I played a ton of Starcraft 2 this weekend, and got steph to play with me. I’m having fun with some of the rush techniques I know about. It would be more fun for me to play against Steph and show her how the game really works, but she perfers to play through the campaign. I can tell that I’m playing it way too much, but it is soooo much fun and hard to resist. I’ll try to make up for it by working out some more, but that still doesn’t cut it. I should be working out anyway.
We had a lot of people over for a game of thrones season opener last night. I am currently halfway through the third book for reference. There are more and more changes, some of which I like and some of which I don’t. Sam isn’t the slayer, although he could still be made into the slayer as they head back from ranging. I was kinda looking forward to the epic battle on the fist, but they just skipped that part. There are some small differences everywhere so that they can simplify the stories to make the presentable to a captive audience. The books would take about 5 seasons each if they didn’t do a lot of those simplifications.
The party itself went over well. Josh and Bergfeld were there of the people I know. Most everyone else that goes to game night stayed at Brian and Candice’s place since they were in the middle of a game of Mage Knight. Josh’s roommates are interesting people and they seem like a lot of fun. They said that next week the game of thrones watching can be hosted at their place. A lot of other people that are Nick’s friends showed up, and their parents. Since it was a pretty tame party, with just TV watching, it wasn’t at all awkward. We cleaned up early and got to bed at a very reasonable hour. Nick made a really tasty meat pie, and I ate far too much of it. I ate soooo much last night and I’m feeling it this morning.
This is a really tasty beer. It has tons of spice and isn’t bitter at all. It is a little too sweet to drink a good bit of it, but when looking for a sipping beer over a little time this is a great choice.
The riding yesterday was fantastic. We spent the entire time working on the 2-point while trotting. This was much harder than I was expecting. The stance is easy enough and trotting is easy enough, but combined was pretty difficult. I know that once I find that sweet spot and get the stance right a couple times in a row it will become so simple and easy. I made the mistake of trotting the horse towards the barn, which apparently can make it run away with you. I could tell that Amanda was somewhat upset by it, but I had no idea it would be that big of a deal. I’ll make sure not to do anything like that from now on.
We went to the farmer’s market yesterday and got a ton of stuff. All of it so far has been tasty. I got a honeycomb there and for some reason I expected it to be crunchy. Of course it wasn’t at all crunchy it was waxy and tasted exactly like honey. I feel kinda stupid for expecting it to be otherwise, but what can you do? I got 10 avocados since they were only $1 each and served 5 of them for the game of thrones watching night. I also got some spicy yuba strips that were sooo tasty. There was a new butternut squash based sauce at bolani, and I ended up getting it. While it is really good, the tomato still goes better with the bolani bread. The pesto is still fantastic with cucumber. A lot of the stalls were missing since it was forecasted as being rainy. Two of the stalls we wanted to go to, the Miso Suke and candied nuts, were among those missing. We got a great haul and I’m looking forward to having some more of the strawberries tonight.
Nick took Stephanie and I to a place called the Chocolate Garage, which is a place for chocolate tasting in Palo Alto. The chocolate there is 60% and higher, with some special milk chocolates. I ended up getting a really good dark chocolate, Dick Taylor’s Madagascar, a good milk chocolate called The Boss, and chocolate covered almonds.
We went here for lunch and it was soooooo good. I’d like to go back here often. I got the Greenbird burger, and it had something called green cheese, which was a pretty tasty sauce. I was slightly disappointed about the green cheese because I thought it would actually be a green slice of cheese.
A group went to the Stanford Theater last night to see North by Northwest. I really enjoy the movie and it is such a precursor to so many other spy movies. Stephanie and I were joined by Bergfeld, Nick, Riley, and Omari. Afterwards we enjoyed some of Oren’s Hummus. It was tasty, but not as good as usual. We should have gotten the hot tomato dish with egg as that is one of the tastiest things. After that we went to the Hookah place and smoked some. The pineapple one was really strong, and the double apple wasn’t that flavorful.
This was just as good as the first book, probably better. I really like the fullness of the story that is given from the books. I still think I’d be completely lost without the TV series. The number of names makes it pretty much impossible to keep track without some kind of mental reference. There are some small differences that are surprising. Also there are some places where the books goes farther than the series and some parts where it isn’t as far along. The pacing in the TV series and books are both good, but the differences are interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing the start of the 3rd season come sunday.
It's an Exciting World 