The Weekend

Well, Friday night was fun. Turned out to be a lot more party than dinner. I was misinformed that it was a Fondue and Martini dinner party... it was pretty much a crazy party kind of party. I had to drive, so I limited myself to a couple of martinis and a beer for the entire night.

Anyway, the host had a neat game room with a pool table, a Wii, a shuffleboard set-up, and also a stand-up arcade machine with a bunch of old games. One of the games on that machine is one I used to really enjoy, but had totally forgotten about... Klax. It sure brought back some old arcade gaming memories.

On Saturday, QB took me out on a surprise trip to Santa Cruz. We stayed over at the Casablanca Inn. The room was really nice, and we had a lovely ocean view to go with it. There was a nice private balcony, but we didn't really make much use of it unfortunately. Here are a couple of pictures I took. The first one was taken while we were on the pier, and I really liked the sky's colors. The second one is of the pier just before we headed out for breakfast today.




We dined at the Casablanca Restaurant, which is a part of the inn. The food was really good, and we certainly enjoyed it. The bread was really good to start us off. We then had oysters on the half-shell and some fried brie with jalapeno jelly for appetizers.

Fried Brie with Jalapeno Jelly

We both went with their daily specials for the main course. QB had lobster stuffed with crab, and I had seared ahi encrusted with a peppercorn melange. We were quite pleased with our dishes, which were both flavorful and presented nicely. I secretly wished that the the portions were just a tad larger, but really we were both satisfied afterwards. Heck, we skipped dessert.

Crab-stuffed Lobster

Seared Ahi Encrusted with a Peppercorn Melange

Before we headed out of Santa Cruz this morning, we had breakfast at Gilda's, a family restaurant on the pier. I didn't have anything special, just typical American breakfast fare. But, QB ordered a really really delicious crab omelette. I got to eat a third of it, and boy was it delicious. There was the occasional bit of shell, but the crab was fresh and the omelette was just great. It really was.

Okay, so once we got back home, we decided to check out Pan's Labyrinth. Everyone I had spoken with thought the movie was excellent. Rotton Tomatoes gave it a super fresh rating of 95%. That's a ridiculously solid score. Well, what did I think of it? I thought it was good, but I didn't find it to be amazing or anything. It was a neat story that weaved fantasy and cruel reality together. Maybe it was talked up just a bit too much, and I had pumped myself up for it being such a mind-blowing movie. In any case, it's definitely worth watching. But, don't go in thinking it's going to be your <insert your own top 5 movie here>.

I guess that's about it.