Extraordinary Desserts sucks

Today I also went to Extraordinary Desserts.

If you look up Extraordinary Desserts on yelp, you will notice that it will have four stars and this is probably because all the reviews were written by college kids and hipsters who have no idea what good cake is and associate price with quality.

When I entered Extraordinary Desserts, I was immediately struck by the decor. Everything was full of metal and glass, which immediately set off my bad food alarm. A personal bias, but whenever I see restaurant that is totally modern it is probably going to suck. I took a glance at the cakes only set off more alarms as I noted the enormous size of the slices and the thick icing and ganache that covered them. Then it dawned on me, this is just a hipper version of the Cheesecake Factory. I noted my observation to Ashley and her roommate Tiffany and after a few moments, they agreed. A scan around the rest of the restaurant revealed even another troubling observation! Everyone in the restaurant was young and dressed sharply, where are my old people that so often frequent my favorite cake shops? From the onset, things were not looking good.

We were seated and after quite a long wait, the waiter finally came to take our order. To my frustration Ashley and Tiffany ordered a brownie sundae, something that you can find anywhere, instead of the cake which I assume is what the place is known for. I ordered their Truff Framboise, a chocolate raspberry cake that looked the best out of all the ones. As expected, the slice of cake was huge and covered in a thick chocolate ganache. One bite was already enough for me. The sweetness and richness of the chocolate was overwhelming. The cake was incredibly dense, so dense in fact that I had trouble cutting the cake up into manageable pieces with my fork. In addition, the raspberry sauce covering the plate was also incredibly sweet and reminiscent of the kind that you buy in a bottle at the grocery store.

I have this theory that the more ingredients and flavors a food item has, the worse the quality of that food item. To better illustrate this concept of mine, imagine a Subway sandwich. Recall how Subway's meats and cheeses look like plastic and how their tomatoes are never fully red. Yet when Subway compiles all of the ingredients together, it makes a halfway decent sandwich. I believe that this is because you cannot taste each individual item. All the flavors just blend together and get lost, never allowing the diner to taste the lack of quality of each individual sandwich ingredient.

Tonight's desserts has been no exception to my theory, Extraordinary desserts' cakes are extremely complicated and ingredient heavy. You cannot get a simple cheesecake or chocolate cake there, every name of every dessert has to have extra adjectives in it to describe the large amount of ingredients stuffed into it. This is no doubt in order to hide their sub par ingredients and recipes.

Oh how I longed for the simple and delicate textures and flavors of Bijan's cakes tonight.

-muffinman

Talking with my mentor

Today was my first phone conversation with my mentor. I dreaded the approaching schedule time for the phone call as I sat at work. Watching the minutes tick by till 12:30, the scheduled time of our phone call. Previously, I had written some questions to ask him on a small post it note. Questions like "What exactly do you do?" and "How should we approach this mentorship?". The thing is I suck at phone conversations and I really wanted to make a good impression.

Well throw all my expectations out the window. The phone call went terribly from the beginning. My questions were thrown out for being too general and not specific enough. I got no new information over what a consulting firm like his does or looks for in its employees. Instead, my mentor told me vaguely what he did in college, none of which seemed related to how he got his current job other than "I had a lot of experience with random shit not connected to my job" and a suggestion towards doing more research online and coming back with a road map of attaining my career goals.

What he does not understand, is that I want some sort of guidance in discovering what these career goals are, not some half ass comment about how he does not have enough time to start me off from square 1. To think that he has mentored before leads me to believe that all his previous mentees knew exactly what they were doing or just said fuck this and left.

As of right now, my mentor has proven himself to be completely useless, but I am willing to give this a second chance. Hopefully once I get this so called road map going, I can get something out of this relationship. I would hate to abandon him since the one job experience that he shared with me seemed pretty interesting.

-muffinman

First Impressions, London

St. Paul's Cathedral

Everyone else has gone to Paris for the weekend except for me. I didn't want to go because my parents are going to come to Europe in two weeks and we are going to visit Paris together. I am basically going to have to fend off boredom by myself, not that there isn't a lot to do. Not only am I behind on my reading, I also need to set time aside to explore the city!

After spending about two weeks here I think I've got the general idea of London. To neatly sum it up in one equation:

London = New York - "open late" - "good cheap food" + "nice buildings"

In other words, even though I will starve and be broke in London, thank goodness it's pretty to look at.

