The Fun Zone: The Fun

The Summerers are back from Vegas, land of gambling, stage shows, restaurants, and 24-hour alcohol service. It was an adventure.

The short version is that we saw a lovely show, ate at some fantastic restaurants, experienced some truly terrifying rides, played in a slot tournament, and enjoyed the anti-convenience of the Las Vegas Monorail.

Here's the longer version...

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So I was eating lunch in a NYC diner over the weekend, and a sign behind the counter caught my eye:

CPR

AVAILABLE

...like it was something you could order off the menu.

"Excuse me, waiter? I think I need to order the-ungh..."

Have you been to a Cold Stone recently? They have a new menu.

Apparently, somebody in Cold Stone Command thought that guests were being given too many options with the various Signature Creations, so they took most of them off the wall. They even eliminated a few flavors of ice cream. This is all part of their new menu design, which features new low-fat ice cream, and some sort of Mountain Dew smoothie.

Now don't panic, you may still be able to order your favorites. The scoopin' staff at our location still had the descriptions of most of the combinations behind the counter, so I was still able to ask for my favorite. It's actually kinda cool, like I'm in the know. Still, this may not last forever, so you should memorize the ingredients in a Monkey Bites* while you still can.

*Banana ice cream, Crunch Bar, Banana, Walnuts, Coconut

I'm not a big fan of the catch-all post, but this week's been pretty busy. I just finished the last of a series of production projects that have been hounding me since last week, and now I have to do some homework, preparing for the recording of my audiobook demo this weekend. So, while I had intended to do a full post on most of these things, I will likely not get to them if I wait.

Let's begin!

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Stef had scheduled some stamping events for this past weekend, so I took the opportunity to trek down to Jersey to visit Mr. Lindberg. For one thing, our last two visits have been up here, and it's good to come to him every once in a while. Another, more pressing, reason for the visit is that Erik recently acquired the Penny Arcade Card Game, and I seriously needed to play it.

Penny Arcade, as I'm sure you know, is a vastly popular web comic and general gaming mecca. The game is based on Sabertooth Games' Universal Fighting System, or UFS, that will also encompass characters from Street Fighter and Soul Calibur in future releases. Although the future sets will employ the Collectible Card Game model, with booster packs and everything, the Penny Arcade sets are stand-alone decks.

We broke open the game almost immediately after my arrival on Friday night. Several hours later, we were still trying to work through our first game. True, we took a break for Battlestar Galactica (awesome, by the way), but still, it took a long time to read through all of the card text on each other's cards, checking the rules constantly to figure out what everything meant. Erik played the Gabe deck, which is all about playing multiple attacks in a single turn, while I played the Tycho deck, which has a good number of tricky ways to prevent those multiple attacks from landing. Tycho's character card itself has the ability to block any attack outright. True, it's once per turn, but it still makes it hard to gain momentum, which is a mechanic crutial to Gabe's stronger attacks. When it was all over, I had eliminated all of his vitality (HP), while keeping 75% of mine intact. Erik was obviously frustrated that he was never able to mount the better attacks, and I wasn't too happy that it was such an uneven fight. Neither of us wanted to try it again that night, so we crashed cars instead.

On Saturday, we traveled into New York City to visit Mr. Proctor, an excursion that never fails to be entertaining. After finding his apartment, a small but comfortable place on the east side of Manhattan, Erik and Dan made a grand display of showing off their Magic: the Gathering cards to each other. Dan, recently into the game, had the latest edition of cards, while Erik had boxes of card stock from the mid-90s. I was never into Magic, perferring the relative simplicity of Pokemon, but I had played a few times, so it was only with a slight bit of aprehension that I sat down with the two of them for a three-player deathmatch. Surprisingly, I was not the first to die. I was able to get a good number of creatures out, including some that Dan couldn't block, so he didn't last long. Unfortunately, while I spent my turns finishing Dan off, Erik built up his defenses, hit me at full strength, and the game was over in a few rounds.

After Erik and Dan tried a few head-to-head matches, I pulled out a game I had brought in my pocket: Atta Ants. Dan seemed to enjoy it a whole lot, not due to the gameplay, but due to the fact that the game was about ants. I thought I was in good shape during the game, but I miscalculated how safe a particular leaf was, and Erik stole it from me, claiming victory a few turns later.

Soon after that, Dan lead us on some sort of wacky adventure, leading us all over the city. He wouldn't tell us where we were going, but we had to follow him because the dinner reservations were in his name. He paused at random corners, he made secret phone calls, he made us wait for a bus that we rode for four blocks. He stopped to peruse the menu at a seemingly arbetrary pub, and then he made us double back to Rockefeller Center so we could go to Nintendo World. I could have followed him all day, if it weren't for the fact that my calf muscles were about to seize up.

