push it baby!

As you may already know, I like hot dogs. Considering that wienerschnitzel is the world's largest hot dog chain, you would think there stuff pretty well kicked. I decided against the dog-named treat



and went for the good old #1, which was two chili dogs, fries and a drink. Considering that it was the #1 and that there did exist a (I think) #3 which only had one chili dog, I figured that the chili dogs would be a) pretty solid, quality-wise and b) pretty solid, filling-wise. Not so much on either count. 7-11 pretty good for me on both counts. And yeah, I know it is old news, but could the actual look at least a little bit like the picture. Again, 7-11 is pretty close.

Finally, what's the best joke you got for their slogan?

did you just take a picture of your food?

Yes. Yes I did. Drew and I ate with our boss today, and though steve is well aware of me wearing orange on payday to stick it to the man, I don't think he is aware of this blog, which led to the title's question.

It was goattee tuesday, but alas, I trade my view from the top for free root beer. Troy actually called me by name today. Wow, I finally made it.

the other other white meat

Went to the noodle company with drew and a former coworker of drew's. I asked if I could feature a picture that included his hand, and there it is. Of course the other hand is drew's, but if you're a regular here, maybe you recognized him.

I spent like six dollars on mac and cheese. Actually, I think it was over six. That would buy a lot of the good kraft kind.

Rajesh got tofu. Might be the first time for me that someone I was with ordered tofu. I guess I get miso soup which has tofu in it, and I might have ordered it on accident once, but rajesh knew what he was doing.

I also went to best buy and bought radiohead's ok computer for a white elephant exchange. Pretty well my favorite album ever. Used to be u2's war, but perhaps I have moved on. Wondering if my $9.99 purchase will be exchanged for the last two pieces of someone's gum or the like. Never really know what you're gonna get there.

. . . moroni speaking

So, I now work for the church and one of the cool parts for me is being able to occasionally hang out at temple square. Last week we had a luncheon there where I played the piano, jon schmidt's arrangement of bring a torch jeanette isabella. Can't say that I had ever heard the piece until a few weeks ago when a neighbor suggested it. Turns out I liked it and I think folks there did as well. For years I was a classical only kind of guy (not sure if there are enough such people anymore for them to qualify for a group), but since then I have discovered the beatles, radiohead, wilco, lots of others and now a touch of jon schmidt. Bring a torch wasn't the toccata from bach's sixth partita or beethoven's op 110, but that might be why folks seemed to like it so much. Undergrad graduation I played liszt's la campanella, grad school graduation I played the toccata from above. Guess which I think people liked better? That's right, jon schmidt.



The luncheon was on the twenty-sixth floor of the church office building. After the luncheon, I wandered out on the balcony and shot the above shot. Pretty cool up there. Looking around salt lake there were several rather distinct views. Like up around (I think) the avenues, it looked like a little village, plenty of apartment buildings for a different look, the whole mountains thing, downtown with it's high-ish rises, and for some reason a big U on the hill.

I also sang in a little double quartet plus one, where I think we had the great pleasure of having our best performance at the performance. How cool is that?

more than almost famous

Well, you pretty well heard it here first, but being as brandon just made the front page of slashdot, he is now famous.

denny's, lenny and carl

Denny's. And you know that that means moons over my hammy. The name doesn't really make much sense to me, except that there is ham involved.

I think I have at least two friends that are famous, or on the verge. The other one is brandon sanderson. He is a hit author, will likely get a movie or two made before too long, and who knows, may get really, really famous very shortly. Me and brandon used to come to this very denny's and talk. Often we would talk about my next great programming project. You may notice that those sites look much the same. Meanwhile brandon is working it. Good job brandon! Those cheese fries and shakes must have pushed you over the edge.

If you're pretty good at java, c++, image processing, or even programming generally, the church is hiring. If you're good at cheese fries and the shakes . . .


Cameron likes the simpsons. Suddenly, when simpsons quotes enter my mind, I can filter them through, and am pretty dang sure cameron will be there with me. Pretty well daily we walk through an episode for drew. Sure drew just loves that! Your fingers are too . . . fat! Cameron knows the lines better than I do.

