For the past couple month I have been enjoying the sandwich price war between Subway and Quizno’s. Their $5 deals have been great. For that price, you could get a footlong Subway or a large Quizno’s. The Subway sandwiches included the Veggie Delite and Tuna sandwich, while the Quizno’s deal included the Tuna. (I don’t eat meat) But today, I went to Quizno’s and they had changed up their menu. The $5 deal applies to their “Deli Favorites” sandwich, of which Tuna (or Veggie) isn’t a part of any longer. Also, they have gone to a 6” or 12” format, ditching their small, regular, or large sizes. So, I spent $5 for a 6” Tuna, whereas before I was getting twice as much. I guess Subway has just won the war.

Growing up in Southern California, we ate Mexican food quite a bit. And one thing that I always loved, but didn’t have very often was guacamole. In restaurants, it was one of those “extras” on a level above salsa. Only certain dishes came with a side of guacamole too, usually the dishes that were more exotic (ie. not combo #3, with flour tortillas). This made eating guacamole as a kid a rare occurrence, and all the more special. These days, guacamole is easier to come by in stores, but I still get the same feeling that it is one of those unique foods to be savored. I never order it on it’s own, but if guacamole comes with the dish I ordered, it’s guaranteed that I finish it.

A little late, but “Yay!” for Guo Jingjing for winning the gold medal in the women’s 3m springboard last Saturday!

[pics from nbcolympics.com]

I’ve been “playing” Wii Fit a bit more regularly lately, and have been enjoying it a lot. What’s really cool is that it’s got a good mix of activities for the entire family. The kids love the balance games, especially the ski jumping and the running, while I like the yoga training the best. I try to do a few yoga poses mixed in with some strength training, and then maybe a balance game to try to break a record. Speaking of records, the leaderboard is pretty cool. Koa loves to see his name at the top in some of the activities, and I am hanging on to first place in the Short Run, at 104%. Mariko is leading the Hula Hoop activities, and Bay is really good at the tightrope walking.

My favorite yoga poses are the Sun Salutation and the Tree Pose. The Sun Salutation really stretches my legs and gets the blood flowing. The Tree Pose is difficult for me, but it feels satisfying to stand in that position for a while. My left leg is so much more stable than my right leg, for some reason, although my right leg is getting stronger. In most of the yoga poses, the Wii shows you how your balance is doing in real time. This is kind of cool, but also distracting. I find that I do better if I don’t focus on the balance indicator too much.

I still have a bunch of activities yet to unlock, but I am getting there. It’s fun to keep up with the body test too, to see how my BMI and weight are changing. I set a goal to lose five pounds in a couple months, and I am getting there. I haven’t been so diligent about doing Wii Fit consistently, but now that the school year is starting and the family routine will be more predictable, I think I can work it in to an everyday thing. Even if I don’t lose weight, the morning yoga poses really get me ready for the day. If you can find Wii Fit in the stores, I highly recommend it!

At around 5pm, there is a phrase that you can hear in Asian households around the world: “Can you make (insert number here) cups of rice?” I just heard that, but the problem is that we have a new rice cooker, and I don’t know how to use it! All the buttons are in kanji, except for one that says “menu” in katakana. On our old rice cooker, I memorized how to cook regular rice, cook in “rapid-mode”, and how to turn it off. But this new one is still a mystery to me… I guess I will get a tutorial tonight when Mariko comes home.

Took the boys to see the newest Star Wars to hit the theaters, The Clone Wars, this morning. I read some reviews that said the movie was more like just a longer version of a cartoon, and I have to agree. I realize that this is kind of the introduction to the series that will be airing on Cartoon Network later, but still, for the price of regular movie admission, I would have thought it would have been a little better. My main gripe was with the story, and the pacing. It just didn’t feel right for a feature-length movie. We never get a chance to really know the new characters. There’s just too much action (in fact the whole movie is action) to really get any good dialogue out of any of them.

I really thought the animation style was really cool. It reminded me of some of the old concept art by Ralph McQuarrie for the original A New Hope movie. The ships and droids looked great, and the lightsaber battles were pretty cool. The new padawan Ahsoka was ok, but the new villain Asajj Ventress was really cool. It’s too bad that the villains in Star Wars are so incompetent. They really need a bad-ass villain who doesn’t die a stupid death. We’ll see if Ventess does anything cool in the series. A couple things about the movie really bothered me. First, Anakin really looked like a Thunderbirds marionette. The big eyes and button nose just looked weird. And secondly, Jabba’s uncle, Ziro the Hutt, had such a silly voice. He sounded like a gay southerner. I mean, he had a southern accent, but it was very effeminate. Plus he spoke English.

Overall, I’d say The Clone Wars was ok for Star Wars fans or for kids, but anyone else should probably pass on this one.

Of course the opening ceremonies were amazing (even considering the controversies surrounding the production), but I have been really getting into events that I didn’t really think much about. The one event that I have enjoyed the most has been Archery. I guess it’s kind of geeky, but the bows look so cool, and the archers get to wear some cool outfits. They all wear a protective covering over the left half of their chest (or right half if they shoot lefty) which often has a cute design. The S. Korean archer Yun Ok-Hee had a cute panda on hers (see pic), and I saw Garfield on a Polish competitor. Plus, they get to wear some cool hats as well. The archery stadium is really neat too. It’s just three sets of huge bleachers, with the target range in the center. It reminds me of the stands in the Harry Potter quiddich tournaments.

The competition itself is pretty basic. They just take turns shooting at the target, with the bulls eye being worth ten points, and going down from there the farther you miss the center. The one who finishes with the highest score at the end of four rounds of three shots each wins. If there is a tie, then they just keep shooting until one of the archers gets a better shot than the other. What is amazing to me is that there is an incredible arc the arrow travels in its flight to the target. The camera angle from behind the archer shows how much they have to compensate to make sure the arrow hits the target. It’s crazy that the can be dialed in immediately for the first shot! As usual, the S. Koreans dominated this Olympics, although China did take gold in the women’s individual competition, breaking an incredible undefeated string held by the S. Koreans.

The Archery competition is now over, but I’d recommend catching some of the highlights. It’s pretty neat.

Photos are of Najme Habtin of Iran and Yun Ok-Hee of S. Korea from nbcolympics.com

Mariko goes into the garage this morning and then comes to get me. “It smells like gas in the garage!”. So I rush in there, knowing that it must be from the supercub since I just filled it up yesterday. I said, “Oh, my supercub must be leaking.” And she says, “Oh good, I thought it was one of our cars.” To which I replied, “What?! The supercub is my baby!” Anyways, I guess it is time to order a new fuel petcock as the old one wasn’t completely sealing off the fuel flow. And I need to take apart the carb and make sure the fuel cutoff inside the bowl is working correctly. Either one of those would have prevented the leak.