That Was a Fun Day

Since we got the tickets way back in November, I have been pretty excited about the Mark Knopfler concert for a much longer time than is probably safe. Finally, the big day arrived, roughly 6 months after Kathryn got the tickets and we got our free copy of Get Lucky.

The concert was over at the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods, so we decided that it would be even more fun if we met up with Scott & Amy and Alex & Erica beforehand. This turned into a barbecue that I was unaware of ahead of time, and that turned into surprise burgers!

Scott came up with some kind of crazy concoction for the meat that started with a bunch of diced up vegetables (mushrooms, green peppers and onions), the huge hunks of burger, and then "Burger Seasoning." I believe this may be the same seasoning that was previously documented at a different cookout hosted by Scott and Amy. Those beasts looked something like this:

I am not sure if you can pick up on the enormity of them from the pictures, but they were massive. Maybe this one will give you a better idea of what was going on.

And yes, I ate 2 of them.

After that, it was time to lock up the pups in pug jail and head over to Foxwoods. Side note - I am not a fan of the new road system around Foxwoods, which causes me to freak out unnecessarily and frequently end up going in the wrong direction. Stupid Foxwoods.

Did you know that the MGM Grand and the normal Foxwoods are not connected to each other by any kind of walkway and are actually quite far apart? I know that now. It is a good thing that we arrived with ample time before the show and are excellent Foxwoods navigators, because we got the shuttle and arrived at the MGM way before concert time. In fact, there was plenty of time for us to wander the slot machines and find out that the one Kathryn likes is apparently very popular.

The show was awesome. Not so much the girl who opened, because she kept using the word beautiful over and over and played music that was a little too country for me. I may be imagining the second part though, as the guy who accompanied her had a cowboy hat on, which means I was going to hear country music no matter what he played. However, the Mark Knopfler part was fantastic. The only negative was that he did not wear a headband or wrist bands or a sports coat with weird pants, but his voice was exactly the same as I remember it from those old CDs. It was kind of weird, but it really crushed my memories of 1980s Dire Straits. I hope that Tom Petty doesn't do the same thing in August.

-Jon

Earth Day is also Jen's Birthday

If you are friends with Jen, you will probably be familiar with the phrase "Earth Day is my birthday!" Especially if you were on that trip to San Diego a couple years ago. I am surprised that no one punched her in the nose after the 32nd time. I guess you aren't allowed to punch the birthday girl. Also, I am just teasing Jen, so hopefully no one gets mad. The blog for infuriating people is the other one.

Melissa organized the mini-celebration for Jen, and decided that it would include burgers and Summer Ale, which was a wise decision. A less wise decision was my decision to have 2 burgers, because they looked like this:

Holy crap! That beast contains a giant burger, pepperjack or Monterey cheddar (each burger got one of them), a tomato slice, bacon and red onion. There was absolutely no reason that I needed to eat 2 of them other than to prove my manhood for reasons to be explained shortly. You can also see the pot of baked beans back there. They sucked. They were some kind of crummy canned crap, and even adding some bacon to them couldn't save the day. I will expect better results in the future!

The burgers themselves were good, although I think they increased the volume of my stomach by about 50%. I feel like a pregnant woman must feel, but without the kicking. Those burgers are have definitely claimed some of the valuable real estate formerly occupied by my liver and kidneys.

Now for the story about why I needed to prove my manhood.

I had my regular appointment with New England Dermatology, except that instead of going where I normally go, I had to go to the Longmeadow office. Not really a big deal as it's right near where I used to work and easily reached without much difficulty. I have also heard that there is a store called Home Goods (which I thought was supposed to be a section of a store) that has a lot of good stuff for someone whose roommates own all the kitchenware but are moving out and thus that someone will be without kitchenware. I decided that I would take a little trip there after my appointment and see what I could find.

Wow, do I not belong in that store alone.

