You want to know the saddest thing ever? I actually rang in my birthday at Wal-Mart of all places. Saturday started out really well with a good workout and a good racquetball match with Brian (which I won in two straight sets, by the way). Then we went to Philippine Grille for lunch. We went home so I could work on my MIS 610 then we ended up having sex. Sex was amazing since it had been a week since the last time. Brian’s libido has been on an upswing lately and he had attempted to make love with me all week but I have been so exhausted every night. We go to bed usually with the intention of having sex, but as soon as I hit the bed I zonk out. It has been frustrating for Brian I’m sure. I know how I feel whenever I’m horny and can’t get any release. Anyway, making love on a Saturday afternoon was great. It’s my favorite part of weekends. The only down side to having vigorous sex is I that I get so spent I end up passing out. Brian and I actually intended to have dinner at Abuelo’s that night but we got up so late that by the time we were ready to head out, it was well past eight o’clock. We still needed to get cash for drinks at Neighbors. Abuelo’s got nixed. We ended up at Chipotle which is a much faster alternative. We arrived at Neighbors with only a few minutes to spare. Thankfully we arrived with enough time to be able to sit at separate tables. I hate sitting with Brian because we always end up knocking each other out. We did extremely well early on. He was the chip leader at his table and I was the chip leader at mine. It was great. As people started to get knocked out and they began to consolidate tables, however, Brian got moved to my table. I was still doing pretty well until we both went against each other on a hand. He had pocket nines against my pocket eights. His pair held and I lost over half of my stack at that point. I got knocked out shortly after. I found Darcy at playing her favorite game, Photo Hunt, and hung out with her while waiting for Brian. He actually did really well. He almost qualified. The key being almost. He got knocked out in 9th place, one place away from qualifying for the finals. Needless to say, we’ll have to return again on Saturday to qualify. After poker we went to Wal-Mart to do our grocery shopping. We arrive there at around 11:55 pm. So that’s how I rang in my birthday at Wal-Mart. It was past 1:00 am when we finally arrived home. I tried to wake up early the next day. I wanted to hit the gym again to make up for several days (probably even weeks) of missing my workouts. We kept hitting snooze, though. It wasn’t until Jen called to greet me happy birthday that we got up. Jen arranged brunch at Legends, my favorite place to eat brunch because then I can have mimosas. I jumped up out of bed all frantic because I thought it was one hour ealier than it really was. I forgot that time went back an hour. Yeah, stupid me. I thought we only had a half an hour to shower and get there. We actually had plenty of time. Lunch was a lot of fun. Of course, mom had to make me feel bad about eating too many cream puffs and fitting into my first pair of size 6 jeans (the jeans that Sarah gave me). Jen was telling me that I was only two sizes away from being the same size as her fat friends. She thinks they are fat because she sports a super skinny size 0 figure. Anyway, my mom chimes in with “What do you mean two size? She’s actually only one size away.” Gee, thanks mom. Way to make a girl feel better on her birthday! After lunch Brian and I walked around Towne East Square for a while. I didn’t end up buying anything. I think part of it was the feeling of depression I’ve been experiencing lately due to my ever expanding figure and part of it was knowing subconsciously that we’ll end up having to fork out some money for our sugar gliders. Most of the time we spent at the mall was actually spent at Brookstone getting chair and foot massages. Brian loves that store just because of the the various massage chairs that are available for you to try. We met with the sugar glider breeder around 4:00 pm and actually spent a couple of hours with them. Brian and I pretty much decided on the spot to buy the sugar gliders. We went ahead and paid for them because we wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t get sold to anyone else. After that Brian and I finally got to have dinner at Abuelo’s like we planned. We didn’t end up going on a dress up dinner date like I wanted though. I guess we’ll have to do that some other night when we have more time. We still had a good time at dinner, though. Abuelo’s has great food. We were relieved to be able to finally come home after a long day of being out and about. It was a good day, though. Anyway, Brian and I are super excited about our sugar gliders. You’ll see pictures of them on my Flickr account. Brian is so excited that he actually cleaned out the spare bedroom just so we would have room for their cage. He also went to Gupton’s to buy the cage (or cages since we had planned on buying two and just putting them together to make a big one) only to find out that they’re closed on Mondays. It worked out okay because I actually found a better cage online. We ended up just ordering that one. Hopefully the cage will arrive soon so our sugar gliders will have a new home. We still need to get a wheel and some toys, though. Anyway, it’s time for bed so I’ll just update you guys again next time. I’ll try to keep up with posting entries better. I’m sorry I’ve been busy. Thanksgiving break is coming up (a whole whopping two days of it), though, and I should be able to post more regularly then.
