Day 61 - Food Day Friday

I am getting ready to fly to Orange County today and so it is a low maintenance blog post today. I am so close to completion I can almost taste the food of every cafe! ;-)
I have however discovered the existence of a secret invitation only cafe which I think I will sadly never get to visit... but oh well.


25 of 30 Cafes visited!
Main Campus - Complete
near Main Campus - Complete
1900 block - 1 to go
Crittenden - Complete
GWC - 1 to go
Quad - 3 to go
SFO - Complete
SBO - Complete

√ Atom - It took quite a while to get to this one as I had been there before. The sushi here is fantastic, almost as good as Frank's. The noodle soup is also done in several other cafes and the hot dishes are ok.
√ Baadal - Indian food that needs to be booked in advance. Table service makes this place a little different to the normal Google offering. This food is pretty good! Not as fantastic as the very best but totally edible!
√ Beta - I love this cafe! Too far to go frequently but really nice.
√ Backyard - In my building and specializing in Barbecue (honestly it's a wonder I go anywhere else)
√ BETA C - A nice, balanced 'all round' cafe. Food of all sorts, well done.
√ Big Table Cafe - This cafe has a great variety of tasty foods.
√ Blaze Cafe - Fresh Pizza is the focus here but it has a few other things and is always very popular.
√ Charlie's Cafe - This is the original cafe of Google and it has everything from fantastic Pizza, burgers, burritos to Pho, Sushi & Indian.
- Crave Cafe
√ Evolution Cafe - A selection of fairly healthy, orientalish foods in a small cafe.
√ GO! Cafe - This is a sandwich to order to place. I'm not a big sandwich guy but if Subway was like this, they'd be making a lot of money off of me.
√ Jia Cafe - Authentic East Asian food and REALLY good.
√ Long Life - Again Asian food but with a Korean/Vietnamese focus, the Pho here is very good but otherwise a little underwhelming.
√ Lunch Box Cafe - This place does a couple of dishes and a small sandwich section... that takes an age!
√ Masa Cafe - Burritos the size of your head made exactly the way you want.
√ Maverick Cafe - Nothing special, although the desserts are good and the staff are the friendliest on campus.
√ Moma Cafe - This place is the king of sandwiches, toasted, normal, sliders they are all to be found here. It also has awesome breakfasts with pancakes!
- Nourish Cafe
√ Quad Halftime - Sports Bar theme and junkfood on offer - I LOVE this place. It is a lot like Backyard but with a lot more variety (and a lot less sweet potato!) making it exponentially better.
- Quad Hangout
- Quad Portal - I had a decent breakfast here. Google in the US is great for weird breakfast items. Today's winner: Attack of the Killer Applewoodsmoked bacon and spam fried rice - that's actually what it was called, and pretty much explains what it was... DELICIOUS! The maple syrup sausage links were less appetizing but donut holes make a great breakfast dessert. No lunch here yet so I am leaving it unchecked.
- Quad Trux Cafe
√ root Cafe - A bit of a mix, nothing special but is fairly popular.
√ Slice Cafe - Some packaged sandwiches but the reason to come here are the fantastic smoothies.
√ Steam Cafe - This place is apparently not that good food normally however I was really impressed! The Gnocchi was fantastic and the turkey and italian sausage were both really nice. The dessert wasn't great but that is a minor quibble. The plates here are ceramic unlike the other cafes which have plastic (although Baadal is also cermic)
√ Stock Market Cafe - Interesting selection of foods from this small cafe. Not sure it was worth the trek but given the more 'normal' selection, I think if I was based in this office I would eat here quite often.
√ Victoria Deli Cafe - A selection of pre-made wraps and sandwiches in 'slider' sizes. Great for quick, small meals but less choice and further away than Go.
√ Yoshka's Cafe (w/e) - I have been here at the weekend but it felt like only half service so wait until I have been in the week to pass judgement. Weekday food here is good! Not much selection but the food is done well. A little too much oil in things though in the salad, the rice, the meat.
X Left Coast Cafe (SFO) It turns out this cafe was closed some time ago but the site page never got updated. Sad times
√ Warehouse6 Cafe (SFO) - The food just wasn't that good. I think it was the day as my recollection of last time was that it was pretty good.
√ YouTube Café (SBO) - The breakfasts are good, sadly the lunches are not!

