Ramen Review Addendum 2: Raoh with added ingredients

In my earlier review, I predicted that the Raoh brand ramen would make a good base for adding other ingredients to, in order to turn it into a full meal which is competitive with restaurant ramen (after all, it's even suggested on the packaging that you do so).  I recently experimented with this, and for the most part, those predictions were correct!  During my experimentation, I used different ingredients on different soup mixes, with the following results: 

Shoyu Ramen with bok choi and roast duck meat: 

I got these ingredients from a nearby Asian grocery store*, and I must say I was quite pleased with the results when I added them to the Shoyu ramen.  They nicely complemented the flavor of the Shoyu ramen, turning a somewhat bare-bones product into a full meal.

Tonkotsu Ramen with roast duck meat and sweet corn:

I must admit, this was not the best combination I came up with.  The Raoh Tonkotsu was already rich and filling, so adding a large amount of corn and several pieces of roast duck meat resulted in me having an overstuffed feeling when I finished this bowl.  In the future, I will probably add fewer ingredients, or just have the soup itself without anything added.

Adding ingredients really does make a difference with this line of instant ramen, most dramatically with the shoyu ramen; what made it my least favorite variant as a standalone product now makes it my favorite when combined with other ingredients.

*Son Atlantic Market, in Danbury, CT

Ramen Review Addendum 1: Non-Ramen Review 1: Vifon Beef-Flavor Vietnamese-Style Instant Rice Noodles

Recently, Mike Kaltschnee of the Danbury Hackerspace has been an enthusiastic reader of my Ramen Reviews, and due to both his enthusiasm for these reviews and his having recently started a low-carb diet, very kindly donated one of his favorite varieties of instant noodles for me to review.

Like the Raoh Tonkotsu Ramen, the contents of this bag consist of the noodles themselves, a soup base packet, and an oil packet.

Unlike the other noodles that I have reviewed so far, these noodles are prepared by emptying all of the contents of the bag into a bowl, pouring boiled water into said bowl, and then covering it for 3 minutes (all of my previous reviews were prepared by boiling or simmering the noodles in water, then pouring either the noodles and water [as was done with Top Ramen] or just the water [as was done with Raoh] into a bowl with the flavoring pouch's contents).

When finished, the soup manages to capture much of the smell and flavor of restaurant pho quite effectively.  The broth is very flavorful, and the noodles taste a lot like their restaurant counterparts (although the noodles' texture seems a bit "off"; perhaps I've just been spoiled by Raoh noodles...). 

All in all, this was quite an enjoyable soup, and I would once again like to thank Mike Kaltschnee for his donation!

Ramen Review Part 2: Nissin Raoh Premium Ramen

While my first ramen review was for Nissin's cheap and basic "Top Ramen" instant ramen, this review is for their premium-brand "RAOH" (meaning "ramen king") brand ramen.  The difference between these 2 product lines is apparent in the price; while Top Ramen averages less than a dollar per packet (and in some places can be bought at 20 cents per packet if you buy in bulk), these were 3 dollars each in the sampler set I bought (which admittedly wasn't the best possible deal).  Even when bought in combinations that were a better individual price, they still ended up costing about $1.20 each.  It's worth noting, however, that this ramen isn't competing so much with the less than 1 dollar each ramen packets as it's competing with restaurant-made ramen in the 8-to-15 dollar price range (although, admittedly, that ramen would also come with things like meat, vegetables, and boiled eggs in addition to the noodles and broth).  Unlike their Top Ramen, Raoh Ramen comes in only 3 flavors: Tonkotsu, Shoyu, and Miso.

Although the Raoh packaging suggests adding ingredients like meat, vegetables, and boiled eggs to their ramen, in my review I am only going to review the ramen itself without anything added to it.

Tonkotsu Ramen:

Not to be confused with tonkatsu, tonkotsu ramen uses pork bones to make a thick, cloudy sauce.  It is originally from Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu.  Right off the bat you can tell Raoh ramen is different because instead of the usual brick of noodles with a powder packet, Raoh noodles come in a round form with 2 packets, 1 of flavoring and 1 of soup base.  Because they're not flash-fried the way regular instant ramen is, the noodles are prepared by simmering rather than boiling.

