Hibachi Madness

In the lot next to my hotel in Beachwood OH, there has been a restaurant called "Wasabi". Upon our arrival, it seemed that Wasabi was a restaurant that had just closed... but I guess it was a restaurant that was in the process of OPENING. After 4 months (has it been that long REALLY?) it is finally open. It is a Benihana-style teppenyaki grill with the big cooking tables and the cheesy cooks... and the decor is truly amazing: gleaming steel, blue lighting, and a full wall of fish tanks with blue lit bubbles. All I could imagine upon sitting down was that this place was BUILT to be shot to pieces in an action film. I could only hope that it wouldn't be during my visit.

The menu is the same as any of these places - grilled chicken and steak and shrimp, with a flamboyant preparation of the fried rice, and the two sauces... the chef was a funny cornball (as always), and he had a ketchup bottle filled with sake that he shot into my mouth. A few times. Ok, a lot. He shot to fill, then overfill, and my clothes are covered with sake. I'm lucky I only had to walk across a parking lot, actually.

It'll be fun to have this place close by.

Work - well it goes ok. Things are getting to a bit of equilibrium of mild suckyness, but it's at least tolerable. I've had indications that the storms of unreasonableness are now taking place at a level above me, which is nice in that I don't really need to be affected now. They're having some trouble hiring for my permanent replacement, which worries me. I had a co-worker say in a meeting "well, Jim, if you would just stop saying how terrible Cleveland is in your BLOG, maybe people would want to work there". Which totally freaked me out.... Dawn, are you READING this? ;-> I know, my policy of not naming names only goes so far when you're dealing with a major client... in Cleveland... I mean, how many groups are we talking about? That's right, I might as well have it out there. I'm working for http://www.clevelandohiopodiatrist.com/

Ha!

Easter was wonderful, by the way: Papabam were in town, and while Papa is suffering from an EPIC sinus infection (and suffering even more from the biohazard antibiotics he's on), he was still game for art projects and fun. And we enjoyed Inglourious Bastards, which was made for Papa in a way. I'll be watching it yet again this coming weekend with the Scotch Avengers, and that's just fine by me.

I'm sure you're all wondering: Did Jimmy get an iPad. The answer is yes. I HAVE ONE. And Pamela is ok with it too - we cleared it in the budget with some key "old technology" sales - it's budget neutral.

I love love love it, but truth be told, I'm still exploring it, and it's not yet an essential part of my existence. It easily replaces my Kindle - my books moved over. Movies and shows are great, and the calendar is gorgeous. The extra apps are very sweet too... But I'm a couple of days away from deciding if it is the best thing EVAR. Basically everything i've had to do in the past 2 days has been laptop or phone based, and so I'm trying to work out how the Pad fits. But give me time... I've already established I can connect to my work intranet using it, and it displays most of my work documents well, so I'm thinking it will wend its way into my world soon enough. But form factor, holding it, playing with it, it really feels like a piece of the future. It is amazing.

Fringe on last Thursday was maybe one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen... and it got me emailing with buddies about other "best shows ever". I identified a couple of Star Trek TNG episodes (Yesterday's Enterprise, Best of Both Worlds), and was met with "well.....". So I downloaded them and watched them - and... um... yeah. TNG was not the best show ever. The sets looked like a Marriott, the effects were only ok... In retrospect, not the greatest shows when held up on the grand continuum. But still enjoyable.