Costco

So maybe someone can explain this to me. My boys are incredibly picky eaters. I mean really, really picky. Here's what they will eat for dinner:

LilKat1: Macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, sandwich (with butter and cheese only, sometimes with ham), grilled cheese (sometimes), spaghetti (sometimes), corn dogs, pizza, ramen

LilKat2: Chicken nuggets, hot dogs, spaghetti (sometimes), pizza, toast

Not a lot there, right?

But when we go to Costco and there's someone giving out samples, they will eat ANYTHING!!! Seriously! I really don't understand this. Today, LilKat2 had a chipotle chicken flauta. And he liked it! He ate the whole thing! You think he'd eat anything resembling a chipotle chicken flauta if I made him one at home? No way! But wait, you say! Why don't you just buy a box of the kind that they're selling at Costco. Surely, he'd eat that, right?

Nope...He'd have none of that. I guarantee it.

So here's my new plan. I'm thinking of getting rid of our kitchen table and chairs. I'm going to replace them with a couple of stainless steel carts. Mrs. BigKat will man one and I'll take the other one. One cart will be for the entree, and other cart will be for the side dish. Instead of cooking the food on the stove or in the oven like normal, we'll just cook their meals in toaster ovens that are on the carts. And instead of putting the food on plates, we'll just cut it up into small bits and put the pieces in little paper cupcake wrappers. When it's dinner time, we'll have the boys come over, and the cups of food will be available for them on the carts on little plastic trays. The boys can just meander back and forth between the carts, eating cups of food until they're done. Oh, and we'll probably have to wear white coats and shower caps too.

Think it'll work?

Thumbs up

Every once in a while, LilKat1 will be using the potty standing up and he'll miss a little bit (and sometimes more than a little bit). This is not that big of a deal in and of itself. After all, a tour of any typical men's room would lead one to the conclusion that a good 95% of all men have this problem (on a semi-related note, I don't know if I wrote about this already, but a while ago, I was in the locker room at the YMCA and there was this old guy using the urinal. He had no clothes on. None. And I thought to myself...'Now there's a guy who's not afraid of cooties...' I, however, am afraid of cooties. Which is why, when I take my kids to play on the McDonald's play structure, I try to tell myself to always have them wear their slip on shoes. Because if one of the boys has to go use the potty all of a sudden, I'm not going to have them walk around the public men's room in their socks. I realize that often, in those gotta-go-potty-now situations, time is of the essence, but we still need to get those shoes on! Anyhow, back to the story...). But it is not very fun to walk into the bathroom (keep in mind that we have one of those houses where you're not allowed to wear shoes inside) and all of a sudden notice that the bottom of your foot is soaking wet. And then you look down and realize why it's soaking wet. Yucky...As LilKat2 would say, I can't really want that.

So I had to have a talk with LilKat1. I told him that I know that sometimes he misses the potty. And if he misses the potty, he won't be in trouble. But he NEEDS to tell me or Mrs. BigKat that he has missed the potty so that we can go in and clean it up before someone steps in it. He was fine with that.

Well, I'm happy to say that he has taken to this new rule quite nicely. In fact, he is quite outstanding at it. Now, he'll go into the potty, and a few minutes later, I'll hear a sing-song voice coming from the bathroom saying 'Daaaaaaaaaa-ddyyyyyyyy! I miii-iiiiissed! And then he'll poke his head out the door, flash me a huge grin, and give me a big thumbs up! That's my boy...

Mr. Jack

 

Mr. Jack is currently my favorite 2 player game. Want to know why?

1) The theme is fun: One player is Jack the Ripper. The other is the Inspector. Jack the Ripper is pretending to be one of 8 suspects. The Inspector has to figure out which one he really is before Mr. Jack can escape.

2) The components are quite nice: Little wood pieces with stickers on them for the suspects. Nice thick cards. And great artwork. As you can tell from the box picture, it's somehow dark and cartoony all in one. Fun yet...menacing! When I look at the board, I feel like the artwork fits the game perfectly.

