The Great Burger Hunt - Sherwin Park Restaurant

Gross.....

There are not many options for food around the Sherwin Industrial Park/Red River College (Notre Dame Campus) area.  You pretty much have to eat fast food from 4 crappy places or travel quite far to get decent food.  Of course there is one exception just behind my place of employment. Sherwin Park Restaurant .

Now to be fair, this isn’t really a burger joint.  I can vouch from eating here many times, albeit a few years ago before I returned to work right by the restaurant, that the food is actually not bad.  That being said, the burger and fries I had were terrible.

The cheeseburger comes topped with mustard, mayo (grossly excessive amounts), tomato, lettuce, and lots of onions.  The onions were the best part of the burger as the beef was thin and tasteless.  Cold fries matched the taste of the beef: soggy, cold, and bland as hell.

My suggestion if you ever eat here.  Get one of the Chinese dishes; either the lemon chicken or shrimp dish to be exact.  The grilled cheese used to be excellent but that information is years old so I can’t say how accurate that is now.

The only bonus is the price.  Everything on the menu is priced well on the cheaper side.  $6.10 for the cheeseburger and fries is an upside to return over some of the fast food choices in the area.  Of course, when I return I will probably get something other than the burger.

What I got: cheeseburger and fries $6.10

Burger Taste: 1/5

Fries Taste: 0/5

Price Value: 4/5

Menu Selection: 5/5

Overall: 2.5/5

Christmas Morning

Quick tale I wrote at the coffee shop waiting for someone....

The covers are keeping him warm.  It is too comfortable for him to move.  Tossing and turning, a smile warms the room as the boy sleeps.  His alarm clock reads 8:50 as he rolls over, slowly opening his eyes and focusing on the clock.  Looking up he sees the snow falling outside and the sun making it glisten and shimmer.  He sits up and pulls a sweater over his head.

The smell of coffee penetrates his nostrils.  There is a smell of a morning breakfast and laughter.   The boy’s eyes widen.  It is Christmas morning.  How could he forget?  With speed the Flash would be proud of the boy runs down the steps and into the living room.

The smile that was on his face while he slept has grown.  His mother and father smile back at him.  He takes a small look at his younger brother opening his stocking before he reaches for his.  Sitting down beside his brother he looks at the gifts protruding from behind the tree.  His brother hands him a gift.  He looks at it and walks away from it, pulling his brother along.

He walks over to the couch and sits his brother down with their parents.  Gives them all a hug and tells them how much he loves them.  This is the only Christmas gift he requires.  Family.

The Walking Dead

Zombies, zombies, zombies!!!

My anticipation for The Walking Dead was at astronomical levels when the show was first announced.  It is one of my favorite books and I could just picture every scene transferred from the black and white art to HDTV.  Plus, having Frank Darabont attached also didn’t hurt my excitement.

Then the first episode dropped.  My jaw hit the floor shortly after.  It was better than I expected, and my expectations were extremely high.  The story, acting, dialogue, visuals were just superb.  I was already bummed that the first season would only be 6 episodes.

My brother, Brett , also a zombie freak, enjoyed the first episode as much as I did.  I think he was just as disappointed with the rest of the season as I was.

Don’t get me wrong.  It was still an enjoyable show but it didn’t carry on at the same level throughout all 6 episodes.  When the drop in quality hit in episode 2 I wasn’t worried.  It was not a big drop.  Then it fell much further in episode 3.  Again the drop wasn’t huge but from 1 to 3 it was too noticeable for my taste.

Then series creator, Robert Kirkman , wrote episode 4.  This episode had it all, and is arguably the best episode beside the pilot.  Although I heard a lot of hatred for the opening scene with Amy and Andrea I loved the dialogue and character moment it created.  It was probably one of my favorite scenes of the series.

Then the last line of that episode delivered a gut punch, and not the good kind, even my brother felt it.  Did AMC and the writing crew really need that in there?  Brett almost gave up on the series because of it, and I might have if the books weren’t so damn good.

Now that a full season is in the bag I want more but I want the quality to be higher.  Maybe I am asking for too much.  A 6 episode season doesn’t keep the same story beats a 13 episode season does.  This almost felt like a prequel to season 1.

I don’t want to focus on all the negatives because I did enjoy it for the most part, keeping the people who read the books guessing is another reason I loved it.  If the writing and acting (and as Brett says, “the lighting guy should be fired”) becomes more consistent I think this show could be placed into the Mad Men , Breaking Bad , Boardwalk Empire , talks for best show on television.

SantaCon!!!

The after party for exams!

Can’t believe it has already been 6 months since I have been back home.  Even my first set of exams is over. I had to go out and celebrate, right?  So how about dressing up like Santa, meeting other people dressed up as Santa, and going on a pub-crawl?  That would be SantaCon.

I wasn’t even sure if I was going to go originally.  SantaCon was the night of my last exam so it sounded like I had my party to go to but the cost of buying a Santa suit and paying for drinks all night was too much.

But my buddy Kevin was not going to take no for an answer.  He wanted me to show up so much that he bought me a Santa suit for the occasion.  It was his Christmas gift for me and my Christmas gift to him was partying at SantaCon.

PHOTO BY BRETT ENQUIST

So Kevin, Stef , Kent and I got dressed in our Santa attire and began a night of drinking, singing naughty Christmas carols, taking our sleighs from pub to pub, and making new friends in Santa suits.  Also got to party with some internet friends ( Alyson and Tyrone )!  Although the cold weather made the walks to different pubs an annoyance we all managed to stay warm enough.  Probably used booze to help keep us warm on more than one occasion.

Thankfully at the end of the night we didn’t have to wait for a cab as my brother Brett came to pick our drunken asses up, sans Kent, at Kings Head at 2AM.  It would have sucked to wait outside for a cab, as I sold my Santa suit for a handful of drinks at the end of the night and only had a Hawaiian shirt to keep me warm.  I was a Hawaiian Santa originally, and then I was just the guy wearing the most horrendous shirt in the bar.  Thanks for that monstrosity of a shirt Dad!