Another One Bites the Dust?

As we are rapidly approaching Steve and Maura's wedding, the time had come for that ever-present male ritual of the bachelor party. For this one, the plan was to go down to Foxwoods (which actually ended up changing to going down to Mohegan Sun, which is ok because they are really close to each other). And once we got down there, it was very clearly time for dinner, because by the time we got to Mohegan Sun, my entire day's food consumption was 1 plum and 4 beers. You can tell this is the beginning of an epic night.

But you don't get to read about it, because if you aren't part of the bachelor party, then the events of the bachelor party technically never happened. Or if you're Steve's cousin, Jimmy, who may have blacked out in which case he really doesn't know what happened.

We had dinner at Margaritaville because that's where Steve wanted to go, and he was in charge of the decision making. Remembering my last trip to a Margaritaville (which was in Las Vegas), I knew NOT to get the Cheeseburger in Paradise because I would only be disappointed. Instead, I decided on the Barbecue Bacon Cheeseburger. Actually, a lot of us decided on that one. It was easily the most popular meal choice.

And it was delightful! That was some good BBQ sauce, and there was quite a bit of bacon. And, probably most importantly, it was actually medium rare. Perfectly cooked, I would say. And they also have good fries.

After dinner, I lost some money playing various games, and then sat in the racebook yelling at horses and drinking for free. I would say that it was a good night.

-Jon

Another New Creation

Apparently the yearly custom of celebrating Melissa's and my birthday concurrently has evolved into an annual tradition. This year saw the return of fantastic weather, the switching of a keg of Summer Ale for bottles, and at least 2 more dogs than last year. It also involved me not getting absurdly drunk, so I guess I really am a year older and more mature. That's kind of lame.

The big thing for this year is the creation of a new burger! I haven't come up with a name yet, but hopefully I will by the end of the post. This burger started off as one of those 40-in-a-box frozen travesties, but it evolved into so much more. First I put a slice of American cheese on it, because what's a burger without cheese? It's an embarrassment, that's what. Then I found 2 other kinds of cheese! The American cheese was quickly joined by the politically neutral Swiss cheese and the offensively greasy provolone cheese for a ménage à trois of cheesy goodness. For most people, that would be enough. However, I had been drinking a little, which means that I wasn't done yet.

There was a lovely little tray of taco dip (if you read last year's post, you may have seen that I enjoy taco dip a little bit), so I put some of that on top of the cheese orgy. Great decision. This burger was delightful. Next time you are at a barbecue with taco dip, put some on your burger. You will be glad you did it.

Perhaps the burger will be called the Triple Cheese Fiesta Burger. Something along those lines anyways.

-Jon

Get Right Back on the Horse

You'd think that getting sick would stop me from grabbing another burger for lunch immediately the next day. You'd be wrong. I think this falls into the category of "if at first you don't succeed, try again." I needed to have a good burger this weekend to undo the mental effects of that Red Robin debacle.

We were going to Boston for Matt's bachelor party, so I took the responsibility for picking a place since no one else knew too many places in the city. We were staying right by the Garden, so I figured people would enjoy The Fours, the place that Kathryn and I went to on Easter. It's got good food and lots of different beers, so you can't really go wrong. I decided to get a little silly, so I got a Guinness and made my own burger. Not literally, because it would be weird if they just let random people into the kitchen, but in the sense that I picked my own toppings instead of getting a predetermined meal. I went with bacon, American cheese and avocado in addition to the standard lettuce and tomato. They had a lot more options, including chili (which I almost did just for the experience), but I decided not to overdo it. After all, we were going to be doing a lot of beer drinking in the coming hours, so I needed the stomach space.

That burger was delightful! It was cooked right, the avocado went nicely with the bacon, and there wasn't too much lettuce. The fries were also good, and we got the buffalo chicken nachos which were awesome again. All around it was a good time.

After that, things started to get silly.

We went from The Fours to Boston Beer Works right down the street to kick off our pub crawl. That's a nice little place. I tried something called "Tell-Tale Lager," which was good. I'd drink it again. They had the Uruguay-Germany match on TV, so people were getting all into that. We decided to participate as well, and just yelled really loudly every time anyone else yelled. It was a good time.

Next up was this tiny place called the Corner Cafe in the Italian district. It was about the size of my kitchen. Steve struggled with the claw machine (which ended up eating his coins without offering him a chance at a crappy prize), we lost on all our scratch tickets, and then we played Keno for a while. Not the real Keno, but the fake one that Dave played in college. It's a lot more fun, and involves a lot more yelling at the Keno TV. It turns out that yesterday was Steve G's lucky day, because his number 6 came up in probably 10 games in a row. We used that to our advantage to win $100 playing actual Keno, and walked out of there with beer money.

