100 Songs from 1987

Okay, I got this list from Ms. Mamma's blog (thanks by the way!) Seeing that we both graduated high school in 1987, all I did was cut and paste the songs. I didn't have to search for a list. I can't believe my 20 year reunion is next year! Ugh! Fk that!

Anyways, you're supposed to highlight or BOLD the songs that you liked and SCRATCH the ones you hated and leave the ones you are neutral. Well...let's put it this way, it would take too much energy for me to SCRATCH out the SHIT I HATED, because that is practically 90% of this list!!!! Plus I don't know how!!!! : (

There's not enough classic rock (which died already), HAIR METAL or HEAVY METAL in here! Now, if it was the 1970's, 1984, 1985 or 1988, that's a different story. Snide commentary and trivia by yours truly. All of the r & b music in here was limp and the 80's stuff reeked. This is the kind of crap you hear on the easy listening stations or in your dentist's office or in an elevator.

So...there are only a few BOLDS here. I'm not that big of a Crowded House fan, but in my opinion, but they were the lesser of the evils presented in this list. Especially Kenny G. The songs I don't even know are italicized in red. The rest can suck the Elephant Man's unwashed, wrinkly nut sack.

1987

1. Walk Like An Egyptian, Bangles (the "Walk with an Erection" parody was funnier)
2. Alone, Heart
3. Shake You Down, Gregory Abbott
4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Whitney Houston
5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Starship
6. C'est La Vie, Robbie Nevil
7. Here I Go Again, Whitesnake (what about that totally horny video with David Coverdale's then wife, Tawny Kitaen spread eagle on a muscle car? Hey, she was the chick in "Bachelor Party" back when Tom Hanks made funny movies and before he morphed into a boring Oscar-winning machine)
8. The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
9. Shakedown, Bob Seger
10.Livin' On A Prayer, Bon Jovi (I can't even stand listening to this song. Why? I messed up during Talent Show with this song! I was in a garage band and I had the wrong keyboard pre-set and I will never live it down! Superman knows about this)
11. La Bamba, Los Lobos
12. Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung (they actually played at our GRAD NIGHT AT DISNEYLAND!)
13. Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House
14. Always, Atlantic Starr
15. With Or Without You, U2 (when U2 started to go downhill...I'm not a fan of the "Joshua Tree" album, just their early years)
16. Looking For A New Love, Jody Watley (damn, her earrings were big enough to be bracelets!)
17. Head To Toe, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
18. I Think We're Alone Now, Tiffany (as you can see, this was truly a shitty year in music)
19. Mony Mony, Billy Idol (Sigh, how the mighty have fallen)
20. At This Moment, Billy Vera and The Beaters (Thanks Alex Keaton for popularizing this song on "Family Ties")
21. Lady In Red, Chris De Burgh
22. Didn't We Almost Have It All, Whitney Houston
23. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, U2
24. I Want Your Sex, George Michael (yeah, in a men's toilet)
25. Notorious, Duran Duran
26. Only In My Dreams, Debbie Gibson
27. (I've Had) The Time Of My Life, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
28. The Next Time I Fall, Peter Cetera and Amy Grant
29. Lean On Me, Club Nouveau
30. Open Your Heart, Madonna
31. Lost In Emotion, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
32. (I Just) Died In Your Arms, Cutting Crew
33. Heart And Soul, T'pau
34. You Keep Me Hangin' On, Kim Wilde
35. Keep Your Hands To Yourself, Georgia Satellites
36. I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), Aretha Franklin and George Michael
37. Control, Janet Jackson
38. Somewhere Out There, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram (all right, FIEVEL from American Tale!)
39. U Got The Look, Prince
40. Land Of Confusion, Genesis (freaky video)
41. Jacob's Ladder, Huey Lewis and The News
42. Who's That Girl, Madonna
43. You Got It All, Jets (I remember that one of the local radio stations hosted a contest. Whichever high school sent in the most index cards saying, "We want the Jets to play at our school" would win exactly that. A lot of people at our school were frantically filling out those index cards. Who won? Not our high school, but Patrick Henry HS, aka the "meth" school)
44. Touch Me (I Want Your Body), Samantha Fox
45. I Just Can't Stop Loving You, Michael Jackson and Siedah Garrett
46. Causing A Commotion, Madonna
47. In Too Deep, Genesis
48. Let's Wait Awhile, Janet Jackson
49. Hip To Be Square, Huey Lewis and the News
50. Will You Still Love Me?, Chicago
51. Little Lies, Fleetwood Mac
52. Luka, Suzanne Vega
53. I Heard A Rumour, Bananarama
54. Don't Mean Nothing, Richard Marx
55. Songbird, Kenny G (Oh my God, just shoot me now! This fkr can only play one note! He sucks to the highest of sucktivity! I remember telling our wedding DJ, you can play anything but jacuzzi jazz and Kenny G!!!!)
56. Carrie, Europe
57. Don't Disturb This Groove, System
58. La Isla Bonita, Madonna
59. Bad, Michael Jackson (I liked "Fat" by Wierd Al much better. Why isn't that song on this list instead?)
60. Sign 'O' The Times, Prince
61. Change Of Heart, Cyndi Lauper
62. Come Go With Me, Expose
63. Can't We Try, Dan Hill (what the hell was this song???Dan who?)
64. To Be A Lover, Billy Idol
65. Mandolin Rain, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
66. Breakout, Swing Out Sister
67. Stand By Me, Ben E. King
68. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Genesis
69. Someday, Glass Tiger (this sorry ass group also played at our Grad Nite!)
70. When Smokey Sings, ABC
71. Casanova, Levert (hey, didn't he just croak? Gerald LeVert?)
72. Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
73. Rock Steady, Whispers
74. Wanted Dead Or Alive, Bon Jovi
75. Big Time, Peter Gabriel
76. The Finer Things, Steve Winwood
77. Let Me Be The One, Expose
78. Is This Love, Whitesnake (too sappy for me)
79. Diamonds, Herb Alpert (was this song even played on the radio?)
80. Point Of No Return, Expose
81. Big Love, Fleetwood Mac
82. Midnight Blue, Lou Gramm (I know he's the former lead singer of Foreigner but I'd never heard this song before!)
83. Something So Strong, Crowded House
84. Heat Of The Night, Bryan Adams
85. Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You, Glenn Medeiros (this dude was a major ONE HIT WONDER! SUCKED!)
86. Brilliant Disguise, Bruce Springsteen
87. Just To See Her, Smokey Robinson
88. Who Will You Run Too, Heart
89. Respect Yourself, Bruce Willis
90. Cross My Broken Heart, Jets
91. Victory, Kool and The Gang
92. Don't Get Me Wrong, Pretenders (one of the best songs on this list. Chrissy Hynde is one tough female rocker and I 've admired her since 1979 when The Pretenders first came out)
93. Doing It All For My Baby, Huey Lewis and The News (funny video actually)
94. Right On Track, Breakfast Club (?)
95. Ballerina Girl, Lionel Richie (this should be playing in a constant loop...IN HELL!)
96. Meet Me Half Way, Kenny Loggins
97. I've Been In Love Before, Cutting Crew
98. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right To Party, Beastie Boys
99. Funkytown, Pseudo Echo (why did they even bother remaking this song?)
100. Love You Down, Ready For The World (yet another group that played at our Grad Nite. What about "Oh Sheila" or "Digital Display"? I would have BOLDED those songs!!!!)


