Blank Stares and Blank Pages

Blank Stares and Blank Pages at Wordpress...

2010-07-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hey y'all-

Just a heads up that as of July 1, 2010, I've decided to stop double-posting all of my stuff, it's just become too much of a pain and it splinters my readership.

As such, my material will no longer be appearing here on Blogger, but rather only on Wordpress.

So if you'd like to continue reading my stuff, please switch any bookmarks you have so that they head to "Blank Stares and Blank Pages" on Wordpress.

Thanks,

Jeremiah

Silver Lining

2010-06-19T16:39:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year, I laid out some goals for 2010 and as the year (which is more than half over already, WTF?!) has continued, I’ve added some other goals.

One of the bigger ones has been to find a “silver lining” in situations that might otherwise be, um, shitty.

For example, I’m currently in the midst of a big punch in the balls courtesy of writer’s block, but the silver lining is that I’ve gotten really, really, really, really good at searching YouTube for obscure movie clips and/or wrestling matches from the mid-to-late ‘90s…so that’s something.

Anyway, to further illustrate the importance of finding a “silver lining” in situations, here are a couple of examples of two situations made drastically less sucky thanks to a “silver lining.”

Example One: No Silver Lining

Example One: Silver Lining

Example Two: No Silver Lining

Example Two: Silver Lining

…see, everything is W-A-Y better with a silver lining.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to return to my regularly scheduled writer’s block and get back to YouTube.

I’m currently watching all of R. Kelly’s hip-hopera “Trapped in the Closet”…silver lining…I hate R. Kelly more than I hate myself right now.

So that’s something.

…right?!

Jeremiah vs Writer’s Block

2010-06-06T22:21:00.004-04:00

My Faithful Readers, I’m addressing you today to let you know that despite what you may think, I am not dead.

In fact, aside from a lingering sore throat and the usual knee and back pain, I am in good health and good spirits.

Unfortunately, however, I am suffering from a nasty case of writer’s block.

This happened to me late last summer as well and after a few months’ time I pulled out of it and wrote my tail off…until this bout-o-the block hit me and hit me hard.

For anyone who has never experienced writer’s block, I’ve skillfully drawn up (read: crudely made sorta-shapes) to show you what my latest encounter with writer’s block has been like.

UPDATE: Apparently Blogger is unwilling to let me post my finely-crafted rendition of my battle with Writer's Block. As such, click HERE and head over to the official "Blank Stares and Blank Pages" at WordPress to peep the comic.

In Defense of Facebook: Privacy Issues

2010-05-24T12:36:00.001-04:00

Note: For a less—um—ranty take on the Facebook privacy issues, check out friend of the blog, “The Miller Times.”

The hoopla surrounding Facebook’s latest privacy gaffe is getting absolutely ridiculous.

People are organizing a “Quit Facebook Day” and a “Facebook Protest Day.”

Listen up folks, Facebook isn’t the problem.

You are.

If you don’t want the entire world to know that you just love the crap outta “Real Housewives of Atlanta” or every Nicholas Sparks book ever written, you should probably never, ever, ever, EVER put it online.

If we’ve learned anything in the last 15 years of ridiculous web-growth it’s that anything you put online is out there and it’s out there for good.

More than ten years ago I called in—note: CALLED in—to USA Weekend to ask a question about Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Even though they totally butchered my question to involve Jennifer Lopez and the word “sizzled”...that question is still out there on the interwebs.

That’s right, something more than a decade old and something that originated over the phone and in print is available online. So do you honestly think the things you punch in online aren’t going to haunt you?

Seriously folks, if you're on Facebook and you have more than 100 friends, you've signed away your privacy.

Let’s be real here, you don’t have 100 friends. No one does.

Odds are pretty good that if you went through and deleted everyone that you don’t really talk to and/or care about, you’d be down to about 20-30 people, at the most.

That goes double for all of you half-naked blonde co-eds who have 3,000 friends; your privacy argument is out the window.

Dang near everyone on Facebook is friends with complete strangers who can see all of their favorite bands and television shows and pictures of them wasted on Jagbombs.

Anyone of those “friends” could just as easily be taking all of your oh-so-private information and selling it to the highest bidder, yet no one seems to be concerned enough to go through and wipe out their friends list.

Seriously, go through your friends and try to find someone with less than 100 friends.

On the off-chance you actually found someone who fits the bill, odds are pretty good that they’re either a Facebook newbie or someone’s mom who has yet to figure out how to find “friends.”

It is 2010, everyone has a Facebook page, a blog, a Twitter account, a million online profiles at Yahoo!/MSN/Google/etc. and who knows how many other online entities telling the world all about themselves.

We live in the vainest of times, everyone—whether they know it or not—wants to be an online star.

This is why we all spend ten minutes trying to come up with a witty status update or pose every time a digital camera pops out thinking “this is gonna be a great profile picture!”

Privacy is dead and gone.

If you really want privacy, you’re not on Facebook. You’re not reading this blog. You aren’t on the internet at all.

People who really want privacy don’t talk about how their privacy is being invaded because they’re living in the remote foothills of Kentucky or up in the mountains in Idaho.

Unless you’re ready to live in a cabin and eat raccoon—and/or move to northwest Iowa and hang out with my parents—it’s time you buck up and deal with things the way they are.

If you don’t go around posting everything you like on Facebook, then there’s nothing for the website to share with anyone, let alone those big bad advertisers who you can—you know—ignore.

You control your privacy, not Facebook.

Productivity Killer, Thy Name is “I Saw You MIT”

2010-05-12T20:25:00.000-04:00

The ~~huge nerds~~ fine folks here at MIT are known for their creativity.

Whether hacking the ‘Great Dome’ or doing their damndest to rip-off casinos in Las Vegas, the students always seem to be coming up with something to help stave off the stress of—well—going to MIT.

In the last 24 hours, my co-workers and I have discovered a new marvel brought to the world by MIT students, the incomparable I Saw You MIT.

Essentially, this is the same concept as the wildly popular “Missed Connections” section of Craigslist that gives people—usually hopeless romantics and/or simply the hopeless—a chance to toss out a vague message and hope that someone (anyone) responds.

This almost always leads to a confusing thread of replies where some stranger who also happened to live in Alabama and also wore a tie one day last week when it was raining assumes that the post is all about them. It rarely is.

Initials, shirt colors, specific train stops and other completely random facts are then exchanged in an attempt to figure out if either party is actually talking about the other.

In the end, very few of these posts result in anything more than a few chuckles for the large audience of addicted readers and another missed connection.

Beyond the awkward attempts to forge a love connection, there are also the equally entertaining rants that often appear in these sections.

Say for instance some dude farts in an elevator at a busy mall. There’s a pretty good chance that before the day is out someone will work their way to Craigslist and write a scathing rant about the “smelly wildebeest who had the audacity to unleash his foul halibut and old-milk scented odor on the unsuspecting people of the Pine Bluffs Mega-Shop-O-Plex”….or something like that.

Anyway, you get the gist.

Now MIT has its very own version of “Missed Connections.” This means that the odds of being mentioned, knowing someone who is mentioned, and/or at least loosely recognizing someone mentioned are pretty freakin’ high.

This creates a whole new form of entertainment for all of us here at work who have undoubtedly gone through checking for all things “Barker,” “Hayden,” “Library,” “Reading Room,” etc…etc…etc…

We’ve already stumbled upon at least one post that we’re like 98% positive references a co-worker who apparently resembles a pirate.

There are a few others that are just vague enough that they may be about other library peeps and/or they might just be about our patrons.

Either way, productivity here has been pretty much shot as we’ve spent most of our day reading ridiculous post after ridiculous post and giggling madly, thanks MIT, you’re the best.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #055 & #056

2010-05-10T18:32:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I know…

I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of Wendy’s I toss in my face, but I really couldn’t resist.

I hadn’t really eaten all day and was at softball practice for like three hours. I was tired and hungry and on my way to have an adult beverage or two. Without some food in my belly I’d undoubtedly turn into Blackout Gravey…and the world doesn’t need any more of that than it already has to deal with, as such, Wendy’s was a solid choice.

Cheeseburgers #055 & #056

What: Junior Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: Ghetto Wendy’s

When: May 9, 2010

How (was it): They were about as good as anything at Wendy’s that costs a buck can be.

They were hot, the toppings were all crispy and good, and they totally spaced on the tomato, which was great because I wasn’t really feelin’ tomatoes yesterday anyway.

In the end, the burgers did what they were supposed to do, pad my stum-stum and keep me from either vomiting because I was starving and/or keep me from getting wastey-faced after one beer.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #054

2010-05-10T17:41:00.000-04:00

Okay, if I thought going to Four Burgers within two days of my previous visit was a little embarrassing than this visit was downright ridiculous.

Barely 24 hours after my previous trip to Four Burgers, I returned after a few adult beverages at the infamous Muddy Charles Pub with Dan and Shayna – two kick-ass work peeps of mine – along for the ride.

Once again, Four Burgers did not disappoint.

Cheeseburger #054

What: Cheeseburger

Where: Four Burgers

When: April 30, 2010

How (was it): Bad-to-the-Ass!!

Although it is hard to tell from my crappy-ass cell phone camera, it was another wonderful burger.

Once again I implemented the razzle-dazzle technique of ordering a “medium rare” burger to ensure that it was cooked to a perfect “medium” and once again it worked to perfection.

After a few beers, there really is nothing better than a cheeseburger and there is nothing better than a Four Burgers cheeseburger. All-in-all, that’s a pretty solid situation right there.

Additionally, Shayna hooked me up with a nibble of her veggie burger. It tasted mostly like falafel, but it wasn’t all bad. I don’t foresee me ordering one (ever), but it’s good to know that even the weird non-meaty stuff can be pretty bad-ass too.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #053

2010-05-10T17:28:00.000-04:00

I’m not going to lie, this is a tad embarrassing considering that I’d gone to Four Burgers not more than two days earlier, but let’s be honest some days a dude just needs to have a cheeseburger for lunch, right?!

Right!

Cheeseburger #053

What: Cheeseburger

Where: Four Burgers

When: April 29, 2010

How (was it): Delicious.

Having deduced on my last journey to Four Burgers that it was in my best interest to order things “medium rare” to get what equates to a “medium” everywhere else in the world, I was blessed with a perfectly cooked “medium” burger.

It was hot and juicy and jam-packed with a veritable butt-load of flavor.

Additionally, the fries were super-duper bad-ass. Can’t argue with that, right?!

Right!

KFC Double Down: Meh

2010-05-10T16:47:00.000-04:00

The KFC Double Down has been the recipient of many a headline in recent weeks.

It has been lauded as the greatest thing to happen to chicken since buffalo sauce and it’s been derided as the worst thing to happen to food since – um – everything on the This Is Why You’re Fat website.

Friend of the blog, “The Miller Times” took on the bunless terror a while back and today it’s my turn.

Being that I’m – well – a fatty, I had no choice but to attack this seemingly decedent treat guns-a-blazin’…and I did just that a mere two weeks ago (obviously, I’m a little slow at keeping up on my blogging lately).

It was laundry day.

Anyone who has stopped by here a time or two is well-aware that I f’n hate laundry day with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Not because doing laundry is any sort of agonizing process or anything, but rather because I have to travel to do laundry.

This infuriates me. If laundry were right near my place, I wouldn’t care in the slightest and I’d probably have clean clothes far more frequently.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten off track here, where was I?!

Ah yes…it was laundry day.

Every laundry day, I treat myself to a stop the vaunted KFC/Taco Bell hybrid near the Lost Sock Laundromat.

This generally works out pretty well because in the time it takes me to hike it up the block, order my food, wait and wait and wait for my food and eventually eat me food and get back to the laundromat, the wash cycle is usually finished.

This seemed like the prime opportunity to sample the Double Down. So I sauntered to the counter, full of the swagger that only a man who eschews buns in favor of more dead animal flesh can muster and placed my order.

The gal behind the counter looked as though every asshole male between the age of 10 and 30 who had come in with the same douchey-swagger and order for the better part of two weeks, but she hooked me up with the Double Down nonetheless.

As anticipated – service is a tad, um, sluggish here – the food took about ten minutes, but once it arrived I was on it like a pack of ravenous hyenas on a three legged elk. I tore the “sandwich” from the bag and shoved it in my face.

I then took a minute, or two, or three…as I tried chewing and swallowing the gigantic mass of chicken breast in my mouth.

“Gee…that just tastes like a fried chicken breast,” I thought to myself as I finally – with the aid of an entire glass of watered down Mt. Dew – finished off the first bite.

I took another and another and every time it was the same situation. All I could taste was chicken breast. After my third bite I finally peeled apart the two layers to see what the inner-workings really had going for ‘em and it wasn’t much.

There were two virtually non-existent slices of cheese, some bacon and whatever the hell the Colonel’s secret sauce is. Personally, I think if he’s a legit Colonel, then we can go ahead and invoke the don’t ask, don’t tell policy in regard to the sauce.

Sauce of sketchy origin notwithstanding, it was still a very un-awesome experience.

I eventually choked the whole thing down, feeling disappointed in both KFC and the choices I was making with my life and I slowly meandered back to my laundry.

All-in-all, it was a less-than-inspiring dining option and I can’t say that I’d recommend it to anyone.

For all the hype and hoopla surrounding the Double Down, I was anticipating some sort of dining experience that would change my life forever.

Instead, I got two big pieces of chicken and some stuff in the middle that I couldn’t even taste.

G-to-the-ROSS.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #052 (and Mindless Rambling)

2010-04-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

I hate when I waste time.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’ve got no issues with “relaxing” and/or simply enjoying some downtime, but when I’ve got things I want to do (ie: blogging/other writing/reading/etc.) nothing irks me more than realizing I’ve wasted half an hour trapped in the Wikipedia or YouTube-vortexes of doom.

Making matters worse is that I’m currently in the middle of day three of a very rare three day weekend. Since Mondays are my Sunday and most paid-holidays are on Mondays—and I work a bunch of these for the bling-bling—I’m pretty sure I’ve had more one-day weekends than three-day weekends since I started at MIT.

Well, I got myself hooked up with a nice little three-day weekend and so far I’ve done pretty well with it. I’ve gotten some blogging done and more or less broke out of my baseball-related writer’s block (w00t, w00t), I did a bunch of laundry, tried the infamous KFC Double-Down, cleaned up around the house, and trimmed my “beard.”

All-in-all it was a pretty successful couple of days.

Today, however, has been an absolute cauldron of suck. I’ve accomplished next to nothing. I woke up super late (read: 9:30am), I didn’t shower (gross), I meandered about the interwebs for three hours seeing all there was to see (not much), and I wrote a quick recap of a burger from last week. Booooooooooooo.

**cue crafty segue**

So what is a dude to do when he can’t get any motivation to get his day started?! Well obviously he should go out and get a big ole cheeseburger…right?! Don’t worry, it’s a rhetorical question, of course that’s the answer…a cheeseburger is the answer to all of life’s problems. Except for maybe mad cow disease.

Anyway, onto the burger…

Cheeseburger #052

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: Four Burgers

When: April 27, 2010

How (was it): Good shizzle once again. Although I’m starting to think that there is a serious difference of opinion in regards to what the phrase “medium” means between me and the dude running the kitchen.

I think of “medium” as cooked and still sorta pinkish. That’s how most places hook me up when I ask for it medium. This dude likes to cook all the pink out of it, which on some occasions has led to a bit of overcookage. Which is cool. It happens. The burgers are almost always awesome anyway.

I’ve gotta give a serious shout-out today to the “burger sauce” at Four Burgers. It’s one of the plethora of options you can toss on the burger. It is essentially the same type of “house sauce” you see at any other burger place. It’s likely just thousand island dressing and infused with ketchup and/or mayo, but it is some good stuff.

Me likey.

Seriously, y’all…if you haven’t eaten at Four Burgers yet, you clearly hate yourself.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #051

2010-04-27T12:10:00.001-04:00

It is on the rarest of occasions that Grace and I have converging cravings.

Often I’ll be craving—what else—a bacon cheeseburger and she’ll be in the mood for tofu curry or some other barely edible entrée.

Last Wednesday night, however, Grace turned to me at like 10pm and said the four sexiest words she’s ever uttered:

Grace: "I want a cheeseburger."

At this point my jaw hit the floor and I proposed...or something along those lines?! Perhaps I just started drooling and telling her how we were meant for each other. It all gets a little hazy.

As fate would have it, we snagged some Red Sox tickets the next day and made immediate plans to hit up UBurger before the game…

Cheeseburger #051

What: Cowboy Burger (Bacon/BBQ Sauce/Mushrooms/Pepperjack Cheese)

Where: UBurger by Fenway

When: April 22, 2010

How (was it): F-ing Awesome.

UBurger rocks my face off. The patty is a nice mid-level thickness. Not a pub burger and not a fast food burger, but somewhere right in between. This allows it to be a little overcooked without turning it into a hockey puck.

The cheese, BBQ sauce, bacon, and mushrooms all get along quite nicely together. It was all hot and melty and cheesy and gooey and simply downright awesome.

Although, I sort of wish I’d just gone the basic route like Grace did. She went with the UCheeseburger which is just a standard cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, American cheese, and house sauce.

As I continue my quest to reach the all-elusive (read: might take until August) 100th burger, I’ve found that I’m growing quite found of burgers with lots of veggies on them. It really adds to the flavor and gives some necessary crunch.

Many of the gimmicky cheeseburgers I’ve had this year (Bacon and Blue, BBQ & Bacon, etc…) have been good, but not nearly as good as the ole-fashioned cheeseburger with veggies.

Anyway, that turned into a rambling tangent. Long-story-short, UBurger is awesome. Hit it up and you won’t be disappointed.

BONUS: UBurger opening up a new location downtown by the Boston Common.

My Stalker Dislikes More Things

2010-04-24T19:08:00.000-04:00

Earlier today I mentioned a few of the things in life that My Stalker dislikes.

These things included, in no particular order:

-Meat
-Lines
-M&Ms
-Sugary Candy

After all of that, I assumed that today’s edition of “Crazy Person Theatre” was over after she brought me some of the most questionable cotton candy this side of a Wal-Mart food court and disappeared.

I was wrong.

She came back roughly ten minutes ago ranting and raving about many other things she dislikes which include:

Caterers

-Apparently caterers take issue with creepy women who stalk their food tables in hopes of sneaking off with a bunch of food that they should in no way be privy to. Who knew?! This attitude amongst the catering community infuriates My Stalker. Shocking.

Karaoke

-It seems that there are some students doing karaoke in the student center right now. She went over there to use a microwave or something—no, I didn’t ask what for—and stumbled upon the aforementioned karaoke and proceed to flip her shit. It seems that she dislikes it when people don’t know the words to songs. I can only assume this means her CD collection is void of any Ashlee Simpson albums.

Nature

-It’s almost Cambridge Science Week or something and My Stalker hates Science Week. Apparently she volunteered to help a few years ago or something and they made her stand outside—you know, like in the sun and pleasant spring temperatures and all that—to serve as a greeter. This angered her to no end. I guess she assumed they’d let volunteers play with the nuclear reactor or clone some sheep or some shit like that. They did not. She’s still holding a grudge, against the outdoors.

Children Eating

-In her rant about her volunteering “nightmare” she mentioned that they didn’t provide food for the volunteers. Being that she’s the epitome of a freakin’ vulture, this annoyed her to no end; especially when they had the audacity to feed the children. It should be noted that she did, however, steal plenty of food from the event. So there’s that.

Out of Towners

-She went on some random tangent midstream during her Science Week rant about people from—well—any place other than Cambridge. It seems that she absolutely hates when people don’t know where things are and they ask directions and whatnot. She even suggested that there be some orientation process for all outsiders before they’re allowed in Cambridge.

…and that about sums up the latest things she dislikes.

It should, however, be mentioned that the one thing she does like—as established earlier today—is “feeding growing boys” and she was in full-force during her third trip into the library.

