Get a bathroom Coldstone

My step daughter and I were at the Coldstone in the college area shopping center the other day and I have got a beef with their no customer bathroom policy. They sell food, we eat it, and more often than not, a seven year old girl has to use the bathroom before it is time to go. And when I asked about their restroom the worker responded with a list of surrounding places that had facilities. I know they have a bathroom back there, what is it, is their toilet too good for outsiders? Don't be selfish Coldstone, let the people go in there. I wasn't going to call them out on it, but now that I am so irritated about the bathrooms I don't mind mentioning how crappy the walnuts were on the brownie sundae. They tasted old and slightly rancid.

Next time I think we'll go across the way to Yogurtland, where they give you free water (which is another thing they don't have at Coldstone) and a place to take a whiz after you're through with it.

Complaining is Good

A friend of mine named Willie once told me about a typical scenario he dislikes, where a person shows a group something new that they did. Willie explained how everyone in the group would fawn over the person and go on and on about how wonderful their achievement was. His regular response to this situation would be to walk up to the group, take a look at the thing, and say "Well I think it sucks!"

Some might think that Willie is a jerk for doing this, but I think he is right. People need to know that they are not always that great. If everyone was given nothing but praise then quality control would go out the window. We would produce the lamest crap and behave in the worst ways because everyone always told us it was good. You need complaints so that you can know what's really good. Without a helpful complainer you wouldn't know that the ending of Tron 2 was lousey or that acai juice is whatever.

Terra Bistro, good food crappy hosts

The food is good and the head chef was personable. But I will never eat at Terra Bistro again. When we first got there the hostess asked if we had reservations. This place is on el cajon in between a liquor store and an abandoned storefront with bums all around. So when she went tsk tsk tsk and gestured with her finger, chastising us for not having reservations, I wanted to knock her out. This place is in La Mesa on the edge of San Diego, not downtown. We don't go out and spend a ton of money on fancy dinners all the time, and when we do, I don't like when the hostess makes me feel like a jerk. The food was very good and so was our server, but when it was time to leave the a-holes at Terra did it again. Ten seconds after the server came by with the dessert and the bill, assuring us that he was not trying to rush us out, the rest of the wait staff proceeded to stack chairs on tables all around us. At that point I was so visibly irritated that my chick wanted to know what the hell my problem was. When I go out for a $100 meal I expect to be treated like someone who just spent $100. Honestly, I think they have better customer service at Jack in the Crack.

Peel off the shiny sticker on your hat already

New Era fitted hats have this shiny gold label sticker that comes on every new hat. It has the size on it for the convenience of shoppers, kind of like L stickers on shirts to signify size large. When I asked someone why he keeps the sticker on his hat he said "because it makes it look new." But then I pointed out that the hat is already getting faded from wear and tear, and soon the patch of hat under the sticker will be a different color than the rest of the hat. So if the sticker ever gets peeled off the hat will have a dumb looking spot right on the center of the bill. The proud sticker wearer acknowledged this fact, but it did not change his mind. His answer was "So I won't ever peel off the sticker." At this point I realized that I would never win this argument. I just can't wrap my mind around this current trend. And If I ever get a fitted New Era hat the first thing I am going to do is peel that sucker right off. Or maybe I'll save the sticker and sell it on Ebay.

What's up with the crappy trolley seats?

Some mornings I hop on the trolley and there is plenty of room to sit with individual seats spaced out within the car. But other days I get on and the inside of the car looks like this.

I am not interested in the way these bench seats look, but I've got big problems with the way they are arranged. They are too close together for seats that are facing eachother. When the trolley car fills up, passengers sitting across from each other are put in the awkward position of trying to figure out where the heck they are supposed to put their feet. There is so little space that riders are forced to put their feet in between someone else's legs when the car is full. And some times it is just too early in the morning for me to deal with that crap. I am not European or Middle Eastern, I need my personal space. This is America, the land where nobody wants a stranger getting too close to them. What did the fare increase pay for anyway? Finish the job San Diego mass transit system. Why do some mornings have to be great while others are crummy because some old guy's dentures fell out and nearly fell in my lap because I was sitting so dang close to him. It's 2011, I thought the trolley would have at least evolved into some sort of light rail or bullet train by now. But instead, half of the trolley cars in San Diego have worse accommodations than a children's school bus from 1988.

I hate it when people flake out

I asked a coworker what she'd been up to over the weekend and she said "Just keep'n it real."
My response was "I doubt it."

I think there is more flaking out in San Diego than any where else. This is the land of "Oh yeah, I'll help you out" and then a day later it's "Oh sorry, I forgot/was busy." I have been able to avoid being a part of this flake epidemic by just saying no. I do not front on doing things that I am not going to do. Like when people ask me to go to plays I just tell them no instead of saying what they want to hear to get their hopes up. I think it's better to be honest and crush someone's dream immediately instead of pulling the rug out from under them at the last minute.

