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USA: NYC: Island Burgers & Shakes

Posted on August 28th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Food, NYC.

[Yes, it looks like a hole in the wall, but those are the best places.]

Yet another delicious burger joint, this is a tiny restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen on 9th Avenue between 51st and 52nd Streets.  If you want your burger rare, you’ll have it rare: cold in the middle.  When I ordered my burger medium-rare, I got what I really wanted.  Phenomenal.  So often it’s hit or miss.

I had the Route 66 Burger, with avacado and bacon on it…mmm…  I also got a tasy vanilla malt unlike any malt I have ever tried before.  Impressive.  Most Impressive….

They were also offering a “Recession Special” at the time: Burger, chips, and a fountain drink for ten dollars flat - tax included.  Not a bad deal for Midtown Manhattan!  This place isn’t ten minutes walking from Times Square, folks.

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Book: Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Posted on August 28th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

Title: The Clone Wars
Author: Karen Traviss
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Anna’s Rating: 4/5 (Really enjoyed it!  Good re-write of the movie.)

The first of…9 books, I think, being written in tandem by Karen Traviss and another author whose name I didn’t catch as I was encased in plastic and rather uncomfortable and poorly focused at the time.

I enjoyed this adaptation to the movie.  She managed to take a shallow, action-packed cartoon and turn it into a deep, intellectual, and yes, still action-packed book.  I loved how she wrote the clone troopers - I’m really looking forward to reading the Republic Commando series, which I’m starting on next.

[Clone troopers were dropping left and right in the movie, but Karen Traviss’ version of events were even more extreme…wow.)

She goes deep into the minds of Anakin and Rex, and delves a bit into the minds of Dooku, Jabba, and Ventress as well.  I would have loved to see her do the same for Obi-wan, but as I expected, she did not.  I guess Clone Wars really isn’t about Obi-wan, but I still would have found it interesting.  We did see a lot on how others perceive him, but what is Obi-wan himself thinking?  What drives him?  What book can satisfy my curiosity?  Likely not a Karen Traviss book, as she hates the man…  Sigh.

One great thing that I can count on Karen for is that she fixed the plot where the movie falters.  For example, in the movie, Obi-wan deceives the enemy general by claiming to surrender in an effort to stall for time…I really disliked Obi-wan deceiving someone, even in war, as it’s more Sith-like, but Karen fixed it in the book by reducing that whole scene to this quote from Kenobi:

Yes, I did sit down and talk surrender terms with Loathsom, over a cup of tarine tea.  He became most ungentlemanly when he realized it was his surrender we were talking about.  Have these people no manners?  He didn’t even offer me a sweet-sand cookie. (p. 72, hardcover)

And, of course, there were many more delightful QUOTES:

“Who could make such a rash judgement about a youngling’s future in such a short time, anyway?  That would be rash.  Unfair, even.  It’s our duty to nuture talent and support it.”
- Anakin Skywalker, p. 75 (hardcover)
…just a good reminder as a teacher not to judge students, but to support them to our utmost…

“Truth - reality - was whatever you wanted or needed it to be.”
- Author’s narrative from Asajj Ventress’s POV, p. 116 (hardcover)

“Kenobi ran his hand over his beard, not in that considered I’m-pondering-might-issues way, but fast, as if he were stiffling a groan of despair.”
- Author’s narrative, p. 120

“I can’t define a hero.  All I know is that it’s someone you probably don’t notice, but when you find out what they did and how modestly they did it, you can never shake off the feeling that you’re cut from a lesser cloth, and you find that braggarts suddenly offend you a great deal more than usual.”
- Admiral Yularen, p. 187 (hardcover)

“Hey, Snips - I’ll show you how to hotwire a ship.  Essential Jedi training they tend to omit at the Temple.”
- Anakin Skywalker as a mentor, p. 191 (hardcover)

…interesting view on the life of a Jedi…
“Just a game for you, isn’t it?  No family, no lover, co country, nothing to weep for.  A sport.”
- Thoughts of Asajj Ventress, regarding Obi-wan Kenobi, p. 211 (hardcover)
…almost makes you feel bad for the Jedi…or should we be jealous?

