Sushi Tuesday!

A few days late, but here it goes. Trivia was canceled on Tuesday, which was lame. Some private party or something at the bar. Anyhow, since our Tuesday nights are reserved for such activities, we decided it would be fun to go out and get some dinner anyway. Nate and Adj came over and we all went to Samurai Sushi on Arapahoe and Dayton. We'd gone there once before with Derek and Jenny and it was really good. Even though I'm not huge on sushi myself, I found something there that I really enjoy, and I can at least recognize that the food is something people who do like sushi could really get into. I've been wanting to take some friends there for a while and Tuesday offered the perfect opportunity.

Next time I go, I'll be getting the "all you can eat" for $20 meal, for sure. Most of the entrees are available in smaller format so you can try them all out, and if you get a regular entree and any sushi at all, you'll already be spending that much. The AYCE really is fantastic, I have to say. $20 is pretty standard for most meals at a decent restaurant and for sushi, it's incredibly reasonable. I actually ordered a dish called "chicken katsu" which was two panko-breaded and fried chicken breasts. Very tasty. Jenna got her peppered beef again, and Nate got beef yakisoba, I believe. AJ took the route I did on my first trip and got the AYCE as a means of trying a lot of different sushi to see what he liked. He ended up really enjoying the teriyaki salmon. Makes me want to try it next time we go. And there will be a next time, for sure. Anyone who enjoys sushi and would like to go sometime should let me know and we can set up a time to head over there. It's very close to my house and I'm always up for a good meal.

After dinner, we went back to our house and played "Wise and Otherwise" for a few hours. Very cool game. I'm pretty sure I've described it on here before, so I won't go into it again. In any case, it was a very fun evening, and it was good to hang with Nate and Adj, as always.

I also tested my sling last night, the results of which are posted at my new blog, Geek Kraft.

Geek-Kraft

Last night, I made a sling from stuff i just had lying around the house. I was talking with my friend Adj and he suggested I write a blog called "making geeky stuff with Jared" and I thought it wasn't a half bad idea. I found an available blog title that fits my theme and posted a simple intro. I haven't gotten much on there yet as far as style changes or anything, but I figured I'd let folks know it's there. With 1,000 hits on this blog, I thought I might try my hand at a themed blog. Since I'm something of a crafty dude, that was the obvious choice.

So anyhow, if you're interested in my random ramblings about what's going on in my life, my cooking, my shooting, my video games, my family, etc. this is still the right place to be. If you're more interested in how to make a sling, or to etch glass, or to vacuum-form thermoplastics, then you're better off over here.

Enjoy!

Slacking!

Seriously, one post last week? What the heck? Well, we'll do better this week, for sure. Especially since I am rapidly approaching 1000 hits on this blog. Sweet!

Well, this past week was very fun. We won at trivia again, and have enough of a reputation now that people mutter under their breath when we show up to play. That's sort of cool in a way. We give away most of our free drinks though, so that helps keep us from seeming like total jerks. I hope. Our quizmaster informed us that there's no quiz this week, which is a bit lame. We enjoy our weekly trivia night very much, so missing out even for just a week, will feel odd. On a positive note, the bar did get back on track with the "extra goodies" theme last week, giving each of us a t-shirt.

Thursday I went shooting with my dad, which is always a good time. I did well on both handguns and shotguns. We're consistently getting 19/25 or higher on the auto-trap which isn't too bad at all. I haven't gotten more than 21/25 yet, unfortunately. I think we'll keep getting better though, especially if we can start going more consistently.

Unfortunately, I also started feeling a bit wonky starting Tuesday night, extending through Wednesday and Thursday. Not terrible, just a bit of a head cold. I stayed home from work on Friday to recuperate. it did help, I think, though I still felt like crap all of Friday and all of Saturday. Jenna was also sick pretty much the same time I was, but it didn't seem to hit her as hard as it did me. She's a tough little wife. Thankfully, we both felt much better on Sunday morning, so we still go to play our Rifts game. I made Chicken Parmesan, which seemed to go over quite well. Below, find my recipe, as it stands.

