The Last Candle

I’ve acquired a terrible bout of food poisoning; I blame the kimchee from a couple days back. So, today’s post simply going to include a link to a guy who’s attempting to visit a thousand different bars in one year. He’s doing really well, already racking (no pun intended) up 135 bars in 30 days. <p/> Update: Seem to be fine now; hopefully it lasts through the night, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life so I can carry out my anti-kimchee consumption campaign. <p/> (Unfortunately, I won’t be getting to sleep for a while because Vanilla Coca-Cola really satifies.)

Appropriate commentary on the Iraqi elections — in cartoon form. <p/> Jeff Jarvis has plenty of links, most to Iraqi and military bloggers, and information on today’s historic events, which are more and more evidently coming out to be a resounding success for the Iraqi people. One step at a time.

If you’re interested in an account of the Iraqi elections occuring today, Roger L. Simon is liveblogging the news (and some opinions) coming through the pipe. <p/> Friends of Democracy is also an excellent place to keep in touch with the proceedings. <p/> Hell, just go look at this Instapundit post the other source, before I rip him off totally without courteous reference.

Today, an exciting day; the guys and I in the apartment spent the entire afternoon (the morning was spent sleeping through it) around food and in the process of looking for food, as we journeyed a half-hour east to Midland for a Korean restaurant Paul’s plugged before, following up later with alcohol and dessert in-town at the Mountain Town Station. To top it all off with a nice foamy head, Old Mission and Deli was conquered in the interests of beer. As my Dad would say, the three of us lived the life of Riley on this fine, fattening Saturday. <p/> I’ve never tried Korean food before, so going to the restaurant was kind of fun, but I didn’t order anything that yelled out “KOREA! THE SOUTH PART!” like Chinese dishes from a Chinese restaurant fairly exude. My meal consisted of lightly-fried tofu dipped in an excellent sauce (which saved the flavorless tofu — although it had a great texture after the frying) with the entree being Bibimbap, a lot of vegis, shredded beef, and rice in a giant iron bowl. In an exciting culiary gesture, the bowl was made hot enough to keep cooking the food while I ate it and also provided entertainment to Joe and Paul with my screaming emitted whenever my hands grazed the clothing-ignitingly hot bowl. But not really. <p/> Kimchee, a trademark cuisine of Korea, was also sampled, which was a little slimey and crunchy texture-wise and had no real distinct taste besides a few sour tones on the aftertaste. The kimchee was courtesy of our waitress, who gave us six bowls of various Korean cuisines for free along with some very un-Korean potato salad — my favorite of the bunch. <p/> Also, thanks to payday on Thursday, my weekend has been seasoned with lots of beer as well. Reading brewmaster Garrett Oliver’s book on the subject of Greatest Beverage of All Time, along with his recommendations for choice beers, has caused me to single out drinks to try that I would otherwise would not have picked at random. So far this weekend I’ve enjoyed a Paulaner Hefeweizen, which was also heartily recommended by my brother-in-law, and Lindeman’s peche lambic, a Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, and an Ommegang’s Rare Vos (“sly fox”) are next in line. The only problem is choosing which one to drink first. <p/> And it’s just about time for the nightly interval of 24, so the beer choosing problem is about to be confronted.

I keep forgetting to plug this guy, but Neil Prakash is stationed in Iraq as a tank platoon leader and is publishing a blog about the experience during his service. His accounts and anecdotes of occurances and battle fought are excellent and highly engrossing insight into formal and informal activities in Iraq. <p/> I’ve read Blackfive and the Lt. Smash’s blog since forever, but I’m now just starting — yes, just now, years after the formal operations began — to hunt down blogs being managed by guys actually hitting the dust overseas. Such incredible stuff coming out of those journals.