Category: five

From here.

1. What regional colloquialism in your area would baffle people from elsewhere?
   It’s fading from usage, but everyone still knows what broke da mout means.  You use it to describe a meal that’s so good it actually breaks your mouth.
2. What’s something you call by a name that differs from what most people in your region call it?
   There a lot of examples, but one that leaps to mind is ice cream, which many (if not most) people around here for some reason pronounce “aish cream.”  There’s also a huge segment of our population who calls milk “melk.”
3. What’s a normal food in your region that people in other regions might be weirded out by?
   It would be easy to pick on Filipino food but I’ll stick closer to home and say natto.  It’s a rather polarizing food, even among my friends of Japanese ancestry.  It’s nasty, nasty stuff with an unappealing stickiness and a strongly petroleum flavor, but I’ve been told by people who love it that there’s a difference between good natto and run-of-the-mill natto.  Also Spam musubi, which almost all of us adore.  It might sound gross but it’s really really good!
4. What’s something in your area with an official name almost nobody refers to it by?
   The flagship campus of our state university system is officially the University of Hawaii at Manoa, but everyone around here calls it UH.  This offends me, since I graduated from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, the real UH.  In collegiate athletics, people refer to UH Manoa as “Hawaii,” as in “Next week the Cougars are expected to lose to Hawaii.”  With four four-year universities in the system, UH Manoa has no rightful claim to “Hawaii.”
5. What are the names of some convenience stores in your area?
   7-Eleven of course, but there are also Aloha Mini Mart, Nom Nom, Fastop, Whalers, ABC Stores, and Nanay Dela’s Lutong Bahai, where you can get a Spam musubi made with jasmine rice.

From here.

1. What’s your favorite large, furry animal?
   I think polar bears.  I perceive them as being mostly solitary creatures, and what a rough existence they seem to have.  Plus they’re so cute while being so fascinatingly ferocious.
2. What’s your favorite large sea creature?
   I like walruses and giant squids, although I get the feeling walruses aren’t as charming up close as they are from afar.
3. What’s your favorite insect?
   I’m fascinated by praying mantises.  They’re so mysterious-looking and so scary, but they’re mostly human-friendly, right?  I mean, there’s no reason not to want them around, I think, and do they eat other bugs?  I used to know a thing or two about mantises but it’s been a long time.  Plus Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy is such a great character.  A being whose super power is compassion.
4. What are your favorite names for pets you’ve known?
   A friend’s neighbor had a dog named Budweiser.  That was pretty cute.  One night at Honolulu City Lights, some friends and I met a cat whose name was Manapua, which is only super funny if you’re from Hawaii.  It’s our word for char siu bao, or steamed pork-filled dumplings, and urban legend has it that the manapua wagons, which are like neighborhood food trucks crusing the neighborhoods, make their manapua out of feral cats.  It’s a disgusting legend, but we all grew up hearing it.  I never believed it, of course, and I had many, many manapuas in my day.  Plus the parents of one of my good friends owned a manapua wagon.
5. Besides unicorns, what are some mythical beasts you wish were real?
   Griffins for sure.  Manticores.

A couple of Friday 5s (this week’s and last week’s). From here and here.

Friday 5: Performance Evaluation

1. In what way do you maintain a tidy and efficient workstation?
   My desk at the office is not tidy, but I would like to remind people that I’m a writer with attention issues.  A huge part of my job is thinking, and it helps to surround myself with some visual stimuli, such as a few novels I’m working through or plan to work through someday, some posters on the wall, a printout of an amusing Awkward Yeti comic, some movie ticket stubs, and scraps of writing ideas I’m saving for later.  However, I do tidy it up at the end of every month just to keep things from getting out of hand.  My desk at home is a disaster and I’m thinking of setting the whole thing on fire.
2. In what way do you maintain positive relationships with others?
   I try to send friendly text messages every so often, most of which get ignored, but that’s fine.  I reach out on social media in positive ways.  I know; I could do a lot better for sure.
3. What effort do you take to be punctual?
   When I became a bus rider, I repeated the commitment I made the previous time I became a bus rider: no using the bus as an excuse to be late for anything, and no running for a bus.  This mostly keeps me on time for stuff, but when I’m trying to get somewhere I don’t go very often, on a bus line I’m not familiar with, I’m sometimes off the mark.  Most of the time, though, I’m pretty good about getting places on time, which is not one of my skills.
4. What are your strengths and challenges in communicating effectively?
   In person, I tend to take too many words to say stuff that doesn’t require them.  I also overexplain, probably a vestige leftover from my teaching.
5. What will be your focus for growth in the coming year?
   I really need to get back to the weight-losing trend I established a couple of years ago.

