a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Happy Pi Day.
We attended Fiesta del Agave 2026 at the El Cid Golf & Country Club here in Mazatlán today.
There were tables with bottles of mezcal and tequila* for tasting (and to buy, of course).
We sat in on chef Héctor Saracho’s food prep demonstration. He prepared a ceviche from Sierra Spanish mackerel, served up on a made-from-scratch toasted tortilla shell. (Chef Saracho has impressive credentials. He travels to Cabo San Lucas and elsewhere to cook for the likes of Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney and Howard Stern.)
Then we had a little lunch and tasted some locally brewed beer (excellent, and the stout was the best).
The mariachi band arrived just then and we listened to three or four songs before calling it a day.
The sunset is from a new acquaintance’s lookout over the beach in Mazatlán’s Golden Zone.
*Mezcal and tequila are almost the same, but not quite.
Here is Google AI Overview explaining:
Tequila is a type of mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila. The primary differences are in agave type, region, and production: Tequila uses only Blue Weber agave, mostly in Jalisco, typically steamed. Mezcal uses various agave types (mainly Espadín) roasted in earthen pits, giving it a distinctive smoky flavor.
The Diamond Princess was back at Singapore’s Marina Bay Cruise Center at 7 am this morning.
Right then, a choreographed process of getting some 3,000 passengers and their luggage off the ship, through passport control and customs, and on their way to the airport or elsewhere, started.
Grab is the Uber in Singapore* and we hopped into Grab cabs that we had reserved the night before to take us to the hotel. (My family heads out in the morning and I will stay in Singapore for a few days before making my way back to Seattle via Tokyo.)
*Grab acquired Uber’s Southeast Asian operations in 2018. Uber still has a 27.5% share as part of the deal.
The wall poster is from the metro’s new brown line, the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL). The benches down on the platforms are benches, and works of art, as well.
What a nice find in the grocery store: Valencia oranges from South Africa, for only SGD 3.20 (US$2.50) for five. Sweet and seedless.
Right next to them were pairs of Amakusa oranges, ever so slightly larger, advertised as ‘Air Flown’ from Japan, for SGD 28.80 a pair, which comes to $11 for an orange. Eek 😱.
The Diamond Princess arrived at Phuket at 9 am this morning, as scheduled.
Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, and the cruise ship was anchored by the bustling Patong Beach*. The tender boat trip to the Patong Jetty was only 15 minutes: not bad at all.
*Patong Beach was hit particularly hard by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The waves reached heights of 3–6 m (9.8–19.7 ft) along the west coast of Phuket island.
Thaweewong Road runs at the back of Patong Beach. It is lined with anything a tourist might want, and might need: ATMs, markets, beach clubs with swimming pools, bars, pharmacies, restaurants, food stands, pot shops (legal but no smoking in public allowed), massage parlors, taxi stands and scooters.
Sarasin Bridge to the north connects the island to Phang Nga province, but we were a little deflated after a few hours in the hot sun and headed back to Patong Jetty to catch a tender boat to the Princess.
It sounds like at least fentanyl, rare earth metals and soybeans were discussed at the Trump-Xi summit today. Beijing will ease the restrictions on rare earth exports and start buying soybeans from American farmers again.
According to Trump, the relaxing of export restrictions on Nvidia’s latest chips was not discussed.
Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had beer and fried chicken with the CEOs of Samsung and Hyundai in Seoul, South Korea*.
It was clearly a marketing stunt, because there was a throng of journalists and photographers present as well.
*Samsung has a multi-faceted relationship with Nvidia, serving both as a supplier of memory and a foundry partner for specialized chips.
Hyundai will presumably use Nvidia’s chips for its self-driving cars of the future.
Does Tesla use Nvidia chips for its self-driving cars? No, Tesla does not use Nvidia chips for its vehicle’s self-driving computers, having switched to its own custom-designed chips in 2019. However, Tesla still uses Nvidia GPUs in large clusters for training its AI models, and has also recently purchased Nvidia chips for its new AI5 inference platform, which will be used in its new Cortex 2 AI data center alongside Tesla’s custom AI5 chips. – Google AI Overview.
The bear, which the sheriff’s office nicknamed Fuzzy, sampled as many flavors as it could get its paws on, the authorities said.
Tubs lay overturned, ice cream half eaten, the authorities said. Paw prints stretched across the black-and-white floor like stick stamps.
The deputies startled the bear, which stopped eating but could not find the exit. They shouted and shined their lights. Finally, the animal lumbered through the front door and back into the dark, the authorities said. The deputies followed to shoo it away from nearby buildings and into the forest.
