So I want to write more here, and right now it looks like that means writing about food.

Last night Frankie and I went to Lola Tapas.

Ignore those reviews, it had great food, and a fun atmosphere.

We recently met one of the chefs there, who is a really cool guy, and also completely adorable, and so we decided to drop in to visit him, and get dinner at the same time.

Seating is all family style, there are only two large tables in the whole place which I think seat a total of 16. Not a big place at all, very intimate feeling. While I imagine this can be awkward, the people sitting by us were great, so it all worked out.

We started with a tortilla de patata, which was a thick layer of potatoes, egg, roasted red pepper, and spices, which is baked into a pie-ish (yes, that is the proper foodie term, clearly.....shut up) shape then served cool with saffron mayo. Sounds a little odd, but I could happily eat about 6 of them. And the saffron mayo was perfect, and that is a hard balance to find, I have tried.

Second up on our tapas menu was pork tenderloin in Moroccan spices. I really have nothing bad to say about this dish. Thin slices of tenderloin, spiced really well, tender enough to cut with a fork, as it damn well better be really. I am also biased because I love pork tenderloin when it is cooked well. Especially if the chef knows how to salt it properly, as so many over or under salt.

Last entree-like dish was beef braised in orange juice and a spice blend with carrots and onions. Lets be honest, braised beef is hard to fuck up. I could make a decent braised beef when I was 15. That being said, it is also hard to add something new, and the orange juice did just that. I am definitely stealing that idea. The lady next to us was eying it like she wanted to steal some. I was ready to beat her down if I had to. She had half a bottle of wine in her and weighed like 110. I think I would have won.

At this point, the chef told us he was making us a special palate cleanser. This item he threw together for us was the best part of the meal. Grilled slices of bread topped with manchego cheese, sliced fig, almonds, and drizzled with olive oil. Simple, but awesome, and all the right proportions. I should mention it also came with some of their house marinated olives. I am assured they are wonderful, but I hate olives so I ignored them. Much like the caper berries that acted as garnish for the tortilla.

Dessert was a rustic strawberry tart with whipped cream, every bit of it homemade. I need to ask him for the crust recipe. It was a nice light dessert and he did not make it overly sweet, which is a problem i have with a lot of strawberry desserts. Yes, I am a finicky demanding bitch, just ask Frankie.

All in all a really good meal. If you are ever in the downtown area with a small group looking for dinner, drop in.

Seattle Peoples,

Frankie and I will be attending PAX this year, so we will be flying in to Seattle on the 28th, and leaving on the 1st.

Most of the day will be convention wandering and playing games.

But we are seeking recommendations for stuff to do in the evenings. Okay, honestly we are looking for bars and restaurants near the convention center. And also looking to hang out with any of you if you feel like it.

So at my job, we can take a set number of hours per month and do volunteer work, and the job will pay us for our time.

Today was my first time taking advantage of this, I helped out with a back to school event for a local group dedicated to helping kids infected with HIV or who have parents that have it.

The kids were awesome. I generally dislike kids, but there was an 8 year old there that I wanted to steal he was so cool. They actually make me want to help out at their next event (pumpkin carving in October). Not quite enough to make me want my own, but enough that I did not hate being around them, how I sometimes do.

The parents? TERRIBLE. I mean, one or two were cool. But the majority of them were horrible. Demanding, pushy, rude, completely non-thankful, just generally a pain. The best was one that walked in, picked up the supply bags for her kids, looked around at the activities and said "I don't want to drive to pick my kids up and drive all the way back just for *this*, I'll just take the bags and go." Then sat there for 5 minutes complaining about it not being as good as last year, then left. I wanted to slap her.

But overall it was fun. And I got to play with a 6 week old kitten (I did not want to steal it though. They are noisy and annoying at that age).

So anyway, overall rewarding, and expect to hear more of these stories, because my work really pushes the volunteering and I see myself getting more involved.

Been a while since I posted about food, so I will tell everyone what i made for dinner tonight.

I will preface this by saying that thanks to Fresh and Easy this was all very Semi-Homemade (without the annoying cheerfulness, matching outfit/curtains, and alcoholism).

Dinner was pizza with a tomato basil cream sauce, topped with smoked Gouda, double gloucester, and fresh mozzarella, with Spanish style chorizo (dough and sauce were pre-made, assembly and baking by me).

