Miracle Fruit

When Sam and I were exploring downtown, we came across a large bush with red berries on it. We were intrigued, having never seen them before. She picked on, crushed it on the ground, and we peered at its insides. It was white, almost frothy, like milk. Afterward, I did some research on the interwebs and decided the little thing was miracle fruit, though as it turns out, I was wrong. Imagine my surprise when I get a call on Friday from her telling me I had plans on Saturday! She had gotten a shipment of them, and was having a food tasting party.

Apparently, miracle fruit is very rare. From what we have gathered, this is in large part due to its limited survival after being picked. The fruit arrived on dry ice, with instructions to move it immediately to the freezer. We had to eat it within 15-30 minutes of taking it out of the freezer. We were promised that after eating one, all foods would taste sweeter for 30 mins - 2 hours.

So the 11 or so of us each got one berry. We put it in our mouths and swished it around for a few minutes, attempting to get the fruity flesh off the seed without actually eating the seed. I'm told it tastes gross. The fruit itself did not have much taste.

Then, we each took a lemon or lime and bit into it. They tasted like VERY sweet lemonade! It was amazing. It was funny watching everyone, because we were all nervous. I'm not sure any of us really believed it would actually work. I mean, it sounds like such a scam. There was a lot of hesitation biting into that first lemon.

Once that first bite was out of the way though, we dug in. We ate everything with reckless abandon. Radishes, beer, black coffee, garlic, olives, pickles, cheese, baker's chocolate, bread, raspberries, Worcestershire sauce, sour candy... everyone brought something. And when we had tried all of those things, we ravaged Sam's kitchen. It was bizarre. Some things were sweet, almost too sweet. The raspberries were nice, because the tartness was completely gone. I enjoyed eating the radishes. They have a nice crunch to them, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy the taste otherwise. Pickles just tasted like sweet pickles, which I hate. Bleh. Baker's chocolate was still unappealing. Coffee tasted like water.

Eventually, around an hour later, the miracle wore off. The rest of the evening was spent chatting, which was great for DS and I, since we met some new friends. All in all, it was a great day. If you ever have a chance to try one of these things, I highly recommend it. You won't believe your taste buds :)

bummer

Total bummer man... the mac came home from the shop today. Complete hard drive meltdown. So much for my ram theory. So it has a new a hard drive, and no memory of me :(

Luckily I have Time Machine and an external hard drive. But the dummies at the store installed Tiger instead of Leopard, so now I'm waiting on the long process that is updating the OS. I don't remember it taking this long before...

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that Time Machine will actually work, because this is the first time I've had to use it.

Out on the Town

Two weekends ago, I got together with my friend Sam, who I hadn't seen since high school. Turns out she lives here! Since she's been here a while longer than myself, she showed me some of the cooler things downtown.

I used this new found information this weekend, when DS and I went downtown for a nice lunch for Valentine's Day. We ate at Aldo's, an Italian place, where I had spinach ravioli with shrimp and tomatoes, and he had blackened yellowtail with a mango chutney sauce. it. was. delicious. After that, we walked down to Andersen's, which makes the most delicious desserts. I will love Sam until the day she dies for showing me that place. The butter ring sitting on my counter right now is like a little slice of heaven.
A block over from the bakery is the courthouse. It was built in 1926, and is just gorgeous. By law, it is the tallest building in Santa Barbara (except the Granada Theater is taller... but whatever), which makes going up in the tower a great place to view the city.

The grounds are gorgeous, and the interior is filled with exquisite tile work. They have a lot of weddings there, which sounds funny, getting married at the courthouse, but it's obvious why someone would want to once you visit.

As for presents, we did that on Friday. I got him a fancy George Foreman grill, because he's been lamenting our lack of access to one now that we don't live in a mega-complex. It's not quite the same, but it's the best I could do without breaking fire codes.

He got me some computer games, and a 2 lb box of See's chocolates. *drool* So.. you can imagine what I spent the weekend doing. He spent the weekend making me delicious grilled chicken and hamburgers, and the rain let up enough for him to climb this morning. We are both very happy!

Computer Ups and Downs

You know how I've had to occasionally take my baby (aka iMac) into the Genius Bar while I prayed for an hour that the dude there could bring it back to life? Yeah... we're there again. Except this time there's no Genius Bar, and I had to leave it at the Mac Shac which has no carpet, just a concrete floor full of stains like there used to be carpet glued to it. I dropped it off Friday, and have yet to hear from them... but, it's still under warranty, so whatever they have to do won't cost me anything. I'm really hoping they just replace all the RAM stuff, because at this poing I firmly believe that's been the problem all along.

So I've been without the computer that houses all my photos for quite some time. I may have just dropped it off Friday, but it's been very sick for a while, and I've been too phobic to call Apple about it. Thus, no pictures for blog updates. Well... that, and I've been extremely lethargic.

I do have a new lappy though! So far, it's pretty sweet, and it's beefy enough to run the Sims 2, so the old lappy and the old "gaming pc" were shipped off to friends in need. That was a toy I bought myself. Even more exciting is the toy that DS's mommy got me for Christmas that came last week - a Wacom tablet!!!!! Yeah, I'm stoked. Super stoked. You should probably add that tablet to the list of reasons I haven't been blogging. I've spent the last several nights curled up with the tablet and Corel Painter Essentials and just going to town. Generally speaking, this has not been helpful to getting stuff done for my business, as that requires tangible creativity (oh yeah, I'm now the proud owner of a California business license. woot!). However, last night I managed to finally finish something that's been on my to do list for months.

Yeah! Gift Certificates to my store!! You want one don't you? Buy a bunch for your friends!