Today's my birthday.  I'm 24.  Hooray!  I'm no longer in my early twenties.  I'm in my mid-twenties.  That's scary. 

Anyway, we went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse to celebrate.  It was a somewhat similar experience to the first time I went:  Good food at a ridiculous price.  I'm not saying it was bad.  How could steak cooked in butter be bad?  I'm saying it wasn't much better than other places I've eaten at.  But I think it has something to do with my mindset about paying a lot for certain things that can be bought at much lower prices.  For example, I'm thinking about getting an expensive guitar.  Instead of getting the highest-priced model, I'm getting a middle-of-the-line model because I'm afraid I'd treat the higher-priced model like an antique.  The higher-priced one is better quality and probably sounds better, but it doesn't sound so much better that it justifies the added cost.  I think it's the same with food.  I can pay $30 for a steak, or I can pay $15.  Is the $30 steak that much better?  Wendy thinks so.  I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference. 

My complaint about Ruth's Chris is that I think there should be lots of perks and benefits, seeing that the food is so painfully expensive (though we once again paid with a gift card from Citibank, so it wasn't "real" money).  For $30, I got a little piece of meat.  Sure it was a good piece of meat that was seasoned well and cooked in some sort of butter sauce, but I literally didn't get anything else with that $30.  I had to order side dishes separately.  The least they could do is throw in a free dessert (which I got because it was my birthday) or give me a free drink.  Maybe they could do my taxes or call my parents to say hi.  That $30 didn't go very far.  Essentially, it went from my pocket to my stomach; a distance of about 6 inches.  That's not a very good investment. 

But oh well.  It was a good meal.  I got a lobster tail too, so I covered all the major species of meat.  A great way to spend funny money from Citibank is at expensive restaurants that you wouldn't otherwise go to.