The Great French Fry Debate: An Epic

It started as a joke. Much like it always does.


Our current Sunday ritual stands as this: Over the course of the morning, Kevin, Andy and I will rouse ourselves from sleep at some point before 1PM. Why? Well we need to set our Fantasy Football line-ups don't we? Jon is usually already over by the time the pre-game shows are on. As we re-cap our Saturday nights, and weep for our fallen comrades from the night before, the TV tantalizes us with advertisements of delectable, greasy goodness. Jake is usually somewhere doing something, typically Clockey related activities. This past week, after Jon had left to go enjoy the games on DirecTV, the three of us remaining languished in that subtle state between lethargy and boredom. In prior weeks, Kevin's jests had spurred expeditions to Taco Bell, and KFC. Kevin and AG pioneered the Taco Bell trip, and I joined up during KFC but this... This was a whole new frontier.


Kevin said something eloquent, and thought provoking, along the lines of, "Kid, Whoppers?" to which Andy and myself both laughed. "Alright, Big Macs," was the response. "Nah, man. Nah," Andy concluded. However by the time the 7th or 8th Burger King commercial came on, our pallets were sufficiently whetted. 


"Okay. Burger King then McDonald's at the end of the First Quarter." Andy threw down the gauntlet, to which an excited Kevin replied, "Nice." I nodded fearing the worst was to come. As the first quarter of the football game hit 00:00, the boys and I rallied, grabbing wallets, phones and keys, exiting the apartment, sealing our fate.


We joked about how fat we were on our way out. We talked about how fun this was going to be. We went to the supermarket, grabbing groceries for a five layer dip for later, as well as a large pepperoni pizza for a mere $6.49. The jokes continued. 


Burger King. Andy pulled up to the drive-thru. The game was afoot. We quickly vetoed this idea, opting to go inside and order. Entering this grim establishment, we were greeted by a man who had forgotten his money in the car, trying to pay for him and his son's meals. We debated options on the menu as the man ran to the car. Returning, he payed for a 12 dollar meal with a hundred dollar bill. Working as a cashier myself when someone pays with an a hundred dollar bill there's a subtle sense of,  "This guy paid with an 100 dollar bill oh snap I gotta step up my game." The guy panicked. He was jumbling around 20's and 5's and his manager eventually had to come around and figure it out for him. As a natural defense mechanism, the guy made a joke. Who wouldn't? "Hey I failed math in high school!" Kev, AG and I smiled that kinda nice save/pity smile, but the guy in front of us nailed him with, "That's why you work at Burger King!"


Our faces slackened. Jaws: Dropped. Did he really just say that? I mean, some people in the depths of their mind might think that but we have standards, decency! We were shell-shocked. The Manager tried to save it, by saying that BK hired college level employees now, but the damage was done. The cashier took our orders then slinked away, busying himself until the guy left. It was brutal. Also: Andy had never had never had a Coke ICEE. I know right? Well Kevin quickly remedied that. I grabbed a crown, we grabbed our food, and we were off. I gave the other two a fry each. "Who's got the best fries?" I asked, to which we all had different answers. We argued a bit, laughing it off.


But wait... "We're already going to BK and McDonald's... Wendy's?" one of us propounded. We all nodded determinedly. Game on. Next stop: McDonald's. Cheaper than BK, twice the people working, same wait time. We all tried the fries. We zigged, we zagged, we made our way to Wendy's. Of course we all got more food, and more fries. Let's be honest, Wendy's stepped their game up with the sea salt on their fries. The decision was made. Wendy's was most certainly the victor, but this time, it was to the Debaters who went the spoils. 


Making our way home, neighbors were shocked, and disgusted at the debasing task we had put ahead of ourselves. We finally entered our apartment, and laid out our treasures across our feasting table. This picture was the damage.


We collected our food, and I said Grace.


"Dear Lord in Heaven, Thank you for this meal in front of us. And If we die, Know! It was worth it."


"Amen."


What happened next can not be put into words. I will say this. There was great suffering that day. There were no more jokes made. Nobody was happy. No one thought it was fun. The Great French Fry Debate had been settled. But at what cost?

In Memoriam: Kevin, Andy and Jim's collective health.
Requiescat in Pace

Paying Attention in Class

Almost 2 years ago I wrote this blog, about multi-tasking and not paying attention in class. I maintain that paying attention in class is my prerogative. But having just got singled out for not paying attention in a lecture of exponentially dwindling numbers, I'm gonna talk about it again.

I'll set the stage. In order to finish out our Global Education requirements for the School of Social and Behavioral sciences, Jake and I are taking a History class. The class is about everyone's favorite topic: World War I. What's that? Nobody cares about World War I, and everybody is interested in World War II? Oh yes, that's right.

