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I know I’m late to the game yet again, but Hersch told me about a Twitter client called Spaz that is available for OS X, Windows and Linux. It uses the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), and it is pretty slick. I’m going try it out for a few days. If it works as well as Hersch says it does, I’m going to say bye to Twitbin.

As some of you may know, when I went on vacation in Seattle, I played a lot of Rock Band on Hersch’s XBox 360. Just yesterday it was officially announced that Rock Band will be coming to the Wii on June 22. Unfortunately, it will lack a lot of the cool features of the next-gen versions, such as online play, downloadable content and customizable characters. The only plus is that there are five tracks exclusive to the Wii. Personally, I would rather have any one of the other missing features than exclusive songs.

It looks like Electronic Arts is blaming the missing features on Nintendo. A Rock Band spokesperson was quoted as saying, "When developing ‘Rock Band’ for the Wii platform, we focused on making the core gameplay experience as solid and enjoyable as possible…Wii’s online capabilities and potential have yet to be fully realized." You know, it’s great that the core gameplay experience will be solid, but I’d like to be able to play online and download new songs. You would think that MTV and Harmonix would like to stick it to Activision and Red Octane by making Rock Band for Wii an out-of-the-box kick-ass experience. Instead, they make it a Guitar-Hero-III-with-drums-and-mic-ho-hum experience. Boo.

After we got back from dinner at Stumbling Goat Bistro, we set ourselves up to watch the season premiere of Bravo’s Top Chef. This season takes place in Chicago. After the chefs fly in, they all meet at Pizzeria Uno and chow down on deep dish pizza and beer, a classic combo. The first quickfire challenge has the chefs making a signature deep dish pizza.

The chefs bring their pizzas to a house to be judged by Rocco Dispirito. As they bring out their slices, I am just disgusted by each creation. I can’t believe these guys served the garbage that they did. You can see for yourself just how ugly, and likely how distasteful, the slices were.

With what I saw of the last season of Top Chef, and despite what I saw tonight, I think this could be another Bravo show to suck up my time each week.

I spent most of today just relaxing in Hersch and Liana’s house. This morning I helped Hersch prep beef in a red wine and tomato sauce, very similar to a beef burgundy. I helped with the broth, watching the water boil before added a stock base. For the most part, I watched him put it all together and do the knife work. He tried to teach me what he was doing, but I knew a lot of the basics already from the many hours of Food Network I have watched, wishing I could do those things myself. After mixing all of the ingredients together by 10:00 a.m., we left it to simmer the rest of the day. I think I have the basics for the dish down, and I might try to make it when I return to Schaumburg. My attempt at it probably won’t taste anywhere near as good.

For the rest of the day, I ran a few errands at the local market between Rock Band sessions and No Country for Old Men. I thought the movie was very well made, but not one that I would watch again any time soon. With Rock Band, I continued playing the drums today and got much better at it. I’m only on medium difficulty right now, but I’m progressing with just about every song I play. I found out that Rock Band has a PS2 version, but there is also a Wii version on the way. I won’t necessarily have to drop $300+ on an XBox 360 or PS3 to enjoy Rock Band later on.

I looked up some things to do in Vancouver, but I am not seeing much I want to do other than general sightseeing up there. I don’t know yet when I’ll head up there, but I think either Thursday or Friday. I don’t think I’ll have time to go on Saturday, and going tomorrow is just too rushed. I think I will try to head downtown and walk around a little. The 10 day forecast says that it will be mostly cloudy tomorrow. That should be OK for walking around.

I think I’ve finally adjusted to Pacific time. I’m going to head up to bed and read before I fall asleep with my laptop burning my legs.

Today, Hersch and I went to the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery and took a tour. Chateau Ste. Michelle makes some of my favorite wines, including a Reisling and a Pinot Gris. Liana joined us for dinner at The Pink Door, in the Pike Place Market. The restaurant features Italian-American fare with a very intimate dining room.

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We just came back from dinner at Quinn’s. After ordering drinks, we ordered braised meatball sliders; duck and duck rillette; oxtails with potato gnocchi and crispy marrow; and a side of marinated olives. The meatball sliders were pretty good, but they were tiny. Take a look at your keyboard. The sliders were about the size of four keys on your keyboard. The duck and duck rillette also included foie gras on top of a chicken mousse. Served with pieces of toast, the dish was quite tasty.

The highlight of my dinner was the oxtails dish. It had a really rich flavor which paired with the gnocchi quite well. The crispy marrow added even more to the already great combination of flavors. If you’re not into rich foods, you may find it a bit on the salty side. For me, however, it was so delicious. In fact, it was delicious enough to order a second plate.

If you’re in Seattle, I would recommend a visit to Quinn’s. I wouldn’t say that it is a must, but it is definitely worth a visit.

OK, this should be last of the Flight recap posts (parts 1 and 2). I only have a page of notes left. Again, check it out after the jump.

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