December 31, 2008

Our Year of Living Steakishly: December, Embers

To get the filthy taste of Guenther's out of our mouths, we took December to head to Montgomery and check out Embers.

On the coldest night of the winter so far - real temp about four Fahrenheit, wind chills in the minus twenty range, we stepped into Embers's (sp?) cozy entryway and were lead into their main dining room. The bar was to the left and looked inviting enough, though we stuck to dinner as we'd both skipped any snacks at the Christmas party that evening.

Embers main dining room on seen on their website

The restaurant as shown on their website suggests a light, open, sunny dining experience, and with the large walls of windows, I could imagine that such would be the appearance of Embers on a bright summer day. We, however, were happy with the after-sunset appearance of the restaurant. Lights around the majority of the restaurant were sparse with individual spotlights focused on each of the tables. Our food and table were well lit while our waiter, for example, was significantly less so. It provided the right atmosphere for a cold winter's night: warm, cozy, and inviting.

The Girl opened - as it typical - with a Manhattan which was tasty but a bit harsh for this ChemGuy's tastes. I stuck to water as the good driver designee. As we perused their menu - available online, by the way - The Girl noticed a flyer in hers promoting a three-course meal option for $33. The promotion was available Sunday through Thursday, and this being a Sunday night, she asked our waiter about the options.

For $33 here's what you get...
  • 1st course
    - lobster bisque or
    - caesar salad or
    - house salad
  • 2nd course
    - filet mignon (7oz, choice cut)
    - some other options that weren't steak
  • 3rd course
    - crème brûlée
    - flourless chocolate torte
    - two scoops of gelato
With the filet mignon on the menu coming in at $31 without salad or dessert, The Girl was sold. I, however, saw the "Prime" Bone-in Strip (12oz) and asked our server what the distinction was between that cut and the New York Strip "C.A.B.". He explained - and I have to assume that he was correct here as I have no other knowledge - that the Prime was a designation given to only the top three or four percent of steaks sold while Choice was saved for the top twenty or so percent of all cattle. He explained that the Prime was, indeed, a better steak.

As this is all about the steak, then, I went for the fancy dinner.

Here's what we ordered, then:
  • Appetizer
    - seared diver scallops
    - bacon wrapped
    - little salad
    - mango, pineapple sauce on the side
  • The Girl - $33 three-course promotion
    - house salad, dressing on the side
    - filet, medium rare
    - mashed potatoes
    - crème brûlée
  • ChemGuy
    - Casear salad
    - "Prime" Bone-In Strip (12oz), medium rare
    - mashed potatoes
The standard appetizer of bacon-wrapped scallops

The meal itself opened with the standard appetizer of bacon-wrapped scallops. Actually, the meal opened with me making a joke about the $14 bacon-wrapped scallops and the fact that there'd better be more than two scallops on the plate, otherwise they were just equal with Guenther's.

So, of course, two scallops showed up on the plate. Luckily, they were far tastier than the ones at Guenther's. And where Guenther's accompanied their scallops with cole slaw, Embers added what their menu described as a micro-salad of field greens and diced tomatoes. The sauce - a mango and pineapple bit - was thankfully served on the side as we'd asked for it because the tropical fruits aren't among my favorites. The scallops were very well cooked, and the micro-salad was surprisingly tasty. The dressing on it was quite light but tastily peppery, and for winter tomatoes, the dice was tasty, too.

Bread in a basket - a few simple rolls

For the two of us, the three rolls that the waiter brought us was enough to kill the time 'til the full salads came out. The rolls were nothing special - yeast rolls with a soft crust. At least they were hot and wrapped in a napkin. The butter, however, made the rolls a bit special. Two butter slices were on the plate, one a plain round but the other a nice garlic butter turning the round dark tan. The garlic was strong and roasted, flavoring the butter nicely.

ChemGuy's Caesar salad on the left, The Girl's house salad on the right, dressing on the side - as always

The Girl praised her salad, saying that the cranberries, pine nuts, and blue cheese made for a good variety. The dressing ended up being drizzled onto the salad, so that marked The Girl's approval. The Caesar salad, on the other hand, was disappointingly standard. The lettuce was Romaine - at least fresh. The dressing and croutons didn't seem anything more than standard Sysco-fare.

Then came the entrees...the steaks...the nectar and ambrosia...not, however, ambrosia - I hate that stuff...

The Girl's filet mignon with onion rings and mashed potatoes

ChemGuy's bone-in strip steak with the same onion rings and mashed potatoes

The steaks were a revelation...gorgeous...nearly perfect.