Now, when we signed up for the class, it turned out that a whole other group of people we knew were going to be taking the class as well. Good sign for the class! The teacher of the class got a 4.6/5 on RateMyProfessor. Good sign for the class! It's a lecture. Good sign for the class!

So when we showed up Day 1, and it was a lecture, our friends were there, and we saw that there was indeed a professor, we thought we were batting a thousand. Boy were we wrong. The professor was actually a visiting professor from the University of Minnesota or something, and his teaching style involves him standing at the pulpit, going on about World War I, consulting a page, with a map on one of the old school projectors. Did I mention he loves reading us World War I poetry? Cause he does!

Anyway, Jake and I decide, "Alright. We'll stick it out. Maybe it'll get better once the actual war starts?" Well it didn't. Hell that other group of kids I was talking about? Yeah. They dropped the class. I wish we'd joined them. Now the once full lecture hall has dwindled to about one person every 3 or 4 seats. So us even showing up to class is some kind of miracle from the teaching gods. There's absolutely no way to take notes, because he talks and talks and talks and talks, about random people or battles that you're expected to know. The topography, the socioeconomic implications, the politics; he might honestly believe that he's lecturing to a class filled with other World War I professors.

So the fact that we're here should give us some kind of pass right? Well apparently the fact I'm on my laptop, and Jake looked over to see what I was looking at is some kind of crime against the professor. Jake looks over for arguably 2 or 3 seconds, and our professor goes, "HEY! You two in the back! What's going on?!" Was he really calling us out? Really Bro? We decide to come and sit through your lecture that sans laptop would arguably bore me to death, and you're going to call us out for sitting, minding our own business not paying attention. That's how it's going down. Okay. Great.

If we're not yelling or throwing things, and just sitting there minding our own business, not paying attention, you leave us the hell alone. College is a time where going to class and paying attention is up to the student. I'm here at least. If you want us to pay attention make your lecture more interesting. Stop talking about the romanticism of one soldier from Britain who was in battles X,Y, and Z, and kept a diary, and talk about a battle. Talk about something that will catch my attention. The turning point in the war. Anything! I mean I realize that there was 4 years of stalemate due to trench warfare. But I had to find that out from Wikipedia, because I couldn't listen to you longer than to realize you were talking about something that might make my IQ lower if I kept on listening.

All I'm saying is that we had the decency to come to this awful class, my last class of the week, and you are going to call me out for minding my own business? Go back to Minnesota or wherever you came from. This class sucks.

Editors Note: On Thursday, October 20th, Jim and Jake dropped that class like a bad habit, ate a victory dinner, celebrated and slept like babies. Everyone cheered.

I'm Writing Something Gorram it!

I have been slacking. Yes. I admit this. I apologize. I've been mad busy! See what I did there! Italics! For emphasis! Anywho, what's up guys? How's it been? Good? Good.

With that out of the way, lets move on to more pressing matters. Television is addictive. Over the summer I had at least one show every night of the week, with the exception of Saturday. We had good ol' TNT Sundays, Syfy Mondays, USA Tuesdays, Franklin & Bash on Wednesdays, Suits on Thursdays, and Haven on Fridays. "Wow Jim, you watch a lot of TV!" Yeah. I know. Thanks. But I mean Wow! Someone somewhere decided to step up their game this summer. New series like Franklin & Bash, Falling Skies and especially Suits and Alphas (both of which I got Kevin hooked on) all were just top-shelf stuff. Plus the return contenders like White Collar, Covert Affairs, Leverage, Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Haven all had solid seasons.

So maybe it's just me, but I really get into TV shows. I was listening to a podcast as I drove home today for the long weekend, and they said that the reason the mainstream public is into the whole Kardashian, reality show idiocracy is because they can't get into a great television show. You know, something that really takes them out of it. Some of these shows, I watch them and I just get caught up. What's gonna happen next? I don't know. Or maybe I do? But these people are story tellers, and they are damn good at it.

As for what's coming up, you got the perennial classics How I Met Your Mother, House, Psych, SVU, Chuck, Parks & Recreation, Community, The Walking Dead, Sanctuary, and the second half of Covert Affairs as well as some new guys like Terra Nova, Grimm, and Once Upon A Time, all of which have my interests piqued. I'm also getting the Dexter and Breaking Bad vibe going. Which is interesting.

So basically, I'm a TV snob, and even though I didn't mean to write a blog about my unusual TV habits, but here it is. Maybe this is a step in the right direction? Here we go Jim! You can do it! Go team! If you've got some show that I'm not watching that I should be, or some other comment on my wide variety of  legal/cop/sci-fi shows, let me know!