By Sam Royer ‘15

Jack Flaps
3900 Lorain Avenue
http://www.jack-flaps.com/

Price: (6-12 dollars)
3 out of 5 paws

Jack Flaps Urban Breakfast Shoppe is one of many restaurants in Ohio City which prides itself on its uniqueness.

The restaurant, known for its richly decorated and flavored waffles and pancakes, is casually decorated with modern photographs of models whose faces have been covered by Jack Flaps’ food.

Despite the trendy decorations, the atmosphere of Jack Flaps is slightly hurried. The breakfast spot isn’t known for its extensive size. One will undoubtedly notice the claustrophobic nightmare of a line at the restaurant’s entrance briefly downsize as parties with more than two people exit after discovering that they will be waiting a minimum of thirty minutes for a table. Yet, the line will inevitably fill up again as the shop seems to be a hot spot for couples and small families.

Nearly everything on the menu is a classic breakfast dish, but each comes with a twist. One of Jack Flaps’ most popular dishes is the “Graham Cracker,” a waffle topped with Graham crackers, Nutella, and bruleed marshmallows. The dish tastes exactly as it sounds – sweet and rich, similar to a gingerbread house. The waffle is good for a few bites, but ultimately looks better than it tastes. Other popular waffle or pancake options include “The Bacon Brownie,” “The Fat Elvis,” and for those who are a little less adventurous, “The Original Buttermilk.”

Another popular dish is the “PB&J,” but don’t be fooled; this is no brown bag lunch sandwich. It’s a french toast dish, smothered with Chocolate Nutella, peanut butter, berry jam, and cereal milk whipped cream. The meal, rich with a sweet but not overly aggressive flavor, tastes better than the “Graham Cracker” waffle and is undeniably easier to finish.

When eating at Jack Flaps, one can select from a variety of side dishes, but like the entrees, each comes with a twist. The bacon is listed on the menu as “Mexican coke-glazed pork belly,” and has a unique smoky flavor.

Ultimately, Jack Flaps seems to be hit or miss, as some its meal options are just as much of a risk as going to the restaurant with a group. Most of the food is pretty good, but not always as good as it looks or worth the risk. One might like his meal, one probably won’t. One might get a table, six probably won’t.

By Brad Horton ’15

Sullivan Ratcliff ’16 has been acting since preschool, and he enjoyed every minute of it. He began acting through community plays with his sister, and continued acting throughout grade school. At St. Ignatius Sullivan participated Dracula, Murders of 1940, Lucky Stiff, and recently Of Mice and Men.

Sullivan was inspired by his grandfather who was a fighter in Cleveland in the 1930’s to continue his acting career. Sullivan has not won any official awards in theater, but his acting is certainly worth commandment.

His role of George in Of Mice and Men was actually his first lead role in a St. Ignatius High School production. He was a near perfect likeness of George. His lines were delivered clearly, and the facial and body expressions were on par with the corresponding scene.

It is actually no surprise that Sullivan nailed the role, once you find out how much work he put into the production. “I had to really manage my time. So I had to cut out some events or things I like to do. I had to run lines, which is going over every line until I had it memorized, and then moving onto the next one. I tried to recite an entire an entire page without messing up a single line.” Sullivan stated.

Sullivan plans on participating in the upcoming St. Joseph production Arsenic and Old Lace. “This (Arsenic and Old Lace) is a time to spend with friends and focus more on precise acting” Sullivan said about the play. He is also directing a one act play the upcoming Spring One Act Play Festival. This is his first experience with directing a production, but he certainly has a lot of enthusiasm. The play is called Short Leave and features St. Ignatius High School students Peter Jones ’15, Andrew Hocevar’16, Casey Sobecks ’15, and Brendan Mitchell’17. The play is about the result of three drunken friends from the Navy setting up one of their Navy friends with a prostitute.

Sullivan plans to continue acting into the distant future, but he is not certain if he would like to continue with theater or try acting in films. To students interested in theater, Sullivan said “Go for it. It’s definitely going to be a lot of work, but the friends that you make will be totally worth it in addition to the experience of the play. It will look good on a college resume as well. You can also get to know other people in the community including teachers.”

by Sam Brown ’15

Rating: 18+

Disclaimer: This is not a full review, but more of a first impression. Take the information as you will, but I haven’t finished the game just yet.

Developed by Techland and released on January 27th, 2015 for Windows, Linux, Xbox One, and PS4, Dying Light is the latest survival horror video game added to the genre that was started with titles like DayZ (ARMA II), Dead Island, and others. Dying Light begins as what seems like a normal “zombie beat ‘em up”, but it turns out to be not only full of fast paced action and adventure. The game is also incredibly frightening and terrifying. While I only have around three hours completed since the game’s launch, I can see why so many people are raving about this game.

Warning: minor spoilers ahead!

The game begins in what one can only assume is a plane, flying high above the clouds while your futuristic HUD relays your latest mission through your earpiece. The player is to locate and kill a prominent- what is assumed gang- leader in a city, without being caught. As the player jumps out of the plane, your character, whom you have been introduced to as Kyle Crane, pulls open his parachute and begins a slow descent towards the city below. The player looks around and sees the destruction around the city as smoke and debris float in the air. The player lands, almost breaking Crane’s legs. Crane is almost immediately greeted by four gang thugs wrenches and pipes in hand. One thug smacks Crane on the head, and just before being struck once more, a zombie tackles another thug. In a hurry, Crane is swept up by two people, a man and a woman, who try to help him. Upon getting away, the man gets caught by zombies, and is eaten. The woman radios for help, and Crane blacks out. Crane wakes up in a small, dirty room, and the story begins.

