Added Patch 3.4 Additional furniture With the Patch 3.3 Added Rising Pillar,Rising Banner With the Seasonal Events The Rising. Added Firefly Lamp With the Seasonal Events Moonfire Faire. Added Patch 3.3 Additional furniture With the Patch 3.3 Added Senor Sabotender Trophy With the Seasonal Events The Make It Rain Campaign. Added Archon Egg Tower With the Seasonal Events Hatching-tide. Added Thorne Dynasty Mantelshelf With the Seasonal Events Little Ladies Day.Recently, Mr. N—- and I went to see Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh. Fun for the whole family! Video games for Mr. N—-, and getting out of the house for me. The event was an elaborate fan service ritual: a full orchestra playing the themes from the Final Fantasyvideo game series with a huge screen behind them projecting game footage and cutscenes from the series. The conductor (Arnie Roth, who is obvious a huge FF fan, if nothing else than for the fact that it pays his bills) yukked it up between the pieces by calling for audience participation, paying homage to the composers, and alluding to everyone’s favorite moments in the series.

Even for me–someone less familiar with the details of the series–it was awesome. What made it awesome, however, wasn’t the orchestra (it was fine) or the venue (its 4700lb chandelier!) the pieces (which are beautiful and epic) or even the company (although N. was great, as always). It was the history of game animation that the performance projected. Juxtaposed with this spectacularly restored 1928 theater were the pixelly figures that captured the imagination of thousands of young Japanese and Americans beginning over 20 years ago. As the images were projected thematically rather than linearly, we saw the technical feats of special effects, landscape, face and hair animation shift. Because Final Fantasy is such a long running series, the orchestra could draw on over two decades of video game animation history. It’s hard to believe that any other era or genre of art experienced that much change in a 20 year time span. A new exhibit opening this weekend at the Smithsonian American Art Museum takes up that evolution: “The Art of Computer Games.”

I was pleased to see my old favorite C64 game Sid Meier’s Pirates!  Indeed, those were some beautiful blue seas! There are two representatives from the Final Fantasy series–Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics. chandelier eforie nord contact(the full list of featured games for the Atari to the Wii to the Playstation3 is on the Smithsonian’s exhibit page.)chandelier cafe πλακα As beautiful as they are, it’s not clear to me that the later images are superior. candelabra hire berkshireAs the older pixellated characters were juxtaposed with the newer ones, with flowing hair and hipster-emo outfits, it strikes me that the older images were often more evocative than many of the newer ones. It may be my nostalgia for early games (although I never played the Final Fantasy series).

But I think it was something more: the earlier images leave a lot to the imagination. The hipster-emo characters from more recent installments in the series look dramatic and distant and too cool and too young for me to want to spend much time with. At any rate, Mr. N—- and I will have to make a trip to see the exhibit and marvel again at the changes in visual representation in games.E-mail This Page to Your Friends x All fields are required. I think this is just what you've been looking for. Retype the characters below. A link to %this page% was e-mailed Who is Baron Ambrosia? That’s what many folks are wondering as his new series, The Culinary Adventures of Baron Ambrosia, premieres this Friday at 10 ET. His background is not exactly… straightforward. So we caught up with Baron and asked a few questions to get a better picture. Cooking Channel: Baron, how did you get started chasing after exotic foods? It started out on a very primal level.

For most children, their first way of exploring the world is through taste, whether it is a poisonous berry, an action figure or a stick of cherry ChapStick. The question “what is this?” can usually be answered by “let me taste it and find out.” I guess in that sense, I have had a failure to launch. COOK: Can you tell us more about cà cuõng? How did you hear about it and why is it the world’s most expensive condiment? Cà cuõng is a pheromone produced by lethocerus indicus (the giant water bug). The liquid is produced by males to attract females. It has been part of Vietnamese cuisine for hundreds of years. Due to the near extinction of the bugs in Northern Vietnam and the incredible amount of labor involved in extracting the minuscule amount of liquid, true Cà cuõng is considered the world’s rarest condiment. A few drops in some chilled vodka makes for one hell of a martini. COOK: What other places have your culinary interests taken you? There are many ports of culinary pleasure I have had the honor to visit.

Monrovia, Liberia is one of my favorite cities. Few feelings can compare to a sultry night on Broad Street, burying one’s face in a bowl of turbaghee. In terms of Arabian intrigue the old city of Sana’a is second to none. Anything can happen in a city where every man worth his weight in salt wears a jambiya dagger and most carry a Kalashnikov. I can usually be found in the corner of the qat market sipping a sizzling bowl of silta. My true sister city to the Bronx however is Port Au Prince, Haiti. Until you dance through the street at midnight with a rara parade, a bottle of klerin, and a container of griot with pikliz you really don’t know what Haiti is all about. COOK: Can you shed any light on your background? How did you acquire your Baron title? What began in a land beyond a dark forest has been my ongoing tale of tragedy and triumph. Oceans of adventure and eons of flavor have left my body a ravaged roadmap of scars yet left my heart burning alive with passion.

