wombat_socho

Bookshelves assembled: 0
Work done on novel: Consolidated various stray chunks into the main text, page count now at 65. Some background work also done. (good, needs to continue)
Time wasted on FARK.com: About 2 hours (bad)
Time spent apahacking: 0
WW points blown on dinner: Way, way too many (v.v. bad)

So

phoenixalpha and I went forth to the new buffet in town, the Atlantic, which is located in the Target/Rainbow conglomeration across Penn from Southtown. The Atlantic boasts that it provides both sushi and Mongolian BBQ in addition to the usual Chinese buffet offerings; this it does, but I was somewhat underwhelmed by both. In contrast to the New Century, which has a fairly basic assortment of raw stuff for the BBQ, the Atlantic has a much wider selection that includes crab and shrimp, those staples of Mongol cuisine since time immemorial. [/snark] It also has the more traditional ginormous Mongolian cooking thingy, in contrast to the NC's plain fast-food griddle. Unfortunately, the cook doesn't appear to have a very good command of English, since he ladled a whole pile of chili into the mix for myself, P, and

stuckintraffik, who was there with most of his Thursday night gaming crew. I was okay with that, P and S not so much. So on balance, they're about even, and if they get a competent (=English-speaking) Mongolian from Michoacan on the griddle the Atlantic will be the better of the two.

The sushi chef couldn't keep up with the demand and the presentation was your standard cold-table buffet tray. I suspect he would have done better if he'd concentrated on maki instead of nigiri (which was nothing special, just ebi and tamago) but judging from the dried-out remains of maki that were visible on my first swing-through, maybe not. Advantage, NC.

The appetizers were okay; worth noting is that they had the steamed red bean paste buns on the line, and very good they were, too. Additional points for including the soda in the $10 per person charge, and the soda being Coke. Advantage to the Atlantic.

Lauren strongly recommends the other new Chinese joint that replaced the Chi-Chi's; they apparently serve dim sum most of the day, which is excellent.

Aaron Gleeman throws up his hands at the horrible, inept mess that is this year's Twins team. The fish rots from the head, and the stench is driving him into complete apathy. I can't say I blame him, having gone through a similar period with them in the dog days of 1994-96 when the only thing that kept me tuned to the Twins was the fact that STATS was paying me to do so.

There's no joy down home either, as Chris Needham recommends that you read Aaron's Wednesday rant about the Twins and swap Nationals/Bowden/Robinson for Twins/Ryan/Gardenhire as necessary. Same shit, different town.

Meanwhile the Saints are doing pretty well. They're second in the American Association North, four games behind Lincoln. Plus, they're not threatening to move unles they get a brand-new stadium paid for by the taxpayers. You gotta love 'em.

I can't say the same about my fantasy team, which got stuck in a deep dark hole of bad ERA & WHIP by Brad Radke and Jeff Weaver early last month and hasn't climbed out yet. This is a big reason why my team is mired in tenth place, though now that I've picked up Tony Armas and Mike O'Connor things ought to improve in the ERA/WHIP categories, although since both of them are pitching for the Nats I'm not expecting ~~any~~ a lot of wins.

Currently reading: Kyoko Mori's Polite Lies. Kinda depressing, and I may lay it aside until I need it as a reference.
This weekend I'm hosting a Stipple collation at the Penn-Lake Library, starting at 2 PM. APAhackers wanted! ^_^
Nothing else on the agenda; maybe I'll finally get the damn bookshelves assembled and stuffed.