Maryland Live Casino and Bobby's Burger Palace

Today, my wife and I decided to do something a little different from our normal routine.  We decided that we wanted to head out to the new Maryland Live Casino and to have lunch at Bobby's Burger Palace.  Bobby's Burger Palace is a gourmet burger restaurant founded by celebrity chef Bobby Flay.  My wife and I are fans of Flay's work on the Food Network.

I have wanted to check out a BBP ever since the Bowie Living blog posted that one had opened in College Park, MD.  The College Park location isn't that far from our house, but it really isn't a part of Maryland that is convenient for us.  The BBP at the Casino is located at the Arundel Mills Mall which we frequent on a regular basis.

When we got to the Casino and entered from the parking garage, we went to the entrance and saw BBP to our left and The Cheesecake Factory to our right with the casino straight ahead.  We decided to go ahead and eat lunch first.  We got in line and looked over the menu for BBP while trying to find nutritional info on our MyFitnessPal apps on our phone.

There was not a lot of info available on MyFitnessPal for the food available at BBP.  The one burger I saw was listed at over 900 calories.  There was also a turkey burger for 460 calories.  I opted for a Dallas Burger with turkey rather than beef.  It had cole slaw, pickles, Monterrey jack cheese and BBQ sauce. It was fantastic.  My wife had a topless burger salad using a chicken breast instead of beef, basically grilled chicken on a salad.

Video Poker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The ordering and seating of BBP is a little bit different than what I expected.  You go through the line and place your order with the cashier who gives you your cups for fountain drinks and a number for your order.  You then can go sit at a counter or at large tables.  Most likely, you will end up sharing a table with others.  No table for two here.

My wife is not really into gambling.  I like to play a variety of casino games, but at the same time I am terribly cheap.  I do not want to bet $5 or $10 a hand at blackjack or other games.  Currently, Maryland only has slots and electronic table games.  There were plenty of penny slot machines to choose from and we found video poker for $0.25.  My wife loves video poker at the arcades in Ocean City, so she had a good time.  We will probably be heading back again in the near future.

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A Visit to Santa Claus

Image via WikipediaImage via WikipediaImage by Getty Images via @daylifeThe Thanksgiving weekend is coming to an end which means it will be time for my wife to try to get our son back to school tomorrow.  It also means that Christmas is right around the corner, actually just four weeks from today.  With such a short break between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it also means my son will only be gone for about 3.5 weeks before he comes home for Christmas break.

I am happy to say that I am basically done with my Christmas shopping this year.  There may be a gift card or two that I have to pick up between now and Christmas.  Yesterday, I received an email informing me that the presents I bought for my son on BestBuy.com were on their way.  I am so glad that I was able to find the items I wanted online at the Black Friday prices rather than fighting those crowds.

I did not hear of any major incidents near me, but there were several prominent news stories about man's inhumanity to man during the Black Friday events.  Talk about the Spirit of Christmas.  NOT!  There was the woman who pepper sprayed fellow shoppers to gain an advantage in getting an Xbox she wanted.  There was somebody who was shot during an altercation during an attempted robbery when the victims left a store with their Black Friday booty.  Then there were other incidents as well.

Today, we were going to take our son to visit my parents before he goes back to school tomorrow.  Unfortunately, they were doing some work at their church this afternoon and were unavailable.  So, we made other plans and took our son out to Arundel Mills Mall to go play some skee-ball and other games at the Dave & Buster's.

After we left Dave & Buster's, we went into the FYE store to get him a new DVD to take back to school.  When we were leaving, we were looking at some of the games available for the Playstation 3 that I ordered on Thanksgiving for his Christmas present.  He confirmed that my decision to buy it and the Madden 12 game was the right one when he told us he wanted Madden 12, a hockey game, and a NASCAR game for Christmas.

We told him that he would have to tell Santa Claus what he wanted for Christmas.  Normally, my son does not want to visit with Santa, but there was no line to visit with ole St. Nick.  My son, who is too big to sit on Santa's lap, walked up to Santa and shook his hand.  He proceeded to tell Santa the list of games he wanted for Christmas.  It will be so much fun watching him open his presents in four weeks.

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It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Image via WikipediaYesterday, my wife needed to go shopping for a denim jean skirt.  She had been having a difficult time finding anything she liked at the stores near our house, so we decided to head out to the Arundel Mills Outlet Center about a half hour drive away from our house. 

She had already told me that she had been in one store this week that was already playing Christmas music.  Earlier in the week, we had dinner at the Red Robin in the Bowie Town Center shopping center, and they had lights and decorations up.  Well, Arundel Mills went one better.  Santa Claus was already set up in the mall and visiting with the kids.  It isn't even Thanksgiving yet!

I had already started to think about what I wanted to get my son this year for Christmas. Now, I guess it won't be long before I have to start giving it some serious thought.  I am already done with shopping for my wife's gift.  Originally, I was going to get her a new Android phone on Christmas Eve, however, she recently had her phone stolen so she got it early.  It is still possible that Santa may have a small surprise for her Christmas morning.

Shopping for my wife is easy.  My son is another matter.  It is complicated by the fact that he is away at school the majority of the time.  I think if you add up all of his breaks through the year, he is home a little more than two months a year. Currently, my son has two old console game systems hooked to the television, a Playstation 2 and a Nintendo Game Cube.  Neither one of them works very well and they no longer make games for either system.

The father within me wants to get my son a new game system this Christmas.  Each game system that I would consider getting for him would end up costing me $200 or more.  The practical side of me thinks that is too much money to spend on something that would get such little use throughout the course of the year. 

There are a lot of things that I could get for him that he would be able to get a little more use from during the course of the year.  He loves music, so I could get him some CDs that he could take to school with him.  He also likes a lot of shows like iCarly and Spongebob Squarepants that are available on DVD.  He also breaks his portable CD players frequently, so that is another option.

Still, I get a bit sad when he is home and he can't play Madden football or hockey because his game system no longer works.  Help me out here.  Which father should win out; the practical or the indulgent?

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• It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... in November (thestar.com)
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