Dessert was Tres Leches (totally store made. Fresh and Easy makes an amazing Tres Leches).

I also made (this bit is from scratch) dark chocolate and butterscotch cookies.

Dinner was served with a really tasty Argentinian Malbec. If you like wine, and have not sampled South American Malbecs, you are missing out.

Also, if you are on the west coast and like dark beers, Stone Brewery has an amazing Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout right now.

Okay, maybe I lied about the alcoholism....

I am wearing the most comfortable jeans ever invented by man.

And really, that is all I have to talk about at the moment.

The sam's club by my house has cases of gansitos and real (mexican) coke. And my boyfriend bought me both.

I am a happy happy man.

I also bought a new car. 2006 Murano.

But right now I am all about the mexican snack cakes and coke made with sugar instead of syrup.

Paula Abdul is The Hybrid.

I expect maybe 1 person to get this joke.

Work should be great but due to some shit I cannot control it is pissing me off.

And I came home to find out that my favorite cat in the entire history of cats had to be put down today.

Seriously I loved this cat. I joked about abducting him all the time. And he loved me right back.

I do believe I am going to go have a beer in his honor.

For the love of god people, if you order Norton Anti-virus, and don't cancel, and get charged again a year later it is not considered an unauthorized charge.

Stop filling out forms claiming it is not authorized. It is. And filling out that form wastes your time, the time of the document scanning people, and most importantly my time.

And seriously, stop ordering that shit anyway. Get a free one like a normal person.

Oh, and never, ever, give someone promising you "free (or guaranteed) leads" for sales in any industry your credit card number. You fucking halfwit. Also, if by some miracle they provide leads, and you fail to make a sale from them, that is on you. The leads are not defective, your sales skills are, and I cannot charge those back.

Really though, if it is free, and they ask for your card number, it is not free. Stop being all surprised and offended when the guy you gave your card number to charges you for the shit he is giving you. Just stop.

Thank you.

That is all.

I had planned to do a big post about this, but it turns out it sums up fairly fast.

Today is two years since me and frankie went on our first date.

Turns out I still love him. A lot.

And that is all I really feel the need to say.

Those of you that have known me a while know how much I complain about living in AZ.

Over the last month I figured out AZ is not the problem (well, okay, its a problem, but not the main one). My problem was suburbs.

I am now fairly centrally located within phoenix, and I cannot believe the difference it has made. I am going out more, seeing friends more, having more fun, just generally happier.

I can actually walk places. I mean, not a lot of places, but in this state it is weird to walk anywhere, let alone to a great coffee shop, a great lunch place, and two fun bar/restaurants (I have my choice of gay and English style pub).

For being born in Flagstaff, I am a total city person.

And the fact that being out here has let me connect with the gay community is just an added bonus. I used to think that the whole "gay community" thing was kinda stupid, but now that I am slightly a part of it, I am seeing it has a lot of good to offer along with the drama. And really, what group doesn't have drama?

Oh, and unrelated, if you have the opportunity to see Margaret Cho's current tour, I would recommend it. It was quite a good time.

Finally went to Phoenix Pride after years of not making it.

Naturally we forgot to bring any of the various cameras. I will try to steal some pictures from friends to post later.

Overall it was a blast. Fun to meet robotdan and his man who I don't think has an LJ.

For those not familiar with pride, I will give a quick rundown. We arrived around 3 and began drinking as soon as we could get through the line. We drank until we left around 8. Somewhere in there we met up with a ton of friends, and frankie and mike both rode a mechanical bull. I really wish I had my camera for that part.

Around 8 we all stumbled to macayos for some food, as many of us had not eaten during all that drinking.

After that we all split up, frankie, sabin and I came back here to play Smash Brothers and watch TV until around 1.

All in all, quite a bit of fun.

I have been through the entire catalog of three online stores with no luck.

Where does a person have to go to find a non-ugly (and preferably non blue) shower curtain?

Seriously there is some ugly shit out there.

And are 70% of the bathrooms in the US blue? Or do retailers just really love it?

So this is the second to last day of a 10 day vacation for frankie and I, and we have done a lot. Pictures will be coming eventually, if Frankie gets around to editing them.

So thursday we headed out to San Francisco for IBR. For those not familiar with the event, think gay pride but with only hairy larger men.

