2/25/2023 - Trying to catch up on my daily activities and organizing my journals, as usual when I started slacking. I need to note that I drove to a plaza on Main Street West of us in Sayreville, on Friday for lunch. Ordered Chinese takeout Kendy's Sushi & Peking Garden, which doesn't allow dine in, Singapore MeiFun and Hot & Sour soup, my usual for testing a Chinese takeout restaurant. Totaling $17+. I figure the Singaporean noodle costed around $13-14. The noodle's taste was not bad. Basically no comment. I like the soup's starchy texture, however it lacks the black fungus as ingredient. So I would just rate this restaurant so so, and not able to dine in is a minus. That said, this is still probably better than the Oriental House takeout near the South Amboy Train station as their tastes were just not there when I tried similar dishes a couple years ago, as if over-Americanized in taste, in spite of able to dine in.
I must also add that the same plaza also hosts Taste of Jamaica 1, the one that shutdown on Rt 35. near us. And La Rosetta Cafe, * Update 2/27/3023, went there and had the $10 Fish and rice lunch special, totaling $13 including tips. The food is likely fresh, but the taste is blend, perhaps they should do some butter and MSG, see picture below (appears to be similar to Milina Cuisine the Colombian restaurant in the Sayrebrook Towne Center) that offers $10 lunch, which I should try sometime next week or soon.
2/22/2023 - SPG Helpdesk dinner thanks to Al. Fine & Rare on 37th Street was the restaurant. The 8 of us had quite a meal. Only Ken and I did not order wine. Most didn't order dessert, I just didn't because trying to be on diet. Although I had 4 oysters (East Coast) from Greg's dozen, as well as my own appetizer: grilled octopus (vegetable succotash, fennel and frisée) $22 value, and I ordered Scallops with Succotash (creamy polenta, vegetable succotash with house made mango rose marmalade, [star anise with sweet possibly honey taste on it on my scallops]) as Entree, $48 value.
It is a wonder how a quiet bunch could chat quite well at times. Though I, sat between Greg and Al, wasn't the talkative one.
AutoIt Script - I finally used this for work. Greg needed to package two MSI files into a single exe file. So learned this tool AutoItScript that I once glanced at, to create an exe file (have also submitted it to Microsoft to clear virus detection - was called by MS Defender as a trojan) that downloads the zipped package from a server, unzips it, run the two MSIs, delete the temp files/folder.
How to unzip a zipped file: https://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic/139249-unzip-a-zip/
Woodcut Art: I was fascinated by William Blake's woodcut engraving art works (i.e. the Book of Job). I was curious about how this was done and rather than hearing someone explaining, youtube says it all:
In Astronomy, found an EVScope enthusiast's site that's quite informative. He showed samples of various exposures: http://www.waloszek.de/astro_us_evscope_4_e.php. I was actually looking for how to capture video, such as satellite transits, but perhaps the best solution is to just do video capture on screen. I could have sworn that I saw some kind of satellite transiting the Orion Nebula M42 around 11pm last night (2/15/23). Last night was indeed perfect, not chilly, no wind, accept a bit cloudy (10%). But minus the cloud, I don't know what's making the sky lit up, can't be the waning crescent Moon. Could be the neighbors lights, especially our backyard neighbor across the street that always has some sport light pointing at us at night.
Slab City, in California, claimed to be the only free city in the world.
$25 Airbnb. Everything's very cheap. "spiritual" place. Looks like they just try to make it a free spirit, free anything haven.