Things that may or may not interest you
Since both the Ravens & Eagles lost in the Conference Title games, the only thing I really have to look forward to for this year’s Super Bowl is the commercials.
It looks like one of the best is going to be from Miller High Life. Instead of paying $3M for a “30 second” commercial. They are going to be running 30 “1 second” commercials. Pretty funny stuff.
For more info, you can check out more at their website: http://1secondad.com/
Here’s the intro commercial that will set it all up.
Check out who was on the front page of The Patriot News yesterday.
The picture was taken at the PA Auto & Boat Show in Harrisburg on Wednesday.
In less than a month from now, on February 17th, Street Fighter IV will ship for the XBOX 360 & PS3 .
I have such mixed feeling about whether or not I will be buying this game.
On the plus side, it’s a direct port of the arcade version which has gotten praise as already being one of the best fighters ever.
The home version will also include 8 new playable characters not found in the arcades. This game is a “can’t miss” and is probably the closest you’ll ever get to a sure thing “10″ @ pre-launch.
On the downside, I know that if I get it, it will dominate my life for a least a few months.
First is the fact that I’ll have to pick up the arcade sticks.
There’s no way I’d even consider playing this game online with a standard 360 controller. You would be pwnd in a matter of seconds.
The two Mad Catz sticks pictured above will sell for $149.99 & $79.99 . That’s if you can even find them in stores.
Finally, I just don’t have the time right now to dedicate to becoming really good at the game. Street Fighter is the kind of game where there’s a huge gap between casual players and hardcore players.
If I buy it, I know that it will suck me right in. I can hear myself now …”Just one more game” .. “Just one more game” & before you know it, it’s 6 in the morning.
I’m so torn!!! Here’s the latest trailer that makes me lean toward the “buy it” side.
This blog post is a repost from an earlier entry. I am reposting and editing it, so I can enter the “Win a Dining Review with Kevin” contest on the DIS Unplugged Podcast
I want to first put up a disclaimer before I start this restaurant review. I was in the hospitality industry for several years.
I was a restaurant manager with both Outback and Applebee’s, so I’m usually a lot more lenient and understanding when I go out to eat because I know how hard restaurant jobs can sometimes be. That being said, if I’m complaining or criticizing a restaurant, then it must be really bad.
Tuesday afternoon, Sayra and I found ourselves shopping at the Towson Town Center (in Towson, MD) for a dress for her to take on our trip to Miami. It was around 3:00 and we were getting kind of hungry, so we decided to grab lunch at the mall.
The selections at the TTC were the Rainforest Cafe, TGI Fridays, Bahama Breeze, and the food court. We had decided to give the Rainforest Cafe a shot. I have eaten at the one in the MGM Grand and remembered it being OK.
When this place first opened in Towson years ago, you couldn’t get in. It wouldn’t be uncommon to be quoted a 3-4 hour wait. When we went on Tuesday, there were only 3 tables sat in the entire restaurant. That should have been our first sign that things had gone down hill. We were given pretty much our choice of any table in the place, so we chose a big circular booth by the waterfall.
This is where I’m going to start my little rant. Rainforest Cafe is a major chain, not some small mom & pop establishment.
There is no excuse for ripped booths, broken tables, and general disrepair issues. It’s not a matter of budget, but a matter of apathy amongst that site’s management team. I found this restaurant to be absolutely filthy.
I can overlook poor service or mediocre food, but there is no excuse for a dirty restaurant. If you were to run your hand along the side of the table, you would feel grime and build up that’s probably been there for weeks.
The table we sat at was huge, for about 6-8 people, and the entire table all the way around had this grime. Like I mentioned before, the booth was coming apart, so I reached behind the cushion to pull it forward and felt all kind of dirt and build up back there as well.
At one point, I was so disgusted by the sanitation of this dining room, that I had asked for “togo” utensils, just in case my flatware was also dirty.
Sayra would be really upset if I made a scene or asked for a manager, so I just bit my tongue and didn’t say anything. If a manager had come around and visited our table, I probably would have pointed these things out.
