Vegans

I just went to a graduation dinner for my cousin Seamus. It was at a VEGAN restaurant called "Real Food Daily". Apparently this is because his girlfriend, Lauren, is vegan. No one else in attendance is vegan. Only Lauren.

I ordered a diet coke. No dice. I ended up drinking some raspberry ginger ale, which was nice enough, but not what I wanted to drink.

I ordered pasta. It was described in the menu as having "parmesan sprinkle". I asked the waitress if it was parmesan... Nope. It was a walnut something-or-other.

By the way, instead of making a simple tomato sauce, they put some ridiculous fake meat sauce crap on it...

My other cousin, Darcie, ordered a "Grilled Cheese Sandwich" for her 5 1/2 year old daughter. She took one bite and declared it "yucky." Darcie took a bite and agreed. Lauren took a bite and said "Yeah... it's different." Ya think?

When the waitress was reciting the dessert offerings, she mentioned at least three items that were chocolate-whatever... Of course, I had to ask if it was in fact chocolate. The waitress replied that it was "mocha", and then further described it as cocoa powder. So technically NOT CHOCOLATE.

The classic end to the evening was when I ordered a double espresso. When it arrived, I asked the waitress for sugar. You guessed it - NO SUGAR!!! (What's wrong with "Sugar In The Raw?) She brought out a shaker of "Maple Crystals", which were so clumped up I had to open it up and break off chunks...

BOO!!!!

The whole thing is a fraud. The common justification for a "vegan" lifestyle is to prevent cruelty to animals. Of course, this is Los Angeles... Many of the other diners had leather products (purses, shoes, etc.) and got into cars (and some BIG SUV's) with LEATHER seats.

Moby (the musician) was there. I've known he was vegan, but I've never bought his albums... I digress.

Anyway, the fact that she (Lauren) would make all of these people (10 not including her) go to a VEGAN restaurant seems at least a little bit self-absorbed. It was pretty clear no one (other than her) enjoyed it, except maybe for the (non) chocolate cake...

Seamus seemed to suggest to his dad that they'd have similar food at the wedding. If that's the case, I may either boycott the reception or have pizzas delivered... I'm serious.

GTA IV on XBOX 360 is horribly broken

Better than 50% of the time, if I try to get into an unranked deathmatch, it'll hang at "Starting Game".

I know that others are affected by this, since when it's happened to me, I've heard other people who were just as stuck.

Boo...

The only way to get out of it is to go all the way back to the dashboard, and then re-load the game, and wait through all the intro crap.

Why couldn't Rockstar (and others) just get Bungie to do their multiplayer matching? Seriously. The way it works in Halo 3 is perfect. I know the games are different. I'm just talking about the multiplayer interface.