Monday, August 11, 2003
Mood: Thirsty
Music: Coldplay - For You

"COME ON, PAL!! FUGU ME!!" Anyone remember that episode of the Simpsons where Homer orders some fugu pufferfish at a Japanese restaurant? And then everyone freaks out because fugu's extremely poisonous if not prepared correctly? I was watching some Korean cooking show with my mom today, and they were preparing some sort of fish, and then my mom says "Oooooh....fugu!!"

Me: (in Chinese) Fugu? 'Fugu' as in that poisonous puffer fish?
Mom: (also in Chinese) Yeah!! It's poisonous, so that's why you have to make sure you prepare it right.
Me: Wait, so you've had fugu before?
Mom: Yeah! It's good...the meat is very tender.

Boy was that a shock to me...I was under the impression that fugu was some sort of dish that people feared eating, and here's my mom talking about it like it was a peanut butter sandwich. So later at dinner, I asked my dad if he's ever had fugu...he gave the same response: "Fugu? You mean those big bellied pufferfish? Yeah...it's very tender." Wow....so then I asked him why was it so expensive, and he says "Expensive?? Fugu in Korea was so cheap that no one bothered to buy it." Turns out that back when my grandpa owned a restaurant in Korea, he used to order already-prepared fugu all the time, and they'd cook it with various dishes. So then I asked dad the big question about fugu: "Has anyone at the restaurant died from eating fugu?" Dad casually replied "Maybe one a year." Well holy crap...that's a WAY lower death rate than car accidents. I think that's even less than the number of people who get struck by lightning every year! Dammit, I'm going to Korea and I'm eating fugu. Playing with death, I tell ya. :P

Cindy blabbed at 07:22 p.m. |

Monday, August 11, 2003
Mood: Bored
Music: John Mayer - Sucker

Ya know, I'm starting to see why some people wear a hat all day, everyday. And it's not a beret...it's one of those golfer hats....I just like wearing it backwards. :P So anywho....I usually don't like wearing hats, but I was goofing around and put my sister's golfer hat on my head, and now it's stuck on like it's superglued or something. I sit around the house with it on, I drive with it on, I even baked a cake with it on....ok, so baking a cake with a hat doesn't say much (chefs have those goofy white hats anyway), but still...it's like I've got this pile of cotton cloth growing out of my head or something.

Actually, Deran did joke once that it looked kinda like something someone would wear to a beatnik club. Ya know, I actually want to go to a beatnik club someday, just to see if it's as weird as they make it out to be on TV and stuff. If it really is like how it's portrayed on TV, I could go up on stage, grab a mike, and talk about cookies for a few minutes and I'm sure they'd applaud as if it were some amazing work of literary art. Bwahahaha, that would kick ass. Anywho, this entry is getting more and more pointless as I go along, so I think I'll stop before this gets TOO weird....more blogging later when I find something coherent to say.

Cindy blabbed at 02:30 p.m. |

Sunday, August 10, 2003
Mood: Chipper
Music: Tony Bennett - I Left My Heart in San Francisco

You know what always makes my day? When someone gives a genuine smile. Sometimes, on the drive home from Deran's house, there's this little middle-aged man in the tollbooth. Unlike most other toll collectors, who snatch your money away and mumble a "Thank you," this man always gives a bright smile and sends you off on your way. It's just one of those smiles that says "have a nice day" in the sincerest way possible. It's good to know that there are still some people out there who are unconditionally friendly. Sooo....not to sound like one of those cheezy "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books, but why not flash those pearly whites? It'll either make people happy, or they can tell you that you've got something stuck in your teeth. *grin*

Cindy blabbed at 11:18 p.m. |

Friday, August 8, 2003
Mood: Lazy
Music: Train - Calling All Angels

Wheee....I think I can officially say that I can make Argentinian food. Well, sort of. I know how to make chimichurri sauce, and that's Argentinian, soo...yeeeah. It's like how I knew a guy who had only played one game of tennis in his life, but he won that game, so he was able to claim that he's never lost a tennis game in his life. :P But anywho....I've taken a great liking to chimichurri sauce. It's pretty much nothing but olive oil, basil, garlic, onion, and just a pinch of salt. Tastes great with some fresh baked French bread, and the Argentine (Argentinian?) use it as a steak sauce. So anywho, I thought I'd pull a Martha Stewart and share this great sauce with everyone...I've even dumbed down the recipe for the guys out there:

Chimichurri Sauce
Ingredients:
Olive oil
Dried basil
2-3 cloves of garlic
Roughly the same amount of onion as garlic
Salt

Servings: Makes about enough to chomp down 1/3 of a loaf of French bread.

Chop up the garlic and onion until those suckers beg for mercy (to the women, this would mean mince). Dump into small bowl. Pour in olive oil until it's about the same level as the garlic and onion...you want it to be chunky. Add as much basil as you want. Stir. Add salt until you think it tastes salty enough. Bring out some bread, dip, and enjoy. ^_^

Ok ok, so I guess I shouldn't have dumbed down the recipe. But either way, it's just a matter of chopping and throwing everything together into a little bowl. Next time on Cindy's kitchen: Canadian moose stew....nyahaha.

