Go West

According to the BBC News article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6158615.stm, family restaurants are failing to provide healthy choices for children’s meals.

Cast your mind back to a previous post of mine where I was ranting and raving over the choices that are available from most US family restaurants and then tell me why the article above comes as a complete surprise.

The funniest thing is that we have been to both Romano’s Macaroni Grill and Olive Garden who are supposed to be Italian restaurants, i.e. a style of cooking that uses a lot of pasta and cheese, and it still looks like they used the Kraft Mac’N'Cheese mix out of a packet.

This week I found myself doing a  “Bah ! Humbug !” to Thanksgiving. We received an invitation to dinner from one of our neighbours but we declined on the grounds that I have precious little time away from the office as it is and I wanted to spend the holiday relaxing at home. It’s also the case that I can only take one turkey dinner a year and that’s reserved for Christmas.

A four-day weekend is nothing to be sniffed at so we vegged out on Thursday. On Friday, I made sure I was up for the 5 am start of the holiday sales. This is as big as the post-Christmas sales in the UK and people go mad here. So, at 11:30, I got out of bed and headed towards Frys. What a mistake. The Bay Area was there as well.

I checked my previous posts and can’t see any reference to the fact that, earlier this year, we blew up the PS2 by plugging the audio cables into the step-up transformer ( I use “we” to refer to other members of the family that did it while I was in the office ). So, for at least 5 months, we’ve been without karaoke.

The release of the PS3 hasn’t done anything to reduce the price of PS2s but I gave in to temptation and bought a new one. $129 later, we are back to singing “I Love Rock’n'Roll” and “Take On Me” to Diamond standard.

This PS2 is about 1/4 the size of the original one and it makes you wonder where all the electronics have gone. I’m contacting my usual sources to find out about getting a modchip installed.

Today saw Joanna’s birthday arrive after at least 365 days since the last one. On Saturday, we took her to see The Nutcracker performed by the Peninsula Youth Ballet company. It was a very good show and since our only exposure to the story was through a Barbie video, it was great to see the proper interpretation. One nice touch was that after the show, they put on a tea party so that children could have photos taken with their favourite characters. At least, that was the intention. It cost us an extra $10 per ticket and the ticket said it started at 5:30pm. When we arrived at 5:10pm, it had already started and most of the food had been eaten. Joanna was still able to get photos with Clara and The Sugar Plum Fairy so the money wasn’t entirely wasted. However, we’re going to be writing a letter to the Sam Mateo Center for Performing Arts as I wanted my cake.

And finally, I forgot to mention that we had a clock fall of the wall while Sam’s mum and step-dad were still here. As a thank-you present for us looking after them, they bought us a replacement. This isn’t an ordinary clock…oh no ! This is a clock that sets itself using a long wave radio signal from Clock Central somewhere in the US. What more could you ask for ? You change the clock to some random time, press a button and, within five minutes, the hands move of their own accord to the correct time.

This is *much* better than a karaoke PS2.

This Tuesday saw the highlight of my year as we went into San Francisco to see the Pet Shop Boys. If I’m honest, they could read names from the phone book to a techno beat and I’d be happy but they did put on a fantastic performance. San Francisco is a liberal place and everyone seemed to have brought along their partners. In fact, we were all gay that night

The couple behind us told us all about their life and how they met which included a stint in the Navy for some reason. The military has a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. They were fun to talk to. One of the guys had been to a book signing with the PSBs the day before so he was gushing about how great Neil Tennant was and how Chris Lowe may ( or may not ) be using a dermatologist. This took him off on a tangent about how he’d found small wrinkles under his eyes and how he’d gone to see his Los Angleles friend who also happened to be a dermatologist and was going to charge him $400 .

I think I blew their idea of a reserved English man because he congratulated for me “getting my groove going” during the first half. After the second half, he tapped the shoulder of the guy sitting next to us saying “Honey, I’ve been watching you from behind all night and I have to say, it’s fantastic !”.
I also managed to get myself on the radio (Energy 97.2 [ or 92.7 ]) for being the first in the queue for the show. That was more by mistake than anything else. The show started at 8pm, it takes 20 minutes to get into the city but I wasn’t sure how long it would take during rush hour and there were a lot of cars queuing to get over the Bay Bridge so I made sure that we left at about 4:30 with the intention of spending another 30 minutes looking for parking.

As it turned out, it took exactly 20 minutes door-to-door and we stood outside the theatre by 5pm. We spent another 45 minutes walking up and down the street looking for somewhere to eat ( during which time Sam touched the Pet Shop Bus but I was too scared in case I got beaten up by some burly security guard ). So, by 5:45, we were first to queue up outside the theatre and the doors didn’t open until 7pm. It was a warm night so it didn’t matter too much but I don’t think Sam was too impressed because her boots most definitely were *not* made for walking ( or standing ).

Anyhoo, we got asked by someone if we didn’t mind being on the radio. Sam chickened out but I performed like a trouper regaling the interviewer with the tale of how I appear on the PSBs “Somewhere” DVD in the documentary on how they put on the show at the Savoy in London in 1997. About 17:13 seconds into the documentary, you can see my face for 1/3 of a second and I play “Man in queue #6″. The interview lasted for all of 30 seconds and he went back inside and never called again.