Phantom Limb - Pig Destroyer

How can you not love a band named "Pig Destroyer"?  I don't know how to classify them, but I've always been a little confused about genre labels.  Their songs are pretty short, some just over a minute long.  The songs are fairly complex, which reminds me of Cryptopsy's "None So Vile", but somewhat more hardcore like Nails' "You Will Never Be One Of Us".  In fact, they sound like the connection between those two albums.

Those two albums are full of memorable riffs and vocals.  I'm not quite sure how this Pig Destroyer fares in that department, but time will tell.  It has promise though - stylistically, I love what they are doing.

The album cover art is cool too!!

The ultimate

I love heavy metal.  Music with fast drums, distorted guitars, and most of all, the energy of metal is like a drug to me.

There have been lots of bands that I love who have a combination of musicians that write / play magically together.

For me, those rare bands that have made magic are early Metallica, the mighty Pantera, Vivian Campbell-era Dio, Ozzy's original Blizzard of Ozz band with Randy Rhoads, Vital Remains with Dave Suzuki and Glen Benton, Cannibal Corpse's current line-up, Angela Gossow-era Arch Enemy.....

But the ultimate band for me is the original Slayer line-up.  Dave Lombardo is just about THE sound of Slayer, and his drumming is so musical.  Tom Araya's voice and swagger is the face of the band, lyrically and sonically, and Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King's riffs and ridiculously unmusical leads propel their songs forward with aggression and drive.  Their song structures are complex enough to weave them through different forms of aggression, but have the simplicity of hardcore punk that get delivered with more evil than hardcore that brings a brutality to the music.

Sadly, the passing of Jeff Hanneman means that the original Slayer line up will never play together again.  And unfortunately, Lombardo will probably never get along with Araya and King.  Fortunately, I've recently discovered the entire World Painted Blood album, which update the sounds from the classic three albums (Reign, Seasons, South).

I finally got to see Slayer in 2015, and though Gary Holt and Paul Bostaph were fucking excellent, it still wasn't the classic Slayer, even though they were still mighty.

I didn't forget pi day yesterday

I made a peanut butter and chocolate pie and had a slice last night.  As you can see, my piping wasn't so good.  I should have made more chocolate to pipe, but I would have wasted some.  Is it more important to look nice, or not to waste?  :)

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

The format of this book is very simple.  The author lists each spiritual law, then gives examples of how to put the laws into practice.

1. The Law of Pure Potentiality: Take time to be silent, to just BE. Meditate for 30 minutes twice a day. Silently witness the intelligence within every living thing. Practice non-judgment.
2. The Law of Giving: Today, bring whoever you encounter a gift: a compliment or flower. Gratefully receive gifts. Keep wealth circulating by giving and receiving care, affection, appreciation and love.
3. The Law of Karma: Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. Choosing actions that bring happiness and success to others ensures the flow of happiness and success to you.
4. The Law of Least Effort: Accept people, situations, and events as they occur. Take responsibility for your situation and for all events seen as problems. Relinquish the need to defend your point of view.
5. The Law of Intention and Desire: Inherent in every intention and desire is the mechanics for its fulfillment. Make a list of desires. Trust that when things don’t seem to go your way, there is a reason.
6. The Law of Detachment: Allow yourself and others the freedom to be who they are. Do not force solutions—allow solutions to spontaneously emerge. Uncertainty is essential, and your path to freedom.
7. The Law of Dharma: Seek your higher Self. Discover your unique talents. Ask yourself how you are best suited to serve humanity. Using your unique talents and serving others brings unlimited bliss and abundance.

After contemplating this book and meditating on how this book is put into action, I've started to see that the core premise of a lot of these books imply a certain degree of dissatisfaction with what your current state of life is.

Certainly, none of the above laws imply that, but examples given in the book point out that people can apply these laws, as the title suggests, to the end of "fulfillment of your dreams", and the subtitle of the book is "Creating Affluence".  I believe in constantly improving oneself, but when the pretext for a methodology is somehow garnering more for oneself vs. cultivating happiness, satisfaction and altruism, then I'm a little more cautious about that methodology.

Still, I believe one can put these laws into practice in a non-selfish way.

Busy cooking weekend

I had lofty ambitions for cooking this weekend, and am proud to say I made everything I wanted to.

Saturday's lunch was a different kind of nikujaga, made with chicken wings (supposedly the collagen is good for your skin), and kabocha.  It's kind of like nishime.

For dinner, I made a Thai beef salad, with a savory tangy sweet dressing of fish sauce, sugar and lime juice.

Next I pickled two things - mustard cabbage (below), and (not pictured) escabeche, a Mexican pickle consisting of radishes, cauliflower, carrots and jalapeno.

For lunch on Sunday, I made Taiwanese gua bao.  I braised the pork belly, and made the buns.  I knew that I hadn't used enough yeast because after an hour, the dough hadn't risen much, but it was too close to lunchtime to make a new batch.  It was still good, though the buns weren't fluffy and airy.  Here it is, topped with cilantro, mustard cabbage, and peanuts.

