Hello, “Fight Mii” at PAX West 2023

by   •   Conventions, Face
 

With a successful “Friends ’til Death” panel on day 2 of PAX West, we went into day 3 with an autographing session followed by Failboat’s “Fight Mii” pan­el.

The premise of “Fight Mii” is for audience members to participate in creating Miis in accordance with a prompt given by the host. Usually, audience members compete against each other, but for this iteration of “Fight Mii,” the audience members were allied against “Team Failure,” the team rep­re­senting Failboat and consisting of his friends.

Here is our friend Aidan, who owns the “Skip the Tutorial” channel on YouTube, filming Dan in a pre-panel interview.

Moments before the start of the show, I peeked back behind the curtain to make sure Dan was still alive. He was mildly surprised.

At 8:30 PM in the Monarch Theater, Dan went live with his signature gold sequin shirt. Unfortunately, his co-host Jay wasn’t able to make it this time around, but Jay filmed some pre-recorded segments which Dan played for the audience to provide them with the prompts.

Between each round, Dan came down into the crowd to pick some audience members to compete.

I was the first challenger from Team Failure, and my mission was to create a Pikachu Mii. This was my first time ever laying hands on any Wii game what­so­ev­er, so it was not exactly a smooth experience. To top it all off, the voting system was highly rigged, in that the audience cheers determined which team won… and of course, the audience voted for their own representatives. Long story short, I got demolished.

The next challenger on Team Failure was Aidan.

Dan realized that the voting system was a bit one-sided, so instead, he brought Stitch from the PAX team up to be the judge instead.

My favorite part of Dan’s panels is when he brings out the prizes. One of the prizes was a book of animals in the “Baby Touch and Feel” series.

Not bad.

Next up was Dan’s college friend Sam. The prompt was simply “red,” so Sam put red foundation on his Mii and called it a day.

Stitch came back up to judge the Miis and select a winner.

The next prize… HP printer ink cartridges.

Hello, Douglas Douglas.

Stitch came back up to judge the Miis again, and she ended up picking Doug’s Mii.

His prize? An inflatable unicorn sprinkler.

In traditional Doug fashion, he decided to pull a prank on Stitch and, on his way back to his seat, he pulled out $11 from his wallet and handed it over to Stitch to make it look like she was bribed to pick him as the winner.

For the final round, our friend Altrive was up to close out the panel.

The final prize? An ironing board.

This was a fun panel, and Dan is a very high-energy performer. Even though I wasn’t notified of my requested appearance until literally the morning of the panel, and then proceeded to have absolutely no idea what I was doing, I am still glad I got to participate.

If you missed it, PAX live streamed this panel on their website—you can check it out on the “Streams” section of the PAX West website.

 

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Hello, “Friends ’til Death” at PAX West 2023

by   •   Conventions, Face
 

I’m currently in Seattle, Washington for PAX West 2023. I have a lot of photos of the event, and I’ve also been spending time with friends and doing other tourist activities around Seattle; I’ll be posting those over the next week or two after I get back home. But for now, I wanted to share some photos from yes­terday’s “Friends ’til Death” panel with DougDoug and Failboat at the Oriole Theater as soon as possible.

A part of PAX is taking place in the newer Summit building of the Seattle Convention Center. It’s a very nice building, and I really like its architecture as well—it is very modern, but there are still some nice wooden elements indoors that make it feel cozier and off-set the usually harsher feeling of today’s con­tem­po­rar­y style.

We arrived just shy of half an hour early for sound check, set-up, and a quick rehearsal.

PAX usually has live streams of panels, but unfortunately, they did not have one for the Oriole Theater. We still wanted to share the show with people who couldn’t make it to PAX, so we brought our own equipment to film. As you might have noticed already from my pictures, I was on photography. Berry, Doug’s creative director, set up a camera at the back of the theater to film the primary camera angle.

Our friend Aidan who owns the “Skip the Tutorial” channel on YouTube filmed a side angle, where he was able to get shots of Doug and Dan in addition to some crowd reactions. Doug’s team has all the footage now, and it will likely be edited and published at some point in the near future on one of Doug’s YouTube channels.

