I was actually quite content to let this blog (and my dad’s) sit out there in the ether, at the very least as a way to capture points in time in our lives (since I’m terrible with taking pictures and organizing keepsakes). But some malicious spammers apparently had other plans.

I got an emergency post from my web host a few days ago. Spam was being sent from their servers, and it was traced back to my account, and what did I know about it. Answer: Nothing. But sure enough, it seemed to be stemming from an older version of this blog. Since it was outdated anyway, I just deleted it straight up.

Fast forward one day, and it turns out the same problem is happening from my dad’s blog. Deletion isn’t an option here, and so I decide it’s time to take a stand and upgrade the WordPress software for both of our blogs.

It’s been a while (longer in the case of my dad’s blog), so I don’t have the auto-upgrade capability handy for either one. And while it’s really not a terribly difficult process, it feels quite heavy – kinda like how you don’t want to go through that stack of mail, even though it’s only five letters… and before you know it, you’re a month behind on mail and now you really don’t want to deal with it.

But here we are on the other side, 99% successful. I’m late to the party, but I love the new WordPress console design, and I’m really looking forward to the auto-upgrade feature. Yet to be determined if the easier upgrade process means I’ll write more.

A while back, a friend posted a link to 100 things to try before you die in San Francisco. My mouth watered as I read over the list, but alas, it was all quite superficial since I didn’t have any familiarity with these restaurants.

I shared the article on Yelp Talk, and much to my surprise, the Seattle Yelp community started filling in a similar list for Seattle! Little did I realize at the time, however, that a similar list had been formed a few months prior. I’ve merged the two together, nixed duplicates, and added a few of my favorites to give a list similar to what they offered for San Francisco. Enticing photos included!

Now, on to the list, in no particular order…

1. Sunset Supper at Pike Place Market (every year on August 14!)
2. Pumpkin Cream Puff at Hiroki
3. Caviar Tasting at Seattle Caviar Company
4. A Scone with Jam at The Crumpet Shop
5. Midnight Cuban Sandwich at Paseo
   
   Photo taken by Eli E
    
6. Verde Burger at Red Mill Burgers
7. Coconut Cream Pie at Dahlia Lounge
8. Lavendar Goat Cheese Fondue at The Palace Kitchen
9. A Salami Sandwich at Salumi
10. Turkish Delight at Turkish Delight




11. Vanilla Cone at Peaks Frozen Custard
12. Fried Chicken and Rolls at Ezell’s Fried Chicken
13. XY Cabernet at Stevens Winery
14. Deluxe Burger, Fries, and Chocolate Shake at Dick’s
15. Clam Chowder at Ivar’s Fish Bar
    
    Photo taken by Christopher M
     
16. Macrina Fried Egg Sandwich at Macrina Bakery & Cafe
17. BBQ Pork from Kau Kau Barbeque
18. The Chicken at Bizzarro Italian Cafe
19. Lunar Orbiter at SkyCity at the Needle
20. Blueberry Oat Bar at Top Pot Doughnuts




21. Crawfish Etouffee at Alligator Soul
22. Maguro with Seared Foie Gras, Shiitake, and Red Wine Reduction at Nishino
23. The Black Rye at Three Girls Bakery
24. African Amber at Mac & Jack’s Brewery
25. Mini Doughnuts at Daily Dozen Doughnut Company
    
    Photo taken by Kim K
     
26. Twice Baked Almond Croissant at Bakery Nouveau
27. Lamb Gyro at Mr. Gyros
28. Braised Fish Pot at Tamarind Tree
29. El Diablo at Tango
30. Grilled Cheese and Tomato Cappuccino at Oliver’s Twist




31. Falafel at Hallava Falafel
32. Chocolate Graham Cracker Cupcake at Trophy Cupcakes
33. Cream Cheese Dog at a local hot dog stand
34. Pho at Pho Cyclo Cafe
35. Apple Cinnamon Roll at Piroshky Piroshky
    
