Okay, let me preface this by saying this is all the fault of Gabe and Tycho over at Penny-Arcade. They brought the knowledge of this monstrosity to me (comic, associated newspost) whereas if they had not I might never have heard of it, as I try not to watch the teevees and therefore missed whatever commercials may be associated with this.

I am, of course, speaking of Burger King’s Loaded Steakhouse Burger (as mentioned in my last blog post). Let me quote to you directly from their insidious marketing: “The New Loaded Steakhouse Burger from BK is just that, loaded up with crispy onions, baked potato topping, A.1. Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce and a slice of American Cheese on top of a 100% Angus beef patty.” They will tell you it looks like this:

Now of COURSE we know it doesn’t look like that. It can’t look like that. Nature won’t allow it. There is at least one other blog fully dedicated to comparing the visual nature of products as advertised versus as delivered, and that’s not my goal here.

Though there is, later on, my picture of the beast.

But back to the story.

I went to Burger King, my heart heavy in my chest, with the knowledge that I must vanquish this leaden foe. There had been some discussion in the office regarding “baked potato topping” and what truly that entailed. Eventually we decided that it must be basically mashed potatoes. Couldn’t think of anything else it could be. Not topping for potatoes but topping of potatoes.

I walked up to the counter with no wait. A late teenage girl stepped up and said hi. She had a moderate Southern accent and was tall and thin, and looked like she’d just gracefully transitioned from that gawky adolescent state into the woman that she would become.

“May I take your order?” or somesuch pleasantry, and delivered with a mostly genuine smile even.

“I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” I sighed.

“What’s that?”

“Tell me, have you had this Loaded Steakhouse Burger?” I inquired, already knowing the answer.

“Um … no. No, I’ve had the regular Steakhouse Burger and it was good. But that one? No.” She looked perhaps simultaneously conspiratorial and taken aback, as if she had been instructed by her dark masters not to reveal her consumption habits, yet she never thought she would actually be interrogated.

A young man of moderate height stepped into view. He looked as if he had been taken fresh from the pages of some lower-rent catalog that was trying to look like a good alternative to Abercrombie & Fitch, price-wise. Perhaps that was just the effect of him having to wear a BK uniform.

“I’ve had both and it’s better without,” he opined, unasked, and with a quite genuine smile.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah, the regular Steakhouse Burger is great. The other one …” his voice trailed off.

“Well, damn. I told my friends I would eat the Loaded Steakhouse Burger,” I sighed.

With great glee the young lady said, “Okay! One Loaded Steakhouse Burger! You want to make that a meal?”

Yes. Yes I did. But I wanted it small, ’cause I knew that this was a bad idea.

“What … what is the ‘baked potato topping’ anyway?” I inquired, a futile gesture as I was already condemned.

“Oh, it’s like a loaded baked potato - sour cream, cheese, bacon, you know, all that. And the potato.”

Good lord.

In short time I received my order and walked that long slow walk of the damned back across the restaurant, to the farthest darkest corner.

I will torture you no longer and now reveal the horrifying image of what was given to me.

Like any Lovecraftian protagonist I can hardly tell you what transpired past this point, as if the journey past the apex and the ensuing descent into madness left my eyes clouded and my memories clean, my inability to truly process the horror transforming me a dry useless husk.

Except that’s not really true, as I can remember much of the short story I was reading for Spanish Lit class, but very little about the burger itself. I can verify that it does hang over the edge of the bun, as pictured. It did have all the listed ingredients. The barbeque sauce was a bit too strong for the sandwich.

I wanted to stop halfway through.

I ended up stopping at three-quarters. It was just … something in my brain overrode my arms. I found this out when I tried to turn the page and nothing happened. There was a tiny coup d’etat and until my arms and hands agreed to a declaration of cease-fire there was to be no more physical activity.

I feel a worse man for having undergone this.

But you, my friends, are better off, for you may live vicariously through me, and you may learn from my mistake.

Or should you not, then may God have mercy on your soul.

I have seen the end of the world, the hard face of the King and his terrible power.

I must do this. I must vanquish this foe.

So last night I wrote this post while kind of halfway to asleep. When more than one person commented that they wanted the track listing I was astounded - I figured writing what I did would generate more of the “I’m ignoring this blog post because you’re acting like you’re fourteen” kind of reaction than anything.

Today I debated putting up the list because after having slept it was apparent I hadn’t generated a mix CD for Mark to pay him back for the few he’s given me but instead had done one of those how-I’m-feeling-right-now things. You know. But when have I ever stopped myself from putting something embarrassing online? Probably never.

Since I made a lot of words about it (mainly lyrics) I gave the mix its own page: hotcha.

There should be a whole series of posts on things I’m not allowed to do, starting with ‘go out in public without supervision’ and also ‘have nice things’ but tonight’s is about ‘why I shouldn’t be allowed to have a computer’ or ‘why I shouldn’t be allowed to have conversations with Mark’.