A few minutes after 9 PM PDT, the panel started with Doug and Dan walking out on stage.

The entire theater was completely filled, and unfortunately, many people even had to be turned away (which was even more motivation for us to capture the event so we could share it with everyone). There were a surprising number of people in the overflow area, and once the panel started, people who were denied entry started crowding around the glass doors to peek in. The framing of this photo below doesn’t even show the whole theater.

As the panel began, Dan explained the premise of the show—he would be playing Dark Souls while he and Doug answered questions from the crowd, but the instant Dan died, the panel would end. This is a live rendition of their “Friends ’til Death” podcast, during which they are playing a game, but the instant they die, the podcast episode ends.

Here’s a view from the theater from the other corner—you can sort of get a better idea of how packed it was.

Very pog.

As you can see by Dan’s oozing confidence, he knew exactly what he was doing. Side note: this was his first time ever playing Dark Souls.

There were a lot of people lined up for an opportunity to ask their question.

A few minutes into the game, Dan started getting himself into a bit of trouble. The crowd went wild telling him to run away, but unfortunately, their efforts were in vain.

Upon Dan’s death, they both got up and marched straight out of the theater. The panel was over.

A lot of the crowd chased after them out of the theater, but a line formed of people who wanted to meet me, so I stuck around for a while to chat and take photos. Someone even brought a Ryobi cordless power inflator for me to sign.

After wrapping up with everyone inside the theater, I found out that an impromptu meet-and-greet had formed out in the common area outside the theater with Doug and Dan, after their fans eventually caught up with them. Two of Doug’s fans hand-painted these amazing signs for the panel.

If you missed this panel, either because you weren’t at PAX or got turned away at the door, you still have two more chances to see us.

Today, Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 6 PM PDT, Doug and Dan will be holding a more formal meet-and-greet in the Autographing Area, during which I may be lingering somewhere in the background.

Two and a half hours after the start of that, today, at 8:30 PM PDT, Dan will be holding his “Fight Mii” panel in the Monarch Theater, during which Doug will be there momentarily as a special guest, and I will be running around taking photographs again. This one should be live streamed on one of PAX’s broadcast channels.

… See you there?

 

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Photo dump from summer 2023

by   •   Face, General
 

Today’s the last day of the last full month of summer, and I figured it would be a good time to share some of my miscellaneous photographs from the past three months that haven’t made it on my website yet. I always find it really funny when people post “photo dumps” on social media and it’s only two or three pictures, so this is going to be a real photo dump.

One of the things I like to do is to park on the top floor of a parking garage so I can go to the edge and take a nice picture of the view. Here’s Glendale, California.

Here’s an Italian restaurant I went to with my friend Eric Morino, better known online as Pointcrow. Apparently every waiter and waitress was also an opera singer, and they literally took turns singing to everyone during our meal. It was very … interesting.

I went to visit my friend Doug Wreden and he asked me what I wanted to watch on YouTube. I told him I was indifferent, so he made a decision instead.

As you can see, I am clearly an expert at arcades.

Hello, rabbit.

I recently had tableside guac for the first time. It never occurred to me what exactly the “tableside” was supposed to mean, but it soon became very clear that they literally bring the ingredients out and make the guacamole beside your table. Our waitress seemed to just indiscriminately randomly throw in ingredients without measuring anything or adjusting for taste. This was also very … interesting.

One of my friends came into town for a convention in Las Vegas, and while she was here, she wanted to try a popular breakfast spot called BabyStacks. I ordered velvet pancakes and they served me four meals’ worth of pancakes and sugar on one plate.

Hello, cat.

During a quick visit to downtown Los Angeles, I joined a friend and her cousin for all-you-can-eat sushi at Hello Fish. Apparently they’re a fairly popular restaurant in Koreatown—their slogan is “feed me sushi and tell me I’m pretty.” I would’ve normally done a dedicated blog post for a restaurant like this, but un­fortunately, they just had very dim and very pink lighting, so my photos did not come out very well. Here are three of the nicer ones.

Afterwards, we went to get shaved ice for dessert.

