When I met Bằc at the Velvet Tango Room a few months ago, he said that his goal was to create a place where you can get an appetizer, a drink and a dinner for around $20. He did a good job. The menu is structured in such a way that you’ve got an array of options that meets this goal, and an equal array for a diner who wants to shell out a bit more. There’s even a custom cocktail menu (most run around $7), and $2 PBR’s that are $1.50 during happy hour.

I wanted to get everything on the menu, but whittled it down to the Banh Mi sandwich ($8) or the pad thai ($11). The Banh Mi sandwich sounds delicious, so I’ll get that next time I go there. I got the pad thai, “family-hot”, and since Bằc’s family is in the kitchen making the food, this was hot. Also, since Bằc’s family is in the kitchen, the hotness was such that it enhanced rather than overpowered the flavor of the pad thai. The spring roll appetizer ($5) was also amazing. Fried just enough, but not greasy, the internal bits were chopped finely enough that you didn’t pull them all out when you took a bite, and the roll had enough tensile strength that it didn’t disintegrate once one end was bitten off.

Look, I can’t emphasize enough that Bằc’s family is in the kitchen making the food. So we’re talking generations-old family recipes here.

Since today is Chinese New Year, we were even served complimentary coconut jien duy (a sesame seed dumpling) after dinner.

Bằc hits all of the restaurant sweet spots. Go there.

What used to be my favorite font is now played out (or has been and I’m just now noticing). I still like Eric Gill’s work, though. And by work I don’t mean the fact that he slept with his sisters, daughters and family dog. I mean his typefaces, woodblock prints and sculpture.

No one slept well last night, or the night before, except for people who were drunk or are usually insomniac. Yesterday, I had to literally sit on Abraham in order to get him clothed, no one had a good day at work, and a vacant house owned by an absentee predatory loan scammer exploded and damaged fifty-five other homes, and displaced fifteen families.

Today I was verbally abused by a crazy black woman on the bus who nearly sat on me, and then accused me of trying to run her over. She referred to every black person as an animal and every white person as a dirty human. All at the top of her lungs.

However, I just gave blood and now I’m eating leftover chili and a peanut butter sandwich at home.

It’s going to be a challenge, but I always rise to those. I’ve not exercised my math muscles in a decade, so I expect there will be some necessary cobweb-blowing in the first weeks.

• Let’s be clear
• Make no mistake

I don’t believe this is confirmation bias. They’re used in the same rhetorical contexts, for the most part. It’s a subconscious sign that the person speaking or writing has a deep respect for (and very likely looks up to) the President.

Personally, I like it when he talks about teachable moments, when he’s dealing with thorny but morally important issues. I don’t know that I always agree with what he defines as a teachable moment, but I certainly appreciate the sentiment that there are times when it is important to learn a lesson, and to let the moment teach that lesson to you. Your reaction to that moment provides something you can teach yourself, and then others. It’s a good mechanism for thoughtful living.

Personally, the new decade hasn’t started out much better. On New Year’s Eve, Bram was sick. On New Year’s Day I came down with the same thing and lost 7 pounds in 36 hours, probably should have gone to the hospital, and spent the next 3 days hobbling about like an old man. During this time Debbie’s brother got whatever it was. And the babysitter, and the babysitter’s husband, and another kid she watches, and that kid’s parents.

So Tuesday I feel up to going to work. I put on my dress shirt and lo, a tear in the left elbow. What the hell? Whatever. I put on another dress shirt and lo, a tear in the left elbow. What the fuck? Whatever. I put on a sweater and go to work. While walking to the bus stop, I get a call to find out that my uncle’s father died the night before. He wasn’t blood kin, but he might as well have been. 92 years old, a great and good man, a patriarch of the 20th century.

So enough of the crap from the last decade.

It’s toddler logic, like the time I asked Mom to name everything that began with the letter m. Hey, Mom begins with m doesn’t it? She must know everything else that begins with m then.

• 4 batches of Art of Darkness Brownies
• 3 batches of chocolate-dipped pretzel rods
• 12 pounds of fudge (soon to be 16)
• 4 batches of 7-layer bars
• a dozen Best of 2009 CDs

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