Chicken Parmesan: Chicken, with some stuff on it.

Take some chicken breasts and clean them up. Get any weird dangly bits and obvious fat deposits removed, then dredge with flour. I'm told this step helps the actual breading from flaking off. Next, dip into thoroughly-beaten egg. Then, dip into a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Put into a covered skillet, cook until...cooked. Place in a dish, top with a slice of provolone cheese, then cover with foil and let sit for 10 minutes or so.

Pretty basic, eh? Here are some notes I have and questions that came up with this most recent attempt: First off, how do I keep the breading from sloughing off of my chicken? Even with the flour, it still happened. I cooked these on the stovetop instead of in the oven like I normally do, which may be part of the problem. Maybe cooking in the oven is a better bet? Maybe I need to cook them in a non-stick pan? I sprayed some olive oil in there, but that didn't seem to help much, especially after the first flip. Also, I noticed that the chicken breasts I used were very thick and bulky. This isn't bad if you're into a heck of a lot of chicken, but it means you're getting a lot less surface area for your good crusty stuff to hang onto. I'm thinking maybe I should pound these flat a bit so they're thinner, will cook faster, and will have more crust per unit of chicken.

I'm really hoping Kristie will read this and have some suggestions, since I like making this and even with the specified issues it turns out pretty well. I'd like to fix what problems I have with it so that it will be a consistent product worthy of serving to my friends and family without me having to worry about the chicken being cooked through or all the good crustiness flaking off and ending in a soggy pile on the plate somewhere, or worse yet in the cooking pan.

Bit of a break

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while since I last posted. Stuff has been going on, but I've been too busy at work to spend much time writing. I caught up a week's worth of work on Friday, though, so I've got all the time in the world now!

Let's start at the beginning. Or rather, the middle. Of last week. Well, Thursday, anyway. it was the first meeting of our new book club where we had actually read the book, so that was cool. I never quite understood the point of a book club before, as I didn't think there would be much to discuss with the books I tend to read. That still mostly holds true for Red Planet by Robert Heinlein, since it's very short and there isn't much worthy of debate. There are definitely strong libertarian themes in the book, but the opposition is presented as being completely lame and not even the most authoritarian reader can't really sympathize with them. It was a good book, but it wasn't something that will really raise a lot of questions about the nature of governance and whatnot. Now, we're reading Weaveworld by Clive Barker. I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm having mixed feelings. Some of it is really good and interesting and some is odd and strangely written. We'll see how it pans out.

Friday we got to leave early from work, which was awesome. I went home and Jenna and I played video games all night. Saturday, there were more video games, though this time I got to play a bit of Left 4 Dead with Steve, so that was really fun. Poor kid's stuck up in the frozen wasteland of the north (Big Piney, WY), so any time I get to talk with him or whatever, I do try to take advantage of it. We were a bit worried about getting to our game on Saturday afternoon, but the roads really weren't that bad. Our game was really fun. The whole thing actually focused on my character, which is sort of a first. I'm extremely curious about what Adj has come up with for me, now. There's some really interesting stuff happening that I'll need to think on rather al ot to figure out how best to proceed.

Something interesting that Adj came up with that I really like, is the association of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Details) with role-playing games. It really fits well. When your character is dealing solely with staying alive on a day-to-day basis, there's no time to develop him or her as a person with a history and a future. Unfortunately, when you're stuck at the second level (Safety) you also can't really form bonds of friendship with those around you. That means your character may not really know much of anything about the other characters around him. It makes for a very simplistic game. It can still be fun, but you don't form the same connection to characters, and I think it actually makes the players feel less involved. Adj, having realized this, does an exceptional job of getting us opportunities to have our characters realize their place in a larger world, recognize and achieve goals, solve problems in a creative way and to grow and change in meaningful ways. This is only one of the many reasons I have told him on multiple occasions that he is the greatest GM of ever.

