VMFR: Burger King Ketchup & Fries

Thank you for being here for another installment of Vending Machine Food Review. Today we bring you the remarkable taste of “Burger King Ketchup & Fries.”

First, the packaging. The product comes in a 1.75oz bag. In the bag, the product takes up less than 1/3 of the bag. Contents shift during shipping and all that. Also, despite it being in a bag, the text assures me that I can “HAVE IT YOUR WAY.” I don’t see how that’s possible, since it’s a pre-packaged food.

Opening the bag, one is immediately hit by the scent of ketchup. It’s quite amazing. The snacks themselves are made of potato, according to the ingredients. They look like flat french fries covered in red dust.

When you eat one, two things come immediately to mind:

1) They don’t taste anything like french fries. They kind of taste like re-constituted potato snacks.

2) It tastes like they’re covered in ketchup.

Point #2 is remarkable because, again according to the ingredients, there is nothing even remotely resembling a tomato involved in the creation of these snacks. Somehow they got the power of ketchup into a dust.

When all the chips, I mean fries, are gone you’re left with a sack full of red ketchup dust. As an experiment I tipped the sack of dust into my mouth and let it sit there. After it gained enough moisture it was almost like sucking on a ketchup packet.

Well done.

Updating KDE4

So it’s been a while since I wrote anything up about Gentoo, Linux, and KDE 4.  Where I got stuck at last time was that KDE4 wanted a newer version of QT4, but the QT4 in Gentoo’s Portage didn’t get along very well with KDE4.

I bit the bullet and skimmed through some articles on the Gentoo Forums and found the instructions for getting QT4 through SVN by adding another overlay.  It wasn’t quite as easy as getting KDE4 from an overlay, but hey, it worked in the end.

So I updated QT4, got KDE4 to compile, and it finished last night.  I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, so I can’t say much.  I know I’m still getting those graphical glitches.  If no one else is getting them then I think I need to delete everything and start over.  Maybe it’s just an oddball setting, I don’t know.

I do know that if you miss having a trash can on the desktop there’s a new trash can widget in extragear-plasma that should do the trick nicely.

 

Time To Take Out The Trash

The best part of family visits is that everyone gets to pitch in and clean the house.

Wait.  No, that’s not the best part at all.  That’s the worst part.  Running around and trying to straighten everything up, get the gunk off the walls, clean the bathrooms, do all the laundry that ends up getting stacked in the corners, peeling pancakes off the ceiling.  No, that’s not good at all.

And my dryer sucks.  I put a bunch of shirts in the dryer and close the door.  I start it up and check on it an hour later and find out that the door got opened and a shirt got caught on the inner latch.  How did that happen?  And, apparently the door didn’t open then and it continued to spin.  So the shirt was all wound up.  And all the shirts that were tumbling with it got wound up in the shirt.  By the time the door opened and stopped the dryer, there’s a big long twisted rope in there.

There were times when I ended up being a perch for a while.  Washing dishes with a parrot on your shoulder is quite the experience.  If you

close your eyes you can almost imagine that you’re on some pirate ship and somehow you managed to piss off the captain, so now you’re doing the dishes.  Or your a cabin boy.  That fantasy isn’t really for me, though.  So, I had to give her a Goofball and that kept her occupied for a while.  A Goofball is strips of rawhide wrapped in a ball shape around a tasty parrot treat.

That’s how the weekend went.  Nothing terribly exciting.

A Letter From The Author

The other day I was rather bored. The topic at work turned towards food, which it usually does when noon approaches, and I began thinking of a section of a book by one of my favorite authors, James P. Blaylock. In this book, actually a series, the main character makes cheeses and ends up on an adventure. This book, The Elfin Ship, I found in a used bookstore and bought on a whim. I had gotten several books that day, but read The Elfin Ship first and regretted it by the time I had finished all of them. I didn’t regret that I read it, just that I read it first. It was the best book of the lot that I had gotten and the rest were not very good. It was my good fortune, later, to find that there was another book called The Disappearing Dwarf, which I bought and read. And, finally, The Stone Giant.

Anyway, food figures fairly heavily in these books, as does coffee. One of the characters, Theophile Escargot, even mentioned eating apple pie covered in cream.

As I said, I was bored and I thought of that and then I thought, “Has James P. Blaylock ever actually eaten an apple pie

covered in cream?” This is a valid question, I think. Many people write about things they haven’t actually done. So, after looking for a way to send him an email I finally landed on a publisher and emailed him. Within minutes I was told that I could send my question to this publisher and he would forward it on to Mr. Blaylock.