So there you have it. I only bolded 5 songs (correction 12/1/06 - 4 songs...duh, I can't count)

Making parols...Part 1

This past Wednesday night during TC's dance class, the dance company held a Parol-making workshop conducted by local San Diego artist, Jose Morales. He's an older Filipino gentleman with an magnificent silver mane of hair, a mullet if you will. He sports earrings, long nails and is a very talented artist. I remember seeing a Day of the Dead altar that he made on display at the San Diego Museum of Man.

A parol is a Filipino Christmas lantern, some say it was derived from the Mexican pinata, which also had origins in Spain. The parol represents the star of Bethlehem.

This parol making workshop was quite fun. You need:

10 bamboo barbeque sticks
5 bamboo reed spacers (you could probably get these at Home Depot - those bamboo sticks you buy for the garden)
20 short lengths of twine (5 for each star, 5 to tie the 2 stars together and 5 to tie each point to the wire)
1 long piece of wire (sorry I don't have an exact length but make sure it's long enough to form a circle around your joined stars)
tinsel garland
plastic table cloth covers (any color you want)
1 glue gun

My directions are not that technical, but from what I remember, you will need 5 sticks to make one star. You tie one blunt end to one pointy end with the twine to make the first point of the star. Then you hot glue the joint together. You repeat for the second joint, but weave the sticks under each other. Don't worry about spacing them evenly at this point. When you complete the whole thing, you can manipulate the star.