October 31, 2005 | Posted by Ching under Life
I played poker last night at
APL. Brian was picking on me because I was supposed to be on an
APL boycott. In my defense, I didn’t specify exactly how long the boycott would be. A week is long enough. So the boycott is now oficially over. Anyway, I got to the final three tables. I didn’t quite make it to the final 16, but I got pretty close. We were at $5K and $10K blinds when I got knocked out. I was pretty short-stacked with only four red chips ($20K) and I was first to act after the big blind. I had AQ off and I decided to take a chance. The troll guy (this isn’t anything derogatory; I call him that because he always brings his little troll dolls for good luck) next to me who had like $100K in chips pushed all in behind me.
That kept all the other people from playing, which was fine with me because I really didn’t want to go up against 10 other people. Since no one else called so we rolled up our cards. I find out that I’m up against ducks which makes me feel pretty good since I’ve got two overs, but guess what. The ducks held. I could not catch an ace or a queen to save me. It wasn’t too bad, though, because it already past 9:30 pm and Brian gets off work at 10:00 pm so the timing was just perfect. I caught some good hands, had some fun, lasted longer than I anticipated and then it was time to leave. I stayed up late last night to work on my transaction management homework for MIS 610. It was being stubborn so I finally just gave up and went to bed. Woke up early this morning to work out. I did muscle pump and step and then played racquetball with Brian. I totally whooped his ass: 15-13 and 15-0. The weekend is off to a great start so far! Oh, and guess what. My birthday is tomorrow. Of course, I’ve already got my big ticket item for my birthday. Remember? I got my new phone early because of having won that eBay auction that I didn’t expect to win. I have a new memory stick for my phone coming in the mail, though, courtesy of Jody. I just found that out today. I should be getting that sometime this week. Thanks, Jody! Now I can have more than four songs stored in my phone. Yay! Right now I don’t really use the mp3 player function much because I only have four songs and it’s pretty boring to listen to the same four songs over and over again. That will change when my new memory stick arrives, though. Hopefully, I can get my homework done this afternoon so we can check out the Asian Festival downtown and meet my parents for dinner. And then I can play poker. Homework has to be done first, though. So anyway, it’s back to the grind for me. More fun ASP coding. Not.
October 29, 2005 | Posted by Ching under Poker
That’s right. I found my new car. Its made by Mercedes Its compact and not in the US as of yet. But you can order them from Canada. They get about 60 MPG and its not a Hybrid, just straight fuel. I love it!
And to top it off, its small enough that if I get into a major wreck; it will double as a coffin!
October 29, 2005 | Posted by Brian under Wishlist
This is Rush as Sticker Man. He actually won a prize for most creative Halloween costume at Cox Communications last year. This is year he’s leading the activities committee at work and they’re doing a costume contest on Monday. I don’t know if I can come up with any costumes appropriate for work. It may be time to recycle some of the old costumes. I could always dress as a soldier again (see below). Incidentally, the photo below wasn’t taken on Halloween. It was taken at one of the Mid-Kansas MVPA rallies. I did dress as a soldier for Halloween one year, though. I think that might have been in either 2001 or 2002. The first time Brian dressed as a woman. The second time he dressed as a woman, he wasn’t just any type of woman. He was a school girl!
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October 28, 2005 | Posted by Ching under Life
Remember how I said I wanted a Canon SD550, which just happens to be on my Amazon wishlist for those of you who are feeling generous (it is only four days until my birthday after all) for my next camera? Well, I take that back. I really want a Casio Exilim EX-S600.
