It Has Been a Long Time and a Great Weekend

Sorry for the lack of posts folks. I have been pretty busy and a little uninspired. I think I get this way when some monotony kicks in. Well this weekend definitely took care of the monotony.

This weekend was UMBC Homecoming. Now I know what you are thinking... and yes UMBC is an actual university with an actual homecoming. I did not get a chance to attend the events on Thursday which included a bonfire and a Bar-B-Que. Thanks to David for the picture. It looks very cool.

As a funny story, a community member did not know what was going on, saw the fire, and called the fire department, saying that there was a two story house on fire. Sweet!!

Friday was scheduled to have Fireworks, and Ice Cream (Fire and Ice). Due to the threat of lightning the fireworks were cancelled but the Ice Cream was moved to the talent show. Having been in attendance at the first homecoming talent show, I was a little apprehensive to attend this one. Unless UMBC students are playing Chess, you wonder about their talent (an obvious exaggeration). I was pleasantly surprised with the show. There was alot of diversity to the talent, and most people were really good. There was one group that said that they drove an hour to get five minutes with the audience.... I want those five minutes back. Seriously the Guitarist and Saxophone combo was pretty amazing, even with their CD skipping out. I was also impressed with some of the bands and of course the UMBC Mama's Boys. There wasn't a great deal of Alumni presence, but Elan and I were happy to hold down the fort for the old folks.

After the show we headed to Double T. As usual this was a interesting meal, particularly when a ton of people, who we had not seen in forever, showed up at like 1 am. Oh, and what may be the greatest combination ever was found. Challah French Toast with Chocolate Ice Cream.... Yum.

Saturday was pretty cool as well, we decided to not head to the crab feast because of the $30 price tag, but we hung out on campus anyway. We did head to the friends of OSL reception, which while not heavily attended, was nice to see some people who I had not seen for a while. After that it was over to the RAC for Jim Gaffigan.

Yes... He is that pale. Actually he was incredibly funny. I know this because I was laughing so hard I began to sweat. That's right... laughing sweat. Any comedian that can talk about Bacon and Hot Pockets and still make me laugh is good in my book.

That night we went back to my place for beer and Wii (is there anything better?). Sunday was Brunch at Gecko's which was fantastic as always.

There were some strange things that occurred. First was the sheer amount of people that asked "What are you doing here?"... Really... It's Homecoming... The worst was when a pretty high up administrator from one of the most important offices on campus asked why we were there. I am not even kidding. I will give her that she was pretty tired after a long day. Also exciting/strange was the game of suicide we played in between the Comedian and Wii. You never realize how truly out of practice you are until you try to play a game of your youth. I used to play suicide every day at recess.. today is Monday, two days after suicide 2007, and my arm is killing me.

It was a good weekend over all. I did one other exciting thing, but I will save that for another post. Bye.

Another Great Post...

not authored by me. Actually my friend Mrs. Twink had a great post on things that annoy her. For those of you who know me, you know lots of things annoy me, from stupid people to doors that are poorly designed (yes, I am serious). Take a look at the post. I think I may post something similar in the next couple of days.

Courtesy Please

My friend Sketch was published in the UMBC paper this week. His article on common courtesy is pretty good though I wish he was not having to go through it. I honestly believe that people do need to be nicer. I am not saying this because I am the be all of politeness, I think we could all use some improvement, but there are people out there who are starting from nothing. Seriously, put yourself on the other side of the situation. Wouldn't you want people to be a little nicer to you?

UPDATE: Here is a great example of what may happen when you are not courtious, or deaf

UPDATE TWO: When Customers Strike Back

Birthday Dinner of Meat

So for those of you who don't know, my birthday was on Thursday last week. My birthday itself was pretty quite, but Friday my mom drove down from Philly and we went out to dinner. I was not really sure where I wanted to go. My mom likes the harbor, but I am kind of over the whole scene (though I still need to go the aquarium). Then I remembered my friend Bryan had gone to this steakhouse called Fogo De Chao. I will say this was one of the craziest, most amazing and filling meals I have ever had.