Once you finish one star, you do the other star. Then, you glue the five points of each joined star together with the hot glue then tie some twine in and out of the joints to reinforce it. After that, you pry open the star to fit in the reed spacer and glue those. Be careful, that hot glue will burn your skin, as it did to Bert when one of the spacers flew out! See the cup of water? Jose Morales dips his fingers in the water so he can TOUCH the glue! Ouch!!!

Okay, so above are the two stars with the spacers, glued joints, etc...
Above is Jose Morales directing a couple of the dancers' parents how to make a parol.

This is Bert holding up our parol. I made one star. The other star was made by another parent. Her star didn't exactly line up with mine, but I didn't want to do another one! Bert put in the spacers and tied the wire to each joint, encircling the stars in the process. The wire needs to be tied and then glued to each point. When he was trying to glue a space, it flew out and burned him on his arm. He has a nice welt there now.

Bert hot gluing the strips of bamboo stick in preparation for the covering.
These were Jose's big-ASS scissors!!!

I know it looks raggedy now, but when when it's fully decorated it will look a lot better! The sides need to be patched up!

Traditional parols use tissue paper, but Jose had us use plastic table cloths because they are more durable, especially if you plan to hang your parol outside.

The wire circle will be covered as will the star itself. That is what the tinsel is for! To be continued...

Sunny San Diego

While yesterday was somewhat cool (below 70 and degrees F), cloudy and drizzly, today was VERY NICE. In fact, it was 75 with clear and sunny skies. Today, the traditional site counselors in our district went on a "mini tour" of the various peripheral or satellite campuses of Southwestern College. We met at the Higher Education Center in National City, on the corner of Plaza Blvd and National Blvd...yes, where the PUSSYCAT porno Theatre used to be. National City is cleaning up nowadays and it's great to see a higher ed. center there that offers many great programs such as dental hygiene, radiology, and various continuing ed courses. Anyways, after touring the facilities, we boarded a very nice charter bus and headed south to the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro facilities. Afterwards, to the Coronado Aquatic Cove center on Silver Strand State Beach, where we toured the site and had a nice lunch. Students can learn sailing, surfing, and kayaking here. This site is slightly north of the Coronado Cays, the bay is on the right. The view facing East. I believe that's Mount Miguel in the background.
Okayyyy, the skies are not so clear due to the layer of smog...Here are some kayaks that some frats painted over. Another view of the boats from a previous shot. Another view of the "mountains".
Heading home on the Coronado Bridge. A shot of the Downtown San Diego skyline. You can see the glare from the bus window.
A view towards Tidelands Park. You can see Point Loma in the background.
Another view of downtown. You can see the Convention Center in the middle. Towards the left is the Flathead Screwdriver, I mean the Manchester Grand Hyatt. The Phillips screwdriver buildings are in the middle. I forgot the real name of that building. The two dark towers are the Symphony Towers, I believe. Or perhaps it's One American Plaza, these expensive condo towers that a decade ago, were hard to sell. Now with gentrification and downtown being the new "hip", urban place to be for empty nesters and single yuppies, it's pretty much sold out.
Heading towards 1-5 from the Bridge...In the middle is Petco Park. You can also see Harbor Drive (the bridge in the middle), the railroad tracks, and all the (red) trolley cars. My next job in life...San Diego tour guide...

Grub # 2

After TC and the group's performance last Sunday, we had a small picnic on the grass area near the International Cottages in Balboa Park.

After lifting the straw mat, what did we find, yet another fkn' gross GRUB squirming in all of it's lovely glory. This next shot was taken by Bert using the macro lens feature...great details on its wormy little body, eh!

Islander Grill & Mitsuwa & Pocky Day

[Update - Closed]

Yesterday, I went out to lunch with Lotus and TC at Islander Grill (you can also read another review here). The restaurant is next to the lobby of the Embassy Hotel on Park Blvd, several blocks away from the San Diego Zoo. This is a pretty old hotel. They've been open for a couple of years. My sister tells me it's run by someone's family we went to high school with (although I never knew her or her family personally). The guy working the counter asked if I was Guamanian. Filipinos and Guamanians share a lot of physical characteristics. By the way, most of the people in the restaurant appeared to be Pacific Islander. There were a few Caucasians but the majority were Islander and/or Asian. The restaurant was pretty small. There were about six tables that seated four each, plus a patio area outside. The one thing about this place that drove me nuts was the Jawaiian music. I absolutely HATE reggae-fied versions of songs. I hate reggae period. We suffered through an Island-style version of Lionel Richie's "Stuck on You" and a few other annoying songs. This was the same type of music we heard on all the stations in Hawaii. Ugh!!! You wouldn't expect to find an authentic Guamanian/Islander place here in the middle of this part of town. Although they do have eclectic restaurants, uptown isn't really an islander hangout. Down where we live, the closest thing to this place would be Yokozuna's.

