Dinner at the Glockenspiel last night with my brother Matt, his l-t-g-f Kittel, and my parents. The restaurant is emphatically not where The Rake says it is — it's actually at 7th St. West and Western, over by St. Claire.

Saturday night is wild game night, but I wasn't feeling adventurous enough to try to the elk steak, wild boar, or rabbit stew, and more's the pity. Standby: Wienerschnitzel, which sadly couldn't hold a candle to the "Schnitzel Art des Hauses" at the Old Bavarian in Appleton, Wisconsin. That place has the best German food I've ever had, in any country. The Glockenspiel did have tasty Kostritzer on tap, though.

New goal: try every German restaurant in the area. It's a quest for deliciousness. I've been hearing very good things about the Gasthof, and in retrospect we probably should have gone there.

Since it was Saturday, after dinner I decided to tag along with Matt and Kittel, and after playing the world's second-simplest drinking game, we ended up at a club in downtown Minneapolis called the Lodge. There was ample ridiculousness (people kept getting kicked out, and the cover band guitarist had a groupie on stage grinding on him from behind for several hours), but however interesting it was to get a change of scenery, no, ultimately that's just not my scene. I'll take a bar over a club any day.