Sunday was another day of video games. This may sound very boring, but we're both playing games we absolutely love. I'm off Fable 2 for the moment and back onto Fallout 3. I'm working on achieving all there is to achieve, finishing all sidequests, discovering all possible areas, etc. It's a ridiculously huge game, which is awesome. I'm making full use of my strategy guide, too. I'm really enjoying it, and when I'm done, there are already two expansions! So you don't think that we're total lazy freaks, we did go and play racquetball for about an hour and a half on Sunday and I did spend a few hours in the garage, working on my joinery. I'm not having any luck at all with my finger joints with any method I've tried so far. I think I need to make myself a jog of some kind. The way I tried yesterday was closer than I've gotten before, but there's still way too much chance for slight variation, and the whole process takes for freaking ever. I'll keep thinking about it and trying things until something works.

Thanks for reading!

Sunglasses

Yesterday, I got my sunglasses. You guys really don't know how happy I am about it. I never wore sunglasses until my mom-in-law bought the original pair for me and then I never went without them. After I lost them, I was still used to wearing sunglasses, so I kept wearing my various crappy backup pairs until my new set came in. I hadn't realized the difference a good quality pair of sunglasses makes until I had them and had to go back to crappy ones and then got awesome ones again. Everything is so clear! Colors aren't distorted nearly as much, there's much less glare and everything is distinct. They are, in fact, the greatest sunglasses ever devised by man.

In case you're wondering about the specifics, here's the lowdown: Rayban 3025 001/58. They are the classic aviator style, in a polarized green-gray lens that is 58 mm wide. If I have a chance, I may see if I can find the slightly larger size at a sunglass store sometime just to see if that would work better for my excessively large head. For now, though, I'm happy as a clam.

Domination is our Game

Last night, the Gentlemen Beekeepers perpetrated a full-on victory sweep of the Geeks Who Drink trivia extravaganza. Did we win the game itself? Of course. Did we win the internet bonus prize? Certainly. Did we also win every other bonus question asked? Heck yes we did. This is the maximum amount of victory possible in one evening of trivia, something we haven't ever managed before.

Now, to be fair, it was a very light night. Extremely light. Like only us and three other teams, two of which left before the end of the quiz I think. Even so, we managed a very respectable score (above 70) so I don't feel too bad about all of it.

For the full run-down, head over to Student Doctor Awesome's official GWD blog: Geeks Who Drink

Still keeping up with my morning calisthenics. Doing week three of my pushup program for the third time and noticing that it is getting easier, which is good. Also bumped my ab work to 35 reps per set. I'm now doing normal crunches, then a double set of bicycles (like the "right-elbow-to-left-knee thing, but with more motion), then my leg-lowering thing (I'm told it's called a soldier's press?). I'm definitely feeling the workouts, but I'll have to start measuring my arms and chest and whatnot to see if I'm making any noticeable advancements.

Swords!

I'm sure most of your know this already, but in case you don't pay attention I'll tell you anyway. I'm into swords. Bladed objects of all kinds, really. Actually, even non-bladed weaponry. Okay, really just weapons in general. Where was I? Oh yes. Swords.

