July 26th thru the 28th, 2006

Wednesday July 26th, 2006

Brasa featured fine American cuisine, with decently prepared portions with nouvelle presentation, but nothing terribly special. And that's the thing-- when you pay 30 dollars for a 4 oz piece of beef, you expect it to sing. Then again, as I've always said, food quality starts at about 6 dollars a plate, gets better as you go up to about 16 dollars a plate, and after 20 dollars or so, you are no longer paying for food quality, you're paying for something else.

But where the money disappoints at fine dining restaurant in terms of food, at least they knows how to make a nice atmosphere. Brasa was relaxing and sophisticated at the same time. The waitstaff were attentive without being intrusive. And though I am no wine connoisseur, I gleaned that they had an excellent selection.

All told, I would not necessarily dissuade someone from going to Brasa, unless they want me to recommend a truly excellent restaurant. I am glad I went, for knowledge of the place alone, but I probably won’t go back unless someone really wants me there. That's what friends are for.

Kickball
Kickball was last night, and alas, we lost. 9-3, thanks in part to bases-loaded homerun-- the guy couldn't have kicked it better, right down the first base line, all the way to the fence. I got one base once and managed to get all the way around, and on defense I pitched 4 innings, and only let in one walk, and managed to make the short-kick plays to first and third almost as often as I screwed them up.

But for me, the best part of the game was playing with the GF. You shoulda seen her. She got to base on her first at-bat. You have no idea how hard it is for a neophyte to do that. And she, too, made it all the way around and scored a run! I tell you, it was truly the best part of my weekend. And I had a great weekend! I can't wait to play with her again, if she will. She was reluctant at first, but she said she had a good time, so I'm hoping to use that as collateral on future games. That woman rocks, end of story.

Yellow Jersey for Landis
Floyd Landis, an American, won the Tour de France on Sunday Kerri Strug style. Despite a broken hip, he managed to overcome a huge time deficit from the middle of the race to take the yellow jersey for America again. Following Lance, that’s 8 in a row. Of course, it's a bit unfair to get all fair-weather-fan over Landis. After Lance won number 7, and announced his retirement, America stopped caring about the Tour. But now that Landis did it again, everyone is claiming ownership. Ah well. It's better than nothing. Congratulations, Floyd!

Cloning Clyde
Downloaded an Xbox 360 arcade game on Saturday, partly out of frustration-- the machine's been rubbing the disc of the one game I have, and I need to repolish it before it's playable. So I started playing Cloning Clyde, a side-scrolling 2D platform game. Cartoonish, goofy, fun. It's sort of like that old 8Bit game Lost Vikings, with a touch of Lemmings. The story is that Clyde has been cloned umpteen times, and you have to explore the science center he's trapped in, freeing the clones and destroying the various machines littered about. Along the way you can reclone yourself, combining your DNA with a sheep, or a chicken, or a frog, or other various objects. And of course, it's all about the Achievements, of which I've racked up an easy 3. I'm looking forward to working through this one; I'll let you know when I've finished it.

Garden Party
Sunday was the other half of the Goth to Garden party that a friend organized, and it was lovely. Delicious quiches, lots of sangria, various other finger foods. The decorations were very nice, and despite the nearly unbearable heat, the atmosphere was exactly what I'd hoped it would be-- relaxing, friendly, comfortable. We sat around and chatted, played some badminton, and tried to drink faster than the sweating could sober us. This party was a long time coming, as these people are the people in Seattle I love the most. I just wish they all could have been there-- yes, ALL of them-- because it was like being with family.

Weight Watchers
Last Friday was the weight in, and for the second week in a row, I "only" lost .4 pounds. That puts me at 206.4, for a total loss of 12.2 lbs. I know, I should be glad it was weight down, not up. But the GF is right, (she usually is) I need to go the the gym more. We went on Saturday and Sunday, and I went today, if only to make up for the quiche I ate yesterday. So we'll see. Would love to get below 200 before the trip to Hawaii.

New Duck
A friend of mine went abroad for a few weeks, and on the way back stopped in London, where she found a new duck for me. This is the Street Duck of the Luxury Duck line. You might recognize the style-- they used to be called Deluxe Ducks. I have 6 Deluxe Ducks, and with this 7th, these are by far my favorites. No offense to Archie McPhee, but I like them even more than the Devil Ducks. In this new line of Luxury ducks, it appears they are making "equivalents" from the Deluxe line. This Street Duck parallels the Punk Duck, while the Surfer Duck looks not unlike my all-time favorite, the Holiday Duck (holiday as in vacation-- this is a British company). So a big thankyou goes out to my friend who always remembers me and my duck hobby.

Friday July 28th, 2006

Landis Again
Looks like ol' Floyd is in trouble. He goes and wins the Tour de France, with a broken hip, and him being American and not Lance Armstrong and all, folks are saying he took drugs! And their proof is high levels of testosterone in his blood! Okay, go ahead, get it out of your system, jokes about testerone levels and the number of his testicles versus Armstrong's. Feel better? Anyone wanna educate me and discuss how the adrenaline his body must have producing from the pain of riding the Tour with a broken hip must have done something to his blood? Floyd denies the charge, of course, but says it doesn't matter; even if he exonerated of this, the stink of doping will follow him for years. Which is true-- biking has it bad with the doping right now. Love Lance or hate him, his Nike commercial a few year ago was pretty good. It intercut shots of him being tested with shots of him riding through inclement weather. At the end, his voice over: "people ask me, what are you on? I'm on my bike 8 hours a day, what are you on?" That's class, American style.

