so back when i lived in huntington beach i worked at good guys for a discount. i worked with this guy who i never got along with, in fact its probably safe to say we hated each other. though he was never really anyone important. years later turns out he’s the boyfriend of a friend, etc etc, small world. though i didn’t have a reason to hate him, i suggested she bring him around. i figured we’d probably just get along.

i guess we got along, we were never friends, but we were acquaintances. and then…

[23:23] COBRA: HA. deviantart has some tight shit. dude i might jack some of these fools shit and put them on shirts
[23:23] imaje: heh thats lame
[23:24] COBRA: whats lame
[23:24] imaje: jacking ppls art and profiting form it without their knowledge
[23:24] COBRA: pff. everyone can blow me
[23:25] imaje: well when you get jacked maybe you’ll learn to empathize
[23:25] COBRA: i’ve already been jacked
[23:25] COBRA: heavily
[23:25] imaje: well maybe when you grow up you’ll learn to empathize
[23:25] COBRA: and i still dont give a shit. probalby because 2% of all things are original, everythign anything is a copy
[23:26] COBRA: oh i see you’re still a cunt

well, at least i figured out i wasn’t wrong about him 5 years ago.

-j

porterhouse – por-ter-house n. 1. A cut of beef taken from the thick end of the short loin, having a T-bone and a sizable piece of tenderloin. Also called porterhouse steak. 2. Archaic. An alehouse or chophouse.

don’t let the website fool you, its actually an extremely nice restaurant. back in july for joel’s birthday, nina (chad’s gf) recommended Porterhouse Bistro for us to dine at to celebrate. both joel and i were completely blown away at the quality of their food. it is by far the best steak i have ever eaten in any restaurant. We had the distinct pleasure of taking joel’s father here for his birthday over the weekend. I think we have a new convert! he loved the food, and i must say, the second time around didn’t disappoint, it was as delicious as i had remembered it.

the porterhouse steak is two steaks in one. the larger half is a new york steak and the smaller half is a fillet mignon. no frills, they serve their steaks american style, some salt, pepper, and their secret juice! the first time we went, they had poured this “secret juice” over the steak as they were serving us. it was a clearish type of liquid. though i do know it is infused with garlic and shallots, it couldn’t have been oil because it was so light there was nothing oily about the steak. i keep forgetting to ask, i will have to call and figure out what they’re using!

their side dishes are equally delicious. creamed corn, steamed Brock, sauteed spinach, porterhouse fries, grilled onions, so far everything we’ve tasted was prepared incredibly well. nothing was over or undercooked and the serving portions were perfect.

their deserts are amazing as well. their chocolate lava cake is rich but not so rich that its hard to finish the whole thing. their banana on cinamon tart and creme brule were also very good. im not doing very well here on the describing the food because the only words that come to mind when i think about the dining experience is “mmmm yummmyyyyyy”.

their menu is pretty simple. we tend to go with their *THE FAMOUS PRIX FIXE MENU*.

$32.50 per person Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday
$37.50 per person Friday, Saturday, Sunday & Special Holidays

Beverages – Includes two of the following (any combination): any house brand cocktail, any house brand glass of wine, soft drink, coffee, tea, milk or juice (excluding espresso, cappuccino, latte/au laits, and/or bottled waters). Remember to choose two! Call & Premium brands add an extra $5 per drink.

Starter – (No choice) Warm La Brea Bakery baguette served with a medley of accompaniments, including our house tapenade, tomato bruschetta, a whole roasted garlic flower, and butter (a Mediterranean classic!)

Appetizer, Soup & Salad – (Choose one) New! Smoked Salmon Quesadilla’s, Onion Soup, Porterhouse Salad, Caesar Salad, Lettuce Wedge, Spinach Salad or New! Romaine & Endive Salad.