When came meandering back into the library—full of vitriol and something that required microwaving—she had somehow happened upon an entire grocery bag-full of chips. She then proceeded to hand me bag after bag of chips.

Cap’n Charisma: “Yeah, I really don’t need any more chips.”
My Stalker: “Nonsense, you’re a growing boy…”
Cap’n Charisma: “No, seriously…that’s plenty.”
My Stalker: “THEN TAKE THEM HOME TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!”

She then revealed an entire platter’s worth of mini-desserts she’d undoubtedly pilfered from the aforementioned caterer. In what I can only envision as a Mission Impossible-esque scheme to escape with the desserts, she’d dumped the entire platter into a bag (note: she carries a lot of bags) that was full of papers and Kleenex and other things of that ilk.

She pulled out handful after handful of mini-Rice Krispy bars and brownies and other delectable treats that—in dang near any other situation—would be awesome and proceeded to line them up on the counter. She then pulled out some mini-paper plates, from yet another bag, and re-arranged the desserts for me on the small plates.

Presentation is important, you know.

She then told me to have a great weekend and enjoy the walk back to Central Square after work and she disappeared.

I’ve never told her that I live in Central Square.

…awesome.

My Stalker Dislikes Things

2010-04-24T16:07:00.000-04:00

My Stalker likes to chit-chat, and by “chit-chat” I mean talk at me.

Most of the time I just smile and nod my head whilst thinking please don’t stab me, please don’t stab me, please don’t stab me…or something along those lines.

Well today, she came bearing gifts in the form of—surprise, surprise—pilfered food.

Today it’s a bagged lunch that she swiped from who-knows-where consisting of a fancy-ass chicken salad sammitch and some classy potato chips.

Under normal circumstances—normal meaning “not from a creepy middle-aged stalker”—I’d probably gobble that sammitch down. The problem is that nothing involving My Stalker happens under “normal circumstances” because—well—she’s a freakin’ stalker.

I’m like 90% sure that anything I eat will be laced with roofies or LSD or chloroform and I’ll wake up in my boxers chained to a drainage pipe in her basement and, let’s be honest here folks, that sounds pretty darn unappealing.

Anyway, whilst handing me the “food” she went on a rant about how she hates waiting in line for food, which perhaps explains why all of her “gifts” are things she’s scavenged from garbage cans, empty meetings halls, and/or student receptions.

She also told me that she’s not a big fan of meat, but she knows I am. This is likely why she once brought me an entire platter of ill-begotten deli meats. I don’t know where they came from and honestly I don’t want to know.

How she knows I’m a fan of meat is beyond me, I’ve never said as much. In fact, most of my conversations with My Stalker consist of the aforementioned nodding and panicked inner monologue.

Anyway, where were we…ah yes…she hates lines, she doesn’t like meat, and apparently she doesn’t like M&Ms.

I know that lil tid-bit because she’s apparently got a plethora of M&M cookies at home that she meant to bring me, but forgot.

Now, as always, I don’t know where they came from. Maybe she baked them (unlikely), maybe she bought them (highly unlikely), or maybe she swiped ‘em out of a garbage can (ding, ding)…either way I’m not eating them.

I’ll do what I always do. I’ll smile. I’ll say “thanks!” I’ll take ‘em downstairs to my office and/or the men’s room. I’ll throw ‘em away as hard as I possibly can.

Oh goody, while I was typing this she just showed up with some scraggly-assed cotton candy. Being that this is a college campus and not the fucking Big Apple Circus, I’m just a lil uneasy about sampling it.

Apparently she doesn’t really like sugary candies, so that’s why she brought me the cotton candy.

Come on now, this is getting a little out of hand. Bringing me a sammitch or random platter of dead animal flesh is one thing. That type of thing could easily be stumbled upon somewhere on a college campus on one’s way to the library.

But cotton candy?! Seriously?!

This may be the most concerned I’ve ever been about any item she’s ever brought for me (or maybe not).

Sure, sure it’s probably out of line to assume that she’s just given me an entire spool of melty cotton candy laced with rat poison or something, but damned if I ain’t a little bit concerned.

Anyway, I should mention that after going on her various mini-rants about all the things she hates, she did go on to say that she likes making sure growing boys are well-fed.

…undoubtedly to make us more valuable when she harvests our organs?!

Grace is Trying to Murder Me

2010-04-20T19:39:00.000-04:00

I just want to make something totally clear now…if I have a heart-attack, it’s all Grace’s fault.

What’s that you ask, my Faithful Readers…why would Grace want me dead?

Well, I’m not entirely sure either. Perhaps I’m too awesome and it’s overwhelming being around someone who possesses so much raw, uninhibited awesomeness. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.

What I do know is that Grace has every intention of giving me a heart-attack.

Tonight we were making supper together. We’re whipping up a Midwestern staple, tuna noodle casserole and—to be frank—this stuff ain’t exactly health food. It’s got mayo, cream of mushroom soup, and a whole host of other non-healthables in it.

I did, however, go out of my way to get low sodium cream of mushroom soup and the healthier, new olive oil mayo stuff.

All of this was done with the intent of keeping the ole ticker runnin’ smooth.

So what does Grace do? She seasons it with salt!!

That’s right she added more SALT!!!

I know, right?! I was just as appalled as you are.

After all of my efforts to keep the sodium and other deathy-things levels down, she goes in and adds a whole big bunch-o-salt.

So make note, Faithful Readers, if I keel over from a heart-attack at any point, ever, it’s all Grace’s fault.

Patriots' Day Kinda Rules

2010-04-19T23:48:00.000-04:00

Patriots’ Day, Who Knew?!

I’m not gonna lie, before I moved to Boston I’d never head of Patriots’ Day.

In fact, even after we moved out here, I initially thought it was some sort of gratuitous state-wide celebration in honor of Tom Brady and the boys on the gridiron.

As it turns out, that’s not the case. Not even a lil bit.

It’s actually all about commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord. According to the always accurate Wikipedia, it’s celebrated only in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (that’s right, we’re a Commonwealth, bitches!), the state of Maine, and—oddly enough—is a public school observance day in Wisconsin.

Yeah, Wisconsin…I know, right?!

Anyway, I just wanted to mention a few bitchin’ things about Patriots’ Day for all of my readers who don’t reside here in the Commonwealth, up in Maine, or—ahem—attend middle school in Wisconsin (by the way, if I have any readers—middle school-aged or not—in Wisconsin, I’d love to hear from you!)…and with that, here be the five bitchin’est things about Patriots’ Day.

Paid Holiday

Yeah, that’s right folks. Everyone out this way got to spend today sleeping in, eating Clam Chowder and talking sans-Rs in their jammies, simply because it was Patriahts’ Day. You can’t beat that stuff! For those of us who work Tuesday through Saturday (read: me) this means that I get to duck out for a full day somewhere in the middle of the week and/or show up late and leave early all week to balance hours, good stuff.

Boston Marathon

Let’s be honest, few marathons are as bad-ass or as popular as the Boston Marathon.

Morning Baseball

The Red Sox traditionally play an 11am game against some poor opponent who sticks around for an extended four-game weekend. I’ve managed to attend one of these—tickets for the Patriots’ Day game are pretty steep—and it was a great, albeit rainy, time.

Drunk College Kids

Let’s be real, if you’re going to give college kids the day off, they’re going to start drinking at like 7am, just for the sport of it. This will be even more intense if they have delusions of grandeur involving the marathon and/or the Red Sox game. Luckily, knowing most of the pop-collared peeps around here, it’s safe to assume that they were all either in bed or in the hospital by noon.

Did I Mention the Paid Holiday

Yeah, this one totally deserves a second mention. Growing up in Iowa and attending college in Minnesota, the concept of a “paid holiday” is largely foreign to me. When it comes to paid holidays there are a butt-load of ‘em out here in Massachusetts, but this quasi-fictional one is by far my favorite simply because I know that like 95% of the country spent today at work while I got to sit sleep in and eat cheeseburgers.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #050

2010-04-19T18:10:00.000-04:00

That’s right ladies and gents, it took three days in a row of cheeseburger gluttony, but we’ve finally reached the magical milestone of fifty burgers for the year.

Given that today is the 109th day of 2010 I’m averaging dang-near a burger every other day.

That’s either super gross or totally awesome.

I’ll let all y’alls decide.

Me personally?! I just think it’s just dandy.

Cheeseburger #050

What:Bacon Cheeseburger

Where:Friendly Toast in Kendall Square

When:April 19, 2010

How (was it): This was a pretty solid burger. It was juicy and covered in cheesy, melty deliciousness and crispy bacon. Good stuff.

The highlight was that they’d absolutely overloaded the bun with lettuce and tomatoes.

Now I’m not always a tomato kinda guy.

In fact, there are some days I downright hate ‘em. Like seriously loathe ‘em.

If I catch a tomato lurking around me on a non-tomato kinda day, the odds of me superkicking that tomato in the face are pretty damn good.

Luckily, today was a pro-tomato kinda day, which—because I’m batshit crazy—meant that tomatoes are my favorite food ever.

As such, finding a burger that was not only cheesey and bacony and juicy but covered in a whole damned armada of tomato slices pretty much made my day.

Yippie.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #049

2010-04-18T21:46:00.000-04:00

If you’ve learned anything about me in your time here at “Blank Stares and Blank Pages” it is that I am a fan of cheeseburgers and I make poor-decisions, frequently.

This entry is a combination of those two certainties in my life.

That’s because this post involves, ghetto Wendy’s...

Cheeseburger #049

What: Bacon and Blue Burger

Where: Wendy’s in Central Square

When: April 18, 2010

How (was it): Let me go ahead and start this thing off by saying that I’m not proud of myself on this one. I know I’d basically sworn of Wendy’s—or at least the rapidly-declining Bacon and Blue Burger—after my last less-than-awesome experience nearly a month ago.

I went meandering today, mostly with the intent to get some contact goo and return a movie at Blockbuster. I decided I’d get a burger while I was out because, well, that’s what I do…but before I could get to my original destination (Four Burgers) it started pouring.

To duck out of the rain, I took shelter in Wendy’s and thought What the hell? and sauntered up to the counter and made my order.

Whilst waiting for my order some crazy old bitty came in ranting and raving (this is an all-too-common occurrence at this particular establishment) and insulted the guy behind the counter, the food, the service and eventually went on a ten minute rant about the lack of serving trays.

As such, I decided to hightail it outta there when my food (which did come pretty darn slow for a lazy Sunday afternoon) finally made its way into my grubby paws. I bolted to avoid the crazy lady who had made awkward eye contact and I ate down the street near my apartment on some picnic tables.

I unwrapped the burger and took a bite and noticed something was amiss.

That delectable secret sauce? Missing.

The delicious sautéed onions? Missing.

The freakin’ bacon? Missing.

That’s right the BACON and Blue burger had been served without bacon or the special sauce or the freakin’ onions. What this meant was that I had a burger with a big steaming pile of melted blue cheese and a slice of gnarly lettuce on top. That was it!!

Unfortunately, I was already blocks from Wendy’s and just said screw it and finished my burger.

It wasn’t good. I don’t really like blue cheese unless it’s got stuff to mix with…and it didn’t. So it was pretty freakin’ gross.

I’m still not ready to Embargo Wendy’s, but I sure as hell am warming up to the idea of burning it to the ground.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #048

2010-04-18T21:02:00.001-04:00

In life, we all make poor-decisions.

This is inevitable. At some point you’ll stick your finger in a light socket, lick a frozen piece of metal in the winter, tell a cowboy his hat makes him look ‘jaunty’ or purchase a burger at a Roller Derby event.

This past weekend, I was guilty of the latter.

Having meandered to the Shriner’s Auditorium in Winchestertonfieldville, Canada right after work, I had no time to snag food.

I shoved a banana in my craw on the trip there, but that held my hunger at bay for roughly the same amount of time anyone can actually stand listening to Bob Dylan songs. Seriously, don’t be like that. You know that you’re done after like two songs.

Anyway, so when we reached the great white north, my fate was sealed.

I was going to eat a derby burger.

Cheeseburger #048

What: Convertible Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: Shriner’s Auditorium: Canada(ish)

When: April 17, 2010

How (was it): Believe it or not, this wasn’t the worst burger I’ve had in 2010. That honor still rests in the unwashed hands of the Massachusetts Avenue Restaurant.

It wasn’t by any means, a good burger, either. For starters—as you can tell in the picture—it had no top bun.

I had my hands full when the toothless lady behind the counter handed me the Styrofoam (GOOOOOO EARTH!) container, so I just tossed my money at the gargoyle behind the cash register and sauntered back to my seat.

It wasn’t until the big “unveiling” for my peeps that the lack of a bun became apparent. Being that it was a long walk to the concession stand and I’m a lazy tool, I just ate it like an open-faced sammitch.

The bacon was crunchy, not crisp mind you, but crunchy and the cheese was only sorta melty. The bun was soft, so that’s something.

The patty itself wasn’t juicy by any stretch of the imagination, it was undoubtedly of the frozen (or recently picked off the highway) variety. Either way it is safe to assume all of the good burger juicy-juice was long gone. It wasn’t, however, overcooked or awful. It just sorta tasted like a drastically more gamey McDonald’s patty.

There was, however, some sort of “special sauce” lurking underneath the patty that I chose not to investigate.

It was actually pretty good and that makes me nervous. What if that “secret sauce” is some weird Shriner cult mixture of ox blood and unicorn semen?! Do I want to know that?! No, no I don’t. That’s why I didn’t lift the patty. I didn’t investigate.

I’ll pretend it was Cheez Whiz or something and move on with my life.

Nerds are Forgetful…and Weird

2010-04-10T23:13:00.000-04:00

Library lost and founds are chock-full of things people have left behind.

Often times it’s something small and innocuous like a stocking cap, an umbrella or a notebook.

Other times it’s something more important like a cellphone, a laptop or an iPod.

Then there are the other other times where it’s something completely random.

With that, I present to you, my Faithful Readers, the three items left in the library today:

Yeah, that’s right folks…that’s a jug of milk, some roast beef, and a squeaky shark that has water in it. The water actually shoots out of the shark’s teeth and is pretty bad-ass.

The scarier part is that—from what the students told me when they brought these items up to the desk at closing time—none of these items were together. Three different people seemingly left behind these three completely random items.

Nerds are weird.

PS: If you want some roast beef and/or milk, it’s in the fridge in my office.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #047

2010-04-10T17:57:00.000-04:00

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this one or twice before here, but I’ll do it again…at work we’ve got this mentor/mentee program between the librarians and support staff.

We teach the librarians circulation stuff that they might not know and they teach us researchy-type things that we might not know. All-in-all, it’s a pretty good setup and everyone wins.

My mentor, Darcy, is about as bad-ass as they get. There’s really no doubt about it, but she went about and beyond by snagging me a burger the other day and then sprinting back to the library to ensure she got it to me before I’d left for the day.

Sure, sure…she acquired the burger from what she described as an odd truck that was just sort of circling campus and giving away food whilst grilling. Needless to say, the burger was a little suspect, but there was no way I’d turn down a free burger.

Cheeseburger #047

What: Cheeseburger of Questionable Origin

Where: A Mysterious BBQ Truck

When: April 8, 2010

How (was it): Not bad. It was still warm when Darcy got it to me, which was a place and it had a super soft bun.

The burger itself was pretty plain and had a fake smoky kind of flavor to it. It was blatantly overcooked, but it was a thin enough patty that it didn’t make it unbearable.

For a free cheeseburger of sketchy origins, it wasn’t too shabby.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #046

2010-04-10T17:46:00.000-04:00

Upon returning to Boston, I spent most of my first day lurking in the house trying to get “wit it” as the youngins are wont to say.

When supper time finally rolled around, I realized I didn’t have any groceries in the house, so my options were limited to ordering in or meandering out.

Being that I’d spent all day cooped up inside, I felt like heading out into the real world.

Obviously, I ended up at Four Burgers.

Cheeseburger #046

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: Four Burgers

When: April 5, 2010

How (was it): Delicious.

After a rare misfire on my previous Four Burgers excursion, the fine folks behind the counter righted the ship this time around.

The burger was cooked to a perfect medium, the cheese was all super melty and gooey and the bacon was crisp and delicious.

FTW!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #045

2010-04-10T17:42:00.000-04:00

My buddy, Craiggers first took me to Hazzard’s when I was home last May for another friend’s wedding and to catch my brother in the Special Olympics.

Essentially, Hazzard’s is Hillbilly Hooters, which is definitely sayin’ something.

Imagine a plethora of busty co-eds in cut-off jean shorts and shirts that are undoubtedly not-OSHA approved. This is usually capped off with a cowboy hat and/or cowboy boots.

Ah yes, and the beers are served in Mason jars whilst country music blares non-stop in the background. All-in-all the place has my stamp of approval.

The question is whether or not their signature item, the Hazzard Burger would have the same positive impact. The Hazzard Burger is—in all reality—just a Luther Burger, a bacon cheeseburger with Krispy Kreme donuts in lieu of buns.

Let’s be honest, I pretty much had to order one, right?!

Cheeseburger #045

What: Hazzard Burger

Where: Hazzard’s Bar and Grill: Mankato, Minnesota

When: April 2, 2010

How (was it): Interesting is the first word that comes to mind.

The burger was overcooked, which killed the overall experience because it was a pretty thick patty and that made it very hockey puckish. Somehow the whole donut thing worked pretty well, despite the overcooked burger.

The burger really needed to be slathered in pickles or something to counteract all the sweet from the donut, but in the end it wasn’t too shabby.

I mean, I’d never in a million years order it again, but it wasn’t too shabby.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #044

2010-04-10T17:34:00.002-04:00

I wanna make something clear here, folks, it’s not like I was trying to have a burger every other day of my trip, it just sorta worked out that way.

On this particular day we went out for lunch and the destination was Culver’s. Culver’s is home of the freakin’ ButterBurger. Is it even remotely possible I could have gotten something else?!

Okay, it probably is…their menu is insane and includes everything from burgers to walleye to pot roast. It’s kinda nuts. Undoubtedly, however, I went with a burger…

Cheeseburger #044

What: Double-Bacon Deluxe

Where: Culver’s (North Mankato)

When:April 1, 2010

How (was it): AWESOME!!

I never ate at Culver’s much whilst in college because—well—I was in college and broke. As such, I dominated the dollar menu at McDonald’s most of the time when I needed a burger fix.

It’s a shame I wasted all of that time.

The burger was super juicy and really flavorful and made me super-duper happy. Granted, it managed to not fill me up—which is odd given its size—and I ended up going back to get a chili-cheese dog as well.

I should probably eat less or throw-up more. One of the two.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #043

2010-04-10T17:30:00.000-04:00

My brother G-Doggy (‘tis his well-earned gangsta nickname) invited me down to his place for supper one of the nights I was back in Iowa.

Being that I’m a wonderful brother—and because he told me he was making burgers—I readily accepted the invite and hopped in a pick’em up truck and hauled ass to his place with some country music blaring in the background.

All-in-all it was a pretty pleasant experience.

When I got to his place, I got to chill with my super awesome niece, Aubree and G-Doggy went about getting me hooked on “House” which I’d never watched. He sent me home with four seasons of it which I cannot wait to devour.

Anyway…onto the burger.

Cheeseburger #043

What: Cheeseburger

Where: My Brother’s Place: Primghar, Iowa

When: March 29, 2010

How (was it): Unfortunately, G-Doggy’s burger rates pretty low. It’s not really his fault, the burger was probably pretty solid initially, but he tossed ‘em on the grill when I left my parent’s house. It takes about fifteen minutes to get to his place from there, so by the time I rolled up, the burger had been off the grill and chilling on a plate for like 10 minutes.

Cold burgers do not make me a happy camper.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #041 & #042

2010-04-10T17:20:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not folks, I don’t just eat Taco John’s when I go home.

I eat cheeseburgers too.

And—if my week-long excursion at home was any indication—I eat a TON of cheeseburgers when I’m back in the Midwest.

