The Crooked Fence Barrelhouse is on the "Short List"

Longtime readers, AKA Mom & Dad, OK, who am I kidding?...Those of your who check in periodically or accidentally find their way on to this blog might have read that for years it seemed me & the Mrs. had something of a "restaurant curse". We've had really bad luck at places, as-in "given out own section and forgotten about when our server went home for the night" bad luck.

We Went to See Red 2 Today

Today Carolyn and I went to go see Red 2. We both enjoyed the first one and neither of us had really seen anything regarding this second one.

Now to be fair, neither of us watches regular TV and we don't get the local paper, but still....to have a comic-based movie come out an to NOT have heard anything.....just doesn't seem right.

Of course as soon as the movie rolls you find out it is a DC property, so maybe it really wasn't advertised worth a crap. This is a shame because outside of some of the last few Batman movies DC hasn't done well with regard to comic book movies. When they do a good job, like they did with Red (and I dare say Red 2), they should get off their duff and let everyone know.

Aside from one specific detail, which I shall not divulge, I found most of the movie quite unpredictable. I laughed more than I expected and there were quite a few little tongue-in-cheek surprises that were tie-ins from the 1st movie.

Another surprise is to look up the movie online and see that Rotten Tomatoes has given it a 42%, which is odd because the audience gave it a 72%. I think the 72% rating is much more appropriate.


In short, if you liked Red you should enjoy Red 2.

Kana Girl's Hawai'ian BBQ

This week I've been a bit busy with a side project (a new blog for my HackMaster Campaign), but I wasn't too busy to be able to try a new restaurant with the Mrs.

In the past we've had so much bad luck with new-to-us restaurants that she though we had a curse of some type and quite frankly I wasn't willing to try out new places unless I had to. My standards of service are pretty fricken low to begin with and so many places fail miserably. It is no wonder that so many places don't make it a year.

It was with a bit of trepidation that I bypassed the familiarity of one trusted pace to try out Kana Girl's Hawai'ian BBQ. Boise, or at least the larger metropolitan area, has a few "Hawai'ian" places. One is fake as hell, the other is more of an upscale "fusion" place (I could be wrong, but it is so out of our way I won't ever find out), and the other is just ok. The last place was this new place on State Street (3912 W State Street to be exact).

We parked out back and walked in the back entrance, something that I was advised never to do. It is generally good advice to avoid the back of a restaurant if you want to keep your appetite. This was a notable exception. I don't know if the aromas were coming from their cookers or the smokehouse next door and frankly I didn't care. I just wanted to jam some smoked meat in my face hole now.

At first glance I think a lot of people would think that the Kana Girl's Hawai'ian BBQ was a little "divey". The seating was cheaper outdoor patio furniture and people were eating out of styrofoam take-out containers using plastic utensils and paper cups. If this turns people off it must suck to be them because they either never went on vacation to Hawaii or they stayed in some super stuck-up place when they did. Between the decor and the soft Hawai'ian music playing in the background (actually in the kitchen area) it was a step back to my vacation.

The food was typical local Hawai'ian fare, or it sure as hell seemed that way to me. When we went on vacation we really tried to eat at local places and stayed away from touristy restaurants whenever possible. The food was so much better when it was made without the pretentious drapings and visitor sensibilities. I'm not going to delve too deep into the food, but I will say this: after our first bite the wife and I started planning on when we'd be able to come back for our second visit.

Kana Girl's Hawai'ian BBQ is obviously a family affair and a labor of love. The couple that own the place were in the kitchen singing along to their music, enjoying what they were doing while stealing the occasional kiss. It was a busy Saturday night maybe a half-hour before close and it seemed they

were having the time of their life.

For the brief times we've been eating there we really did enter into our own Island Time Zone.......

At the risk of you getting there before I do and eating the last of the pulled pork, I have to urge you tomake the trip and check it out for yourself.

They are open Tuesday-Saturday 11-8 and I don't recommend looking at their online menu until you are prepared to drive over. We made the mistake of trying to go over at 8:30 PM Friday night and you really don't want to experience that disappointment if you can avoid it.

Brief The Walking Dead: 400 Days Review

I just got done playing The Walking Dead: 400 Days. It is a rather short DLC and while I was playing it I kept thinking to myself, "How is this supossed to tide me over to the next part of the game?"

The portions of the DLC seem rather disjointed and aside from taking place around a central location I felt a bit lost. Starting off that feeling was simply trying to figure out how to start the game.