Hours later, I had not received any kind of reply. I was expecting a kindly refusal for asking such a silly question. But later that day I saw in my inbox an email from James Blaylock. It turns out that he has eaten pie with cream.

At first I was excited. Someone famous had sent me an email! Answering… a really stupid question. Hmmm. Now, I’m not one to bother famous people. I really believe that their time is their own and any correspondence with them should be limited to, “I really like your [insert medium here]!” So, I sent off asking about coffee made with river water. No, really, it was also mentioned in one of his books.

He did answer again, too. I haven’t written back because, as I said before, I hate bothering celebrities. On the other hand, I know people read this blog and hardly anyone ever writes to me over it. I wonder if I would be flattered if people did, or annoyed at all the people sending me mail. On the other hand, this is just a dumb blog as opposed to a book that gets published and sold.

It is a point to ponder.

A word on Oreo Cookies: Strawberry Milkshake

Evidently there’s a lot of Strawberry Milkshake creme out in the world today. I was walking through Wal*Mart and saw a package of Strawberry Milkshake Oreo cookies. It’s a limited edition. A limited edition cookie. I did a quick search on the web and it appears that some people find the taste agreeable.

I also saw that at least one person was auctioning off packages on eBay. If you’re really that desperate for a cookie, try your local Wally World first.

I’m almost tempted to buy a package to see

if it tastes as bad as the Pop-Tart. Almost. In the same way that you have to look at an accident, or taste that plastic fruit that looks so real.

I had a better idea, though. If you’re in the mood for something that tastes like a strawberry shake, go and get a strawberry shake.

Henry David Thoreau once said:

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau

And, like the learning humans we are, we threw that advice out the window. Instead of taking a tasty (if unhealthy) snack and enjoying it as it is, we have to throw in a lot of crap in the interest of making it interesting and, in the process, less palatable.

Oreo’s are good (not as good as the cookie they were copied from, say some), Pop-Tarts with simple flavors are good. Hell, even coffee, real coffee, is good and doesn’t need syrups and junk dumped into it.

We just need to make them more and more complicated. Why?

A word on Pop-Tarts: Strawberry Milkshake

Kellogg’s now has enough different flavors of Pop-Tarts that I think I could review a flavor a week and last out the year.  Maybe a review a day.  I don’t think I could handle that, though.I’m a big fan of Pop-Tarts.  Chocolate Fudge, Strawberry, Blueberry, even Brown Sugar Cinnamon. You know, the classics.Now they’ve got a whole slew of things like S’mores, Frosted Cookies and Cream, Hot Chocolate, Hot Fudge Sundae, a line of whole grain flavors, and Splitz, which are two flavors in one pastry.They also have a flavor called “Strawberry Milkshake.”  

This morning I had the opportunity to sample the “Strawberry Milkshake” flavor.  Bear in mind that I love Pop-Tarts.  I’m one of the few people that admit to liking Pop-Tarts.  Pop-Tarts, if you’ll stretch a comparison, is like pornography: everyone says they don’t like it, yet it continues to make quadrabillions of dollars every year.So, to get back to the tasting, this flavor is quite vile.  According to the web site you could try them frozen.  I had mine at room temperature.  I can’t even imagine what it would taste like if it were toasted.  Sometimes, though, if  you eat it just right it kind of tastes like Nestle’s Strawberry Quik.  But that’s kind of rare. What’s worse is how it looks.  It doesn’t look like a strawberry shake; it looks like pale pink, solidified semen.  Well, it’s kind of gooey, even at room temperature.  So maybe just pale pink semen. Maybe it’s because I’m old, but Pop-Tarts, the ‘exotic’ flavored ones, seem way too sweet to me.  Most of the time they don’t taste like what the boxes are labeled, they just taste like sugar.  Perhaps I’m just getting too old to enjoy Pop-Tarts.

How To Waste Time

Hi-Tech Nostalgia Part II is still in the works. You folks should be happy I’m putting so much effort into it. I also downloaded the Polaroid Picture plug-in for Windows Live Writer so my captions can be a bit better. I was limited by space before but, with the new version, I can now have multiple line captions.

I need to send a couple of suggestions off to the WordPress people.

When I got into work the other day, my friend at the front desk mentioned that he had gotten a pack of the frozen White Castle hamburgers. Here in Austin, there are no White Castle’s. For some reason people think this is a good thing.

Anyway, thinking of White Castle hamburgers made me think of Rutt’s Hut hot dogs. There is only one Rutt’s Hut in the whole of the universe, so I knew I wouldn’t find one here. But, I thought, what if I could make my own?