Food is pretty expensive. To get something decent you need to shelve out a good chunk of money. Although there are some really cheap places nearby, the food there is terrible. For example, we were craving some Chinese food so we went to a place called "Chop Chop Noodle Bar". There were Chinese people inside so we thought it was legit, but I guess they were there either because of the low prices or because they've forgotten what Chinese food is supposed to taste like.

Thus, giving up on finding decent cheap food near our dorm, Jim and I have resorted to going to McDonald's almost everyday, diversifying our culinary adventures with a dash of Burger King and KFC.

However, it's nice to be in a new city, even if it's inconvenient I don't know where all the good places are. There's lots to explore, lots to do. Besides, I fully expect myself to lose 5-10 pounds by the time I come back.

-Emoinacloset




P.S.: By the way Roger, you were right; that Tesco vodka does look mad sketch. Too bad we didn't heed your warning and got some anyways.

Future harbinger of bad nights

Besides the Tesco vodka, someone was able to find some even sketchier stuff. For less than three pounds, we got a two-liter plastic bottle (yes, like those soda ones) that was 7.5% alcohol. Too bad it tasted awfully like bitter, watered down champagne. Thank goodness we all agreed never to buy this stuff ever again.

WTF is this?

Greenwich, a.k.a. The Meridian Line

On the Meridian Line

Today we went to Greenwich, home of the zero time zone. I'm actually a little drunk right now, so pardon me if my writing is a little sloppier than usual. That's the great thing about Europe -- no need for fake ID. Anyways, a whole bunch of us went as part of a NYU sponsored day trip. By the end of the day, we were all pretty exhausted, but I got some great pictures out of the day.

Big Ben

London Eye

Naval Dining Hall

William and Mary on ceiling

Royal Observatory

Royal Naval College and Queen's house at night

Additional Pictures w/ Descriptions

-Emoinacloset

GOING TO CHINA!!!

Just a few hours ago, I received word that I have been accepted into the Fudan - Shanghai JPIS program. So I am going to Shanghai for sure in the fall! Now all I have to do is apply for the Spring program and I am going to be in China for a year.

Emoinacloset, you better be coming with me to Shanghai. London simply does not compare.

-muffinman

Where to start....

I know I have not blogged in awhile, but there is good reason for that. Ever since coming back to SD and vowing to bounce back from my failings of last quarter, I have been immensely busy! To start out, my roommate and I have adopted a new sleeping regiment. I am no longer the night owl who goes to sleep at 5 or 6 am, instead I have rejoined the rest of normal society and now go to sleep at midnight and wake up at the once ungodly hour of 7am. In addition, I religiously attend my classes and do my reading like a devout Christian would read their bible, complete with highlighting. Yes, some would say I have become the model student.

Around the second week of school I received an email notification that I been accepted by the Financial Professional's network (FPN). If anyone recalls, I applied to this mentor program sometime last quarter upon a friend's suggestion. If you do not remember, that is fine because I did not either. Anyway, now I have my own mentor who works for McKinsey and Company a company that I have never heard of but which a quick Wikipedia search reveals is a management consulting firm whose "Clients include three of the world's five largest companies, two-thirds of the Fortune 1000, governments and other non-profit institutions. McKinsey's clients represent more than 70 percent of Fortune magazine’s most-admired list, more than 90 of the 100 leading global corporations, and governments in more than 35 countries. Forbes estimated the firm's 2008 revenues at $6.0 billion. " So that is pretty cool, great way to start out the quarter. I am actually really glad I got a mentor who is in management consulting rather than Venture capital, which was my first choice because I have discovered that (no offense emoinacloset) finance is just fucking boring.

During winter break, I was working on some posters, flyers and a cover for the Undergraduate Investment Society (UIS) Marketing Competition. Turns out all that (hard?) work paid off because UIS emailed me on Monday asking to meet up and discuss adjustments to the design. Not sure if I won because my design was awesome, which it is of course, or because nobody entered the competition (the entry date was pushed back).

Also last week, my boss got around to take me on a tour of the whole television operation. Turns out our whole operation is conducted by maybe fifteen people, which is amazing considering how many people our channel reaches out to. Interesting fact for those who are at UCSD, the tv building by the star wars wall is where the channel gets broadcast. It is from that building that the channel is fed to the Cox cable company and then to the surrounding SD area and it is also where a fiber line runs to Revelle where it goes to a satellite and is broadcast up to dish network where the channel goes nationwide. I think it is pretty cool that I am part of a fifteenish person team that runs a nationwide channel.