Sitting by the counter were


first I thought they were for sale, then I realized they were just for use.

when worlds collide

I have been thinking that we could have another blog where each day we have to eat lunch from a coupon. Sometimes ideas are better left as ideas.

It is perhaps unfortunate that you can't short local businesses, because it hit me today that first time coupon book appearers are pretty good candidates to go out of business.

Today, we went to the hot dog king. They say that they have the best hot dogs in the world. Wow, on our own state street. Drew pretty well agreed. I got a chili cheese dog and it was good, but I think that there are several other places in the world with better offerings.

Yes, we ate at 7-11 and the hot dog king within like a week. Cameron even ate at hot dog king.

Sadly, hot dog king was nearly empty when we went. I am betting that there are several lunch hours that no one comes in, and off-lunch hours must be dreadful. I wonder if I could work there from my work during such empty times.

Sometimes when driving around, seeing all the places that are likely destined for a chapter of some sort, I get sad. Eating at such a place isn't much better.

And a cinnamon roll.

smaller continents need not apply

you will guru the day!

I read blogs of a couple famous people, and since they have you know, readers, and those readers send them email, they are able to kind of get their blog posts nearly for free. The readers send emails, and via simple cut and paste, nearly all their daily entry is written for them. With a simple quip here and there, on they go with their famous, undoubtedly happy lives.

In my rather non-famous life, I have no such luxuries. That said, I do have a pretty killer camera phone, and I have a few photos sitting around which have no corresponding blog post, so here we go. Think I will break these photos into different entries.

A week-ish ago drew was meeting a friend down in provo, and cameron and I tagged along. Guru's was the place. I guess it is healthy or something. Drew's friend is a vegetarian, and guru's was pretty much made for him. They did have some pretty good steak and chicken tacos.

For some reason, I had 7-11 napkins in my pocket, and thought they looked cool on the table next to the money. Guru's is one of those "we're not really your waiter, but please tip well" places. Other such places include fudruckers and sonic. Can't really decide which of the two I think is worse. At fudruckers they don't deliver food, and I think they don't even get your water. "Anything I can do for you?" You mean anything tip-worthy!

At sonic they don't really do anything different then say, wendy's and I don't recall ever tipping at wendy's. Whatever happened to wendy's?

My, look at the fancy wall and the many empty chairs. Wonder if those two things go together. We might have been there a little late, but there you go.
And finally, now you need not leave the restaurant, to find a tree to hug!

twenty-one?

Yeah, we ate at 7-11. I had two hot dogs and a slurpee. My favorites in order were probably the slurpee, the first hot dog, not getting the second hot dog, perhaps another slurpee, and yes, the second hot dog. For me, some foods just go well together. French toast and milk, steak and orange gatorade, and yeah, 7-11 hot dogs (with free chili and free cheese) and a slurpee.

Did I mention the free chili and cheese? I do wonder sometimes how far you could push that. What if I fill the whole container? What if I place the container in a bucket and then fill it? How about a garbage can? F150? F350? What if there were more than two trucks I could mention?

Sometimes, people tell me things. The other day "the dentist" wanted to see me, perhaps during lunchtime. We had exchanged an email or two and chatted on the phone a bit, so I guess he felt like he could open up to me. He said something like, "now just because it's going to be lunchtime, don't think that we're going to have any food. I could maybe bring some sandwiches. Peanut butter and honey?" Again, more than a little strange.

Today at 7-11 a couple folks chatted me up a bit. A xerox copy repair man who would rather be a programmer, and was going back to get his IT degree. He was saying that was maybe the first time he had seen someone that a picture of a cheese machine. I told him about this blog, and maybe he is reading this today. Hola, xerox guy! I would probably aim towards java, and I think this is a good book.

One of the 7-11 workers told me about his mom's garden, that she grew hot stuff that he eventually ate half of one of them. It was really hot. "Do you like hot stuff?"

Why did drew eat at two places today? Now that's a good question.

