Fondue and Gaming Fundamentals

The weekend of March 9 started early in a two-part installment of awesomeness.

On Thursday three of my friends and I went to Ladies' Night Out at the Melting Pot.  The Melting Pot is a delicious fondue restaurant.  The special was a four-course meal.  The first course was a cheese fondue with a base of Sam Adams Boston Lager and lots of cheddar cheese layered in until it reached a level of warm, gooey perfection.  The second course was salad and shrimp cocktail.  The main course featured several different items for cooking, including chicken, shrimp and filet mignon.  One of the fun parts of dining at The Melting Pot is that it's a very interactive experience--you cook your own food and mix and match dipping sauces to your liking.  What starts out as a friendly meal spirals into search and rescue missions for lost potatoes in the fondue pot and battles for the last piece of chicken.  The dessert course was absolutely decadent--chocolate fondue swirled with caramel and crunchy peanut butter.  Heaven.

Mmmm, fondue!

On Friday night I went to Dave & Buster's with a group of friends.  Dave & Buster's is like a grown-up version of Chuck E. Cheese's [Author's Note: I can only assume this, seeing as I never went to Chuck E. Cheese's as a child.  Not even once.]  There's tons of classic arcade games, basketball and skeeball, as well as newer favorites like trivia games and Deal or No Deal.  And of course, you earn tickets to turn in for prizes.  We ended the night with a diner run.  It was a nice, simple, fun night out.

The Cardboard Classic

On the morning of March 3, 2012, I rose earlier than I had in months to make the trek up to Jack Frost-Big Boulder for Preston and Steve's Cardboard Classic.  The Cardboard Classic is an annual competition hosted by 93.3 WMMR's Preston and Steve, in which competitors construct sleds completely made of cardboard and other basic building materials (glue, duct tape, paint, string).  There were over 100 entrants in the competition and hundreds of people bundled up and lined the foggy snow-covered mountainside to watch the sleds try to make it to the bottom without falling apart.

Now, if you're picturing a bunch of people sitting in a refrigerator box trying to sled down a hill, you would be mistaken.  The competitors go all out for a chance at cardboard glory.  Below are pictures of some of my favorites.

We heard them talking about the R2D2 sled on the radio on the drive up.  It was well over 20-feet tall.

These sleds, inspired by the movie Cars, raced down the hill one after another.

This Tiki Bar sled had well over 20 people on it and was disqualified because it incorporated a working flat-screen TV.

This replica of the Rocky statue over a miniature Philadelphia Museum of Art was the overall winner.  It was very impressive.

After spending about three hours freezing outside we moved inside to the ski resort's lounge where WMMR was broadcasting live for the afternoon.  It was definitely a lot of fun and I can't wait to go again next year!  Who knows, maybe my friends and I will enter a sled...

Beer Tasting, Economic Stimulation and A Lazy Sunday

Beer Tasting
Every group of 20-somethings reaches a point during the winter when they need to get creative.  The weather is either too cold or snowy to go out, or they're still broke from the holidays, or their instinct to hibernate has taken its toll.  My friends and I reached that point in early February, and we came up with the following: beer tasting and video games.

 On Saturday, February 11 two of my friends hosted an evening of beer tasting.  One of them brews his own beer (and I'm not talking about a bucket and instructions that he Googled, he legitimately knows how to brew beer), and the rest of us brought packs of either old favorites or new discoveries.  We had small glasses set out for sampling so you could try as many as you wanted without wasting a bottle.  We also had the Wii set up with several party games to choose from, like Just Dance, The Price Is Right and Mario Party.  I definitely recommend this plan as a low-budget, low-effort, high-entertainment winter evening alternative.

Economic Stimulation
It's really lucky that you're reading this blog today, because I'm about to let you in on a little secret: I discovered a way for governments across the world to stimulate their economies.  The answer: 20-something women with a steady income.  If I can be considered a typical example of this demographic, then I can say it's true: sometimes, you just feel like spending money.  If the government could predict a pattern in this desire to spend, economic stimulation would be a snap. 

I'm not a huge fan of shopping.  I definitely have to be in the mood for it.  That being said, the weekend of February 17 (and into the next week) was filled with successful shopping trips.  Skechers, Gap, Fossil, Old Navy, and DSW will all find a little boost in their bottom lines, thanks to me. 

A Good-bye Party and a Lazy Sunday
 On February 24 I attended the good-bye party for one of my college friends who just left to spend ten months teaching English in Chile.  It was a fun night out with some old friends filled with big laughs, karaoke and some pretty crazy dance moves.

One of the best parts of this weekend, though, was Sunday afternoon.  Lazy weekend afternoons are underrated.  I spent the afternoon watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls and flipping through the March edition of Philadelphia magazine.  Gilmore Girls is one of my all-time favorite shows, especially because of its fast dialogue laced with pop culture references.  I enjoyed sitting there listening to some old episodes while catching up on some Philly news stories.  The great thing about local publications, like Philadelphia, is their ability to extract the culture and human interest stories that are bubbling beneath the surface and bring them to the reader's attention.