We got into the city and went to Taqueria Cancun for dinner and I was quite puzzled when we walked in and there was no line. Everyone was already in line for the Slash concert across the street. The line for the show wrapped around the block. The non-line at the Taqueria got me a really tasty carnitas burrito and my wife a very messy chicken super taco very quickly.

After dinner, my wife called the guy we were buying tickets from and we met him and his guest in front of the Money Mart a few doors down from The Warfield. My wife obtained one of the Abbey Road Live flyers advertising the sales of the two cd set of the show. We got in with no real search, just a quick “What’s that in your pocket?” which I replied “My wallet.” Half of the crowd had cameras, the other half had iPhones or Android phones.

We got to our seats and settled in and a few minutes later the opening act came on to Michael Buffer announcing to the theme to Rocky. It was kind of cheesy, which is what the band was as a whole. They had metal hair and tried to recreate “classic rock” in a way that wasn’t awful but kept making me think of Wyld Stallyns. The lead singer even looked like a clueless Ted “Theodore” Logan from time to time. Taking Dawn, the opening band, are best known for their cover of a Fleetwood Mac song and apparently for pissing off Gene Simmons for cursing during an opening set for Kiss in Europe. I don’t know that they’ll get much further than that but they tried to rock and that’s better than some bands we’ve seen.

Slash’s band took the stage a little after nine and played a mixture of new “solo” material, Velvet Revolver, Guns n’ Roses and Slash’s Snakepit songs. Slash threw in a bunch of solos seemingly to pay tribute to Led Zeppelin and mainly riffs of Jimi Hendrix songs. In one very extended solo, Slash’s battery unit ran out on his guitar mid-jam and he had to switch off to another guitar, where he promptly picked up and continued the jam. It made me wonder if Hendrix were still alive if the same would happen to him. Technology.

The band put on a respectable performance, but I still really couldn’t get behind Myles Kennedy, formerly of Alter Bridge. He’s the guy that temporarily replaced Scott Stapp in Creed. He had to try to rhyme apple and pear together in a song. I’m sure it was easier for him to emulate Axl Rose and Scott Weiland than Scott Stapp. At any rate, Kennedy did his best. The new band’s version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” was pretty great. Their version of “Slither” was also a good cover but that is what this show felt like to me, a Slash all-star cover band.

There’s a reason I’ve never gone to see Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band. They’ll never be The Beatles and Ringo was the least talented in the group. Slash is not the least talented member of Guns n’ Roses, by far. Slash is my generation’s Hendrix or Clapton. He has performed with tons of other artists and gained the respect of his peers and fans around the world. I’d just like to have seen him with Guns n’ Roses or Slash’s Snakepit a bit more than seeing him for the first time with this new band.

It was kind of like seeing Chris Cornell with Audioslave for the first time instead of Soundgarden, but more like seeing a Cornell solo show with a band of misfit toys instead of the backing band from Rage Against the Machine.

It was great to see Slash, who seemed healthy and happy to be there. He hasn’t lost his touch on the guitar and performed really well for the almost two hour set.

Kennedy was the only somewhat weak factor in the band. There was a point in the show where he said how great it was to be performing at The Warfield for the first time, while everyone else on the stage had played their many times before. I just read that he’s got tinnitus which makes me respect him a lot more. The man can’t hear but can belt out Axl Rose and Scott Weiland covers like a champ. The other point in the show where Kennedy didn’t seem to hold up his place as the “front man” was when a fan passed forward a laminated card that said “Paradise City” with a whistle wrapped around it. Kennedy dropped the whistle instead of using it. Whistle Fail.

Otherwise, it felt like a 90′s rock band playing 90′s rock band songs. But better than I would play them on Rock Band.

It was a fun show and I’m glad we made it. We ordered a copy of the two cd set of the show which we’ll be getting in the mail in a couple of weeks. It will be a cool souvenir of the night we saw 1/6 of Guns n’ Roses, probably the best 1/6 we’ll see.

This week has been a pretty full one with work and with concerts and fun. We attended the Japonize Elephants show at the Rickshaw Stop back on Wednesday night for Wasabi Tefab’s farewell (for now) from the band. We hadn’t seen Japonize Elephants in concert, but their violin player, Thisisyourbrain On Fiddle looks a lot like that singer Ramon, who looks a lot like the violin player from Kill Bossa, who opened up the night. Another member of Kill Bossa looks a lot like the guitarist from Dina Maccabee Band, which is remarkable because he is the guitarist for Dina Maccabee Band.

