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The other day my dad was talking to me about how he thought he was gaining weight. We went through the list of causes and we figured out that the entire family had been eating a great deal of watermelon. Watermelon is so juicy and delicious. The flavor squishes on onto your tongue with every bite. And when you squeeze down with your soft palate, the sweet watermelon particles squish around your mouth. Watermelon is a great fruit because of its, fun texture and refreshing flavor.

At first I didn’t believe that watermelon could have many calories. But when my father emailed me this handy nutritional guide to a slice of watermelon, I was surprised. A whole watermelon is about 1300 calories. And according to this fact sheet people usually cut it into 16^th’s. That’s about 80-100 calories per slice. That makes sense, because cutting a watermelon into four pieces then into fourths again is easy with any large knife. When cutting a watermelon, make sure to use a sharp knife that is large enough to cut easily through the melon’s oftentimes tough rind. I made the mistake once of using a dull knife to cut my watermelon and I cut my finger when the blade got stuck on the rind. This happened when I was trying to cut a smiling crescent out the melon. Don’t try and do any fancy cutting with your watermelon. Remember, you can always cut your watermelon so it has the white rind on it and then make more precise cuts later. You won’t feel like an “Iron Chef” for doing so, but at least your fingers won’t bleed like mine.

So what’s inside that 1/16^th slice of your watermelon? Well, lots of good vitamins and minerals are inside most notably there is a great deal of vitamin A and vitamin C in each slice (About 35%). Watermelon also contains Potassium (9%), Magnesium (7%), Thiamin (6%), Pantothenic Acid (6%) and small amounts of other vitamins and minerals. Some researches say that watermelon can increase libido. But I’d have to say you’ll need to judge that for yourself.

Now these numbers may not seem much but when you take into account that the deliciousness of watermelon makes you want to eat slice after slice, you may actually be getting a great deal of nutritional value.

So are the calories in watermelon enough to make someone fat? That’s doubtful, watermelon doesn’t have any fat or saturated fat so all the calories are coming from natural sugar. This sugar can be burned off easily by anyone who has a non-sedentary lifestyle. But if you do find yourself sitting around a lot, you might want to reconsider eating slice after slice of watermelon, and replace it with a less sugary food like celery.

I recommend people who live in Southern California to try watermelon from Bristol Farms. This company provides their watermelons at an expensive price, but the flavor is oftentimes unmatched by other local groceries. Bristol Farms’ watermelons are also the usually the right shape and size and have few blemishes. A close second to Bristol Farms’ watermelons would be Trader Joe’s. A watermelon at Trader Joe’s is significantly cheaper than at Bristol Farms and the quality may not be exactly on par, but at least you can eat a watermelon from Trader Joe’s and not eat a face-full of rind every time you take a bite.

Speaking of Trader Joes, you might want to try watermelon juice from Trader Joes. The juice is extremely refreshing and comes in one of those containers that you’d expect to see if you were going to buy one of those “Red Machine” or “Vanilla Almondo” drinks.

Overall watermelons are fun and tasty fruits and I’d recommend them to anyone who enjoys a juicy good time.

Tokyo Delves Sushi Bar

5239 Lankershim Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91601

Last night I had the pleasure of going to Tokyo Delves Sushi Bar and Restaurant in North Hollywood, California. I was celebrating a friend’s birthday and successfully graduating from Pharmacy School. The sushi bar experience was extensive and it began outside waiting in line.

As I approached the exterior of the Tokyo Delves Sushi Bar, I saw a brightly lit neon façade of multiple colors. The sign made the sushi bar easy to find from the street in my car. I was able to park on the other side of Lankershim in a metered parking spot. But since it was after 6PM I didn’t have to feed the meter.

I talked with the bouncers who said that I needed to wait for my party to arrive. So I waited behind the red fabric tape. It reminded me of waiting to get inside a club. This was curious because when I talked with my friend I had the impression that the Tokyo Delves was just a restaurant, boy was I in for a surprise!

Everyone around me got carded except me, I guess my beard gave me away that I was over 21. The bouncer said, “You’re all good. We only card if you look under 25.” That made me feel good because usually I get carded all the time. After all my friends got to there one friend said that he and his girlfriend might not get let in because they were wearing sandal flip flops. So let that be a lesson that Tokyo Delves Sushi Bar may enforce a footwear dress code.

As we entered the Sushi Bar we were greeted by the staff that was cheering and yelling and giving everyone high fives as we entered. I knew I was in for a wild night. We were seated at a table for 14 and the waiter was wearing a bandanna and a long metal chain around his neck. He looked cool. To the table behind us, there was a waitress who was dancing with her hands up in the air and getting freaky trying to pump up the energy of the patrons. It worked. The people at the table started screaming riotously.

