The Work of the Devil

The world needs more White Castles, not less. Thus is a tragedy, painful and wrong. Seriously, someone needs to fix this.

The truly terrible thing, though, is that this is my fault. All 2012 I've been having my karmic balance aggressively maintained. I got my picture in the NYTimes, which was good, the next day I get a bunch of stitches in my hand - bad. Again and again, these wild swings...

The White Castle was shut down because earlier that day I'd struck up a delightful correspondence with a very respected game writer and it looked like we were sealing a Deal. Ba-zing, there goes the White Castle.

I'm so sorry.

Hotdogs and Chili at White Castle is Okay by Me, not to Give Anything Away

Okay, this is a Nathan's hot dog. Nathan's is a NYC institution type thing, with a delicious ur-restaurant in Coney Island and a handful of exceptionally shitty chain restaurants scattered hither and non. Your average Nathan's hot dog from a non-Coney Island restaurant is awful. Which reminds me:

At a Nathan's in Bay Ridge I laughed at the condiment bar, it had these dipping ladles and all around the troughs of toppings and etc there was food spilled everywhere. It was like the palsy brigade had come through and had a spazz-fest while trying to relish up their hotdogs. I laughed at the implied incompetency of the customers there. But the trouble was not with the retards that eat at Nathan's, it was with the condiment bar itself - the ladle handles were so long that you couldn't lift the ladle straight up out of the troughs without hitting the sneeze guard. You had to turn the ladle half on its side, spilling most of the contents. Hilarious and stupid.

But White Castle has somehow gotten Nathan's hot dogs right. This was one of the best hot dogs I've ever had, seriously. It also lacked that weird Nathan's butter taste that I'm not always a fan of. The mini-hot dog from White Castle is fantastic - soft yet with a slight bit of snap.

Wow.



The chili, though, warn't so hot. The steak was chewy, the whole thing too greasy. Good as fuck on the hot dog though. Notice that cup behind the chili, it's a Mountain Dew not-Slurpee from a Hess station. It's fantastic.

Ouzon Soda, Opa! Originals

Ouzon Soda, Opa! Originals

Dare I take the Ouzon plunge?

Whenever a company offers to send me a soda for free in the mail, I am always slightly afraid someone is trying to poison me. I mean, it's the internet, right? There are people out there who want to poison me. It's a given.

Ouzon was sent to my by, I presume, the company that makes it. While they didn't actually poison me, it wasn't exactly clear at the beginning if I would walk away or not. The initial yuck factor was pretty high.

Pre-yuck.

Post-yuck.

There's a handful of strikes against Ouzon before you even open the bottle. "The Original Non-Alchoholic Ouzo Flavored Soda" is a bad start. Any non-alcohol alcohol I've ever tried has been bad, except for Senorial Sangria which is dreamy. Senorial Sangria sets a high standard for unalcohol alcohol. The other strike against Ouzon is a suspicious panel on the back of the bottle saying that 5% of the after-tax profits go something to do with "Orthodox Minsteries". I'm not sure what that means, let's deploy google... Okay, the Farah Foundation seems to give out piles of money to Christian organizations of a certain bent.

Elsewhere on this blog I've made my opinion of that stuff very clear, so I'm going to pretend really hard that these are the bad-ass Christian types who fund secret anti-vampire squads and make epic mosaics. I hope. So if you spent a dollar on Ouzon this foundation probably gets two cents, don't do this if you are a vampire or are mosaicrophobic.

But to business. What does this stuff taste like? To me it tastes like bad, natural licorice. Or you can read this sentence aloud:

"Ouzon tastes like anise".

Read it aloud to a friend and watch their face. It'll be great.

But yeah, I don't like natural licorice. I don't like fake black licorice. I don't like things that are anise flavored. BUT! (Anise, but!) But, I keep taking little micro-sips while I write this. I can't really stop poking at the bottle, it's like a scab ready to pick. It hurts to do it, but I gotta keep sipping. Partially, it might be because it is delightfully cold - something Opa Originals can't take credit for. Partially, there might be some secret bit of good in here. But I doubt it.

Not the best thing to come out of post-Atlantis Greece, not as good as Stala Orange Drink. Maybe if I was a recovering drunkard this might help stave off my ouzo urges, but I'm not. And I don't like anise things. And I think religion is bad for everyone. So...

