Spinners Are Bad Enough

I really hope these don't catch on....

Taco Hell

Sherwin, Susie, and I have been craving Taco Bell since Susie brought it up in conversation while we were all at Sugar Lounge (hotsweatycrampedcrowdedyuppieswaterydrinksnevergothere) on Saturday. Finally last night we fulfilled our craving.

We drove our bounty home with the windows rolled down to avoid ruining the new car smell with Taco Smell.

Since Susie and Sherwin we both vegetarianing, I alone got to savor the meaty goodness of Taco Bell. I was quite impressed with the new Crunchwrap Supreme(tm), and managed to reverse-engineer the technology behind it:

• One flour tortilla.


• Meaty cheesy toppings.


• One flat corn tortilla, presumably the same one used in the so-called Mexican pizza, used to provide structure. The corn tortilla is placed in the center of the flour tortilla; we'll see why in a moment.


• Other usual suspect toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, etc.)


• Now here's the brilliant part: the flour tortilla is now folded up around the corn tortilla, giving the CWS its unique and brillant shape. It is now kind of like a ninja-throwing-star/Taco-Bell-food-ingredient-conveying disk, and one that's fun to eat to boot!

Note that it's been 2-3 years since I've had any fast food, let alone Taco Bell. So just take my word for it that my stomach felt kind of gross for a while, and my bowels were not thanking me for it. Ah yes, I'll stop there.

And yes, I probably did spell "tortilla" as "torilla" at some point. Please forgive me.

Need For Speed

For the few of you that don't already know, yes, I bought, er... leased, a new Nissan 350Z. Color: Silverstone. HP: 287. MPG: 18.

Why the hell did I do this? I'm such a practical guy, right? For one thing, I think it's the coolest-looking car on the planet. (I don't care what Gabe says about the door handles; they are awesome.) For another, well, it seemed like the only time in my life when I could get away with driving a badass car and have it not seem like a midlife crisis.

R.I.P. Tony Almeida 2001-2006

Yeeeeehaw!

I have been a bit remiss with my blog posting lately. I apologize. I will attempt to quickly catch you up on all that's been happening.

A couple weeks ago, I went on my first ever business trip... to Austin, TX. I never thought I would spend any length of time in Texas. And you know what? It wasn't half bad. Of course, whenever I mention Austin in conversation, the other party is always compelled to express that Austin is much better than other parts of Texas. And you know what? It seems quite likely. It's kind of like when you tell someone a family member has been sent to Afghanistan for military duty; the response is that well, at least it's not Iraq. Only completely different. Nevermind.

Had some great barbecue there, stayed at a nice hotel, ordered room service, got to use the company credit card, drove a huge rental car (Mercury Montego: very comfortable, drives like a pig [How do pigs drive?]). Was very impressed with 6th street: there's a 5 or 6 block stretch of downtown Austin near the university in which practically every establishment is a bar. There's (crappy) live music everywhere, and you can't walk a block without getting offered several $1 Long Islands or beers by the teeming hordes of bouncers. Most impressive. Which is not to say fun.

That's about all I have to say about Austin. I was only there for about 48 hours and it didn't seem that bad. Oh, I do have one piece of advice: don't expect the IHOPs there to be anywhere better than IHOPs elsewhere. Not that you would... but, you know, just in case. ;)

It's Raining Beer!

Pretty funny story today. Reminds me of the beer commercial where it starts raining and all these guys think that beer is falling from the sky.

Yeah, not really very exciting. Sorry.

Happy Birthday, Susie!

OMGWTFBBQ

Uh... Crash? Are you serious? Did you actually watch the movie before you voted? Or did you just say, "Hey, I'm tired of movies about gay issues. I think it's time to recognize a totally hackneyed, predictable film about a bunch of annoying L.A.-ites that shows that you can't judge a book by its cover. Brilliant."

Ugh. Crash was the only one of the Best Picture nominees that I actually saw. And I wouldn't have voted for it.

Then again, there have been some pretty awful Best Picture winners. Can you say, "Titanic"?