The Girl's medium rare filet - note the absolutely perfect red center

ChemGuy's medium rare strip - not quite as perfect red center contrasted with the brilliant brown/black crust

ChemGuy's perfect crust on his steak

The steaks were marvelous, the sorts of steaks that require a pause at first bite. The crusts on my strip steak was spectacular. Admittedly, without side by side comparisons of choice vs prime strip steak, I can't promise that the prime designation was worth the extra cash, but I can certainly confirm that the strip steak was brilliant. The contrast between wonderfully flavorful center and dark, outer crust was wonderful.

The Girl's steak didn't have quite the same crust - a bit lighter but well marked - but did have a slightly more red center. Her tastes run more to the livery filet than mine to the more sturdy strip, but she raved about her steak every bit as much as I about mine. The Girl even polished her onion rings off, something that would have never happened a few years ago. She's taught herself to eat onions when they're well cooked, and these certainly were well cooked, complimenting the steak nicely.

The mashed potatoes were supposed to be garlic potatoes, but the garlicness was a bit lacking. The potatoes were well prepared, smooth and creamy, complimented with a few chives. No other sides came with the steaks, but with the steak at such high quality, nothing else was needed.

The Girl's steak, after - she took this bit home for a fine lunch the next day

ChemGuy's steak, after - that's pretty much just the bone left

The Girl's dessert of crème brûlée - split between the two of us

The dessert of crème brûlée was presented with a pair of raspberries on top and a crystallized sugar crust. Once the crust was broken, the crème brûlée underneath was a but more crème than expected, having a consistency more akin to pudding than to the sturdier, set texture that we expected. That didn't mean that the crème brûlée was any less tasty, having a simple vanilla flavor and an appropriate sweetness, a find finish to an excellent meal.

As we always do at this point, let's consult the numbers...
  • Appetizers/Dessert - 7 - The scallops were tasty and the micro-salad very good. The crème brûlée was a bit underthickened but very tasty as well.
  • Steak - 9 - This was as near to perfection as possible without being perfect. Had the strip been a bit more red, it would've earned full marks.
  • Side dishes - 8 - Onion rings excellent, mashed potatoes very good.
  • Atmosphere - 9 - The bright light overhead was a bit much, but that's the only thing wrong about the place.
  • Cost - 3 - We tipped generously, bringing our bill to $120. We both felt that the meal was a good value, however, and felt far better about paying this $120 than we did last month's $60 at Guenther's.
  • Service - 9 - Very knowledgeable, very helpful, always right on top of things and not officiously so. My water glass was always full.
  • Total score - 45 (out of 60)
Edging Mitchell's to second place by the slimmest of margins.

Summarizing things so far...
  • Embers - 45 (of 60)
  • Mitchell's - 44.5
  • Oakwood Club - 40
  • Pine Club - 37.5
  • Guenther's - 30
The numerical rankings fall right about where we expected things to fall.

The parents bought us a gift card to Jeff Ruby's restaurants, so it's likely that we'll be visiting one of those next, but after promising Carlo & Johnny's for three months or something, I'm not going to promise any particular restaurant.

December 30, 2008

Winter break for me

Yesterday and today, put together two big wardrobes from Ikea to redo some storage in the basement, trying to keep the Island of Misfit Kitchen Supplies under control. Let The Girl finish up organizing all of that so I didn't get in trouble by repeatedly saying "hey, can that go to Goodwill?"

And spent the last hour looking up cheats for Mario Kart Wii - after playing the game for like two hours.

This is clearly a wise use of time.

Oh, and for any students reading this, final grades will all be online tomorrow (12/31).

The year in photos

Sure, every newspaper does the "photos of the year." Sadly, however, there aren't that many honestly great photos taken each year. Instead, we get two-hundred-plus marginally acceptable photos from the Hamilton Journal News with like two or three decent ones mixed in.

And then a real list of great photos comes along - from boston.com. They've split their list up into part 1...part 2...and part 3.

Check some of their examples...then check out the full 120 photos...













December 29, 2008

Guard your children well, TL

The Girl is a huge fan of Hello Kitty, but after checking out Christians AGAINST Cartoons!'s website (emphasis theirs) diatribe against the cute little stand-in for Anubis, I may have to do a bit of an exorcism on her tchotchkes...
Susanna, a concerned Christian, recently wrote into Christians Against Cartoons with the following question:

Hi there - maybe you can help me. My Christian neighbor says that Hello Kitty isn't good for her daughter's spirit. I've searched the Internet to find out why. Can you tell me why or post on your site? Thank you.

