Hello Open Sauce 2024

by   •   Conventions, Face, Highlights
 

FTC Disclosure: Open Sauce, Inc. did not ask me to write this blog post, did not pay me cash for this review, and did not have an opportunity to review or request changes to this piece prior to its publication. However, I did receive material financial incentive to attend Open Sauce 2024 by way of free VIP admission and free lodging. The public retail value of such incentives amounts to a VIP ticket worth US$1,499.00 and a hotel stay worth approximately US$600.00. All other expenses beyond the aforementioned items were self-funded.

 
I’m not really the biggest fan of the San Francisco Bay Area in California (which should be unsurprising to you if you’ve read my blog post about how I got ~US$3,000.00 of stuff burglarized from me the last time I was here), but my friend Billie-Rae invited me to attend Open Sauce, a science and tech­nol­o­gy convention taking place at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Billie-Rae is a full-time employee at the company that runs the convention, so I de­cid­ed that was enough of a reason to support her work and check it out last week between June 14-16.

I’ve been to a lot of events and conventions of all different kinds over the past decade. I’ve attended as various roles, including an organizer, staff mem­ber, host, tournament competitor, exhibitor, media, broadcast talent, and plain old con-goer. Many conventions and brands have compensated me (or have tried to compensate me) in the past with high-end luxury accommodations worth several thousands of dollars, as well as hefty cash payments.

With all that being said, I can confidently say that Open Sauce 2024 was my favorite convention of all time.

Yes, I understand that people probably think my opinion doesn’t mean much because I got a special invite from my friend who works there. However, long-time readers know that I take my reputation very seriously and would never write an intentionally inflated or exaggerated review just to help out a friend. I have been very honest and transparent about disclosing everything up to this point, and I feel that I am being objective and unbiased with every­thing else in this blog post as well.

 
Open Sauce had a very different feel to it than any other convention I’ve ever been to, which made me enjoy it a lot more; upon some thought, I’ve con­clud­ed that that can be attributed to a handful of factors:

  • It does not feel commercialized.

    Revenue from ticket sales are pretty much never enough to run a large-scale convention. A convention center will have limited space for attendees, and consequently, there will be a limited number of tickets available for sale. If the ticket price is scaled to cover all expenses, it would be pro­hib­i­tive­ly high and cause fewer people to attend, thus reducing revenue. There is a sweet spot of balancing ticket price with attendance, and that sweet spot is usually nowhere close enough to cover expenses associated with venue rental, attractions, experiences, staffing, utilities, equip­ment, dec­o­ra­tions, marketing, etc.

    For this reason, conventions will sell space in their exhibition hall to sponsors, and these sponsors will promote their brand and products at their booth. Every other convention I’ve been to has had its exhibition hall feel like a gigantic three-dimensional billboard of endless advertisements with logos plastered everywhere. Companies furnish their booths with plush carpeting and nice fake walls to attract con-goers and incentivize them to get ex­po­sure to their brand.

    Open Sauce did not feel like this whatsoever. There were four exhibition halls, and all of them looked like massive empty warehouses with no love or care given to their presentation… which fit the convention perfectly, because it made it feel more genuine and authentic. All the focus of Open Sauce was on the science and technology of the cre­a­tions that people brought to the convention. Each booth was run by passionate scientists and inventors, not salespeople. There was nothing fancy in any of the booths—it was just the creator and the creation, and nothing else there to distract you from taking in their work.

    This doesn’t mean there were no sponsors at Open Sauce. However, the sponsors they did have were extremely well-integrated. For example, PCBWay sponsored the admission credentials for the convention, so everyone’s badge was a thin metallic circuit board (as opposed to just a flimsy piece of laminated paper like every other convention does). At their booth, you could finish soldering the connection with a battery and LED and make it light up. Formlabs also appeared to be a sponsor, and they brought high-end 3D printers that people could experiment with and try out. Both of these were directly relevant to the theme of the con­ven­tion and were actual interesting interactive things, as opposed to just ads.

    I diligently went up and down every aisle in all the exhibition halls, and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. This is the one and only con­ven­tion where I regularly stopped at many booths to try out their activity because of how inherently fun all the creations looked. I heard from a mu­tu­al friend that Michael Reeves (who was also in attendance) calls it a “science fair” instead of a convention, and I think that is a pretty accurate de­scrip­tion.

  • The special guests were pleasant people.

    Due to the nature of my work at Tempo during our prior esports and influencer marketing era, I’m used to interacting with stereotypical content cre­a­tors and broadcasters, especially those related and adjacent to Twitch live streaming. I’m fairly outspoken about my dislike of most of these peo­ple due to how disconnected they are with reality—many of them have a false and egregiously inflated sense of ego and self-importance com­pared to the rest of the world, which manifests in them coming off as extremely vain, arrogant, ignorant, lazy, and irresponsible.

    Open Sauce also had content creators in attendance, but the attitudes of these content cre­a­tors were very different. They all acted like normal people, and they all treated me like a normal person. I have had my fair share of encounters with meeting Twitch streamers during which they acted genuinely insulted that I didn’t already know who they were, but all the content creators at Open Sauce introduced themselves to me with a clear intent to meet new people and make new friends. I imagine there was a fairly thorough vetting process to decide who was and was not invited as a special guest, and this vetting process was well done, because I felt comfortable around everyone who was there.

  • I personally liked how the panels were scheduled.

    Most conventions have many panels scheduled and happening at once, and attendees have to pick which ones they want to go to, oftentimes hav­ing to miss out on some panels they want to watch in lieu of others. Open Sauce seemed to have a fairly limited number of panels, and there were only two places where panels were taking place—the main stage and secondary stage.

    This had two interesting effects. First, the panels that it did have were higher-impact panels that appealed to a broader audience, as opposed to having a lot of more specialized or niche topics. Second, because there were limited options of panels to watch, the audience was naturally bigger for each of the panels. Because the main stage was in a sporting arena and the massive amount of arena seating was used for the panel audience, it actually felt nice enjoying panels together with a large group of people.

