Mewsyngs of an Upstart Feline Miscreant

FanimeCon 2018

2018-05-28T04:08:50Z

I pressured Dracosphynx into driving us down to FanimeCon, and had a pretty decent time, and picked up some very nice art. Now I'm ensconced back home for the rest of the holiday weekend, my "get out and be social" duty fulfilled!

I feel like I might have photographed these before, but I'm not sure. We parked pretty far out, so we passed through Guadalupe Park. These evidently "symbolize the long run that Tony Ridder made to support and improve San Jose."

There were oh so many cosplayers! I didn't start taking pictures until after we got registered; this was on our way to the Fairmont Hotel for the manga lounge, where I wanted to donate some books I no longer wanted in my library. Along the way I noticed this rather awesome Doctor Eggman. Totally fits!

A neko maid! I'm not sure what anime/manga/game series she belongs to; I don't recognize the (probably) signature weapons.

I had to make a pit stop after dropping off the manga. I noticed this rather odd gargoyle character on the wall just before the bathroom. ... I'm not sure if there is some sort of message intended here or not.

A very smartly dressed group!

The dealer's room was, once again, quite huge! This year, I noticed a large number of cat-shaped stuffed pillows among other things.

I'm not quite sure what the deal was with this exhibit -- with free art lessons going on, I suspect it was more in the name of PR than trying to sell any particular merchandise. Or perhaps as an activity for con-goers.

I had to buy this Meowscular Chef shirt. ^.^ Available at Level Up Outfitters.

We passed through the artist's alley where I bought some prints. There were a TON of artists there; sadly with such a crowd, it was difficult to see more than the upper half of most of the booths. This one artist grabbed my attention with a distinct and beautifully dreamy style though, Story of the Door.

We browsed the game room briefly, where I was hoping to see some game-specific exhibits; sadly it seemed to be more in line of providing the opportunity for con-goers to get their game on. Dracosphynx pointed out that the consoles had been locked down with interesting devices to allow them to be used but not removed.

After our blitz of the dealer's room and artist's alley, that was pretty much all we had in mind so we headed off for lunch at the Counter. This is an Impossible Burger, so I opted for vegetarian toppings -- roasted peppers, grilled onions, spinach, and their hickory barbecue sauce. Tasted great!

Near the Counter, we stopped for ice cream at Smitten, which makes the ice cream pretty much fresh every time, using these liquid nitrogen-chilled mixers. Seems inefficient...

The Tcho chocolate ice cream was pretty good but I couldn't really tell the difference between it and regular chocolate ice cream. Dracosphynx opined that the flavor difference was probably more easily seen with fruit flavored ice cream; sadly the only fruit ice cream they had was strawberry buttermilk, and that didn't seem like a winning combination to me.

All in all though it was a pretty good day out. ^.^

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Food Catchup, May Edition

2018-05-28T03:41:24Z

You may have heard me mention Curry House before - well, guess what, they had a special, curry ramen! (from now until end of June) While Jared and BoingDragon were out here, we headed down to Curry House to sample their offerings.

Those are tenderly cooked pieces of chicken katsu on the left; eat fast before the breading gets soggy! Noodles, of course, spinach, corn, some sliced shiitake mushrooms, and a hardboiled egg in the center. The spiciness is somewhere between mild to medium, well within my tolerance. That's an iced green tea behind the dish.

Definitely would eat again, too bad it's only a special so it will go away sooner than I wind up at Curry House again.

Later in the week, Jared, BoingDragon, and I headed to Yayoi, where I had this delicious Nanban fried chicken steak. That strange looking white sauce is evidently tartar sauce -- tasted like mayo and some veggies to me, but it went really well with the dish.

We wandered about a bit. I couldn't resist trying this cross between a doughnut and a croissant, a "dossant". Sadly, it was a bit dry. Seems like it's really intended to be eaten with some ice cream in the center. The original cronut was supposed to have a cream filling in between the middle layers, if I recall correctly.

We headed back to my place and I subjected Jared and BoingDragon to the Food Wars anime, after which we nommed the dessert items we had picked up at Cafe Venetia. Mine was this hazelnut cake. Pretty tasty.

Now, over to the homemade food...

I had some leftover Japanese chicken curry, so I figured I'd try it on top of these instant ramen noodles. Came out great! I also just ate some of the chicken curry with a fried egg on top, and it was even better than when I first made it.

I'll definitely have to get some more Nijiya Japanese curry powder.

I was inclined to try making "sweet and sour pork", meatball style... Unfortunately I don't think this quite works out as I'd hoped. Sweet and sour pork really needs the crunch of the batter and the mild flavor of the pork within; making flavored meatballs kind of took away from the contrast of the flavors.

Still, I did think of an idea I want to try next time around - mixing tofu into the ground meat, rather than bread crumbs. I'll try that another time, once I've eaten all the meatballs from this run.

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Random Pictures, and the Mountain View Irish Fleadh, 2018

2018-05-28T03:14:29Z

Some things I forgot to post from the last time!

From Derpkitteh's shop I picked up this pillow:

I snapped this picture of a moving supply store with a decidedly... unconventional... selection behind the counter:

Having missed the Mountain View Arts and Crafts festival, I decided to content myself with the next best thing... well, very distant next, but still. The Irish Fleadh.

The Arts and Crafts festival runs for like five blocks, full of neat stuff. This took up... maybe half a block? -.-

If you're Irish and you know it, get a coat of arms! If you're Irish and you know it, then your coat of arms will really show it...

I liked this one the best of the shops that were present. There were a couple random jewelry vendors.

The backside of the art studio! Gotta love those intricate designs.

This was pretty neat looking as well.

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San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival 2018

2018-04-23T06:01:41Z

Yay for a year in which I wasn't sandbagged by an annoying and lingering cough all spring! We left my place early and trekked up to San Francisco for the Cherry Blossom Festival. It was fun!

This samurai doll-like statue greeted us near where we came in. Y HALO THAR.

Most of the shops and exhibits were not yet open, since it was around 10-ish, so we poked around a bit, until Books Kinokuniya was open.

Here is Dracosphynx patting an Akita! The Golden Gate Akita club hadn't quite gotten things set up; things weren't really open yet so there was no wait to pat the very, very, very fluffy dog.

Dracosphynx pointed out the large-ish catbus! I believe that's a small Totoro plush squeezing his way out of it.

Tiny plastic cut-outs of small figures to be inserted into architectural models!

I'm pretty sure Foxmagic would love this book. A collection of photos of art based on Lego pieces!

This looked interesting... Not quite my style though. It might interest costume designers out there.

I picked up a couple of manga volumes and an interesting art book that showcased historical art alongside anime/manga re-interpretations of them. (since I bought it, I didn't feel a need to take a picture of it at the time, but you should DEFINITELY check this out if you like art)

A shop we passed while poking around. Dracosphynx was looking for a Zojirushi travel mug, but unfortunately we didn't manage to score one here. Still, that's a really impressive manekineko.

Is it my imagination or is the Osaka castle model this year bigger than what they had on display in previous years?

Dracosphynx opined the pork broth was so rich it tasted like "cream of bacon" soup. I rather liked it, but the "mild" spiciness I had ordered was actually about as spicy as I could handle, whew. Dracosphynx agreed: his "medium" spicy broth was actually pretty hot. It was doing a good job of melting out his sinuses.

We had ice cream at Aube Creamery which was a new place having its soft opening during the festival. I picked green tea ice cream, with a sprinkling of kinako powder. It was really good! Strong green tea flavoring. The kinako flavoring was rather subtle, I think.

The paper dolls were off the hook this year! Seriously amazing craftmanship and lots of details. This was a sequence featuring the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Emperor's Court set.

I always adore Rochelle P. Lum's fuzzy creations!

The presentation on this one was impressive and groundbreaking! Very artistic.

That's all of them, I think! I didn't take pictures of the basic paper dolls that I had seen before.

While on the way out, we passed these two thematically costumed dogs.

This part of the festival seemed to be aimed at the younger manga- and anime-loving crowd.

