Saturday, January 28, 2012

(The Almost Mis)adventures in Restaurant Week, 2012: Cipriani Dolci

Restaurant Week for the first round in February is upon us once more; and once more, we're making a conscious effort to get together with frenemies and try a place or two if we can manage.

As if not plainly obvious from our adventures last year at Brasserie and Hatsuhana, H1 and I are all for Restaurant Week.  Some may argue it's a crap thing to do that does not benefit business or is not a true representation of the food one may find at participating place.  For us, Restaurant Week offers us a chance to dine on a budget; we discover new places that may otherwise never get money from us; and if a restaurant offers a good enough meal, that encourages us to try it again sometime.

As we've said before, there are so many great places to eat at in the city that ideally we would not like to go to the same place twice but the reality is, through word of mouth we've been recommended to go to some places by friends and we've recommended some to others and may share a future meal with them if we liked a place enough.

The other thing about Restaurant Week is that it gives us a chance to spend a nice evening with frenemies.  Of course, if some of our frenemies would get back to us, we could truly enjoy ourselves...Frass  (seriously though, no worries if you can't make it.  No need to feel guilt for anything but just let us know.  We're actually concerned about you at this point since we've not heard back).


Friday night, H1 and I went out with our favourite Aims to Cipriani Dolci located in Grand Central Terminal.  As shocking as it may seem, The HOchieS have never been to Cipriani.  Italian food does not move me but that's not entirely accurate of me to say.  Have I even had true, good Italian food? Perhaps once or twice but I am not a good judge on Italian food and therefore feel I have no right to speak on the matter.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

It's the Year of the Dragon everyone!


May your year be full on awesome burnination, wing-a-lings, beefy arms and consummate V's.

Also, thatched roof cottages.

Happy Birthday!

I am sending Birthday wishes to my Imaginary Friend, Fred.

Does that mean I should be sending Imaginary Birthday wishes? Or does it not matter? 

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Food of Champions

Never chronicled before (at least, I don't think so), I present to you one of my favourite quick time foods that H1 specializes in making.

There's nothing better than spaghetti with vienna sausages a la H1.

Just look at how beautiful it is!




More importantly, it tastes beautiful.  What's in there? There are secret ingredients in here other than the love.

The HOchieS in Winter

If there's one thing H1 despises, it's snow.

If there's one thing Or 2 despises, it's snow that falls on a Saturday completely reducing any chance of a snow day from work.

Yet, here we are.

Oh the depression this Saturday morning for the first real snow fall in NY for 2012!

::sigh::

Here are some pictures I braved the cold to go take.  Okay, well  maybe I stood from my front door and took the first two...but the others! Braved the cold, I did.

The End of Year Review III: Video Games, Part II

So, did you guys manage to read Part I? You got through that already, did you? Wait, what...? You didn't even look at it?! You bastards!

That's okay because I couldn't read it either.

But! You should read these from 20 through 11, okay?

Monday, January 16, 2012

The End of Year Review III: Video Games 2011, Part I

In 2010 I managed to play about 20 or so games.

Last year, it was 30+.

...

I also decided unless I really wanted a Collector's Edition or there was a pre-order incentive that was a must have for me, then I'd buy everything on sale. Turns out games go on sale all the time or you can just wait until the end of year. So uh, yeah... that strategy did not really work out for me.

Due to the fact that the amount of games played last year is just staggering (I feel, anyway), I have decided it would be a kind gesture to myself (and to whoever wants to read) to break up the reviews in blocks.

As before and not uncommon, I have a serious backlog. It's a shameful backlog but who does not have one? And so, I played some games released in 2011 and some released prior to that.

So, read on!

It all starts with 30 through 21...

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Yeaauuhhhhh!!!!

Congratulations to Beetchie on passing her boards!

Woo!

We're very excited for you because we knew you could do it and you put in so many years of hard work!

It's super awesome.

