omgh4x denuded

I am so freaking tired.

Yesterday, tickets went on sale for a Dave Chappelle show at the Punchline that evening, and Demian and I were able to snag tickets for the midnight show before they sold out. Midnight is already pretty late for us, but we figured, what the hell, it's Christmas and we can always sleep in the next day.

Unfortunately, there's not much sleeping in you can do when the show finishes at 5:30 IN THE FREAKING A.M.!

We get to the Punchline at 11:00 p.m., when doors are supposed to open, so we can start waiting in line for the midnight show. They were just starting to let people in...

for the 10 p.m. show.

The people at the door tell us that Dave is running late, and that our show probably won't start until 1 a.m. "That sucks," I thought to myself. Little did I know how much suckier it could get. We went back to move our car closer to the venue, and then stopped into the Meridian Hotel, a cute little boutique hotel, so that Demian could pee. Then we went to start waiting in line again. That was around 12 a.m. 12:30 a.m. passes, no luck. 1 a.m. passes, and we're still waiting. 1:30 passes. IT IS REALLY FREAKING COLD OUT THERE AND WE ARE SO TIRED. Finally, they let us in at around 2 a.m., but the show doesn't start for at least another 15 minutes.

Turns out, Dave Chappelle was pretty damn good. Apparently, on Thursday night, he just had an itching to do some standup, so he arranged to come down last night for a spontaneous show (he's been chilling out on his farm in Ohio for the last several months doing nothing). Most of his material was improvised, in response to people in the audience, which just showed how smart and on top of his game he is. That's true talent. The only thing was that because his show wasn't scripted, he just talked until he felt like stopping, which explains why all the previous shows ran late. In our case, he didn't feel like stopping until 5:30 a.m. Good timing too, because we would've had to leave by 6 a.m. because of street cleaning. By then, I thought I was going to die from exhaustion. Didn't get home until 6:30 a.m., finally crashed at 7 a.m., when the sun started streaming in. Fell in an out of consciousness until 10 a.m., when I decided to cut my losses and get up. Don't want to lose two nights of sleep by sleeping in too late today and then not being able to sleep tonite. My head is pounding, eyes are dry, and I've got that anxious, adrenaline, second-wind type feeling in my chest. Dave was good, but I don't know if he was stay-up-a-whole-24-hours good.

Anyway, just had to get that out of my system. I'm behind on my blogs--I still owe everyone a review of Michael Mina, where Demian and I went for our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. As a preview, I'll just tell you guys what Demian got my for our anniversary (yay! presents!). Demian always seems to get me exactly what I want--a piece of original art of Rogue (my favorite comic book character) done by one of my favorite cartoon/comic artists, a Ron Papille indestructible knife set that I've been longing for ever since Demian and I watched an infomercial on it, and this g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s pink Louis Vuitton silk shawl that he saw me eyeing a couple of months ago *swoon.* I love our anniversary because it's like our own private Christmas.

Well, that's it for now. Christmas is looming, and I've got to go play with my nephew teehee.

GREETINGS!

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK WISHES YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

As per the usual, I have disappeared for a long time. The time between my posts is much too large, and this is something I must remedy. In the meantime you all shall just be forced to miss me until I grace you all with my presence.

Actually I have a good reason for not posting in a long time (well... not a LONG time) but man, it's been a pretty eventful week. First and foremost with this new campaign Quiznos seems to be running... It's quite effective actually. You can see there ad below.

Har dee har. Anyways so a couple sundays ago (the day before my final) was talking with Siu about what I should do for dinner. She suggested I come over for dinner but I was like "ehhhh, I have a final tommorrow. I probably should just grab something quick to eat and come home and study". So i decided to go down the hill and grab some quiznos (foot long, black angus). Oh man, was it delicious! No really it was! That night I was commenting to siu about how I hadn't been to quiznos in sooo long and the black angus was soooo delicious.

A few hours later I didn't feel quite the same way about that sandwich... neither did the toilet bowl. Suffice to say, none of that sandwich stayed down, and the next 3 or 4 days was spent bed ridden.