Here's Rory from the Gate anime! Spectacular cosplay. It looked as if she was there to drum up interest in some kind of app to watch Asian TV channels from one's phone.

I picked up a couple of prints in the artist's alley and in the general merchants section.

Yuumei Art's "Boundless". Simply spectacular! This poster would appeal to any bookwyrm.

And... (edited because I found the artist's name! Sushi Cats by Jed Henry. His "Metal Gear Solid done old-time Japanese style" poster caught Dracosphynx's eyes, but I liked this one the most for putting up somewhere in my office.
Dracosphynx protested that I don't eat sushi. I don't, but I love the art. -.-

Finally as we headed out, I saw this rather thoroughly decorated car. It's the Aria Company car!

Thanks for driving me up, Dracosphynx, it was great. ^.^

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Food Catchup, April Edition

2018-04-23T05:22:58Z

A couple of homemade dishes, and one decently tasty restaurant meal, courtesy of Revar!

I thought I'd try making chicken sukiyaki... It winds up being basically kind of a soup/stew of chicken and bok choy and sliced carrots, not really sukiyaki, but it's still tasty. I guess if I want to make a real sukiyaki, I need a lot more work. And multiple dishes.

This is sous vide flank steak.. Seasoned with some smoked paprika from Trader Joe's. It is *delicious*. It tastes like bacon-wrapped steak, except without needing actual bacon to enter the picture. Great stuff!

This is Japanese curry made with chicken, using Nijiya Japanese curry powder. It's pretty convenient and easy to make, but I'd suggest using beef if you're making this dish! I used chicken in an effort to make it healthier, and seasoned the chicken with smoked paprika, but after hours of cooking in the crockpot, I think the smoked paprika gets basically melted away. Despite the curry powder saying it's "medium hot", it's actually mild to my taste buds, and I'm a spice wimp compared to Dracosphynx.

It's still good, and I plan to try making this with beef next time!

Finally, courtesy of Revar, since Dracosphynx and I went down to help Tugrik pack up stuff for his upcoming move, we had lunch at BJ's Steakhouse and Brewpub.

Their house salad. The ginger honey dressing was very tasty!

Oops... I forgot to take a picture of this until I had eaten half. Just, um, picture the other half of the turkey dip sandwich, would you? It was quite good but I found myself wondering if the goodness was mostly the caramelized onions and melted mozzarella cheese-- Adamson's French Dip doesn't rely on such crutches to make a very tasty dip sandwich. The dip was a little salty but flavorful and distinctly poultry, not beef.

Hope Tugrik and Revar have a safe and easy move up north! We'll miss them.

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Further Confusion 2018 - Quickie

2018-03-25T04:01:29Z

Oh geez, I shouldn't have let this go, but... Better late than never! A very brief trip report for Further Confusion.

Here is a servalette ferrying a tiny rusty-spotted cat around. *tinypurr*

No pictures allowed in the art show, naturally. Some notes on notable artists there: Kenket always does great stuff, of course. "Real dragon eggs" by a "sharkle dog"; Red Coat Cat did a cute "chocolate point" cafe mocha poster. Kim pointed out "Vitalitas" by Balaa as being rather like a night elf druid. Kikidoodles did a cute cat-version of BB-8.

I can't match this artist name - "Alalobates"? My note says they did a "neko no Momo" set of three pieces.

ShinigamiGirl did this nice Alabaster Queen, and Sarah Clemens always has fun pictures of Magnus and Loki. DarkNatasha and Michelle Light did a surprising collab piece, Mad Science.

A couple random pics from the dealer's den! The dealer's den was actually split across two rooms this time! It seemed to be like 30-40% fursuits, wearables, and such. I picked up some stickers from Kitsumi, and eyed FurPlanet's inventory of books, but nothing seemed all that compelling this time around. I also picked up a "Golden Druid" themed cat T-shirt, and we ran into Frang and Devi in the western room.

On the way out, there was a poster for a museum exhibit, "Not A Selfie." Well, naturally...

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Food Catchup, December through March

2018-03-25T03:33:04Z

Random food pictures!

Beef sukiyaki at Yayoi. I really should figure out a beef sukiyaki recipe for at-home use. It won't look much like the set meal here, but I'd like to master that sweet-and-savory flavor.

dracosphynx and I hit up the Cafe Venetia next to Yaoi afterward, and I tried their hot chocolate. Pretty thick stuff. Next time I should just get a berry cake or something. -.-

A berry pancake at the Lazy Dog restaurant. It was quite good! It came with a huge boat of whipped cream and a side of syrup but I didn't feel the need to slather any of that on, it was quite flavorful as it was. The pancake was interestingly constructed, I'm wondering if what happened was that they poured the berries on first, then the batter on top, then flipped it?

Yeah, In-and-Out Burger. My car developed a flat tire so I rushed to BMW to get it fixed; while I waited, I figured I'd get lunch nearby, and this was the only obvious place. It was pretty decent.

Here's a food truck at Google! This is one of... a whole lot of themed food trucks. Each has its own set of menus. I've been really enjoying the Oishii Japanese Curry food truck... but I don't have a picture of that truck, and the food itself looks like your basic Japanese curry. I documented this one because I like the cat theme and the food itself is somewhat novel.

This is the menu. Each of the food trucks offers three choices, usually one will be purely vegetarian and the other two will cater to meat-eaters.

This is the "spicy kalbi beef" burrito. It was quite good. ^.^

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Homemade Keema Curry, General Tso's Meatballs, and Orange Beef with Kale

2018-03-25T03:20:13Z

Okay, by popular request (one or two), it's time for a couple of recipes!

First off, here's keema curry, as done with ground turkey. This recipe came out pretty perfect, at least according to my preferences, so here's the recipe:

1 lb (2-3 medium) sweet onion
4 garlic cloves
2 Tbsp minced ginger
1 lb ground meat
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 lb peas
2 bell peppers, diced (~0.5 lb)
1 can diced tomatoes
Chicken or beef stock

Mix with meat:
1 Tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp turmeric
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 tsp chili powder

Garnish:
1/4 cup flour or bread crumbs (30 mins before serving)
2 tsp ground coriander (mix before serving)
1 fried egg (optional)

Mix dry ingredients (not the garlic or ginger or coriander) with the ground meat, set aside
Chop and caramelize the sweet onions (~40 mins)
Remove the sweet onions to the slow cooker
Cook the ginger and garlic until they turn golden
Add the ground meat, saute, break it up into small bits
Put this in slow cooker with peas, diced bell peppers, and tomatoes, mix well
Cook for 4 hours on low
Mix flour or bread crumbs in 30 mins before serving
Mix coriander in at the end
Garnish with a fried egg if so desired!

This on the other hand is not a completed recipe, but it is progress towards such.

I based it on http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/tso/recipe.html - with some obvious changes. I'll go over the process, but since I'm not 100% pleased with the results, this isn't a formal recipe.

The meatballs are 1 lb ground chicken, 1/2 lb grated zucchini, 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs, 1 egg, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, a "pinch" of freshly ground black pepper, and a few dashes of Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute. Use your preferred poultry seasoning. Stir well, set aside. (in the fridge while you caramelize onions, perhaps)

I caramelized 2 lbs of sweet onions, then set aside half in a baggie, which I froze for later use.

Once the onions were done, I pre-heated the oven to 425 F, then put the meatballs in and turned it down to 350 after 15 minutes, to cook on low for another 45 minutes.

I added some oil to the wok, then caramelized 1 tsp grated/minced ginger, 2 cubes of frozen garlic puree, and some crushed red pepper. Then I added 1/2 lb of carrots and 1/4 cup of chicken stock, steamed it until the carrots were soft, added 3 TBsp of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp of ketchup, 1 Tbsp of honey, poured all these into the food processor, and pureed them together.

This is the part I'm not actually thrilled with. I think I would have done better to just make the veggies on the side, and follow the General Tso's sauce recipe more closely. On the other paw, I didn't need to mess around with corn starch to thicken the recipe, and it did taste pretty good. Pretty spicy, really, toasting the crushed red peppers definitely adds zing.