The flavor of the broth is excellent, if not quite as rich or creamy as tonkotsu broth usually is (when I've had tonkotsu ramen at restaurants, the broth had a level of thickness somewhere between gravy and crab or lobster bisque, but I guess you can only go so far with powder mixtures).  The noodles have a very different texture/consistency to them compared to the instant variety; if I didn't know otherwise, I could have sworn that these were new handmade noodles!  All in all, a delicious start to this review!

Shoyu Ramen: 

A fairly basic recipe consisting of a light brown soy-based broth, this is the oldest and most common flavor for ramen.  Unlike the Tonkotsu ramen, the flavoring for this came in a single packet.

The broth had a nice, light flavor without being too weak or watery.  Of all the flavors, this is probably the one that would benefit the most from adding other ingredients; as it is, it it's quite good but a bit plain, the ramen equivalent of a hamburger that only consists of a bun and a meat patty.

Miso Ramen:

A relative newcomer among flavors, miso ramen didn't achieve national prominence in Japan until 1965.  It is originally from Sapporo in Hokkaido.  I don't think I ever actually had miso ramen in a restaurant, so I can't vouch for how similar or different Raoh miso ramen is to the restaurant variety.  To me, the Raoh miso ramen tasted and smelled almost like a diluted, less sweet, version of hoisin sauce, with a nice tangy flavor to the broth.

All in all, I'd say Raoh ramen is an excellent product line; as it is it gives restaurant ramen a run for its money, and when ingredients are added chances are it will be even better!  I'll probably do a supplement to this review with various ingredients added, but for this review I wanted to just review the soups themselves.

Of the 3 flavors, I'd say tonkotsu was my favorite, followed by miso, followed by shoyu.

Finland Plays the Soviet Union

When western filmmakers were unable or unwilling to film in the Soviet Union, they often filmed in Finland for a variety of reasons (this is somewhat ironic, considering that Finland fought a civil war/war of independence and then 2 more wars against the Soviet Union).  Reasons for filming in Finland included:

• Finland was a free society in which obtaining permission to film was much easier than in the Soviet Union, especially in cases where the Soviet Union was portrayed in a negative light or was the source of the film's villains.
• Finland's landscape and climate was similar to much of the Soviet Union (the northern Russian part at least), making a good stand-in for many parts of northern Russia.
• Similarly, due to Finland being a part of the Russian Empire for over a century before independence, the architecture in many of the cities (especially public buildings) bore a strong resemblance to the architecture of many Russian cities, making it relatively easy for cities like Helsinki to stand in for cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Here are the films I have seen that have used Finland to stand in for the Soviet Union.  Keep in mind that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of every film that did this, just a list of the ones I've seen.

Reds (1981):
A biopic of John Reed (Warren Beatty), Helsinki was used as a stand-in for St.Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad (yes, they're all the same city...), and Moscow as well.  One of the most well-known sequences is a montage of John rekindling his relationship with Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) while they're reporting about the Russian Revolution, all scored to The Internationale.  During this sequence, Helsinki's Senate Square is featured prominently:

Later on in the film, Finland is, surprisingly enough, used to actually depict Finland!

 
Finland was not the only country used to substitute countries, however; Spain was used as a stand-in for Central Asia, and the scenes taking place in France were in fact filmed in Britain (as were several interior shots, including those taking place in the Winter Palace).   In total, Reds was filmed in 5 different countries.

Gorky Park (1983):
When 3 dead bodies are found in Moscow's Gorky Park with their faces and fingertips sliced off, it's up to Moscow Militia Chief Investigator Arkady Renko (William Hurt) to find out who they were, who killed them, and why, in a work that's part mystery, part glimpse into everyday Soviet life. An adaptation of the novel by Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park used Helsinki as a stand-in for Moscow.  For example, Helsinki Technical School played the role of Moscow Militia Headquarters:

...while Kaisaniemi Park stood in for the titular park:

Elsewhere in the film, efforts to make Helsinki look more like Moscow included:

• Painting a giant mural of Lenin on the side of a building:
  
• Placing Russian-language signage everywhere:
  
