Applebees: BANNED!

So yesterday I wrote in a survey that I wanted to go to Applebees for dinner. But of course, you knew that, because you read it....right?


Anyways, I was able to talk Rachel into going, but only if we did the Carside To Go. I was all about this, because I've never tried that, and it seemed like a great idea.

I called them at 4:56 pm last night. The call went something like this:

Applebees: Thank you for calling Applebees featuring Carside to Go, how may I help you?

Andy: I would like some of that Carside To Go you just mentioned.

Applebees: Ok sir, what can I get you?

Andy: A chicken fajita roll-up and a BBQ chicken sandwich

Applebees: Ok, and what is your name, and what kind of car are you driving?

Andy: My name is Andy, and I'm driving a blue Jeep Compass.

Applebees: Ok Andy, we'll see you in about 15 minutes. Thank you for choosing Applebees!

So we hop in the car, get some gas on the way, and we're at Applebee's by 5:18 pm. About 5:30, this girl comes out to our car and asks me if I am Jim. No, I am not Jim. Then she goes back into the restaurant. A few minutes later, she comes back out.

"Did you order the taco salad and the steak?"

Now I'm a little peeved. About 5:45, a manager comes out and apologizes us for the wait and tries to apologize for her server because she "got 17 orders in 45 minutes." Doing the math, that's roughly one phone call every 3 minutes. You're telling me she can't enter an order into the computer in 3 minutes? c'mon.

So we finally get our food a little before 6, and we're also given a free appetizer and a free dessert. Not sure when we're going to use it however, because this little disaster just landed Applebees firmly on the list of banned establishments. Currently the only other place that is banned is KMart, for only having one checker on a weeknight and making us wait 20 minutes to buy a few 2-Liters of pop.

Applebees Carside To Go? More like Applebees Carside Too Slow.

Rain on

You know how in cartoons when someone is in a particularly foul mood, a rain cloud appears over their head, and it starts raining on them? That's what my day's like today. Seriously.


A leak had developed in the ceiling above my cubicle. My garbage can is collecting the rogue drops of water. I think we're about 3 more hours of rain from the ceiling tile above my head getting so waterlogged that it falls on me. I'll keep you posted.

So now, not only do I have nothing to do, but it's raining indoors. Fan-freaking-tastic.

Like with cars?

So last week, I made the weekly bank run for the Foundation on Friday. There's this one ditzy girl (aptly named Tiffany) who works there that I absolutely cannot stand. She can't count, which makes it tough for her to be a bank teller. Anyways, of course I end up getting her as my teller. She starts asking me all these questions like "so, do you have the weekend off?" and "are you in school?" Not sure what these two questions have in common, but whatever. Anyways, I tell her I just went back to school for accounting, and she says "oh, like with cars?"


I have no clue what she thought I said. For her sake, I hope she didn't hear me correctly. Not wanting to continue this conversation, I just say "yep."

Big Mistake.

She's a gearhead. Who would've thought?

So she starts grilling me on classic cars and asking me what I like working on, and if I know how much the frame for a dodge charger would be and all this mess. I tried to bs my way through it, but I think I did a pretty crappy job. Of course, while this is going on, she miscounted the money and it took an extra 10 minutes for her to fix it.

I can't wait til next time I go in and she asks me about cars, I'm probably going to say "oh I gave that up. I'm into chemistry now" and see what she says.

Last dance of the Chief

So, having never gone to the University of Illinois, and having no particular affection for their sports teams (aside from the orange color they sport), it may seem strange that I'm writing about what happened at the Illinois basketball game last night.


Last night was the last time Chief Illiniwek, the unofficial mascot of Illinois, did his traditional dance at halftime of a sporting event. He's being retired to comply with the NCAA standard that no school can have names or mascots pertaining to Native Americans. However, they will be allowed to continue calling themselves the "Fighting Illini" because it refers to the fighting spirit of the institution and Illini is short for Illinois.

