I've discovered a newfound love for Swiss cheese.

Never liked it before. Always found it to be rubbery, stinky, and possessing an "off" flavor. But then I had an Arby's sandwich (hold the beef) one day and found it quite tasty. The cheese on my sandwich? Swiss. And so I've been eating it on sandwiches every day for the past two weeks.

The food equivalent of binge-watching on Netflix, if you will.

Then this morning for breakfast I skipped the Captain Crunch and toast and went straight for a chunk of Swiss.

Such is the perils of having "an addictive personality."

Good thing I can't afford to try cocaine.

Must. Not. Kill.

Everywhere you shop, eat, or visit now-a-days is filled with employees who have no desire whatsoever to actually provide any customer service, and I'm rapidly approaching my limit.

Take this recent visit to the McDonald's drive-up...

Do you have lemonade?

Yes.

I'll have a large lemonade and an apple pie please.

FOUR MINUTES LATER...

Here's your order and here's drink.

I ordered a lemonade, what's this?

We ONLY serve frozen strawberry lemonade.

I can't at least get one without strawberry syrup?

No.

Well fuck me sideways.

And if you visit the McDonald,s website, it's true... they only have Strawberry Lemonade on the menu. And apparently they are required by McThreat of McDeath to put strawberry syrup in it.

The only thing more disturbing is the marketing for this McAbomination...

McCreepy!

Interesting that McDonald's sells Coke products but specifically omits Minute Maid Lemonade from their machines. Probably because they don't want competition for their pricier "McCafe" frozen lemonade crap.

Typical.

The first time I had nachos was back in the late 70's. My family was invited to dinner at the house of one of my father's work colleagues and they were served as an appetizer.

But they were a far cry from what most people call "nachos" now-a-days.

Instead of tortilla chips swimming a massive glop of orange stuff with olives, tomatoes, onions, beef, beans, salsa, sour cream, peppers, and guacamole dumped on top, they were artfully constructed. Each chip was individually topped with a small cube of orange cheese next to a small cube of white cheese then finished with a small slice of jalapeño and heated until the cheese melted. They were sublime. And any nachos I've had since then have paled in comparison. Especially the awful, awful, "nachos" I had in Australia...

Or the even worse nachos I had in the Cayman Islands...

The reason I have nachos on the brain now (and every time I eat them, really) is because of something interesting I saw in the news this morning: Deep-Fried Nachos on a Stick at the Texas Renaissance Festival...

Photo By Texas Renaissance Festival

Apparently I have until October 24th to dust off my pirate costume and get me a plane ticket to Todd Mission, Texas.

Or more likely Houston. Something tells me that Todd Mission doesn't have direct flights from anywhere I'd want to be.

Um, yeah.

If I wanted lumpy, under-cooked potatoes, I would have made them myself instead of trusting a professional to do them up right...

If "Homestyle" means there's cold, hard lumps of un-mashed potatoes throughout the entire bowl, then I guess these are a success? Except it's kinda gross to eat them.

Which means I'm going to have to pull out the mixer and re-blend them.

NOT what I had in mind when I bought into Hormel's lie of convenience to satisfy my mashed potato craving.

GAH! IT'S 3:00 IN THE MORNING! Boy I wish I could get a good night's sleep.

Anyway...

Tonight I was happy to attend University Sunrise Rotary's Debuts and Discoveries charity function with wines, brews, spirits, and food trucks...

The event was held at an old hangar in Magnusson Park at Sand Point, which used to be a Navy air station...

True to their word, there was an abundance of new alcohols to sample and buy...

Best of Show for me was Skunk Brothers, which had a very nice moonshine whiskey and a sublime Sweet Apple Pie spirit...

Interestingly enough, there was also cigar rollers in attendance...

The hangar itself is a terrific space for events like this...

I already had several shots of Jäegermeister before the event, which meant I was getting pretty trashed as we neared the end of the evening (I "sampled" all but two tables, and they had multiple products at most tables!). Not wanting to pass out on my friends, I decided to stop drinking and start shooting photos. I brought my miraculous Sony A7s camera, and Hangar 30 had plenty of opportunities to get sone nifty shots.

So there I was taking photos of cool stuff when I hear some asshole start mocking me with "LOOK AT THAT GUY TAKING A PICTURE OF A WALL!"

I am beyond sick and tired of people taking a shit on my happiness, but decided to let it go.

Or I would have if I hadn't been soaked in alcohol. Instead I said "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU CARE?" a bit too loudly.

Oh well. I may have been taking a PICTURE OF A WALL but, in my defense, it was a pretty interesting wall...

   
There were four food trucks and you got four sampling coupons to try each of them. Except the chicken truck didn't have a vegetarian option (boo Chick’n Fix!), so I skipped that one.

The first truck I ate at was Spicy Papaya, which had a delicious Pad Thai to try...

Next up was Wicked Pies, which must be run by some Twin Peaks fans...