Well Susanna, I would really like to thank you for asking this for allowing your child to accumulate a menagerie of Hello Kitty dolls is akin to when the Hebrews, after having just been led out of their bondage in Egypt by Moses, decided to mimic their former Egyptian slave masters and worship a calf cast from purest gold! As it says in Deuteronomy 9:16: “And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God--had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.”

It is by no mere coincidence that Hello Kitty herself resembles the cat-headed Sekhmet, the Egyptian sun goddess of destruction! There are also strong resemblances between Hello Kitty and the Lower Nile love goddess Bast. Often cats and cat idols were entombed in the burial chambers of the Pharaohs for the cat had a deep mystical significance to these pagan slave drivers.

Permitting your child to lie in a bed covered in Hello Kitty dolls, you are allowing her to lie in a mock Egyptian burial chamber! This seemingly harmless fascination with these dolls can lead your child down the path of the occult. The so-called “goth” teens who paint their faces to resemble corpses and worship death are also often seen with Hello Kitty memorabilia and stickers incongruously affixed to their usually black attire. This is because these poor, misguided youngsters who have given their eternal souls over to the darkness, know the masked meaning of these cuddly idols. The Hello Kitty, the ChocoCat, The Badtz Maru are just sugar coated stand-ins for Sekhmet, the Anubis and Ra. These are the same gods that The Lord cast down into the sulfur pit of hell and made into demons! Their power, which allowed Ramses to turn his staff into a serpent, cannot be underestimated today.
Oh, but wait...there's more...

For example, I doubt that you knew that...
Burger King Nickelodeon and Sponge Bob are nothing more than three heads of the seven headed beast that the Whore of Babylon rides upon during the End Times!

December 27, 2008

For your consideration

From Wondermark


And from Married to the Sea

December 26, 2008

The year's music

According to some folks, this is the best music that I missed in the past year...I gotta start listening to more new music. Reviews of some of these will be forthcoming as a dozen of them are on reserve at the library for me now.

December 25, 2008

Muppet Christmas videos

The finest Christmas stuff around...if not always the finest video transfers...

"12 Days of Christmas"


"We Wish You a Merry Christmas"


"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"


"Santa Claus is Coming to Town"


The Ghost of Christmas Present


Fozzie & the Snowman


Making Christmas dinner with the Chef


Behind the scenes with the Muppets


"The Peace of Christmas Day"


"Silent Night"


and a moment not necessarily in the spirit of the season

December 24, 2008

Muppet Christmas videos

A bit of a teaser


Part 1 of A Muppet Family Christmas


Part 2 of A Muppet Family Christmas


Part 3 of A Muppet Family Christmas


Part 4 of A Muppet Family Christmas


Part 5 of A Muppet Family Christmas


"Alfie"


"Wooden Soldiers"


"Pleasure of Your Company"


The Christmas Story


Muppet Christmas Carol gag reel


...back tomorrow with a bunch more...

December 22, 2008

Holiday break reviews

I haven't consumed these all over the holiday break, but I'm reviewing them now anyway...mostly so I can take the stack back to the library and all...let's start with the comics...

Fantastic Four: The Beginning of the End - I usually stick to the Ultimate FF when I do my reading, but every now and again a cover piques my interest. Doctor Doom in full on evil genius mode on the cover, hand in maniacal beckoning pose drew me in.

This volume has two story arcs, the first of which is the more entertaining. We open with Doom returning from forty years in the future with Namor and Black Panther as his witnesses to stop Reed Richards from making a decision that is about to destroy the Earth. Distrust and fighting ensue, and then we find out that Doom hasn't been quite truthful - because the future FF come back to stop the future Doom from stopping the present Richards. Time paradoxes and fighting and discussing ensue. In the end, Richards' post-Civil War thoughtfulness hatches a new plan, the cryptically named "Plan 101".

The tale's a fun bit of old-school comic storytelling with big action scenes, time travel, and a maniacal bad guy. It's good times. The second tale isn't as much fun, but it's not a bad one, showing the other side of the FF team, the family, the always-there-for-each-other group.

Worth checking out and reading through...


Superman: The Third Kryptonian - Last son of Krypton.

Last one...

No more...

Well, except for the ones in the phantom zone - we met them in the recently-published Last Son.

And except for Supergirl - who came back a couple of years ago in Superman/Batman.

Or the ones in Kandor - but they're shrunken and tucked away somewhere in a bottle. (At least they are until the upcoming restoration of Kandor storyline/crossover.)