Friday was my first staff meeting since joining the team. I was excited for the meeting but I suppressed it because nobody seemed to sharing my excitement. In the meeting I was introduced to the whole team (minus one) as the new student worker who was replacing the girl everybody loved. During the meeting, I received some of my new responsibilities which include actual marketing! Now I am in charge of organizing the twitter, managing monthly youtube playlists and generating a daily report on who is generating buzz report and if we have any videos on them. After the staff meeting, I once again pitched the idea of pushing the channel on Digg, and my boss was very receptive. So as soon as I start generating that buzz report, I am going to spearhead my plan on digg. This means that I have already accomplished one of my New Year's resolutions. The quarter is off to a good start.

-muffinman

Tik's Motion Picture Debut

Like I said a couple days ago, my roommate Tik started drinking for the first time on Friday. I was able to document an hour of footage, and after finally editing to get all the good parts in one tight package, I now present to you never before seen footage of Tik's first night of mayhem.

Enjoy!

-Emoinacloset




P.S. Shari, I don't know how you came up, but I want to apologize for the inappropriate things my friend said. I am sure he will agree with me.

Tik Falls Off The Wagon

New-born alcoholic

That's not just orange juice; that's orange juice mixed in with liberal amounts of vodka. What happens in London, stays in London, right? Pffffff.

After remaining completely sober for nearly 20 years, Tik took the plunge and had a lil' sippy sip. Hilarity ensues, because when Tik gets a little drunk, he gets stanky. And by stanky, I mean he becomes a dirty, dirty man. To everyone back home, I'm sorry you missed out on this historic event, but no fear! Video was recorded to commemorate this special night, so you can watch Tik's best moments over and over again. I will post it as soon as I am done editing it, so stay tuned!

-Emoinacloset

A Great Beginning To An Epic Adventure

I went to the airport going through the usual routine: check my bags in, eat a bowl of udon at that Japanese place in SFO, and say goodbye to my family. I get in the security clearance line only to realize I was surrounded by people dressed like it was the 70’s, complete with loud shirts, gaudy gold chains, bold sunglasses, and afros. There must have been at least 100 people dressed up altogether, including this guy in a banana suit wearing plastic neon orange aviators. The first thing that came to my mind was that this must be one of those Improv Everywhere pranks. That, or there was some huge 70’s disco cosplay convention in London that I hadn’t heard of. Both seemed equally improbable, yet I couldn’t think of a better answer. I wasn’t able to wrap my mind around this situation.

However, after a bit of questioning, it turns out they were all Stanford business students going to Las Vegas to party it up 70s style. I thought the whole concept was fantastic, as well as hilarious – these students from one of the premier universities in the nation – business bitches – let loose to go party it up in Vegas. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed going through security as much as I did today. Just watching these people dressed up made it memorable, not to mention the sight of them having to take off their afro wigs, gold chains, and large belts to get through security. I must have counted at least three people wearing roller skates – to the airport! However, I have to say the most memorable moment was the sight of Mr. Bananasuit trying to stuff his costume through the X-ray machine. I wonder how he’s going to be able to sit down in his seat…

Last couple of people boarding. The ladies smile for the camera!

This is a great start to what I am sure will be an epic semester. I’ll take it as a sign for good things to come.

-Emoinacloset

Gimme, Gimme: Advice For London!!!

It's been awhile since I wrote anything, but the truth is there hasn't been much to write about. Home is boring. I finished all four seasons of Dexter (done sometime last week), played countless games of Risk, and slept a solid eight to nine hours everyday. I have consistently been waking up before 10 AM with relative ease, a feat that I never would have thought possible before this break. For the past week and a half I was forced to entertain myself, ditched by the friends I have back home (apparently they have more important things to do, like go to college). I go to church on Sundays. My mom takes advantage of my dire circumstances and easily persuades me to accompany her to do the most mundane and ordinary of tasks. Like a twisted version of Batman and Robin, I have been relegated to the role of sidekick. I don't fight crime; I fight dirty dishes. I don't throw the trash of the city in prison; I throw the trash out. I don't take down drug rings and mafia bosses; I take down Christmas lights. It's not that I don't enjoy spending quality time with my mom, but after awhile it gets old.

Is it ever worth coming back home during either winter or summer break? Yes, it is -- for the first couple of days. But after I've eaten some of my mom's home cooking, met up with my friends, and watched so much TV I become bored, I know I'm ready to go back to school. Never during my whole career as a college student have I been more homesick at school than I have been "schoolsick" at home. I haven't been writing much this break because that was all of it, neatly summarized in two paragraphs. However, now that it's almost over you can expect me to write more often than once every other week.

