Cantousent

Virtually no wine is actually best served at warm temperatures. Putting a red in the fridge a tad before serving just gets it into the right temperature range. Most wine shouldn't really be stored in the fridge. You chill a white before serving best by putting it in a mixture of ice and cold water. If you keep reds in a cellar, then you might have to bring them up closer to room temperature. I keep my house at about 72 degrees F or so. That's warmer than I think just about any red. Hell, even Shiraz should be served in the mid 60s. You can get away with keeping port at about 70 degrees, though, once you've opened the bottle. I would like to pretend that I'm a true oenophile, but the fact is I drink far too much of it, and far too quickly, to call myself a connoisseur. I love ports and sherrys, but they can be a bit sweet and the alcohol content tends to be much higher. I prefer reds, but I drink a lot of white wine also. The wife prefers fruity whites, which is why I get stuck drinking box wine with names like "crisp white" or "table white." I love veggies and always have. My wife hates most of them, so I tend not to get a wide variety unless I go out of my way. I do make a homemade chicken pot pie with fresh peas and carrots that the wife loves, though. I've always had an affinity for brussel sprouts, but I've always had them with a butter or cheese sauce. When I cook, I probably use bell peppers more than anything. I think they can be great for adding flavor to a marinade and grill well also. Still, can't get stuck in a rut. You have to try different things in order to have variety.

Oh, I don't think it will be much less for a while on Steam. I could be wrong, but I doubt it has much less than a ten buck price cut for some time. If it does, then I'll have something else to complain about. Don't you know this is the internet? Complaining is our God given right. :Cant's contented smile icon:

I'm really starting to get pissed off with this God forsaken L.A. Noire game. It gets stuck with on the Synchronizing screen and hangs. I let it run there for hours on the weekend and there's still no resolution (that works) I can put in place on my end. :Cant's long suffering icon: Nope, I suppose I should just cool my jets. I'll install it on my wife's (XP) system. I have to switch the DVI cable since I only have four damned HDMI inputs on my TV, but other than that, it shouldn't be an issue and then we can play it together. F'n bites my asscheek. Luckily, the bottle of port is taking the edge off the experience. I think I'll buy Skyrim for the hell of it. Then I wno't have time to play it, but at least I can kvetch over it later.

I was slicing jalepenos on the weekend and cut my thumb down through the nail on the side. The top half of the nail came off today. Stung a bit, too.

I use Daikon to make something like Kimchi. Kimchi itself uses cabbage, but there are a lot of variants. I also love Sauerkraut. I just lurve it on grilled hot dogs and burgers. The wife hates the smell (same with kimchi) so I tend to eat them rarely, but great stuff.

Come on, Tig, my Korean friend. You should be eating Kimchi and Bulgogi. :Cant's teasing icon: I have to admit, I've never tried to make Kimchi, though. Great stuff. Smells to all heaven, but leaves Curry in the dust. Of course, I have to admit I love Curry also. MMMMM

I've been bad about going to the doctor myself, which literally almost cost me my life on one occasion. I don't think you should go for any old thing, but persistent stuff for sure. ...And light headed, dizzy, shortness of breath, or chest pains all seem like fair game. I got home early today and I'm just vegging in front of my computer not doing anything I'd planned on doing. Going to have to start cooking soon, though. One thing, out of booze. I think I have a tiny bit of Seagrams Seven and some sort of box wine called 'crisp white.' :Cant's shuddering icon: Aw well, I'm too lazy to go out for anything. It will have to be a dry night.

I tend to like firearms, although I've seen folks advocate everything from unarmed to energy. I tell you what, if you think energy weapons are weak, go take a gander at the alien blaster. On the hardest settings, you can put down that badassed Deathclawzilla you meet in one of those caves in no time. I think it's the best weapon in the game.

I use a lot of ground turkey in lieu of ground beef. It really depends on what I'm making and for whom. Just something on any given night, I'll use less expensive cuts. For something like bulgogi or stir fry, I'll use tri tip. I could go for something more expensive, but it's going to be cut into strips anyhow. It's not like a steak. I could even go for a london broil cut, but I've always found it to be tough and not that much less expensive. Of course, I tend to marinade stuff between 24-48 hours and then cook it slow which makes for some tender meat. Some stuff is cooked hotter, though, and so you can't count on slow cooking to make it tender. Of course, sometimes things taste good nice and crunchy. Kind of like charred bits when you sear the meat. mmmMMMMM I've always prefered thighs and other dark meat from chicken, but the wife hates skin, bones, and dark meat. :Cant's sighing icon: So I tend to buy and cook the boneless, skinless, tasteless chicken breasts or tenders. Makes for very boring fried chicken in my opinion, but the wife likes it. Chili is also good and cheap. And the beans are good for you, kind of like the lentils ol' Grom mentions. I cook it with meat most of the time but, since there's just the two of us, I'm likely to split one package of ground turkey/beef in half and have mostly black or pinto beans. There are two things that can save money: use as much as you can of what you prepare, such as using the broth from cooked meat or saving the goose fat for other dishes later. The other thing is to make it yourself if you can. Generally speaking, you're better off buying beans and making your own refried beans. Tastes better too. The downside is that it usually takes a lot longer. ...And there are caveats. Frozen veggies are often healthier than buying 'fresh' vegtables unless you're getting them from close to the place of produce and close to harvest time. But it's gone from your favorite cheap meal to a discussion of preparation. If we get to the point of posting a lot of recipes, I'll throw out my hot and tasty Jerk Sauce Bulgogi and Five Alarm Chicken Cacciatore.

