My search for the perfect burger

I have eaten many hamburgers in my lifetime – some grilled, others mostly grease burgers. Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter the thrill of eating a one-of-a-kind hamburger that is nothing like you get at your local fast-food restaurants.

I have literally begun boycotting places such as Wendy’s and McDonald’s, which no doubt makes my doctor and the weight loss experts at Medifast happy. Other than the obvious reason that they aren’t ideal for one’s health, the other reason why I’ve stopped eating them is because I am sick and tired of all those commercials that show a nice juicy hamburger with steam rising from it. That is a far cry from the one you actually receive, the one that comes with dried meat that looks like it sat there for hours.

Why else did D-Fens, the gun-toting unemployed defense contractor Michael Douglas played in “Falling Down” (1993), pull out an AK-47 upon receiving that dried up flat piece of meat in between two cold buns at the local Whammyburger? It’s because of the deceiving mouth-watering advertisement.

“Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this picture?” D-Fens asks the patrons comparing his burger to the ad,

When I order a hamburger, I want it to be something I can’t get every day, like when I go to Chicago every few years to see friends and family. I go there to eat what I can’t get here in Texas: Italian beef sandwiches; stuffed pizza from Giordano’s or any for place for that matter that is not Pizza Hut, Dominos, CiCi’s or Papa Johns and “real” Italian pastry.

My search for a one-of-a-kind hamburger has been in vain. I have tried watching those specials on the Travel Channel profiling the nation’s top burger joints. The same went for that Texas Monthly article in their August 2009 issue profiling the 50 greatest hamburgers in the Lone Star State.

Seeing those hefty guys late at night stuffing their faces and saying, “You don’t want to eat this every day,” does me no good when I am on a Medifast diet of powdered drinks, eggs, puddings, bars, eight glasses of water and am only allowed one meat and veggie meal a day.

I could not get past the magazine’s front cover without wanting to order a Big Mouth Burger from Chili’s.

My repeated emails and phone calls to Audrina Partridge, Padma Lakshmi and Paris Hilton asking their opinions about those charbroiled burgers they have advertised for Carl’s Jr over the have gone unanswered.

All I want to know s if they think the burgers are any good. I am story, a but a sexy commercial ad and a quote from a customer in an article on the company’s website who, after eating their $14 Prime Rib - $6 burger says, “It’s like an orgasm” is not enough to convince me.

I hate to think the only one-of-a-kind burger to check out is The Heart Attack Grill, located in Chandler, Arizona, which I first heard about on Paul Harvey a few years ago.

It’s here, according to their website, www.heartattackgrill.com, where patrons called “patients” can chomp down on “All-You-Can-Eat Flatliner Fries” that are cooked in pure lard. They have the choice of burgers ranging from one to four patties and are cooked with a half-pound to two pounds of beef packed with cheese (don’t forget the lard), all of which are named after heart operations.

The Quadruple Bypass Burger is reportedly 8,000 calories. To help wash all this down, one can drink a full sugar Jolt Cola. It looks like such heart and diabetes medications at Crestor, Coreg, Januvia and Metformin will be no match for this intake of saturated fats that by the time you are done has got to be around 20,000 calories plus.

As an added bonus, those who are over 350 pounds and overeat for free. Should one live through finishing off The Quadruple Bypass Burger, he (or she) would be escorted out to their car in a wheelchair by a sexy nurse of his (her) choosing who would put the Hooters’ girls to shame. These young ladies are dressed in over-the-knee skirts, stockings, and feels. You don’t get this kind of service at Hooters.

I’ll visit The Heart Attack Grill one of these days. When I am suicidal, that is.

My search for the one-of-a-kind burger almost ended last December when one of my coworkers ordered lunch from a local joint called Burger Island. I figured there is a place that probably serves a hamburger you don’t normally eat every day and although they have a handful of restaurants in the Dallas area, they are not the corporate equivalent of McDonald’s or Whataburger. Up until recently, they didn’t even have a website.

Sure, I could have ordered their Big Island Burger which comes with sauteed onions, jalapenos, American and provolone cheese, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes and pickles or the Double Joint Burger, which comes with the same condiments, but the double meat is one pound. I wasn’t in the mood to be adventurous, nor was I in the mood for leftovers.

So, I just ordered their simple $4.20 hamburger. When the food arrived, my heart sank. The burger looked like your average Whataburger. Then I took a bite and the meat tasted different. It had a tangy taste that reminded me of those Italian beef sandwiches in Chicago.

I thought to myself I finally found the perfect hamburger where the secret to how it tastes lies in the meat cooked!

If only my joy had lasted longer. When I returned to Burger Island a few weeks later to order the same thing, gone was that tangy taste I encountered the first time. The hamburger was the same as one gets anywhere else. It was just a plain old grease burger.