You have to select one of your game save, or start a new game, and forward through the episodes (RB on the Xbox 360) to the end where the DLC shows up as the last episode. What I did not know was that if you haven't played the game's previous episodes already you can "skip ahead" to this DLC and the game makes earlier decisions for you.

The beginning of this DLC is pretty cool. A quick visual intro and you begin standing before a large bulletin board filled with pictures of missing loved ones. It looks like the numerous spontaneous displays that pop up after a tragedy and the effect was quite chilling, at least for me. The scraps of paper and photos sway in the breeze.

You can do any of the five brief missions in any order you want. None of them seem particularly difficult and they shouldn't be. The whole point is simply to set things up for the starting group in the next "season" of the game.

While I initially felt a bit lost, there was an interesting bit at the end that really did a good job of wrapping up the individual stories and setting things up for the next season. I found it quite amusing

that all of the decisions I made in this DLC had me siding with 50% of the other players.

Overall I really liked this DLC, but I wish it had come out much closer to the beginning of the next The Walking Dead.

The Deadpool Game Rocks!

For my recent birthday Carolyn got me the new Deadpool game.

If you are a fan of Deadpool and are even thinking about trying out the game, run...don't walk...to your nearest retailer and pick it up.

I'm barely into it and I was pretty much sold before playing the first mission. The folks at High Moon Studios captured Deadpool perfectly.

My wife's first comment about the game was, "There sure are a lot of warnings on there." Hmm...let's check...

Well, it looks like they forgot a few things. I think I can make the needed changes:

Much better....and sounds about right. I'm giving this game a definite two thumbs up! Extremely
awesome birthday gift. I think that High Moon Studios has to be involved in any Deadpool movie in the pipeline because they seem to understand the character better than what we've had so far.

This is the End with NSFW Trailer

Today is a my birthday and to celebrate the occasion my wife took me to see a movie of my choice, and my choice was to see This is the End. It will be hard to not toss out any spoilers when talking about this movie, but I will endeavor to do just that...

.....because this movie was fricken awesome.

In many ways this was a terrible movie. Pretty crappy even. Going through the credits are a bunch of actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves. I think going into the movie you are to believe that these actors are actually playing themselves and that is where you initially get sucked in.

This movie has tons of stupid, cheap, and gross humor. Most of the film seems like low-hanging fruit, but Seth Rogan & gang simply pull it off. I don't think I've laughed and snickered so damn much at a movie since maybe History of the World, Part I, and then that was when I was an actual juvenile. This isn't a fake serious film that pretends to be funny (sorry Mr. Brooks), but an actual "serious" film that is funny.

Unless you are the type that gets offended easily, you will probably find this movie funny...hilarious
even. I was surprised several times during the film, minor surprises, but surprises nonetheless, and I don't get surprised at the movies that often.

This red-band trailer is definitely NSFW and is a LOT more of a spoiler than the regular "for all audiences" green band trailer, so I'm going to put it after the break.

State of Decay

I recently got the opportunity to play some of Undead Lab's new Xbox Arcade Game State of Decay.

My one word review: WOW!

While I like Zombies, I think they've been overdone unfortunately, but even with my stick-a-fork-in-it attitude I have to admit I really like this game.

State of Decay is really a sandbox game just about in the purest sense of the term. So far I haven't seen it roll out in a Skyrim fashion where you have a bazillion scripted missions and the order or choice to do them is all up to you. While there do seem to be some scripted missions, for the most part the whole game is relatively randomized.

Now a lot of people will not enjoy this game. Not because of the zombies, but because there is a

decent amount of monotony to the game. You will need to spend a LOT of time looting, directing looting efforts, and searching for team members that have become stranded or simply gone missing....and killing Zombies. You'll have to kill a LOT of zombies because they respawn and they like to form hordes that need to be mowed down from time to time. It seems that if two special zombie types managed to cohabit a house together it becomes an "infestation" that you will have to deal with.

The constant scrounging for supplies may be monotonous, but it is necessary because your group of survivors will use up resources on a daily basis and your equipment will degrade through use. You do get a head's-up that your equipment is damaged so if you keep on using it you will eventually get stuck in the middle of a zombie fight without a weapon. This leads me to my only real complaint with the game.