Which brings me to happier thoughts -- I'm finally leaving for London on Tuesday! After waiting all of summer break, fall semester, and finally winter break, there's only one hurdle left for me to jump -- packing. That and the recent snowstorm that's hit all of England.

Photo: NASA via BBC. So this is the shitstorm I'm flying into...

I want to use this post as an opportunity for you, the readers, to really contribute to the blog. What sort of places should I go, eat at, and visit -- not only in London, but anywhere in Europe? What sort of crazy things should I put on my itinerary (within reason of course: nothing illegal please)? What are some tips and tricks to living the high life? Seniors -- this is your chance to live vicariously through me. Juniors -- you also have the chance to live vicariously through me. I'm sure many of you are scrambling to finish those summer internship applications and get interviews. I know it must be hectic, but you can read up on the good time I'm having, chuckle, and wish you could go back in time and be in my shoes. Sophomores not coming with me to London -- you can just read and be jealous. So, to anyone who's been in London/Europe, whether you studied abroad there, lived there, or even if you've only visited, let me know how I can make the most of my time. Who knows, perhaps some of your suggestions may become the subject of future blog posts!

On that note: Do British girls flock towards Americans in the same way American girls drool over British accents?

--Emoinacloset

Roommate Chronicles (Part 2)

Week 1: He lives!

First week is done and Kevin looks like he is still holding on.

I was hoping academic advising would repeat what they did to Kevin spring quarter. The adviser meetings and the ever increasing wait for the decision stressed Kevin out to the point where he was losing sleep. This of course was great because during the stress and suspense caused him to study harder. However, on Thursday in a very anti-climatic and non-suspenseful fashion, Kevin got an email from academic advising informing him that he will not be disqualified. This was quickly followed by Kevin bragging that "UCSD just loves me too much to get rid of me." Hopefully, this allowing him to stay thing does not get to his head too much.


Now a common sight around the apartment.

As for the whole laptop thing, Kevin is doing pretty well so far. By well I mean that he nobly handles the inconveniences of life without a laptop. He can still be seen running off to Price Center check his email and now he is even going broke paying for printing at the library. Probably the biggest problem for Kevin is finding something to do after all the studying is done. Many times, I have found him lying in bed staring at the ceiling, just bored.

Strange when you write about someone else, you reveal things about yourself. This week, I realized that Kevin's story is really my story as well. I see myself in him. In the wake of a terrible quarter, we have both turned our lives upside down, completely changing the way we live and by the end of the quarter maybe even who we are.

-muffinman

Roommate Chronicles (Part 1)

After receiving a 1.45 GPA last quarter, his second quarter with a GPA below 1.5, Kevin got desperate. A student who receives a GPA of less than 1.5 is subject to disqualification, which in layman's terms means that you can get kicked out of school. For the next couple of weeks, Kevin is in academic limbo. He will meet with an academic counselor who will decide his fate at the university. The last time this happened it was extremely nerve wracking for all of us.

I am going to chronicle Kevin's quarter sporadically on this blog.

Day 1: College without a laptop


This is Kevin. He is my roommate.


Notice how he does not have a laptop.

This is my roommate's facebook status right now:
Kevin Cheng is gonna do some serious studying this quarter. Gotta hit that 3.0, so he's taking desperate measures: NO LAPTOP T_T

When I first read Kevin's status, I did not believe it. "Kevin cannot be dumb enough to not bring a laptop" I thought to myself. Well lo and behold, my roommate walks into the apartment without a laptop, leaving Max and me in disbelief.

Upon returning to UCSD, Kevin immediately feels the repercussions of life without a computer. Moments after unpacking, he leaves to go to Price Center to check his email. Max and I laugh.

Around 10 pm, I catch Kevin in an act of desperation, reading his first chapter of Genetics. Keep in mind classes have yet to start.

-muffinman

Treating New Year's resolutions like college applications

I met up with emoinacloset today and since it was New Year's day, we naturally began to talk about our resolutions. Emoinacloset was telling me about how he makes the same resolutions every year (which can be seen in his blog post) and how he refers to them as his reach resolutions. The word "reach" lit a light bulb in my mind and I asked emoinacloset, "didn't we have those things called reach colleges, what were the other two categories?" He thought for a moment and quickly threw out the words "safety" and "target."

So in order to celebrate the completion of college applications by our younger readers, also known as Katrina, I have decided to arrange my resolutions in the categories of safety, target and reach.