And so, my search for the one-of-a-kind hamburger continues.

©11/24/09

News Flash: The world will not end on 12/21/12

December 21, 2012.

If this date means absolutely nothing other than you have three days left to buy Christmas presents, then I applaud you.

If the date, however, means you believe this is when the world ends, you belong in that insane group of conspiracy nuts who claim our government agents actually piloted those jets into the World Trade Center on 9/11. That bombs placed inside the Twin Towers caused their collapse, not the heat from burning jet fuel that weakened the buildings’ steel structures.

If you haven’t already noticed articles in magazine about 12/21/12 or the slew of books in the New Age & Spirituality section at bookstores, it’s a good bet you will know the meaning of the date when Hollywood’s big budget disaster movie, “2012”, is released.

Originally set to open last summer, “2012” stars John Cusack and Amanda Peet and is directed by Noah Emmerich, who unleashed Mother Nature’s fury in “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004) and gave aliens inside giant pancakes carte blanche to incinerate landmarks from the White House to the Empire State Building in “Independence Day” (1996).

“2012” opened in theaters Nov. 13, 2009. Friday the 13th to be exact, perhaps the perfect date to release a movie about humanity biting the big one. The only other time studios look to cash in on the superstitious date is when they release a slasher pic about a guy in a hockey mask named Jason who around knocking off young college kids at a campground called Crystal Lake.

Perhaps you’ve seen “2012’s” big promotional cardboard display at theaters showing what resembles a continent of cities and suburbs falling into the ocean. I wonder if it’s that part of America that’s been referred to as “The Blubber Belt”; the juncture where we will finally pay the price f0r being so obese because the land we live on can no longer sustain our increasing weight.

Watching the trailer, I couldn’t help but laugh seeing the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, being flipped over by a giant tidal wave that washes away the White House.

This brings me to the subject of entertainment, which when you get down to it is all “2012,” the movie really is. It’s not about the Mayans, though their unseen presence does play a significant role in the film and the main reason for Mother Earth’s destruction. Leave it to the doomsayers to twist what is nothing more than an end date of the Mayan calendar.

“There’s going to be a whole generation of people, who, when they think of the Maya, think of 2012, and to me that’s just criminal,” said David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas at Austin in an article on CNN’s website. “There is no serious scholar who puts any stock in the idea that the Maya said anything meaningful about 2012.”

Even “2012” director Roland Emmerich doesn’t believe the world is on collision course with Doomsday.

“I’m a pretty down-to-earth guy,” Emmerich said on Yahoo! Movie Talk earlier this year. “Even though I made movies about aliens, I don’t believe in aliens. And I don’t believe the world will come to an end in 2012, but it’s a great scenario.”

The idea we will all perish on Dec. 21, 2012, is becoming as much a mass marketing fad, if not a fraud, the way businesses capitalized on President Barack Obama’s inauguration last January with hundreds of trinkets being ridiculously referred to as collector’s items. Obama was even seen in a Marvel Comics issue of Spider-man aptly titled “Election Day.”

Go to AOL.com and type in “2012” under the search bar and you get 19.6 million articles. Yahoo’s search engine reveals 712 million. At Google, you get 191 million searches. Type in “2012” at amazon.com and you’ll find 67,359 books on just the year alone versus the 245 “all products” listing on the subject at Barnes and Noble’s website.

This is just in 2009. How many more falsehoods will flood the Internet, bookstore and the entertainment industry before the “fateful” date hits?

All things must come to an end, much like the mass-marketed, so-called “positive” change honeymoon that was Obama’s inauguration. Eventually this senseless controversy surrounding 2012 will subside but not until after doomsayers wake up the morning of Dec. 22, three years from now, to find out, much to their dismay, that we’re all still here.

So much for the $100 I was hoping to save that Christmas on gift cards for family members. As usual, that’s money I will never see again.

I hope before this so-called apocalypse hits, I meet a doomsayer so I can ask him such questions as “Why do you want to die?” Where is the celebration in seeing the world go up in a series of catastrophes? Don’t you realize that if some asteroid the size of Texas hits us or the Moon collides with Earth, or we get into some kind of nuclear Armageddon that’s not just “us” who will perish but you, as well?

I am not denying that an afterlife doesn’t exist where things for people will be far better or worse for them in the next world, depending on their religious beliefs on God, Heaven, Hell, and eternal bliss and damnation. When our world ends, however, that’s it.

Then again, anyone who has read the Bible should know there is no date or time predicted when the world will end, despite all the bad things happening right now (the Swine Flu outbreak, world disasters, the collapsing economy, the continuing confrontation with North Korea, Iran, and al-Qaeda, and humanity’s immoral compass that goes against God’s laws) that some die-hard religious zealots say are signs we are living in “The End Times.”