But Best in Show for me was the El Cabrito truck, which was serving up an amazing "Beet & Pumpkin Seed Quesadilla" that rocked my world...

It was so good that I used my last ticket to pay a return visit...

El Cabrito can park their truck in my driveway any time! That quesadilla is absolutely worth a stop if you're ever in Seattle's International District.

And thus ends my last day in Seattle. Not too shabby!

Even if I did drop an F-bomb on an airplane hangar.

I hate buying produce in the winter.

Everything is bland and flavorless. Tomatoes being the absolute worst. I don't even bother buying tomatoes from October through April.

And then there's lettuce.

Today I bought a head of iceberg lettuce. I figured I was safe because it doesn't have much flavor anyway. After picking through the rusted, rancid mess... 80% of it had to be thrown in the garbage.

And so...

I'm done. For the next couple months I'm subsisting on potato chips and chocolate pudding.

Delicious.

Modern-day Doritos with their beautiful rounded corners are the equivalent of a sandwich filled with dreams that have the crusts cut off. I love them, and now when I have to eat "regular" tortilla chips with their pointy corners it makes me want to cry.

And speaking of crying...

The only thing that makes me want to cry more than pointy tortilla chips is eating Doritos with salsa while wearing my favorite shirt. Somehow... no matter how careful I am... I always spill salsa on myself when my favorite shirt is involved. If I'm wearing a shirt I hate, however, it's as if a magical force field protects if from stains.

And speaking of stains...

I was shopping for some props at an antique store last week when I ran across a small pile of three white children's briefs. Neatly pinned to the top of the pile was a note which read "Stains NOT Urine!" Putting aside my curiosity as to who might purchase stained, used underwear from an antique store, I said aloud to myself "If the stains aren't urine... then what?" A woman shopping behind me said "I'm guessing it's rust."

And speaking of rust...

My dash was illuminated by the "Check Oil" light on the way to work yesterday. After Googling "Does Motor Oil Expire?" and finding out that it does not, I pulled a decade-old bottle from the trunk and popped the hood so I could add some. Much to my horror, it looks as though there's a bunch of rust and grime built-up in there, and I immediately regretted my do-it-yourself gumption. Had I not looked, my engine would still be shiny and new as it was in my memories. Guess that's what I deserve after not having bothered to gander at my engine for ten years. Since I know pretty much nothing about cars, there seemed no point in it. I've got more important things to store in my brain.

And speaking of brains...

While lost in a Wikipedia spiral, I somehow ended up on the page for hemispherectomy. In case you've never heard of it before, a hemispherectomy is a rare surgical procedure for children where half of their brain is removed to help eliminate life-threatening seizures. Remarkably, the human brain (fascinating organ that it is) can "re-wire" itself to replace the functionality lost by the missing half, so patients can grow up to live a fairly normal life despite experiencing such massive trauma. This got me thinking about the many times I've used the phrase "If they had half a brain, this wouldn't have happened!" when hearing about somebody doing something stupid. Now that I know about hemispherectomies, I realize it isn't quite the damning condemnation I had previously made it out to be. Guess it's time to come up with a different insult for the criminally stupid.

And speaking of stupid...

As I was wandering around the Mid-West a couple weeks ago, I noticed that the radio in my rental car was playing the best station ever. They kept playing amazing song after amazing song, and there were no commercial interruptions. Some of the music was terrific esoteric stuff by bands I didn't think anybody but me remembered, and my mind was sufficiently blown. Dying to know the name of this fantastic radio station that was too good to be true, I reached past the USB cord charging my mobile and pressed the "DISPLAY" button to find out. The readout said "iPhone."

And speaking of iPhone...

Yesterday while I was busy working away, my iPhone rang. Usually I ignore calls at work... especially when I don't know the number (like this time)... but I decided to answer for some reason. The elderly woman on the other end was attempting to call her daughter and was pretty upset that she got me instead. After figuring out that she dialed a "6" where she should have dialed a "3," she started sobbing for having made such a careless mistake. I assured her that it was no problem, at which time she thanked me through her tears.

And speaking of tears...

Have I mentioned how sad it makes me to have to eat non-Doritos tortilla chips with their pointy corners?

The Plan was to fly out today since my work ended yesterday so I could have more time on my upcoming Hard Rock adventure. But to follow The Plan would cost four times the money than a hotel stay, so I'm instead flying out tomorrow morning. Early.

The rest of this entry should be prefaced with the understanding that cold Maine is cold. Very cold. Biting cold. Cold with a side of cold and a scoop of cold on top.

It's really f'in cold.

And it's Sunday in the off-season, so there's not much to do in Portland, Maine. Thus my incentive to go outside is not very high. So I didn't until the hotel kicked me out at noon. At which time I checked into my airport hotel, returned my rental car, then took a taxi back into the city because pizza and apple crumble was calling at Flatbread Company...

