Curried Chicken Day!

Mood:

This was actually yesterday, but I love chicken curries!There are so many different kinds out there, and a lot of countries have their take on it. I kind of celebrated it without knowing it last night. Went to a Nepali/Indian restaurant called Delhi Palace for dinner. They have complimentary papadums. I got some chai, vegetable samosas, saag (spinach) naan, and chicken tikka masala with rice on the side. It was very good!One of my fave curries is chicken tikka masala. They might make one of the best ones. It's tart, slightly sweet, slightly sour, a bit tomato-y (although you can't taste much of it), and very rich. It's good stuff.

Earlier that day, I found a 'regular' calendar in the half off section in Barnes and Noble. Got one that explores a different region of Italy each month. It has a little blurb about the area, map, and each day has a pic. Those pics are locations from that region. So, it's like you're taking a trip there everyday. This month it features Venice. And, apparently today I'm still at a glass blower's shop.Some pics stretch for a couple of days. Don't know why I'd stay around a glass shop for two days, but ok. Earlier in the month they have you going to a concert one day, going on a gondola another, to a market, to a museum, and a few other places. I was torn between this, or a similar Ireland one, or an LOLcat thing. The cat one looked like it'd be funny. They must have had more 'exploring' countries calendars, but ran out of the others.But, Italy is cool. Ireland is interesting, too. Maybe next year I'll get a different country type one. 

While at Barnes and Noble, I finally got my birthday present.I wanted a cookbook called Jerusalem. Its won awards, and is very popular. It's all about the different cuisines/cultures that make up Jerusalem. One of the coauthors is from the Jewish side, and the other one is from the Muslim side. They also interviewed and researched on the cuisine of the Christians of the area. Although, they didn't end up with too many of their cuisine. It's mostly Jewish and Muslim/Arab cuisine. The pics are really cool and well done. Some of them reminded me of the brief amount of time I spent in Jerusalem itself. They have recipes for falafel as well as shawarma. There were shops that only sold one or the other everywhere. At one point, you could see a similar restaurant competing with one of them literally across the street. I loved both.They have several recipes for hummus. I love hummus! And, it was everywhere. For some reason the hummus in most of that country seemed far better than what I've had back in the States. They have several tabouleh salads, special desserts from both cultures (and some that are shared by both), lots of soups, some breads, and more. They also give a history about the foods, and the culture around them. It's a rather big book. But, a lot of the recipes look really good, and I really want to get back to 'real' cooking.I probably should do more dishes from my recent Asian cookbook too. I love cookbooks. In the future, I'll probably have more of those than regular books. (It's already getting close to that.)

Jikou Keisatsu had another interesting case. This one was about 2 mangakas (manga artists/authors). They ran out of ideas one day, then while sitting around and feeling depressed one of them came up with an idea. It was a character that was called something like Melancholy Muppet. The 2 worked on creating a design for it together. They made their character into dolls and sold them. Nobody wanted them at first, so they acted out stories with it to little kids. It became a hit after a while with the kids. Eventually, the media caught wind, and they were able to get enough money to produce a storyboard anime with it. One of the creators died, and the detectives were baffled by it. The other one got an assistant, and that one shortly died after a new character was created. (She claimed she was the creator, not the person who had died.) They find out that the first one was a total accident. She was very scatter-brained and would do things like accidentally wear her shirts inside out, and put things down in the midst of cooking (she put a live octopus on the stairs that was going to be made into a dish, ran around with an egg that read 'mine', left a hot kettle on a wooden floor, etc.). She just fell down the stairs. (The egg and octopus didn't help, either.) The assistant was threatening to go public and tell the media that the character was rightfully hers. So, the mangaka pushed her down the stairs. The new assistant would have probably been next if the case of the murdered assistant had gone cold. She was careless about that, and Kiriyama was bugged at the time. So, the police caught her. So, this one was slightly different than usual. All of the characters they came up with had negative emotions. One was melancholy, another too tired to do anything (I'm Beat, Bunny), and the last one was angry (Puffy or 'Puchuu' Boy). They made them look cute, though. 

At the end of the episode for Log Horizon today, we found out that Rudy's not a regular player. There are hints that he's an NPC or People of the Land. He started as being an annoying character, but turned out to be really sweet and kind. The opening sequence basically shows him collapsing. I hope he doesn't die. For them, it really might be death. They don't get revived at the cathedral after they die like the adventurers. It's the end for them. They were tugging at the audience's and characters' heart strings with him, so it'll be sad if he dies. Shiroe found out that there is a drawback for adventurers after they 'die' too. They slowly start to lose their memory of the outside world. And, there might be even more to it. The lower leveled group (the one with Rudy) finally made it through a dungeon by learning more about each others' skills before running in. Now the creatures or 'monsters' (they have another name in-game, that I can't remember) that the adventurers usually kill are suddenly growing drastically in number. Shiroe also learned that those creatures came during the first 'Apocalypse'. That's what the adventurers call what happened when they suddenly were stuck in the game. (Can't leave it, and their characters' bodies feel like their own.) The creatures had lost all of their memories from before they appeared in that world. They've been wiped out so many times, they said it's a wonder if they have any memory of anything anymore. That's kind of sad. But, they don't really know much about them either. There have apparently been 3 Apocalypses. The story behind the game is sounding scarier and scarier. It seems more intricate and disturbing than what Sword Art Online had. It seems to be a more intelligent one too. Sword Art Online had its good points as well, but it just can't really compare to this one.

Started writing the 5th short story from my nightmare anthology. This one seems like it'll be the scariest and most gruesome so far.Funny how it was one of the shortest nightmares I had, but it certainly left an impression. I still feel a bit weird about it. It'll be even weirder to write it out. This one seems to be in a style I'm not entirely used to. But, almost every story so far has been 'different'. This one might only have one character in it. Should be interesting to see where it goes, and if I go further or in different directions than the actual dream. This anthology just feels like it gets more fun as I go.

Played my clarinet. Did some Mozart pieces, and some pieces from one of my solo books. Wasn't too bad. Fumbled in some interesting spots, and I was more 'into' it this time. 

日本語

Studied some more compounds for 倍. 倍 is generally pronounced as ばい (bai). It means: double, twice; (suf) times, -fold. 人一倍 or ひといちばい (hitoichibai): more than others, redoubled, unusual. 倍音 or ばいおん (baion): overtone, harmonic. 倍加 or ばいか (baika): doubling. 倍数 or ばいすう (baisuu): multiple. I also studied the kanji: 箱. It's generally pronounced はこ (hako). Occasionally, it may be pronounced as そう (sou). But, it's really not very often. In compounds, はこ(hako) often might become ばこ (bako). It means: box, case, chest, package, pack; car (of a train, etc.); (suf, ctr) counter for boxes (or boxed objects). Translated more of a You Maga article. Read an article in Japanese on Asahi's site. This one was about baking during winter. When the author feels restless during the winter, they find that baking helps. They had a recipe for 'Hot Biscuits'. They looked really good. I don't usually look at their cooking section. So, that was interesting.