Stardate: Valentine's Day, 2010*
What better way to inaugurate the Chinese New Year than to go to Chinatown for Dim Sum. So early this morning I headed downtown.

I had checked the website of Ocean Seafood, my favorite Dim Sum place, and the website said they were open at 8AM on Sundays. But when I got there, it wasn't open. So I found a different place. I found free parking on the street. You can do that in Chinatown if you get there at 8AM! A lot of the restaurants are named for TV networks. CBS Seafood, ABC Restaurant, NBC Chinese Food, Fox Food... naw, I'm kidding. The place I had breakfast at was either CBS or ABC, I made those other ones up. When I got back to the car, it was covered in bird poop.

So I looked up (a dangerous move!) and found the source.

Free parking indeed. As I headed out of Chinatown, I discovered that you can see City Hall framed by the Dragon Gate.

Gung hei fa choi, everybody!


恭  賀  新  禧

* Do you say "two thousand ten"? Or "twenty-ten"? I prefer "twenty-ten," myself, but sometimes I say "two thousand ten." I think we'll all switch over to twenty by the year 2020 for sure.
Digression: What will we call the decade just past? Before, we had "the nineties" and "the eighties," but what do you do with a decade that started in 2000 and ended in 2009 (technically, it started in 2001 and ends this year, but we humans aren't always technical)? We could call it "the twenty-ohs" (like Cheerios only not so cheery) or "the two thousands" (but technically we'll be in the two thousands until the three thousands). I call that decade the "uh-ohs." And considering all the terrible things that happened in that decade, it seems somehow appropriate.

Tom Sloper  /   トム·スローパー   /   탐 슬로퍼   /   湯姆 斯洛珀
Game Designer, Game Producer, Game Production Troubleshooter / Consultant
Author of "The Red Dragon & The West Wind," the definitive book on mah-jongg East & West.
  Los Angeles, California, USA