We went to Hamada, a sushi and hibachi place over in Tinley Park. One of the appetizers was dubbed "Uni Shooter"; since the place is Japanese (or faux Japanese) the appetizer is made with sea urchin (uni, in Japanese) and was topped with a quail egg. Mrs. Fungus was curious to see what it looked like and asked me if I'd eat it if she ordered it.
So far, in my life, I have encountered or learned of three foods I am unwilling to try. The first was raw oysters. (Don't bother to tell me. I'm set on this.) The second was horseshoe crab; reportedly it just smells and tastes bad. The third was balut--look it up. Otherwise I'll try it, and decide for myself whether or not I'll have it again. The worst that will happen is that I won't like it, especially if it's on a menu in an American restaurant.
So when she asked me if I'd eat it I told Mrs. Fungus, imperiously, "If you wish to challenge me."
When the waitress brought it, it was served in a martini glass. It was a couple pieces of meat totaling about the volume of a cocktail wiener, in some kind of dressing, with raw quail egg on top. "Do you want a spoon?" She asked us.
"No, this is fine," I said, and drank the thing.
Mostly, all I tasted was the dressing. I'm not sure entirely what comprised the entirety of the liquid--it could not have all been dressing, and there was a significant volume of minced vegetables in it. The presence of the raw egg indicated to me that one should quaff it (besides the "shooter" in the name of the thing) and the fact that it was served in a glass reinforced that appraisal.
On the whole, it's something I never have to have again. Decidedly not worth paying $7 for, either, at least a second time; the entertainment factor of having it once makes it worthwhile but it's not something I need to repeat. But we never find new things to enjoy if we don't try.
The expression on Mrs. Fungus' face was priceless.
* * *
I had three more ebola links to share, but closed the tabs because I think I beat that horse well enough yesterday.
Instead: The official unemployment rate is 5.9% but that number is bullshit.
The last time unemployment was at that level, we were told that they were all "low-quality jobs" and "U6 is a more accurate portrayal of the unemployment rate." Now that a Democrat is in the White House, though, U6 is nowhere to be found in the mainstream media and the U3 number is reported completely uncritically.
But the labor force participation rate is at a low we haven't seen since 1979, and if we figured unemployment today the way we did in 2008 the U3 rate--U3!--would be 11.7 percent.
Let's say that the unemployment rate remains completely unchanged for the next two years, and then on election day 2016, Generic Republican wins the election.
The next day--the very next day--the media will start talking about how terrible the economy is and how many people are out of work and how there are so many people who simply gave up looking and if you take them into consideration....
Mind you, the only thing that will have changed is that there won't be a Democrat in the White House after January 20, 2017, and in fact since the next Republican President is likely to be a squishy moderate like Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney the economic stupidity is going to continue. Certainly there will be no repeal of Obamacare, nor will the deficit spending be reined in, nor will anything else be done to fix what ails us--like actually enforcing the securities and exchange laws, for example.
Well, that's how it is, I guess.
* * *
Ever since I discovered that the BluRay player can play computer-format video files, Mrs. Fungus and I have been watching Seto no Hanayome. So far we've watched ten episodes.
I had forgotten how insane this series is, and every episode has had moments which were laugh-out-loud funny.
Anyway, I had another gander at the manual and learned that yes, the thing can access external hard drives. One thought I had, then, was to buy an external drive based on a 2.5" drive, one that takes its power from the USB port. I could copy all (or most, at least, leaving out the stuff I know I won't want to watch again) of my downloaded anime to that drive, and then simply leave it connected to the BluRay player. Then, any time I want to watch some anime, I don't have to fumble with disks or anything.
But I have no idea if this would work. In theory it should, but I can think of several reasons why it might not, and I don't have the $70 required to run the experiment. For the time being, I'll flip disks and keep this in mind.
The other nice thing: if I do nothing, the player will merrily play the files in the order it sees them, so without having to touch the remote I'm able to watch several eps in a row--as long as my bladder can hold out.
What I could afford was to buy a CD/DVD case, capacity 100 disks. I took all the backup DVDs and slipped them into there, obviating the spindle for storage--well, if I'm going to be using the disks (rather than merely storing them as a backup) it behooves me to make them more accessible.
The next step is to take a recent file and try it out, and see how we do. There's a crapton of Fairy Tail that I have yet to watch, so that might be a good place to start. I just need to find a way to reliably burn data DVDs; my first attempt was not successful, and I don't know why. I only know that Windows would throw a highly nonspecific error and refuse to burn files to disk.
But, hey--no one said it would be easy.
* * *
There's a little more than a month to go before the Warlords of Draenor expansion is released. I'd like to get Erogami to 90th before then, but at the rate I'm going it's not bloody likely. She hit 88th a week or two ago, but I don't do much adventuring on her.
In any case, I've de-emphasized WoW for the time being, because I have the Fleet of Worlds books to read, and SetoHan, and....