I'll have to experiment a little more. I think the meatballs are perfect, the sauce just needs work.

And finally, orange beef with carrots, and kale on the side. I tried flavoring the kale with soy sauce, but I think it makes it too... Heavy? Dark? It feels like it needs a light crispy salad on the side with bright flavoring. The orange beef was just a mix of soy sauce and orange marmalade, but tasted quite good.

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Meowy Kitsmas! With Applesauce Carrot Cupcakes!

2017-12-25T21:15:48Z

Meowy Kitsmas, y'all!

In lieu of a family get-together (most of the relatives are away in SoCal and such) I baked myself some applesauce carrot cupcakes to go with my omelette today. This time, I didn't use cupcake liners. "Tufty," I told myself. "You have non-stick cupcake pans. Why don't you trust them to do their thing?"

... It worked. :)

Behold! They have little chunks of Gala apples in them as well as carrots because I find that considerably improves the flavor. Also, cinnamon sugar and orange/lemon zest sprinkled on top as a makeshift topping.

Edited to add recipe

1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (cut into pea-sized bits)
1/2 cup honey
1 egg (or 1/4 cup eggbeater)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup applesauce
3/4 cup shredded carrots (about 3 decent-sized carrots)
2 apples, diced (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients together, mix in the butter and use a fork to squash the bits into smaller bits and coat with flour, then add in the honey, egg, vanilla, applesauce and stir into a dough.

Add optional orange/lemon zest if you wish, plus the shredded carrots and diced apples.

Add optional topping of cinnamon sugar, or prepare a separate frosting while it's baking.

Bake at 400 F for 24 minutes, depending on oven temperature.

Makes 12 jumbo-sized cupcakes, more or less.

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A lynx pin!

2017-12-21T00:40:58Z

From Nicnak044's store I picked up this li'l worried-looking Canadian lynx pin!

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Food Catchup, December 2017

2017-12-21T00:32:58Z

More pictures of food!

Thanksgiving was at a cousin's place. I brought the sugar snap peas with Chinese sausage (top left); from there we have some green beans with tofu, my cousin made roast beef, then there's potatoes au gratin, some sort of noodles that I have entirely forgotten what it was, someone made bread, and in the center is what I vaguely recall as a casserole of some sort with a pie crust topping. It wasn't bad but not real awesome.

I was pressured into making sausage biscuits as an appetizer, not pictured. I pretty much failed on making these -- I need to remember for future reference that biscuits need to be generously sized, not teeny-tiny, or else they dry up into uselessness.

I made applesauce carrot cupcakes again, this time with cut-up apples in them! They were good but stuck too much to the muffin wrappers. I should try making them again but this time just directly in the cupcake pans, no wrappers. I bet they'll taste super-good that way.

In the throes of the Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to make some turkey potpie as well. This isn't from leftover turkey, since there was no turkey involved; I bought some turkey breasts, cut them up, and slow-cooked them with carrots and zucchini. I rolled out some Trader Joe's pie dough and cut them into square-shaped quarters so I could have one pie-topping in each container of pot pie.

There's rice on the bottom which is rather hidden in this picture. When I bake these, the rice crisps up nicely on the bottom, but it tends to stick to aluminum foil. I have one left, so I'll try heating it directly in a pie pan or baking tray or something that will be sturdier and easier to prise baked rice from.

I shanghai'd dracosphynx out for some Impossible Burgers. This is the 1/2 pound size. ... On reflection, I think I should stick with 1/3 pound. This was just too much food. Also the ginger soy vinaigrette does not really do a good job of approximating teriyaki sauce.

I grew annoyed of having this bag of Trader Joe's Crispy Orange Chicken just sitting around in my freezer and cooked it up along with some from-scratch beef stirfry. Tasty! I should estimate for future purr-poses that you get three servings per bag of orange chicken though, not the promised four, the servings seemed small.

Continuing my plan of making more veggie gravy, here we have a meatloaf burger with veggie gravy on top, a blend of caramelized onions, carrots, and celery. It was actually pretty peppery, I should probably reduce the amount of pepper in the gravy. And maybe thin the veggie gravy out so it flows and sits more like an actual gravy than like a semisolid. Still, it did taste good.

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NaNoWriMo update: failure!

2017-12-06T17:20:07Z

I got about 8.5k words done on the proposed Genies: Rocking the Cradle story.

I kind of bogged down though... The real world is too depressing for writing about a bunch of psychopaths. I'm trying to think of a replacement writing project, something that will be just more silly fun.

What do you guys think of the idea of a Starfleet Cooking Academy?

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Random thing: PenAgain

2017-11-05T01:25:27Z

It's... A pen that's designed to be held with your wrist in a neutral position, thus helping to alleviate wrist injuries. Interesting. They had these in tablet stylus versions too, I think.

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Cooking Experiment: Vegetable Gravies with Meatballs, Pan-Fried Noodles, and Chicken Katsu

2017-11-05T01:15:28Z

I was browsing the web for substitutes that could be used to make tastier gravy and hit upon an interesting idea: blended vegetables. I'd seen vegetable purees before but they never seemed that relevant as side dishes. They had virtually no texture, making them boring to eat.

But... What if I used them as gravies?

First up, we have basic meatballs made with a mix of ground beef and turkey, seasoned with crushed black pepper for the beef and Trader Joe's 21-seasoning-salute for the ground turkey. I made the gravy with steamed carrots and celery flavored with garlic and salt, and caramelized onions, then blended them with chicken stock to get it to a pourable texture.

It tasted pretty good! The gravy looks unlovely, but it's quite mild, sweet yet savory. I thought about adding curry powder to make it a Japanese curry... Well, you'll see the results of that thought shortly.

Second, we have my typical stirfry of ground turkey, tomatoes, celery, and caramelized onions (again). Except this time, I pureed the tomatoes and celery together, leaving the onions and the meat the actually intact ingredients.

Pretty good, but I don't think there's a real need to waste time pureeing the veggies here. The only real benefit is that it removes the need to add chicken stock and cornstarch to thicken the sauce. Which is, granted, a health benefit.

And here we have... "Japanese curry style" veggie gravy on a chicken katsu, with rice pilaf! This was definitely a great tasting gravy, even if (again) it doesn't look all that appealing. The ingredients were:

* One sweet onion, chopped and caramelized
* 1/2 pound of carrots and 10 ounces of green bell peppers, steamed
* One serving of applesauce, about 1/4 cup
* 1 teaspoon of chopped ginger, or substitute powdered ginger if you want
* A sprinkling of crushed red pepper
* 2 teaspoons of curry powder
* 1 teaspoon of chili powder
* About a tablespoon or two of honey

This made generous portions of gravy for four servings. Pour it all over the chicken katsu and the rice, then eat it all, it's non-fat! Mwahaha!

On the downside, this was also an experiment at making chicken katsu and uh, that wasn't quite as good-- it reinforced my suspicion that I could just make Trader Joe's breaded chicken and use that, rather than spending a lot of time breading my own chicken. I'll have to ponder how to do better.

One problem I noticed was that I had opted to freeze the chicken pieces and then fry them up in a pan when needed. The panko wound up being softened by the egg layer around the chicken, so it became a flat layer of carbs around the chicken rather than the nice flakey layer of breading we all know and love. Perhaps I should have frozen the chicken on a sheet, then vacuum sealed it only after it had been frozen, rather than vacuum sealing it immediately.

Another problem was that the pieces were pretty thick, which meant it took a relatively long time to cook. Thinner pieces would be easier to cut and chew, likely. And Trader Joe's chicken cooks up nice and tender in the oven so it wins on taste.

Edit to add: the following week, I baked the chicken, which was MUCH easier. 425F, 30 mins, works out perfectly!

Still, vegetable puree gravies have definitely won a place on my menu. It's hard to go wrong with practically non-fat gravies that are 90% veggies!

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Happy Purrsday, Dracosphynx!

2017-10-03T05:11:20Z

For Dracosphynx's purrsday (actually a bit later than that), I headed up to his apartment and we went to Chef Hung Taiwanese Beef Noodles for the noodles he had told me about!

