Root Beer Review: Americana

First sip of bottle one:  All carbonated water.  Felt the "burn" all down my tongue into my throat.  First sip of bottle two:  bland and watery.  Second sip had more carbonation.  I was very disappointed to have my second almost flavorless root beer in a row.  Especially since licorice extract was included in the ingredients.  I didn't get any licorice flavoring until the last fourth of  liquid in the bottle.  The taste settled at the bottom of the bottle.  The last few sips tasted like a root beer barrel candy.  Unfortunately, it is hard to shake a root beer bottle to mix unless you want the root beer all on you instead of in you.  Ingredients: carbonated water, cane sugar, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, pure organic honey, extracts of licorice and sassafras root bard, citric acid, phosphoric acid.  Grade:  D+.

Dancing with the Stars, PB&J and Sherlock Holmes Texting

As some of you know, it's a tradition for my mom and I to watch Dancing with the Stars together on Monday nights (bonus points when Dad gets home before it's over).  This season, neither of us really has a favorite to win.  We love Lacey's choreography with Kyle (which the judges rarely do), we're ready for Bristol Palin to go home (is it me or is Mark Ballas getting creepier every season?), Kurt Warner is hit-or-miss for both of us with more misses lately, Mom thinks Rick Fox is getting better, I think they should have had the tall girl (the blonde Anna) be his partner because the height difference of over a foot is very distracting in ballroom holds.  We also like Jennifer Grey and Derek (but I'm kind of tired of Derek winning, even if he deserves it), and Maks and Brandy are doing better and I'd like Maks to have a win.  Who's left?  Audrina and Tony.  I'm just happy that Tony has someone easy to work with, even if he is somewhat delusional on her facial expression being anything more than blank.  If she learns to express herself in her face better, they can be contenders.

For dinner last night, we both had our first PB&J sandwiches in FOREVER.  Comfort food yummy.  Used creamy peanut butter for the first time in age (I like crunchy).  I now remember why when my older sister asked my to maker her a sandwich (I was 7 at the time) I buttered the bread before spreading the peanut butter.  I still remember her calling me from working and telling me to skip the butter next time (I don't think there was a next time - so there's a hint for you younger siblings - if you don't want to fix PB&J for anyone, add butter).  That creamy stuff is hard to spread without ripping the bread a bit!

Also last night, we watched the Masterpiece Theatre of the new modern-era Sherlock Holmes.  It was very well done in keeping with the characterizations in the modern age.  Sherlock was a little strange looking (would look perfect for playing a vampire - very pale), but Watson was much more fleshed out than usual.  There are two more episodes on PBS - I highly recommend.  They were written by Steven Moffat, one of my favorite TV writers (he also did the fantastic Jekyll mini-series, Coupling (British version), and is currently writing the new Doctor Who which was somewhat disappointing this season story-wise, but part of that might be the new actors and characters and loss of David Tennant).  Keep a lookout for a Princess Bride scene (in my opinion least - it is never explained as so).

Current music on Pandora:  Eve6 - Inside Out  - LOVE that song - should see if Eve6 is still putting out music.  I've always loved their lyrical wrangling.  "I would swallow my doubt/turn it inside out/find nothing but faith in nothing..."

Root Beer Review: Bulldog

No deductions for the label being askew. :)

Very mild root beer.  There is a small burn on the tongue with the carbonation after a few seconds.  There is a small vanilla flavor that lingers a few seconds, but otherwise almost no flavor and no aftertaste.  Watery. Ingredients:  Carbonated water, cane sugar, honey, maltodextrin, natural and artificial flavors, sodium benzoate, real vanilla, phosphoric acid, salt.   Total grade:  C-.

Weekend Update

Guess where I went this weekend?

                                          (he's much more sporty than I remember)

That's right!  After a morning of bowling (best score was 153 - woot!)  Wayne & I went to Chuck E Cheese.    Why did we voluntarily go to a place full of screaming children to eat?  Because there is a Deal or No Deal machine there and Wayne is a bit obsessed with that game.  However, he is not very good at it, as he kept winning only four tickets (I won 13 and 16 on the two games I played).  We also played skeeball (he beat me) and the basketball throwing games (which I totally rocked on - I totally get why tall people are better basketball players now - I make many more baskets when the basket is only a couple inches higher than me).

Also on Saturday, Wayne, Dwayne and I went to Terror After Dark at Dulles Town Center.  My favorite attraction was the maze that was totally in the dark.  Dwayne went first and couldn't see anything and Wayne was holding on to me from behind.  Apparently I have good eyesight in the total dark cause I ended up guiding Dwayne from behind (I used my maze knowledge from playing Tomb Raider and it totally worked - heh).  The best part was when there were fake spiderwebs and Wayne started shrieking that there was a bug on him.  PAYBACK for all the times he's tried to freak me out with bugs.  All and all not very scary (jumping was mostly from surprise of air cannons on once or twice from people bursting in with masks).  We may try to go to a haunted trail later this week.

Sunday was mostly relaxing with TV catchup and books.  Best part was the Redskins winning over the Bears (my company has an office in Chicago - always fun to one-up them).  Most turnovers I've ever seen in a game!  I also took a computer break - I need a day off from this thing every once in awhile.

What have you done lately?

Finally started a blog...

I have contemplated writing a blog for years.  I used to have a webpage (several in fact) back in the days when html was the only way to go.  But alas, the years of geocities are long gone.  What finally got me to start was two things.  1.  My sister Jana updated her blog just for me.  I felt the need to reciprocate in some fashion (hi Jana!). and 2.  Root beer.  That's right.  That yummy caramel colored carbonated beverage that goes great with pizza and better with football games on TV.  I was at World Market today and saw that there was a 10 pack sampler case of root beer.  HEAVEN.  I MUST SAMPLE THEM ALL!  I have been trying a few different flavors here and there for the past few weeks with the only requirement being that the root beer must come in a bottle.  So far my favorites have been Dominion (which you can get in most stores - I got mine from Wegmans) and Maine Root (from World Market).  But I felt the need to be able to share my reviews somewhere and this seemed just the place.  Besides root beer reviews, I will try to put up pictures and updates about random happenings and thoughts.  I totally take requests.