3) Games play pretty quickly: The Inspector has only 8 turns to figure out which suspect is Mr. Jack. The box says that the game length is about 30 minutes. When Mrs. BigKat and I play, it's usually more like an hour (but we're playing at a pretty casual pace, making snacks, chit-chatting about the day, etc.). This works out great for us because we can easily fit it in during the evening after the kids go to sleep and not go to sleep too late.

4) A variety of characters: Each of the 8 characters in the game has unique special abilities. Not only does this help tie the game to its theme, but it also makes repeated gameplay much more interesting, as you figure out different ways to use each character more effectively.

5) Gameplay is easy to pick up, but has some depth (you can go here to find out the details of how the game is played): At first glance, this looks like it's a deduction game. Each player has access to all 8 suspects. As the suspects are moved around the board, the Inspector eliminates some of them from suspicion. This is done by moving the characters into or out of 'the light' (characters that are either next to a lit streetlight, or next to another character are in the light, all others are in the dark). At the end of each turn, Mr. Jack tells the Inspector if his character is in the 'light' or 'dark'. The Inspector then eliminates the appropriate characters from suspicion. In other words, if Mr. Jack is in the dark, then the Inspector knows that all of the characters that are in the light are innocent, and vice versa.

Now, clearly, this is not much of a deduction game. Knowing that a character is innocent because they are next to a lightpost when you know that Mr. Jack is not next to a lightpost is not a great exercise in logic. What you end up with is more of a puzzle game. The Inspector is moving pieces around so that they are split up evenly between light and dark, in order to get rid of as many suspects as possible. Mr. Jack wants to limit the number of suspects that can be eliminated as much as possible. In addition, if Mr. Jack can maneuver his character correctly, he can actually escape from the board before the 8 turns are up. It's hard to do, but it's something that the Inspector always needs to be aware of.

So now we have a fun puzzle game right? Well, not really. It turns out that near the end of the game, even if the Inspector doesn't know exactly who Mr. Jack is, he should have a 50-50 guess (or possibly at worst a 1 in 3 guess). The trick then becomes to figure out which one of the remaining suspects is guilty based on the previous actions of the Mr. Jack player. Is there one player that Mr. Jack always played? Is there a character that Mr. Jack seemed to need to protect or try to put near an exit? Are there any characters that Mr. Jack didn't seem very interested in protecting? This is where a lot of the fun comes in to play. As Mr. Jack, you not only need to protect your character from being revealed, you also need to keep them out of suspicion. Which makes the game into an interesting bluffing game! Do I make this move, knowing that it's the safest move because it will protect Mr. Jack, or do I do something riskier because it will cast more suspicion on another character? I remember one time while playing as Mr. Jack, I needed to allow Mrs. BigKat to control the guilty character because if I didn't, she would easily figure out which one he was. Fortunately, the bluff worked and she suspected the wrong person. But she could've easily move my character to a spot where I would be unable to hide his guilt and lost immediately.

And this is basically why I love this game. A nice puzzle, with some depth. Not too light and not too heavy. Great replayability with a fun theme. For me and Mrs. BigKat, it all adds up to a fun evening together.

Blanket Project

So, remember what I wrote about on Friday about What's it to Ya? Well, the guy that created the game, Mike Petty saw it and sent an email to me, which I thought was nice of him.

He gave me some information about the Blanket Project. Last year, Mike was able to go down and help some of the families who had their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. It inspired him to do more to help people in need, so he came up with the Blanket Project. Basically, the royalties from his games go to the hurricane relief efforts.

So there's yet another reason to go buy What's it to Ya? Not only is it a great game but it also helps people out that need help.

This has got me started thinking about ways that I can take the things that I'm good at and creatively use those skills to help out other people. Generating a bunch of barbecue for the the 'soup kitchen' ministry at our church? Finding good deals on toys and giving them to toy drives? One thing that I'm currently looking into is starting an outreach sports ministry for kids at our church. Hmmm...we'll see. Definitely something to pray about...