Day 60 - Unforgiven

So after a shitty day of trying to catch up with a project well behind where it ought to be... I come back to watch Unforgiven... only to find I have already seen it, at least twice... man I hate it when that happens! I have at least made some progress with my old team's work. I need to start trying to focus on the work I should actually be doing and get some meaningful results that I can present in the next couple of weeks. It feels as though a lot of the stuff I have done is essentially meaningless. This week was the final week for several of the interns I have gotten to know while out here. Their final presentations have shown varying amounts of progress but it feels like all of them have more to show than the progress I have made despite the fact that we all started around the same time. I have learned a lot but I feel like I have done nothing helpful with it.

Tomorrow I will be flying out to Orange County to stay with my Aunt & Uncle. I know it is gonna be hard work and I am gonna have to be on my best behavior but I will be glad to get away from this environment for a little at least. Hopefully I will be able to unwind enough to enjoy myself a little.

Day 59 - Fried

Another day spent covering stuff from my normal role rather than working on my rotation. This is getting to be situation normal and is really stressing me out. I just want to go home. I am looking at my rotation project and wondering what the hell to do in order to have some results by the end of this rotation.

I am now totally fried and basically good for nothing. I didn't even remember to finish this or post it so if you want something to read then check out my Blog on LotR LCG which has the distinct advantage of being written ahead of time and so not meaningless drivel...
The blog can be found here: http://boardgamegeek.com/blog/2703

Day 58 - Film Update

Strangers on a Train was a very different film from what I had expected. It seems that Hitchcock movies often get portrayed and staged as different movies or distorted from expectations. My understanding of Strangers on Train was always that both parties were wanting to do the deal, not the entirely one sided affair that is in the film. I had always thought that one of the parties eventually slipped up or caved under the pressure. Nothing of the sort really happens and the failure of the plan was really that it never existed (not to mention several public appearances of the two men together!).

The Sting is one of those films that really highlights why I am working through this list. It is fantastic - a perfect Con movie and one that I would never have chosen to watch without this list. I had hoped for a few more of these eureka movies than I have hit upon. Several of the films I have really enjoyed were ones I had intended to see any way, very few have truly come out of left field. 12 Angry Men, It's a Wonderful Life, Some Like it Hot and this are the only ones off of the original list - although I am glad it did drive me to watch City of God, The Pianist and a few of the others, I can't say I enjoyed them.

All About Eve was an excellent film. There are so many aspects of it that appeal to the way my darker side works that it really struck a chord with me. So yet another of the real eureka movies! I won't really talk about it except for the opening scene which is done in a very old fashioned style of commentary on what and why that I absolutely adore and really got me straight into the movie and the characters.

Black Swan is probably the most uncomfortable film I have seen since I watched Dogville back in High School. The mental breakdown, the repetition of the cycle that every lead seems to go through, the incredibly graphic scenes of nails, skin and fingers slowly  getting peeled away / damaged / crushed made me cringe with my whole body. The acting was superb, and the story gripping. Not enjoyable, but very, very good.

The General is not my favorite Buster Keaton but it is still very good and infinitely better than the Great Dictator which felt a little bit of an exercise in just villainizing Hitler at the expense of being funny. Chaplin is a comedian and should have stuck to that side of the art.

Bold those movies you've seen in their entirety.

Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or saw only an excerpt.

Original List: (93/100)

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2. The Godfather (1972)

3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

4. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

5. Inception (2010)

6. Pulp Fiction (1994)

7. Schindler's List (1993)

8. 12 Angry Men (1957)

9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

10. The Dark Knight (2008)

11. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

12. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)

13. Seven Samurai (1954)

14. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

15. Goodfellas (1990)

16. Casablanca (1942)

17. Fight Club (1999)

18. City of God (2002)

19. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring(2001)

