Jeffrey's Thoughts

Alaska Airlines – Comment

Took a flight on Alaska Airlines recently. I arrived at the airport from the metro, which was pretty convenient. The ticketing area was a bit of a walk – I should’ve taken a different exit from the metro, but I just listened to the sign. Got the ticket and the employee near the self service kiosk was pretty helpful. Interestingly enough, I didn’t need to provide any ID to print my boarding pass. Went down to the security check and the line was relatively long. Much longer than TSA precheck and Clear. I feel like the more people who get TSA precheck and Clear, the slower those services will become haha. Perhaps if 100% of people have TSA precheck, people will start going back to the normal security check line. Got through the security check without any issues. I was an hour and a half early for the boarding so I had to find some stuff to do. Thankfully there were some restaurants, so I ate some food and tracked my fantasy football teams’ status. Doing ok this week, but we’ll see what happens on Monday. Boarded the flight and I was seated relatively far back. I was one of the first in my row, so I didn’t need to fight for overhead baggage space. The employee at the gate asked for 20 volunteers to check the bags. I don’t know if I heard her correctly, but I think that she said that they will delay boarding until they got 20 volunteers to check bags in. A bit odd. But for a 100% full flight, I guess that’s what happens.

Sat at my seat and I got the window seat. The two seats next to me were young children. They weren’t too noisy and thankfully their parents were seated close by. These children devoured movies. Set up with a couple large iPads, I watched as they went through at least 5 movies. One of them was so hungry for movies, that they rewatched their Barbie Mermaid movie and Aladdin movie. I’m convinced they didn’t watch some of the movies all the way through since I don’t think the flight is long enough to support watching so many movies. Apparently one of the plot points of the Barbie movie was that there was a mean mom that kidnapped the main character and threw her in jail and the child asked her friend what she thought about that. The friend didn’t answer. The child who watched the movie thought it was crazy especially since the main character was so pretty and nice.

I watched a movie myself. The free in-flight wifi was decent for the movie. No interruptions, except for when the pilot had an announcement. I guess that makes sense since it’s a local network, but still really smooth experience. The snacks were fine. Got some vegan pretzels that were made by a mother and daughter company. Tasted just like normal pretzels. One thing that was funny to me was the onboard refreshments. The onboard water is supplied by Boxed Water. So, it was served in paper cups. The other cold drinks were served in plastic cups. The paper cups seemed intentional because the Boxed Water company has a goal to reduce the plastic waste. I would’ve thought that the airline might as well use paper cups for all their drinks. But, it doesn’t seem like that is one of their goals.

Listened to my music. Watched as one of the children needed to charge their iPad, so they watched their movie with the screen rotated to the side since the charging cord wasn’t long enough. So the picture was facing right. Not sure if that visual makes much sense.. I wanted to help set it up so they could watch it normally, but I don’t think I should interact with strangers. Eventually the child realized that they can have the video rotated so they finally were watching the movie properly. The person in front of me was watching something. I think it was the show Burn Notice or something with the same actor – like the character who talks in a super monotone voice. I didn’t realize people like that show, but it has multiple seasons so I guess people must. I’d imagine that actor is in different shows as well, so they could’ve been watching one of those.

Eventually got to the airport and was able to get to the hotel through a cab.

Yowamushi Pedal – Comment

I started watching a bike racing anime called Yowamushi Pedal. I think it’s a pretty decent anime. The characters are similar to a bunch of other Shonen style animes that I’ve seen. The small unassuming main character has a lot of heart and never gives up, the cool talented peer, the hot headed strong 3rd character, etc. Now that I’m writing about this, it reminds me of Haikyuu! quite a bit.

Anyways, one thing that was kind of ridiculous while watching season 2 was this backstory of the Hiroshima school’s ace rider. He wanted to take revenge on the reigning champs (Hakone Academy) at the Interhigh biking competition because the year before, one of Hakone members did not want to share his water. Like bro… not only is this guy your opponent, he has literally zero obligation to help you and give you his water that he needs to finish the race. And this one event makes the Hiroshima guy so angry that he wants to take revenge for a whole year. So ridiculous.

Some of the characters in the anime are pretty good and the backstories for a bunch of them make sense. But this guy makes no sense whatsoever. I’m still going to continue watching the anime though.