I started collecting swords essentially as soon as I had money of my own and the means to get somewhere that sold weapons. Oddly enough, my first true swords were purchased in France and Spain. You would think I'd have started a bit closer to home, but there you have it. I got a really cheap stainless steel katana, some kind of miniature Spanish sword and a U.S. cavalry saber. The saber was made in India and is actually made of a pretty decent material and fairly well constructed. Not amazing quality, but it took frighteningly large gouges out of the katana when a friend and I played with them in the backyard once. After that, I continued buying swords. I wasn't at all concerned with quality, really. I just kept buying them and leaning them in corners or putting them on shelves. I currently own now fewer than two dozen swords, I'd wager, and only two of them are of anything approaching functional quality. These are the cavalry saber (which got badly rusted over the years due to poor care on my part) and a hand-and-a-half sword (also called a 'bastard sword') I got from my parents for Christmas one year. I have very nearly a full set of cheap knock-off Lord of the Rings swords, including a really tolerable Witch King sword. To sum up, I was after quantity, not quality. My primary concern was cost. If it was cheap, I'd buy it. I didn't have any money and I didn't realize at that young age that having a ton of really cheap swords wasn't actually all that great. Now I have more swords than I know what to do with, so most of them continue leaning in corners or sitting in boxes.

As my age advanced and my wisdom grew (and as I started making enough money to buy cool stuff) I got a little less interested in buying just any sword. Now, I do research. I do a lot of research. If any of my friends are unlucky enough to be around when I get on a research kick, they will learn more about that topic than they would ever care to know. Those who were talking to me a few months ago when I first got back into the idea of buying a nice sword were treated to a link to this site: Sword Buyer's Guide

If you are even a little interested in buying a sword that you can use to cut up stuff in your back yard without it flying apart in your hand, this is the place to go. They have really in-depth reviews of a lot of swords, including videos of people cutting with them. They also have some really neat articles about the history of sword-making, various styles of sword, how they're made now versus historically, etc. If you like swords, you'll love this site.

I like this sword, the Tenchi. It's a fully functional katana. It comes sharp and based on what I've read, it is extremely durable. I like it. It's simple, tough, functional and has a good look to it, I think. I'm definitely excited about it.

I'm also excited for trivia tonight. Woo-hoo!

Geekery

Tuesday night has become a consistent evening of trivial fun for us, and I like it that way. We're attending (and winning) the Littleton Geeks Who Drink event on a much more regular basis than we were able to attend (or win) the one we were going to in the DTC. It's very fun. The quizmaster is really cool, much easier to understand and all that jazz, and he really seems to like our team. The blog he writes for the event is always an entertaining read, not least because it tends to mention me and my friends in a positive light. You do know that I'm susceptible to flattery, right?

In any case, we won again this week. Hard. We beat the second-place team by 20 points. In a quiz where 6 of the 8 rounds are worth 8 points each, 20 is a lot of points to have. We're still getting pint glasses (one each for Jenna and I) and are now having to find space in our cabinet for them. They're nice than some of our other glasses, so we may be replacing sometime soon. We're also getting gift certificates worth $25, which just happens to be precisely the amount of money we tend to spend between the three of us for an evening at the Celtic Tavern. We're also getting a few folks who are simply aghast at our knowledge. One of the rounds this week was "stalking fictional characters." It essentially gave you a description of a character from TV, books, etc. and you had to identify the character by name. One of the descriptions was something along the lines of "This dispossessed dwarf and his family won't stop whining about how a dragon stole their inheritance and their mountain." I knew immediately that it was from the Hobbit, but couldn't remember the main dwarf's name. Thankfully Adj was there and told me the correct answer. When the round was over and Student Doctor Awesome (our quizmaster) was reading out the questions and answers (at which point you are supposed to yell out the answer if you know it) I yelled "Thorin Oakenshield!" at the appropriate time. The guys who took third looked over at me, flabbergasted and said "How the heck do you know that?" To which I could reply only "We're actual geeks." That concept seems lost on most of the participants in the pub quiz, unfortunately. Though it is called 'Geeks Who Drink' I think there's more drink than geek on the average team. In any case, we had a fantastic time as always and you can read all about it here: Geeks Who Drink Blog