    Photo taken by Lisa A
     
36. The Darkness at Sparkman Cellars
37. The Greek Hobo at Voula’s Offshore Cafe
38. A sample of chocolates at Theo Chocolate after a factory tour
39. Lavender and Honey Ice Cream at Molly Moon’s Ice Cream
40. Mussels at Four Swallows




41. French Toast Vegan Doughnut at Mighty-O Doughnuts
42. New England Clam Chowder at Pike Place Chowder
43. Dulce de Leche Ice Cream at Mora Iced Creamery
44. Brisket Plate at Lock & Keel Tavern
45. Eggs Benedict at Glo’s
    
    Photo taken by Jessica Y
     
46. Pain au Chocolat at Le Panier
47. A Mojito at La Casa del Mojito
48. Spicy Beef Noodle Soup at Szechuan Noodle Bowl
49. Fuji Apple Crab Roll at Red Fin
50. Ham & Swiss Pastry at Cafe Besalu




51. Mini Don and Mini Katsudon at Tsukushinbo (Thursday lunch special)
52. Sesame Beef at Moonlight Cafe
53. The Number Three at Shorty’s
54. Beautiful Stephanie at Espresso Vivace
55. Mac & Cheese at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese
    
    Photo taken by Vegas M
     
56. Churrasco de Lomo at Buenos Aires Grill
57. Italian Grinder at Royal Grinders
58. Onion Tart at Txori
59. Shiro-Maki at Shiro’s
60. Seared Sea Scallops at How to Cook a Wolf




61. French Toast at Cafe Nola
62. Weekend Supper Club at Art of the Table
63. Pan Roasted Anderson Valley Lamb T-Bone at Stumbling Goat
64. Pere de Famille at Betz Winery
65. Texas Funeral Fudge Cake at Icon Grill
    
    Photo taken by Dessert Friday Girls
     
66. Crispy Kurobuta Pork Belly Confit at Restaurant Zoë
67. Rack of Wild Boar, Coffee Crusted at Preservation Kitchen
68. Tagliatelle al Burro di Tartufo at Osteria La Spiga
69. Steak Frites at Bis on Main
70. Pahd See Iew at Thaiku




71. Albondigas at La Carta de Oaxaca
72. Gâteau au Foie de Volaille at Le Pichet
73. Ravioli de Hummus y Trufa at Pomodoro Ristorante Italiano
74. A $10 Margarita at Ocho
75. Fresh Spring Rolls at Green Leaf
    
    Photo taken by A M
     
76. Brioche French Toast at 35th Street Bistro Restaurant
77. Seafood Risotto at Saltoro
78. Gnocchi alla Romana at The Pink Door
79. Baklava from Continental Restaurant & Pastry Shop
80. Gianduia Gelato at Bottega Italiano




81. Hushpuppies at Catfish Corner
82. Pan-Fried Cornmeal-Crusted Catfish Sandwich at Matt’s in the Market
83. Alder Grilled Alaskan Salmon Trio at Ivar’s Salmon House
84. Calamari at ART Lounge
85. Grand Marnier Souffle at Canlis
    
    Photo taken by Tingting H
     
86. Wild Boar Sloppy Joe at Quinn’s
87. Dark Chocolate Mocha at El Diablo Coffee Co
88. Hot Pot at Seven Stars Pepper Szechuan Restaurant
89. A Dessert with Avocado Ice Cream at Sutra
90. Bread Pudding at Boat Street Cafe




91. Garganelli with Rabbit Bolognese at Union
92. Menage-a-Thai at Root Table
93. Jolie Bouche Syrah at Efeste Wines
94. Chicken with Asparagus Risotto at Il Terrazzo Carmine
95. Omakase at Taka Sushi
96. Nutella & Banana Crepe at Saley
97. Island Soul in a Bowl at Island Soul
98. Sierra Chicken Sandwich at Michou Fresca
99. A Beef Mulita at Tacos El Asadero
100. Pumpkin Cookie at Cinnamon Works

So how many have you tried? I’m ashamed to admit – only 9 for me!! I’ve got some work to do.

