Andy Labis, Author at Entertainment Ave!

I think I’m done with Mafia Wars; Now I’m Running a Café.

By:

The Dude on the Right
Like many a people on Facebook I sometimes get wrapped into various application games. There was a time I was collecting eggs, and sure, they were pretty when they hatched, but then came the feeding them, trying to collect more, and "special" eggs. I was done with eggs. Then I started farming with "Farm Town," growing a nice farm which again, just seemed to take too much time to do too many things, and I bailed on that just about the time "FarmVille" came into being, which looked remarkably like "Farm Town." So now my farm is just a testament to my BFF, and it only requires watering every now and then.

The game, however, that I’ve stuck the most with has been "Mafia Wars," which, in terms of many things, is quite a boring game because it doesn’t have animated people, or plants you have to tend to. Nope, it’s mostly just a narrative game, with, I suppose, some semblance of strategy in order to develop a strong mafia. My problem is that from the beginning I only cared about a few things: One was that I kept trying to get a level ahead of our staff member, Big Cooter, and I was finally able to overtake him because he went on vacation and then seemed to lose interest. After that I was just trying to finish the various jobs, hoping to get to the highest boss masteries, and then, wouldn’t you know it, the bastards at Zynga opened up new areas, developing a Cuba area, and now Moscow (I was about two days from finishing when they opened Moscow). So now I keep wondering why I am still playing because all I find myself doing, since I don’t really care about fighting anyone, is "doing a job" until I run out of energy and then wait for the energy to regenerate or for one of my few mafia members to give me an "Energy Boost." When I get "Skill Points" to spend, every one of them goes to my "Energy" level. Now with a Profile of: Energy – 1999, Attack – 33, Defense – 46, and Stamina – 17, I have a measly mafia size of 35, of which 16 are hired guns and not even "real" friends, so I think I might just be the lamest, Level 320+, mafia member with nearly $100,000,000,000 in the bank in the New York area. Every morning I find myself saying "Self, what the hell are you doing wasting 5 minutes just clicking your mouse button, doing that ‘job’ and not seeming to accomplish anything?" So, yea, I think I’m just about done with Mafia Wars, and just in time.

Because now I’m a chef.

Yup, damn you Zynga and your Facebook games because now I’m playing Café World, where sadly this game is more my style. Why? Because I can actually incorporate my day into it and it doesn’t have insanely long times to "Plant" a farm like "Farm Town" did. Yup, I have my little café, I get to cook things, and they have specific lengths of time they take to get done. I have found I’m planning things like "I know I won’t be checking Facebook for about 4 hours, so if I start cooking some French Onion Soup I can finish it up and get it served when I come back," and I even have a chicken that is roasting and will be conveniently ready in 14 hours so I don’t have to worry about more things on that stove. I don’t have a lot of neighbors, yet, so I can’t grow my café that much, but my "Buzz Rating" is up to 43, and I don’t know if that’s good or not, but I seem to get a lot of people giving me a thumbs up!

So I think I’m hanging up my guns for an apron, and I’m sure there will be a time that the apron will need washing, but for now I’ve got to get back because my fruit salad is just about ready and I’ve got patrons to please, although I think I have just enough time to make a little more money in Moscow so I’m a little closer to be able to "Rob The RossijaBanc Central Repository."

I guess I’m not done with Mafia Wars just yet.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Chicago Sucks, A Movie Weekend, and Wiping Your Ass.

The Dude on the Right and Stu Gotz are a little sad that Chicago didn’t get the 2016 Olympics, but Stu tells The Dude, during their "Weekend Wrap-Up!" podcast, that he was more bummed when he had trouble wiping his butt. The Dude at least had some fun by seeing "Zombieland," "The Invention of Lying," and even "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," while Stu learned something interesting about a little Gotz, and has his idea for the perfect wedding gift. The Dude now wonders if Stu will get an invite to his wedding. Time will tell.

Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up! Chicago Sucks, A Movie Weekend, and Wiping Your Ass.

By:

The Dude on the Right
Our “Weekend Wrap-Up!” podcast starts on a sad note as Stu Gotz and I lament about Chicago’s not being chosen to host the 2016 Olympics. We break down why Chicago lost, what was wrong with the news broadcasts, what was wrong with the celebration preparations, and even Mama Gotz tells Stu her theory for the snub. But we quickly get over our sadness as I saw a plethora of movies over the weekend, namely “Zombieland” (loved it and Bill Murray), “The Invention of Lying” (liked it and Jennifer Garner), and thanks to Netflix, I found that “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” isn’t a horrible movie, just a generic romantic comedy good enough for your cable viewing.