“That was the great thing about problems; there was always a bigger, nastier one to put the rest in a convenient shadow.”
- Author’s narrative from Anakin Skywalker’s POV, p. 213 (hardcover)

“Hatred can be pushed aside, but it will always whisper in your ear.”
- Irmenu proverb, p. 223 (hardcover)

“…I wish we could get this one thing straight - I’m not a traitor.  I was never on your side.  I’m called the enemy.”
- Count Dooku to Senator Amidala, p. 239 (hardcover)

Cody: “Pays not to think about it too much, Captain.”
Rex: “…Trouble is, if we don’t think, we might as well be droids.”
- Clone Comander Cody and Clone Captain Rex, in the aftermath of the battle on Teth, p. 244 (hardcover)

[Just cause I wanted to share it…]

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USA: NYC: McSorley’s Old Ale House

Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

[Image from McSorley’s site, linked below]

Those who know me know that I’m really not a fan of beer.  I’ll drink Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Bacardi Breezers, and Smirnoff Ices all night long, but beer’s not my thing.  There have been two exceptions up until this point: Hoegaarden and Allagash White.  I can now add a third.

McSorley’s Old Ale House is located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan on 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues (but closer to 3rd.)  It’s a small place with big, heavy wooden tables that small parties share.  There are two drinks you can order: McSorley’s Light and McSorley’s Dark - I went with Light and I loved it.  They also have a delicious, if simple, plate of saltine crackers with cheese (good cheese!  And stinky onions that I avoided.)

There was a good, lively atmosphere and quick service.  I had a great time and would highly recommend it to anyone visiting the area.

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Biking: My New Bike

Posted on August 24th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

 
[I wear a helmet, cause I’m trendy.  And because, should an ill fate befall me while biking, I’d prefer for my brain to not go splat.]

Having finally given up on the idea of ever getting my good bike shipped to me out here, and in a desperate determination to have some control over my figure this year, I finally broke down, went to Target, and bought a Schwinn for $170.  Not as fancy as I’ve been accustomed to over the years, but it’ll get me by until I can find some way to get my other bike out here. 

Actually, more than anything, I miss my old Haro that my mom and brother got for me as a birthday gift when I was a teen…I’m also still bitter that my ex stole it.  WHY steal a 10-year-old bike?  WHY?  …still, life must go on, and we must acquire new bikes.

I went for a front suspension bike, as that seems pretty standard now, and full suspension eliminates the possibility of mounting a rack for saddle bags, which are awesome…and also in Minnesota, like most of the things I own.

[Check out the full-size PDF of the Brooklyn Bike Map from the Transportation Alternatives website.]

I checked out a map of Brooklyn bike routes and found a fairly safe route to get to the school where I teach - it’s only 2.5 miles away.  I did a test run last week, and it took about 20 minutes…with practice (read: exercise) I think I could get it down to 15.  That’s faster than my trip on the subway, and if I could work a bit of biking into my daily routine, I might be able to fit back into some old pants!

I also tried biking down Ocean Parkway’s bike path to Coney Island…to find that the 5-mile dedicated bike path ends at the Coney Island boardwalk.  Amazing.  And very rewarding to sit on the boardwalk and stare out at the sandy white beach and the ocean beyond.  Well, it’s rewarding if you grew up in a frozen, land-locked state like Minnesota, anyway.

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Baking: Imperial Sugar Cookies

Posted on August 23rd, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Food, Star Wars.

So, I had an idea for the Christmas party that the Empire City Garrison had already begun planning…but then I thought perhaps that I could pull it off as a fun surprise at the large Italian family BBQ that I’m attending this weekend along with a slew of my fellow ECG troopers.

[Baking in a crowded kitchen]

I called my mom for my grandma’s sugar cookie recipe, which she e-mailed to me, making it necessary to have the laptop in the kitchen while I made the cookie dough.  Now, in addition to cat hair, there is also flour in the keyboard…no clue if this thing is going to last out the year.

 
[Myself, baking cookies in a silk shower robe…no one’s perfect.]

I realized while baking that perhaps I was doing my Home Ec teachers something of a disservice, baking cookies in a silk bath robe with long, flowy sleeves that I did not tie back.  Woops.  But hey!  Baking at my place is fun!

 
[Join the Dark Side: we have cookies.  No, seriously…check it out!]