Armed with a 2 for 1 coupon from a fundraising coupon book I bought from the school's choir program, we were hungry and checked out their choices.
This setup leads to the kitchen.
Islander condiments...the finadene was industrial size. At Yokozuna's, they only give it to you if you ask, and even then, it's in a tiny little ramekin.
For some reason, they had boxes upon boxes of a black tea drink.
I got Combo #1 ($7.95), which is your choice of two types of meat, two scoops of rice, 1 scoop of Chicken Kelaguen and a side of cabbage salad. I chose the BBQ beef short rib (they gave me 2 pieces) and chicken teriyaki (for TC actually). As for the rice, I chose the red rice which is red because Guamanians use annatto (also known in Chamorro as 'achiote' or in Filipino 'atsuete') seeds to give the rice its color. This was a hell of a lot of food and I ended up taking most of it home. TC really liked my red rice and the chicken. The ribs were soft and flavorful. I wasn't too crazy about the cabbage salad. It's tasted like dry coleslaw. The kelaguen was okay, but then I could only compare it to Yokozuna's. Like the AC/DC on the napkin? Courtesy of my daughter. Next up, Iron Maiden...Lotus had Combo #2 (I forgot the price, but it turned out to be free because of the coupon). It was the same as Combo #1 except it wasn't supposed to come with kelaguen. The guy at the counter gave it to her as a free 'upgrade' which was nice. Lotus had a rib (I forgot if it was pork or beef), plus thin sliced marinated beef plus you know the rest.
This tiki head with "hair" was out on the open air patio facing Park Blvd.
Sorry for the crappy photo below. After lunch, we went to Mitsuwa, which is a Japanese supermarket, because I wanted to buy Japanese snacks. Did you know that yesterday, November 11 was Pocky Day? So named because the Japanese see the numbers 11 (in November) and 11 as two Pocky sticks. I bought the black sesame seed flavor for me and the dark chocolate flavor for Bert (they actually call it "Men's Pocky" because dark chocolate is considered a 'strong' flavor---WTF?).
The beverage aisle.
I have no idea what this was.
Inside Mitsuwa are other little stores that sell (overpriced) Japanese products. There's a store for household items, another for cute knick knacks, another for porcelain giftware, a bookstore, and yet another place that sells toilets. I think these were either lotion or shampoo bottles for $6.99.
Oh so cuuuute!
Here's Lotus holding up hairdye with some sort of anime character on it. The flash is kind of obscuring the face. This was hilarious.
In this same store, they were also selling stuff like Japanese brand toothbrushes, diapers, and EAR CLEANERS (see in the yellow and green packaged item). It's a sharp stick with a tiny scoop at the end to scrape out the lovely gunk in our ear canals. Too bad you can't see the gently curved "Eye Tape" pieces. According to Lotus, Sailor Moon uses these things. You paint your eyeliner on these curved pieces of tape, then rub it on your eyelids and there you have perfect eyeliner everytime. I don't know...seems like an extra step to me to have to do that but it's a fascinating product nonetheless.
Ah yes, the most appetizingly named snack of all, "Collon" (I know, it should have one 'l' to qualify as gross). These were tiny cream filled cookies. I should buy some next time.
Toto is a toilet manufacturer in Japan. Read more about Japanese toiletes here .
This toilet can do almost everything!
The crap I ended up buying. Those lychee (they spelled it as 'litchee') gummy candies were really good. They were so sweet, you could smell the sugar sweetness when you opened the bag. Each little piece was individually wrapped as well.
Here's that individual piece of lychee gummy candy. On the counter are packets of origami paper. It was dirt cheap at the little store in Mitsuwa. Each pack was $2.00 each and these were the kimono patterned sheets, not the plain solid color sheets which normally sell for $4.00 or more at craft places like Michael's.
In all, it was a very enjoyable day having lunch with Lotus and my daughter who adores her. Bert on the other hand was on a fishing trip with his co-workers. I'm sure he'll blog about that eventually.

New Posts...

Several new posts below.