 

Friday 5: Repeat

1. What’s something you are repeatedly asked to prove?
   I still get carded when I buy alcohol sometimes, and I was born in the Sixties.  I suppose a bus pass is proof that I paid the monthly fee, and so is a Costco card.  I read an article on network security that says the average person at work has to know eight different passwords just to do his or her job.  I think I have seven, including the entry code for the building door and the combination for the lock that secures my laptop to my desk.
2. What’s an album you can listen to on endless repeat?
   I’m a guy who does this all the time.  On my all-time list are Extreme’s Extreme II: Pornograffiti, Yes’s Drama, and Styx’s Paradise Theater.  Lately, I’ve had Monster Magnet’s Mindfucker, The Sword’s Used Future, and the Night Flight Orchestra’s Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough.
3. What’s a story you’ve told several times?
   There used to be this heavy metal record store near on Ward Avenue.  I only went in there once, but it was glorious, and I hoped to get a real job later in high school and spend all my money there and even hang out on weekends, maybe when I got some wheels.  The store didn’t live long and it’s gone, and I apparently have told people this story many times.  They keep letting me tell it even when they’ve heard it.
4. What’s something you always order at a certain restaurant?
   I like to mix it up, but despite better intentions, whenever I eat at Likelike Drive-In, I seem always to get the loco moco unless they have the pot roast special (they serve it on noodles, which is amazing).  At Koa Cafe, I’ve fallen into a rut, almost always ordering the Denver omelette although I usually go in there telling myself to order something else.  Oh, you know what?  I pretty much always get the Waikiki Burger at Teddy’s.  It’s a teri burger with a hashbrown on the patty.
5. In what way do you hope this weekend will be exactly like last?
   I hope to get some good sleep.  This past week was night after night of miserable sleep.  Friday night was also pretty bad.  Determined to get good sleep tonight and Sunday.  I hate that this is one of my issues.

From here.

1. When were you recently SOL?
   I took Friday off from work because Bruce Cockburn played two shows here for the first time in his 50+ year career.  I had a few errands to run in the morning and took the opportunity to have lunch downtown.  Now that I work in Manoa, I’m almost never downtown on a weekday for lunch anymore and I miss it.  As I passed through this one sandwich spot off Fort Street Mall, I was lured by the digital sign saying the sandwich of the week was a roasted chicken and goat cheese sandwich  with curry mayo.  Sold!  But not really.  It had been last week’s sandwich of the week, and they hadn’t changed the sign yet.  Great.  I ordered instead a half turkey-bacon-avo sandwich on sourdough that would have been decent but it was so messy I had to eat it with a knife and fork.
2. What was a recent SNAFU?
   Friday I discovered that I didn’t have seven tickets for the Saturday show; I had eight.  Woo.  Sent a few texts to friends who’d probably be interested, but they had family plans.  When I invited the third person on my list, she seemed interested but then I didn’t hear back from her all day Friday, despite my text every few hours.  Ugh.  Now I had this extra ticket, an invitation just hanging out there, and time running out to find a new plan if this person declined.  When I finally heard back Saturday afternoon, my friend said she was bringing her dad.  It was kind of messed up but I refused to worry about it, and it mostly worked out fine.
3. From what social gathering were you most recently AWOL?
   I planned to get lunch on a work day with a couple of former coworkers at the engineering firm.  But I was working against a deadline so I had to bail.  The friends decided not to meet anyway once I was out.
4. When has someone reminded you to MYOB?
   I make a huge effort to stay out of other people’s stuff unless it looks like people need help and I might be able to offer it.  When I was in Walmart several months ago to get a micro SD card, the woman in front of me asked the cashier something about USB ports on a wireless keyboard she was holding up.  You should never ask a Walmart cashier a technical question, no matter how easy the question.  I thought I was being helpful when I said the keyboard she had in her hand was wireless and didn’t need a USB, which I now realize was egregious mansplaining, or possibly geeksplaining.  She was an older woman, and I think I assumed she was therefore clueless (I mean, who asks a Walmart cashier a tech questions if she’s not clueless?).  It turns out she was asking for auxiliary USB ports so some things could run off the keyboard.  I apologized but probably not sincerely enough.  She didn’t tell me to MYOB but that’s what she was saying.  It was the message I received anyway.
5. What might get in your way this weekend as you TCB?
   I’m typing this Sunday morning, so there’s not much weekend left, and the important stuff happened Friday and Saturday.  Most of what I have left is the usual Sunday stuff, so missed buses could foul things up, but probably not much else.  I’m a little behind on my Camp NaNo project, but I’m ahead on my side work, so I may have some time this evening to focus on getting those flash fictions drafted.