• And having lots of extras dressed in Soviet military uniforms during street/crowd scenes:
  

The Fourth Protocol (1987):
Based on the book by Frederick Forsyth, the KGB is launching a plan to destabilize Britain in the hopes of both severing the Anglo-American alliance and driving Britain out of NATO.  They plan to do this by smuggling in an atom bomb piece by piece, then having it detonate next to a US Air Force base where American aircraft with nuclear warheads are stationed.  Because this operation was so top-secret, there are only a handful of very senior government officials involved.  The operation is handled almost entirely from the various dachas in the countryside belonging to those same officials.  In film terms, this means that there is no need to dress up Helsinki or any other Finnish city to look like Moscow; instead, the forests in Finland substitute for the forests outside of Moscow.

 

That said, I do have a film that was filmed in Helsinki and which actually takes place in Helsinki: Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth (1991).  A series of vignettes depicting five different taxi drivers in five different cities (going west to east), the Helsinki segment follows the earlier Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Rome segments.  It's interesting to see this after having watched the other works, so now you can see Senate Square without crowds of revolutionaries:

It's also interesting to see a residential neighborhood and realize that the same style of buildings had earlier stood in for a Moscow neighborhood:
From Gorky Park:

 

From Night on Earth:

Ramen Review Part 1: Nissin Top Ramen

Growing up, instant ramen soup was a staple food for whenever school was out, as it was quick and easy to make, cheap, and readily available just about everywhere we went.  In addition, for a family with 3 children who were fairly picky eaters*, it had the rare distinction of being a food that everybody liked (although I did get tired of making it every day for lunch for weeks on end because it was the only thing my sister wanted to eat back when she was too young to use the stove herself**).

That said, we tended to get whatever was available at the nearest store, so I never sat down and did a taste test of the different flavors of ramen out there.  It's been a long time since I've had instant ramen, so I thought I'd do a taste test of the most commonly available flavors from the top brands.  The first taste test I do will be of the Nissin Top Ramen brand ramen, which is the company that originally invented instant ramen in 1958!

When tasting these, I have not modified them in any way; no flavoring or other ingredients have been added, and I've prepared the soups in the manner described on the packaging.

• First Flavor: Beef
  

 I don't recall ever having had this flavor before; the most common flavors I had were usually "Oriental", Chicken, and Shrimp.  That said, this beef ramen has a nice flavor, but not necessarily a "beefy" one; it doesn't taste much like beef or even like a soup made from beef bouillon cubes to me, but I still like how it tastes. The broth is richer than I remember it being (in my memory it always seemed like the broth was somewhat watery), and the noodles have a more "waxy" texture than I remember them having; I wonder if it's just me not accurately remembering the ramen I grew up with, or if they've changed the noodles and sauce mix, or I'm cooking it differently from how I cooked it when I used to make it.  It could also be a difference in brands; I don't think we had this brand as often as we had Maruchan brand ramen. 

• Second Flavor: Chicken
  

This was always my favorite flavor growing up, and the bowl I just had was remarkably similar to how I remembered it.  Unlike the beef ramen, this ramen tastes a lot like chicken soup.  Just like when I had it before, the broth left a yellow rim of "fat" on the edge of the bowl while it was cooling down; also like the chicken ramen of my youth, there were some solid brown flecks of powder, presumably some kind of spices or flavoring that didn't dissolve into the broth (although this bowl seemed to have much less of this powder than it did when I was growing up).

• Third Flavor: Chili 
  

Another flavor that I don't remember ever having before, this ramen definitely had a kick to it.  Interestingly enough, I didn't find the ramen all that spicy while eating it, but there was a strong delayed reaction/lingering spiciness to the broth that really kicked in after eating it.  This ramen had solid flecks of red pepper in the broth, and its taste reminded me a lot of the spicy kimchi ramen I used to get sometimes (the kind that comes in a styrofoam bowl).  This soup and the soy sauce flavored soup are the only vegetarian ramen flavors made by Nissin; all of the other ramen mixes have animal products in them.