While I was there, I counted a total of 3 males. One guy I am pretty sure was lost, because he just kept walking laps around the store and occasionally stopping at the rugs. The second guy was with his wife, and both of them were old. He'd obviously just given up on arguing. And the third guy was me, who was completely overwhelmed and then lost his cart. Don't worry though, I found it a few minutes later. Or I found the cart of someone who was buying similar items to the ones I wanted, so it's close enough. I even bought a picture, which is the first thing I've ever bought that is 100% decorative and serves no other purpose than to look nice. Don't worry; I will be pointing it out to every person that comes to my house for the first 2 months it is up. You will be very sick of it.

Once I left the store, I realized than I needed to make up for this HGTV bullshit that I am currently involved in by doing something manly. You know, like eating dead animals, drinking beer, looking at boobs, punching a hobo, yelling at the athletes on the television. . . man stuff! It was actually very lucky that Melissa was making burgers, there was beer in her fridge, and the Sox were playing. I guess the other stuff will have to wait until tomorrow.

Now come over to look at my new picture!

-Jon

Friday, We Hardly Knew Ye

Editor's note - I am way more intoxicated than I thought I was, so apologies in advance for when this doesn't make sense, slash is unreadable.

Today was a very full day. I left the house around 7:45, and, except for the 10 minutes I took to change from referee attire to public appearance attire, didn't return until 2:15am the night/morning after. It was almost like the entire day zipped by like a. . . zipper? Wait, that doesn't make any sense. Anyways, if this were a Facebook status update, it would read something like:

Woke up, taught math for a while, participated semi-appropriately in PD, officiated volleyball, then off to dinner at Paradise City and the Gaelic Storm concert followed by a few cocktails at the Lighthouse and blackout central.

Except that if it were me making the post, I would have made it more ridiculous and in-depth by indicating all the minutiae like going to the bathroom, sneezing, driving, etc.

I swear that when I started typing this, I had a point . . .

Oh right. I had a burger tonight!

Since Kathryn and I were going to a concert at the Calvin, it only made sense that we would eat dinner somewhere in Northampton. And after being foiled many times in my attempt to eat that burger with pulled pork, we went to Paradise City in order to fulfill my meat-based desires.

Ok, that sounds awkward.

I arrived first, so I snagged a table and ordered some random beers. I chose the Green Flash Hop Head Red Ale*, and got Kathryn something with watermelon. She liked hers, but it actually sucked, while mine was super hoppy and not too shabby. But more importantly, I got a burger with at least 2 animals on it. Take a look! That thing is gigantic!

Seriously, a burger nearly the size of a pint glass? That is wild. I think I may have discussed this burger in the past, so I won't dwell on the details, but I will touch on the major points. Those fries to the right of my burger? They sucked somethin' fierce. But Kathryn's fries (not visible in the picture, as they are behind my burger) were delicious. I apparently got the end of one batch while she got the firsts of the next. What the hell!? Does Kathryn write a blog solely dedicated to burgers?? No, she does not! Impress me, jerkoffs!!

Luckily for them, the burger was delicious. Even though the went a little too far with the cooking and hit the medium cooking range, it was still pretty juicy and did not resemble a piece of charcoal. And did you see the incredibly terrible picture Kathryn put on Facebook? I am clearly enjoying myself in my burger consumption. And there were two different onion options, including the highly coveted red onion! Can't really go wrong there.

In the long run, I will probably be stealing this burger idea for Burger Bros. Possibly coming soon to the Lighthouse! But even more possibly not coming soon.

Long story short: the burger was delicious, the fries sucked, Gaelic Storm put on a great show and Jager defeated me tonight in a close battle. Enjoy the weekend!

-Jon

* - This should be a link at some point. Please call/text/Facebook me and give me a hard time if it's not a link by Sunday, April 18th, because it means I have forgotten and need a swift kick in the pants to get me back on track.

This Actually Didn't Happen Today

For reasons that shall go unsaid, the following stories all happened on a different day that is definitely not Tuesday, April 13th. Let's go with Sunday.

I have a long list of things to obtain in anticipation of Nicole and James moving out with all their stuff and Matt and Bill moving in with not any stuff. Some of these things make me sad, like pots and pans, silverware, etc., because that means I am probably going to be a grown-up soon. I decided to check on some prices today (which is Sunday), so I headed over to the Holyoke Mall. This of course, can only mean one thing.

