Tag Archive for ‘Los Angeles’ at Tryphoon’s Lair

Tag Archive for 'Los Angeles'

In which we take the 5 Chili Dogs for $5 Challenge

Published

on April 8, 2008

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Last week, one of our lunch break saw us visiting the panacea of American “Grande Cuisine”, the one and only Wienerschnitzel, home of the “$6 chili dog - chili hamburger - small fries - medium soda combo”!

Before leaving the place, we saw a poster in the window that attracted our attention… The 5 Chili Dogs for $5… To good to be true! Looked so disgusting that we had to try it! Our lunch already ingested, we decided to come back a couple of days later and try to eat the 5 chili dogs.

Once back to the office, I rapidly noticed a new appointment in my schedule. Monday, at noon, the 5 chili dogs challenge was booked!

Few of us were showed up (6 to be precise) but only 3 of us had the courage to take on the 5 pieces of stodgy food: Mike, Brad and Myself.

Mike was kind enough to do some research for us and came up with the fact that eating the dogs would deliver a whopping 1,450 calories. Adding to this approximately 300 calories for a large Coke (I had to wash down these things) and we are close to 1,800 calories.

I did my own homework and was told that due to my height, weight and activity (office worker), my daily intake should be around 2,000 calories. So that meal could almost be enough for a day or considered (on the strict calorific level) as a light diet!!!

And to my surprise, we all did it. We ate our 5 chili dogs within less than 15 minutes and none of us felt too bad after it. Well, I must admit that around the 4 1/2 mark, my stomach tried to complain and pain could be seen on my face for a very short amount of time!

We now have to find what our next stupid food challenge is going to be. Any idea please, share it here!

Some pictures courtesy of “Cruftbox.com”

In which I am a little naughty!

Published

Tryphoon

on February 28, 2008

in Tryphoon

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Far from reaching or even intending to reach the level of the Gizmodo CES prank, I enjoyed a couple of seconds of naughtiness yesterday morning when attending Microsoftâ’s “Heroes Happen Here” event.

I attended the opening keynote by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, famous for his gaffes and sweaty armpits, and only brought one thing with me: A manilla envelope (I am sure you can guess what’s coming).

I was lucky enough to find an empty seat at the fourth row, and sat there, surrounded by people wearing proudly their MS colors.

Just before the keynote started, as I wanted to take some note (and eventually blog anything of interest), the same way they do it in the commercial, I opened the manilla envelope, extracted my little MacBook Air and booted it, under a flack of raised eyebrows, disapprobation looks and ushered comments.

I know, it’s silly, but it simply made my day!

In which we enjoy another move and the presence a whole set of friends!

Published

Tryphoon

on February 25, 2008

in Californication

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This weekend was the big move day! After one week of sleeping on the floor on my own, the family was to be reunited and I was to be reunited with my bed!

Thanks to a full week of effort from Sarah, her mother and I, reached Saturday, the only things that had to be moved were the large ones: Sofas, beds, tables and Thia’s garden toys.

My main concern was that everything looked great on paper with regards with timing, but once again, we had cut it extremely fine, with most of the utilities being only transferred on Saturday. The plan ended up being the following:

6:30: Wake Up
7:00AM until 8:00PM: Wait for the Gas man to come and activate our gas account and start the pilot lights.
8:00AM: Agnes comes and relays me in the house, waiting for the gas man, while I go and get the truck.
8:30AM: Pick up truck
9:00AM: Leave truck rental place and go to house
9:30AM: Long list of friends arrive and start loading the truck
1:00PM: Move over
2:00PM: Return truck
2:30PM: Rain starts!
2:30PM: Cable guys over
3:00PM: Satellite guys over (until 8:00PM)
Keep fixing and plugging stuff until exhaustion arise
Midnight: Pass out and sleep for few hours!

The best part of this day of move was the turn out of friends, colleagues and neighbors! Almost everybody we knew and who was available answered the call and helped us shlep our stuff!

We will all remember the pain of trying to move Thia’s new slide and playground, Alfredo’s effort to try to convince me to take it to pieces in order to get it out of the garden and Sylvain’ push to put all energy we had left to get that stuff out of our garden in one piece (almost)!

Kudos to Brian, our neighbor, whose wife is 9 months and week pregnant and who managed to make it despite the imminent new arrival in his family! (Still to happen at the time I finally publish this note)

Life can now resume!

In which my camping conditions got upgraded! Or maybe not after all!

Published

Tryphoon

on February 20, 2008

in Californication

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As I am still camping at night in our new “404 Found” house, we decided last night to move more stuff to the new bedroom. The more stuff did include a bedside table on which I can now attach my reading light, a cabinet containing so of my clothes and our TV cabinet, with TV, DVD player and DVR. Sarah also bought me a little 6-pack, to enjoy a beer or 2 in front of a good movie.

So around 10:30, I decided to retire to the bedroom, after having been freezing my bu** off in the family room for quite some time and was looking forward to slip into my sleeping bag and finally watch some of the recorded space related documentaries stored on the DVR. I hence proceeded, switched the TV on, switched the DVR on and the stupid machine kept looking for its satellite feed instead of playing any recorded content.My sole issue here: The DirecTV guys are coming on Saturday to install our new dish. So until then, I can watch a great white and blue screen and nothing else! Life is so unfair!

In which I declare “404 Found!” and decide to spend the week sleeping on a floor!

Published

Tryphoon

on February 19, 2008

in Californication

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This might be a pure geek joke but after all these years spent working close to web servers, I couldn’t think of anything else when I received the key of our new home on Saturday: “We have found 404!”…

You can see some pictures of the new and empty place in the “prettypics” section…

So far, the move is going well, we have been working non stop over the weekend and have completed close to 50% of the move, our main idea being to only have our large pieces of furniture to load into the truck on Saturday morning but have everything else already there, sorted and placed where it belongs! This couldn’t have been possible without Sarah’s mum presence this month in L.A., looking after Thia and packing boxes while Sarah and I load and unload our both cars…

This however came at a price:

First, we have been going back and forth between the 2 houses all weekend, packing, loading, unloading, unpacking, sorting. Please repeat until exhaustion reaches you!
As we now have a fair amount of kit in the new house, our new landlord, Ed, told me last night that he would never leave the house empty as people have seen us carry boxes and stuff all weekend and now know that there are some valuables in the place. As he managed to instill doubt in me, I resorted in moving in, on my own for the week.

The annoying part in this is that there is still no heating nor hot water in the place, so I have to still go back and forth between both houses in the morning to take a shower before going to the office (and obviously having breakfast with the family)…

The great part in this is that I will finally have the time to catch up on my “Battlestar Galactica” and “Heroes”!!!

Next step on the to do list:

Transfer utilities to the new house
Get gas in the new house!

Tryphoon’s Lair