• Fourth Flavor: Soy Sauce (formerly called "Oriental")
  

Despite its name, this variety tastes like it has more than just soy sauce as flavoring.  It tastes quite good, if a bit plain compared to flavors like chicken or chili.  In taste, it reminds me of shoyu ramen.  I really don't have more to say about this flavor; while it tastes quite good, nothing about it really stands out compared to the other flavors out there.  Like I mentioned before, along with chili ramen, this is a vegetarian flavor.

• Fifth Flavor: Spicy Beef

Like beef and chili ramen, this was another new flavor for me.  Of all the ramen mixes I've made so far, this mix has by far the most numerous solid flecks in its flavoring mix.  It's spicy, but not as spicy as the chili ramen; like the chili ramen, however, its spiciness has a "delayed reaction" effect.  Spiciness aside, its flavor is quite nice too.

• Sixth Flavor: Shrimp
  

This was my least favorite flavor growing up, but I think it was more because of the smell than the taste.  Of the all of the ramen flavors that I've had for this review so far, the shrimp ramen wins the category of "Most Improved".  It also has the lightest flavor of all of the kinds I've tried for this review, with the broth being much more watery than the other flavors.

Of the Nissin Top Ramen flavors that I've tried, my 3 favorites are chicken, spicy beef, and chili (in that order).  I didn't find any flavors that I actively disliked; even the shrimp flavor was surprisingly good.

And now, here are some interesting facts about Ramen noodles, instant and otherwise:

• Ramen noodles are a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodles, and as such were for a long time considered a type of foreign food in Japan, even though it wasn't found outside of Japan (it's kind of the Japanese equivalent of General Tso's Chicken, which is thought of as a foreign or Chinese food in America despite being virtually nonexistent in China).
• Ramen consumption increased dramatically in postwar Japan, as one of the poorest rice harvests in Japan's history happened immediately following the end of the war.  This led the Japanese people to eat more American wheat (bread consumption also increased at the same time as ramen consumption).
• Although instant ramen is today one of the cheapest foods available (and its consumption is often used as a shorthand depiction of poverty in fiction), at the time it was invented it was considered a luxury food, costing several times the price of a bowl of ramen from a stall.
• In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, instant ramen is one of the best rations available, giving the player a high stamina recovery, having a delicious taste, and not spoiling over time (most Snake Eater rations have only 2 of those properties, and some [including the Bigeye Trevally] have none of them). 
• Although instant ramen is often criticized for its poor nutritional value and high sodium content, it is worth noting that creator Momofuku Ando ate a bowl of instant ramen every day from 1958 (when he invented it) until the day before his death in 2007 at the age of 96...

*Foods I refused to eat: onions, peppers, mustard, eggplant.  Foods my sister refused to eat: cheese, other than on pizza.  Foods my brother refused to eat: an ever-expanding list of foods; at random intervals, whatever we were having or going out for that night was suddenly a food he hated (and claimed to have always hated, even if he had eaten that food quite enthusiastically the week before). 

**Typical dialogue:
My sister: "You have to make me lunch!"
Me: "What do you want?"
My sister: "Ramen Soup!"
Me: "I made you that every day for the last week!  Don't you want something else?"
My sister: "I WANT RAMEN SOUP!!!"
Me: "I'll make you anything else that we have!  Don't you want anything other than ramen soup?"
My sister: <long pause> "I want ramen soup!"

Non-Console Gaming and Me

This is a brief addendum to my previous post, covering the non-console gaming I've done over the years.

PC Gaming:
I've been PC gaming since the days of DOS; the first PC games I played extensively were SimCity 2000, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Dawn Patrol.  Compared to console gaming, PC gaming for me wasn't divided into discrete generations but rather consisted of a continuing succession of new computers (on average, we'd get a new one every 2 or 3 years).  Up until the late 1990s, console gaming made up the majority of my gaming time, but after then the balance was tipped in favor of the computer.  This was mostly because the game genres I began getting interested in were mostly PC exclusives, including strategy (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Age of Empires II, Cossacks, Stronghold, Tropico, many games in the Command and Conquer series, and Eugen Systems' Wargame series), simulators (IL2:Sturmovik and its add-ons, Microsoft Train Simulator, Trainz), economic simulations (Railroad Tycoon II, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion), or citybuilding games (SimCity 2000, 3000, and 4).  By around 2007, PC gaming made up the majority of my gaming time (around 75%), and by around 2010 it made up almost all of my gaming time.