Stu, on the other hand, had a rough weekend as some shelf building injured his normal, butt-wiping flipper, and quickly learned he is not ambidextrous and probably won’t fair well if he really is injured. He also learned that kids sometimes follow the leads of other kids but was proud of his son’s ability to seek out a garbage can, and his money pit, or rather RV, is ready for some camping. Stu also has his idea for a perfect wedding gift and has now secured that he may not be invited to my upcoming nuptials.

All of that, some Chicago Bears talk, in under 20 minutes!

Happy listening!

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the
Right!! L8R!!!

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The Invention of Lying

The Dude on the Right explains, in his review of "The Invention of Lying," that sometimes it is scary when people tell the truth. For example, who really wants to know that they have absolutely no chance of sleeping with someone after their date, or that they will be fired in two days. But that’s not to say that The Dude didn’t like the movie, because he did, thinks Ricky Gervais is a hoot, and is liking Jennifer Garner who does a great job in her role. It’s a great date movie, but after seeing it you might have an idea what she is really thinking, and what she did before you showed up at her door.

Zombieland

The Dude on the Right was torn at the time he was going to see "Zombieland" because the decision for the 2016 Olympics were pretty much at the same time as the movie. Happily for him he went to see the movie because the result of the movie was much better than the result of the Olympic city as Chicago got shut out right off the bat, but The Dude really liked "Zombieland." Don’t worry because this isn’t a serious zombie movie, nope, you get fake-looking blood and guts, and over-the-top Woody Harrelson, and Bill Murray as a very funny, well, Bill Murray. The Dude’s full review gives you the full scoop.

FitBit, Count Chocula, or Maybe Both.

By:

The Dude on the Right
I’m not going to lie, and if you are a regular reader of the website you will know this is true, but I can afford to lose a few pounds. Now I’m not supremely, morbidly obese or anything, but simply put, if I could work out for about two or three weeks like the people on The Biggest Loser, I would probably be pretty close to my goal weight, or be reduced to a blubbering ball of tears as Jillian Michaels constantly yelled at me. But since I don’t have three weeks to burn about 7000 calories a day by exercising and eat only 1800ish by eating, lately, mostly, I’ve just been trying to be a little more active with some walking and trying to eat a little more healthily with food choices. Thanks to Brad Feld, a blogger I stalk, I mean follow, I found an iPhone app that has helped a bit, this thing called DailyBurn, with some pretty, little graphs that, as long as I enter what food I eat properly, tells me if I can have a bowl of ice cream at the end of the day, and with some manual entry of the caloric burning that my Nike+ iPhone app tells me into the DailyBurn app, in the past 6 weeks I’ve lost about 5 1/2 pounds. However, being the tech dork that I am, and looking for something better, easier, stronger, and faster, and having seen it on CBS Sunday Morning a few weeks ago, I am now intrigued by this thing called the FitBit, and thanks to Stu Gotz during yesterday’s podcast, I might also be changing my morning cereal.

Let’s start with the FitBit…

It’s seems too good to be true, but FitBit supposedly, and I take this directly from the website, "… accurately tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality. … The Fitbit tracks your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities. You can wear the Fitbit on your waist, in your pocket or on undergarments. At night, you can wear the Fitbit clipped to the included wristband in order to track your sleep." Now, I’m not the greatest of sleepers, so quantifying it sort of scares me, but having something that instantly tracks my daily calories burned, especially since I don’t do anything cool like lift weights (it also doesn’t do too well if you’re a cyclist or swim I guess), but if it does an easier job than my iPhone Nike+ thing of calorie burning, I might be all for it. The website has options to manually enter some exercises and what you eat, but I’m curious how well the food database will be because the one on DailyBurn has really opened my eyes to some of the things I eat, and without the cool iPhone app that I can quickly look at as my day comes to a close, I know I will be flustered if I have to go all the way to my computer to find out if I can have that bowl of ice cream. The website says they are filling FitBit orders as fast as they can, so how this impacts my daily workout still waits to be seen, if at all, but as I said earlier, I might have one food option that I can change immediately.

