bmubyzal

Virtual Barbershop

Put on your headphones (yes you must) and listen to this

http://media.putfile.com/Virtual-Barbershop

posted by Edward Young @ 12:39 AM 0 comments

Cal Dining Wing Ivy Award

The DC's today served us steak cooked to medium rare, large shrimp scampi , grilled asparagus, pan fried carrots, and an assortment of delectable desserts today. I would characterize the food as something on par with Sizzler's. This is in sharp contrast to the standard fare of dry salmon covered in an overly sweet glaze, mushy broccoli, and reconstituted mashed potatoes with fat laden gravy. The skill in which they executed todays meal (which it does require skill, for example shrimp is easy to over cook and is TERRIBLE when it is) raises the question, why don't they cook every meal to this quality. Even if the raw products are not of the same quality as today's, it should still be palatable.

The second, and more interesting question is why in the world did we have such great food today? The answer... our dining halls won the Ivy award. According to their website, "The Ivy Awards recognize excellence in food, service and overall hospitality, a tradition begun by Restaurants & Institutions magazine in 1971." This is hilarious for anyone who has ever eaten at our dining halls. I will grant them the the service is reasonable. There's a nice tiny Chinese lady who always says hi to me. There's the grunting guy who does a terrible job cooking pasta (but amazingly is excellent at cooking shrimp). But come on... "excellence in food?" Are you serious? What cracks me up even more is that Cal Dining's press release says, "Past winners [of the Ivy Award] include Chez Panisse, French Laundry" Naturally, when I think of two of the finest restaurants in the US, the next dining locale that comes to mind is Cal's Dining halls. I mean, there is consistently a 4 month waiting list to get in, and they serve the freshest foods solely from local vendors.

But alas, I am not complaining. Any reason to serve me good food is fine by me.

posted by Edward Young @ 10:51 PM 0 comments

Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

I just got home earlier this evening but my wonderful girlfriend still has work to do. So what does a guy do when his girl is away? Well, naturally, he bakes so that she would have something to eat when she came back! I have extra chocolate chips and peanut butter so it was only appropriate that I make peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.

I got this recipe from epicurious. Epicurious isn't my favorite website for recipes but they do have a pretty broad selection so it's not terrible. I omitted the peanuts and peanut butter chips because I didn't have peanut butter chips and I think peanuts ruin the texture. The cookie was passable, but it just didn't inspire me, and that's what I think good food should do. This lead me to the realization that I don't know what makes a good cookie. Is it supposed to be chewey? crispy? chocolatey? sweet? buttery? tender? Tell me what you think makes a perfect cookie!

posted by Edward Young @ 1:37 AM 4 comments

El Estoque Wins Silver Crown at CSPA

El Estoque just received the Silver Crown award at the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA)!!! This award was in many ways unexpected as we were in a rebuilding year. I must say that all the praise El Estoque has gotten in the past year is just so exciting and it makes all the long hours the entire staff put into it totally worth it (Although we had so much producing the paper that even without any accolades we would have spent just as much time). This reflects the effort of the entire staff as a whole and especially our new, awesome adviser Ms. Balmeo. She changed our paper from an unorganized elementary paper to a beautiful award winning publication which is continuing to grow and improve. I can't wait to see what awards this year's staff receives!

Link

posted by Edward Young @ 11:03 PM 1 comments

Kiera's Famous!

I don't think I'm alone when I say one of my goals in life is to be in a wikipedia article, and not through some lame wikivandelism. Somehow, my CAR (which Vanessa named Kiera) made it into wikipedia before I did.

Thanks nayson for pointing it out. It's the first picture on the right. You can click to enlarge it.
Link

posted by Edward Young @ 1:02 PM 1 comments

Good music finally back!

There really is a music god! Channel 104.9 is back! No more listening to the incredibly staticky 89.3 or the moderately acceptable 105.3! Good thing I never changed my channel settings in my car. As soon as I'm back in Cupertino, i'm good to go!

Link

posted by Edward Young @ 2:53 PM 0 comments

Shake Rattle and Roll

There was a magnitude 4.2 earthquake about 13 miles from here yesterday. For a second, I wasn't sure if it was actually an earthquake since the people who live above me enjoy what seems to be dropping bricks on the floor on a semi-regular basis. But I very quickly realized that was not the case and that everything on my desk was shaking too. It probably wasn't actually very strong here, but when the entire room moves, it's hard not to be frightened. It lasted for maybe 3 seconds, and afterwards Andy and I exchanged looks and confirmed that we were not crazy and in fact did feel the earthquake.

Oddly enough, this is the second appreciable earthquake in the past two weeks and probably the fourth or fifth since I came back to Berkeley (I didn't feel all of them, i read about 2 of them). I suppose I'm glad we're getting lots of small ones since it reduces the risk of a major earthquake.

Link to a news report if you're curious.

posted by Edward Young @ 1:52 PM 1 comments

Anberlin - Cities

I just got the new Anberlin CD, Cities. I must admit I've never been the biggest Anberlin fan, and this CD didn't do much to change it. It's not terrible by any measure, but it's also not good. I suppose if I listen more, it may start growing on me.

favorite songs - Adelaide, Hello Alone

Labels: music

posted by Edward Young @ 1:58 PM 1 comments

A Revival

Some people have been prodding me to post on my blog since I haven't for several months. So I'm going to try to update more often now... I'm not really sure what I'm going the posts are going to be on, probably just the mundane events of my life. I might try posting the results of my culinary experiments, but those few and far between since I don't have access to ingredients and a workable kitchen unless I go home. Regardless, hopefully I can post more in the near future since I just finished my midterms.

posted by Edward Young @ 1:50 PM 0 comments