A celebration was in the works at the restaurant, and it was up to me to teach the new guy how to cook my special dish. We grabbed a still-live eel out of this large circular tank in the middle of the restaurant (which was quite posh, by the way). It looked a bit more like a little green snake, with splotches on the scales. I put it on a plate and started to demonstrate the trickiest part, which was to insert the thin, flexible tail into the small mouth of the eel, to make a circle. It was particularly difficult because the skin came off a bit, but I managed to get it in after a few tries. I let the new guy take over at this point, and now the eel was albino and looked kind of like one of those deep sea creatures with the huge head and tiny body. I instructed the guy to pour soy sauce and some scallions over the top, and then to slowly lower it back into the tank to preserve the shape. Instead, he tossed it in carelessly and I got really mad. I didn't say anything yet though, because I saw that the eel's oroboros shape still looked intact. By now, it had shrunk down to a little brown, dried-looking ring.

Now it was time to cook it. We had some sort of special device that would cook the eel in its own tank, by selectively heating up only a part of the tank. Any other fish unlucky enough to swim into the area would be cooked as well, but they were smart enough. The water started to boil on our side, and customers started to come over to watch. The eel was pretty big now, and back to green. However, our rules were that no one could view the cooking process. So the new guy put foil up to cover all the sides of the tank, which was really an octagon bounded by wood slats. Interestingly, I didn't see him put it up, and it seemed to happen in a second. I was still a bit mad at him for not following my instructions perfectly, but I decided to wait until I saw the outcome before I yelled at him.

While we were waiting, I set up some bacterial cultures in several petri dishes, streaking samples from the floor across the agar. I labeled them and hid them. After a while, it was announced that there was a contest: whoever could find the three petri dishes with actual growth on them would win money and an iPad. Somehow I was not exempt from playing. Pretty quickly, I found two plates while a young guy found the third. During the scramble, three other guys had assisted me, using some long rods to gather the plates off the floor. We submitted the dishes to the emcee and waited for confirmation. I felt like the other guys had jumped onto my good luck, but with hundreds of people watching, I didn't want to make a scene. I suggested we split the winnings five ways (me, young guy, 3 assistants), and they all agreed. By this time, we were standing just outside the restaurant, in what turned out to be an indoor mall.

But first, the other guys' plate turned out not to be right! I immediately saw that there wasn't my handwriting on it, meaning it was just a decoy plate with the wrong bacteria growing. That meant I would only have to split the winnings three ways (I know this doesn't make sense). I also knew then for sure that my two plates were right, because I could see my writing and the right kind of colonies. However, we still had to get lucky because it turns out that there was only one winning colony, which could have been on any of the plates. While the loser ran off to find more, I sat excitedly and impatiently twitching my legs. Finally, the emcee said, "Boy, I don't know where the winner is...!" while grinning and winking at us. He had circled and arrowed the winning colony! The plate was enormous now, bigger than the emcee, and it was clear to everyone that we had won. I immediately asked the guy next to me - who turned out to be a guy I went to grad school with named Josh - whether he already had an iPad2 because that might be difficult to split. He said he had an iPad1, and I joked that he should have told me he was poor. I didn't really care though, because we could just split the money to cover the iPad price. The other guys weren't around anymore anyway for some reason.

But then there was one more thing to do to. We had to win the final stage of one of the Castlevania games on a handheld console. I had beaten the game several times before in the far past, though it had been on an emulator with save states. Still, I was confident and charged ahead. The graphics were more light and cartoony than the real games, with a tiny little knight in shiny armor. I easily passed the first platform stage with only one death. But then my character dropped (in 3D!) into a long plains area filled with charging buffalo and other wildlife. I made it most of the way across the screen, but had to turn back from a stampede. I kept trying to kill the animals as I weaved in and out, but there were too many. I knew I should pay attention to dodging instead of killing, but I died a bunch of times before I finally finished the level. I was hoping that was it, but no, there was one last screen with a bunch of jumping birds. I had no hope and lost what turned out to be my last life jumping into a bird. I sighed and turned the console over to Josh. I only hoped he could win within the remaining (unspecified) time limit. We were now in the backseat of a limousine driving through a long tunnel. Facing us was a couple, and they were watching the TV in the middle, which was showing the Super Bowl. The score was tied at 14 very early in the game, which was surprising. I remarked that Josh better be good at the game, but I was rather pessimistic.

posted by Larry at 9:55 AM