Anna "you remind me of my gucci shoes" S.'s Profile

Inexpensive, with very knowledgeable staff.

it's set up somewhat warehouse-like, not fancy at all. all the bottles are in the original boxes, with the top boxes opened up. each row is listed by country. many wines are barely labeled, but some have articles and point ratings attached on little wooden sticks.  

this is across the street and down a block or so from Costco Santa Clara.

you can come in here and ask for, say, a borello from italy, and they will give you several selections, in a variety of price ranges, and give you their estimate of its taste relative to the price. they even know the percentages of the types of grape in each bottle.

as Jenny R. mentions, you don't need to have any sort of membership to shop here.

It's a quality airline. i enjoyed my flight with them. they fly daily from SFO to Taipei and back. the stewardesses are very cute and polite, they generally speak english.

flying to Taiwan, this is the preferred airline to take. their rates rarely show up on the comparative websites, so make sure to check the EVA website.

they have two classes above economy. If you're buying a last minute flight, their biz class can cost twice as much as the economy, so definitely book through an agent, their biz class rates are generally better than the online rates. if you are just going economy class, you can book online.

my biggest gripe is that if you book your ticket on the airline website, the credit card used to purchase the flight MUST be under the name of one of the passengers. which is a bitch when you are making reservations for a business trip and want to book with a company credit card. If you book through a travel agent, you can use any credit card, but of course you'll have to pay the agent fee.

they also do a fair amount of airfreight shipping.

this is located in a building in the front area of the fairgrounds. the parking is free.

it was not particularly great, in terms of selection. yeah, it's kinda large, but there's nothing unique. almost everything is just the packaged costumes that you can get most anywhere. the makeup and accessories wall is equallly uninspiring. the wigs are cheap and ugly.

I'd recommend two costume shops over in the san carlos and bascom area much more highly.
victoria's
http://www.yelp.com/bi...
and
natasha's attic
http://www.yelp.com/bi...

it's not that big, but it's bigger than the library near my house, which was recently closed for construction. so i headed over here to see what my options were.

it's located on the corner of san tomas aquino and saratoga, right past the fire station.

one of the first things you'll notice is a giant artichoke in front of the building. it's part of their "green" theme, since the building was designed to be energy efficient. there's other vegetables inside, like a bok choy shaped like a chair in the kid's section.

also in the green theme is the mobiles hanging from the ceiling. they are made of out recycled trash, water bottles and whatnot. there is a fireplace in one section of the library, with couches in front. it's the electric kind, with fake logs.

their foreign language section is pretty large, especially indian languages and chinese. they also have a teen reading room with lots of magazines, as well as a silent study room.

i wanted to check out some workout videos, but most were already checked out. so i requested them via the website by punching in my library card number and PIN no. You can request books and media from other libraries via the same system.

if you put your email id in their computer system, they'll send you a reminder 3 days before your books are due.

there are lots of community events here, meetings and clubs. the young adult librarian runs a manga club, and a video game playoff every month. there's a knitting club as well. they frequently have story hour for the kids. when i was there last month, they had a bookmark contest for kids going on. also for kids, they have these multimedia backpacks that include books and toys.

they generally have only one reference librarian out at any given time. the librarians work in the back, and they cycle out every hour or two.  the checkout registers are self-serve.

she looks so innocent, but she has a dirty, dirty mind.

at a party in her honor, with like 60 people showing, she bitched that she "could've been having dinner with a hot lesbian".

she loves guns and asian men. she also loves the gays, trucks and long walks into the country sunset. if you talk shit to her, she will break your leg. dogs turn her into a baby-talking mess.

her family is from oklahoma, like me.  

i idolize her.

good lord, why didn't someone warn me about this place? i'm baffled at all the love this place gets.

it's like eating chinese food in a garage sale museum. i was pretty horrified at the decor, and i LOVE kitsch. i don't really enjoy eating next to walls crammed with photos of asian children smoking cigarettes, naked obese old men, or orange statues of naked cherubs wearing floral slouch hats. the head of the last pope in a plexiglass box placed in the middle of one table was the trippiest thing in a building of trippy shit. i'd hate to end up in this place on acid. nightmare-ville.

the whole experience was pretty unpleasant. we were led to our table through the kitchen, which has one little table cut into the wall, weird. on the wall in that room was posted some employee advice, the kind of thing that normally isn't exposed to the general dining public. the list included tips to save money, like encouraging diners to not use extra utensils and napkins. wtf?

my laminated book menu pages were stuck together, as if someone had spilled soda on it. i was visibly annoyed, and pulled each page apart, and wiped at it with my napkin dipped in my water while the waiter was standing next to us. i mentioned it to the waiter, who offered to "send it through the conveyor belt". um, no. being as the book was already soaked, it would likely not help to send it through the machine again. he was a pretty awful server, but i did notice that the girl helping the table next to us was much better, she gave lots of advice and was very perky.