Cindy blabbed at 09:08 p.m. |

Friday, August 8, 2003
Mood: Teary-eyed
Music: Foo Fighters - Walking After You

When it comes to movies, I'm a sucker for foreign films. Give me a movie, and as long as it's not in English, I'll sit through it like a 2 year old sits through an episode of Barney. I'm not sure why I like foreign films so much...probably because anything that's able to break through this stubbornly thick wall known as the American movie market has to be good.

Which brings me to the present. I rented this Korean movie called "The Way Home". And holy crap, I just spent the last hour and a half sobbing my eyes out. And let me tell ya, I've only cried during 2 movies in my life, and those two would be Schindler's List and The Lion King. And even then, the tears rolled down for only a few minutes. So it was quite a surprise to me when I sobbed for more than 5% of movie for the first time in my life. And every tear was well earned.

To get a breakdown of the story, this spoiled 7 year old city kid is sent to live with his elderly mute grandmother. Grandma lives in a remote village where there's no indoor plumbing, no electricity, and, according to the kid, nothing to do. So at first the kid decides to be a jackass and rejects grandma's hard way of life, calling her a retard and even pushing her over at one point. But grandma holds the patience of a saint and continues to do whatever she can to take care of her grandson. Eventually, the kid begins to appreciate everything grandma does for him. And that's pretty much when all the tears come out. One particularly moving scene is when the kid tells his grandmother that he wants KFC, so grandma walks for miles through the rain to bring back a chicken to cook for him. When the kid sees the chicken sitting in a pot of boiling water instead of a paper bucket, he throws a tantrum and rejects the food, throwing a leg at her. It's not until he starts to feel really hungry in the middle of the night that he eats his grandma's chicken. The next morning, grandma's sick from walking through the rain. I'd tell you more, but I think I'll let you people go watch it yourselves and cry your eyes out then. :P

So anywho...the movie's called "The Way Home". Watch it, love it, and be armed with a box of tissues. You'll need it.

Cindy blabbed at 12:52 a.m. |

Sunday, August 3, 2003
Mood: Perky
Music: The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup

Does anyone else think these are a little scary?

Nyahaha, and they even come in different colors!! You think green shirts are sexy? You got it. You like pink shirts?!?! You got your freakin' pink shirt. I don't know about you, but if I were a lonely woman in Japan, I think a man-pillow would be the last thing I'd want to make me feel better. I'd be pretty depressed if I had to resort to a stuffed arm to comfort me at night. Now, if you were a bitter woman who'd just broken up with her boyfriend, I think the perfect solution would be a stuffed arm with a wooden "bone" inside. Just pick it up and break that sucker to bits. Now THAT's what I call stress relief. Or you could go with the tried and true "chocolate method". Make a giant solid chocolate arm, and you'll literally be eating your sorrows away, all while imagining that you're biting the hell out of your ex's arm. Bwahahaha, who needs an arm stuffed with polyester when you've got pure chocolate? I'm a genius! *evil grin*

On the other hand, I think these man pillows would be pretty helpful for psychiatric help sessions. You know, the ones where the therapist gives you a foam bat and you smack someone with it. If hitting someone with a foam bat doesn't do the trick, bitchslap them with a man pillow! That way you get to slap someone with the skill of a pimp, and the slapped can't do a darned thing about it. Well, except maybe slap you back with another man pillow. Then you'd have to slap them for real. Because, well, they slapped you with a man pillow....and you're not going to let that slide, are you?? That's what I thought.

Ok ok, so I'm thinking WAY too much into this whole man pillow thing. But it still cracks me up that they've got them with pink shirts. :P

Cindy blabbed at 10:10 p.m. |

Saturday, August 2, 2003
Mood: Blah
Music: Saliva - Rest in Pieces

Have I mentioned that I hate pitas.com's archiving system? I dunno, I don't like seeing my blog page turn into a blank slate every time I archive. Anywho, any of you who still want to read about my trip to Cancun, look here.

So anywho...on to other news. Just like every other good little Chinese girl, I took piano lessons. After 10 years of piano lessons, I had learned to play nocturnes by Chopin, sonatas by Mozart, inventions by Bach, and various other piano pieces. The question I'm asking now is: after 10 years of piano, why didn't I ever learn to play THIS?!?!?

Sheesh....10 years of piano down the drain, I tell ya. Who says that the Super Mario Brothers theme isn't a classic?? Hearing it brings back memories of squealing with joy over my new 8-bit system, where the characters would be nothing but a group of 20 colored pixels, and all you needed was 4 buttons and a directional pad. *tear of nostalgia rolls down* Ah, those were the days.

Cindy blabbed at 01:36 p.m. |