Why I'm Better Than You

Anthony Bourdain

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:39:10 GMT

I want Anthony Bourdain's job. Yes I do. I can't think of a better job than traveling around the world, seeing the sights, making fun of people, and eating great food. His show "No Reservations" might be my favorite on TV (now that "The Wire" has ran its course). Dexter is a good show too, but I really want Anthony Bourdain's job. I would be really good at it. Just watch the show, you'll agree. You're favorite sarcastic asshole (me) would be a great travel show guy. You'd watch it. I know you would.

Whole Foods Market

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:54:13 GMT

Got bored with studying and went to Whole Foods Market today, and must I say, it is heaven on Earth. When I die, I am pretty sure that if God has the good grace to let me in, it will be a lot like Whole Foods Market. Well half of heaven... the other half will be my giant kitchen with every tool, utensil, appliance, and supply I could ever need to cook with. I will just run over to one side of heaven and say, "Hey, Michael the Archangel butcher, please carve me up some of that organic grain fed beef please." and Michael will say, "No problem, would you like that thick cut or thin cut." I'll reply, "C'mon Michael, you know the divine kitchen of Z only goes for thick cut." To which he will say, "How could I have forgotten.."

Anyways, I went up there cause I had to restock a bit. I had a BBQ last night at my place, and if you have ever been to my place you know its small, but somehow we managed to shoehorn 25 people inside (I think they all heard that I was cooking... word gets around). Now when I BBQ, I don't do the normal burgers and dogs thing... no way. I have to go over the top. So I made my famous Tri Tip Roast, a beautiful whole chicken (BBQ'ed beer can style), and a few racks of dry rub ribs. It was awesome. In addition, I made a cous cous dish with fresh cilantro, red onion, black beans, olive oil, cumin, and chili pepper. I also made grilled squash and zuccini. And I made a roasted red pepper butter spread to go with the fresh baguttes I picked up at the bakery. Luckilly, I made enough food. We all ate, had some drinks at my place (I made pitchers of mojitos) and then we went to the j6bar downtown. All and all it was a pretty good night.

So now, I should probably study. Even though I am vehemently opposed to it. I have my Aircraft Commander board at the end of the month, and I need to brush up a lot before the big board. Later

JZ

Deployment Pics

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:35:54 GMT

As Promised.... check out some of my pics from deployment

JZ

http://gallery.mac.com/jztank#100008

Macbook is back

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:25:43 GMT

well i finally got my macbook back. It broke on deployment. I blame it on the ship. Power on a ship is inconsistent, and I think it took a surge and fried the motherboard. I took it to the Apple Store when we pulled into port in Hawaii on the way back, and they sent it off to the depot, and now I have it back.

So when I have time, I will restore the laptop from Time Machine, and there will be more deployment stuff to come. I have been so busy getting back into the swing of things and getting all my stuff in order, but I still have managed to rock out a bit in SD. Being away from here makes me remember how much I love it here. As I type, there is a baseball game going on right off of my balcony. I love this place.

JZ

BACK IN SD

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:46:56 GMT

Finally back to San Diego after a long crappy deployment. Its so good to be back. More to follow. Oh yeah, Red Wings kick ass.

JZ

halloween

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:31:13 GMT

halloween
Originally uploaded by jztank

I had a great time on halloween.... I was a coked out 80s rocker. i put cornstarch on my nose and shirt for effect. it was awesome. check out the rest of the photos from the evening by clicking on the pic.... jz

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 02:10:33 GMT

San Diego is on FIRE!

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:13:37 GMT

AHHHHHHHHHHH FIREEEE FIRE FIRE FIRE !!!!!!
oh well downtown won't burn down

Mountain Hike

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:48:02 GMT

Yesterday Naomi and I went hiking in the mountains. It was pretty awesome.

It was a good time.

We hiked near Julian, and went to a waterfall which unfortunately cause of the dry weather, was a water trickle. But thats okay, we had pie in Julian, and then Naomi nearly caused me to drive off the road when she saw a pumpkin patch, which we had to stop at.

All and all a pretty good day.... Later JZ

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:38:50 GMT

i went to the dropkick murphys show last night.... and in case you were wondering, yes it was awesome.