Exercise Update – 10/26/22

Hey, I’ve been exercising recently. I started playing some sports recreationally such as spike ball, soccer, and basketball. Also, I now live in an apartment with a gym, so I’ve been using that on occasion. I recently found out about the 2024 Paris Olympics Mass Participation Marathon https://www.paris2024.org/en/paris-2024-marathon/ . For those who don’t know, the organizers of the Paris Olympics have created a marathon course that will be used for the actual Olympic marathon race. However, at a separate time from the real event, they will allow the public to run the course as well. I thought this was a neat way to experience the Games, so I downloaded the mobile app and started participating in challenges in order to get the chance to win a bib to run in the public marathon. Hopefully I’ll be able to participate in 2024 and visit Paris. If I do get the opportunity to go, I really hope I’ll be able to complete the marathon… I am not fit enough to run for multiple hours without stop so that will be a big challenge. Until next time.

Breeze Bakery Cafe Review

This cafe has a lot of options. There are baked goods, gelato, cake, coffee, tea, bubble tea, frozen yogurt, and different types of dessert snow. We got a kids cake and I got some gelato. The kids cake was ok, a bit tougher to cut into than expected. The taste was pretty plain, but the decoration was cute. The gelato was as good as I expected. There were some toppings on the gelato that was weird at first, but I ate it all regardless.

Haruki Murakami book rankings

I’ve only read 3 of his books so far. I’ll update this list if I read more.

Rankings:

Men Without Women
Kafka on the Shore
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Indian Matchmaking Seasons 1 and 2 Review

I was not going watch this show. However, some of my coworkers and friends were talking about it so I had to be in the loop. This Netflix show had a 67% match for me, so it isn’t something that I usually watch – basically not kdrama or anime. I would’ve expected the percentage match to be a bit higher since I have watched a bunch of dating reality TV shows, but oh well.

This show follows a few different Indian singles and their families and their experiences navigating marriage. They have various interactions with Sima Aunty, the top matchmaker in Mumbai. Through Sima Aunty’s guidance and expertise, the singles learn life lessons and gain opportunities to meet with potential marriage partners.

I really liked the show. There are 8 episodes per season and I finished watching the show in 2 days. Sima Aunty is a great person and the fact that she consults astrologists, face readers, and life coaches for insight on people was pretty interesting. These people were surprisingly accurate with their assessments of the featured singles on the show, which make me curious about how that is possible. Like one astrologist mentioned that one of the people’s past of a canceled engagement was ruining his chances at love and it turns out that he actually did have that experience in his past 🤯. Thankfully, all people need to do to fix these curses are poojas, which seems to be some sort of prayer ceremony.

The featured girls were all quite high achieving and attractive. The featured guys were less high achieving and attractive. But still eligible bachelors. Through my interactions with Indian people and Indian media, I’ve gotten some insight into the culture, but this show helped improve my understanding and appreciation of the culture. Each region of India has different nuances for the people and culture. A lot of thought and planning goes into a marriage, much more than what I’d imagine goes into a traditional Western wedding. Making sure that the families are a good match is pretty important as well.

The editing, the cuts, and the background music were great. Like this show was funnier than I expected. The times where the singles listed out their criteria of their ideal partner was quite funny. The background music also was funny because occasionally the music was a bit ominous, but then it’s just like the guy is meeting up with a girl for a date. Also, the facial reactions of the people were on point as well. Sometimes really expressive and sometimes super not interested. I really enjoyed the segments of the show where arranged couples from previous generations were interviewed about how their marriages were going. Obviously, the producers picked couples that had happy marriages or seemingly happy marriages, but getting their input was a nice touch.

One of my friends who is engaged mentioned that they wanted their partner to be on the show. I didn’t understand why before I watched the show, but I think I understand now. The experience of meeting Sima Aunty is life changing and all the Indian people on the show are portrayed in a really good light. Like nearly every one of the people on the show looked like they were crushing it and were cool and attractive. From an outsider looking in, I would say that my friends are already crushing it and are cool so maybe all they wanted was to meet Sima Aunty and to get some astrological advice.

I would recommend this show to people who like dating shows in general. Definitely a different type of show in general. It has drama and beautiful people that people like to see in these types of shows, but also has a splash of culture makes the show more worthwhile to watch.

Oishii Omakase Berry Review

I recently traveled to New York because I got invited to watch the US Open. So, this was my primary goal of the trip. My secondary goal of the trip was to hang out with friends in the area. My tertiary goal was to try out the Omakase berry.

I believe I first saw this on Instagram or another social media platform. It is a strawberry that is grown vertically grown in a farm without the use of pesticides. In the ad, it made me think that this was the best tasting strawberry ever.