Handheld Gaming:
I had a Gameboy growing up and played a lot of Tetris on it; I also had a GameGear (with only 1 title: The Lion King).  While I did play these during long car rides and during similar situations, I was never all that big on handheld gaming; by the turn of the millennium, I'd usually take a portable music player (tape, then CD, then iPod) and/or a paperback with me on long car rides, especially since books didn't require batteries.

Tabletop Gaming:
Growing up, I considered board games boring and/or childish, but while I was living in New Brunswick, NJ (I was going to Rutgers at the time) there was a comic book/tabletop gaming store located about a block away from where I lived (The Fallout Shelter; the store has since then moved to Highland Park, and subsequently closed), and I started going there, where I was introduced to card and board games such as Power Grid, Zombies, and Man Bites Dog.  Since then, I have added Ticket To Ride and Terror in Meeple City to my repertoire of board games, and have also played numerous miniatures games, including Warhammer 40K, Wings of Glory, and X-Wing.  I think part of what attracted me to tabletop gaming was that it gave me a break from time spent behind a computer; while I loved going on the computer in my free time when I was growing up, today I often use a computer at work so tabletop gaming has become a welcome break from that.  In addition, there is a tactile element to tabletop gaming that electronic gaming just doesn't have; in its own way, moving a game piece or a group of miniatures around a board or playing surface is more satisfying to me than just making a bunch of pixels do something on a screen.

Arcade Gaming:
I wasn't a regular visitor to video game arcades, but when I did visit them, I played everything from Asteroids to Midway:1942 to Super Alpine Racer.  Depending on where I was, going to an arcade could feel like visiting a 70s video game museum, or it could feel like I had stepped into the future.

Console Gaming and Me

An account of my experiences in the Console Wars

Lately, I've been reading/watching a lot of retrospectives about different gaming platforms*, and was in the mood to write about my own experiences with the various generations of consoles; while I don't claim to be the most experienced veteran of the Console Wars, these gaming systems did play a role in shaping a major part of my youth and adolescence.  Before we begin, it's worth noting that in my family, in order to placate 3 siblings, we generally tended to have 2 consoles on 2 separate TVs at any given time, each with a fairly limited selection of titles (this was considered preferable to having 1 console with many titles that had everyone fighting over it).

And now, without further ado, a generation-by-generation breakdown of the consoles I've played:

Pre-8-Bit Era:
I was born in 1985 (the same year that the NES came out in the US!), so the early period of games, the "Golden Age of Videogames", and the crash of 1983 were all before my time.  On occasion, I'd play arcade or computer versions of games from this era, but otherwise I'm not very familiar with this period of gaming.

8-Bit/Third Generation Era:
The NES was the only console from this period that I played, and I played it quite a lot.  Although we had quite an extensive cartridge collection, the only games I remember playing extensively are Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 3, Top Gun, Burgertime, Paperboy (while playing this game, I spent most of my time deliberately throwing newspapers at windows...), and Battletoads (which I could only get past the first 2 levels of, but still really liked playing).  I guess all of the other titles either didn't interest me, or they were too difficult or advanced for me at that age.  Super Mario Brothers 3 was probably the game I played the most on this console.

16-Bit/Fourth Generation Era: 
My family had both a Super Nintendo and a Sega Genesis; of the 2 consoles, I tended to play the SNES a bit more often.  At this point I was old enough that I was getting really good at games.  An important milestone from this era for me was Super Mario World, which was the first game I beat.  Other games I played often from this era include:

• SNES: U.N. Squadron (which I found out years later was based on the manga and anime franchise Area 88), Metal Warriors (which I mostly played against my siblings and/or cousins on multiplayer), Desert Strike, and Krusty's Super Fun House.
• Sega Genesis: Sonic 2 was the game I played the most on this console (it came packaged with the console; to this day, I have only played the first Sonic The Hedgehog once, while at a friend's house), followed by Rocket Knight Adventures, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors.  I think we had about a dozen games for the Genesis, but these are the only games I really remember playing.

