mimi: i fear the king will kill me in my sleep.

ok so i'm just going to be blunt: fast food mascots scare the fucking bejesus out of me. for real. i have jumped out planes, gone canyoning through the swiss alps, and carried a rather large snake around a room for hours so as you can see, most things in life do not scare me. in fact, i like to think of myself as a rather adventurous person who is more than willing to try new (and potentially dangerous) things. masochistic, maybe; fearful; mostly no.

when i turn the tv on though, and one of those mascots jumps on the screen, well, i die a little bit inside, and i may or may not scream out in fear depending on the scenario. but seriously, ronald mcdonald you creepy creepy pseudo-clown please remove yourself from the area where the children play...you may or may not be a bit pedophile-ish. whenever i see you, i'm kind of reminded of my friends weird uncle who insists on hugging me even though ive only met him twice. also, your bff is a big ball of purple hair aka grimmace, so you know, enough said. the taco bell dog....not scary, but extraordinarily annoying. upon viewing one of these commercials i would pretty much hear that squeaky voice in my dreams (slash nightmares, pronounced nightmeres) for about a week afterwards. wendy, well you are a ginger and make me think of what might happen if ronald mcdonald and pippy longstocking had a love child. also you promote square hamburgers and therefore, i cannot subscribe to you.

now those characters mentioned above are weird, creepy, and well quite, unnatural, but one mascot does rise above the rest in the race of most disturbing semi-human used to promote pseudo-food. this menacing creature i speak of is the king or the mascot for burger king. anyone who has seen a burger king commercial in the past year can most certainly agree with me.

the first commercial i remember seeing, which starred the king, was one where he served an unsuspecting man breakfast in bed. the man was asleep in bed and upon waking he spots the king sitting on the edge of his bed holding a platter with a breakfast sandwich and hashbrowns from burger king on it. there may have been juice, i dont remember; i could check youtube, but i am wayy to lazy and scared to do any actual research on the king. what i do remember, is that instead of screaming out in fear, this man decided to take the breakfast from the masked man with incredibly girlish hands. please tell me that someone else has noticed the seriously tiny hands which the king rocks. its a bit unsettling. please note: mcdonalds breakfast is far superior to burger kings and had the king been serving me that well i may have been less inclined to punch him in the face. although, i still would have asked him to leave while i ate, because his presence pretty much induces vomit.

a more recent king commercial involves a sad, sad celebrity appearance by sir mix-a-lot. yes, sir mix-a-lot of i like big butts fame has gone the sell out route slash he needed cash so i guess in this current economic climate i should just give him a break. well, honestly, i could except for the fact that his commercial includes a very disturbing play on words...i like square butts. now, if weird al had created this song, i may be able to get behind it, but that is just not the case here (at least i dont think it is, again i did no real research). instead, this commercial involves girls with "phone book implants" shaking their square butts up and down for the camera and oh yea, the king. the fucking king is jumping around with all of these girls in his creepy mask and they are allowing him to put his girlish hands all over them. the worst part....this commercial is geared towards children. yes, the future of america and the world is currently running around shrieking at the top of their lungs "i like square butts and i cannot lie". little girls everywhere are shoving books in their pants to achieve that square butt which society has now thrust upon them. all the while, the king perma grins his way through and entices us with false meat treats.

ok so there is one more reason as to why i (ok im just going to say it) hate the king. this has nothing to do with burger king and everything to do with this kid i went to high school with. you see, he was on the tennis team and rather good so good that he in fact asked to be called ze king. no the "ze" is not a typo...he wanted to be called ze king and not just ze king but "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeee king". i officially wanted to die when i heard this at about 16 years old and i refused. everybody else and i mean everybody, friends, teachers, the fucking principle, indulged him. they all called him zzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeee king. this may or may not be one of the reasons i ran as far away as nashville come graduation.

in reality, i guess the king never stood a chance in my book. oh well.

that's that,
mimi.

post script: i'll be honest, jared was a close second.