We're also very excited for ourselves because guess who's one step closer to becoming a Suga' Momma?

Beetchie, that's who.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Thoughts for the Day

It's been a while since I've listed any Thoughts for the Day.  It's also been a while since I changed the Obsessions for the Week but that'll have to wait just a bit longer.

Thoughts...on Music:

As I was listening to The Beatles this week, it occurred to me that if bands these days wrote half as good as The Beatles, we'd not have to listen to a lot of the nonsense out there these days.

It might also mean that everyone would have to delve into a lot more drugs, but it's all for the music! Think about the music...

Thoughts...on Berries (Conversation of the Day):


Or 2: I think when blue berries were named, not much thought or creativity went into it.  It's the stepchild of berries.


What's worse, said person who named the blue berry did not even take the time to bite into one to see that it's not even blue on the inside.


H1: They're blue because they are the stepchild of berries.  Not even berries' biological child.  All very sad.

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Ah, Winter. Here You Go, Again.

Christmas and the Christmas Season for 2011 is officially over!

Oh, I know.   That's pretty boo hiss, I agree!

We are saying goodbye to that scary ass monkey...remember him? The Christmas Monkey with all knowing eyes who was ready to toss monkey poo at you if you misbehaved? Yeah... I know you didn't forget him.  How could you?

Especially since I've placed him here for you as a reminder!

We're also saying goodbye to the St. Nick Express that rolled in on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day delivering prezzies and fun.



And so, it's finally time to accept that we are in Winter.

I am finding that a little hard to acknowledge with it being 51 degrees out there today with lots of sun and that extra warmth.  Frankly, it felt like Spring.  I best not complain though before the ice starts kicking in from blizzards but maybe this is just how things are going to be for the next few months.

But then again, we haven't even seen February yet.  :::shudder:::

So just in case things start to get cold and wintry white, instead of being all depressed about being stuck inside your house, throw yourself a party!

Leading the charge on the blog is our very own Momiji Party Girl!

With boombox and smiles, she'll throw down the tunes for us to enjoy and be lively in the coming months.

Fret not.

It's a party up in this place.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Lost in a Sea of e-mails

Today, Brian Crecente left Kotaku.com.  It's a pretty big deal and it's awfully sad.  Some are speculating that he was pushed out and I am inclined to believe them.

That said, I have no worries that he will be quite fine wherever he goes next.  He's very well respected in his field and a fine journalist.

At the end of his farewell note, he entrusted his e-mail to his readership.  That's a lot of trust!

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Happy New Year!

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit.

Hare, Hare, Hare.

Good luck guys, for the year and for the month.  Thank you for everything last year and we look forward to a great year together.

I have no Old Year's pictures of the drunken times The Cheat, Diderick and Gnomey-Gnome had because it may be that they had no drunken times at the house.  I know, tragic but have no fear.  The guys went to a pub last night and I have not yet seen them for the year.  They heard that there was no hard alcohol at The HOchieS last night and promptly gave me the finger.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

The End of Year Review II: Music 2011

Once again Amazon and their nonsense business of making me that much poorer, threw $5 sales at me every month on music.

I do not think I bought as many albums from them other than the ones I truly wanted and had to invest in this year but looking at my Amazon Cloud may disprove my terrible memory.

As in previous years, here is the usual disclaimer - I listened to albums past and those will be included on this list mixed in with 2011 efforts.

I also will not be including video game soundtracks on the list this year because a) I will be writing well into next year and b) I will give them their own props when I do the end of year review.

That said, here we go!!!!

Adventure Time's Soundtrack makes number one.  It seriously would if it had a proper soundtrack release! Casey James Basichis is brilliant and Pendleton Ward is a geinus.  Since there has been no official release, I will "begrudgingly" go with these instead.

The End of Year Review I: The Best of the Blog 2011

Welcome to the first round for the End of Year Reviews.

