Friday, February 24, 2006

cycling.

i'm going through a gaming phase right now. it's kind of weird. i guess it really started back in the fall with Dungeon Siege 2, and interspersed that with a little Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. then, having beaten neither of them, i went on to DOSbox and Darklands. it was somewhere in there that i realized i was using my athlon64 3500+, geforce6800gs, and 1gb ram to play a game that came out in 1992. so instead of going back to the final boss battle in DS2, i bought Morrowind GOTY edition, and now i've purchased Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

do i like RPGs? maybe.

what's funny is about this time last year was when we actually bought the gamecube and a bunch of games for it, which i haven't beaten either (pikmin, pikmin2...)... i wonder what it is about winter that sends me headlong into the comforting arms of interactive electronic entertainment. the really funny thing is that the downstairs is always cold in winter, so we went and bought the gamecube and then didn't use it for like 6 weeks until the weather warmed up and we could sit in the living room without wrapping up in the blanket.

videogames are, i guess, pretty task-oriented, which makes them different from reading in that the unfolding of the story is incumbent on the player for progression. there's a fair difference between solving a problem or whacking away at enemies and turning a page. maybe there's something about the effort involved that makes videogames more distracting than books.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Alison at Blue Bell.

last friday, we went to Alison at Blue Bell for my dad's birthday. we went there last year too, but last year i had a fever topping 101F, so i'd have to say that was probably a less-than-representative experience at the little BYO. why did we go? i don't remember. it seemed like a good idea at the time. this year we were back in the same table, the big round one in the corner of the tiny blue-and-gold dining room, the only table set up to take more than 4 people at once. alison barshak herself came over to introduce herself at about the end of our meal and was very gratified to learn that my father is also an acquarius (her birthday had been the previous sunday).

the menu is very seafood-heavy, perhaps recalling her intial big splash in the philadelphia restaurant scene at the now-scandal-ridden Striped Bass. previously-scandal-ridden, perhaps i should say. neil stein is heading to prison, and stephen starr's new chef, christopher lee, has launched the restaurant into inquirer food reviewer craig laban's coveted four bell rating.

i had smoked salmon with potato pancakes and sour cream for my appetizer, a cute little take on jewish deli food. the salmon was delicious, and paired perfectly with the smooth sour cream and the warm crunchiness of the pan-fried potato pancakes. this also went really well with the blanc de noirs my father had brought to celebrate his birthday, although uncharacteristically for him, he had also brought a 1996 Ridge cabernet sauvignon, which meant that he and my mom and anyone else who wanted to drink the wine really only had a choice of two dinners on the menu.

i had the crispy monkfish, which i think was crusted with potato starch and pan-fried. then the steaks were balanced over possibly braised frisee and new potatoes. as soon as i handed my menu to the waitress, i instantly managed to forget how it was described, so even when it came out from the kitchen, i wasn't sure what i was eating. monkfish doesn't go with cabernet. mom and dad both had rack of lamb with minted yoghurt sauce, reflecting alison's recent trip to turkey. arcade had a greek salad for his appetizer which came with a deep-fried tube of phyllo dough wrapped around creamy feta, which i split with dad and so at least got to taste the wine.

the kitchen is also extremely flexible. when my sister mentioned her discomfort with truffled cream as a garnish for her crab cakes, the waitress instantly and kindly suggested they be made with ordinary cocktail sauce instead.

we weren't originally planning on dessert, but then we saw the dessert menu. so mom had a goat cheese, fig, and walnut tart, dad and his mom both had sorbets, i had a chocolate-espress-chile pot de creme. yes, chile. wow, that left a zing in your mouth. being my family, everyone had to have a mouthful, and everyone said, "where's the chile?" and then i would say, "just swallow." and then you could see eyes widen, and, "whoa." i don't remember what everyone else had. dad and i traded off desserts about halfway. hehe

much better than last year's experience. i'm sure the lack of flu had a lot to do with it. i'd like to go back, actually, and try the duck taco again, because i remember it being disappointingly dry, but i'm not sure it was the duck, not me. she does only take cash or cheque, which can be a bit awkward when everyone has unplanned desserts. i'd still say it was worth it for that pot de creme. zowie.

Monday, February 13, 2006

regression.

i didn't make the ginger cake in the end. i downloaded DOSBox and spent 2 1/2 hours playing Darklands. how pitiful a gamer do you have to be to get yourself re-addicted to a game that was already being given out for free in 1995?

i am lost forever to its pixilated glory. "Endless replayability" is something of an understatement. viva open-ended RPGs.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

cabin fever.

there is over a foot of snow on the ground. i have not been out of the house all day. having made inauthentic cornish pasties for dinner, i am now tempted to make gingercake (it's caffeinated!!!) oh dear *grin*

Sunday, February 5, 2006

philosophy clash.

i've been following this case of the danish newspaper cartoons with some interest (if you haven't, there's a nice timeline about halfway down that page). what's become interesting to me is not the actual events, including the violence which i think we all deplore, but the language between the governments.

basically what happened was a danish newspaper commissioned and printed a series of cartoons which mocked extreme islamists, including one of the prophet muhammed wearing a turban which looked like a bomb. apparently, islam does not allow the prophet to be depicted. so the muslims naturally were upset about this. the newspaper issued an apology, and the danish government issued a statement which was not exactly an apology, but which effectively said the newspaper was being irresponsible. so far, this is all fairly normal with how these kinds of things are handled.

then it gets interesting. the governments of various muslim countries, including pakistan, libya, and saudi arabia, started demanding that the danish government take some kind of action against the newspaper. the danish prime minister responded by saying he can't; denmark has free speech and free press laws which do not allow him to do anything other than what he's already done. then the protests and the violence started.

essentially, what i see is that these countries simply have no concept of a "free press." when the danish prime minister says he can't do anything about the newspaper, the answer seems to be, "oh, come on. you're the government. now that you've paid lip service to your 'free press,' it's time to take some action." there really appears to be no conception of a government that does not control its media. i would bet if you asked your ordinary palestinian or lebanese protester if the danish government controls its press, the answer would probably be something like, "of course they do. oh, they say they don't, but everyone knows the government controls what's printed." because there they do. the idea that a government can't is more than alien to them; it's entirely unknown. and so the problem becomes that they see the publication of these cartoons as tacitly approved of by the governments, and therefore an admission of an anti-islamic bias. because everything the press does has to be controlled by the government, right?

this dispute goes well beyond any religious questions into the more fundamental philosophies of government and power. this, i think, is what the islamic governments are really upset about: that the governments of the west are really not like them, they do not wield power in the same way, and they actually do respect the freedom of expression. it is this that is so upsetting and incomprehensible, in the end. how can they sit down and work with someone who they can't even understand? if the danish government would only take the same kind of action they would take, the diplomatic outrage would be much less. but now they are faced with apparently maintaining ties with an ally who is much more opaque than they ever imagined.