• Sushi + beer + sake + friends = AWESOME
• Live burlesque. Also, The Wife potentially taking burlesque classes.
• Absinthe. I’m digging on Kübler, which is locally available now. Admittedly, I talk more people into not trying absinthe than I talk into trying it. It’s not for everyone.
• Rock Band. I’m pretty useless on anything except the singing, but it’s more fun than Karaoke Revolution because the other people are playing along with you. Drumming is unpossible for me.
• Tiki bars. Especially the Tiki Torch in Edgewater. I know one of the owners, so I’m psyched to give it a shot. I’ll be toting The Wife and her mother down this Saturday, I believe. Daddy needs a Mai Tai with a quickness!
• Anita O’Day. Holy crap! How have I never heard of her until now? Best thing to ever happen to me thanks to Plurk. (If you’re not already a Twitter user, you might try Plurk instead.) Also loving Sarah Vaughn these days.
• The Silent Years. The Globe comes out soon.
• Going to the doctor to get my first physical in who knows how many years. It seems I’m doing well. (I still have to do blood work, though.)
• Michael Phelps. Yeah… WOW.
• The iPhone 3G. Lots of people gripe about various things, but in general I say it’s damned amazing.
• Dark Knight. Saw it on IMAX. It was pretty good.
• Rumbi fish tacos. I’m stunned, but these are currently my favorite fish tacos.
• Knowing one of the guys on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter.
• Fuelly. All the cool kids are doing it.
• Bumping into an acquaintance and having their first comment be “You look good.”

And other stuff, too. That’s a pretty good list for now, though.

I love me some GTA IV. If you can wrangle a couple friends to play the online multiplayer it all becomes worth it. My Xbox Live Gamertag is JakoBlah, but I won’t be your friend unless I know who you are first.

I caught Explosions in the Sky on Austin City Limits this past weekend. They are right up my alley.

Scarlett Johansson singing Tom Waits songs? Not as bad as you might expect, but not exactly awesome, either. She sure is pretty, though.

Hillary is … Guh. Never mind.

—

Do you ever feel like you’ve stopped having ideas? I can solve the problems presented to me with little effort, but I can’t say I’m coming up with anything cool on my own these days. It relates to the paucity of posts on this here blog.

Later: Isn’t that a coincidence?

I say that in terms of “us” and “we”, but really the purchase was precipitated by my girl’s strong desire to rock out with a little game called Karaoke Revolution. Make no mistake, she was a dancer for good reason, but the ability to actually sing really doesn’t help you much (if at all) in this game. We were first introduced to it at brother-in-law Chris’s house the last time we went to LA to see him and his SO, Kate. Me being me, I totally douched out and refused to play. (I don’t dance in public, either.) My not-so-secret plan was to get the game and practice by myself until I was comfortable enough to do it in front of other people. I was just going to get it for the Wii, but then it turns out the XBox and PS3 version have downloadable songs, which made it worth the wait in my mind.

I’m still finding my way with the game… (I can sing just well enough to really screw things up, it seems.) “Satisfaction” from the Rolling Stones is my rock solid joint at the moment. I’ve also done passable jobs at “In the Air Tonight”, “Come Sail Away With Me”, and Haddaway’s “What Is Love” (on which I actually did better the first time ever seeing the lyrics). Songs that frustrated me so far, but which think I can rock hard with a little work: “Tainted Love”, GnR’s version of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, and “(Hit Me) Baby One More Time”. The wife on the other hand is a machine, scoring perfect scores (we’re playing on “Easy”, of course) after perfect scores. Our duet goal is Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, although “Midnight Train to Georgia” is a real ass kicker, too. It’s hard to be a Pip!

Yes, there is no shame in karaoke. Point of fact: I score better if I sing the “What Is Love” lyrics like “Whuddizluff? Doanherdmee. Doanherdmee…No more.” It’s very strange.
I also picked up .skate as my “boy game”, and it’s proving to be very cool, though rather difficult for a Tony Hawk Pro Skater veteran like myself.

The only other game I have on my short list right now is Beautiful Katamari, but I’m sure that will change over time.