This is their award-winning "Champion Beef Shank With Noodle In Soup". It's marked with a spicy red pepper in their menu indicating it was spicy, but Dracosphynx assured me it was in fact pretty mild. Next to it are some cucumbers from their "cucumber salad", which we split between us in order to add vegetable nutrients to our dish.

It was in fact pretty mild! I'm pretty sure my cat's tongue relatives would be able to eat it just fine. The soup was as promised, really tasty, flavored with star anise and full of beefy flavor. The beef was quite tender, though not to the point of falling apart when you touched it with chopsticks. Amazing soup, substantial and good beef, average noodles. I might have to try this with one of their other kinds of noodles.

Dracosphynx informed me that he orders these noodles with "fire chili soup" when he wants his sinuses cleared. I could see that, sure. I wouldn't order that... He commented to me that the first time he'd tried it, he'd thought was okay... Tried a bit more... Realized after some time that he'd been drinking the soup so eagerly he was having to dig through the meat and noodles to get to it.

These are soup-filled pork dumplings. They were pretty good, though I think we let them cool off a bit too long.

Tiramisu from the nearby 85C Bakery! It wasn't bad but it was more regular cake with a tiramisu-flavored filling in between. Next time I might try the Black Forest chocolate cake, or the raspberry chocolate mousse cake that Dracosphynx had.

We followed this up with watching the anime "Your Name" at Dracosphynx's place. I was impressed! I didn't expect to like the premise all that much but it was well done and lively.

... I really can't believe that JJ Abrams is going to try to do a live action version of it for Hollywood though. Jeez. -_-

I got Dracosphynx a Panzer Dragoon Zwei disc, so he could rip the music off it legally, and a shaker of Trader Joe's "Smoked Ghost Pepper With Chilies" with its own grinder since he likes spicy food. I'm curious to see how the ghost pepper grinder works out for him. Probably be way too hot for me!

Edit to add: Dracosphynx's roomie opened one of the smoked ghost pepper chili grinders. Quote: "From a cautious sniff, it smells smokey and not bad. Except I could still smell it/feel it in my sinuses a couple minutes later. Definitely need to treat it with caution."

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Stuffed Lynxies and Hobee's French Toast

2017-09-30T04:55:40Z

No, these have nothing to do with each other. okojosan pointed me at ebearstore which had some stuffed lynxies that I hadn't already had, so... I got them. They made a mistake shipping the first time so they sent me the second stuffed lynx in a separate package and told me to keep the Hermann lioness, as it would cost them too much to get it shipped back.

Well okay! I guess I will save the lioness for a good home.

My bro was helping me with the air conditioner repairs and with getting a new car so we went to Hobee's.

I had their French toast, since I make myself omelettes at home all the time, and this was the most appealing item on the menu. It's surprisingly light, but I suppose that's because it's brioche bread with a thin layer of egg, rather than soaked through. Pretty tasty though.

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Requiescat, Jerry Pournelle

2017-09-30T04:50:29Z

Sad to see one of the big-name science fiction authors of my youth pass. I may not agree with some of his conservative stances of the later years but I don't think many people will argue that he helped shape science fiction and its readers.

I took some pictures of his books:

I liked his collaborative works with Larry Niven best, I think.

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Mew Car!

2017-09-30T04:46:00Z

After my air conditioning broke down, and my old car's air conditioning had also broken down, I determined I really needed... well, a new air conditioner, yes. But also, a new car. My 2004 Honda Accord was just about 14 years old after all!

So I went shopping.

I decided on this BMW i3. It's electric with a range extender, so it'll go about 100 miles on a full battery and 60 more with the gasoline engine adding power. Plenty enough to get to San Purrancysco and back! And it's super-adorable. ^_^

Here's the BeMew parked at work! I still need to get my purrsonalized license plate for it, I haven't gotten them from the DMV yet. I have loaded it up with most of my favorite mewsyc though!

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Food Experiment: Homemade Keema Chicken Curry

2017-09-30T04:41:28Z

Here's a good experiment! You might recall I'm a fan of Curry House's "keema curry" which is a mix of ground beef with various vegetables, on rice and served with a soft-boiled egg or fried eggs on top. I decided to try making much the same, but this time with chicken thighs to make the recipe slightly healthier.

I mostly followed this recipe, with substitutions here and there. My initial taste-test suggested that it needed more salt, which I had left out, and that egg would cut the sharpness of the spices. Since I had eggbeaters on hand, which wouldn't make a satisfactory fried egg, I decided to try making it into a "tamago" -- a Japanese rolled-up egg.

This version was okay but not that great. However, I had heard that when you refrigerate or freeze curry, then heat it later, it tastes much better.

I think that's actually correct. Also using a real fried egg makes it much tastier as well. I've had this with a few modifications now, once on pan-fried noodles. That version was *delicious*. This version, on the same brown rice, just with the fried egg on top, is still rather tasty. Definitely will make this again and try to refine the recipe!

Also the curry is pretty hot, even though I was simply using Trader Joe's curry powder rather than a fancy garam masala. Be careful. :)

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Genies Reboot: Rocking the Cradle

2017-09-29T05:06:03Z

Every now and then I get possessed by the odd urge to write something totally unsuitable. Around July 2014, after watching Star Trek: Enterprise, the Augment episodes specifically, I was annoyed that the writers had taken yet another short cut and turned supposedly "super-intelligent" humans into might-makes-right barbarians. "Surely, actually intelligent humans, even if slightly psychotic, would have evolved *some* kind of society that doesn't rely on caveman principles," I thought.

That fanfic (Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off) ran about 20 installments and petered out. The characters just weren't coming together for me, and with 16+ characters, I felt the readers were just getting lost in all the names as well. So I put it back on the backburner for a while.

Well, it's been three years but my unconscious is nagging at me to try it again. Even though I'm not really that keen on trying to write smart-but-evil characters, given the state of the world...

(though maybe I want to prove to myself that evil, once again, DOES NOT HAVE TO BE STUPID.)

For this rewrite, I'm making a prequel before the original fanfic attempt-- and I'm cutting the cast way down. Leave a comment here if you want to read about an idealistic mad scientist trying to raise eight super-intelligent and slightly (not drooling) evil children in a small colony on a barely habitable world well out of the Federation-analogue's borders.

There will probably not be a starship involved in this story, at least not until novella #3. There will certainly be an effort to try and master writing decent characters. I have a plot outline and notes!

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Random Food Snaps part 2: Chinese 5-spice Beef Stew, Sun-Dried Tomato Ground Turkey Pan Fried Noodle

2017-08-13T02:28:33Z

I had been pondering what new cooking experiment to make for a bit. Browsing around a few menus for ideas, I came across the clay pot recipes. Then I looked up clay pot cooking and found it was basically like braising, and saw a link to... Chinese "red-braised beef". I looked at the recipes. Hm. Tasty looking!

Here's the recipe I used as a source: Chinese braised beef with carrots.

I made some changes; no star anise for one, I didn't feel like going by a Chinese market for the specialty ingredients. Overall though, it came out excellent, and was a great way to break in my stainless steel pot, which I had gotten a long time ago with the intention of using it to brown stuff on the stove, then braise in the oven for a few hours.

I'd been reading about how drying vegetables was supposed to add to their savoriness, so I wanted to give it a try with sundried tomatoes, in my usual ground-turkey with tomato, celery, and carrots stirfry on pan-fried (actually oven-baked) noodles. These were the kind that came soaked in olive oil, so I had to drain them.

Verdict: sun-dried tomatoes don't do well in this stirfry because they remain fairly solid even after cooking. It's not a great texture. They might do better in a dish with a longer cooking time, like stew or chili.

I hadn't had pancakes in a while... This is the same sauteed kale and oven-roasted bacon mix I use in my omelettes, just as a pancake, with more egg in it.

It was okay, but not something I'd jump at repeating. I'll stick with my typical omelette and English muffins breakfast for Saturday brunches. Since I've been at home the last couple weeks, I just felt the need to change things up.