Wendy's.

Since pretty much anyone who has ever eaten at Wendy's knows what a burger from Wendy's tastes like, I will instead list a bunch of random thoughts I had while walking around the mall. Also, I will show you what my bag from Wendy's said.

Nerds.

I bet this post will be popular with Michelle Sagan Gonçalves.

-I can't wait until I don't have to work and can walk around the mall before there are many customers. When you're the only customer in the store, you sure get a lot of attention! I am also excited about reaching that age where you stop caring about your appearance in public. I have to assume that many of those people do not have mirrors in their homes/mobile homes/vans that double as homes.

-If you walk around the mall taking pictures of products and writing down the UPC numbers so that you can look up the prices later, people are going to look at you funny. But no one will say anything to you, which means you don't have to stop doing it.

-Children + shopping = misery. I cannot figure out why people even try to have a normal life while they have children under the age of 10. Unless their kids are crate-trained, so they can leave them home while they have fun.

-A lot of people who work at the Holyoke Mall speak Spanish. It makes me miss the ridiculous times we had in Sra. Bennett's Spanish II, III and IV classes. And also that study I had in her class senior year. Poor Sra. Bennett. . .

-I bet when people order food at restaurants and all the employees are speaking another language, the more racist people think the employees are saying things about them. When Bill and I open a restaurant, I think we should learn Greek just to mess with people. I bet that not many people around here know Greek.

-For some reason, walking around with a Starbuck's cup made retail people take me a lot more seriously. Haha! Joke's on you, suckers!! It was hot chocolate, not coffee!

-I feel really awkward looking at things in the housewares section. I think the employees there know that I do not belong. I am going to have to bring Kathryn next time.

-Why is Target so huge? And why don't they have CD racks? These are the questions that will keep me up tonight.

-I should probably stop going in the "sad puppies" store next to Macy's. At least until I win the lottery and can actually buy some of those poor pups. Also, did you know that they make white pugs? There was one at that store, but I bet it won't be there next time I go, since I've never seen the same dog twice. She is either doing an amazing business, or it's a kill-shelter. I really hope it's the first option.

-I am going to say that if someone pulls up to you in the parking lot of Dick's Sporting Goods and offers to sell you a surround sound system and projection TV, there is probably a 99.9% to 100% chance that those items are stolen. I couldn't even make this story up.

-What kind of store is Kohl's? I thought it was a clothing store, but apparently, they also sell this:

I am so confused right now.

-Kohl's really needs to be 2 floors. At Macy's, I know I belong upstairs. At JCPenney, I know I belong downstairs. At Kohl's, I got completely lost and ended up in a section of clocks. This is a problem.

-I don't know much about vacuum cleaners, but I know I definitely do not need one that costs $549.99. For that price, it better vacuum my house for me while I'm gone!

-One of my shoes squeaks when I walk. I keep thinking that I've stepped on a mouse.

-If there is a (non-food or drink) product I like, there is also a really good chance that if I ever want another one, it will be impossible to find. Like that CD rack Melissa gave me. That thing is great. Too bad I am completely unable to locate another one like it. Now I have stacks and stacks of CD cases that are homeless.

-Baystate Medical Center is clearly a maze. I think I rode 5 different elevators and ended up on at least 3 different floors before I found Kathryn. Then I put a tracking device on her in case I ever need to find her there again. I am not repeating that navigatory disaster. I hope she doesn't read this and find it. Also, apparently "navigatory" is not the adjective form of navigation. I'm leaving it there anyways.

-If someone you don't know tells you they recognize you from Facebook, it may cause you to panic. Or maybe that was just me.

-If you are driving, and there is not a stop sign, it is a good idea not to stop. Otherwise you may aggravate me and end up being referenced in a blog that 5-10 people read. Yeah that's right, Stupid-Old-Lady-Driving-a-VW-Golf, I'm talking about you. Why were you stopping!?

-Have you seen the guy who walks around Ludlow with the crazy white beard? That must have taken a long time to grow. I bet it's really itchy.

-For some reason, when I am halfway done cleaning my room, it looks worse than when I started. I think I'm doing something wrong.