The opening set from Kill Bossa, which is one of the many Aaron Novik projects that Dina and her friends are part of, was pretty fun. They played a bunch of Brazilian “funk” songs which I actually enjoyed quite a bit. The middle act, another Aaron Novik project, Zoyres, was a horn-y band. No really, there was a tuba, some clarinet, some saxaphone, some trumpet and a lot of repetition. I was bored through most of their set.

Japonize Elephants (full band name: The Japonize Elephants from Zorlock Land of the Lost) were great! I love how they kind of melded all of the other San Francisco based bands we’ve seen over the years into one big piece of modeling clay and then stepped on it, leaving a cool impression of their left toe as they walked out.

Japonize Elephants include a ton of genres and really do epitomize the San Francisco sound that I’ve come to love over the past eight years of living here. They do a bit of Klezmer punk, in the vein of Charming Hostess. They do some circus type stuff like Eric McFadden or Faun Fables might. They do the low fi off beat as demonstrated by Ramon and Jessica or Karina Denike. But mostly, they put on a great show.

I’m really glad we finally got to see them in concert, but sad that it was their last concert with their accordion player. Wasabi Tefab (Marie Abe) is headed to Massachusetts to teach for a while but seemed to have a lot of fun playing a set of songs she hand picked for the show.

It wasn’t our last show with Marie though as we also went to the Guts and Buttons show at Tartine on Friday night.

Guts and Buttons are a duo featuring Marie Abe on accordion and Dina Maccabee on violin. They look a lot like Wasabi Tefab and Thisisyourbrain On Fiddle from Japonize Elephants. They were joined by Daniel Fabricant on bass for their show on Friday night at Tartine. The Tartine shows were a regular gig for Guts and Buttons and the tips they made at their Friday evening shows there helped them to finance their debut CD. They played a lot of the songs that are featured on that CD and many other songs as well, incorporating international flavor, contemporary pop and classic rock songs into a fun happy hour set. As this was Marie’s last show in the Bay Area for a while, she was presented with a pinata in her likeness and post-show went out and smashed it open while blindfolded. It was a fun experience and I’m glad we could share it with her and her friends.

We also had a really tasty banana tart with shaved chocolate crumbled on top. While Tartine’s tasty treats are a bit on the pricey side and the line is always long, nothing we have gotten there has not been worth the wait and the price.

Ramon and Jessica, featuring Daniel Fabricant on bass, will be playing Tartine as Dina keeps up the tradition on Friday September 17th.

Saturday we went to another Rickshaw, the Rickshaw Bagworks on 22nd, to see Ben Sollee in concert. Ben and his percussionist, Jordan Willis, are currently doing a “Ditch the Van” bike tour where they are playing unique venues and trying to promote the sustainability of bicycling as touring musicians and getting to know the communities they are playing in. Rickshaw Bagworks, who make custom bags on the premises by hand and use up every last piece of fabric in the bags that they make leaving zero waste behind, were one of the sponsors and the host of the San Francisco show.

Before the show, I bought a medium sized Zero messenger bag. I really like it. It holds my HP Mini 311, my Augen The Book ebook reader, my iPod Touch and Skullcrusher headphones and has lots of room to spare. It fits comfortably and looks good and feels really durable. It also has a lifetime guarantee. Can’t go wrong there.

We walked a couple of blocks down 22nd and ate a quick snack at Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous, an ice cream shop that is fairly new to the area. My wife and I shared a flapjacks ‘n maple ice cream cone and a vanilla caramel candy. The ice cream and candy were very tasty. We weren’t so crazy about the peanut butter malted chocolate balls that we also tried. Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous was much better than Humphrey Slocombe, another ice cream place in the area that we tried a couple of months back.

We went back to Rickshaw Bagworks and noticed a very interesting looking and very tall bicycle-like contraption riding up 22nd. It ended up being Ben Sollee’s opening act for the evening, Fossil Fool, on his quadricycle, which has a pedal-powered amplification system built in.

Fossil Fool did a very San Francisco-centric opening set with Ben Sollee and a girl named Hilary providing the pedaling to power the sound system. There were some speaker problems which Fossil Fool indicated were a circuit issue which prevented Ben and Jordan’s set from being fully pedal powered. It was cool to have a show that was happening as part of a bike tour powered by people pedaling a bike.

Ben and Jordan played a bunch of songs that my wife and I had become familiar with on the Spring 2009 Vienna Teng tour when Ben opened a bunch of the shows we went to. It was a good show and Ben even recognized us afterward. I got a cool bag and a good concert out of a small bag factory in the Dogpatch district. Not something that happens everyday.