    In a similar vein, I think Open Sauce realized that, although some people attend panels to listen to the topic, many of them go just to watch their fa­vor­ite content creators and broadcast personalities speak. I heard that most panelists held small meet-and-greets after speaking, so what the pan­els functionally ended up being was an opportunity for fans to know when and where to find their favorite creator, so they can meet them af­ter­wards.

    I heard that some people didn’t like this format, but I personally think this was a very efficient and practical way to run the schedule.

  • The activities for special guests were fun and relevant.

    When I am invited as a special guest or otherwise receive VIP treatment during conventions, the “exclusive access” usually just ends up being a lounge and a networking party. Although Open Sauce also did that, they further scheduled two fun activities that really stood out to me.

    The first was a visit to “The Cave,” Adam Savage’s workshop. The second was a visit to CrunchLabs, Mark Rober’s facility. Considering that both Adam and Mark are well-known personalities in the science field, being able to see their offices was very meaningful and interesting. I didn’t watch MythBusters when it was on TV, but I do watch all of Mark Rober’s YouTube videos, so I loved being able to see in-person the things he built for his channel.

    In a not identical but still similar vein, I enjoyed the fact that there was a hotel fully booked out exclusively for special guests. At first, the staff por­trayed this as being done for “security” reasons, which made me chuckle—I’m from Las Vegas where even A-list celebrities walk the casino and ho­tel floors alongside everyone else, so the fact that YouTubers would need that level of security was funny to me. However, I realized that having this kind of hotel was a good idea for a different reason.

    What was nice about the booked-out hotel was that everyone knew everyone else there was a science-related or science-adjacent person. In a reg­u­lar hotel, if you saw a stranger, you wouldn’t know if they were there for the same convention as you, or for something else entirely unrelated. How­ever, for Open Sauce, you knew that, if someone was inside that hotel, they were definitely there for Open Sauce. This encouraged people to be much more social and approach and initiate conversation with strangers because they are going into the interaction knowing that they share some degree of interests.

The second and fourth points obviously will not be relevant if you are just a general admission attendee, but for the sake of thoroughly sharing an an­ec­dote of my own experience, I decided to still include them.

 
So, if it wasn’t blatantly clear by now… if you are interested in science and technology and want a fun and high-value convention to attend, I highly rec­om­mend Open Sauce based on my experience that I had this year. The general admission ticket for 2024 was US$200.00, which I think is a very rea­son­a­ble price for a two-day convention that has so much to do that you’ll probably fill both days from open to close with interactive experiences. Their web­site currently shows early bird purchases for 2025 coming soon at US$99.69, which I find to be insanely cheap for what you get.

Below are some photos I took (and some that others took of me) during the convention:

 

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Hello, The Capital Grille in Costa Mesa, California

by   •   Food, Highlights
 

This one… requires a little bit of backstory.

Over a decade ago, I used to stream a lot on Twitch, a live broadcasting platform serving as the gaming arm of Justin.tv. Since then, I stopped streaming consistently, but I do still hit that coveted “Start Streaming” button once in a while, most frequently when I’m making a guest appearance on a show, but some­times when I’m just gaming with friends.

May 12, 2023 was one of those days. After a long and treacherous journey through the first 20 levels of World of War­craft: Classic in hardcore mode with my friend Doug Wreden, we managed to make it to the first pair of dungeons and I streamed footage of us clearing Wailing Caverns. During that stream, I gave moderator privileges to a user named @PhummyLW so he could use Twitch’s Channel Points Predictions feature to make the broadcast a bit more interactive. I picked him because Doug recognized his name as an active member of his own Twitch community.

Since then, I’ve been streaming once in a while, and Phummy kept returning to watch and chat. Moderators are usually responsible for ensuring com­pli­ance with the broadcaster’s rules, but considering that the only rule I have for my viewers and chatters is to follow the Twitch Terms of Service and Com­mu­ni­ty Guidelines, and I use AutoMod to automatically moderate my chat, there is very little for my human moderators to do. So, Phummy con­tin­ued to stick around to run Channel Points Predictions where relevant.

To go on a tangent for a little bit, I am not a fan of the traditional streamer-moderator relationship. I don’t know if this is just because I ended up build­ing a lot of friendships with female Twitch streamers throughout the years as a consequence of my industry of work, but when I see my friends’ mod­er­a­tors, a lot of them give off the impression of matching a lot of the negative stereotypes—a lonely man who is socially awkward and is dedicating a sub­stan­tial amount of time supporting and moderating for these women due to developing a parasocial relationship and holding onto the non-existent chance that the streamer will reciprocate their love after seeing how much the moderator has done for the streamer. I think this is extremely unhealthy, and I go out of my way to call it out when I see it—not only because I want it to stop before it goes too far and my friends end up with resentful stalkers with motives rooted in unrequited love, but also because I don’t want these men to be exploited and suffer through inevitable pain once something hap­pens that snaps them back into reality.

One of the reasons I liked having Phummy around is that he just seemed like a very normal guy with a normal and healthy lifestyle who also just hap­pens to have a hobby of watching Twitch streams once in a while. He also seemed to be aligned with my opinion on being strongly against unhealthy parasocial relation­ships—so much so that he would joke about it and create satirical situations pretending like he and I had some deep bond and lifelong close friendship, using comedy to exaggerate how absurd some of these situations with other streamers and moderators have gotten.

Not too long ago, Phummy started counting down the days in my Discord server (which, if you’re not familiar, is sort of like a real-time forum and chat channel which is reserved for paid subscribers to my Twitch channel). I didn’t know what he was counting down to, but I knew he was cooking up some kind of joke.

Yesterday, May 13, 2024, I got my answer. In the morning, he messaged me wishing me a happy anniversary of him becoming my Twitch moderator. He sent a bunch of heart emojis and even translated a portion into Korean about how he looks forward to the next year ahead. I figured he was going to come up with some prank like this, so I just replied “ok” and went back to sleep.