Ok, so the place in in the Harbor area, underneath the new Best Buy (which is the worst Best Buy of all time). It is set up a little strange as there are very large doors with no windows or any form or visual clue as to what is on the other side of the door. This will come into play later on in the story. So we head inside and the place is enormous. It seats 300 people. We are seated really quickly and our waiter came over to the table. It was at this point that I noticed all of the activity in the place. Our waiter began to describe the salad bar and I tuned him out because I was in awe of seeing the servers running around the restaurant. I mean full sprint. This would not have been such a big deal, however, servers at Fogo have a couple of things in their hands as they run, a large knife and swords with meat. THEY WERE RUNNING WITH KNIFES AND SWORDS. It looked like they were playing basketball with the amount of jukes and jives these guys were performing. I could tell this was going to be an interesting meal.

We took a visit to the salad bar. It was pretty good, white asparagus, prosciutto ham, tomato and mozzarella. They even had hearts of palm and artichokes. I probably went overboard, even after being warned by the waiter to "go light". It was at this point that the real action happened. At Fogo, they give you a chip that you place on your table, one side is green and one side is red. Here is a picture:

When the chip is on the red side, nothing happens. Then you turn it to green and all hell breaks loose. The men, running with knifes and swords, begin coming to your table asking if you would like the delicious wares. The meat just keeps coming, until you turn your chip back to red. Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Pork, they have something like fifteen cuts of meat. Some of the highlights were the Fillet Mignon, both plain and wrapped in bacon, and Sirloin flavored with garlic. It was delicious, and when you are done what is on your plate (or before that) you turn your chip back to green and the crazy process starts all over again.

It was amazing. As the night went on we decide to begin to point at the small children walking around the room and occasionally mentioning the likelihood that they would be impaled by a knife or sword by a speeding server. Towards the end we were being very picky about the meat we allowed onto our plates. I think we got about ten different cuts and most were excellent. It would have been nice to have some sort of steak sauce, au jus, mint jelly, something to go along with all of the meat, but I can understand the lack of such things. You really did get a true taste of the meat.

When we were all finished my mom turned to me and said that she may now be a vegetarian, which is completely untrue, but I can see taking a borderline veggie to Fogo and having them turn the corner all the way to micro vegan. On the way out I went to open the door to the resturant and definetly hit some guy smack in the face with the door. He wasn't hurt, but he was in shock. I was like, my bad, the design of this door sucks. The guy actually agreed with me... he was like, they could put a window in here or something. I should go around hitting people with things and blaming it on bad design. I think that could be fun.

Overall this was a great meal, and for what you get, it is worth the price ($42). I hope to go back, not really soon, I don't think my arteries can take it.

Best Crash Video in EA's New Game: Skate

I first heard about this game from the guys at the Totally Rad Show, and then I saw this on Digg. Trust me, take a look at this video (sorry, I cannot embed it).

Amazing Skate Crash Video

A Fantasticly Simple, Great Cartoon

Through Digg I found this fantastic Cartoon. It is awesome. Good job by the artist Lev. I think every guy feels like this at some point.

Less of a Yay for New TV

We are still in the first couple of weeks of the fall season and, to follow up on my previous post, I have some new thoughts on the smattering of entertainment being provided through the picture tube.

