Ok, so let me see. This weekend . . . Friday we finally got to see Rob and Jennie's place in Bella Vista. It is adorable. They have done a really nice job with it. And best of all, it is around the corner from Royal Tavern. Ok, maybe not the BEST part. But definitely a plus. We went there for dinner. Mmmmm . . . Royal Tavern . . . we split nachos and then I got the BBQ puled pork sandwich special and Matty for the meatloaf sandwich. Both of which are just so yummy.
Saturday we were a little slow to start. We did some shopping around the city. We are in the market for a new coffee grinder. Any suggestions? Matty really liked this Cuisinart one (see pic).
But the amazon reviews suck! We are replacing a Black and Decker one that was a hand-me-down from one of our parents. Saturday night we went to Dan's for Rock Band and Marshmallows. Meaning that we played Rock Band and roasted marshmallows in his fireplace. Now I have gone to great lengths to compare how I feel about Guitar Hero World Tour vs Legends of Rock. So now Guitar Hero vs Rock Band. I like Guitar Hero better. I feel like they map songs better and the songs are more guitar-centric (obviously) which is good for me since I play mostly guitar and a little bass. I should never sing and I am not that good at drums. Also, I like the Guitar Hero guitar better than the Rock Band one. And I am more used to the timing of Guitar Hero. While I feel like Guitar Hero is a lit bit harder, I think it is a little more forgiving on individual strums. But maybe it is because I am more used to the Guitar Hero timing. I also like the breakdown of performance for Guitar Hero. That being said, I think that Rock Band is a far superior party game. First of all, there are WAY more songs. And WAY more variety of songs so that there is much more likely that someone will be able to find a song that they are willing to sing. And each song comes with a little rating of how hard the guitar is, how hard the bass is, etc. Which is good for beginners. Or people that are between difficulties. Like Matty is getting close to expert on bass, but some songs he needs to play on hard. Though I am not sure how much I necessarily trust the ratings all the time. And most importantly and really a huge deal killer (IMHO) for Guitar Hero as a true party game - The No-Fail Mode. Because you are not going to be able to get someone who has never played to keep playing and have a good time at it (which is neccessary to get any good at it) if they keep failing out of songs. Because in Guitar Hero, when one person fails, the whole song stops and that is awful for a first time player. So while guitar hero has beginner mode to help first timers, I think that No-Fail is key. We stayeda t Dan's til after 3. So apparently I dont dislike Rock Band that much. But I like Guitar Hero better. Oh and we brought soft pretzels (Matty had a craving) and buffalo chicken dip (I had a craving). It was the first time I had made the dip and I was pretty happy with it. It is a recipe I got from my cousin who made it for one of my parent's Christmas parties.Buffalo Chicken Dip
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 12-oz bottle Frank's Red Hot
1 12-oz jar Marie's Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
3-4 breasts cooked chicken, cut into small pieces or shredded (we poached and shredded it)
Spread cream cheese on bottom of large glass baking dish. Mix chicken with hot sauce. Spread chicken over cream cheese. Pour dressing over chicken. Spread cheese over dressing. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until melty and delicious. Serve with tortilla chips and celery sticks.
It was a little wet when it first came out of the oven (probably from the poaching liquid) but it was better after a little while.
Sunday we went to Cantina for brunch. I was having a bad day. I could not for the life of me make a decision. I was starving and could NOT decide what to get. It was awful. But brunch was excellent. We did halvsies on chillaquiles with eggs and a breakfast burrito. After brunch we went shopping again. I desparately needed pants. I HATE pants shopping. I think it is awful for all girls, but for us fat girls, it is downright depressing. Because nothing fits to begin with. And all of the popular styles - skinny jeans, flares, wide leg, trouser cut, low rise - should never, ever be worn by fat girls, and yet, there are few other options. Luckily I had a pair of jeans that I liked so I could just go and buy another pair of the same. Then we went back on our coffee grinder and tea kettle search.I finally talked Matty into getting a tea kettle. My mom always had one on the stove, with water, so if you need hot water you can just heat it up real fast. But we dont drink a lot of tea, so Matty always refused. Well, then he went to Ireland and fell in love with hot whiskey. And so now he is heating a lot more tea. Also, Rob and Jennie had one. So apparently that made it ok.
