I Vomit Rainbows

CuriousJosh captured Mark Zabala spinning at his new monthly Ninja Skillz event, Fable, and the pics went up at LA Weekly. Spot me and Dave dancing in the background?

Fable was last Friday and tons of fun. Medusa Lounge is a beautiful venue, and even more fun when packed with your friends. It was also Mike Insane’s birthday.

Saturday we went to Magicopolis to see TommEE Pickles perform at the bar show, and our ever-travelling friend Dan popped into LA for a night to hang out with us. We went to a bulldog-themed british pub afterwards, then Swingers for pie.

Sunday we saw Surrogates, which was a really good movie, and yesterday we finally got Netflix. Send movie recommendations for weird stuff I’ve never heard of!

Last Thursday I wanted to suprise Dave with dinner. I had him choose from a long list of animals, and he chose the most ordinary one: the chicken. It was a challenge to make chicken fancy, but I hunted through about 100 recipes before I came across the Chicken Saltimbocca on Food Network. Basically, its a jellyroll with layered chicken, prosciutto, and spinach, sprinkled with parmesan, and pan fried. I had to hold the whole thing together with wooden coffee stirrers, because anything else in the house would probably melt (I contemplating wiring it together) and a pot lid had to fit over it. After the chicken was done, I made a gravy out of the stuff it was cooking in. It was the most complicated thing I’ve ever cooked. The dinner was an absolute success.

We also went to Wurstkuche, which I’d been to before. It’s a specialty sausage place with an extensive beer and soda selection. This time I tried Elderflower, which was light and sweet. I also had the rattlesnake eating rabbit sausage, which is my favorite sausage in the world, and really yummy fries with pesto mayo and buttermilk ranch.

The first year I went to Japan, with Aka-san from Intermixi, there was a snake sushi and me and (I think conco?) were the only ones brave enough to try it. This sorta started the whole adventurous eating thing, and the last time I was in Japan, Kim dragged me over to the snake ice cream, so I had to eat that, too. Rattlesnake sausage is about a zillion times tastier than either of those dishes.

Old video of me eating weird ice creams, including snake:

We’ve been trying out lots of restaurants around Universal recently. Follow me on yelp to see my reviews. http://pinguino.yelp.com

I’ve had many people through the years tell me that I was a terrible cook. Rightfully so, since seafood pasta was dumping a can of clam chowder over some overcooked noodles, or mixing up a batch of Kraft Mac’n'Cheese. I’m not sure what it was that finally led me down the path of making things other than cookies and sushi, but eventually I developed an interest in it.

Maybe it was watching Nous throw together amazing Christmas delights out of things laying around in her kitchen. Maybe it was Vissago coming over and pretty much buying me a pantryload of spices cuz I didn’t have salt or pepper shakers. Either way, I can make stuff now and it’s pretty awesome.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a recipe for Bacon Lollipops, so I made them and brought them to the beach. People were apprehensive at first, but at the end of the day, all lollipops had been consumed. The pecans were a pain to chop without a food processor, so it’s not likely I’ll make them again, but if I do I’ll make them smaller and put them in smaller sticks, and use fresh basil. Also, I’d mix bacon into the cheese. Recipe here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/ingredients-meat/bacon-pops-goat-cheese-balls-with-herbs-pecans-bacon-082974

This is totally my new favorite website. Basically, you get two words (some made up) and have to draw what happens when they’re joined together. It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw, cuz most people on this site can’t. But the ideas that come out of it are absolutely hilarious.

My artwork on the site is all here: http://www.scribbls.com/users/pinguino-1739

I find it to be the perfect creative outlet. Thanks nym, for sharing the link!

Last night, me and ten of my friends piled into a couple of limos and rode from Hollywood to Downey. Most people in LA don’t go to Downey- it’s 20mins (with no traffic) away, and it’s very suburban and boring, as well as being an older area in the city. But there’s a club night there called “80′s Club Addiction” that our friend Strom was spinning at, so we wanted to come support.

We were dressed in our 80′s best, so everyone dug through closets or scurried to thrift stores, and we all looked totally 80′s. I ended up doing a Punky Brewster outfit – I even made some sunshine hair-ties out of Sculpty that morning. We were also prepared to party, drinking champagne in the limos, and drinking Tab with rum or tequila.

I don’t like the 80′s. I wasn’t a huge fan of it when it was happening, and I don’t like the music or clothing. But I like Punky Brewster a lot- watched all of the TV show and cartoons she had. The goal tonight was to drink enough that we’d like 80′s music, which was accomplished.

When we got to the club, there were glow bracelets everywhere, and themed drinks like “Pac Man” and Madonna. Oddly, there was an SMS wall, which we spent the next 2.5 hrs playing with. Erin ordered some fries and they were amazing, and Dave got some nachos, which were a bit synthetic and spicy. The Cure cover band went on too long, so Strom’s set got cut short, but it was fun hearing him play.

When we got out, I realized that I’d lost my iphone. Unable to locate it, I just figured it was stolen. Dave left some messages on it, but it was going straight to voicemail.

We finished the night with some Fruit Stripe gum and piled back in the limos to go home.

Today, I woke up and called AT&T. They said there was a call after 11p, but they couldn’t tell me who it was to. They told me I could look it up online though, so I did, and had Dave call the number. He got that person to give us the number of the person who had the phone, which turned out to be some dude in Hawthorne. He claimed his gf picked the phone up last night. We drove out to Hawthorne and grabbed it, and it’s totally fine, and I’m super relieved. Happy ending, hooray!

Keith has more pics here

ADV was one of my favorite Anime companies, particularly because my friend over there, Rod Peters, was always recommending amazing stuff for me to check out. They were one of the bigger companies that will always remind me of a time when the anime industry was fresh and new and had tons of energy. I just saw a twitter via intermixi that said they were closing shop, and it’s just really sad news.

One of my favorite shows was Serial Experiments Lain, which pretty much every hacker kid who liked anime in the mid-90s watched. It’s about a girl, and it has a really twisted plotline about a place called “The Wired.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain

I actually met the guy who ran the big Lain fansite while on a random Japan trip years later, as well as the creator and producer of the show at several conventions..

Another ADV release that I enjoy greatly is Voices from a Distant Star. It’s short, but it’s touching, and its largely the work of one person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_of_a_Distant_Star It shows what is possible with enough determination.. from wikipedia: “Voices of a Distant Star was written, directed and produced entirely by Makoto on his Macintosh computer. Makoto and his fiancée provided the voice acting for the working dub (A second Japanese dub was later created for the DVD release with professional voice actors). Makoto’s friend Tenmon, who had worked with Makoto at his video game company, provided the soundtrack.”

I miss being excited about anime, and loving anime. ADV really brought some of that brightness into my life. I heard Tokyopop is having a lot of problems too this week. It’ll be interesting to see what changes come about in pop culture.