So, of course, I did a lot of research on Rutt’s Hut and found out, essentially, how they make their dogs and what kind of dog they use.

This meant sending an email off to two butcher shops and Thumann’s. I’ve heard from Thumann’s, but I think their information is incorrect. What I was looking for from the butcher’s was the ability to buy beef tallow. Thumann’s makes a hot dog specifically, and scientifically, designed for deep frying. Rutt’s Hut, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, fries their hot dogs in beef tallow.

Anyway, no word back on buying tallow, and I can’t find the proper hot dog. Not yet.

Going back a couple of steps, I found a reference to Steak Delmonico. I wondered what that was and decided to look it up. It turns out, it’s not a simple thing either. I don’t have time to get into that, but it was a couple of days searching around.

The upshot is that I found a cool web site that has scans of turn of the century cookbooks. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating and I hope to be able to make something, anything, from one of these books. One of the difficulties is the difference in terminology. And it may be hard to get some ingredients. And some stuff just might kill you, like making a roast covered in lard.

Technorati Tags: rutt’s,hut,hotdog,hot,dog,lard,delmonico,steak,white,castle,white castle,rutt’s hut,steak delmonico,calf

Hi-Tech Nostalgia

It’s a bright sunny day. I’ve walked about a mile, or more, to get to this building but I’m young and I’m not tired. I walk inside, into the darkness. Standing there, just inside, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. A Thomas Dolby has just finished singing about being blinded by a woman and her science, and The Motels begin their song about how only the lonely can play. The music is just barely audible above the din of a multitude of arcade machines beeping and boinging their sound effects and musics. I can tell which machines are here by sound effects alone. There must be a new game because there’s a spot where a lot of other people are standing and watching; kids and adults gawk at the screen, bathed in the ghostly light. Off in the corner I see a group of friends at a machine. Coins line the marquee showing that a few of these kids are lined up to play. I put a dollar in the change machine and four coins drop down. In the darkness I can’t tell if they’re quarters or tokens. It doesn’t matter; they’ll all be gone, anyway.

I’ll admit it: sometimes I get nostalgic. I just get nostalgic about weird things. Lately it’s been video games. Yes, I know, I’ve been preoccupied with this for a while now. I still don’t think I’m explaining it very well, why I feel this way.

Video games. They’re a part of my life. They have been since I was a very, very young boy. They’re as part of my life as, say, baseball is to someone a generation older than me. I could not become disinterested with them even if I tried. The generation after me, I suspect, will be much the same. They grew up with computers and game consoles, they never knew a time without them, they will be an integral part of their lives as well.

The first time I remember being interested in video games was when I was visiting my mother in Texas, one summer. She lived in

Denton, Texas, and there was a pizza place there. I think it was called Mama’s. I could be wrong about a lot of this, since I was quite young at the time. Anyway, this place had a Space Invaders machine and an Atari Football tabletop. I don’t remember being any good at either, but that’s where the spark started.

I would spend a lot of time in varying arcades when I was able. Going to a new arcade, in a different state, was exciting to me because I could see games that they had that I didn’t have access to. I would read magazines devoted to games and read about machines that I had never seen before. If I was lucky, one of the “foreign” arcades that I visited would have one of them. To me, as a kid, it was very exciting.

Arcade machines started the longing for a home system, the Atari VCS. The VCS had home versions of the some of the great arcade games, too. Like Space Invaders. It also had some arcade games I never knew were in the arcade, like Warlords. In fact, I didn’t know that was ever an arcade game until a few years ago. Home consoles led to wanting a home computer. My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 and it was followed shortly afterwards by an Atari 400. I had actually wanted an Apple II, but after working and playing with the Commodore and

Atari, and then using an Apple ][ in school, I quickly lost that fantasy. I had always hoped I’d be able to write my own games. Sadly, that never happened.

So, why now, some 30 years later, am I still enamored with them? Why am I not so “wow’ed” by the new games that I just forget about the dinosaurs and let them die? Those games had very little memory, poor graphics capabilities, and were just plain limited in so many ways. Now, the sky is the limit. The graphics of games today is such a huge leap over what was available in the 1980’s and 1990’s that it’s astonishing to see the difference. An arcade machine of the 1980’s, which was a major heavy hitter when compared to the home systems, now has less power and capabilities than even the cheapest of handheld systems.

That’s one of the reasons why I’m so smitten with them. At the time it was easy, because arcade machines were the power houses. Home systems were okay, and fun, but not quite the same. The computers fell in somewhere between the two.