Gunlist Courtesy of Undead Labs

The controls are a little fiddly and working the menu can be frustrating. Your main use button is the "Y" button and you basic attack button is the "X", but if you have a zombie down and want to do a special killing blow the combination to do so is they Left Shoulder Button + Y. Y...I mean why?! This makes no sense to me. Using the Left Shoulder Button and X makes so much more sense. The confusing controls get amped up even more when your character gets some special maneuvers, all of which are Left Shoulder Button + something else. Because you'll be switching off characters so often odds are all you'll be doing is watching your guy fumble around aimlessly while zombies are closing in. The fun extends to other controls as well. You use the thumb sticks for driving and clicking in the left stick....the one you use the most, will make you honk your horn. Needless to say I end up honking my horn way too often.

Aiming firearms is trickier than it should be. With all the time in the world it is difficult to actually line up a headshot. I don't know if this is a control issue or actually a game feature where as your character gets more proficient with firearms aiming gets easier.

The menu for checking things out in your compound and upgrading skills is also a little wonky. It is hard to shift between areas in your compound and try to get things done. A simple tutorial or maybe even a better interface would make this portion of the game much more enjoyable.

Overall though, I enjoy the gameplay mechanics and I really like the plethora of looting possibilities and the sheer guided randomness of the game. Odds are you'll find the type of generic supplies where you expect to find them, like ammo at the police station and medical supplies at the veterinarian's office. The specific weapons though are quite numerous. I've been playing with melee weapons almost exclusively, but now that I need to clean out some infestations I've taking to using silenced weapons. There really seems to be a difference in performance between the different handguns, more than I was expecting.

This may sound dumb, but what I'm enjoying most about State of Decay is this randomness in loot. Finding a pistol that has been modified for a different sized cartridge is interesting and to date I've only managed to find two large backpacks. Weight and space for inventory management are a big deal because you don't want to be encumbered out there fighting (or running from) zeds.

Face275

Overall it is a good game and worth the money. I'm finding that with a little more spit & polish, some of these Xbox Arcade games compete quite well with the AAA titles, especially considering the price. State of Decay goes for 2400 Microsoft Points ($30) and I think it is worth far more than half of a $60
new game on disc.

Of course you cannot wait for the disc to come available at GameStop or go on sale, but they do put Xbox Arcade games on sale.

Deadpool Game Less Than a Month Away, But No Gameplay Reveals?

Here we are, less than a month out from the new Deadpool game and there really hasn't been squat for press. I'm seeing more press for the new Krieg the Psycho character for Borderlands 2 than I am for this entire game.

A month from release and no game footage to see? This really is a bit worrisome. There has been some promos for the game, mostly live-action bits of a dude dressed as Deadpool, but pretty much no gameplay.

The closes thing I could find was a small hands-on mini-impression review by Rev3Games. There is a smidgen of gameplay shown and the reviewer says he got to play a bit of the game:

Xbox Arcade Game Review: Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale

I haven't played Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition and while I'm not trying to dismiss the game it is fair to say that I never intended to give it a go in the first place. I already have a game I like and a one-off with a system I'm familiar with is OK, but a game that by all accounts is a complete departure from expectations...not so much.

A lot of commentary I've heard regarding 4th Edition was that it played like a video game. I do not have any idea if there is any truth to this, but I've heard it quite a few times.

Go See Iron Man 3

Carolyn took me to see Iron Man 3 this morning. We ended up seeing it in 3D, which is usually a no-no for me, but this time I didn't have a single issue. The 3D work was great and for the most part it just simply worked, sliding into the background so I could focus on the movie and not the effects. The only times it really hit me were on some of the close-up conversation bits where it became really obvious.

This movie didn't feel like the culmination of a 3-part series, but really the culmination of a beginning chapter for one character that took four movies to tell.

I really liked this movie and expect it to do well because everything comes together so nicely, and there were enough surprises for me to enjoy the film. I don't like completely formulaic films and there was really only one thing I completely expected to happen which did happen, but that was telegraphed enough that it didn't feel like a ruined surprise, just part of a scene which worked out the most likely way.