So, excuse me if I play devil’s advocate and say I think all this stuff about the world ending in 2012 is a load of crap. Recall the scene in “2012” where John Cusack laughs off the idea with his kids saying, “What are the odds” before being bombarded with meteors as they’re driving through Yellowstone National Park? I don’t foresee meteors raining down on me as I’m driving down I-635 on my way to work at 3 p.m. three days before Christmas, three years from now.

But look at this way, doomsayers. There is hope for you 27 years from now. Astronomers say that’s when the 880 megaton Apophis asteroid will supposedly hit Earth.

The date will be April 13, 2036. Do you doomsayers have that already marked on your future calendars?

©11/18/09

Fort Hood was the most important story President Obama should have addressed Nov. 5

Like most, if not all Americans, who whenever a national tragedy hits home looks to their president for consolation that things are under control and that we, as a country will prevail, I was actually proud of President Obama responding so quickly to reporters in the hours after the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood that left 42 wounded, 12 servicemen and one civilian dead.

That pride lasted less than 24 hours.

Those who know me, and know how fed up I am with President Obama and his socialist agenda would probably call that a world record in terms of how long I spent not criticizing his actions and decisions.

That all ended around 10:30 a.m. Friday morning when a military serviceman called in to WBAP’s The Mark Davis Show to say how embarrassed he was at the President’s remarks Nov. 5. The serviceman said President Obama didn’t even address the shootings late Thursday afternoon until two minutes into his speech at The Tribal Nations Conference.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The moment I got home I immediately went to youtube.com to see if there was any videos of the entire press conference.

Watching the Thursday news conference, I couldn’t believe my ears. There was President Obama at 5:02 p.m. EST opening his comments from the transcript I got off a website saying, “Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference. I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today.”

“I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner,” President Obama said. “It's good to see you.”

This was followed by applause in the audience.

“My understanding is, is that you had an extremely productive conference. I want to thank all of you for coming and for your efforts, and I want to give you my solemn guarantee that this is not the end of a process but a beginning of a process, and that we are going to follow up.”

More applause.

“We are going to follow up. Every single member of my team understands that this is a top priority for us,” the President went on to say. “I want you to know that, as I said this morning, this is not something that we just give lip service to. And we are going to keep on working with you to make sure that the first Americans get the best possible chances in life in a way that's consistent with your extraordinary traditions and culture and values.”

It is after these comments that President Obama discussed the Fort Hood shootings. The serviceman who called in to The Mark Davis Show Friday said he almost expected the Obama to start giving high-fives.

If you check out any online news article written Nov. 5 about the shootings, you will find the President’s consoling remarks saying “These are men and women who have made the selfless and courageous decision to risk, and at times give, their lives to protect the rest of us on a daily basis. It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

Now if I were editor or a writer for that matter covering this story, I definitely would have put in there somewhere about how Obama didn’t respond immediately at the conference about Fort Hood until two minutes later. This is the equivalent of those mock news conferences I attended for the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association years back when I was serious about pursuing journalism. I signed up to cover a fake news conference and sometime during that conference, something unexpected would happen that would make everyone go cover that instead. Why? It’s because that was the more important story.

Fort Hood was the most important story here Mr. President!

I guess I should not be surprised about President Obama’s delayed response to the Fort Hood incident, nor am I the least bit surprised at how the Obama controlled state run media are not reporting much about it, if at all. They love this guy and to the drive-by’s, he can do no wrong.

If former President Bush had opened up with remarks about a Tribal Conference when this happened, the drive-by media, late night talk show hosts, and the entertainment industry would have had a field day. It would be the My Pet Goat incident on 9/11 all over again and all the untruths many people, the young in particular liberal high school and college students stupidly embracing Michael Moore’s 2004 laugh fest riot, Fahrenheit 9/11, which I call the funniest film since Airplane (1980).

I have heard a lot these past few months from the hard right who have said President Obama is a narcissist. Up until Nov. 5, I refused to believe it. Now I believe otherwise. Even if he isn’t a narcissist, he sure as Hell doesn’t know how to cover it up. Not when he fails to address a national tragedy immediately. Not when he is off in Denmark in hopes of landing Chicago the Olympics when the Derrion Albert incident was making national headlines at the end of September.

Not when he promised during his presidential campaign last year that the situation in Afghanistan would be top priority and he has yet to commit to anything. In the meantime, we have soldiers there in harm’s way, the death toll is rising and the American people, most of who now say they are not for the mission, have forgotten the entire reason we’re there to begin with started on Sept. 11, 2001. Somewhere in that region, Osama bin Laden is loving every minute of this.

If I were president and this had happened on my watch, I would have immediately been on the phone to the top military officials at Fort Hood to find out how soon I could visit the base, the troops, the wounded, and perhaps even the families of the dead on that Friday, maybe even Thursday night if possible. President Obama, however, was too busy to do so. He spent the weekend staying on top of Congress making sure his health care bill was passed and then went off to Camp David for some much needed rest and relaxation.

