It’s Vanya dressed up as Sarah Palin!

Oh nos!!

The new Yellowbook phone book came today. Before tossing the thing into the recycle bin (who still uses phone books, anyway?), I thumbed through the book’s back pages because that’s where the useful stuff is: The coupons. I clipped one out for Shawnogram favorite Louisa’s Place as well as one for a local Mexican chain called Taco Roco. (Buy one entree, get one free!) Armed with this shiny new coupon, Jen and I decided to take a walk to a nearby Roco franchise for tonight’s dinner. In the 2.5 years we’ve lived in SLO, we’ve had food from this place many, many times. Overall, we’ve found the restaurant’s food to be decent for the price. Tonight, Jen and I each had an order of Taco Roco’s crispy shredded-beef tacos.

Like any self-respecting Mexican joint should, the Raco offers free all-you-can-eat tortilla chips along with a serve-yourself salsa bar.

I chose the spicy, red salsa (does this stuff have a specific name?) ’cause I’ve had it before and I like it. (Jen tends to avoid salsa because she’s white she has a lot of food allergies.) The chips themselves are fine for what they are: Standard, corn tortilla chips. They’re fairly light (i.e. “thin”), and I’ve never detected much in the way of salt or seasoning with these chips. So, if you’re a salsa lover, these are the chips for you. The only salsa I’ve ever tried is the red stuff mentioned above. (I don’t know why I haven’t sampled the others. I guess I’m also white not that adventurous.) It’s got a good flavor and a nice kick, but its spiciness factor shouldn’t cause your cranium to spontaneously combust.

I found the tacos to be a bit bland. I was surprised by this, as I’ve always enjoyed Taco Roco’s steak soft tacos. (This was the first time I’d had the crispy tacos.) The steak soft tacos are an interesting contrast to these tacos. The soft tacos come with a nice combination of onions, cilantro and salsa. The tacos I had tonight were basic: Meat topped with lettuce and shredded cheese. And I don’t actually mind the basic approach. But, no seasoning? No salsa? Not even a little? To be honest, the same style of tacos from Green Burrito have more flavor. For what it’s worth, I did like the taco shells. Warm and crispy, they did a good job of holding the taco filling in without falling apart. (Some taco shells fail in these most basic of taco-shell requirements.)

Understand that I’m not putting Taco Roco down. I’ve always liked the place, and I think the restaurant has some good stuff on its menu. But I doubt I’ll have the crispy tacos again. Not unless I decide to provide my own garnish. Guess that’d give me a reason to be more adventurous at the salsa bar.

In an earlier post, I covered which shows I had nominated for this year’s Podcast Awards. I was not at all surprised to find that most of those shows didn’t make the final cut for awards voting. Regardless, there are still some shows on the final ballot that I’m going to support. Here’s my list:

Entertainment: Buffy Between The Lines
GLBT: Yeast Radio
Health/Fitness: Being Healthy For Busy People
Mature: The Dawn and Drew Show
Political: No Agenda

Any categories I left out are categories I’m not participating in, mostly because I’m not familiar with any of the shows in those categories. Best of luck to all of the shows that have been nominated!

Thanks to the Santa Ana winds, we’ve been having some really warm days lately. Temperatures all week in the low to mid-90’s F. Jen decided to put the water dish out on Thursday afternoon so our cockatiels could take baths. Afterward, she noticed that one of birds, her name is Little One, had an unusual growth on her upper chest. I called our avian vet and made an appointment for Friday. We weren’t sure what to expect, as none of our birds had ever had an illness like this before.

On Friday afternoon, we drove to the vet’s office, bird carrier and cockatiel in tow. The vet gave Little One the standard exam and also checked out the growth. He said that the growth is most likely some kind of tumor. He was unsure as to whether the tumor is malignant or benign. He said we could go straight to surgery, and have the tumor removed. Or he could do a needle aspiration of the tumor, to try and learn more about it. Little One is 16 years old. She’s pretty old for a cockatiel. We decided to not go for surgery right away, as the risk is high for her due to her age. The vet performed a needle aspiration and drew some blood, putting her under with some mild sedation. She rebounded from that just fine, but unfortunately, the vet wants her to come in next week for another aspiration, as he feels it’d be better for her to be tested after 12 hours of fasting. This means that we won’t know anything further about the tumor until late next week. Furthermore, the vet said that the aspiration test could come up inconclusive.

Little One on Jen’s shoulder, at the vet’s office.

Fortunately, the tumor doesn’t seem to be bothering the bird. She’s acting normal, eating normal, isn’t in pain, etc. But it’s still a bit nerve-racking, having to wait almost a week before we may know anything. One thing’s for sure, Little One is a fighter, and she’ll get through this the best she can.

Every day it seems there’s some new bit of Web 2.0 wonderment that’s supposed to blow the minds of everyone. Of course, most of these so-called “applications” simply turn out to be pure flash n’ trash. But I recently learnt of one such Web 2.0 thingie that’s so important, it may change the face of the Internets (and humanity) forever! It’s Foodfeed. Simply put, Foodfeed keeps track of what you eat. It’s integrated with Twitter, and it’s really easy to use. The Foodfeed Twitter account is found here. You follow it, and then begin a Twitter post with the clever “@having” tag, and whatever you’ve sent will automatically post to your Foodfeed account. That’s it. Take a look at my Foodfeed account to see how it works.

I’ve got no idea what Foodfeed can/will do beyond what it does now. There doesn’t seem to be any way to create an account there outside of the Twitter-based method described above. And beyond that, the Foodfeed site itself is rather lacking in features. But you could search the Foodfeed site for certain key terms and then, I guess, find new Twitter followers based on those searches. Whatever. I just find the whole thing to be rather amusing. Props to Wesley, whose Twitter account first lead me to the glory that is Foodfeed.