Last night, Jenna and I went to the monthly game night my cousin and his wife are hosting and had a blast. First off, it's just great to see them. John, as he so eloquently said in his toast as my best man at our wedding, is more like a brother than a cousin. We've been close our whole lives, even when we've only been able to see each other a few times a year. Having a regularly scheduled hang-out time with him is awesome. Last night some of his friends (who I have also known for quite a while) were there as well and that just made it even better. We played some "Wise and Otherwise," a game we first played with Jenna's family at their house on our last trip to CA. We really enjoyed it a lot and, because that's just the kind of people they are, they sent it to us recently so we could keep enjoying it. Have I mentioned before that my in-laws are the nicest people ever? If not, please make note of it. After we finished that game, John busted out a game called "Shadows Over Camelot." It was freaking cool. This game deserves a new paragraph. Maybe several.

First off, all the pieces of the game are extremely well-made. It's just a high-quality construction, like a Fantasy Flight game (another game company that consistently impresses me). The cardboard is thick and heavy, the plastic pieces are detailed and strong (or flexible, as needed) and the cards are sturdy. Everything is colorful, well-designed and just plain pretty. For anyone unfamiliar with the King Arthur stories (as I am, even after taking a class specifically about it in college), there are several quests that the knights go on. Finding the Holy Grail is probably the biggest one. Excalibur is another. Something about a dragon is in there, too. I think there's also a black knight. In any case, they're all in the game. You're playing one of the knights of the round table (including king Arthur) and you have to travel to these different areas and attempt these quests. It wouldn't be that bad if the game weren't specifically designed to make you cry like a little girl. Let's take the grail quest as an example, but first, some background. Rather uniquely, this is a cooperative board game. You, the players, are fighting together to defeat the game itself. Every turn, each knight has a choice of what to do for the "evil progression." You can place a catapult outside Camelot (when there are 12, you lose), lose a life (you start at four and when you get to zero you die), or draw and play a black card. The black cards are horrifying. Every time someone reached for the pile last night, it was as if they had just punched a baby seal. The whole table erupted in gasps and whimpers. The black cards symbolize Camelot's enemies making progress against the knights and their goals. There are black cards specific to each quest, and some "special" black cards. The special cards lay down more catapults, take your life, remove your progress on current quests, etc. They hose you.

The regular black cards (getting back to the grail quest) hinder your progress. So, when a "Despair" card is played, it is placed on the grail track (7 slots, if I remember correctly) in an open space. If all the slots aren't open, the despair card removes a good grail card and opens that space. On your turn, if you are at the grail quest and have grail cards in hand (you start with 5 cards and only get new ones by completing quests or hanging out in Camelot, not doing other quests) you can play them the same way. Lay down a grail card on the track or remove a despair card. It doesn't seem that tough until you realize that there are seven folks sitting around the table drawing these cards. If you get a run of bad luck on grail cards, you can lose very very quickly. If you lose the grail quest (all slots are filled with despair cards) you place three black swords on the round table (all failed quests place black swords, when you reach a total of 7 you lose the game), and anyone who is still at the quest loses life. Fun, huh? I don't know that I'm adequately expressing the terror with which this game fills you. it is a real nail-biter. We actually won last night, entirely through good luck and some good play by our players. Any one of dozens of cards in the black deck could have beaten us severely if played at the wrong time. Still, we survived. Awesome. It was one of the most thrilling victories I've had in a board game ever. It's enhanced by the fact that nobody at the table is a loser when you win. You all win together, which is great.