Monday night we went to Mercato for Restaurant Week. It was fantastic! Highly recommended. A word of caution - highly meat-centric. Also cash only. But the food was excellent, the service was great, the portions were perfect. And it is BYO! The make old fashioned Italian sodas by the glass or pitcher and recommend bringing your favorite rum or vodka which I think sounds lovely. For appetizers we had a roasted portabella and arugula in puff pastry with peccorino, pine nuts and thyme citronette. And a trio of bruschetta - fresh mozzarella with tomato, basil and truffle oil; wild mushrooms and cheese; white beans and pesto (fantastic pesto!). For entrees we had a short rib ragu with ricotta gnocchi, broccoli rabe and shaved locatelli. And orecchiette with meatballs, sweet sausage and broccoli rabe in a red gravy. Both were excellent. The short ribs were the best. Cooked to perfection. For dessert we had tiramisu and a warm bittersweet chocolate molten cake. We brought a bottle of Apollonio Elfo Salento Negroamaro with us. One of our RI 3 for $9.99 bottles. A very serviceable red Italian table wine. I would buy it again if I saw it. Overall, I would highly highly recommend Mercato. Normal prices dont look bad either. And as a BYO you can have a nice meal without paying a fortune.
Movies:
Finally saw WALL-E. It was of adorable. I loved the story. He was soooo cute! the animation is amazing and was great all around. I do wonder how much darker original plans were for the plot. But maybe that is just me.
Charlie Bartlett - This was on the previews for a bunch of movies we have gotten recently but I totally dont remember it coming out. I am not sure why. Fairly good cast. Anton Yelchin (I know him from Huff) plays Charlie. I like him. (I am interested to see that he is playing Chekov in the new Star Trek, I am concerned to see that JJ Abrams is directing it.) Because I am a geek. Hope Davis plays his mother, just like she did in Hearts in Atlantis (A little bit of trivia for ya). Kat Dennings plays the girl. And Robert Downey Jr. plays her dad. It was good. Nothing awesome, but worth seeing I would say.
We watched the Dark Knight last night at Dan's. You know the only thing better than the Dark Knight? The Dark Knight in HD baby!
TV:
Still loving The Wire Season 2.
And Lost has started. Yay!!!!!!! I was very happy with the premier. They answered questions! Yay!!!!! 3rd episode tonight. Exciting.
Yeah. I should get back to work now. Oh, we are going to RI this weekend. Matty's great-uncle passed away on Monday so we are going back for the funeral.
1 comment:
I agree with your generally wise assessments of RB2 and GHWT. GHWT falters on very stupid (but easily remedied) issues including a bad set up of the in game interface. It's very tough to tell when you're going to fail a song. The lack of a no-fail mode and random song selector are other glaring omissions. RB2 on the other hand doesn't provide useful stats on your performance once the song is over.
The other big gameplay difference is the mapping of the guitar notes. I feel like GHWT forces you to move your fingers in more fun and engaging ways while RB2 is more about strumming. GHWT is also harder. E.g. Ramblin Man on GHWT is a song of medium difficult (according to the career mode), but it has the highest difficulty rating on guitar in RB2.
The games' tour modes are also significantly different. RB2 tries to make things interesting with little challenges, widely varying song lists, and various prizes. GHWT invested its time into motion capture of a few rock stars and venue design. The actual tour is far less compelling.
The big general difference in the games is the song selection. GHWT picks good songs, but they are much more focused on picking songs that translate into fun gameplay. It makes the actually playing fun, but it results in a lot of songs that I didn't know well. I've grown to like many of them, but they're just not the kind of classics that everyone likes to sing along with in the car. And that's where RB2 comes in. Their song selection has many more songs that were big hits and everyone would know (and many more songs, period). Some of these songs are boring to play, but fun for the singer. It also adds more fun to wail away on your favorite band's guitar part even if it would be boring otherwise.
Thanks also for the dip recipe. I will confirm it's cheesy, spicy goodness.
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