A few hours later, I realized there was a big problem. Remember how I said earlier that my World of Warcraft: Classic stream was on May 12, 2023? Phummy was one day late to wish me a happy anniversary. At first I couldn’t have been any more indifferent about this entire situation, but now that I had found out that Phummy messed up his own prank, I was ex­tremely invested.

I let Phummy know of his critical error, and he replied in due sarcasm, profusely apologizing and asking if the anniversary was ruined and whether he should cancel the celebration dinner reservation. Of course, there was never a dinner reservation, but I decided I would stonewall him and take his joke in the most literal way possible. I told him that if he books a dinner reservation for us tonight at a high-end restaurant of his choice, I would show up for our “anniversary date.”

So he did.

… So I did too.

 
When Phummy booked the reservation, he wrote in the comments that this dinner was for a special occasion—an anniversary. Apparently this restaurant took that note very seriously, because when we arrived, they had our table… specially prepared.

The funny part is that they gave us a yellow rose, which often symbolizes friendship, but still scattered red heart confetti over our table and drew red hearts on the note.

While we were browsing through the menu, we received a bowl of complementary bread with a side of butter. The variety of bread in this bowl was nice, and it was a lot better than the average bowl of free bread that you get from other restaurants.

Our first appetizer was fresh oyster on half shells atop ice and with a side of mignonette sauce and lemon. There was nothing particularly remarkable about these oysters, but sometimes, that’s a good thing—they tasted crisp and clean, and served as a solid start to our meal.

Next was steak tartare with capers, chives, sweet onion, hard-boiled egg, and brioche toasts.

I had never had beef tartare before with hard-boiled egg in it, and today I discovered that I really like that flavor combination. I’m a big fan of onions, so I ob­vi­ous­ly liked that ingredient too. The capers added a nice touch to the flavor—they’re usually a bit too sour, but these were milder and balanced the umami of the steak well.

I wish there was a little bit of mild oil to help mix together the ingredients, but overall, this was one of my favorite tartare dishes I’ve ever had.

For my entrée, I ordered seared tenderloin with butter-poached lobster tails.

I ordered the tenderloin cooked rare, and it was prepared perfectly. I made sure to slice against the grain, and it ended up being the most tender steak I’ve ever had, up to the point where the first bite was actually surprising. It took “melt in your mouth” to a whole other level.

The lobster tails were also great. Something I dislike about lobster is how butter is often overused during its preparation, but this restaurant used just enough butter that the added flavor was recognizable but subtle.

Phummy ordered a 10 oz. filet mignon.

For dessert, we got a crème brûlée with seasonal berries. As you can see from the photograph, they continued the festivities by writing “Happy An­ni­ver­sa­ry” in chocolate on the plate.

I found this to be the most mediocre dish out of our entire meal. It didn’t really taste like what I’d expect from a crème brûlée, and the layer of hardened caramelized sugar didn’t have the satisfying crunch that people come to expect from crème brûlée.

Here are some shots of the dining area and exterior of the restaurant:

Oysters  $  23.00
Steak tartare  $  20.00
Tenderloin and lobster  $  74.00
Filet mignon  $  65.00
Mashed potatoes  $  15.00
Sales tax (7.75%)  $  15.27
Gratuity  $  45.00
Total  $ 257.27

I treated Phummy to the meal; the table to the right shows how much I paid.

I had an amusingly good time. In case it wasn’t clearly implied from the story, I have only ever interacted with Phummy through the Internet and this was my first time ever meeting him in-person. I’m known to be someone to do some unexpectedly chaotic and impromptu things, and I feel like driving a round-trip of almost a hundred miles relative to where I was staying in Los Angeles County and spending over $250 on dinner seems characteristic of some of the strange things I would do.

With that being said, I think this exceeded my threshold of comfort because Phummy does still keep an eye out on chat for me when I’m streaming and takes care of removing spammy advertising bots and other egregiously intrusive chatters that AutoMod does not catch, so I was far more willing to treat him to a nice din­ner as a gesture of appreciation, considering that he doesn’t formally accept payment from me.

On top of that, Phummy also occasionally live streams on Twitch himself for fun, so I had enough footage of him online for me to watch and determine that he wasn’t some unstable and dangerous person. In fact, he was very sociable, and if anything, he was the one carrying our conversation while I was basically busy role playing as a professional competitive eater and stuffing my mouth with good food.

The restaurant he picked was great. I did not expect the food quality to be that high, and I feel like this whole joke ended up coming to a best-case pos­si­ble conclusion.

… I guess this may be the birth of a new annual tradition.

 

—§—

 

Hello McDonald’s

by   •   Food, Highlights
 

If you’ve been following my website for a while, you know that I like going to high-end fine dining restaurants. I’m especially a fan of multi-course meals, tasting menus, omakase experiences, and other “chef’s choice” formats of eating.

Last night, I decided to go to one of the world’s most famous and recognizable restaurants for a six-course meal: McDonald’s.

As my appetizer, I got a four-piece Chicken McNuggets®.

I ordered this with a side of the new, limited-edition Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce, but unfortunately, I did not receive it with my order. This tends to happen to me irritatingly frequently with special sauces. I recall at least one instance each within the past few years of wanting to try the Szechuan, Mambo, and Sweet & Spicy Jam sauces—and going to McDonald’s and ordering Chicken McNuggets® for the sole purpose of trying those sauces—and not receiving the sauce.

The nuggets themselves were fine; the breading seemed a bit thicker than usual and tasted a bit too over-fried, but overall, it was still passable.

My first entrée was a Cheeseburger. I customized my Cheeseburger to also have shredded lettuce in addition to the standard ingredients.

Lately, I’ve been minimizing my consumption of red meats and other foods high saturated fat to maintain good heart health. Because of this, I decided to get a small burger, as opposed to the Quarter Pounder® with Cheese like I used to always get when I was younger.

