"The Good Body", sushi, and other things...

Tonight, Sri and I decided last minute to check out Eve Ensler's "The Good Body", playing at the Moore Theatre. I'd seen "The Vagina Monologues" a few years back and really enjoyed that play, so I was expecting to be just as entertained. While there were some amusing moments in "The Good Body", it wasn't as interesting to me as Ensler's previous work. My problem: there wasn't focus. I felt that with "The Vagina Monolgues", she picked one topic and went really deep with it, illiciting wonderful stories that all weaved around one central theme. With "The Good Body", she also could've taken one theme and went deep with it but I didn't feel the same here. Some stories had to do with physical things women went through to conform with societal beauty, others had to do emotional pose. She kept talking about her own stomach...and that just got tiring in the end. In the end, I just wanted her to go deeper and give me more. Now, the play was still entertaining and Ensler brings variety with her various characters by including women from Africa, India and Brazil; however, my expectations were high and this fell short of the brilliance of her previous composition.

On a good note, Sri and I got some quick food afterwards at a fairly new sushi restaurant that I'd been to twice before, Red Fin, in the new Hotel Max. Only 4 months old, the same owners of Wasabi Bistro bring the same excellent quality and taste of sushi to customers. The menu also offers more beyond sushi which makes the restaurant even more delicious. The last time I was here, I got a special: lobster pad thai---yum. Some things I'd recommend: the Togarashi-seared Dayboat Sea Scallops, the Uptown California Roll (they add shrimp tempura) and Coconut Shrimp. Either way, whatever you order, you can't go wrong. I have yet to try something here that has disappointed me. The service is humble & excellent and the plating pleasing to the eye. Because it's still fairly new, this restaurant is undiscovered and it's really easy to walk in on any weekend night and get a table. If you live in Seattle, check it out before it's difficult to make reservations here!

Watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars tonight---great job Drew Lachey! That was well deserved and he definitely carried himself well throughout this entire competition. Now, I was EXTREMELY surprised that Jerry Rice ended up with 2nd place, with Stacy Keibler being 3rd. Anyone who's been watching this show MUST KNOW that Stacy is a far better dancer than Jerry. Oh well. It came down to the popularity contest with the viewer vote and Jerry had enough fans to push him beyond Stacy. My kudos to him for even making it this far. It was certainly entertainment--particularly with his freestyle afro-totin' 70's dance last week.

More of reality TV returns with this week with the season debuts of The Apprentice 5 and The Amazing Race 9 (oh good, they're back to couples). Oy vey...I'm gonna have to buy a 2nd TV tuner for my media center in order to keep up!

All Roads Lead to Kansas

Matt H. sent me a cool link over "Wired News: All Google's Roads Lead to Kansas". Basically, if you go to Google Maps and zoom in all the way, it takes you to Coffeyville, KANSAS. Even cooler, on a personal note, if you use Google Earth and zoom in all the way, it takes you to LAWRENCE, KANSAS---my hometown! In fact, although it's a bit fuzzy, it zooms in right into my neighborhood. The house I grew up in is less than a mile away from the center point. Freaky!

25 for $25 Dine Around Seattle March 1-30

Yay! 25 for $25 is back in March! Anyone up for dinner in the month of March?

I just had to mention that I had a wonderful Valentine's Day, care of the best boyfriend. I came home to candles and a vase of red tulips. Matt went all out and made 2 things for dinner: crabmeat stuffed baked avocado and a tenderloin roll filled with spinach and goat cheese. Yum! It was quite the treat and tasted absolutely delicious...extremely impressive!

Sri and I finally decided to go to Big Sky with Kutta & gang but flying in Wed night since we didn't want to take the whole week off. I'm psyched---the Big Sky trip last year rocked and it'll be nice to get some more great snowboarding in this season. We head out next week for it--wahoo!