Needless to say, the fun times never stop at the Sutton household.

• I’m really pleased with the results of my latest slate tile project. Now I’m itching to switch into woodworking mode. I’m super excited about the new episodes of the New Yankee Workshop: Norm is building kitchen cabinets. I plan to eventually build cabinets for the mudroom and perhaps the garage (as practice for the potential “big job” of the actual kitchen). I think I’ll go ahead and buy the DVDs.
• I’m gradually building up my home entertainment system to match the new TV. I’ve gotten a fancy HDMI-switching receiver and a fairly cool iPod dock thingy. Next on my list is a TiVo HD. Then some surround speakers of some sort (I’m still living in stereo, folks…). And then maybe an Xbox 360, finally. (Still holding out for GTA4 on that one.)
• On the fitness front, my weight dipped below 200 pounds for the first time in a while yesterday. It’s back above today, but we’ll assume that’s temporary. I’m going to join a climbing gym soon, I think. A great new motivator I have is the Garmin Forerunner 205 I got for Xmas. It’s not as sexy as the new 405 everyone is drooling over, but it’s pretty darned cool. Of course, now I’m obsessed with tracking the slightest walk / jog / jaunt to the mail box. When The Wife teased me about it I quipped, “Are you kidding? I’m gonna track my trips to the bathroom from now on!”
• Lots of interesting gossip about former coworkers and new coworkers. That’s about all I’ll say about that, I suppose.
• I’m still an Obama cheerleader, though I don’t generally like to air my politics on this site. I like the look of things right now.
• Trent Reznor isn’t exactly excited by the results of the Niggy Tardust experiment.
• TV sucks almighty ass right now. I know there’s a writer’s strike going, but why aren’t networks taking better advantage by replaying some of the good stuff we might have missed previously? Example: AMC’s Mad Men? (Ooh! There’s an encore starting Jan 21. Nice.) At least I always have books to read.

So yeah… What’s new with you?

The primary highlight was a video game tourney and home-cooked Korean barbecue at my friend Peter’s house. Peter (a former co-worker) and his fiance, Ann, laid out quite a spread of delicious kalbi, rice cakes, kalbi, fried fish, kalbie, kimchi, and some totally yummy kalbi. We also played a bunch of video games, but most of that part of the night is kind of fuzzy. I know I played the wrong screen on 4-man Halo and therefore got pwned.

One part that is clear is that The Wife pronounced “I want one!” almost as soon as she touched the Nintendo Wii. The Wife gets what The Wife wants (especially when it’s something I’ve been forcing myself *not* to buy up to now), so we now have a shiny new Wii and the sore shoulders to prove it. (Here’s the tip for those of you searching for a Wii: WalMart. I never go in the place, generally, but our local Wally World had about 10 of the things.)

Now we just have to find something other than Wii Sports to play on the thing…

Oh, and yesterday I came into work for a half day. Boo. Big launch tomorrow, so it’s crunch time…

Winehouse, who collapsed last week after taking a cocktail of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine and the horse tranquillizer ketamine, is now thought to be wait did that fucking say “heroin, ecstasy, cocaine and the horse tranquillizer ketamine”?  HOLY SHIT!

…

This story about a porn star called Mia Rose being banned from World of Warcraft for… um… being a porn star is hilarious. Where’s the logic in that? Wouldn’t you want people to think hot sluts played your game?

…

David Allen should be announcing the winner of his tattoo giveaway today. Of course I entered, but I’m really rooting for his mom.

There’s plenty going on these days, but that’s all I can think of to share at the moment.

My high score so far is ~3100 in “normal” mode, which is a full 5000 shy of the ultimate high score.

If you get prompted to save your score, add it to the “blahstuff” score group.

(via kottke)

The radio silence is unintentional, but not too surprising.

One thing worth mentioning: Thanks to all kinds of peer pressure from the dorks at work, I downloaded the 10-day trial for World Of Warcraft and got it installed last Thursday. I never played Evercrack, but boy is this game dangerous. My Tauren hunter is now level 13 14, and I’m very afraid. I’d do myself a favor if I just let the trial expire…