Rather than return home for Thanksgiving (going Christmas), I decided to do Thanksgiving here. My best friend from high school lives in L.A. now, so I invited him and several other local-family-less friends over for the works–my first turkey (~11.5 pounds), gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. So what if the gravy was out of a jar, the mashed potatoes were instant, the stuffing was stove-top, and the pie was store-bought. We felt pretty darned authentic.
I got up at 4:45 a.m. on Black Friday to hit Circuit City and Best Buy. After standing in line for about an hour, my friend and I made it into the store. There was a similar wait to check-out (they only had 4 registers open for some reason). I definitely spent more than I should, but I’ll be well-stocked for things to watch for the next 6 months or so. Between the two stores, I got the entire James Bond ultimate edition for ~$20/pop (vs. the $70-$80 list price for each), three seasons of House, two seasons of Rescue Me, and four seasons of Nip/Tuck (all for $15/season instead of $50). I haven’t tallied the total number of hours, but it’s a lot. Just in time, too–the post-football-pre-baseball doldrums are just around the corner.

Other than that, the last week has essentially consisted of a lot of chilling out, playing Asassin’s Creed, watching movies (No Country for Old Men is excellent, Hitman not so much–but entertaining nonetheless), and sleeping in. I haven’t touched my current game for a week or so (waiting to hear from sponsors) and Bike vs Car is stagnating a bit, but I’m starting to feel that tinkering urge again. The first manifestation of that is the new ad-enabled skin. I don’t plan on taking this whole blog thing tooooo seriously, but I figured if I’m sticking MochiAds in my flash games that get < 1000 views, I might as well do the same for the blog.

A couple of nights ago, my roommate (also imported from Atlanta) spent awhile trying to track down new places to go play Trivia. He eventually found one–the Brittania Arms over in Cupertino. While not subscribing to the same brand as the one we tried in Palo Alto awhile back, the format was pretty similar. Four rounds of around 10 questions, asked in rapid-fire format. I’ll reiterate what I said last time…

People out here take the actual trivia and knowledge part of Team Trivia way too seriously. The whole thing needs to go at about 1/4 or 1/2 the speed to give more time for socializing and drinking. This place was certainly better than the last (older crowd–not jam-packed), but the search for a decent trivia spot continues.

Last night, Diana took the train home. I met her in Mountain View and we wandered around looking for a place to eat. We ended up going to a place called Cafe Baklava. I love Mediterranean food, so I was pretty excited. The service was pretty slow and apathetic. We ordered two appetizers. The Cevizli Peynir was a kind of mush of feta, walnuts, and spices. It was kind of tangy, but not really that spectacular. The Sigara Boregi was a plate full of fried mussels–with a kind of horseradish dipping sauce. These were pretty awesome. For main courses, we ordered Manti–which was a sort of ravioli covered in yogurt. The sauce, again, was a little tangy. The little raviolis were tasty…but it didn’t feel like a dinner. I think they would work better as an appetizer or a snack than as a main dish. We had planned on just getting two appetizers and one main dish, but at the last minute I decided to also order the special–which turned out to be a wise choice.

The special that night was char-grilled Trout (one of my favorite fish). They cooked the whole fish in-skin, then peeled back the skin on one side when they served it (along with grilled veggies & rice). The skin was all charred black, but the meat was perfect–making the outer skin look like sort of a black bowl. We ate the meat on one side of the spine, and then easily plucked the whole spine out and finished off the other side. I was really impressed with how fresh and tasty the trout was–this actually seems like something my YiaYia might prepare. So, overall, the dishes we ordered were about 50/50…that is to say, two good, two bad. The two “bad” ones, though, weren’t really bad so much as just not very exciting. The two “good” ones, though, were excellent, and I would go back for them–too bad the best one was a daily special.

When we first got to the restaurant (15 minutes late, or “Diana time”), her friend was sipping a large cup of sake (much much larger than the little bowls that I usually see–more like a normal cup). I ordered one for myself, and we asked the waiter what it was called. The answer: Nami Nami. If the food wasn’t tasty enough, I can really get behind a restaurant whose namesake is the extra-large alcoholic drinks it serves.