Hotel Room Fun

Want to have some fun while staying in a hotel?

First, find the hotel room pen and paper:

Second, write a list on the pad. Make sure you press down hard.

Last, tear the top sheet off and leave the pad behind for some Sherlock to find.

There is such a thing as a bad milkshake

For my birthday (well, it was on my birthday) a few coworkers decided we should have a milkshake taste test. Seeing as we are not located in the culinary mecca of the city, we only had a few places to choose from so we did the best with what we had. We tested chocolate shakes from:

Steak and Shake (chocolate and Hershey's Special Dark)
Burger King
Wendy's
Dairy Queen


Steak and Shake Chocolate

The Steak and Shake chocolate was a very good chocolate shake. There was an even chocolate taste and it felt like real ice cream. Some comments included, "light chocolate taste", "really good" and "thin."

Burger King Chocolate


When we took the lid off the Burger King chocolate, we were confused. The shake looked white. An initial taste seemed to suggest that there was a light chocolate taste, but that it was underwhelming. Our only guess was that it was white chocolate and that BK got the order wrong. We tucked in and it was complete crap. Comments included, "marshmallow fluff," "cream" and "poor white chocolate." Oddly enough, one of our testers actually enjoyed the taste. I have to assume he hates chocolate. Fortunately he did like this shake because while finishing it off, he discovered what the problem was:

It seems the way Burger King makes their shakes is to stick the chocolate in the bottom, add the neutral milk shake liquid and then mix it up. It seems that they forgot to mix this one up.

Steak and Shake Hershey's Special Dark

The Steak and Shake Hershey's Special Dark shake was also tasty, if not a bit too chocolaty. It had a similar texture to the first Steak and Shake shake. (remember this: Metro Station - Shake It) One taster has problem with the froze chocolate chips being disconcerting to eat with the smooth shake. Other comments included, "smooth," "a bit too chocolaty" and "rich."

Frosty Chocolate Shake

Let's get one thing straight. A Frosty is not a shake. A Frosty is a frosty and I don't want to delve into religious beliefs here, but I assume that if there is a heaven, there are Frostys there and if there is a hell, there are none.

That being said, Wendy's felt the need to shame the Frosty by offering shakes. I did think for a moment that if you took a Frosty and let it melt a little, you'd get a shake. I've never eaten a Frosty slow enough to see it melt, so I was a bit curious. Maybe this might be delicious.

Wrong.

The Wendy's Chocolate shake is terrible. Too chocolaty and not smooth. Other comments included, "madness" and "worse than a Frosty."

The can only assume that this chocolate shake idea came out after Dave Thomas died or right before and it killed him.

Dairy Queen Chocolate Shake

Expectations were low for the Dairy Queen chocolate shake. I mean, it's Dairy Queen.

We were wrong.

The Dairy Queen shake was delicious. Smooth, a great chocolate taste. The classic chocolate shake. I realize that the Dairy Queen shake may not be hand dipped and mostly processed, but it was an awesome shake.

In the end, the Dairy Queen chocolate was rated highest and the Steak and Shake chocolate came in a close second.




And just so you are aware, the guy who thought the BK shake was delicious had all his votes thrown out.

Shake shake shake shake shake it.

Taco Bell and White Castle Burrito

A few hours ago, Fake Dispatch was extremely hungry and posted the following:

When I got home, I decided, "Why the hell not?" I loaded Greg and Ann into the van and we headed to White Castle.

Thanks to my Reddit Secret Santa, I had a White Castle gift card.
$5.88 and a sack of 8 Sliders later, I ended up at Taco Bell. There I purchased a bean burrito, and chili cheese burrito (I'm sad they don't call it chilito anymore) and a beefy melt burrito.

At home we unloaded the bags.

And unloaded the contents.

I bought two extra White Castles for the kids to eat. Ann was not impressed by the smell.

Greg was in heaven!

I knew that I was going to need to stuff these Castles in the tortilla shells and I didn't know how well they would take the pressure. Instead I took some waxed paper and rolled the Castles up nice and tight.



I took the beefy melt burrito and revealed the OH MY FUCKING GOD IT'S HIDEOUS!

Pro Tip: Don't ever open your Taco Bell.

I inserted the White Castles...

and folded it back up.

I cut it open to reveal the unnatural bond of burger and burrito.

And then I took a bite.

