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Tag Archives: review

Dropped animé series

There are so many animé television series. Many are gems, but several just cannot maintain my interest or attention. I’ve noticed that after watching the first (infrequently the second) disc, I’ll decide to continue with or drop a series. Usually I get that feeling of Meh where I wind up finding the plots, characters or […]

Food and loathing

Mediocre restaurants are unavoidable. But some of the baddies, ah, how they stick in my mind. Some of these are favorites for some of my friends. Oh well! To each their own (1).

Local Ethiopian restaurants

I love eating with my hands. Considering my hand-washing compulsion, it’s ironic yet compatible. Combine that with spicy food, and Ethiopian cuisine can winningly satisfy me. Some standbys and favorites: Injera, a teff based flatbread that’s sour, spongey and soft. A good collection of vegetarian dishes, such as kik alicha (yellow split peas), atakilt wot […]

A year with GreenCine

I’ve been using GreenCine’s DVD rental service for over a year. On the whole, my opinion of GreenCine has become pretty much similar to that of Netflix. Both are slow with delivery. Furthermore, both have huge catalogs, yet they almost never respond to customer suggestions for DVD additions. Shipping was damn fast when GreenCine had […]

Non-fiction books read in 2007 and beyond

For the longest time I wouldn’t read non-fiction books outside of work or school. “What is this non-fiction for pleasure you speak of?” The key wasn’t to follow what’s necessarily popular, best-sellers on history, politics, or purely goal-oriented how-to books. The key was to start with my gut-level (as it were) interests: food, travel, biology. […]

Local Salvadoran restaurants, pupuserías

Oh, how I love pupusas: The creaminess of cheese and masa, with tidbits of chicken if I’m lucky. A fine reason to seek out eateries that focus on food from El Salvador. Not quite as well-known as Mexican food, Salvadoran cuisine tends towards the mild. The Salvadoran version of horchata is the next-most-important thing. I […]

Encyclopedia of Life: Initial launch

Last year I had eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL). Entries on individual species became viewable on 28 February, a few months earlier than the projected mid-2008 deadline. Coolness! Currently they have twenty-four exemplar species pages, tens of thousands of authenticated (but not detailed) species pages, and about a million other […]

Zot!

Last month Kam was clearing out a bunch of her comics, and while going through the boxes, I came upon five later issues of Scott McCloud’s Zot! Seeing them reminded me that I had only the first three graphic novels (the only three Kitchen Sink Press published before they went down the sink), and had […]

Cinequest 2008

This is the first year we decided to not see any of the shorts collections at Cinequest. Instead we watched five films from around the globe. So how did the 18th Annual San José Film Festival go? The Aerial (La Antena). Directed by Esteban Sapir, Argentina 2006, black and white. In the City, oppressively controlled […]

Books worth rereading

Why bother rereading books at all? Isn’t it like, as Pink Floyd put it, merely “running over the same old ground,”(*) avoiding going forward or ignoring new stories? Nope, not at all! Reading a favorite book again is like eating one’s favorite comfort dish. Something to curl up with and savor. As exciting and satisfying […]