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:25:21 GMT

This is why I don't eat at chain restaurants....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061215/bs_nm/olivegarden_illness_dc_3

Well one of the reasons. I mean not only do chain restaurants make you shit your brains out, but the cooking is uninspired, the menus are usually awful, and they dot the american landscape and turn every town into a mirror image of another, thereby reducing a specific locales character and contributing to what i refer to as "the vanillafication of America"

Holy run on sentence batman.

Movie Quote fun

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 07:00:38 GMT

Movie Quotes...

A. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.
B. Then pick one of your favorite quote/s from each movie.
C. Post the quotes in your journal.
D. Have those on your friends list to guess what the movie is.
E. Either strike out the quote once it has been correctly identified, or place the guesser's user name directly after the quote.

Not necessarily my favorite movies of all time, but just some really good quotes. And I'm not trying to use obscure shit cause I want you to feel good about yourselves when you guess a quote correctly...

1. "I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany." (sienna_blaze)

2. "Welcome to the Thunderdome, bitch!" and "Of course I practice safe sex.......I pull out"

3. "That is a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I have always wanted, and now I have. I rule."

4. "You tryin to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?"(sienna_blaze)

5. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, and fuck you, I'm out!"(sienna_blaze)

6. "STEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE PERRY!" "No more Journey psyche-outs man!"

7. (Not a movie, but too good to keep off) "Time to go home and punish the wife, it's anal sex night at the Gold house-hold." and "Just so you know, your girlfriend, when she was in the mailroom, offered to blow me. True story. "

8. "This guys so drunk he's probably seeing double..." "I have two guns.... one for each of you"

9. "DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS." (sienna_blaze)

10. "This young man has had a very trying rookie season, with the litigation, the notoriety, his subsequent deportation to Canada and that country's refusal to accept him, I guess that's more than most 21-year-olds can handle. Number six, Ogie Oglethorpe." and "Reg, Reg, that reminds me. I was coachin' in Omaha in 1948 and Eddie Shore sends me this guy who was a terrible masturbator. He would get deliberate penalties so he could get over in the penalty box all by himself and damned if he wouldn't ... " (sienna_blaze)

11. "All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I used to think it would take six-hundred years to tunnel under the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved Geology, I guess it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big god-damned poster."

12. "I've been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you're insane? Maybe you're just sitting around, reading "Guns and Ammo", masturbating in your own feces, do you just stop and go, "Wow! It is amazing how fucking crazy I really am!"? Yeah. Do you guys do that?"

Thats all..... 20 is too much

Lates
Z

Air Show

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:01:56 GMT

Air Show
Originally uploaded by jztank.

Lots has happened since i last posted... i went to an airshow in Canada.... it was fun. I had a good time. It took forever to fly there in a helicopter, but it was well worth it..

I took a ferry boat over to Vancouver Island, and it was a beautiful place. Lots of mountains and pine trees and stuff. I enjoyed it. Plus there was a bit of a chill to the air, which was nice compared to the SoCal heat I have been experiencing. Here's the boat we took....

Street Scene

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:46:10 GMT

I went to Street Scene yesterday, which is this huge cool ass concert. I saw a lot of groups I have been wanting to see for a while.

I saw.....
Donovan Frankenreiter (who was wearing an Ann Arbor Hash Bash shirt)
G Love and Special Sauce (who were absolutely fucking amazing)
The Shins
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Bloc Party
Tool

It was awesome.

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 05:43:23 GMT

flying tomorrow.... its been a while. i have been doing classroom and sim stuff for a long time. Hope I remember how.

I almost cried yesterday

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:05:26 GMT

Bad day for Detroit sports yesterday... stevie Y retires, and Big Ben signs with the Bulls.

Great column by Mitch in the Freep. Here's a piece

"So he pulls off the sweater and they take the name off his locker and they retire his number and anything else they can think of. Yzerman has never been into that stuff. Outsiders may not understand why Detroit had such an infatuation with this guy, but it's because he symbolizes the way we feel, the way we approach things, and the way we dream. He was a hockey player, not the biggest of sports, and he was 5-feet-11, not the biggest of guys, and he played in Detroit, not the biggest of cities.

