Free?

One of my friends likes to say he's "free" when his wife is occupied with something else, or if she's gone away somewhere, allowing him to do whatever he wants. He gets all excited and invites us over to play video games as if he's been liberated or broken out of jail.

I dunno, Ina's been away for a few days and I don't feel "free" at all. I just miss her a lot.

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We went to "Sushi on 7" last night, to celebrate my dad's 58th. I had a helluva time trying to find the place. First of all I loaded up Google Maps to get an approximate location before I left. Google maps was way, way off. I typed in the address and it gave me a location that was East of McCowan. Turns out the place is actually West of Kennedy! Secondly it was dark and snowing so we had a hard time looking through the car windows to see the addresses/storefronts. I missed our reservation time by about 20 minutes as a result, but fortunately the restaurant was only half full (we had to have a late dinner because my brother had a night class).

The food at Sushi on 7 is great. They have tons of variety -- over 190 different items are available on their menu. For dinner, it was $17.99 for Mon-Thurs. Food comes fairly quickly so that we're not sitting around letting our stomachs get full in between the waves of food. I've found that to be the case often in many AYCE sushi places. It's like some kind of ploy to get us full so we won't keep eating them out of their business. The service was not great, it's surprisingly difficult to get the attention of any waitress even though the place is really quite small.

Sushi on 7's specialty rolls are okay, not as flavorful as I've found in other places, but the fish is fresh enough to make up for it. Their seaweed salad is the best I've had so far. The beef ribs were cooked perfectly, very tender and tasty. They had one dish, fresh mussels that we kept ordering. Very yummy, very tenderly cooked and light tasting. My mom had some Udon which she said was good. They have coconut pudding -- one of my all-time favorite desserts, one which is fairly rare to find in any restaurant these days so that was a big bonus for me. Their tea sucked.. it was way too diluted.

I don't think they have sashimi for lunch which is a shame because otherwise I'd consider going back there for a lunch, just because they have so many other great choices.

I'd give the restaurant a solid 8/10 rating.

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I want to buy the new Tim Hughes album. I sampled it at Mitchell's Family Bookstore last weekend, and it sounded GOOD. Well, at least Track 1 sounded good. Too bad it's so expensive at Mitchell's. I mean honestly who pays over $20 for a CD these days? Why are Christians trying to rip each other off? It doesn't make sense.

I guess it's the same as any culture ripping each other off. It's more about profit and greed than who the victim is.

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The Leafs missed the NHL playoffs for the second straight year, but there are still a few Canadian teams to cheer for. Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary. I don't like the Senators at all, but I feel we have to cheer for them because I'm just sick and tired of seeing American teams win our Stanley Cup. It ain't right. That being said, at least it's always Canadians who are hoisting the cup, even if they are playing for American teams. I can't help but cheer for the Penguins, at least for this series. I could see myself cheering for Ottawa in the next round, but for me, Sidney Crosby epitomizes the essence of Canadian Hockey -- not an idiot like Daniel Alfredsson.

Go Flames! Go Canucks! Go Canadians!

Post #1001

Firstly, I have updated the comments to haloscan so that anyone can comment. I think people have been having trouble commenting because of the new Google-login feature of comments.

Anyway, I've decided to make a non-Urbana post regarding all I did during my vacation that was un-related to Urbana. It will be in list form and not organized at all. Good luck.

