Monday, October 29, 2007

From Zero to Hero

Its been six months since we bought our Wii, and let me tell you, it has been the most awesomest six months ever. We have been spreading the Wii gospel to anyone that will listen, and have convinced a few people to go out and buy a Wii for themselves. In fact, I think Nintendo probably owes us some money for that.

We are such dorks that back in August, we pre-ordered Guitar Hero III for the Wii, and after church yesterday, we drove over to Best Buy to go pick it up. Despite the usual drama that accompanies a Best Buy trip, we got the Wii home and set it up.

The cool thing about Guitar Hero is that you get to play a "guitar" with buttons instead of strings. You have to hit the "notes" in the sequence they appear on the screen. The notes get more complicated as it goes on and on. And that's pretty much about it. Its really addicting, especially for certain people in the house who played for 3 and a half hours yesterday before I told him that we had to eat dinner. For the Wii, they've incorporated the wireless remote into the guitar, so there's no strings, and you get cool effects like sound coming from the guitar and not just the TV, and vibration when necessary.

I'm not terribly good at the game, but its really fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, I'm going out of town this weekend, so I'm concerned that somebody in the house is going to take advantage of that to beat the game, thus leaving me in the dust.Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The best piece of bass in three counties

When I think about how much I was disgusted by the idea of sushi when I was a kid, I have to wonder why. Sushi is really awesome! My first foray into sushi was in Berkeley with a woman whose mother is from Japan. She knew exactly where to go and what to order. I probably stuck with rolls for the first few times, but it wasn't long before I was eating nigiri (the raw fish). I've never had sushi as good as I've had in Berkeley. It was so fresh and tasty.

Here in DC, there are lots of sushi restaurants as well. There are some really good ones, but lots and lots of really bad ones. Not that the fish itself has gone bad...just lower quality, I guess. I had some sushi the other day, and all of the fish tasted the same. But it was cheap, and that's why we were there.

Today I stumbled upon this online chat in the Washingtonian magazine that gives the ins-and-out of sushi eating, and more importantly, how to get the best pieces of fish from your sushi chef, especially when sitting at the bar. Some of the stuff I knew, some I didn't. For example, did you know that you're not supposed to use chopsticks with nigiri, or rub wood chopsticks together? Also, good chefs find it insulting when you cover your sushi with soy sauce or wasabi because the fish is already supposed to be perfectly seasoned.

I'm also not a big believer in making sushi at home because I think it would be very difficult to find sushi-quality fish at the market, but this chat does talk about ways to make sushi at home.

I guess one of the benefits of eating sushi is that its really low-fat, and great if you're on a diet. Of course, that's assuming you stick with fish, and don't get those really expensive rolls with cream cheese in them.

Hmm, all this talk about sushi is making me hungry for some, but unfortunately the only place around here is one of those carousel sushi places. Some other time, I guess.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

college students today are a bunch of whiny little bitches

One downside of living so close to my college is that I still feel the need to check up on what those crazy kids are up to every now and then, despite the fact that I graduated eight years ago. There are often articles in the Washington Post about American University, and I, of course, feel compelled to read them. For example, this article about a newly renovated dorm that features double beds appeared last month in the paper. My friends and I just shook our heads and lamented how entitled kids today are.

However, my recent foray into Facebook has lead me to become more knowledgeable about the present-day AU, and through Facebook, I learned that students now have fall break, which is basically one day off in the middle of the semester. I'm thinking to myself, "Fall break? WE never had a fall break." We would just sludge our way through the semester, with a holiday for Labor Day and a few days off for Thanksgiving. We always had at least three to four weeks off for the Christmas holidays. Researching the evolution of fall break, I find out that it was instituted as a two-day break in 2000, and later scaled back to one day in 2005.

An opinion piece published in 2005 in the Eagle, the student-run newspaper, argues against scaling back fall break by saying:

"Removing rest days for AU students will create dangerous consequences. AU students are special and different from other U.S. college students. At any time, approximately 1,000 AU students work internships, much higher than national percentages. Compiled with part time jobs, studying and extracurricular activities, AU students find themselves working 50 - 60 hours a week to remain successful. Fall Break and study days serve as means for students to recuperate from their busy schedules, explore the District of Columbia and help prepare for midterm and final exams. Without these breaks, students will prepare less for their exams, miss more classes, and underperform in the workplace and classroom."
Okay, is it just me, or does anybody else hear how elitist this sounds? AU students, if not all college students, are starting to feel entitled to things like double beds and extra days off. Maybe I, as a government employee, shouldn't really be talking, but hello children, welcome to the real world! You're not going to get random days off in the middle of the semester. Its not like I spent every waking minute of those study days studying either, and my jobs/internships were fun, and often let me do homework at the same time. Stop whining, or else you'll be sorely prepared for what a real job is like.

Okay, end of rant. I promise I'll post about something more fun later.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Whither the video store

You're going to think that we're pretty old fashioned over here, but Matt and I liked going to the video store to pick out a movie. Of course, its very rare that we would go to the video store in the first place...maybe once a month, if that. Between not really watching a whole lot of TV in the first place, and having other plans, and oh, yeah, getting that occassional video out from the library, we just never rented movies enough to subscribe to Netflix or Blockbuster online.

Last spring, however, Blockbuster gave us a pretty damn good reason to not subscribe to their service...they closed their store that was located only a mile away from us. Didn't matter, we thought, there's a much closer independent video store that we would rather go to anyway. Unfortunately, at the beginning on August, we walked into that store, and found out that they had lost their lease and were being forced to close, so they were selling off all of their videos and DVDs as well (all the good stuff had already been bought). So we were forced to go to another video store to rent "The 40 Year Old Virgin ", which, by the way, was the only video we rented the entire summer, I'm pretty sure. This past weekend, we were going to that store to rent a movie, and sure enough, they had a big store closing sign, and they were selling off their collection as well. And once again, we had missed all the good stuff.

So now I have to sign up for Netflix, and I'll probably get the cheapest option, and even though its only $4.99 a month, that's still more that what we would usually pay per month to rent the occassional movie. Its all a scam, I tell ya.