More about Bruce later.  Still kind of processing.

From here.

1. What are some titles in your to-read stack?
   My stack is huge and keeps getting huger.  Some books I’m really looking forward to are David Mitchell’s Slade House, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe, Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword, and a whole bunch of cozy mysteries I recently took a break from.
2. What are the highlights of this weekend’s to-do list?
   A bit of work for the side gigs, for sure.  Some housecleaning.  A trip to the swap meet for black t-shirts.  Maybe the World Cup final.  I’d like to squeeze in a DVD or two as well.
3. Which current or upcoming movies are you looking forward to?
   Still haven’t seen The Incredibles 2, and there’s this Ben Foster film called Leave No Trace that interests me even though it’s only playing at Kahala, a theater that’s a bit out of the way for me.  Crazy Rich Asians in August.  A modernization of Little Women at the end of September with Lea Thompson as Marmee.
4. What’s something you meant to do this past week that will have to wait until next week?
   Really wanted to make a bunch of cucumber kimchi but with Camp NaNoWriMo taking up almost every evening, it’s been tough to make time.  Plus I’ve really tried to put a high priority on getting enough sleep on work nights.  It’s tough to find time for that.  I also have a boatload of films to write reviews for and some website-related maintenance I’ve putting off.
5. What’s an unfinished project (unrelated to media consumption) you haven’t touched in at least a year?
   Ah shoot.  I started my first cross-stitching project a couple of years ago and it was going really well, but I haven’t had time to finish it up.  It’s sitting in a very visible, prominent space in my living room to remind me that I want to do this.

Camp NaNoWriMo July has consumed me these past couple of weeks and it will continue to do so until the end of the month.  More about this later.

From here.

It’s about trail mix, you see?  ASLIRT.  Trail mix.  Or trails mix I guess.