Just say no when you don't really want to do something. It might be tough when you are first confronted, but later you won't have to look like a total d-bag when it comes time to pay the piper.

It's not easy eating at Hodad's

Last weekend we were hungry for burgers and my girlfriend decided to take us to Hodad's in OB. At first I was pissed because we had to wait in line on Newport in the hot sun. But my anger was abated by the menu. A simple menu is always good because that means you won't accidentally order some weird thing that they don't make well like spaghetti at IHOP. We all got cheeseburgers and I got a double. But this was like no regular double like the ones they have at In-n-Out. Compared to Hodad's double cheese burger a double double is like a McDouble. No disrespect to the Jesus freaks at In-n-Out, I love their stuff, even with all the Christian psalms printed on all of their wrappers and cups. So the server brought out our food and my Burger was so dang big that I didn't really know what to do.

When I tried to eat it all I could do was bite about a quarter of the thing. If I tried to get any more of it my neck muscles would be too strained. Eventually I figured out how to to eat it by taking bites across the face of the burger. It was really good, but the experience was a bit too sloppy and ridiculous. I'm not crazy about putting my face into the food like it's an eating contest. And the burger was such a crazy drippy mess that my basket of fries underneath were subjected to a brutal amount of burger run-off. I still ate a few, but it was kind of gross. If those indie rock hippies would just put the fries in a separate basket, I think they would have those religious nuts at In-n-Out beat. If you go to Hodad's I'd recommend a good pair of snorkeling goggles so that your cheeseburger doesn't go half way up your nose every time you try and take a bite of it.

morning radio shows are whatever

These guys wake me up with the alarm clock radio, and it's never fun to hear what they are talking about. There's some guy doing prank calls or some chick doing ovation hair therapy announcements every five minutes. And if they aren't too busy with that then they are interviewing some old obscure musician. And I'm so sick of hearing them talk about inside jokes that don't make any sense. I just want them to put on some music but they just go on and on with their crummy stories and celebrity gossip. Morning DJ's need to take a little advice from Master Shredder.

"What message does the foot deliver from their master?"
"Shut it" -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Movie (1990)

Fast Food Expose: Taco Bell's Meximelt

I don't know what kind of show they think they are running over there these days, but I am not having it. I'm not here to complain about the meat, I've always been fine with their beef. It has always been that same weird stuff that resembles a cross between meat and baby food. And I'll be honest, sometimes I don't really want Mexican food, it can be too real for me. And that's when I go to T-Bell where I can get an American rendition of Mexican food.

Last night we hit up the Taco Bell drive thru and ordered a bunch of tacos and four meximelts. I forgot that the Bell even made these awesome things until my chick reminded me about them. Apparantly they are a big part of her childhood memory of Taco Smell. When she talks about meximelts she gets all glassy eyed and is like "Every time we got Taco Bell me and my sister got meximelts, and it was such a wonderful classic family style experience or something." So anyway, we get home and the meximelt has nacho cheese in it instead of shredded cheese. It sounds like maybe it isn't a big deal, but it really is. Meximelts, which really are good, taste like crap with nacho cheese in them. Nacho cheese belongs on corn chips and that is it.

So now I don't know what to do. I like the Meximelts but I'm afraid I'll get burned again with the nacho cheese switch-in. Since when did Taco Bell think people wanted nacho cheese in their food? That stuff belongs on chips only, seriously. Chips only.

Wheeled Backpacks: Sack up and pick your pack up

I tried to be cool about this. Some people have a lot of crap in their bags, and putting it on wheels makes some sense, but it has gotten out of hand. On a college campus you can't make it ten feet without having to maneuver past some idiot who is dragging a backpack across the sidewalk at a snail's pace. Some people might really need this new innovation, but most of the folks that I see using the wheeled dorkpack are just plain lazy pieces of crap. I'd say that about a tenth of the rolling backpack population really needs to have their bag on wheels. And the rest of you need to stop fronting like it's luggage and pick up your stupid backpacks. You aren't at the airport, you're at school, and if your backpack is so heavy, then deal with the workout or don't put so much crap in your bag.If this lame trend doesn't stop we're going to need to have special crosswalks for these dweebs so that they don't overrun the whole dang footpath. I know the backpack has wheels, but it has shoulder straps too, so please, for the love of Jesus, pick up your @#$!.

The commercials are getting to be better than the shows.

Lately all the shows I watch have been getting kind of lame. These days I have more fun watching the Dairy Queen commercial with the old fashioned shaving rabbits than I do watching the office or CSI. I think the writers today are doing more with Doritos commercials than they are with my favorite shows. What's up with that? I remember when people used to say that watching the superbowl was great because they loved watching all the great commercials. Now I totally know what they are talking about. When the guy sprinkles the Dorito crumbs on the grandpa's ashes and he comes back to life, hilarious. And how about all those funny beer commercials, or what about the twix commercial where the dude takes a twix break and is like "oh, I've been robbed!" so the woman he just brought to his apartment won't think he's a slob. I'd take an ad for Bud Light over an episode of Saturday Night Live any time. So the next time you are watching your favorite prime time show, ask yourself this, is it as good as the Taco Bell commercial where the guy throws shrimp in the air while he's at the yacht party?

