Lolrus.org

Food and Beer in Germany, San Jose, and Rochester

January 14, 2008 at 10:01 PM | categories: Food, Beer, Germany | Comment

As some of you might know, I've been in Osnabrück, Germany since the beginning of October. Well, one of the biggest joys in life to me is food. I wouldn't be able to live in a place my whole life in a place that had bad eats.

Basically, right now I am sick of most food they have here to offer. Here's a list of what I liked and am now sick of, should have liked, or too po' for.

So, for Germany:

• Döner Kebab - Alright, so this is one of the few foods I can still tolerate more than once a week. It has been my replacement for the burrito when I was in California, which was then my replacement for the Garbage Plate when I was in Rochester. Basically, it's meat in a pita for 3 euros. You even have a choice between Lamb meat and Chicken meat. What else could I wish for? Cheap, warm, and scrumptious. I'm getting kind of sick of it now, but when I am hungry and/or a wee bit tipsy, there's nothing else.
• Pizza - In Germany it's pretty weak... compared to what I'm used to at least. The cheese is pretty good, but it's just not the same, sadly. Also they use salami instead of pepperoni. Not much a loss, but just different. You generally buy whole, smaller pizzas in Germany, usually at a Turkish owned restaurant as well, that most likely sells Döner too. You can even get a pizza with döner meat at some places. It's pretty tasty, but just not the same as a nice New York style slice of pizza. Usually between 3 and 5 euros for a pizza that will even fill me up.
• Brotwurst - Quite delicious compared to hot dogs. Comes in a Brötchen (a little roll, also called Semmeln in Bavaria). Too greasy for me now. I also don't find them that filling either. Usually about 1.70-2.00 euros. At festivals you can get comically large ones. I've seen meter long ones at Oktoberfest, and half meter ones in Berlin for new years eve.
• Potatoes - Pretty decent. Come prepared a few different ways. The boiled ones are pretty bland I think though.
• Schnitzel - Only had a few time. Not bad, but a bit greasy to eat regularly.
• Fish - Had some good fish, had some bad fish. The salmon is generally fresh.
• Chinese Food - A bit disappointing. Not the type of dishes I am used to. They mostly have just noodle dishes or fried meat with a crust on sauce dishes. And curry. It's more indonesian cuisine. I know what is "Chinese" food in the U.S. isn't traditional, but that doesn't mean General Tsao's chicken isn't 100% delicious.

• What I make - Lately I've been adventurous. I've made some Thai Curry, some Sushi (surprisingly good), Ramen, potatoes. For a while I was making Brotwurst, but got sick of it. Also, I've made some not too bad steaks and fish.

• The Bier - German beer is good. I've only had one or two bad beers. Most people drink Becks which is pretty good. The other common ones where I am are Warsteiner, Herforder, etc. You don't get a lot of the good Bavarian German beers, or the Belgian beers that I love so much (will elaborate more later). You really have two choices. Weizen (wheat) beer, pilsners, or dunkels (which nobody except old people really enjoy). It gets a bit boring. I found a place about 2 km away from me which has Augustiner which is pretty much one of my favorite German beers. Justin and I hauled a carton which had about 10 liters back the other day and I was a bit sore after. We get Budweiser (the Czech one) here which is really good actually. I've been drinking that because it's not a Pilsner and I am just tired of Pilsners. In Berlin there's also Berliner Pils, and Berliner Kindl which I think is also a Pilsner. Boring. Beer at bars and clubs are usually between 1.50 euros to 3.00 euros for a half liter or .33 liter.