First up on my weeklong burger binge was a stop at my buddy Mike’s place. Mike used to be my roommate/landlord and softball teammate. Nowadays he’s my fantasy baseball partner and a proud papa. Beyond all that he is renowned for his abilities to warm up dead animals over open flame.

All-in-all he’s a pretty good dude.

For the sake of humility (his, not mine), however, I now need to knock him back down a few pegs, so click here for a picture of Mike all sweaty and gross after dancing at a wedding.

Now, onto the burgers…

Cheeseburger #041

What: Mike Burger

Where: Mike’s Place: Mankato, Minnesota

When: March 27, 2010

How (was it): Mike’s burger have always been good stuff. He’s a frozen burger, but I’m not going to hold that against him because he seasons the crap out of ‘em so they taste awesome.

This was the first Mike Burger I’d had in years and it did not disappoint.

Cheeseburger #042

What: Mike Burger

Where: Mike’s Place: Mankato, Minnesota

When: March 27, 2010

How (was it): This one was a little less awesome, but still really good. It was only less awesome because, well, it was the last burger left on the plate and was cold by the time I got around to gobbling it down.

Still tasty.

Thanks Google!

2010-04-10T15:18:00.000-04:00

I am a blogger.

As such, I’m a relatively vain, narcissistic tool who finds it necessary to Google himself at least once a week.

I do this to ensure that no one has started some sort of “Jeremiah Graves Eats Cat Poop” website or something that would disparage my otherwise ~~meaningless~~ good name.

I also do this to ensure that the front page of a “Jeremiah Graves” Google search consists almost (if not entirely) of my stuff. Usually my profile page at Bleacher Report pops up, my blogs pop up, my Twitter and Flickr pages pop up.

For the most part, it’s all good.

Today, however, I decided to do an image search, just to see what’s floating about the interwebs.

What I found was this goober -->

Yeah, that’s right this dude pops up—on freakin’ page two—of a Google image search for yours truly.

Nothing about this is right.

Apparently this is Jeremiah Johnson who was in the Graves County (that’s Kentucky, folks) Detention Center for burglary—and seemingly ill-advised haircuts—before escaping while on work detail.

Awesome.

I can’t wait for some potential employer (read: a Major League Baseball team, natch!) to go scouring the interwebs in search of the wunderkind they’ve just read all about and rather than stopping at the bitchin’ picture of me ready to rip a ball into the gap or the sweet-ass photo of me conquering my gnome-related fears, the see Douchey MrPornStache and cross my name off the list, just in case.

Thanks Google.

A Day in the Life...

2010-04-10T14:01:00.000-04:00

Gigantic Heartless Corporations Aren’t ALL Bad

2010-04-07T19:37:00.000-04:00

The fine folks at Microsoft sent me this little ditty today thanking me for a decade of loyal devotion to Hotmail.

I feel kind of bad that Bill Gates took all the time to create this wonderful visual presentation just for me. I mean come on, look at the research he did to decipher what was hot a decade ago.

It makes me feel bad because I almost never use Hotmail anymore.

It’s weird how quickly that changed. A decade ago it was essentially Hotmail, Yahoo!, and AOL.

Today there’s about a gajillion different places you can have an email account and most people have a handful scattered across the mighty landscape of the interwebs.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least six different email accounts I have, only two of which I use with any regularity.

Unfortunately, Hotmail is no longer one of them.

Anymore, I’d say I log onto Hotmail—at the absolute most—once a week. There have been multiple stretches of a month or better where I’ve forgotten to check it and come back only to find it littered with 10,000 messages. Two or three of which have come from real people.

Nowadays Hotmail serves purpose as the place where I keep and send all of my fantasy baseball stuff from and the place that holds 32% of the world’s junkmail.

As such, it’s quite lovely of Mr. Gates to take the time out of his busy day of diving into coins like Scrooge McDuck and freebasing the bone marrow of babies just to make me a personalized thank you such as this one.

What a swell fella.

Curse of the Friendly Dude

2010-03-29T01:28:00.000-04:00

I’m a friendly dude.

I look like a friendly dude. I sound like a friendly dude. I am, in fact, a friendly dude.

This is a curse.

As any of my Faithful Readers can tell you, being a friendly dude has been a pox upon me for years.

Crazies come into the library, see a friendly—if not quasi-pleasant-looking—dude behind the circulation desk and they assume they can talk to me about whatever tickles their proverbial fancy until they’re blue in the face.

All too often, they are right.

I’m a friendly dude. Most of the time I let these whack-jobs and asshats ramble on and on and on about whatever boring, pointless, and/or outright bullshit story comes into their warped little heads.

I’ve heard one patron—who I hate with the fiery passion of a thousand suns—rant to me about how he walked right up to his boss one day and told him to “go fuck himself with a rusty screwdriver.”

As eloquent as all that was, it turned into a forty-five minute bitch session with this ass-clown rambling on about how he hated his job and wanted to quit and how he thought the boss was fooling around with his wife.

Granted, the dude is full of complete and utter bullshit, because his job changed about five times during the conversation from “lawyer” to “accountant” to “banker.” Apparently Cap’n Crazypants just wanted to share the crazy and I—being a friendly dude (who was conveniently trapped behind a circ desk)—was the lucky recipient.

This type of thing is common. In fact, it’s way too common.

I draw in crazies no matter where I go or what I’m doing.

I get half a dozen of these freaks every week at work and more randomly finding me on the streets or in restaurants or grocery stores. I’m a crazy magnet.

Saturday morning, whilst in the security line at the airport, I managed to draw some loon who wanted to talk about the health care hoopla that’s taken the nation by storm.

If you drop by “Blank Stares and Blank Pages” with any frequency, you know that I don’t really follow a) politics or b) the news.

As such, I really didn’t have any idea what this guy was talking about and I made that pretty clear right away, hoping that’d be the end of our interaction.

It was not.

This toolbox didn’t have any desire in legitimate discourse with me regarding the health care thingity-thing…he simply wanted to talk at someone.

As a friendly dude stuck in a line that I couldn’t logically jump out of without missing my flight, I had to sit there and listen to him go off on an anti-Obama tirade. He referred to Obama as the antichrist, Hitler, and—in some odd context I didn’t understand—Molly Ringwald. Perhaps he was implying Obama was merely a flash in the pan whose political star would burn out sooner than anyone could anticipate? Who knows, I sure as hell wasn’t paying attention.

My lack of attentiveness, however, wasn’t enough to detour health care dude. He had an opinion dammit and someone—anyone—needed to hear it.

So he ranted at me for about twenty minutes—at like five in the freakin’ morning—about health care and burnt-out ‘80s movie stars and death panels. The entire time I didn’t get in a word edgewise, not that I’d have had much to add to the conversation.

When he was finally done speaking (or would it be preaching?) he asked me what I thought about all that.

I told him that I’m a pretty healthy dude and I don’t really ever get sick. I also told him I don’t really follow the news or politics.

He replied: “fuckin’ hippy.”

He then walked away.

Some days I contemplate getting one of those crazy-ass face tattoos like Mike Tyson got hooked up with, just to make me look a little less friendly.

That or I’m just going to start tazering people the second they approach me.

One or the other.

Traveling is Hard

2010-03-29T01:04:00.000-04:00

When I fly, it is very common that I’ll leave Boston in the wee morning hours in an attempt to stretch out my time on the other end of the trip.

Generally it is totally worth it to leave Boston before 6am if it means I’ll be back in the ole Midwest somewhere around 8 or 8:30am. It just makes good sense.

If I wait to leave until a reasonable hour, say 8 or 9am, it’ll be damn near noon before I get back that way.

Anyway, it’s early. I’m pounding this out on the airplane at 5:37am and I’ve already been up for like two and a half hours.

Being that it’s so early taxis were a little hard to come by this morning.

Central Square generally quiets down for the evening somewhere around two or three in the morning and—being that it’s Spring Break—Cambridge is pretty dead right now anyway.

That having been said, cabs are hard to hunt down.

As such, I’m pretty much their bitch when it comes to the fare.

This was never more evident than Saturday morning when my cab ride to the airport—which is normally a $20-$25 expenditure—turned into a $40 clusterfuck.

…before tip.

If that weren’t enough of a pain in the ass, I also got to listen to some serious pre-dawn taxi drama.

The entire trip there was a group of cabbies screaming over the CB radio at each other. It ended with what I’m assuming was their boss suddenly coming on the airwaves and going on a psychotic rant about one of the dude’s attitude and overall demeanor.

He then proceeded to fire him.

Over the radio, with everyone listening.

This was all done with one long, breathless rant that sounded something like this: “I don’t care who hears it, I’ll say it loud over the radio. I want everyone to hear it! I hate you. You’re a shitty man with a shitty attitude. You’ll never work for me again. You’re fired. You’re fried.”

To this my cabbie—who was fare-raping me—broke in with a mini-rant of his own, talking about how the recently-fired cabbie was, in fact, a shitty man with a shitty attitude.

All of this took place at roughly 4:30 in the morning. Pre caffeine.

Traveling is hard.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #040

2010-03-28T11:47:00.000-04:00

Fridays are just good burger days.

There’s really no denying it, is there?! It seems that come lunch time every Friday, all I wanna do is run out and find a big ole greasy burger and shove it in my face.

Perhaps this is merely an example of how I approach Andrew Miller’s “Pimp Your Friday” philosophy or perhaps it is because I’m a burger-lovin’ fatty who never packs a lunch?!

Either way, Friday is burger day.

This Friday was no exception to the rule, especially after my Thursday night fantasy baseball draft went roughly twice as long as I’d anticipated and threw off my agenda for the evening.

As a result, I was pretty tired and worthless on Friday. Nothing cures tired and worthless quite like a cheeseburger.

Without any further ado, here is the latest entry:

Cheeseburger #040

What: Cheeseburger

Where: Four Burgers

When: March 26, 2010

How (was it): Unfortunately, I’ve got to admit that this was—without a doubt—the worst burger I have ever had at Four Burgers.

Now don’t think for a second that this implies it was an awful burger or something. The burger itself was still pretty good and I wouldn’t say no if offered an identical, meaty clone.

It was a tad overcooked and (note: this is just me being anal) the cheese wasn’t melted.

I’ve always had a serious issue with cheeseburgers that don’t have melted cheese. Something about the concept of a rigid slice of cheese on a burger really bugs me.

McDonald’s—at some point in the early 2000s—started churning out burgers with unmelted cheese and I always found it incredibly unnerving.

If it ain’t melted, it’s not a cheeseburger, it’s a burger with a slice of cheese on top of it. The cheese needs to be melted so that it becomes an integral part of the burger’s architecture.

…anyway, I’ve clearly gone off on a tangent.

The burger was good, but not great. Four Burgers has been great roughly 98.3% of the times I’ve eaten there, so to get a good burger was a little disappointing.

In the grand scheme of things, however, this was still probably one of the top 10-15 burgers I’ve had all year. Which isn’t saying much for most of the crap I’ve been shoving in my face.

No Words Necessary

2010-03-25T13:34:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when traversing the borderless wonderland that is the interwebs, we stumble upon something so awesome, so bad-ass, so perfect that no words are necessary.

This is one of those things:

Hat-tip to The Peter Norman for this one…

Cheeseburger Chronicles #039

2010-03-23T23:01:00.000-04:00

In my defense, I had no original intentions of getting a burger today.

To be perfectly honest I was supposed to beating what Grace had so eloquently described as “something with peppers and stuff.”

Instead my good friend, The Peter Norman (heretofore known as TPN) sent me a Facebook message indicating a desire for dead cow at a popular Cambridge burger joint known as Mr. Bartley’s.

What ensued was another notch on my burger belt, the intake of thousands of calories, the use of political figures’ names in jest, TPN losing his Bartley’s virginity, and an overwhelming desire to snap the neckbone of half a dozen frat guys.

All of this was followed by some beers (most of the low calorie variety to offset the meal), some Nerf guns, and plenty of helpful zombie killing tips.

Additionally, there was a brief display of Grace’s education system-fueled rage. All-in-all, good times were had by all.

Here be the burger rundown…

Cheeseburger #039

What: “The Health Care Bill” (toppings include: BBQ sauce, grilled onions & bacon)

Where: Mr. Bartley’s in Harvard Square

When: March 23, 2010

How (was it): It was pretty solid.

As is often the case with Bartley’s burgers, the big draw is the toppings more than the burger itself.

It was a perfectly acceptable patty cooked to a perfect medium—unlike TPN’s drastically more bloody “medium”—and it was hot and juicy and meshed great.

That’s just how Mr. Bartley’s works, the focus is on the toppings and not the burger itself. The patty is good. The toppings are great.

Good BBQ sauce. Not too sweet. Not too tangy. Just right. It mixed perfectly with the grilled onions, which—as you can see from the all-too-blurry photo—were overflowing from the burger.

Toss in bacon and you’ve got yourself a winner.

Yahoo! Answers #002

2010-03-22T22:10:00.001-04:00

Hey y’all, I’m back with another quasi-daily dose of Yahoo! Answers for your reading/mocking enjoyment.

Today’s entry comes from “Kim16757” who is obviously a very classy gal just lookin’ for love.

Personally, I’m a little confused by the timeline in question here.

Apparently she has been “messin’ around with this guy” for an indeterminable amount of time.

As such, I’m a little confused as to why he’s just NOW getting a picture of her?

Every teenager I’ve ever seen (note: it’s pretty safe to assume she’s a teenager here because, well…duh) has their phone out taking pictures of everything, so I’m confused as to why she’d have to physically hand him a picture—as is implied by the phrase “gave him a pic” as opposed to the more modern colloquialism “sent him a pic.”

Let’s be honest, who under the age of 50 is still handling real, tangible photos and not just JPGs? Sketchy? I think so…

Finally, Kim16757 throws me for a loop with her commentary regarding a girlfriend?! Seriously, where does that come from?!

I think to adequately answer her question—which I think is simply “why hasn’t he texted me?”—I’d need some serious back-story on this potential girlfriend situation.

I’d hate to think that a wordsmith who has such an eloquent way with the written word would be “the other gal” in this scenario. It’d be just heartbreaking.

What do you think, my Faithful Readers?!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #038

2010-03-22T20:59:00.000-04:00

I feel like all of those crazy-ass little flying monkey people in the “Wizard of Oz.”

Now believe me, this isn’t drink or drug induced, it is merely a result of the new found freedom I’ve been granted thanks to an awful lunch-time visit to Wendy’s last Friday.

As you’ve read about in my two previous burger encounters, I’ve grown quite fond of the new Bacon and Blue burger at Wendy’s, despite the fact that it’s—you know—Wendy’s.

Luckily, I had a bad go’round with the B&B last Friday and I can’t help but feel as though the burger’s stranglehold on me has loosened.

Perhaps a Wendy’s Embargo won’t be necessary…yet.

Cheeseburger #038

What: Wendy’s Bacon and Blue Burger

Where: Ghetto Wendy’s in Central Square

When: March 19, 2010

How (was it): Good, not great.

The worst thing a dude can do is swing by the Ghetto Wendy’s during the lunch rush. The place is packed. The service is awful. The food is even worse.

I did just that on Friday, I had intended to go to Four Burgers for a “classy burger” but—as is all-too-often the case at lunch time—their line was nearly to the door and I didn’t have that kind of time to spare.

So I sauntered back to Wendy’s with a pretty good understanding that this would likely be the end of my unblemished love affair with the Bacon and Blue burger.

It was just that.

The sauce, sautéed onions, bacon and blue cheese were still rockin’…but the burger itself was disgustingly greasy. It was gross to hold it and it was seeping through the wrapper. Just gross.

The lettuce and tomato were both of the soggy/limp/dead/disgusting variety and despite picking them off the burger, their nasty-assed awfulness lingered.

I left Wendy’s moderately-dejected, knowing that I’d never again feel that same magical feeling for the Bacon and Blue burger, but I also had the freedom of a man who no longer felt chained one burger.

I am once again free to roam the earth devouring any hunk of dead cow I please.

Let freedom ring!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #037

2010-03-22T19:44:00.000-04:00

My Faithful Readers, you should probably know something about me.

I’m a man who likes cheeseburgers.

What’s that? You already knew that about me?! Oh…weird.

Well, additionally, I’m also a man who has a horrible, horrible tendency to keep going back to something time and time again once I’ve had a great experience with it. This will continue until I have a bad experience, thus breaking the spell.

It is because of this awful tendency that I had to institute embargos on McDonalds and Burger King (FYI: the two year anniversary is Wednesday).

It’s because of this tendency that I’ve had weeks where I eat the same thing for lunch five or six days in a row.

It’s because of this tendency that I returned to Wendy’s for yet another Bacon and Blue burger last Tuesday night.

Cheeseburger #037

What: Wendy’s Bacon and Blue Burger

Where: Ghetto Wendy’s in Central Square

When: March 16, 2010

How (was it): Despite my best wishes that it’d be awful and greasy and I could return to a life where—like the rest of the population—I have no desire to eat at Wendy’s on a regular basis, let alone the super ghetto Wendy’s.

Alas, that was not to be the case.

Once again, the burger was amazing.

I’m not a big bleu cheese guy, but these cats pile on the sautéed onions, their fancy-assed sauce, the bacon, and all the other toppings and it is like the perfect ingredient to make all of that other good shizzle just sorta come together in a big ole flavor ‘splosion…in my face!

My God, I hope the next one is awful, or it might be time to establish a Wendy’s Embargo.

Yahoo! Answers #001

2010-03-18T07:58:00.000-04:00

Yahoo! Answers is an amazing website.

Not really in a good way, mind you, but more in the "holy crap, come check out what these dumb teenagers are 'writing'" kind of way.

As such, I’ve decided to create a quasi-regular series where I post a question taken directly from one of the many future custodial engineers and/or “professional dancers” who frequent these websites.

Now, most of these questions will undoubtedly be pulled from the “Singles and Dating” section, if for no better reason than it gives us the best examples that teenagers can neither spell, punctuate, or using anything even remotely close to a complete sentence.

I’d like to make a stab at instant messaging here, but I’m fairly sure that would date me a bit. I mentioned IMing to some freshmen the other day in the library and they looked at me like I’d smoked all the crack...all of it.

Apparently instant messaging has gone the way of the dinosaur, trans fats, and the Cobra Kai Dojo.

It now seems that most children come out of the womb texting on a Blackberry equipped with one of those fancy slide-out QWERTY keyboards.

Well-played young-ins, well-played indeed.

Anyway, I appear to have gone off on sort of sleepless tangent?! Ah yes…Yahoo Answers.

I’ll be posting a “question” from Yahoo Answers and looking to you, my Faithful Readers to supply the perfect answer.

Now I’m warning you in advance, many of these “questions” are merely children rambling about pix or luv or baby-mamas and there appears to be no actual question involved.

I’ll still be looking for an answer, response, or perhaps some sort of literal translation (ooooh exciting!) from some/any/all y’all…

With that said, here’s your inaugural Quasi-Daily Dose of Yahoo! Answers…

Here be the link, just in case the screenshot is too fuzzy to read.

Let’s hear whatcha gotsta say y’all…

What Your Library Can (and Cannot) Do For You

2010-03-17T20:35:00.000-04:00

I want to make something clear right now.

There is a very real difference between “perceived” and “actual” technological abilities of the folks sitting behind the desk at a library.

I wrote about one such instance last weekend, but today I was given another inside look at this perplexing dichotomy.

Some dude called into the library this evening asking for printing help.

I operated under the assumption he was referring to printing on campus—more notably, in the Libraries—this would seem a logical assumption given that he was calling, well, the library.

Being the awesome library dude that I am—no, seriously…I rock—I attempted to help him through his problem.

Mystified in Manchester: “Hi, I’m having some issues with a printer.”
Caring in Cambridge: “Okay, cool. What’s the issue?”
Mystified in Manchester: “Well, it’s not printing.”
Caring in Cambridge: “I guess that is a problem…hahahaha.”