I initially did a very thin coat of white background frosting.  Perhaps I was too stingy - next time I’ll make a double batch of frosting - but I did it because I still had to do a secondary layer of decorative frosting.  I drew a stencil and cut it out, and after the frosting had set, I went to work again.

[Red Impersial Cog Cookie] 

Some turned out great…others were a bit blurry.  These are some better examples.  Note that, to be obnoxious, I made both standard red AND special collectors addition blue cookies, so whoever gets their hands on those is gonna be the most popular person at the buffet table…and NO ONE outside my garrison will get this joke.

[Blue Collectors Edition Imperial Cog Cookie] 

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USA: NYC: Outdoor Movies

Posted on August 23rd, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

[At the free showing of Superman on Monday night in Bryant Park]

I’ve never been to a drive-in movie, but on Monday night I walked into Bryant Park (near Times Square) with a picnic blanket and parked my rear to watch Superman (1978 version) outdoors on a grassy mall with a few thousand of my close personal friends.

The atmosphere made it so much fun - though perhaps my experience was lacking in an entourage of friends, a pizza, and a couple bottles of wine to wash it down with.  Still, it made me think that I need to make a list of thing to do next summer when I’m completely free from work and school.

Then, while watching a video clip of Danny on NY1, I saw an advertisement for a Friday night showing of Shrek out on Pier 46 at the Hudson River Park…how could I resist?  I managed to get two friends to join me: Terry and Rebekah brought fried chicken, salad, and sides; I brought a large platter of sliced fruits, cheeses, crackers, and dips.  We sat on my slightly insufficient Ikea picnic blanket, ate, and laughed and heckled and sang and quoted and generally had a fabulous time.

Suffice to say that I’m making a list of things I need to do next summer.  Whether the outdoor movies are in Midtown Manhattan, with skyscrapers rising up behind the screen, or on the pier, with a cool breeze off the Hudson River and New Jersey in the background, it’s a delightful experience that I am eager to repeat.

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Book: Star Wars: Allegiance

Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Books, Star Wars.

Title: Allegiance
Authory: Timothy Zahn
Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy
Anna’s Rating: 4/5 (Great book set between Episodes 4 and 5…you don’t need to know much about the Expanded Universe to enjoy this one.)

[It looks like those troopers are wearing MR buckets…doesn’t it???]

I really enjoyed this one.  I love Tim Zahn’s writing, and I really wish I could meet him one day…I’ve got a few books for him to sign…

He did a fabulous job of taking a multitude of storylines and weaving them together.  By the second half of the 400-pager, I was really hooked, looking for excuses to pick up the book, and the last hundred pages I only put it down at 1am so I could sleep…and I finished it this morning before even thinking about breakfast.

If I had to make any complaint, perhaps it would have been nice to have more character development on our individual stormtroopers…but he left it wide open for a sequel, so maybe we’ll still get that.  I had a good feel of them as a group - my man did his job - but these are recruits, not clones, with each their own interesting backstory…which I, of course, want to know.

Being set in the original trilogy, we get all our favorite characters: Leia, Han, Luke, Vader…and even Mara!  Oh, happiness.  Though, sometimes she was a bit weird…too soft…was she a softie when she was younger, and only develop that hard, bitter shell after the Emperor died?

Mr. Zahn, are you going to write more?  Because I need it…

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USA: NYC: 67 Burger

Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Food, NYC.

[Photo of 67 Burger is coming from The Life and Times of Victor Jouvert, which is written by a man who also swears by 67 Burger - GO THERE!]

So I finally convinced some friends to come out to Brooklyn for 67 Burger, a small place located a block or two behind Target on a funky three-way intersection of Lafayette, Fulton, and Elliot.

If you want your burger rare, you can get it here.  And the sweet potato fries are some of the best I’ve ever had!  I get the 67 Burger Special…a thick, juice paddy topped with bacon and blue cheese…mmm…  And while I don’t drink soda, the RC Cola seems to be pretty popular.  Sam Adams is on tap, too.  Prices are reasonable - check out their menu here.

