I can’t believe I got stuck with the dishes AGAIN!
But a good time was had by most.
Details to follow.
“There’s nothing that can go wrong in the kitchen that you can’t fix with MORE BUTTER.”
Or ketchup
I can’t keep my connection going long enough to post the notes. They keep getting lost halfway. I’ll have to post them from the office tomorrow…right after I call about switching ISPs.
Before bowling, we had burgers and watched “The Mummy” with suitable dialog.
Grace and I were drooling over this guy: Rrrowr
Oh, and I thought at one point the chanting egyptians were speaking something that sounded somewhat intelligible. Apparently, I’m right
[sub]and I found that song I knew on one of my favorite CD’s[/sub]
Okay, Balance’s notes will give the exhaustively detailed picture, but I did want to mention one thing that happened before he arrived.
Psiekier arrived AN HOUR EARLY!!!
I was still bustling around picking up clutter in the house and putting the final touches on some of the food when the doorbell rang. Apparently he never got the message about the time change and thought he was an hour LATE. No problem, come on in and make yourself comfortable.
(Actually it was a blessing that he came early because I was able to send him out to buy ice.)
At one point I behaved atrociously as a host and left him alone to cool his heels while I took a shower (which I REALLY needed after cleaning up the deck outside in the blistering heat). While I was getting dressed, Balance arrived.
Notes to the new folks - thewiz and ziactrice - who attended: Glad you could make it, hope you come to the next one, and what happened to you folks buying the first round at the bowling alley?
In defense of thewiz, he did buy the first round. We can’t help you didn’t take advantage of it. The rest of us did. 
Thanks again David!
Well, in my defense, I was still hung over from the peach brandy the day before (long story), and I only had a twenty. Guess I’ll just have to come over and buy a round NEXT time.
You shouldn’t really be complaining about having a way to get me there again, should you? (…) Unless you didn’t like me. That would explain not listing me as a friend on LiveJournal.:eek:
What can I do to get back in your good graces, oh mighty Chef Troy of the baked bean and potato salad mastery?
You can promise to vote for me in all future SDMB Iron Chef competitions. And you can tell the peach brandy story.
Anyway, I liked you just fine. Besides, I HAVE added you as a LiveJournal friend. I even posted a nice message welcoming you to the crowd of people standing around my LJ and staring in horror.
grin they really ARE amazing beans, aren’t they?
A special shout out to my peeps…errrr, I mean a special thanks to Mrs. Chef, Chef Jr., and Cheffie for hosting the event. As usual, a fine time was had by all. Our hosts provided plenty of beverages and since it was very hot out, we definitely drank our share.
I rather enjoyed watching one of my favorite movies, The Mummy, with the gang. Watching it with the closed captioning made it incredibly funny. I imagine that Balance will include in the official notes my comment about choking on my food.
After we moved to the bowling alley we overwhelmed the counter-people with all the shoe sizes we needed for the SDMB bowlers. Even though Chef Jr. is a tad big younger and much smaller than me, I still think I took the prize for the smallest shoe size.
Ummmmm, that’s all I can think of right now…unless you want to know how the women’s bathroom was decorated.
A special shout out to my peeps…errrr, I mean a special thanks to Mrs. Chef, Chef Jr., and Cheffie for hosting the event. As usual, a fine time was had by all. Our hosts provided plenty of beverages and since it was very hot out, we definitely drank our share.
I rather enjoyed watching one of my favorite movies, The Mummy, with the gang. Watching it with the closed captioning made it incredibly funny. I imagine that Balance will include in the official notes Grace’s comment about choking on her food.
After we moved to the bowling alley we overwhelmed the counter-people with all the shoe sizes we needed for the SDMB bowlers. Even though Chef Jr. is a tad big younger and much smaller than Grace, I still think she took the prize for the smallest shoe size.
Ummmmm, that’s all I can think of right now…unless you want to ask Grace how the women’s bathroom was decorated.
Will someone please slap that boy! Please? 