Of course, no manager was ever spotted anytime during our entire visit. I can’t remember the name of our server. I can’t say anything good or bad about her. The service was just adequate, nothing bad but nothing special.
Enough of my rant … On to the food review.
Sayra wanted to get an appetizer. I really didn’t care what we got, so I let her pick it out. She ordered the Awesome Appetizer Adventure.
It consisted of crab dip, calamari, chicken fingers, and “chimi-cha-chas”. I’ll quickly review each item individually. The crab dip was nasty (especially considering this is in MD). It had a horrible onion aftertaste.
Both the calamari and chicken fingers were the normal “frozen then fried” items that you can find in any grocery store. I didn’t even try the “chimis”, but they also appear have been a frozen then fried item.
The thing about the app that really irritated me was that the honey mustard was hot. Not spicy hot, but temperature hot. After stirring it, the bottom was still cold. If I were to guess, this ramekin of honey mustard probably sat in the hot window for 10 minutes while the appetizer was being prepared.
There were only 3 tables in the entire restaurant and they couldn’t even pour a ramekin of honey mustard to order. This appetizer cost $13.99. Not very “Awesome”.
For my entree, I order the Pastalaya. I’m kinda embarrassed to say this, but I actually enjoyed it.
It was shrimp, sauteed chicken breast, bell peppers, onions and Andouille sausage tossed in a hot and spicy Cajun sauce and served over linguine.
The menu stated that it was spicy and our server also warned me that it was spicy. They were both right, but I still enjoyed it. I found the portion to be very big and the proteins to be very plentiful. I ended up taking some of this home and eating it the next day.
Sayra ordered the Rainforest Paella. It consisted of hearty portions of bacon, Andouille sausage, chicken, fish, shrimp, mussels, calamari, red and green peppers, and onions all sauteed and simmered with saffron rice in a seafood sauce.
To put it mildly, she HATED it. She said it just had an “off” flavor and left a horrible taste in her mouth.
Sayra is Spanish, so she knows what paella should taste like and this was practically inedible. This dish was so overloaded with onions and peppers that she took most of them off and they filled up an entire app plate. She took it home for Fernando and he wouldn’t even eat it, that’s how bad it was.
By this point, neither of us wanted any desert, just to get out of there. Our waitress brought us our check which came to $59 and change. What a ripoff!!! After tip, I spent $70 for less than mediocre food in a dirty restaurant. I will NEVER return here.
The second biggest premiere of the new year is finally here!! (BSG is still my #1)
After another long 8 month hiatus, Lost is back this evening, with a three hour premiere event. There is an hour long recap show at 8pm, followed by the first two episodes of Season 5.
Season 5 is largely going to focus on the theme of time travel and Episode 1 is said to pick up immediately where Season 4 ended.
Lindelof has said that when this season starts, we will not “know when or where we are” – and that the story telling device may change as well. Further, a number of the episodes will be more multi-character focused than we have seen in the past.
Rumor is that we will also see two new characters introduced in Episode 1.
It amazes me how much damage one man can do. Good luck President Obama cleaning up the mess of these last 8 years.
The 5th and final Cylon will be revealed tonight!!!
It’s been six long months since we last saw the “Battlestar Galactica” crew and their new Cylon allies go from the high of finally finding Earth to the pitch-black depression of discovering the planet is a nuclear wasteland.
Tonight at 10 on the SciFi network, the second half of the fourth and final season commences with a gripping premiere episode that will offer up even more shockers.
This is very bittersweet because I can’t wait to find out what happens to the fleet, but I’m really going to miss this show when it’s finally over.
BTW … My guess for the 5th and final Cylon is Lt. Gaeta.
I just finished a two day home office makeover this past weekend. I painted the room and mounted a 32′ HDTV to the wall.
The video was shot with my Flip and edited in iMovie 08
Great compilation of reporters getting their asses handed to them in one way or another. My favorite is the snow plow @ 1:44.
