Ode to Bacon

This afternoon, I treated myself to some pancakes and bacon. I hadn't had any bacon in awhile and I realized how much I really love the stuff. The rest of the pig's good, but there's something about bacon that is so densely flavorful with a perfect balance of fattiness and saltiness. I found an article from The Dallas Morning News about the obsession w/ bacon. It includes some recipes, including one for the bacon chocolate chip cookie pictured. Gary gave me the link to this Taco Bell commercial that is currently being aired, which reflects society's current obsession with bacon. I found this blog called The Bacon Show, which provides a different bacon recipe everyday.

A couple of guys from Seattle have developed a seasoning known as Bacon Salt, it apparently is a meatless, kosher (that's right kosher) seasoning that makes anything you sprinkle on it taste like bacon. Here's a video of what people are saying about Bacon Salt:





Below is a clip from Jim Gaffigan on Conan O' Brien professing his love for bacon:



Ever wonder how bacon is made?



Here's a creative take on bacon!

Excellence in Foley Artistry

In response to Gary's post about Washington native Michael Winslow, here's a couple of vids from him that caught my eye:

This one is a clip from Star Wars where he does all the sound effects, great Chewie and Han impressions. The good stuff doesn't really happen to 2:10 into the video:



I'm posting this video just based on its length, I guess it was posted before youtube put up limits:

Oh Boy! Have Fun!

I'm currently out in Southwestern Washington for work. I started off my week in Albany, OR where Oberto Sausage Company has a plant. The whole area smells like goodness. I checked out their factory outlet store and there were forms of jerky I have never seen before! They waste nothing! There were large bags of shredded jerky that, from a distance, could be mistaken for sod. I got 3 lb's of kippered beef steak for 6 bucks!

Daily Morning Sustenance

So there's been talk of my special breakfast bagel that I make. Some of you have tried it, others have watched. I'll show you what it is that I slap together in the morning to get me off for a morning full of hearing tests. I first take a sliced bagel and toast it to my liking. While the bagel's toasting, I'm microwaving my sausage patty. I've been using the 4 lb Tyson Original Flavored (don't know what other flavors sausage comes in) Sausage Patties that I've been getting from Costco, so yet another Costco Gem. After the bagel's done, I smear cream cheese on both the crown and heel halves. Finally, the sausage patty goes in the middle and I'm done. With having cream cheese on both halves, it can overpower the sausage a little bit but it is more filling. Putting the cream cheese on only one half does not make the sausage any less slippery either. As shown in one of Gary's blog entries, I've modified my sandwich to a v1.5. The added Spam is more of a brunch sandwich and adds a saltier flavor to it. The Spam adds friction to the sausage, but again is still slippery.

Free Movie

Now that I have your attention, it was yesterday and if you weren't at the Regal 16 in downtown Seattle you missed it. Like I had mentioned in a previous post, Fox Searchlight was having free showings of the documentary Young@Heart. Gary and I went to the free showing yesterday and I was surprised that it was so easy to get in: I showed the guy an e-mail confirmation and they let us in. The theater wasn't even packed for this film. I must say it was quite an enjoyable and endearing film. The documentary follows the Young@Heart chorus line that has been entertaining and touring for 25 years. We get to see the regular practices w/ the disciplinarian of a director Bob Cilman, stories of chorus members, and a little bit of singing. It's very encouraging to see those who are 70+ years old who are so lively and are dedicated to memorizing songs weekly despite their health. I can be a bit of a softy and this film definitely 'tugged at the heartstrings.' This film is a limited release, so if you can find it, see it.....or at least add it to your Netflix queue.

Below is a music video of the chorus' rendition of Road to Nowhere by the Talking Heads mixed in w/ a little bit of Shout by the Isley Brothers. The Talking Heads music video it's a pretty imaginative albeit depressing video.

