It's an Exciting World

Kingdom of Dumplings

Steph and I went to a restaurant in outer sunset that is called Kingdom of Dumplings. They have 2 locations, one for the restaurant and one for the factory. They make all their own dumplings and all the ones we tried were delicious. They had a spicy orange sauce for the dumplings which was delicious. It was a small Asian twist on the burrito orange sauce, and I want to try my hand at making some kind of the orange deliciousness. It was about 4 blocks from bo’s old place so I was hoping we could meet up with him there, but he had moved. We ate at the restaurant then walked down to the factory to pick up some of the frozen dumplings. We got to see them make a few for us while we were there, which was pretty neat.

February 10, 2014 0

Escape the Room: Time Travelers Lab

Dan set up a great experience of puzzle solving and stories. This was a fully interactive puzzle, where you had to get out of the room in one hour. The game was lots of fun, and we were out of time with about 5 minutes of things left to sort out. It was a little frustrating to get so close and not figure it out. I was a little slow on the first puzzle I was trying to solve, so I could have done that better. I don’t want to write too much more here for spoiler reasons, but safe to say it was a great time.

Link

February 10, 2014 0

Kitties and the Vet

Thursday morning I took the kitties to the vet and got some bad news. The kitties have fleas, Archer is getting badly overweight, and Lana has acne. I ordered all the things I need to take care of these ailments and have taken large steps to work with most of them. The iffiest part is whether or not the fleas have reproduced enough to cause a big issue at my house. I don’t think so as the kitties didn’t have that many. We are doing a very thorough cleaning and keeping the kitties on some medication. Lana’s chin has the acne and it looked pretty bad, but once we cleaned it up it didn’t look too bad. She has a decently bad case of it, but should clear up in a few weeks as long as we keep cleaning it. I’m feeding the cats less, and they should be at a good weight in a couple months. Archer was over 10lbs. Lana is a much better 7.5 lbs. Last week we also tried to take them to the baylands and have them walk around. They didn’t care for it since the ground was wet and it was cold. They climbed up on our shoulders, poor kitties.

February 10, 2014 0

The Wise Man’s Fear

This book was just as good as the first one, if not better. The world is greatly expanded in this one and the story progresses in an unpredictable, but wonderful way. I really enjoy where the action is going and the way the world is coming together. I really hope that some of the big questions in the world will be answered at the end of the last book, but I fully expect there to be a huge lingering question at the end of the series with just a small part of the curtain pulled back. I don’t expect all the answers, but a few of them would be nice. I expect no big resolution.

Audible Link

February 10, 2014 0

Name of the Wind

This is one of the best stories and best written books I’ve ever read. One of the ways I can tell how much I like the book is how much I’m willing to do other stuff while listening. With this book there was very little I was able to do while listening, since I was so taken in by the world that was being built and the story that was being told. I can’t wait for the last book to come out so that I can finish the series.

Audible Link

February 10, 2014 0

Dinner for Chinese New Year

I had dinner with Steph’s family for Chinese new year, and then we got them to play a few of the games we had been making. They liked the format of the Lizard Wizards, and we got to play a good number of rounds of Bot A Boom. Steph and I made some Tom Yom to share, and had a little left over this time. The rest of the food there was tasty, and since there was so much of it I took a good bit home.

February 2, 2014 0

Tzolk’in Expansion

We played the expansion of Tzolk’in and I rather liked it. The tribes gave a very clear starting strategy and the intermediate goals gave something very solid to aim for in the middle of the game. We didn’t have enough for the quick action spots to matter, but we did get two games in. The first game was Iliya, Adam, and myself. I won with 104, using the fat tribe, which starts with 5 people but requires extra food. The second game was just Adam and myself, and he got 100 points with me at 50 points, despite 2 monuments.

February 2, 2014 0

First Meetings

This was a very interesting collection of short stories. The meeting of Ender’s parents was quite good. I liked the parity that my life has to it. The version of Ender’s game in this was much less mature and didn’t have some of the really psychological parts to it. The meeting of Ender and Jane was also a good story. I liked the part about the tax collector, and how Ender’s holdings just wouldn’t stop scrolling. This wasn’t the best of the Ender series, but it also wasn’t the worst.

Audible Link

February 1, 2014 0

The Art of Public Speaking: Lessons from the Greatest Speeches in History

This had a lot of good points but it was basically how to win friends and influence people in mass. It is good for those who haven’t read other books along these lines, but I’d focus on the other ones first.

Audible Link

January 30, 2014 0