This was met with complete and utter silence. I assumed that the lameness of my “joke” had either led to him deciding to end his own life via seppuku and/or he simply had a broken funny bone and didn’t pick up on the blatant hilarity that had just ensued.

Caring in Cambridge: “Huh…okay then…so can you tell me more about what’s wrong?”
Mystified in Manchester: “Sure. I want to print, but nothing will print.”
Caring in Cambridge: “Right. Could you be just a little more specific? Where are you printing from? What are you trying to print? Which printer are you sending it to? That type of thing.”
Mystified in Manchester: “Can you just log in and fix it?”
Caring in Cambridge: “I don’t know what you mean…”
Mystified in Manchester: “Like if I give you my IP address, can you log in and fix it?”

Let’s be honest folks, we can do a lot of things here at the library. We can help you with research, we can get you hooked up with books you thought you’d never get your grubby lil mitts on, and we can point you to the bathroom or un-jam staplers with the best of ‘em…but what we can’t do is fix every technical problem you have.

Library Peeps have IT guys that we come crying to when iTunes won’t start or when we can’t figure out how to change which picture of kittens shows up on our wallpaper.

They hate us for it, but it keeps them employed and feeling needed, it’s a good balance.

There’s some serious yin and yang stuff going on here, folks.

The key bit of information to take from our IT/Library Peeps relationship is that we, as Library Peeps, are not built to fix your technical problems.

Heck, beyond turning things off and on a few times and banging on them with my palm, I’ve got no other technical savvy.

Sure, sure…I can jiggle the mouse or try the good old alt+control+delete method…but that’s the extent of what’s in my bag of tricks. In all reality, I'm barely qualified to use email or log-in to Facebook without assistance.

As such, some dude asking me to “log in” with his IP address was akin to someone stomping into the library and screaming at me in Russian with an Italian accent…I sure as hell didn’t know what he was talking about or what I could do to help him.

Confused in Cambridge: “Yeaaaaaaah…um, I don’t know how to do that or even what I’d be doing if I did know how to do that.”
Mystified in Manchester: “This is MIT, right?”
Confused in Cambridge: “Yeppers, this is the Barker Engineering Library.”
Mystified in Manchester: “…and you can’t do this?”
Confused in Cambridge: “Not so much.
Mystified in Manchester: “Really?!”
Confused in Cambridge: “Yes, Sir…really. Now let’s try to figure out what the issue is here…did you try printing from one of the computers here in Barker or one of the other libraries?”
Mystified in Manchester: “Oh no, I’ve never been to the campus. I’m trying to print at my house in New Hampshire.”
Confused in Cambridge: “Wait…you’re trying to print TO our campus from your home? Or you’re trying to print…at your home…from your home?”
Mystified in Manchester: “Yeah, I’m trying to print from my desktop to my new printer. Can you help me set it up or not?”

There was a few moments of silence where I was contemplating giving seppuku a try and seeing if it lived up to the hype, then I remembered that I was still technically on the phone with a patron and should probably help him rather than stick a sword in my gut.

Confused in Cambridge: “No sir, I think you’re going to want to contact the manufacturer of the printer or maybe the “Geek Squad” or something, that’s not the type of problem we usually deal with here.”
Mystified in Manchester: “…but….but you’re MIT.”
Confused in Cambridge: “Right…the library, this is the library. We don’t usually do trouble-shooting on electronics.”
Mystified in Manchester: “So even if I give you the IP address, you can’t log in and set it up?”

There was another awkward moment of silence whilst I bit my tongue to avoid saying anything that could be perceived as uncouth or ill-mannered…or true.

Then I took a breath and politely replied:

Confused in Cambridge: “No sir, you’re going to need to contact someone else, again I recommend the manufacturer or the “Geek Squad.””
Mystified in Manchester: “…but, you’re MIT.”
Confused in Cambridge: “Yes. Yes this is MIT, but we’re not in the business of helping people install home electronics. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to try elsewhere. Goodbye.”

I hung up as he kept mumbling butyou’remitbutyou’remit into the other end of the phone.

Maybe I’ve worked in libraries for too long. I guess it’s been like eight years now, so perhaps I’m a little out of it, but please tell me, my Faithful Readers…do all y’all—who aren’t Library Peeps yourselves—actually perceive us as all-powerful beings who can fix any problem you may have?

…or do I just attract the craziest of the crazy?!

Please lemme know…opinions on this will be greatly appreciated.

Things at Which I Suck: St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-17T19:11:00.000-04:00

It’s St. Patrick’s Day.

I’m 26-years old.

I live in Boston.

I think you all know what that means…

Sadly, no.

…it means I’ll be working until 8pm and then headed home to eat some supper and go to bed at a respectable hour. If I’m feeling in the mood for some “crazy shenanigans,” perhaps I’ll have a Miller Lite or two before retiring for the evening with a book in hand.

Yeah, I’m old. I’m sad. I’ve come to terms with it and all y’all should too.

My days of getting crazy on St. Patty’s were limited to the two years I lived in South Boston—directly on the parade route—and that’s about it.

We’d throw a party for any soul brave enough to venture into the ravenous, drunken mob that overran the streets of Southie every year for the parade. We’d hang out windows, scream at the top of our lungs, and perhaps enjoy one or two adult beverage too many.

Those days are over.

Sure, sure…I’m wearing green today and if given the chance I’ll gladly pinch anyone who is not, mostly that’s because today is the one day it’s not sexual harassment (…right?!), but in the grand scheme of things, I’m just not all that jazzed about St. Patty’s Day.

Last year was our first year out east that we didn’t live on the parade route and Grace and I totally spaced off celebrating St. Patty’s Day.

Honestly, had we not lived on the parade route—where getting intothe festivities isn’t so much an option as a survival method—I don’t think I’d have ever put anything into celebrating.

St. Patrick’s Day has been unofficially christened “National Amateurs Drinking Day” for a reason and I have no intention of going out to the bars tonight to fight with 21-year olds frat guys decked out in Celtics jerseys just to pay $8 for a beer and get wasted on “a school night.”

So it is with a heavy heart (mostly from the bacon and red meat consumption) that I must admit to you, my Faithful Readers, that I am an old fuddy-duddy who ain’t in the partyin’ spirit.

I suck at St. Patrick’s Day.

PS: If you listen carefully, you can hear Jackie Partyka weeping—albeit into a pint of Guinness—at today’s proclamation. Sorry Partyka. I’m a sad old man. Although if you were here, I could probably get coaxed into enjoying a few frosty pints of beer tainted with toxic green dye.

PPS: I’m not alone in my anti-St. Patrick’s Dayness…Three years for dudes in their mid-20s who ain’t havin’ it. Hip-Hip-Hooray. Hip-Hip-Hooray. Hip-Hip-Hooray!!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #036

2010-03-15T13:44:00.002-04:00

Anyone who read about my many intriguing exploits last Saturday at work know that I’d had a pretty long day by the time I finally clocked out.

As such, I wandered up to Central Square to snag some beer for Grace and I to enjoy whilst watching Whip It—which, by the way, was AWESOME—and on the way I made eye contact with a gigantic poster.

The poster was hanging in the window of—you guessed it—Wendy’s.

The poster was pimping Wendy’s new Bacon and Blue burger, a concoction eloquently described on the company’s website:

Send your taste buds into overdrive with fresh, never frozen North American beef covered in real blue cheese crumbles layered with thick, fresh-cooked Applewood Smoked Bacon, topped with sautéed onions and creamy steakhouse sauce.

Being that I’d had a pretty craptacular day, I was hungry, and this was made of dead cow AND dead pig…I had no choice but to get one.

Here be the results…

Cheeseburger #036

What: Bacon and Blue Burger

Where: Ghetto Wendy’s in Central Square

When: March 13, 2010

How (was it): Not gonna lie, this burger was bad-to-the-ass.

I hadn’t set the bar real high when I ordered. In fact, I was going to go ahead and call it a win if it didn’t make me sick to my stomach before I had time to get home and enjoy some cinematic derby action and a few cold beers.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a really good burger.

The “creamy steakhouse sauce” meshed really well with the sautéed onions and the blue cheese melted all over the place making for a gooey, bacony surprise in the middle of each bite.

Wendy’s has done me right two times in a row, which isn’t a good sign, perhaps another embargo is looming?

I’ve learned that the key to avoiding a stomach pump after eating at this particular Wendy’s is to go in there when the place is pretty much completely empty.

Any time the undoubtedly highly-skilled burger technicians behind the counter have to deal with more than two or three people’s meals at a time, they get panicked and everything tastes like a horsemeat and Velvetta sammitch.

The last two times I’ve been in there it’s just me, some homeless people, an old man eating some questionable chili, a drug dealer, and a few drunken frat guys…apparently that’s the magical formula for a good burger at Wendy’s.

Who knew?!

Game On: A Call to Arms

2010-03-15T01:13:00.000-04:00

My Faithful Readers, I come to you today with a challenge.

My friend (read: sworn blogging enemy) Andrew Miller over at The Miller Times has thrown down the gauntlet for challenge amongst our respective legions of readers/fans/people with nothing better to do than read our crap.

You see it’s that time of year where we all pretend we give a rat’s ass about college basketball (aka: March Madness).

Now sure, most of us haven’t watched a game of college basketball since—well—since the final team left on last year’s bracket was eliminated, but that fact notwithstanding, I need some/any/all y’all to represent, in the name of “Blank Stares and Blank Pages.”

The challenge was laid out as such:

Since we each have a Facebook fan page, we can set up a [bracket challenge] group including only our fans. At the end of the tournament, we compare the winning bracket from each of our competitions, respectively, to determine whose readership is the best at predicting things. And stuff. If TMT Reader X scores 87 points and BSBP Reader Y scores 85, I win. And vice versa.

There you have it, my Faithful Readers, I need all y’all to step up and prove that your collective random guessing ability is superior to that of a group of complete strangers!!

…or something like that.

Anyway, here’s the important deets (that’s how the cool kids are abbreviating “details”…damn I’m so fly-ass, bomb-diggity with the youthful lingo and whatnot)…

The “BS&BP March Madness Challenge” will be hosted by the fine-folks over at Yahoo! and—because no one in their right mind would pay to do this—it’s free.

Here be the quasi-convoluted instructions:

1. If you don’t already have one, it’d be a good time to go and snag a Yahoo! account. Once again, it’s free. Just go here and fill in the blanks.

2. If you already have one, and/or after you’ve registered, head here.

3. The league ID# is 93570. The password is (obviously) “cheeseburgers”…you should be all set now. Give your bracket a name and pick your winners.

As he is wont to do, Andrew has already rallied his troops by offering free stuff and charitable donations for whomever wins the bracket challenge from his camp.

As such, I’m going to match him blow-for-blow.

Whichever one of all y’all wins the inaugural “BS&BP March Madness Challenge” will earn themselves a $25 donation, in their name, to the Special Olympics of Iowa (a charity that is near and dear to my bacon-infused heart) and—because people love themselves some swag—you’ll also get this bitchin’ shirt you see to the right.

Yeah, that’s right. It’s a zombie shirt, baby!!

You win this tournament and it could be ALL yours.

The only real rule in this challenge is as follows:

To be eligible to win these bitchin’ prizes, you must be a member of the Blank Stares and Blank Pages Facebook fan page, which—if you haven’t already—you can join by clicking here.

So there you have it, folks.

There’s clearly a lot on the line in this challenge. Sure, sure there’s a national championship or something riding on these basketball fellas, but there’s also the pride and integrity of the entire BS&BP community and, obviously, my good name as a blogger with the finest guessers in all the land.

So, my Faithful Readers, sign up today, make your completely random (and/or well-educated) guesses, and make me proud.

Saturdays are Special: Part Three

2010-03-13T19:17:00.000-05:00

Whilst giving all y’all a rundown of the special, special people I meet on Saturdays you’ve been witness to people who are a) just sort of clueless assholes and b) just sort of clueless asshole about technology.

My third run-in of the day was with a dude who was a combination of both.

Awesome.

Lemme set the scene for all y’all…

This dude meanders in with two or three big ole bags, one of which contains a laptop. He makes plenty of noise on the way in, because he’s a noisy guy. He says hi or tries to make awkward small talk with just about everyone he passes and then sprawls all of his crap out in the corner of the computer cluster.

Now, I should let you know this guy is pretty notorious for this type of behavior. He first showed up a few weeks back—on a Saturday, of course—to check out the library. Since then he’s shown up once every other week or so, seemingly to use the library as his office.

He’ll usually Bogart a couple of computers at a time, whilst pecking away on his laptop, he’ll make loud phone calls, he’ll waste my time asking dozens and dozens of pointless questions about the copy machine, etc, etc, etc…

He is, however, completely harmless. You tell him to stop hogging computers and he’ll stop. You tell him to take his loud-ass phone call into the lobby, he’ll do it. He’s really just an annoying pain in the ass—or PITA, as the kids say—more than anything.

Anyway, it’s him. He’s here. He’s going through is usual mumbo jumbo when suddenly he flips out.

PITA: “SIR. EXCUSE ME. SIR. SIR. SIR. SIR. SIR!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: *sigh* “Yes?!”
PITA: “THE COMPUTERS!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “…yeah?! What about them?!”
PITA: “THEY’RE BROKEN!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: *sigh* “…broken?!”

At this point, I got out of my chair and wandered over to see what the hell he was talking about.

Two of the computers—the two near the corner where he usually sets up camp—were both without power.

PITA: “SEE THEY’RE BROKEN!! I DIDN’T DO IT!! THEY WERE LIKE THIS!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Calm down…”
PITA: “Okay…but the are broken. THEY’RE BROKEN!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Right…lemme take a peek at ‘em.”

I crawled around on the floor for a bit and flipped some power switches and unplugged and replugged the power strip. You know, all of things that the non-IT crowd is sanctioned to do with computerized equipment.

Strung-Out Cap’n: “Yeah, looks like these two are out of order.”
PITA: “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “…it just means you’ll have to use another computer.”
PITA: “I LIKE THESE COMPUTERS!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Calm down. The other computers are just fine. These two are out of order.”
PITA: “TRY AGAIN?!?!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Try what again?”
PITA: “FIX THE COMPUTERS!!!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Calm down. I’ll try again…”

I got down on my hands and knees again—and my knees DO NOT appreciate me pulling a stunt like this once, but twice within ten minutes, I’m just happy they didn’t go into a full-on mutiny—and did the exact same routine.

*FLIP SWITCH* …nothing
*UNPLUG, REPLUG* …nothing
*HOLD POWER BUTTON* …nothing

Strung-Out Cap’n: “Yeah, they’re down for the count, you’ll have to use a different computer.”
PITA: “TRY AGAIN?!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “No, no…twice was enough. They’re not going to work. There are four other open computers just use one of them.”
PITA: “Why can’t you fix it?!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “…because I’m not an IT-guy.”
PITA: “Can you get one?”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “No, it’s a Saturday. I’m the only one here.”
PITA: “So you should fix it?!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “No…no…I can’t fix it. I don’t know how to fix it. That’s for people who make a lot more money than me.”
PITA: “You want me to pay you to fix it?!”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that the people who do fix computers aren’t here today. They’re at home.”
PITA: “Can you call them? Emergency?”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “No…this isn’t an emergency. There are four other computers. Just use one of them.”

It was at this point that I was reaching what is commonly referred to as “the breaking point.”

I’d been talking in circles with this ridiculously loud, hyper dude for like 15 minutes. I realize there is a language barrier as English clearly isn’t his first—or maybe even second or third—language, but I thought I’d made things pretty clear that he’d need to use another computer.

Anyway, I printed off a few “Out of Order” signs to hang on the computers and when I went to hang them on the computers he was still standing where I’d left him.

PITA: “Did you fix them? Are they working now?”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “What?! No, I just printed signs saying they’re not working.”
PITA: “So they’re still broken?”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Yes.”

I hung the signs and went back to the circulation desk.

I checked out a few books to another patron when he came shuffling up to the desk.

PITA: “Which computer is best?”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Huh?!”
PITA: “Which computer is best? Which one should I use?”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “They’re all the same. They’ve all got the same software and everything. Just use any of them.”

He took this statement literally and went and sat down at one of the out of order computers and began mashing the power button.

PITA: “SIR!!”

This is where I was mumbling something along the lines of areyoufuckingkiddingmehowdoesthisshitonlyhappenwhenimherealone under my breath as I got up to try and explain—once more—that he couldn’t use those computers.

Strung-Out Cap’n: “Dude…these are out of order. You know that.”
PITA: “You said I could use any of them.”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Any of the ones that aren’t out of order.”

He then got up and started pointing at various computers and looking at me for acknowledgement as to whether or not he could use each one. I told him no, he couldn’t use either of the broken ones. No, he couldn’t use the one another patron was on. Yes, he could use EVERY OTHER COMPUTER.

He nodded, bowed, and thanked me.

I turned to go back to the desk and he stopped me in my tracks…

PITA: “…but which one is best?!”

I took a minute to daydream before turning around—at which point, I fully intended to strangle him to death—and all I could think about was a blog post I’d written about a year ago.

It was a debate about what was worse Zombies or Library Crazies.

I’m on a bit of a zombie-kick right now, so I’ve been prone to claim zombies are the most bad-ass creatures ever, but if I had to put this debate back up for discussion…I really think I’d say the library crazies are worse.

Anyway, after a moment of clarity—and briefly imagining a zombie ripping this dude to shreds—I knew there was only one way to handle the situation.

I turned around and said…

Strung-Out Cap’n: “That one. That one is the best. Use it. It’s the best.”

He got all super giddy and then went about his business sending emails and looking up Jebus-knows-what for an hour or so before getting up to leave. Although on his way out the door he stopped to tell me something…

PITA: “I forgot that I unplugged cords.”
Strung-Out Cap’n: “Huh?!”
PITA: “On the computers. I pulled cords.”

I walked with him over to the computers where I found that he’d unplugged the power cord from the back of each of the two “broken” machines. Why, I don’t know. He just smiled and left.

I plugged in the power cords and then flipped the switch on the power strip and all was right with the world. Both computers fired right up.

Forty-five minutes later I closed the library.

It’s been a long damn day.

Saturdays are Special: Part Two

2010-03-13T17:40:00.002-05:00

Lots of people don’t understand technology, or perhaps they simply don’t understand what it is and is not capable of accomplishing.

Some dude just sauntered in here telling me he’d like to check out a book he’d had like a year and a half ago.

Apparently he’d started reading it before he had to leave the country for business and he’d really like to finish it.

Being the ever-helpful library dude that I am, I did my best to explain that we don’t keep borrowing records—go, go Patriot Act—but I could look it up for him.

As most people who come in on Saturdays are wont to do, he complained…

Books McCoy: “This is a huge inconvenience.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Sorry, there’s not anything I can do about it, but I can look up the book.”
Books McCoy: “You just said you couldn’t…”
Cap’n Charisma: “No, no…I can’t look up a list of the books you’ve checked out, but I can look up the book. So you can check it out again.”
Books McCoy: “Oh, well I don’t remember the title.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Oh…um…okay. How about the author?”
Books McCoy: “No, I don’t know the author.”
Cap’n Charisma: “So you don’t know the title or the author? Do you know anything about the book?”
Books McCoy: “Yes…”
Cap’n Charisma: “Okay cool…what do you got?!”
Books McCoy: “It was blue or maybe green. Definitely blue or green.”

Anyone who has been a frequent reader here at “Blank Stares and Blank Pages” is well aware that library patrons have this odd affinity for book colors over actual book information.

I know I’ve blogged about this type of situation a time or two before and I think everyone who has ever worked a circulation desk has had to politely explain that books aren’t cataloged by cover color at least a half-a-dozen times in their career.