This is the whole problem with banning things based on their perceived offensiveness. What's offensive? Who is it offensive to? I understand banning the names Savages, Redmen, Indians, etc. because they tend to have universal negative connotation (with the exception of Indians. It's not offensive - except for the fact that they're not Indian at all) But banning teams with names of actual tribes? Names like Seminoles, Utes, Illini, Sioux, etc. I don't see anything offensive about this at all. If anything, I see it as a tribute to the triumphant spirit of these people. Not that they are bloodthirsty killers, but that they are a unified group of people with a common cause that refuse to simply fold when another group of people tried to take their home turf. Isn't this what sports personify? You don't want your rivals walking into your gym, arena, stadium, etc. and walking all over you, do you? You want your team to compete and hustle and not give up until the final buzzer sounds. You're not cheering for your team to pull out knives and jump the other team from behind and kill them.

Furthermore, why are names pertaining to Native Americans offensive, but names like Fighting Irish, Spartans, Trojans, etc. OK? Notre Dame has a man in a ridiculous leprechaun costume dancing around like a fool, and nobody finds this offensive? Because he's white? I don't get it.

Furthermore, having Native American mascots and team names keeps these cultures current in the minds of people. If not for Florida State, would anyone know who the Seminole tribe were or where they lived? Would we know that they rode horses? If not for Chief Illiniwek doing his dance at halftimes, would these traditional dances be known to anyone not of Illini descent? Would we know anything about Native Americans at all, other than that white people rounded them up and shipped them off to Oklahoma because it was so crappy they didn't want to live there themselves?

We prohibit people from discriminating against people for their race or sex, yet companies are encouraged to hire blacks and women. What's the difference between choosing someone because they're white and choosing someone because they're not white? I don't get it.

And I don't understand for a second what's offensive about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhKxKPUbs_E

Acceptable? You make the call

So there's a new Take N' Bake pizza joint in town. It's called New York, New York. Real original. Anyways, they name their pizzas after different New York landmarks and/or areas. For instance, they have pizzas called the Empire, the Brooklyn, the Harlem, and Liberty. They also have one called the NYPD. As far as I can tell, all the pizzas involve lots of meats and don't seem to have any discerning characteristics of their namesakes.


But the real problem is they have a pizza called the Twin Towers. Is this ok? I really don't know. I'm sure they will tell you it's in tribute, but do you really want to think about one of the worst days in our lifetimes everytime you order a pizza? Furthermore, why is a half hawaiian, half pepperoni pizza a Twin Tower? Because they're the two most popular pizzas? Maybe. But I really don't think I'm ok with this. I may boycott the place just based on this whole Twin Tower Pizza thing. What do you think?

Sports hate me

I love sports. That's no secret.


What was unknown before this weekend is that sports hate me.

Yesterday I plopped down on my couch to watch the final round of the Nissan Open golf tournament and the self proclaimed "Super Bowl of NASCAR" the Daytona 500. I can't explain why, but golf and auto racing are just a little more exciting in High-Def. It's true.

Anyways, Rachel's two least favorite things in the world are watching golf and NASCAR on TV. So she went into the other room. Pretty soon she fell asleep. I also found out that my interest in NASCAR and golf will only carry me so far, as I too conked out in front of the tube. I woke up a few hours later with drool on my cheek and about forty-five minutes left in each event.

By this time Rachel's about ready to go Jackie Chan on our TV. As the two events are finally reaching their respective ends, I'm getting a little more interested in seeing who will win. This feeling was offset by the death glares Rachel's shooting through the ol' Samsung. These feelings of anger gave way to utter defeat on her part, and I swear she turned into Eeyore there for a second.

At this point, I'm no longer enjoying watching sports because I realize that I am slowly killing my wife. So I say "fine let's go do something." Meanwhile, the race has 15 laps to go, and Phil Mickelson is walking up to the 17th tee with a one stroke lead. Seems like things are pretty much wrapped up. Rachel, attempting to put on a noble face, says valiantly "you can watch the end.....it'd be stupid not to." I don't have the heart to say that all the fun has been sucked out of the ending whatever it may be. I'm just praying for a quick and painless ending. Traveling at 180 miles an hour with 15 miles to go, the race should be over in about 6 minutes. Phil's just gotta knock the ball around 4 times and take his par and a win.

Sunday February 18th, 2007 will forever be known as the day sports decided to test my marriage. Wouldn't you know it, there's a wreck and NASCAR decides to completely stop the race to clean off the track. They have 5 miles left in the damn race! Meanwhile on CBS, Phil Mickelson is busy choking away a victory, two putting for bogey to send the tournament into a sudden death playoff. At this point Rachel mutters something under her breath I'm not sure is printable in this blog, and I just think "there's no way I'm sleeping easy tonight."