-Some people are really intense about their lawn. And other people don't seem to care at all. I am in group 2. Sometimes I worry that the people in the intense group see my "lawn" and are secretly judging me. Hey, lawn care cuts into my Sam Adams time.

-If you pay $13 for a shoe rack, you are definitely getting what you paid for. I am pretty sure that I could break this thing by sneezing too hard.

-Why is the packaging on this shoe rack so hard to open? Were there a lot of people opening the packages at the store and running off with the racks? This seems a little extreme.

-I have way more shoes than a normal man needs. Waaaaaaaaay more.

-That was a lot of thoughts about shoes. I hope I don't have a foot fetish.

-Jon

The Celtics Almost Kill Me

In case you didn't watch it, the Celtics beat the Cavaliers today in a game that had both a terrific performance by the C's as well as a completely horrendous performance by the C's. It also had a whole bunch of technical fouls, a guy dressed in a bunny suit dancing to "Livin' On a Prayer," and an insane 4th quarter performance by LeBron James, which I can only assume will greatly aggravate Bill and Dad.

The day also included 2 fun trips on the T (which are actually not fun), an annoying experience with some stupid bitch who (whom?) I wanted to punch in the teeth, Kathryn and I looking like lost tourists, and lunch/dinner at a place called The Four's.

We parked at Riverside and rode the Green Line in because: a) I suck at driving in cities and it terrifies me to have to do it, and b) we are stupid and wanted to participate in the massive social experiment that is public transportation. Since the Garden is at North Station and the train only went as far as Government Center, we had the choice of either waiting for the next train to ride 2 stops or walking it ourselves. Well, it was nice out, so, armed with 2 cell phones equipped with GPS, we headed out into the sunshine. I have got to assume that seeing us was hilarious to anyone else. Picture us both with our phones held out, slowly spinning in circles trying to figure out which direction is northeast. What am I, Magellan? Give me directions I can use!

Eventually we decided on the correct direction and arrived during the 1st quarter. The Celtics proceeded to build a 22 point lead, which had fallen slightly to 17 at the start of the 4th. Then, things went terribly wrong for an extended period of time. They missed pretty much every shot they took while LeBron must have turned on some cheat code and hit the turbo button to run by everyone on the court several times. Eventually, Ray Allen remembered that basketball games are 4 quarters and not 3, sunk a huge shot and the C's hung on for the win. I am pretty sure that I almost had a nervous breakdown during the game. Thanks guys.

Now, Kathryn and I didn't eat lunch before the game, so by the time it was over we definitely needed some food. According to her iPhone, The Four's was close to our location and only in the $$ range, so we walked over and hoped for a table. Hooray! We beat the rush. Seriously. By the time our burgers came, the place that was empty when we sat down was completely full.

I got something called The Frenchie, which had some crazy garlic sauce and brie cheese with onion straws. Important advice for the future: brie is not a good cheese for burgers. Most of mine had melted off and ended up in my pile of fries. Plus they overcooked it. It would appear that the good folks at The Four's attended the same culinary school as those at Fitzwilly's. Anyway, the whole thing looked like this. You can see the cheese in between the burger and the fries, where it does not belong.

On the plus side, that little pot there was filled with delicious baked beans that could give the Dias Baked Beans a run for their money if The Four's ever figures out to throw some bacon in there. Also, those fries were pretty good as well. Not pictured are the Buffalo Chicken Nachos, which may be one of the top 10 appetizers of all time.

I would give the meal overall a positive review, because the whole was more than the sum of its parts. Some day I'll find that perfect burger, but today was definitely not that day.

-Jon

Let the Nerdiness Begin

This was an unexpected burger, which is often the best kind. Actually, I am not sure why I said that, because it's not true. I would estimate that unexpected burgers have exactly the same percentage chance of being delicious as a planned burger. So really, this entire opening paragraph is kind of pointless. Time to get down to business.