Entree – (1 person choose from entrees below)

Rib Eye Steak 12 ounces Included: One side dish
(Cajun spices optional on the Rib Eye Steak, please let your server know)
Grilled Swordfish Entree
Rack of Lamb Entree
Pan Seared Whitefish Entree
Grilled Chicken Entree
Southern Fried Chicken Entree
New! Lobster & Vegetable Pastina Entree
Vegetarian Plate of the Day
Please note all “entrees” already come with sides-see Entrees on page 1 & 2 for details

(2 persons choose from entree below)
Porterhouse Steakk for 2 26-ounces Included: One side dish per person
Because sharing makes everything taste better!
(Pssst! It’s pre-sliced after cooking to prevent squabbles)

Desserts – (Choose one) Chocolate Tart, New! Banana & Cinnamon Tart, Crispy Apple Tart, Pecan Tart, Creme Brule, Mango & Lemon Sorbet or Chocolate Lava Cake.

Side Choices: Porterhouse Fries, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Creamed Corn, Sauteed Spinach, Steamed Broccoli, or New! Grilled Onions

$10 sharing charge, if you share 1 prix fixe menu for 2 or more persons

Prix Fixe Menu – Porterhouse, Steak & Lamb Upgrades-Add to the prix fixe price

We dare you to try a 40 ounce on your own or to share with a friend! You can upgrade any steak size 20-ounce T-Bone for 1 = add $8, 26-ounce Porterhouse for 1 = add $26, 40-ounce Porterhouse for 1 = add $54, or 40-ounce Porterhouse for 2 = add $28, or 14 ounce New York Steak (bone in) for 1 = add $5, 8-ounce Fillet Mignon (bone in) for 1 = add $5 or Double Rack of Lamb = add $12 – Ask your server for additional details.

I cant wait to go again!

okay so not really, but it does make my life so much easier when i move from place to place. previously in my blog i introduced all of you to a small utility i recently purchased, mobile net switch. it has proved to be quiet useful and im extremely happy with the product this far.

while in the office i can easily log into the domain, auto map the necessary drives i want access to while here, auto change my smtp server, make any necessary host file changes, run any scripts i really want to, change almost every single internet setting..

i never realized just how useful this utility was until i actually started using it. it has definitely made my mobile computing life so much easier than i had ever expected.

now when i go to joels, work, or home; with a single click all the appropriate network settings are modified and everything works smoothly.

so i was using nightly builds before 1.5 was released. unfortunately the upgrade has been far from seamless. ive had to completely rework my template into the new system and none of the “update your templates” guidelines were helpful because my setup was a hybrid of the old and new. so ive had to pretty much manually go in and move things around.

my sidebar got jacked up so i had to rework it. hopefully it looks okay across the board. i was completely redoing the css for it, but im getting lazy and tired and about to revert back to the old one and just “quick” fix it till i completely redo it when im not tired.

yah that sounds like a good idea.. hehe

at about 8am i hear faint knocking. i head downstairs and open the door. all that awaits me is a UPS notice, failed first delivery, upon it a note scribbled

“delivering large box approximately 130 lbs, will try again at 2:00, leave this signed if you are not going to be able to accept delivery”.

oh goodie my west elm bookcase is here! so at around 1:00pm i go downstairs and await the UPS man. 3:00pm rolls around and i finally hear a knock. I run to the door and open it and he hands me the UPS signing thing-a-majiggy. I sign it and he points to the box at the bottom of the staircase.

UPS-guy: Is there a man around?
me: a man? no, just me
UPS-guy: Okay well that box is about 130-140 lbs. Its very heavy to carry.
me: okay well I can help you
UPS-guy: there’s no guy around at all?
me: no.. we don’t need a man I can help you just fine

So we head down to the bottom of the stairs and there is my bookcase, in all its glory.. packed away piece by piece in a box. He proceeds to look at me then up the stairs. He moves his dolly and says

UPS-guy: I don’t think you can help me with this, it is really heavy.
me: i have carried heavier things up these stairs we will be fine.

he attempts to LIFT it on his own and just decides he cant and wont do it.

