OFT No. 9 - Fried Turkey, With a Side of Guitar Hero

This goes back to last weekend. Was this really our first OFT in December? Yikes! Well, the weekend before was when the snow hit, so we stayed holed up in our apartment. I did a bunch of craft-y stuff, which to me is a VERY fun thing (a VFT?), but not really worth bjourning about.

So last weekend we had a bona fide OFT, which was going to Brian's labmate Jenni's house for hijinks and fried turkey! Now, I've had fried turkey before, but it never fails to be really fun to watch. For one thing, it takes less than an hour to cook, which is nice. The best thing though, is seeing the bird go in the oil. It roils like crazy, bubbling and spitting loudly (much like the insane piranhas I encountered in an olive grove in Morocco... but that's another story).

Here's the turkey going in (that's Randy, Jenni's husband):

Randy was quickly engulfed in the steam (it was pretty cold outside):

There was plenty of tasty food (we made macaroni and cheese, and turned some of it into fried mac 'n cheese balls) and dessert - just like any proper holiday party.

While the food was being prepared, some of the guys were setting up the ubiquitous Guitar Hero. If you haven't been exposed to this phenomenon yet, you should try it. We were first introduced to this by Jackie and Jon playing Frets on Fire (a PC version) on their keyboard - before they got the 'guitar.' What, you've never seen a keyboard being used as a guitar before?!?

They burned us a DVD and we played it with my keyboard. Unfortunately, I have a very big ergonomoic keyboard, so it just wasn't the same! The game guitar is not like an actual instrument where the output is digitized, it's really just a joystick in guitar form. You have 'frets,' a strum bar and a whammy bar. You don't have to know anything about reading music or even notes - it's more of a rhythm game than anything.

We sort of had a competition, but it just devolved into random people picking random songs and playing, while the rest of us watched, mesmerized. Style points were also given if the player did something especially noteworthy (like playing behind their back).

Here's Brian rocking out:

And me:

Baby Ming approves:
There was also a White Elephant gift exchange, where we ended up with a cookie cookbook (not bad, not bad) and some reusable shopping bags (useful, especially since we're really trying to cut down on plastic bags).

Fun times, and a good kickoff to the holiday party season.