Here are some views from my hotel in downtown Los Angeles. It made me miss my days of luxury high-rise living on the Las Vegas Strip.

 

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Hello, Boom Bang Fine Foods & Cocktails in Henderson, Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

I’m about to go on a lengthy chain of back-to-back travel, so before I leave, I decided to meet up with a friend and get some food at Boom Bang Fine Foods & Cocktails in Henderson of the Las Vegas Valley in Nevada.

For my appetizer, I ordered the waitress’ recommendation of mushroom tart. Instead, I received wild Rhode Island squid and capers with a side of house­made tartar sauce and chipotle marinara. I like calamari so I didn’t mind the mix-up; when I let our waitress know, she said that the buttons for the ca­la­ma­ri and mushroom tart were right next to each other, so the wrong dish was put into the order. She offered to give me a complimentary mushroom tart for the error.

The calamari was decent. I liked the squid a lot, but the breading was a bit intense in some areas, and it was somewhat over-fried. My dinner companion is not much of a fish and seafood person, so I ended up finishing the entire plate on my own.

For his appetizer, my friend ordered corn dogs made from artisan frankfurter and Boom Bang’s “best batter ever,” with a side of ketchup and Boom Bang mustard sauce.

Shortly afterwards, my second appetizer came out—the complimentary mushroom tart that was previously promised. It came with wild and cultivated mushrooms, goat cheese mousse, and verjus. The mushrooms were great and the tart was nice and flakey, but the goat cheese smelled like vomit and made the whole dish pretty unpleasant. … I still finished the entire thing anyway, though I scraped off most of the cheese.

My friend ordered the daily special for his main entrée—14 oz. Cedar River ribeye with bordelaise sauce, truffled French fries, and roasted tomato.

For my entrée, I decided to do something a bit unusual—I decided to order the “small action” seafood plateau, which is usually ordered by a table as a shared platter of appetizers, but I instead chose to have it as my dinner. It came in a hilariously large plate, and everything was kept chilled atop a bed of ice.

First was some tuna tartare, seasoned with whiskey barrel-aged soy sauce, sesame, and avocado, and a side of baguette croutons. I found it funny that they called it tartare, as that is usually a term used for non-fish dishes. The tuna was exactly what I expected from good-quality tuna, but there was also noth­ing particularly stellar about it—it basically tasted like I was just eating a premium tuna poke bowl.

The plateau also came with Oiishi shrimp and a side of Mexican cocktail sauce. The shrimp was incredibly satisfying—it had lots of rich flavor, each one was very large, and its texture had just the right balance of tender and firm.

Third was hamachi aguachile seasoned and served with avocado, serrano, pickled red onion, and cilantro. Notably missing from my serving was the av­o­ca­do, which was instead substituted with cucumber. The yellowtail also did not actually resemble the flavor of yellowtail, though whatever fish it was, it tasted good. The dish as a whole was a bit too sour for my preference, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as other aguachile or ceviche dishes I’ve had.

And finally, a seafood platter would not be complete without oysters. I received half a dozen oysters, three of which were East Coast oysters. They tasted like normal, good oysters.

I also received three West Coast oysters, which were some of the best oysters I’ve ever had. The West Coast oysters had a mysteriously high intensity of deep, delicious oyster flavor, so much so that it was almost as if additional oyster flavoring had been injected into them. Each bite extracted more and more juices, repeatedly covering my tongue and replenishing the flavor until there was nothing left of the oysters but bolus. To be clear, I have had plenty of West Coast oysters before, and they weren’t all like this, so there were definitely something special about the ones from this restaurant.

Considering that I was getting a lot of seafood, I also ordered a side of truffle French fries to balance things out. I prefer my French fries to be a bit on the underfried and thicker side, but I still enjoyed these.

At this point, I had finished a full portion of two appetizers plus a large seafood platter and some fries, so I was pretty much at my limit for food. How­ever, my friend still had room for dessert, so he ordered pavlova with crisp meringue, Bavarian cream, and fresh berries. I tried one bite, and it was clean and refreshing; if I wasn’t so full, I would’ve definitely liked a serving of this.

