Relatively productive weekend I suppose. The highlight was a trip to Penzey's. This place is the bomb as far as buying spices goes. Not only are they stronger and better than what I can get at the sto, they're actually cheaper somehow! I got: herbs de provence, cinnamon (chinese I think), smoked paprika, allspice, ancho powder, and some delicious smelling cumin. I then used the herbs de provence to make some pan seared sea scallops which I ate over sauteed swiss chard, it was a really good match. Oh I marinated the scallops in grapefruit juice for 20 minutes before cooking because the gym had given me two grapefruits the night before...pretty sure that's not what they had in mind, but oh well.

That was Saturday, Sunday I went to the new...asian strip mall in Plano. The bubble tea place was out of pearls (how the hell do you run out of pearls at a bubble tea place by 3 in the afternoon?). I saw a guy I knew from work standing in the parking lot waiting on his wife, he told me about the chinese restaurant there, New San Dor. I ended up going back there for dinner later that night, that place is really good, at least as good as First Chinese BBQ albeit a dollar or two more expensive. I also stopped by the Asia World grocery store which is pretty interesting although I didn't buy anything. I need to devise some stir frys that use unusual ingredients before I go back.

Otherwise, everything else is boring. I just finished Foundation's Edge and found it pretty well written although the end could have been a little better. I would think that if you're going to create a single universal consciousness you had better go on a little more than instinct, even if that instinct had had tens of thousands of years of development. But it's always interesting to ponder some other species (or robots) "raising" or breeding humans the same we raise other animals. And I think breeding for instinct (or luck as in Ringworld) is definitely an idea worth persuing.

People were split on my interstellar travel poll. About a third think it's coming within a couple hundred years or so, another third think 1000 years, and another third think 5000+ years or never. To be honest I'm not really sure what I think, I'd like to take a decent look at the actual issues involved and the likelihood of their being "solved". But I don't think it's the kind of thing that will take less than many hundreds of years.

I tried to get a date with the Dallas girl but she didn't call me back. I spoke to her briefly at her show Wednesday (they played at the same place they were at before). I'm bad at that, I just say hi and maybe something else and then I don't have anything else to say, with all the music and talking and distractions around I'm just not too nimble mentally. I haven't talked to the doctor for a while either but at least I emailed her.

I'm going to Hot Springs in a few weekends, I need to try to excite myself about that. A day at the track is always fun but otherwise it'll just be a bunch of dudes hanging out at a hotel (unless the doctor comes).

I've been busting my ass in the gym. I will be jacked by this summer, there's almost no doubt. It's very weird. Very weird. I seem to be doing a good job of slowly gaining muscle right now. I'll miss the eating when I switch back to cutting.

I'm going to try some provencal style chicken Wednesday night, really it seems like there's not much too it other than the herbs and some butter (which I won't use). I've got some roma tomatoes going bad in my fridge maybe I'll chuck them in there.