AKA Abraham Bacoln

Al principio de primavera
todos los arboles cansados
empiezan a brotar
lágrimas de hojas,
y mis ojos de invierno
ven todos las calles
como cuevas
lleno de verde.

Conan O’Brien and E.T

Cargado originalmente por mrhollygolightly

I only wish it were mine.

Today is Kidlunch. I’m having lightly grilled peanut butter and honey sandwiches, celery sticks, a banana, and a glass of milk.

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 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.