Coca Cola Icee from Burger King

Over two months ago the Slurpee machine broke at my local 7-11. Not the whole machine, just one mixer/spigot arrangement, and that particular spigot dispensed Coca Cola Slurpee. They never bothered to change the flavors around, so I've been mostly Slurpee-less for quite some time. I mean, sure, I can bicycle to the far off 7-11 but now it's cold...

On occasion, I would walk past the Burger King and be tempted in for an Icee. They are always awful, but I always forget how awful they are. Today I was tempted in and the Icee was, as I should have known, awful.

This is the story of that Icee and how I came to get ahold of it:

I think my description of the broken Slurpee machine above is ample proof that my life is one of disappointment and pain. From all sides I am assailed by the horrendous forces of despair. This morning I went to the post office to pick up a package, but they didn't have it - apparently it had been sent out for redelivery instead of being stashed away for pick-up like they slip said.

The horror.

Moping home, I stumbled into the local Burger King for an ersatz Slurpee fix. I mean, if people can drink chicory and dirt in place of coffee, I can drink an Icee just this once. I order and watch as the counter guy takes one of the extra large drink cups and fills it up with Coke Icee. Holy shit!, thinks I, that is a SODA sized extra large cup - I'm going to get a lot more Icee than I'm paying for. Huzzah!

The oversized cup is filled, capped, and is about to be delivered to me when the manager stops the counter person and explains the mistake. The manager pops the lid off of the extra large cup and pours the Icee out into a standard large cup of the size I was supposed to receive. As soon as I saw this operation commence, I called out that the extra large was fine but they ignored me.

The manager handed me my smaller cup and here's the conversation:

Me: You know, it was pretty wasteful to replace the extra large cup with a smaller cup. I know it was a mistake but you could have just given me the larger cup.

Manager: It was a mistake, you ordered a large cup.

Me; I know it was a mistake, I'm saying it's wasteful. Now you are throwing away a perfectly good cup and the Icee left in it.

Manager: We need the extra large cups for the soda.

Me: Are you going to wash that cup out and reuse it?

Manager: Uh, no.

Me: Then what good does it do to change out the cups? All you did was cause more waste.

I might have accepted an answer of "We need mistake cups to count for inventory" as acceptably managerial. This guy was just dumb.

But yeah, Burger King Icees are crap. I regret buying it.

Manhattan Special Sarsaparilla

Manhattan Special Sarsaparilla


I imagine the creation myth of the stuff goes something like this:



Bob: Hey Rob, we need to make a handful of generic soft drink flavors to round out our coffee line. I mean we got all these bottles and labelers and shit, so let's get 'em to use.

Rob: Do we care about taste or quality or anything?

Bob: What'd I say? I said, "Let's round out the line". Get a list of ten soft drink flavors we don't have in development already and get back to me.

two weeks later...

Rob: Here you go, sir, a list of ten new flavors. All written out.

Bob: To make it convenient to the conceit of conversational format, please read them aloud.

Rob: Coca Cola.

Bob: That's a good one, but I think it's claimed.

Rob: Ah. Okay. Cherry. See, I'm doing them in alphabetical order.

Bob: Rob, "Cherry" should come before "Coca Cola" alphabetically. You see, you go to the second letter to determine the order if the first letter is the same.

Rob: Oh, I thought that the second letter would be the "C" in "Cola". I do envy you your liberal arts degree sire. Anyways, I thought we'd make our cherry "natural" or some such thing. People like that nowadays.

Bob: Whatever sells. Next!

Rob: Chamomille.

Bob: I hate to hassle you, but you spelled it wrong.

Rob: What? How can you tell? I said it out loud and you aren't even looking at my paper.

Bob: It's "chamomile". I know it looks wrong but that's it.

Rob: I find this conceit of a written out conversation script thing to be confusing. I don't like it.

Bob: Anyways, chamomile is a stupid soft drink flavor and your a gigantic stupid head for proposing it.

Rob: Sob

Bob: Man up. Next.

Rob: Gassosa.

Bob: No one knows what gassosa is, but it gives fake class to the rest of the line by being all Italiany. Let's do gassosa.

Rob: Iron brew.

