Adapt or Die | American Journalism Review

Adapt or Die
 | American Journalism Review

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Viva, British Cult Comedy!

Man, I'm addicted to Green Wing. Characters and characterization were awesome. To be honest, I didn't like this comedy when I started watching Season 2 because of course I didn't understand the story. So, after watching several episodes, I gave it up. But, guess what? I have things to do (e.g. preparation for class, revision of my papers, so on and so forth). Then, I easily escape from reality to something else. This time, I was addicted Green Wing. A-ha, logical, isn't it?

Anyway, I started watching Green Wing from Season 1. For one reason, I was missing pub culture in the U.K. that is frequently depicted in Green Wing. I'm going to the U.K. this summer, yea!

Anyway, Season 1 helped me understood the whole plot, of course. Then, I kept watching it until the last episode. It, especially the ending, was really good. It was different from ordinary happy ending drama (or comedy), yeah, it is kind of happy ending, but not quite. Oh, I love this kind of quirky (or sophisticated) sense of humor of British people.

Yes, I'm coming to the U.K.!

Home Made Clam Chowder

Ho-ho, this tastes very good, and furthermore, it is easy to make. I blindly believed that clam chowder is difficult to cook, but YS gave me this easy recipe.

2 tbsps. butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 celery stalks
3 tbsps. all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 (10-ounce) cans chopped clams in juice (*1 can is good enough)
1 cup heavy cream (*half-and-half cream is thick enough)
2 bay leaves
1 pound potatoes
salt and pepper

Basically what to do is saute the diced onion and chopped celery stalks, and add the rest of ingredients. That's it. Easy, huh? And tasty.

Don't Masturbate in Train!

I was nervous on BART to the Oakland airport because I was kind of late. If I had caught a train before mine, I was safe. But I missed it by seconds. Sundays have fewer train services. So, I had to wait for 20 minutes for the next train to come. When it was 10:30 when I finally got on the train. And, the train stopped at the second station from the nearest station to the airport. Mind you, you have to take the bus from that nearest BART station.

The doors did not open though the train stopped. The anounce repeatedly apologized the delay. Finally, the door opened, the only door next to me and the other doors were still closed. Then, a police officer came in by asking, "We've got a report that someone is touching himself. Have you seen someone masturbating?" Come on! Don't masturbate in train! I'm in a hurry, pervert!

We stayed at that station for, say, 20 minutes, waiting the police looking around the pervert. And, I assume they didn't find him, or the report might be bogus.

When I got on the Air BART (the bus to the airport), it was 11:15 by which I was supposed to check in. Finally, I arrived in the airport around 11:30. I rushed to the check-in counter of Alaska Airlines. Thank Budha, there's no line at the Alaska check-in counter. Then, a guy at the counter easily told me, "Oh, you have plenty of time either you're going to Seattle or Portland." "What?! I thought I'm getting late." "No, you are fine. It's 11:40. You have 30 minutes." OK, you don't necessarily have to check in one hour before your flight. That's what I learned today.

Recreating of Last Night Food

Mm, I think I'm still missing something. We had this at Bocadillos last night, and we thought it could be better if it had more almonds and raisins. So, I added lots of almonds and raisins, but it is still missing something. More salt, maybe?

San Francisco=Clam Chowder

I don't like shellfish, but I love clam chowder. You know, clams in clam chowder is nothing. They are just for flavor. Anyway, I always have a cup of clam chowder whenever I have to spend downtime in the San Francisco International Airport. This time, I'm in town, so why don't I have real clam chowder!

In Fisherman's Wharf, I asked a guy in an art gallery that we dropped by while we were looking for a clam chowder place. The guy recommended us to go to Blue Mermaid, a block down from the gallery. He was right. Clam chowder was very nice there, and the waiting person was also very nice and friendly. I wish I could make this clam chowder at home.

Mystery of Cable Cars

Have you every wondered why cable cars in San Francisco were called "cable car" even though you don't see any cables? I have. But today, this mystery was solved.

We happened to find the Cable Car Museum and know that cable cars run by grabbing the cable underground. Wow! And the photo below is real cables running underground, which you can see in the museum. Wow!

Tapas

We decided to dine and wine close to our hotel because we were so tired from walking around San Francisco today. So, tonight's place was Bocadillos, the tapas place! Oh, I miss Spain.

I had checked out this place online before I came to San Francisco. And this place turned out very nice. It had a kind of atmosphere of Tokyo night out places. Kind of sophisticated, urban, and bustling. Yeah, the only problem of this place was noise. If it were an open space, there would be no problem because noise escapes, but it is a closed place and noise stays. People end up almost shouting. I don't like shouting while eating and drinking though I love shouting in class, hee hee hee.

Food was pretty good. Fried artichokes were awesome!

Carry-On for My PC

I jumped from the stage of Kiyomizu Temple. Well, it's an exaggeration, but I did big shopping. Oh, well, again, it's an exaggeration. Anyway, I bought a carry-on suitcase for my trip to Oakland next weekend. I though I could travel with my backpack, but it turned out that I was wrong. I will present a paper at a conference, and I thought I would simply take my PowerPoint in a flash drive. Just in case, I asked the coordinator if the conference arranges a PC (or Mac) and a projector for presenters. And she said yes to a projector, but no to a PC (or Mac). Damn, then, I have to take my heavy-weight computer with me! So, I gave up my lovely backpack, and instead bought a carry-on suitcase that has a computer compartment.


I wanted this kind of carry-on for long, and it cost me only $60 so I should understand that I got a good buy. But, it hurt the wallet of a poor student :(

Flop

Um ... I may not be good at making American sweet stuff. LF fed me a very nice piece of chocolate bread pudding last week, and I wanted to recreate that (with less sugar and chocolate, though). I collected a recipe from the Internet and made it. And, it did not taste like LF's chocolate bread pudding. The definite reason why is that I didn't use the amount of sugar and the type of chocolate as the recipe reads. In fact, I used 85% cocoa chocolate, which I now understand is too dark for sweet :P Well, I may need whip cream or something to eat this.