the waiter also poured our oil and vinegar for us. maybe some people like having that done for them. but personally i prefer just a tiny bit of oil, since it sits on top of the vinegar, and i don't like having to sop up tons of oil to get to the vinegar. we ran out of oil and vinegar halfway through our bread, and the server had not left the bottles with us, but had instead placed them on the counter about 25 feet from us. the dining room was nearly empty, so i'm not really sure why he would feel the need to ration the bottles. he could have just been absent-minded. he seemed to not know a lot of basics about serving, such as having a friendly attitude, he had no suggestions when we asked for them.

the menu book was filled with advertisements for places like united airways, which was another turn-off. i don't even read magazines for fun, so why would i want to pay to dine at a place with ads snuck into my menu? even the parts that weren't blatant ads had advertising language. stuff like "we use quality ingredients from brands like heinz" etc. Um, ok, that authentic italian company heinz.

there is a large poster on the front of the place that says "meals for 2 starting at $9.95". however, almost all meals start at $20. the only menu item for less than $15 is the plain caeser salad.

granted, their portion sizes are sposed to feed two people. however, the dishes didn't look that large to me at all. my dining companion wanted to order the beef short ribs, but there are only 2 ribs in the small portion (serves 2-3 people?) and 3 ribs in the large serving, which is supposed to serve 4-6 people. how 6 people can dine on 3 short ribs is beyond me. the small portion of the ribs is $25, the large is $35.

we ended up ordering the chicken marsala. it was $17 for 3 pieces of chicken, they weren't even full breasts. it was doused in a sticky, sweet brown sauce. the sauce tasted pretty much like chinese sweet and sour sauce. there were 8 mushroom halves on the plate as well. the chicken was breaded, but didn't seem to really have any seasoning on it, other than the sauce. it was tender, so i'm not sure why they felt the need to present the plate with a giant bbq-sized skewer and steak knife.

with lemonade and tax, the total was around $24.

we left hungry, and ate something else at home.

i called 5 other places, and they all charged between twice as much and 4 times as much as this place. granted, some of those other places would come out to my house, but i'm a cheapskate, and it wasn't my windshield that was damaged, so i could drive out there.

I had 2 windows knocked out by thieves. I called in on a monday afternoon and listed what i needed to the guy. he told me he'd have to go into the wrecking yard and look for them. he told me to "holla back" at him the next morning, since i said i wasn't in any hurry. he expected it would take an hour, since there were two windows. the price for two windows on a 1990s car was $125, very reasonable.

i pulled the car into the spacious garage, and went over to get something to drink and sit at the taco truck picnic tables farther down the parking lot. it ended up taking them only about 40 minutes. maybe a little less, cause it took them a few minutes to find us. normally they said i would've been able to wait in their office, but it was under construction. the guy was apologetic, and offered to give us some chairs to sit in outside the garage. it was nice and sunny, so i would've taken him up on the offer, if the taco truck area wasn't there.

they were nice enough to vaccuum all the broken glass out of the seats and floorboards, even though i had forgotten to pick up a bunch of papers and other stuff up off the floor.

this is a pretty grimy area, with lots of scruffy-looking people going in and out of the pick n pull lot, so if you feel awkward waiting around that kind of environment, you might be a bit uncomfortable. personally, i felt fine, even if i was the only female in the vicinity, so i got some stares. I didn't try the taco truck food, but it looked and smelled delicious.

the payment for the windows was quick and painless. they take visa and mastercard. tax is included in the estimate cost.

best franchise invention ever!

everything here was available on a stick. everything! pretzels, cheesecake, etc. to up the fatty quotient, many of the fried foods could be dipped in a sauce of your choice. the desserts as well.

i really think this idea has so much potential for exploitation. i would be pretty fricken happy if 90% of my meals were available on a stick.

too bad it didn't last.

I like this place mainly for two reasons. the salon hair products and the bra size selection.

normally it's a bitch to find plus-sized bras at discount stores. or even non-discount places. i'm not talking about giant cup sizes. often, if you are 38 or above in your ribcage, the only bras available are in the D+ range. if you are a B or C, they have a bunch of options here. mostly they are about $5-12.

They have tons of salon brand hair products for cheap. Mostly Rusk, BigSExyHair. lots of others too. catwalk, paul mitchell, etc.

if you are cheap like me, it's a decent place to get spa gift box sets, or stuff to put in gift baskets, like fancy soap and teas and whatnot.

they are now closed, the business has changed back to "the coleman still", a sports bar.