ali: an open letter to nasvhille drivers - "no, i don't have road rage, you just suck." (the second in a two-part series)

it's a well-known fact that i am an excellent driver. there are some that might disagree with you (jeff, who hangs on for dear life when i slam on the brakes), but overall, my driving skills are rather well-developed.

i used to think that everyone drove the same way i did - slightly aggressively but still politely. i will cut your ass off if you're going too slow, but i will use my turn signal while i do it, just so you have the heads-up that you're an asshole. i learned to drive from my mom (there are two things a bored housewife can do with her 16 year-old daughter: shop & teach her how to drive. and drink with her at the country club, but that's something i'd rather not get into at this moment in time). for those of you who don't know, my mom was raised in and learned how to drive in nebraska, population: 63. i have a vision in my mind of her driving a pickup truck down a dirt road while my grandfather screamed "slow down!" but this is probably just something i made up in my head. regardless, my mom learned to drive without anyone else around. she taught me how to drive as though there were no one else around, too. therefore, the skills of speeding and quick right turns were well-developed before i even got a license. (my parents used to let me drive home from the country club starting at age 14 because they thought it would be "good for me." i think they were just drunk.) ANYWAY, my mom advocated getting places quickly without dying, and that has always been my driving philosophy. this philosophy is something that people in nashville do not share.

1. if i am driving 65 miles an hour and you get in front of me, if you slow down, i will literally figure out a way to hack into the dmv files, find out where you live, and i will leave a smoke bomb in your mailbox. if you have to speed up to get in front of someone, MAINTAIN THAT SPEED. jesus, it's not that fucking hard. someone is driving along at a decent speed, and you pull in front of them and slow down, that slows everyone down that is behind them. figure it out. which brings me to my next point...

2. braking on the interstate. if you take your foot off the gas, the car slows down. "what?!" some of you are thinking to yourselves. "i don't have to slam on my brakes if i want to go from 70 to 65? stop with all of this craziness!" well, i hate to blow your mind, but no, you can simply take your foot off the gas and... wait for it... let the car slow down on its own! i understand your world might be slightly upside down right now, but you are a better person for having learned this lesson, trust me.

2a. exception to this rule: when some asshole gets in front of you and slows down, by all means, use your brakes.

3. oh, hey there, are you making a left turn? well, that's cool, so am i. you know what would be really cool? if you pulled into the motherfucking intersection so that everyone has a chance to take advantage of those 15 seconds while the light is yellow and the other fuckers have stopped coming. if i have to sit through another red light while you mosey on through the intersection, i hope to god you are stopped at the next red light and i can follow you for a while and tailgate the shit out of you, you asshole. which brings me to my next point... (i love how these are all related. it's a testament to how much nashville drivers actually suck dick.)

4. when you are turning onto another street, it is actually against the law to pull into any lane other than the one you are closest to. if you are making a right hand turn, either at a light or a stop sign, and you do not pull into the farthest right lane, you are literally committing a crime. pull into the right lane, drive for 30 seconds and then, USING YOUR TURN SIGNAL, move over into the lane you need to be in. it's not that hard, and it really does save everyone a headache. i don't have the time nor the patience to divine what lane you need to be in. it's not my job to psychically figure out that you're going to be making a left onto 13th so it would be really convenient if you could just jump into that left lane from 12th onto wedgewood. no. just NO.

there are so many more points i could make, but i lack the energy to really get into anymore shitty nashville driving habits. being this angry exhausts me. it's naptime.

mimi: dear nashville, please learn how to drive. love always, mimi (this is the first blog in a two blog series)

before i can fully begin to assess the level of shitty driving that i encounter on a daily basis in my city of residence, nashville, i must openly admit to some things....i dont want to be called a hypocrite you know. first and foremost, yes, my driving record is not the best. unfortunately, i have been pulled over for going 95 in a 65, but to my defense, it was 5 am and no one else was on the goddamned road except for me and sadly the po. also accidents, ive been in quite a few....again though, only one was my fault and that was six years ago now. the others were all me getting rear ended. no, i do not stop short a lot, people just love crashing into the back of my car. please, dont ask me why, i dont have the answer. since i know this will be brought into question: i am a woman and i did learn how to drive in jers. these are two things that may work against me in a court of can mimi decide who is a good driver and who is not. well let me say this, i have never been in any serious accidents, i have survived fifteen hours of driving in a car alone on serious lack of sleep, and well, honestly, i feel as if i have the right to bitch about anything i want to (otherwise why on earth would i write this blog?)....so without any further introduction; things i despise about driving in nashville.

