Destructive Isolation

No, this isn't going to be about mental health or my views on how people need to man up and stop trying to blame everything but themselves in an effort to pretend to be a responsible person. Instead, this is going to be yet another diatribe against Seattle drivers.

Every time I drive anywhere, I always notice drivers with headphones in their ears. I've never understood this, especially in today's days where most cars have an auxiliary input or even bluetooth audio streaming. (I mean, if you can afford a car, you can afford a cable for your car.) Having headphones makes you audibly isolated from your surroundings, which puts you and other drivers around you in dangerous situations as you lose a sense by which you can react to a situation. Granted I haven't seen this result in disaster yet, but I've seen drivers not even notice when honked at when they weren't paying attention to the light change to green,  and another driver who didn't even notice there was a fire truck with sirens blaring right behind him. This isn't something I noticed until I got to Seattle, but of course this isn't a surprise because Seattle drivers treat traffic rules and common sense just like they treat anything else: by being a hipster and thinking they're better than it all.

This also gets towards a general theme of avoiding driver responsibility (so kind of back to the first point I said I wasn't going to go on about). With all the technological tools available to drivers today, drivers seem to have come to rely on them instead of actually being responsible drivers. We've probably all heard of someone who was on a motorcycle that was hit (or almost got hit) by a car changing lanes because the bind spot indicator didn't say that the blind spot was occupied. Naturally these things can be avoided if drivers would actually use their mirrors and check their blind spots. The same goes for the front-collision avoidance system, as drivers should be paying attention on the road and should thus be able to avoid this kind of idiocy. Too many of these commercials shows these drivers being distracted and being "saved" by these systems. Hint: if you need to rely on technology to prevent you from being a completely worthlessly terrible driver, you shouldn't be driving. The car I drive has none of these features (nor does it have a back-up cam or anything of that sort either) and I get along just fine.

Reading Away The Night

So for a Secret Santa I'm participating in, I received two sets of books: The Alexander Trilogy and The Children's War, both historical fiction works that I thoroughly enjoyed. I had previously described a book which was probably the first book I read for leisure in about six years to occupy my time during some flights. However, I read these books and an age-old problem kind of reared it ugly head at me.

When I enjoy a book, I easily lose track of time, completely absorbed in the book. Since I tend to read towards the late evenings, I keep reading and reading, and next thing I know, it's already 3AM. It kind of makes it hard to then get enough sleep for work the next day, and then I'll go through long periods without reading a book for leisure. If only I had more self-control over books...

Paseo and Un Bien

For those of you who are familiar with Seattle's food scene, Paseo closed down and reopened under new ownership, and Un Bien opened under the direction of the son of the former owner of Paseo (or something to that effect). Both have essentially identical menus (at least for the important stuff) and pricing, so naturally I had to go visit both so see if either of them were able to conjure the magic of the old Paseo.

Paseo seemed to try to replicate everything as is to ensure the continuity of the brand-the sandwiches are more or less the same size (maybe a little smaller-still around a food) and the amount of onions is still gratuitous, creating the hot mess that we all have come to know. I tend to order only the scallop or the fish of the day sandwich, and so far I've noticed few changes, if any. However, I've been told by others that the signature Caribbean roast sandwich is drier than it was previously.

Scallop Sandwich at Paseo (Click to Enlarge)

Un Bien, on the other hand, seemed to try to start anew. The sandwiches are much smaller (maybe around 8 inches), and the onions are not overflowing. Overall the sandwich is much cleaner to eat and appears to try to appear as higher-class food, despite the shop essentially being a shack on the side of the road. I was a little disappointed in the portion size and the lack of onions, though I suppose they're only trying to maintain the flavors of Paseo without the huge greasy mess. There weren't that many scallops in the sandwich, but they were cooked just as well here as they were at Paseo. I've been told that the same signature Caribbean roast sandwich has much better meat at Un Bien.

Scallop Sandwich at Un Bien (Click to Enlarge)

I'd still personally recommend Paseo if you're still looking for the old Paseo, but Un Bien does bring another option to the table if Paseo is too messy.