We decided to stay in the Dogpatch district after the show and had dinner with a friend at the Hard Knox Cafe. Our friend has been wanting to try a Juicy Lucy, which is a burger with the cheese cooked into the middle of it. I noticed the Hard Knox Cafe had a Juicy Lucy on the menu so we invited her over to give it a try. I had a Pork Loin sandwich. My wife had a fried chicken breast sandwich. Our friend had the Juicy Lucy. We shared some warm corn bread muffins as an appetizer. I liked the pork loin sandwich the best between mine and my wife’s sandwiches. I liked my salad and dressing a lot better than the side of macaroni and cheese that my wife had. I also preferred the sweet tea that I got to my wife’s lemonade.

The service was less than desirable and the noise level was borderline annoying, but the food was worth the minor troubles. I’d give Hard Knox Cafe a 3 1/2 burps out of 5.

For dessert we ate at Mitchell’s Ice Cream on San Jose. It was ice cream. With a long line and a challenge to park. Not anything super amazing.

After dessert, on the way back to drop us off at our car which was still parked by Rickshaw Bagworks, our friend got stopped at the sobriety checkpoint. The officer asked if we had been drinking. We said no. He then asked “Well why not?” After a moment of us having horrified looks on our faces at his question he smiled and said “I was only kidding.” It was a really laugh out loud funny experience. Not something I would have ever expected to happen in that situation.

After we got back to our car and said goodbye it was time to come home for the night. Our adventures continue with Slash, Penny Arcade Expo and Bumbershoot in the next week!

During that first play time, I was playing the PlayStation Network downloadable version of the game. I played through the majority of DeathSpank’s quest to obtain The Artifact and made it to Level 6 in experience within the two hours or so that I explored DeathSpank’s ever-rotating world.

My wife joined in as Sparkles the Wizard in co-op play for a little while and while she seemed to enjoy it, Sparkles has a very small supporting/healing role in the game. This detracts from the two player experience, which the developers will hopefully remedy when they introduce a third player character in the first sequel.

After we got home and I discovered that DeathSpank was also available for XBox Live Arcade, it became a *must download* title. I quickly played through the quest for The Artifact, explored the town of Pluckmuckel and spent a couple of weeks playing an hour or two here or there trying to locate the eight missing orphans and trying to convince them to become a part of my constantly growing inventory screen.

DeathSpank combines the dialogue based adeveturing of games like Maniac Mansion and Secret of Monkey Island with the quick hack and slash dungeon crawling gameplay of Diablo and Torchlight and blends the two genres together extremely well. There were times when mindless violence was all I wanted to inflict and others, particularly a quest where you have to rescue a spoiled orphan from her Nanny Demon, where the dialogue and item finding took me on a rewarding comedic journey.

This was a game where the side quests were as much fun as the main game. At 10-12 hours of game play, there is no need or compulsion to rush through to finish.

I completed every quest, collected all of the weapon, armor, potion and spell upgrade and ended up with all 12 Achievements in the game. By the time I got to Lord Von Prong’s castle and collected my last two orphans, the game had already solidified the recently announced sequel “DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue” as a *must acquire on release day* game.

That’s a good thing, because the one disappointing thing I can comment on in the game is the ending. Collecting the last two orphans in front of Von Prong’s castle feels tacked on. Acquiring the Prongenator 3000 sword parts is a fun diversion, but the final boss battle is short and a bit too easy.

The end game sequence, which I’m assuming will lead directly into the sequel, doesn’t really fit the humor or style of the rest of the game at all. I understand that the second game is a more “real world” affair versus the straight fantasy of the first title, but it really felt out of place.

When I got to the final part, where the narrator grows tired in bold white text on an otherwise black screen, I was greeted with a file corruption error. For some reason, my copy of DeathSpank did not include the credits sequence.

So I pulled up YouTube and the credits felt just as tacked on as the end game sequence.

Outside of a disappointing ending, DeathSpank was a great game and I highly recommend it as a great $15 downloadable title on either PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 or on XBox Live Arcade for the XBox 360.

We started out taking BART to Oakland and the 10th Annual Art and Soul Music Festival. We walked around a bit and met up with the Berenstain Bears and spun a wheel for a prize sponsored by Lucky grocery stores. We ended up with activity books that we left on a shelf somewhere at one of the booths.

We eventually made it over to the Plaza Stage in front of Oakland’s City Hall and watched the end of Kev Choice’s set. His ensemble band was better than he was and a lot of the crowd left, which opened up seats in the fourth row center, which we quickly scooped up. The producer tried to get them to end their set on time but Kev Choice ignored her and ran over. He was not a very good performer. After his set, while breaking down the stage, a cool MC named Don Reed came on to introduce the next act and did a cool imitation of Johnny Cash covering Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. He was going to do a Johnny Cash version of Hey Ya by Outkast but Mo’ Rockin, the next act up was ready to go.