1. the blinker: use your fucking blinker you fucking shitty nashville fucking drivers that dont understand what that stick on the side of your steering wheel is fucking for. people in jers may drive like maniacs (myself included) but with proper blinker usage all parties are warned ahead of time whether it be a turn or a lane change. im just saying so many accidents could be avoided if blinkers were used. also if im waiting to turn off of a street that you are driving like 5 fucking mph down and then all of a sudden you make a right onto the street that i am on...well thats just fucking rude. i could have gone like fifteen minutes ago you slow fuck. it is a known fact that i hate people who dont use their blinkers. i use my blinker to pull into my fucking drive way in jers which is at the end of a dead end. if i were a cop, i would only pull over people who didnt use their blinkers. yes, i'd be a shitty cop, but at least the world would be full of a lot more blinking lights. case in point....use your blinker. also, now that i have gotten all of that unnecessary anger out we can continue with a lot less use of the word fuck or any variation on that.

2. right turns: most right turns are designed to be taken at about 10 to 20 mph, depending on the vehicle in question. i know this because i took about 4 classes on traffic/transportation engineering during undergrad so please dont question my credentials. in nashville though, most people take right turns at 5 mph or less. this causes a lot of unnecessary braking, which causes a lot of unnecessary use of gas. therefore, nashville, you are costing me about $5 to $10 extra in gas a week. yes, i did the math and yes, that last statement was false...seeing as i actually pulled the number out of my ass. but since time is money, i see this as a fair assessment. let's just say, i hate having to slow down for people who insist on taking a wide right turn at 2 mph when i surely know that i am going to whip my definitely more likely to tip suv around the corner at about 12 mph. im just saying.....

3. the acceleration ramp: do not, i repeat do not, stop your car on the acceleration ramp unless of course, there is a stop or yield sign, in which case you would not even be on the acceleration ramp. for those of you who dont know, the acceleration ramp is the ramp used to enter a highway aka the ramp you accelerate on so that once you reach the highway you are going about 5 mph under the speed limit or faster. therefore, like it or not nashville, i will be accelerating on this stretch of road. if you stop at the end of it because you have to make sure there are no cars, then you, my dear, are a shitty shitty driver. that is what your mirrors are for. also i will most likely have to swerve not to hit you and step on my brake...again causing me to lose unnecessary amounts of gas.

4. the gas crisis: this has nothing to do with actual ability to drive, but everything to do with the fact that once placed in a car most nashvillians turn into tards. case in point: the gas crisis last fall. we brought it on ourselves and that's really all i have to say about that.

so please nashville, learn how to drive or get a better public transportation system....i am begging you.

dont hold it against me,
mimi.

post script: it feels good to be back in action, even if my grammar has only improved slightly.

ali: snobbery, restraurant style.

i'm well aware that it has been a while. i could claim that i am "super busy" (nope, still don't have a real job) or that i was "uninspired" (no again, been complaining out loud for the past month, but still haven't written anything.) truth is, i'm just lazy. it's easier to lay in bed and watch tv than it is to lay in bed and write. buuttt, without futher ado, the sabbatical is over, and i am going to educate you on acceptable and unacceptable dining establishments. (the word restaurant is really hard for me to spell, and i plan to use it as little as possible.) 

