T Plus 3 Months

(The full-sized images, which you can see by clicking on the images below, seem to be less blurry than these reduced-sized versions.)

	C Girl
	E Boy

Best Monopoly® Quote

Tonight, we played our first family game of "adult" Monopoly, with myself as the car, the Mrs as the doggie, my almost 9-year old daughter as the horse, and my 7-year old son as the battleship. I came in second to my daughter, who always wished people a nice stay when they stayed at her properties. (I wasn't "taking it easy" on anyone, either.)

But the best quote of the night came from my son. Not being 100% familiar with the rules, when he acquired a monopoly in the light purples (Virginia, States, St. Charles), he asked my wife, "Can I knock down your Electric Company?"

BD's Mongolian Barbeque

I recently had the opportunity to eat lunch at a BD's Mongolian Barbeque restaurant. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, the diner puts his desired meats, vegetables, and sauces into a bowl, where they are grilled together as a stir-fry while the diner waits.

There was a wide variety of meats and seafoods available. It had been a long time since I had duck, so I loaded up my bowl exclusively with pieces of dead duck. (So much for my consideration of making it a vegetarian lunch.) There was also a good selection of vegetables; really I would have preferred more vegetables than would fit in my bowl. I chose a variety, but the largest component was bean sprouts. Finally, for the sauces, I didn't know what I was doing, so started with some black bean sauce, added some Chinese hot sauce (I think it was kung pao sauce -- a Chinese co-worker said that I added too much) and some wine as well. Then, to complete my spicing, I added some curry powder.

All-in-all, of course, it was exactly what I wanted, even if it wasn't any good! Actually, it was fine. I can say that every time I've had duck, I've been less than 100% impressed, but that wasn't the fault of the restaurant.

Still, it's not difficult to find faults with the place. A few are as follows

• They priced a meal by the bowl, and not by the weight or contents of the bowl. This differed from the previous time I ate at a Mongolian-style restaurant, which was in Edmonton. There, the priced the meal by the weight of the contents of your bowl. That system had the problem of charging the same per gram no matter what the filling was. But the "by the bowl" pricing system is an example of what I consider to be the worst thing in current American restaurant practices. Since any bowl was priced the same, I felt compelled to fill the bowl to the brim, since I would be charged the same no matter what I put in it. Plus, they offered diners a second trip for only a few dollars above the initial price. Thus, it's another example of over-sized portions and inducement to overeating.
• I guess my second complaint against the place was that it just seemed a little ungenuine. I mean, it's a modern chain restaurant with waiters who smile a little too much, and the place is following processes from some manual of proper restauranting techniques designed to get as many customers in and out as quickly as possible, taking as much of the customers' money as possible in the interim.

In short, O.K. food, especially if you like to experiment, and an atmosphere and experience not any different than any other modern restaurant chain in its genre.

Curling Game on the Web

There's a neat (one player vs. the computer) curling game at mousebreaker.com. Some elements are missing, such as sweeping, but it's still fun and addictive. I should win almost 100% of the time; not that I do.

By the way, some of the games at that site might not be considered suitable for children (for reasons other than violence). That hasn't stopped me from letting my kids play, but maybe it should.

2004 Heisman Thoughts

I'm glad that I'm not a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Well, that's not exactly true, since I wish I was a voter for said trophy. However, I will freely admit that I am completely unqualified to vote for the award this year. But being unqualified to express an opinion hasn't stopped me before, so why should it now?

Anyway, the five finalists are:

• Reggie Bush, RB, USC
• Matt Leinart, QB, USC
• Adrian Peterson, RB, Oklahoma
• Alex Smith, QB, Utah
• Jason White, QB, Oklahoma

I'd vote for Peterson. The times I've seen Oklahoma play, he just stood out as being the best player out there.

Nothing Much to Say

It's been a while since I've made a blog entry. This means that either I have nothing much to say or no time to say it.

• Last night at curling, I had maybe the most frustrating night since the league (my first) started maybe two months ago. I released 18 stones as we played an extra "end" beyond the regulation 8. It was probably around stone 15 or 16 until I felt somewhat comfortable with my release, and I had some control of what the stones were going to do. I'd like to have some time to practice releasing a bunch of rocks in a non-game situation.
• Before then, I went to the Christmas pageant at my kids' school. Another sign of my kids' growing maturity is that I was confident that my son would be able to make it through the entire show without fidgeting too much, or otherwise being a distraction or calling inappropriate attention to himself. Maybe sitting on the opposite corner of the room helped, but he seemed to exude a new sense of confidence and maturity.

On tap for this weekend:

• Get a Christmas tree.
• Fix a flat tire.
• Write and send Christmas cards.
• Maybe go running, or at least otherwise get some exercise.
• Watch some football, if my favourite team is on the air.
• Maybe watch the rest of the Grey Cup tape.
• Finish and finally return the Babylon 5 DVD that I borrowed from a co-worker.
  
• Buy some Christmas presents. I'd better get something for my wife. I think I'd enjoy the time a lot more if we did what my parents do, and not buy Christmas presents for each other. But our relationship isn't at that level, I suppose. While I'm on the subject, one year I bought her a large cast-iron frying pan. As I was leaving the store, the (former) pastor of my church was walking in. I was all excited, and showed him, "Look what I got my wife for Christmas!!" He was like, "You got your wife a frying pan for Christmas??" But I knew she would like it, and she did.

OK, that's enough for now.