So who visited Fort Hood in the hours following the tragedy? President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush that’s who. But don’t worry America. President Obama did delay his trip two days in Japan so he can attend the funeral services for the Fort Hood victims Nov. 10 and as an added bonus ordered all American flags to half staff through Veteran’s Day, which is something any president would have done. There is nothing extraordinary about this unless you call him signing a $24 million bill to extend jobless benefits a good thing, which I DO NOT.

If this is how the President of the United States handles a national tragedy where over fifty people are killed or wounded, I can’t help but wonder what his response will be if terrorists hit the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington during a Sunday football game where hundreds are killed.

Will he start out his press conference on the golf course thanking his staff for the opportunity for some recreation that was ruined by another terrorist attack worse than 9/11?

©11/11/09

Blockbuster Video - the go-to place where everyone knew their name

“The Times They Are A-Changin.”

Such was the title of that famous Bob Dylan song. When it comes to the variety of options consumers now have to rent movie, the times really “are a-changin” especially for Dallas-based Blockbuster Video.

If the video retailer’s announcement Sept. 15 that it may close as many as 960 of the more than 4300 stores Blockbuster operates in the country as a result of continuing low profits and the massive beating from competitive rivals Netflix, Inc. and Redbox is any indication, it looks like “the Buster” is well on its way to becoming a dinosaur.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this.

Working for “the Buster” from 1988 to 1996, I can’t tell you how many times I heard the comment that Blockbuster’s days of being one of the top video chains were numbered thanks to upcoming technology that would make renting movies easier.

What amazed me was every time someone made such a comment the Blockbuster CEOs and executives managed to prove the naysayers wrong.

I equate working for Blockbuster those eight years to being a member of a successful, long-running sitcom. I looked at Blockbuster like working at a popular bar, like on the show, “Cheers” (1982-1993).

At the Town East Blvd. location, where I worked, which is no longer there, we had our regular customers who were the equivalent of Norm Peterson, Cliff Claven, and Frasier Crane. You could almost set your watch as to when they’d show up. If they didn’t, you knew something was up. They’d gather at the front door t 9:45 a.m. every morning, especially Fridays and Saturdays. Their lives depended on them getting their hands on that copy of “Die Hard” or “Bull Durham” from 1988 or that only copy of “Millenium” (1989) the rental giant stupidly ordered when demand for lousy box office flops was always high.

One customer named Howard McGinnis rented over 3,000 movies. When he passed away in 1995 the priest at the funeral said the one question Howard will ask St. Peter as he passes through the pearly gates, “Where is the nearest Blockbuster?”

When the company was big on protecting children from sexual predators by offering parents the opportunity to bring their kids in to have identity videos filmed of them to be given to the police to help in disappearances, one customer had one of the employees set up the video camera to propose to his girlfriend.

She said yes.

In addition to the Norm Petersons, there was even a Carla Tortelli, behind the counter, who didn’t get off being chained to the first register for eight hours checking out customers. She referred to customers as cattle and it was her responsibility to get the herds out of the door by any means necessary. Customer service was not high on her list.

What the clientele weren’t standing outside waiting for the doors to open, they would hang around at the drop boxes, whether they were inside or outside. Sometimes they’d bother other renters near the outside drop box, asking them what movies they were returning. Inside of serving drinks, the clerks were serving movies.

The last time I stepped inside a Blockbuster Video was last summer to return some late DVDs I had in the car for two weeks. I didn’t pay the late fee either. Sure, there are several movies I’d like to see that I missed at the box office this year such as “Defiance,” “He’s Just Not That into You,” or “Revolutionary Road.”

What do I need Blockbuster for when I’ve got a wireless Internet/cable service provider and can order the titles from them or off their Video-On-Demand stations, record them on DVR and watch them later?

Or, if I want, I can just drive to the local Walmart and get the titles from their Redbox machine. Walmart I now the new Blockbuster. With such websites at YouTube, Hulu, and IMDB making older movies and television shows available for download off the net, all one needs to do is just open up an account. Since they show R-rated movies at no cost, who needs Blockbuster?

I predict the day will come when that video store I referred to as the place “where everybody knows your name” will play out a scene similar to the one in the last episode of “Cheers.” Except in this case the store will never reopen.

Instead of a patron eager to get a drink at 10 a.m. the moment the doors open, there will be a customer either hoping to get the DVDs they rented out checked in before the midnight deadline or get their hands on some new release that’s been out for weeks. Like Ted Danson’s bar owner, Sam Malone, the video store manager will come out of his back office for the very last time to say, “Sorry. We’re closed.”

©11/10/09