We sit on a Thursday night dinner table at 15 Craigside, a retirement community.   Three of the seven have birthdays around the same time in September.  Add up our years, and you get 266.  One of our dinner mates, Bob, is currently on the hospital floor, so we went up to his room to start the party. We then went down to the dining room to continue the party. We actually, rarely eat in the 15C dining room, and I usually take-out food to eat in my apartment.  I like to enhance these meals with items like sashimi, truffles and foie gras.  Went to Tamashiro's, and saw this large opah.   Watch this fish being caught in Florida .  Can get up to 600 pounds.  Is a prized fish, with flesh firm and fatty, blend of tuna and swordfish, and rich in Omega 3s. Chicken Kaarage with sesame/miso sauce is one of my favorite lunches. Fish and chips with the latest Stanford Sauvignon Blanc. We have a monthly Sunday karaoke night.  I don't like to use vi...

Those TV shows like America's Got Talent and American Idol keep deprecating a mediocre contestant as only good enough for karaoke.  If you want to watch an embarrassingly bad singer, attend any karaoke session.  As terrible as you might be, there almost surely will be someone worse.  But that's okay, for in most cases, these are the ones who get the most applause. What is karaoke? First of all, it is not something like  Sing Along with Mitch  ( Miller ) and his band from 1961-66.  Sure, the lyrics played across the bottom of the TV screen, but there is no personal pressure, for everyone in the room is singing. Most authorities cite Kobe, Japan musician Daisuke Inoue, in 1971, for inventing the karaoke machine.  Thus, the Japanese name, Kara ( meaning empty ) oke ( for okesutora, the phonetic Japanese word for orchestra ).  Japan enhanced the experience by creating karaoke booths, smaller boxes or rooms, where you could sing with your friends or fa...