Today was a good day.

Ok, so as an unwilling member of the legal profession, my prose tends to be prolix. Re-reading my crab house post will tell me that. We've also been keeping ourselves pretty busy here, so combined with my tendency for lengthy posts, this means that this blog is less likely to be updated as regularly as I'd like. I'm going to try to keep this post short and punchy.

We're in San Diego now, hanging with my friend Dave (we graduated high school together). San Diego is awesome. We did some fun stuff yesterday, but that will be the subject of a photo post later. Today, we went to Sea World. You're never too old for a really good theme park.

The day started with a fish taco and a mesquite grilled shrimp taco from Rubios. Rubio's appears to be a reasonably large chain, and I have to admit that some of the tacos I've had at smaller chains so far have probably been better. Nevertheless, this place is famous for fish tacos and that's where we chose to have breakfast. The important thing is that my day started with my fingers smelling of sun block and tortillas cooked in pork fat. That's a pretty good way for your day to start.

Anyway, Sea World. The Shamu "Believe" show was really cool. Even as amazingly over-produced as it was, and with a pretty good understanding of how animal training works (they don't actually enjoy waving to the audience or splashing them with big jumps, or even understand what their trainers are saying. They're recreating trained behaviours as a to the physical gestures of the trainers.), it is ultimately impossible to be unmoved by the sight of a magnificent, gleaming 7 tonne animal soaring through the air mere metres in front of you. Great stuff. We sat in the soak zone so I copped a chestful of shamu tank water.

Then we went to Old Town for dinner at Casa Guadalajara. I have no idea how it compares to other Mexican restaurants, since I've only eaten at cheap taquerias thus far, but we had a carne asada based house special, a chicken and mango quesadilla, and the lime and tequila shrimp, washed down with giant fucking margaritas (way too sweet compared to the margaritas I make, but I guess they know better than I do). It was all amazing, and a mexican dude sang lovely songs with his guitar through the entire meal. After 7, tiring hours wandering around Sea World, and with a giant margarita making me positively inclined towards my fellow man, it was one of those moments where I found myself both inwardly and outwardly reflecting that this, above others, was a fucking good day.

Old Town is also one of those districts which is EXTREMELY touristy, but still maintains a degree of charm. There are a lot of stalls selling Native American and Mexican souvenirs at a ridiculously high price. I, however, managed to pick up a Lucha Libre related T-shirt for only $15, which I consider to be a fucking bargain, so I was ecstatic.

To cap the day off, we stopped at a liquor store for me to pick up a 40 of O.E. Olde English is a popular malt liquor, favoured by homeless people and college students for its low price and high alcohol content. In the same way that port is a fortified wine, "malt liquor" is like a fortified beer. Sugar is added to the mix during the brewing process in order to increase the overall alcohol content. The end result isn't any sweeter, though, since the sugar is converted into alcohol. Anyway, the concept of a 1.2 litre bottle of beer, in a glass bottle, with a screw cap, was way too amusing for me not to try, and I've actually been curious about it since all the "growing up in the hood" movies I watched as an impressionable young Tupac-listening teenager, so I had to give it a go. The verdict? While you don't taste the sugar that has been added during the brewing process, it does appear to be slightly less bitter, which I assume is attributable to the decreased use of hops. Basically it tastes like any shitty mainstream Australian beer (VB, Toohey's New, Carlton Draft etc.), but with almost twice the alcohol, and available for a ridiculously low price in 1.2 litre bottles. Taking into account the increased alcohol content, each bottle is roughly equivalent to a 6-pack of regular beer, so fearing that on top of the giant margarita I'd get too drunk to do anything tomorrow morning, I only picked up one. I'm really regretting that now, as I'm feeling nicely mellow after polishing off the first.

On top of all that, I had a Ben & Jerry's Creme Brulee ice cream to accompany the beer. Sweet Custard Ice Cream with Caramelised Sugar Swirls. I'm in a good place right now.