Did you ever go to the doctor for feeling 'light headed?'

Yeah, I'm not yet to the point of anti-MMORPG crazy yet, but I have been WoW free for months and I'm quite happy. I didn't have time for it which meant that all my playing time came the at the expense of interpersonal relationships or sleep. I'm slowly but surely getting back to where we were in PST and some of the things I forgot in the more recent run came back to me now, such as helping some mage who needs a ruby in Ragpickers' Square. PS:T is the only game to date where I hacked it to find out more stuff and then went in with a dialogue editor to read what I didn't get in the game. I honestly don't think there's anything in the lawful/neutral/chaotic good line I haven't seen already.

Well its your own fault for expecting CoD to have a plausible plot. Yeah, Modern Warfare wasn't plausible but the Russians taking over New York.... :Cant's shaking his head in bemusement icon: I still love the game, but shooters just aren't meant to be the soul of realism, although Rainbow Six and some of the less forgiving ones do come closer than others. enterix shows his age, but he doesn't remember Wolfenstein 3D it seems. As an aside, does anyone remember the ol' skool Castle Wolfenstein games? Claassic stuff, I tells ya. EDIT: I would accept Max Payne. I loved the games. I even did all of the secret stuff in Max Payne 2. I've thought of going back and doing the first one on all the settings to get the goodies, but no time right now. Someday.

Hey Cal, you still doing the raid circuit in WoW?

Hey, Iron Maiden had some good music back in the day. A lot of songs pulled out of classic literature or ancient mythology. I love this thread. My fave by far, getting to hear other folks music suggestions. Right now, listening to one of my favorites from 80s era Men at Work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImKPzEGCYZI I think this video is the one they had on MTV back when they actually played music videos.

I miss my dad so it's good to hear you had a good time with yours, Nep. I guess right now I'm taking the time to catch up on folks on the board here. Lazy Sunday evening. Leftovers for dinner. Some sort of live streaming show on netflix. Maybe a little vino. Life. is. good.

I never finished Modern Warfare on Veteran because of the one mission where you have to protect your fellow sniper. Someone told me once that you don't actually protect him. You just dump him off in a corner and get into the most defensible position to protect yourself. Now, if I could just find the disc, I could finish veteran.

I'm tempted to replay this one. Blood Money was just all around awesome. I've finally entered vault 22. Talk about "green house" effect As I see more folks talking about New Vegas, I'm more excited about the upcoming 'ultimate edition' or whatever they're calling it. I only purchased the one DLC and then didn't have time to play it, but now I intend to get the larger version and just plan a whole weekend to forgo sleep, sex, and society in order to play. So, the wife and I have been playing PST and we'd become Sensates and gotten well into Sigil. That takes a while when you play maybe one or two hours a week and you have to achieve consensus on dialogue options and what to do next. I recently purchased L.A. Noire because my wife wanted to play that also, but she was irritated because she wants to finish PS:T first. Didn't matter anyhow since L.A. Noire gets stuck 'synchronizing' and hangs there for as long as I let it before I finally go to the task manager and shut it down. The problem? The save game files for PST disappeared. So, I'm going to solo replay the entire part we'd already done and then my wife will start playing again from there. Damn it.

Well, I haven't had a chance to play it, but I was considering picking up Skyrim when I realized that LA Noire Complete Edition is out for PC. The wife really wants to play that one big screen style like PS:T, so I picked it up instead and now I can't see picking up another title that I won't be able to play. Maybe in a few months.

Yeah, Iron Man is a classic. I like a lot of Ozzy's solo stuff. Can't understand the drug mongering bastard, but he's had some great music, like Thank God for the Bomb, Crazy Train, and Diary of a Madman. I was even more of a fan of Iron Maiden, though. Talk about music with real stories. One of my alltime playlist titles is the Trooper.

I made a seven layer dip and we took it to a friends for some pulled beef BBQ. I was doing my best Iron Chef impersonation, slicing jalepenos, when I cut into my thumb deep enough to cut into the side of my thumbnail. Nothing like cutting jalapeno seed deep under your flesh. mmm MMM MMMMM The whole meal tasted pretty damned good and the three of us put away some five bottles of wine. Two Pinot Noir, one Merlot, and two of those nasty White Zins.

But was it worth it, you damned hutt?

What? While CoD outsells Valve games, they have in no way destroyed them.. But anyway, the first 2 games where the best - after that they began to make console games and their IP went down the drain. I don't think he means the company, Ros. My take is that he means the game manages overcome the Valve games in terms of quality. It 'destroys' Valve in terms of the quality of gameplay rather than putting the company out of business. Even so, I actually think I prefer Portal to either Half Life or Modern Warfare, although it's fairly short. I've been playing these games since the first release of Castle Wolfenstein 3D and my biggest beef is probably the way they've become so limited by the confines of console technology, but I don't let that stop me from enjoying what I can get. I've thought about getting Rage lately. If I get anything new, it will probably fall down a choice between Rage and Skryim.

Are you an fps player, though? I mean, if you hate fpses in general, then your dislike of the CoD series means one thing. If you like them generally, then your dislike of the series means something quite different.

I loved CoD 4. I've finished Black Ops, but it just didn't have the same 'cool' factor.

I've skipped several of the past few big titles, but I might get Skyrim. I'm just waiting for some of the folks on this board to give a thumbs up before I get this one. Hell, I still haven't bought Dragon Age 2 or Dungeon Siege 3.