Cap’n Charisma: “Okay, we don’t actually catalog books by color. So do you know any searchable information about the book?”
Books McCoy: “I know I checked it out seventeen months ago and I enjoyed the first chapter.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Riiiiiiiight. Like I said, we don’t have a list of titles you bor…”
Books McCoy: *Cutting Me Off* “This is ridiculous. I don’t care if the government knows what I’m reading. Can’t you just keep a list of my titles?”
Cap’n Charisma: “No, sir. It’s an all or nothing thing.”
Books McCoy: “Such bullshit. Politics play into my library books. Government is keeping me from checking out books.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Actually, the only thing keeping you from the book is the lack of pertinent information. If you could remember the title or author, we can get you the book.”
Books McCoy: “So it’s my fault?”

UGH!! What an awful question. Obviously I can’t tell him that it is, in fact, his own damn fault he can’t remember anything—aside from one or two possible cover colors—about a book he supposedly really, really liked.

As such, I proceeded like a professional.

I tazered him.

Okay, no…I didn’t tazer him, but how cool would that have made the story?! Angry library patron gets a tazer to the throat. Awesome.

Anyway…

Cap’n Charisma: “No, sir, it’s no one’s fault.”
Books McCoy: “Really?! I think it’s your fault.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Sir, there’s nothing I can do. We don’t have a magical hidden database with your borrowing record and I can’t look up books by color. Period.”

There was one of those fun awkward periods of silence where he was obviously trying to determine whether or not he wanted to get irate or just accept that there wasn’t anything we could do for him.

Books McCoy: “You know, I really don’t like it when people say no to me.”
Cap’n Charisma: “I’m not saying no, I’m saying we can’t. There isn’t anything I can do if you don’t know the title or author.”
Books McCoy: “Don’t you think that’s bad service?”
Cap’n Charisma: “What’s bad service? That I can’t magically decipher what book you checked out a year and a half ago without any information. How is that bad service?”
Books McCoy: “I’m sure Harvard could figure it out.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Even if Harvard did keep backlogs of checkouts, they wouldn’t have our records to check it with, so no Harvard couldn’t figure it out.”
Books McCoy: “Oh, well they don't need your records, becase I didn’t check it out here…”
Cap’n Charisma: “Wait…didn’t check it out from here, like the Engineering Library or from MIT?!”
Books McCoy: “From MIT.”

As one can assume, I was doing my best to resist pummeling this dude to a bloody pulp with a copy of “Climate Change and Agriculture.” When he let me know exactly how big of a pain he really was…

Books McCoy: “The Boston Public Library and Boston University couldn’t tell me what the book was either. I figured a technical school like this could get it done, but if you can’t I’m sure Harvard can.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Where did you borrow the book from?”
Books McCoy: “I borrowed it from the town library where I used to live, in California.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Yeah….no one out here is going to be able to look that book up for you.”
Books McCoy: “This is horrible service!! That tiny little branch library could do it, how come none of you can?!”

He then stomped off, mumbling under his breath about how superior small-town California was to the east coast.

People like this make my brain hurt and my soul sad.

Saturdays are Special: Part One

2010-03-13T16:25:00.000-05:00

This isn’t a re-run folks, I promise.

Today when I came in to open the library there were a number of people lurking in the lobby—as is all too often the case—and they kept yanking on the door and knocking despite the big ole sign that says we don’t open until one’o’clock.

Anyway, so I finally meander upstairs to open the doors a little before one and it’s like 12:50 or so and I’ve got nothing else left to do before we open, so I go ahead and kick open the front door to let the small battalion of library-lovin’ peeps come on in.

They respond in the way that is seemingly only natural, by stampeding over me and passed me. Apparently, since they’ve been waiting for so long—for no good reason—to get into the library, waiting another six seconds for me to get out of the way would just be too damn long.

Anyway, I know you’ve heard these stories a million times, but I promise you this isn’t a re-run and here’s why…

Despite the fact that I’d opened the library ten minutes early, there’s some crotchety old dude who doesn’t think that’s good enough.

Cap’n Cranky-Pants: “Why’d you make us wait so long?”
Cap’n Charisma: “Huh?”
Cap’n Cranky-Pants: “In the lobby. You left us out there for like an hour.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Riiiiiight, but we don’t open until 1pm. In fact, we’re even open a little early right now. It was your choice to camp out in the lobby.”
Cap’n Cranky-Pants: “No, it was your decision to leave us out there…”

As often the case, at this point in the conversation, I took a minute to let it all soak in—and contemplate whether or not his body would into the trash can in the men’s room—and then proceeded.

Cap’n Charisma: “Sir, the place doesn’t open until it’s slated to open. If you chose to wait around for us to open, that’s your prerogative. You wouldn’t react like this outside of a grocery store or a restaurant would you?”

He then took a few second for quiet contemplation of his own.

I hoped this meant he was realizing the error in his logic and that I’d actually reduced his self-inflicted wait time by opening the doors a few minutes early. Perhaps he might even apologize to me.

Instead I got this…

Cap’n Cranky-Pants: “Yes. I would complain. I don’t like when things aren’t open when I want them to be open. It’s just bad customer service. Everything should be 24/7.”

Rather than tell him that he was a freakin’ nut-job with an obvious attachment to overwhelming narcissism, I simply sighed and walked back to the desk.

He walked over to the computer and promptly logged onto Facebook and—to keep up appearances every time I look his way—the MIT Libraries’ homepage.

Every ten minutes or so for the first hour or so he’d not quite so kindly tell me how slow the computers were or that he thought someone sneezing inside the dome was making it hard to concentrate.

He left about an hour ago saying he was going to go to McDonald’s where they—and I quote—“Know How Customer Service Is Done!!”

Some days I really hate people.

Shout-Outs: Burgerman

2010-03-11T00:20:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I could be giving this dude a shout-out simply because he dresses like a burger, eats tons of burgers, and has adopted Burgerman as his moniker.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure this means I’ve got to go back to the drawing board in terms of names for my first-born. That fact notwithstanding, this guy is pretty bad-ass.

Burgerman (aka: Sam Novey) is a 22-year-old dude with two pretty kick-ass goals.

Atop that list of goals is to run the Boston Marathon wearing the sexy burger suit you see to the right.

Second on his list of goals is to raise $100,000 for Citizens Schools.

Citizen Schools is a nonprofit organization that brings in community members, businesses, and college students to teach middle schoolers real life and job skills.

Burgerman’s lofty $100,000 goal would help expand the program into an additional twenty classrooms.

I’m not one for telling people where to toss their money, but if you’re going to sponsor anyone in the Boston Marathon this year—and odds are you’re at least going to get asked to do so—why not this guy?!

I mean seriously, how cool would it be to tell people you sponsored the gigantic burger dude?!

At least you know he’d be easy to spot when he comes truckin’ through Natick and Newton or when he comes rumblin’ by Fenway and on toward Boylston.

If you need any more incentive, how’s about this:

Yeah, that’s right…he’s got his own Rocky-themed montage video to get y’all fired up about his exploits.

Plus, if that doesn’t have you hankerin’ for a trip to b.good for a big ole cheeseburger, well then golly, I don’t know what will.

Burgerman, this shout-out’s for you…

PS: If I could borrow that suit sometime, that’d be swell.

Lindsay Lohan Sucks at Life

2010-03-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

Remember Mean Girls?

Remember when Lindsay Lohan was super hot?

I do, vaguely anyway.

I’ve got to be honest that fleeting memory is fading deeper and deeper into the dark recesses of my mind. Soon it’ll be in the unreachable wasteland that houses algebra equations, old phone numbers, and Savage Garden lyrics.

Remember Savage Garden? Exactly.

Anyway, as I’m sure all y’all read somewhere today, Lindsay Lohan is suing E*Trade for $100 million.

Why is she suing them you ask?! Well obviously she’s got a good reason. Let’s go to the unflappable New York Post to find out what that reason might be…

Lindsay Lohan is suing the financial company E-Trade, insisting that a boyfriend-stealing, "milkaholic" baby in its latest commercial -- who happens to be named Lindsay -- was modeled after her. And she wants $100 million for her pain and suffering

Now when I said she had a “good reason” for suing, obviously I meant “bat-shit crazy rationale” that could only be conjured up in the mind of some sort of strung-out former teen starlet…

For anyone who hasn’t seen the “controversial” commercial, here it is in all its Lohan-bashing glory:

Ah yes, clearly I could see how Lindsay Lohan would be offended by that one. You know with the babies and the stocks and whatnot. She was once a baby once and I’m sure she had money once. I could see how that warrants her a $100 million payday for pain and suffering.

Heck, maybe she’ll even invest with E*Trade to diversify her portfolio.

I’m sure she won’t just blow it all on heroin and whiskey or anything foolish like that.

Making this completely baseless lawsuit seem all the more delusional is this quote from Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia who claimed that Lohan has single-name recognition, just like—get this—Madonna or Oprah.

“Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E*Trade is using that knowledge to profit,” Ovadia said. “They used the name Lindsay … This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”

Ah yes, because when I hear the name Lindsay…in any context, no matter how completely asinine, I obviously think of Ms. Lohan. It’s instantaneous and unavoidable.

Puh-leeze…

In the words of today’s youth...“Bitch, you be trippin’…”

When I hear Lindsay, my first thought always goes to the lovely and talented Ms. Lindsey Quick (that’s Lindsey with an “e”), not to Lohan.

If you were to walk up to me and say that a crazy coked-out redhead had just plowed her BMW through the side of an Arby’s…well then sure…at that point Lindsay Lohan might be my go-to, but she’s certainly not the end-all, be-all of Lindsays (or Lindseys) in my book.

Honestly, I don’t get what the big deal is…implying that she drinks too much milk is probably the nicest thing anyone has said about Lohan in years. She should be relishing in the first positive press she’s gotten since before the release of the cinematic abortion that was Herbie: Fully Loaded.

Man…Lindsay Lohan sucks at life.

Zooey Strikes Again

2010-03-09T17:45:00.003-05:00

Anyone who has swung by BSBP a time or two is well aware of my crush on a certain gal by the name of Zooey.

For those not in the know, I’m referring the one and only, Zooey Deschanel.

Zooey has received heaps of praise and/or quasi-stalker attention from me over the course of the past year or so and today she gets a little more.

Today I was introduced to the debut music video for “In the Sun.” (MegaProps to Margaret for the heads up on this one!!)

You see, Zooey isn’t just an adorable actress. She’s also a singer and a pretty nifty one at that. She’s in a band with a pretty chill dude by the name of M. Ward.

Collectively they’re known as She & Him.

The duo released their first album, simply titled Volume One, two years ago in March of 2008.

The album had some pretty kickin’ tunes including: “Sentimental Heart,” “This is Not a Test,” and the infectious (in a good way, not like gonorrhea) “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”

Zooey would soon prove that her talents aren’t limited to simply acting and singing, however, with the release of a music video tie-in for the release of the totally bad-ass flick 500 Days of Summer.

In the aforementioned video, Zooey proved that dancing was also solidly engrained in her repertoire of things that make her oh-so-very crushworthy.

Where is all of this going you ask, my Faithful Readers? Well let me tell you.

In the new video for “In the Sun” (off of She and Him’s second album Volume Two) Zooey combines all of the previously mentioned special skills with yet another spectacular ability that is sure to please her adoring fans…hula hooping!!

That’s right, ladies and gents…Zooey appears to be an accomplished hula hooper in addition to her bevy of other talents.

Best of luck not falling in love with her:

My Quick Oscars Recap

2010-03-09T01:30:00.000-05:00

Hey y’all, I meant for this to be much longer and more in-depth, but it turns out that I really don’t care about the Oscars enough to make that happen.

I did, however, watch the entire show—Grace is OBSESSED—so I’ve got a pretty solid handle on what did and didn’t go down from the second ABC went live until the last award was handed out and they faded to black.

So without any further ado, here is my quick recap of Sunday night’s event.

Kathy Ireland

Kathy Ireland is a freakin’ alien. Perhaps she’s even a really anorexic and bleached version of one of those things from Avatar, I’m not entirely sure.

All I know is that sure-as-hell ain’t the same chick I had a major crush on through the majority of my formative years.

Anyone who has ever seen Necessary Roughness knows what I’m talking about.

George Clooney

This dude is absolutely untouchable.

I’m pretty sure that Clooney is the Hollywood-equivalent of Jebus as this point, because this dude is adored no matter what he does.

He shows up in dire need of a haircut, he gets praised. He looks surely all evening, he gets praised. He acts like he’d rather be shaking up with his flavor-of-the-month girlfriend than sitting in the audience, he gets praised.

The dude is absolutely untouchable.

Jack Nicholson

He shows up when he wants to.

Deal with it.

Gabourey Sidibe

Gabourey Sidibe is done in Hollywood.

It may sound awful, but let’s be honest here folks, the Precious star is just a new version of Jennifer Hudson.

Remember when her career was set to take off after an Oscar win? Can anyone tell me what she’s done since then?!

The big difference here is that Gabourey Sidibe didn’t even take home the Oscar. We all know how Hollywood works and I just can’t imagine her fitting in another starring role anytime soon.

Call me whatever you want, but it’s just the facts folks. Hollywood sucks.

Sandra Bullock

I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her.

I’m pretty sure the entire world is in love with her.

…and that’s cool, because we all should be.

Ben Stiller

I’m not entirely sure what the whole idea was behind the whole Avatar get-up, thing.

It was kinda funny.

It was also kinda annoying.

It was definitely far too lengthy.

In the end, I’m just not a big Stiller fan.

I loved Zoolander and Dodgeball will always hold a special place deep in my heart, but overall, I think he’s kind of a tool who landed a chick light-years out of his league…’tis unrelated, but he should hear it as often as possible.

Interpretive Dance

I don’t know who thought it’d be a wise idea to have a dance troop come on and do interpretive dance to represent each of the best picture nominees, but as I was watching it (read: for the three minutes I could stand it before I used the opportunity to get another beer and hit up the bathroom) I could think one thing and one thing only:

W.T.F.

John Hughes

It was a pretty big deal to give Hughes such a major tribute.

I just don’t get why—after years of avoiding singling out individuals for memoriam-type tributes—they decide to go with one for Hughes.

I mean, I get that Hughes was, like, the director of the ‘80s…but come on…we’ve seen the deaths of many far greater contributors to Hollywood receive drastically less praise in recent years.

I guess I just found it a little weird to give one dude—albeit a bad-ass dude—so much prime time space, especially when you consider that peeps like Farrah Fawcett, Henry Gibson, and/or the unforgettable Bea Arthur were all somehow left out of the overall “In Memoriam” slideshow all together.

Making it all-the-more perplexing is why/how Judd Nelson, looking like some sort of wino off the streets was even allowed within the same zip code as the Kodak Theatre on Oscar night.

Molly Ringwald just seemed nervous as all hell. Granted, she hasn’t been in front of a real camera in like twenty years, so I could see how that’d happen.

Avatar

I haven’t seen it.

In fact, I can safely say that I have no doubt I’ll go my entire life having never seen it.

I said the same thing about the Lord of the Rings movies, the Harry Potter movies, and all these vampire movies and I meant it.

James Cameron is a pretentious d-bag and I’m like ten thousand kinds of happy he got beat by his ex. Sure, sure…she got all frozen and panicky and went into repeat mode about the military, but whatevs…she kicked the Titanic dude’s ass and that’s all I need to be happy.

Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

This whole Kanye West/Taylor Swift-like encounter just confused the crap outta me.

Williams had just hit the podium to give his thank yous and whatnot for Best Documentary Short (“Music by Prudence”) when suddenly some chick bumrushes the stage and takes over the microphone.

A little Googling would later reveal it was the producer of his movie, Elinor Burkett who had hijacked his speech.

The entire time I was waiting for her to say that his documentary short was good…but Beyonce has the best documentary short of all-time. Alas, that never took place.

At the same time, I was waiting for Williams to brain her to death with his Oscar. Despite the thought obviously crossing his mind—take a look at a replay and check that dude’s eyes—it never came to be either.

Rumor has it these two cats had gone through some serious differences on the set as well.

Nothing like a little Hollywood drama on Oscar night, huh?!

…and that, my Faithful Readers, is my quick Oscars recap!

Our Bathroom Sucks

2010-03-09T00:10:00.001-05:00

I really hate our bathroom.

I know that may seem a bit—um—“extreme” to say that you hate a bathroom, but yeah…I totally freakin’ hate our bathroom.

Partially because it may or may not be the source of the ominous beeping that refuses to go away and/or partially because everyone can hear you do your business.

You see the pooper is right by the door. The door leads directly into the living room. The living room is where 91% of our social gatherings take place.

It doesn’t matter if you’re going onesies or twosies or even simply washing your hands, everyone can hear it.

And not only can they hear it, but they can hear it in full-on, surround sound because of the echo. You see it’s a teeny-tiny bathroom with walls covered in tile.

As such, even a yawn echoes in there like it’s one of those secret tunnels at Niagara Falls. You can practically hear everything that goes in there miles and miles away.

Additionally, the door is cut high enough that one could conceivably—and by conceivably, I mean this has totally happened—slip an iPhone or another similarly slim photo-taking device under the door.

That’s some awkward stuff right there.

If that weren’t enough, our sink sucks.

I absolutely hate our bathroom sink.

It’s too shallow. Anytime you want—you know—water pressure you end up getting soaked. Everything around the sink gets soaked. It’s awful.

The only way to avoid the shallow-splash effect is to turn on the water in a tiny trickle that essentially serves no purpose.

Sometimes I punch my sink.

Oh, the aforementioned sink of doom also has two temperatures. There is “arctic freeze” and “molten lava.” That’s it. There is no middle ground.

The water is either freezing or it’s hot enough to melt the flesh right off the bone.

It’s just simply fan-f’n-tastic!!

One of my favorite bloggers, Andrew Miller over at the oft-mentioned “The Miller Times” has referenced his disgust with his bathroom as well.

With that in mind, I can only assume that just about everyone hates their bathroom for one reason or another.

Lemme hear it, my Faithful Readers…why do you hate your bathroom?!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #034 & #035

2010-03-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

I warned y’all early on in the Cheeseburger Chronicles that I’d probably end up eating more than my fair share of awful burgers over the course of the year.

One of the places I spotlighted with that reference is Wendy’s. More specifically, the ghetto Wendy’s that resides oh-so-close to my apartment in Central Square. Somehow, I’ve only gobbled down three burgers there thus far. Not bad nearly 70 days into the new(ish) year, right?!

Anyway…I broke down on Sunday and had some more “Shame Broiled” burgers at Wendy’s.

As is all-too-often the case, I hadn’t eaten all day.

I’d woken up quasi-late and then wasted most of my morning on coffee and the interwebs before meandering off—into what was either upstate New York or southeastern Canada—for a performance by the one and only TPN and the Metropolitan Wind Symphony.

Upon arriving back in Central Square I realized that I was pretty much famished.

I’d sorta come to this conclusion on the subway when—whilst stuck for 45+ minutes—I was sizing up each and every person on the train to determine who would make the best meal if we were down there any longer (read: another 16 minutes) and I were forced to go cannibal.

Anyway, when I popped out of the subway what stood before me?! Well it was none other than the ghetto Wendy’s…the rest, is history.

Cheeseburgers #034 and #035

What: Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers (no tomato)

When: March 7, 2010

Where: Wendy’s in Central Square

How (was it): Oddly enough, they were pretty good.

I ordered some of the new(ish) spicy chicken nuggets as a backup plan, but the burgers were actually pretty good.

Maybe it’s because it was a very, very, very slow Sunday afternoon and they were legitimately only making things as they were ordered (thus the 10 minute wait) and/or I was just so damned hungry I’d have thought anything— short of those f’n sliders—tasted pretty good at that point.

No matter what the reason, they were good burgers. I didn’t even get that weird quasi-pukey feeling I usually get about an hour after eating at Wendy’s. So that’s a huge plus.

…perhaps I’m setting the bar too low?!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #033

2010-03-08T21:41:00.001-05:00

Last Friday a bunch of my peeps from work all got together at our local watering hole—“The Muddy”—for some much needed end of the week brews.

After a few hours of drinking frosty beers, devouring Doritos, and posing for photographs with an ill-begotten ping-pong trophy we all decided it was time to get our hands on some substantial food.