Calamari $  16.00
Corn dogs $   9.00
Mushroom tart $  15.00
Ribeye and truffle fries $  69.00
Small action seafood plateau $  56.00
Truffle French fries $  12.00
Diet Coke $   3.00
Pavlova $  14.00
Manager’s comp–$  15.00
Tax (8.375%) $  14.99
Gratuity (20%) $  38.80
Total $ 232.79
The chart to the right shows how much we paid.

One funny thing about this restaurant was that there was a DJ by the entrance playing very loud music the entire time we were there. It is absolutely not what I was expecting from a restaurant that advertises themselves as being fine dining… though maybe that is what the “boom bang” is sup­posed to represent? I was there to catch up with my friend, so after a lot of yelling over the music, I concluded my dinner with a sore throat.

I think the consistency and quality of the food was a bit scattered. There was nothing that was bad, but everything wasn’t excellent either. Some of the dishes were fairly average, and I sometimes don’t notice right away because of my desensitization to prices, but if I go back and think about it, there were a few things that made me think “I could get this exact same thing of the exact same quality at a different restaurant for less than half the price.”

If you’re someone who likes a more “youthful” and upbeat environment, I think you’d enjoy Boom Bang. However, if you’re looking for traditional fine dining, this restaurant might not have the type of experience that you’re looking for. I also think it could be worth it for the restaurant to do a quick review on pricing and ease a bit on the intensity of the fried foods.

As a disclaimer, note that I do not drink alcohol and did not try any of the cocktails—which I im­agine must be good, considering that they literally put “cocktails” in their restaurant name. If you like cocktails, wine, spirits, and champagne, they have a large drink menu, so you are probably closer to the target audience for Boom Bang and you may end up having a much more fulfilling experience than I did.

 

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White lightning American bison belt by Jacob Hill Leather Co.

by   •   Leather
 

If you’re relatively new here, you might not know that I’m a bit of a leather goods enthusiast. I have a category on my blog dedicated to leather, and I like to review the various leather-made goods I buy. To be clear, I do not like designer leather goods; instead, I seek out independent leatherworkers so I can support smaller businesses without having to pay the upcharge for the brand name.

One of the leatherworkers I’ve been purchasing belts from for a few years now is Jacob Hill Leather Co. from Belmont, North Carolina. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a new belt—not since before the pandemic, in fact—so I figured I would do some leisurely browsing to see if anything caught my eye.

Jacob Hill Leather has a limited-edition white lightning American bison collection, and one of the items was a belt.

The total I paid for the product plus shipping is US$204.31, which is considerably lower than some of my other belts. Overall, I’m decently satisfied with the purchase. This is my first leather good made out of bison, and previously, I thought that bison was similar to cowhide in its texture. I was pleasantly surprised when this American bison belt arrived and it had a much more lumpy, unique, and interesting texture.

The website advertised this belt as having a special black matte buckle, but mine arrived with the standard chrome one. This has sort of been a recurring theme for me with Jacob Hill Leather—albeit minor, there is always some sort of issue with my belts.

For my white smoke hornback saltwater crocodile belt, the length of the belt was shorter than what I ordered, and I was missing the standard buckle (I pur­chased an extra buckle on the side as a separate item, and they instead replaced the belt’s standard buckle with the extra one instead of giving me both). For my Indonesian stingray rowstone belt, the holes were punched in a way that some of the rowstones were shattered instead of being cleanly cut, and the hardware holding the belt loops in place arrived already stripped of paint.

So why do I keep ordering from them? The issues are generally so minor that it doesn’t materially affect my appreciation of the final product, and most importantly, this is the best value-to-price ratio I’ve seen in leather belts. Even considering the errors, the price is just too good to pass up—the next leatherworker I’ve seen with this level of craftsmanship and leather quality is at least one-and-a-half to two times the price.

Like usual, I don’t want to go overboard on buying leather goods because I can very easily go overboard, so I’ll probably go on a shopping cooldown for a bit, but I’m looking forward to seeing what Jacob Hill’s next special edition or limited release product is going to be.

Note: I was not compensated in any manner for this review and do not plan to accept any compensation offers after-the-fact. Jacob Hill Leather was not provided with an opportunity to read or revise this blog post prior to publication.