October 26, 2005 | Posted by Ching under Wishlist
The other day I had further proof that my car is on its very last leg. Remember how I had blogged about how thrilled I was that my right tail light started working out of the blue after a year of being broken? Well, on Saturday night I found out that my left head light was out. It made sense because I had always thought about how dark it seemed at night despite having my headlights on. I just never bothered to check so I never confirmed that one of my headlights was out. Then again, I usually don’t drive by myself at night and when I do, it’s usually just to and from school. We live relatively close to Wichita State so night driving hasn’t been too much of an issue. Last Saturday I needed to get gas so Brian and I decided to take my car to Neighbors. After poker, we all decided to convoy to IHOP. Corey led the way, followed by Dill and Becca and then Brian and I. Corey was apparently lost. We didn’t know this until Dill and Corey started playing leap frog. Tired of the show, Brian finally pulls up to see what is going on. This took Dill by surprise because he didn’t realize we were in the car behind him. He thought it was some other random vehicle because it only had one headlight. News to me. I absolutely had no idea. So like the whole time at IHOP I was thinking about having only one headlight and how long I had survived not knowing this was the case. After IHOP Corey, Dill and Becca went to Sharky’s to try to get in the game. They were almost 30 minutes late because it was alright 12:30 am by the time we left the restaurant. Not sure if they ever got in. Brian and I decided to head on home. We went to stop at a Quiktrip for gas. While there, Brian decided to check out my headlight problem. He shuts the headlights off, taps on the part of the hood where the left headlight is, and then turns the headlights back on. Lo and behold, it starts working again! My poor fall-apart little car. It makes me think that this is foreshadowing for when I am older and my body parts start falling apart. Like when I start going senile and forget things. Oh, just tap her on the forehead a couple of times. That ought to jog her memory. My dilapidated car is kind of symbolic of the rest of the things going on in my life. I think the more stressed I am, the more my car acts up and starts falling apart. It must be a reaction to my stress levels. Anyway, speaking of depressing things. Sarah gave me a pair of jeans today. She said she could no longer wear them because they are too short. While that in itself is nice. It’s always nice to get free clothes. The fact that these jeans were a size 6 and they fit me perfectly totally depresses me. I mean, you’re talking to a girl who can’t let go of her tattered size 0 jeans from Abercrombie & Fitch no matter how many holes they develop because they are size 0! By golly, I’m going to squeeze my fat behind in those things until they fall apart! P.S. In case you haven’t noticed, Brian is going to start blogging with me. I want this blog to be more like Brett and Hiromi’s (minus all the panty pics, of course) and Goose and Gander where we’re both blogging as a couple and the commentary isn’t just one sided. Brian’s posts will be distinguished by a subtle gray box container. Anyway, I thought I’d give you all a heads up.
October 25, 2005 | Posted by Ching under Life
On Thursday I was at work taking calls like normal. One of the calls I took was from a customer that operated “Yoder Embalming Services”. She just needed to make a payment but since I only had a few min till my lunch I decided to talk to her a little. She said that I was very professional and that she really needed someone like me to work in her office. I asked her “Doing what!” she told me that the job would include a wide variety of things like embalming bodies, delivering them to the morticians for their final dress up and retrieving the bodies from the morgue. Their might be some other little jobs like answering the phones and speaking to police and clients and stuff. I thought to myself “This is the perfect job for me, No bitchy people complain about their service, No angry customer cursing ME out because THEY cant pay their bill and we are going to cut their service off, Just dead people, silence, no drama, just dead people. I asked the woman what happen to the person that she had before, since she said she needed someone professional I assumed that she must have recently let go a person that was not. She said that the last guy was let go because he would do things like get stoned, turn on the answering machine and then go have sex with his girlfriend in the embalming room, or in the delivery van or anywhere else he could find (Ok, that’s just gross). She said that he would also carry a gun with him (like the dead people are going to get up and mug him, what the heck do you need a dammed gun for) and finally I guess the thing that pushed her over the edge was that he delivered a load of bodies to the Mortuary and told the man their “Dude, get-em while their cold”. Me, I found that part a little funny, but evidently morticians don’t have a sense of humor. I finally decided this morning that I would not do it. My wife was concerned about the smell and I know for a fact that I would definitely smell from that job working with decaying bodies and chemicals. I wanted to ensure that I would have a wife to come home too. So instead I will continue with my endeavor to get a better job threw perseverance and applying at every possible acceptable position available.