Of all the consoles we had, the Super Nintendo lasted the longest.  This was due in part to the fact that for many years we had a weekend/vacation house, and while consoles came and went in our main house the SNES was never replaced in the weekend house; even after we sold the weekend house, the SNES was still in operational condition, and after I moved out I had it in my apartment until 2009!  I think my parents might still have the SNES somewhere in their house, but I have no idea if it's still operational.

32/64-Bit/Fifth Generation:
This was probably the peak console gaming era for me, and also when I was at my most strongly partisan when it came to choosing one platform over the others; in school, there was a strong dividing line between those who had a PlayStation at home and those who had a Nintendo 64 (my family was a PlayStation family**, and I don't recall anyone ever having both consoles in their house while these were the current generation of consoles***), and the merits of one system over the other was fiercely debated in cafeterias and between classes.  Looking back, I think this was in part due to just how different both systems were, and how evenly balanced they were in terms of both advantages and drawbacks; any time those defending one console would come up with an advantage, those defending the other console would have a strong rejoinder (PlayStation player: CDs can hold so much more data than cartridges and they're cheaper and easier to make, which means more games are available for the PlayStation! N64 player: Cartridges don't get scratched and don't have load times, and the Nintendo Seal of Quality guarantees that the games that do get made are of a consistently high quality!****).  I didn't know anyone who had a Sega Saturn or its derivatives, and as a result I never played any games for that console.

• Sony PlayStation: This was probably the most extensive and varied games collection we had; whereas on previous consoles we tended to play (with a few exceptions) either 2d platformers or sidescrolling combat games, here the genres we played included survival horror (Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3), stealth-based (Metal Gear Solid, Tenchu:Stealth Assassins, Syphon Filter), racing (Gran Turismo, Micro Machines V3, Destruction Derby), 3d platforming (Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tomb Raider, Wild 9), vehicular combat (the Twisted Metal series, Vigilante 8), and many many more (including, but by no means limited to, Soviet Strike, Descent, Treasures of the Deep, and the first 2 games in the Grand Theft Auto series, including the London:1969 expansion pack).
• Nintendo 64: While the Nintendo 64 remains the console I've probably played the least (not counting, of course, consoles I haven't played at all), I did on occasion play this console at some of my friends' or cousins' houses, and we rented it once or twice from Blockbuster.  When I played this console, the games I played the most often were Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye 007 (both games usually in 4-player split screen), Shadows of the Empire (which was probably the only N64 title I really wished would come out on other consoles), and Super Mario 64.

Sixth Generation: 
By this time, my interest in console gaming was beginning to taper off; I was now in high school, so I had far less free time, and also what time I did have for gaming was becoming increasingly dominated by the PC, as I was getting more and more interested in strategy and simulation games, two genres that were the PC's domain.  Still, I did play quite a few titles from this era, including:

• PS2: In addition to all of the original PlayStation games I played, I also played Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 (one of the most bizarre moments in gaming for me came when my science teacher asked me and 2 other students before class began how to get past a certain level in MGS2), The Getaway, Grand Theft Auto III, and Micro Machines V4.
• Xbox: In addition to Halo (which I think everybody who's had an Xbox is legally required to have played), I also played Max Payne, Knights of the Old Republic, and its sequel The Sith Lords, which have so far been the only RPGs I've played.
• GameCube: While I spent most of my console gaming time playing on the PS2 and Xbox, I sometimes played the GameCube (usually when my siblings were already playing on the other 2 consoles).  The only games I remember playing on the Game Cube are Resident Evil Zero (which is the only Resident Evil game I've played all the way through), The Twin Snakes, and Rogue Squadron III.
• Dreamcast: My sister had a Dreamcast, but I don't remember ever actually playing it myself.

Most of my console time was split relatively evenly between the PS2 (although when I was playing the PS2, about half of that time was spent playing PlayStation games) and Xbox, with the GameCube coming a very distant third.  I still have a PS2 in my apartment, but around 80-90% of the time, it's being used as a DVD player.

Seventh Generation:
By this point, I was in college, so what time I had for console gaming was limited to whenever I was home, the consoles were available, and I didn't feel like playing a PC game.

