The only thing better than Indian food is homemade Indian food! This was probably the best meal I have had on this entire trip... hands down. We had "butter chicken", daal, cauliflower, and curried shrimp. I think I embarressed my parents and Laura because of how fast I ate my first couple of plates, but it was so good!

This picture really doesn't do the spread justice... Mrs. Nomorosa is basically the Filipino Martha Stewart, and she made this really awesome meal of salmon, a pasta dish with scallops, and the most amazing roast beef I have ever had. I'm glad that they are Filipino as well, because they ate as much as I did, meaning I didn't look like a total pig!

My parents took us to this micro-brewery near their house called Hops. The food was so-so (I guess living in Omaha has made me a steak snob!), but the beer, especially the Flying Squirrel, was very good!

The bread/rolls that they serve here are the best part of the joint... they are more like buttery deliciousness that just melt in your mouth.

My Mom is the greatest... she threw together this awesome spread for my graduation party at their house. She went all out, even going with massive plates of shrimp, sushi and even a chocolate fondue station!

For those of you who don't know, the Seven Corners area in Falls Church is basically Vietnam. There is a huge shopping center there called New Eden where everything is Vietnamese. My parents took Laura and I there for some shopping, and of course food!

Laura was initially freaked out by her first encounter with Char Siu, or Chinese BBQ pork... the numerous ducks also hanging in the window did not help either:

After grabbing the essentials like Melon soda, shrimp crepes, steamed porked buns and other delicious snacks, we sat down for dinner at one of the numerous restaurants in the center.

WOW. The place had the best Vietnamese food I have ever had... I can't remember the name of it (I'm still kicking myself in the nuts for not grabbing a card/menu), I do remember what it looks like so if I'm ever in the area I will definitely make a return trip!

Pictured above is a plate of BBQ pork, along with shrimp and scallops. Underneath it all is vermicelli. It was amazing... I ate everything on my plate! We also had these spicy-salty tiger prawns that were also equally amazing. I was literary talking about how good this place was the entire ride home, much to the dismay of Laura and my parents. The only way they got me to shut up was to buy me a very large Bubble Tea!

Thanks to Billy, the homeless of of Omaha will now have baked beans to eat for the rest of the year... way to milk the rerolls at the Charity Con!

You read that right, I got to visit GW Nerd-Mecca!

One of my Dad's associates in Iraq just happened to be a GW fanatic/former store manager, so he set me up with him to hang out all day at the Battle Bunker. I had only been there once before way back when, and at that point, it was just a tiny store (smaller than the local GW store at the mall), so I was curious to see how it had evolved over the course of the last couple years, and I was not disapointed!

As we pulled up, this giant statue greeted us (and yes, in my moment of Nerd-glory I did almost piss my pants):


Here is a shot of the inside:

They must have had like 20 or so tables setup, with GT/WD quality terrain... in fact in the back they had a whole room full of terrain! I really liked the lips around each table... they were designed so that dice and figs don't go bouncing off onto the floor. Some of their newer tables actually have little shelves so that you could place your rulebooks, pens, tape measures, etc. inside so they don't take up room on the tabletop.

Here are some more shots of the neat setups they had:




They also had some of the staff armies on display, as well as some really cool conversions. My favorite had to be this complete Forge World Elysian Drop Troop army by Dave Taylor (I think!):


Anyways, I did not just gawk all day, I got to play a game of WFB! Thanks to the friendly staff, they paired me up with a guy who had just finished assembling his new Warriors of Chaos army. He was running:

Lvl 4 Demon Prince of Nurgle
Exalted Champion of Khorne on Horse
Exalted Champion of Tzeentch on Horse

3 units of Khorne Marauder Horsemen with Flails

3 big units of pimped out Knights (2 Khorne, one Tzeentch).

I had my trusty Tomb Kings:

King on Chariot
Prince on Chariot
x2 Mounted Priests

2 units of Fast Cav
5 Chariots
3 Chariots
3 Chariots

3 Scorpions

x2 Catapults

Our setup here:

This game was pretty ugly... with no dogs to screen all of the frenzied units, I was able to use my trash units to dictate pretty much all of his movement. Highlights included:

-My main chariot block blew through a unit of Marauders and got into his rear on my turn 1!
-Demon Prince goes down to a massive 13 impact hits from a unit of Chariots.
-Scorpion killing blows his Khorne character x3!

By the end of turn 3, all he had left was his unit of Tzeentch Knights, which I had surrounded on all sides:



Unfortunately for me, this image stayed like this for the last 3 turns, except half of my models died! Those Knights were insanely good with a 2+ armor save and a 4+ ward!

After we tallied everything up, I had squeezed out the minor victory. I won't be charging a unit like that anytime in the near future!

Update:
You can view other pictures I took that day here.

Jays off to a great start by dropping New Mexico 82-75! P'allen was amazing.. he literally could not miss a single shot and had a career high 30 points. Booker also looked very good with 26 points. I'm glad we have some shooters this year, because we are an awfully small team!

Amazing terrain courtesy of Bit Kingdom... I would love to play on a table with stuff like this!

I have seen this place in the Old Market for months now, but never really had the opportunity to eat there, so when Amy and Alyssa asked if I wanted to go there for lunch, I jumped at the opportunity!

We started off with the fried pickles, which were actually very addicting, even more so than potato chips. They came with this black-pepper horseradish sauce that complimented them very well. Even though it was deep fried, the grease was minimal, making it that much more enjoyable.

For my main course, I had the Pitchfork Ranch Meatloaf (pictured above). I'm a sucker for meatloaf, and I got really excited when I saw it on the menu. It was glazed with this sugar-chipotle sauce, which was amazing. Throw in some mashed potatoes with gravy and you have the perfect comfort food. I got the lunch size portion, and it was very filling, so I can only imagine what the dinner sized portion will get you...