UPS-guy: man forget this. its too big and you wont be able to help me. I am NOT gonna carry this up the stairs. no way. i suggest you wait for some guys to move this or open it down here and move it up piece by piece.

then he leaves. fuck you weak ass bitch UPS man. at which point I’m left to either leave it out or to open it up and carry it up. after some time i finally move it all piece by piece up 2 flights of stairs into my room. as i begin to assemble the bookcase, i look at the hardware provided and start matching it to the instruction manual.

Oh yippee. More than 1/2 of the entire hardware set is completely missing. the provided wrenches are gone, half the screws are gone, almost all of the washers and all other components are just gone.

I immediately call west elm and explain the situation.

WestElm-girl: okay i have to write a letter to my manager who then writes the warehouse and only when the warehouse receives the letter from the regional manager will they okay the hardware and ship it out to you. this will take 2-3 weeks.
me: I have to wait 2-3 weeks? I paid a surcharge for this item and it didn’t arrive complete and i have to wait 2-3 EXTRA weeks?
WestElm-girl: Yah i know.. it seems long. So, is this okay?
me: well i don’t really have a choice do i?

so here i am, after all the money i paid and the ridiculous surcharges, i have to wait another 2-3 weeks to even put the fucking thing together. I am writing a very unhappy letter to west elm and to UPS. I was so excited to get the bookcase too and put it together, my room has needed it for some time. boo.

i love my crt. i have a sony 21″ atm and its a wonderful monitor. however, after we had moved from marina del rey, i think the movers “dropped” my monitor or something. i never had problems till our new place. the colors aren’t as vibrant, and the clarity has dulled. the monitor itself is still a great monitor but it wasn’t what it once was.

admittedly, anytime i look at colors or movies or even video games, i realize how many colors and depths i lose on an LCD. but alas. sony no longer produces 21″ aside form their very high end one that costs $1500.00. Ive looked at other CRT’s but none have matched the image quality that I had with my Sony. Ive looked on ebay for used monitors and they only seem to be selling the lower end models and or refurbs.

Yesterday, Bryan showed me a really great deal. Dell was running a special and i had a coupon code for an additional $75.00 off. After talking to a few friends and doing my own reading, i decided to take the plunge and get the Dell UltraSharp 2001FP 20.1-inch FPLCD.

This monitor has been available since 2003. And to this day it is still considered one of the best lcd monitors in its class. Though with time, it suffers only in the contrast ratio and brightness area vs new models. Though none of those models match in native resolution or price. It’s listed price is $749.00. They usually have daily sales, but yesterday i got it for $534.91

I’m pretty excited. It has been a long time since i bought myself a new “toy”. Ive been looking at the ones in the office and at Bryan’s and I think I’m going to be pretty happy with the purchase.

perhaps its age, but breakfast was never really a part of my everyday life. i would never eat in the mornings, in fact it usually made me feel a little ill. food itself never really affected my general state of mood. i could go hours and days without eating and not become easily agitated. i saw this in my sister. if she was hungry and didn’t get to eat, she was a woman scorned!

lately i see this in myself. if I’m not eating i get agitated, moody, and incredibly irritable. all the little things bother me. its as if Ive magically grown a chip on my shoulder, then i eat, and all is well. I feel normal, balanced, and happy.

here at CBA they provide both breakfast and lunch. the lunches are the bomb because they pick up menus from favorite places close and not so close and everyday fax and have food delivered. its a sweet deal. they also provide breakfast, though the breakfasts usually are donuts, turnovers, danishes, bagels, things of that nature. these breakfasts are usually too sweet for me or im just not craving a sugar high.