Having not had a McDonald’s burger for a long time, having this Cheeseburger was nostalgic. It tasted about the same as I remember, and the extra let­tuce added a very small but noticeable dash of extra freshness to the flavor profile.

As my side for all three main courses, I got a medium-sized portion of World Famous Fries®. The ones I got were a bit more flaccid than they usu­ally are, but they still had the distinct, iconic McDonald’s Fries taste. As dipping sauce, I got some Honey Mustard.

For my beverage, I got a Mango Pineapple Smoothie.

I usu­ally don’t get sugary drinks and generally opt for a Diet Coke, but for this meal, I decided to get something special. I think the smoothie should’ve had a bit more blended ice because the consistency was a bit too close to juice, and it was overall too sweet for my preference, but flavor-wise, I liked it.

For my second entrée, I got a Filet-O-Fish® with shredded lettuce.

A lot of people don’t expect this, but the Filet-O-Fish® is actually my favorite sandwich at McDonald’s. I like fish in general, but for some reason, there is just something about the Filet-O-Fish® that I really like when it comes to the balance of flavors. I ordered it with shredded lettuce this time, but it usu­ally doesn’t come with any lettuce; I think it tastes great both with and without the modification.

My third and final entrée was the Deluxe Spicy McCrispy™.

I think McDonald’s chicken sandwiches are generally a hit-or-miss. I think it is very easy to overcook the chicken, and I’ve found the doneness of the chicken in McDonald’s sandwiches to be fairly inconsistent. I think this is compounded by the fact that the shape and thickness of the chicken is also fair­ly inconsistent, so it’s pretty difficult to universalize a cooking methodology across the franchise.

To make things even worse for McDonald’s, a lot of fast food restaurants have come out with some incredible, juicy chicken sandwiches with very unique flavors after the chicken sandwich wars that started in 2019. I eat a lot of chicken sandwiches, and comparatively, I find McDonald’s to be mediocre.

Before dessert, I used the provided napkins to clean my hands.

I like McDonald’s napkins for two main reasons. First, the fold makes it easy to use the inside to wipe your mouth and feel like you’re using a “cleaner” part of the napkin that hasn’t been exposed to its surroundings. Second, the brown color makes grease show up very obviously, so as you wipe down your fingers, you get the satisfaction of seeing how much progress you’re making.

For dessert, I got a McCafé® Baked Apple Pie.

I used to eat a lot of these when I was a kid. Every time my parents and I went to McDonald’s, they would always add in an apple pie as dessert. For some reason, I stopped having these as an adult, but I was looking forward to trying this again for the nostalgia.

Unfortunately, this apple pie didn’t quite meet the quality bar I was hoping for. The outside was overbaked and too crispy. The caramelized apple filling inside was dehydrated. The crust was too firm. Instead of tasting like a sweet apple pie, it just tasted sweet, with the apple being an afterthought. Overall, this was pretty disappointing, though I imagine there is a possibility that this particular pie was prepared erroneously and I just got unlucky.

And finally, for my second dessert and my sixth and last course of the meal, I got an OREO® Shamrock McFlurry®.

This tasted a little bit like unmixed mint chocolate chip ice cream, but with a distinctly more artificial flavor. It was also extremely sweet. This is prob­a­bly fine for someone who actually likes the taste of the Shamrock syrup, but personally, I recommend just getting a Vanilla Soft Serve Cone for a much cleaner and classic flavor.

4-piece Chicken McNuggets®  $  2.99
Cheeseburger  $  2.29
Filet-O-Fish®  $  4.99
Deluxe Spicy McCrispy™  $  6.29
Medium French Fries  $  3.89
Honey Mustard  $  0.00
Medium Mango Pineapple Smoothie  $  4.39
Apple Pie  $  2.19
OREO® Shamrock McFlurry®  $  4.29
Discount (20%) –$  6.26
Tax (10.25%)  $  2.57
Total  $ 27.63

The table on the right shows how much I paid.

I used a promotion on the McDonald’s mobile app to get a 20% discount on my entire order. That deal often doesn’t give the most value on smaller orders and I usually end up using a dif­fer­ent one, but considering the large size of my six-course meal this time around, it ac­tu­al­ly took a good chunk off my total.

You may find that the prices I paid at this McDonald’s are higher than what you’d find at your local McDonald’s. Keep in mind that costs are localized, and because I dined at a South­ern California location, I probably paid some of the highest prices in the United States for my meal. Even when eating at McDonald’s in my home city of Las Vegas, it ends up being sub­stan­tial­ly cheaper.

Even though my experience with this McDonald’s wasn’t the best for all the dishes, the sta­ples that I usu­ally order—the Filet-O-Fish® and World Famous Fries®—were good. I ac­tu­al­ly like McDonald’s, not only for my preferred menu items, but because of the fa­mil­iar­i­ty and feeling of “home” that seeing the Golden Arches gives, no matter how far away from your ac­tu­al home you are.

Also, happy April Fool’s Day.

 

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Hello, Masamitsu Japanese Cuisine in San Marino, California

by   •   Food, Highlights
 

I go to nice restaurants on a very regular basis, but it’s been a little while since I’ve been to an ultra high-end place. Last Wednesday night, I joined one of my foodie friends for an omakase experience at Masamitsu Japanese Cuisine in San Marino of Los Angeles County, California.

For our appetizer, we got four small dishes. The first was shrimp and mushrooms in house-made sauce. The sauce had a perfect level of tang to it, and the shrimp was literally the most tender shrimp I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.

The second was monkfish liver. This is the second time I’ve ever had monkfish liver; the previous time I tried it, it sort of tasted like crab miso, but this time, it had a more unique and individual taste. The third was some noodles with jelly-like consistency. I wasn’t really able to precisely pinpoint exactly what it was. The noodles themselves had a mild flavor, but the sauce was a tiny bit too sour for my preference. My favorite facet of the dish was actually the texture—it was very slippery and slimy, but not in an unpleasant way.

