Carnivore date night

Last night the wife and I went out on a date to Oak Steakhouse. It was a very pleasant evening, although it got a little loud at our second floor corner table with all the noise from people waiting at the bar echoing off the ceiling towards the end of th evening.

The food was quite spectacular and we ate ourselves a little silly. Really, how can you not at a place like Oak. I started with a carpaccio of beef while the wife went with the foie gras. Both very excellent. I’d never had a carpaccio before, so it was an interesting and tasty experience. Not at all like what I expected.

By the time we finished our salads (ceasar for me, the spinach salad for her), we were already getting full. The dressings on the salads were perfect, and we just couldn’t stop eating them.

Then came our entrees. At Oak, being a steakhouse and all, large hunks of meat are the star items on the menu. All of them grilled, and all of them very yummy looking. I went with the 36 oz bone-in ribeye which came out on a hot cast iron pan. The wife ordered the 28oz porterhouse. For some reason ours didn’t come out sizzling like the other diners’ plates did. Anyway, it was a carnivore’s dream. The ribeye was a bit charred on the outside, but cooked to a nice medium/medium rare on the inside. I sliced off a decent sized 5 or 6 oz serving (no way I was going to be able to eat the whole thing at this point) and started eating. A bite of the ribeye with the accompanying foie gras was utterly sinful. Buttery sweet texture and flavour of the foie gras went perfectly with the ribeye.

We left with enough meat to last us through at least 3 more meals. Definitely a place we would go to again, although probably not too often.

4.5 stars out of 5 (-0.5 stars for the rather loud atmosphere on the second floor. I bet the third floor would be much quieter).

Dust bunnies beware!

After Roomba died, we were stuck with using the old vacuum again (over there on the left). Does a reasonably decent job for being a 10 year old vacuum. We were going to get another Roomba, but then the wife decided she wanted a Dyson. And not just any Dyson either. We were going to get a Dyson Ball.

Old red Eureka Powerline vacuum on the left standing next to the new purple Dyson DC15 Animal Ball on the right.

After some reading and research, we decided to get the Animal variant, partly because of the extra attachments it comes with, and partly because of the cool purple colour.

The wife got to use it first, and after seeing the pictures of what came out of the carpet, I’m sold. Now admitedly, it had been a while since our last vacuuming so that was probably a few weeks worth of dust build up. Still, I don’t think it’s anywhere near what our old vacuum would have sucked up.

The Dyson is a bit on the heavy side, but actually surprisingly easy to move around. It’s also a lot quieter than I expected. I used it a little bit last night to vacuum along the baseboards with the mini-turbine head. The hose is nice and long, although it becomes a little bit cumbersome moving around with the rest of the vacuum dragging behind. The telescoping wand is reasonably thin, and the crevice tool allows me to get into places that our old vacuum wouldn’t (it had a larger diameter hose). I was finally able to get to those clumps of dog hair towards the back of the fridge!

I imagine the house will be pretty clean with the new Dyson (at least for the next few weeks until the novelty factor wears off).

Go up the ladder to the roof…

so I can change all of those light bulbs.

One of the problems with having a house with vaulted 15′ ceilings is that you need a Really Tall Ladder to change the light bulbs. Or install ceiling fans. Or change the batteries in the smoke detectors.

So a ladder was my first big purchase of homeowner accessories. Not just any plain old ladder either. There were very specific criteria for the ladder I would need:

  • Get me up to at least 15′ as a stepladder so I can reach those bulbs/smoke detectors.
  • Compact enough to fit into the car so I can get it home from the store
  • Stable enough to keep me up 15′ in the air without toppling over
  • Reasonably portable

So after some indecision over what to pick, I ended up with one of these multi-purpose multi-use folding contorting ladders. It’s basically one smaller ladder that slides inside another ladder. Folds in half for use as a step ladder or for storage, or stretch it out to use as one big ladder. Pull the inside ladder out, attach a couple of hinges to the other two parts and you have two step ladders or a platform for some scaffolding or workbench type thing.

A little bit on the heavy side, but pretty easy to use. Has a good solid feel and seems to be solidly constructed, and the locks are beefy and feel secure.

So now I can get up to the ceiling and change light bulbs, batteries, and put up ceiling fans. Or go outside and put up eavestroughs, climb onto the roof, put lights up around the house or whatever else I need to do up in the air.

I’ll give this thing 8/10, losing points mostly for being so expensive.

Review: Babylon 5: The Complete Series

This is a fantastic DVD set. Babylon 5 was a cutting edge series when it came out nearly 10 years ago, and to me is still one of the best sci-fi series ever. But this isn’t about the series. Everyone knows the series was great and what it was all about.

The 5 season collection is pretty huge. With 6 DVDs and 22 episodes in each season, it’s a lot of TV watching. Nothing any die-hard B5 fan wouldn’t object to or find overly strenuous, especially since the entire series can be watched commercial free (with pauses for bathroom breaks and food of course)!

The slip cases for each season are nice and colourful and provide a very nice presentation for the series. Each season comes in a book-style cover with disk on each side of a plastic DVD disk holder. My only complaint with the boxed set is that the disk holders are simply glued in and not very solidly at that. Already I’ve had a two of the disk holders pop out of the covers when they got dropped (onto carpet). The cover is creased between each plastic holder to make for easy opening, but doesn’t seem like it will withstand a lot of opening and closing. It’s not likely to fall apart soon, but it seems to me the binding could have been done a little better and more solidly.

There are special features on disks 1, 4 and 6 of each season, which I haven’t had a chance to go through yet. 2 or 3 episodes in each season have commentary from JMS and others. The special features consist mostly of character, equipment and technology background in the form of ‘data files’. Gag reels are included in the last couple of seasons. A few short documentaries are also sprinkled here and there.

The series itself of course I give 5/5 to. The DVD collection I’ll have to give 4/5 to, mostly because of the relatively poor binding quality and ho-hum special features.

The new Battlestar: Galactica

Like many other sci-fi geeks around the country I was tuned into SciFi’s Battlestar: Galactica. The series started off with two episodes back to back. It’s part drama, part sci-fi series. Watching the LowDown show that came just before the gave me the distinct impression that it was going to be more soap opera/drama than pure sci-fi. More like B5 than separate standalone episodes like the original BG series. The tone and style was set by the mini-series, and continues in the series. Cylon infiltration, sabotage, spies and traitors. And that was just the first two episodes.

I’m going to enjoy watching this new series. With it sandwiched between Stargate: SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis, Friday nights are going to be a veritable orgy of sci-fi.

One thing I do find odd is how religious the new Cylons seem to be. Somewhat unexpected for a machine intelligence. Maybe we’ll discover the reason behind it in later episodes.

You can even read Ron Moore’s Movable Type powered blog to find out his take on the episodes.