Next, I started the first and second steps of making a Jewish deli-style pastrami.  I took a big corned beef and soaked it in water to remove as much salt as possible.  After a day with a few changes of water, I removed it, dried it off, and rubbed it with a mixture of black pepper, coriander, garlic, onion and brown sugar.  Next, I smoked it until it reached 150 degrees on the inside.  I'm still working on getting my smoker's temperature stable and accurate, but it's hard to keep at 225 degrees while still having smoking wood provide the smoke.  After it came off the smoker, I let it cool, then wrapped it and put it in the refrigerator.  The next step will be to steam it for 2 hours, and then I can slice it and serve it on rye bread.

I made two pies on Saturday afternoon.  The first was a peanut butter pie, which I'm saving for 3/14/17=3.1417 (close enough), pi day.

The second pie was for dinner, a British style meat pie filled with a savory filling of prime short ribs, carrots, celery and onions, wrapped in a super flaky butter crust.  I managed to crisp up the top and bottom crusts and it was very rich.

You Are a Badass

You Are A Badass is a motivational self-help book, and reads exactly as the title suggests.  It's written like a girl talking to her girlfriend.  It seems geared towards women, though she sometimes suggests more gender universal things.

The book is separated into 5 parts.  The first explains why you're not badass, and the next 4 focus on how to become a badass.  In general, the themes revolve around increasing self-esteem, forgiveness, and motivation, as any good self-help book will advocate.

She lost me at the end though, when she overly emphasizes the importance of money, and the need to hire a coach (if I'm borrowing a book from the library, obviously I'm too cheap to hire a coach).

Overall it's a good message, but if I bought this book, I'd probably review the second through fourth chapters and skip the beginning and end.

When Breath Becomes Air

This book was Paul Kalanithi's story of his career as a neurologist and the time he spent between being diagnosed with lung cancer and having his child.

Paul states that "You can't ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote towards which you are ceaselessly striving", and this philosophy was reflected in the things that he described in the book.

I have mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand, I thought that certain sections were a little too pedantic and focused on the prose of poetically describing the technical details of surgery, with graphic details of slicing skin open and removing skull portions.  Much of the book focused on the uncertainty of Paul's life expectancy, and his decisions to work as a neurosurgeon vs. becoming a researching faculty or becoming an author.  I was expecting to read about some kind of transformation, but the book read more like a personal memoir than a lesson on how to live life.  Nonetheless, my expectations for the book aren't a fair standard to judge it by.

On the other hand, as the fulfillment of a man's dying wishes to become an author, I was very happy for him.

A few years ago, I lost two friends to cancer.  They were both the same age as me.

One was one of my best friends, Shirley.  After meeting her, we quickly became good friends, often having lunch together.  My barometer of friendship is how much I know one's family and friends, and though I hadn't met her brother and sister, I knew about them and the details of their lives.  I met her mom and dad, and some of her closest friends, and knew them all by name, if not by face.  She had given me two books to read, both of which focused on the platonic but intimate relationship between two people, and the death of one.  The books were Tuesdays With Morrie and The Little Prince.  It was a little odd to me that the only two books she gave to me foreshadowed our friendship and her death, as though she was telling me that it would be okay for me after she died.

The second of my friends to die was Pat, who I had only befriended and came to know after his diagnosis with terminal cancer.  We had sleepless nights where we'd text and e-mail each other, talking about mortality and our dreams.  He wanted to learn how to play three songs on guitar and asked me to teach him.  He came over to my house, and we spent hours together, probably talking more than playing.  When he left, I walked him to his car and we made plans to go out to eat shabu shabu.  We never got to have that meal together, and he got too busy for another guitar lesson.

I sometimes wonder about the journey that both Shirley and Pat went through, as they discovered their cancer, to their passing.  Though I had lots of conversations with both of them as they dealt with their cancers, I couldn't possibly know everything that went through their heads.  "When Breath Becomes Air" shares one man's experiences and thoughts as he deals with his terminal illness.

Listening to the book and not thinking that I was getting a feeling of personal attachment towards Paul Kalanithi, I thought in my mind that I wouldn't cry the way that I cried after reading one of Mitch Albom's books.  Then this morning, while listening to Lucy Kalanithi's epilogue, I found tears streaming down my face.

New microwave

I installed a new microwave above my stove this weekend.

I like installing things and fixing things, and this was a relatively easy installation.

I had to prepare the microwave by rotating the exhaust fan 90 degrees, also cutting the sheet metal holes on the back by removing the tabs on the plates.

A bracket on the back against the backsplash holds part of the weight.  This bracket was screwed into two holes, which I drilled through the Corian and drywall, and into the metal studs.  I drilled pilot holes and then used self-tapping metal screws, and the bracket was firm.