Oh wait, I think I'm forgetting something...oh yeah. We cheated. See, we all played as a team, trying to help each other out, finishing quests, sacrificing some benefit to ourselves for benefit to the group as a whole, and so on. The game actually calls for a traitor in the game, randomly selected. He's someone who is trying to stop you from winning, but you don't know who he is. You can accuse people of being the traitor, but you get a black sword every time you guess wrong. The traitor can guess, too. This is what I think would elevate the game to a different plane from most games. It's still a co-op game, but you've added a layer of mystery, intrigue and betrayal. If I didn't make it clear in the beginning, this game is freaking hard without the traitor. With everyone doing their very best to win last night, we still nearly lost. If one of our players had been working against us, I don't know that we would've had a chance. A smart traitor can do things that seem helpful but are really designed to slow you down, kill your players, earn black swords, place catapults, etc. it's an element the game can run without, and which I don't think it needs to be very fun. The game wants to hurt you without any help from a traitor. As John mentioned reading in a review last night, "Shadows Over Camelot is a pretty game. It thinks you look pretty, too." That's in the 'Deliverance' sense of pretty, mind you, not the ballerina sense. It's a challenge just to beat the game, and playing a game on a team with your friends is a fun and different sort of experience. Since it's best played with 7 people or so, I don't know that we'll get it for ourselves. It is extremely fun, but we rarely have that many people available.

Wikipedia:Shadows Over Camelot

Still keeping up with my situps and pushups this week. I'm doing 30 reps in each set for my situps now and will move to 35 next week, slowly and steadily increasing as I go. I think it's a good way to do it, but we'll have to see what the results show after I've been doing it for a while. WiiFit still says I'm obese. Bastard.

Things to do, places to be

I feel very accomplished this weekend. I finally finished my pegboard project (pictures soon) which was very nice. It took me a lot longer than it had any reason to, but I learned a lot and that certainly counts for something. I'm having a hard time getting my finger joints to work. I was hoping to be able to use my router, but I may have to invest in a dado blade set or do them by hand first. Doing them by hand seems like it would sort of suck, unfortunately. I'm not as precise as i need to be to get these things to match up properly. I'm sure practice will help, but I prefer templates when possible. That's the nice thing with the router or table saw, and why I'd like to go that direction. You set up a template or a jig and you can just run through it all really quickly. We'll see if I can do what I want with what I have, I guess.

We went to Erick's house for his b-day on Saturday and that was really fun. Got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in too long. Three of us couple all got married last summer, so we were all going through a lot of the same things at the same time, and we're all recovering on about the same pace, it seems. I'd like to set something up to hang with them more often. Maybe a game night every other week or something would work. I don't know, but we'll figure something out.

Sunday was Rifts and that was very fun as per usual. We're progressing quickly through the levels, so we're getting some much-needed skills and abilities to help us survive the world. I made chicken pot pie again this week and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I also made deviled eggs, which were a moderate hit. It's always a great time to have people over for dinner and games. All of our friends are awesome, and I'm really glad we're seeing them regularly now. All these roleplaying games keep us pretty busy, but it's a good busy. We're going to have to figure out how to get away for a weekend now and again this summer, I think. I'm very excited about camping and hiking and Jenna really wants to go kayaking on a reservoir. I think that sounds really fun, too.

kept up with my situps and pushups today and Saturday again. I'm feeling pretty good about my habits, so I may try to increase my efforts. My Wii Fit said I was obese this morning, and that's hardly cool. Intellectually, I know BMI is a miserable indicator of health, body composition, ideal weight, muscle-to-fat ratio or any other useful information. Psychologically, it's tough to handle being called obese by a video game. I need to run or something.

Minor Updates

Not a ton going on right now, I suppose. Did all my pushups this morning for a total of 92 (26, 24, 22, 20). I'm still having trouble getting all of them in one go for each set, so I may repeat this week again and see if I do any better by the end of it. I'm definitely feeling them, which is always a good sign. My knee seems to have healed up nicely, so I may go try to ride the stationary bike tomorrow morning. We'll see.

Here's my next project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_joint

I want to make small wooden boxes with these joints on the corners. I'd also like to set etched glass into the top, and line them with something. I don't know. I just thought it would be a neat project. I may also make a larger box like this for rolling dice when camping. I think that would be pretty cool and sufficiently geeky.