Last night amidst my grocery shopping i came across “instant breakfast” foods. I’ve seen these in the past and overlooked them, but this time they called out my name! I dont know about you, but Ive always been a fan of fast food breakfast. horrible right? i know, I’m going to die from some unforeseen fat failure attack of the something or another digestive or functional organ. regardless, i like them. I’m currently trying their croissant sausage egg & cheese breakfast sammich. They are really tasty, and IMO, taste better than the fast food versions, they are also much less greasy.

while i would love to eat a bowl of cereal, i just cant do that on my way to work, though i can eat it at work, i can mix it up this way. for those of you who get your morning eat on in the car or at your desk, and if you are a fan of breakfast sammiches, check um out!

most of you laptop owners have probably experienced having to reset your laptops network settings anytime you change networks. whether it involves setting it to DHCP, or static IP, regardless you spend time doing so. Ultimately for me, i have to change between dhcp and static ip from work and home. I had to do this a lot at my old job, but this was easily solved by only using wireless at work then plugging in at home.

I have wanted a utility for some time now that will manage this for me. I didn’t want a batch file, and i didn’t want some bastardized fix. I wanted something modern and something effective. I like cool software that works. I’m over the console based home brew shit, unless of course its chad or joels home brew.. then its usually something really nice and well done.

I went looking around for a solution and enlisted chad’s expertise. Thanks chad! I actually purchased a product and it is working really well. It is called mobile net switch. It has a very clean and friendly user interface. And I’m a sucker for packaging, but it had the best website and production information and display compared to its competitors.

It has a lot of really useful features and can be quite powerful when utilized. I will probably spend more time messing with it later to see if i got my moneys worth. $32.44 USD.

Last nite i went to plummers furniture store. they have an extremely large selection of furniture and most of it is incredibly nice. The website itself doesn’t do the actual store any justice IMO. I was glad i took the trip and it definitely helped to put the whole furniture search in perspective.

Their bedroom pieces are classic. They were extremely cost effective and very well done, unfortunately the office furniture, while also in great taste, was outrageously priced. There is something specific about office furniture that just seems to go above and beyond the call of my credit card. Comparable bookcases, which didn’t even have the exact style preference i wanted, were about $200.00 more than the west elm bookcases. The entertainment consoles were either far to vast or far too crappy and Ikea-like.

In the end i discovered, that even after the surcharge price gouging, I would end up spending far less and get exactly what i wanted via west elm. go figure.

Here is the bookcase that i ordered. I do have to assemble it, which I’m not looking forward to. I’m getting old and lazy and “do it yourself” crap is highly overrated.

This is the entertainment console i ordered. Its extremely simple which i really liked. It will go with my new “room look” very well.

Ever since we moved from our cooshie pad in Marina Del Rey, I have yet to completely move into our new place. Its been a year and after I threw out a lot of my furniture, it still hasn’t been replaced. Ive had boxes and boxes of “stuff” that I’m finally forcing myself to finally go through.

Ive shredded about 2 trash bags worth of documents. I have so many things that require some type of shelving or storage. I also want to get rid of the armoire on which my TV sits. It was never intended to hold my TV or my entertainment system but its worked out that way so far. However, this resulted in my TV sitting in the upper stratosphere of our atmosphere.

I found exactly what I wanted via west elm, but after i was about to place my order, the total sum after shipping, delivery and taxes versus the cost of the items, completely destroyed my initial excitement or inclination to make the purchase. Albeit shipping and tax is to be expected, the actual total of the surcharge and delivery services rendered me speechless.

2 items = 698.99

Taxes =~ 57.00
Shipping and Delivery = 170.00
Grand Total =~ 925.00

I mean I realize the furniture is heavy, but that just seems outrageous. However, I’m finding that anywhere online is roughly the same cost.

I’m debating between simply biting the bullet or trying to find comparable furniture I might like. I really like the items i picked out at west elm, but if i can find something i like equally and with a domestic shipping charge instead, ill gladly compromise. I’m heading to plummers as we speak. Their online catalog had some items i really liked but we will see what their showroom has.

I know there is a bunch of more local stores around that probably have great items, but to be completely honest, i don’t have the time or patience to find hidden treasures. My room is a tragic mess and I really need the new furniture to get it into working order.

Wish me luck!