Next, I drilled holes using the provided template into the cabinet above the microwave.  It took two of us to mount the microwave to the rear bracket, then screw the bolts from the top of the cabinet.

Fortunately this is the second microwave I've installed so I knew how to do it and saved $70!

You Will Never Be One Of Us - Nails

This is one of my favorite albums of the past few years.  It clocks in at 21 minutes, which makes it sort of like a modern day "Reign In Blood".  It's an amazing album, and as the band puts it, really takes out all of the extraneous stuff and just gets to the good stuff.  No guitar solos, and the production is gritty and distorted (in a good way, not in an old black metal way), but the songs and riffs shine, as do the incredible drumming, replete with blast and thrash beats.

As far as extreme metal goes, it's probably in my top 10.

In fact, if I were going to list my top 10 extreme metal albums, they would be (in no particular order)

Demigod - Behemoth
None So Vile - Cryptopsy
Stench of Redemption - Deicide
Icons of Evil - Vital Remains
You Will Never Be One Of Us - Nails
The Wretched Spawn - Cannibal Corpse
I, Monarch - Hate Eternal
Xenosapien - Cephalic Carnage
AssassiNation - Krisiun
Antithesis - Origin

Apple Music finds

I love Apple Music.  I can listen to most anything I want to, and discover a lot of music I haven't heard before.  It's perfect for someone like me, who likes to find new things.

This week, I'm listening to Make Them Suffer's "Neverbloom".  It's blackened death metal with breakdowns.  I like the classical style piano.  They remind me of a cross between stuff like Abigail Williams and Chthonic.

I'm also listening to "Snyder" by Feared.  Once again, I discovered a band because of the guitar player's endorsement of musical instruments.  Ola Englund is the guitar player, and while I've watched his YouTube gear videos, I've never heard his band.  This week I decided to check out Feared and they are really good death / thrash metal.

I'm pretty sure that my musical tastes are not very popular, especially among my age group.  :)

Many of these bands I like are from all over the globe.  Make Them Suffer is from Australia, Feared is from Sweden, Sepultura was originally from Brazil, Behemoth from Poland, Chthonic from Taiwan, Fleshgod Apocalypse from Italy, Carcass from England, etc.

The Food of Taiwan

My fascination with Taiwan (and food) continues.

The author, Cathy Erway, is an American born half-Taiwanese.  She visited Taiwan in college and became fascinated with the food.  When deciding upon the recipes for her cookbook, she wanted to include only recipes that had a deep cultural foundation in Taiwan.

I love that much of the book talks about the history and people of Taiwan, setting up the context for her recipes.

She talks about the history of Taiwan, from the original aborigines, to Dutch settlers looking for sulfur for gunpowder and establishing forts in the early 1600s, to the Ming Dynasty transplants forced from China by the Manchurians (the founder, Koxing, was half-Japanese and half-Chinese, like me!) in 1660 and ousting of the Dutch in 1662, to the defeat by the Qing Dynasty in 1683, to the ceding of Taiwan to Japan after China lost the Sino-Japanese war, resulting in Japanese rule from 1895-1945, and then the People's Republic of China's ousting of Republic of China's supporters to Taiwan after a long Chinese civil war.  She talks about the changing political climate leading to the first presidential election in 1996.

In the next chapter, she talks about the diversity of the ethnic groups in Taiwan.  She says that there are 23.3 million people there, divided into 4 major groups.  She says the majority are of Hoklo descent and originally from the Fujian province in China.  There are another group that came over after the Japanese ceded Taiwan, and these people are from all over China.  She says that the aboriginal Taiwanese only account for a small percentage of the population, while the Hakka people from China represent another large group.

She then talks about the geography and the resulting agricultural practices.  She says it's wooded forest and jungle over about 50% of the island, and there is an overall hot and humid climate.  She says that the island is well suited to grow sugar cane and rice, and tea in the high mountainous region.  There are also tropical fruits that are major exports.  Fishing is abundant, and they raise their own livestock with imports making up for any demand not met locally.

She has very nice recipes in the book, from the very popular dishes like three-cup chicken, beef noodle soup, pork belly buns, and minced pork on rice, and there are also dishes I've never seen before like Taiwanese burrito, coffin cake, and deep fried sweet potato balls.

I read this book on my phone, borrowed from the library, and last night I went to my mom's house and she had the hard copy.  I love this cookbook and I plan to buy the hard copy!

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation talks about fast food, and a lot of negative aspects of its production and cultural impacts.

Given that the intent of the narrative implies the negative impacts, I found some of the discussion on the various entrepreneurs to be politically charged.  While it doesn't bother me, it makes me wonder if there is a political slant to the information provided, and if conservatives would be turned off to this book.  There also seems to be a presentation of fact as negative, when perhaps some of the connections or implications are tenuous.

Regardless, a lot of the information is very interesting and revealing to the uninitiated.