Thats a Wrap

It bothers me that they call the place New York Burrito when what it is they are selling is not my idea of a burrito. Evidently they ARE all burritos as per Dictionary.com which says a burrito is "noun: a flour tortilla folded around a filling". But it still bothers me.
It was good food. Didn't quite fill us up, but that is why they are located right by Great Harvest Bread that sells cinnamon rolls larger than the spare tire in the trunk of Cameron's Honda that you can grab for dessert.
Another thing that bothered me just a tad is that my "burrito" was supposed to be healthy, but it wasn't (my lunch's nutritional facts). Especially when you add the dessert (yum, they don't list it with the frosting, ha!)
It could be worse, it could be Jack-in-box's excuse for a burrito which is a flour tortilla folded around a breakfast, putting you well over your cholesterol limit for the day before it even gets started.

cold mug please

Must mean more to other folks, but I sure do like the occasional frosty mug of a&w root beer. I used to go a couple tuesday a month to state street's own a&w/kfc combo. Not sure how those two folks ended up together, but if you ever wished for a bucket of chicken AND a frosty mug of a&w with a single credit card swipe, wishes can come true.

This particular flavor of said combo is run by a guy nice enough seeming fellow. I was about to mention his name, but since drew (ages ago) said we should have nothing personal in the blog, I have mentioned, I believe nary a name. Now, I didn't go to high school with him, like I did the formerly unmentioned owner of our local chick-fill-a, but I am starting to feel like I know old troy a bit. His employees seem to like working for him, he seems to like what he does, his customers seem to like him, and there you go. Today he made the rounds just to ask us if everything was alright. Almost seemed like he really meant it.

Goatee tuesday means you get a free drink on tuesdays if you have a goatee. In the past, I pushed the envelope a bit on length (shortness), but I got the free drinks. These days, as my lackbeard self, I can't really even begin to ask. The routine for first timers goes a little something like this

"Would you like a free drink with that?"
"Huh?"
"Because it's . . ."
"goatee tuesday! woot! woot!" (said in unison by several of the workers)

It's perhaps a touch more than a little strange.

save a panda

I can't imagine that orem's own china bowl was real excited about a panda express opening in the same parking lot, but I am pretty sold on china bowl, so I eat there. In another life, I discovered cal's chinese (sorry couldn't find a link). Cal's was a couple of blocks from the cal berkeley, which may have helped explain the name. And yeah, for quite awhile, I thought the owner's name must be cal. Never did meet cal, but I sure did like his lemon chicken. For whatever reason, perhaps near-freakish height, folks seem to remember me. I lived in utah, and visited berkeley only occasionally, but the folks would give me a warm, smiling nod when I came, and another warm, smiling nod when I would order lemon chicken.

Same thing happens about half the time for me at china bowl. I have seen pretty well two people ever working at china bowl. One is warm and friendly, acknowledging that I have been there before, rhetorically asking if I want the lemon chicken, delivering chop sticks with my order, etc, etc. The other acting like it is my first time there, expressing no emotion when I usually order the lemon chicken, bringing chop sticks only after I ask, etc, etc.

That said, today I tried the peking chicken. It is pretty yummy and I guess I shouldn't always get the same thing. Try new things! Out with the old! Course, I used to get the peking chicken quite a bit, so I guess I mean try the things you used to try! How yummy is the peking chicken? Just take a look at the clean plate!

say hola to yamato!

I know that we started on our trek some few weeks ago, and the goal was to make our way south of twelfth north, hitting pretty well anywhere that served food. So far, we have made it to pretty well wendy's and one parking lot of restaurants. To date, our nemesis has been that darn new york burrito. I wonder if the owner knows how much potential revenue he has lost because of scimping on the rice/beans so many years ago. I think I ate there once, or maybe twice, and then nothing. Mostly because I was not impressed with my five-six dollar meal that left me wanting. "And a whopper," I call it. The meal was fine and I got plenty full. Well, plenty full if I ate the meal . . . .

Kind of funny that drew and I were more excited about 7-11 and the hot dog king than new york burrito. That said, we were even more excited about lovely yamato. Yum.

