Filed under: Restaurants, Business, Newspapers, America

Chili’s, The Cheesecake Factory, Outback Steakhouse: they’re as considered bland, middlebrow, as totally, tackily suburban as comb-overs and high-waisted mom jeans. Their menu items are ridiculed for their cheesy names (Bloomin’ Onion, anyone?) and absurd calorie content (1,700 calories for a Chinese Chicken Salad!). For a certain stripe of self-considered sophisticate, a date suggesting dinner at Olive Garden would be a bigger deal breaker than a heroin habit.

But is the food at the mid-range franchise restaurants of America really bad?

The New York Times sent testers out into the suburban wilds (intrepid!) to find out, with very mixed results. T.G.I. Friday’s goopy ribs disgusted even to a 12-year-old; Chili’s buffalo wings were cloyingly sweet. The Cajun lime tilapia at Applebee’s was nicely grilled and flavorful. Bertucci’s had a surprisingly good list of microbrews.

I, for one, have always been a big fan of the fried mac n’ cheese balls at the Cheesecake Factory (what’s not to like?) and the “Shanghai street dumplings” at P.F. Chang’s - hefty, golden buns filled with savory pork and scallions and topped with sesame seeds. I was sad when they took them off the menu in my neck of the woods.
What about you? Think mid-range chains are unfairly maligned? Have a favorite Chili’s dish we should all go try?

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Filed under: PlayStation Store, News

We’d be surprised if any of you reading this enjoyed Rocketmen: Axis of Evil long enough to suffer through all ten levels, but if you did then you might like to know that the game is getting an expansion pack. That’s right, more camera issues, bad animation and boring gameplay are heading your way. And you have to pay for it.

Rocketmen: It Came From Uranus (yes, very clever) will be available from the American PSN Store on May 15th and will cost you $4.95. In exchange for that you receive three new levels of gameplay (if you can call it that) and five new weapons; three primary and two secondary. You must have Rocketmen: Axis of Evil in order to play It Came From Uranus and can play the new levels with your old character. As you can probably tell, we’re not particularly fond of Rocketmen. You can find out why in our review.

[via Press Release]

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Filed under: Celebrities, Reality-Free

The looks like the United States recession (I assure you we’re in one) has even hit Pamela Anderson. The former Baywatch star is having a garage sale at her Malibu home.

With the assistance of Helping Hand Estate Sale Service, Anderson will be selling “5,000 square feet of beautiful vintage country French furniture” as well as other items she’s accumulated over the years.

I would be curious about what else the Anderson estate would put up for grabs. It’s a good thing the garage sale is in Malibu, as I don’t think other neighborhoods could afford Pamela Anderson’s stuff.

I’m not sure what the other items are, but I’m wondering if they include an extraordinary amount of vintage silicon. Maybe she’s going to auction off some vintage rock stars as well. Pamela Anderson herself is starting to be considered vintage.

The big question is: if you could own a piece of Pamela Anderson, what piece would it be?

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Filed under: Dessert

Most of us have had ice cream cakes, but have you have had ice cream cupcakes? If you haven’t had one yet, you probably will soon. Maggie Moos now sells them, as does Philly Swirl. However, they are really easy to make at home using any of your favorite cake and ice cream combinations.

On my blog, Cupcake Project, I’ve teamed up with Bethany and Tina from ice cream blog Scoopalicious to host an ice cream cupcake roundup in the month of May.

The idea is:

1. You make ice cream cupcakes. Check out Cupcake Project for a simple how to guide.
2. You tell us about it either on your blog or on email and include anything you learned along the way.
3. We compile all the entries in our roundup and you get to be a part of the ultimate guide for anyone wanting to make ice cream cupcakes!

I’ll post again here with some of the highlights and lessons learned when the entries are all in! We can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

To enter, visit Cupcake Project or Scoopalicious for the details. The deadline is May 30th.

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Filed under: Videos and Screenshots

So echochrome is now out and you can pick it up on the PSN for either the PS3 or PSP. If you’ve already gotten it and been playing it, then you know just how difficult some of the perspective puzzles can be. One of the best ways to troubleshoot is follow by example — watch and learn. So check out these gameplay clips that might inspire you to try different angles and new perspectives.

If you haven’t picked it up yet, then watch the vids anyway. You might just find something alluring about faceless avatars and endless walking. Besides, PSP Fanboy is giving away a copy of the game for free, so check that out too.