October 24, 2005 | Posted by Brian under Life
I’ve sold out and decided to start my own Yahoo! 360° page. I mean, even Ritchie‘s mom has one. I should have one, too. Anyway, some of the features are pretty cool. I can tell that Yahoo! is trying to infuse their usual boring applications with some great Flickr-inspired ideas to make things better and more attractive to users. I think it’s working. So anyway, some of the things you’ll find of note in my 360° page is the Netflix news feed. It shows you the last three movies that we received so if you ever want to keep tabs on our movie watching habits, now you can. The only downside is that the page only allows you to have three news feeds. So I have a news feed from my other blog and the two Netflix news feeds. I wish it would allow more so that it can pull all the entries from my other blogs and make them available in one place for easy access. Speaking of Netflix movies, the last two that we watched were Monster-in-Law and Robots. Monster-in-Law was alright. It had some funny moments but it didn’t really move me. Robots was pretty good. I almost cried. I’m not sure if Logan has seen it, but that would be a great movie for him to watch. That, and Iron Giant. I love those types of movies. They’re inspirational. Sappiness aside, we got to hang out with our poker buddies after the hockey game last night. We didn’t qualify for the final event at Neighbors (not yet anyway), but we had a blast reminiscing at IHOP after poker. We being Corey, Brian, Dill, Becca and I. Tony, Niki (Tony’s wife), Nick (who Brian always calls Lance for some strange reason) and his wife all came but they arrived late and didn’t get to play. They got tired of waiting for the rest of us to get knocked out so they all left to go dinner separately. It’s a shame they couldn’t wait two seconds. It would’ve been fun to get the whole group together. The funny thing is, I got a text message from Dill about a $10 buy-in home game at Tony’s slated for that evening. I replied saying that Brian and I had made plans to go to Neighbors. Apparently, Corey replied with the same thing. When Dill and Becca showed up at Neighbors we knew the home game was canceled. Anyway, Brian and I have decided that we will return to Neighbors on Saturday to try again. So no home games on Saturday nights guys. At least until the tourney at Neighbors is over. “Never give up. Never surrender.” P.S. The person who names the movie that the quote comes from gets a cookie. =P
October 23, 2005 | Posted by Ching under Web
Brian’s parents had mentioned Beijing Bistro, a new Chinese restaurant in the East side of Wichita, a couple of weeks ago. They said that if we ever wanted to check the place out to give them a call and they would join us for dinner. Brian and I don’t really have anything edible in the house so we decided to give his parents a call and have dinner there tonight. We figured that it would be a great excuse to do a restaurant review.
The location of the restaurant itself is unassuming. They don’t have a fancy building or anything. Instead they just occupy half the space of a commercial building next to Wally World. The other half is occupied by Play It Again Sports.
The inside decor kind of reminds me of a PF Chang’s minus the fancy statues, lighting and ceiling work. The booths provided ample space and the tables were quite sturdy.
The service was so-so. We could tell that the hostess who seated us was fairly new because she received instruction from a couple of other employees. She also plopped the menus in the middle of the table instead of placing them carefully in each place setting like you’re supposed to. A server who was waiting on another table came over, called her on it and rearranged the menus.
I didn’t plan to drink an alcoholic beverage but I took a moment to look over the drink menu. They offer a wide selection of domestic and imported beer as well as wines, spirits and mixed cocktails. They had a list of exotic drinks which I thought was pretty good.
The food menu wasn’t bad either. The menu offered your usual Chinese dishes and the prices were very reasonable. The one thing that caught my attention was a disclaimer on the last page that says “Substitutions are subject to additional charges.” The message practically screamed deviate from the menu and die. It’s something that I’m not used to because I’m pretty particular when it comes to the ingredients that I want to be included or excluded from certain dishes. I guess I am spoiled because I’m used to places that cater to consumer needs without question.