In the words of that movie title I’m Gonna Git you Sucka.
A judge must retain her better judgement in the face of all blandishments and threats, save overwhelming taste buds in the arena of Iron Chefdom. Sorry, no can do.
Now the Peach Brandy story I can tell. Basically, I’ve only read about the stuff before. I drove four hours Saturday to visit a friend who has a house on a lake in East Texas. We were grilling; it was hot. I was drinking Peach Brandy, straight over ice. I think I had three water-glasses full before I realized it was a bit too much for me. Only realized that when the sliding glass door became difficult to operate. That stuff is sneakier than a Seal on scouting mission…
Well, you hadn’t when I wrote that. My gosh, you have a great pic on there! Grin. I wrote back to you there, too. Thank you for the introduction around.
Yes, they’re amazing beans, if more for how not after even more than the ummm-hmmm good taste during. 
Just popping in to say that, as always, I had a great time. Chef was a wonderful host. He does have more than just one spare beer, since he took everything left over from my cooler and left me the ice.
This was the second recent gathering featuring hamburgers instead of rice. I’ll getting these people whipped into shape.
A couple of notes about the bowling, I think I was the only one that tried to throw the ball to the pins when my thumb got stuck. But I didn’t throw it backwards like someone sub[/sub]. And pulling up lame in the second game improved my bowling enough to almost beat Aglarond.
It was nice to meet the new ones, Ziatrice and thewiz.
[sub](Grace arrived)[/sub]
Jim
Well.
Um… thanks.
Um…
Okay, you win. what the HELL does this sentence mean?
Oh, and Jim, I was going for irony by suggesting that the DFW Dopers cleaned me out of beer… instead of leaving a supermarketful of it behind like they always do.
So what shall I make for the next one - arroz con pollo, or paella? With a side of rice, and rice pudding for dessert.
Grrr…let me try that again. (Not only is my home connection flaky, Netscape keeps crashing on my Sun box at work.) Here there be Notes:
3:00–I arrived at Chez Chef to find that psiekier had already been there for an hour. He hadn’t been following the thread, and thought that we had planned to meet up at 1:00–so he was an hour early, thinking that he was an hour late. At least there is symmetry.
He also missed the SDMB movie thread, which is a pity–I wanted to see his reaction to having Bruce Campbell cast for his role.
JimB arrived.
I briefly recounted my Duel Arcane from the previous weekend: “He turned me into a tortoise!..I got better.”
psiekier marvelled at the cookery hooks above Cheffie’s counter–he was somewhat dubious about their (manifest) ability to support the weight of the various pots and pans they held. Cheffie explained that they were anchored in studs. <brief pause for obligatory mock-leers and comments>
3:05–<triumphal fanfare>Grace Arrives…only 5 minutes late</triumphal fanfare> With her are Adam Yax, thewiz, and thewizkids. psiekier puzzled briefly over Grace’s newly acquired “family”.
3:10–Ag arrives. He informed us that Grace had called him earlier, gloating over the fact that she had actually left early.
Eventual headcount discussed–no one is sure whether or not Palmyra is coming. Mandatory mention made of the Skeleton Load Incident, leading tangentially to Bruce Campbell and pikaBang (some of us still have the relevant picture on our computers).
3:20–“Patio furniture, assemble!” We adjourned to the deck, seating ourselves in Cheffie’s carefully constructed (well, slapped together from kits) Adirondack deck chairs.
Hootie arrives. I introduced Adam as the “fugitive from the Canadian Border Patrol”. There was a brief digression on the proper pronunciation of “Yax” (unless it’s Seuss, it’s “yosh”).
Stop the presses! Psiekier Quotes Movies! He also criticized the Final Fantasy movie on the grounds of its dissimilarity to the games. With some assistance from Ag, I (the resident rabid FF fan) pointed out such parallels as Cid characters, Gaia, and the whole materia/guardians/spirits element.
Beers passed around, and the locations of various breweries were discussed. Hootie seemed particularly keen on this for some reason.