Alex and I embraced our inner nerd (which I openly do on a daily or bi-daily basis since I teach math and have to be a nerd by default) and hit up PAX East 2010 to see what all the fuss is about.* In my opinion, we had actually set our nerd bars far too high. While we did see many silly things (we had joked about making BINGO cards with things like "a person carrying a plastic sword" or "an article of clothing containing a Triforce"), there appeared to be many people that are normal. Well, as normal as it gets when you are at a convention put on by people dedicated to video games and attended by similar people.

We stayed there for a few hours, checking out some upcoming games, playing some demos, and rocking some old school Donkey Kong Country on the SNES. Remember that game? It was pretty much the (2nd) greatest thing about owning an SNES, behind Chrono Trigger. I am probably going to go home and buy that from the Wii Shop.

I am very easily distracted lately.

After we had gotten our fill of nerdy activities for the day, we walked around the corner to a little place called Bukowski's Tavern. It was really little. As in about 15 feet wide. It was also packed. We got the last 2 spots at the bar, which was good because we were both starving. I chose the BBQ Bacon Burger, because I can't resist a bacon topped burger.

It was delicious! Almost as good as the burger from the night before. The only thing that I would have liked a little more would have been if the BBQ sauce hadn't been so sweet. It was like a weird combination of meat and sweetness. It also was nice that the burger was pretty close to rare, just into medium-rare territory. That is definitely a key factor in burger enjoyment.

Their fries are also good, and they don't give you like 3 lbs of them which makes you feel like a failure at the end when you can't eat them all. Way to ruin my self-esteem, other restaurants!

-Jon

* - There is a very good chance that this link will be dead at some point in the very near future. In that case, I don't know what to tell you.

This Is Not a Surprising Revelation

I did a lot of things today. I went to PD. I drew 4 more panels for the Cupcake Saga (which means people need to get off my back for a couple days). I made 3 ridiculous mini-books, one of which would probably get me fired. I officiated a volleyball game. I went candlepin bowling. And all of that means nothing because this is a blog completely dedicated to cheeseburgers, which means all of these stories are not related to our main focus.

All of that was just some distraction stuff because I ate a Blackjack Burger tonight, and it's widely known (by all 4 of my readers) that the Blackjack Burger is the ultimate burger at this point in time. Basically that means that I don't really have anything to say about it, unless you want me to start a new blog exclusively about Blackjack Burgers. Is the world really ready for Mmmm, Blackjack Burgers? You know what, don't even answer. It's not happening. That's just as ridiculous of a suggestion as Mmmm, Burritos. Which I have also already considered today. I am going to pimp the shit out of this Mmmm, [Plural Noun] idea. Maybe one of them will pay off and end my working career.

The short version of this post is that today's Blackjack Burger was excellent, but not as excellent as previous Blackjack Burgers. There was also the opportunity to meet RF himself (he's called Sully by the employees). Except apparently he's a creeper, so maybe it's a good thing that we didn't meet him and end up as lampshades in some guy's creepy apartment.

This is what the Greatest Burger So Far looks like. Notice the sauce, which is made of 95% deliciousness and 5% spiciness. Also, those aren't fries. They are like gigantic potato wedges masquerading as fries. You can see them behind the onion rings that I didn't order but got anyways.

I also drank way more beer than I am currently capable of drinking at the present, so that may explain the rambling in this post. That, or I am trying to keep the post length up. I am not even sure.

-Jon

In Which I Get Unnecessarily Aggravated

I like burgers, as you may have guessed. I like people cooking burgers for me. I enjoy trying to come up with delicious ideas for burgers. I even enjoy cooking them myself on occasion.

I do not enjoy grills with uneven heat. Especially when I am not aware of this fact ahead of time.

Dinner went from being 3 other people to being just Mom, and since I was put in charge of picking the meal, I chose burgers. Yeah, I'm a real mystery. I decided to try and be crazy and also to put some new knowledge to use, so I went for the blue cheese stuffed burger with bacon. And also with blue cheese on top, because there really isn't any such thing as too much cheese.

So I take the block of raw hamburger, which is already gross (ironically I hate having to touch raw meat, but still have aspirations of owning a restaurant; it's quite the catch-22), and separate it into 3 parts to make 3 burgers. Then I took each sub-block and made 2 mini-burgers out of it so that I could put the cheese in the middle and seal that good stuff in. And that part of the plan worked out wonderfully, minus the dry skin resulting from washing my hands 6 times. Then things took a turn for the worse.