Mo’ Rockin had some Middle Eastern flair, some jazz style and a horn section that at one point consisted of five horns with accompaniment by the Black Oaks Brass Band for their closing number.

MC Hammer was next and the reason we were at the festival. Hammer put on a good show for his hometown crowd but didn’t hurt ‘em. He did a few hits and a few songs that weren’t so big, taking time to pay tribute to Oakland, Tupac Shakur and Luther Vandross during his sixty minute set. It was very cool to see him and we lucked out having such great seats.

After Hammer’s show ended with a giant crowd on stage for U Can’t Touch This, we headed to BART and back into San Francisco for a mystery concert at The Bowls. We ate a quick bite to eat at the New Gourmet Greek place at the Metreon which wasn’t that good and headed over for the show, which actually was an almost over set by Dan Cantrell and Lily Storm with a guy named Gary guesting with them.

We left The Bowls a bit disappointed that the “special surprise guest” at 8:00 wasn’t actually anything at all, but still enjoyed our brief visit. We headed home and uploaded some stuff from the earlier part of the day before heading back into the city once more to see The Sweet Revenge play.

The Sweet Revenge didn’t go on until 12:30AM, so we walked up Mission from the El Rio bar and ate at El Zocalo. I had a sampler of Salvadorean cuisine. My wife had a tamale and a pupusa. We brought about half of it home. The pupusas were very dry but otherwise a pleasant meal.

The Sweet Revenge closed out our night with a hard-hitting punk show at El Rio. They filled their 30 minute set with a sonic blast of music with no breaks between songs and the addition of a trumpet in their closing number “Creatures of Routine,” also the title track of their album. They ended up getting a one song encore as well before we finally retreated home to our nice comfortable bed.
-
Sunday we planned to have a relaxing and lazy day at home. I played some video games and one of our friends wrote to us and asked what we were doing for the day.

We ended up going to the Hayward Zucchini Festival, which was pretty underwhelming. We parked on a basketball court behind an adult school and wandered a bit to find the festival entrance. They had fried zucchini, zucchini bread and… lots of normal festival food like funnel cakes and corn dogs. It was disappointing when compared to a great themed festival like the Gilroy Garlic Festival, but worth the $5 price of admission either way. We had fried zucchini and a chicken teriyaki bowl for lunch. We had two varieties of funnel cake for dessert and we caught a show by Georgia and Joya, an old woman and her son, with sound mixed by Elvis, or at least an Elvis impersonator.

My wife ended up getting a bubble shooting raygun toy from one of the booths and I brought home a zucchini bread.

We went to Fry’s in Fremont and then drove around a bit to find somewhere to eat dinner, even though we weren’t yet hungry. We ended up finding a place called Market Broiler which was jammed full of people and had signs indicating it was newly opened. We decided we’d eat there a little later and walked around Wal-Mart for a while before heading back to dinner.

Market Broiler was a great dinner experience. If I were to rate it like a food critic, I would give it five burps out of five. I split a “duo” dish of roasted chicken (1/4 dark meat consisting of a leg and thigh) and a shrimp skewer that had sixteen small mesquite grilled shrimp on it. It came with two sides, with us selecting the cheesy mashed potatoes and the chef’s vegetables which were broccoli, carrots and red onions. The meal was very good. One of the best meals I’ve ever had. For dessert, I had the rocky brownie which had caramelized pecans and ice cream with hot fudge and caramel drizzle. It was exceptionally good as well. Dinner for two would probably be around $40-$50 and we’ll probably go there again for a special occasion or something in the future because it was very good. It turns out Market Broiler has been around for around 20 years but we just never knew about it. Their new location has only been open two weeks or so.

The adventure included a bootleg tee shirt conspiracy theorist, a rocking two hour show and dancing with the devil?

We got there a little before 7 and the line wasn’t yet past the post office next to the venue. We were behind some people that were in town from Toronto and in front of a guy that works for corporate Whole Foods. I learned all of this and plenty more from the bootleg tee shirt salesman who was way too social with the line.

He started in on this whole story about how Google tracks everything that you do on the internet. He felt that them driving around in their cars taking pictures of your house was bad enough but now they know everything that you do. NEWSFLASH: THEY ALWAYS HAVE! He then tried to connect Google to the Bilderberger Group and the Bohemian Grove. Someone tried to feign interest and he started going into a huge rant about how Alex Jones would be president if it weren’t for him getting caught videotaping in the Bohemian Grove a few years back.

He did all of this talking to try to sell a tee shirt. He also did it to stop from getting bounced away from the line by the venue staff.

There was a girl filming people in the crowd. I don’t care what for, just hope we aren’t on it.