Lesson learned yesterday: If there's ever a golf tournament or NASCAR race that I ever want to watch again, I will record them and watch them at 3 in the morning when there's no chance they will ruin my weekend again.

Best spam email ever

The best spam email ever.


Just got this in my inbox from Berry Sanford:

..> "If your dick's batteries died, you don't have to buy a new dick, you can simply buy a new charger called Viagra Soft Tabs."

Of course there was a link provided that I did not click on. There's just something funny about the line "you don't have to buy a new dick."

My beef with TV

So over the past few years, I have heard the term "Jumped the Shark" over and over. I had a vague idea of what it meant, but I never knew where it came from. Basically it's a term to describe when something (usually a TV show) gets so ridiculous that it's no longer about what it initially was. An example would be when Garth Brooks tried that CD as Chris Gaines. What the hell was that? Anyways, the term comes from a Happy Days episode where The Fonz jumps over a shark on water skis. Apparently this was the unofficial 'beginning of the end' of that show.


I don't know if Lost has jumped the proverbial shark in the minds of the average American, but the Lost lost me, that's for sure. Nothing freaking happens! Entire episodes are flashbacks, which do nothing to advance the story. Now people are apparently time traveling. There's a black cloud that kills people. It doesn't make any sense anymore. I was cool with the mysterious side of the island at first, but c'mon....now it's just so unbelievable that it's lost my interest entirely. I've watched my last episode of Lost.

Heroes is about to follow it. There's too many heroes. Now they introduce a guy who can melt toasters. Oooooh. They apparently have two weeks to save the world. What happens after that? Do they then embrace their alter egos and don capes and masks and travel around the world stopping crime? According to Dr. Suresh, there could be thousands of heroes across the world. Thousands? At what point does it start to lose its specialness? If it was 10 or 15 or even 20.......that's cool. But thousands? Are they going to write a new one in every week? It'll get to the point where every time a new character is introduced on the show, you're going to know that they have a power before they even show it. Was anyone surprised that Claire's mom had a power? Is anyone going to be shocked when Mrs. Petrelli turns out to have some sort of power? By the way, Claire's mom said the fire wasn't an accident. So she tried to burn up her baby. And Claire doesn't seem to mind this. I'm confused. I'm going to stick with it through the first season, but it could be gone after that.

With the OC ending next week, that's two and maybe three shows that will be making their way out of my weekly rotation. Rachel and I have also toyed with the idea of jettisoning Desperate Housewives. That's 4 hours of my week I'll be reclaiming.

And does anyone really think Merideth Grey is going to die? Anyone? And Izzy's speech about how George made a mistake in marrying Callie was the most inappropriate and untimely speech in TV history. Are you kidding me? Your best friend is dying (allegedly) on a table in the next room, and you're going off on someone about their marriage? No way.

Musings

So yesterday I walk out the front door and there's something wrapped around my doorknob. It's a letter from ProGrass. Basically this is what it says.


"I was in your neighborhood and noticed that your lawn sucked. I can help. I will fix your crappy lawn if you pay me an obscene amount."

First, my lawn looks exactly like every other lawn in the neighborhood. They're all sub par. It's FEBRUARY. Nobody's lawn looks great in February. Second, if I cared that much about my lawn, I wouldn't have let it deteriorate in the first place and probably would've already called ProGrass. Bite me ProGrass!

A new restaurant opened up in the North Albany Village. It's called Spice n' Ice. It bills itself as an "Asian Grill with Gelato Ice Cream" Does that make any sense to anyone? I think it just sounds absurd. Yet last night as I drove by, I peeked in and the place was PACKED. Literally not a table open. Maybe it's worth a look.

The Day Bacon came to Albany

Saturdays are sacred in the Lasselle household. Rachel treasures her Saturday morning runs, and I treasure the college football/basketball that occurs on the final day of the week. Our routine usually goes something like this: we wake up around 8 or so, lay in bed for about an hour, then Rachel goes on a 3 mile jog. I wait about 15 minutes after she leaves, then walk down the road until I run into her. Then we walk another 3 miles. My lower body just doesn't allow me to keep up with her for the full distance. Anyways, today there was an intoxicating aroma all over the city - bacon. I don't know where it was coming from, but the smell of freshly cooked bacon is one of those scents that consumes you entirely. It stirs your most primal instincts: to eat meat. I realized that since I've been with Rachel, I probably have bacon on average once every year. This just wouldn't do. We made a slight detour on the way home to pick up some bacon for breakfast.