So there was plenty of propane (which I should have checked ahead of time but didn't because I am a daredevil like that), but apparently the grill there only heats certain parts of the grill top at certain times. That is annoying. And even though both of my burgers came out perfect (give me a call, Fitzwilly's, if you need a refresher course on what "rare" means), Mom's was a little bit rare. Or you might call it raw. Let's not split hairs here. How many factors do you really need to consider when constructing a grill? 1) How many dead animals can I have cooking here at once? 2) Does this grill correctly cook all the dead animals? 3) See #1 and #2. Really, that's it. If you miss any of these things, your grill blows, and eventually you may annoy an anonymous internet loudmouth to the point where he will write a long-winded post about it. Thanks a lot, jerks.

There were also some sweet side dishes. Some kind of canned baked beans, which were not really even close to as good as the secret family baked beans, and tater tots, which made me feel like I was back in 5th grade. Also, they weren't officially tater tots, because they were Big Y brand and had some weird name like "Tot-Shaped Potato Snacks" or something equally ridiculous. And yes, I realize that "sentence" up there was a sentence fragment, and I don't care because I love sentence fragments. It would be much easier to go up there and throw a colon in place of that first period, but I would rather just make this post really long and maybe teach all (both?) the readers of this site about grammar. I am a teacher after all.

Oh. My burgers were delicious. Even though the bacon was a little crisper than it should have been, a mistake that will not be committed again. It's all about learning in the burger world.

-Jon

Back to Business

Wow, what a great week in the world of cheeseburger consumption. Three burgers in a single week? That sort of thing hasn't happened since. . . well, since whenever it happened last. It's got to have been at some point, considering I've eaten 4 in a single day before.

Another positive note is that I got a burger cooked correctly. Possibly because Dad was the one in charge of cooking them. We don't take kindly to overcooked burgers. It is slightly ironic because I got the one that was cooked the best. Well, best by my standards. Kelly would probably not have appreciated the rare-ness of it because she's more of a fan of charcoal burgers, which I believe has been discussed previously.

There isn't really much of a story for this one. It's Thursday, I had dinner with Dad and Kelly, it was cheeseburgers, and there were chips and the jalapeño cheese dip. I feel like I've heard this one before. Maybe next time I will just copy-paste a previous post and see if anyone notices.

On the plus side, Evan and I got all the Star Coins in World 2, so the second level of World 9 is unlocked. That's kind of neat.

-Jon

A Poor Business Plan

After an extended burger break, I get 2 burgers in 2 days! When it rains, it pours, or whatever that silly expression is.

The original plan for today was to go out to lunch with Mom, Chuck and Chris somewhere in Northampton. Admittedly, that's not much of a plan, but that's how we roll here. Things got more detailed with the real plan becoming to go to lunch at Paradise City Tavern. And then I got super psyched because I was going to eat that giant burger with the pulled pork.

As we were on our way to meet them, I got a call that Paradise City was closed. I thought that 1:00pm was kind of a strange time to be closed if you want to sell food to people, but I guess not. The really strange part is that according to the website, the place should have been open. However, according to the fact that all the tables had the chairs on top of them, it seems like Paradise City is operating on a new business plan where you don't let customers eat.

I have a sinking feeling that maybe things are not going great for them.

We ended up going to Fitzwilly's instead, because it's pretty much across the street. I pretty much decided not to get the Jack and Meunster Burger, because that would have been super embarrassing to write a third post about it. I ended up choosing the Mushroom Cheddar Burger, because it sounded like a winning plan. And then I had it with the red onion, lettuce and tomato, because those seem like normal toppings for a burger. It was really big.

I still can't figure out why this place can't seem to cook a burger right. When it's not pink anymore, you have cooked it too long. So stop cooking it while it's still pink. Problem solved.

It's still pretty huge, right? I think I dislocated my jaw eating it.