As one might expect, I suggested we all meander up the road to Four Burgers. Much to my surprise, everyone was all about it and away we went for a delicious burger adventure.

Cheeseburger #033

What: Cheeseburger

When: March 5, 2010

Where: Four Burgers

How (was it): F-ing bad ass!!

As always, Four Burgers made one of the finest burgers I’ve had in a long time.

I’ve been on a bad run of piss-poor burgers lately so this was a refreshing change of pace and left me super happy in the tum-tum.

Additionally, everyone else seemed to enjoy their burgers as well, which made me super happy. I’ve been ranting and raving about Four Burgers for so long that one bad burger out of the bunch would have killed all of my burger-related street cred and lord knows I can’t afford to be losing anymore street cred.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #032

2010-03-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

Obviously, I’m playing catch-up today with my Cheeseburger Chronicles posts.

I usually try to get ‘em up as quickly as possible, but I’ve regretfully fallen way behind on my blogging.

As such, all y’all get an onslaught of burger-related posts.

Um…enjoy?!

Cheeseburger #032

What: Cheeseburger

When: March 3, 2010

Where: My Kitchen

How (was it): Not so good.

Rather than just buy ground beef and make the patties myself, I bought some of the pre-made patties from the deli. They were on sale and cost roughly the same as buying a pound of loose burger, so I figured what the hell and bought ‘em.

Bad move.

The pre-made patty was very, very dense and super fatty.

As such, it cooked very unevenly. The outside was well-done while the middle was still raw. Not rare, mind you, but raw. Like uncooked and gross.

The only real way to remedy it at that point was to slit the burger so the insides would cook a lil faster, which they did, but the outside continued to get all charcoaled up.

In the end, despite melting a delicious piece of provolone and eloquently seasoning the burger ahead of time, it was still an overcooked hockey puck by the time I got around to consuming it.

At least it was better than my previous burger experience. Little victories, right?!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #020-#031

2010-03-08T19:56:00.000-05:00

It’s been awhile since I updated the Cheeseburger Chronicles, but fear not Faithful Readers, I’m still filling my face with plenty of fatty, potentially-carcinogenic red meat and melted cheese product.

In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I went on a slider binge. The results, were not pretty.

Cheeseburgers #020-#031

What: Itty-Bitty Cheeseburgers

When: February 22, 2010

Where: My Kitchen

How (was it): Awful. Abso-f’n-lutely awful.

I went out of my way to try and class these bad-boys up a little up. You see here is what they looked like initially, and here they are right out of the package. Gross, right?!

Well here’s what the first one looked like if you followed all of the “cooking directions” on the package (read: nuke ‘em until they sizzle).

The meat tasted like dog meat and/or every cafeteria burger I’ve ever eaten. The cheese had essentially evaporated and the bun was this weird, chewy mess that made me wanna to puke a little.

As such, I took things into my own hands.

First I separated the meat and buns to prepare them on their own. I put the buns in the oven so they’d crisp up instead of turning into a chewy, Play-Do-like mess.

I took the “burgers” and seasoned ‘em up with various spices and sauces in hopes of killing off that awful dog meat flavor.

I even added more sliced cheese so that it wouldn’t just disappear into nothingness.

The final product was quite pretty and looked like perfectly presentably—and potentially edible sliders—that you’d find anywhere else in the world.

Unfortunately, when it came down to the taste test, they still tasted like awful dog meat.

Although the buns weren’t nearly as chewy and they had lots more cheese.

So that’s something?!

It’s Dang-Near Hammer Time!

2010-03-08T18:57:00.000-05:00

Our house is beeping.

It’s been beeping for roughly two days and I’m like 90% sure that I’m going to lose my mind.

When Grace and I got up on Sunday there was this mysterious beeping noise that we couldn’t locate.

One second it sounds like it’s in the kitchen and then it sounds like it’s in the bathroom.

Once you think you’ve located it, suddenly it sounds like it is back in the previous room. Heck, sometimes it sounds like it’s coming from in the ceiling or the other side of the wall.

I’m pretty sure that we’re in some sort of modernized-version of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” with the intention being to make or both of us go absolutely bat-shit crazy.

We’ve checked every appliance, alarm, remote, clock, phone, etc in the house that makes any sort of beeping noise and it’s none of them.

Roughly half a dozen times I’ve contemplated grabbing my hammer and tearing into the wall in search of the incessant beep from hell, but thus far I’ve refrained.

If this carries on for another couple of days, however, I cannot guarantee the safety of my walls.

Sure, sure…logic would say that we should just call our landlords and report it, but we’ve called them like four times in the past few months for new weather-stripping on our door, a new smoke detector, to remedy some loud banging pipes, and restore the heat after they went a little too far the other way when fixing the pipes.

As such, neither of us feels overly inclined to give them a jingle to “make the beeping stop.”

The beep happens roughly once every 30 seconds or so and it’s just one solid beep and then silence.

Sweet, blissful, taunting silence.

You think it’s over and the beeping is finally done. Every time it feels like it’s been more than 30 seconds and the beeping has finally ended.

…and then it beeps.

I give it another 24 hours before madness takes over its hammer time, all up in my walls.

The Great Coffee Dilemma

2010-02-27T16:40:00.000-05:00

I hate coffee.

Like seriously, I really hate it.

It tastes awful. It almost always burns my mouth. It smells like it’s going to be awesome, just to lure you in, and then it tastes like baby souls and shame.

That having been said, I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to the hot, black devil.

You see, my Faithful Readers—despite my disdain for coffee—I’ve still got this itch that I’ve gotta scratch known as caffeine addiction.

As has been well-documented here at “Blank Stares and Blank Pages,” I’ve got some sleeping issues. As such, I’m often in dire need of caffeine to—well—function during the day.

Obviously this leads to a vicious cycle. A cycle which has been pointed out to me many-a-time.

The conversation typically goes like this:

Your Hero: “Man…I’m so freakin’ tired today.”
Random Passerby: “How come, my exquisitely-dressed friend?”
Your Hero: “Well, Random Passerby, I didn’t sleep at all last night.”
Random Passerby: “You didn’t sleep at all last night, yet your still so vibrant, friendly, and you smell like a rugged woodsman—in a good way of course.”
Your Hero: “…but of course.”
Random Passerby: “Do you suppose it’s because you had eleven Red Bulls, six Mountain Dews and a hand-full of No Doze yesterday?”
Your Hero: “That’s poppycock!!”
Random Passerby: “Have you tried going without caffeine?!”
Your Hero: “Yes…yes I have.”
Random Passerby: “I like your beard.”
Your Hero: “I know, everyone does.”
Random Passerby: “Anyway…you were saying.”
Your Hero: “Yes, I’ve tried to go caffeine free before and I still can’t sleep, but then I can’t function during the day either. So I’m pretty much worthless all-around the clock.”
Random Passerby: “Well, gee…that sucks. At least you’re awesome…”
Your Hero: “True ‘dat…”

That right there is pretty much how my conversations always go when people inquire about my caffeine consumption.

Lately, however, I’ve been rollin’ without energy drinks and soda as part of MIT’s annual (and super bad-ass) GetFit challenge. Essentially the getfit@MIT challenge is a three-month fitness challenge.

Peeps split up into groups and are expected to meet weekly fitness goals. It’s an awesome program that is designed to help people shed some of the winter weight they’ve packed on and most likely to keep a large chunk of the workforce from keeling over at any given time.

The MIT Libraries enter a team (or two) every year because, well, we’re freakin’ awesome and that’s just how we roll.

One of my goals for this year’s GetFit was to try and cut down on energy drinks and sodas. Granted, this was more for the fiscal gains rather than the health gains, but whatevs…it still plays well in the spirit of the challenge.

I figure that in an average week, I spend upwards of $40 on energy drinks and sodas. On a big week (read: when I don’t really sleep at all) it can be closer to $65 or worse.

Most energy drinks run a dude somewhere between $3 and $5 a piece anymore and it’s not entirely out of line for me to swing into 7-11 before work and snag $15-$20 worth of beverages, often times I’ll be lucky to stretch that supply out over more than two days.

As such, I’ve given myself a serious limit during GetFit.

I’m allowed a grand total of ten sodas and five energy drinks.

That’s it.

I’ve already used up three of the sodas.

I wasted one on accident without even thinking. I was at Sbarro’s getting a slice of the “zza” (as the kids call it) and I’d ordered some sort of combo. The dude slid me a fountain soda of Mt. Dew and without even thinking, I had half of it gone before I realized what I’d done.

The second came from the magical Coke machine at MIT. Obviously a dude can’t turn down a magic Coke, so I guzzled that one down.

The third came the other day when I just absolutely was craving a Coke with my hot dogs and made it happen.

I had my first energy drink today; which is why I’m typing about a million miles a minute and why I’m assuming this entire post doesn’t really flow well.

After nearly a month without energy drinks—and trying to supplement my caffeine necessities with the black death—this energy drink pretty much feels like the greatest thing in the world.

I feel both energetic and powerful.

In fact, here’s my status update from Facebook (where you can become a fan of BSBP) that came roughly 17 seconds after my first sip:

“First energy drink in nearly a month. So. F-ing. Awesome. I feel like Zeus must have felt after a line of blow and a Pulp Fiction-esque dance marathon with Uma Thurman. Now how to use this feeling of euphoria and power?! Ah yes, sitting at the circulation desk...perfect!!”

Yeah, ‘twas exactly that awesome.

On the bright side I’ve been incredibly productive, so that’s something.

Anywhere, where the hell was I going with this?!?!?!

Ah yes, coffee.

I’m addicted to the stuff. I had my first taste of it about three weeks ago. It was awful, but it was also caffeinated.

Since then I’ve been chugging the stuff, essentially by the pot. On any given day I’m drinking anywhere from one to three pots of coffee. Not cups, but pots.

Sure, sure most of my cups of coffee at a solid 50/50 mix of coffee and creamer, but I’m still chugging that crap like nobody’s business.

Given the drastically more euphoric feeling of energy I get from energy drinks, I’ve got assume that I’ll probably switch back when GetFit is all said and done, but financially I’ve spent—at most—a whopping total of $20 on coffee stuff in three weeks. That’s like one bad day of energy drink and soda consumption.

It’s hard to argue with that kind of math.

Granted it’s also hard to argue with the fact that I need two pots of coffee to simply function and just one energy drink to feel like I could run through a brick wall and shoot lightning bolts from my eyeballs.

Honestly, if Kimbo Slice were to walk in here and challenge me to a fight right now I’d go all jungle cat on his ass and beat him to a bloody pulp!!

…or at least go down swinging.

If I were simply drinking coffee today and Kimbo Slice walked in here, I’d still be so out of it that I probably wouldn’t even recognize him and he’d totally get the drop on me.

You see, my Faithful Readers, it’s going to be a tough choice when all of this ends.

Do I go the fiscal route and stick with the disgusting mess that is coffee or do I go the tasty, drastically more expensive route of energy drinks.

Feel free to weigh in with comments; Jebus knows that I can’t make an important decision of this magnitude by my lonesome.

My Newest Superpower and/or My Dumb Luck

2010-02-27T15:59:00.000-05:00

My Faithful Readers, I don’t want to alarm you, but I might have superpowers.

Sort of.

Well, maybe not at all. It’s far more likely that I am:

a) really lucky

b) the beneficiary of a malfunctioning machine

Either way, I feel pretty bad-ass about the whole thing.

There’s a Coke machine at MIT that hooks me up with a free can roughly 33% of the time.

Call me crazy, but that’s a pretty solid percentage.

That fact notwithstanding, I don’t do anything to abuse this glorious gift from the Coke gods.

You see, I used to walk by this machine a lot more often when I lived in Southie and took the subway to and from work every day. I’d say only once a week or so would I press my luck and try for the mystical free Coke.

Since moving to Cambridge, I’ve only encountered this machine a handful of times and I’ve been a little more willing to press my luck (and the button) every time I saunter by the machine.

My first Coke came as a total shock to me. I was walking by the machine on my way to the subway one night after work and as I passed a bank of vending machines, I just started randomly pressing buttons, why I don’t know, and suddenly one push produced a loud clanging noise and then a beautiful red can suddenly appeared.

It took a minute to register, but then I did a happy dance and popped the top on my free Coke.

This happened, at random, roughly four more times.

Then it stopped. I went months without getting a free soda.

We moved to Cambridge and I never thought of the machine again.

Then, the other day whilst searching for an elusive Taco Truck (blog entry forthcoming) I sauntered by the machine and gave it a push. Nothing happened, but I figured I’d try my luck again the next time I ventured that way in search of the aforementioned ninja-like Taco Truck.

My next trip came a week later and *BAM* that machine Coked me up something fierce.

As one might expect, I gave the machine a hug and went on my merry way.

…but you can bet your bottom dollar, I’ll be headed for that machine the next time I’m on that side of campus.

Peed a Little

2010-02-22T21:22:00.001-05:00

I’m a big ole fan of comics on the interwebs and one of my faves is XKCD.

I’m sure all y’all have stumbled across an XKCD comic at one time or another, but for anyone who is completely uninitiated here’s the rundown straight from the horse’s mouth:

“I'm just this guy, you know? I'm a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. As of June 2007 I live in Massachusetts. In my spare time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat parties I do the same thing, but the other way around.”

Basically he’s a super nerd who writes comics about super nerdy things that are also all-kinds of hilarious.

All-kinds, I say!!

Sure, sure….XKCD has the occasional post that references “contradictory axioms,” “squared time resistance,” and/or “Lord of the Rings” and I generally have no idea what’s going on, but the rest of the time it’s bad-to-the-ass.

In fact, here’s one from a few days ago that made me laugh so hard that I’m pretty sure I tinkled in my pants, but just a lil bit. You know, just like a few milliliters or something, nothing that wouldn’t be deemed social acceptable.

Here it be:

Try to tell me that doesn’t sound like an awesome way to spend an afternoon?!

I figure this same logic could be applied to all sorts of “uniform” that can be purchased with ease.

With that thought in mind, if anyone would like to buy me a policeman’s uniform so that I can go ahead and live my dream as a real life version of John McClane in Die Hard, that’d be swell.

Like, you know, really freakin’ swell…

Blog Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy…

2010-02-22T20:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, blog pimpin’ is actually pretty easy, but it’s not something I’d normally go out of my way to do.

You see, my Faithful Readers, I’m not normally one to use my blog as a vehicle for shameless promotion—except for self-promotion, that is—but today I can’t pass up the opportunity to rock some shameless promotion for someone else.

Andrew Miller—a fellow Minnesota State graduate, wordsmith, and an all-around nifty fella—is implementing one of the most original forms of bribery to push readership and fanship right now and I cannot help but support the cause.

Andrew’s blog, “The Miller Times,” has been featured in my blogroll (that’d be that list over to the right) for a while now, but he’s recently stumbled upon a renewed sense of bloggitude and has been churning out plenty’o’good reads.

As such, I think he deserves a little more traffic and some free marketing for his current campaign.

The campaign’s intent is to nearly double the number of fans on his blog’s Facebook page, a noble cause if ever there was one and one that I’ll support any day of the week.

Here’s the gist of his marketing campaign, straight from Mr. Miller’s fingertips:

“I'm announcing a new contest today, a Tell-a-Thon, if you will. If I can hit 400 fans this week, I'm going to randomly mail out autographed boxes of Triscuits to 10 somewhat lucky fans. (Yeah, Triscuits!) Do me a favor, and suggest this page to your friends. If nothing else, do it for the delicious crackers.”

If you’ve been to the “Blank Stares and Blank Pages” Facebook page and/or the “Cheap Seat Chronicles” (that’s my sports blog for the uninformed) page at Facebook, you’ve no doubt seen that both pages support “The Miller Times.”

If you’re a fan of my blogs on Facebook: a) thanks a ton and b) why not go ahead and get your fan on for another bad-ass blog.

It’s like the old saying goes: the third time’s a charm, when it comes to blog fanship on Facebook.

Seriously, a freakin’ charm!!

It’s like an unwritten rule. You’ll win the lottery or something, or at least you’ll seriously up your odds of snagging some free Triscuits…and who doesn’t love themselves some Triscuits?!

Carrot Top and Commies, that’s who.

So if you’re not Carrot Top or a Commie, head on over to Facebook and get your fan on for “The Miller Times.”

Cheeseburger Chronicles #019

2010-02-16T19:52:00.000-05:00

Oops! I did it again.

What do you expect? I purchased a pound and a half of hamburger and a whole bag of buns, why wouldn’t I make myself another burger for supper?

Tonight I mixed things up a little. I chopped up a bunch of onion and mixed in Tapatillo with the burger before making the patty. It gave it some real kick. Good stuff.

Cheeseburger #019

What: Cheeseburger

Where: My Kitchen

When: February 16, 2010

How (was it): It was hella good.

Like so good I’m contemplating making another one, but I can only assume that Grace would flip out about heart attacks and strokes and whatnot. Nobody wants that.

The onions on the outside got all crispy and crunchy; the ones on the inside were still all raw and powerful.

The Tapatillo gave it some real punch which was awesome and it all blended perfectly with the two slices of melty American cheese.

Honestly, if there’s a better cheese for a burger than American, I’ve yet to find it.

Anyone out there got a fave cheese other than good ole American?! Lemme hear it…

Cheeseburger Chronicles #018

2010-02-15T22:03:00.000-05:00

Some days you just need a burger.

Today was one of those days.

I was originally planning to go to Wendy’s, more for the chicken nuggets that I was also craving than anything else.

Luckily, just as I got to Wendy’s and saw it was surrounded its usual plethora of creepy-looking drunks and homeless people, I changed course and headed to the grocery store.

I bought a couple pounds of hamburger, some buns, and—because I couldn’t resist—a package of a dozen sliders.

I’ve decided to save the twelve sliders—and twelve new burgers for the countdown—for a later time and date; perhaps when I’ve got another long weekend, because microwaveable cheeseburgers haven’t exactly boded well for me in the past.

Anyway, on with today’s burger:

Cheeseburger #018

What: Cheeseburger

Where: My Kitchen

When: February 15, 2010

How (was it): It was pretty freakin’ good.

I took the meat and seasoned it with Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, some black pepper, a shake or two of garlic salt and a hearty dosage of Worcestershire sauce.

I fried it up in butter and then melted two fresh sliced pieces of creamy, melty American cheese on top of that bad boy.

As I prefer, it was cooked to a nice medium with a little bit of pretty pink in the middle and tons of juicy, deliciousness.

Great. F-ing. Burger.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #017

2010-02-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

So after my first experience with a LaVerdes cheeseburger, I decided I had to go back and give it another go’round.

After all, the first experience had been both good and bad, so logically I needed to try it again and see if it was more of the former or the latter.

So I sauntered into LaVerdes and should be behind the counter but the best guy on staff.

He takes my order and I watch as he seasons the patty on both sides, he cooks up extra bacon, he puts the mound of bacon on the burger and then melts the TWO slices of cheese on top of it to hold it all together.

I F-ing LOVE this dude. If I could tip at LaVerdes, he’d have totally earned it.

How was the burger you ask? Well, let’s dive right in:

Cheeseburger #017

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: LaVerdes

When: February 9, 2010

How (was it): This time around, the burger was bad-ass. Sure, sure it’s still a frozen patty cooked up on char-broiler, but the dude behind the counter negated all of that in the preparation.

The patty was very flavorful, the melty cheese was intertwined with the bacon. Plus, anytime someone hooks you up with extra bacon and cheese, it’s a good day.

The toppings were all fresh and delicious.

It was a hella good burger.

The only problem is that I’ve now developed a mental block where I’ll only order burgers—and probably any food—from LaVerdes if it’s “my guy” behind the counter.

McDonald's Embargo: One Year Later

2010-02-13T17:11:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all-ages…and most importantly, my Faithful Readers…I’ve done it!!

Today marks one full year since I last ate at McDonald’s.

*cue massive applause*

That’s right, the heavily-lauded “McDonald’s Embargo” was established 365 days ago, on February 13, 2009 after a fourth consecutive day dining beneath the glow of the Golden Arches.

