adaptation

It used to be called Cluck University and then University Chicken, and now it's changed names once again. I pulled up today on my way back from a business trip to Monterey to pick up some spicy buffalo wings from my favorite wing place in Santa Clara and now the place is called Smoke Eaters?

Personally I think it's a horrible name but I had to go in and see if the wings were still the same. I asked the server when they changed and she said about a month ago. The menu looks different but has essentially the same offerings as before. The wings are still called wingers and there are still different levels of hotness for the sauce, but the highest level of hot is now "Inferno" instead of "Global Thermonuclear". Maybe the change makes sense; probably only the older customers will remember the classic reference to the old Matthew Broderick film WarGames.

Anyways I took a box of 10 "Nuclear" wingers home and dug in. Still the same sweet and tangy hot sauce, with a good dose of spicy heat. Too bad the name stinks. The weird thing is, the Chicken University website is still up and lists the Santa Clara location, so I'm not sure if they changed all of them or if just this one changed. Seems like they still serve the same good ol' wings though so I guess I'll still drop by from time to time.

cutbacks

So, 6 months have passed since I hatched the grandiose scheme of investing my money and having the dream of someday driving a V10-powered auto.   And unless you've been living under a rock (which I sort of was for a while, but even I've managed to notice), you know now that the financial and investment world has seriously gone down the drain and, almost to add insult to injury, the price of gas has shot up to $4 and even $5 a gallon for a while, making both investment in stocks and the purchase of any kind of gas-guzzler appear to be very foolish ideas.  But who would have known?  I'm sure there's someone out there that could say "I told you so", but I'm no genius and surely did not see this coming.  Needless to say, I haven't made it big and bought my retirement mansion in the Bahamas yet.  Nor am I driving a Bugatti Veyron or even a humble V10-equipped M5.  Instead I'm lamenting the demise of my WaMu shares and dusting off my trusty 4-cylinder powered MR2 to try and save some scratch at the pump.

And while I'm not necessarily packing my things and moving into a cardboard box just yet, surely this is a great time to be rich.  With all the economy in a tizzy and gas prices shooting up it's crazy but you can find some really sweet deals on some automotive hardware.  It's all about supply and demand, and right now it's a buyer's market like nobody's seen in quite a while.  If you're in the market for a Mercedes S-Class or a Ford F-150 truck, it's on like Donkey Kong.  For everybody else, though I think we're going to be finding ways to cut some of the excess fat from our monthly bills.  All of sudden my $95/month cable bill has moved from simply silly to outrageously ridiculous.  I think I can do without 200+ channels that I don't really have the time to watch anyways.

Last night I was having dinner with J.T. and we tried out a new restaurant, San Mateo Prime.  Which, as you might surmise, is in San Mateo. The prime rib there was decent and certainly enjoyable but not quite up to the standard of House of Prime Rib up in San Francisco. I'd say that in terms of ranking, HOPR > Broadway Prime > San Mateo Prime. But it was pretty sobering to see that even at prime time dinner hour on a Friday night, the restaurant's tables weren't full. The waiter commented that business has been slow and they were even lowering the prices of wine offerings in an attempt to drum up more business. Food for thought indeed.

contrast

It took all night, but I was actually able to finish this 24oz. can of Amp!

pequeno

Tabasco in an 1/8 oz. size! Ain't it cute?

spinning

It's been a while since my last post ... things have been busy at work but what else is new? At least I got a little time off back in July to take a roadtrip with my dad and visit my bro in San Diego and then we made the trek up to Las Vegas to take a little money off the casinos. In case you didn't know roulette is my game, and although I won't go so far as to say I have a winning system, I usually do pretty well and have fun while doing so -- what else could you want?

But then it's been back to work and although two of my cases thankfully settled before trial I still have 3 more on the calendar for this year, and that's still a ridiculous amount of work. I head to Washington DC next week for a trial at the ITC that will run about a week and a half; when I get back I think I have another hotel room waiting for me in San Jose to prepare for the next trial that may last several weeks. So this may well be my last post for another long stretch; as you might imagine I've been spending my days and nights at the office getting ready for all this action. Oh yeah, and then another trial coming in November. Maybe I will actually get a day or two off sometime in October.

Life's no fun without new gadgets, but my latest new toy is probably something a lot of people are starting to take for granted these days -- a new iPod! My first real iPod actually, my only other one being an iPod Shuffle. Due to a mishap involving the washing machine and her Shuffle, I gave my Shuffle to V. and picked up a new iPod Classic 160GB. I decided to go for the black finish because, well, it only comes in black or silver and I think white or silver iPods are just a little too common. Oddly though the black iPod still comes with white headphones -- guess that's the Apple branding at work ... but I guess I could just get any run-of-the-mill black set of earplugs to go with it. I've spent the last few days putting as much music and video as I can find the time to collect onto the iPod, but I've hardly made a dent on the 160GB hard drive... I just don't have that much music I guess. To be honest the 80GB version would probably have been fine, but V. got me the 160GB and I guess it'll be more than enough storage for a long time to come. Anyways it will be great to have along with me as I travel to and from the east coast in the coming months.