Today I cook bacon! Today I eat bacon! So what if it's turkey bacon, it's bacon damnit, and I'm excited!

Never take a ride from a security guard

So yesterday, I'm getting ready to head to my class from work, when the phone rings. It's a donor who had an issue with something that of course he had to give me the detailed version of (all he needed was a receipt sent with the correct date on it, but I had to hear about every donation he's made in the past 12 months before he got to that). Usually I walk to class, so now I'm going to be late, so I try and check with our receptionist to see if maybe I could borrow a campus parking pass so I could go park near Bexell Hall so I won't be late. She says yes, but there happens to be a campus security officer in the lobby at the time. She's like "I'll give you a ride, I'm heading that way anyways." So I figure I'll take the ride just so I'm not being rude. Big mistake. As soon as we get in the car she's shoving these valentine chocolates in my face saying "you need energy to stay awake in class don't you? EAT SOME!" Not wanting to get on the bad side of someone who carries a billy club, I politely took some candy from the strange lady with the badge. I don't think I said a word during the entire 10 minute drive. She started talking about everything from her friend Robby cat-sitting for the old people and finding worms in their top ramen to her having to drop the same class twice 10 years apart because her grandpa died the first time and the second time her mom got sick and was "obviously on her way out." Those are her words, not mine. So by the time we finally get to Bexell, she pulls over right in front of the building and as I get out of the car, she yells "have fun! Pay attention to that teacher!" like she's my mother or something and I'm off to my first day of kindergarten with my Scooby Doo lunch box. As if I don't already look out of place. Not only am I a "non-traditional" student with gray hair and business casual attire, now I'm being dropped off my security guard surrogate mother. I got more than a few weird looks from the girls in the Uggs and the guys on their longboards, let me tell you.

Too Fruity for the Snacks

After getting home last night and having my wife call me "Gay Pooh" all night, I decided that maybe that profile wasn't really how I wanted to portray myself. So I changed it up a bit. It's harder than you'd think to find profiles for guys in their late 20's. You'd think it'd be easier. I finally found a cool OSU one, but instead of saying "Send an Email" or "Add to Friends" it said stuff like "Send Marcus Mail" and "Add me Bitch!" My name's not Marcus, and I couldn't figure out to how to change it. Finally I just went uber-simple....and I'm pretty happy with it. You just can't go wrong with the Rally Monkey.


So, I'm sorry to those of you who stumble across the blog and have no clue what that last post was about. Just try to picture Pooh and Piglet trying to get a pear out of a tree in the most non-hetero way possible with a background that looks like the pastel-fairy puked all over it. It was that bad.

Metrosexual? Me?

So I'm bored at work (surprise surprise) My co-worker is sick yet again. The prevailing rumor is that her cat gave her pneumonia. My guess is that it's the one day variety of pneumonia. I've never heard of a cat with pneumonia before, but then again, she just had a cat with hepatitis, so you learn something new every day right?


Anyways, I've been doing what I normally do on slow, boring days....screw around on myspace. On the way into work today, I heard Fergie's "Glamorous" on the radio. It got stuck in my head so I decided to add it to my page so I could listen to it on the computer at work. Then I started messing with my layout. Given my love of bears, it's no secret that I've had Yogi and Pooh as my background lately. However, I wasn't really thrilled with my layouts of late...makes it hard to read text and such. So I tried to find a premade one. And pow...here's a great one of Pooh helping Piglet pick an apple out of a tree. The symbolism of this is great: I'm Pooh and Rachel's Piglet. I'm the big rolly poly bear, and she's my sidekick who's always so cold she needs to wear a sweater and is too short to reach the healthy apple which she so desires! I'm not going to be able to write a thesis on the symbolsim here, but you can see the parallels.

Anyways, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself for finding all this great stuff. Only now I'm looking at the finished project and I'm thinking "If anyone stumbles across this page, it is going to scream one of two things....either I'm the most feminine man alive, or I'm a 12 year old girl who lied about her age so she could meet an 18 year old boy from Canada on MySpace. Either way, it doesn't exactly look manly.

