Apostrophic Chunder

Played Guitar Hero with my 2 sisters, bro-in-law, and K. literally all weekend. As a wannabe supernerd and outcast high school video gamer lunch table inhabitant, having a girlfriend who loves to play video games was pretty high on my list. That is until she started slaying me on this game. I accused her of getting up in the middle of the night and practicing, but her nerve was unshaken. She repeatedly got double my score every time we battled. I have to agree with those who said previous experience playing a real life guitar does not help you in this game. It does make me feel like dusting off my axe to play some riffs though. It kinda makes me want to go digging for my old cassettes: Yngvie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai...

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

I got this "bitchin' crabcake" recipe from my mom. That's what she called it. She's right. Anyway, we also threw down some steamed broccoli and herbed roasted asparagus. I washed it all down with a Sam Adams Oktoberfest. I forgot the parsley in the first batch of 'cakes, but I remembered and got some from our on-suite herb garden for the second batch (today's lunch). If you decide to go off and make these crabcakes, be careful with the wet ingredients: use exactly what's called for or less.

Ingredients:

• 8oz Backfin Crab Meat
• 16oz Jumbo Lump Crab Meat
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 3/4 cup Ritz crackers, crushed
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3/4 tsp lemon juice
• 3/4 tsp seafood seasoning (like Old Bay or Phillips)
• 3/4 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (adjust to taste if you like the mayo)

Instructions: Combine the egg, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, seafood seasoning, Dijon mustard, and mayonnaise in a bowl. Place the crab meat, parsley, and Ritz crackers into a separate bowl. Mix very lightly to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the crab mixture and combine lightly. Portion into 5-ounce cakes and broil, bake, or pan fry until browned on both sides.

I just bought the last pair of these at the local Pac Sun. Yes, I am an old man and I still shop at Pac Sun. Get over it. Anyway, they hold one shot of your fave bevvy in each heel. It's oh so fresh. I'm thinking that using it for anything besides hard liquor would be unsanitary...

For more Reefy goodness, check them at http://www.reef.com

So. Last night to celebrate some people getting OLD we all piled into a ginormous limo and cruised locally to the Irish pub, a gentleman's club (all's fair, we brought our special lady friends along) and ended the night with some dancing at our favorite Old Town bar. I'm no Paul Oakenfold, but the DJ at the bar was horrible on all counts - selection, skills, guido-ness. I matched him beat for beat with my bad fat hairy white guy in a Hawaiian shirt dancing. I was surprised by the quality and all around good attitude of the staff at the neon pole playground. Some of the girls from our crew even got in the cage and did... stuff. Wow. We all got to know each other a little better last night. Big ups to Hillary for making the arrangements and footing the transportation bill. So sorry I had to be a pain in the ass about all those darn rules, but gosh I would have liked to puke in the limo and sleep at your house. Maybe next time. The snaps are iPhone-in-the-dark bad, but I think they accurately represent the state of mind in party town pretty well. Remember People, No Sex - In The Champagne Room.

Before

During, this blurry white shape is T dancing in the limo. Nice moves T!

After - I made it home with a solitary George Washington left in my clip. Bruce! In case you forget, we paid for your cab and you owe us big.

If anybody knows where I can find a more reasonably sized sombrero in SL, please email me.

Visit Tombstone Winslow (84, 122, 21)

Pop's wife has some relatives in from UK, so we went to a sort of family barbecue party at my stepsister's place. It was nice to see everybody and the food was tip top. We sat outside and enjoyed some brewskis and complained about the heat and humidity. Is it just me or did it get really hot right at the end of the week? The point of the whole thing, I was outside for hours. K. came out maybe 3 or 4 times for very short periods. I got zero bites. She got eaten alive! We had to go to the store last night to get Benadryl and Caladryl so she could sleep. On the one hand, I have sympathy. On the other hand - I'm just super glad that bugs think I have a foul taste.

Since I've been so health conscious lately, I thought it would be great to have a deep fryer. Now we have one, and I can't wait to reap the benefits. We're going to make donuts, fries, shrimp, you name it. Feel free to stop by anytime for something fried. Bring something to fry if you want. Last night we made falafel balls and they came out perfect. It sure beats the heck out of trying to make them in a frying pan. I hope the new gym opens soon because I love fried food and cold beer. Screw what the news says, I'm eating.

Go listen to the first track from Intimate Kitchen (Sheena's label, I just host the site and help with random stuff until she starts posting more). The track is "SpaceHouse" and I think she made it during a class she just took in NYC. Anyway, I likes it. It's embedded in the homepage. Don't steal it, and if it doesn't load, come back later and try again. Our upstream is not especially fast. I need to re-do it in Flash so it's not so big. I already mashed it down from a 250 MB WAV to MP3... http://intimatekitchen.com NUH!

Hey Blog! Just some quick snaps from last night. Jeffrey and I rode the monorail and then a bus all the way to the old part of downtown (North LV) for a taste of the Fremont Experience. We showed up just in time to take in some free music and see the overhead light show for Don McLean's Bye Bye Miss American Pie. Then I had a Bass Ale at this sweet pint-glass-shaped bar.

We got back on the bus and rode down to the top of the strip proper and walked just about the whole thing. We might have stayed on the bus longer, but there were some loud eurobackpackers stinking it up. The fountain at the Bellagio is not only ridiculously huge, but it is synchronized to the music playing on one of the nicest outdoor sound systems I've ever seen. If you collect cheap hooker cards, the strip is the place to be. Every 5 feet there is an illegal alien handing them out. Now they even have backpacks with illuminated signs.

My foot is killing me, I've eaten at a lot of buffets, and I got a pen with a scroll out of Photoshop shortcuts.

We avoided playing beach volleyball with the local crew all summer until the final weekend. Of course it only took me about 20 minutes to get injured, and there were no other players involved. I stubbed my toe in the sand in such a way that I put all 240 fatass pounds of my weight on my right big toe joint with my toe folded underneath. I took pictures of it, but it just doesn't look bad enough to get any sympathy. I got some sympathy at Urgent Care, and some X-rays, and a script for Vicodin. Anyway, I should be sufficiently ambulatory in time to hobble off to Vegas for that PhotoShop conference tomorrow.