Month: November 2009

Future Music Star

/ Shane / 7 Comments

There’s nothing Evie likes more than singing songs. If you notice a common theme among her videos, it’s that they tend to be at the table. That’s because we make her sing for her supper. No, actually, I don’t know why she likes to sing at eating time, but that just happens to be when the mood usually takes her. Over Thanksgiving, some of the relatives got treated to the dinner theater we usually deal with.

First up, Rockin in the free world by Neil Young:

My favorite part is when she “messes up” in the beginning.

Yes, that song contains such fantastic toddler lyrics as, “Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them” and “she puts the kid away and she’s gone to get a hit”, but don’t worry: the next video will prove that she has no idea what words she is singing. And besides, she self edited that line to “she’s gone to get ahead”.

Hakuna Matata from the Lion King:

Super powers

/ Shane / 5 Comments

I wish I had telekinesis. I would use it to push the cat downstairs and close the gate whenever she is meowing outside Evie’s door before 6 a.m. When I’m lying there wishing death on the cat, I think of all sorts of things I could do with telekinesis. I could sweep her out of the hallway, confine her to a room, put her in a little telekinetic box and squeeze her until she shuts up, give her a little push every time she meows until I taught her not to meow. The list is endless.

I really do need some superpowers though. I always thought it would be nice to have Superman’s heat vision so that you could clear the ice off your windshield in winter. I used to have the power to randomly get free cookies at any Subway, but I haven’t been to one in so long that I don’t know if that power is still functioning. I probably got that power by working at Subway for so long, kind of like being bitten by a radioactive spider, so it might get weaker and weaker the longer I work at a desk job. Or it could be controlled by the phases of the moon. Superpowers are complicated like that.

I always forget how bald I am until I see a picture of myself from the top. I was looking at one such picture the other day and I was quite amazed at the perfect little oval of hairlessness. Then it occurred to me! What if I am developing an invisibility power, and so far it only manifests itself over my head?

So look for me to be invisible in the future. (Well, don’t literally look for me, because I’ll be invisible) Anybody else have any interesting super powers?

This is why you’re fat – Thanksgiving Edition

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I have mentioned the most excellent blog This is Why You’re Fat. Since today is the most grandiose this-is-why-you’re-fat holiday of them all, someone did a nice roundup of some ridiculous food items you may want to consider for your holiday feast. You can read the whole article, with wonderful pictures of each food item, or you can just read my summary below and click on anything that seems particularly delicious.

And by the way, I don’t appreciate the implication that taking any item and putting bacon on it is somehow over the top. More delicious, of course, but some of these are more inspired than others.

Link via Anna.

Review: Smoque

/ Shane / 2 Comments

A couple of weekends ago, we drove all the way up to the North side to check out a barbecue restaurant, Smoque. Despite several missteps on our part (driving to the North side is a misstep to begin with), I was very impressed!

Our first impression was related to the fact that there was a huge line out the door. We probably waited about 45 minutes to an hour. Now this might have been enough to sink the experience, but it was a really nice night, and Evie was a perfect angel, hamming it up and entertaining us while we waited. The line didn’t move very fast, so don’t expect to run in and run out. But this also might have been because we were there at like 5 p.m. on a Saturday night.

The food was awesome. I really appreciated that they let the meat speak for itself, rather than drowning it in sauce.

I had a pulled pork sandwich in a vinegary, Carolina style sauce. Don’t get me wrong, they gave me big thing of sauce on the side, but I didn’t really use it (except for dipping my fries!) The fries were just plain awesome. They were larger versions of the homemade fries we used to make at home, growing up. Another thing I liked about the place was that they had a “taste” menu, so you could get a little side order of something for a couple of bucks extra. Sara got one and couldn’t eat it, so she had some left over brisket the next day to smugly eat in front of us. For what it’s worth, Evie liked the mac & cheese.

One of the claims to fame of the restaurant, was being featured on Diner’s, Drive-ins, and Dives, which you can watch below (Warning, don’t watch on an empty stomach!):

In summary, 2 thumbs up! It might not be worth braving the traffic from my place, but if you find yourself in the neighborhood, it’s well worth the stop. Absolutely the best barbecue I’ve had in a long time, and easily some of the best I’ve ever had (there was a place in Georgetown (D.C.) that competes)

The Mentalist?

/ Shane / 3 Comments

After The West Wing ended, we followed actor Dulé Hill over to a show called Psych. It’s a comedy about a guy named Shawn who was trained by his father from birth to notice tiny clues and solve crimes. (Dulé Hill plays the sidekick, Gus) Because he’s so good at noticing things that other people don’t notice, people mistake him for a psychic. Shawn capitalizes on this by pretending to actually be psychic and to help the police department solve crimes.

It’s a good show. I mean, it is what it is, a sort of witty, pop-culture referencing, slacker comedy entirely based on the joke that Shawn must play-act and pretend to be psychic to keep the charade going. It’s sort of like Monk, or any number of humorous, throw away episode mystery shows, where you don’t need to turn your brain on too much and you don’t need to see every episode to know what’s going on.

After the show had been on for a few years over on the USA network, a new show, The Mentalist, premiered on CBS. The premise of the show seems to be more or less identical to psych, other than the fact that it is a drama instead of a comedy, and that the main character is smarmy and annoying and British, and everybody calls him by his last name, “Jane”, which is girly. The two shows seemed so similar that I thought perhaps the people responsible for Psych had decided to repackage the idea a little bit for a much wider audience on a much bigger network. It seemed to work too, since the Mentalist apparently has a huge audience and has won some awards. However, lately Psych has been taking some digs at the Mentalist, leading me to believe they were not part of the deal. Here is a transcript from a recent promo:

Shawn: “You’ve seen the mentalist, right?”
Dude: “Yes.”
Shawn: “It’s like that.”
Gus: “Except that guy is a fake.”
Shawn: “Right, if I was a fake psychic, it would be eerily similar.”
Gus: “Exactly the same.”
Shawn: “A virtual carbon copy.”

So obviously, they’re not too thrilled. But The Mentalist can’t have just stolen the idea, right? Everybody would notice that. Or is CBS just big enough to bully USA around when they like? Has that ever happened before, that another network just blatantly steals an idea from another? I mean, if the Mentalist really is better than Psych (it’s not), then what can USA say? Waaa, you took our idea and made it better!

So I guess the only thing that can be done, is that I can get the word out there. So don’t watch The Mentalist, watch Psych instead.