So I will go cronologically now. Here's the highlights and lowlights of when I was living in San Jose:

• In-N-Out Burger - Amazing! My friends in the bay had always talked about how delicious it was. When I crossed the border into Cali for the first time, when I saw an In-N-Out Burger, I immediately got off the highway. Needless to say, I was far from disappointed. Double-Doubles with grilled onions only are pretty much the best fast food burger I have ever had in my honest opinion. Everything at In-N-Out is fresh, and delicious, from the burger patties, to the freshly cut fries, to the lightly toasted buns. Not bad shakes either.
• Burritos- Absolutely delicious. I like mine with carnitas, black beans, and light on the salsa. The best are most definitely in the Mission District in San Francisco. As far as local to where I was in San Jose, La Victoria's Taqueria was pretty good, along with some other places. Haven't experience burritos anything like it elsewhere. A regular burrito generally runs between $4 and $5. Not bad I believe!
• Mongolian BBQ - Also one of my more favorite meals. Su's Mongolian BBQ was the best. So good. All you can eat. Under 10 dollars. You make a couple bowls, the spicier the better because you know there's a soft serve machine waiting for you after you packed the last bowl into your belly. I like lots of garlic, chili, and chili oil. King's Mongolian BBQ wasn't so bad either, but it was always empty and had not the best vibe.
• Pizza - The only good pizza I ever had in San Jose was Amici's. It was hella expensive though. Over $20 for a large that wasn't even that large or something obscene like that. It was super good though. There was a decent Chicago style pizza place, but I don't dig the deep dish. I had a couple pretty good slices in North Beach in SF. They weren't too pricey either.
• Korean - Had a few times, pretty good.
• Vietnamese - I had it once, but didn't really dig it. Maybe I will try again someday.
• Thai - Pretty good. I discovered my love for red, green, and panang curry in SJ. There's some cheap eats too.
• Jamba Juice - Excellent smoothies. So good. Had a Jamba Juice for lunch sometimes, or for dinner.
• Italian food in North Beach in SF - Amazing. I went to a couple nice places with Marisa. Really good. Once we ended up at this really kitschy place because all the other restaurants were packed. We were really skeptical, but it turned out to be excellent food nevertheless. The seafood is out of this world.

• The Beer - Ehh it was mediocre. BevMo had a moderate selection, but it was really pricey and far out of the way. I usually stuck to Heinekin (FYI, Heinekin tastes WAY better in the Netherlands. Not a hint of skunkiness). Bars were really expensive. Even the dives. The cheapest beer in a bar around was $2 Pabst Blue Ribbons. Gag.

Now time for the Rochester portion. It's been a year since I've been there, so bear with me if things have changed. I actually miss the food in Rochester a lot. It's good and cheap.

I mention "plates" a lot here and they refer to garbage plates.

• California Rollin' - My favorite Sushi place. It's usually super good. I've had a not-so-good roll or two there in the past, but when you go every week, there has to bee some off days. $12 for 3 roll Sundays is the best. It's right in the Village Gate mall, so you can go get some records or piercings then get some sushi. How fun is that? Tuscany roll and Rainbow rolls are my favorites. Louisiana roll is pretty good. I also like the eel rolls, but I forget their names.
• Piatzas - I was living on University Ave for 6 months. Piatzas is so good. HUGE slices for like $1.50. Usually really good. Nice thin crust. It's like a little shack on Park Ave and Oxford intersection. Probably not the best pizza, but some of the best.
• KC Tea and Noodle - This was closed for a couple months then reopened before I left. It has the only bubble tea that I know of in Rochester. They also have super good noodles! It's a fun place to go and will make you feel good and happy inside.
• Dogtown Hots - It's only been around for a year or so now. Even if you don't like hot dogs it's worth checking out. Their hotdogs are amazing. They put them on buttered french bread instead of rolls and there's 20 or so different toppings you can get. I also had a plate there once, and you can get onion rings on it. One of my favorite places. The people that work there are really nice. They also have vegi dogs, chili, and plates incase you're a vegetarian or have one as a boy/girlfriend.
• Mark's Texas Hots - Open 24-7. Some of the craziest stuff that I've seen in Rochester has happened to me here, such as a girl passing out from alcohol poisoning and her friends fighting over who's fault it is instead of helping her or calling 911. Once some guy sat next to me and a group of friends and told us how he once blew the kneecaps off a guy and said he's lucky we weren't lizard people. As far as the food goes, it's pretty damn good. I prefer plates from other places, but their omelettes are top notch. If you can get there for breakfast they also have really good egg sandwiches. Really good service and nice waitresses. Sometimes you even get the honor of seeing Mark kick rude guests out.
• Henrietta Hots - Honestly, a lot of people give this place crap, but I think they have the best plates. They use nutmeg or cinnamon in their hot sauce to make it taste oh so good. I go back there even though some friends and I got food poisoning there once. It's closer to RIT than Mark's or Nick's.
• Ming's - Favorite chinese restaurant ever. It's a hole in the wall place on Clinton Ave (I think). Justin introduced me to it. Since then I can't get enough. Amazing General Tsao's, dumplings, spring rolls. Good lunch special too. If you eat there you will smell a bit greasy after, but it's worth it. They kind of deliver to some areas too.
• Dibellas - Really good subs. Personally, I enjoy their hot roast beef or steak and cheese subs.
• Old Toad - Pretty good British style pub. Good selection of beers. Free meal on your birthday. People speak with a British accent too.
• MacGreggors - Right near RIT. Cheap specials. Huge beer menu. Definitely a mix crowd goes there.
• Wegmans - There's nothing like it anywhere I've been. They have a great selection of food, open 24-7, and treat their employees well.
• Beers of the World - This is a specialty beer store. They have an amazing selection of beer from Treppist beer to African beer. I'm probably going to buy some brewing equipment from there when I get back to the U.S.