Update 3/1 - I finished the book, and I take back most of what I said above.  As the author states at the end, he is just stating the facts and allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusion.

The subject matter was very interesting.  He started by writing about how McDonalds started and changed the way food was made and marketed.  He wrote about fast food workers' rights and wages, and the political lobbying to maximize profits at the top while keeping costs low.  Next he tackled the subject of the science behind the mass production and standardization of the food, primarily the beef and fries, and then the consolidation of the meat cutters industry and the dangerous conditions in the slaughterhouses, and how the translate to foodborne pathogens that become widely dispersed through mass distribution.  He concluded with the globalization of McDonalds and other fast food chains, and the resistance that some countries have to McDonalds, as McDonalds represents American imperialism.

I thought it was a good book that touched upon how a free market society can go bad when left unchecked, the political lobbying and corruption of politicians by large corporate interests, how agribusiness destroys small, more environmentally friendly food production, the potential for public health outbreaks attributed to cost cutting, and the resistance of other countries to McDonalds, while the American public (literally and figuratively) eats up McDonalds.

Regarding the last subject, the popularity of this book does give me some hope for America.

Paul Gilbert

Paul Gilbert is an incredible guitar player.  I love the fluidity in his playing.  He is a true fan of music, and isn't shy to express how much he loves other people's songs.  He's one of my most humble and personable professional guitarists that I've ever seen.  Though he can rip incredibly fast, he also has beautiful phrasing and his timing is great.

I don't know what's more influential to me - his playing or the fact that he's such a cool guy.

The ending of this next video is probably my favorite 30 seconds on YouTube, ever, where Marco Minneman drops a stick but still plays in perfect sync with Paul:

Yesterday was President's Day

In honor of President Trump's taking a phone call from the Taiwanese president at the start of his presidency, I made Taiwanese food all day.

Is that a tenuous connection?  Trying too hard?

Nah, the actual reason was that I had a nice free day, so I decided that I wanted to try some Taiwanese recipes.  In my mind, I had this romantic notion that I'd just constantly cook and constantly eat all day, but my meals ended up following more conventional meal times.

I started in the morning with sheng jian bao, which are pan fried ground pork filled buns.  They were like a cross between bao, siu mai, and Japanese gyoza.  Bao because of the milk flour outer wrapper, siu mai because of the ground pork filling, and gyoza because of the fry/steam preparation.  These came out really good - the tops and filling were cooked nicely, and the bottoms had a nice brown seared caramelization.

 Next I made Taiwanese popcorn fried chicken with deep fried basil.  These tasted a little like Japanese chicken karaage with five spice.  They were yummy with the fried basil.

I also made a bouncy pork ball in soup.  This was good too!!  The meatballs were very bouncy and springy, and I'm sure if you threw one on the floor, it would bounce.

I made Ching He Huang's Three Cup Chicken, and served with baby bok choy, pickled mustard cabbage, corn and rice.  This was really simple, but tasty.

Finally, I made Taiwanese shaved ice, with lychee jellys, mango, pineapple, peach preserves, condensed milk, tapioca pearls, and shaved ice.  It was actually very light and refreshing!

The Way The News Goes

I need to learn how to play this...  such a beautiful guitar riff

Too much to do.....

I have way too many things I want to do, and I need to find a way to balance all of these things.  I think I need to schedule my free time, after doing chores and spending meaningful time with my children.  Here's my list of things that make me happy (insert Candy Crush sparingly :)

Read library books
Review "The Art of Happiness" by the Dalai Lama
Continue to listen to "The Book of Joy" during commutes
Exercise
Cook new recipes
Work on guitar assembly for various guitars
Finish up album
Learn difficult songs with tab

The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank

I finished this book this weekend.  It was an interesting read....  though at times, I was confused because I wasn't keeping track of all of the people that were coming to help them.

At times, the book got very mundane, but I understand why - in hiding, the only things that she could talk about were her relationships with people in the house, her fears every time they thought they might be discovered, and what they were eating.  Between these entries, though, she was discovering her independence, and her self-awareness regarding happiness.  Those parts were very inspiring.

She figuratively wrote to Peter, though she was just writing in her own diary:

"This morning, when I was sitting in front of the window and taking a long, deep look outside at God and nature, I was happy, just plain happy.  Peter, as long as people feel that kind of happiness within themselves, the joy of nature, they'll always be able to recapture that happiness.

Riches, prestige, everything can be lost.  But the happiness in your own heart can only be dimmed;  it will always be there, as long as you live, to make you happy again.

Wherever you're feeling lonely or sad, try going to the loft on a beautiful day and looking outside.  Not at the houses and the rooftops, but the sky.  As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more."

She also contemplates love, where she says:

"Love, what is love?  I don't think you can really put it into words.  Love is understanding someone, caring for him, sharing his joys and sorrows.  This eventually includes physical love.  You've shared something, given something away and received something in return, whether or not you're married, whether or not you have a baby.  Losing your virtue doesn't matter, as long as you know that for as long as you live you'll have someone at your side who understands you, and who doesn't have to be shared with anyone else!"