It was a great time. We saw Tiffany perform. Who knew she was still alive? And wearing the same jeans as back in the day despite several new pounds. She was more or less tragic looking, but still a lot of fun.

We also saw Kathy Griffin, which was hilarious and awesome and I want to see her again.

Met lots of fun people, and randomly caught up with some friends from here that were also at the event. All in all a great time, with some amazing food. Ever find yourself hungry in the downtownish area of San Francisco, go to Prana. Order the curried coconut chicken empanadas. Just keep ordering those until almost full. Then get the ginger dark chocolate cake with cinnamon gelato. thank me later.

Came home sunday night, monday night I got horrible food poisoning and spent all day tuesday in misery.

Today I am feeling much better, and frankie and I went apartment hunting since our lease is up March 31st.

At the third complex, we basically knew we loved it, we got in the car, started to head to the next place, looked at one another, and knew there was no point, so we went back and turned in our applications. Provided everything goes well (it should) we should be moving in to a new apartment on March 21st (yeah, it means paying two rents for a week or so, but it was the best that worked out).

So that brings it more or less to now. I got back to work friday. Whee.

So it looks like Frankie and I will be going to IBR this year in San Francisco.

What we are looking for is hotel reccomendations. Our goals are a) reasonable price wise b) decently nice c) still available but not insanely far from the event (1500 Van Ness Ave. San Francisco, CA 94109).

So it occured to me that some people on my list have stayed in the city, or lived there, or currently live there, so I thought I would ask.

frankie:

"ethnic babies are a lot cuter!"

while trying to talk his straight male friend's girlfriend into letting him have a baby with him.







Don't ask. It has been a weird night.


ETA:

frankie and I at the same time:


"Biracial babies are the best babies!"

Dear Annoying Asshole from that hair show on Bravo (aka Jonathan),

I was recently given a free sample of your hair styling cream.

While I am thrilled (or alternately, could care less) that it is 100% vegan, I have to question your choice of scent.

My head now smells EXACTLY like fondant. This is not good.

If some overweight carb deprived Atkins disciple walks by and tries to eat my head thinking it is filled with cake, I will hold you personally responsible.

Please re-evaluate how much people want their heads to smell of barely edible baked good design goo.

Thank you

Me

I have been told I need to update this more often. Thing is, I mostly posted here to bitch/vent/whine/complain. I really have nothing to bitch/vent/whine/complain about these days. I am actually pretty damn happy.

Also, I am boring as all hell. A sitcom about my life would be taken off the air faster than John Goodman playing a gay guy (for those that can't remember, it was a back when I was in high school and I believe he got two episodes....and they blew. Like really blew. Like I might watch Joey before watching that again.)

I work, which is going very well, I cook (or more often, eat what frankie cooks), I clean, I read comics...that is more or less it. I am living the good but insanely uninteresting to anyone not me life.

In terms of actual updates, a friend of mine at work is trying to arrange a gathering on ASU campus saturday in support of those who have died in Burma. Her grandparents live there, more or less in the center of the conflict, and she has not been able to reach them. I will not be able to attend most likely as I will almost certainly have to work, but I did say I would spread the word. Local people interested, let me know, I will send you info.

Also, jumping to a completely less serious topic, I need a Halloween costume. So does frankie. Ideas? indivdual or couples. He suggested Obama and Clinton, but refused to wear the dress.

Ummmmm, why is frankie killing someone named goyenator in Halo?

Last, yay for good TV coming back!

if there is anything better than mashed potatoes at 4:45am I am not sure what it is.

If there is anything more fun than fucking with the student loan consolidation telemarketers I don't know what it is.

Want to hear some confused incorrect bullshit? Ask them to explain how their company profits from the transaction.

Or, if you really want to upset them, claim you plan to balance transfer the total to a credit card. They get all upset and warn you not to do it, then get all surly when they find out you actually have no intention of doing that, or of consolidating with their company.

I also like to arbitrarily refuse to answer questions. This came from the guy that called me and asked me to verify my social, who got all angry when I refused. Now I randomly refuse to verify my school, my address, my date of birth, my middle initial, whatever the second or third thing they ask is, just to annoy them. It makes it even more fun because I know they have the information in front of them, and it is all easy for anyone to find, but claim that I "saw on tv about identity theft so now I am careful what I give out."

Eventually I will get bored of this and just tell them to stop calling me, but for now it is fun.