180 Lunches

  • ABCs: Importante Bodega Bar & Uliveto

    We are off pace on the ABC challenge. Summer, travel, and returning to a Fall schedule got in the way. But there is nothing to do, but go to more great restaurants. Onward!

    Importante Bodega Bar

    On the heels of a once in a lifetime anniversary trip to Spain we were excited to grab tapas in Richmond. Importante was not on par with some of the phenomenal places we went on our trip, but that was a very tall order. What it did deliver was good to great though. All the tapas staples E.g., patatas bravas, tortilla espanola, croquettes, and more.

    Uliveto

    Is it cheating to go to the sister restaurant of an already great pick in the game? No clue, but Uliveto might just be a nose ahead of Gersi, so who cares. We had a fantastic time on a brisk Saturday night in November at this Mediterranean and Italian fusion spot. We went for the full spread, cocktails, appetizers, entrees, coffee, and dessert. All of it was great and we were stuffed.

  • I Heard It’s A Mess There Too – Aesop Rock

    A second Aesop album in 2025, sure I’m game. From what I can tell it might be solo produced by him with no features, which was not the case for the album that came out in May. I spun this thing all last weekend. Cruising in the car, windows down, with autumn weather in the air. It matched the vibe, easy listening, but complex beats and vocals. Worthy of adding a song or two to the annual playlist.

  • AI Study Buddy

    AI will change the world! Or AI is a bubble that will ruin the global economy! Or AI is a new tool to be embraced in the evolution of humanity! Or AI will gut what is left of the individuals creative experience!

    Any or all of that could be true. It is a question that no one has the answer to. I am neither having a economic existential crisis, nor selling off my worldly possessions to prepare for the AI utopia. What I am doing is attempting to keep up with the advances and what are practical use cases.

    Hard Fork is a great resource for that, among many others. In a recent episode focused on AI in education, I was inspired to test out a new approach to studying with my middle schooler.

    The Approach

    I created a new project in ChatGPT^ and provided it with context for his classes and my aim to support him studying for quizzes and test. When he has an upcoming assessment, we start a new chat in the project, and load up any relevant materials E.g., study guides, worksheets, etc. Then we use the study mode introduced in July to prep. This is really the power of a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) on display. I don’t need the AI to hallucinate facts about the Revolutionary War. Instead I am handing it source material and telling it to only operate in that specific space.

    What works

    We are leaping ahead into the material. He is empowered to more proactively review with mnemonics and chunking. We can jump into material we’ve forgotten or are unfamiliar with and help him right away. Prior to this approach, studying was painful for both parties. He would stare at a printed worksheet and I would have to basically micro study all of it first before I could ask him effective questions and assess his readiness.

    What doesn’t

    It is a lot of typing for a kid whose foundation on a keyboard is mostly WASD for gaming. The potential alternative is voice mode, but he sort of froze up when we tried out just talking to the to future bot. So the going is slow with typing, but that isn’t a bad thing. Probably more of a self fulfilling prophecy for him to get better at it.

    Conclusion

    We’ve seen an immediate lift since we started. Studying is less painful and his grades were already good, but also improved. This could be the slippery slope to what many people associate, AI + Education = Cheating, but being introduced to that concept feels inevitable. If we can be the “cool” parents and introduce it responsibly, hopefully he views it as a tool. Not a shortcut that undermines his development as he grows up with this technology.

    ^ I’ve been paying for ChatGPT Plus for a year now and using it regularly, but I don’t think anything I am describing here requires. Except voice mode, which he didn’t care for.

  • Only One Mode – SPEED

    I heard about Speed and Turnstile in the same conversation on the side of a soccer field with two Dads. I started listening to both with regularity, but as mentioned saw them both live back in September. Speed was great. Gallons of energy. But they were a bit hamstrung by the venue. Barriers to segment the crowd, a little too much sky and space. If they returned to Richmond in a smaller venue, I’d bet they’d tear the place apart. Plus they have a flute!

  • Best Games: Hollow Knight: Silksong

    Best Games of the 2020’s is back with the seventh entry this year, and another retro inspired beat ’em up is off the list.

    Hollow Knight: Silksong (2025) goes on at #15

    This game was touch and go. Not from on a “will it make the list” perspective, but from a “where on the list should it go?” Had I thrown my controller across the room and quit it in Act 1, we might be looking at a low-40’s entry.

    Thankfully that was not the case. The learning curve Team Cherry built into this game, may be some combination of intentional design mixed with it’s origins as DLC for the original game in 2017. When the expectation of the player is: “Oh you’ve been baking for a year? Please make my wedding cake” there is room for error. My short time with Hollow Knight taught me to pop a can of biscuits and that’s about it.

    Investing in that curve took patience, but Silksong ends up at a mighty #15 because that patience is ultimately rewarded. After 8-ish hours of being abused, wandering around in the woods, and fighting for every drop of progress. It all starts to click. Right around the midway point of Act 1. That could sound like Stockholm syndrome, but the art, world building, and crispy controls not only get you through that early stage, but really come into their own when you are out of it.

    I rolled credits on the game, aka end of Act 2, after 33 hours. There is an even more challenging Act 3 that seems like a pain to even start. So I am done for now, but may return one day in the future.

    Streets of Rage 4 (2020) gets round housed out of 50th place. It was a blast to play with my youngest and introduce him to an arcade genre I spent so many quarters on as a kid..

  • The New Chaos – Locked Shut

    We got to see Turnstile live with our youngest back in late September. Killer show. They were great, but so were Blood Orange and Speed. In the aftermath of new music and genres that the 13 year old wanted to explore we kept running into Locked Shut. Enough so that this 2024 album now rotates regularly through the speakers.

  • Odd Artworks

    The algorithm doesn’t always get it right, but on YouTube it does more often than not for me. Odd Artworks is it’s latest success story. Daily dungeon and goblin drawings are on offer. Quick form, dice rolls for prompts, sketches, and inks. All with some light narration on the approach. The current series is a daily micro dungeon and a new themed goblin every day for October.

  • Travel Logs are a thing now

    This month I’ve rolled out a new section on the project page to share and catalog the sites, sounds, and taste of the places we visit. Soccer has been a big driver of that. In the past three years we visited Greenville, Los Angeles, London, Manchester, San Diego, Sarasota, and in June this year Seattle. That trip gets the first travel log treatment here today.

    Visit the Seattle Travel Log

  • Sep 2025: Media Log

    The second monthly media log is a go. September started off slow with a trip to Spain and airplane movies.

  • ABCs: Alewife & Trouvaille

    Alewife

    This one was a white whale. First on our list alphabetically of course, but also the only letter “A” restaurant we ever considered. We’d heard great recommendations and it is most folk’s guess when we tell them about the ABC challenge. Well it straight up delivered on the hype. Vibe, food, drink. Check, check, and check.

    Trouvaille

    This is surprisingly one the only letter “T” restaurants with good reviews that we hadn’t been to in town. So off we went on a week night to this spot in the heart of the Fan. The food and drink were good, but nothing blew us away. The atmosphere was cold and minimal. Not a bad spot, but not one we’d pick again.