On a lighter note, the director of the film uses BBC-esque monologue voice overs throughout the film. It definitely reminded a little bit of "Living w/ Michael Jackson"

Greetings from Moses Lake

To the whole 3 people that read this blog, you probably know that I've been in central Washington this week for work. I've never posted anything pertaining to my work before, so I guess I should preface it with a statement:

The views expressed in this blog are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Washington Audiology Services, Inc.

That should get any trouble out the way I hope! Anyways, I'm an occupational hearing conservationist for those of you who don't know. I've been testing Genie Industries out here in Moses Lake the past 4 days. Genie makes all sorts of lifts and booms. The plant is an old hanger off of Grant County Int'l Airport. It's been a busy week (564 tested!) and today I get a day off until tomorrow's testing in Yakima. The only surprise this week was my trip out here. On my way through the Snoqualmie Pass, I got hit with snow/rain. Why is it snowing in April?!

Dreaming of Electric Sheep in Hi Def

After a fun afternoon of softball with UW's Team 'A-U-D S-L-P' and too lazy to prepare for my long trip in central Washington, I'll mention a little film called Blade Runner. Although it's not my favorite film in the world it is definitively one of the best, if not the best, sci-fi films around. I'm sure many would contend 2001 over this film, I'll take BR over it because it's more coherent. For those of you who are asking about Star Wars(since you know I'm a huge Star Wars geek) - sorry, but that's about as sci-fi as The Lord of the Rings. Last year was the 25th anniversary of BR's theatrical release. The only version of the film that has been widely available was the director's cut and the only way to see the theatrical version was on Criterion laserdisc - which I never did get off of eBay. The 25th anniversary edition includes both of these versions and a brand new final cut, which director Ridley Scott had remastered and tweaked the director's cut. Since it looks like the Final Cut may never see my mailbox via Netflix ('Very Long Wait' for the last 4 months), I decided to see the theatrical version. The film looks absolutely amazing in HD. The dark dystopia scenery against the bright neon lights looks better than ever. The theatrical version has a couple of things that the director's cut does not: voice over monologue of Ford's Deckard character, and a happy ending. Ford's voice overs are awfully done (I think intentionally), and it reminded me of a sentimental Steve Martin film. The voice overs do make the film more accessible, as it 'holds the viewer's hand' through much of the plot. I think what I like about BR so much is it's perfect blend of film noir and sci-fi and I think had Ford done the monologue in sync with the feel of the film it would have worked perfectly. Also, the happy ending seems a bit tacked on at the end. It reminds me of the feud that director Terry Gilliam had with another one of my favorite films, Brazil, in sticking with a darker ending. I'm not going to go over the whole debate over whether Deckard is a replicant or not, although in my personal opinion I think the story has more depth if he is a human, but the theatrical version definitely has a stronger case for Deckard being human. If you've never seen this movie, check it out. It's not a fast pace action thriller, it actually has a simple plot but it's filled with a lot of heady philosophical questions.

Buca Mio: Italian for My Buca

Yesterday was a time for food and fellowship at Gary's official 27th birthday celebration at Buca di Beppo. It was great to see the usual suspects from the Audiology Clan, as well as Chad & Michelle. The service was interesting, it started with a dirty/hairy knife lying at the head of the table. Then food we didn't even order showed up throughout the night and it was topped off with receiving the wrong bill(which happened to be significantly cheaper). This didn't put a damper on the evening, just more salacious blog fodder. Buca's specialty is family-style Italian food. Not everyone wanted to partake in the family-style, so some of us (dubbed "Team Family-Style") went through the tedious planning of what to order. It all worked out and there was plenty to eat without any leftovers. Props to Kate for recommending that Macaroni Rosa! As roommate to the birthday boy, I took pictures of Gary with the guests. Afterwards, as I look back at the photos I took, Gary appears to be quite the restaurateur with our friends. His attire, position, and posture makes it look like he owns the place. The picture below of Jody & Jordan definitely gives off that vibe. As to why an Asian would be owning an Italian restaurant - it's Seattle, maybe it's a fusion restaurant. So for those of you who took pictures with him, he'll be asking for your autograph soon enough so that he can post the pics on the walls of his new restaurant. Check out Gary's blog entry on his take, as well as his gallery for more pics of the night.

