Capricious Me

Yesterday I went to SF Market in Sacramento to get a small bass. Poor little fish… it didn’t know what was coming to it. It got clubbed it to death, scaled, and gutted before being dumped in two layers of plastic bags. Steamed sea bass is surprisingly easy to make. Chopping up the garlic and green onions took the most time. I have to say that handling that fish, with its beady little eye staring and mouth slightly agape, was a little disconcerting. I apologized to the fish as I was cutting into it so I could stuff some garlic and ginger in its side. I apologized when I tried to lop off its head, but in the end I kept its head on. There’s something weird about handling a creature in its near entirety. I think it’s the eyes that make it creepy.

The end result was pretty good. Fresh fish tastes so much better than the overpriced frozen filets they sell in the seafood department of grocery stores. I took a picture, but my camera’s out of batteries so it’ll be a while until I post it.

Well, not a full day, but thanks to my advisor and a labmate, our security group had a fall outing over the weekend at the Chabot Gun Club in Oakland. My advisor gave us a quick tutorial for safety and operations and then we took turns firing with his gun. It was FUN. I didn’t expect to enjoy it quite so much… but I did. Overall, I think I did pretty well for my first time. The recoil surprised me every time, but my advisor gave us good instructions, so I managed to shoot fairly well. Most of my bullets hit the target, at least. I kept them for evidence that a lot of my bullets ended up close to the center, especially from 15 yards. ^_^

In case of zombie attack, I have a running chance!

Major ones:

• Saw Maroon 5 live in concert, thanks to Mike.
• Had a visit from Anita :)
• Proud new owner of espresso machine. currently enjoying Peet’s Arabian Mocha Java blend. Almost done with that bag and moving on to italian roast next.
• Won a bag of rice from spinning the wheel at Mikuni’s on my birthday. Wooo! A Bag of Rice! (Seriously, with the price of rice going up, that’s an AWESOME prize. The server tried to tempt me away from it with a BEER GLASS. As if a Mikuni’s branded beer glass could trump a bag of rice. Pshaw.)
• Baked a very chocolatey cake. Not as good as what I remember from my childhood… but still yummy. Finished it off tonight with some green tea ice cream and matcha powder.