We were let in a little after 8 and I took my ebook reader in without incident. We sat on the bar rail for a little while and I read a couple of chapters of my book. Then we got a spot right in the thick of the crowd under the mirrored disco ball.

There was no opening act, and a few minutes after nine, Billy Idol and his band took the stage. They started out way back in the back catalog with Ready Steady Go, a song from the mid-seventies band Generation X that Idol founded. They rocked on with songs old and new and threw in a cover of LA Woman by The Doors custom-tailored to the Fillmore crowd, renamed “San Francisco Woman” for the night. Highlights for me were “Kinds and Queens of the Underground”, a song which Idol thanks his fans for being there for him and listening to his songs. He threw out flying saucers (paper plates) after the song and they each were autographed by him with messages scrawled on them. We didn’t get one but a good dozen or so sailed into the crowd. Seeing a man put his small son on his shoulders and the boy pumping his fist and rocking out to “Rebel Yell” was pretty cool. The “White Wedding”/”Mony Mony” encore was pretty great as well.

Even though they only played around 16 songs, due to quick breaks throughout the set and extended guitar solos from Steve Stevens, who had a really cool guitar with video effects on it that showed a galaxy spinning at one point and several other images throughout the night, the show lasted two full hours.

To think that this guy was rocking in a punk band before I was even born, and several different generations filled a sold out Fillmore tonight to see him, it is pretty amazing. Billy Idol was very appreciative of his audience and his audience was appreciative of him in return.

While he has had a long career, Billy Idol puts on a great show. If you have the opportunity to catch him in your town, you won’t be sorry!

Post-show, while exiting, this guy was walking along in a maroon shirt and black vest with sunglasses. This girl pulled him aside and tried to talk with him. She asked him his name and he took of his glasses, looked her in the eye and said “Lucifer”. He kept walking as she said “I know you, we’ve met before.”

That’s right, the devil was in front of me on the way out. I’m hoping he bought a bootleg tee shirt too…

We started out at the newly opened Saturn Cafe on Allston Way, having dinner with a friend. Then we headed a few miles away to Cedar Street and saw a great concert with Monica Pasqual and Noe Venable and awesome guests.

Back in 2003, we saw Vienna Teng perform at Borders in Stonestown with three other artists. They were all there to support some USA Songwriter’s Showcase. One of the performers couldn’t make it, so Monica Pasqual stepped in. It was the first time we had ever seen her perform. While not the remarkable artist in our eyes that Vienna has been, we’ve crossed paths with Monica several more times since then.

Tonight was the first time we’d seen her perform solo material though since that time at Borders in Stonestown back seven years or so ago.

Likewise, in 2004, we first saw the Noe Venable Trio (featuring Alan Lin and Todd Sickafoose) open for Vienna Teng. I hadn’t seen them all together since, but our paths have crossed with all three of these talented musicians since then.

Tonight was the first time since then that we’d seen the trio together in one place.

We knew going in that tonight was going to be a special occasion.

We left for Berkeley a bit early and had dinner with one of our friends at the newly opened Saturn Cafe on Allston Way. It is the same food as the Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz, but is also just a block away from the Jupiter Bar and the Venus Restaurant on Shattuck, which is pretty odd.

I had a grilled cheese. My wife had a side of macaroni and cheese. Our friend had an order of steak fries. We split a piece of chocolate silk pie for dessert. It was a good dinner.

After dinner, we said goodbye to our friend and headed to the Hillside Club for the show. We got in and seated and I noticed Monica Pasqual talking to someone familiar. After a moment I realized who it was but didn’t mention anything because I figured the person was just a spectator for the show because they live in town.

Monica took the stage around 8:10 and played her first song along, then brought out Pam Delgado on percussion and backing vocals and in my wife’s biggest “OMG” moment of the night, the guy I saw her talking with, Jon Evans on bass guitar.

My wife prodded me to take photos and video of Jon. He’s the touring bass player for Tori Amos. I took a couple of videos and a ton of photos during Monica’s set, which I liked a bit more than her work with Blame Sally. Most of the photos were focused on Jon Evans though due to the nudging and prodding of my wife.

Her set was about an hour and not bad for an opening act. We got a quick picture of Jon packing up to leave the stage as Alan Lin took the stage, with the two of them in the shot, which is cool, but there was no Todd Sickafoose/Jon Evans Bass Master photo opportunity.

Jon left before Noe Venable Trio took the stage.

The main attraction of the night for us, the reunited, potentially just for one show, Noe Venable Trio, took the stage a little after 9. They played a good mix of old and slightly newer songs. Noe also recited a cool poem around 2/3 of the way through the set. I was happy to hear the mix of songs (Juniper, Prayer for Beauty, Boots, Julia, Woods Part of When, Pleiades, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Feral) played by the great trio. They made some minor mistakes and the sound wasn’t the greatest, but overall a wonderful show.