And now except for The Third Kryptonian who's been living on Earth but hiding from Superman and the bounty hunter looking to kill all Kryptonians.

I dig the relationships between Supes, Lois, and Chris - their adoptive and sadly temporary Kryptonian son - and that plays a large part in this arc, but I had no interest in the revelation of another Kryptonian hanging out on Earth and using Superman as cover in case the bad guy showed up.

The artwork seemed sloppy and was far too cartoonish for my tastes, and the two single issues that close the book - focusing on the relationships between Supes and Jonathon Kent (who looks to have de-aged about twenty years between the two issues) felt forced and flat to me.

Leave this one in the dustbin, folks.

There are dissenting opinions, however...and I agree with one aspect of Collected Edition's review - I like the bringing together of all the Superman titles into a single direction. I just didn't care for this story arc.


JSA Presents: Green Lantern - Three stories are collected here in a single volume, and as far as I ca tell, there isn't a single thread holding the three stories together - two from the JSA Classified and one from a stand-alone Brightest Day, Blackest Night single issue.

The initial story - Brightest Day, Blackest Night - is far and away the find here as it revisits some of Alan Scott's early days as Green Lantern - bringing together a fairly well all of the tropes from the Green Lantern (JSA-era) mythos. It's a fairly standard GL fights Nazi spy/scientists in the swamp where Solomon Grundy was born story. There's nothing new here and probably a bit more than there should be as story has more than enough characters for an ongoing series rather than just a quick one shot - the JSA pops in for a scene th en pops right back out as does olde GL sidekick Doby Dickles.

But the artwork is a revelation - painted by John K Snyder. The painted pages are gorgeous, almost possessed with a glow and light whenever Snyder bring GL into the frame, and the impressionistic style lends the right nostalgic note to the images of Green Lantern and his cast.

The second tale - from JSA Classified #25 - sees a more modern Green Lantern - the same character decades past the previous tale's early days - forced to bring an old adversary out of retirement at the insistence of a governmental agency's (S.H.A.D.E. - in a SHIELD pastiche) need to explain how their recovered weapon got stolen.

The tone of the artwork is drastically darker, showing a GL who is a lot more experienced, darker, almost jaded, who finds himself backed into a corner and forced to go back on a promise that he made years before. The balance with the lead-off tale is almost shocking but even more effective and with wonderfully matched artwork.

The third story is - in contrast to the artwork from the first two and the story from the second - bland. The two-parter from JSA Classified #32 & 33 is standard, unspectacular fare. It's a standard, lame tale of yet another Vandal Savage plot to take over the world.

Look at the first tale...read the second...and just close the book before the third...


DMZ: The hidden War - DMZ's fifth collection brings together six issues, each of which focuses on one of the characters that we've met through the series's run. This collection shifts the focus from Mattie, the embedded reporter and main character of the series, to the people living around him whose lives have been thoroughly thrown into disarray with the ongoing civil war.

This collection would make for an excellent jumping on point for anyone who hasn't been reading DMZ since the beginning as little background is needed and each story provides a quick synopsis of how these characters relate to Mattie's world. Each story is self-contained and allows us a glimpse into the street level - and below in some cases - lives in the DMZ.

Nothing in this volume dissuades me from saying that this is one of the best comic series around and one that every comic reader should be reading.

Get it...start from the beginning or from here...but read it...


For Your Consideration - Christopher Guest's schtick - the sketchily outlined, largely ad-libbed mockumentary - has run its course.

This is Spinal Tap was absolute genius.

Waiting for Guffman was funny.

Best in Show was the high point.

Mighty Wind was cute but not lesser.

For Your Consideration is boring.

It's a series of unfunny jokes from actors about actors and movie making in general.

This is a film made only for the people making the film, and I'm guessing they found it hilarious.

I didn't.


Fables: War and Pieces - If DMZ isn't the finest ongoing series in comics, Fables just might be, and here we get the culmination of everything that the series has been building toward for the past half dozen years: WAR.

The series began with an enclave of refugees living helplessly and scared in New York, driven away from The Homelands by The Adversary in whose frightful shadow they continued to live even though they were a world away from him. As the series has moved forward, the tone of those refugees has shifted from helplessness to war-ready as they have spent the past few volumes preparing for an invasion of The Homelands - making alliances with the Baghdad Fables, training their people at military camps around the US, and letting Flycatcher mount the first serious insurrection into The Homelands with his kingdom of Haven.