San Diego Fine Dining Review: The Old Spaghetti Factory

This place looks great when you walk in. There are a bunch of levels, it's dimly lit, and the there is this whole speech on the front of the menu that explains how the place manages to use sustainable ingredients to keep costs down. So far I'm excited to be here. The options on the menu range from meat sauce to clam sauce and I'm thinking that this place might be the best Gaslamp dinner spot we have ever found. But then the salad comes, and I get a bad feeling that it is a precursor to a crappy meal. You know, one of those salads that is pretty much just lettuce thrown onto a plate looking sorry. The house special spaghetti sucked as well. It was a salty plate of pasta with something called misrithra cheese. The sauce was greasy and my girlfriend's lasagna was worse than a safeway select frozen lasagna. The only one in our party who didn't notice how bad the food was was the 7 year old. So basically a generic TV dinner tastes better than their stuff.

I'm done with Zombies

I don't want to see another Zombie anything. No more movies, no more videogames, no more tv shows, please, enough with all the Zombie crap. I remember when Shaun of the Dead came out and I had really hoped that movie was the nail in the coffin of the Zombie fad. But no, it's still going strong. It was gross and violent, I understand the appeal, but it's been like 15 years now since all these lame Zombie movies started coming out one after another. No more please. I want more Aliens on TV (but not like the boring soap opera ones on V) and movies, I wish to see no more lame comic book heroes in anything, and a Predator movie where Arnold comes back and then dies at the end. Is that so much to ask for? Hook it up James Cameron!

If everyone is always nice to you it means you don't have any real friends

Think about all the people you talk to everyday. You are polite at work so that you don't get fired. And when you are ordering food you keep it classy because you don't want them to jack up your burrito. When you see a stranger you try to be cordial because you don't want to have any misunderstandings with people on the street. But when you see your best friend you hear something like "What's up you @#!$ of a #$@!." It's like that because it's safe to be like that with your friends. You don't walk up to your hommie and say "Hey there, it's good to see you." It's more like "What up @#$% face." Your friends are the only ones you can be crass and rude to. So if nobody is throwing any bad language at you then I am sorry. Because that means nobody likes you enough to tell you how much of a piece of @#$! you really are.

Take back your email account!

A few months ago my hotmail account was hijacked. It was awful. Every one of my contacts, professional and otherwise, was sent spam via an email from my account. And I'm not totally sure, but I think it was some sort of male enhancement thing. It completely sucked. I even sent out an apology email to everyone on my contacts list. I was able to rescue my account by changing my password. I recommend that those of you who continue to be used and abused by these parasites do the same. I know it's still happening because I am still getting spam emails from some of my old contacts. When someone gets one of these "enhancement" emails it makes the unwhitting sender look like such a doofus. They know you don't endorse the product, but you are still an idiot for being preyed upon. And they may even come to hate you if they accidentally open one of your loaded emails, because now they are going to look like an idiot and, in a way, it is your fault.

I don't shop at Walmart for the service

First off, I want to apologize for not posting anything for a couple of days, it's tough coming up with such fantastic literary gems every day. I was thinking about posting an entry, but I didn't have anything. I was so desperate I was going to blog about the Tangled DVD I just got from Redbox, but then I realized there wasn't really a story there. Yesterday me and the old ball and chain went to Walmart to get a big gas grill. She decided to buy the best option at Walmart which is always the second cheapest version of the product available. We needed help getting it off the shelf so ball and chain asked a guy with a Walmart name tag who was setting setting up a tortilla chip display rack. His response was "I don't work here." My first thought was where the hell do you work then, if you are setting up chips here right by the check out aisle? My chick was now afraid to ask anyone else for help because Mr. I don't work here had flipped the script on her. How was she supposed to trust her own eyes and thoughts if the people working at the store with blue shirts and name tags are going respond to her requests by saying I don't work here. Later on in the store another worker noticed the propane tank in our cart and said we couldn't bring it into the store. This also made no sense because we picked it up off the shelf with plans to buy it. Later a few confused remarks later, Captain idiot lady realized that we were not exchanging an empty tank and were trying to buy a new one, so she left us alone. So at the big W don't ask for help, and if a worker on the floor tries to help you, just roll away to safety. Now I'm not saying you should start shopping at Target or anything(unless you win the lotto), but when you go to this cheap superstore remember why it's so cheap. Treat the employees like random strangers who have the option of helping you if they are so inclined, and you might be alright. Don't get confused and think that because you are the customer anybody working there will give two !@#$'s about what you need.

Here is the sweet gas grill old Bally McChain got from the Supertore run by haters.