Continue reading These echochrome vids inspire you to think

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Filed under: Audio/Video, TV

It’s no secret: the NFL Network isn’t in nearly as many homes as the league had hoped when it launched in 2003. As it stands, the channel has only wiggled into 10 million abodes, whereas the NFL was estimating 32 million. At the network’s third annual “upfront” presentation, commissioner Roger Goodell looked media buyers and advertisers in the eye and stated that it would “make the NFL Network a success.” Not surprisingly, the biggest obstacle here is distribution, but it seems the league is adamant to find ways to broaden the channel’s audience. We suppose the battles will live on, eh? [Source: Reuters]

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Filed under: Drama, Music & Musicals, Casting

With Ang Lee behind the camera, there are many possibilities for the upcoming adaptation of Elliot Tiber’s memoir, Taking Woodstock, which Eugene blogged about recently. One of them is impending comedy. Variety reports that comedian Demetri Martin is currently in negotiations to star in the film as Tiber. The piece focuses on Tiber’s life as a closeted gay artist who has given up his ambitions in the city to move upstate and help his old-world Jewish family run their Catskills motel. He becomes head of the Chamber of Commerce, and when he gets wind of the upcoming Woodstock, he does his part to make it happen.

The memoir details planning for the epic concert, as well as “side chapters” on Tiber, which include meeting artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Mark Rothko, and getting through his closeted life to stand up to cops during a raid at a gay bar. It sounds like pretty meaty, yet potentially fun, material to me, and I’m curious to see why Martin was tapped for this part. He’s got his Jon Stewart gig and some smaller acting bits under his belt, but this is a whole different sort of role. I’m also curious to see how this story all fits together without seeming too scattered. At the very least, it should have one very sweet soundtrack.

James Schamus is currently adapting the memoir, and Focus is looking to get it into production in late August.

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Filed under: Snacks, Dessert, Recipes, Candy, Spirit of Christmas, America, Sugar, Liquor Cabinet

I come from a long-line of Irish alcoholics. And although I myself hold my liquor like a ten-year-old, I have a special place in my heart for alcohol-flavored sweet things. Indeed, I have had a torrid love affair with the bourbon ball ever since my mom first let me try one during the holidays when I was a kid.

See, at my house, bourbon (or rum) balls were holiday fare. But I’m told they’re traditional at the Kentucky Derby as well. I’ve never been to Kentucky, and I know next to nothing about the event, which, I’m told, involves race horses and women in elaborate hats.

But in the spirit of this prestigious event, I offer you my family’s decidedly un-traditional recipe for bourbon balls.

Continue reading The elegant (hic!) tradition of bourbon balls

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Filed under: Previews, Videos and Screenshots

Oh my! We have a great video of Prototype to show you, but it is rated Mature, so we have to put it after the jump. The game, blending ideas from Assassin’s Creed and Knights of the Old Republic and Grand Theft Auto and any number of similar sandbox and choose-your-destiny games, Prototype does still appear quite intriguing. Joystiq wrote up an impressive preview of the game for your enjoyment, so don’t forget to look at what they said. Basically, the game is good but difficult to judge from a quick impression. We’ll see if the game lives up to expectations when it hits later this year.

Continue reading Prototype video displays parkour, body consumption

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Filed under: Computers

We’ve all lived through this type of scenario: You’re looking for an old e-mail message, maybe one you sent a few years ago, maybe one from an old account or that you sent from an old computer. Despite all your good efforts you can’t find the message. It was important but now it is lost.

Imagine losing five million messages. Important messages. Messages you’re supposed to keep copies of according to the law.

That’s the very real scenario the White House is faced with today, the result of the Bush administration implementing a seemingly haphazard copying and archiving system for all messages sent by executive branch employees between March 2003 and October 2005 — and this incomplete system is apparently still in place, according to a fascinating explanation on Ars Technica.

When the Bush administration came into power in 2001, it changed the e-mail system from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange, effectively disabling the automatic e-mail archiving process that the Clinton administration had put into place. Instead, the new system relied on manual saving, file naming and archiving of all e-mail, a method that leaves plenty of opportunities for messages to be lost, deleted or even altered.

Now, in response to a lawsuit, a federal magistrate judge has ordered the White House to find all the missing email.

We feel sorry for the poor IT guys who now have to search for all those messages.

If it were up to you, how would you go about finding and preserving all the old White House e-mail? [Source: Ars Technica, via Machinist]

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