Bihun Ayam Bakso for dinner

I had Bihun Ayam Bakso (Indonesian chicken noodle soup) with fried wontons for dinner last nite. Or maybe this is called Bihun Pangsit, someone correct me. If you've been following my blog, my jaw has been sore for a few days so I thought it safe to only eat soft stuff like noodles and soup. But why the hell did I get fried crunchy wontons added on it? Anyways it was good. This is like my third time trying Indonesian food. I read an article about Indonesian soups and did a search and found a restaurant literally walking distance from my house (Bay Leaf in Sunnyvale). They are a Thai restaurant I guess but have an small Indonesian section of the menu. Indonesian food is supposed to be really hot and spicy but they make the soup normal even though I ask for medium but they usually give a small container of fresh chopped chili seeds. Even touching the container numbs my fingers. The soup broth is rich, pure umami tasting like seaweed and fish possibly. Enjoy the pic - it makes me hungry. Maybe more details later.

My Jaw Hurts! Ouch!

Just another problem that brings itself forth every once in a while. Been about 3 days in to it. I have to blog about it cuz it's been on my mind. I mean I can't tell anything is wrong with my jaw, I even forget it's been bothering me, but the second I bite on something with my back teeth - it's YEEEE-OOOOOW!

So instead of taking it easy, I've been approaching my main meals of the day with the thought as these may be my last meals before a permanent liquid diet. So on my first day of my pain, I had WINGSTOP chicken wings. They just opened a shop in my city and I can't resist 'em. I didn't even like chicken wings til I had theirs. But anyways I got the boneless chicken thinking it'd be easier to eat for me. But they fried it good in hella crunchy batter. YEE-OUCHIES! But it didn't matter, the hot fries burnt my tongue so I didn't taste anything. And that was the thing that bugged me more.

Second day of jaw pain - it was getting worse. I had to run an errand to the post office so no time to find a good (soft foody) place to eat so I went to McDonalds. I guessed the food would be pretty soft (I got a Big Mac). Negative! - it was pretty painful. I had to eat slow, basically swallowing chunks and choked my way through the meal. BTW, I saw a homeless dude use the soda refill machine there but homeboy brought his own cup. Haha. Uh, I think that's stealing, dude.

Well today is the third day of my jaw pain. I can tell it was hella worse. I contemplated calling the doc for some steroidals but upon further web research of the many side effects, including liver failure, brain failure, etc - I thought I'd toughen it out a bit longer. So at lunch in the cafeteria, I was gonna get the soup of the day: "clam chowder" and hell, go for it - half turkey sandwich (dippin' in the soup would soften it up, yeah?). Well it was painful but I struggled through. It was hard as hell chewing them clams.... like lil bits of rubber.

Oh well, guess it's milkshake for dinner again.

G.I. Joe Character Posters

HELL YEAH! Got the sneak peek here of the new G.I. Joe posters. Snatched this from MySpace. "Fake Muscle body armor costume" Fans UNITE!

FACEBOOK, you Crazy!

I was gonna make a FACEBOOK fan page for "FANS" of "fans". Hey, why not? But searching Facebook to see if there already is one is impossible. Because searching the word "fan" gives at least 500 groups in the responses. Anyways I found this crazy group above (let me say, I have nothing to do with them, I love cats, ahem) and have conceded that for any wacky group you can think of, it probably already exists on Facebook.

Just Ask Gemalto

I just found this site Just Ask Gemalto through a Yahoo ad. I was curious on what it was. The animated ad looked cheap with crappy graphics but Gemalto is a security company and the site offers answers, advice, news and resources on digital stuff. Offers good, straight advice (from what I can tell) on topics like email fraud, safe wi-fi, preventing malware and safe ways to buy stuff online, etc. Since the world is becoming more online and digital I guess the goal is to keep people educated and safe.

Barack Obama Action Figure

Neo-Cons, watch out for the bushido blades. He's Barack with a Vengeance (sorry, couldn't resist).

Stolen from Steven Heller's design blog.

Odwalla Chocolate Protein Monster - YUM!