Now I realize that the McDonald’s accomplishment is a little less bad-ass being that it started as I already rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of my (surprisingly still active) Burger King Embargo.

That fact notwithstanding, I find it pretty damn impressive given some of the obstacles I’ve encountered throughout this embargo.

The BK Embargo grew increasingly less difficult to maintain after we moved out of Southie and away from a Burger King.

McDonald’s is everywhere. More specifically, it’s right by my freakin’ apartment. In addition to the obvious proximity-factor is that I’ve had many, many Mickey-D’s-related temptations in the past year:

Grace the Temptress

In March, roughly a month and a half into the Embargo, Grace taunted me endlessly and went as far as to drag me into a McDonald’s. I held strong, but damn if it wasn’t the toughest test up that point.

Wedding Blues

In May, while serving as a groomsman at a buddy’s wedding, the only pre-wedding food option was McDonald’s. Having not eaten all day and knowing that an evening full of heavy imbibing was in the offing, I resisted. Once more I sat in a McDonald’s, surrounded by burgers and chicken nuggets and went hungry. I nearly cried.

Airport Adventures

In October, I was waiting at an airport—again after having not eaten—and the only option was McDonald’s. Despite my overwhelming hunger, I bypassed Mickey-D’s and survived on the granola bar the fine folks on the airplane tossed my way when we hit 30,000 feet.

The McRib Returns

It late 2009 and early 2010, the legendary McRib made a triumphant return to McDonald’s locations all-across the nation. The McRib is probably the most delectable (and elusive) piece of fast food on the planet. I would have tossed the Embargo out on its ass had I encountered one of these bad-boys. Luckily, the closest reported McRib sighting on the famed McRib Locator proved to be false and the Embargo lived to see another day.

There you have it folks.

It’s been a rough year, but I survived.

Unfortunately, much like the one-year anniversary of my Burger King Embargo, this all feels so anticlimactic.

Perhaps I should run out tomorrow and devour everything on the menu; partially as a way to celebrate and partially to show my love for burgers, after all it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

Or perhaps I’ll just continue the McDonald’s Embargo with no reward, because honestly, there really shouldn’t be a reward for “not eating crap food.”

Although, in a perfect world, the reward would be a ton of McDonald’s and Burger King served on a silver platter.

Yeah, that sounds nice.

A Moment with Grace

2010-02-11T23:04:00.000-05:00

Grace is a liar.

Grace is a dirty, filthy liar.

I came home from work tonight and my once honest and trustworthy significant other approached me and said:

Grace the Liar: “I made tacos if you want some. There’s meat on the stove and veggies on the counter.”

I rebuffed her offer, having eaten a late lunch.

She started putting things away and asked me to try the taco meat.

Grace the Liar: “Try the taco meat. It’s really good.”
The Duped Boyfriend: “Well I’m not real hungry.”
Grace the Liar: “Come on, the meat is real good.”

Being a good—and trusting—boyfriend, I obliged and made myself a taco. I scooped in a dollop of the meat she was so keen on, tossed on some cheese, onions, corn and hot sauce and devoured that taco.

I then proceeded to compliment Grace’s cooking skills.

This was followed by her breaking into a fit as maniacal laughter.

The Duped Boyfriend: “Whatcha laughing at?”
Grace the Liar: *More Maniacal Laughter*
The Duped Boyfriend: “What the hell, dude?!”
Grace the Liar: “You liked the taco, huh?!”
The Duped Boyfriend: “Yeah…why?!”
Grace the Liar: “…because that wasn’t meat!!”

This was followed by more maniacal laughter and her revealing that she’d fed me some weird vegetarian soy meat thingity thing under the guise of real meat.

You wanna know how it really tasted, my Faithful Readers?

It tasted like…deception.

Happy Birthday to Jennifer Aniston

2010-02-11T12:00:00.005-05:00

The lovely Ms. Jennifer Aniston turns 41-years-young today.

As y’all may or may not have picked up on by now, I’ve got a bit of a “thing” for Jennifer Aniston.

Although it is with a heavy heart that I must announce to the world that today begins Jennifer Aniston’s final three years on my “list.”

You see, Grace and I each have a “list” of celebrities that we’re allowed to hook up with. Upon hooking up with the celebrities on the list there shall be no repercussions from either of us.

Grace’s two are pretty solidly set at Johnny Depp and Matt Damon. I do believe Leonardo DiCaprio snuck in there at some point whilst filming a moving out this way, but nothing ever came of it.

My top gal has been Jennifer Aniston for—well—forever.

The second-place spot has been a veritable game of hot potato between the following ladies: Amy Adams, Zooey Deschanel, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Hayden Panettiere (the hottie cheerleader from Heroes) and—for one fleeting afternoon—Mandy Moore.

The number two spot for me changes largely depending on mood, weather, and/or whichever one is closest to the Boston-metro area.

The top-spot, however, remains unchanged.

Well, for another three years, that is...

You see, my Faithful Readers, my crush on Jennifer Aniston has existed since the very first episode of Friends.

I fell in love with that gal immediately and have yet to give up on my mad-crush. The thing is, as much as she still looks all-kinds of super hot, when she hits 44…it’s over.

The logic behind this, you ask?! Well it’s simple, my Mama become a Grandmama when she was 44-years-old. As such, I shall forever associate grandma, with the age of forty-four.

No matter how much I may pine for Jennifer Aniston there is absolutely no way I can imagine myself finally settling down with the former Ms. Rachel Green after she’s reached “grandma age” in my mind.

As such, this is a public heads up to the aforementioned Ms. Aniston. Your time is running out, lil’ lady…you better act fast!!

Random Fact #271

2010-02-10T07:41:00.000-05:00

Whenever the opportunity presents itself, I’ll use the kiddy urinal in public restrooms.

I do this because it always makes me feel like a freakin’ giant. I mean seriously, I lord over this tiny urinal that comes up to, like, my shins.

It’s like I’m 15 feet tall.

Normal adult-sized urinals come up to, like, my waist.

I feel roughly 6’3” at a regular urinal.

Now you know.

You’re welcome.

How F-ing Old Am I?!

2010-02-08T17:52:00.000-05:00

Did y’all ever have one of those days where something very small and innocuous sets you off?!

Well, I had one of those moments the other day when I was surfing around the interwebs for Taylor Swift videos.

Given that I’ve got no MTV or VH1—not that those channels actually play music videos anymore—or CMT, I can’t remember the last time I actually saw a music video.

That having been said, I figured it’d be kinda cool to see the official videos associated with the songs I’ve been listening to on repeat for the better part of two years.

My YouTube search for Taylor Swift went swimmingly until I found this little ditty here:

First and foremost, you gotta give the dude props. Seriously, is there a better way to win over a gal who is logically out of everyone’s league than by writing a song about how you’re obsessed with her?

I think not.

Chicks—especially famous ones—love it when dudes are obsessed with ‘em…women can’t resist that stuff.

Secondly, I find it pretty amusing that this dude is looking to make a name for himself by writing a debut song called and about “Taylor Swift.”

For those who haven’t followed Taylor’s career as closely as me and the rest of the internet’s unofficial Creepy Dude Coalition have, let me clue you in here. Taylor’s very first single was entitled “Tim McGraw” and the song pretty much put her on the map.

Thirdly, back off dude. She’s mine. I called dibs, like, forever ago. DIBS, man! Respect ‘em.

Fourthly, I followed up on this song a little, because I’m a nerd and clearly have far too much access to the internet and not enough to fill my free-time, and mostly because he claims to have first heard Taylor Swift when he was 13:

first time i heard her we were only 13
i remember where i was when she started to sing
now that were older i just wanna be seen
hangin out talkin bout the two of us

That last fact bothered me something fierce.

Upon further reading in interviews and whatnot this guy claims he “grew up” listening to Taylor Swift.

I’m pretty sure Taylor Swift has really only been around since I moved to Boston and that boggles my mind. I haven’t even lived here for four full years yet.

Yet in that time, people have grown-up on my top country music crush (sorry Ms. Underwood, you take a close second-place) and are already writing songs pining for her hand?!

How F-ing Old Am I?!

This Tyler Dean punk got me feeling like I’m 160 years old knowing that the once-upon-a-time underage songbird I crush over is now old enough to have songs written about her…

Ugh.

F-ing kids and their music.

Websites: Can They Be TOO Awesome?!

2010-02-07T00:04:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week a co-worker—who has asked to remain both anonymous and Canadian—introduced me to what is probably the single greatest website of this, or any, generation.

The website is simply titled: “Selleck Waterfall Sandwich” and lives up to the hype in every single way possible.

I know that in the past, every single time I’ve watched “Mr. Baseball” or an episode of "Friends" featuring the mustachioed-marvel, I’d think to myself…“what would that sumbitch look like with a sammitch and a waterfall?!”

Now the guessing game is over.

I know EXACTLY what that sumbitch would look like with a sammitch and a waterfall.”

Thank Jebus for the glory that is the interwebs…

PS: Don’t miss out on the official Selleck Waterfall Sandwich theme song!!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #016

2010-02-06T15:04:00.000-05:00

Saturday has seemingly become my unofficial “cheeseburger for lunch” day of the week.

For like the 88th week in a row—give or take, I’m not math whiz—I succumbed to temptation and got a burger before my Saturday afternoon shift at the library.

After my last experience as Fresco’s was less-than-stellar, I’ve been a little reluctant to meander back in for another go’round on the beef-train.

I did, however, notice that the fine folks at LaVerdes in the student center recently revamped their otherwise limited menu.

Much to my delight the new menu contains cheeseburgers.

Let’s be honest, it’s not like I even had a choice…

Cheeseburger #016

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: LaVerdes in the MIT Student Center

When: February 6, 2010

How (was it): I’ve got some seriously mixed feelings about this burger.

On one hand, it was actually pretty good. The bacon was awesome. The toppings were all fresh and reeking of awesomeness.

On the other hand, it was very meh. The burger itself was a frozen, overcooked patty of the hockey-puck persuasion. The cheese was barely melted—a HUGE pet peeve of mine—and the bun was a little, um, stale(ish).

Additionally, the burger wasn’t really, you know, warm.

It all tasted good, but it was all at room temperature. It reminded me a whole lot of eating a McDonald’s burger…(side-note: the one-year anniversary of the McDonald’s Embargo is just over a week away!!)…and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

I’d probably try the LaVerde’s burger again, perhaps during the week when the buns are a little more likely to be fresh and the dude make the burger is a little less likely to remind me of a serial killer.

A Moment with Grace

2010-02-04T17:36:00.001-05:00

Grace has a tendency to do this involuntary kick thing after she first falls asleep and occasionally throughout the night.

Needless to say, there have been many instances that resulted in my getting kneed in places that don’t mesh well with knees. Last night was one of those times, only last night was a little different.

Instead of the usual one and done with the knees, she hit me with a delayed-double shot, which was freakin’ awful.

The first came at like two in the morning. I was lying there and then BAM—knees to the pills and I let out a sad little whimper and rolled over for the sake of protection and so Grace wouldn’t wake up to see my sad, whiny little “I just got nailed in the stones” face.

Like ten minutes later, BAM—knees to the tailbone. I let out a yelp, like a tiny dog that was too ambitious underfoot and rolled over and said:

Cap’n Charisma: "Grace…what the hell, dude?!"

Grace replied in a string of mumbles, grumbles, and a few moderately audible words.

The official response sounding like this:

Grace: "mumble mumble mumble girls like the Holocaust and glitter pens mumble mumble mumble…"

She then rolled over and went right back to being blissfully unconscious whilst I sat on the other side of the bed in obvious pain and trying to decipher her mumblings.

This morning I asked her about it and she didn’t remember any of it, but when I told her what she said she gave a very Gracian response:

Grace: "…yeah, that sounds right. Girls do like the Holocaust and glitter pens."

Then she went right back to getting ready for the day as though it wasn’t weird at all.

She makes me nervous.

UPDATE: Per Grace's rather adamant request, I want to clarify that Grace does not, nor has she ever, supported Nazis and/or the Holocaust. Her reference was toward Holocaust literature. Apparently girls love themselves some good Holocaust literature.

Sad Realization of the Morning

2010-02-04T09:51:00.000-05:00

I was meandering into work this morning when I stumbled upon a group of nerdy scientist looking dudes.

These cats were discussing the need for some new machine or piece of equipment or kegerator or something. Here’s how the conversation went…

Nerdy Scientist #1: “Well a new machine or piece of equipment or kegerator will run us about $30,000…”
Nerdy Scientist #2: “Oh…well at that price maybe we should just go ahead and buy two of them, it would speed up our work.”
Nerdy Scientist #3: “We might as well get a third one, since they’re so cheap, to have around just in case something happens to the first two.”
Nerdy Scientist #2: “Ah yes, then we won’t lose any time waiting for a replacement.”

…as I sauntered passed these white coats, I couldn’t get around the fact that I make roughly $30,000 in an entire freakin’ year.

These dudes were about to drop that amount—roughly three times over—in a matter of like a two minute phone call.

*sigh*

I’ve really gotta win the lottery.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #015

2010-02-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

After eating the aforementioned “cheeseburger” at the Massachusetts Avenue Restaurant, I was able to quickly erase what is easily the worst-burger of the year thus far from my memory by sauntering into the Tavern in the Square.

A bunch of peeps from MIT were meeting up and the Tav was the destination of choice. I didn’t necessarily plan on getting a second cheeseburger that day, but once I got in there and took a cursory glance at the menu, it became apparent that I really had no other choice.

The burger is basically a cheeseburger with cheese and bacon shoved all-up-inside of it and then cooked (to perfection, mind you) with more cheese on top and then slathered in BBQ sauce.

Oh yeah…and this bad-boy came with a mountain of kick-ass waffle fries.

Tav on the Ave wins this round folks…

Cheeseburger #015

What: Smokehouse Stuffed Cheeseburger

Where: Tavern in the Square

When: February 1, 2010

How (was it): Look at that freakin’ burger…how could it not be awesome.

It looks that good and that’s just surface level, this bad-boy’s beauty lies below the surface.

It’s jam-packed with cheese and bacon. Come on. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?!

I submit that it does not!

The burger was awesome. It was full of flavor and cooked to perfection.

Additionally, it proved to be quite the conversation piece. I mean it certainly didn’t draw the intrigue that an order of fried pickles would have, but it was a pretty close second on the evening.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #014

2010-02-03T21:18:00.001-05:00

So I was going through the pain-in-the-ass process of doing my laundry on Monday and after tossing my clothes in to start the wash cycle, I had roughly 45 minutes to kill.

I was trying out a new laundromat and only really knew one restaurant close by, the awesome Plough and Stars, but I wasn’t really jonesin’ to drop $10+ on lunch.

Although—random side note—if you’re ever there you should TOTALLY get the Cuban Sammitch, ‘tis freakin’ awesome.

Anywho, the next closest option was the Massachusetts Avenue Restaurant.

Now, I should have been wary based on the name alone, but with nearly an hour to kill and some serious hunger brewin’ in my belly it seemed like a no-brainer.

The service was slow. The place was very, very dirty. The food was very—um—“lackluster”…yeah, that sounds way nicer than referring to it as “shitty-ass-shit.”

In what I can only assume will shock all of my Faithful Readers…I got a cheeseburger.

Cheeseburger #014

What: Cheeseburger [technically]

Where: Mass Ave Restaurant

When: February 1, 2010

How (was it): It was bad. Not just like, bland or boring or not good, but legitimately bad.

After asking me how I’d like it cooked [medium, always medium] I assumed I’d get a juicy burger. Instead, I got a well-done hockey puck that tasted like charcoal.

On the bright side it had a partially-melted Kraft single on top that peeled off with the bun when I went to douse it in ketchup to make the taste bearable.

On the more amusing side, if you notice the stick-shaped fries in the picture, those are “curly fries.”

Here’s pretty much how the conversation with, um, “Flo” went when my hockey puck arrived:

Cap’n Charisma: “Um…I don’t wanna be a bother, but I ordered curly fries.”
Flo: “Those are curly fries…”
Cap’n Charisma: “Riiiiiight, but they’re not…you know…curly.”
Flo: “No, curly is the flavor.”
Cap’n Charisma: “Come again…”
Flo: “Curly is the FLAVOR. They’re curly-flavored fries.”
Cap’n Charisma: “…but curly isn’t a flavor. It’s a shape.”

…and then she walked away.

I ate the awful burger and gave her my $5 a few minutes later and walked out, well aware that I had just had my first and last experience at the Massachusetts Avenue Restaurant.

Booooooooooo!!

Cheeseburger Chronicles #013

2010-02-03T20:57:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday I was one day removed from a full-on burger craving that had gone unsatisfied.

I’d come home from work last Tuesday night all stoked to go to Four Burgers and absolutely devour some dead cow, I just had to swing by my apartment and grab my camera to get a snapshot of the bounty I was about to receive.

When I got home I found Grace hanging out. She was supposed to be out with a friend, but the plans had been cancelled and she wanted to eat supper with me. Four Burgers would have to wait.

For those who don’t know, Grace eats about six burgers a year. To put that into perspective, I had six burgers down in the first nine days of 2010. Needless to say, burgers would not be on the agenda for a couple’s meal.

So we went and had some rockin’ food at the totally bad-ass All-Star Sandwich Bar in Inman Square, which was all good, but come lunch time the next day, it was burger or bust…

Cheeseburger #013

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: Four Burgers in Central Square

When: January 27, 2010

How (was it): As always, Four Burgers was freakin’ amazing.

The patty was big and juicy, the bacon was crispy and delicious, the toppings were bountiful and fresh.

It’s really hard to write about Four Burgers without feeling like I’m giving them free advertisement, but I don’t give a rat’s ass, because they’re THAT FREAKIN’ GOOD.

I’ve been to Four Burgers probably 15 times or better in the past year or so and the absolute worst burger I’ve had there would fall under the “good burger” category. I’ve never had a bad burger from those cats.

Oh yeah…the fries are awesome too.

Punxsutawney Phil Can Kiss My Ass

2010-02-02T17:07:00.000-05:00

Things I Love: The movie “Groundhog Day.” It is Bill Murray at his non-Ghostbusters-finest!!

Things I Hate: Punxsutawney Phil, the demon ground-rat who always seems to curse us with six more weeks of winter. What a tool.

I don’t know what Phil can’t just toss us a bone and say that he “doesn’t see his shadow.” I mean seriously, can he really enjoy winter that much that he wants to make us all suffer through more of this crap.

I get that Phil probably gets some kind of cheap high off of performing in front of crowds, and that’s cool, but why not give the crowd some good news for a change?!

If I were there when Phil popped out of his little hole in the ground and mumbled in “Groundhogese” (WTF is that by the way?!) that we were getting another month and a half of the cold, snowy mess…I’d probably kidnap that little SOB and go make myself some Punxsutawney Phil-burgers on the ole grill.

Mmmmmmmmmm…nothing like groundhog and a good slice of sharp cheddar, right?!

Stupid, winter loving furry-assed demon!!

Attack of the Internet Meme

2010-01-25T16:35:00.002-05:00

Boredom struck today and it struck hard.

I suppose that's what I get for waking up early on a Monday.

In my defense, I woke up with intentions of having a very productive day.

I was going to go do laundry, go to the gym, buy some groceries and do some blogging.

Well, when I pulled myself out of bed it was raining and blowing and overall just a crappy day, which is unfortunate, because it’s like 50+ degrees out there, but the rain and wind made it pretty much unbearable.

As such, I stayed inside and did some work-outish stuff. I did some pushups and situps and all that jazz.

I blogged a whole big bunch.

Then I was without stuff to do and hit a mini-wall in my blogging.

Thus, I resorted to a great time waster/boredom killer…an internet meme.

Today’s meme of choice is one that was introduced to me by the incomparable Ryan Gray months ago.