Eventually, we got to our dinner destination: NYC's very own Dinosaur Barbeque. It's just like the Syracuse landmark, but this one lets you make reservations. The food was wonderful and plentiful, although Dan and Erik got just a touch too excited about some shrimp they ordered. I had some crazy big half rack of ribs that contained far more meat than expected. I even tried fried green tomatoes for the first time. It's a shame that Jason couldn't be there. Dan and Erik decided to taunt him later via e-mail by listing all of the dishes we ordered. Cruel, but hilarious too. After dinner, we bid Dan goodbye and headed back to Jersey.

Before I left on Sunday morning, we gave Penny Arcade another swing. I offered to take the Gabe deck, but Erik was determined to succeed with what he had. This game was closer, but I was able to cause real problems with an attack called Really Big Word, which allows you to pick a word on your opponent's cards (I chose foundations), count the letters in the word, and add that to your damage for the attack. Gabe didn't last long after that. Tycho won our third game as well, and as I left Erik's apartment, he was still shaking his head at the card boxes, wondering how he got fooled into buying such an unbalanced game*.

I ended up playing more games at Joe's on Sunday (Ticket to Ride, Cartagena, and Password), but none of them matched the adventure I had earlier in the weekend. I need to let Dan lead me through the city more often. Who knows what I'll find?

*I went looking on the Penny Arcade forums for info about the game, trying to see if others thought it was as unbalanced as we did. Oddly enough, many thought that Gabe was the overly powerful deck, and that Tycho didn't have a chance. Maybe the game really is balanced, and that continued play would even out the win count. Maybe Erik just got really bad draws every time. Or maybe I'm just really good at that game.

This is dangerous. Very dangerous.

Amazon sells candy.

Amazon sells Japanese candy.

They have Muscat Gummy. They have Hi-Chew.

They have Ramune, the Japanese "marble soda," in both liquid and candy form.

And they have over a dozen varieties of Pocky.

Help me.

Since the age of 10, I have been on a quest. This is not a quest for gold, or a quest for love. It is not a quest for redemption or inner peace.

This is a quest to find the perfect French Dip sandwich.

I do not know the origin of the French Dip. Frankly, I do not care. My guess is that it's called French Dip because you dip the sandwich into the au jus, which has a French name. Pretty simple. And oh, so tasty.

Over the years, it's become a bit of an informal ritual for me to order The Dip when I visit a restaurant for the first time. It's a bit like Jason's Theory of Diner Cole Slaw: that the merits of an entire eating establishment can be boiled down to the quality of a single dish. Although I'm not ready to dismiss an entire menu over it, a restaurant can lose serious points in my book if they can't get the French Dip right.

So what makes a great French Dip you ask?

Bread: The bread needs to be soft, yet strong enough not to break down immediately upon dipping. Too hard, and the crust cuts your gums.

Meat: Sliced roast beef must be tender and as gristle-free as possible. Nothing is worse than taking a bite of the sandwich section that you just dipped, only to have to drag an entire chunk of non-dipped meat out of the sandwich as well because it didn't bite cleanly.

au jus: The dipping sauce needs to be more substantial than just a cup of beef bullion, but not so "this is everything that came off the meat when we cooked it" as to be bitter. Oh, and don't try to thicken it with corn starch or anything. It's not gravy. It's au jus. And don't skimp on the stuff. It really pisses me off when the sauce is nearly gone before I've started on the second half of the sandwich.

Extras: Cheese? Sure. Swiss and Provolone work well. Onions? Maybe, if they're well cooked. They should bring flavor to the party without too much bite. Additional spices and flavors? Well, that's what makes each sandwich special, right?

Presentation: Sliced in half, on the bias so you start the eating session with a point with which to begin dipping. Fries on the side are ideal, but chips work as well. Pickle? Maybe, as long as the pickle juice doesn't saturate the bread. Which reminds me, the whole thing can be ruined if the cup of au jus spills all over the plate, pre-soaking the sandwich before I even touch it. Bad Form!

I've tried The Dip in small family-owned places as well as the larger chains. Ed Debevic's in Chicago has a good one, but the onions were a little goofy. T.G.I. Friday's gets high marks, but the meat always seems a bit tougher than I'd like. I recall Ruby Tuesday's serving theirs on a croissant. Interesting... I even tried Arby's version a few years back. Plenty of au jus, not a lot of flavor to the meat.

This week, I think I found my grail.

Quizno's, and their Steakhouse Beef Dip.