I will be late with the End of Year reviews for Video Games because I started my final game at the end of November and have not had a chance to finish it up for inclusion.

The End of Year music review and the live show review will be posted hopefully later today.

Right now, let's take a look back at the best stories and memories captured on the blog!

25 Years


This year marked the 25th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda.  25 years!

I chopped some bushes and messed around Hyrule in the original game a long time ago but did not play my first game until Ocarina of Time.  I know! It's a terrible confession, isn't it?

Since then, I've played most of the games that followed with my favourite game of all time being The Legend of Zelda: Mask of Majora

A Trini Christmas in Food

What Christmas would be complete without some pastelles.

Thanks to Frass this year for bring us pastelles from Brooklyn.  H1 has decided they were little too hot which made them not as enjoyable as they could have been.

Mom and I loved them.  Please bring more soon.  Bwahahaha.

We also thank Frass for being this year's designated caper and olive boy for the batch of pastelles that The HOchieS churned out.

We bought a tortilla press this year to assist in the making of the pastelles and it is now universally acknowledged that H1 is the Master of the Tortilla press.


The Tree and Jazzie

This year, H1 and I decided the tree was going to be pink!

It turned a sort of pink, purple, silver and gold sort of a mess but it was a lovely mess!




Don't judge my tree! Just my photo.

Who you should judge is Jazzie.

Ridiculous Sightings in Retail

One of the things H1 and I wanted to start doing was dedicating blog posts to all the ridiculous and clever products we often see on our trips to various stores.

What better time to find questionable items in stock than at Christmas time?  There's so much good stuff out there just waiting to be found.

Take these Christmas cards we saw at Target for instance:



Meanwhile in the Cookie aisle, Siamese twins are born!

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Christmas (Present List) Fraught With Extermination and Danger

Some how, this Christmas saw a bunch of Daleks invade the HOchie household.

One Dalek can destroy an entire city so imagine what these three will do!!!!



Merry Christmas, Everyone!

The Christmas Monkey is off boozing it up with some ponche-de-creme made fresh by Papa HOchie and vows to return some time this week to dole out New Year's Resolutions to you guys.

In his absence, The HOchieS are taking the opportunity to wish all our frenemies and everyone a very Merry Christmas!

We hope St. Nick's Express delivered all the toys, joy, best wishes and the presents Kyle, the presents...to your homes.

We will post the Presento-Pyo List later today once we open ours.

Momma HOchie is working today and will wait for her to return before busting open the good times.

Lots of love and Merry Ithmus!

The HOchieS.

Friday, December 23, 2011

The Airing of Grievances 2011

'Tis the moment you have all been waiting for!

The Christmas Monkey with the all seeing gangsta eyes has come to deliver the news...

The crystal ball does not lie

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Fortune Cookie Asshattery

It should come as no surprise now that I continue to be insulted by fortune cookies.

Here we have our order for lunch today:

Good times, right?
H1 and I had to share a fortune today and as if they are intentionally effing with  me, this is what we got:


What?

In this case, I will go with wontons...which is what I actually did.  H1 ordered the dumplings.

I suppose it was not as bad as the time before when it was not only implied that I was stupid but I was called out on my fat nature:


Monday, December 19, 2011

Adieu, Autumn! Bonjour, Christmas...Monkey...?

It's not officially Winter yet but it is officially 6 days until Christmas and so we are bidding adieu to the happy Scarecrow friend with mute crow.

Warm, sunny days were full of fun.  Rain showers were just a few but welcome all the same.  The sometimes chilly air made us remember the what time of the year it was and the leaves were late to fall off the trees.

Thank you for the wonderful Autumn days.  Thank you for the smiles and thank you, until we meet again!

Today, we say hello to a cheeky Christmas monkey.  He's got a crystal ball full of glitter and happiness but he's got his eye on everyone.

I think we better be really good less we end up with coal.  Or um, Monkey... poopies.

Who knows with these monkeys.
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