Sunday, February 19, 2006

The Wayback Machine

Place: Del Taco
Lunch: Macho Taco, 2 Chicken Soft Tacos

The "Macho Taco" just seems to be a larger Ultimate Taco if you ask me. They replaced the tomato with a pico and they put more beef in it, but that's really the only difference. I should have thought to look and see if they dumped the Ultimate Taco. I really liked that one. But bigger is better, I guess.

NOBODY makes better Chicken Soft Tacos.

One of the more interesting ways to waste time on the web is to browse the Internet Archive. And if you enter driveintheatre.com into the Wayback Machine line and click one of 1997 dates in the resulting page, you can access my old Drive-In Theatre Guide.

It's all very retro.

That doesn't even get into the other stuff you can find at the Archive, including old public domain videos like the Hindenberg explosion.

Sweet.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Big Evil Burritos

Place: Qdoba Mexican Grill
Lunch: Chicken Mole burrito, tortilla soup

Yes. They're FINALLY open. And I left early to make sure I beat the lunch crowd (see Popeye's).

As far as I know, I was their first customer. There were lots of people, but they were all employees or Qdoba reps. The franchise owner, who has several stores in multiple states, was also in attendance.

"Is this your first time to Qdoba?" he hollered at me from the kitchen.

I shook my head.

"So you know what's going on, then!"

I nodded my head.

"What other ones have you been to?"

I replied with a list of stores across various states that I could think of (official count: six not counting this one). When I got to Davenport, Iowa, he said "Oh! That's one of mine!"

"Yes," I said. "You also own Bloomington, right?"

"Yes I do," he said.

The Bloomington, Illinois Qdoba is the worst Qdoba ever, specifically due to access. The street address is 1505 N Veteran Parkway. If you arrive there on Veteran Parkway heading south, you can see it, but you have to go all the way down to the next light, turn around in the parking lot of the half-abandoned strip mall, and come back up the street. But that still won't get you there, because you can't get there from Veteran Parkway. You have to go up to the next light, turn right, then go back south on the next block in what effectively is an alley. The sign when you turn in says "No Outlet". At the end of the non-outlet is a big circle with three driveways, but you'll only notice two…the one on the left (which goes straight into an alley behind a building) and the one on the right. The one on the right won't take you there either, but it looks like it does. So you pull in and fail. So you backtrack and realize there's a middle drive too. The middle drive takes you right at about a 45 degree angle into a cramped parking lot where you zig and you zag until FINALLY you're there, and you're REALLY mad.

Didn't seem to be hurting business.

This store is much more readily accessible. Franchise Owner told me they're planning three more stores in the metro, none of which will be more convenient for me than this one.

Everything was Qdobalicious.

I'll probably be back for dinner.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Doo-Hickey Dilemna

Place: Wendy's
Lunch: Classic Double with cheese, chili, Coke

Random Employee approaches my table and asks "Did you order what you wanted?" And I'm, like, "Huh? Of course I ordered what I wanted. What a stupid question." But before actually I say this out loud, I figure out she's probably meaning "Was your order served as you ordered it, or did we screw something up?" So I said "Yes".

Wendy's new interior is SNAZZY. Earthy tones and lots of wood. Some will find it BORING. Actually, it is sort of boring...

This Coke tastes funny.

I'm a needy person. On Tuesday at 8:30pm, I needed a PCI ethernet adaptor. For those technically challenged, this is what you would call a "doo-hickey".

I go online and check out Best Buy's inventory. They have a variety of doo-hickeys, and their feature that allows you to check stock at local stores indicates my local store has lots of these by at least three different manufacturers. So off I go.

I get to the store and look up and down the aisle where these should be. Nothing. Not even inventory/price tags.

I go to the kid manning the computer department. He's on the phone planning his after-work social agenda. I don't think he should be planning anything but bed. He looks really sleepy. He gets off the phone and asks me if he can help. I tell him what I need. He goes back to the aisle I was in, looks around, and runs to another guy.

(Another Guy): "We don't have anything like that."

(Me): "Your website says you do."

(Another guy): "Well, we don't."

Great.

It's now five to nine...too late to get to CompUSA...and I have no doo-hickey.

So my only hope is they stock such a thing at that mecca of hard to find internal computer components...Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart actually had one.

In fact, they had eight.

And it was cheaper than any of the ones listed on the Best Buy website.

I win.

WHEN IS QDOBA GOING TO OPEN?!? They've looked ready since the weekend. I called their number but nobody answered. That's sort of rude.