• Big Bang Theory - I am going to say that this is the best new comedy on TV. That's it. I said it.
• Cavemen - This is the worst new comedy on TV. This show is awful. If you don't know this is the show that they gave to the GEICO insurance cavemen. They took a really good advertising scheme and thought it was so good that they would make a sitcom out of it. There are a couple of problems with this. The first, and most obvious, is that the show is not funny. The commercials are funny because the characters seem like they have been in the real world for a while, but everyone else didn't know they were there. They are offended that the insurance is "So easy a caveman could do it." The show just has some furry guys in the real world. Nothing really different about them. Second, it is not funny. There is no reason to believe that these guys are any different than any other minority in the world, and they make awful minority jokes and highly offensive comments... Whatever, I am done talking about this... it sucks.
• House - Yeah Buddy. Show two was awesome. The cast is still somewhat intact and they are adding Kal Penn, from Harold and Kumar fame (He was Kumar). I think that this season is shaping up to be really interesting. I should point out that this show is no longer about the patients or the cases, but about the staff, and it is great.
• Reaper - I missed this the other day, but I am hopeful I can catch some first episode reruns.
• Kid Nation - It has begun, the leadership is breaking down, mutiny is on the way. HOW COOL IS THAT!!! still a little crazy, but this show has me hooked. I don't even like reality TV...
• Except for Bravo. The Top Chef Finale was a little underwhelming, and I was personally not happy with the winner, but the food looked amazing and there is just something really cool when some of the Top Chefs in the world, like Rocco DiSpirito and Todd English, are working alongside these people who you have been watching for 4 months. Good Job Bravo. I cannot wait for Season 4. As for the other shows, I am not watching the Better Half, it just doesn't appeal, however I will watch Project Runway.
• Don't forget about the Podcasts. Make sure you check out The Totally Rad Show, Diggnation and Ask A Ninja

More to come, as always

Phillies - Game Two is Today

We are not going to talk about game one, except to say that we need to do better. Game two at 3:07 today.

Yay for New TV

So we are a couple weeks into the new fall season and I have some thoughts on the offerings from your favorite networks. Since this blog is basically me just telling the world what I think... well I am going to tell you what I think.

• Big Bang Theory - This show is great. No, it is really great. I was kinda hooked by the fact that it is two nerds and a hot girl, but this show has something else. Well a couple things actually. First, John Galecki. What do you mean you don't know who John Galecki is? I will help, here is a picture
  

  

  Still don't know... well you may know him from such theatrical classics as Happy Endings, Peep Show, The Opposite Sex, Playing Mona Lisa... with works like this you would think he is a porn star. Come to think of it "Big Bang Theory" doesn't help. Oh I left one out, ROSEANNE. That's right, he was that annoying wimpy kid David. Actually his role in Big Bang Theory is not that far off what David was, but this is a much smarter comedy. That is the thing. This is a classic sitcom that does not play down to the lowest common denominator. This is smart comedy. For that reason I doubt this will last, but get it while the getting is good.
• Kid Nation - So this show is clearly an exploitation piece, but it can be pretty entertaining. You can also tell that the producers are at least pushing the kids in directions that most kids wouldn't choose, giving us a false sense that the future of the country is in good hands... I am waiting for the next few weeks, as the kids start to turn on each other, all Lord of the Flies like.
• Heroes - Last night was episode two and it was as expected... AWESOME. If you are not watching Heroes, what's a matter with you? Also, there is some new content available at NBC.com that I am interested in seeing. I will give you an update on if that is worth it later.
• House - This should be an interesting season for the lovable MD. With the departure of Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer from everyday roles the show will take on some new characteristics, and add some new characters. Let's see what happens with this one.
• Kitchen Nightmares - Gordon Ramsey is one of the most intense people on earth, constantly yelling for perfection. The entertaining part is the yelling, not the perfection. I think this show may have some legs as a different avenue then Ramsey's bread and butter - Hell's Kitchen. P.S. Don't watch this one while eating or on a full stomach.
• The Bravo Family of Shows - So we are wrapping up Top Chef, starting the last season of the grandaddy of them all, Queer Eye, and awaiting the return of Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum in Project Runway. I stand by my view that Bravo has mastered reality TV. VH1 can't hold a candle to them. Bravo, Bravo, bravo! See if you can catch the meaning there :-)

Well that is my early views of the magical land of television. Enjoy and let me know what I should be watching!