Anyone that looks at Donkey Kong now and dismisses it with a, “It sucks” just doesn’t understand what went into it. Back then, the majority of games were a one-man show. One person would design, create the artwork, and write the code. Some of the machines didn’t really have a “processor” or CPU as we know it, and were wired to work. Sound worked the same way.

In my eyes, the best part of those old games was the fact that it was so new that anything could be a hit. Just like when rock and roll was new, or when television was new. Something special comes along and people know that it’s going to be huge. In those first years, everyone gets to be a child again. Experimenting, poking, playing.

Just as the 1980’s gave us a decade of diverse musical styles that

managed to co-exist on the pop top 40, that decade also gave us a magical mix of different types of games. Back when the whole thing started there were no genres, they were being created. A game could be different from anything else and still be a hit.

In today’s world of huge, mega-corporation, large-scale design and delivery, such things aren’t possible. Can you imagine a game designer going to his manager with this idea:

D: I’ve got this great idea for a game!
M: All right, lay it on me.
D: Okay, you’re this chef, right? And you make hamburgers.
M: Um, okay. Like on an assembly line or something?
D: No! There are these huge buns and beef patties and stuff. And he has to run over them and knock them down to the bottom to make the burger.
M: Giant burgers?
D: And he’s being chased by enemies.
M: Ah, like monsters and stuff. And he sprays them down with a machine gun!
D: Well, no. With a pepper shaker, actually.
M: A pepper shaker.
D: Yeah, but he’s only got a limited supply of pepper.
M: Ah. And these enemies are…?
D: A pickle, a hotdog and a fried egg.
M: Okay. Let me see if I’m getting this right. You play a chef who makes hamburgers by running over giant buns and stuff, which knocks the hamburger stuff to the bottom. Along the way you’re chased by a pickle, a hotdog and a fried egg, who you can incapacitate by throwing pepper on them?
D: Yes. Or crush them if they’re walking on a hamburger ingredient and it falls on them.
M: I see. Yes, I’m glad you brought this up. I’ve just been notified that it’s time for your completely random drug test.

Sure it sounds weird, but Burger Time was still a fairly popular game. And it’s still fun to play. Not all games require massive amounts of violence and gunfire to be interesting. Not that I’m against visiting violence upon pickles.

It was just so new and open that if you had an idea for a game, someone would listen. Maybe it wouldn’t turn out too good, but maybe it would turn out to be a big surprise hit. Who would’ve thought a cheddar cheese wheel that ate dots and was chased by ghosts would become popular? Or a guy

sticking a bicycle pump in a dragon and “blowing them up” would be a hit?

But besides the games, there was also the atmosphere. Walking from bright sunlight into a dark, smoky building that was just overflowing from the noises of people talking, the latest pop hits from the radio, and the beeps and boings of lots and lots of arcade machines. There was just nothing better for a kid.

That’s where it all began.

That’s about it for the arcade portion of my nostalgia. Next I’ll be getting into the home game consoles.

Technorati Tags: arcade,pacman,dig dug,asteroids,classics,burger,time,youth,1980

Just Hang On

Sure, it may look as though I’m not doing anything.  After all, it’s been a couple of days since I posted anything.  I’m actually working on something right now.  If I don’t get bored with it, it’ll have a lot of links and pictures.  You know, stuff.

I thought perhaps you’d get bored and move on if there was nothing new here so I thought it would be a good idea to warn you.

The problem with using a 3rd party program for my blogging needs is that  I tend to write anywhere I happen to be at the time.  Right now, this means that I have a draft of the big thing on the laptop and another draft of a different blog on my desktop.  This means you’re not getting two blogs for the price of one.  Technology?  How awesome is it?

Avoiding Bad Habits

So, the kids have been out of school this week for Spring Break.  That leaves Michelle and the kids and a highly impressionable young talking bird in the house.  All at once.  I see this as a coming disaster.

I’m waiting to come home and be greeted by Zoey with such phrases as, “Mom! What?!”  or “Where’s the phone?!”  or “Brennnonnnn!”  You know, the usual stuff that gets thrown around when there’s four bored kids making trouble.

I’m pretty sure parrots are a lot like children.  You can sit there for days and try and get them to say something like, “Hello!” and “Night-night!” and stuff, and they’ll never pick it up.  But call someone a bastard and you’ll never hear the end of it.  Ten years after the event they’ll still be saying it when you invite the local preacher over for dinner.  And parrots can live for about thirty years, if properly cared for.  Which can be very difficult when they’re trying to eat your glasses.