-The flight was seriously boring because my brother slept the entire time so I had no one to talk to
-I watched the movie "Invincible". Pretty good feel-good, zero-to-hero story. 7/10
-The lady sitting beside us evidently never flew before, she was complaining incessantly at the flight, food (no meals), drinks, pilot, Americans.
-Went to In-N-Out burger. Very good. VERY GOOD.
-I bought a laptop at Circuit City, it's a Toshiba Satellite, M115. It's mostly Vista compatible, but then again, it's not like I'll be using Vista any time soon.
-Went to Carl's Jr. These burgers are amazing. AMAZING.
-Vegas is seriously boring unless you gamble, smoke, or have never been there before.
-Watched "Pirates of the Caribbean 2". Quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. 0/10.
-Watched "The Break-Up" again. What a depressing movie, although it does have its moments. 6/10.
-Went to a Japanese restaurant called Osaka, which is supposed to be ranked #2 amongst Japanese restaurants in Vegas. I'll admit, the food was good. But expensive beyond belief. I got a chirashi that costed enough for 4 people to eat at Sushi Bong.
-Are you still reading?
-I saw and played a PS3 at an EB Games. They had 3 available at the store, but everyone was asking about Wii controllers. Anyway, out of the 3 new consoles (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360), the PS3 has to be the biggest waste of money out there.
-The Colts defense is looking good, but the offense doesn't. How will they fair against the Ravens? The future isn't looking so bright.
-Big (lucky) win by Seattle. I can't help cheering for these guys after they got robbed of the Superbowl by the NFL officials last year.
-Urbana was awesome
-Went to Red Robin, yet another burger place. Burgers were huge. I was still burping up burger meat the next morning.
-Watched "Apocalypto". I've decided that Mel Gibson is a mad man. Pointless movie, but good action and very exciting. So much blood. The blood "cloud" was a neat effect.. 7/10.
-We went to Primm, NV, for their massive outlet mall. I walked through the door, took a right into BR and bought pretty much ALL the clothes for the day. Sales after sales after sales. It was great.
-When I arrived in St. Louis, I quickly texted Ina to see if she was still there, she was. Thank goodness, because I'm pretty sure I would have gotten lost without her.
-We (as in the non-student T3Cers) texted a whole lot throughout Urbana in order to track eachother down. I can't wait to see my cell phone bill. Telus is 15 cents per message.
-The hotel rooms were nice, at the Adam's Mark. Allan refused to share beds so we each had to take a turn on the floor.
-In fact, one night he decided to try sharing so I had to only use half the bed. When I woke up I found him on the floor again.. he couldn't stand the tiny space. Unfortunately I didn't know so I was scrunched up the entire night thinking he was still there.
-Allan called Mils every single night. I thought that was sweet and romantic (or just responsible?) of him.
-I have 4 weddings that I know of, to go to this year. This is surprising because I thought my group was finished. I guess this is the second wave.
-I can't believe you're still reading..
-We have a dog, named Dusty. He's a pug. He's soooo cute. I am proclaiming that Dusty is the cutest dog in the whole world. He knows he's cute. When you call him for a hug, he'll take his fine time coming out.. he'll yawn a few times, stretch his legs a bit and saunter over. It's the cutest thing (although also annoying sometimes because you just know he's taking his time on purpose).
-My mom refuses to set the temperature at home above 70 degrees. That's 21 C. Maybe I'm spoiled but that is really cold to me. Plus I think 21 degrees there is different from here because I have a relatively smaller area for the hot air to cover, and it retains the heat. For some reason, it always feels cold in the house at Las Vegas. Except of course in the summer when it was 37 degrees.
-A lot of people are getting sick. It's some kind of cold virus, that just won't go away. I hope I don't get it.
-Dexter's season finale was quite possibly the most surprising twist I've ever seen. There is no way I could have seen that one coming.
-Speaking of television, my brother and I caught up on Smallville and it is confirmed that this show is going down the drain. One really exciting (but since quashed) rumor was that there would be a spin-off of Smallville for a live-action Justice League. The prospects of this would be unbelievable, but think of the budget too. They recently attempted an Aquaman spin-off that crashed and burned before the pilot even aired.
-During my stay in Las Vegas, I watched and caught up for the show Battlestar Galactica. This is a great great show. I watched all of seasons 1 and 2, and then what's left of 3 so far. This show is so awesome..
-I watch way too much television.
-My mom told me that Rachel Ray won #2 for most influential female. #1 was that first female speaker in US government whatchmacallit. That one is impressive. But Rachel Ray? Really?!?
-I wonder if there are any naysayers of the TJ Ford for Charlie Villanueva trades left. Ford is a beast.
-My brother bought me Far Cry Vengeance for the Wii for Christmas. I haven't touched the Wii since I got back.. but then again I haven't really done anything period.
-I'm starting to get a little bit concerned that I may have bit off a bit more than I can chew, regarding my Perspectives project. Most people do these things in groups, of 3 or 4. I am doing it alone. 2 weeks left til the deadline..

So there you have it. A quick and brief update of my vacation.

Shopping and Carl's Jr

For most of the shirts I bought yesterday, the following happened.

It would say at the top of the shelf "50% off lowest marked price", and then you look at the tag and $59.99 has been crossed out and someone had written $49.99, and then there are two more stickers on it, one saying $39.99, and the other saying $29.99.

I mean even if you didn't need that article of clothing, how could one resist?

So anyway, two hundred smackers later..

Yesterday we went for Carl's Jr, a fast food burger joint. OH MY GOODNESS.. these burgers were better than In-N-Out, I kid you not. Mind you they also costed twice as much.. but check this out. I had a Philly Cheese Steak burger, which is a big char-broiled beef patty topped with -- you guessed it -- philly cheese steak. The cheese was amazing, so much of it and perfectly melted. My dad ordered a double philly cheese steak, that's a regular philly cheese steak sandwich with 2 beef patties (He shared it with my mom). My brother got a guacamole bacon burger, with a "The Six Dollar Burger" patty. Oh my.. this one was so good too.. I had a bite of it, it was so great. Guacamole, huge beef patty, with bacon, cheese (this thing was like half a cm thick, real cheese not that processed crap from McD's). And then some chipotle bbq sauce below the patty. It really was something else.

And you wonder how Americans get so fat..

The fries were so-so. The medium drinks we had were like super-sized drinks from McD's, they were so big.. I could not even finish.

Carl's Jr. Give it a try when you get a chance. You won't be disappointed.