Discovery, Richmond
During the week I went for a walk with a friend 'round Discovery park, a place I've visited often, though not recently. Ah, the view of the sound. Or is just a bay this far in? Very nice, nevertheless. I nice piece of walking, and away from the beaten path of Greenlake. Not that there's anything wrong with Greenlake-- I like all the people there, to be sure. But Discovery is more tranquil. Later in the week, with a different friend, I went to Richmond Beach, or not to put to fine a point on it, the cliffs above. Even fewer people, even more expansive views. A nice touch for the nerds in us is one of those information boards naming the distant mountain peaks, and showing the place where the summer and winter solstice suns set. That was pretty neat-o, if you ask this geek. Richmond is itself a neat little neighborhood- my friend said, and I agree, that it reminds one of bits of L.A. Y'all should check 'em out.

Weight Watchers
I think I did some math wrong, because what I am about to tell you and what I've told you in the past might not seem to add up. But the Weight watchers web sight has all the figures, and I have been entering them correctly, so my bad. Weighed myself today, and hooray hooray, 201.4 lbs, a 5 lbs drop since last week for an over-all drop of 16.6 lbs. 1.4 lbs to go and I won;t be allowed to eat as much-- a bittersweet victory if ever there was one. I think I can attribute this week's weight loss to more exercise and not having a wedding to go to. I do have a birthday to go to this Saturday, but other than that, I am hoping to be beneath 200 next Friday-- though 5 lbs is a LOT to drop, and so it might even out and I only lose a tiny bit, if any, next week. Chubby fingers crossed.

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis
The people who brought us Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne finally made a sports title, and it's... what? Ping Pong? Are you serious? Do they use flaming ping pong balls? Do they throw the paddles at each other? Can you slam your opponent's head against the table? No, no, and no. Other than the title, the only thing that would otherwise indicate that this is a Rockstar Game is the smooth gameplay and precision attention to player control.

The game is very simple. You can play in tournaments or play exhibition matches, choose between a handful of international players, and play online against other folks. Matches are best of three, games are to 11, win by 2, players take turns serving and there's a point on every serve. All of these are adjustable, but that's the gist. The control is simple too: move your player with the left thumbstick, and use the right thumb stick or the ABXY buttons to put spin on the ball, and use the left thumbstick once you've hit a button to direct your shot. After a few volleys it becomes intuitive. And aftyer a few games, strategizing your shot depending on your oppponent's position becomes intuitve too.

And that's pretty much it for a review. I could tell you that I got into the game faster than any other sports title, that I felt my way more than thought my way to victory through several games, and that the one online game I played was a spank fest and no, I did not win. But basically, this game is so compelling because it is so simple, and that's all one can say.

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
When I rented the table tennis game I was eligible for a free "not-new-release" at Blockbuster, so I plucked the Stewie Movie off of the TV shows shelf. Hilarious. At only 88 minutes, it's longer than a a few episode but as short as a "Family Guy" binge on an evening. The movie sets itself up as the cast at as premiere, watching the movie they made. I think it came out right around the series was originally cancelled the first time, and they make fun of it there, too. That gags are non-stop, and for me there was hardly a break between laugh-out-loud moments. And of course, since it's all about Stewie, we get to see him at his best-- and worst, which is good too, but not as good. Creator Seth MacFarlane should be compared to John Waters, in terms of leaving no social more or taboo alone. But whereas Waters takes the trailer-trash grotesque and siphons their camp, MacFarlane merely strips the veneer of your average WASP sensibility and paints it with the frat-boy toilet humor we all secretly love. This is a must-see for Family Guy fans, and a should-see for fans of goofy-but-sometimes-subtle humor in general.

Hills'
Above I mentioned visiting Richmond, and when I was there with my friend we had dinner at a little bistro called Hills'. It was pretty good-- I had the baked chicken salad, and the "small" portion was actually pretty good in size and quite deliciouos. It was a salad of greens, chicken, almonds, raisins, maybe something else, and topped witha basil dressing. And it's wasn't too horribly expensive either. I want to take the GF to this place, since it was cute, had out-door season, which was very nice in the weather now the Seattle has given up on the wannabe heat thing. While we where there there was one loud table; I think some charity group or sorority was having there 30 year reunion. But they wheren't so bad, and I didn't feel crowded at all.It looked as if they had a decent wine list, for people who like that sort of thing, and a walk with a nice view for after dinner is only a few blocks away. I also want to go back for dessert, as I saw the server walk by with something that looked seductive. So go for it if you find yourself heading north on Aurora and making a left on 185. The contrast between Shoreline and Richmond is itself enough to charm you, might as well enjoy the local cuisine as well.