Many things

Hello again, everyone. We had another exceptionally busy weekend, as is becoming our habit, but it was still very fun. We had a sushi/movie night on Friday that was really fun, then some jiu-jitsu and house hunting on Saturday. Sunday was our Rifts game, which involved some cleaning and some cooking. More on each of these as we progress.

Friday was awesome. We had 10 people at Samurai Sushi, which was really cool. I didn't think we'd end up with that many making it, but everything worked out. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the food, too. We ended up ordering way too much and all of us had to stuff ourselves to capacity to get it all finished. The food was still super tasty, though. Their teriyaki sauce is really good. It's very thick and sweet. It worked well on beef, chicken and salmon. This trip, I already knew which sushi I liked, though i did find a new tasty roll called the chicago roll. That was super good. other than that, I spent most of my evening trying different entrees to see what I liked best. Really, what I like is a little bit of a lot of different entrees. Tonkatsu and chicken katsu are still very good, the teriyaki meats were all delicious, but I wasn't a big fan of the yakisoba or the yakiniku. There's still plenty that I really enjoy to justify the AYCE meal. I just wish they offered the keystone roll on the AYCE, but I can survive without it. I just need like a dozen pieces of unagi and I'm good to go.

We also saw Star Trek again. Unfortunately, it was late and I was in a sort of sushi coma, so I was fading in and out of consciousness a bit toward the beginning. I went out and got some popcorn and soda (yes, even as full as I was, I managed to pack a bit more in) under the theory that I can't fall asleep while actively eating food. This kept me solid for the rest of the movie, at least. I spent this viewing paying a lot more attention to the actors themselves, watching for subtleties of performance that got lost in the action and story the first time. Everyone really did do an incredible job. This is one of the best sci-fi movies in recent memory, I think. I'd put it up there with Iron Man, even.

Saturday, I woke up early-ish and went to jiu-jitsu class to try it out and see how I liked it. It was really awesome. The guy teaching is freakin' fantastic, very skilled at both the art and at teaching. He's really nice and everything, too. I was a bit worried about getting into a room with that many guys practicing fighting and having some or all of them be jerks who just wanted to flex nuts. There was none of that at all, which is pretty incredible. The workout I got from the class was also pretty amazing. there were several times when I thought I might throw up from exhaustion and we weren't even doing anything that tough. I'm just really not used to moving my body that much, that quickly. It really does take you to a whole different level of working out, beyond what you can do running or biking or anything. it's morel ike swimming, I guess. Your whole body is working all at once. Unfortunately, the goal is that you're supposed to be using as little energy as possible, which means I'm not doing it very well. Still, it's a lot of fun and I think I'll really enjoy it a lot. I'm planning to head back as soon as I can to get some more info and try another class.

After that, we went out house hunting. We found a place we really like. It's as old as I am, but it's a good-sized house on a nice big lot and the layout has so many options for improvements and stuff. There's some work to be done to it, but nothing we can't handle. The back yard is also amazingly well set up for what we'd like to do back there anyway. The whole thing is pretty incredible. I'll post more when we get more info on how it's likely to turn out as far as getting the loan for it.

Sunday, we cleaned the house and then folks came over for our Rifts game. I think the game itself went really well this week. We're working on some issues with the players figuring out the system and all, and getting ourselves working together well. I think we're making very good progress, though.

I made a meatloaf this week. It turned out pretty well, but the texture wasn't as consistent as I'd like. I think it would also work better as two smaller loaves than one giant loaf. It would cook faster, too.

Here's how it went: 2.25 pounds of ground sirloin, with 1 pound of ground chuck. I may go half and half next time, but that may end up being too greasy. I also put in one egg, 1 cup of bread crumbs, some worcestershire sauce, about a cup of diced onions, three cloves of garlic, half a can of tomato sauce (the little 8-oz one) and a few pinches of kosher salt. I tossed in some more generalized italian seasonings, too. I mixed that all up and formed a loaf of it on some wax paper on a cookie sheet. I glazed it with some glaze I made from some ketchup, some chili sauce, the rest of the can of tomato sauce, some worcestershire sauce and some honey. The glaze was very tasty. I finally got to use my probe thermometer! Set it to 155º and let it roll in a 325º oven. It took a while, but came out cooked well.

Here are my thoughts for next time: Maybe more bread crumbs, or ground up croutons (an Alton Brown suggestion) and less onion. I think I'll also cook the onion first before putting it into the meatloaf. It didn't cook well in the mix, and it threw off the texture a bit. As much as I'd like to improve on it, one of my guests did say it was the best meatloaf she'd ever had, and that she had never liked meatloaf before. I think I've gotten that response several times now, actually. It always makes me feel like I'm doing at least pretty well.