But wait... didn't I say a had a final on Monday? Oh yes... so i couldn't make it to the final, I had a take home final due on Thursday. I managed to get in touch with my professor at SCU who was totally understanding and we postponed my final until wednesday. I wasn't really out of bed until the wednesday of the final but I managed to take it. I then spent all wednesday night doing my take home due the next day. Oh man, it was pretty exhausting.

It was SUCH A terrible freaking week. Food poisoning is the worst EVAR. Both my parents were out of town so luckily Siu's family took care of me. Man otherwise it would've been so crappy to try to take care of myself. The after affects of food poisoning isn't that great since my body is still pretty week and recovering. I'll randomly break out in hives because of certain foods now. IT's AWESOME!!!1111

On a higher note, the parental units just got back from hong kong, AND THEY COME BEARING GIFFTSSS!

They brought me back an excellente new phone. All my friends always have these fancy phones from abroad so I figured I'd give it a shot. Presenting the unreleased in america, phone of amazingess, the SONy eriCSSON W850! *cha chiingg*

It's pretty cool. 2.0 megapixel camera, does the slider thing which seems to be the fad these days, all the other fancy doo dads u'd expect of a phone (mp3 ringtones, blue tooth, blah blah blah). It's the sony walkman edition type of phones so it plays music too, wheee.

In conclusion, life sucked before, it's getting better.

the end.

Things have been pretty slow at work, so I was able to get together with friends for lunch and dinner a couple of days this week. Thursday night, Roz and I had a date to check out the newest restaurant on University Avenue, limeleaf. limeleaf bills itself as a Thai-Vietnamese fusion restaurant, but doesn't really fuse much of anything. On the menu, you'll see traditional dishes from each region--pad thai, chicken satay, Vietnamese spring rolls, pho ga, etc. I had picked this place not only because I thought the logo was cute, but also because it's been so freaking cold that I've been craving a bowl of hot, steamy noodles. I would've been thrilled if this place turned out yummy, because that'd mean I wouldn't have to drive all the way to San Antonio Road or Castro for a decent bowl of pho.

Too bad.

I have to say right off the bat that the owners of the restaurant are super nice and attentive; they seem genuinely pleased and grateful when new patrons walk through the door, since the place has been open for only two weeks. The space is clean, well-lit, and inviting, and the menu is extensive and tempting. Both Roz and I decided to try the chicken satay and the chicken pho.

The chicken satay came out first. The chicken itself was hot and juicy, but could have used a bit more seasoning. The peanut sauce, however, which really is supposed to be the best part of chicken satay, was way below par. Visually, the sauce was a mess--it looked like organic peanut butter, with the oil separated from the butter. Taste-wise, it was bland and COLD, which was totally unpleasant when combined with the chicken. Also puzzling were the two slices of white bread sitting on the plate. Roz and I had no idea what they were doing there or what to do with them. The tiny dish of cucumber salad was also off the mark--usually, the vegetables are mixed together, but here the pickled cucumbers were hidden beneath a pile of sliced jalapenos and red onions, neither of which had been tossed in the vinaigrette and which were more like obstacles than components of the salad.

The pho itself did not fare much better. It's difficult to imagine how pho could go wrong. It's just a bowl of noodles, after all. On the other hand, it's easy to take for granted what's so good about a perfect bowl of pho--supple noodles, hot and rich broth, delicious nuggets of meat. A great bowl of pho is supposed to warm you, leave you feeling full and satisfied. But the pho at limeleaf falls short. The broth was bland, the noodles stuck together and were difficult to eat, and the chicken needed seasoning. My favorite part about pho restaurants, the huge bottle of hoisin sauce I get to drown my pho in, was also absent. Instead, the restaurant offers you a tiny dish that holds both the hoisin and the hot sauce.

limeleaf tries to elevate Asian comfort food, but, with the exception of the homey and thoughtful service, does not succeed. Adding two inexplicable slices of white bread to chicken satay is not an innovative twist--it is confusing. Serving hoisin sauce in a dish is not dainty, it's annoying. This restaurant should go back to the basics, and be what University Avenue really needs--cheap, good, homestyle eats--not another attempt to turn tried-and-true recipes trendy.

One out of four stars

limeleaf

452 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301

Phone: (650) 321-7888
Website: www.limeleafnoodles.com