Speaking of trips, Matt and I finaly booked our flight to go to Portugal in May. It's all set, with a brief stop in Boston along the way so I can meet more of the Sousa family. Next, we just have to organize our time while in Portugal. We mostly want to go in and out of Lisbon the first week and then over to the Porto region. Anyone have any tips on traveling to Portugal? Any must-sees? Great hotels?

home sick

I'm home sick. Ugh. Caught a cold that started on Friday and has progressively gotten worse. As far as colds are concerned, it's not as bad as ones I've had in the past---but I'm completely stuffed up right now. I still have a voice (which is good) but I just feel tired and am blowing my nose every 5 minutes. This is my first time being sick this winter, which is amazing considering that every year since I've moved to Seattle, I've gotten sick at least 2-3 times by the time February rolls around. Personally, I attribute it to a less stressful work environment (oh, little do I know...I'm sure Year 2 at Microsoft will be more stressful). [sigh]

Watched the Seattle Seahawks lose the Superbowl yesterday. Bummer. Matt's taught me enough about football now that I can watch a game and understand what's going on. I still think we should've gotten that touchdown in the 1st Quarter--that "foul" was barely a touch...more like a balancing act to move in the other direction. Well, it was a good first try.

Media Center Extender

I had gotten Matt an XBox 360 for his birthday and we finally set it up at my place yesterday (since I had the bigger TV he wanted to set it up at my place). Anyhoo, I installed the Media Center Extender this afternoon---had some hiccups with the installation of .NET Framework 1.1 SP1---but finally got it installed! I'm impressed---I can now access all the photos and music from my computer upstairs in addition to the Recorded TV that I have upstairs, which is nice since I use my Media Center as a 3rd tuner for recording TV (since the Comcast DVR downstairs has a dual tuner). But now, instead of going upstairs to catch up on Jon Stewart, I can just stream it downstairs. Reminds me of when I had the TIVOtoGo set up back when I had the TIVO. I also, for kicks, connected my iPod to the XBox and sure enough, the Xbox found it and was able to access it completely. Woo hoo. Because I only have 1 Component Input for my TV, I had to disconnect my DVD player in order to connect the Xbox---but that's fine since the Xbox plays DVDs just fine. Man, this lil' puppy can do a lot of stuff!

Pandora

Check out Pandora which, in theory, puts together a playlist of music for you based off of a favorite artist or song you give it. Really neat! (Thanks for the link, Carrie)

Pow-dah

Just got back from an AMAZING weekend in Whistler with a bunch of friends, staying in a ski-in/ski-out townhouse right on the mountain. We were incredibly lucky and got some great powder days. I'll never forget the Peak to Creek run---it was a good hour and a half for us to get down but MAN, it was awesome. Personally, for me, I'm excited because I discovered over the weekend that I can still snowboard....see, I've only been, like, 2-3 times so far this season and I haven't been riding very well. In fact, it's just been horrible, full of complaints and whining. Recently, in Stevens, I almost gave up on snowboarding all together because my feet were in such pain. I thought that perhaps my feet were just not cut out for snowboarding. Anyhoo, on the first afternoon after arriving in Whistler, I went to buy some new bindings with a toecap cuz' I hear they're great (I got the Burton Escapades---they're really freakin' amazing, so comfortable and give me a lot of control). Since I was doing so, I brought with me my right foot boot for sizing purposes. While I was at it, I decided to get some new Superfeet arch supports just to further help my feet. I asked the saleslady if she could cut the arch supports down for me while I was at the store--she said sure and pulled my boot lining out so she could pull out the current arch supports....and she pulled out my LEFT FOOT boot lining. This is why I've been riding horribly all season---I've had the wrong foot boot lining in my boots! I completely switched them around! Talk about pain...but silly me just assumed my feet were acting up and never thought about taking a look at my boot linings. WHEW! Glad I figured that out--cuz' once I got the right boot linings with the right boot, put in the new arch supports and then started riding with the new bindings, it was great.

In other news, Gong Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year to all---Year of the Dog! This is an unusually long year too: 13 months. Supposedly, a 13-month year occurs only 12 times during the period of 23 centuries from 221 B.D. and 2100 A.D. The last time a 13-month lunar year took place was in 1944. Interesting. It's also supposedly a good year for marriage because it's such a long year--encompassing two springs, which is considered lucky. This is completely opposite from last year's Year of Rooster which was considered an extremely bad year for marriage because it didn't have a spring at all (evidenced in a drop of Asian weddings last year). Check out your horoscope for this year!