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Why didn’t people tell me about this before?!

The dinner that night at Fogo de Chão was incredible! We had invited my good friend Carlos to go with us. Unfortunately his wife, Vange, was unable to join us… but we said we would try again another time! All three of us, Maria, Carlos and myself were very impressed with the quality of the food and with Carlos and myself being Capoeiristas, we’re well familiar with Brazilian Churrascaria’s all over the country and this one by far was one of the best. You did pay for it however, but when you figure out how much of the high quality meats and sides that you actually eat, it can be well worth it.

Now onto the debate! While we were at Fogo de Chão, I took a look at the wine list and t also included a fine selection of Courvoisiers. The one in particular that caught my attention was the listing that read the following: “L’Esprit de Courvoisier (1 oz.)…. 635.00″. I looked at Maria and showed her the listing and asked, “Is this for real? That’s a SHOT! $635 for a SHOT!” I then showed it to Carlos. “What! What the… Cheese and RICE!” (as Carlos often likes to say) We were all floored by the price and for the posterity of the moment I took a snapshot with my camera. A few weeks later we went out with Carlos, Vange and another couple (David and Victoria) and started to talk about how great the dinner at Fogo was. I then mentioned the crazy price of the single shot of Courvoisier. David said, “Nah, that’s gotta be per bottle.” I took out my phone, found the pic, and said check this out. It clearly says “1 oz.” The debate went on for a little while and I backed off the ridiculous topic and we went dancing.

The other day I was going through my phone photos and since my birthday is coming up, I was reminded of Fogo de Chão and that crazy photo I took. I decided to take a closer look at it and try to google the name of the Courvoisier. I put “L’Esprit de Courvoisier” into google and ended up with enough information to confirm that YES, a SINGLE SHOT of L’Esprit de Courvoisier is actually $635 at Fogo de Chão! While I was searching, I found a site as well as some others confirming the cost of L’Esprit de Courvoisier to be around $5,000 per bottle. It’s described as:

L’Esprit de Courvoisier is one of the most exquisite, most rare and most expansive cognacs in the world. Obtained with part of the reserve from Le Paradis cellar at the Courvoisier Chateau, this unique blend contains cognacs that date back as far as napoleon I. The youngest cognac in the blend is over 70 years old. Housed in hand-cut Lalique crystal decanters, it is a cognac that is beyond compare.’

So with the cost of a bottle being around $5,000, and reading about how old and refined it is, it’s easy to understand why it’s so expensive… How exactly, or why exactly the restaurant carries this rare blend and if they actually serve it has yet to be answered. The offical answer to the debate, however, has been epically proven!

#4: Bud Light Meeting
Great ad placed in a corporate setting. How do we save money? Let’s find out!

#3: CareerBuilder.com: Tips
Hilarious ad for CareerBuilder. Seems that since the job market is slow that it is a prime time to strike with the job placement website.

#2: Cash4gold.com
This one was tough. Between Cash4Gold.com and Careerbuilder.com I’d say that they were pretty close in competition but the addition of Ed McMahon and MC Hammer (basically) making fun of themselves just put this one over the top for me. You gotta love Ed looking at his solid gold toilet and saying, “Gooddbye Old Friend” Or how about MC Hammer saying he could send in his gold sledge hammer! Another thing that put it over for me was the fact that I thought it was a real commercial. Ed’s not doing well financially, that’s been well documented, so seeing him in a commercial like this (making light of said situation) just makes it even better! Here it is:

#1: Pepsi: Refresh Anthem
By far my favorite of the night. The Pepsi Refresh Anthem featuring Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” off the “Planet Waves” album. Not only is it one of my favorite renditions of “Forever Young” but the commercial itself is just awesome, mixing old and new with clips of Bruce Lee, John Belushi, and Bob Dylan along side with Will I Am from The Black-Eyed Peas, Jack Black and a little tribute to our fighting forces overseas. And even though it’s a Pepsi commercial it gave me a great feeling and just made the overall ad more memorable. *Note: Planet Waves rendition of Forever Young does not include rap by Will I Am… Just throwing that out there in case I get any Dylan haters. Check it out!

So those are my top picks for Super Bowl commercials this year. They weren’t the best ever, but certainly better than most that I’ve seen over the past couple years. Also, I didn’t include any of the 3D commercials since you needed the glasses to really appreciate them. While they were good and entertaining… and yes, those glasses worked, they were over produced, especially for the Super Bowl and required the glasses… in other words, they had an unfair advantage so I didn’t include them.