And that's it for my roundup! Tomorrow I'll be making another oyako-don like the one I made the other while, but I don't plan to make any changes to the recipe, so don't expect a picture of that. :)

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Random Food Snaps part 1: 85C Breads, Gotts's Impossible Burger, Mike's Chicken Ramen

2017-08-13T02:10:57Z

It's been a few weeks of random food photos. Let's start with the food I didn't (strictly speaking) cook.

First off, we have a couple unusual "bread" items sold at a Taiwan bakery chain that has a few shops out here, 85C:

The bread is black because of squid ink in it. Supposedly this has a melted squiss-- er, swiss cheese filling.

Supposedly squid-ink bread with a filling of corn chicken curry and topped with parsley.

A Hawaiian pizza topping except with chicken instead of ham or bacon. I decided to pick this one up on a whim. It wasn't bad, but the bread lacks crispness and crunchiness as a crust; it's just soft.

I got a cold again the last couple weeks! Just in time to completely overwrite any plans to get together for my birthday. I consoled myself to some extent by getting take-out Chinese food from the nearby restaurant, Bamboo Garden. From 11 o' clock at top: the smoked tea duck that I had been meaning to try; a bit of bok choy, their braised pork meatballs, some bits of broccoli that came with the orange peel chicken, some stirfried long beans, their orange peel chicken, and my own brown rice, since the restaurant doesn't offer brown rice. A mug of hot'n'sour soup to help chase off the cold.

The tea smoked duck was okay, but probably not something I'd order again. I always enjoy their pork meatballs. The orange peel chicken was pretty much just a typical Chinese fried chicken dish with an orange sauce, so not good for freezing/reheating, the batter gets all mushy. The hot 'n sour soup was quite acceptable though.

Another version of the Impossible Burger, this one is a full-sized one from Gott's Roadside. You might recall I previously reviewed Vina Enoteca's Impossible Burger sliders; this is the full-sized version.

This was pretty good! I couldn't tell it apart from beef, though I felt the burger was itself a bit soggy, the char marks were very well done. In fact, it turns out that despite my assumption the char marks were pressed onto the burger, they simply use the Impossible Burger as if it were regular ground meat and cook it the same way.

... Yes, it was a relatively pricey meal. -_- Bay Area prices, friends. This is one reason why I generally prefer to eat at home.

I saw this at Whole Food Market and thought I'd give it a try. Verdict: pretty bleah. This despite my adding mixed veggies and some scrambled egg to give the stuff more body. The sauce was okay, the noodles were bad. The only upside of this product is that there's no MSG in the sauce.

I still need to pick up the stuff Tugrik has been mentioning, a Nissin pork broth instant ramen that had supposedly very good noodles, considering it's instant ramen.

Next up, the homemade food!

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A new stuffed cat acquisition!

2017-08-13T01:41:28Z

From Purrmaids, behold!

Betty, the Siamese betta purrmaid, is flirting outrageously on the poor stuffed lynx's lap. Loki isn't quite sure how to take it, or if they're even compatible, he's a land-loving cat, she's more at home in an aquarium, can theirs ever be a happy marriage?

Betty doesn't care, he's cute. Meow!

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Trip to Italy: June 15-16, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum, Wandering, and Return Home

2017-07-30T02:38:21Z

Are you all ready? It's time for the last installment of the Italy trip report! Huzzah!

June 15th began with us waking up at the Hotel Majestic, where we made our way downstairs to the breakfast buffet bright and early-- the tour groups would leave at 8, so we were up bright and early around 6 and had breakfast around 7:30, after our showers.

Behold! Scrambled eggs, a pork sausage (linguica, I want to say, but am not sure), a 'savory croissant', and some roasted tomatoes. Also, a bonus picture of me in my Derpcat T-shirt, obscured by my Hawaiian shirt.

In short order we are on the tour bus and away to see the sights! These pictures were snapped on the bus. Rome is full of sights, practically around every corner! Sadly, their passing nature means all I got were pictures, not names.

More sights seen as we drove through Rome to our first stop, St. Peter's Basilica!

The bus stopped here long enough for me to get a nice close-up of this statue at least!

We drove down into a large underground garage. This turned out to be because they had changed procedures so all tour buses needed to drop off their passengers, who would then take a set of tunnels to the area in front of St. Peter's Basilica, which was off limits to vehicles.

Looks straight out of science fiction, doesn't it? Sadly it emerged into a rather... unsanitary-smelling alley, but when we came back later, the area had been washed by street cleaners. I suspect homeless people were using it as a bathroom at night.

St. Peter's Basilica, at the opposite end of a rather wide traffic circle, St. Peter's Square... Sans traffic at the moment, mind you. This is supposedly where the apostle Peter, later acclaimed the first Pope, was buried.

Despite it looking like we were approaching on the left side, we actually went to the right, where we went through a security checkpoint and removed our bags so that a scanner could verify that we were not packing anything untoward. I seem to recall Dracosphynx liked the bin system that was in use, so that people could deposit their belongings in individual bins and they would be returned to the front on a separate conveyor belt for immediate reuse.

My memory is fuzzy but I think this was a side view, since we wind up outside just a minute later, on approach to the Basilica. I just have a hard time passing up nicely framed architecture.

I think that's an electronic sign of some sort in front of that statue, but it wasn't in use at the time. There were lots of stadium seats out front though, so perhaps they were anticipating some sort of event later in the day.

Welcome to St. Peter's Basilica! No hats, camera tripods, strollers, pets, large backpacks, use of cellphones, smoking, or eating inside please, grazie.

There's a map which shows the general layout of the cathedral. We went in on the right side, looped around counter-clockwise, and came back out on the left-- a U-shaped route.

At the entrance, looking to the side.

Pretty sure this was the front of the church, but no, we didn't push the doors open to go in, we went through an already open entrance to the side.

This cathedral is big! As in, 40-man raid big, if you were a World of Warcraft raider.

This was almost certainly the first ... what do they call them in cathedrals? "Niche" and "alcove" seem entirely too small for a room this big, housing its own altar. Did I mention St. Peter's is huge? I'm not positive this qualifies as a "transept", which would be an arm of a cross-shaped cathedral floorplan.

Statues in the columns. These are big columns, but they have to be.

More... architecture! That's it. Architecture. I love all the elaborate details. You can catch a glimpse of the domed ceiling/cupola above. No expense was spared!

They must have needed an awful lot of inner scaffolds and probably a lot of swearing to build these things.

I'm pretty sure this is toward the front of the cathedral.

Eek. This one came out a bit out of focus. The colors are nice at least. Warm golds.

A closer look at this... Wikipedia informs me it is a "baldacchino", a pavilion-like structure 28.74 metres (94.3 ft) tall and claimed to be the largest piece of bronze in the world, which stands beneath the dome and above the altar.

According to a friend, "You know that great big altar? Most of the bronzes statues that hard survived up to that point went into that. The roof of the Pantheon as well."

Oops, another blurry picture of what might have been great art! How annoying.

An elaborately detailed statue! Notice the demonic-looking creature lurking just above the base. I think this was intended to be a depiction of Pope Gregorio XII, Pontificus Maximus.

Pretty sure we were looping back toward the front of the cathedral at this point. Much nicer to take pictures when we're ahead of the crowd.

Another examination of a cupola from beneath!

I'll be honest with you, this looks like it's all ready to be a stage for a high fantasy movie, complete with crowd of angry peasants storming the dark overlord.

Another view of the baldacchino. The fact it's a gazebo makes me wonder, "what, is this church so big cloud systems form inside it?"

I wouldn't be that surprised, actually.

I like the light pouring in through the windows at this end.

Another statue! What, are the popes one-upping one another to ensure they get more post-humous notice?

Blurriness ruins what would otherwise have been a nice arch-ception sort of picture.

Most of the floor was fairly normal decoration, so this floor mosaic stood out.

I had to peer closely at the picture to make out the inscription. INNOCENTIO XI.

This sign describes the next set of pictures. It wasn't obviously open to tourists as you can see from the security guards out front, so I took three pictures. I'll attach the relevant descriptions below.

