Friday, November 28, 2008

Mushroom Swiss Conquered

Place: Arctic Circle
Lunch: Mushroom Swiss, Yukon Gold fries, fry sauce, Pepsi

YESSSSSSSSS!

I feel better now.

MORE FRY SAUCE

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Wood-Fired Goodness

Place: Wendy's
Lunch: Gourmet Mushroom Swiss, chili, Coke

Another day...another limited time only mushroom Swiss burger from one of the big burger chains.

This one is better than Burger King's, but not much. In the grand tradition of Wendy's, the thing looks like somebody stepped on it. It was certainly handled much more than it should have been...Big Fat Counter Guy put it in somebody else's to-go bag, took it out, put it back in, took it out, took it back to the kitchen and asked what it was, brought it back out, put it back in the bag, took it out, then put it on my tray and gave it to me.

It has portabello mushrooms and bacon on it. There's absolutely no point in the bacon being there. The bacon flavor is completely lost.

It did taste better than their previous efforts at a mushroom burger, but not by much.

Me. Need. Arctic. Circle.

And why doesn't Wendy's go to self-serve drink stations like every other major chain with a dining room?

I'll tell you what WAS good, though. Red Lobster has installed wood-fired grills in all their locations. I had dinner there last night. The shrimp, lobster and scallops platter was fantastic. The scallops were much more tender than they usually are there, and the flavor of the lobster was so good, you might even skip dipping it in butter.

Red Lobster's rating just went WAY up with me.

Wendy's...not so much.

Friday, November 07, 2008

100

Place: Jimmy Johns
Lunch: Gargantuan (no tomato), water

On Monday, it was sunny, in the 70's, and my air conditioner was running.

Today, it's cold and windy and there's snow flurries in the air. The Hickory Farms stand has opened in the mall, and Target has an arsenal of holiday Hershey's Kisses flavors in stock.

So much for fall.

Hickory Farms came out with a cajun beef stick a couple of years ago. It was pretty much the best beef stick ever. They've never had it again.

But they do have a ham stick this year. And it's pretty awesome. I'll probably snack on it all weekend. With some smoked cheese.

Snack meat and hot chocolate while watching football and watching the flurries fly. An excellent Saturday beckons.

My 100th blog post should probably be something special, right? Well, it's not. But I'll give the history on how it came to be:

1. Jennifer started a blog.

2. Jennifer said that I should do a blog.

3. I said I didn't need a blog.

4. I came up with the whole "lunchtime social" concept and started a blog.

5. Jennifer's blog, in its entire history, has had nine posts...one of which was made by her sister.

There you have it. Enjoy the ham stick.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

No More Excuses

Place: Arby's
Lunch: All-American Roast Burger (no tomato), Bigger Beef n' Cheddar, Coke

The "Roast Burger" is a regular roast beef sandwich garnished like a hamburger, with pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato, mustard, ketchup, and maybe mayo...I can't remember for sure. Kind of one of those "Why didn't they think of that before" things. Probably because it doesn't quite work flavor-wise. Might be better without the mustard. But the Bigger Beef n' Cheddar...now that's a thing of beauty.

The elections are over, so the endless barrage of campaign ads can once again make way for the endless barrage of scare tactic ads for drugs by scumbag pharmaceutical companies. Think YOU are sick of political ads? Try living in Iowa. Our early caucuses and straw polls mean these guys have been hammering us with ads for TWO YEARS.

It was interesting to watch the development of Obama through all this. He started out sloppy...he would say the wrong buzz word or drop the wrong name in many of his early speeches. A local media guy would later point it out to him, and he'd bust out laughing and correct himself. He did a lot of that, and his opponents would point these out as examples of inexperience that could be dangerous as President.

But everybody forgot about that after Iowa. His victory speech was a grand slam. I heard his speech that snowy night while driving on some two-lane blacktop in Illinois and thought to myself "WOW. Now THAT sounds presidential". This was a guy the Democrats could market without resorting to their usual hate-filled scare marketing. This was a guy who could win on face time.

In fact, I thought the scare marketing was toned down quite a bit this year. It was certainly there...the Democrats had their "Palin is stupid" rhetoric going before she even was officially announced...but I thought the reasonable Americans could ultimately look at both candidates and say "Both of these guys are good people." I don't recall ever being able to say that in my memory of being able to understand campaigns (my first being Carter-Ford in 1976...my grade-school teachers were complete Carter shills). That's impressive considering the Democrats...both leaders and average registered voters...have been beating the country to death with their arrogant "hate hate hate Bush is stupid" bashing for the past six years.

Now that the Democrats have what they've always wanted...a complete dictatorship of the federal government...it'll be interesting to see what they do with it, and how the country responds to it.

They have no one left to hate.

They have no one left to blame.

They have no more excuses.

Without their rage and with no one left to blame when things go wrong, will they even know how to act as human beings?

Monday, November 03, 2008

Time

Place: Subway
Lunch: Foot-long Chicken Pizziola, Lays potato chips, Dr Pepper

A SIGN ON THE DOOR says they can't take credit or debit cards because the machine is down. The whole register is down, actually. They're using a calculator to complete orders. The cash drawer just sits wide open for money handling.

Why does Subway need to take credit cards, anyway? Who doesn't carry enough loose cash to eat at Subway?

The Chicken Pizziola is a limited-time only addition to the $5 footlong menu. It would be better if the chicken and marinara were hot before being put on the sandwich...the convection oven just doesn't toast that well...but it's still $5 well spent.

The local moldy oldie radio station being piped into the Subway dining area has apparently broadened their horizons past the fifties and sixties...they're playing the Carpenters. I haven't heard the Carpenters on the radio in decades. That's too bad. They did some great songs. It kind of put me in the mood to fire up some old Carly Simon.

The clocks moved back one hour over the weekend. It was well into Sunday before I figured this out, and it's been wreaking havoc with me ever since.

I can't explain why. Normally, I'm fine with the change. But I was confused about what time it was and messing with clocks until late this morning.

First, I got up 6:30am on Sunday and drove up to the QuikTrip to get gas and a soda. On the way, I noticed that the fast food places that normally sell breakfast were all closed. That was just odd.

It was a few hours later when I heard somebody at say "No, it's only 9:30, the clocks moved back an hour last night" to somebody else that I realized it was actually 5:30 when I drove to the QuikTrip.

Then I forgot about the change again and didn't change my home clocks, so every time I looked at them, I'd think it was later than it was. The cats took full advantage of this and started bugging me to feed them like two hours early. And I fell for it. Then later, they started bugging me again. Then I couldn't figure out when I should eat.

So I finally changed all the clocks. But everything just felt odd the rest of the day.

This problem has continued today. I woke up and thought "Why is it so light out?" And I had more clock problems at work. My office desk clock and my watch auto-change by reading a radio signal from the Atomic Clock in Colorado. But neither received the signal since the change, so they didn't change. It got so annoying that I flipped my clock around so I couldn't see it because I kept thinking it was earlier than it was.

I kept forcing both to find the signal, and they finally got it.

Life is better now, maybe.

I don't remember ever having so much trouble with a time change before.

But I do like that it's now dark earlier.