The title of Baron carries a hefty responsibility; it is far more than sipping rare spirits in plush parlors. One must be ready and willing to push your body to the absolute limits to discover the highest levels of both gastronomic and physical pleasure all in the name of culinary consciousness. Through the very gates of hell I shall enter with infinitesimal chances of emerging back to the sun, if the research demands it. COOK: Is that a chandelier in the back of your car? The P-Rex is not simply a pleasure craft, it is armed with many highly lethal accoutrements, for when duty calls. With a hidden safety release, the chandelier and chain can be detached from the car and used as a battle flail. On quieter nights the chandelier provides soothing lavender luminescence for a slow soar down the Grand Concourse with a Bronx Empress. COOK: What is The Explorer’s Club and how did you become a member? The Explorer’s Club was founded in 1904 and continues to be at the forefront of scientific exploration of land, sea, air and space.

Members’ accomplishments have included being: first to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, as well as first to the surface of the moon. To be elected and selected to be amongst these men and women of such diligence is both inspiring and humbling. I hope in time I may prove my worth to their mighty legion. COOK: How will the new show allow you to further pursue your interests? I have spent many years digging my teeth into every inch of the Kingdom of the Bronx. It was strange to realize that I have seen more of the rest of the world than I have of my adopted home of America. I am thrilled to dig deep to uncover the flavors that await from sea to shining sea. No stone shall go unturned. And now, a few questions from fans. Violet Mathews: What’s with all the purple? Violet I think a more important question is what’s with all the gray around us? I see so many veiling their inner fire in shrouds of mediocrity.

If we accept the false fashion etiquette we have been dealt we will never know the burning euphoria of life’s bacchanalia. We must take to the streets in the imperial hue of passion and feel the exaltation in celebrating its divinity. Lacee Brandon: What is the first unique thing you cooked? I recall in the days of my youth, childhood friend Shifty Pellegrino and I would compete to see who could concoct a more sensuous reduction sauce. In our adolescent outrageousness we would combine unconventional ingredients in attempts to make the world’s most powerful aphrodisiac. The competition went on for years. Did we ever find the sorcerer’s stone? That is a secret I will take to my grave. Violet Benny‎: Where have you had the best pizza in your life and where did you have the worst? I dare you to name and fame and name and shame. Violet, pizza has become as relative a term as hamburger. With so many interpretations I think it would be impossible to declare one variety the say all, be all, end all.

However, in terms of classic thin-crust pizza, I have spent much time in New Haven, Connecticut. Frank Pepe’s is a place I have always returned thanks to their oblong, paper-thin, charred pies covered in sweet briny littleneck clams, all washed down with a frosty Foxon Park White Birch Beer. In my mind, does the pizza please a nostalgic hunger as much as a culinary one? The worst pizza…well I won’t say the city and I don’t remember the name of the offender. My PTSD allows me to recall arriving early to a wedding and being on the verge of starvation. I wandered into a neighborhood pizza parlor and order a large mozzarella topped pie. What I was presented with was a really ghastly scene. It was like a giant piece of crumbling white bread submerged in ketchup water. Atop the pool sat a slippery flotilla of cheese-flavored rubber. The chef was smoking a cigarette out front with bleeding lips and a wet cough. Over the years I have been on fire twice, stuck beneath the ice, buried alive, and had several guns pointed in my face.

This was by far a much scarier experience. Judy Haley: Where did you get that hairdo? Judy you will witness my locks formulating many a manifestation. The architect of this particular ‘did’ was a salacious Sri Lankan librarian named Upeksha. Lisa Hightower Austin: What is your favorite go-to meal? Lisa, there are so many dishes that play key roles in my repertoire. One is Yukhwae (육회) a Korean dish of chilled raw beef cut into noodle-thin strips. The mountain of red flesh is sprinkled with sea salt and sesame oil. It is then tossed with slices of Asian pear and a raw egg. Many of my most desired dishes are rich, spicy and quite heavy (i.e., goat nachos, Liberian palm butter, green curried duck). Yukhwae, on the other hand, is light, protein packed and empowering. It is the perfect dish to eat before a night of tango, street fighting or carnal intrigue. Cathy Hornberger: Love the show! Where can you find the best Mexican in the Bronx? The Bronx has a cornucopia of exquisite Mexican eateries, from Coqui Mexicano to Xochimilco.