Post-show, we left and went to Frozen Creations for a frozen yogurt flavor mixture of chocolate, red velvet, cookies and cream and strawberry yogurt with oreo cookie crumbles, minature chocolate cups, strawberries, mini chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, caramel, cheesecake crumbles and marshmellow on top. It wasn’t as good as the flavors written out should have been.

It was odd to get home as early as we did. It was a full night and again a good weekend escape.

With a birthday dinner gathering for a friend, an afterparty with Rock Band, and an impromptu house concert on Saturday, visiting friends with a new baby while our XBoxes were repaired on Sunday, we did a lot of the things we really like.

It all started yesterday afternoon when I began my preparation for a friend’s birthday celebration. I reinstalled our online capable XBox 360 and went on XBox Live and downloaded (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar by Felicia Day and The Guild for play in Rock Band. Then one of our friends came over and brought a copy of Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s book, which she picked up autographed for us (and even personalized for my wife) last weekend.

We drove with her to La Petite Camille where we had dinner for seven to celebrate our friend’s birthday, then the entire party of seven came back to our house. We watched Vienna Teng and Jonathan Spottiswoode play the concert portion of TEDxBoulder, which we were originally planning to go to, but had a lot more fun watching with our friends. Then we played Rock Band, Beatles Rock Band and eventually a couple of friends picked up real guitars. One even gave an impromptu house concert.

Once it bled over into early morning Sunday, we all went to IHOP and had some minionade and other Despicable Me themed meals. We said our final goodbyes around 2am and my wife and I came home and quickly fell asleep.

We were awakened by her grandmother around 10AM, wanting to be taken to church. Since we had to go to San Ramon to get two of our XBox 360s fixed today, my wife asked if she could find a way home from church. She decided because it was cold not to go.

My wife cleaned up the living room from our “wild party” last night and we left around 11:30 for San Ramon. I called the XBox repairman as we got closer and he asked if we could come by around 2:30. This was good as we were both hungry, so we went to Athens Burger in Dublin and had a good lunch. I had a pastrami burger and my wife had a bowl of chili. We split an order of fried zucchini, which is their house specialty. The waitress was wondering why we’d never been there until we explained that we were from Pacifica and just visiting. It was a cool little diner atmosphere with a small arcade full of classic games and a pinball machine. If it was a little more local, I could see us visiting often.

We dropped off the Xboxes in San Ramon at 2:30 and the repairman said he’d keep me updated. He kept his promise. We tried to go to Costco to get gas and due to the local Costco not having a gas station, we went to a Shell station down the street. I filled our tank and got back into the car to a text message that one of our XBoxes was already fixed and he was just testing it to make sure it worked properly.

We went to visit a friend and his wife and new baby in Dublin for the afternoon. While there, I kept getting updates from the repairman. He fixed my XBox that was having graphics problems up good. He added lots of extra cooling elements, a newer model heatsink, an intake fan on the top of the case, a fan speed control mod that makes the XBox louder but much cooler and on top of that, he fixed the problems. It is noisier but fully functional again. The old XBox that I replaced after its dvd drive “died” needed a new laser.

While we waited the four hours or so for the repairs, we hung out with our friends in Dublin. Our friend is a “game enthusiast” and let us play a cool game on his PS3 called DeathSpank which I hadn’t heard of but we played for a good hour or two. It is a ton of fun and I just found out it is also available for XBox Live Arcade, so I’ll be obtaining it and playing some more here at home.

We debated going to see a movie, but it was $12 each for tickets so we just stayed, played DeathSpank and hung out until the repairman called and said he had finished testing both consoles and was ready for us to come pick them up.

It was a good visit with our friends and we ended up buying a flatscreen monitor and wireless mouse from them on the way out.

The charge to fix both XBoxes was only $50. I tried to give the guy $60 and he refused to take the extra $10. He was a very nice guy and so far seems to have done quality work. I’m glad that I found him and that my wife was willing to make the trip out with me to get this all done today.

We got home around 9:00 after a brief stop off at Target for Orange Juice and some other supplies. We also picked up a big tub of cheese balls!

I play tested our newer XBox for around 30 minutes and while it is loud, it works great. I had been having trouble with a few games loading before the fix and there are no problems now. I’m very glad to have it back in working order.

So while it was a “long” weekend, it was a good one. I think we needed it after the stressful times we have had at work lately.

Read on for food adventures at High Tide, Le Petite Camille, and Papa John’s, along with some musing about Inception.