So on to my morning cereal…

As I have now found my soul mate, and she drifted me away from my standard, morning breakfast of two eggs and a piece of toast to a bowl of healthy cereal, I switched back to your basic, plain-jane, Cheerios, something I enjoyed as a young lad, only as a young lad I enhanced my Cheerios experience with a couple of teaspoons of sugar, thus negating the "low in sugar" benefits of the basic Cheerio. As an older lad I have grown accustomed to supplementing my plain Cheerios with a smaller portion of Honey Nut Cheerios to add a little sweetness (I’m close to just going all Honey Nut, though not yet), but as cereal has become part of my morning repertoire, I would sometimes dream of the days when a bowl of Count Chocula would fill my bowl, with its chocolaty goodness and weird, "spooky-fun" marshmallows, and even though I threatened my fiance with "I’m gonna buy some!", I could lately couldn’t find a box at my local grocery store. But then, low and behold, Stu Gotz tells me that he found the trifecta of Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, at his local Target no less, and I got to thinking, and researching, and other than wondering what the difference is between "whole grain corn" and "whole grain oats," and I suppose some "beet juice concentrate color" in the Chocula, I’m failing to see any giant difference between the Count Chocula and the Honey-Nut Cheerios. Hell, they both contain "mixed tocopherols," whatever those are, but for my basic nutritional facts, and because my serving would be the same of about 3/4 cup of cereal, both with skim milk, I’m ignoring the milk side. For cereal only, this is what I get:

Serving Size 3/4 cup, Cereal Only
Nutrition Fact	Count Chocula	Honey Nut Cheerios
Calories	150	150
. Calories from fat	10	15
Total Fat	1g	1.5g
. Saturated Fat	0g	0g
. Trans Fat	0g	0g
. Polyunsaturated Fat	0.5g	0.5g
. Monounsaturated Fat	0.5g	0.5g
Cholesterol	0mg	0mg
Sodium	160mg	190mg
Potassium	55mg	115mg
Total Carbohydrate	23g	22g
. Dietary Fiber	1g	2g
. Sugars	12g	9g
. Other Carbohydrate	10g	11g
Protein	1g	2g

Sure, the basic Cheerios does better, and allows you a serving of 1 cup, but damn, if I’m going to make that switch to Honey Nut Cheerios, I might as well just go nuts, or rather not go honey nuts, and get the Count Chocula because really, how bad can "beet juice concentrate color" be for you? In the end it looks like the difference is between a little more sugar in the Count Chocula with some extra salt in the Honey Nut Cheerios, so really, the choice is about high blood pressure or diabetes, isn’t it?

So I’m not sure if I’m going to be trying the FitBit right now, though, knowing me, it will be on my "to be purchased" list, especially if they come out with an iPhone app so I know if I can eat my ice cream, but I might have to pull out the $10 Target gift card that I have, buy some Chocula, and relive that chocolaty goodness, with spooky-fun marshmallows, and BHT added to preserve freshness.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

The Chicago Olympics, Monday TV Viewing, Surrogates, Jim Cantore Calls Stu, and More!

The Dude on the Right and Stu Gotz have a busy weekend, but thankfully a lot of it during this "Weekend Wrap-Up!" podcast isn’t about politics, although there is talk about President Obama going to Denmark to cheer on the Chicago Olympic folks, although we doubt he’ll be giving Chia Obama’s as parting gifts. The Dude is bummed he missed the F-Bomb dropping during Saturday Night Live, Stu wants The Dude to watch Pawn Shop, and who knew Stu Gotz would spawn some talented kids, but he did!

They talk about flu shots at strip clubs, how they both didn’t like the movie "Surrogates," options to record/watch all of their TV shows, and happily Stu’s personal phone call from Jim Cantore wasn’t necessary for his family’s safety this time, but he was glad he got one. Somehow, even with all of this, they even get some time to talk about The Chicago Bears, and Stu makes the discovery of a lifetime, namely he found where you can buy Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and Count Chocula. All is well with the world.

Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up! The Chicago Olympics, Monday TV Viewing, Surrogates, Jim Cantore Calls Stu, and More!

