On our trip to Megamart on Friday, we saw a new restaurant claiming to have the “Best American BBQ ribs in Melbourne”. As you may or may not rememeber, I have previously posted about my rib obsession. Given that the last couple of times I had ribs they were quite ordinary, I was a bit sceptical (the Webster dictionary says sceptical is a variant of skeptical, I always seem to remember it not having the k), but we thought we’d give it a try anyway.

So, on Saturday evening, we made our way to the Howl At The Moon restaurant (where the audience is encouraged to howl) in the Megamart/Officeworks complex… thing. We’re not sure how we missed the restaurant before, since it’s right in the middle of the carpark (apparently it only opened in December 2004, maybe that’s why), probably a case of domestic blindness. It seems we were quite lucky, all the tables in the restaurant were booked but as we entered, a couple was finishing up. The couple behind us, however, weren’t so lucky and were turned away. Good timing, it seems. A couple of minutes being ignored at the bar, and we were seated.

On offer were a half rack, and a full rack of the ribs. When I prompted our waiter as to the size of the full rack (after all, who doesn’t like a big rack?), he spread his hands about a foot apart. “Right”, I thought, “they’ll be about half that size”. So of course, I ordered the full rack. About 10 minutes later Justine’s barramundi arrived alongside my big rack. Normally, when I cook ribs, they take about 4 hours in the oven. Given that the restaurant would have no idea how many are going to be ordered, I doubt they do it that way.’

As it turns out, the waiter was right. The rack was almost a foot wide (28-30cm would be a better guess), as well as being about 25cm deep and 8-10cm high. The only place for the chips to go was underneath, the side salad and sauce were balanced on the side. I started using a knife and fork, since we were at a restaurant. After the second rib, I gave up and used my fingers… much better. The ribs, by the way, appeared to have been boiled first, and then grilled or baked for a short time afterwards. The were quite nice, and very tender. However, boiling removes some of the better flavouring. The sauce made up for it. They are probably the best ribs I’ve had at a restaurant, but I think the ones I make the “proper” way, are nicer.

As for the restaurant and “entertainment” itself. Well, we’re about 10-15 years too young to really “fit in”. The entertainment would probably be liked be our parents, though.

I will post before and after photos of the ribs when I have a chance. Here are the before and after photos of the ribs:

In order to gauge the size, the plate in the background of the first picture is a “normal” sized plate.

Last night, Justine and I popped into Megamart for a look around. My main focus was for audio/visual equipment whereas Justine wanted to look at new couches.

We looked around for a while, and when we came to the TVs, I thought it might be a good idea to check out the DLP rear-projection units, since I haven’t really investigated them up close. There was a Samsung 61 inch unit which looked absolutely fantastic, however, as soon as Justine stood beside me she exclaimed there was “something funny” about the picture. I asked if she was seeing “rainbows”, and she emphatically told me that “yes”, that’s what she saw. On this particular unit I couldn’t spot it myself, but there was definitely something a bit funny about the unit to me as well — didn’t really seem like the “rainbow effect“. May have been environmental (i.e. ambient light, etc) playing tricks though.

I proceeded to explain the rainbow effect to Justine while she did her usual “pretend to listen about technical stuff” routine.

Next, we checked out the home theatre areas, and sat in the cheap home theatre seating which wasn’t really that comfortable. The DLP projectors looked quite good too, though I didn’t see anything “funny” this time around. Wondering if Justine had seen something because I’d asked her too, I got her to check out the “amazing” picture. Two seconds later she was asking me if it was another of “those screens”. Why yes it was.

As it turns out, I was able to replicate the “rainbow effect” myself by looking at the projector itself; the light was slightly hitting a black bar designed to hold the unit in place. Where it hit the bar, there was a white patch of light. I found that if I stared at the light, it looked fine. As soon as I moved my eyes quickly either way, I could see the effect.

Unfortunately, this means that the best large screen displays available at the moment — DLP — are not available to us (I could probably live with it, depending on the unit; some are more obvious than others. Justine though, would probably not like watching a DLP at this point). We’ll have to wait until the units are much faster and are “3-chip” models as opposed to the “1-chip” ones out now. Apparently these two things in conjunction with one another will all but eliminate the effect. Might be a few years yet though.

Still stuck with the 68cm for a while, then.

I received Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica (which channel Ten aired tonight) earlier this week, which Ray graciously… erm… ‘lent’ me.

I’ve made it through the first series of SG-1 as well as the previously mentioned Atlantis, but none of Galactica yet. Both Stargate shows are not particularly faithful to the film, but that doesn’t really matter, they’re fun and that’s what matters, right? Let’s ignore the fact that the Atlantis “baddies” look pretty crap, and the SG-1 “baddies”… I mean, evil slugs with teeth? C’mon!

Crap villains aside, there’s something really annoying about both series. The first, is that all the characters are American (or Canadian, of which there is one in Atlantis), and most of the time they talk about saving “America” (not so much in Atlantis) as opposed to “Earth”. It is written for Americans so I suppose that’s understandable.

The second annoying thing is that each and every “alien” in the show speaks English — and if on the off chance they don’t, one of the characters manages to understand their language (it’s a derivative of this or that). I know the shows would be less watchable if we couldn’t understand most what’s being said, but it irks me to see something like this in just about every single sci-fi show.

Seriously, what are the chances that if we find another race out there somewhere, that we’ll actually be able to communicate with them? In the Carl Sagan book/Jodie Foster movie Contact — which may or may not have actually contained aliens — at least an explanation for the method of communication is given. Mathematics is used.

A while back, I wrote how blogging can lose you your job (and mine, hi Glenn! ;). However, that’s not the worst that could happen — especially if you live in Iran.

Mojtaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi have been jailed, with Arash receiving a 14-year sentence, for “espionage” and “insulting the country’s leaders”… just from blogging. Outrageous.

Not going to post anything more today, so this can sit at the top until I get off my butt and post again.

After having spoken with Richard at work about him going to the Moonlight Cinema at the Botanical Gardens in the city, I realised that we’d wanted to go for a couple of years but had never really gotten around to it.

Since one of our favourite movies — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — was playing last night, we decided to catch it. I’ve only ever seen the movie either on FTA TV or on VHS/DVD (we own the DVD, which cost Justine $55 to import from America; you can buy the movie for a tenner now). Never with a “movie” audience.

Our first seating position wasn’t too bad… until two groups of around 15 teenagers decided to sit right behind us (their feet were all over our rug). Upon looking around a bit more, it seemed we’d decided to sit in the “nosebleeds” area. We decided to move to a quieter area, which in the end was better anyway, since we got a better view, angle, and there was almost no annoying people nearby. I was actually a little surprised that there were so many young’ns at the film, since most of these kids wouldn’t have even been born when the film was released.

The weather thankfully held out, though it was a little cold at least the rain was non-existant. It was interesting to see the number of bats that took flight almost immediately after the sun went below the horizon.

The single drawback is that the toilets are miles away, and because of that I missed the great scene with the unveiling of the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California (which was actually a modified MG).

The problem with the Xbox power cable I spoke of yesterday only affects systems which were manufactured before October 2003 (and in Europe, January 2004).

Since my Xbox was manufactured in January 2004, it’s not affected. That’s… comforting, as I know it has a lower chance of bursting into flame.

Just a quick post to advise anyone who reads the site that there is a Worldwide replacement of Xbox power cables currently underway. A small number (they say 1 in 10,000, so around 1,400) have experienced problems of one sort or another (with 30 causing a real problem) so Microsoft is replacing the lot (as if they haven’t already lost enough money on the Xbox).

Read the story here, and apply for a replacement here.