Finally, the fourth was an oyster. I squeezed a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice onto it. This was probably one of the best oysters I’ve ever had—it had just enough flavor that it was right up to the threshold of strength and intensity of oysteriness without being too strong. The texture was extremely smooth and it had a very clean and pure aftertaste.

The second course was a plate of sashimi. Each cut of sashimi was aggressively thick, which made it extremely satisfying to eat. Even the slice of chutoro was very large, which is rare to see when it comes to high-end fish like tuna belly.

The sashimi came with various edible flowers on the side. I usually try to avoid edible flowers because they just taste too much like I spritzed perfume in­to my mouth, but these were a lot more subtle in flavor. The chef also gave us some advice on which ones to have in what manner (e.g., certain ones that work better with or without soy sauce), which also helped maximize the flavor profile of the whole course.

The third course was chawanmushi with truffle, caviar, and mushroom. The deep richness of the egg custard went well after having just finished large por­tions of raw fish.

Next up was the assortment of nigiri.

There was one piece that stood out to me. I actually don’t remember which fish it was, but it was very well prepared. Half of it was seared so, when I put the whole piece of nigiri in my mouth, it tasted as if I was eating two different pieces at once. The amount of sear was perfect—it added the nice flavor of charred and burnt fish, but it was not bitter at all.

One other recurring theme for some of the pieces of nigiri that I really liked was the way the fish was scored. This increased the surface area of the fish so that, when I put the piece in my mouth, it made more thorough contact with my tongue and allowed me to taste the fish more deeply. This doesn’t mat­ter as much in other situations, but when the quality of the fish is as high as what Masamitsu uses, it does make a noticeable difference.

We took a brief intermission from nigiri for some black cod. The skin was nearly as tender as the fish itself, and with the thinly-sliced and lightly-pickled cucumber on the side, it tasted amazing.

I always take and use my own photographs for my website, but my friend wanted to contribute this time around. She took six out of the 21 photos in this blog post. Can you figure out which ones they are?

The next round of nigiri came after the cod. We got sweet shrimp, tuna belly, and salmon roe.

If you know me well, you know that my favorite sushi is uni. The chef opened a new box of sea urchin for us and let me take a photo of it. He then pre­pared uni gunkan for us with a very generous portion of uni.

As our dinner approached an end, we received some miso soup with mushrooms and fish as a closer. This is probably the one and only thing we were served that I wasn’t a huge fan of, as the miso was a bit too strong. I ended up not finishing the soup, but I did eat all the mushrooms and fish inside.

The final piece of nigiri was skinless eel. I was very full by this point, but the relatively mildness of the eel went along nicely with the strong miso soup.

For dessert, we got one scoop of ice cream each. Mine was black sesame, which sort of tasted like a mixture of coffee and vanilla bean.

My friend got green tea and decided to add some extra character to her scoop.

The total for the meal pre-tax and pre-gratuity was US$306.00—omakase was $150 per person, and we added on a yuzu soda for $6. Compared to other omakase restaurants I’ve been to, this was a great price considering how good the food was. The service was also fantastic—the servers were attentive and respectful, and our chef was interactive to a degree that you like to see during an omakase experience.

If you’re ever in the Los Angeles or Pasadena area and looking for a great meal around this pricepoint, I highly recommend Masamitsu Japanese Cuisine. This was a real omakase experience in the sense that it was a truly chef-catered experience, as opposed to some restaurants that have been popping up now­a­days that just piece together a few existing items on their menu and claim that it’s omakase.

When people ask me what my all-time favorite restaurant is, my go-to answer has been Utzutzu. After this dinner, I now have Masamitsu to add to the list.

 

—§—

 

When everything goes wrong in the best way possible

by   •   2018 GMC Canyon, Highlights
 

A few days ago, after arriving back home to Las Vegas, I met up with a friend at Gaetano’s Ristorante in Henderson for dinner. Afterwards, I got back in my truck and drove back to the western suburbs of the Las Vegas Valley where I live. Before heading home, I decided to take a quick stop at the local Target a mile and a half away from my condo to buy some snacks and beverages. I made it there without incident. It was approaching 10 PM and about to close, so I quickly finished shopping and walked out of the building and towards my truck.

 
Working in law enforcement, especially at a police department, makes you pick up some interesting quirks. Because I was never a sworn patrol officer, I don’t do active duty things like taking off my seat belt early or opening the door before the vehicle is fully stopped. However, there are things I do do, like always sitting at restaurants with my back to a wall and facing the entrance, or never standing directly in front of doors, or checking the waists of peo­ple around me to identify bulges that may be weapons.

Another strange thing I do that is loosely and indirectly tied to law enforcement is always remote starting my vehicle—not for convenience, but for safe­ty. If someone planted an explosive in or on my truck that triggers upon turning on the engine as an attack, the idea is that I will be far enough away that I will not be victimized as severely as I would be if I was sitting inside the cabin. The chance of this actually happening? Pretty much zero. But study­ing crime makes you hyperaware of small things like this.

 
With my plastic bag in hand, I pulled out my keys and pressed the button on my fob to remote start my pickup truck. I saw the lights flash, but the engine did not whir into action. Confused, I immediately stopped in place, looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then attempted to remote start my truck again. The lights flashed once again indicating that it received the remote start signal, but the engine remained dormant.

From a distance, I swooped down to angle my view so I could see under my truck to make sure there was nobody hiding underneath. Once I concluded it was safe, I unlocked my vehicle, stepped inside, inserted my key into the ignition, and turned. The infotainment system lit up, but nothing happened. I tried a second time, and again, nothing happened.

The third time’s a charm. I tried starting my engine one last time, and my instrument cluster screen lit up long enough for me to be able to see a warning that said my battery was critically low. I navigated through the options on the menu to check my battery status; after jabbing the “scroll down” button several times, I finally got to a screen that showed for a split second that my voltage was only 11.0 before fading to darkness.