The waiter then encouraged everyone to take sake bombs. I don’t drink but I know how they work. The beer was in little mini wooden kegs (well, they were plastic, but they looked like wood).  First, you take a mug and fill it half way with Japanese beer. Then you take two chopsticks and put them about an inch apart on top of your mug. Next you take a shot of sake and put it on top. At this point your sake bomb should look like the picture. Finally, the waiter saw that I wasn’t setting up my sake bomb and he asked, “What’s up?”  I told him that I didn’t drink and he said, “Ok, I’ll get you a coke. But when I yell ‘sake’ you still have to yell ‘bomb’ got it?” I agreed and we all chanted along with the waiter as we slammed on the table and the hot sake fell into the mug. Everyone drank up and beer and sake got everywhere. But that was ok, because Tokyo Delves supplied us with blue towels to wipe up the table.

The sushi menu was pretty good. There was a small selection of nigiri (single slices of fish on top of white rice) sushi. But there were 4 different types of sushi family style platters of rolls to choose from. This made the ordering process go faster. None of us tried the cooked meat dishes like teriyaki chicken but they had that available for order.

In between ordering and getting our food. There was a lot of music and dancing. Girls from other tables danced with me and that was fun. Our birthday girl was encouraged to stand on her chair and have a dance-off contest to see if she could win a Sapporo T-Shirt. She didn’t win the shirt be she made it to the finals for the dance contest and that made my friend happy. The bartender did a great version of N-Sync lip singing and the rest of the staff kept the energy and fun up the entire night.

When we got our food it tasted good. I was surprised because I expected the sushi to taste like trash because of how the restaurant focused so much on entertainment. But I was surprised. The slices of fish were generously sized and my only complaint was that they only included a tiny bit of wasabi (wasabi is a Japanese style horseradish that is quite spicy).

After dinner there was a big performance of the waiters and bartenders doing songs and rocking out to the music. Everything was USA stars and strips inspired so the music and dress had a very patriotic theme. There was even a Jimi Hendrix impersonation with guitar playing on an inflatable toy. Overall the experience was very entertaining, and the price for my dinner was $30 since I didn’t drink and $50 per person for the people who did. The dinner and entertainment was about 2 hours and everyone seemed to have a good time. I would recommend Tokyo Delves Sushi Bar for anyone who wanted to party it up BIGTIME while having their sushi. If you are looking for a relaxing place to have sushi with your parents, this place isn’t for you. But if you want to drink and celebrate and dance on your chair, Tokyo Delves provides to perfect atmosphere for unbridled fun.

I have been using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) programs for years, and for the most part they are all the same. The average FTP client enables users to communicate to a FTP host either via a network or the internet. They all have similar functionalities: A place to enter an IP (Internet Protocol) address, upload and download functionality as well as certain perks like an address book, to store IP addresses and passwords so you don’t have to enter them every time.

Flash FXP

But Flash FXP by iniCom Networks is by far one of the best FTP programs out there. I have used Bulletproof FTP, Cute FTP and Cyberduck for Mac and Flash FXP stands apart. The main reason why I love Flash FXP is because it is extremely fast at sending commands to the FTP host. The easy to use interface allows users to quickly assess what Flash FXP is doing at the time. This permits the user to assess if there are any connection issues and login/password problems.

Flash FXP is also extremely compatible with different FTP hosts. This program will let you talk to your website, friends computer that is overseas or even an XBOX with the proper software installed. The program also has an extensive “Site Manager” feature which is similar to Cyberduck’s “keychain.”

Flash FXP GUI

The Site Manager allows the user to store information for different FTP hosts and keep them organized for quick access. The site manager is easy to use and looks like windows explorer. Overall Flash FXP’s GUI (Graphical User Interface) is well laid out and efficient.

I definitely recommend Flash FXP for windows users. It even has windows vista compatibility for Flash FXP version 3.6!

So in another post I mentioned that I was writing a book. Well every hand written book needs parchment. I decided to write the story on Cambridge 70 sheet writing pads by Mead. The writing pads are spiral bound and they are much more durable than a standard college spiral notebook.

The pads have the best features of a spiral bound notebook and a legal writing pad all in one. The Cambridge Writing Pads are sturdy. They have thin glossy cardboard covers, with sturdy cardboard backs. (The cardboard back works surprisingly well as an optical mouse pad.) The paper itself is yellow like a legal pad, but the quality of the paper is remarkably better. Each page turns easily and has the weight of two standard legal pad pages. The pages have 28 lines and are of legal length. They also have nice margins for writing notes or quick ideas. I used the margins for writing down chapter ideas and plot direction when they would pop into my mind. The margins were very useful for keeping track of new ideas without interrupting the flow of dialogue or narration.

At the top of the pages, the pads have medium strength metal spirals for keeping the thing together. I own four of these Cambridge 70 sheet writing pads by Mead and not one of them have uncoiled on me. No the spirals are quite strong and are able to withstand regular daily punishment of coming in and out of a backpack. In between the metal spiral and the rest of the page, there is perforation. This allows the writer to rip a page off the pad cleanly. I didn’t use this option very much, but when I did, the page did tear quite nicely.