 

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Hello, Shaker + Spear at the Kimpton Palladian Hotel in Belltown, Seattle, Washington

by   •   Food
 

During my recent one-week trip to Seattle, I met back up with my friends Doug and Dani to enjoy another dinner at a nice restaurant. Last time we went to Shiro’s Sushi; this time, Dani selected Shaker + Spear in the Belltown district of downtown Seattle.

Our first appetizer was rockfish ancho ceviche with red onions, cucumber, lime, and cilantro.

This was a little bit too sour for my personal preference, but I think it was still very tasty. The rockfish had a nice spongy texture that was very satisfying to chew down on, and the crispiness of the cucumber provided a pleasant contrast. The overall proportions of the ingredients in the dish were also good—you only need a little bit of cucumber to complement the rockfish, and accordingly, the dish was mostly rockfish and a lesser ratio of cucumber.

Next was charred octopus with cucumber, Fresnos, mirin, sunflower seeds, cilantro, aji amarillo, lime, and olive oil.

This was probably one of my favorite dishes of all time. The firmness of the octopus was perfect—soft enough that it was effortlessly edible, but firm enough that it had the satisfying resistance you’d expect from meat. The sauce was indescribably delicious. The cucumber added the perfect amount of freshness when drenched in the sauce. The seeds added a fun element of crunchiness to the dish while also contributing a deep nuttiness. The peppers were subtle enough that they didn’t distract from any of the core flavors.

Dani wanted to get some street corn with chili, cotija, lime vegan mayo, lime zest, and cilantro.

I think most cheeses smell like vomit. I think I can just leave it at that and you can probably guess how much I liked the corn.

If you know me, then it’s probably unsurprising that I also got an order of Pacific Northwest oysters with red wine mignonette and lemon.

I eat a lot of oysters. I like the flavor of them untarnished by any sauces, so I always eat them plain. I found these particular oysters to be of pretty good qual­i­ty, but not notably special.

Doug, on the other hand, found them to be absolutely stellar; he said that he doesn’t often eat oysters, but these were some of the best he has ever had.

Our main entrées were taking a while to come out, so while we were waiting, we were served a fifth starter/appetizer, compliments of the chef—honey prosciutto toast with chili onion jam, honey, and brie atop house sourdough.

Doug and Dani only had one quarter of one piece each, so I ended up eating one and a half out of the two pieces. If it was up to me, I would’ve reduced the amount of brie because the prosciutto was just slightly lacking in sufficient intensity to balance out the taste of the brie, but overall, I thought it was pretty good. It had a decent amount of sweetness to it because of the jam and honey, so it was a great way to mix up the flavors on my taste buds a bit prior to jumping into the main courses.

Dani ordered sundried tomato risotto with heirloom cherry tomatoes, sautéed shrimp, Grana Padano, and butter.

I took a small bite of a small portion of risotto, and it wasn’t much different than if I had just taken a bite out of a block of mushy cheese. I am literally not exaggerating when I say that I did not taste anything, at all, except cheese.

I’m sure it would’ve been better if I had mixed some shrimp into my bite, but note that including shrimp in the dish is an add-on; I am confused about the people who would order this without any add-ons and practically just eat … cheese.

Dani also ordered a side of truffle parmesan fries with black garlic aioli, which we shared as a table.

I like potatoes, so unsurprisingly, I liked the fries. I think it would’ve been a lot better without the parmesan (or at least a whole lot less of it), but I managed to just dodge it and eat the fries that didn’t have any cheese on them.

For his entrée, Doug selected pan-seared king salmon with pea purée, yuzu gel, pickled pearl onions, and peas.

Doug and I ended up splitting our entrées half-and-half, so I got to taste some of both his salmon as well as the pork pictured below. The portion size on the salmon was disappointingly small, but it was still good salmon. The peas and yuzu gel complemented the salmon nicely and enhanced the flavor of the fish.

Upon recommendation by the waitress, I ordered roasted pork shoulder with creamed local greens, pickled Rainier cherries, and cherry pit jus.