And again, regarding happiness, she says:

"At such moments I don't think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains.  This is where Mother and I differ greatly.  Her advice in the face of melancholy is:  "Think about all the suffering in the world and be thankful you're not part of it."  My advice is:  "Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer.  Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy."

I don't think Mother's advice can be right, because what are you supposed to do if you become part of the suffering?  You'd be completely lost.  On the contrary, beauty remains, even in misfortune.  If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance.  A person who's happy will make others happy;  a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!"

This third passage was interesting.  On face values, it seems to go against the Dalai Lama's teaching that compassion is the key to happiness.  I think her mom was not saying that she should feel compassion for the people that were being sent to the gas chambers; rather, her mom was saying just be glad you're not being sent to the gas chambers.  Whereas Anne was saying that rather than counting her blessings for what she wasn't subjected to, she was counting her blessings for finding the beauty in the world.

I believe that her philosophy did follow what the Dalai Lama says - that happiness within will lead to happiness around you.  Anne discovered this at such an early age, and given her close quarters to people she didn't get along with, the constant fear of being caught and sent to concentration camps, and her confinement in hiding and inability to grow up free, I'm inspired by her character and spirit.

Though the book was long and at times mundane, it inspires me in many ways.

The Rainbow Comes and Goes - Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt

My digital holds from the Hawaii State Library have all become available within the past few weeks!!  It's almost too much to handle.  Fortunately this is a really easy read, and it's relatively short.

The first half of the book (what I've read so far) focuses on Gloria's early life, and how her inheritance money was a source of struggle between her grandmother and mother, with her nanny and Aunt thrown into the mix.  She was unfortunately caught in the middle of all of that.

The book is a series of e-mails between Gloria and Anderson, and though the primary focus is on Gloria, Anderson also reveals details about his upbringing, his disappointments and accomplishments, and his feelings about his family.

2/17 update:  There is a wonderful passage where Gloria explains that forgiveness comes with understanding the reason why something happens, not accepting full responsibility, and acceptance of  others' failings.

Another passage echoes what the Dalai Lama says:  "It is very easy to simply define yourself by your job, your title, your salary, but these rarely give you feelings of long-term success and happiness."

In her final letter to Anderson, Gloria says "We are told the fable ends with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  But does it?  I have no answer, except to say, the rainbow comes and goes, and really, isn't that enough?"  What a beautiful outlook.

Select Difficulty - Periphery

Here's a band that I rediscovered after looking at guitars and amps.  The leader of the band, Misha Mansoor, has a new import signature Jackson guitar coming out, as well as a new amp called the Peavey Invective.

The specs on his guitars look awesome, and his new amp looks like something I'd want too.

Anyway, I've heard some Periphery before and liked it, but since I was listening to much heavier music at the time, I didn't listen to them much.

I recently started listening to Select Difficulty, and it's such an amazing album.  The vocalist reminds me a little bit of Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, Brandon Boyd from Incubus and Corey Taylor from Slipknot.  The guitar work is incredible.  Misha, Mark Halcomb and Jake Bowen are super creative guitarists and composers.  I love the orchestration and the super melodic guitar lines.

"The Way The News Goes...." has a beautiful and difficult intro guitar part that I'm trying to master.

Between this album, the latest Chthonic, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu audiobook, and Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt's book, I have way too much media to consume, but I'm in a blissful state of sensory inundation!  Lucky thing it's a three-day weekend!!

Update 2/22 - I'm now completely obsessed with Marigold and The Way The News Goes...  I think I've listened to those two songs about 5 times a day.  Everything about those two songs is perfect.

Bù-Tik - Chthonic

I have to admit, I discovered Chthonic only because I was researching buying a new guitar, and the specs on Jessie Liu's signature model E-II JL-7 seem very close to what I want (and different from all of my other guitars).

The only thing is that I had no idea who Jessie Liu is.  A quick google search revealed that he's the guitar player for Chthonic, so I decided to check them out.  I know that Doris Yeh, the bass player, also has a signature model, and I figured they must be pretty influential if they have their own signature model guitars.

In the past week, I've been listening to their latest album, Bù-Tik.  To my ears, they sound like a cross between melodic death metal like Arch Enemy, newer black metal like Abigail Williams, and symphonic death metal like Fleshgod Apocalypse, while incorporating what sounds like very classic ethic Chinese instruments and melodies.  I find it to be a very sophisticated and "smart" sound, for lack of a better word.  They are very talented musically.  Lyrically, they are very political, and touch upon historical events in songs like "Supreme Pain For The Tyrant".  In fact, the lead singer, Freddy Lim, recently won a seat in the Taiwanese legislature.