I stayed at a friend’s place in Brooklyn. The day was relatively gloomy due to the rain. I woke up and went to Whole Foods to buy the strawberries. The walk was about 20 minutes one way since the goods are not sold in every Whole Foods stores. Each strawberry costs about $2. I bought an 11 pack for $20. So, a very pricey item. As you can see on the box, there are handling instructions. The Whole Foods employee who packed the groceries did a great job at making sure the strawberries were secure. I walked back, put the goods in the refrigerator, and went to the US Open. After a few hours and an upset stomach after eating dinner in Flushing, I came back to the apartment. I followed the eating instructions of taking the strawberries out of the refrigerator and letting the aroma fill the room for 10-15 minutes. Then, I closed my eyes and ate a strawberry.

The experience was great. I would’ve preferred sharing this experience with others, but that was not able to happen this time. The aroma from the strawberries was subtle and inviting. Smelled just like ripe strawberries I’ve had in the past. One neat thing about the plastic container was that it had some sort of plastic wrap to keep the strawberries in place. The strawberries are very delicate and tender, if that makes sense. Like there is not really any resistance when biting into the strawberry. Sweet and smooth. I wasn’t sure why the instructions told me to close my eyes, so for some of the other bites, I had my eyes open and the experience was pretty much the same. I really enjoyed eating them and I saved the other half for tomorrow.

I would buy these again, even though they are really expensive. This is more of a luxury than an everyday purchase. I wonder if other types of fruit and produce can be grown in this way to make it taste so good. Perhaps it’s the vertical growing or the no pesticides, but I’ve never had such consistently good bites from strawberries within the same box as I had with the Omakase berry.

Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/4iw3uHD

Applebee’s All You Can Eat Boneless Wings Review

A friend mentioned that there was a deal at Applebee’s for all you can eat boneless chicken wings. So, we had to try it. Online, it mentioned that the price was 13.99, but when we went to the Times Square location, it turned out to be 19.99. There were only 6 available flavors and the first order each of us got had to be 10 pieces of a single sauce. The subsequent orders could be 5 pieces for a single sauce. We ordered all the sauces, Buffalo, Honey BBQ, Garlic Parm, Sweet Asian Chile, Extra Hot Buffalo, and Honey Pepper.

In terms of value, if it was 13.99, I think it might have been worth. 19.99 is obviously less worth. The chicken was mostly dry. The 2 different Buffalo sauces were hard to distinguish from each other – both of them were quite salty. The Garlic Parm and the Honey Pepper sauces tasted a bit weird for wing flavors. The Honey Pepper reminded me of Panda express. The Sweet Asian Chile was ok.

I would not recommend anyone to order this from Applebee’s. I feel like they have better items on the menu and if you really want wings, you can go to a place that specializes in wings.

Mussel Bar & Grille Review

After a relatively long Saturday, I wanted to eat dinner outside. I asked a friend what they were feeling and they were in a seafood mood. After some Yelp searches, we settled on Mussel Bar & Grille.

The restaurant was relatively large, a bunch of seats in the middle of the restaurant and in the perimeter near the windows. As the name mentions, there is a bar and the beer selection is quite extensive. On the drinks menu, there were at least 4 pages of beers. The dinner menu was not too large. Lots of seafood options and these were a bit pricey.

We tried a variety of seafood and I thought that the oysters and the mussels were the better dishes. The shrimp were medium sized and the most expensive out of the dishes we ate. If I were to go to this restaurant again, I would order the mussels, get as full as possible on the mussels and bread, and get the oysters. I might try other dishes on the menu as well. The sauce for the mussels was flavored with some cheese and some sausage. The calamari had 2 different sauces and was topped with olives, which was interesting. I liked it, but they simply were not as good as the mussels. I generally like oysters so that’s why I’d order them again. I’m not someone who can tell if the oysters are good or not, but these didn’t really have any dirt while eating and tasted similar to ones I’ve had before. There was a purple colored sauce I hadn’t had with oysters before. It was a bit sour, perhaps a vinegar taste.

Canceling Xfinity Review

I am moving to a new apartment so I had to cancel service for some of the utilities that we currently have. One of those is internet service. In order to cancel, I submitted an online request and then I received a phone call from a robot to call a representative to complete the cancelation process. When I called the representative, they asked for a bit more information than I expected and asked for my security code. So instead, I opted to cancel in person by visiting an Xfinity store. The in person cancelation was super easy. I talked to the person for 3 minutes and we were able to get the service canceled without any issues. This makes me think that some processes are better done in person.