On Saturday morning we somehow were motivated enough to get out of bed and have breakfast at High Tide Cafe and Crepery. It was our third time there and it just keeps getting better. This was my second time to order the chicken sausage crepe. Last time, we arrived a little after lunch and the savory crepe had some sweet crepe flavor creeping in. Not the case this time. There was also seemingly more sausage in the crepe this time around, and the house potatoes were perfectly soft instead of french fryish. e had banana pancakes. The bananas were mashed into the pancakes during cooking and had good flavor. I had a hot chocolate instead of my usual sweet orange juice. The 12 ounce cup was quite generous. It was well topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup, but I wish I’d stirred it, because all the good chocolate flavor was at the bottom.

After running a few errands we ended up at Tanforan to watch Inception. We got comfy seats in the back row. The sound overall seemed fine, but there were places in the movie where the actors mumbled and I couldn’t understand what they said. I recommend taking some vitamins that enhance comprehension before watching this movie, or going further if you’re into that. It combines the reality-bending braininess of The Matrix with the action, city visuals, and thrills of the Bourne movies. That said, I can watch a Bourne movie once and be done, and that was the case for me with Inception. There was a big visual plot clue I missed, but not big enough and I wasn’t confused enough that I need to watch it more than once in the theater at least. Your mileage may very…but over twice in the theater, with how much movies cost these days? Really? The music, composed by Hans Zimmer and with guitar by Johnny Marr, was very well done, although a little distracting at times. The cast was well put together, although I was a little distressed at seeing Leo DiCaprio older now. He’s no longer the age of a kid in Titanic or Romeo and Juliet anymore, and I’m not a kid anymore either.

We ended the day at Le Petite Camille (linked menu is outdated) to scout the place for a friend’s birthday celebration. He wanted Vietnamese food, we found the place and wanted to make sure it didn’t suck first. We got there and the place was only half full, but it filled when we were half done. The waiter got our initial order correct, but it was hard to get ahold of him to order additional things, and not all the things ended up coming to me (I asked for a 7up that never made it). The dishes were good though. There’s only one kind of pho, extra large with tendon and tripe, so if you want variety for pho I advise going elsewhere. There were lots of other different noodle dishes though, and a few other kinds of soup. They also have Vietnamese sandwiches. We saw one come out and go to some kids. The prices are a little high, but the portions are applicable. e had BBQ pork with imperial rolls. The pork had great flavor and I liked the rolls, but he didn’t like the bamboo shoots or whatever that it came with. I had pan fried noodles with chicken, and it had egg and vegetables stirred in. I had to wait the longest but it was very good. e was jealous and is going to get that next time with pork. He ended up getting some pork meatballs to finish up his meal, and that came with the rice noodles and vegetables so he got full. Three pork meatballs came on each skewer, and we got three skewers. They were slightly bigger than the diameter of a quarter and also had good flavor. My grandmother enjoyed her seafood clay pot. She said it was even better the next day. She was offered a side of steamed rice when she got her food, and she agreed. It took so long to get to her that she ended up only eating a little bit of rice. For dessert we got flan and a fried banana. Neither were anything special, although the orange sherbert that the fried banana came with was good. Saving the creme brulee experience for my friend’s celebration, so you’ll hear about that next week.

Finished off the weekend with one last adventure, trying out Papa John’s in San Francisco. We’d been to the one in San Bruno several times, but it isn’t quite right. The SF one is newer but we hadn’t gone yet because it’s in the middle of a neighborhood with confusing streets. Sure enough, I got lost, but fortunately not hopelessly lost. I got there and they hadn’t made my wings. I was hungry but fine with waiting. I checked out the rest of the tiny strip mall area, which caters to students since it’s basically within SFSU housing. There’s a burger place next door with grilled cheese, but they close at 6pm on Sundays. Open til 9 the rest of the week. There’s a liquor store, a laundromat, a cafe, and a Wells Fargo ATM. The rest of the stores are empty. It must suck to go to college in SF; it isn’t a college town at all.

Back to Papa John’s, a standby for college kids in places other than SF. I got directions from them, to take Brotherhood Way to 19th and get on Junipero Serra to get to their store. I’ll be sure to try it next time. I was a bit puzzled at the pepperoni sticking out instead of hidden under the cheese, but all worries were gone when I got home. The crust was a little soft, but not overly so, and the sausage flavor was excellent. Our wings were drowning in sauce, but weren’t actually overly spicy. They were crispy under the sauce and had plenty of meat. All that was left when we were done was one slice of pizza. We will definitely go again. Another advantage over San Bruno is they have tables. Only three of them, but still, much better than nothing. The store is kinda weird as it’s completely tiled, like they’re working in a giant bathroom. They have a deal where all their large pizzas are $10, including their specialty pizzas. Looking forward to taking advantage of it.