Chocolate Marshmallows

Ok, here are the marshmallows after they've been dipped in chocolate. They're very good...

What's it to ya

Last week, My Friend Who Lies (MFWL) and his girlfriend (MFWL'sG) came over to play some games. We decided to break out 'What's it to Ya?' It's a party game, kinda similar to Apples to Apples, but a little different. Here's how it works...

The game comes with a big stack of cards. Each card has a noun on it, like 'Truth', 'Patriotism', 'Garbage Collectors', 'Theatre', 'Family', 'Fast Food Restaurants', and 'Dentists'. 5 of the cards are drawn and displayed for everyone to see. Then someone puts them in priority from most important to least important. There are several variations that you can play. The way we did it, one person would prioritize the items, and the others would try to guess the order that they put them in. We also tried it in pairs, where one player of each pair would be the prioritizer and the other player of the pair would be the guesser.

We had a great time with this. The sign of a good party game is how much laughing it generates, and this game generated plenty. On one turn, 'Birthdays' and 'Criticism' were two of the cards. I consider Criticism to be pretty important. I mean, how can you improve on stuff without any feedback? Obvious, right? My partner was MFWL'sG, who I think is pretty level-headed, so I went ahead and put Criticism down as A (A is most important, B 2nd most, and so on down to E). I gave Birthdays a D. They're fun and all, but really, when you think about it, every day is someone's birthday. Take today for example. Millions of people have their birthday today. Millions! But it doesn't really feel like it's a special day.

Well, it turned out that I was a little off. MFWL'sG had put down A for Birthdays and D for Criticism. Next thing you know people are laughing at me and making comments like 'You think getting yelled at is more fun than having a birthday? BLAHAHAHAHAHA!' and 'Oh yeah, I really value getting yelled at! BLAHAHAHAHAHA!' I tried to explain that Criticism is different from Getting Yelled At. But I don't think anyone listened to me because they were too busy laughing at me.

I think this is a great game to add to a game collection. I got mine here and it wasn't too expensive. It's a great way to have some laughs, get to know your friends a little better, and create some fun memories that you can bring up now and then when you feel like making fun of your spouse. In fact, I was just telling Mrs. BigKat, who rated Spoons over Rights, that it brings a smile to my face imagining her in Braveheart telling a group of soldiers that...'they may take our lives...but they'll never take OUR SPOOOOONS!!!'

Marshmallows

The other day, I was thinking about marshmallows. I've always purchased them from the store, but I don't think I've ever seen a homemade one. I asked Mrs. BigKat if people ever make marshmallows. They just seem so round and poofy and un-homemade. She said that she didn't know. We both wondered if Alton Brown would ever do a marshmallow show. Well, he did. About a week after we had that conversation. Scary, huh?

Well, since the Food Network obviously has my house bugged, I felt compelled to try my hand at marshmallow making. It's actually pretty easy. You basically put together a sugar syrup, cook it up to 240, and mix it together with some gelatin really, really fast for about 15 minutes. Then pour it out into a pan, use some sugar/cornstarch to keep it from sticking, and let it sit for a while. You end up with something that looks like this:

That big poofy rectangle is officially the biggest marshmallow that I've ever met in person!

Next, you just cut the rectangle up into little squares and you end up with...

Homemade marshmallows!

These were pretty fun and easy to make. But spreading them out in the pan is an adventure. The stuff is incredibly sticky! I tried using an oiled rubber spatula, but I may as well have been using a giant sucker. They have to sit out overnight to set, so I was able to try one this morning (only one though, since I haven't had breakfast yet). It was pretty good! Definitely more homemade tasting than a regular marshmallow (although LilKat1 says it tastes the same. And yes, I gave my son a marshmallow to eat with his breakfast).

Next step: dip them in chocolate...mmmmmm...