whoa, pink overload
I'm not kidding. I deliberately hunted out Sanrio's site and put up the veryveryvery pink desktop of Hello Kitty holding the pink umbrella with the overly happy li'l semi-green frogs.
How'ver, I shall amend the concept of that horror--check out the blood and brains cupcakes a friend of mine found! AWESOMENESS shall now ensue at some point.
So today, we went to Tin Tin Buffet here, which is apparently a small chain. We had spoken with the manager briefly before going, and he said, oh, yes, no problem, just ask the wait staff about MSG when you come in.
So we asked our waitstaff--we think she was all of thirteen? Maybe?--and she didn't know, but she went back to the kitchen. Out comes the head cook with a big yellow tin of chicken broth granules.
"Most we make are from this--you read?"
Yes. And wau, the first ingredient on that list? MSG. Hmm.
He says, "Okay, I show you. Follow. Okay?" So off we went through the buffet.
The cold table--salad, dressing, chopped cold melons and vegetables, sushi, cream puffs, pudding, grapes and Jell-O--was fine. Second table in, I had my choice of vegetable fried rice, steamed broccoli and tomatoes, green beans, poached baby squid in soy sauce (I admit, I nommed on tentacles), and chicken in peanut sauce. Third table had plain rice, heavily gingered rock oysters, crab legs, baby lobster, salmon (Valentine's Day, they had dinner all day as a special), sesame balls, and cheese Won-Ton; and the last table was rife with the more Amurrican stuph: pizza, chicken nuggets, fried shrimp, French fries, onion rings...I'm surprised they didn't have hamburger patties or something.
So somewhat meat-heavy, but I stuck mostly to green beans, avocado sushi, sesame balls, andokaysquid. :) Loooots of little baby squid.
From there we went off to the theatre, the first Regal chain theatre we'd been to in a long time. What happened next may well ensure we won't be back; we went up to the ticket window and were informed that the theatre wasn't showing the film in 3D.
Let me restate this as it seems vaguely important: the 3D film was being shown in 2D. And on the heels of that blow, we were told that matinee pricing didn't apply on Saturdays. So our carefully calculated 4:20 showing of Coraline was actually billed to us at $9.75 a ticket, instead of the (*coughs* highway robbery *coughs*) matinee fee of $7.00 per.
It may not seem like that much, but trust me: paying $19.25 when one expects to pay $14.00 is the difference between exploring the concession stand and rolling right by.
But I have to admit, even in a less-than-clean theatre, even in 2D, not the 3D we were promised, and wanted, to see it in: Coraline is a dream. There's only one overly cute kid in the piece, and you'll understand why when you see her; everyone else is refreshingly eccentric. And a lot of the book's spirit and pacing--and Dave McKean's character sketches--were preserved. I was quite impressed.
So all in all, Regal Cinemas in Tigard loses several thousand points out of ten for style, but Coraline was so charming, we left the theatre smiling anyway.
So yay for a frabjous day out!
In other news, I'm currently watching erratically episodes of One Piece, Trigun and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. One Piece is more fun than I thought it would be, after the Tony Tony Chopper mania I was showed clips of initially; Trigun I've seen just the first episode of, so haven't formed much of an opinion; and Higurashi is currently inverting my brain and making it spit out little orange drops of WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF...NOREALLYWTF!.
So we'll see how that goes. I'm on Episode 11 of Higurashi.
How'ver, I shall amend the concept of that horror--check out the blood and brains cupcakes a friend of mine found! AWESOMENESS shall now ensue at some point.
So today, we went to Tin Tin Buffet here, which is apparently a small chain. We had spoken with the manager briefly before going, and he said, oh, yes, no problem, just ask the wait staff about MSG when you come in.
So we asked our waitstaff--we think she was all of thirteen? Maybe?--and she didn't know, but she went back to the kitchen. Out comes the head cook with a big yellow tin of chicken broth granules.
"Most we make are from this--you read?"
Yes. And wau, the first ingredient on that list? MSG. Hmm.
He says, "Okay, I show you. Follow. Okay?" So off we went through the buffet.
The cold table--salad, dressing, chopped cold melons and vegetables, sushi, cream puffs, pudding, grapes and Jell-O--was fine. Second table in, I had my choice of vegetable fried rice, steamed broccoli and tomatoes, green beans, poached baby squid in soy sauce (I admit, I nommed on tentacles), and chicken in peanut sauce. Third table had plain rice, heavily gingered rock oysters, crab legs, baby lobster, salmon (Valentine's Day, they had dinner all day as a special), sesame balls, and cheese Won-Ton; and the last table was rife with the more Amurrican stuph: pizza, chicken nuggets, fried shrimp, French fries, onion rings...I'm surprised they didn't have hamburger patties or something.
So somewhat meat-heavy, but I stuck mostly to green beans, avocado sushi, sesame balls, andokaysquid. :) Loooots of little baby squid.
From there we went off to the theatre, the first Regal chain theatre we'd been to in a long time. What happened next may well ensure we won't be back; we went up to the ticket window and were informed that the theatre wasn't showing the film in 3D.
Let me restate this as it seems vaguely important: the 3D film was being shown in 2D. And on the heels of that blow, we were told that matinee pricing didn't apply on Saturdays. So our carefully calculated 4:20 showing of Coraline was actually billed to us at $9.75 a ticket, instead of the (*coughs* highway robbery *coughs*) matinee fee of $7.00 per.
It may not seem like that much, but trust me: paying $19.25 when one expects to pay $14.00 is the difference between exploring the concession stand and rolling right by.
But I have to admit, even in a less-than-clean theatre, even in 2D, not the 3D we were promised, and wanted, to see it in: Coraline is a dream. There's only one overly cute kid in the piece, and you'll understand why when you see her; everyone else is refreshingly eccentric. And a lot of the book's spirit and pacing--and Dave McKean's character sketches--were preserved. I was quite impressed.
So all in all, Regal Cinemas in Tigard loses several thousand points out of ten for style, but Coraline was so charming, we left the theatre smiling anyway.
So yay for a frabjous day out!
In other news, I'm currently watching erratically episodes of One Piece, Trigun and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. One Piece is more fun than I thought it would be, after the Tony Tony Chopper mania I was showed clips of initially; Trigun I've seen just the first episode of, so haven't formed much of an opinion; and Higurashi is currently inverting my brain and making it spit out little orange drops of WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF...NOREALLYWTF!.
So we'll see how that goes. I'm on Episode 11 of Higurashi.