So, I haven’t been able to login correctly to my gmail account for a couple days. Today I tried my browser on my desktop at home, and got in, I am guessing because of a stored cookie. Anyways, I went to the account settings page and saw that the secondary email address had changed to some random hotmail email address, and the First Name was “Modern”, Last Name “Mode”. All my old email and labels were gone. But some new email was there, including some of my newsgroup subscriptions.

I am not sure what is going on, but I can think of three possiblities:

1) a glitch in the gmail system
2) someone guessed my password
3) Koa somehow removed my account

I am hoping it is #1, but I have a hunch it was #3. Koa has a way of doing the maximum damage with the minimum effort. For instance, in a split second, he can put three fingers on the keyboard and shut down the system. I am not sure what keys he pressed. It looked like a combination of mouse button, C and Space. There must be some child-proof prompt or dialog box, though, when you remove an entire gmail account, right? And if someone found out my password, and was changing settings, I would think that gmail would send an email to my secondary email address notifying me that my account was updated. Well, we will see what happens. Like I mentioned earlier, I am still able to get into that account on one of my machines, so I have taken screenshots of it, and sent those to the gmail support team.

Luckily, I wasn’t using gmail to keep any really important information. I used it mainly as a place where I send my newsgroup emails to so I can read them all in one place. I guess it’s kind of sobering to think that if I was using gmail for important emails or addresses, all that info would now be gone. Gmail is still in “beta”, so what can you expect, I suppose.

On Saturday, we went to The Melting Pot for an early dinner. Mariko and I both like fondue, and she has been wanting to go to the restaurant for a while. We sometimes make cheese fondue at home, and this was my first time to eat it at a restaurant, so I was excited to see what it was going to be like.

We arrived at the restaurant and I was expecting it to be a casual atmosphere, but it was much more fancy than that. I guess I thought that dipping food into a pot of hot liquid would be a “fun” The hostess/seating persons were dressed in the standard black clothing, and the lighting was dim, with candles on every table. I thought that it might be too nice for kids, especially our energetic one-and-a-half year old and our four year old who was cranky because he didn’t have his nap. The dinner started out on a bad note, with Koa punching a hold in his styrofoam water cup, and soaking himself with ice water. It then got even better after Bay stuck his finger in the candle and started to cry… oh boy, what a dinner this is going to be…

Surprisingly, the kids were pretty good after that! Mariko and I ordered the Pacific Rim special, and got the classic Swiss style cheese fondue to start. The server prepared it at the table, and we enjoyed dipping the bread, veggies, and apple chunks. The cheese fondue was excellent! I loved it, and so did Mariko. After we finished that, salads were brought out, which were good. I am not a salad fan, but these were very fresh. After the salads were eaten, the main course was presented. First, the fondue was a broth filled with wine and spices. A plate of uncooked meats, shrimp, and gyoza was brought out, as well as several different sauces and dips. These were put into the broth to cook, and it was delicious at first, but after a few minutes, the taste got a little boring. I think that it suffered from “crock pot syndrome” where everything had the same taste, in this case, a beef bourgignon taste. The meat was pretty tender, though, and the sauces were yummy. After eating the meats and seafood, we were too full to order chocolate fondue for dessert.

I think next time, we will get a sitter for the kids, then just get the cheese fondue, then split an entree, and finish with a chocolate fondue. It was good to try out the “other” kind of fondue, but I doubt we will be ordering it again.

My friend Tony has been telling me how funny Kung Pow was for a couple weeks now. I finally got it from Netflix and watched it. He was totally right. It was hilarious! I was laughing out loud a bunch of times. They combined clips from an old kung fu movie (1976) with new footage, and added voice-overs for everything. Really excellent! I highly recommend it. It’s so crazy. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

I suppose I have sunk to a new level of otaku/geekdom… I have been listening (and enjoying) the soundtrack to the games SimCity 3k and SimCity 4. The music is really good! The SimCity games are some of the only games in which I keep the music on all the time. The only weird thing is that whenever I hear the music, I have visions of traffic moving along, buildings being destroyed, lots cleared, and skyscrapers being built.

My friend Ryan showed me a story about some dude who recreated the Thanksgiving feast from the old Peanuts Thanksgiving special. It’s great! I especially like the insights on Jiffy Pop popcorn, which I used to love to make/eat when I was a kid. Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Let me tell you—Jiffy Pop is worth trying out. Yeah, it’s a little extra work, but think about it. With the microwave cooking time so frequently incorrect on those bags of pre-buttered kernels, most of us just stand around staring at the microwave anyway, either making sure the damn things pop or prohibiting the black-burn primarily caused by inattentiveness. YOU’RE GOING TO STAND THERE ANYWAY, SO BUY JIFFY POP INSTEAD.

I was looking at the US Vespa site, and noticed this image on the opening page. I thought, “That looks very familiar.” Then I remembered seeing an old 1960 Supercub ad, which used a similar concept. Kinda neat...

I was checking out some of the blogs that I often visit when I came across a link to Dooku.net. It’s hilarious. Click on the button to change the soundtrack. I like the Benny Hill song (Yakkity Sax) and the Price Is Right Yodel song the best.

[link via Octopusdropkick]

I guess most of the country is experiencing the cold front that came through a couple days ago. Last night we had our first “hard freeze” of the season. It got down to about 28°F. The high in the day is around 60°F, so it is pretty nice. The problem is that I packed my heavier jackets away in boxes and those boxes are in storage. So, I am surviving with an $8.89 hooded jacket from Walmart. It’s not so great...

[Googled pic from a Hall’s commercial]

I saw this Aprilia Scarabeo yesterday in a parking garage. I think it’s a pretty cool design, although I prefer a black seat. It’d be fun to ride around the neighborhood on this little bike!