1. What are your favorite and least favorite nuts?
   I guess pistachios are my favorite, but I want to shout out two non-nuts that are nutty enough for consideration: cashews and pumpkin seeds.  Although I certainly don’t dislike them, I’m beginning not to be thrilled about either walnuts or pecans, exept in a pecan pie.
2. What are your favorite and least favorite berries?
   My favorite are blackberries, with strawberries a close second.  My least favorite are raspberries, which I will eat if they are placed in front of me but will not place them in front of me myself.  You know those berry mixes in the freezer aisle?  I don’t buy those because a third of those mixes is always raspberries.  I’ll be darned if I’m going to pay for them.  I will make my own blueberry-blackberry-strawberry mix myself, thank you.
3. What are your favorite and least favorite tropical fruits?
   It’s a sad thing that I have lived in the tropics pretty much my whole life and do not love tropical fruit.  I guess I’ll go with lychee as a favorite and mango as a least favorite, although there’s a local tradition of pickling green mango, and that’s pretty good eating, I guess because I just love vinegar so much.  In recent years, I’ve taught myself to like banana.  I am now trying to do the same with papaya.
4. What are your favorite and least favorite varieties of M&Ms?
   My favorite are peanut butter, with rice krispies second.  My least are either those berry-flavored ones the mint ones.  I dig mint with chocolate (those Hershey Cookies & Mint bars are amazing), but the mint in the M&Ms is disgusting.  It tastes like brushing your teeth and eating chocolate at the same time.
5. What are your favorite and least favorite raisin-containing foods?
   My favorite are cinnamon raisin bagels.  My least favorite might be bread pudding.  I eat them when they’re in there, but I can’t help feeling like they’re degrading a perfectly good bread pudding.  You know, it’s also true of rice pudding with raisins.  Let’s just keep raisins out of any pudding.

From here.

I rolled the letter G.  I like it.  Surely not a gimme, but not crazy difficult either.  I always find G words intriguing.  For example, what do you think is the largest American city whose name begins with G?  Galveston?  Grand Rapids?   Can you even think of other cities beginning with G?  I just looked it up, and it’s Greensboro, North Carolina, whose 2010 Census data says it has 269,666 residents, good enough for 68th largest in the country.   Next is Glendale, Arizona, with 226,721, the 87th largest.  Gilbert, Arizona (91st), Garland, Texas (95th), and Glendale, California (112th), all come in ahead of Grand Rapids, Michigan at 119.  Galveston doesn’t make it into the top 311.  Sheldon Cooper was a big fish in a small pond, I guess.

1. 1. What’s a movie you love whose title begins with the letter?
      Librarians say The Greatest Showman begins with G, but maybe that’s cheating.  I mean the title isn’t Greatest Showman.   Movies I’ve seen that legitimately begin with G include Galaxy Quest, Garden State, Gates of Heaven, Gattaca, Get Him to the Greek, Get Low, Get Smart, Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal, Get on the Bus, Ghost, Ghost World, Ghostbusters, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Global Metal, Glory, Gnomeo & Juliet, God Said Ha!, Gods and Monsters, Goin’ Coconuts, Going Ape!, Gone, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Good Hair, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, Goodfellas, Gosford Park, Grand Canyon, Grease, Gremlins, Gross Anatomy, Groundhog Day, Gulliver’s Travels, Gung Ho, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Gangster Squad, Garden of Words, Gimme the Loot, Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, and Gravity.  There are some great movies in that list, but my favorite is easily Groundhog Day.  Top 20 movie of all time for me.
   2. What’s a popular tourist destination whose name begins with the letter?
      The Grand Canyon certainly qualifies, but the Texas Rangers (Texas again?) play in Globe Life Park in Arlington (the “in Arlington” is part of its name), the Cincinnati Reds play in Great American Ball Park, and the Chicago White Sox play in Guaranteed Rate Field.  I would rather visit each of those ballparks a few times each before the Grand Canyon .
   3. What’s something you do, whose name begins with the letter, when you’re very happy?
      I’m neither much of a gloater nor gamboler, so how about just grinning?
   4. What’s a frightening animal whose name begins with the letter?
      Are you supposed to be afraid of gila monsters?  No?  Okay then:  Great.  White.  Shark.
   5. Who’s a person you admire whose name begins with the letter?
      My first answer is Geddy Lee of Rush, but I talk about Rush all the time, so let’s take a moment to appreciate George Thorogood.  George is sort of Geddy’s opposite.  Where just about everything about Rush is precise, considered, exact, almost strangely (and beautifully) mechanical, George’s playing style is loose and messy, dirty and nasty.  It almost seems like he just puts his chording hand wherever it lands on the fretboard, and he does something with whatever sound happens to come out.  Someday I’ll take formal lessons, and I envision myself telling my instructor to teach me how to play like George Thorogood.  This live video of my favorite Thorogood song is super cool because it includes Elvin Bishop.  “One drink ain’t enough, Jack; you better bring three.”

