Chicago 09'

Chicago! I love the city, I love Da Bears, I love the people.

Fatty and I went for our annual (2 years now) trip to Chicago on Sat. and Sun. This time we decided to stay for 2 days instead of trying to cram everything into 1 day like last year. We got to Chicago at about 11am Chicago time and headed to Smoques BBQ it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. It was great, large portions and it tasted amazing I got the Brisket platter with BBQ baked beans and fries. The Brisket was juicy and fallen apart, in a good way, and the baked beans were amazing there were so many fries that I couldn't even finish. Fatty had the pulled pork platter with mac & cheese and BBQ beans, he really enjoyed his too, it looked really good. From there we messed around for a little while in that area of Chicago until we decided to see if Hard Rock Hotel would let us check in early, they did.

We headed back towards the hotel and got valet'd for the first time, we then checked in and the concierge took our bags to our room. We had a deluxe king bed and a good size room, the Bowie room, and we were on the 17th floor! We had an excellent view of Millennium Park from our room and could see some of downtown too. We chilled in the room for a little while still somewhat tired from the drive, we decided to go to ESPN Zone before meeting my Dad and his gf for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe (My Dad and his gf were going to be in Chicago the same weekend we were there and we had no idea until a few weeks before we left). ESPN Zone was fun like usual, for those that don't know it's a restaurant and an arcade, we just played the arcade. Basketball, Football, Air Hockey, Racing, Madden on a huge screen, it was fun!

We then walked to HRC to meet up and have dinner, my Dad and E were already there and we got seated pretty quick thanks to Fatty's HRC card. I had my usual, HRC bacon cheeseburger with fries, it was good as usual and my dad said his burger was most likely the best burger he has ever had. To my surprise my dad paid for our meal, he then asked if we wanted to go to the Hancock Observatory, 94 floors above Chicago in a giant room of windows. It was dark and the view of the city from up there was amazing, and my dad paid for that as well. We then went down to see how long the wait at the Cheesecake factory was, 1 hour, so we went to the Lux and the wait there was 2 hours. We decided to head back to my Dad's hotel and see if there was a wait for the restaurant there, none!, we got dessert and just talked for a while before heading to their room to hang out before we headed back to our hotel. Dad and E paid for our whole night, Thanks Guys!

Fatty has been sick so we grabbed a cab back to our hotel and Fatty and I ordered Giordano's small pizza and cheese bread and sprite about an hour or so later. We played cards ate pizza and just relaxed til we fell asleep. The next morning we got up and checked out of the hotel, but we checked in our bags and grabbed a taxi to Ditka's restaurant for my Birthday present from Fatty, thanks again! I've been there before but just to buy souvenirs, the ambiance was great sports memorabilia on all the walls. The food was great I had The Fridge Burger with Ditka Fries, it was the best burger I have ever had it trumps the HRC burger and the fries had a little spice and we good as well. From there we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel and got our bags and had the valet get our car.

We headed to Navy Pier and started our shopping extravaganza, we spent the rest of the day walking and shopping and taking pictures of the water and the city from the Pier. We had McDonalds ice cream cones and large pops, walking gets tiring, before walking around and shopping some more. I got a lot of Bears and Chicago memorabilia and some random little stuff, Chicago golf balls, ping pong balls, shot glasses. I bought Fatty a Chicago shirt, Bears shorts, and a Chicago baseball. We ate at the Twizted Lizard I had nachos and fatty had two chicken tacos, it was good and my nachos were huge I only ate about 2/3 of them. We then decided to go see Watchmen in IMAX since the shops all closed at 7pm and we weren't ready to leave yet. The movie was good and seeing anything in IMAX is always better. After that we paid for our parking and headed home, we got home at about 1:30 am our time.

We had a great weekend, Chicago is always a blast oh and I forgot to mention that it being St. Patty's weekend they turned the Chicago River green that was a cool site to see (I'll post pictures up later when I get home).

Addicted Part 4

I've picked up four new games since the last Addicted post; Midnight Club: LA, Prince of Persia, Shaun White Snowboarding, and Devil May Cry 4 so it's time for my reviews.

Midnight Club: LA: This is a racing game, no real side stories just your car and the opponents on the "track." I put track in quotes because the city of LA is your track you can use every part of it to race or explore. There obviously is a story and racers will contact you via your phone, it pops up in the lower left hand corner of the creen and you can accept challenges from there. There are a wide variety of cars, and even a couple motorcycles, these can all be tricked out with new parts, paint, and vinyls. A cool feature of this game is that you can also trick out the inside of your car from the seats to the color of the dash. There are some really easy races and than there are some that I have yet to beat. This is another game that I have not beaten but from what I have played so far I rate this a 9/10.

Prince of Persia: This is another good game in the Prince of Persia line. The addition of Elika, the female character, adds some cool features to the game. She can throw you at mid-jump so you can go longer distances and when you are about to die she will save you. There is somewhat a lack of fighting in the game but that is not really a big deal since the boss battle are fun and later in the game get challenging. The biggest part of the game is getting places by using the environment around you. Climbing walls, jumping from pillar to pillar, and using plates (with the help of Elika) to get to the next location. I will say that PoP is repetitive there are four "levels" and you fight the same boss at the end of each "level" and then you open a door and finish off the boss for that area, rinse and repeat that four times. The last boss fight is easy to a point the camera angle messed me up a couple times but I think that is the idea there. I give PoP a 8/10 just because of the repetativeness, I still really enjoyed playing the game.

Shaun White Snowboarding: I have not put a whole lot of time in the game, but from what I have played so far it is fun, but not fun enough. I enjoy flying down the slopes and doing tricks but I don't know if it's the controls or if it's just me but the tricks I plan on doing don't happen half the time. I've done many of the slope challenges and don't really see the point, I think the game may have been thrown together too quickly. Like I said it's fun just to fly down the slopes and get some crazy air and do some tricks, Oh and throw snowballs at passersby, but for the actual gameplay it's lacking. I'll review this again (if I keep it) when I have put some more time into it, but for now I give it a 7/10.

Devil May Cry 4: I made the mistake of buying this and Prince of Persia at the same time and decided to play PoP first. I have not even put this in the system yet, when I play it I will review it for real.

I'm going to add a new addition to my Addicted posts not so much to say "look what I've done" but just so I can remeber which games I have beaten. * = complete with all achievements.

Games Beaten: Gears of War 2, Fracture, Fable II, Lego Indiana Jones*, Kung Fu Panda, Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Prince Of Persia.

Hard Times

Fatty and I were out shopping yesterday, Circuit City, Target and MuMM. Last weekend when we were at Target I saw a man with a sign on the corner near the entrance to the plaza. I didn't do anything but keep driving, you feel bad but never know if the sign holders really are in trouble. Well yesterday the same man was there, his sign read "Disabled Vet Kids Lost Everything Please Help." Once again I just kept driving but something was heavy on my heart that this guy may really need some help.

We get $5 at work on Saturdays, kind of our reward for working on Saturday (no one wants to work on Saturday). I had the $5 in my hoodie pocket and decided I would give that to him. I turned in the opposite direction that we were heading and Fatty asked me where I was going, I said "That guy needs help." I pulled up and handed the limping man the money and he said "Thank You, and God Bless."

Fatty and I saw another man later on near Meijer, so maybe this is a scam but I told Fatty I did the right thing and even if they aren't disabled or vets they are still standing out in the cold and snow and freezing to get some money. These are hard times for all.