Or, you know, I could just give up on the idea of going to bed on time ever.

Tonight I was pretty much prepped for bed, aside from a shower, and I started thinking about how Mark and I were discussing the art of mix tapes. Well, mix CDs. Mixes. Whatever. Point was I told him I’d never perfected that art. Actually I’d never really invested any time in it at all - I’ve made maybe two mix CDs in my life. And of course there’s an art to it, and now I sound like I’m 14, so I should stop, but to go back further, tonight I was listening to some Clockhammer album, the bad one, and then that made me listen to one of the good ones. I started to think, “So … if I were to try to create a mix, which of these songs would I include?” and

you can imagine where it went from there and why I’m writing this at 1:11 in the morning. I went through my entire music library, came up with two CDs (nuts) worth of music, trimmed out those that didn’t fit the general theme, and then spent what felt like forever shuffling the tracks around until they had that ‘flow’ that a

man I don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about here. I’m no connoisseur of mixes. I just know sometimes they’re jumbly and sometimes they’re not and if you can make it not then more power to you.

There. That’s what I’m up to nowadays. Spend my normal waking hours worrying about projects and reports and grades and exams and then when I should go to bed I get kind of obsessive about finishing a nonsense project, no sir could I ever just get the songs in a pile and sort them out tomorrow.

But it did make a good CD, I think.

So like you and everyone else in the world I like Youtube because there’s always something odd to watch.

Wait, that’s the wrong way to go about starting this entry.

Some of my friends have been pressuring me to get a tumblr account, which up until this point I have resisted. I don’t (or didn’t) really care for tumblr because it’s like some miniblog where the viewer can’t even post comments. It’s one-way communication. But last night or the night before or … whatever, some time recently Jason said something about posting Youtube videos on Tumblr and then it kind of made sense. I always add videos to my favorites and then forget to show people (yes, I’m looking at you, Heather).

I don’t like posting too many Youtube videos to this blog because I think it should be for words, regardless of how few I actually write here, plus video entries rarely require any sort of discussion. So, with a heavy heart I gave in and joined the ranks of Jason, Trey, Stacie, Jason C, I CERTAINLY DID NOT FORGET MAIG!, and others.

So if you want something else to add to your RSS feed you can add my tumblr page and then be bored with the videos I post. And if you don’t care about videos, well, you don’t have to go look. I think it’s a good solution, right?

RIGHT.

It’s official - official in the biggest sense of the word, in the “eminating from or attributable to a person in office; properly authorized” sense - I’m single again. I know most of you probably assumed the divorce had been finalized a long time ago but no. It took a while. Now it’s done, and that’s really all there is to say about that. I just wanted to clear up any potential lingering confusion.

While Clinton is indeed fierce and intelligent, I feel like she is disingenuous. And, she freaks me out a little. I realize she’s human, but it does bother me that she can be brittle, and for some reason, she strikes me as a person who could, at any time, yell “TINA! BRING ME THE AXE!” or some other Joan Crawfordism, while Obama seems pretty level-headed. And this impression has nothing to do with Clinton’s gender–I can see Howard Dean backfiring a la Ash from “Alien” and spitting up milk everywhere.

Thanks, Corri.

About two weeks ago now I submitted a photo to Wired’s biweekly photo contest. The theme was self portraits. It ended up falling out of the top 10 spot but then surprisingly got listed in the editor’s pics. So. I am now Internet Famous. Hold on to your hats. The next fifteen seconds will be really intense.

…

…

okay, glad that’s over. Oh, wait, it’s on the front page of Wired for today, or at least for a few more hours, or maybe it’s gone already. That’s why I took a screenshot so I can remember, years from now, that I was Internet Famous for just one day.

Thanks to Trey for the heads up. I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

EDIT: Apparently Trey got his info from Jason Coleman so thanks, JC. Also I meant to link to the original on Flickr in case anyone missed it the first time.

1.) I woke up this morning directly after a dream in which I had both smelled something and clearly read words. I didn’t think I could do either of those things in my dreams. In fact, I had just finished telling Jason the other day that we humans couldn’t do those things in dreams. I guess I was very wrong. Are you able to clearly smell or read in dreams?

You know what? That’s not really important. What’s more important is this:

2.) Yesterday Matthew, Leon, my mom, my dad and I went out to (what I will now start referring to as) the firing range (even though it is just Leon’s farm) to do a little target practice. I am simultaneously saddened and proud to announce that my mother, who had not fired a weapon in something like 26 years, showed us up. Her skill with that old Ruger 10/22 put us all to shame. After her first few shots I wanted to say, “See, I come by my good aim naturally” but after the next 30 or 40 all I could think was, “Well, apparently I didn’t get as much of it as I thought.” So great job, Mom!

Matthew says his mom is a better shot but I think he has mom envy.