Side note: Now that this is posted, I’ll work on a FB app to track it like they have in San Francisco. Stay tuned!

I was simultaneously curious and terrified as to what that button might do. It was isolated from all of the other buttons in the elevator, so I couldn’t help but stare. Maybe these are more common in earthquake-prone areas (Californians?) but this was the first one I’ve seen in Seattle.

WikiAnswers has the scoop on the Earthquake button: “The button is used to allow the elevator doors to be open in a safe way and allow the building security etc. to know you are there and need rescue. “

I’ve been itching to record and review my different experiences, and I guess bringing back my blog is a great place for that! Plus, I was inspired by a friend of a friend posting pictures of his cooking escapades on Facebook. Hopefully my pictures will look half as delicious… =X

On to the recipe!! It’s adapted from one of my old 20/20 packets, which in turn was adapted from Jane Brody’s Good Food Gourmet.

Ingredients

• 4 cups nonfat, low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 medium carrots, peeled & thinly sliced
• 2 ribs celery, thinly sliced
• 2 large cloves garlic, peeled & grated
  This is double the recipe amount
• 1 teaspoon grated gingerroot
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  This is 4x the recipe amount… I like spicy
• 2 fresh roma tomatoes
  The recipe called for plum tomatoes, but WF didn’t have ‘em
• 20oz cooked crab meat
  The recipe called for 8oz, I upped it for protein. Can also use chicken.
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 Tablespoon chopped mint leaves
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions

1. In a large saucepan, combine the broth, carrots, celery, garlic, gingerroot, paprika, and pepper flakes. Bring the ingredients to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, and cook the mixture for 5 minutes or until the carrots are tender-crisp.
2. Quarter the tomatoes lengthwise, then cut the wedges in half crosswise. Add them to the soup along with the remaining ingredients. Simmer the soup for 3 minutes or until the mushrooms and tomatoes are heated through.
3. Taste Mods: At this point I tasted it, and added some more red pepper flakes and 2 more tablespoons of lemon juice. The additions made the broth perfect – moderately spicy with a bit of sour.

Pictures

Carrots chopped. Cheated with the celery. Got a pack pre-chopped from the WF salad bar.

My first time using fresh ginger root. It smelled so good!

After step 1. My kitchen starts to smell good!

The tomatoes and mushrooms are chopped and ready.

I heart fake crab. For real. I could eat it every day.

Ack!! Too much crab!! The pot is filled to the brim!

Makes 4 servings… which means 3 helpings of leftovers!

Review

Big Bunny Rating: Scrumptious! [4/5]

Even for someone who is as deficient at veggie chopping as I am, this recipe was pretty straight forward. It took about 45 minutes total (the recipe advertises 25 mins prep time).

As you probably noticed from the picture, the recipe was crab-heavy. It was definitely a chunky soup!! It tasted a bit fishy with all of that crab, but the “hot and sour” nature of the broth definitely shone through. Can’t wait for leftovers!

“No, no, no,” my cousin said. “A cast that big, you need a good story to go along with it. Something about defending a helpless person against a gang of hooligans, and you managed to beat them all up, but broke your wrist in the process.”

Along those lines, I’d like to tell you that there was a big, important reason that my blogs been throwing errors for the past two months. Something to do with upgrades at Site5, or new management, or aliens taking over the server. But sadly, my support ticket was answered within 10 minutes, stating that the permissions on a couple files were wrong, but now they were working correctly.

And once again… we’re back.

During recent downtime, I’ve been thinking about whether a blog was something I wanted to invest in. My love for writing has not gone away, but thankfully Yelp has been a good outlet. I’ve even used it to archive past vacations, if you want to quickly catch up to what I’ve been doing since I last blogged.