on the list of acceptable is any independently owned restaurant. in fact, there is a whole website at your disposal - nashvilleoriginals.com. the fact that i work at an independently-owned "casual fine dining" establishment is entirely besides the point. the truth is, if i wanted to be involved in the world of corporate shitheads, i would still work at the brfs. so, do yourself a favor, put down the carraba's to-go menu, and join us in the world of local entrepreneurs and, even better, locally grown food. it's worth your time. i would call myself a food snob, but i don't really enjoy food that much. still, i have an opinion, and i'm going to share it. you may call it snobbery, but it's not snobbery when you can back it up. 

that brings me to a quick list of unacceptable places to eat. i find no explanation necessary other than stating that they all SUCK and should never be frequented. 

1. carraba's. (it's headquarters are in tampa, fl. i believe this says more about them than i ever could.)

2. outback steakhouse. 

(word on the street is that there exist certain places where the two establishments share the same building. i would refer to this as either the second or third circle of hell, depending on what you order.)

3. bravo.

4. amerigo's. (i recently learned that this is a southern pheonomenon. southern people are craaaazy.)

5. olive garden. 

6. sizzler.

7. texas roadhouse.

8. applebee's (more like crapplebee's, am i right?)

9. ruby tuesday's. 

10. (tie) planet hollywood, tgi friday's, johnny rocket's, logan's. 

chain restaurants worth dining at are few and far between. there are some worthy of your time and money, but for specific reasons. they are as follows: 

1. chili's. they facilitated my (and every other vandy kid's) underage drinking for 3 years. plus, the discovery of drinking on the card was one of the most beautiful moments in all of our lives. also, where else would we have gone post-tailgaiting instead of the football games? logan's? i think not. 

2. red lobster. one word. biscuits. 

3. the hard rock cafe. although the food is shitty, and the atmosphere totally 90s, the hard rock cafe remains near and dear to my heart for one reason: spain. it is only acceptable to eat at the hard rock on foreign soil, and, no, canada does not count. i will get drunk at the one on clifton hill, though, that's okay. 

4. rainforest cafe. the food isn't just shitty, it's TERRIBLE, but they suck me in every time with those jungle animals and "thunderstorms." love it. 

5. maggiano's. if you ever have to eat chain italian food (and i recommend that you don't cause, gross), eat at maggiano's. it's a little pretentious with their fucking sign light-bulb sign on west end and that goddamned piano, but it's the only chain italian place that has decent food. also, it's cleaner than all the rest. 

6. cracker barrel. their okra is fucking good, and where else can you find a little frog that croaks out songs for your garden or a sweatshirt for an adult that says "grandma's angel" in glitter writing? eating and shopping, need i say more?

7. pf chang's. so, it's not legit chinese food (the pf stands for paul fleming - what an asshole) but it's good. and there's little to no chance that you might accidentally eat a dog or catch salmonella. best of both worlds. 

8. bahama breeze. they have some of the most delicious drinks; however, after a bad experience with rum, i don't know if i will ever be able to drink there again. sad day for me. 

9. waffle house. only acceptable under the most strict conditions, please acquire a breathalyzer. i'll wait. blow into it. if your BAC is below .15, you may not, i repeat MAY NOT eat at waffle house. over .15? have at it. have some hashbrowns for me. 

10. dave & busters. one of the few eating establishments that i have been blackout drunk in. (others include chilis, duh, and cabana). i have never been thrown out of dave & buster's, though i know for a fact that i have caused quite a few scenes. for this, i thank you. 

runner-up: boston pizza. unless you are from western new york or (god forbid) actual canada, chances are, you've never heard of boston pizza. it's basically a dave & buster's rip off, with two extra-special exceptions: bruschetta pizza and the twisted rocket. if you've never had either of these, get to clifton hill immediately. it's literally worth the trip. (also, you can see niagara falls, which is pretty cool, too.)

to sum it all up: support local business, avoid carraba's because it is gross, and get to niagara falls, ontario immediately. 

you know you missed me. 

post script: recently recieved text message from mimi: "carrabas i hate you." i couldn't have said it better myself.