Just had this Odwalla Chocolate Protein Monster from the work cafeteria. Never seen it there before, maybe it's new? About $4 bucks! I'd rather have the Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo'd Smoothie (even with Peanut Butter - I ain't skerrred) but this was easier to get. The drink was nice & cold and good - not too sweet. Tasted like soy then kinda like milk. I think it has both in it. I usually pace myself with the drinks but I seemed to gulp this one down quick. Lot of chocolate mess left at the bottom of the bottle. Note to self: shake more before opening.

Filipina in the White House

Yes, its true. Cristeta Comerford is the White House's Executive Chef. The first woman to be selected for the post, and also the first of Filipino descent. She was appointed to the position by Laura Bush in 2005 and asked to continue by First Lady Michelle Obama for 2009. Michelle Obama stated, "Also the mom of a young daughter, I appreciate our shared perspective on the importance of healthy eating and healthy families."

Jamba Juice now makes Oatmeal!

Jamba Juice now has Oatmeal, steel cut, that is. Jamba is coming after you Starbucks! I had the Jamba oatmeal for breakfast. Not like your mama's Quaker instant where the oats are hulled, cooked, dried then packaged. But Jamba's slow cooked steel cut oats means pretty much it is the straight up whole grain just cut up and slow cooked. More fiber, all the nutrition and MMMM.... like gourmet. I got the apple topping which was more tart than what I expected but was balanced by the brown sugar. Also available in fresh banana and blueberry/blackberry. I should note that while regular oatmeal is soft and runny, steel cut has a little bite due to its whole graininess - don't let that stop you. I hope to try another flavor soon. Maybe the blueberry. Oh, and it comes with the oatmeal mini-shovel too.

Obama Tees! STOP Making THEM!!!

C'mon people. This is getting ridiculous.

And people keep asking me to make an Obama shirt. Is there really a reason? I'm afraid the ideas have been exhausted.

Some of 'em are pretty funny tho.

Asian women looking at my body - Acupuncture School

Luckily I live near a School for Acupuncture so I can get discounted treatment by interns. Well not to go into great detail, but lately I've been collecting medical problems like a nerd collects comics (no offense nerds). I got aches, pains, dry skin, loose teeth, etc. And I've had good results in Acupuncture (if you read my undercover exposé in my old ArtChemist blog). So now I'm gonna chronicle again my exploits in Eastern Medicine. Well mostly because I have nothing else to write about today.

I'll try to be brief and give y'all the gist cuz I can write a book on the subject. Well for the last 2 days or so I've had achy shoulder and chest bones and I really needed a massage so I decided to go to the Acupuncture School. Well they wanted to examine me first. So the intern doctor leads me into the office and asks a lot of questions about me. Eastern Medicine is all about observation. She looks at my tongue, takes my pulse and blood pressure. She feels my Chi energy is low and wants to balance my ying/yang by stimulating my system through needles. The intern consults with the main doc before proceeding. It's kinda funny because here we have 2 Asian women looking at my body, touching and talking about it, for a while too... in Chinese so I can't understand. Well I think it's kinda funny.

I lie on the examination table, then the intern doc does 10 needles in the right arm/hand and 2 in the left hand, 5 in each leg. I don't even take off my clothes, just roll up my sleeves and pant legs. The needle is applied by kinda being flicked into the skin. The tough part though is she needs to stimulate the needles by turning them while they are in me. I haven't had this done to me to this extent before. But man, it feels like she is pushing the needle in and out of me and the pain shoots through my arm, hands and fingers like electricity. It is hard to relax and I wince my face and say "ow" a lot. Plus I have to hold my right arm kinda in the air cuz there are needles all around my hand and arm. The session took a long time. I was there for like 2 hours total. Anyways, I did feel a lil better when I left and exhausted which is common prolly cuz my stress over the needles.

I was prescribed some Angelica Tea Extract pills to improve the circulation of my body. They look exactly like Boba tea balls but are hard like rocks. It was like swallowing big seeds. And I have to take 9 of them twice a day. GULP!

Black Dynamite movie & David Choe t-shirts

I don't know much about this movie called Black Dynamite but upon checking the site, it appears to be a parody of the 70s Blaxploitation movies but done in 2009. Check the trailers, they are hilarious and got some crazy one-liner catch phrases and over-the-top action. This film is even going to be playing at the Sundance Festival. Among the stars include Michael Jai White, Arsenio Hall, Tommy Davidson, Brian McKnight & Nicole Sullivan.