By:

The Dude on the Right
Maybe it’s just a guy thing, but as I started our “Weekend Wrap-Up!” podcast Stu Gotz caught on immediately to the saying “Here I sit, broken hearted…” But farts and pooping did not last long in our talking as naked women and Stu Gotz getting a call from Jim Cantore with The Weather Channel immediately took precedence. Then with President Obama heading to Copenhagen to boost Chicago’s Olympic big, and the return of the Chia Obama, why not hit some politics as well, so we do.

Now the both of us know that politics can be controversial, and since our weekends try to stay fun Stu tells me about the martial arts talents of the Little Gotz’s, we both saw “Surrogates,” (okay, so much for fun during our weekend), and the new TV season has us both stymied as to A) Recording all of the shows we want to, and B) watching them, especially since Stu wants me to watch some show on cable called “Pawn Shop.” We talk a tad about the Chicago Bears, Stu wonders if Saturday Night Live will get fined by the FCC for dropping the F-Bomb, and Stu made the discovery of the century – He found Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and Count Chocula at his local target, and brought in the boxes to prove it.

We cover a lot of topics in eighteen minutes, and hope you enjoy some of them.

Happy listening!

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the
Right!! L8R!!!

Download and Listen

Subscribe Here

Surrogates

The Dude on the Right went to see "Surrogates," and during this movie review we find that The Dude had problems with the story, the plot, the future of mankind, but not Bruce Willis’ hair. The movie is about human-like robots who do all of the work for humans who are "plugged" into the robots while lounging at homes in their robes. It seems there is a weapon that can kill the robot but also kills the human controlling the robot, and this could cause problems for the people who make the robots. That seems to be be the simple explanation for the movie, but The Dude is more worried about the future of mankind because it doesn’t appear people are having sex anymore, except in the virtual world.

To Eat Shrimp, or Not to Eat Shrimp? That is the question.

I don’t really remember exactly how long ago it was, but I do remember my first, real, allergic reaction. I had a prepared shrimp salad, as I recall it was very yummy, and all seemed well, but then about an hour later I felt a little out of sorts. I remember seeing a red splotch on my arm, eventually I ended up in the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and my face was starting to become all contorted. Immediately the movie “Hitch” came to mind – the scene where Will Smith had an allergic reaction and his face looked like a cross between The Elephant Man and, well, Will Smith. I went to the drug store, got some Benadryl, and started to become paranoid as some quick internet searches said that in a few minutes I wouldn’t be able to breath and my head might explode, but a few other searches at a few more reputable sites said that if I started to sense breathing problems that I best be dialing 911.
Happily the Benadryl did its job, but sadly I didn’t do the important thing at the time and that was to contact the people who made the shrimp salad and find out every ingredient, down to the last dash of salt, that was a part of it. Me, I just assumed I developed an allergy to shellfish, and even though I loved shrimp, the thought of my face looking like a kaiser roll again didn’t thrill me, so ever since then I have done my best to avoid shrimp.
Enter an allergy test.
Finally, after too many years, I visited a doctor and my starting tests were interesting. My overall cholesterol was good, my bad cholesterol was good, my good cholesterol could be better, I need to exercise more, and my allergy test came back clean. Yup, all of these years have gone by, and I might have been able to be eating shrimp, but then again I might not because, as she put it, the tests aren’t perfect. It appears that I don’t have a general shellfish allergy, which I figured was the case because the last time I had some lobster my head didn’t explode, there’s a chance there might have been some special spice in the original shrimp salad that was the culprit, or maybe it was just where that specific shrimp was from. So without a slew of allergy tests, it’s almost like searching for a needle in a haystack because I didn’t do the smart thing at the time and investigate the tastiness of my salad.
The thing is that over the years I actually wanted to try to eat some shrimp again, just to see what would happen, and I have a relative and a friend that both have allergies, so much so that they are supposed to carry this EpiPen thingy. There I was, ready to chow down, only to have both of them tell me that their EpiPens had expired, to which they both looked at me like “Yea, I know, I should probably have that thing current, shouldn’t I?”, but that wouldn’t help me if my own medical experiment proved shrimp was the cause. But now, with my clean allergy test, I have a dilemma: To eat shrimp, or not to eat shrimp? Maybe I’ll have to take a trip to Hooters and ask the waitress “Can I have ten shrimp, hot, with a side order of Benadryl?” or maybe I’ll just have the burger. They do have a tasty burger.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!