On the way back, we grabbed a 24-pack for the hotel room, which would quickly become a 23-pack due to gravity. Steve decided he was lazy, so he carried the beers for a little and then dumped them off on Dave. He did not warn Dave that the handle on the box was not exactly intact. Shortly after that, the handle ripped off completely and the beers went everywhere on the sidewalk. Sadly, one of them exploded on impact, leaving us with one less beer and one more story.

We ran mostly through that box o' beer and got pretty for the night out. After walking the wrong way to Park St (since me saying several times "we need to be on the other side of this building and you guys are going the wrong way" wasn't enough to get them to turn around), we ended up deciding to hit Faneuil Hall for a meal at Dick's Last Resort. That was an experience. Steve had been there before, and possible a few of the other guys, but it was new to me. The main thing there is that the employees treat all the customers like crap, and also make embarrassing hats for them. They also serve 40 oz Bud Lights, so that's a win. My ribs were cooked to rib perfection (the first bone came out clean with almost no effort, which is what is supposed to happen), and the buffalo wings were spicy enough without being weird tasting. I'd go back.

We finished off the night at Ned Devine's, which may be the longest bar/club I've ever seen. You could just keep walking and walking. It was also incredibly crowded, which made it a good thing that we had been drinking all day. I can't handle those kind of places without being properly lubricated.

All in all, it was a good night. And it probably was an indicator of future wackiness that will happen at the wedding.

-Jon

That Was a Rainy Day

A lot of things happened today, so hopefully I don't forget any of them.

I woke up at a ridiculously early time (for a normal person), so I figured I might as well go for a little run. Good thing I did, because other than that run and a quick trip to the gym, I spent the rest of the day eating in a terribly unhealthy fashion. Actually, I ate a little fruit, but I am not sure that it counteracts everything else I did. Sorry, stomach.

I started off the day by going over to Kathryn's cousin's graduation party. This party had the interesting characteristic of being both BYOB (understandable due to it being a high school graduation party) and BYOC(hair). That 2nd one is just strange. Luckily for me, Kathryn knows all about chair acquisition, so I took care of the B and she took care of the C. Even the rain wasn't able to ruin the party due to the presence of a nice tent. And also of cheeseburgers, which I know is the only reason you're here.

I decided to try something new and exciting, so I took my burger and topped it with the BBQ baked beans. I also filled my plate up with them. Those were some quality beans! The BBQ Baked Bean Burger may have to may an appearance on the menu at Burger Bros, because it was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that it made up for the fact that the burger was pretty much as well done as it could be while still being called a burger. I should have asked for the recipe to add to our bean & chili menu. Besides the burger and beans, I also had a plate of fruit, some sweet & sour kielbasa, two of those little brownies with the white chocolate chips you can get a Big Y in the brownie platter, and 3 Magic Hat Wackos. Can you handle that?

After that, I may or may not have gone with Kathryn over to the mall to buy candles. My memory is fuzzy on this topic.

And what day is complete with only one party? Not this one, because it was then time to head over to Steve's surprise 28th party, where the shenanigans and beer were plentiful. And also the burgers. And hot dogs. And taco dip. And Doritos. And a handful of Summer Ales. Ok, so there was a lot of food here too. I ate another burger along with about infinity tortilla chips. My goal was to eat all of the taco dip, but other people were eating it too and I had to settle for as much as possible. I will have to make myself a plate of it some day and just go to town.

Both burgers were ok by burger standards, but there was nothing spectacular. Well, nothing other than my baked bean idea for the future. That is a good plan.

However, there were lots of hilarious stories to relate. Here they are, in no particular order.

• Dave threw at least 18 empty beer bottles into the pool. If you don't know why that's funny, then you probably don't know that most beer bottles will get mostly filled with water, then turn vertical and bob around the pool.
• I found golf clubs and attempted to chip a ping-pong ball into a beer cup. So close, and yet so far. I guess I should have stuck to golf.
• Jen had a bucket of small rubber duckies. No, I don't know why. Nicole and I took a bunch of them and hid them around her house. I think she still hasn't found the last 4.
• After Jen recovered the majority of the ducks, someone took the entire bucket of them and put them all over her car. Ok, it was me. I may refer to her car as the Duckmobile for the foreseeable future.
• Geoff "iced" Steve. This is the first time I've seen this in person.

So it turns out that even though we are all 28 or turning 28, we still haven't grown up. Well, most of us haven't. Growing up is highly overrated.

-Jon

3 Burgers in 1 Day

Burgers and snack food were pretty much the entire menu for today. I suspect that it will turn out that this is not a decision that a smart person would make.

