The Week in Review (6/12/06-6/18/06)

Trying out something new here:

Board Games

Went over to Mark and Katie's for dinner and games on Saturday

Shadows over Camelot: Mark, Katie, Anne and I lost our first game. Depressing. We played with the traitor rules, but everyone was loyal. And we still lost. Damn Morgan with her extra black sword bullshit. Bitch.

Blokus: Played two games of this pretty abstract. Katie won the first game, despite her protestations that she would "lose horribly" at the onset. I took the second game by playing all of my pieces with the one square last. Pretty statisfying.

Settlers of Catan: Easily the funniest game of Settlers in a while. Mark set up his settlements on both of the 8s, but throughout the entire game, an 8 was only rolled once. And that was very late in the game. And the robber was sitting on one of the 8s at the time. A difficult game for Mr. Gudiksen. That's what you get for doubling up. I won, though Katie was deceptively close, holding 3 victory point cards.

Video/Computer Games

Now that I've finished up with God of War, I haven't yet embarked on a new video game undertaking. Mostly, I've just been playing Tetris on my DS during my commute. Aside from the classic falling block mode, there's a neat puzzle like mode where you push the blocks left and right and try to collapse an entire tower of blocks. It's more fun than it sounds, I swear.

Food

Mezze: Went to Mezze on Friday night. Made the reservation through Open Table, but had to change it a few times due to scheduling difficulties. When we got there, they still hadn't changed it to the last confirmed time, but it wasn't an issue because it looked like the restaurant was half empty anyway. I got the yellowfin tuna starter with the Kobe beef burger which was very nice and Anne had the Lola Rosa salad and the roast chicken. The waitress forgot my desert (caramel gelato) so I just shared Anne's chocolate croissant bread pudding. Which was just as well, since I was pretty full and that bread pudding is like eating a block of butter, so it can be tough for just one person.

Lakeshore Cafe: Anne was hungry after having her blood taken on Saturday morning, so we went out for brunch at the Lakeshore Cafe. I had the Tequila sausage scramble and Anne had the Eggs Blackstone. I could have done with a little less avocado and a little more sausage, but it was good, overall. It was a really nice day, so we walked to the Farmer's market afterwards and Anne bought some cherries. I almost got some strawberries, but just couldn't commit.

Mark & Katie's: As was previously mentioned, we joined Mark and Katie for dinner on Saturday and Mark ordered "Indian Pizza." Which is basically Indian food on a pizza. Obvious, but I did have to ask. Anne was cautious , but she did end up enjoying it. Also, Mark made a spicy edamame dip that was pretty tasty. It had the advantage of not having any avocados in it, which Anne appreciated.

East Buffet: Father's day brunch. As is traditional with Chang family gatherings, we assembled at the crappy Chinese Buffet. The sushi's not bad, but it's just not going to make it into my top 10 favorite restaurants any time soon. You gotta love a place that has Dragon and Phoenix rolls next to pizza and onion rings, though. Dave couldn't make it, but he did call me on my cell phone to wish Dad a happy Father's Day.

Books

Finished up A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. Not his most original effort, as variations on the Death as a person motif have been done to, well, death. But still, he had his own wacky spin and the first couple chapters were extremely sad. I might have teared up a little, but since I'm not a girl, I just got something in my eye. Overall, I recommend it.

Next on my pleasure reading list is Black Powder War, which is the third in an alternate history series about dragons in the Napoleonic era. Enjoyable, though I think the novelty has work off a bit. This series followed the odd course of releasing each book within a month of each other. It worked on me, since I got all of them. If they had been spaced out by years like many other books, I probably would have forgotten about them.


Comics

Not much going on with comics right now. I've decided not to read 52 (DC's weekly comic) and no new trades have come out in a while. There should be some good stuff in the coming weeks, however.

Movies

When Anne decided to go into The Juniper Tree, the location that we fondly refer to as "The Smelly Stuff Store," I decided to go across the street to Blockbuster. Partially to use up a gift card that's been taking up space in my wallet for over 2 years, but primarily to get away from the smells that jump up my nose and drive ice picks into my brain. I ended up buying The 40 Year Old Virgin and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wear Rabbit. Both fantastically funny films. And I still have $3.50 left on the card.

Other

We finally bought some chairs on Sunday. We went to Room and Board in San Francisco to test them out. We had picked out a couple favorites from the catalogue, but you can't really make up your mind about these things until you see them in person. Room and Board has a very young and modern look, overall. It's in this big three story building with little showrooms all over the place. The quality is good. The prices are reasonable. Really, it is the place you go to when your Ikea furniture that you bought after college falls apart. Coincidentally, that is exactly our situation. Unfortunately, they told us that because we weren't ordering stuff that's in stock, we won't get the chairs until August. Hopefully our Ikea crap will last until then.

*****

And that was my week. Or really, the weekend. But I can't really remember what happened earlier in the week. It was mostly boring, I think. You know, work and stuff. I'll try to keep better track this week for my next summary. Or not. I'm not making any promises.