I had them as drafts for several weeks and finally updated them and posted the photos finally.

Phuong Trang

This was dinner at Phuong Trang, a Vietnamese restaurant on Convoy, on Friday 10/20 with Bert, Bert's mom and TC. It was one of those nights when I had nothing prepared in the fridge and I didn't want to cook something from scratch, so we made the trek up to Convoy Street in Kearny Mesa to have some cheap Vietnamese food.

The restaurant wasn't that crowded when we got there, which was about 6:30 pm. When we left, however, there was a long-ass line of people waiting to get seated. It's usually pretty crowded at Phuong Trang's on a Friday night.

Here's the last bit of our fresh spring rolls. Again, my gross, dry skinned hands. No matter how much I lotion them, they always seem to dry out.
Here's the garnish plate: Mint, Cilantro, green leaf lettuce and the nuoc cham dipping sauce.
This was the peanut dipping sauce for the Cha Gio (fried spring rolls).
My chao gio wrapped in all its greenish glory.
Bert got the spicy scallops, which were really good. Not so spicy that you couldn't enjoy your food but spicy enough to feel it the next day, if you know what I mean. The scallops were tender and punctuated with the sliced onions and spicy sauce.
My mother in law got the broken rice dish with the tofu-wrapped shrimp. This was not what we expected. We thought it would be individual shrimp, but it was ground shrimp patties wrapped in the bean curd skin. I got the Bun Tom Nuong which is a bowl of vermicelli rice noodles topped with your protein of choice, in this cse, char-grilled shrimp. At the bottom of the noodle bowl are julienned vegetables which include cucumber, carrot, shredded lettuce, mint, bean sprouts, green onions, chopped peanuts (throughout) and sometimes pieces of pork fat (so good!). You pour the nuoc cham over the bowl... Mix it up and enjoy! I really like bun because it's so light and actually pretty healthy. It's even better in the summer when you don't feel like eating food that is hot (cooked hot, not spicy hot).

Anyone got any eyedrops?

FYI... This is the same eyeball candy that was in the "bloody punch"!

Art Institute of California - San Diego

Last week on 11/1, my co-workers and I went to the Art Institute of California - San Diego for their Counselor Appreciation Luncheon...It was a beautiful sunny day and what better excuse to be off-campus and learn about this school, tour its facilities and be treated to a free lunch at The Palette , the school's in-house restaurant prepared by their culinary arts students? This was "kiwi" iced tea, but it could have been anything. I couldn't discern any noticeable kiwi flavor. Pretty, ain't it?
Our Italian salad...Tomatoes layered with fresh mozzarella cheese, chiffonade of basil and sprinkled with Hawaiian black lava salt (I asked the waiter what it was) along with green salad with fresh yellow and red bell peppers served with a light vinaigrette dressing. For those of you that know me, you know that I HATE dressing and I eat my salads plain. Well, this dressing actually pretty good. It was not vinegary at all, but quite light and citrus-y (I dont' think that's a real word).
We had our choice of either Filet Mignon or the Chicken en Croute. All four of us got the Chicken en Croute which was chicken breast flattened and rolled up with cheese, spinach and pancetta and surrounded with a puff pastry crust. Each plate had steamed baby vegetables, a pipette of mashed potatoes and a morel mushroom or two for garnish.
The desserts were really cute. They were so tiny. We had a wide selection. This was my plate: mini chocolate tart, mini fruit tart, and mini apple strudel (the only one I didn't like because it had apples and raisins and cinammon in it). I only got it because I thought it was a non-apple/raisin item.
This was a co-worker's plate. He chose an apple tart, mixed fruit tart and a tiny muffin which he said was rather tastless.
Yet another co-worker's dessert plate. He had the mini chocolate tart, the mini fruit tarts and the white gelatinous oval thing is coconut panna cotta (Italian for 'cooked cream') with strawberry coulis drizzled on top.
This was our third visit to the school and to The Palette. Their culinary arts students (specifically the seniors) work the kitchens for one quarter. The other quarter, they work the floor as servers. The school is located on Mission Valley Road, past Friar's. The restaurant has a really nice view of Mission valley, which is of course, blocked in this photo by this flower arrangement. On our way out, I spied some sugar sculptures...
and a chocolate heart treasure box.
Afterwards, I went to Mission Valley to finish up on my Christmas shopping then hauled ass before 3 pm to avoid getting stuck in traffic, which happened anyways! For someone like me who is used to only community five minutes to work, getting stuck in traffic is stressful.