The Octogenarian's Documentary

Based on a discussion with Gary concerning his current geriatrics class that started today (on his 27th birthday), he talked about a UK documentary about a geriatric music group known as The Zimmers. It was a good segue into a film that I'm interested in seeing and is opening around cities April 9th. The documentary is called Young@Heart, and follows a chorus line of senior citizens. For those of you in Seattle who are interested, you can actually catch a free screening of the film April 10, or 17th if you reserve seats online. Below is the trailer, and then a clip of them singing 'I Want to Be Sedated' by The Ramones:

Costco Gems: Finger Ling Ling Good!

So Gary got me hooked on these delectable frozen treasures known as Ling Ling 'All Natural' Potstickers. Although you can get them at grocery stores, I am making it a Costco Gem because Costco sells a larger bag of the dumpling-encased taste explosions than what you can get at say Safeway. Those of you who know my usual diet may be shocked that the package has the word 'vegetable', but yes they're in there and I do eat it! You can boil them and put it in soup, or boil them and pan fry them for that traditional crispy look. I've come up with my own method of cooking the potstickers. I skip the boiling step and go straight to a pan fry procedure using some fried chicken oil. Fried chicken oil is oil that I'm reusing from frying chicken with. It's flavor increases the more times it's cooked with. The oil adds more chicken flavor as well as onion and garlic to the potstickers. After frying them and rotating the potstickers about 10 min, they have a nice crispy golden complexion all around. You'll see the pics show the process from frozen, to cooking(mmmm...swim my pretties), to ready to be consumed. Check out Ling Ling's website, the flash intro is quite rediculous-but I guess it can be when the food is so good. Food ads or the photos on packaging is usually showing how the food can look at its most ideal appearance. I think mine looks better.

Taking the Cascades down to Portland

Yesterday, I had to go down to Portland to pick up one of my coworkers and one of our trucks to take back to Seattle. I got a one way business class ticket to Portland from the King Street Station via Amtrak Cascades. I don't have a lot of experiences w/ long distance trains like this, but I was quite impressed. You'll have to excuse the photos. I'm not much of a picture taker, nor do I like people seeing me take pictures. I was trying to be an inconspicuous drive-by camera phone picture taker, not one of the Japanese tourists who were at the Portland station taking pictures all around the train and even going as far as jumping on the tracks in front of the train. Anyways, the inside was nice and roomy, there less than 10 of us in our car. There were TV's that had constant info on our next stop and final destination time. They even played Enchanted throughout the trip, but of course the seat headphone jacks are cheap and created a lot of electronic interference. I decided to watch a more fitting film for a train ride on my Zen, Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Many of the train stops along the way, like Centralia or Vancouver, have been maintained since the tracks were probably laid way back when. I was expecting to get held up by Jesse James or being asked where the safe was being held. The ride was about 4 hours with all the stops and some delays, but all in all a quite relaxing trip. You'll also notice the picture below featuring the emergency procedures, quite different from a plane's. There are items like an emergency hammer to break the window - then there's things like a megaphone and glow sticks. I guess if you get shut down in the middle of the countryside, you get shout out into the open and start a rave.

Not Being Fooled, Colts Open Lucas Oil against Bears

Week 1 primetime games have been announced, and the Colts will start the season off Sunday at home in their 5th consecutive primetime season opener with a rematch of Super Bowl XLI against the Bears at the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium! I can't wait to see how the new stadium will look, obviously it's not done just yet. I'm not sure if Rex will have the starting position in Chicago by the time preseason is over, but it'll sure be good to see him get beat around in a brand new stadium! I still have high hopes that Orton will one day lead the Monsters of the Midway under center. Click the picture of Booger giving to Rex on the left to relive that awesome game! Below is also a demo of what Lucas Oil Stadium is going to look like! I can't wait - I miss Indy!