Birthday Fun
January 19, 2009
As I mentioned this weekend, it was Savannah’s Birthday and we headed into town for fun and dinner. First stop was the mall as Savannah wanted to walk around and shop with some money she had received for her birthday. It was kind of convenient too since the movie theater was right there.
She ended up getting a couple of new games for the Nintendo DS that we got her for her birthday. I don’t remember the titles, but not sure how much of a game they really are. They seemed more like doodling apps for little girls. She was excited though. Somehow, Mr Papa managed to get out of there with a new Xbox 360 game too. Well, not exactly new as it was a 2nd copy of Call of Duty 5. Now Sean and I can play together on the two Xbox 360s in our own game or online. We tried it out that night after getting home.
The movie Savannah had picked out was Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I wasn’t expecting much and figured all the funny scenes were in the ads for the movie. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. While quite predictable, the movie was enjoyable. There was more than a couple of laugh out loud scenes. Kevin James took what could have been a horrible movie and kept it watchable. The kids really enjoyed it and it was definitely fine for family viewing.
The overall movie experience, however, was again not pleasant for me. Call me weird, or different, but I would rather watch movies on blu-ray in my theater room than go to the movies. For me, most theater seats are entirely uncomfortable and I end up stiff and sore afterwards. I am sure its related to my individual back, but I would much rather have a relatively upright, stiff seat than those reclining seats they put in theaters. The cost is just outrageous too. For tickets for our family of four and some refreshments for the kids, I could have just about bought another video game. Or certainly bought the movie on blu-ray in a few months. Both have a lot more replay time and thus more value. I just don’t get the movie theater experience like most folks do.
After the movie we headed out to dinner. Savannah wanted to go to this Shish Kebab place that I had never heard of – not sure how her and Suzanne had. When we entered the restaurant, it was almost stifling hot. It had to have been at least 80 degrees in there. We were seated in a small table in the corner which was fine.
Turns out it was a Jordanian restaurant with some other Mediterranean dishes. We all ordered some variety of shish kebab. To my surprise, everyone’s order but mine contained exactly 1 skewer of kebabs. Luckily, I had ordered the chicken and beef and got 2 skewers. And no, the prices weren’t cheap. However, everybody seem to get their fill so nobody went home hungry. Savannah, Sean and Suzanne all enjoyed Baklava for dessert. For some reason, I was a good boy and skipped dessert. The food was okay – nothing special, but nothing bad either.
The highlight of dinner for Savannah was the belly dancer. Savannah has been taking belly dance classes at her dance studio for about 6 months now and is really enjoying it. She was happy to see the dancer and to spend some time talking to her. The belly dancer even took Savannah out in the restaurant to dance once song with her during one of her sets.
After dinner, we headed back home. It was a fun family together day and night. It sure was a treat to see Savannah enjoying her Birthday so much!
Smoking and Super Heroes
December 27, 2008
Yesterday I put my new Christmas present, a smoker to the test. We also decided to have a Super Hero movie marathon to watch three relatively new movies that we hadn’t yet seen.
I spent a fair amount of time yesterday getting the meats ready to smoke. I had decided to smoke a top loin pork roast, some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and some pork baby back ribs. I prepared a cure or a marinade for all of them and let them sit over night.
I decided to smoke the meats with apple wood. After warming up the smoker, in went the pork. I had planned to smoke the pork roast for 6 or 7 hours. A couple of hours later, the ribs went in, followed by the chicken a couple of hours later. All three were smoked at a temperature between 200 and 220 degrees F.
A fair amount of smoke was thrown up throughout the day and it sure smelled good. We had a mixture of rain and snow throughout the afternoon and the smoker did fine holding the temperature of the inside. And the taste of the food???
The food tasted wonderful. The pork was just absolutely perfect. It came cooked to a very nice white with a nice smoke ring around it. The taste was my favorite of the three. The ribs and chicken were also very good. We now have enough food to eat for a week. Everyone, except for Sean, really liked the flavor of the meats. He was a bit less enthusiastic. I now look forward to using my new smoker to try a bunch of other things.
During the evening and night, we enjoyed three recent super hero movies. The movies were Batman – Dark Knight, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Of course, all three were Blu Ray versions of the movie. The hands down winner for our family was Iron Man.
All three movies make you suspend belief and reality. While the Academy Awards are likely to disagree with us, Batman was the least enjoyable of the three. Also, the movie just seemed too long and could have ended at several points along the way. Heath Ledger was very good as the Joker, but the movie was not quite as good and seem fixated on him. Iron Man was just more enjoyable and kept you fixated on the storyline the whole way through the movie.
It was kind of funny to see The Hulk feature a few moments of Iron Man in it. I think the two movies may have set themselves up to do a combined follow on movie that features the two super heroes from it.
We had a forth “super hero” move, Hancock, but ran out of energy before we could get to it. So, we will view it later this weekend.
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