-Jon

Time to Switch Things Up

After over a year of burger eating, it's time to make a minor alteration to the way we (well, I) do business here. Yup, that's right. It's time to throw some photos of these burgers into the mix. Also, it will make it easier to imagine the burgers themselves, as the imagination factor is no longer necessary. Finally, these things are huge. Like absurdly huge.

I should probably give credit where credit is due. The picture idea has been put into play at the suggestion of Kathryn's friends Gina and Kristin. So you can either thank them if you like the pictures, or blame them if you find them creepy.

The four of us went a place in Greenfield called Hope and Olive. Now, at first you would think that this place is a pub, because that is how pubs are often named: 2 random objects mixed together. However, the name actually comes from the fact that the restaurant is on the corner of Hope St. and Olive St. Ok, so no points for creativity.

On the other hand, they do get points for having Cabin Fever on tap. See the other blog for a more in depth opinion on that. Any place that has Cabin Fever has to be doing something right. I am not sure about this next part though. They had a guy going around and doing magic tricks for the customers waiting for a table. I guess I will leave the decision of whether or not that is a good thing up to you. It did impress Kristin though, so it would appear that it did the trick of taking our minds off the waiting.

So eventually we did get a table, although it was much later than our intended dinner time. Kathryn and I split possibly the weirdest appetizer I have ever experienced. It was honeydew melon with parmesan cheese over a slice of prosciutto. I guess they just randomly picked a fruit, a cheese and a meat and made it into an appetizer. It was actually pretty good, but I am not sure it was worth the price tag to get one weird fruit/cheese/meat thing each.

Ok, on to the important part. The Hope and Olive only has one burger, but don't let that deceive you. There are a huge number of options, so let's see how many I can remember. Lettuce, tomato, raw onion, sauteed onions, mushrooms, bacon, avocado, and various cheeses. I decided to go with sauteed onions, tomatoes (which were not slices, they were like tomato sections, which was neat), mushroom (which was a portobella, and ended up being like a hat for the burger instead of little mushrooms that always fall off), bacon and cheddar cheese. That combination ends up like this:

It was fantastic. Also, those french fries were good. If you ever figure out a reason to be in Greenfield, I would give it a try.

Possibly in the future, I will try to put something in the picture that will give you a sense of scale for these monstrosities. Give me a break though, as I am taking these photos with my phone.

-Jon

That's Better

Today I went bowling, got my tires rotated and watched curling! For me, that feels like a productive day, but I like to set my standards pretty low. Then after all that, dinner was a cheeseburger with the secret Dias Baked Beans. What a day!

After yesterday's lockout fiasco, there is not really anything that I could say about today that would be more hilarious. I would like to make the following points though:

-USA Curling is just awful. I wish I could like, trade everyone for players from other countries.

-CNBC's coverage of curling is also awful. This will be discussed on the other blog.

-How come my Dad, who is not a professional burger cooker, can cook me a medium rare burger without any problems but a restaurant can not?

I am now going to write a post about how much CNBC sucks and watch these American snowboarders fall down a lot.

-Jon

Second Verse, Same As the First

It would appear that even though I write down a detailed description and story about all of my cheeseburgers, it is still not enough to remember which ones I have tried when I revisit restaurants. Maybe I should start reading my own posts.

Nah.

Kathryn and I went to Fitz Willy's for a late lunch after her day of clinical instruction and my day of pug-filled shenanigans. More on that later. It pretty much doesn't matter what they do to my meal, as they have gorgonzola & garlic bread, which is probably the world's greatest appetizer. Also, I would have to guess that it has somewhere around 15,000 calories, so it is definitely a meal for bulimics. Additionally, I got a parking space at a meter with an hour and 10 minutes already on it! Score!!

I went for the Jack & Meunster Burger, and then sadly realized that I have already eaten it. So pretty much everything I said last time still applies, except that this time they overcooked it. Why is it so hard to get a medium-rare burger these days?

Now, I told you that story so I could tell you this one; it has less burgers, but more of me getting locked out of a house.

While Kathryn went to clinical, I went to Dunkin' Donuts, lay on the couch with pugs, read, and basically was a bum. The thing about pugs is that they tend to, like other dogs, need to be let out from time to time to do various digestive system related things. The thing about Kathryn's house is that I don't have a key to it, so when I go out to get a Vanilla Chai, bagel and coffee roll, I may forget to put the spare key back.

