NakedSushi

I was getting plenty sick and tired of my old site theme. It was too busy and even I was having a hard time focussing on the text of actual posts. I don’t know how I strayed into such a busy layout. It must have been just me adding things one after another until it became a giant explosion of information.

Well, I’m through with that.

I made a new, minimalist theme that showcases the most important thing on my site, the posts. Everything else I hid under the ‘extra’ link at the top.

Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the world and most of the characters, but the main character was self-centered and had a serious inferiority complex. Luckily, she seemed to have developed and matured. Can’t wait to start the next book.

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Changeless by Gail Carriger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are more elements of steampunk in this second Parasol Protectorate (I love the name of the series!) novel than in the second one, which was interesting. I liked that Carriger wasn’t overly obsessed with giving a gear by gear explanation of how those crazy gadgets and machinations worked.

The mystery in this book unfolded much more slowly than the first one. I was eased into it so delicately that I didn’t realize what the plot of the book was until almost at the apex. There are a lot of going-ons in this book, but they do tie neatly together. The solution to the mystery was pretty anti-climatic.

I’d like to say that there’s more character building in Changeless, but there isn’t. All the characters are still very one-dimensional to the point of being annoying. Ivy and her crazy hats and dim-wittedness. The mean half-sister and her self-centeredness. Alexia and her ample, heaving bossoms. Lord Maccon and his yelling and Scottishness.

The ending was kind of abrupt with a lot of things resolving and happening at once to ultimately fall off at a soap-operaish cliffhanger. Before that part, I was ambivalent about reading the third book, but now I *have* to know what happens.

Changeless isn’t the most deep or thought-provoking book I’ve read, but Carriger has a way of words and the book is fun and light-hearted.

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Lily of JetPens sent me a bottle of Noodler’s Ink in Antietam. When I first opened the bottle, I thought it was going to be a very red ink, but I was pleasantly surprised.

For those who can’t read my penmanship:

A reddish orange that dires like fresh blood. Loaded into a Fine Pilot fountain pen nib, it has great variation of shading, going from a light orange to a dark red.  In some lights, I could see this going as a burnt sienna. Dries a bit slow, but that could be my paper, not the ink.

I’m not usually a fan of using red inks for everyday writing (notes, journals, and such) but this is far enough from an editting red to make it into my daily rotation.

I like the variation in shade even with my fine tipped pen.

I’ve read elsewhere that Antietam is a very fickle ink that looks different depending on what pen and what size nib you have. For those, like me, who are mortally afraid of writing in too red of a red, I’d suggest loading this into a pen with a fine nib for more of an orange hue.

Soulless by Gail Carriger

A steampunk-lite romp into a refreshingly new world of vampires and werewolves. I was getting pretty jaded and worn out by urban fantasy/paranormal romance books, but Soulless’s take on the mythos was different enough to keep me interested.

In the world of Soulless, there are those with an overabundance of soul who can be changed into vampires and werewolves, there are those with the normal amount of soul (humans), and then there are those few without any soul at all such as our heroine. Alexia Tarabotti, our heroine in question, may live in semi-victorian world where women are married off to wealthy, powerful men but she’s no shrinking violet. She’s strong, speaks her mind, and isn’t afraid to take action, yet she’s not as caustic as those "kick your ass" protagonists in many other urban fantasy books.

The writing is whimsical and feels old-timey without feeling too contrived. The budding romance between the two leads is obvious and cliched, but still sweet.

The only thing that I disliked about Soulless was the derogatory way gay men and vampires were portrayed. For a society that’s supposedly so open as to have vampires and werewolves integrated into the more delicate classes, it isn’t very polite to gays. In the novel, they’re frivolous, all wear flamboyant costumes, are limp wristed, and are referred to as ‘dandies’ several times. It may have been in a jocular manner, but it rubbed me the wrong way.

Despite that one flaw, the book was an entertaining read that was difficult to put down. I think I finished it in two days and felt pretty satisfied in the end. Definitely going to read the rest in the series.

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The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first half of this book, which introduced the protagonist, Gen, and supporting characters, was incredibly dull. I didn’t particularly like Gen throughout most of this book. He was selfish, arrogant, whiney, and didn’t seem pleasant to be around at all. Because of him, I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish the book at all.

When I got to the temple part was when I was hooked. The temple reminded me of some brain teasing puzzles in video games. After the temple, everything started getting much more exciting and when the twist (which I had a hint of but didn’t really expect after-all) I finally had an inkling of respect for Gen.

The Thief could almost be classified as historical fiction for young adults except for the whole deux ex machina part of the plot. I’m usually annoyed by stories where the main character gets divine intervention at just the right time to avoid some dilemma, but it kind of worked in here. Kind of. I did like the stories of the creation of the world according to their old religion even if it seemed very Mother-Earthish, but the more direct ways the gods interfered was a splinter in my side.

Reviews say that the next books in this series are much better, but I can’t see the old gods and their meddling going away anytime soon in the story, so I’m probably going to skip them unless I run out of things to read.

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A few months ago (yes, yes, backlog of photos, sorry) I met Will for lunch at tiny, unassuming restaurant next to a taco stand on valley called Chuan Yu Noodles Town.  We took notice of it after reading this post on eatdrinknbmerry displaying a seriously decadent bowl of beef noodle soup.

The restaurant itself is a place where eating is the main attraction. There are only a handful of small tables scattered throughout the small room. There’s a counter with some cold appetizers in plastic boxes and pictures of food taped to the walls but that’s basically all there is to the room.

I had a craving for spicy wontons, so I ordered the 红油抄手 (hong you chao shou). It came out unexpectantly in two bowls: the wontons and the spicy oil sauce. I assume that’s so customers can regulate the amount of heat they want their wontons to be, but I just dumped the sauce bowl on top of the wonton. The sauce is indeed spicy, but also has an appetizing, vinegary kick. The dumplings themselves were a decent size and not so big I couldn’t fit one whole thing in my mouth. I liked the afterthought of boiled bokchoy in the bowl, as if that would ease the passage later.

Will, on his never-ending quest to try every dan dan mian in Los Angeles, ordered that peanuty, spicy, noodle dish. We were a bit worried about the chili sauce because we read that there were dried shrimp bits in it, but after asking our waitress and later, the chef, we realized that there were none.

When the bowl first came out, the chef saw Will dumping additional chili flakes into the bowl. The chef exclaimed, “Wow, he really likes spicy stuff!” and took the bowl back into the kitchen, only to return with a heaping mound of the Good Stuff(tm).

According to Will, the bowl of noodles were up to snuff. Not better than No. 1 Noodle House, but almost comparable.

It’s a shame that I was already full by the time I was halfway done with my bowl of wonton because I really wanted to try some other dishes on their menu. The staff was pretty nice (for Chinese restaurant staff) and the food was decent, so no reason not to return and try something different.

Chuan Yu Noodles Town
525 W. Valey Blvd. #B
Alhambra, CA 91801
Neighborhood: Alhambra
(626) 289-8966