CAPPELLA DEL CORO (CHOIR CHAPEL)

AT THE CENTER
Altar: the altar table surmounds a Roman basin of gray granite stone containing the relics of St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church (+407 A.D.). On August 24, 2004, Pope John Paul II authorized the donation of some of these relics to the Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew I.
Mosaic: decorative cycle representing The Immaculate Virgin with St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. John Chrysostom, was completed in 1740. It was modeled after an original painting by Piero Bianchi. Beneath the pavement lies the sepulchre of Pope Clement XI (1700-1721).

TO THE LEFT AND RIGHT
Wooden choir of three row of stalls, designed by Giovan Battista Soria and Bartolomeo de'Rossi, is decorated with Old and New Testament Scenes; figures of the Evangelists, Bishops and Prophets. It is still used for prayer services by the Vatican Chapter.

VAULT AND WALL DECORATION
Decorative cycle, executed in gilt stucco and representing scenes from the Old and New Testament, was designed and executed by Giovan Battista Ricci of Novara and his pupils in 1626.

DOME OF THE VESTIBULE
Mosaic decorative cycle representing God the Father with the twenty-four elders was designed by Marcantonio Franceschini in 1716.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you" (Luke 1, 28)

Back to admiring more... Decorative niches! I love the way the light pours down atop the gorgeous reddish marble.

Fairly subdued lighting, in comparison. Still pretty luxurious, I wouldn't kick that out of my home. Except if I needed the space.

And a straight-up overhead view of a domed ceiling! Maybe not the best way to admire the art but honestly, you'd have to be an angel and thus capable of flying around to be able to examine everything properly. Or a remote-controlled drone, but I'm pretty sure St. Peter's security would have come down rather heavily on us for trying to fly one around.

We perused the souvenir ships on the way out but there was a significant dearth of good books; the wares on sale were more devotional, like these.

Dracosphynx and I made it back to the agreed upon rendezvous point and we waited for the rest of the tour group, then returned to the bus, where we were whisked off to our next stop. It's time for more random Rome sights!

Apparently a modern Italian city... Then you have this really old-looking tower sticking out over a billboard.

Many pixels died to bring you this information. I sighted some ancient-looking buildings across the way; this is the zoomed-in bit of the picture.

We were dropped off here, opposite what looked like another architectural sight-- unfortunately, with as many sights as there were to see in Rome, we didn't have the time to peek in.

Here we are, approaching the Colosseum! Who could go see Rome without seeing that place where gladiators fought and chariots raced thousands of years ago?

Wikipedia informs me this is the Arch of Constantine, a triumphal arch built for Emperor Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, in 312 AD.

To the right, you can see part of the Colosseum's structure, showing a balcony where people could look down upon the city.

Yep, that sure is a big... round... Ruin? Technically the structure isn't fully intact, and it's certainly not being used for its historical purpose, but a lot of effort goes into preserving it as one of Rome's premier sights.

A glance to the side. A brief Google search suggests this might be Palatine Hill.

We circumnavigate the Colosseum, going around to a back entrance where we can skip the throng. We still need to pass a relatively lightweight security point, but we manage to avoid a lot of traffic, at least.

It is hot. There are enthusiastic and probably unlicensed men holding out bottles of chilled-looking water to tourists for Euros.

Soon we will get to go in and get out of the brutal sun!

Huzzah! Admire the arched ceiling that has loomed overhead for centuries. Gladiators probably didn't go in this way; to either side we could see into the labyrinth of tunnels that honeycombed the Colosseum beneath.

From inside the Colosseum, there was a floor covering not quite half the inner circle. This seems like a good representative view of what it would have been like on the floor of the Colosseum back in the days.

Beneath the floor-- a veritable maze! One presumes this is where slaves and prisoners and beasts were held prior to the fights. A lot of behind-the-scene organizing would have gone into each spectacle.

Climbing up to the seating levels of the Colosseum!

Can you imagine being in the bleachers when the Colosseum was in action?... Come to think of it, this reminds me of a sport stadium, so the answer is probably 'yes'.

There was a longish pause by a broken horse statue on the inside, some more traipsing around, but nothing that struck me as photo-worthy. Rather than climb up to the overlook-- the balcony I saw earlier-- we opted to go back out and wait for the tour bus.

Did I mention it was hot? This is me wilting.

Rather than be taken directly back to the hotel, Dracosphynx decided to see some more sights and dragged me along. We were dropped off near Piazza Navona, a popular shopping/sightseeing/eating destination within eleven blocks or so away.

One interesting thing I noticed was that on some stretches, while most cars were parked parallel to the curb, there were very small "SmartCars" that were parked nose-in to the curb. They were so small that they didn't stick out more than the other cars that way, and thus afforded more parking space for everyone. It still seemed rather... dangerous.

I... have no idea what this was; it was adjacent to the route we took to get to Piazza Navona, following our tour guide who was heading that way herself. Close inspection of the picture suggests the sign reads "Lo Stadio di Domiziano."

Piazza Navona!

Who doesn't love a good fountain? This was probably "La Fontana del Moro."

One of the obelisks that dotted Rome. Many of these were pilfered from Egypt, and served as waypoints for pilgrims in ancient times making a trip to see St. Peter's Basilica among other touchstones of the Christian faith.

A rather elaborate base for an obelisk! This is evidently "Fontana dei Quattro Fium".

A few views of the most impressive-looking building facing into the Piazza. This was probably the "Palazzo Pamphili", the family palace of Pope Innocent X.

From there, Dracosphynx led the way to the Pantheon.

Impressive looking from the side, where we came in!

Goodness gracious, look at that crowd. I implored of Dracosphynx that we desist on trying to get into that mob scene; he reluctantly agreed.

This is the view opposite the Parthenon: the Fontana del Pantheon.

Another obelisk, at the Piazza del Montecitorio.

This isn't an obelisk: it's Trajan's Column. There's apparently an inner staircase one could use to get to a viewing platform at the top, but I'm pretty sure they don't allow people in there anymore.

From Wikipedia: The relief portrays Trajan's two victorious military campaigns against the Dacians; the lower half illustrating the first (101–102), and the top half illustrating the second (105–106). These campaigns were contemporary to the time of the Column's building. Throughout, the frieze repeats standardized scenes of imperial address (adlocutio), sacrifice (lustratio), and the army setting out on campaign (profectio).[9] Scenes of battle are very much a minority on the column, instead it emphasizes images of orderly soldiers carrying out ceremony and construction.

This is Trevi Fountain, a Baroque-era fountain, "one of the most famous fountains in the world." I can certainly believe that!

I... have no idea what building this is. Sorry!

I was seriously wilting so we stopped to get a gelato. I opted for this "Frutti di bosco" in order to cool off, rather than something heavy like chocolate. Dracosphynx, of course, got chocolate because, Dracosphynx.

A sign in the gelateria read, "Please do not tap the glass-- it scares the gelato."

Refreshed, we pushed on to see more sights!

This sign explains the courtyard we were in: THE SPANISH STEPS

The Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Trinita dei Monti) were designed by the architect Francesco De Sanctis (1693-1740) and built between 1723 and 1726. They were constructed in order to theatrically link the Pincio hill, dominated by the church of Trinita dei Monti, with Piazza di Spagna, located below, at the foot of the steep slope of the hill. The square had been ornamented between 1623-1626 with the fountain Barcaccia, built by Pietro Bernini with the help of his young son Gian Lorenzo. ...

The aforementioned fountain Barcaccia!

Steps leading up the hill, on the way toward the hotel.

Another obelisk! Not all of these were actually Egyptian; many were replicas or imitations.

We made it safely back to the hotel room where, reminded that I hadn't had lunch, I cracked open this bag of snack bites.

It wasn't bad. At least it didn't list high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient!

I... have forgotten where this came from, but it looks tasty. I don't remember us stopping at a bakery though.

We rested until dinnertime, then changed clothes and set off to see what was available!

Dracosphynx humorously titled this picture "Lynx Suffering For The Last Time" - since we would be returning home the following day.

Possibly the only pizza I've had the whole trip: a miniature margherita pizza bite, and a potato croquette.

