telophase | (no subject)

Waldenbooks just sent me email - they're having a Buy 3 Get 1 Free sale this month on summer reading, including manga. I can't quite tell from the ad if it's specific titles or all titles, but worth heading in to see.

In other news, I just tried a newish restaurant here - Nine Pan-Asian Cuisine. No clue if it's a chain or local, but the lunch special was pretty good and I actually liked the hot and sour soup for once. "Pan-Asian" apparently means they serve mostly Chinese entrees with some pho dishes and some Thai-flavored dishes, and sushi, with a couple of hibachi tables off on one side. I had lemongrass grilled beef - for some reason in restaurants it's easier to get chicken right than beef, so if I'm testing an Asian place, I order beef. If it comes out lackluster and flavorless, or - the horror - grey, I don't go back. The beef here was good - certainly worth $6.95, and wasn't tough or chewy.

If you're local and reading this, Nine is behind the Chik-Fil-A one block south of the I-30/Hulen intersection in Fort Worth.

I also seem to have a Mysterious Cable/Dish Box that operates smartly without its SIM card. I got home last night to see that all the channels were claiming that I wasn't subscribed to them. So I phoned the cable company (Ygnition serves channels from the Dish network and supplies cable Internet access) and after we established that I had not got a new SIM card, the tech got a Dish network tech on the line. After that, we discovered that not only did I not have a new Sim card, but I never had one to begin with. The slot is empty, I am the only person at home, it was working last night, and nobody's been in the apartment except the cat, who isn't talking.

After going through the menus, we discover that the box thinks it's got a SIM card, so they talked me through a hard reset, which brought all my channels back despite the lack of a card, and all three of us agreed that if it was working, we weren't going to question.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I had lunch at that ChikFilA today. I'd actually noticed the Nine place and thought of checking it out, but didn't feel adventurous. I'll keep in mind for next time.

I really like ChikFilA but don't eat there much since that's the closest one and the traffic there at lunch is staggeringly abominable. I finally remembered Nine when I had cash on me (turns out they do accept credit cards - they just don't put it on the door) and was in the mood for Asian-type food in a sit-down restaurant.

The parking lot was full, but the restaurant has plenty of open seating - I think a lot of the cars were people eating down at ChikFilA. I think the staff park along the street, judging by the relative student-income-level look of the cars on the street and all the shiny SUVs in the parking lot.

the traffic there at lunch is staggeringly abominable

If that's Fort Worth's defintion of abominable, I'm *NEVER* going back to Los Angeles.

In the parking lot? The last time I went there, there was literal gridlock because the line of cars waiting for the drive-through wrapped around the building and back up the side with the drive-trhough window on it, and I couldn't drive forward more than one car-length from the drive-through window because the idiot who was next to me on the right - in the line for the window - didn't realize that by BLOCKING ME IN he prevented the line from moving forward because none of us could move - I couldn't leave, the guy behind me couldn't leave the window, and the entire line was stuck. It was eventually solved by someone else in the line deciding they didn't want to wait any longer and peeling out of there, so everyone moved forward one car length, and the guy behind the idiot gave me and the guy behind me enough space to leave the line.

And that sort of thing happens in that lot on a regular basis. I usually only go there if I'm eating especially late or early.