As mentioned before, Dying Light is a single-player survival story game set in an open world. It’s not exactly a new invention on the genre, but it does have its moments. Even though survival horror seems like all we get lately in terms of games, Dying Light pushes the genre to the limit. What makes this game unlike the others is adding the ability to use your parkour abilities around the massive map (when I say massive, I mean huge!). Using the rooftops and ledges to your advantage, you can effectively stay out of combat completely by running and jumping all over the place. At night, however, things change as the setting becomes unsettling. The atmosphere created in this game is pretty mind blowing.

On the graphics side, the game is gorgeous. The textures themselves are incredibly detailed ,and the amount of work put into the scenery and the actual world is insane. The particle dust and debris effects combined with the bloom effects really sets the tone for the level. As this is a zombie game, it would not be considered complete without ragdoll physics and a justifiable combat engine. Bashing a zombies’ head in is extremely satisfying, and the kicking mechanic is as well; pressing the “E” key to kick a zombie off a rooftop after hitting him a couple times with your wrench is super fun.

Although the game is great, it’s not without its faults. The questing, especially in the beginning, seems boring and repetitive. The play can’t even get to go outside until an hour into the game, and that bugs me. Speaking of bugs, I haven’t had very many. The occasional crash is expected, as I have only had one. The only other bug I can think of is when one time a zombie was walking towards me and he somehow impaled himself with the side of a building. Not necessarily game-breaking, but it’s something. My only serious concern is with the framerate: it’s all over the place.

My framerate (on high settings) stays at around 60 in certain areas, but suddenly drops to 45-30 in others. Not sure if this is just a driver issue (as it is a new game, and GPU driver patches are common with newer games) or a legitimate issue with the game, but it certainly is annoying.

But in all honesty, I really enjoy the game. Although we’re kind of beating a dead horse with all these survival horror games, I think this one just might change things up enough where it’s actually pretty good. I can’t wait to play more! I definitely recommend this game, but please do be aware of the frame rate issues, especially if you’re running on a lower-tier rig or a console.

If you have any gaming related questions or article ideas, feel free to email me at [email protected], I’m always looking for new games to play!

by Brad Horton ’15

Tyler Delgado ’15 may be a leading member of the St. Ignatius High School Crew Team, but he also has an extraordinary talent for design and photography.  Tyler began his artistic career at St. Ignatius with the standard Drawing Class, and he quickly showed promise.  “I obviously got close with Mr. Stewart, and he referred me to Miss Burrows, who is the head of the fine arts department” Tyler said.  He then became involved in A.I.R. (Artists In Residence), which meets once week to work on art projects after school.  Being involved in A.I.R. became a stepping stone into A.P. Studio Art “which is an A.P. course where each semester you have to submit a twelve piece portfolio. Then by the end of your senior year you’ll have a twenty-four piece portfolio to submit to the College Board.  The portfolio kind of takes the place of your standard A.P. exam for any class you usually have.”

Tyler’s artistic talent has been recognized through the reception of a Silver Key from the Scholastic Art and Writing Contest.  Tyler is currently working on the concentration aspect of his artistic portfolio, which takes simple design elements featured in the previous semester’s breathe portfolio and improves upon them.  “So right now I’m combining a little bit of digital media and photography.  I’ll take a regular photograph, be it landscape or portrait or something like that, and then add in a digital design element that’s sort of surprising.  It adds more of a message to the photograph.  One I just did was picture up by the old Coast Guard Station, just the frozen lakefront and everything.  Then I replaced the sky with some abstract galaxy I made in Photoshop, stuff like that.”

According to Tyler, the only bad thing about being an artist is dealing with deadlines.  He really enjoys the freedom art offers to express a personal element and help others understand that personal element.  “You just put [an idea] on paper or put it in a photograph. Its meaning is kind of specific to you, and it’s your job to make sure other people understand that meaning.  You can put yourself, your persona, and your motto to appease and represent you.”

Tyler began participating on the Crew team freshmen year, and has since risen to the positions of senior leader and equipment manager.  He has won multiple awards for the races he has participated in.

Tyler said the worst thing about Crew is the amount of time it takes up and early morning practices. However, he has the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.  “I’ve made out a lot of good connections with people and the relationships.  I’ve just met a lot of good people over the course of being on the team and everything.  And it’s an experience I wouldn’t really trade for anything.  I learned a lot about myself and other people through it.”

Time management is the most difficult thing about being a hybrid according to Tyler.  He wakes up at four-thirty in the morning in the offseason for workouts, and, when the season picks up, Tyler has less time for homework, and especially art, due to weekend regattas.  He believes that the best thing about being a hybrid is a being able to combine one’s passions.  “But I think the best thing about [being a hybrid] is at times it’s easy to combine the love of both art and crew into the same thing.  I’m into photography a lot, so it’s easy for me to take decent photographs.  I try to capture what I love about the sport in a drawing, a painting, or something like that.”

To fellow students who consider becoming a hybrid, Tyler says “Just don’t be afraid to push yourself.  You’re going to obviously run into schedule conflicts.  You’re going to be busy, but there’s no reason why you can’t sit down for a few hours, listen to some music, and draw, paint, or something.  It’s not like you have to take a class to be an artist.  The title doesn’t really come with taking a class.  So it’s just about sitting down, picking up a brush or pencil, or going out and taking a camera.  It’s just capturing whatever you think is beautiful: finding something you like and expressing yourself through it.”