Mar. 16th, 2008
Weekendy update
Mar. 16th, 2008 10:12 pmIt was a quiet weekend at the Villa Sternberg. Omaha and I finally fixed the kids' computer. Our initial suspicion was that the problem lay in the hard drive, but I suggested we try replacing the cable first. Omaha did that and, sure enough, everything seems to be holding up pretty well. There were the usual chores: both bathrooms got the once-over as well as the kitchen. I made waffles for breakfast Saturday, which were an immense hit as they vanished.
Decaying Skull Saturday was so beautiful that Omaha and I went out and did a pass through our garden responsibilities. I raked up a ton of leaves; our oak tree doesn't shed until the first new buds start coming in. I also hauled out a lot of blackberry bushes; they're becoming even more invasive. Before I turned over the compost, I looked in. The pumpkin from last November was still there, staring up at me. Pretty creepy, huh?
Kouryou-chan and Yamaraashi-chan had friends over this weekend, and I made kettle corn in a quick rush Saturday night before flying out of the house for a lovely evening with an incredible woman. The rest of which is, well, not for public consumption.
I spent all Sunday being lazy. Really, I should have done more than just the laundry and stuff, but I didn't feel like it. I just kinda fumped around, hung out with the kids. Later in the afternoon, we went out toOmaha's cult house of worship the Apple store so Omaha could buy a new keyboard, and then went out to eat.
Decaying Skull
Kouryou-chan and Yamaraashi-chan had friends over this weekend, and I made kettle corn in a quick rush Saturday night before flying out of the house for a lovely evening with an incredible woman. The rest of which is, well, not for public consumption.
I spent all Sunday being lazy. Really, I should have done more than just the laundry and stuff, but I didn't feel like it. I just kinda fumped around, hung out with the kids. Later in the afternoon, we went out to
"Famous Dave's:" overpriced camp
Mar. 16th, 2008 10:41 pmDesperate and unable to agree on anything to eat, we went with one of Elf's Rules: When you can't agree on where to eat, eat at the first place you see that you've never eat at before. This wound us up at "Famous Dave's BBQ," an overpriced middle-class camp restaurant chain.
I have been advised by wordsmith Richard Sher about the difference between "kitsch" and "camp": both describe a design aesthetic that is bathetic, over the top, and in bad taste, but the designer of camp knows it is in bad taste, whereas kitsch is created in all sincerity. Famous Dave's knows what it was aiming for when it hired its design team. The inside is garish, with bright yellow, red, and white signs with cartoons of pigs roasting other pigs, chickens slathering to get into roasters, and billboards proclaiming "If it walks or flies, we'll eat it," "We dig pig," and "Only the best pigs put Famous Dave's on their organ donor cards." (When Yamaraashi-chan asked me what that meant, I said, "It means that this place only buys genetically engineered cognitively modified organisms." Omaha said, "It does not!")
The food was okay. I mean, if you want a lot of mass-produced, fairly good meat, it's not a bad place to go, but I've made better at home. Omaha and I looked up the difference between barbecuing and grilling on her iPhone while we waited and determined that the menu didn't try too hard to confuse the issue for the guests. We had the "garbage can lid" of dinner for two: the meat was generally unremarkable, the five sauces on the table went from too sweet to insufficiently spicy-- this is not a place that can afford a bad hotsaurce experience with a customer, so their "Devil's Spit" sauces plays it way on the safer side. The coleslaw was good, I'll give them that.
I stopped eating well before my plate was clean. "It's a sign of my... responsible maturation," I told Omaha. "You mean getting old," she said. Maybe she's right: it was also too loud in there.
I noticed in the bathrooms that the walls are plastered with ads for men's products from pre-WW2 magazines. Which I thought was kinda funny, since I shave with some of the products on the walls: shaving soap and badger brush, double-sided single-edged blades, big steel razor. Nothing works better.
Anyway, take it or leave it. It's not my kind of place. (I'll tell you about Bennet's on Mercer Island, which is my kind of place, next time.)
I have been advised by wordsmith Richard Sher about the difference between "kitsch" and "camp": both describe a design aesthetic that is bathetic, over the top, and in bad taste, but the designer of camp knows it is in bad taste, whereas kitsch is created in all sincerity. Famous Dave's knows what it was aiming for when it hired its design team. The inside is garish, with bright yellow, red, and white signs with cartoons of pigs roasting other pigs, chickens slathering to get into roasters, and billboards proclaiming "If it walks or flies, we'll eat it," "We dig pig," and "Only the best pigs put Famous Dave's on their organ donor cards." (When Yamaraashi-chan asked me what that meant, I said, "It means that this place only buys genetically engineered cognitively modified organisms." Omaha said, "It does not!")
The food was okay. I mean, if you want a lot of mass-produced, fairly good meat, it's not a bad place to go, but I've made better at home. Omaha and I looked up the difference between barbecuing and grilling on her iPhone while we waited and determined that the menu didn't try too hard to confuse the issue for the guests. We had the "garbage can lid" of dinner for two: the meat was generally unremarkable, the five sauces on the table went from too sweet to insufficiently spicy-- this is not a place that can afford a bad hotsaurce experience with a customer, so their "Devil's Spit" sauces plays it way on the safer side. The coleslaw was good, I'll give them that.
I stopped eating well before my plate was clean. "It's a sign of my... responsible maturation," I told Omaha. "You mean getting old," she said. Maybe she's right: it was also too loud in there.
I noticed in the bathrooms that the walls are plastered with ads for men's products from pre-WW2 magazines. Which I thought was kinda funny, since I shave with some of the products on the walls: shaving soap and badger brush, double-sided single-edged blades, big steel razor. Nothing works better.
Anyway, take it or leave it. It's not my kind of place. (I'll tell you about Bennet's on Mercer Island, which is my kind of place, next time.)
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