[The house special, the “67 Burger”, with blue cheese and bacon…mmm…]

Address is 67 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, and these are some of the best burgers in NYC - GO THERE!  (Seriously, my friends swore by Jackson Hole, but after they’d been to 67 Burger, they agreed with me…Jackson Hole doesn’t compete.) 

1 comment.

Trooping: Brooklyn Cyclones Game

Posted on August 18th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Costumes, Star Wars.

[Waiting around at the WB office, left to right, it’s Lou, myself, and Danny.]

Lou, Ray, Danny, Eric, and I all met at WB’s office to head down to Coney Island on Friday night for the Brooklyn Cyclones game.  (As Brooklyn lacks a major league baseball team, I default to being a fan of the Cyclones, our minor league team.)

 
[Left to right it’s myself, a mascot, Eric, Lou, another mascot, Ray, and Danny.]

This was our last scheduled troop with WB…I think we’re all in agreement that we’ll miss the shiny, black, chauffered sedans that picked us up at home each day and carted us around the city…who would want to schlep armor around on the subway after an experience like that???  Though, the way things look right now, I doubt I’ll have to drag my armor around again before October…kinda sad, really.

The plan was for Danny, our lone clone trooper that day, to throw out the first pitch…and that would have gone off without a hitch, I imagine, had a horrible storm not come our way.  After one little tornado on Long Island and some flash flooding in the Bronx, somebody decided, as the torrential rains came pouring down over the open-air stadium, that perhaps we should delay the game.

 
[Eric being screened by security with the metal detector wand.]

Another hour after that, the two teams conceeded the game to Mother Nature, and our Imperial army unsuited and packed up.  We piled into our van and headed back into the City, to a BBQ place in Times Square called Virgil’s (after making a detour to Jim Hanley’s Universe to pick up the hyperfirm rifle that Danny had forgotten there on Tuesday.)

 
[Do troopers ever mix up their armor pieces???  What a mess!]

We feasted on piles of fresh, hot hush puppies, dipped in maple syrup butter, while waiting for our main courses to arrive - piles of ribs and wings, pulled pork and beef brisket…mmm…  And as I ate, I couldn’t help thinking that I probably wouldn’t eat that well again until the Christmas party scene rolled around again…also a bit depressing.

 
[Our last WB/ECG team dinner at Virgil’s in Times Square.]

Still, I was grateful for the fabulous treatment Lucasfilm and Warner Brothers ensured us.  Perhaps next summer we’ll have the chance to troop with them again when the new live-action Star Wars TV series premiers…

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Trooping: CW11 and Planet Hollywood

Posted on August 15th, 2008 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Costumes, Star Wars.

[Live on the news at 6:51am, left to right it’s Bob O., Ray, Wally, myself, Eric, and Coop.]

Even shorter than our 7-minute Weird Al troop was our CW11 morning news troop…private, chauffered cars came to collect us each from home at 5am so that we could be on air for…perhaps a minute…30 seconds is more likely.  But you could hear the crickets chirping in the newsroom when the news reporter we were standing behind randomly walked off stage, leaving us standing alone, doing our best impression of armored deer in headlights, as the seconds crawled by in an agonizingly slow fashion.

 
[Left to right, myself, Bob O., Wally, and Eric in Times Square.]

After that, two troopers went to work and the remaining four of us went to road the streets of Chinatown and Times Square, whiling away the hours until our next brief troop at Planet Hollywood.  I picked up a set of Galactic Heroes figures at K-Mart, and a new Clone Wars coloring book at Toys R Us.

[I colored this page of Ahsoka Tano from my new Clone Wars coloring book after taking a long nap on the couch.]

We put in a good 30 minutes at Planet Hollywood, which makes my 18-hour troop at Toys R Us, or even my 10-hour troop at NYCC, seem rather trivial.  After taking hundreds or photos in the press room at Planet Hollywood, we stumbled around between the tables to meet and greet people having lunch. 

 
[Our troopers, post-troop, with one of the wonderful folks from WB.]

I was just getting annoyed and pulling out my camera to photograph my fellow troopers when someone from Warner Brothers told me I was done and could go change and order lunch, which the good folks at WB were covering.  (I had a ribeye steak, rare, and a double chocolate fudge brownie a la mode, served with two iced teas…then I got back in my chauffered car, after swinging by WB again, and fell asleep on the ride home.)

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