But he dreamed big. And he never stopped trying. And he never lost his humility. And finally, 14 years after he joined his company, at an age when other guys already have given it up, he saw his big dream come true.

And that's what we want for ourselves. That's what working class people fantasize when they drop their heads on the pillow: a chance for it all to come true. It is the reason why there have been and will be many athletes in Detroit who will be called "Captain." But only one will get a "The" in front.
And that's the difference."

In other news great weekend. I need to workout a lot this week to burn off all of the beer that was consumed. Happy Birthday America.

Later
Z

I like SD

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:33:53 GMT

View from up top
Originally uploaded by jztank.

Here's the view from my community room in my building on the 14th floor. FREE BASEBALL!

If you work in the cable television industry take offense to this

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 06:18:39 GMT

If you work in cable, be it known that your company is a bunch of money grubbing whores. And thats a fact.

I love TV. A lot. I enjoy the entertainment that it brings me on a daily basis. And I am more than willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for that entertainment. But lets get serious here. You are sucking the fun right out of TV. Now when I sit down to watch, all I can think of is how much this programming is costing me. I don't even have any premium services and you still try to wring me dry.

Fees. That is the biggest thing I hate about cable. No one came to my house and turned my cable on. They flipped a switch at the distribution center. But obviously, it was a pretty big switch cause it cost 15 dollars to turn on the analog signal, and 12 more dollars to turn on the digital signal. Also, no one came to my house to help me hook up my high speed internet, configure my modem, or troubleshoot when it wouldn't work. But their "HIGH SPEED INTERNET INSTALLATION" fee was 15 dollars. What the hell did you install? Nothing. And even if you did, its in your best interest to install things for free because you are going to suck the money out of me with your monthly charges.

Not only that, half of the channels that you gave me have more commercials on them for your company trying to get me to buy more services. I want HBO. A lot. I love the excellent television that it produces. But I don't wanna get it cause I don't want you getting any more of my money.

Fuck you cable. I hate you. I despize your grip you have on the American consumer. I can understand satellite costing lots of money, they use rocket ships and shit to get that stuff up there. But you laid a wire from one place to another a while ago, and have been milking the proverbial teet ever since.

The industry claims that they aren't making any money. How? You take over 50 dollars a month from damn near every household in America. You should be able to turn a healthy profit with that. But because you have awful managers running your companies, you squander those profits, and then claim that you had to increase prices due to "rising programming and operating costs". Next to the Airline industry and sadly the American auto industry, you are one of the most poorly run businesses in America.

But I will still pay your fees and charges. Cause I am addicted to your product. You're like a shitty crack dealer. And I can't kick the habit.

Z

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 21:27:29 GMT

i am beyond embarrasment. i drank way too much last night and probably caused a scene. and woke up my neighbors.
never again.

Post Survival

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:52:39 GMT

Post Survival
Originally uploaded by jztank.

Here's a pic of me after survival school. Gross.

Lots to speak of.....

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 06:03:57 GMT

Well, its been quite a while since I have done a big update to this thing.... so I figure its time to get everyone up to speed.

At the beginning of May I moved out of Florida. Good riddance to that place. I enjoyed the people... seriously, i will never have a crew like I did there ever again, but I was ready for a change of venue.

So I drove cross country to San Diego, CA with intermediate stops in Austin, TX (one of my favorite cities ever) and Tucson, AZ. Overall, the cross country journey was good for me. There is nothing like the cleansing nature of the open road at 90 miles an hour. It gives you time to think and reflect. Roll down the windows, feel the wind, smell the air.

I then got to "sunny" San Diego. Unfortunately, their "June gloom" started a bit early, and it has been overcast for a while. We have had some days of sun (and I have taken advantage of them at the beach), but a lot of overcast lately.

Anyways, I reported in and went to survival school. Not fun. And thats all I have to say about that.

I then reported to my new squadron, and have been just getting started there. I'll start pressing heavy into it next week (and I will probably be studying a lot and hating life) but until then, I have been having some pretty good times.

My residence is absolutely amazing. If I haven't said it 5 times, here it is again. I live downtown and can watch the Padres baseball games from my balcony. Its pretty awesome. I can walk to the Gaslamp District, which is the main bar area. And I can take the trolley pretty much anywhere else I need to go (except work).