• On the Xbox 360, I played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto IV, and a few levels of Half Life 2. 
• On the Wii I played a few levels of Paper Mario and about half an hour of Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (We didn't have the Wii for very long; my younger brother bought the Wii, and then traded it in after having had it for only a few months).

This was the first time since Sony entered the market that we didn't get a new PlayStation console.  Ultimately, this would also turn out to be the last console generation I played games from, as this generation coincided with the PC nearly completely taking over my gaming time.  In addition, at this time my 2 siblings and I moved out (with my sister ending up on the opposite coast from my brother and I), so my parents decided not to buy any new consoles (Although my brother did get them an NES: Classic Edition.).  So ended my service in the Console Wars; I now consider myself as having resigned my commission and retired from the conflict.

All in all, from a gaming point of view I'd say it was an extremely interesting time to come of age, being able to see the ways the graphics and gameplay drastically changed from generation to generation (the latter not always changing for the better; the change to 3d in particular had its share of problems, especially when it came to camera controls), and the often rapid and unexpected rise and fall of different companies and genres (if someone had told me in 1992 that in less than a decade Sega would be making games for Nintendo consoles while competing with consoles made by Sony and Microsoft, I would have probably thought that they were either making things up or completely out of their mind). 

*Mostly in the form of watching LGR videos on Youtube and reading Gamespite articles
**Apparently, we were one of the first PlayStation families, as we had one of the early models (the kind that had to be turned upside-down to work properly)
***I remember my cousins getting a Nintendo 64 after they'd had a PlayStation for about 4 or 5 years, and me telling them something to the effect of "You already have a PlayStation!  You can't have both systems in the same house!".
****Little did we realize that what the Nintendo Seal of Quality meant was that the game would work when it was placed in a console, not that it would be any good...

Great Episodes: The Client (The Office)

The Client was the 7th episode of the 2nd season of the American version of The Office.  If viewers had been watching episodes of The Office in order from the beginning, they would have seen 12 episodes of manager Michael Scott generally acting like a complete idiot (or at least really, really immature), and probably would have asked themselves at least once "how did this guy ever become manager?".  This episode not only goes a long way towards answering that question, but it also initiates both the gloriously dysfunctional Michael-Jan relationship and introduces Threat Level Midnight!

Synopsis:
A-Plot:

Michael and recently-divorced Jan have scheduled a meeting with Christian (Tim Meadows), a Lackawanna County government official whose order could practically double the Scranton branch's sales and prevent the branch from closing.  While Jan wants the meeting to be a no-nonsense affair held in a conference room at a nearby hotel, Michael unilaterally changes the meeting location to Chili's and goes out of his way to avoid talking business, instead telling jokes to Christian, discussing what to order, and singing the Chili's Baby Back Ribs jingle (Jan, meanwhile, orders a vodka tonic...)

Whereas in other episodes Michael's behavior could very well have resulted in disaster, in this episode his plan works extremely well; he and Christian strike up a strong rapport, and almost as an afterthought he manages to close the deal in the bar where everyone's having drinks after their dinner.  Meanwhile, Jan's expression implies she's equal parts sloshed, incredulous that Mike's plan and methods actually worked, and attracted to Michael in a way she never was before.

 

After Christian leaves, Jan and Mike celebrate with a hug that turns into a kiss... which turns into the two of them going off together somewhere in Michael's car!

B-Plot:
Several Dunder-Mifflin employees are in the break room discussing worst first dates.  Pam says she wins, as on her worst first date, her date took her to an ice hockey game, went with his brother, and left her behind.  It turns out this date was with Roy, her current fiancee...
Later, while searching over the phone for the best joke in Michael's joke book collection (Jan initially allows Michael to tell only one joke, so he wants to make sure it's the absolute best one in his collection), Pam comes across a copy of Threat Level: Midnight, Michael's script for a spy action movie starring "Agent Michael Scarn".  With Michael away, the rest of the staff have a read-through of the script, which ends abruptly when Dwight finds out that Scarn's incompetent assistant was originally going to be named "Dwight" (a one-time misspelling of Dwight's name in the script as "Dwigt" prevents search-and-replace from completely changing the name).  An enraged Dwight then offers to entertain the office by shooting off fireworks, an offer that only Kevin takes up (although Pam and Jim do watch the fireworks from the roof of the office, while having a dinner of Jim's famous grilled-cheese sandwiches, then dancing).

