Dark in the city. Night is a wire.

Dark in the city, night is a wire.
Steam in the subway, earth is afire.
Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo.

Tonight, Fosco and Oz finally decided to graduate themselves from Rock Band to Rock Band 2 (it may have had something to do with Molly Hatchet avoidance). One of the first songs that you have access to in RB2 is Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf." Admittedly, this song (like most 80s pop) is not an obvious choice for a game like Rock Band. Nor is the drum line particularly complicated. However, believe me when I tell you that, for Fosco, it was pure joy. "Hungry Like the Wolf" is one of the first pop songs that Fosco ever loved. And for three minutes, playing fake drums, Fosco felt like he was nine years old again. It was wonderful.

Did you know that "Hungry Like the Wolf" was composed and recorded all in one afternoon? That's called genius, my friends.

The Last Night of 2008

As predicted, Fosco and Oz did nothing particularly sexy or exciting for New Year's Eve. Well, unless you count a quick trip to Target (neither do we).

But seriously, while our plans were low-key, it was actually just right. We started the evening with dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants (we eat there a couple of times a month), Barracuda. Although the original location is in The Castro, Fosco and Oz much prefer the less-hip, less-crowded branch at California's Most Filipino Mall in Daly City (it's also like 5 minutes from Oz's apartment).

Barracuda is a sushi restaurant, but it's more like Sushi 2.0 than regular sushi. Sushi 2.0, in Fosco's reckoning, is sushi that uses the standard roll (Maki-zushi) as a starting point (or blank canvas) for the addition of different (not always Japanese) ingredients, sauces, cooking techniques, etc. So when you see traditional rolls buried under slices of avocado, or covered with sauce, or battered and fried, that's Sushi 2.0.

Because it was NYE, Fosco and Oz decided to eat a little more than usual. We ordered the "Lollipop Scallops" as an appetizer. Those are fried scallops on sticks, resting on a bed of mashed potatoes. That orange sauce is tobiko mayo.

We'd never tried these before, but it was NYE! Fosco liked them better than did Oz, but Fosco is much more of a scallop fan.

We opted for four different rolls. Here are two of them. On the right is a standard spicy hamachi roll. Mmmm. On the left is something called the "Geisha Roll" (as if you couldn't tell that by the parasol). I don't really remember what is in it (spicy tuna? unagi? something green?), but it has white tuna and roe on the top. Also, there is some kind of vinegar sauce.

And yes, Fosco is wearing that shirt you see in the background. What can I say? It was New Year's Eve.

Fosco enjoys even more these two rolls. On the left, we have a shrimp tempura roll topped with avocado and tuna. On the right, we have Fosco's favorite "Volcano Roll": a spicy tuna roll batter-dipped and fried, then topped with tobiko mayo and mango-jalapeno salsa. Yum!

This was an excellent mini-celebration for NYE, even though (as always), we were hungry again two hours later.

When we got back to Oz's pad, we had several hours until midnight. We killed that but good with Mario Kart (yes, there is also a Wii at Oz's place) and Rock Band! In Rock Band, Fosco and Oz finally managed to conquer "Enter Sandman" (and by "conquer," I mean "scrape through by the skin of our teeth"). We also spent some time doing tatts on our avatars. Our band name is "Fosco Lives" (sigh--unoriginal, I know). Oz plays guitar and his avatar has the word "FOSCO" tattooed on the underside of his right forearm and the word "LIVES" in the same place on his left forearm. Oh, and each word is centered along the blade of a sword tattoo! It rox! Fosco's drummer avatar (named "Dark Oates," because he's kind of a goth drummer) now has a bloody handprint tattooed on left pectoral. It is hella sexy, let me tell you.

At midnight, we broke out the bubbly (although sadly, we had to drink it in double old-fashioned glasses).

There is nothing like drinking a bottle of good champagne at midnight to make the New Year seem bright and promising. And there's nothing like a January 1 morning headache to remind you that you're too old to be drinking that much.

So happy New Year once again, my dear friends and faithful readers. I hope your NYE was just as much fun (or more!) than ours.

What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?

The Year was Old that day. That patient Year had lived through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active happiness, itself, but messenger of many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in peace.
Charles Dickens, "The Chimes"

The recent reader of Fosco Lives! can be forgiven for thinking that Fosco is leading a jetset life (and we all know that kind of life is gonna kill you). However, the answer to Ella's question that titles this post is unfortunately not that exciting.

For Fosco at his current age, New Year's Eve is a lot like Halloween: it seems like it ought to be a lot of fun, but no exciting plans ever materialize. Just as Fosco never gets invited to crazy Halloween costume parties, he also never gets invited to any jazz and champagne galas in luxury penthouse suites. In fact, most of Fosco's recent NYE's have been disappointing or completely pathetic. Even when Fosco seems to be enjoying a First Night, bad things end up happening.

Case in point: last year when Fosco was visiting Snow Town, he went to a lovely party at the lair of the BeeMaster and BeeMistress. There was much jollity and not a small amount of Rock Band. How could that go wrong? Well, it turns out that several of Fosco's (now former) friends decided to make a complete fool out of him in front of most of the rest of the partygoers (which Fosco did not realize until he was told several days later). Fosco doesn't forgive that kind of thing (file under: people I no longer talk to), which means he's glad to be staying in the Bay Area this New Year's Eve. However, there is still the problem of plans for the last night of 2008.

At this point, it looks like Fosco and Oz will be spending the evening... playing Rock Band 2. For one thing, there is the vexed matter of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" to deal with (N.B., it is impossible to play). Plus, both Fosco and Oz have purchased some rockin' clothes for their avatars that have not yet been worn. So there will probably be some costume changes and definitely some hair-dyeing. And, come to think of it, there is a Jimmy Eat World song that we still haven't played. And we'll probably pet our kitty, Isis, some of the time. Maybe we'll get takeout from Chipotle.

This all will be fun, of course. And Fosco is very excited to spend his first NYE with Oz. But at the same time, there is part of Fosco that would like to do something unusual to celebrate the beginning of 2009. Like go for a zeppelin ride! Or dance naked at a bowling alley! Or smoke meth and go swimming in SF Bay!