Some random stories of hijinks-
- Went to bars in Pacific Beach or PB as everyone calls it here. Good time. A better assortment of people here than back in Florida. One of the bars, Typhoon Saloon, is kind of infamous and a lot of the dudes out here call it "Whore Island"
- The Gin kick is still going strong. The new summer drink has been Tanqueray and Tonic. Don't get me wrong, I still love the Ketel One and tonic, but I figure I should give something new a try.
- My sister's friend Lisa is the new wrif rock girl. Check her out at www.wrif.com. She's hott.
- Been keeping in shape at the beach. Love the scenery, and its great to run or rollerblade in the sun with a nice breeze.
- Watched every single padres game since I have been here. I went into the park for two of em, and I watch the rest on my balcony on a lawn chair with a radio nearby.
- Went to LA one weekend. If you ever have the chance... pass. It kind of sucks. Too much traffic.

Thats about it. Haven't done much else. I'm broke as a joke right now cause I haven't gotten paid my travel money or my new housing allowances, but it should be coming soon.

Oh yeah, I got promoted too. So I am no longer Ensign JZ, I'm now Lieutenant Junior Grade JZ. Or LTJG JZ for short. Kind of has a ring to it.

So come one come all to the 92101. I've got a couch if you've got a bottle.

Later
Z

Every day is important... you never know when it will end

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:31:52 GMT

My last base had a crash the other day. Here's the story.

Copter crash victim identified
Student pilot had been at Whiting Field for 8 months

Louis Cooper
@PensacolaNewsJournal.com
Navy Lt. j.g. Jesse Tunnell, a student pilot, has been identified as the crew member who died Tuesday in the crash of a TH-57 training helicopter from Whiting Field Naval Air Station.

Two other crew members -- a Navy instructor and a Marine student -- were also injured but have not been identified by the military.

"Today is a sad day for us at Whiting Field. Our condolences go out to the family and friends of our fallen shipmate," said Capt. Dave Maloney, commander of Whiting's Training Air Wing Five. "Our prayers and hearts are with our two shipmates who are in the hospital today."

The chopper had taken off from Whiting, north of Milton, and was going to Spencer Field in Pace when the crash occurred in a wooded area near Willard Norris Road in Milton about 11:45 a.m.

Tunnell, of Anaheim, Calif., had been at Whiting for about eight months.

"He was one of the pilots in the front of the aircraft," Maloney said. "The Marine was in the back of the aircraft."

A professional aircraft mishap investigator was dispatched from the Navy Safety Center in Norfolk, Va., to Whiting Tuesday night to lead a team examining the accident. Maloney said the investigation would take a minimum of 30 days.

The names of the injured are being withheld to protect their privacy, Maloney said. Both are at West Florida Hospital in Pensacola.

5

Sun, 28 May 2006 20:07:34 GMT

1.) How many places have you lived in your life?
too many to mention.... At least 6 places in the Detroit Area, at least 4 different rooms in the hall at the academy, an apartment in Pensacola, an apartment in Corpus Christi, a house in Milton, and a condo in downtown san Diego (my current location)

2.) Which was your favorite and why and what street was it on?
Really like my old place in Milton (not location, but the house itself and the people around there), i'm digging my new place too. But my favorite of all time is probably my old house on Leona in Garden City. Everything was going well when I lived there.

3.) If you could live anywhere for the rest of your life, where would it be?
A loft in detroit

4.) What would your ideal home have in it?
Minimialist design. simple lines. Good home entertainment center.

5.) Can you describe your current crib?
Condo in a high rise in downtown San Diego. Looks into the Petco Park baseball stadium. Floor to ceiling windows. Granite countertops. Stainless Steel Appliances. Very close to all the bars. I love it so far.

Sun, 14 May 2006 23:19:30 GMT

now living in the 92101.... thats downtown san diego. Great place. we can watch baseball games from our balcony. Pictures to come soon.. i have to go to survival school for the next two weeks, so i will be intermittently around.

later
z

Tue, 02 May 2006 21:29:58 GMT

packing up... movers came... all my stuff is gone. last thing to do is pack up this computer. getting on the road tomorrow. i will post again when i am established in san diego.

later
z