Anyways, I think I am going to call it a night. I plan on taking a trip to Belgium (either Gent or Brugges) before I leave, as well as Prague, and I will be sure to fill in the details of their beer, as well as some Dutch beer too.

[Edit: added some places I missed]

Never Seen This One Before

November 17, 2007 at 03:14 PM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

...randomly in all my terminals Message from syslogd@loltop at Sat Nov 17 20:07:51 2007 ... loltop kernel: [123903.232000] Disabling IRQ #18

And now sound won't work.

Berlin 'n Stuff

November 04, 2007 at 06:56 AM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

The first day of BarCampBerlin was interesting.  There's a ton of bloggers, a ton of non-technical people, but that's cool.  A few people came to my session on Pylons, but stuff broke, so maybe they shouldn't have :).  I tried to emphasise the awesomeness of SQLAlchemy, which is what the people that came were mainly interested in.

Partying in Berlin is crazy... Clubs don't close at 2:00 AM like in the states, but that's when the party starts.  And the techno is amazing.  I was dancing until 6:00 today... and then I had to wake up at 9:00.  So tired.   I'm pissed at the hostel I stayed at too... they didn't have lockers.

Lates.

Gmail + IMAP + iPhone = Win

November 01, 2007 at 07:44 AM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

So, I've been using the POP gmail for a while now, since I've had my iPhone and it absolutely sucked because I'm subscribed to very active mailing lists such as wine-devel and gcc ones, and I had them automatically filed out of my inbox in Gmail... but when you use POP3 access you get everything in your inbox, so I was flooded with all this crap I didn't want to see on my iPhone and the iPhone has no sorting facilities.

I finally got IMAP for gmail today and it's AMAZING.  It does all my tags and everything... They did it perfectly.

Props to the Gmail team.

BarCampBerlin Next Weekend

October 30, 2007 at 07:30 AM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

So, I found out there is a BarCamp in Berlin coming up this weekend... And I decided to go. I want to present so I have to get my shit together. It seems like it will be a little more focused than the BarCampBlock in Palo Alto... So I'm not sure how a session on the impact of lolcats would go over. I don't think any other low level hackery would fly either.

This leaves me with a couple options. One of them includes iPhone stuff, such as setting up the llvm-gcc crosscompiler in Linux, maybe an intro to UIKit, or something else.

The other idea I have involves pylons. I'm pretty familiar with the basics, but I think it would be nice to shed some light that Rails and Django aren't the only MVC web frameworks out there.I really hope to get a more global perspective of what's going on while I'm there an meet a bunch of new people.

Hallo aus Osnabrück

October 29, 2007 at 08:06 AM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

Soo... I've been super busy for the last month or so. I drove across country without a hitch (aside from getting cut off and hit by a guy somewhere in the midwest, but he took responsibility). Then, I flew to Berlin, stayed there for 5 days, and stayed 4 days in Munich for Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest was amazing. So much good beer, good people, crazy people. It was cool.