I am not really the kind of person who has a plan for his life. For instance, I have already resigned my current job without a new job lined up. Most people would not consider this to be a good plan, but for me, plans are pretty much what I make even though I generally have no intention of actually following through on them. I am a much bigger fan of just waking up and going with whatever seems to be happening. So when I heard a commercial for a summer kick-off party with beer-tasting and free hamburgers that was happening at a giant package store, that seemed like a good thing to do. And it was! All the of-age brothers (plus Tony) attended this rocking event with high levels of beer-based success.

I tried a whole bunch of new beers for the grand total of a $5 donation, and you can read about that here. I also got to eat a hamburger for free. It was still overpriced.

I understand that when you are a radio station sponsoring an event, you are probably not overly concerned with the quality of the food; you just need to get the jokers attending the event some food and get them out of line. On the other hand, all you need to improve a burger is a little bit of seasonings. Salt, pepper, garlic powder, grilling seasonings, onion powder, granulated onion. . . the possibilities are pretty much only limited by your imagination. Unfortunately, the people in charge of this event decided to choose the last option, which was none of the above. And they didn't even put cheese on the burger! And I had to wait a while for the burger, which wasn't even good! That was a very disappointing burger, which slightly marred the rest of a pretty good event.

After that, I headed over to Michelle and Steven's for their 3-hour cookout. It actually turned out that the 3 hours was not accurate, but it's much funnier if you think of it as the world's shortest cookout. Steven was running the grill, and was obviously much more capable than the folks taking care of things over at Table & Vine. Not only did these burgers actually have cheese on them, there were tomatoes and red onions for additional burger awesomeness. Anyone who knows anything (or reads this blog) knows that red onions are a great way to make a burger better. I ended up eating 2 of these burgers, a bunch of Doritos, a few pieces of barbecued chicken, some fruit and way too many cookies. Nice work, Steven.

-Jon

Just Pretend This Went Up Sunday

Oops, I forgot. The second run of cookouts at Jen & Melissa's was on Sunday in preparation for the actual birthday party coming up. There were a lot of similarities between this cookout and the last one. Most of the same people, lots of Summer Ale, nice weather, etc. There was one major difference, which was that this time we didn't put any of the bottles in the pool after we finished. I did try to throw them all on the lawn though (with help from Bill, Joe and James), because that is just fun.

We had burgers again, even though Melissa tried to ruin them by not letting Nicky put bleu cheese inside them because she claimed that some people might not like bleu cheese. Now this in and of itself is pretty much unacceptable, but I think it would be possible to maybe put the cheese inside some of the burgers and not others. Apparently her one-third* sized woman brain could not come up with this on her own. Unfortunately, the burgers were already formed by the time I had arrived and I could not correct this grievous error.

The burgers were probably good, but it's been several days since I ate it and I can't remember for sure. It's also possible that I ate 2 of them, but who can say. I am fairly certain that there was not bacon, but even that remains a mystery. I guess from now on I should take care of these things in a more timely fashion.

-Jon

*This is from Anchorman before all you women-folk fly off the handle.

Here Comes a New Challenger!!

All Street Fighter II references aside, James has stepped up to the burger challenge (which has apparently started, although I am not sure when) and definitely ended up in the top 2. I think it may be between James' burgers and Nicky's stuffed bleu cheese burgers at this point. Although, Nicky says she's got something else planned for the future. I am excited.

I am not exactly sure what the name of the night was, but it was something along the lines of the Best Burger Challenge, or close enough anyways. I am not sure of all the ingredients in these burgers, but we confirmed quite a few: onions, rosemary, garlic powder, Sweet Baby Ray's and I want to say Tabasco (?). There was also bacon and pepper jack cheese, widely regarded as one of the premier cheeses for burgers. James also did some kind of crazy thing with a red onion where he put some butter and beer inside it and then grilled it whole. Next time we'll have to start that process sooner, because apparently onions take a lot longer to grill than burgers.

These were some big burgers, but that didn't stop Bill, Joe or me from having 2. Or stop Dave from somehow hijacking Nicole's burger. We also had a tomato and mozzarella salad that I whipped up while rocking out to the musical stylings of Dexys Midnight Runners (Come On Eileen, while a great song, is probably not a course of action Eileen would appreciate) and Dropkick Murphys (I would say Tessie is probably the best song written about being a fan of the Red Sox (and possibly the only one?)). That's right, you just experienced the nested parentheses. Only found here. Back on topic though, of course there were ample Summer Ales, because this whole thing happened at our house.

I think there may be more uncooked burgers in the fridge. If that is the case, I am pretty sure what dinner will be on Sunday.

-Jon