For instance, at PF Chang’s Brian and I will normally ask for the Mongolian beef and substitute eggplant for the green onions. We hate green onions and just pick them off anyway so they might as well cook them without. PF Chang’s Also encourages you to mix different meats so you can have a combination of beef and pork and chicken and whatever you want mixed in with your dish. You can pretty much create your own dishes. I think it’s great and I think restaurants shouldn’t discourage you from doing that.
I’m afraid that places that do not allow you to do this just have vats of pre-made food in their kitchen. That’s the reason why they cannot deviate from the menu selections (or at least penalize you for doing so).
Anyway, that aside, Brian and I decided to order some dumplings and lo mein. Portions at these restaurants are typically pretty large so we opted to share the triple delight lo mein that consists of beef, chicken and shrimp.
The pan fried dumplings were pretty cheap. You get six for $5.95 which isn’t a bad deal at all. The dumplings themselves weren’t spectacular. I like PF Chang’s dumplings better. They only give you four, but you get four big meaty ones. These dumplings were really doughy. The shell was thick and there wasn’t a lot of filling inside. [By the way, if you want a good deal on dumplings you need to go to Japan Express. You get about a dozen yummy steamed, deep fried or pan fried dumplings for a really low price.]
The lo mein, on the other hand, was outstanding. There were large pieces of chicken and beef. The vegetables were easy to pick off. The sauce was delicious. The dish which was supposed to included shrimp only consisted of about three pieces. They were jumbo shrimp but I couldn’t help but be disappointed that there weren’t any more in there. Despite the scarcity of the shrimp, the lo mein was one of the best I’d ever had. It totally made up for the so-so dumplings.
At the end of our meal, Brian and I were considered some chocolate cake for dessert. There was a three layer cake that was pictured on the menu and I was curious about it. However, when we asked to see the menu for some dessert our server said they didn’t have a dessert menu because their dessert offerings vary. He mentioned cheesecake and chocolate mousse. Brian got a little excited to hear there was chocolate mousse, but the server who was not very confident about what they had said he would check and then let us know what was available.
When he came back he said they were out of dessert. It was like five o’clock in the afternoon. The evening had barely begun. How can you be out of dessert already? That was another strike against them.
In the end the fact that there was no dessert, mediocre service and no substitutions outweighed all the pluses of the nice, private ambiance, cheap prices (our bill was only $14.75 which got rounded to $18.00 after the tip; you can’t eat that cheap anywhere else; at least not at a nice sit-down-restaurant type of place, anyway) and good lo mein offered. Overall I give the place three out of five stars which means I probably won’t avoid the place but I won’t go out of my way to eat there either.
Now that you all have read my wife’s review on the restaurant, I will take a stab at the place. This way you have something that is a little more that just a one sided opinion. I found the toned down atmosphere to be very inviting. However, the T.V. that blasted sports in the bar portion of the building was a little distracting. If the place had been packed and the bar full it would have been expected, but their was no one in the bar (only a few couples in the entire place actually) this should have been a sign to turn down the volume till it was actually needed. The place was obviously new and still very sterile and clean. The decor was very subtle and not over done like PF Changs, and overall atmosphere was simple. Our hostess was new and still nervous and needing training (proper training) you could tell that the only reason she had the job was because she was the relative of one of the owners, or managers of the place, otherwise she would not have ever got the job. The food was actually very good. I liked the dumpling, I thought that they had a very good flavor and I was not thrown off by the amount of dough they used like my wife. I thought the filling was a little small but ample. Our main dish was not bad but I think they could have balanced it a little better. We ordered a triple meat meal that was supposed to have Beef, Chicken and Shrimp. Instead we were brought Chicken, Beef and 3 pieces of shrimp. Their could have been more here but I guess when everything is prepared in a somewhat large vat, you are left with little choice. Our server was very nice and very patient with us as far as our waiting for my parents to arrive. In the end our check was very good and not expensive at all (we did have to ask him to split the check, he did not ask nor offer) and the food was decent. The downplays were, We did not get any desert due to the fact that they ran out. This was very disconcerting, the waiter was not actually sure that they had anything and then checked. In my opinion, you should never run out of desert. As my wife stated, I wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid the place but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to the place either.
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$180 would NOT put you in debt! Think about it in pesos, it’s not even P10k and...