Don’t ever go eat at Empire Buffet in Santa Rosa.
It’s been open for about a month, I think, and Keli and I went there for dinner on a date last night before going to see Fahrenheit 9/11. We went in, got some food from the buffet and sat down to eat. Halfway through her fried rice Keli finds a pretty decently sized dead, cooked bug. It looked like it had wings at one point.
Needless to say we notified a manager, turned down a free dinner (why would they think we’d come back for free after finding a bug in our food?!) and walked out. It’s too bad, the food was quite good for a chinese food buffet. We should have looked here before going to a new restaraunt.
The stupidity is simply amazing. If even ONE of these people who are suing IBM drives a Ford, their entire case should be thrown out and they should be laughed out of court:
Swiss OK Gypsy Holocaust Suit Vs IBM
Tue Jun 22, 2004 01:14 PM ET
By Thomas Atkins
GENEVA (Reuters) - A Swiss court has cleared the way for a group of gypsies to sue computer giant IBM for allegedly helping Nazi slaughter campaigns during World War II, the plaintiffs’ lawyer said on Tuesday. Lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc said an appeals court had overturned an earlier lower court ruling that Geneva had no jurisdiction to hear the test case that could eventually lead to a wider $12 billion claim against IBM.
The case claims that IBM facilitated the mass slaughter of gypsies by knowingly allowing Nazi Germany to use its punch-card Hollerith tabulating machines — the mainframe computer of its era — to track and identify victims.
IBM had its European headquarters in Geneva during World War II.
“There are a great number of elements showing that IBM was an accomplice with the Nazis,” Sambuc told Reuters by telephone.
Sambuc said the five plaintiffs, all of whom lost family members in death camps in the 1939-1945 period when Nazis killed an estimated six million Jews and 600,000 gypsies in Europe, would claim $20,000 each from IBM for the alleged wrongdoing.
Based on the outcome, Sambuc said he aims to proceed in Swiss courts with a claim representing a broader gypsy victim group and seeking damages of $12 billion.
“This is the first step in a global strategy. We will have a second litigation, if we win, in a couple of years and that will be done on behalf of the 600,000 gypsies killed,” he said.
IBM spokesman John Bukovinsky said the company had not had time to review the appeals decision and declined to comment.
Sambuc launched the case in 2001.
In the same year, investigative reporter Irwin Black published a book called “IBM and the Holocaust” claiming that IBM complied in the Nazi organization of ethnic slaughter in wartime Poland and that German bureaucrats used IBM machinery to improve the efficiency of the Holocaust.
At that time, IBM said that it had lost control of its German subsidy Dehomag before the war began in 1939.
Historians have known for decades about the Nazi use of Hollerith tabulators. IBM has contributed $3 million to a German fund to compensate the victims of World War II slave labor.
Source: Reuters
Keli and I bought our tickets for the 10pm showing of “Fahrenheit 9/11″ this Friday at the Rialto last night. I’m actually looking forward to this movie. I just hope viewers will be intelligent enough to extract the facts from Mr. Moore’s commentary.
Anyone else planning on seeing it opening weekend?
Update! - Here’s an interesting article from Slate that a buddy just told me about regarding some factual inaccuracies in Fahrenheit 9/11.
I’ve had Voodoo Child stuck in my head all day long at work. When I get home I think it’s time to annoy the neighbors with some Hendrix….
I haven’t posted in a while as things have been a little crazy lately but after receiving some emails wondering where I went I thought I’d post just for posterity sake.
Last week was all work, work, work, and more work other than going to Ian’s graduation shin dig. Lots of good fun, food and hanging out with some friends that I don’t get to hang out with anymore.
Friday I worked which was odd since I haven’t worked on a Friday in over a month. But I worked for a few hours then went to JDF’s with some friends from work to play a never-ending game of Samurai Swords (Like Risk but set in Feudal Japan). After that it was a short walk to LOADS of tastey sushi at Yao-Kiku. Then it was back to JDF’s for some poker. Since I lost my $2 in the first two hands I got to be the dealer for a while. JDF also got me hooked on a new anime series called Samurai Champloo which he wrote about on his blog:
Samurai Champloo, on the other hand, I’m definately sold on after two episodes. It follows Jin, a ronin, Mugen, a wandering swordsman from Okinawa or thereabouts, and Fuu, a waitress. It has what sounds like a Japanese man trying to rap in English for the opening song. This doesn’t sound very promising, and is why I waited as long as I did to take a look at it, but then I found out there there was some special sauce poured into the recipe: the director from Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe. As my film-geek friends have assured me time and again, don’t follow actors, follow directors. He makes the quest of a dango-peddling waitress to find a samurai that smells like sunflowers into something that is highly entertaining. The production values (aside from the Japanese rapper) is outstanding, the character designs are excellent, and I strongly suspect that the next several episodes will be every bit as good.
I’ve only been able to watch half of the first episode but I can tell I’m going to be feverishly collecting each episode as I find them.
Bailey spent the night at Keli’s parents house Saturday night because we were going to see a movie and grab some dinner. We ended up narrowing the movie choices down to Troy and Terminal then the final movie was determined by the time-tested method of “Flip a coin”. Troy won. Since we had time to kill we went to Applebee’s for dinner and lost track of time and before we knew it we have 15 minutes to get from Santa Rosa to Rohnert Park, find parking, buy tickets, get popcorn (Keli cannot see a movie without getting popcorn) and find seats. So we went to the video store instead. We’re suckers for a display table and a SALE sticker. We intended to rent a movie but walked out having rented the Return of the King video game for GameCube and purchasing Something’s Gotta Give, The Last Samurai and Love Actually for only $25. Hooray!
Sunday was, of course, Daddy’s Day. We drove up to Keli’s parents house and had a very nice breakfast and a rather good visit. Then it was BACK to Santa Rosa to spend the rest of the afternoon with my parents, sister, nephews and ex-brother-in-law. Had some drinks, played some pool and hung out for the rest of the day. Bailey made me a VERY snazzy popsicle stick, construction paper and glittery paint picture frame with a picture of her. I wanted to take it to work and hang in my cubicle but she wouldn’t let me. So, as per Bailey’s request, it’s hanging in our bedroom.
We’re also busy saving money for our trip to New Jersey to visit Keli’s family. We’re leaving Oakland at 7am on July 6th and will be returning on July 16th. This will be the first time I’ve flown on Jet Blue which, for anyone who has a toddler and has flown with them, the whole DirectTV in each seat is a HUGE bonus!