Then I took the train to Osnabrück where I am studying now.  It's been crazy. My German is terrible though, but everybody I live with speaks English.  That's not helping me learn though, unfortunately.  I'm also struggling to learn vocabulary.

The AI class I am taking is a bit difficult too.  It's in Prolog.  Prolog is not very fun.  Not fun at all.  I'd take lisp or scheme any day over prolog.

Osnabrück is very similar to Rochester as far as the weather goes so far.  It's cloudy or rainy and cold and windy.  I heard the winters don't get as harsh though, but it will still be rainy.  I'm definitely not looking forward to the winters.  We're really close to a lot of cool cities though like Münster and Amsterdam.  Amsterdam is a really awesome city.  All the buildings are old and kind of crooked.  And the roads are really narrow.  It's quite charming.

A Little Stressful

September 09, 2007 at 04:39 PM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

View Larger Map

Pylons (ftw?)

August 23, 2007 at 02:38 PM | categories: Uncategorized | Comment

After doing a lot more research on frameworks, playing around with SQLAlchemy, etc., I have decided for now on Pylons.

Here's why:

• SQLAlchemy rocks.  Ran through the tutorial, looked through the docs.  It's very well documented.   The tutorial was advanced and I like that.  It even went through complex joins and such.  You can make it work with a schema.  It's more complex than ActiveRecord for doing simple things, but it's easier to do the more complex things without writing your own SQL statements.  It's also nice when you use it in interactive mode how it spits out the SQL it sends to the server.  Great for tweaking and debugging.  You can use your own naming conventions too (which can be bad and good).
•  The debugger seems great.  I played around with it a little bit.  Basically, when you get an error, you can click on the page and execute any command wherever you want on the call stack.  It updates all ajaxy too.  Very cool.  Just make sure you don't run it as root by accident :D
• WSGI is seemingly pretty awesome.  Middleware looks like it has a lot of potential.  Seems like all the momentum is headed towards WSGI.
• Isn't all about the CRUD.  I'm kind of sick of those slight of hand demos with Rails and such where it shows you how to make a blog in 20 seconds using scaffolding.
• It's lightweight, moreso than TG.
• The docs explain not just how to do things but why as well, so you actually learn the underlying concepts.
• Seems like there's a lot of new development, and I'm hoping that once I get going I'll be able to contribute to the project as well.  Also, TG2 is going to be using pylons which means the number of people using it will grow significantly once TG2 is released.  This is good for everybody because the middleware created, bug fixes, new API features will benefit all.  It's nice seeing open source projects converge rather than fork for once.

These are just things I see from playing around with it a bit.  I haven't made anything real yet, but when I do, I'll share my experiences, post some snippets, and maybe a tutorial or two.  I have a long way to go though.

Color Problems Solved

August 21, 2007 at 02:01 AM | categories: Color | Comment

I re-exported my files as JPEGs with sRGB ICC profiles embedded. Everything worked fine in FF and IE, but in Safari it was still broken. I think that Apple would have Safari handle colors properly.

I did some investigation and here's what I found out. Firefox is NOT color managed (rumor has it that in 3.0 it will be). I was able to get hex colors in the page such as backgrounds and fonts match the hex colors in my image by turning ALL of the ICC color management off and not embedding it.

What a pain. Turns out that no color management is the most consistent. I'm still confused why the colors on the page weren't the same as the ones in the image when the image had an sRGB profile embedded in it, and web colors by default are supposed to be in sRGB color space.

*grumble*

Color Management Nightmare

August 20, 2007 at 02:54 PM | categories: Color, Uncategorized | Comment

So I've been working on a new layout for my blog, using PNGs and divs and such. Everything was going along nice and well, until I tried viewing the page in Safari . Bamf, all my colors were off.

I think the web needs a replacement for PNGs, or at least PNGs with embedded color profiles.

My monitor is calibrated and everything.

Take a look:

This isn't really a problem with either browser per se, but just an issue with color management in general. I think I will have to stick to jpegs for this because you can embed an ICC profile in them.

Updates to come with solutions.

[edit] Apparently, it has a third appearance in IE. So, it seems like the answers are headed towards PNGs are broken. It might be time for a new image format that contains an alpha channel.