Here’s the gist:

Name: “FAKE BAND, FAKE ALBUM”

Here's my Fake Band, Fake Album (and the rules for making your own)

1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random - The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 - The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Visit http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ - The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to craft a cover, and post the result. And then ask someone else to play.

…and there you have it.

So without any further ado, here are some of the bands and albums I’ve created today (and one from last December).

Now I’m off to try and do something at least moderately productive with the remainder of my day...

Band Name: Rannstedt
Album Name: ...wanting what you have
Type of Music: I get the vibe that these kids are signing some sort of alternative rock. With the frozen lake view, they're clearly all sad about a break-up and/or impending break-up. Expect sad songs and top 40 hits galore.

Band Name: Galton Junction
Album Name: -the person you are
Type of Music: Everything about this album cover reeks of a pop group. I've got this odd feeling it'll be a very happy group of Miley Cyrus clones singing songs about how they can do anything they set their mind to and how they don't need a man to be happy.

Band Name: JustSystems
Album Name: (to lose everything else)
Type of Music: I envision a lot of angry, scream-filled rock here. I'm getting a very serious Nickelback vibe. Odds are you'll hate every song this cats put out, but they'll be all over the radio and odds are pretty good this guys will end up playing at halftime of the Super Bowl some day.

Band Name: interleaving
Album Name: mediocrity thrust upon them
Type of Music: Coldplay?! Yeah, Coldplay.

Band Name: 3Kingdoms
Album Name: we have been sick
Type of Music: The album cover gives off a very distinct country music vibe. The name of the album and the band, however, do not. I guess these kids could call in the "alternative rock" crowd. They're full of pent-up teen angst and you're gonna listen to it, dammit!

Band Name: Colorado Confidential
Album Name: for a happy tune
Type of Music: I don't know exactly what this fits. I could see a lot of genres pulling off this name and cover. In the end, I'll assume it's awesome and would probably infiltrate my iPod with little effort required.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #012

2010-01-25T13:20:00.000-05:00

As y’all may or may not have picked up on at this point, I’m a big proponent of Fresco’s.

Fresco’s is essentially just a little café on the corner here on MIT’s campus

Despite its unassuming presence, Fresco’s is pretty popular on campus and generally draws a pretty big crowd at breakfast and lunch.

The place also plays host to two of the nicest gals in the world. They are always smiling, always friendly, and have some sort of mystical chick power that makes the food taste better than it actually is—smiles are a powerful thing, you know!

Anyway, I wandered into Fresco’s for lunch before my Saturday shift, as is becoming my weekly tradition, and found that neither of the ladies was there. I didn’t think much of it and assumed the food and service would still rock, despite the large, rather creepy man behind the counter.

Additionally, I decided that I’d take this chance to try something different off of the menu.

Here’s how all that went…

Cheeseburger #012

What: Cheeseburger Sub

Where: Fresco’s…again.

When: January 23, 2010

How (was it): Meh.

Now that I’ve ordered one and learned “what” it is, I can safely say that I think the idea of a “cheeseburger sub” is a little, um, ridiculous.

Essentially it’s a double-cheeseburger, but you cut both patties in half and jam it all in a sub roll. That’s it.

Well, instead of the lovely gal who is usually working on Saturdays, I got what I’m pretty sure is her less-than-friendly husband who overcooked and underseasoned the burger.

It would have been bad enough as a single, hockey puck-like burger, but as a double cheeseburger jammed in a sub roll it was rough to chew my way through the entire thing.

Needless to say, in the future I’ll be going back to the good ole fashioned bacon cheeseburgers at Fresco’s.

A Moment with Grace

2010-01-25T13:07:00.000-05:00

Grace is an interesting gal.

That may be the largest understatement of all-time, but it works.

For the select few of y’all out there who have had the opportunity to live with Grace at some point, you’re probably acutely aware of her OCD-like qualities.

Living in Southie, I fondly recall many instances where Jackie and I would sit back and watch Grace quadruple-check all of the knobs on the oven before leaving the apartment.

In addition to the oven knobs—which she’ll check even if no one has used the oven in days—she’s adamant about the toaster (and all other kitchen appliances) being unplugged when not in use, and that the doors must be locked at pretty much all times.

When we lived with Mike and Alicia back in Mankato they never, EVER locked the doors. Granted, it was Mankato, Minnesota; potentially one of the safest places on the planet, but it drove Grace crazy!

Anyway, you’ve got the back-story. Grace and her lil OCDisms are pretty well-known amongst all former roomies.

As such, I found it particularly amusing when I got home the other day and she proudly proclaimed:

“I left the toaster plugged in all-day!! Like I left the house and it was still plugged in!!”

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her so happy and proud of herself.

It was terribly entertaining.

It also leaves me wondering what she’ll be like when she’s old and senile?!

Well, at least she’ll be good for blog-fodder for years to come…

Cheeseburger Chronicles #011

2010-01-25T12:14:00.000-05:00

So this one is a wee-bit delayed, but I’ve been busy and/or lazy.

Last, last Sunday Grace and I went for a walk and ended up in Harvard Square.

As I’m wont to do, I pushed for us to stop somewhere and get a bite to eat.

Luckily, Grace is just as big-a-fan of Charlie’s Kitchen as I am and we went in and got burgers whilst watching the first half of Brett Favre’s trouncing of the Dallas Cowboys.

Cheeseburgers. Brett Favre. Does it get better than that?!

Cheeseburger #011

What: Cheeseburger

Where: Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Square

When: January 17, 2010

How (was it): As is almost always the case with burgers at Charlie’s, it was pretty freakin’ good.

It helps that I was super hungry, which is why I was like halfway through my burger and fries before I even remembered to take the picture.

The burger had some good flavor to it and was juicy and delicious. I’ve heard from some people who have had many-a-dry, overcooked burger at Charlie’s, but they’ve always hooked me up with good, juicy patties, so I’ve got no complaints.

Good stuff and probably some of the most reasonably priced burgers in the city.

Fat Pants

2010-01-25T11:52:00.000-05:00

I got new jeans the other day.

I’ve been in dire, dire need of new jeans for a while now.

Most of my jeans are torn or very close to ripping.

And we’re not talking about ripping in the cool “check out the holes in that guy’s jeans” kinda way…but more in the “holy crap I can see that dude’s junk” kinda way.

Anyway, Grace has been pushing for me to get new jeans for some time as well.

Grace thinks I look like a “flag pole” in my jeans. Apparently my sad chicken legs and very baggy jeans don’t mix, especially on windy days.

I had the day off on Friday and went to the mall in hopes of finally purchasing “(500) Days of Summer” and a new Beefy Five-Layer Burrito from Taco Bell. Before I got around to purchasing either of my original targets, I noticed that Old Navy was having a monster sell.

As they’re wont to do, Old Navy was selling everything off at roughly 60-90% off the original price to clear out space for all of the spring/summer stuff that’s coming in. I browsed for a bit and ended up finding some t-shirts, a sweet-ass green hoodie, and these new jeans.

They were originally like $40 jeans or something and I got ‘em for like $8, it was pretty freakin’ sweet.

Well I wore ‘em into work on Saturday and my stalker—who was bringing me an undoubtedly ill-begotten sammitch—found it necessary to comment.

Stalker: “Ohhhhh are those jeans new?!”
Stalkee: “Yep. Just bought ‘em yesterday.”
Stalker: “They make you look so skinny…”
Stalkee: “Um…thanks.”
Stalker: “Ohhhhh yeah, very skinny.”

**Awkward Pause Whilst She Continues Staring at My Pants**

Stalkee: “…are you saying my other pants made me look fat?”
Stalker: “Ohhhhh yes.”

**A Second Awkward Pause and More Staring at My Pants**

Stalker: “You looked really fat.”
Stalkee: “Hmmmmm…”
Stalker: “Okaaaaaaay, enjoy your tuna fish.”

…and that’s pretty much how that went.

Is there a point to this post?! Probably not.

I just figure I’m better off if more people are aware of my stalker on the off-chance that I go missing. Odds are pretty good I’m chained to a radiator in her basement, being force-fed all-kinds of pilfered foods.

So again, if you go days without seeing or hearing from me, please alert the proper authorities.

Thank you.

Ready to Get My Vote On

2010-01-18T21:57:00.014-05:00

I’m a poor voter.

There’s a pretty significant election in Massachusetts tomorrow and—as is often the case—I’ve paid pretty much zero attention to it.

In fact, to be 100% honest, I didn’t even know there was an election until every commercial break for the past week and a half turned into a succession of back-to-back-to-back-to-back political advertisements.

As such, here is how I’d rank the competitors based entirely on what I’ve seen in the commercials.

Scott Brown – Republican

-The dude drives a pickup truck. I like pickups, so this is a huge bonus for him!

-He makes commercials in front of my old apartment in Southie and more specifically on the doorstep of McGoo’s, the finest pizza place in all the land.

-He had people like Curt Schilling and Doug Flutie showing up to back him at events.

-His daughter, Ayla, is not only an alumni of American Idol, but a hottie as well.

Martha Coakley – Democrat

-She talks funny. Seriously, it sounds like she’s doing her damndest to cover up a New England accent which seems downright ridiculous being that she’s campaigning, you know, in Massachusetts.

-She hangs out with people like Barack Obama, perhaps you’ve heard of him?!

-She hangs out on dark, shadowy streets at night. According to the context of the commercial she’s taking money from lobbyists or something. I don’t even know what the hell a lobbyist, so I’m just going to give her street cred for kicking it with shady dudes.

Joe Kennedy – Irrelevant

-Apparently, this dude is in the race. Granted, I haven’t seen any commercials pimping his candidacy and the only time he’s mentioned is when some news channel wants to make mention of the fact that he’s not related to THE Kennedys.

-Three minutes of less-than-strenuous YouTubing provided only one video. Basically it is the same quality that all y’all could put together if given half-an-hour and Apple’s iMovie software package.

Obviously, if I were basing my vote on commercials alone, Brown has my vote.

Granted, it turns out that there are some “issues” involved with each candidate too, not just commercials.

That having been said, this figures to be a pretty historic election.

If Brown wins, he’d give the Republicans the ability to block Obama’s initiatives with a 41st filibuster-sustaining GOP vote.

If Coakley wins, Obama should, in theory, have a guaranteed vote his way for the foreseeable future.

If Kennedy wins, well, all hell has probably frozen over.

So basically, one year removed from Obama’s inauguration, this special election could decide whether or not Obama’s hands are tied for the next three years based or if he’ll be given a real chance to make strides for change.

Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked to vote tomorrow.

I’ve already taken part in what was undoubtedly the most historic election in this country’s history and now I get to take part in what could be the biggest election during Obama’s reign as Commander and Chief.

I may not follow politics, but damned if they aren’t exciting.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #010

2010-01-16T16:14:00.000-05:00

Well folks, we’ve officially hit double-digits.

If I keep up my current pace—which has slowed slightly in the past week due to concerns from Grace that I’ll die before June—I’d finish the year having eaten a total of roughly 228 cheeseburgers.

Perhaps Grace’s fears aren’t completely unfounded.

Cheeseburger #010

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: Fresco’s

When: January 16, 2010

How (was it): This Fresco’s burger was way better than the one I had last week, which is saying something, because last week’s was pretty solid.

I asked the lovely gal behind the counter to go a little crazy with some salt and pepper while the burger was cooking and it really gave things a little more flavor and kick.

Additionally, the aforementioned lovely gal started dressing the bun incorrectly—they usually just do veggies on one bun—and ended up putting them on the bottom bun before realizing the mistake. I told her just to throw some more mayo, pickles (mmmmmmm) and lettuce on the top bun and it’d be fine.

It was AMAZING. Having the veggies distributed on both sides of the burger is bad-ass. It makes for a great crunch the whole way through and really balances out the flavors. I may never load up just one half of a burger again.

Ten Random Thoughts Whilst Watching TV on a Friday Night

2010-01-15T23:58:00.000-05:00

01) I’m not really paying any attention to the whole Conan vs Leno thing and I can’t remember the last time I actually watched a late night show, but either way I’m going with Conan O’Brien.

Us pale folks gotta stick together.

02) Based on the trailer for "Edge of Darkness" it appears as though the only movies Mel Gibson stars in anymore involve something killing/kidnapping a family member and him searching for revenge.

03) Kristen Wiig is undoubtedly the hottest cast-member in the history of Saturday Night Live. I’m a huge fan of gals who rock the sexy and funny combination and she pulls it off better than anyone in the history of SNL.

Second-place is the best any other cast-member can hope for, my apologies to Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Silverman.

04) If Morgan Freeman ain’t narrating it. I ain’t watchin’ it. Period.

05) I don’t remember the last time I actually took a bath. Anyone out there remember baths? They’re like showers, except that you just sorta sit in a pool of your filth.

06) Iowa Lakes Community College was just featured on a national Duracell commercial. The windmill thingity-mer-bobbers they showed can be seen from my parents’ place.

I am going to assume that the lovely Miss Tricia Morfitt was in charge of hooking ILCC up with a major marketing campaign. Go Northwest Iowa.

07) I’m intrigued by Ellen Page.

She’s cute. She’s funny. She’s a pretty solid actress.

So why the Cisco commercials?!

Additionally, why the completely pointless, incredibly unfunny Cisco commercials?!

08) That really annoying guy who promises he can get you free money, you know the one, the dude with the question mark clothes (no, not The Riddler).

Well, he looks a whole-big-lot like one of my co-workers. So much so that I may demand my to-remain-unnamed coworker dress up in a question mark suit of his own for Halloween…or staff meetings.

You know, whenevs, there is certainly no wrong time for a suit of that caliber.

09) I am—at bare minimum—like 87% sure that Sandra Bullock doesn’t actually age. I find this both impressive and somewhat scary. I am worried she’s been eating babies for years to maintain her youthful hottieness.

10) If there was a way to punch commercials in the stones, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

A Moment with Grace

2010-01-15T16:44:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things about Grace is that she always finds it necessary to clarify things that don’t require clarification, often times resulting in an unintentional insult of sorts.

For Example:

Grace: “G’morning, Graves…your hair looks great today.”
Me: “Thanks…”
Grace: “Not that it doesn’t always look good, but it looks really good today; definitely better than yesterday.”

You see how that devolved there folks?!

A simple comment that required no further clarification turns into an odd little shot at my hair the previous day.

Today’s moment with Grace is another fine example of such activity.

Grace and I were on the bus the other day, on our way back from an altogether uninspiring lunch at Flat Patties.

The bus, as is the unfortunate norm, was full of crazies, smelly people and annoying Harvard kids and there was some limited space.

Grace settled into a seat by a creepy dude with some dry-cleaning and I stood near here, swinging to and fro from the handle thingys like a monkey.

As the bus started to fill up and it became evident I may have to give up my enviable perch Grace says to me:

“If you move back, I’ll just follow you.”

To which I reply:

“Okay, cool…”

She then stopped and got silent for a second and then looked back up at me to clarify:

“…to the back of the bus. Not Iowa. I will NOT move back to Iowa.”

She then resumed gleefully staring out the window.

She’s one of a kind folks.

One of a kind, indeed.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #008 & #009

2010-01-13T23:47:00.005-05:00

Anyone who has been paying attention to my ass-rambling on Twitter in the past week or so is well aware that I’ve had a vicious hankering for some Flat Patties.

You may recall that Flat Patties was one of my stops during my meat-binge following my quasi-successful “No Meat Week” back in April/May of last year.

Well, it was pretty solid then and was very…um…unsolid the second time I went.

Despite the night and day experiences, I’ve been reading many an article about the Boston burger scene lately and Flat Patties keeps popping up. That fact, coupled with outstanding ratings on Yelp, convinced me to give it yet another go’round.

Without any further ado, the results of my third go’round with Flat Patties…

Cheeseburger #008

What: Cheeseburger

Where: Flat Patties, Harvard Square

When: January 13, 2010

How (was it): Meh. After all the buildup in my head and after reading a gajillion awesome reviews of the place in the past week, I’d gotten really stoked to give Flat Patties another go and it failed me once again.

The burger was good, but very, very boring. It’s just soggy leaf lettuce, a hunk of tomato and a tiny dollop of special sauce. The sauce itself was good, but there’s just not enough of it.

The burger itself was very boring. It needs seasoning or something to kick it up a little bit. More special sauce would have been ideal. I ended up covering the burger in pickles and relish to try and compensate for the blandness of it all.

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Cheeseburger #009

What: Cheeseburger

Where: Flat Patties, Harvard Square

When: January 13, 2010

How (was it): See previous.

Cheeseburger Chronicles #007

2010-01-11T18:51:00.000-05:00

Unlike my previous burger at Fresco’s, this one was totally planned.

I woke up today, totally jonesin’ for a burger and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’d be ingesting some dead cow before the day was over.

Grace and I also made plans to hit up a movie, so when she suggested going out for lunch pre-movie, it all came to fruition better than I could have ever expected.

For anyone interested, we saw “Up in the Air” and it was freakin’ awesome.

Now onto what you’re really interested in, my burger experience…

Cheeseburger #007

What: Bacon Cheeseburger

Where: The Friendly Toast in Kendall Square

When: January 11, 2010

How (was it): This was a pretty solid burger. It was juicy and cooked perfectly, but it lacked a little pizzazz. Much like the aforementioned Fresco’s, Friendly Toast could stand to put a little more effort into seasoning the burger.

The toppings were a bit lackluster as well, just lettuce and tomato. I like a burger to have plenty of pickles and onion as well.

The best part of this entire endeavor, however, was the sweet potato fries. These things were freakin’ amazing. I thought I’d found the best sweet potato fries of all time, roughly a month ago at Zoe’s. Friendly Toast blew those out of the water and rocked my face clean off.

Diary of a Demented Snow Shoveler

2010-01-09T15:51:00.000-05:00

Most of the time, I hate emails forwards.

Like hate them with a fiery passion. The whole “read this rambling 5,000 word document full of crappy .gif images and then forward to 438 people or you’ll get herpes in a car accident with Paris Hilton” thing was never really up my alley so to speak.

This one, however—after spending the majority of my Christmas break shoveling snow—makes me laugh something fierce.

The email doesn’t really come with any “back story” to set up the tale, but we’ll just say that the basic premise is that these folks move to what I’m going to refer to as Iowa from somewhere with drastically more mild winters, let say, oh I don’t know, Boston. Yeah, that’ll work.

…and ACTION.

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December 8
It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the best idea I’ve ever had!

Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life!

December 12
The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment! My neighbor tells me not to worry- we’ll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we’ll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I’ll never want to see snow again. I don’t think that’s possible. Bob is such a nice man, I’m glad he’s our neighbor.

December 14
Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn’t realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I’ll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn’t huff and puff so much.

December 15
Twenty inches forecast. Sold my Bentley and bought a 4×4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife’s car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that’s silly. We aren’t in Alaska , after all.

December 16
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

December 17
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should’ve bought a wood stove, but won’t admit it to her. God I hate it when she’s right. I can’t believe I’m freezing to death in my own living room.

December 20
Electricity is back on, but had another 14 inches of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling! Took all day. The damn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they’re too busy playing hockey. I think they’re lying.

Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they’re out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they’re lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he’s lying.

December 22
Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it’s so cold, it probably won’t melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter, but he says he’s too busy. I think the asshole is lying.

December 23
Only 2 inches of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!! Why didn’t she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she’s lying.

December 24
Six inches – Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snow plow, I’ll drag him through the snow by his balls and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I’ve just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the damn snowplow.

December 25
Merry F'n Christmas! Twenty more inches of the damn slop tonight. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow!

Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she’s a fricking idiot. If I have to watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ one more time, I’m going to stuff her into the microwave.

December 26
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea.

She’s really getting on my nerves.

December 27
Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze; plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him, he charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.

December 28
Warmed up to above -20. Still snowed in. The BITCH is driving me crazy!!!

December 29
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That’s the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?

December 30
Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver, and now he is suing me for a million dollars, not only for the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his ass. The wife went home to her mother.

Nine more inches predicted.

December 31
I set fire to what’s left of the house. No more shoveling.

January 8
Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?