This week: The BBQ Boys, Buca Di Beppo, Bill’s Hot Dogs, Pho Garden, and Amilia’s.

Monday: The BBQ Boys

These guys bring a big grill and cook on site, which is pretty awesome. Stepped out to billowing smoke. The types of meat they brought were clearly labeled, and even denoted spiciness. Available to us was Caesar salad, coleslaw, hamburgers, bratwurst, chicken sausage, and vegetables. A table of condiments included Kansas City BBQ sauce (seemed vinegary, in contrast to its Wikipedia description) and Memphis BBQ sauce (sweet, preferred this one). I had the chicken sausage and it was excellent. Great flavor, perfect texture. The only issue was a lack of side dishes; salad and one dog wasn’t quite enough.

Tuesday: Buca di Beppo

After having a local business for day one, a chain for day two was a bit of a letdown. Spaghetti and lasagna were available with French bread and salad. The pasta was just fine. The lasagna had a good amount of meat in it, but the ricotta cheese gets overwhelming. Solved by just scooping some of it out.

Wednesday: Bill’s Hot Dogs

When our e-mail announcing lunch said “Enjoy your WaterDogs!” I tried and failed to hunt down what we were getting. Much to everyone’s surprise it turned out the water was actually beer. Yes, the polish and hot dogs are steamed in beer. Options were bacon, and chili and cheese. Since the chili and cheese were just out with the condiments, I got a bacon chili cheese dog. The foot long hot dog was soft and I couldn’t taste the beer. They are placed in real seeded buns, not that wimpy soft squishy bread. The bacon was OK, nothing special. The chili was mostly just beans, not spicy. The cheese was grated cheddar. I added onions to go with the chili. Chips came with the hot dog. Non-beef eaters were left in the cold. It was a good hot dog, well worth the $5 combo value with chips and soda, but with so many Costcos around it’s not worth driving to San Jose during weekday lunch just to try it.

Thursday: The BBQ Boys came back, this time with actual chicken, and sides of beans and corn. They also had veggie burgers out in addition to hamburgers; their site mentions that you can always just ask for them at the grill, but my co-workers wouldn’t have known and probably needed them on display. I was told that the chicken was great, but I didn’t have any myself as I ended up going out to lunch. I did try the beans, which seemed too sweet, and the corn, which seemed too red peppery. I will be sure to have the chicken next time.

I missed the BBQ chicken, but still had chicken for lunch at Pho Garden. Getting chicken soup (pho ga) at a pho place, I’ve found, is hit or miss; sometimes I have bony red stuff, sometimes it’s gleaming white yet flavorless, and sometimes there’s only cow available. It was hot out so I decided not to get soup, but ordered lemongrass chicken with garlic noodles.  A few of my co-workers got small bowls of pho, but they were more like the size that’s actually a normal serving for me. There’s no medium/regular so if you go, go for a large. Everyone (except me of course) finished their food, so that’s a good sign. I got a few remarks that my dish looked good. My chicken was not blinding white, but it was not bloody or bony so I was quite content. It was roughly the size of a breast filet, maybe very slightly larger because it was rectangular and not oval. The garlic noodles had good thick texture, but I think they’d been boiled in local water that had some chlorine taste, and that detracted from the experience. They were coated in thick garlic powder. They were OK. I actually ate most of my chicken, but I peeled the skin off and there was still plenty enough to take home.

Castro Street in Mountain View is nice for lunch, but I never go because parking’s a nightmare. We went through three different garages at 12:30 before finding a space.

Friday: No catered lunch on Friday, but we had a new hire so we went to welcome lunch instead. A co-worker had suggested Amilia’s and we went despite him only having gone there once and only remembering that the calamari was good. No calamari on the lunch menu, but they had a ton of other options, including their breakfast menu. Half of another team crashed our lunch so I was able to see a wide variety of dishes. Everything looked good. I had a lot of trouble deciding, but got the chicken penne pasta. I was a bit skeptical, but the dish was very good. Combining bacon, spinach, and chicken with creamy marinara worked out. I stole fries and a glob of cheese from my coworker’s very large cheeseburger and they were both really good. Didn’t have room or time for dessert, which is only posted in their front window; service was slow, but that was expected since we were a really big group. I would certainly go back, but it’s too far south to justify a road trip.

There you have it, week one of free lunches. My company will be repeating catering services, so this upcoming week may or may not have some days skipped.

8/14 Noe Venable
8/17 Billy Idol
8/20 Drifting Sand
8/21 MC HAMMER!
8/21 TSR!
8/22 Rock The Bells?
8/29 Slash