The menu!

Zucchini parmigiana with mozzarella cheese. Pretty good.

Lemon sea bass with "caponata" vegetables.

Meatballs and mashed potatoes! How... down home. They were good.

This did not resemble the puff pastry I was expecting, but that's what the menu says: puff pastry with lemon custard cream and wild berries. I liked the layered cake aspect.

We went to sleep for a few hours... Our flight left very early the next morning, so we had to be up at oh-god-o-clock! (3 AM) From there, we caught our commuter airbus to Frankfurt.

We had a bit of a layover in Frankfurt: long enough for us to browse around and for me to pick up this. I kind of had to. I still have it in my refrigerator.

The plane that would wing us back home!

Breakfast was served on the long flight back! Some kind of omelette/scrambled eggs, I think, with a custard for dessert.

A mid-flight intermission snack of "Marble Cake."

Lunch! Some sort of beef stew with polenta and mixed veggies.

I have sadly entirely forgotten what movies we watched on the return. -_-

Custom was easier getting back than I'd expected, even without being able to use my Mobile Passport; they pretty much just waved me through with a minimum of security theater. My brother picked me up, and then it was back home, where I could ensconce myself in my own bed and rest and recover!

Phew! Hope you've all enjoyed reading my trip reports. It was a great trip, apart from the sleeplessness... Hopefully I don't catch ill on another trip, this sort of thing gets old.

But Italy was truly full of amazing sights, and seeing it with Tauck taking care of all the details made it much more relaxing than it would have been otherwise. Seeing the Parthenon utterly mobbed reminded me how nice it was to have a tour group that could skip the longest lines. Thanks for having me along, Dracosphynx!

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Trip to Italy: June 14, the Herculaneum and the Vatican

2017-07-22T21:19:06Z

This was it, our last night aboard the Le Ponant. As noted in my last entry, we'd actually arrived in Naples last night so the ship wasn't rocking as much as it would have at sea, but I took half a sleeping pill to be on the safe side and get some sleep. We got up bright and early so that we could pack up our luggage-- they needed to be ready at the door at 7:30 AM.

On the downside, one of my suitcase's tiny TSA-approved locks had gone missing. My brother had advised me to take along an extra one or two-- I should have listened! Ah well. I used a bit of wire to secure the now-unlocked compartment.

Here's me, dressed up for leaving the ship. On most previous days I had worn a light black jacket, but it was getting way too warm for that; I wore my Hawaiian shirt over a T-shirt for today's excursion. So long, Le Ponant! We'll miss you.

Here's Dracosphynx, on one of the rare occasions where he sat down for a proper breakfast! (most of the trip he had simply contented himself with a cup of tea and one of the breakfast pastries)

Our luggage was collected and stacked with the rest of the tour's luggage on the dock; they would be taken care of for us so we wouldn't need to worry about extracting them from the bus onto the hotel or anything like that, and delivered to our rooms. That's full Tauck service.

We boarded the tour bus and were whisked off to our morning tour-- the Herculaneum! If you've heard of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius basically incinerating the city of Pompeii, well, what happened here was that (per the paper they gave us) at around 1 PM on August 24 (79 AD), Vesuvius began spewing ash and volcanic stone thousands of meters into the sky. When it reached the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere, the top of the cloud flattened. The prevailing winds at the time blew toward the southeast, causing the volcanic material to fall primarily on the city of Pompeii and the surrounding area. Since Herculaneum lay to the west of Vesuvius, it was only mildly affected by the first phase of the eruption. While roofs in Pompeii collapsed under the weight of falling debris, minimal ash fell on Herculaneum, causing little damage but nonetheless prompting many inhabitants to flee.

During the night, the column of volcanic debris which had risen into the stratosphere began falling back down onto Vesuvius. A pyroclastic flow formed which sent a mixture of 750F gas, ash and rock racing down at 100 mph toward Herculaneum. At about 1AM it reached the boat houses, where those waiting for rescue were killed instantly by the intense heat. This flow and several more following it slowly filled the city's buildings from the bottom up, causing them little damage.

So essentially, the buildings of the Herculaneum were preserved nearly intact beneath an airtight seal formed by the dense "tuff" (rock formed from the consolidation of volcanic ash) over 1700 years.

This bas relief and the accompanying plaque were at the front of the... what do you call the modern-era building which provides a starting point for tours of ancient ruins? If it were a room, one might say 'antechamber', but as it is a building, let's say 'ante-building'.

Sadly even enlarged the text was indecipherable, so I can only guess this was art circa the 1st century AD.

This is another of the modern buildings that prefaced the Herculaneum. I had assumed the signpost identified it, but 'Scavi di Ercolano' seems to refer to the Herculaneum site as a whole, not to this particular thing. Maybe it's where the 'boat exhibit' is held?

Either way, it's pretty interesting looking, wouldn't you say? ^_^

Our tour group making its way into the site! Access was gated, so that there wouldn't be too many tourists at any one point in the site at a time.

We came around the seaward side of the site. Common to these is that you can see both the modern buildings of Ercolano, and the uncovered buildings of the Herculaneum.

Those apparent cliffs on the left side? That's how deep the town of Herculaneum was buried by volcanic tuff! The sward of green grass on the left is what used to be sea; it was an ocean town.

The port of Herculaneum; you can see what would have been a pier back in the days.

A map!

We descended down toward the level of the site via several stairs, and then crossed this ancient bridge into Herculaneum proper.

Dracosphynx snapped this picture of me on the way in.

One of the numerous courtyards. I suspect that the columns would have reached some uniform height and perhaps been topped with statues, but were snapped off.

An oddly constructed sort of wall. I suspect it was rebuilt several times.

Per Dracosphynx: "in earlier times, people dug down into the place for treasures and artifacts. Instead of excavating the entire city, they just dug tunnels down and...
tunneled through walls or whatever else was in the way. ... the walls had been patched to fill in where the looting tunnels had been."

If I remember right, this used to be a bar. Those holes in the counter would have been used to store liquor, keeping them relatively cool.

Dracosphynx tells me this used to be a public toilet-- there would have been a wooden bench above the carved channel for sitting down and, ah, "taking care of business."

We entered a bath-house here. Soap wasn't common so the idea was that they would build up sweat by entering progressively hotter chambers, and then scrape off the filth from their skin into the water, then cool off.

A mosaic of the sea-god, Neptune?

More interiors of the bath-house.

The sign reads more or less: LA BASILICA NONIANA - Only the eastern external wall of this building can be seen along the Cardo III, which has been identified as the civil court which, as recorded in an inscription, Marcus Nonius Balbus paid for in the Augustan period, and which is referred to as the Basilica Noniana in a wax tablet of AD61. ...

The sign reads more or less: The College of the Augustales - The Augustales were members of an order made up of freedmen that was dedicated to the imperial cult and their college was built in Herculaneum while Augustus was still alive. It stands at the corner between the Decumanus Maximus and the upper Cardo III and had two entrances that opened up onto these two streets. ...

Ancient architecture, miraculously preserved!

What makes this interesting is when you realize... they had paint in those days! It's not like everything was actually boringly sand-colored, it's that the passage of time has eroded paint from most things. It was preserved here in the Herculaneum and then restored, thanks to the air-tight seal the volcanic tuff provided.

Ancient architecture might have been far more colorful than I'd envisioned!

A Herculaneum street. It's all very well to look at and inside the buildings but one has to see how they come together to form a neighborhood as well.

I gather this was some sort of ancient painting or poster, preserved behind glass. Dracosphynx says, "The fun bit is if you look at some of the writing, you realize the letters are getting smaller and smaller - this was a sign for a wine store, I think. See all the bottles on the poster? So the guy started writing his sales pitch above the bottles, but started too big and ran out of space, so suddenly the letter get really small."

A rare picture of the elusive Dracosphynx within an entrance to one of the houses!

The streets were pretty deep, like this one here. Dracosphynx notes that the Herculaneum *did* have underground sewers; Pompei did not. In Pompei the streets *were* the sewers and they had stepping stones in the streets so you could cross without... well, stepping *into* the street

Above, the city of Ercolano.