I'm not going to lie to you. It was delicious. It was DELICIOUS! The red sauce and the rice with the soft bread and oniony, steamy burger... it was really tasty.

Greg liked it, too.

Next was the chili cheese burrito.

Ann tried this one.

While she didn't like it, it, too, was really good!

Finally we tried the bean burrito.

Sadly, the bean burrito was not at all good. The fresh onions did not mix well with the steamed onions and there was an onion gang war in my belly.

Overall, White Castle and Taco Bell make an awesome combination. If you have some wax paper and a wife that only threatens to kick you out of the house for stinking up the place (wait until 3:00am) then I suggest you try it!

Father's Day gift tips

What NOT TO GET your dad for Father’s Day

1. Soap on a Rope (unless he’s in jail)
2. The DNA test (let’s just keep that between Mom and the Fed-Ex guy)
3. Anything with the word “soy” in it.
4. Used scaffolding
5. Beer in amounts more than 39 ounces
6. Rocking chair
7. Old Spice
8. Elvis anything
9. Chalk or anything that is written on with chalk
10. Lie detector

What TO GET your dad for Father’s Day
1. Carbide
2. Gift certificate to Scores or The Landing Strip
3. A tie (it’s back in this year)
4. Bacon, 1 pound (raw or cooked)
5. Anything that starts with Nintendo or ends with Box.
6. Anything salted
7. Bribe money
8. Fortified wine
9. Dashboard hula girl
10. “How to Pass a Lie Detector Test” book/pamphlet

O-blah-ma

A conversation on Facebook. He deleted his comments, but I knew he was going to so I took a screen shot.

Click image to see huge-like.

Who's In Charge Here?

I've worked in the museum business for a good chunk of time. For a while, I was a traveling exhibit manager, which meant I got to work with a lot of different kinds of technicians, temp laborers, electricians and union workers during the set up and installation of the exhibit. I know what it is like to be a punk kid asking people that have been on the job longer than I have been alive to get work done. Usually I just kill them with kindness. You need to have these people on your side as they can make your life a holy hell. Bring them doughnuts. Don't let them get away with murder, but manslaughter is OK.

So years later I was told this story and shat my pants.

We were bringing in an exhibit to a museum. The exhibit came with a set up coordinator. I had been taking care of the arrangements to bring the exhibit in and had been in constant contact with them. Our museum used the same crew of people for exhibit set up and tear down and they are awesome. There's one guy that runs all the workers and they are efficient, know the building, ask the right questions and get the job done.

When the exhibit arrived at the loading dock, our team of installers was waiting for instructions. The exhibit set up coordinator went down to the loading dock and walked into the group.

"Are you the set up crew?"
Yes, they answered.
"Who's in charge here?"
The man who always runs the crew said, "I guess that would be me."
And the coordinator said, "No. I'm in charge and don't you forget it."

Holy shit. That's the biggest douchebag move on record. Sure you make an impression, but come on.

Of course, in the back of my mind, whenever I go somewhere and am in charge of set up, I love to ask the question, "Who's in charge here?" The labor always wonders why I laugh after saying it.

Happy Birthday CD101

Our local radio station, CD101, is turning 21 years old. I can remember when they first came on the air. The are an awesome independent, alternative radio station. Thinking about this reminded my of my trip to Shreveport, Louisiana.

In 1994, I had a job that was going to have me living in Shreveport for four months. Coming from Columbus, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get my fix of alternative radio. I wasn't even sure that the South had alternative music.

It was a Sunday night and I was driving to Shreveport. About 40 miles outside of the city I was flipping through the radio stations when some 1994 alternative song came on. I couldn't believe it. I don't remember what song it was, but it was followed up by another alternative song. For the next half hour, great alternative song after song came on. Maybe the South wasn't so bad after all!

About five miles out side of Shreveport, the DJ came on and said, "Well, that wraps up another solid hour of alternative hits. We'll see you next week for Alternative Sundays!"

And then something Richard Marx came on.

Happy Birthday CD101!

Fake Dispatch in (614) Magazine

I have a Twitter account called Fake Dispatch. Fake Dispatch is actually more popular than HolyJuan and I need to get over that.

Recently, Fake Dispatch was interviewed in a local magazine called (614) Magazine.

Here it is! Click the photo to embiggen.

Quitting Outlook 2010

It's almost like they don't want you to open it.