This was probably one of the best cuts of pork I’ve ever had in my life. The meat was amazingly tender and had an intensely strong pork flavor without be­ing too overwhelming or gamey at all. As you may know, a lot of the flavor of meat comes from the fat; this cut of pork shoulder had a great ratio of fat to meat, and it had just enough that I was able to add some pork fat to each bite without it being so much that it was slimy.

The pickled Rainier cherries and cherry jus added a very unique facet to the dish which I enjoyed a lot. They were slightly sweet, but the sweetness was sub­dued enough that it was clearly prominently a pork dish and not a jumble of different flavors.

Doug also gave a glowing review of the pork shoulder. He didn’t give too many details, but he liked it a lot.

For dessert, we got a scoop of the seasonal sorbet—prickly pear.

In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious from the photograph, the sorbet didn’t actually come with those ridges. Doug accidentally started eating before I got to take a photo, but when he realized, he pulled the spoon out. He noticed that the spoon had left an indentation in the sorbet, but instead of just putting the spoon back into the ridge for a more natural photo, he proceeded to create artificial ridges throughout the entire serving. So the only picture I have shows the sorbet with some … decorations. 🤦

Another mildly funny story… I was originally under the impression that prickly pear was actually Pyrus pyrifolia, colloquially known as the Asian pear. When I tasted the sorbet, the flavor also resembled an Asian pear. Shortly afterwards, Dani looked up what prickly pears actually were, and apparently, they are the fruit of a certain type of cactus. That was an incredibly confusing thing to find out, especially while I had a bite of the sorbet in my mouth and could’ve sworn it was Asian pear.

Rockfish ancho ceviche $  14.00
Charred octopus $  23.00
Street corn $  12.00
Half-dozen PNW oysters $  24.00
Honey prosciutto toast $   0.00
Risotto with shrimp $  34.00
Truffle fries $  13.00
King salmon $  40.00
Roasted pork shoulder $  36.00
Prickly pear sorbet $   6.00
Surcharge (5%) $  10.30
Tax (10.25%) $  22.18
Gratuity $  50.00
Total $ 288.48
The chart to the right outlines how much we paid for each item. Yes, that is indeed a 5% sur­charge. If you know me, you know that I have a bone to pick with this res­tau­rant because of it.

At the bottom of the menu, there is an explanation of the surcharge: “We are a proud supporter of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance. A 5% surcharge to support this will be added to your bill. 100% of this surcharge is retained by Shaker + Spear and is not directly distributed as a tip or gratuity to the restaurant’s staff. As always, gratuity for service rendered is at your discretion and is directly distributed to staff members.”

In the spirit of “voting with your wallet,” there is nothing that makes me want to never go back to a busi­ness again more than mandatory extra charges and fees. If there is a voluntary extra fee for an opt-in add-on service, that is fine. However, if there is something that you are required to do as part of the core experience, that should be built into the list price, not added on as a roundabout manner via a sur­charge.

For example, hotel resort fees are fine if you are able to opt out of the amenities and not pay them; they are not fine when every single guest is required to pay it anyway, even if they never step foot into the re­sort area, and in that situation, it should just be included in the room rate.

If Shaker + Spear needs more positive cash flow to help afford paying employees a higher wage, it is per­fectly acceptable to charge more for the food. They just need to adjust the actual pricing on their of­fer­ings and print that true price directly on the menu. The solution is not to underhandedly add on a dol­lar or two onto every item at the end of your meal.

I actually did not even realize we were charged an extra fee until after I finished writing the upper re­view part of this blog post and pulled up a photo­graph of the receipt to complete this cost breakdown section. In confusion, I had to pull up online cop­ies of the menu to search for the explanation of the surcharge written at the bottom in fine print.

I am reacting quite negatively to this because the premise of being expected to pay gratuity to your servers in the United States is already bad enough, and I do not want our culture to further normalize even more extra add-on costs on top of the list price. All the food (at least the dishes without cheese) were delicious and I had an amazing experience at the restaurant, but because of the surcharge, I cannot recommend this restaurant, as this kind of busi­ness practice is a deal-breaker for me.

 

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