Conclusion:
The next morning, the camera crew arrive to find that Dwight had slept at the office for some reason.  They hear a car pulling in, and look out the window to see Jan arriving in a taxi.  Dwight looks straight at the camera, astonished.  After a talking head sequence with Michael, who claims at first that all they did was talk and then says they made out, Jan calls.  We only hear Michaels's side of the conversation, but it's clear that Jan has some regrets about the night before.  As he gets more and more dismayed at the way the call's going ("No, I didn't put anything in your drink!"), he hides under his desk while talking on the phone (shades of George Costanza?).  Meanwhile, Jim talks to Pam, describing last night's event as a "date" using the logic that it featured dinner, dancing, and a show.  Pam says that swaying doesn't count as dancing, and Jim responds with "At least I didn't leave you at a hockey game", which causes an enraged Pam to leave in a huff.  Jim and Michael then share a glance of commiseration.

What makes this a great episode?
To begin with, this makes Michael a much more believable character; this episode shows him having almost a sixth sense for salesmanship with the way he bonds with Christian.  His position as branch manager can now be understood in this context as a classic example of the Peter Principle, with Mike the phenomenal salesman being promoted to a managerial position that he has no real aptitude for and would rather not do.  Not only that, but this episode manages to add considerable depth to his character while at the same time having many classic Michael Scott moments that are true-to-character, such as his reason for changing the meeting location to Chili's (a letter to the editor at a business magazine declared Chili's to be "the new golf course" for meetings... that Michael himself wrote), or after being told that he's only allowed to tell one joke at the meeting, he makes Jan and Christian wait as he makes Pam go through all of his joke collection books in order to tell the best joke ever rather than just telling the one he was originally going to tell.

Jan, on the other hand, goes in a completely new direction starting with this episode.  In earlier episodes she was essentially the Americanized version of Jennifer Taylor-Clarke, but from this episode onward she becomes steadily more unhinged, culminating in the cringe-filled train wreck that is Dinner Party.

Tim Meadows, guest starring as Christian, plays his role quite well, as a client who is on the same wavelength as Michael, who likes the same kind of jokes and so on (it would be interesting to see another episode with a different client who is more of a stuffed shirt or all-business type, and to see whether Michael either loses that client or adjusts his personality and still makes the sale).  What I liked was that he didn't try to outdo or overshadow Steve Carell, but instead played off him and reacted to his jokes ("I've got Awesome Blossom coming out of my nose!") .

In the B-plot, Jim and Pam's relationship is changed, Michael's magnum opus Threat Level: Midnight is introduced (although Michael's alter-ego "Agent Michael Scarn" has already appeared in other episodes), and Dwight gets some classic moments as well ("I played 'Mutey the Mailman'", his talking-head sequence in which he indignantly spells out his name with extra emphasis on the "H" in the name "Dwight", leaping through the fireworks).

How well do the A-Plot and B-Plots fit together?
They complement each other quite well; Mike's wanting to tell the best joke ever to Christian causes Pam to find the script to Threat Level Midnight while looking through Michael's desk in order to find one of Michael's joke books.  The shared look between Michael and Jim at the end of the episode, as they are both left to deal with the aftermath of the previous night, ties the two plots together quite nicely.

Well, that's all for this great episode.  Next great episode: Jimmy was Kung-Fu Fighting, from Grounded for Life!

Note: Screencaps are used for purposes of discussion and commentary.

Introducing a new blog category: Great Episodes

On this blog, I will start writing about great episodes of various TV shows.  Most of the time, the episode in question will be chosen simply because it's so well-written, but sometimes an episode will also be chosen because it has a major impact on the show as a whole, such as a particular episode forming a major turning point in the series.  Another thing that I will consider is how well that episode integrates its subplots; an episode can have a "B plot" completely unrelated to its main story, but to me it's best when the main plot and subplots are somehow connected.

The first "Great Episode" I will write about will be The Client, from the NBC series The Office.