In this arc, however, they reveal all of their preparations and launch their three-pronged attack on The Adversary/Emperor's forces via modern, conventional (read: guns) and magical attacks. We get two issues of final preparations as Boy Blue offers to ferry any Fable from The Farm to Haven and reveals his feelings to Rose Red and then Cinderella reveals her modern nature as super spy (with hundreds of years of training and preparation, as she points out) recovering a package of high importance for the Fables of Fabletown.

Then, in the third issue, the war begins in earnest. There are initial forays and guerrilla attacks as well as deeply laid secret plans, and then there are the actual battles. Weirdly, the battles themselves are the least interesting parts of the story. After seventy issues of build up, the final ease with which the Fables take back The Homelands - for which they have, admittedly laid amazingly intricate plans - was a bit disappointing. On a monthly read, this war might have been more drawn out, more dramatic, but in a collected format, the quickness - three issues and very few setbacks for the Fables side - seemed abrupt and a bit disappointing.

The wrap up of this arc, however, in which the Fables realize that they have destroyed the only authority in their homelands and now have to take the place of that authority leaves them - and the author - with an entirely new list of challenges, ones that may shift the focus of this analogous story from Israel to Iraq.

Check these reviews if you want to know more...

Watching the Watchmen - It was in my hands at the library before I even registered what it was. New Watchmen Book?!?! - grab it!!!

Turns out there was no reason to grab it.

It's a book of a lot - a huge amount - a massive amount - of the original artwork for the series as well as about ten pages of text about the process of making Watchmen from Dave Gibbons and Chip Kidd (the artist and colorist of the original series). Alan Moore - notoriously on unfriendly terms with DC - doesn't offer anything new, and neither Gibbons's or Kidd's remembrances add much of anything to the enjoyment of the series itself.

Treat this like you would a director's commentary track on a DVD. If you enjoy those and want to know every bit of Watchmen-related minutia, you'll enjoy this.

I found it boring.


More reviews another day, folks...gotta get this one posted...

December 20, 2008

And with a hand up our butts, we sing

I know the Muppets weren't that kind of puppets, but I needed a title.

Enjoy a little foam joy today, reader-people...


December 19, 2008

So...um...

I know the man in this article. He's not a close friend - not a friend at all, really. He's a guy who's at the same party I go to two or three times a year. He's one of the judges of The Amazing Race in Hamilton, which I think I've mentioned. He's also got a really annoying voice which I know I've mentioned, and I didn't like the guy - or his twin brother.

I never would have suspected these charges to be levied against him. They're a pretty damning list involving drug trafficking (writing unauthorized prescriptions), child corruption, sexual contact with a child, and many others.

I recognize that a list of accusations - charges at this point - is far from a list of crimes, and I certainly hope that this doctor is innocent - both for his sake and for the sake of whoever the victim happens to be. If the charges turn out to baseless, the mere stink of the charges will stain him for a long time. If, instead, they turn out to be true, then I won't be seeing him for a very long time.

I haven't the foggiest idea how to deal with this information. I'm tempted to call our mutual friend through whom I met the Dr., but I don't know what I would say.

Don't know where I'm going with this post. Just wanted to say that the story, the reporting creeps me out here.

December 18, 2008

I'm a little behind Katydid


Sure, I'm not hanging in film school and rockin' the flicks every two days like some people, but I'm doin' my part, massaging the economy, finally getting around to Quantum of Solace, the new Bond flick.

I'll be up front and honest here: I am a Bond fanatic.

Seen every flick in the official run and a couple otherwise (Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again).

Seen most of the flicks multiple times - rented videos, TBS marathons, TNT marathons, SpikeTV marathons.

My rankings of best Bonds at this point are...
  1. Daniel Craig
  2. Timothy Dalton
  3. Sean Connery
  4. Pierce Brosnan
  5. George Lazenby
  6. Roger Moore
I grew up knowing the From Russia With Love was the best of the Bond films - because that's what The Pater Familias always avowed.

And I know now that Russia has been firmly knocked from its perch by the new Casino Royale but not quite by Quantum of Solace.

Casino Royale was a tour de force, a solid 8 on a ten scale masquerading as a Bond flick. This is the necessary sequel, and it is a slightly lesser but a solid Bond offering, leaving him ready to be Bond, James Bond by the end of the film.