Checking the website's store, I was surprised to see that superstar illustrator, David Choe, designed 2 different t-shirt designs. I don't buy t-shirts since I make them myself but I may have to break down and buy the limited edition one.

Happy Inauguration Barry!

Check out this tee from Fitted Hawaii. (I stole this from my friend's blog - thanks, Jesse). Not sure if it is from a real photo, but if not - a well done job. Haha. I'm proud to say my ArtChemist tees are printed by the same screen printers as Fitted Hawaii. Plug for me. Congrats again Barry a.k.a. Mr. President!

Paul Frank is a Monster from the Future

Paul Frank a.k.a. Paul Frank Industries is a clothing line most known for their Julius Monkey cartoon character. But I was just checking his website and noticed some cool shirt designs not following his usual cutesy cartoon designs. The tees above are the ones that caught my attention most. I like em all. The baby bjorn tee is fun - a conversation starter for sure. The burger with legs design was said to be inspired by a dream. That's my dream too. Not your thing, maybe you like Rambo jammin' on guitar and the cat with gold fang grills? I appreciate clever & funny, out-of-the-box designs. And apparently they like using the same model dude.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Let's celebrate the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. He helped millions of people in the fight for racial equality and promoted diversity. Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience,” Reverend King adopted his non-violent civil rights campaign of peace and tolerance. Celebrate today by learning more about Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

But please do not celebrate with one of Marc Ecko's sales. Sheesh!

Obama's Asian Sister

No, not Sista. Actually, Barack (I know him as Barry) has an maternal Asian half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. As we know Barack's mother remarried to a Indonesian man in 1966 and thus had a sister who Barack grew up with in Hawaii. Not sure why the Asian sister fact has not gotten a lot of press but Maya has an interview in Issue #57 of the latest Giant Robot magazine (Pop Culture with an Asian flavor) with the Barack cover (portrait done by my brah, David Choe). Anyways she is a high school teacher in Hawaii and comments on life with Obama. I never knew she existed. Support Brown Power! Check it out!

Disney Channel + Extremeness = XD Channel

Disney is rockin the billions with the girl audience thanks to High School Musical and Hannah Montana. They just want that boy money now. So they are revamping the Toon Disney Channel to the Disney XD Channel, I guess it means "Xtreme Disney". The pic above is from ROBODZ which will be one of the shows. Disney partnered with Toei Animation Studios so it should be good. Coming Feb 13th. Flood of merchandising to follow. Yay, ROBOTS & CARTOONS!

Common's Action Figure from the new Terminator movie

I guess G.O.O.D. Music Rapper COMMON is in the upcoming Terminator 4 Salvation movie. These are some action figures from the movie. As you can tell he is on the far right. Hope it is an awesome movie. haha.

Let's not forget the Black Eyed Pea's Will.I.Am will play John Wraith in X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. Who will be the better Rapper/Actor? Hope he got an action figure too!

Map of Vietnamese Sandwich Shops in SF Bay Area

Some gentleman has started making a Google map of all the Bahn Mi Vietnamese sandwich shops in the SF Bay Area.

Bánh mì (the real name for Vietnamese sandwich) is a sandwich in a baguette type bread and made up of thinly sliced pickled carrots and daikon, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapeño peppers and meat or tofu. Popular bánh mì fillings include roasted or grilled pork, Vietnamese ham, paté, mayonnaise, chicken, and head cheese. Definition roughly taken from Wikipedia.

Kudos fellow sandwich lover. I didn't know you could make your own custom maps in Google. I want to do my own too! Maybe I should do a map of Donut shops I've been to. Now I want a Vietnamese sandwich!... but not the head cheese one.

What is Laffy Taffy?

I love Yahoo Answers. It's where you can ask a dumb or real question to Yahoo users but almost always get a smart-ass answer from someone. Never gets too boring.

Shepard Fairy designs for Saks Fifth Avenue

Shepard Fairy of Obey Giant/Hope Obama fame is doing design work for Saks Fifth Avenue and bringing Russian Constructivism to retail. I kinda like it.

WTF! Marc Ecko

I want to like Marc Ecko but I think he's just burying himself with shatty upon shatty, "jumping on the bandwagon" designs that aren't what his company was founded on. Soon, I'll hafta burn all my old Ecko clothes. During the holidays he had a "buy one get one" special every other day. Seems kinda desperate - not a good look, Marc.