Yamato (the big sign, not the mattress store in the back) is one of those places that I kind of keep discovering over and over again. Not sure why I forget, but lately, it has definitely been in the rotation.

With few exceptions, I get the chicken teriyaki and shrimp tempura. Pretty well each time, I finish and think, wow, that was awesome. I know, it is a total sellout meal. I took a break or two and got some udon, and something else a touch more autentico, but yeah, just keep coming back. And yeah, I don't really like nigiri.

Yamato is a call ahead kind of place. So very slow. Not that the drive to south orem speeds it up, but be ready to order when your waitress shows up. And it's not like we're getting anything that strange.

Got a cinnamon roll on the way back. Yum again.

pretty good harvest

Isn't great a little presumptuous? I mean, you don't really get to pick do you? Isn't that for your customers to decide? Also kind of hard to go back on as well: Formally great harvest, now well above average. Along similar lines, a place north of twelfth north on state street is called the new chinese gourmet buffet. Yes, new is in the title. Or at least it is on the sign. Uh, you're not new anymore, change your sign. And gourmet? Really?

So yeah, great harvest bread today. Yet another place that we wouldn't have ever gone to, but for our little project. Great harvest bread serves lunch, you may be asking? Well, kind of. They serve sandwiches. Back of mind, I am thinking, sandwiches? What kind of lunch is that? Turns out there are some few chains that really just do sandwiches for lunch. It might have been because great harvest didn't have fountain drinks. That hardly counts.

What did I order? Funny you should ask, cause I took a picture of my cute, little order form. Yip, peanut butter and jelly. Was pretty dang good though. So was the turkey. But the cinamon roll? I told the mrs tonight that I may need to get a second job to help pay for cinamon rolls. It was like $2.36 with tax. Pretty dang posh.

The fact that their seating consisted of two benches might have had some bearing on me thinking it wasn't a real restraunt. You can see the sandwiches poster that got us in there.

every day?

Kind of hard for me to blog anywhere near daily. Even when you intend to write about my near daily event of lunch. Seems like I heard Neil Gaiman say that the keys to having a successful blog are to write every day for ten years. Not looking real good for me, but I guess we shall see.

After eating at Quizno's, we wandered over to Macey's (or is it Harmon's?), which is pretty much in the same parking lot, for a little ice cream. Fifty cents on the nose. Yes, including tax! How cool is that? Kind of makes me want to go back there, just to reward their apparent tribute to base ten. $3.99 for a combo meal? So, like $4.29 with tax? What planet do you think I am from? Please help me feel comfortable, and maybe make it $4 on the nose, or maybe even $4.50, but I will need to think about that last one.

How about a nice big snowman to help with the whole ice cream feel? Just makes me think of that potentially world changing Lost punchline of

smells like carrots

For ages I have gone to chick-fill-a. It is pretty well my first choice for lunch, but alas, it isn't really on state street, though the mall is (kind of), and the chick is in the mall. I have kind of imaging our quest ending there, but it looks like we might hit there a few times before. I used to get the solid number one, with no pickles, lemonade, value sized. Somewhere along the way I made the big change to chicken nuggets. The little ones may not like curry too much, but at least there is one meal we could share. And I am a grown up! How cool is that?

Pretty sure that my chick experience has largely been served, by Margie, the nice lady in the blue. It is nearly always busy there, and if nothing else, I think it is busier than every other place at the mall. Mall food. Hmm.










A blast from the past is hopefully somewhere there on the right, mocking my pain, as noticed by the mrs.