Friday 5 from here.

1. What kind of specialized equipment do you own for a specific non-electronic hobby or job?
   Okay, here’s one I may not have written about.  I used to make wine.  Fruit wine, as opposed to grape wine.  I still consider it a hobby despite having put it on hold for the past ten years or so.  Still read up on it, still window-shop the winemaking vendor websites, still make plans for the next batch I plan to make.  The hobby of winemaking suits my personality very well: it requires some intense attention but not every day.  It requires a lot of patience.  And it helps if the winemaker is a bit adventurous.  So I have a bunch of winemaking stuff: carboys, bungs, airlocks, hydrometers, funnels, and tubing aren’t exclusive to winemaking, but I have a corker, a device that squeezes corks so you can insert them into the necks of bottles.  Also corks, yeast (Montrachet and Champagne) and other chemicals to keep things either sterile or alive.
2. In what way can this equipment be upgraded or souped-up, and how difficult or expensive would the update be?
   There’s definitely high-end winemaking stuff but it’s not a lot better than mid-level stuff, so I don’t feel the need to upgrade.  I did get one of the better corkers; it’s a device I’m rather fond of.  My next toy, whenever I get around to making my next batch, will be an air gun.  I’m not sure if that’s what it’s called, but it’s like a blow-dryer amped up, the sort you might use if you were shaping plastics.  You  know the foil that wraps around the mouth and upper neck of the wine bottle?  The air gun shrink-wraps the foil there so nothing messes with the corkWhen critters are aware of something good behind the cork, they will nibble at it until they finally get through.  Please don’t ask me how I know.
3. In your fields of interest, what’s the gear envy like?
   You know, I don’t know any other winemakers, so I wouldn’t know.  I look through the catalogs and there’s stuff I want, but I don’t necessarily envy people who have it, perhaps because I don’t know anyone who has it.  If I hung out at the local winemaking supply store more, I would probably have a better answer.  As you can tell from my verbosity, winemakers love talking about winemaking.  I seldom go into the supply store anymore, but whenever I do, I take my purchases to the register and I can count on the cashier to ask me what he or she asks everyone: “What are you making?”  It’s mostly a homebrew store, actually, and I guess homebrew people are about the same kind of person as the winemakers.
4. What’s something you own the old version of because it’s better than the new version?
   If you’d asked me this question two weeks ago, I’d have said my iPhone 5s.  I held onto that thing as long as I possibly could because I didn’t like the larger sizes of the newer models.  I no longer think this, and I feel great about moving on.  Oh shoot, I meant for these answers to be non-electronic.  I suppose the easy answer is books, since reading is my favorite thing in the world.  This question is difficult.  Who’s the banana who wrote it?
5. What’s a hobby you don’t engage in that intrigues you mostly because of its equipment or tools?
   You know, fishers seem to have cool stuff.  Oh, and bowlers.

From here.