Bù-Tik is a great album from start to finish.  I love the melodicism in the instrumentation, contrasted with the extreme metal vocals.  I think this is what sets me apart from most musicians that I know....  they usually hate extreme metal vocals and dismiss them as Cookie Monster.  It's with a deeper ear that one can hear melody in extreme metal....  and I think that comes from shifting the focal point of the vocals as melody, onto the instrumentation.  I also think that's why I can appreciate the musicality of non-melodic instruments like drums.

Anyway, this album makes me want to explore Chthonic's back catalog, as well as read about the history of Taiwan as reflected in their songs.  I love how music can expand your horizons.

My Taiwanese obsession continues

....through tying together disparate things that have influenced me....  Ching He Huang, who I discovered via her cookbooks, and Eddie Huang, who I discovered primarily through Huang's World on Viceland, and also Chthonic, the politically charged Taiwanese metal band.

I'm not sure if there's a big Taiwanese metal scene, but I'll have to look it up.  It seems like the international bands that I love are pretty isolated geographically - Sepultura/Max Cavalera from Brazil, Behemoth/Nergal from Poland, unlike some other areas where there are huge scenes, from Swedish Melodic Death Metal, Norwegian Black Metal, Northeastern U.S. Metalcore, or Bay Area Thrash.  I'm guessing Chthonic falls squarely in the former camp.

Reading (actually listening) to the Dalai Lama talk about Chinese annexation of Tibet, and President Trump taking a phone call from the president of Taiwan being a breach in protocol, in addition to the recent news of territorial control of certain islands near China, make me reflect on China's influence and geographical / political domination.  I think it's important that bands like Chthonic write about historical events and take a political stance.

On a completely lighter note, I had Taiwanese beef noodle soup for lunch yesterday!  Food is unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) the easiest way to experience other cultures, short of traveling.

The Book of Joy

I just got downloaded this audiobook from the library and am really looking forward to listening to it on my car rides to and from work!

Update 2/17 - this is a really good listen.  I'm about halfway through the audiobook, and it's very easy to listen to.  It's kind of funny that the book is subtitled "Lasting Happiness in a Changing World" because early on in the book, a distinction is made between "happiness" and "joy", with "joy" being much more spiritual and a state of being that engulfs "happiness".

The first half of the book talks about the Dalai Lama's struggles with suffering related to his exile from Tibet, and Desmond Tutu's struggles with the atrocities of Apartheid and his battle with prostate cancer, and how they both achieve joy through compassion and the recognition that we are one with the seven billion sentient beings in the world.

Listening to this book brings me joy.  I think about how the subject matters relate to the things I'm going through, and I find myself smiling as I'm listening to this.

Update:  3/13 - I've been practicing  meditating upon waking about how I want my day to be filled with doing nice things or at least not harming anyone, and also exercising thoughts of gratitude just before I fall asleep.  They are very good lessons and help to bring me peace of mind and happiness.

Since it's Valentine's Day, here are a few of my current "crushes"

Music is life, and right now I'm obsessing over Periphery's "The Way The News Goes...", Letters From the Fire's "Worth The Pain", and the Bu-Tik album by Chthonic.  I don't know where I'd be without music.

My obsession with cooking Korean food has waned a little, and I've cooked a lot of Japanese dishes that I've wanted to, so my cooking obsession is moving towards Chinese food.

I just discovered Ching He Huang, an ethnically-Chinese Brit that grew up in Taiwan.  I happened upon her by borrowing one of her cookbooks from the library, and love her recipes, many of which have a Taiwanese influence.  I also watched her YouTube series on finding the best chefs in Hong Kong.  It's always cool when someone that knows how to cook appreciates other good chefs.

A Man Called Ove: A Novel

I rarely read fiction.  I can't remember the last fiction I read.....  I think it might have been Mitch Albom's "The Five People You Meet In Heaven".

I also can't remember if I borrowed this book because a friend recommended it, or because I saw it on the New York Times list of must-reads.  I put a digital hold on this book months ago, and it finally became available.

It's a pretty good story....  as I read it, I kept picturing how it would translate to a movie.  The story bounces chronologically in a way that (I think) was started in movies like Pulp Fiction and Memento.  Overall, I found myself liking the main character.....  and in the end, I think I found the character relate-able to my life....  but at the same time, I wasn't moved so much by the significant events that happened.

I would give this a 4 or 5 stars, but I don't think I'll look up more books by the author, and I'm no more inspired to read more fiction than I was prior to picking up this book.

I actually read this book a long time ago.  I love Max Cavalera's voice and his songwriting and guitar playing, but didn't know much about his life other than the fact that he formed Sepultura in Brazil with his brother Iggor.

What I find interesting and inspiring about Max is that despite his stature and influence in the history of metal, he is always interested in the ways that metal is constantly changing and evolving, and like his friend Dave Grohl, is always interested in promoting the music that he hears that he loves.