Dracosphynx says this wasn't a tavern but the inside of a rather expensive house. "... with the mosaic in the middle,
to either side you can see the remains of paintings. Those were paintings of
plants and shrubberies. The wealthy had indoor garden areas. So during the
day, the doors would be open, and you look down, through the entrance way, the
halls, etc. and see the garden. The not so wealthy opened their doors, and
you could look in, down the entrances, and see... a painting of a garden,
which might be good enough to fool people on first glance."

I suspect this may have been an ancient fountain or display of some sort.

I didn't think of it at the time, but probably the frame up there is a modern skylight built over the ancient skylight, to protect the inside from acidic rain. According to Dracosphynx, under ordinary circumstances, those projections on the side would have served as water spouts to let the water drain into the fountain basin below.

A look into one of the various homes. They were built along similar floorplans, with a garden at the inside of each villa across from the entrance. The space here wouldn't permit the owner to build a garden as well, so he substituted by having a mural of a garden painted on the facing wall.

As we departed the ruins of Herculaneum (I picked up my only souvenir of the trip, a shopping bag depicting a cat atop a Roman pillar) we encountered this domestic scene of a cat receiving scritches from a tourist.

We were relieved to be back in the bus and out of the heat. Some traveling later, we reached a restaurant pretty much out on the side of the road, the "Restaurant del Sole" in Capua, where we would have lunch.

This is quite possibly the meatiest cheese I have ever had. It's a buffalo mozzarella, served with vinegar-drizzled tomatoes and a nice crusty bread.

Pretty forgettable marinara-based pasta. We were given a choice of 'red' and 'white' pasta. I assume the white pasta basically used an alfredo sauce.

A tasty lemon-filled slice of cake!

Thus fortified, we returned to the bus and continued... another two hours before we hit a roadstop. Hey, the tourists were even older than I was, frequent bathroom breaks were essential for our sanity, not to mention refreshment and getting some nice cool air, given the bus's malfunctioning air conditioning.

It was a pretty big truck-stop sort of place. This picture really doesn't do justice to the size.

They sold all sorts of things-- not just food and coffee (and they had their own espresso bar, as one would expect in Italy) but also toys, pharmaceuticals, basically anything you might need on a long family road trip.

At last we arrived in Rome, at the Hotel Majestic, where we would be staying! The sign (clipped) reads: The prestigious Roman hotel was built in 1889 by an architect from Alto Adige, but Roman of choice, Gaetano Koch (1849-1910), on one of the most exclusive streets in the Capital via Veneto, that is, the most important street of the quarter constituted at the end of the 19th century on the ruins of Villa Ludovisi. The privilege of exclusive zone has countersigned this area since antiquity; it was in fact destined to the rich middle class and to the most popular exponents of the Roman magistracy. ...

The very old-time elevator!

This is the antique room key they gave us. We actually weren't supposed to take this off the premises; instead we needed to hand this in at the front desk, and we could claim it on our return.

I'd taken a picture of the somewhat odd room doors-- each of the doors had a doorknob square in the center, rather than to one side-- but it turned out too blurry to share, unfortunately.

Here is Dracosphynx on the other side of the hotel room. They were pretty small beds, pressed up against each other.

There was no dinner; we were encouraged to nom some of the snacks they had given us earlier in the day instead. We weren't terribly hungry, which is just as well.

Scenes from Rome! These were taken while the bus was pushing through the city to the Vatican, where we would be attending our "Tauck exclusive" after-hours tour.

"MUSEI VATICANI"

There were several armed guards on duty, with very modern and nasty-looking rifles, but I refrained from taking pictures of them.

This might appear as if it were taken from outside, but this is a window on the inside of the Musei Vaticani, looking across the courtyard. So darn pretty!

Here we are on our way up. There's no air conditioning; it got pretty darn hot. I would hate to have to visit during the daytime with the hoi polloi.

Art almost literally covers every square inch of the museum. It reminded me of the St. John's Co-Cathedral, except far more tasteful. And extensive.

The first major room we entered was this one. Naturally I had to take some extra pictures of the sphynxes.

I assume she's a Roman goddess of some sort.

No... I have no explanation for this chest. Well, I suppose it could be a burial coffin of some sort, but it doesn't seem quite the right shape. I think the canid footrests are pretty adorable though.

Cat!

And a frieze of griffins!

A closer look at the arch as we press on.

The museum was divided into a number of rooms, each themed around a particular subject or type of art. From here, things proceeded a little more quickly, so I focused my photographs on just particular things that struck my interest, rather than trying to get everything (which would have been a doomed attempt).

That's an unusually decorated domed ceiling.

More elaborately framed ceiling paintings!

From the sign next to it: The "Ephesus" Artemis - Found at Hadrian's Vlila, in the so-called Greek Theatre and restored by Giovanni Volpato who sold the statue to the Museums in 1781. The sculpture reproduces the iconography of Artemis worshipped in the famous sanctuary at Ephesus, Asia Minor, in her incarnation as "Lady of the Animals", protector of fertility and abundance. The work is original in its combination of Greek and Oriental elements, with the close rows of overlapping breasts, interpreted by some to be bulls' testicles. There were numerous Roman copies made of this cultic statue, probably created during the second half of the 4th century BC.

The hall of tapestries!

It might appear to be a boring tapestry with old white guys and maybe a couple of pretty young girls, but check out that gynosphynx at the lower right! Yay catgrrl!

Here, that's Jesus, I assume from the halo, but I don't recall a cat and a dog figuring into his story. Or it could be some other scene entirely.

Here, we have the hall of ancient maps!

I snapped some random pictures of maps as vantage permitted.

Oh hey, lions! According to the sign next to it, this is "Justice, Faith (Religion), Charity" - ornamental cover of the throne of (Pope) Clement VII.

We got past those halls and into some rooms preliminary to the Sistine Chapel.

Good grief, this is a LOT of art.

Wow... That is a *super*-intricate floor tile design.

The sign reads, at least the first part: The /Room of the Segnatura/ contains Raphael's most famous works, that represent his debut in the Vatican and mark the beginning of the High Renaissance. The frescoes symbolize a summary of the knowledge of his time. The room takes its name from the highest court of the Holy See, the /Segnatura Gratae et lustitiae/, where the Pope used to officiate assemblies during the mid 16th century. Originally Pope Julius (1503-1513) used the room as his private studio and library: the iconographic scheme of the frescoes, painted between 1508 and 1511, reflects this use. The chiaroscuro works on the lower part were completely remade by Perin del Vaga, a scholar of Raphael, during the papacy of Paul III (1534-1549).

The ceiling is divided in four parts dedicated to different branches of knowledge, represented by allegorical female figures: the Poetry ..., the Philosophy, the Justice, and the Theology.

The aforementioned ceiling.

Welcome to the Sistine Chapel! You can see that famous painting of Adam and God at the center.

We spent quite a bit of time here. Dracosphynx tells me about, and I extract from Wikipedia later, the story that (quote) The Pope's Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena said "it was most disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns,"[27] In response Michelangelo worked da Cesena's semblance into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld. It is said that when he complained to the Pope, the pontiff responded that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain. (unquote)

A door on the way out of the Sistine Chapel.

We passed through what seemed like a hall filled with precious (in terms of 'precious metals') devotional objects; these as an example.

Note the leopard in the lower right corner of the ... book cover?

I believe this was a model of the Vatican.

Sphynxes! The wing shapes remind me of the Ark of the Covenant from the movie.

Yeah, I have to admit I have no idea who this lion-headed guy is. Sorry!

Here we are on our way out of the Vatican! The staircase starts off quite shallowly, then ramps into a serious downward turn that would leave people in wheelchairs quite discomfitted.

Back to the hotel! With no French-trained chef-made applesauce to hand, Dracosphynx gives me his apple, left over from the snack bag, with instructions to take and chew up a bite of apple, then add the sleeping pill to it and gulp it down as an improvised applesauce.

...

It works. But doesn't taste as good as the Le Ponant's applesauce. I miss their food. -_-

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