—Mark Walker writing for the New York Times, about a bear found in the ice cream parlor at 4 am in the morning at Camp Richardson, a 128-acre resort in South Lake Tahoe, California.
Three amigos had beers and burgers at Elysian Capitol Hill Brewery tonight.
Five amigos had beers and pizza at the Olympia Pizza & Spaghetti House III here on Capitol Hill tonight.
My beer is a Radeberger pilsner— served in a branded imperial pint glass (568 ml).
When you cook an egg, the heat that solidifies its whites and yolks kills pathogens like salmonella and bird flu. That’s why food safety officials recommend cooking eggs until both parts are firm.
…
Recent data on salmonella-infected eggs is hard to find. One widely cited study from 2000 suggested that one in every 20,000 eggs carries the bacteria. This might not sound like a lot, but given how many eggs Americans eat — about 250 per person on average in 2023 — that risk can add up.
– Caroline Hopkins Legaspi writing for the New York Times
I cannot find Certified Humane* eggs anywhere anymore, and I settled for these ones below from Whole Foods.
*Laying hens must be uncaged and have access to perches, nest boxes and dust-bathing areas.
I stocked up on a fresh pack of Freshpak rooibos tea* to keep me warm at night. I steep it for 5 minutes to get it really strong, and then I add milk and a little honey.
P.S. The cold weather has been relentless here. The temperature outside will drop down to 22 °F (-5°C) tonight, which is record-low territory for February here in the city.
*Not a true tea, but rather an herbal tea. It’s made from the leaves of the Aspalathus linearis plant, which is native to South Africa.
– from Google Search Labs | AI Overview
Hey, on this winter solstice day I made it to the Christmas market at Römerberg. It was cold and raining, though, and I did not stay very long.
(It did seem that the inclement weather increased the glühwein sales volumes!)
Pictures:
Entrance hall to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station). There was a strong of police presence at the station. Hauptbahnhof station looked a little more ragged and rundown from the last time I saw it— especially the floors leading to the U4 & U5 subway lines’ platforms.
Poster for Messe Frankfurt (exhibition center) close by Hauptbahnhof station.
It’s two stops on the U5 subway line (turquoise train car) from Hauptbahnhof station to Römer/ Dom station to where the Christmas market is. The U5 is getting a 2.7 km (1.7 mi) extension that will open in 2027.
Last picture: the S9 regional train (red train car) arriving to take me back from Hauptbahnhof station to Flughafen (airport) station where my hotel is, a 14-minute ride.
Happy Friday.
The five amigos got together at Chuck’s Hop Shop in Central District for a beer and a bite to eat from the food truck outside.
Even at Oktoberfest— arguably the world’s most famous ode to alcohol— alcohol-free beer is on the menu. All but two of the 18 large tents at the festival offer the drink through the celebration’s 16 days.
The sober drink will cost drinkers the same as an alcoholic beer- between 13.60 and 15.30 euros ($15.12 and $17.01) for a 1-liter mug (33 fluid ounces) – but save them from a hangover.
– Stefanie Dazio writing for The Associated Press
Oktoberfest started on Saturday in Munich, Bavaria’s capital.
Happy Friday.
I cracked open one of my Guinness beers tonight.
I knew, more or less, what the little ball inside my can of Guinness beer was for, but thought I’d ask Chat GPT anyway.
Lately, I have had a hard time finding my favorite non-alcoholic beer in stores (Beck’s from Germany).
Below are three other beers I am trying out, now.
A positron is the antiparticle of an electron.
It has all the properties of an electron except for the polarity of the electrical charge, which is positive. Therefore, a positron can simply be considered an electron having positive unit electrical charge.
– sciencedirect.com
I left home this afternoon with an empty and dirty car, and returned with a clean car— with beer in the trunk ☺️.
( I stopped at Brown Bear Car Wash and the Total Wine store in Magnolia ).
These is a plethora of beers and wines on the shelves at Total Wine. Here are some of my favorite beer labels.
Happy Wednesday.
Four amigos played a little pickleball late this morning, and afterwards we went for a beer and a bite in Columbia City.
This beer truck was parked across the street.
Some office workers are making it a long weekend, with the Fourth of July holiday falling on a Thursday this year.
Happy Friday.
Break open a cold one: a beer, a cocktail, an orange juice, a lemonade.
Three amigos had beers at Chuck’s Hop Shop in Central District tonight. Cheers!
Cheers!
Let my Radeberger Pilsner fall where it may.
Four amigos had beer and pizza at Harry’s Bar here on 15th Avenue East tonight.