Everything was reasonably priced, which is also a plus in my book. I really think Laura would enjoy this place a lot since a lot of the stuff is what she considers "regular food!"

For those of you who follow "The Office" on NBC, I'm basically on the party planning committee for our office. Part of being on our Spirit Committee is planning for our Christmas party, and that included helping plan the menu, which I gladly volunteered to lend my expertise!

The Press Club is a very swank place, located at the top of one of the tallest buildings in the city. They have a very impressive menu to go along with their impressive location. I started out with a Lobster Bisque, and then had a Prime Rib French-Dip sandwich (pictured above) which was amazing. I don't know if it was because the meal was free, really good or a combination of both, but it literally melted in my mouth.

We were fed an assortment of deserts which were equally impressive... I really like the Torte.

All I can say is I can't wait for our Christmas party!

UPDATE: Our party here never happened due to budget cuts... it sucks I know, but hey, at least I got a free meal out of it!

Last night was the season premiere of South Park, and what a premiere it was! The episode was entitled The China Probrem. The preview of the episode off of the South Park website read, "With the rest of the American people haunted by the memory of a recent tragic event, only Butters will stand with Cartman as he confronts the Chinese."

As an Asian-American, this had to be one of the funniest episodes of South Park I have ever seen! The image on the left shows Cartman and Butters infiltrating a Chinese stronghold (P.F. Chang's) to obtain the Chinese invasion plans of the United States. It was very funny to hear Cartman and Butters speak Chinese. There were also some very disturbing images that were outright hilarious, ranging from Butters being a "dick shooter" to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas raping a Storm Trooper and Indian Jones (repeatedly in fact!).

South Park continues to set the bar, and I'm very excited to see what is in store for us this season!

You can check out the episode in its entirety over at South Park Studios.

After a very shaky game 3, the Red Sox finally put away the Angels in the bottom of 9th inning... talk about dramatics! I thought we were doing ok during the 7th... we were up by 2 and Lester was still going strong. However, the bullpen kinda choked, but thanks to new guys Jed Lowery and Jason Bay, we were able to squeek on by for the win!

I'm glad it didn't go to game 5, as I have lost a lot of sleep this past week watching the games.... I can finally rest easy, at least until Friday! Dice-K gets to pitch again, so hopefully he gets a little more support from the offense this time than in game 2. I also hope that the bullpen comes out a little stronger and lives up to thier Black Pearl nickname!

This past Friday I went to La Casa for lunch. I have always driven by their sign (a midget playing a banjo), and for some reason I have always thought of this place as a Mexican joint. As it turns out, it's actually Italian-American food!

Pictured above is thier Pizza/Pasta lunch special. I got a slice (actually a sqaure) of pie (Canadian Bacon, olives, onions and peppers) and Cheese Ravoli with this really amazing sauce (I can't remember exactly what was in it, but it was good!). I also had a really nice salad with this really thick dressing that would be perfect for chicken wings.

I think the service was pretty decent too... I only saw the bottom of my ice tea once, and even though my food was a little late, it was ok. I suspect it is because I was Asian (all the minorities were corralled into the back corner in the restaurant), but that is for another day!

I think this place is definitely a keeper, as the price and food quality is right. I'm looking forward to trying some of the other things on the menu.

The Red Sox defeated the Angels 4-1 last night in game 1 of the ALDS. I actually stayed up into the wee hours of the night (stupid west coast games!) watching when I should have been studying a little harder. Lester played a great game on top of an already superb season.

I'm glad Jason Bay came through and opened the door for the offense... can we say, "Manny who?"

I hope they can continue the momentum into the next couple of games. Dice-K pitches on Friday, then Beckett on Sunday. Hopefully we can shut down the Angels 1-2-3, because after Sunday, I think our pitching gets a little weak (and Beckett is supposedly not at full strength)...

For those of you who have never been, this is my favorite place to eat in Nebraska. Period! I eat at this place so much that the owner doesn't really even need to ask what I want to order and I never pay for drinks. In fact if I do a "to go" order, I usually get free tea and soup while I wait!

Pictured here is their Bean Curd (Tofu) Sezuan Style and Chicken Lo Mein. The bean curd is really good over steam riced. It's nice and spicy, and totally worth the really bad gas I get from eating it! The Lo Mein is another staple which gets devoured quite regularly.

I can't wait for my brother to move back to Nebraska, because we have already planned to have a standing meeting here every Sunday!

I have never had a bad meal here (and as much as I eat here, that's saying something!).... when a place is good on your stomach and your wallet, it's full of win!

Went to this little hole in the wall place for lunch... it was really good and super cheap! For like $7, I got a bowl of the best chicken noodle soup I have ever had, 3 pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes and ice tea! That was a steal! The chicken was cripsy on the outside but nice and moist on the inside.

A nice bonus was the majority of the wait staff had most of their teeth, which is a rarity for small places like this!

I got really bad gas after eating this, even caused another coworker to blame one of my farts on another coworker, but it was totally worth it. Next time I really want to try one of the pies I saw there.

The "To-Go" specials looked ideal for a picnic or a party, so I will definitely keep this place in mind!

Amy and Brad called me over and asked if I wanted some smoked salmon. At first I thought it was some illegal substance reference, but they smoked the salmon pictured above... it was amazing!

I was kinda surprised that I had give the skin to the dogs, as thats like the best part, but it was still super good. Brad challenged me to eat most of it, which I accepted!

In fact, I think I demolished it with room to spare!