I suspect you can tell where this is going.

Sometime around noon, Chloe started whining, so she, Odin, Angelo and I went outside to take care of our respective businesses. No, I did not break any public urination laws. My business was making sure that pugs did not get hit by cars. Unfortunately, it would seem that I did not unlock the door, so when Giles jumped up at it all angrily since I didn't let him out, he actually pushed it shut and locked us out. For like 45 minutes. Now, pugs do not deal well with cold as it is, so the fact that Chloe romped through the yards of pretty much every house within 100 feet of Kathryn's meant that she was freezing. At the same time, Odin was jumping around like a mad-man, which meant that I couldn't even think. Also, Angelo just kept meowing at me. How is that helpful, Angelo!?

Finally I scooped up the pups and put them in a recycling bin, found a window whose latch looked different from the rest of the windows, and basically made a mess while breaking into the house. Go me! And yes, I let the pugs out of the recycling bin. I should have taken a picture though, because they looked so ridiculous.

I now owe Kathryn a new screen.

-Jon

A Brilliant Switch

After finding out that pretty much everyone I know thinks that Chili's has excellent food, and that there is now a Chili's just up the road basically, I figured I would peer pressure people into going to Chili's next time an opportunity presented itself. And after a long afternoon of enjoying some Coffeehouse Porter and #9 and watching the Olympics while listening to Nicky talk about Apolo Ohno and laughing at Odin relentlessly harassing Remy, this opportunity arrived.

Now, I have been to Chili's once before and thoroughly enjoyed their fajitas. However, I have been craving burgers lately, even though I just had one on Thursday. Thus, after about 10 minutes of looking at the menu and not really reading any of the foods, I decided to go with the Jalapeño Smokehouse Bacon Burger. However, I was not especially excited about the jalapeño-ranch sauce that was scheduled to come on said burger. The more I am exposed to it, the less I like ranch flavoring. I don't even eat those Doritos any more, and they used to be my favorite! Thus, I came up with a brilliant plan!

I asked the waitress to bring me the ancho-chile BBQ sauce from the Southern Smokehouse Bacon Burger instead. And, as Melissa will attest, that sauce was fantastic. It was delicious on the burger AND on the french fries. I am pretty pleased with the decision.

As for the burger itself, I have mixed reviews. Everything on the burger was really good, but they just did not manage to cook the burger appropriately. I have a very general expectation for a medium rare burger: it should be a little bit pink. This burger was not pink at all! Luckily, the bacon was about a quarter inch thick, and there were just enough jalapeños to make it a little spicy. I will give them another chance at some point in the future. But they better not overcook my burger again! I have very little patience for that nonsense.

-Jon

Not a Normal Thursday

Another Thursday, another dinner with Dad, Kelly and Evan. With a twist. Although we did have burgers (a Dias staple), we had them at Red Robin. That makes 2 weeks in a row that Thursday night dinner was out at a restaurant.

After a bunch of trips to Red Robin, I have eaten almost all the "real" burgers on the menu. Obviously that does not include the ones that are turkey or chicken or not real burgers. I still am afraid to give the Banzai Burger a try, because I am not sure that fruit belongs on my burger. I am also not sure if I have previously tried the Santa Fe Burger, but as of now that is moot.

Also, if someone can go back and find out if I have eaten that burger, I'll give you one of the the Raison d'Etre beers that are still crowding my fridge.

What a delightful burger! It had some kind of peppers, and some pepperjack cheese, and onions and some kind of sort of spicy sauce! Oh, and guacamole. I don't understand why I didn't eat guacamole before. I think maybe because it was green and has a funny name. Or because I wasn't really sure what an avocado was. Actually, I am still not sure what they are. Why do they have fake wooden testicles inside them?

The strange thing was, we ordered onion rings as an appetizer, but definitely did not receive any onion rings. Although in the end, that is probably a good thing, because I may have exploded afterwards. That would have been messy, and you would have missed out on a new post. That would have been very disappointing for you.

-Jon