20. Rear Window (1954)

21. Toy Story 3 (2010)

22. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

23. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

24. Psycho (1960)

25. The Usual Suspects (1995)

26. The Matrix (1999)

27. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

28. Se7en (1995)

29. Memento (2000)

30. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

31. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

32. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

33. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

34. Leon (1994)

35. Forrest Gump (1994)

36. Citizen Kane (1941)

37. Apocalypse Now (1979)

38. North by Northwest (1959)

39. American Beauty (1999)

40. American History X (1998)

41. Taxi Driver (1976)

42. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

43. Vertigo (1958)

44. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

45. Amelie (2001)

46. Alien (1979)

47. WALL·E (2008)

48. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

49. The Shining (1980)

50. Spirited Away (2001)

51. Paths of Glory (1957)

52. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

L-53. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

54. The Pianist (2002)

55. Double Indemnity (1944)

56. The Lives of Others (2006) nb Das Leben der Anderen

57. The Departed (2006)

58. M (1931)

59. Aliens (1986)

60. City Lights (1931)

61. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

62. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

63. Das Boot (1981)

64. The Third Man (1949)

65. L.A. Confidential (1997)

66. Chinatown (1974)

67. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

68. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

69. Modern Times (1936)

70. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) 

71. Life Is Beautiful (1997) nb La Vita e bella

72. Back to the Future (1985)

73. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

74. The Prestige (2006)

75. Raging Bull (1980)

76. Singin' in the Rain (1952)

N77. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

R78. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

79. Some Like It Hot (1959)

80. Rashomon (1950)

81. Amadeus (1984)

82. All About Eve (1950)

83. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

84. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

85. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

86. The Green Mile (1999)

87. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

N88. Braveheart (1995)

89. The Great Dictator (1940)

90. The Apartment (1960)

N91. Bicycle Thieves (1948)nb Ladri di Biciclette

92. Downfall (2004) nb Der Untergang

93. Up (2009)

94. Gran Torino (2008)

95. Metropolis (1927)

96. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

97. The Sting (1973)

98. Gladiator (2000)

99. The Elephant Man (1980)

100. Sin City (2005)

24th July 2013: (156/250)

1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2 The Godfather (1972)

3 The Godfather: Part II (1974)

4 Pulp Fiction (1994)

5 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

6 The Dark Knight (2008)

7 12 Angry Men (1957)

8 Schindler's List (1993)

9 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)

10 Fight Club (1999)

11 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back(1980)

12 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring(2001)

13 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

14 Inception (2010)

15 Goodfellas (1990)

16 Star Wars (1977)

17 Seven Samurai (1954)

18 Forrest Gump (1994)

19 The Matrix (1999)

20 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

21 City of God (2002)

22 Se7en (1995)

23 The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

24 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

25 Casablanca (1942)

26 The Usual Suspects (1995)

27 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

28 Rear Window (1954)

29 It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

30 Psycho (1960)

31 Léon: The Professional (1994)

32 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

33 American History X (1998)

34 Apocalypse Now (1979)

35 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

36 Memento (2000)

37 Saving Private Ryan (1998)

38 City Lights (1931)

39 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

40 Alien (1979)

41 Spirited Away (2001)

42 Modern Times (1936)

43 North by Northwest (1959)

44 Back to the Future (1985)

45 Citizen Kane (1941)

46 The Shining (1980)

47 Life Is Beautiful (1997)

48 The Pianist (2002)

49 The Departed (2006)

50 M (1931)

51 Vertigo (1958)

R52 Django Unchained (2012)

53 Paths of Glory (1957)

54 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

55 American Beauty (1999)

56 Taxi Driver (1976)

57 Aliens (1986)

58 Double Indemnity (1944)

59 WALL·E (2008)

N60 The Intouchables (2011)

61 Gladiator (2000)

62 The Green Mile (1999)

63 Toy Story 3 (2010)

64 The Lives of Others (2006)

65 The Great Dictator (1940)

66 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

67 The Prestige (2006)

68 Amélie (2001)

69 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

R70 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

71 Reservoir Dogs (1992)

72 Das Boot (1981)

N73 Cinema Paradiso (1988)

74 The Lion King (1994)

75 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

76 The Third Man (1949)

77 Requiem for a Dream (2000)

78 Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)

79 Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

80 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

81 Full Metal Jacket (1987)

R82 Braveheart (1995)

83 L.A. Confidential (1997)

84 Oldboy (2003)

85 Chinatown (1974)

86 Singin' in the Rain (1952)

87 Bicycle Thieves (1948)

88 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

89 Some Like It Hot (1959)

90 Metropolis (1927)

91 Princess Mononoke (1997)

92 Rashomon (1950)

93 Amadeus (1984)

94 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

95 The Sting (1973)

96 All About Eve (1950)

97 The Apartment (1960)

L-98 Unforgiven (1992)