3:30–Zyada arrives.
Hootie inquired about Adam’s Canadian origins.
Ag: “I’ve been told that when you get lost, you should stop and listen for the 'eh’s. That way’s north.”
Cheffie warned Grace that she might want to move away from the grill, as it gets rather hot. Grace noted in an alarmed tone that she was wearing hair spray. <scootscootscootscoot>
The movie “The Wiz” was discussed.
Cheffie: “The special effects that made Michael Jackson and Diana Ross look like different people were impressive.”
“Waterworld” was roundly denounced–even the vicious satisfaction of watching Costner drink his own piss can’t save it. Even psiekier disliked it. He loved “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, though (Ag registered disagreement, I believe). We also discussed the Odyssey references in “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”.
3:45–South Park sex ed episode discussed.
Ag: “I’ve noticed that whenever they want to make a woman look ugly, they just make her look like Janet Reno.”
Grace informs us that Ag experienced a laughter-induced fall from the couch while watching “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka”.
Chef Jr. was hungry.
“We’re working on it. Actually, Cheffie’s working on it, and we’re just watching.”
“We should have a ‘Texas Road Crew’ sign here.”
Hootie noted that she was starting to sweat between her legs. Ag declared this TMI, and when Ag does that…it’s really TMI.
3:55–It was too freakin’ hot–we abandoned Cheffie to his grilling and went back inside, where I found psiekier holding forth on the anime series “Big O”. Wondrously, we evaded all of the conversational snares provided by the title and stuck to complaining about the cancellation of the series before we could get any clear notion of what was really going on.
JimB shared the story of the only turkey in the US to get a proper Christian burial–a frozen gobbler that took up space in his freezer through two Thanksgivings before being buried alongside the deceased family pets. (Balance: “Here lies Butterball?”)
Grace was inspired to relate a story from her husband concerning a dog named Lestat, a pup with problems. Lestat had seizures, and the pet store couldn’t sell him–eventually, one of the employees took him home. Some undefined period later, Lestat died. For reasons lost to the mists of third-hand storytelling, Lestat didn’t get an immediate burial; instead, he was stuck in the freezer to await proper disposal. Grace was unsure of poor Lestat’s eventual fate, but evidently the last time Mr. Grace was at that particular friends house, he went scouting for beer and found Lestat sitting in the fridge. I suggested that, if the fellow was going to leave the dog in there anyway, he should have at least spring-loaded him, so that Lestat could guard the fridge from would-be beerhounds.
On a similar note, I told everyone about an acquaintance in college who won a full-size model of one of the warrior aliens from “Aliens” in some sort of promotional deal. He rigged it so that it would drip “drool” and hiss occasionally. Then he set it in front of the light switch in his living room. Whenever he brought new friends over after a night of barhopping, he’d send them ahead–ostensibly, he’d bring up the rear with the beer. In reality, he’d lean against his car and wait for the (inebriated) screams.
4:10–Cheffie brought in the bounty of the grill, as Ag teased Grace about the confusion of dates and locations for the party at Zyada’s house.
psiekier mentions the “Atlantis vs Nautea (sp?)” thread, noting his position that Atlantis was at least something of a ripoff. Someone (thewiz?) wasn’t following too well.
Zyada: “The first rule in this group is that when psiekier is talking, it’s about movies.”
psiekier continues ripping Disney, not for lifting material from other animation, but for denying that they looked to other animation for inspiration. thewiz compared them to M$.
4:15–Ziatrice arrives. Food was ready. Food-induced hiatus in notetaking began. Yes, Cheffie’s cooking can even make me stop taking notes–amazing, isn’t it?
4:30–Watching “The Mummy” and making merciless fun of the captioning–such precious gems as “Speaking Egyption” and “Bodyguards Gasp”.
Assorted comments about the movie–Ziatrice ragged on the Evy character a bit for being Miss Exposition, IIRC. The falling-bookcases scene was accused of being overdone. Having actually perpetrated messes on that scale, I mostly kept my mouth shut.
