okay despite that.

Also, there was cake.

After work I went to Fuji Sushi with Drew and Jason, since I hadn't been there in forever and I had this sadistic desire to make Jason walk uphill from Pioneer Square to there. No, just kidding. It was fun, and Drew and I had some stuff to catch up on anyway.

Then I walked across town to catch my bus home, and I voraciously devoured another 50 pages of "The Ball" on the ride home... and then I crashed. Boom.

Has anyone else read anything by Daniel Paisner? This book is amazing -- not just from a baseball perspective, since it isn't really about baseball, but it's more about American culture and the psychology of wanting to "own part of the action", and the controversy that stemmed over the people who caught and kept home run balls from the 1998 season. I'm really wondering if this guy is always this good -- just like when I read Moneyball, I wondered about Michael Lewis, since that was such an amazing book as well.

In an effort to keep getting up early, I came up with a perfect excuse to get up at 9am today... to go to the Mariners game at 1pm! Yeah. See, baseball is good for me.

Seriously, though, the game was scary. It was sold out thanks to father's day -- I got the Safeco shuttle down from Northgate and got to the park around 12:30pm -- and there were huge lines at the ticket windows, and the lady's like "I only have single tickets and only in Field and Box". And when I got up there and said I wanted a single ticket, she basically said "35 bucks, and you'll be in the far parts of Field". Now I personally know that those are SUCKY seats because you can't see the screens and you're at a bad angle. So I asked about the 50 dollar seats. She had one that was 26 rows straight behind home plate. No shit, I took that one in an instant. I guess I'm starting a job tomorrow, I can afford it.

It was a HOT and SUNNY day out today, and the shade didn't actually cover me until somewhere in the 5th inning, although I did bring a hat so I don't think I'm sunburnt at all. The game was really a very good game, lots of fun to watch, high-scoring. The Mariners really hit up Tom Glavine for a ton of runs early on (it was 6-1 as of the third inning). It's kind of weird, since I mean, it's Tom Glavine, the guy could reasonably reach 300 career victories and is almost a shoe-in for the hall of fame. Meche pitched admirably for the Mariners, but when he hit the 100-pitch mark, he practically just fell over, loading the bases and then hitting Woodward to knock in a run. Well, we put in Matt Thornton to take care of the loaded bases, and all of the people scored. It's ridiculous that it inflates Meche's ERA like that and Thornton gets off with barely anything. 6-5. Fortunately the Mariners countered by exploding for 4 runs in the 6th, mostly due to Mike DeJean walking a bunch of them -- even walking in a run. The final score was 11-5. nickjong called me during the final out to express his extreme sadness that the Mariners had swept the Mets.

It really wasn't all bad. Mike Piazza went 3-for-5 after going hitless all through the weekend. Ichiro was also 3-for-5, scoring two runs. The "new kids on the block", Morse and Rivera, combined for 5-for-8 and three runs scored. It's looking more and more like our middle infield next year will be Jose Lopez and Mike Morse, at this rate, given the hitting tear they're both on.

I sat around too many rude Mets fans though, who insisted on yelling and screaming a lot, especially things like "HEY BELTRAN, YOU SUCK, WE'RE NOT PAYING YOU 119 MILLION DOLLARS TO SUCK LIKE THIS, LOSER."

I noticed that Kazuo Matsui and Kazuhisa Ishii pretty much stood together leaning on the Mets dugout rails for most of the game. I guess Ishii pitched the other day and Matsui doesn't get played, so they can just chat in Japanese together.

Oh well. Mets sweep aside, I came home after the game and went out to Big 5 Sporting Goods because I'm running out of space in my scorecard book. I also picked up stuff for swimming, like a cap and goggles. Go me. After that I walked around Greenlake. I called my dad for Father's Day and talked to him for like two miles... er, like 35 minutes. The lake was nice. There weren't ducklings out today, I think it's too late for them, but there were goslings. They were with the big geese, and were fairly big themselves, but they were all fuzzy, which is how you know they're goslings.

On the way back from Greenlake I decided to drive past Megan and Josh's house and see how far they'd come with the fence. The really funny part is, I was about a block away from their house and my phone rings. It's Megan, asking if I'd want to go to dinner at Mashiko. So I'm like "Dude, I'm a block away from your house. No joke. I wanted to see the fence." So I get out and admire the fence (they have done a TON, almost completed the entire side that they needed to get done first) and we make plans for dinner... except since they're yucky from the fence building and I'm yucky from sitting out in the sun and then walking several miles, we decide to reconvene in a bit. A little later they pick up me and then Eli and we all go to Mashiko. (I finally gave Eli the socks I knitted him. I started those socks in like... Christmas 2002, and finally finished them a few weeks ago)

Mashiko is seriously good. We got the omakase, and M&J said they were picking up the tab for me to celebrate me starting my job tomorrow. So, I have no idea exactly what level of omakase we got or how much it costs, but I decided to be group secretary and write it all down, so here is what we got (in order, we got one dish at a time):

1. Rockfish sashimi with ponzu sauce, shiso oil, red shanghai peppercorns, and cucumbers in the middle
2. Oysters with spicy sauce and daikon sprouts
3. Skipjack and tuna tartare, with capers and sprouts and onions I think, and a raw egg yolk
4. Nigiri sushi: albacore, opa, scallops with prosciutto, and troll caught wild alaskan king salmon, or something like that.
5. Grilled swordfish with badass plum sauce potatoes. (I was specifically told to note that they were badass)
6. Some sort of awesome roll - it had unagi, avocado, sweet potato, walnuts, and was in a soy wrapper of some sort.
7. More rolls - dynamite rolls, amaebi rolls, atomic tuna rolls, and some spicy crab roll
8. Baked fish - halibut, we think, and some sort of pink fish that wasn't salmon
9. Dessert -- Plum wine sorbet, mochi ice cream, green tea tiramisu, and creme caramel (sorta like flan)

It was craaaaaazy and everything was very good. I even was brave and ate an oyster (my first ever -- they kinda gross me out). I will have to find an excuse to go back there sometime.

Okay, well, now it's 12:30am and I should go to sleep since I want to get up at 7 or so. I hope I can get to sleep despite nerves... we'll see.