I guess I'm not a manly guy though. When I lived in Colorado, all the mountain bike patrol guys thought I was gay. In high school I always got the "guys suck......but not you Andy. You're not like most guys" speech from my female friends. I feel like I need to rip out some chest hair or something and visit a monster truck rally to ramp up my manliness. Maybe go sit in the quad and whistle at the co-eds as they walk by on their way to class. Maybe go try and lift something heavy while eating a steak rare. (All of these things sound really not interesting to me by the way. Except for the steak.)

So what does my page say to you? Does it say I watch the Bravo channel? Does it say "he wears pink?" Does it say he wants to be a woman? Or does it just say "Andy's different, and I'm cool with that."



**Editors Note** After posting this, "Glamorous" met the dreaded "Song has been Deleted by Artist" fate. It's back now. Also, Grant has graciously and politely pointed out that Pooh is helping Piglet get a pear, not an apple.

Super Lame

The Super Bowl was really, really, really lame this year. The game wasn't all that exciting.....I don't really want to see 5 fumbles in the first half of the championship game. I don't want to see Rex Grossman throwing the ball straight up in the air and just praying that it lands in his guys hands. And I don't want to see lame ass commercials.


As far as I'm concerned, there's only three memorable commercials: The "what your mom would feed you if your mom was a man" Combo's commercial that aired before the game even started, the Snickers kiss commercial (which was hilarious until they pulled out their chest hair...what the hell was that?) and the Emerald Nuts commercial with Robert Goulet. I think that one might've been my favorite, since it was the only one that was strong for a full 30 seconds. But seriously.....if you have $2.7 million dollars that you're going to spend on a commercial, don't you think you're going to come up with something that people will remember? Even Bud's Rock Paper Scissors joke was pretty lame......Nextel did the same gag last year in their "theft deterrant" commercial.

I'd say that the biggest TV day of the year was a complete and total bust, but it was saved by the food we had (Costco croissant sandwiches, Rachel's famous cheesy potatoes, summer sausage, chocolate chip cookies, Pepsi, and jello) and the company that came over (always good to see Grant and of course the dynamic duo of Gjurg and Sarah.)

I also saw a few good movies this weekend: Little Miss Sunshine and The Illusionist. I'd highly recommend L.M.S. to anyone, and the illusionist is pretty good, but it gets slow at some parts. Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

Another year gone by

So I realized the other day that it's now been a year since I started blogging on myspace. A lot happened during that year, so like any idiot, I went back and read all my blogs. Some reminded me of things I hadn't thought of since I wrote them, some reminded me that I should proofread, and some made me wonder why I wrote them in the first place. Which made me wonder......why blog at all?


For me, the answer is simple. I like to write. And if I'm going to write, I should probably write about the thing I know the most about: myself. I try and stay away from writing opinions, because I know writing about my thoughts on religion or politics will only anger people who read this. I'm not trying to use the internet as my own personal soap box. It's a place for me to record the weird, funny, and important moments in my life.....and toss in an online survey (or 2, or 3, or 4.....).

In other news.....donuts are ruining my day lately. Nothing symbolizes the saying "a blessing and a curse" moreso than the maple bar. In the past two weeks, I have not had anything traditionally considered fast food. I've had Quiznos once, and pizza a few times, but no McDonalds, Buger King, Wendy's, etc. I've been packing a lunch for the first time since my mom used to do it for me in middle school. Turns out it's not as bothersome as I had envisioned it to be. Only takes about five minutes to throw a pb&j together, toss in some yogurt, carrot sticks, a few granola bars, and a jell-o cup. Way healthier, tasty, and provides just enough satisfaction to last me until I get home at night.

However, the donut still impedes my healthy eating. Our office sets some sort of record for donuts provided. No joke, 3 times a week we have donuts in the office. And I can't say no to a good ol' glazed, or the maple bar in all it's rectangular glory. I try, but the siren song coming from the noblest of all pastries is too great for me to resist. One day I will learn to overcome the donut, but right now.....I am its humblest of servants. Funny the things that come to hold such power over us. I haven't felt this helpless around something since the time Grant cracked open a Pepsi, sat it down in front of me and said he'd give me $20 if I didn't drink it.

After 20 seconds, I got all sweaty and nervous thinking about a perfectly good Pepsi going flat and said to hell with the money.