<mummy guardians (what were they called, again) frantically turn their horses to gallop away from the statue of Anubis; one falls>
Cheffie: “No horses were harmed in the making of this picture. However, some were embarassed.”
I believe the line, “Oh, I can’t belieeheheheve this, Wilbur” was invoked.
Somewhere in there, Grace was choking on a weiner.
4:50–Adam yacks (about the movie).
<Evy passed out in Rick’s lap>
thewiz: “She just skipped the kiss and went right for it.”
We began listing the plagues as they appear:
- locusts
- water to blood
- rain of stones
- darkness
- midges (biting insects)
- boils and sores
We concluded that no one would have found frogs, flies, or murrain (a disease of cattle) terribly frightening, and the death of the first-born would have been almost impossible to put across in any practical way in the film.
Hootie, speaking of the last of the four Americans to die:
“He’s mummy fodder anyway.”
<BLAM–Rick shoots the scarab he dug out of Jonathan’s shoulder>
JimB: “It’s ExTank!”
6:20–Mrs. Chef arrives. While she was eating/getting ready, we watched the effects sequences on the DVD and made learned comments on the computer work involved (at least some of us did).
While watching the “Imhotep’s snack” bit (when he bites down on the scarab), Zia reminded everyone of a line from earlier in the movie: “He will never eat, he will never sleep…”
Zia, indignantly: “They lied!”
Balance: “Well, he didn’t swallow.”
Grace noted that Imhotep looked “so much better with his clothes off”.
Zia dissed the “salt acid” traps, backing up one of my long-standing complaints. We agreed that Hollywood should pay us both gobs of money to act as technical consultants on matters chemical, computer, and electrical.
In the interests of avoiding embarassment for everyone, I won’t post much about the bowling (this means I don’t have to post my own pathetic scores, yay!). I will note that a few of us had fairly decent games (they broke 100, anyway, which I have yet to do), and that I took one for the team and was the only person to drop the ball behind me on the backswing (that’ll teach me not to dry my hands properly after taking a swig of my drink).
Here endeth the Notes. (Crossing my fingers and hoping they actually go through this time–this is the third time I’ve typed them.)
Erg. “Beans, beans, the wonder fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot”? I didn’t think it was quite so obscure the way I said it, but the proof is in the pudding…
Speaking of which, do you use raisins or dates for your rice pudding? I’ve never had arroz con pollo, but paella is good. Of course, if you’re gonna do corn, why not pan-baked cornbread and a pot o’ ham & beans? Or corncake pancakes with em… Gad. I’m going to have to hurry off and cook. I’ve made myself SO hungry…
Oh, dear. I won’t even tarry to point out that Balance has misplaced a ‘c’ from my screen name, mis-attributed the ‘Miss Exposition’ calumny Chef Troy heaped on Evy’s head, and tagged me for almost everything else I said that he overheard. 
Got away with a few…
Whoops…sorry about the spelling flub (must have been the sarcastic “We’re Beatrice” commercial parodies running through my head), but I distinctly recall you mouthing off about Evy’s expositionist tendencies–I think it was during her recap bit at the museum (when she found out about the “sacrifice” bit).
I also neglected to mention our brief talk about role-playing games at the bowling alley, tying the cherry stem from Zyada’s not-daquiri in a knot with my tongue, and the injuries and fatigue that plagued the Adams Family League. So I glossed over a few things, so what?
Well, I did say that my car was severely broken. As it turned out, so severely that insurance totaled it. My baby, my T-bird, is dead. And headed for the salvage guys who are going to make a killing selling off bits of it’s corpse.
So I have another car now. I may love it one day.
I didn’t mean to miss any Dopefests except the ones that happened while I was in New Mexico, and I’ve missed the whole damn summer. 
BTW, have you all seen this??? Who can resist?
Monty Python at the Inwood Theater? That would be cool. Looks like it’ll be there Friday, Sept. 7th. I wonder if it’s a one day only thing or it’ll have a longer engagement there.