The latest craze in fast food is the gourmet burger joint. Well maybe not the latest craze, but judging from the rapid expansion of high-buck ($6.00 plus) freshly made hamburger joyntes’ around the country there is something going on. That includes ripping you off.
Last night we endured Smashburger. Why their trendy organization has decided to double down with a special burger that piles fake brick cheese on top of kerosene-oil based American cheese to hide a thin reed of real beef somewhere in a charred bun and charge a dollar more than their regular burgers is perplexing. Fail.
Try Five Guys instead. Think savory White Castles without the shots.
Today I bought a few French pastries at Patrick’s French Bakery in Edina. This place is peerless in these parts at the exquisite art of French and Belgian pastry (coulda’ swore the peach thingies were Flemish). This is food as art. As I discovered today. this is also food as disarmament device and ego supplement.
Yesterday, you see, I had a problem with my landlord in the office building. She was not going to let me look at the furniture in our old office because my lazy former business partner had simply forgotten about it. She would have none of me. That is until I melted her cool exterior with a gold flaked, strawberry encrusted french tart this matin’.
She is now my friend. And I will no longer be worry for the 9 1/2 weeks till we move to our new space about our old furniture.
I later boasted of this exploit to a co-worker who exclaimed, “well aren’t you the man with the darts!” While she may have been talking about my cakes, it sounded better this way. After all, how else is a man to hit the bullseye?
While Health Care is not a topic that conjures up “grooviness,” one questions where civilization would be without it. If we can’t stay healthy enough, then, well, we can’t bring ourselves to make posts about important things to buy. This billboard reminds us that good advertising can promise much but only people can deliver.
Got you eh? Being politically correct is the opposite of irreverent. While we have nothing to say about Jesus, we do have a great link to a very funny place to buy books. The site is called Quirk books and it packs a plethora of reference books that are well off the Barnes&Noble, Chronicle Books and even Phaidon (great place, still) path. It might even have a good compilation of Jesus Action figures and Catholic iconography but we’ve yet to see anything. Unlike that blinding light that hit us on the road to Detr…oh forget it.
As “Papa” always said, British Colonialism had its high points. It encouraged the preparation of all sorts of gin drinks that are with us to this day. I am quite sure, for example that Pimms No.1 cup was invented during this time. Pimms with a little gin, some lime juice and a large spritz of soda and tonic makes a fantastic late summer drink.
Which brings us to this post. In the British West Indies a tonic of a different kind was developed during the 1800s callled Royall Bay Rhum. This makes a great after shave, and makes your head tingle when you massage it into your hair. Hemingway (pictured) was a fan. For all we know it could be used as a shampoo. Or, if you are into derelict chic (as Will Ferrel showed us in Zoolander), an aperitif.
There is a small animal in Indonesia related to the Mongoose who ingests a certain kind of coffee bean. Once these beans have passed through the critter’s gastrointestinal tract and, um, expelled, they are packaged and sold as the world’s most exquisite and expensive coffee. While it occurs to us that the juxtaposition of our headline next to a picture of a Sumatran Kopi Luwak farmer (translated: coffee from weasel) might appear derogatory to fair-trade minded merchants may we remind our readers that we have never been treated as poorly as we have by fair trade minded businesspeople seeking our services. They really were full of it. Or maybe we’ve just had too much caffeine. Read about Kopi Luwak here.
This video tells you all about the latest in ski technology from Atomic. A young insider on the US Ski Team says that the racers swear by this doubledeck techology. Ski forums like Epic and Barking Bear are lukewarm on the idea. We’ll let the Atomic rep explain the philosophy of the “two ski in one” idea–for lack of a better term. I personally purchased a pair for this year. I hope the purchase does not blow up in my (Chris Birt’s) face. Sometimes that happens with Atomics, like the Metron B5s. (The video continues with a discussion of free skis and powder boards… the Giant Slalom (GS) race ski he shows is a great ski, at least, for Masters–i.e. older guy wide turn type–skiing.)
Someday, before I die, I will make a new wave, French style film on this very subject. While ostensibly it is of little interest to the general public, I believe this species of female, when captured “in-situ” with a said small communications tool glued like an appendage to their ear is responsible for many of the tectonic movements in society. For starters, I know of no other human being who spends quite as much time on the phone, not merely texting, but passionately speaking to another of the same species. Somewhere in their torrent of words, fashion trends, child rearing techniques and suburban migration patterns are established for the rest of us. I would write more, but alas, I can’t seem to get beyond the SUV in the parking lot. The contrast of black truck with blonde ponytail is leaving me blind.
Years ago I had a large vehicle. This vehicle wasted gas while it saved souls. For this vehicle, you see, was large enough to transport a few French exchange students around the suburban parts of Edina and St. Louis Park as they swore their hearts out into the night.
I was, ostensibly, the “host parent” for one of them. In this position it fell to me to become the taxi driver. Being irresponsible as I tend to be, I not only encouraged the lovely Odele to speak her mind out in the car but to entice her somewhat shy and culturally shell-shocked expatriates to do the same.
The cacophony of cursing that soon followed on those taxi rides is a mellifluous memory I shall never forget. When a young French girl swears back and forth from English to French it is a sound that can melt the hardest heart. Which reminds me that french rap is a good facsimile thereof.
Gangsta seems somehow cultivated in a romance tone.
This site is devoted to soulful materialism. You will find no grist for the political mill here.
Disclaimer aside, we would like to make a observation about political belief. It can be said that the more religious a person becomes, the more religion becomes their politics. Conversely the more secular a person becomes, the more politics becomes their religion. This is a merely an observation that is perhaps worthy of a high school social studies project.
Once we are able to locate a precocious high school student to prove this empirically we will then make our second observation in the form of a parable. We are reminded of a comment made by either a Russian cleric or communist (the symbolism is appropriate) who said this:
“When I see a poor man in the street, I consider this a spiritual problem, not a political problem.”
If we learned anything in college, it is that altruism is metaphysical. For example, does a young man give up his seat for the old lady on the bus out of self-sacrifice or to placate his conscience? The answer, we believe, is that only a spiritual force outside of the physical world can compel a human being to truly sacrifice for others.
Before you think that this makes religion our politics, however, consider what motivates people to take up spiritual things in general. What is to be said of the spiritual healer a few days back who killed three people in a sweat lodge ceremony by confusing vomit with purification?
The latest craze in fast food is the gourmet burger joint. Well maybe not the latest craze, but judging from the rapid expansion of high-buck ($6.00 plus) freshly made hamburger joyntes’ around the country there is something going on. That includes ripping you off. 
