last night i celebrated ann’s birthday by taking her out to straits cafe in santana row. whenever i’ve walked by the place, it was always packed and crowded and tonight was no exception. it was a good thing that i got reservations because it looked like every table and standing space in the restuarant was packed.

the food was surprisingly good. i always thought that the place may just be a little overrated and that people go for the ambiance instead of the food. but i was wrong. the appetizers we had were delicious. we had the roti prata and the fried calamari. the main dishes were also rather good.

i also ate beef. it was the most tender and juicy bit of steak i’ve had in a long, long time and i have to say that all of this fear i have about beef is quickly evaporating. beef is just too good. mmmm. we also had this seafood fried noodle with gravy dish that i thought tasted a little too seafoody, but still was good.

i’m pretty impressed with the food. the ambiance is nice, but it was also pretty loud. definitely not a place to have a quiet intimate meal, but still it was cozy and quite satisfying. they are not outrageously priced, either, but they were on the nicer side of dining.

good food, i’m glad i went, and i’d probably go again.

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oh man…the super bowl starts at 3pm on sunday. 3pm. i have a volleyball game on sunday at 7pm. which means i should be there at 6:50, which means i need to leave my place by 6:20. which means i have to start getting ready by 6:10. which means that i probably won’t be able to throw the usual super bowl sunday party….what’s worse is my fear that the game will last more than 3 hours….what if i miss part of the game? i wonder if it’ll be a good game.

hmmmm. what to do? what to do? i had grand plans of BBQ’ing up a storm too! maybe i’ll have a very early dinner….or a very late dinner. hmmmmm.

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i bought a shirt from geoffrey beane over the weekend. today, i decided to wear it. in the shirt pocket was a little scrap of paper. it read:

BE AWARE OF WHAT YOU WEAR
Over 2/3 of the clothes supplied to us are made in SWEATSHOPS.
Was this garment made in a sweatshop?
Ask the manager or owner — Let them know your views on worker exploitation.
More info? www.u-can.org
Don’t wear their suffering on your back!

hmmm…i wonder how many people check the pockets of the garments they are going to buy before buying it. it never ocurred to me to check the shirt pocket.

but this begs a greater question: did a bunch of people raid this store and secretly put all these scraps in every pocket without the salesmen finding out? hmmmm.

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“2.8 lenses are just too slow”
          -adam tow

yeah. ok. then my lenses must be crazy ass slow. but [url=http://www.tow.com]adam[/url] was nice enough to lend me his precious [url=http://www.usa.canon.com/eflenses/lenses/ef_28-70_28l/ef_28-70_28l.html]canon 28-70/2.8[/url] and i’ve been playing with it for the past few days and i must admit that i’m surprised about the lens. it isn’t quite what i expected.

my biggest shock with this lens is that i actually find this range to be rather limiting, surprising as that may sound. i used to use a 28-105 as my primary and when i went back to look at the images, i found that the majority of my images are either in the 28-50mm range or at 105mm.

when i’m using the 28-70, i feel pretty cramped. not much of a zoom to work with and not nearly wide enough. i never thought that this would be a lens that i would walk away from. i never thought that i would walk away from any L lens. but i feel that for the money, this lens is not worth its hefty price tag.
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today has been flying by like you can’t believe. i don’t know where it is going, but i’m surprised that it’s already midafternoon.

this weekend i finally broke down and ate some beef. yup. and it was good. i went to whole foods and got some beef for fajitas and made two batches of fajitas. one chicken, one beef. i had almost forgotten how good beef was until i had my very first fajita. after that, it’s over.

the bad thing about whole foods beef is that it is actually rather pricey. i think that it is almost double the fair market value of comparable beef at safeway. while i was at safeway over the weekend, i saw this family buying all sorts of beef. new york steak, tri-tip, top sirloin…there was more beef on the conveyor belt than there was anything else…with the exception of beer.

beer and steak. steak and beer. mmmmm.

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that’s the date when i last saw [url=http://jenny.ocliw.com/journal/]my good friend, jenny.[/url] man, it’s been over a year and a half! who would have thunk it? i guess i’ve been bad about visiting her. i knew that it’s been a while, but i didn’t realize that it had been that long. we still keep in regular touch (as regular as it can get considering our busy schedules) and it’s nice to know that our friendship can last even with the great midwest between us.

one day, the wind pompously bragged to the sun how powerful he was. he could blow away buildings, uproot trees, and cause havoc. the sun, listening to the wind brag, decided to step into the conversation and asked the sun what is so powerful about brute force?

the wind continued to brag about how powerful he was and challenged anyone to prove that someone else could be more powerful than he. the sun came over to the wind and challenged him.

“see that man down there, wind?” asked the sun.

“yes, indeed, i do,” replied the wind.

“let’s see which of us can get his jacket off,” challenged the sun.

“it’s a deal.”

the wind came up and drew his most powerful breath of air and blew and blew at the man, trying to shrug the jacket off of him. with every breath, the man held tighter and tighter to his jacket. eventually, the wind gave up and declared that it was impossible to get that man’s jacket off.

the sun nodded and then said he would try.

the sun then beamed with all the glory of his warmth down upon the earth to the man. the rays of sunshine warmed the man and he was compelled to take his jacket off because it was so hot.

=================================
moral of the lesson:

sometimes the answer isn’t about brute force. sometimes there is a more elegant solution that’s easier to come by and much less painful.

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oh yeah, did i mention that i took [url=http://www.ocliw.com/things/weekends/disneyland2004/]pictures in LA?[/url] surely, i must have.

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man, i don’t know what was up with the last two days, but i felt pretty crappy. i feel much better today so i’ve been able to get some serious work done. it’s a good feeling.

last night was poker night and it has become painfully obvious that i really, really need to get another stack of white chips. i think that i may go and pick that up tonight on the way home. we’ll see. i also really want some better storage for my chips. i’m not sure where i will get that from, but i really need it bad.

we had a full house last night at poker night, barely had enough chairs to seat everyone. i guess i should start thinking about moving my table so that there’s more room around the table.

i went to sleep at a reasonable hour last night and i feel reasonably good about it. i think that i’ll be staying at work a little bit later today because i have to leave work early tomorrow.

at least the weekend is near. i’m ready for a nice good break and some rest and relaxation. maybe there will be a photo shoot in the near future.

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i’ve been pretty busy lately, i haven’t had a chance to sit down and write anything down.

yesterday, i had a red bull early in the day because i was very tired and i needed a little pick me up. i got shaky and jittery in the morning and then the ensuing crash started to set in during the afternoon. i’m very sensitive to caffeine and i think that this drink put my whole body out of whack. after volleyball i went immediately to sleep and ended up sleeping for 10 hours yesterday because i wasn’t feeling well.

i don’t think that my body has fully gotten back to normal yet, either. i am never drinking red bull again.

i had a moment to go to my optometrist today and get my glasses adjusted. they were a little crooked so i wanted them to fix it. they weren’t crooked in the way that glasses are usually crooked, though, no, instead one side of my glasses was closer to my face than the other. so whenever i shut my eyes tight, my cheek would bump into one side and leave an oily mark.

so i go into the optometrist office and my optometrist says, “oh, i remember you. you play volleyball, right?”

“uhhh…yeah,” i respond, surprised that she remembered.

“so what can i do for you?”

“well, my glasses are crooked and i was wondering if i could get it adjusted.”

and then she asks, “do you get hit by volleyballs a lot?”

“…”

“…”

“uhhh, what?” i ask.

“oh, i just wanted to know if that’s why your glasses are crooked,” she responds.

sheesh.

so anyway i got my glasses adjusted and they are peachy fine now.

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