Bob: One authentic old country thing is enough. Hey, wait a sec. Why don't we pick something old Country, like Country-Music country, to draw in the cowboy hat people.

Rob: There aren't a lot of those in our distribution area, sir.

Bob: You're thinking small, son. With the sort of money that big manufacturers give the Republicans, cowboy hat people will soon be everywhere. Everywhere.

Rob: As you say, sir.

Bob: Root beer is too kiddyish, though is certainly in the right area. Anyone can make a rootbeer. It's just Root Beer Flavoring Pack 12H and Brown 3. But root beer is for kids, and we make classy adult soda candy.

Rob: How about a whiskey flavored drink, sir?

Bob: That has potential, but gimmee something else.

Rob consults Internet in whispers. Internet gestures wildly.

Rob: Apparently "sarsaparilla" is a cowboy word for a drink similar to root beer.

Bob: That sounds great. Perfect in fact. It'll be cowboy to the cowboy people but the word is weird enough to sound European or Amerindian to the non-cowboy people. Win/win!

Rob: The trouble is, sir, that an authentic tasting sarsaparilla is tricky to make. It has to be spicy but earthy at the same time, sweet and creamy but have bite. It's a root beer, technically, bit it's made from a whole other mess of stuff than what we call "root beer". This is going to take a lot of time and research to blend together a meaningful yet unique mixture which we can sell as "Manhattan Special Sarsaparilla".

Bob: Rob...

Rob: I foresee six months of work. I'd also recommend some research trips, sir, to areas where
people hand craft sarsaparilla at home.

Bob: Robert...

Rob: It will be a rewarding process...

Bob: HEY! Shut up. Listen up genius, you said sarsaparilla is just like root beer...

Rob: Actually, no...

Bob: ...AND we'll make ours out of what we have on hand. Root Beer Flavoring Pack 12H and Brown 3 will do nicely.

Rob: But sir! You are completely missing the point. It's not root beer, it's something else entirely, with a long and rich history...

Bob: FINE! You can add DOUBLE the Brown 3 to make it look dense.

Rob: And some Red 4, sir? Oh please can I add some Red 4?

Bob: Yes, Bob, for you anything.

Rob and Bob hug, curtain falls.

I used my web cam to take this picture,
and had to put the bottle super close to the camera
because it's 10am and I haven't put on any clothes yet.

Okay, to be fair, the ingredients claim there are no artificial colors and it uses natural flavorings and real sugar, but this does not taste like a sarsaparilla to me. Not in the least. It's overcarbonated and tastes like a generic root beer. Or at least the top half of the bottle does as I couldn't bring myself to drink the bottom half.

I don't need to do this blog anymore

Because I done hit the big time! I'm outta here, jerks:

Coca-Cola Great Britain,
Promotion/Award Prize Dept.
305 Dallin Road.SE18,3NX
London, United Kingdom
Ref.Num: CCGB/81A/01/2010

Dear Esteemed Winner,

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Coca-Cola Great Britain
2010 International Promotion Program. Your e-mail address attached to
Reference number: CCGB/81A/01/2010, serial number: 820534-1 and Ticket
number: 5637604545148, has consequently won in the 1st category. You have
therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of £500,000.00 GBP (Five
Hundred Thousand Pounds). Please note that this Promotional Program tagged
"THANKS FOR CONTRIBUTING TO OUR FINICIAL SUCCESS" was sponsored and
organized by the Coca-Cola Great Britain in view of showing our
appreciation to our numerous customers world wide.

To begin your claim, please contact our approved agent with the
information below. Also state your are in receipt of this notification and
you
require further instructions on how to claim your won prize.

Contact Name: Mrs. Cindy Parker
Email: ccgb.cindyparker@admin.in.th

1.) FULL NAME:
2.) ADDRESS:
3.) PHONE NUMBER:
4.) COUNTRY:
5.) AGE/SEX:
6.) OCCUPATION/POSITION:
7.) MARITAL STATUS:

Note, please remember to quote your Reference number in all
correspondence. Congratulations once again, from all members of staff and
thank you for being there for us.

Claims Manager:
Dr. Wayne Smith
Coca-Cola Great Britian
Tel:+44-703-198-4570

The Dr. Soda Phenomenon