Quizno's

We ate at Quizno's today. I really like the idea of the place. Take something that should be healthy, then prepare it in un-healthy ways until it tastes good. I like it because they say things like "toasting" the sandwich, even though it tastes like its been deep fried. My mind likes "toasting" even though my heart probably doesn't buy the marketing spiel.
I would like to see Subway Jared go on a Quizno's diet for a while then have the marketing department come up with a little phrase to explain what happens to his body. I am sure he would be happier, he just couldn't hold up his old pants anymore showing how much weight he lost, because he would go back to wearing them. At least he wouldn't have this scary disclaimer that I found out at Subway's site haunting him anymore -- "results are not typical. Your loss if any will vary. SUBWAY® Restaurants does not endorse the diet Jared created and cautions anyone embarking on a weight-loss plan to consult their physician." If Subway can't even endorse a diet eating their food, then Quizno's should not be ashamed of anything -- toast everything in site.
Just because they make food that isn't supposed to be eaten regularly doesn't mean we can't learn to eat it. A coyote wandered into a Quizno's in Chicago earlier this year and hung out for a while. The news story said it was probably looking for food and that "Coyotes are quite territorial and quite good at adapting to what their territory presents." If they can adapt to food like this, so can I...

apollo burger rulz!

I know that it wasn't up yet, but hey, at least it is on state street. Got to go with the mrs and the little one, and the mrs wanted apollo, so away we went. Next up on our quest is actually quiznos, which doesn't really thrill me, followed by great harvest bread, which I am a little more curious about. ghb sounds pretty dang good actually. I mean a sandwich is a sandwich, but from what I have heard some folks really like good old ghb. I have just gotten their free bread (my favorite kind), and maybe a cinnamon roll. But alas, that is for another day, today (actually friday), apollo.

While we're on the subject of yesterday being today, for years I have felt a touch dishonest writing about non-todays on today. On the mish, for the first like ten months, I had at least a page for each day, but many of those were written after the fact. I would actually make a mark on the page for a given day, on that day, just to kind of make it legit, but yeah, I guess I am a little bit weird.

Folks rave about in 'n out, but for my money, apollo burger is right up there. The fries are different, and each have their own favorable qualities, but I am surprised folks don't rave about state street's own apollo burger. That said, it is pretty dang busy in there some days, so I guess they can be our own little secret. It is also true that I have gone across the street to kfc for burgers before, so what do I know?


If any mushrooms wiss combos are reading today, and you're looking for a job, it looks like apollo is hiring.

a dead bird to go

A couple days ago, when walking back from la taquiera, we happened to see a dead bird in arby's drive-thru. And here we are, a couple of days later, doing what?, that's right!, eating at arby's! I had coupons though, and as I am a from-coupon orderer, you can see how I opted for the medium roast beef and ninety-nine cent vanilla shake. And yeah, the bird was gone today.

Since I have worked down the street for like eight years, I have been eating at this particular
arby's for quite awhile. Some time ago, I realized or was told by those mentioned below, that arby's didn't take coupons. I mean that they don't physically take the coupons. You can use them over again. What a country, huh? Today, all that changed.

The picture at the left shows absence. Ironically, two of the absences correspond to stains on the table we nearly sat at. Look what I almost stepped in!

Kind of funny, but the cashier was pretty meticulous about absenting my coupons. Don't bother with the tables honey, just make sure you take some time on getting that guy's coupons! I used two, and Drew used one. Drew's is the really good one, $3.99 for a combo meal.

Wow, how can they stay in business doing that? A couple certain IP lawyer friends of mine have used a similar coupon perhaps a hundred times. They actually got a personalized coupon from the manager because the normally awesome coupon didn't contain the sandwich they wanted. Well, it did for awhile, but was taken off. Perhaps to help retain their highly compensated clientele, arby's gave them their own coupon. Bargain.

In other news, it looks like great harvest bread makes sandwiches. See you soon.

say hola to sopes!

This is at least partly what I envisioned when pondering our state st adventure: La Taqueria. A little mexican hole in the wall, just a bit off the beaten path. And I guess when I say a bit, I mean about a quarter of a block. Somewhere we wouldn't have likely visited in our normal lunch rotation. That said, it must have a state street address, so here we come.

I am pretty well up for new food, but wow, when you get there and the menu is mostly in spanish (what the heck is an asada?) and you aren't real sure what a huaraches is, well, I get a little nervous. It is also kind of funny, because it looks like huaraches are sandals or something, so I guess it is good that I didn't go out on too much of a limb. I was going to try the gorditas, cause hey, if this place is gonna rip off taco bell, it is worth a shot; but the cashier said that they took too long to cook, so they weren't available. And yet, on the menu.