We open moments after the previous film closed, with Bond having kneecapped and kidnapped Mr. White, Vesper's contact in the shadowy evil organization which we come to know in this film as Quantum. The film progresses quite quickly from a tight car chase along quarry cliffs to what becomes an on-foot, across-rooftops, dangling-from-ropes chase scene. The second chase scene was, for me, the weakest moment in the entire film as the jump cuts were amped up dramastically (don't ask) to a point that I couldn't tell if Bond was the chaser or the chasee (both characters were white guys in dark suits) throughout most of the sequence.

From there, Bond and MI6 begin to find evidence that this secretive evil organization, Quantum - for whom acronyms are pleasantly avoided, has their fingers in a number of inter-related pies around the world. Bond ditches MI6, exploring his hunches and conveniently following a trail of revenge-related leads up the food chain through Austria and eventually to South America where Quantum is fomenting a revolution and threatening the new El Presidente hoping to cash in on a water shortage that they created and that the director shows us ever so briefly with an admittedly ham-handed scene of Peruvian natives searching their village water supply and finding only the last drying drips and drabs.

Oddly, Bond is not the easily to bed chap of the pre-Royale films. He is, as he was in Royale a charming sort, a characteristic that M lays bare for him after his one conquest is found murdered and covered in oil a la Goldfinger's initial desecration. Craig's Bond shows his not by bedding every female in the room but rather by convincing people to help him in following his hunches which turn out - in true cinematographic convenience - to always be true.

In the end, Bond finds the Quantum leader - for this film and this revolution, at least - and dishes out his revenge. He then tracks down the Quantum grunt who dragged him into the organization's clutches by trapping Vesper at some point during or before Royale. Here, we meet the Bond that our spy has become. He is, in the finale only, restrained, cold, duty-bound, and willing to allow MI6's field soldiers to do their job rather than having to deliver every punch himself and to deliver them each as a sort of payback for whatever happened in the previous set piece.

And the last - the delivery of the Bond we know and need - is the glory of this film and its predecessor, Casino Royale. They have given us a Bond with a backstory, a sense of purpose, a history, something that the previous series lacked.

I am listening to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay a tale of two comic book writers during the 1930s who - near the beginning of the novel - create a character that goes on to be impressively successful, The Escapist. In the process of brainstorming the character, Jimmy Clay informs his partners - and the readers - that "The why is the what" meaning that they need to provide their hero with a reason before they can hope to make anything more than a strong guy who fights crime because it's the right thing to do. Their origin - one of the most well through-out and written origin stories in the comic book genre that I've read - comes to them quickly once they fall upon the general character concept, and that origin provides the motivation that the character needs as well as our entry point to the rich backstory that Chabon is providing.

Her, then, we know Bond's why.

He is an intelligent, talented, brutish individual prone to violence and impulsiveness. "The bad guys" (whomever they are) killed his one true love after trying to get her to betray him. Initially he was out for revenge, but he purged that drive in the Peruvian dessert.

Now it's time to get down to the serious backside kicking.

And I'm already ready for the next Daniel Craig Bond, because this is now my Bond.

December 17, 2008

To me through the ether

Two great things from NPR recently...

Very cool story about the architects of the Philadelphia Sound, Gamble & Huff. They've got a new box set out of their work, and I'm in need of a little library hunting because it sounds awesome.

The other bit is from the great show "Wait, wait, don't tell me..." which airs down here every Sunday sometime in the afternoon depending on the station. It's the Bluff the Listener game, and this week's segment was hilarious. The poultry farmer caller plays along beautifully, and the third bluff the listener - from Mo Rocka - is amazing. It's a six and a half minute clip, but it's genius. The farmer disavows any carnal knowledge of his stock - though he does admit to getting lonely - and the final story from Rocka - about Nigeria knockouts, is well worth the price of admission.

Spectacular stuff this week, folks.

December 16, 2008

I get it now

So The Girl went out and threw down enough cash - in full "let's get the economy rolling again" mode - to get us Mario Kart for the Wii - mostly, I think because she could get a second racing wheel - from Nerf - in her color green.

After playing it pretty much every day for three weeks now, I can happily say the following things:
  • The game is awesome.
  • The Girl is a horrible Mario Kart driver.
  • The bikes are way harder than the karts.
  • I hate the blue shells with an absolute passion.
  • The wikipedia mention that the randomness of the game is frustrating to some players fits me perfectly. Arrggghhh.
Get yourself a wii, folks...they're awesome.

December 14, 2008

ChemGuy loves Joe Loves Crappy Movies




Good stuff from Digital Pimp's Joe Loves Crappy Movies strip in which Joe reviews crappy movies and throws down a webcomic about his weekly finds. Check 'em...