We made enchiladas last night with some mild red sauce and they were pretty good. I think we both prefer the green, so we'll probably do that from now on. We just need to find a brand that's nice and mild. My mother-in-law (or as I like to call her, my secondary maternal unit) said that she tried my recipe and it turned out well. She normally does a bunch of other fancy stuff to hers that makes it taste better (fries each tortilla to soften it before wrapping it around the chicken, adds veggies, etc) but she told me mine was still good and quite a bit faster to make. I'll have to try softening up the tortillas in a skillet sometime, because that does sound really good. Still, I always love to hear when people try stuff I post on here. Makes me feel like I'm doing a public service or something.

Shooting for the moon

Last night, my dad and I went to the range. It was super cold out, so we went to the indoor place and shot handguns instead of shotguns. It has been a month or more since I've shot a handgun, so I'm pretty pleased with my performance last night. I keep worrying that if I don't keep practicing on a very regular basis, all my skill will disappear, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However many thousands of rounds I've put through this gun seems to have more or less ingrained it into me.

Without further, ado, here are my targets from last night:

This one is 10 shots at 25 feet.

Same target as above, but with 10 shots to center mass.

Closer view of the grouping. That's no more than three or four inches across, which isn't too bad at 25 feet.

Here's where I was trying some double taps. They've definitely spread out a lot (especially since this is only 15 feet) but almost all still within the 9 and 10 areas.

I like these targets because it's easy to pick out different places to shoot on the same target. With a bullseye, you can shoot the center, but anything else is a little tough to define. This is 10 shots at 25 feet again.

Ten shots at 35 feet here. I had one weird wandering shot where I felt myself jerk the trigger. I think that's sort of a constant battle, though. I'll keep fighting the urge.

20 rounds at 35 feet. The grouping is bigger, but still respectable. I jerked a shot here, too. Right as I was pulling my trigger, the guy next to me fired and the sound startled me. I really need to work on not letting that happen.

Another 10 shots at 35 feet. Keeping them all inside the 10-ring (or at least darned close) isn't bad, I guess.

My first target of the night shot at 25 feet. If you look closely, you'll see all the score numbers on the various body parts and where I attempted to shoot them all. I don't think I was more than an inch off of any of them. Sweet!

Anyway, that's what I did last night. Always good fun, and a great way to spend some time with my dad.

The Gentlemen Beekeepers

Rock! We got first place at trivia last night. Hooray! Another $25 gift certificate and a shiny new pint glass for each of us. We rocked the house, to be honest. We got perfect scores on at least two rounds, including a 16-point audio round. I think that's the first time we've ever done that, and it was almost entirely due to Adj's overwhelming knowledge of 80s music. We did well on the other audio round too, also thanks almost entirely to Adj's knowledge of female comedians. The man has some knowledge, it cannot be denied.

It's good to know that The Gentlemen Beekeepers (our team) are well-known enough now that the quizmaster has taken note of us. After just one week (where we finished second) we seem to be favorites when we walk in the door now. That's a bit of a boost to the old self-esteem. I think it must've been my furious, no doubt frightening performance during the dance-off. We may not have taken first, but we took second with a style and grace normally reserved for drunken amputees.

Jenna and I went to the store last night and got some ingredients for foods. She's really excited about me making more of that chicken pot pie, and I think I came up with something that may make it even better. I'm thinking about brushing the croissant with an egg wash before cooking to make it extra golden brown and crispy. We'll see. I'm also thinking maybe just some melted butter brushed on there would be super tasty. So anyway, that's one meal we have planned. I think we're going to do some more enchiladas, too. This time we got a mild red enchilada sauce and we're hoping it won't be quite as spicy as what we had last time. I'm also going to try very hard to make some burgers in the oven sometime this week. If they are successful, expect a recipe. If not, expect a lot of whining on my part.

Also, I ordered some replacement sunglasses yesterday. They were still expensive, but totally worth it. I expect them within a week, hopefully.

This morning, I did 84 pushups in total. I feel pretty awesome about it. I probably shouldn't, but I do anyway.