In the paper today the following was said: “We will have six more weeks of winter, says Octoraro Orphie, Quarryville’s prestigious (stuffed) groundhog, who saw his shadow this morning. Meanwhile, the great prognosticator in western Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil, also saw his shadow today.”

I say this: How does a stuffed groundhog see his shadow? If the act of seeing a shadow requires a hibernating animal to come out to see its shadow, how can you make an accurate prediction if the animal can’t see? I watched the news this morning and the weather said that it was going to be cloudy all day, so in reality if a live hibernating animal were to come out today there would be a great chance that the hog wouldn’t see it’s shadow. This would also require the hog to come out on its own and not be pulled out by a person who facilitates the myth. My big beef is just with Octoraro Orphie. The stuffed candidate. Seriously, I might as well put a stake in the ground on Feb 1 and then come out early on Feb 2 to see if it cast a shadow. That’s doing virtually the same thing and then I could make the predictions earlier than Phil and Orphie and eventually establish myself as the “One True Groundhog”… Well, this may take a little more planning, so for now, I’ll leave it to the pros… well, the Pro… considering the other might as well be a sock-puppet! Happy Groundhog Day!

After that we downloaded Skype so Maria could talk to her friend Leah in Nebraska! We loaded it up, played around and eventually found Leah in the directory and started making calls! It took a few times to get the video right, but after restarting all the programs and starting clean, Leeer, Lil Violet and Keef came through with no problems! The sound was great and there was no lag, what a cool little app! And it’s free! I also tried to hook up Google Video Chat but may have jumped into it a bit prematurely without restarting and everything like we did when we talked to Leah. I attempted a chat with a buddy, Alex, but it was unsuccessful at the time. I had shut down and began watching TV for the night and never got back to him… sorry dude! Ill catch up with you later tho! So overall the purchase was a success. We now have our webcam, we are on Skype and I have DVD-Rs to support my habit! Life is good!

So now I’m all amped up for a webcam. I go to look for deals and think to myself, “I should go to Circuit City.” Recently Circuit City announced that it was closing it’s stores due to the horrible financial crisis. I’m both upset and a little angry. Circuit City has always been a cool place to pick up a fairly priced movie or game, not to mention all the goodies like big-screen tvs and audio equipment. But now they are liquidating everything in the stores. I went there over the weekend to see how the priced were and currently they are offering about 10%-30% off almost everything in the store. Games and DVDs were 10%-15% off. I wasn’t too impressed with the prices and thought to myself that this weekend might be better for me to go check out some good deals. I still saw a lot of great items that were discounted but not enough for me to go crazy over it and buy up the store. The big ticket items were still pretty pricey and offering 10% off a $1700 TV isn’t the best deal you can give if your store is CLOSING! So the general thought is that the longer you wait, the cheaper the items will be. Other side of that sword is that people who can deal with 10%-30% off are still getting deals and cleaning out all of the good merch. So do you wait or do you take the deal and run?!

Well in a case like this, with a place like Circuit City, I think it’s probably smarter to pick it up now while the getting is good rather than wait and hope that there is a better deal to be had. So with that in mind I think I have found a great candidate for our future webcam. The Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 looks like it’s going to be a good fit. After reading more about it I found out from a review the following: “…with its 2-megapixel image sensor, smooth-tracking autofocus, high-end Carl Zeiss optics, and HD video capabilities… The Pro 9000 offers easy plug-and-play operability on either a Windows PC or a Mac–just slide in the USB 2.0 plug, select the camera from your chosen video chatting program (it works seamlessly with Skype, Yahoo!, Windows Live, SightSpeed, and iChat), and you’re good to go. While the Pro 9000 works brilliantly right out of the box, you’ll only be able to take advantage of software add-ons such using the included QuickCam software (which is for Windows users only)…” So this works out great for us since we will be using Skype and sending images back and forth. With something as important as a wedding dress being designed I felt that it is absolutely necessary to have the best visually detailed camera I could find… without breaking the bank of course!  The 2-megapixel sensor helps to improve both clarity and color, automatic autofocus smoothly readjusts as you move around the screen and the double-hinged clip easily fits on a variety of laptop and monitor surfaces. I’ll also be grabbing up some DVDRs and DVDRWs for my budding movie addiction! So although Circuit City is closing, it looks like I’ll be able to use my Circuit City Rewards Card one more time… even if I’ll never receive any rewards!