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 weather was so beautiful this weekend. Summer’s last hurrah, I suppose. We tried to spend as much time as possible outside, since Evie is going to be penned inside all winter. This may have backfired a little bit in the sense that she now is really excited for playing outside, and is going to be disappointed when the weather turns cold and we can’t.
Anyway, we practiced riding the tricycle on Friday and Saturday, and her improvement was incredible. On Friday she was constantly steering into things and had trouble keeping the trike going in a straight line. By Saturday, she was steering pretty well. She still gets distracted easily, and then forgets to steer, but at least when she is paying attention she does a good job. She also figured out how to peddle on her own. The tricycle has a handle on the back, so normally we push her. But once she figured out how to do it on her own, she didn’t want anything to do with that handle. In fact, she made me remove the handle and carry it, so she could be sure we weren’t pushing when she wasn’t looking. She usually needs a push to break her inertia, but once she is going, she can keep going until she stops. Then she needs another push to get going again.
Growing up, we could play in the yard whenever we wanted, but living in the city, it’s not so easy for Evie. Finding a place to play means walking to a designated playing area. So, on Sunday, Evie and I walked up to the Midway to play in the grass there. We played tag, kicked balls, climbed up and down stairs, had races, and played hide and seek. It was a lot of fun! I figured Evie would have a good time, but I was surprised at how much fun I had.
One of the funny things that happened was when we were playing hide and seek. We were basically in a big field, so there really wasn’t many places to hide. Evie didn’t care though, she thought it was so much fun. She would just run out into the middle of the field and stand and wait for me. Not wanting to just walk right over to her, I would make a big show of looking around a few places before “finding” her. If I took too long, she would helpfully yell, “Daddy!” so that I could find her. So, when it was her turn to count, she told me exactly where to “hide”. I ended up hiding a few feet away (by hiding I mean sitting in the open, but covering my head). When she was done counting, she got pretty mad that I wasn’t hiding where she told me to. So I told her to count again, and I moved to the exact spot she indicated. When she was done counting, I expected her to run right over to me. She knew exactly where I was; she placed me there. But instead, she made a big, exaggerated show of looking in a few other places first. Here I thought I was fooling her. I guess there’s no putting one over on that kid. 🙂
She continues to surprise me with her grasp of language. Like when she told Sara, “Maybe we could wear similar sweatshirts!”
She also continues to surprise me with making up songs. I would expect at her age she would be into repeating songs she hears a lot, or in making up songs about what she is doing. And she does do both of those things. But when she and Sara both wore pink shirts, she burst out singing “Two pink girls, singing in the rain!” No idea where that one came from. It wasn’t even raining.
Finally, the other day she was taking a nap when she cried out, “I want it, I want it, I want it!” so I opened the door, but she wasn’t sitting up. I whispered, “Are you awake?” as a joke, since I knew she was awake; I had just heard her. But she wasn’t awake, she was completely out. We have been noticing lately a new possessiveness, a new demanding-ness, a true toddler I-want-it-all-and-I-want-it-right-now-ness…but usually not when she’s sleeping.
I was recently alerted to a new college humor-esqe website, Make My Mood. Basically, every day there’s just a new, completely random little picture of some sort to brighten your day. There seems to be no connection or theme, other than “funny”.
I was originally on the site to see this great 10 second rundown of a CSI episode (how do they get away with making that show a whole hour?), when I started clicking through the archives and saw a lot of other good stuff, including:
This unbelievable video of a guy almost getting hit by a bus:
Alright, I was alerted to this video via SModcast. Basically, it is a village in Columbia where there are only two ways in and out: either a massive, dangerous hike half way around a jungle, or a ridiculous, crazy zip line across a perilous gorge. The Columbian government says it is not worth building a bridge across the gorge, because there are too few people living in the village. For the record, I don’t necessarily disagree with that. I mean, come on, you just *have* to live on the other side of a perilous gorge?
Anyway, in order to get to school, the kids don’t have time to do the hike. So they are forced to use the zip line twice a day, every day, back and forth. They also carry all of their groceries, etc. in burlap sacks at 30 mph over a 1,200 foot drop over a raging river, using rope slings and a wooden hand brake. The video is only a few minutes long and well worth the watch. And don’t worry, they save a shocker for the end.