This autobiography tells the story of his privileged background getting ground to a halt after his Italian embassy father suddenly passed away, growing up in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and spanning his career with Sepultura until he ultimately left the band over disputes about band dealings because of his marriage to the manager, his time with Soulfly, and his reuniting with Iggor in Cavalera Conspiracy.

I love the energy and enthusiasm this guy has, and he's definitely one of my biggest heroes and influences.

Dave Lombardo

Dave Lombardo is not only one of my favorite drummers of all time, but he's actually one of my favorite musicians of all time.  For a non-melodic instrument, he plays his drums with so much passion, energy and creativity that watching him play is so inspiring.  He has a great sense of time, his tempo is steady, he hits pretty hard, his thrash beats are so driving, and the parts that he plays in the original Slayer songs are so creative.  I wish I could write music with this guy!

Pinch harmonics

(Warning:  guitar geek alert)

A week ago, I finished up enough of my black Les Paul guitar to make it playable (I've since completed everything except for screwing on the truss rod cover, but I'll tweak the truss rod for a little while before I put the plate on for good).

When I first plugged it in to give it a good play through, I immediately started playing Dio-era Vivian Campbell licks, because Vivian played a black Les Paul in Dio.  As I played through his licks, I started playing through the licks of his contemporaries like Warren DiMartini from Ratt, Jake E. Lee from Ozzy's band, George Lynch from Dokken, etc.

It occurred to me that the one technique that unified a lot of those guys was the artificial pinch harmonic, that they incorporated into a lot of their leads and rhythms.  Because these guys came out just a few years after Eddie and Randy, I consider them to be sort of disciples of Eddie.  But though none of them really copied EVH's tapping per se, they all used his pinch harmonics as an expressive tool.

I noticed that in my playing, pinch harmonics are very prevalent as well, no doubt because I was so heavily influenced by both EVH and the guys influenced by him.

I believe that guys who are only sort of moderately interested in EVH get the whole tapping thing, but the guys who have really studied that style incorporate the pinch and artificial harmonics way more as an expressive tool....  so much that when they say tone is in the fingers, this aspect drives the point home.

Hiroshima okonomiyaki

Most people I talk to don't like okonomiyaki.  I've had regular okonomiyaki and I'm not a big fan, but I love Hiroshima style, which is different.  The cabbage is not incorporated into the batter, and there's a lot of finely ground katsuo bushi, which gives the okonomiyaki a very smokey flavor.  Thinly sliced pork belly provides the meaty flavor, and yakisoba gives it body.  The okonomiyaki sauce adds a rich tartness, and kewpie mayo makes the whole thing creamy, with aonori providing more umami.

Kung Hee Fat Choy

For Chinese New Year, I decided to make Lo Bak Gow, which is turnip cake.  A lot of people that I talk to seem to think that it's difficult to make, but it's not....  it just has a lot of steps.  You need to grate a daikon (I grate about half, and cut the other half in chunks), then boil for 10 minutes in just a little bit of water.  Then you stir fry some green onion, dried shrimp, lup cheong and shiitake, all minced finely, and add to the boiled daikon.  Next you need to incorporate rice flour until it's thicker than pancake batter, and pour into a well oiled pan.  You steam this pan for 50 minutes, and remove and let the cake rest before flipping over to remove the cake onto a cutting board.  Cut into blocks, and fry in a cast iron pan until a crust forms.

I borrowed this cookbook from my mom.  This is the first cookbook that I've read from cover to cover.  The introduction describes Morimoto's early life and how his career developed.  In between recipes, there are sections devoted to different things like dashi stock, rice, cooking tools, etc., and I learned a lot by reading these.

Reflecting on his drive, creativity, and humility, I have a great deal of admiration for him.

I love his recipes, and have made a couple from this book already.  As with any cookbook that I am influenced by, I love to read and absorb the general concept, and modify the recipe to reflect my own tastes.

I had the good fortune of meeting him at Williams Sonoma, and he signed a book for me.  We look like brothers...  but I wish I had worn a hat like his to take this picture!  And though it's totally out of character for me, I had to do the requisite Japanese peace sign!!!

The Art of Happiness - His Holiness The Dalai Lama

This is my first time listening to an audiobook.  Listening to it in the car in 30 minute segments during my commute, I've been able to listen to it twice so far, and I'm pretty sure I'll listen to it several more times, revisiting it occasionally when I need to hear the messages of how to achieve happiness and eliminate suffering.

I love this book.  Though the Dalai Lama is Buddhist, his messages of suffering and happiness cross the boundaries of religion and spirituality into universal concepts that anyone can apply to their lives. I'm not sure if I'd say this book is necessarily life changing for me, but it reinforces some of the ways in which I've been trying to improve and enhance my thinking over the past year.  Clarity, being centered, and freeing oneself of anger, frustration, ignorance, fear, and craving are key elements that I've tried to incorporate into my life, in order to appreciate and fully experience the present.

This is quite possibly my favorite book ever, along with Sapiens.