But in the end, Yelp isn’t enough. There’s more to writing than reviews!! So the blog is resurrected, and inspiration willing, so is the content.

But let me start from the beginning. I was one of many Scrabulous users who was devastated when the application got removed from Facebook due to legal action from Hasbro. I wasn’t given much time to mope, however, since the developers quickly released Wordscraper, a game with similar rules that allows you to build custom boards.

The flexibility is quite extensive… you can choose to have multipliers anywhere from 2x up to 5x, and they can be placed anywhere on the board. But while this is interesting, it throws the entire notion of balance out the window. For example, look at the board where I scored 592 points (light blues are 4x word):

Looking at the column third from the right, it’s easy to see how one can get 592 points… I ended up with a 64x word multiplier!

Scrabble strikes the perfect balance in the placement of full-word-multipliers: While it is technically possible to get two with one word, it’s rare, and you usually need a bingo to do it. The new configurations in Wordscraper change the game entirely: Instead of avoiding the edges to keep your opponent from getting a 3x word score, you’re avoiding entire sections of the board to try and keep the scores manageable.

It’s an interesting twist, but really, I think it can quickly lead to poor game design. I mean, come on… 592 points? That’s beats my best Scrabulous score in one move, and makes the game not even a reasonable competition. The question is, are there well-designed boards besides Hasbro’s standard? I may have found one… I’ll share it if it bears fruit.

Really, I find this fascinating. Google has established such a strong brand around their minimalist design style, that something as small as this is (a) considered newsworthy, and (b) warrants an “official Google response” (according to the TechCrunchIT article).

This leads to an interesting task for the non-Googlers in the audience. Take this news back to your company, and ask: Is our design philosophy so firmly ingrained in the minds of our customers, that straying from it is newsworthy? Maybe being newsworthy isn’t the goal, but it says something about how solid your design is if your customers can recognize what does and doesn’t belong.

My entryway and kitchen

The living room

The Space Needle from my balcony

Downtown from my balcony

Since Independence Day was yesterday, I got to see a fair few Fireworks from my balcony! I took a few videos and posted them to Flickr, but my favorite is this one:

In the interest of fairness, the clarification points out that these numbers may not be generalizable. But I still think they’re interesting, and I have a few ideas about why the numbers might actually be lower:

1. Social Games Require… People: There are certainly some Wii games that are single player, but I tend to have the most fun playing multi-player games with a big group of people, like Smash Bros, Guitar Hero, Wii Play, or Wii Sports. This can only happen as often as I have people over, which isn’t as often as I play single player games.
2. Shorter Average Playing Time: I don’t have the numbers on this, but I can say that adventure games on the Wii (so far) have come nowhere near the 100+ hour behemoths of the Final Fantasy / Dragon Quest franchise.
3. New Markets = New Habits: The Wii is applauded for breaking into non-traditional gaming markets. Well, guess what: Non-traditional gamers probably aren’t as obsessed with games as hardcore gamers.

The last point is particularly interesting, because it begs the question: Who cares? Just because Wii usage might be lower doesn’t mean that gamers get less value out of it, or that it’s not as solid of an investment. Personally, I like that I spend less time on the Wii than other consoles. It lets me focus on the real world from time to time.

Take how Safari handles tabbing. As part of an early draft of my portfolio redesign, I was considering including a brief blurb from my latest blog entry, so I was researching how to make an RSS feed reader in PHP. I referenced a 2-part article from Scratch Projects (Part 1, Part 2).

If you check each of the articles, you’ll notice that their titles are largely the same; only the part number distinguishes them. In fact, they’re both open right now in Firefox, and I can’t tell the tabs apart.

Someone working on Safari must have considered this case. With only one article open, it looks like you would expect:

But with both articles open, it cuts out the redundant information, only showing what you need to tell them apart:

Very nice…