There is a show on the CW called Supernatural, and I’m here to tell you, this show is awesome. The show stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as brothers Sam and Dean Winchester. They were raised as “hunters” by their dad, and basically go around disposing of supernatural baddies.
I wanted to write this post a long time ago, so that people would start watching this show and it wouldn’t get canceled, but I guess people were watching it anyway because it never got canceled, and I think it is in the final season.
This show gets better and better the more I watch it, and I highly recommend it. Obviously, two guys who fight supernatural creatures is sort of up my alley to begin with, but believe you me, there are PLENTY of shows with that premise that are wretched. The acting is good, and I could genuinely believe the two of them are brothers. Supernatural is creepy, funny, and (perhaps hardest of all) doesn’t come across as cheesy. Maybe this is because they don’t take themselves completely seriously. All of that is hard enough, but there are two other traps the show has avoided falling into, which are most impressive.
First off, the show manages to maintain the balance of throw away episodes and story arc. When the show began, there wasn’t much connection between episodes. The Winchester boys would show up, kick some supernatural henie, and ride off into the sunset. These kind of shows are great escapes because you don’t need to engage your brain. However, after a time, shows like this get a “what’s the point” kind of feel, and the writers usually transition to a more over-arching storyline to tie the season together. Sometimes when this happens, a show loses it. Some shows really are cut out to be single episode, stand alone shows. For example, I personally feel that Buffy worked better this way; in the last season, every episode was working towards the finale and it was awful. Supernatural somehow manages to have an overall storyline, with plenty of individual, stand-alone episodes and yet the stand-alone episodes frequently tie-in in some way, without seeming awkward.
The other trap the show manages to avoid is “villain escalation”. Often in books or T.V. shows (or even movie franchises), the heroes have to defeat certain bad guys in order to prevail. If the book or show is successful and a sequel is needed, the writers feel the need to out-do their previous effort. This usually results in a new, even MORE POWERFUL bad guy showing up. This happens time and time again, until the heroes are so powerful that the original bad guy wouldn’t have lasted a second against them. This is sort of the natural progression of things, and I’m not saying it doesn’t happen in Supernatural, but to at least some degree, anything from the first season is still trouble. For example, although they know how to deal with ghosts, an episode that has them fighting a ghost is still a good episode; you never feel like they should easily be able to defeat it.
I have only two quibbles with the show, one small and one large. The small one is that this show followed directly on the heals of Gilmore Girls, also on the CW. On that show, Jared Padalecki played a character named Dean. Then he comes over to this show and immediately becomes the brother Sam, NOT the brother named Dean. I understand he’s just an actor playing a role, but did Supernatural just HAVE to use the name Dean for one of its characters? This was very confusing for at least 2 seasons.
The bigger (biggest) problem with the show is that it is not available online! (legally) This is particularly a problem since it is on Thursday nights, up against Grey’s Anatomy and The Office. I think the show is popular, I don’t know the numbers, but there’s no way people are tuning in to it over Grey’s and The Office. Those people (like myself) are forced to try to catch reruns when they can, missing many episodes. What reason could their possibly be to stack your network’s best show against such heavy hitters, and then not make it available online. It’s like you don’t want me to watch it.
Well this season my friends, we’re putting our money where our mouths are (and by mouth, I mean this blog post). Sara has moved Supernatural to the top of our TiVo queue, over Grey’s and The Office. That’s right, you heard me. But the fact is, those shows are available online. Maybe this was the CW’s ploy, but I can’t imagine it’s working.
Okay, so final word on the subject. This was an outake from one of the episodes. The shot in the episode ended right before the “rising up”, but Jensen Ackles decided to take it to the next level. You can hear the camera guys laughing, but they let the camera roll:
EDIT: Okay, boo, they disabled embedding on that one, but it’s the best copy. So just click the “watch on youtube” link in the middle of the screen.
You can also check out some good clips (mostly) from season 2.
Shane Halbach 