The Black Parade

This album came out in 2006.  I really liked their previous album, but had never heard much from this album other than Welcome to the Black Parade back when this album came out.

Fast forward to 2016.  My daughter was only 2 when this album first came out, but she recently discovered MCR and loves this album.  She turned me onto it, and now I'm hooked, 10 years later.

It has the characteristic pop punk sound of the stuff that was coming out at the time (Yellowcard, Story of the Year, etc.), but with more glam rock influence via the singer's love of Bowie, etc., and the guitar player's love of hair metal guitar like Randy Rhoads.  The result of all these influences gives this concept album a very classic sound, with a song like "House of Wolves" sounding like KISS's "Detroit Rock City" meets anything from Green Day's "Dookie".  "Cancer" sounds like a Motley Crue or GnR ballad meets Jimmy Eat World.

But they never sound like they're purposely trying to incorporate disparate influences......  the songs are effortlessly very MCR.  It's a great album, quite possibly one of the best albums of the 2000s (to me, anyway.....  "best" is such a stupid term when taste is so personal.)

Hakata chicken hot pot

Thank goodness for my parents!!  My dad gave me a book called "Japanese Hot Pots".  My kids absolutely love hot pot cooking.

My son's birthday is coming up soon, and he wanted to invite his friends over for hot pot.  With 9 people at the party, one pot won't be enough, so I called my mom and asked her to borrow some portable butane burners, and a few donabe (the cooking pots).

She lent me this beautiful cast iron donabe, so I took it for a test run last night, using the Hakata chicken hot pot recipe from the book my dad gave me.  It was yummy and the donabe worked fairly well, though the shallow depth makes it more conducive to chicken that's pre-cooked.  The rest of the ingredients cooked nicely though.

A year ago, I replaced the bridge on my friend's made in Japan Stratocaster.  He wanted to replace the locking bridge with a non-locking bridge.  The fact that the locking device at the top wasn't on the nut itself made that part easier.

However, the neck angle was difficult to negotiate.  On a locking trem, since the strings sit higher, the neck has to have a steeper angle.  With the new trem, that angle had to be decreased, so I had to add a "reverse shim", where the shim was in the neck pocket closer to the nut.

This solved the problem, and the action was very good after this, so I did a short clip to show that the guitar plays really well.

I have to admit that through I grew up playing a Strat, I haven't owned one for a really long time.  I couldn't resist doing an Yngwie lick on it!!

Missing tuner collar

I sometimes build guitars.  I don't do it regularly, because it's hard to sell guitars that nobody has ever heard of.

I've been working on a guitar, and while installing the tuners, I took off the tuner collar and washer, and lost it.  I can't find it anywhere!!  Fortunately, the manufacturer is a small builder and easy to get in touch with, so $5 later (shipping was more than the parts), I will have the proper collar.

I should know this by now, but the lesson learned is that I really should have a bin that I put parts in while I disassemble guitars.

Tongbaechu-kimchi 통배추김치

I have a few friends that have mothers from Korea.  It seems like all old Korean moms make kimchi!!

I wanted to try to make kimchi, so I went out and bought all the ingredients this weekend.  I followed Maangchi's recipe, but quickly realized that I like it sweeter, so I added a little more brown sugar.  My initial omission of saeujeot (salted shrimp) was a big mistake because it imparts such a strong signature flavor, so I added some.

The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Beast

I used to be a huge Maiden fan, and still enjoy their music.  I found this in the "What's New" section of the library, and finished reading it in a day (lots of pictures!).

It was moderately interesting but definitely not on the order of VH-1's Behind the Music.  I learned that Maiden is very much Steve Harris's "beast", and it was interesting to see how much Bruce Dickenson impacted the popularity of the band.

I went through their catalog through every chapter, and listened to some Blaze Bayley stuff, which I didn't like.

Orange Is The New Black

I borrowed this book on recommendation from a friend.

Maybe I'm a bit unfazed by reading about extreme conditions, but reading this, I was constantly waiting for things to get interesting (i.e. more violent).  But it never did.  If one were to assume that prison was like a country club.....  well, it's not - you're still deprived of some very basic needs, but neither is Federal minimum security prison a haven for violence and abuse.  It's probably very different in men's prison.

It was a decent book though, and I learned a little about prison culture, through the eyes of a privileged white girl in possibly the safest prison situation.

The Deftones fucking RAWK

This was a great show!!  Chino's vocals were on point, unlike his vocals on a lot of Deftones live YouTube videos I've seen.

The band was really tight, and their songs are made for a live setting.  Definitely a kick-ass show!!

I just watched a video of G.E. Smith playing Michael Bloomfield's old '63 Telecaster, and discovered that he played on Highway 61 Revisited.  With Dylan's recent Nobel Prize for literature, I figure it's time to finally listen to some Dylan.  I've only casually listened to Dylan on classic rock radio - his really popular stuff, but as with most artists, the greatest songs are deeper in their catalogs.