My battery was dead.

This was fine. I pay for roadside assistance along with my auto insurance policy. I can get a free jump start and make my way home, then jump it again a second time from home after I have an appointment to get my battery changed. I pulled up my insurance company’s website to put in a roadside as­sis­tance request.

Of course, they don’t have an option to request roadside assistance over phone call, because that would be too easy (either that, or it was too late and there were no customer service rep­re­sen­ta­tives available). You need your username and password to log into the request page, which I forgot and only had in my password manager on my computer. You can log in with your policy number too, but the card I had was from the previous renewal cycle, and apparently my policy number changed for my next semi-annual period that started a few weeks ago, so the previous one was invalid. It took me about 15 minutes to gather all the information I need and put in the request.

The estimated wait time? 118 minutes.

I was not going to sit there waiting in the parking lot of a closed Target for two hours until midnight. Frustrated, I canceled the request and called an Uber to drive me a mile and a half back home. I would deal with this tomorrow. I live in a relatively safe neighborhood, so there would surely be no issues leaving my truck in the parking lot for one night. If anything, my truck should thank me. It’s basically like I’m letting it go camping.

I got back home safely. I let my dinner friend know what had happened, and told him how relieved I was that this had happened when I was so close to home, as opposed to when I was still in Henderson on the opposite side of the Las Vegas Valley. I also rantingly told the story to one of my friends who was visiting South Korea so I could share my torment and make sure she’s not having too much fun vacationing. 🙃

I ended my night by editing food photos, blogging about the restaurant, and winding down by watching some YouTube before bed. Stress level: 0.

 
The next morning, I started my day at a leisurely pace. I woke up early, got a little bit of work done, went back to sleep for a short nap, then showered. Because it was the daytime, I figured I should probably knock this out all at once instead of doing my two-jump method I had devised the previous night. I called a mobile battery service company that would arrive on-site, deliver a brand new battery, and install it for me on the spot so it’s all resolved and I don’t have to worry about it anymore, all for only US$300.00.

I told them the address of Target and scheduled an appointment with them for 1 PM. I called another Uber and rode my way a mile and a half back to my truck. Upon my approach, I was unsurprised, but still relieved, to find it just as how I had left it the previous night.

Shortly afterwards, the technician arrived. I told him what happened, and he reacted as if it was nothing special—just a regular old day at work. His ex­pres­sion changed when I popped the hood. His outlook on the situation also changed when he took a closer look.

I wish I had taken a photograph before the technician cleaned it all up, but the connectors to my battery looked like something out of an alien horror film. There was a blue growth festering out of the metal and I couldn’t tell whether it was spiny, fuzzy, or both. According to the technician, it was cor­ro­sion that grew on top of corrosion that had grown on top of even more corrosion.

He pulled out his workbag and got to work chipping away at the corrosion and getting everything cleaned up. I sat in the cabin of my truck because it was a little chilly.

As time went on, he started whacking, then hammering, then full-on pounding at the battery. I personally have never swapped out a car battery on my own, but I was still getting suspicious when it sounded like the technician was fighting the battery in a twelve-round boxing match, and losing.

Eventually, he motioned for me to step out of the vehicle. He let me know that the corrosion had gotten so bad that the battery release had effectively gotten welded onto a different part of the vehicle. He had apparently been unable to separate the pieces in order to get the battery out, and he was at­tempting to use increasingly higher force, but he had reached a point where he was concerned he would permanently damage something and decided to tap out.

Instead, he gave me a jump start and told me to drive straight to the dealership service center to get the corrosion repaired. Because he wasn’t able to complete his dispatch order, he opted not to charge me anything, even though I offered to pay him for the jump start.

I called the certified GMC service center nearest to my condo—the AutoNation Buick GMC West Sahara—and miraculously, they had an express service appointment time slot available in an hour. I drove straight there with my jump-started engine and pulled into a service lane. Upon arrival, I made con­tact with a service advisor who popped the hood and sprayed some diagnostic chemical on my battery to confirm that it had apparently been spew­ing acid all over the place. He put in a work order for corrosion repair and a battery replacement, and I also managed to convince him to squeeze in an oil change while they were at it, because my oil life was nearing the single-digit percentages.

When I’m waiting for vehicle service, I usually bring my laptop to get some work done and be efficient with my time. However, I obviously did not ex­pect this whole ordeal to last longer than about half an hour beyond just the battery swap in the parking lot, and I wasn’t planning on anything else go­ing wrong, so I didn’t bring my laptop with me. Maybe that was for the better, because this encouraged me to be offline for a bit, drinking some free coffee while watching sports on TV, taking a look at some of the new pickup trucks on display, chatting with the salesmen about new trends in pickup truck technology, and even getting an opportunity check out the new GMC Hummer EV SUV on the lot.

Two hours later, I paid for all the service done, and the bill was actually a pleasant surprise—dealership service centers are known for aggressive mark-ups, but the price I paid was fairly competitive. I drove back home, thankful that all this had unfolded precisely in this manner.

 
Sure, it technically isn’t a good thing that my battery decided to paint its surrounding with acid and corrode everything it touched, but I am under the belief that, eventually, vehicles will end up with some kind of issues, regardless of how much preventative maintenance you do. And yes, I understand that it is not statistically accurate to think of it this way, but I’m glad that one line in my “problem quota” was taken up by something as mild as this in such favorable circumstances.

I’m very fortunate that this happened while I was at home in Las Vegas, and not traveling somewhere else. I regularly drive back and forth to California, and on a macro scale, this would have been a much worse situation if I had taken a break at a rest stop in the middle of the Mojave Desert and then broken down there. I also just wrapped up a two-year road trip not too long ago, and I can’t imagine how much of a pain this would have been if I had broken down on some random unpaved trail in Wyoming with no cell signal. Even on a micro scale within Las Vegas, the fact that I broke down at a Tar­get parking lot in a very safe neighborhood was very fortunate, as opposed to somewhere near downtown or on the other side of the Valley.