1. What food, normally eaten cooked, do you prefer uncooked?
   Fresh Kahuku corn.  Or really any corn grown locally.  It’s so crisp and sweet, I don’t get why people feel the need to put it on a grill or boil it in water.  Whenever I go to the north shore, I keep an eye out for vendors selling it out of the backs of pickup trucks — it’s aaaaaaalmost as exciting a part of a north shore cruise as a plate of steamed prawns.  Oh, and don’t forget the raw egg on rice, on sukiyaki, or in bibimbap (I have to ask for them not to cook it; Koreans don’t seem to have as nice a relationship with eggs as Japanese people).  Raw egg with shoyu, aji-no-moto, and kim chee is one of my favorite everyday breakfasts, ‘though I’ve mostly given it up because of the rice.
2. What food, normally eaten uncooked, do you prefer cooked?
   I really like wilting mixed salad greens in some olive oil and then mixing them up with mashed potatoes and a little bit of wasabi oil.
3. What food, normally eaten cold, do you prefer hot?
   This reminds me that there are places in this country where people drink hot Dr. Pepper, which at the same time fascinates me and grosses me out.  Exactly the right combination for a late-night experiment someday.  I’m going to cheat a little and say either tomato juice or vegetable juice.  I use it as an ingredient in my slow-cooker stew, and although it’s perfectly fine cold, I do prefer it after a few hours soaking up the flavors of beef, thickened slightly with some tapioca starch.
4. What food, normally eaten hot, do you prefer cold?
   Okay, I have two great answers for this, and if they gross you out I would just implore you try them.  First, macaroni and cheese.  I’m totally serious.  Cook it however you normally cook it, then set it aside until it cools to room temp, then put it in the fridge and eat it the next day.  It’s even better with ketchup.  Second, Pizza Pockets.  It’s been years since I’ve had them, but when I taught at a school that had no food service, I had to have some quick options for days when I just didn’t have it in me to make lunch.  Pizza Pockets, baby — specifically the pizza variety of Hot Pockets.  Take ’em out of the freezer in the morning, let ’em sit out all morning, or leave them in the fridge from the night before, and eat them without zapping in the microwave oven.  It’s then basically a crusty cheese sandwich with marinara and pepperoni.  What’s not to love about that?  Thawed but cold is the way to go.  Oh, and I know I’ve written about this before, but canned pork and beans.  Always keep a can in the fridge, then eat right from the can, maybe with a drizzle of ketchup.  Just like Boy Scouts days.
5. What are your favorite dinner meals to have for breakfast and breakfast meals to have for dinner?
   Seriously, any leftovers from dinner the night before are great breakfasts, but I’ll agree with the popular answer and say cold pizza for breakfast.  For dinner, it’s tough to beat corned beef hash, eggs sunny-side up, and rice.  One of God’s perfect foods.

Man, I’m having all kinds of trouble sitting still enough to write anything.  Forcing myself before I dive into the weekend to at least do one of these.  The responses by other participants have been fun to read.

From here.

1. What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into?
   Uuuuuugggggh.  I still haven’t made those appointments I missed a few months ago.  I really, really, really need to.  Next week for sure.  I actually need to get my BP checked, my eyes checked, and probably my left knee checked.  The knee has been bugging me for about three weeks and although it feels better, I still feel it with almost every step.  Also need to ask someone about my thinning hair.  Eep.
2. What was your most recent car trouble?
   I’ve been a bus rider for a few years now, because of my most recent car trouble.  I’ve discussed this before, I’m quite sure.  But I was distracted (I was not texting or speaking on my phone) (okay, but it might have been phone-related) and rear-ended the pickup truck driven by a famous local radio DJ from the 80s.  He and his truck were fine, but my car was totaled.  I made myself not drive for a couple of years as penance.  I mean, I really could have killed someone.  But I’m sloooooooowly getting caught up on a few things and am ready for some wheels.  Hopefully before winter rolls around.
3. What’s a rhyming phrase (such as “work jerk” or “poo shoe”) to describe something causing you problems lately?
   How about creepy sleepy?  It’s terrible, I know.  But this is what sleep deprivation does to me.  I had a very encouraging week of sleep last week, but this past week has been freaking miserable.  Last night was about as bad as it’s been.
4. What’s something that needs loosening or unsticking?
   I have those windows that have weights hanging within the window frames, to make opening and closing them easy, like with a garage door.  One of these windows is sticking, only when I try to shut it.  There’s a weird resistance.  I sometimes have to slam it down, which scares me because it’s a very old house and it would devastate me to slam that window shut and have it shatter.
5. What’s your favorite board game involving rolling dice?
   I have to go with Risk, a game I love but never ever get to play.  I really love Risk, and some of my best game-playing memories are centered on that game.  I once bought my friend Ross a very old Risk set.  Not the first edition, but pretty close.  Picked it up on eBay.  The old-looking world map and wooden pieces.  Box totally intact.  It was sweet.  I don’t think we ever played with it.

I’ll do more of these later this weekend, I think.  Just to get caught up or something.