To say I love this restaurant is a gross understatement. The location is great. The atmosphere is great. The service is great. The beer selection is great. The food? Beyond great. Especially the desserts, which are worth a trip to Portland all by themselves.

Did I mention it's cold?

Yet I went wandering downtown anyway like the fool I am. Despite wearing a T-shirt, thermal henley, hoodie sweatshirt, and a coat, I was still freezing. But I wanted to get a shot of the fence with locks on it in daylight, so off I went...

To profess their undying, never-ending love, a couple will write their names on a lock, attach it to the fence, then throw away the key. I have no idea if you come back with a bolt-cutter if things don't work out, but it's a nice idea.

I decided to explore somewhere new this time around, and left the Old Port area for downtown. That's when I saw... MAINE LOBSTERMAN!

Sculpted for the New York 1939 World's Fair, this piece has an interesting history (which you can read about here). At first I thought that the guy was giving first aid to a lobster with a hurt claw, but that's apparently not the case at all...

He's actually "pegging" the poor thing... which is to say he's shoving a wooden peg in the claw joint so it can't be opened (so he can't pinch anybody). This practice has mostly been abandoned, and now they just wrap a plastic band around the claw. Still a bit cruel, but I'm guessing it's not as painful to the lobster. At least until he gets boiled alive.

As I was walking, I saw a really cool painting on the side of a building that was meant to mimic a giant blueprint being laid over the structure...

Just across the street is a giant postcard painting that's also pretty cool...

Click the above photo to embiggen it...

If you look closely, the "lighthouse" is actually a spray-can...

At this point I was so cold that I could barely move, so I called a taxi while taking a few last photos as the sun set...

And that was that.

Back to my airport hotel room where I can (hopefully) get a few hours sleep before my early morning flight.

I left Auburn at noon and was back in Portland by 1:00... just in time for lunch.

But first I had to spend a half hour scraping snow and ice off my rental car. This included the tires, which had frozen to the ground...

The Ford Focus I rented is a pile of crap for many reasons. Primary of which is the horrendous gas mileage. Driving the 80 miles to Auburn and back killed... I shit you not... A HALF-TANK OF GAS! As if this wasn't bad enough, the car is just awful design-wise. Massive, glaring blind spots. A driver console that has no place to put your mobile phone. Uncomfortable seats. Utterly shitty "Sync by Microsoft" computer system that's as intuitive as a nuclear reactor to control. And then you get to the outside where you have this fucking huge gap between the hood and the windshield that is so cavernous and deep that it's extremely difficult to dig all the snow out of it. Even if you have a brush, there are ridges in there that makes it much more trouble than it's worth...

No wonder everybody wants a foreign car... their designers actually think about shit like this.

But anyway...

For reasons completely unknown, Portland, Maine has some really excellent pizza restaurants. This is nice because it takes the edge off the misery you experience when visiting in the cold, snowy, wet, days of Winter. A place I had wanted to visit but never got around to last time I was here was OTTO Pizza...

They are kinda famous for their Butternut Squash, Ricotta & Cranberry pie...

Sounds weird, I know. But it is pretty wonderful. Creamy with subtle flavors that taste amazing together...

It's important to eat it while it's hot though. As soon as it gets cold the texture gets kind of rubbery and weird.

OTTO's itself is a nice enough place. Kind of eclectic in a rustic way. Service is pretty good too. The only thing I hated is that somewhere in the restaurant there's a piano that kids are, apparently, welcome to bang all over. This makes an ungodly racket that completely ruins the experience of eating here. And I cannot fathom why in the hell they allow it. They must know that it's irritating as fuck to listen to that shit... so why put your customers through the agony? Stupid.

After some various errands, it was my plan to get some sleep.

Or not.

I made the foolish mistake of checking my email only to find a problem that required me to head back out into the cold, snowy, raining, wet misery I had just escaped from. At least I was smart enough to bring my camera along with me. I didn't have it on my previous trip, and really wanted to take a shot of the Harbor Fish Market (which proved impossible with my iPhone). It's a beautiful building with amazing lighting that has a steady flow of customers pulling up all day...

From there I wandered around for a while to see if I could find anything else interesting to shoot...

I finished up my evening at my favorite restaurant in the city... Flatbread Company. I was still stuffed with OTTO pizza, so dinner was out of the question. But Flatbread Company makes some of the best desserts I've ever had, so I decided to try their Apple Crisp...

Not as jaw-dropping amazing as their wild blueberry desserts (which are out of season, darnit!), but still fantastic. Fortunately their chef is smart enough to know that RAISINS HAVE NO PLACE IN APPLE CRISP EVER!!! I frickin' hate it when somebody ruins a good apple crisp by dumping raisins in it. BLECH!

And now, at long last, that sleep I've been trying to chase down all day...

Is it just me, or is Ms. Brown M&M a total bitch?

And an accessory to murder?

Because every time this commercial pops up, I am greatly disturbed...

Seriously, holy shit...

Somebody at M&M's is in desperate need of therapy.