I’m also very fortunate that this happened on a Saturday when the dealership’s service center was still open (as they are closed on Sundays), and that they had an express appointment slot available so soon that I wouldn’t need to leave my vehicle there overnight until Monday and have to find al­ter­na­tive transportation to my upcoming appointments.

So, if you’re going to have things go wrong… I guess this is how you do it in the best way possible.

 

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End-of-2023 investment portfolio breakdown

by   •   Finance, Highlights
 

Disclaimer: I am not a registered investment advisor. The information found in this blog post is in­tended to be strictly anecdotal and should not be con­strued as financial advice. Everyone’s situation is uniquely different, so if you are seeking guid­ance, consult a licensed and certified professional for per­son­al­ized assistance.

 
During 2021 and 2022, I used to write investment portfolio breakdowns almost quarterly to share where and how my liquid assets were allocated. After publishing a bunch of them, I realized that there aren’t frequent-enough changes to make them worth doing so often, so I stopped throughout a bulk of 2023. However, now that we’ve dinged a new year, I figured it would be worth putting together another up-to-date and comprehensive report for my new­er readers.

Cash

If you’ve at all been keeping up with the state of the current financial climate, you know that interest rates in the United States are very high right now. Although I am a strong proponent of time in the market being better than timing the market, I haven’t been heeding my own advice and have instead been holding onto more cash than usual.

Of course, considering that it is the end of a calendar year and tax-advantaged account limitations reset on January 1, a large portion of my cash is already “accounted for” in its purpose. I have $7k ready to go for my personal IRA, more than $25k for my SEP-IRA, and just over $4k for my HSA—all of this is just sitting there as cash waiting for markets to open on January 2, 2024 after the holiday.

However, beyond the above, I am still holding even more cash on top of that just for the sake of farming reliable returns on my deposits. I think the economy is actually doing worse than it may appear on the surface, so instead of immediately dollar-cost av­er­aging and dumping all my money directly into investments, I am balancing it out and keeping decently large chunks of cash in sav­ings and money market accounts.

My primary sav­ings account is with Discover Bank, which has an interest rate of 4.35% as of today—this is what I use for incoming ACH transfers and depositing checks. Excluding my emergency fund of three months’ worth of expenses, I keep the rest on Van­guard in my core position, the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX), currently with a 5.32% yield. Considering that my primary brokerage for investments is also Vanguard, having this money in VMFXX means I always have plenty of available balance to make short-notice trades, if needed. And finally, I have a less-frequently-utilized variant of this on Fidelity as well, the Fidelity Gov­ern­ment Money Market Fund (SPAXX), currently with a 5.01% yield.

   9.183%

Domestic broad market index funds

I’m sure this is not surprising to anyone—the largest category in my portfolio is taken up by broad market index funds. Most of this is in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral Shares (VTSAX), with Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund Admiral Shares (VHYAX) coming in at second.

When asked, I often talk about all the strange and interesting investment opportunities I’ve found, but it is very important to un­der­stand that those weird investments make up an exceedingly small percentage of my portfolio, and a bulk of it is in “boring” mutual funds. I purchased more shares of VHYAX during the pandemic when the stock market was volatile and I wanted some more sta­bil­i­ty, but my go-to investment is VTSAX.

As for the investments I hold in my Fidelity account, like my Health Savings Account or my Fidelity Charitable account, I will keep those funds in the Fidelity ZERO® Total Market Index Fund (FZROX).

  40.871%

International total mar­ket index funds

This is the category that has probably seen the biggest change in the past year. I do want to stay invested in the international stock market because I want exposure outside the United States to diversify my portfolio, but this segment is currently in a bit of a work-in-progress state.

I used to have a decent chunk of money invested in Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Admiral Shares (VTIAX), but over the past year and a half, I ended up selling all of it for tax loss harvesting purposes.

After waiting out the wash sale period, I re-entered the international market by means of the Fidelity ZERO® International Index Fund (FZILX). If you compare my percentage here relative to some previous portfolio breakdowns, you’ll see that I didn’t buy back in as heavily as I used to own, but I’m going to continue working my way up here over time in this fund.

   1.562%

Target date funds

The money I have invested in my tax-advantaged retirement accounts is all in target date funds. The reason I separate this out as its own line item in my breakdown is because target date funds automatically reallocate their composition to be riskier when further a­way from the target date and safer when approaching the target date. Thus, due to how time-consuming it would be to go in and man­u­al­ly calculate this for my breakdowns, I decided years ago to just give them their own category.

I used to put most of my retirement money into the Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 Fund (VTTSX) but later started splitting it half-and-half with the Vanguard Target Retirement 2055 Fund (VFFVX) as well.

Recently, after realizing that I am doing much better financially now than I had ever imagined I would be when I was in my younger 20s, and foreseeing a sooner and sooner retirement, I kept my VTTSX and VFFVX as-is but have put everything new into the Van­guard Target Retirement 2050 Fund (VFIFX) instead so my retirement accounts don’t tank in the event of an untimely stock mar­ket crash during the 40s or 50s. I don’t anticipate switching to a 2045 fund, though—there are tax penalties for withdrawing funds before turning 59½ years old, and that will happen for me in 2051.

Some people have asked me why I don’t just manage the compositions myself to save a little bit on the expense ratio. That is a good point, considering how active of an investor I am, but I already have plenty of money in individual brokerage accounts that I self-manage, and it gives me additional peace of mind to have my money spread out in different fund types. In the highly unlikely but non-zero chance that I become unable to manage my own investments in the future, e.g., through some acquired mental disability or incapacitating injury, and if my caretaker is financially illiterate… even if my other investments may go to chaos during stock market un­rest, my retirement accounts will stay stable on their own thanks to Vanguard’s management.