Safety resolutions - All I have to do is stay alive to keep these resolutions
1) Keep breathing/Stay alive
I figure I have been doing this for 19 years so it should be a pretty safe bet.

2) Staying clean (hygiene wise)
Taking showers and brushing my teeth everyday is doing wonders for me, so I am going to continue this cleanliness trend for the new year.

Target resolutions - Effort is required to keep these resolutions
1) Acquire a 4.0 for the next two quarters
As some of you may know, I really messed up this grade wise and in order to make up for that I resolve to do really well in school for the next two quarters! This may be the cliche Asian New Year's resolution but so what?! I am a fucking Anthropology and Economics major, I need good grades to even a get a job!

2) Do some actual marketing at my job
Currently, the only marketing aspect of my job happens in my job title. I hope to change that by proposing ideas like I did at my interview and then actually executing them. This way I can develop my own marketing strategies and see what really works. Come to think of it, I do not even know how we are marketing the station.

3) Make some more friends
Like many other people the eagerness to throw myself at strangers has dissipated after freshman year, which is quite a shame. The fact that I really only made one friend (Thuy), depresses me to no end especially since what makes college so fun is meeting new people.

Reach resolutions - I would shit bricks if any of these resolutions came true
1) Win a Nobel Peace Prize
I aim to do this by advocating peace on this blog. As readership grows, the Nobel committee will take not of my selfless actions. Obama got a prize even while escalating the war in Afghanistan, why can I not get one for blogging about peace every once in awhile.

2) Make my first million dollars
Why not start early on my way to becoming a multimillionaire? To increase my odds of keeping this resolution, I am going to tackle it in three ways. First, by working towards that book deal by writing in this blog. Second, by building a marketing team on campus and forming it into a company. Lastly, by buying lotto tickets every time the jackpot is over two million.

3) Get a girlfriend
Self explanatory as to why, but not sure on how this is going to happen.

-muffinman

2009, I Bid You Adieu

For the past couple of days I have been thinking to myself, 'what kind of post am I going to do for New Year's?' So after pondering and pondering, I realized that New Year's resolutions are nearly useless for me. Because of this, I was torn between either writing a laundry list of resolutions that usually fall through or writing something genuine.

I suppose I can always do both.

This year I would like to get better grades, lose weight/workout, not procrastinate so much, get an internship over the summer, have an unforgettable time in London next semester, maintain friendships, read more, cure AIDS, end world hunger, stop war, and discover the meaning of life.

End post Part I.


Like I said, I was struggling to find something to write about when I remembered vaguely a New Year's post I had written in the past. I used to run a Xanga (remember those?) back in high school from freshman year until about halfway through junior year, so I knew I had to have a New Year's post in there somewhere. I thought it would be interesting to see whether or not I've actually managed to uphold my resolutions after all this time. After some digging through my Xanga, I finally found this post I wrote my sophomore year in high school -- exactly four years ago.

Xanga post, Sunday, January 01, 2006.

Resolution #1: Start studying -- SUCCESS
Back then I used to come home, play Warcraft III until three in the morning, and then fall asleep in class. I was pretty well known for this -- this habit hasn't died any, even now. But hey, I got into college didn't I?

Resolution #2: Don't make fun of my bro -- SUCCESS
My little brother is seven years younger than I am, so I used to tease him a lot when I was younger. These days he keeps growing while I stay the same, so the playing field has become more level. Now we just beat the shit out of each other.

Resolution #3: Go on a diet/exercise -- FAIL
Seeing as how I am still making resolutions about this, I don't think I've accomplished anything here.

Resolution #4: Obliterate Taylor from the face of the earth -- STUPID
Taylor was a teacher I had who I didn't like much. I haven't even thought about her in years until now. I will chock this one up to immaturity.

Resolution #5: Stop being (insert here) -- ???
I have no idea what I was referring to here.

Resolution #6: Don't say "fag" as much -- SUCCESS
Again, I will chock this up to immaturity. This was a time when a lot of my friends said this, but not because we hated gay people. It was just what we said to each other, like "what's up" or "dude". Thank god I've grown out of that habit.

Overall, I will say I was pretty good about keeping my resolutions. I guess making them isn't so hopeless after all.

Happy New Year's everybody! Let's celebrate the beginning of not just a new year, but a new decade. 2010, make it happen!

-Emoinacloset

P.S. If you'd like feel free to go through the rest of my old blog -- it's public and I won't take it down anytime soon. It's nice to be able to look back and see how incredibly naive I was then compared to now.