Obviously I'm trying to avoid any spoilers, so you won't get any real ones here. There were two things I really noted about the film, with one being a cool that-never-happens kind of thing and the other a WTF moment:

• In one scene a bad guy basically does the, "screw this, I'm out of here" bit and leaves. All too often we see the army of bad guys, most likely mercenaries of some sort, fight to the death when they are so far over their head. I wouldn't expect everyone to have such a fatalistic drive for the cause as the main villain, but 99.999999999% sure seem to.
• We watched the credits because you know there would be a scene at the end of them. As we watched the credits roll by I noticed that Don Cheadle didn't have a stylist or make-up assistant like everyone else. Instead he had a "groomer". That struck me as odd and archaic. Did this guy (I don't remember the name) actually "groom" Mr. Cheadle like he was an animal of some sort, or was he a manservant like the gentry of old had. Just seemed really weird.

In short: awesome move, you need to go see it.

Free Preview Issue of Cuisine at Home Magazine

For Christmas this year I got a one year subscription to Cook's Illustrated, which I do enjoy reading.  I don't make the fancy-schmancy meals I find inside, but I do love the assorted cooking tips and there is a lot of good cooking information to be gleaned even from the recipes I'm not planning on using.

This weekend I was surprised to find a free review copy of Cuisine at Home in my mailbox.  My assumption was I got this because of the other cooking magazine.  I don't subscribe to magazines in general and the only ones we get are gifts from my In-laws, and a couple membership-type issues from the Boy Scouts, Toastmasters, and SHRM.

I must say I'm pretty impressed by Cuisine at Home.  Right off the bat I noticed the magazine was three-hole punched, which means they know I might want to actually keep it around for a while.  I wish more full-sized magazines made this assumption.

The issue is also full-color, which normally I wouldn't find a big deal, but since it deals with food/meals, it helps a lot.  Every recipe has a half or full page picture and there are great step photos as well.  They didn't actually include step-by-step photos and instead just hit the highlights, which are nice.

Exceptionally cool are the ancillary recipes for side dishes.  Not every "main" recipe has a side dish, but most do.  The others might have a variation on the dish or be filled with a sidebar on technique.

Overall I really like this free magazine, especially since the recipes & meals inside are things I can totally see myself making.  You can get your own free review copy here.

Tomb Raider is the Game for 2013!

Thanks to a complementary rental code from Redbox I was allowed to check out the new Tomb Raider game.

In a word: wow!

I've played a few of the previous Tomb Raider games and they were generally over the top with Laura Croft, both in looks and attitude.  In this game Laura isn't up for looting tombs, although she does get the opportunity.  She just wants to save herself and her friends after being shipwrecked on a mysterious island.

I've only played on the "normal" setting of the single player game and I'm maybe 3/4 of the way through so far.  I've had some horrendous deaths, but overall I've had a blast.  The game seems to save often at good spots so when I screw up it isn't a pain to get back where I was.  There are a lot of options and controls for doing things, but the folks at Square Enix managed to make the controls intuitive and therefor simple to use.

I like to be an archer when I'm able and this game lets me use the bow and arrow a lot, so I'm already sold.  Being able to quickly flip over to fire arrows or a rope arrow on the fly is so quick and easy to do.  I find myself trying to get in as many head-shots as I can and I'm rewarded handsomely for doing so.

The graphics are superb.  I love the fact that Laura is always showing what weapon I have equipped, even when I'm not using it.  Seeing her shadow and the shadow of her bow across the cliff face as she's inching across a guy line is awesome.

I don't want to add any spoilers, so I'll just leave things at saying this is by far the best Tomb Raider
game to date and one of the best games I've played in years.

Looks like Gearbox Shipped a Stinker

I don't know if you've heard lately, but Gearbox Software's new FPS Aliens: Colonial Marines pretty much blows chunks.

All I can say is I'm glad I didn't shell out $59.99 for this game.  I had  briefly considered it......my wife asked me if I wanted it, but there were two factors that made me pass for now:
     1) Gearbox didn't endear themselves to me with how they treated Borderlands 2 players.
     2) It seemed like Left 4 Dead, but instead of survivors and zombies it was Colonial Marines and Aliens.  Valve made a great game, why would I want to play another flavor of it?

Analysis of the Battle of Hoth

Okay, now this is a geeky way to spend a Tuesday morning, doing a military analysis of the Battle of Hoth from The Empire strikes Back.

It's a good read that you might enjoy.....I did.

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Baldur's Gate for iPad

One of the gifts I got for Christmas was a $10 iTunes card that I promptly spent on getting Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for my iPad.

Overall the game is fun, but it is a bit buggy and there has been a bit of a learning curve, not to mention some issues.