This was my first visit to a Quizno's. I've always wanted to go. I even repeat their tagline (Mmmmm...toasty) whenever we'd pass one on the street. Drives Stef nuts. Still, I had never set foot in one until now. Saw The Dip on the menu, and decided to give it a try.

First, they marinated the meat in a warm sauce for about a minute. Then, they put the drained meat on a sub roll, on top of a layer of French Onion sauce, followed by swiss cheese and some oregano on top. Then, they sent it through their toaster oven. At the other end, they had my au jus waiting. They sliced the sandwich in half and served it with chips.

It was perfect. The toasted bread was just the right firmness for dipping, but it was soft enough to yield easily to my eating advances. The meat was tender yet flavorful, and that French Onion sauce added that extra kick that made this sandwich special. Thumbs up! If they hadn't been in the middle of their lunch rush, I would have complemented the sandwich assembly team. Right now, I'm trying to come up with a way for me to end up in that general vicinity somewhere near lunchtime, just so I can try it again.

So, we have a new winner in my French Dip ranking system. My quest will continue, of course, but I feel it will be a long time before another sandwich will be able to match this Dip's glory.

Happy Eating.

Mr. Kershen, if you're reading this, you've found me. I am your Secret Santa. Hope you enjoy your games. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

We went back to Cold Stone last night. I wanted to see if they were successfully maintaining the energy level from last week. Plus, there was yummy ice cream. I tried Monkey Bites: Banana Ice Cream with Walnuts, Coconut, Crunch Bar, and Banana. Quite tasty.

Anyway, the drop in song frequency was a bit troubling. Last Saturday, we heard at least a dozen songs, and although they lacked the passion and soul of a 50's theme diner performance, they were at least loud. Yesterday we heard 5 songs, and the exuberance was, shall we say, lacking. That's a 58% drop in only a week. At this rate, by mid-July, they'll be ready to strangle anyone who dares wave a bill toward the "If You Fling One, We Will Sing One" jar.

Heck yeah, I'm going back. This should be lots of fun to watch. Plus there's ice cream.

Stef and I went out to dinner on Saturday night, and on the way home she says, "Turn left here. I want to see if something is open." "Something?" I ask. "You'll see..." she replies. Now, when she gets vague like this, it can only mean two things: A new stamping/scrapbooking store, or some sort of dessert emporium. For my sake, it turned out to be the latter.

Orange, Connecticut is the proud new owner of a Cold Stone Creamery. It's part of the latest trend in Ice Cream delivery technology. After you order your particular flavor of ice cream, they transfer it to a frozen slab of marble, where they knead in whatever "mix-ins" you'd like: candy bars, fruit, chocolate, cake, etc. You get to create your own Ben & Jerry's style flavor. There's another chain in West Hartford called Maggie Moo's that does this as well. It's all the rage, apparently.

Having just opened, this place was packed. The staff was ready for the rush, with at least a dozen teenagers behind the counter. As we stepped into the giant line, an enthusiastic employee approached us with a menu, explaining how to order, and offering to answer any questions. As we marveled at the vast selection, practicing our combinatorics skills, I glanced up at the tip jar near the register. It had a little sign taped to it saying, "If you fling one, We will sing one." As I considered what exactly this could mean, somebody threw a buck in the jar. That's when the magic happened.

Cashier (at the top of her lungs): "Hey, we just got a tip!"

Everyone in Unison: "ALLLLL RIGHT!"
(sung to the tune of the Flintstones theme, but loud and in different keys)
"We all, work at Cold Stone,
We're a scoopin' scoopin fam-i-ly,
When you, eat our ice cream,
We will sing in perfect har-mo-ny..."

And then they all just went back to what they were doing, carrying on conversations with customers who had patiently waited for them to stop singing. They were like Oompa Loompas, but less cuddly.

Oh, but it didn't stop there. Every minute or two, even if they didn't get a tip, the guy who gave us the menu would yell, "Hey, it's getting pretty quiet in here! How 'bout a song?" And something would click in the brains of the dozen or so kids behind the counter and they'd all yell "ALLLLL RIGHT!" and sing something to the tune of Old MacDonald or Mary Had a Little Lamb, complete with lyrics about ice cream and getting tips at Cold Stone.

I was so amazed that I forgot what I was going to order.

I'm familiar with the corporate enthusiasm. Long ago, when I was on staff for the opening of a Discovery Zone, there was a whole songbook of chants and fun activities for us to spout at regular intervals. In fact, we were supposed to do so at every quarter hour. A few months down the line, though, after the initial enthusiasm wore off, I don't think anybody wanted to chant anymore.

I'm curious to stop by this Cold Stone place in say, August, and see how loud they're all singing then...