99 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

100 Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

101 Raging Bull (1980)

102 Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

R103 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

104 Die Hard (1988)

105 Batman Begins (2005)

106 A Separation (2011)

107 Yojimbo (1961)

108 Inglourious Basterds (2009)

109 For a Few Dollars More (1965)

110 Snatch. (2000)

111 The Great Escape (1963)

112 Toy Story (1995)

113 Downfall (2004)

114 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

115 Up (2009)

116 Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

117 On the Waterfront (1954)

118 The General (1926)

119 The Seventh Seal (1957)

120 The Elephant Man (1980)

121 Heat (1995)

122 The Maltese Falcon (1941)

123 The Kid (1921)

124 Blade Runner (1982)

125 Scarface (1983)

126 Rebecca (1940)

127 Wild Strawberries (1957)

128 Gran Torino (2008)

129 Fargo (1996)

130 Ran (1985)

131 Ikiru (1952)

132 The Big Lebowski (1998)

133 Touch of Evil (1958)

134 The Deer Hunter (1978)

135 The Gold Rush (1925)

136 Cool Hand Luke (1967)

137 It Happened One Night (1934)

138 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

139 No Country for Old Men (2007)

140 Casino (1995)

141 Sin City (2005)

142 The Sixth Sense (1999)

143 Strangers on a Train (1951)

144 Platoon (1986)

145 Good Will Hunting (1997)

146 Jaws (1975)

147 The Thing (1982)

148 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

149 Trainspotting (1996)

150 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

151 Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

152 Warrior (2011)

153 High Noon (1952)

154 The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

155 Hotel Rwanda (2004)

156 Gone with the Wind (1939)

157 The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

158 The Avengers (2012)

159 Annie Hall (1977)

160 My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

161 Finding Nemo (2003)

162 V for Vendetta (2005)

163 Notorious (1946)

164 Dial M for Murder (1954)

165 Into the Wild (2007)

166 How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

167 Life of Brian (1979)

168 The Night of the Hunter (1955)

169 There Will Be Blood (2007)

170 Network (1976)

171 The Terminator (1984)

172 Ben-Hur (1959)

173 Million Dollar Baby (2004)

174 The King's Speech (2010)

175 The Big Sleep (1946)

176 Stand by Me (1986)

177 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

178 Groundhog Day (1993)

179 The 400 Blows (1959)

180 Twelve Monkeys (1995)

181 Mary and Max (2009)

182 Donnie Darko (2001)

183 Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

184 The Hunt (2012)

185 Amores Perros (2000)

186 Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

187 Persona (1966)

188 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

189 Gandhi (1982)

190 The Killing (1956)

191 Black Swan (2010)

192 A Beautiful Mind (2001)

193 The Graduate (1967)

194 The Princess Bride (1987)

195 8½ (1963)

196 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

197 Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

198 The Hustler (1961)

199 La Strada (1954)

200 Rocky (1976)

201 Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

202 Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

203 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

204 The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

205 Rope (1948)

206 The Exorcist (1973)

207 The Wild Bunch (1969)

208 Barry Lyndon (1975)

209 Life of Pi (2012)

210 Stalag 17 (1953)

211 In the Name of the Father (1993)

212 Monsters, Inc. (2001)

213 Fanny and Alexander (1982)

214 Infernal Affairs (2002)

215 Roman Holiday (1953)

216 Sleuth (1972)

217 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

218 Stalker (1979)

219 The Truman Show (1998)

220 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

221 Memories of Murder (2003)

222 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2(2011)

223 3 Idiots (2009)

224 A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

225 Star Trek (2009)

226 The Artist (2011/I)

227 Jurassic Park (1993)

228 Like Stars on Earth (2007)

229 Ip Man (2008)

230 Incendies (2010)

231 District 9 (2009)

232 Ratatouille (2007)

233 La Haine (1995)

234 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

235 Shutter Island (2010)

236 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

237 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

238 Rain Man (1988)

239 Beauty and the Beast (1991)

240 Rosemary's Baby (1968)

241 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

242 Harvey (1950)

243 Papillon (1973)

244 Mystic River (2003)

245 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

246 Before Sunrise (1995)

247 In the Mood for Love (2000)

248 The Untouchables (1987)

249 Manhattan (1979)

250 The Celebration (1998)