If you don't mind the occasional crash and the frustration of trying to accurately click on a specific container or portal, then you should enjoy this version of the game.  They designers are aware of most of the bugs and hopefully an update is in the works.

Saw Wreck-it Ralph on Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving Carolyn and I went out to see a movie.  Our original intention was to go see the new Red Dawn movie, but I did a bad, bad thing I generally do not recommend doing before going out for a movie.

Yep....I read the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.  Eleven percent of critics liked it and only 64% of the participating audience reviewers liked it.  Those "positive" reviews....if you go and look at them they aren't all that positive either.

Because I didn't want to gamble on seeing a "rent instead" movie, I asked we change our plans to go see Wreck-it Ralph, which had 86% and 92% for professional/public reviews.

Skyfall

Carolyn and I went to see the new James Bond flick Skyfall today.  As much as I'd love to tell you about this movie I don't want to spoil anything for you.  In several ways it was both a typical and atypical Bond film.

All I feel comfortable saying boils down to a few brief statements.

More Borderlands 2

It is an open secret that I've been spending a lot of my free time playing Borderlands 2, and by free time I mean whenever-I-can-steal-time-away-from-other-things.

Borderlands 2 has been quite a bit of fun and I already finished the game once....kind of.  When you "finish" the game there is an extra side quest that pops up to go kill an extremely difficult level 50 opponent.  The quest is called, You. Will. Die. (Seriously), which is prophetic because when you first get this quest you will most likely be around level 30.  Facing the dreaded Terramorphous the Invincible will easily cause your death.  This boss is designed to be fought by a full group of four level 50 players.

Here a level 33 Siren and a level 32 Gunzerker try to take on this level 52 Terramorphous.  Their weapon damage doesn't even register on the creature's health bar.

Containment: The Zombie Puzzler

I picked up this fun game the other week and have been playing it off and on since then.  Containment: The Zombie Puzzler is, in many ways, just a simple matching game, but they've really made some awesome additions and tweaks that have kept me far more interested than anything I've played in that genre.

Containment, from Bootsnake Games, is available for the PC through Steam and iOS.

Instead of a never-ending matching game, which I think is available on a "survival mode", there is a campaign mode where a short story about survivors banding together to fight off the undead horde.  You get some special items to help in your quest to surround and kill the zombies.  Some of these special items can also kill some of your survivors, but collateral losses don't seem to be too big of an issue.



The game runs $1.99 and I think it is worth it.  I was a little confused playing it at first when I just started out because I didn't read the instructions and had to figure it out as I went along.  To me that was even more fun because with the sound effects I felt a level of eagerness and anticipation that I wouldn't have had with any other game of this type.

Overall the graphics are superb and the sounds are great.  This game had a bit more polish to it that what I'm used to seeing with cheap iPad games.  Of course I will admit I don't purchase or play too many iPad games, but this definitely made the short list for me.

Borderlands 2 Review

My wife decided to help me out last week and bought me a copy of Borderlands 2.  I liked the first game and it is one of the few full-length Xbox 360 games that I've managed to get 100% of the achievements on.

Since Wednesday morning it seems all I've been doing is sleeping, homework, and playing Borderlands 2.  Sure, I've actually been other things, but the memory blur says it's been mostly Borderlands 2.

The folks over at 2K Games and Gearbox did a great job with this sequel.  It seems they took all the good stuff from the first game, amped it up, and added more content.  So far there haven't been grinding collection missions and for that I am thankful.

The coolest thing I like was the introduction of badass tokens.  There are a ton of minor tasks, that when completed, grant you some badass rank.  When you rank gets high enough you get a badass token.  These tokens are exchanged for minor stat bumps, like weapon damage, reloading time, etc.  They are really minor tweaks to your character, but they can add up.

Of course the randomized weapon drops is still pretty cool.

I did notice though that it looks like they fixed the replication bug.  In the first game you could drop a cool piece of equipment and exit out of the game without saving.  Your buddy could pick up the item and when you re-started the game you still have the original item.  Fixing this made legitimate trading more important.  I was given a good shield early on and I've been saving specific equipment that I won't use, but I think my friends will.



I don't want to give an entirely specific review because if you are a fan of the over-the-top ultra-violence (but not extremely graphic), bad puns and terrible innuendos, and many......many hours of gameplay, then you will want to check it out for yourself.

I will say one thing though.....2K and Gearbox did a great job making it easy to get in on your friends games, even easier than Xbox does normally.