  18.555%

Real es­tate investment trusts (REITs)

I’ve been exploring some options of investing in physical real estate for the past few years, but never got around to it because I never felt like it was the best time to do so considering all my circumstances at the time. I’m still keeping an eye out on good opportunities, but because the interest rates are so high on mortgages, I’m making sure I’m not acting too hastily.

In the meantime, my portfolio still has real estate exposure through real estate investment trusts. My REIT of choice is Vanguard Real Es­tate Index Fund Admiral Shares (VGSLX). I may sell some of these off in the future for tax loss harvesting or to free up cash for a down payment to purchase physical real estate, but until then, I’ve just been holding onto what I have and automatically re­in­vest­ing div­i­dends.

   9.263%

Bonds

As I mentioned previously in the section about target date funds, I trust Vanguard to manage my retirement funds and allocate an ap­pro­pri­ate percentage of my money into bonds automatically. For my self-managed funds, I’m still young and still have reliable net-positive cash flow, so I’m investing in stocks and generally avoiding bonds.

With that being said, I’m still holding onto the United States Department of the Treasury‘s Series I Savings Bonds that I purchased over the past few years when inflation skyrocketed during and shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m not interested in pur­chas­ing more in 2024 due to the new 5.27% interest rate not being much better than my savings and money market accounts, at the further detriment of having to sacrifice a few months’ worth of interest if I want to liquify it prior to the five-year mark.

Everything else here that isn’t directly with the Treasury is in Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Admiral Shares (VBTLX).

   6.037%

Cryptocurrency

It’s been quite a wild ride being a cryptocurrency owner. I originally bought in as a way to learn hands-on about blockchain tech­nol­o­gy and more effectively perform my job duties at Tempo, but that resulted in me being down multiple tens of thousands of un­re­al­ized losses at one point. Luckily, I didn’t panic sell—I more-or-less dismissed it as “gambling losses” and kept holding in case it went back up.

I held onto the shares of Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) and Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW) I already had, as well as some random coins I had in my self-custodied hardware wallet. In early 2023 during the United States banking crisis and the fol­low­ing panic, even after saying I wouldn’t invest more in crypto­currency, I made a discretionary purchase of some Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO).

Cryptocurrency has bounced back a substantial amount, which is good news for me, and I am now hovering around break-even. I’m still not selling, though—I’m not too worried about the money, and cryptocurrency is a good way to diversify my portfolio anyway, so I’ll be keeping this as a hedge against further instances of financial crises, unrest, or failure.

   7.643%

Individual stocks and private companies

I haven’t been too active in trading individual stocks, so most of what I own here has been under the buy-and-hold strategy. I still own a few to several thousands of dollars’ worth each of some of my favorite companies: Marriott International, Inc. (MAR), Cloud­flare, Inc. (NET), T-Mobile US, Inc. (TMUS), and Stellantis, N.V. (STLA).

In September 2023, I bought several thousand dollars’ worth of shares of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (TKO) after the merger be­tween World Wrestling Entertainment and Ultimate Fighting Championship. I used to watch a ton of WWE when I was a kid, and I currently train casually with the UFC, so I figured this would be a fun and meaningful purchase.

A few years ago, I invested in Atlis Motor Vehicles, Inc., which turned out to be a comical failure. I bought 50 shares privately at a little over $8 each, and their initial public offering was at $27.50 (which garnered enough hype to peak at over $82 that day). Not long after, the stock price plummeted. They rebranded to NXU, Inc., which continued to be a clown show—the stock price kept falling until it was at a point where it barely broke two cents. In order to not be delisted, NXU performed a 1-to-150 reverse stock split. My 50 shares disappeared from my brokerage account, and I imagine it is soon to be replaced by ⅓rd of one share.

And finally, I am now the owner of $2,000 worth (cost basis) of unsponsored American depository receipts of Nexon Co., Ltd. (NEXOY). For a little bit of context, when I live stream on Twitch, viewers can accrue “points” on the platform to redeem for prizes, and one of my prizes is to spend $2k of my money to invest in any security listed on the NYSE, NASDAQ, OTCQX, or OTCQB. I gave my childhood best friend Ed Lam a free redemption of this while we were playing MapleStory together; he told me to “invest in MapleStory,” so I bought NEXOY as the closest available solution.

   5.660%

Precious metals

I went on an “alternative investments” binge during the COVID-19 pandemic to diversify my portfolio, dipping my toes into things without having much knowledge about them or doing sufficient research. One of those areas was precious metals, which I bought after learning about the historical stability of gold.

I wasn’t in a position to buy the physical metals and keep them myself, so I was seeking an investment vehicle via a custodian. How­ev­er, the lack of research meant that, although my intent was to purchase gold itself, I ended up buying a fund that has only indirect exposure to gold—the Fidelity® Select Gold Portfolio (FSAGX).

I don’t have any plans for this at the moment—I’ll just be leaving this in my Fidelity account until something prompts or forces me to take further action.

   0.751%

Fine art, and other collectibles

Just like precious metals, investing in fine art was part of my extreme diversification efforts. I obviously don’t have the net worth to straight-up buy physical fine art, so instead, I participated in StartEngine Collectibles Fund I, LLC’s Regulation A+ as a next-best option.

Unfortunately, some of my investment was refunded to me because minimum funding goals weren’t met, and StartEngine has had horrid proactive communication throughout the process. The amount of money I put into this experiment was so little that I ended up just losing interest, so if this does end up going anywhere useful, it will be an unexpectedly pleasant surprise later.

   0.475%

To wrap up, I want to reiterate that you should not blindly copy my investment portfolio. This chart is intended for entertainment purposes so you can learn more about me, not to teach you how to invest. The percentages I’ve provided reflect my personal reality and should in no way be taken as an ideal distribution. I decide how to invest my money based on a mixture of empirical data, personal speculation, and what I think would be fun—which is not a good formula for optimizing results.

 

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