The fish for the fish tacos was frozen a bit too much, so also not available. I ended up trying at least something new, which was a chicken sopes. Kind of like a tostada and pretty yummy. I thought it was going to be like a sopapilla, but figured you wouldn't really have that with chicken.

A little while ago I started working for the church. One day, while eating at the cafeteria, a guy said something like "that oriental bar sign is missing an f." For whatever reason, it stuck with me, and signs as above will likely never be the same for me.

Those two missionary-looking folks are Cameron and Drew. Hola Cameron!

The sandwich maker was broken! Ha! Cause the sandwich maker was actually a person! Ha again!

That's Right.™ - Wendys

First stop on the tour de State Street -- Wendy's.
... and at the risk of turning this into a rant blog by continuing the tone from Earl's first post, here are my main thoughts:
Whatever happened to Wendy's? Didn't it used to be fast, efficient, and tasty? Well, fast and efficient anyway. We waited in line for 1/2 hour. There were not many people in line in front of us. The lady apologized for it taking so long, explaining that their sandwich maker was broken, meaning the guy making the sandwiches, I believe. My average wait time for Wendy's the last few years has been about 1/2 hour. It used to be 30 seconds... back when Dave was alive.
I stopped going to Wendy's, even though it is the only fast food place within 20 minutes of my house because their food tasted really bad one time and I realized it had tasted really bad for several visits and I had just been justifying it.
My wife stopped going there because she found a long black hair in the food as well as parts of the frosty machine in the frosty. When she complained about it the manager replied that they have had problems at that particular store for a while and his tone made her feel so sorry that she ended up consoling him.
My neighbor found a piece of chewed gum in his chili and got enough free food coupons to feed a small village, which of course he will never use.
While waiting in line for the broken sandwich maker to complete my order I watched another worker shovel loads of pre-cooked chicken sandwich patties from one container to another under a "Fresh and Delicious" sign.
When Dave Thomas passed away, I think we all died a little inside, but probably just didn't know it...

happy hour

Just waiting for a script to finish running and fighting some insomnia, so I thought I would kick this blog off a bit. I told Drew about a piece I heard on this american life, where Jonathan Gold tells about trying to eat at every (with some few exceptions) restaurant on pico boulevard in los angeles. I figured Drew would be all over doing something similar on orem, utah's own state street and I was right. We even started this lovely blog (with its oh so clever name), and plan on mashing up a little with google maps and good old flickr. See, I have a posh new phone, and it will let me send blog entries and photos here and photos to my flickr account as well.

Just glancing at google maps, Jonathan's Pico trek could have approached 15 miles, and Yahoo! maps lists over two thousand restaurants nearby. Drew and I are going to start at 1200 north on state street in orem, and make it down to the mall. Our trek approaches three and a half miles. Yahoo! maps shows there being over a hundred nearby restaurants.

Friday, Drew and I made a sonic run, where I was pleased to see that we had come during happy hour (clap, clap, clap) and wondered if the cream slushes were half price. Our ordering went a little something like this.

Earl: Are the cream slushes half price.
Voice: Yes.
Earl: Really? Did you say yes?
Voice: Yes.
Earl (after consulting with Drew): We'll have two large grape cream slushes.
Voice: Your total is four something (yeah, I forget exactly).
Earl (after starting to drive off, and looking at the menu, realizing that wasn't half price): Is that half price?
Voice (after a slight pause): Well, we are in happy hour (see above), so yes, they are half price.

After that, I just sat in silence, realizing that we weren't going to get (as I suspected) our cream slushes for half price and that regardless, the two dollar difference wasn't going to be worth an argument. Drew and I sat silently for a minute longer and then drove forward.

Sure enough, we got the non-half price bill.

Earl: Looks like the cream slushes aren't half price.
Server: No, they aren't included.
Earl: Yeah, when we ordered we were told they were.
Server (rather cheerily): Yeah, she shouldn't have said that.
Earl: You might want to let her know.
Server (on the verge of laughter): Yeah.

If you thought this story was awesome, I have a feeling you're gonna love statestreat.

Earl