I made a music video
I didn't film it. If you can't tell, my phone camera sucks. It was filmed on Gabby and Patricks' phones. We were in a cabin air bnb in mississippi. It was the most mississppi cabin I'd ever been in. My friend chris helped us out with his killer video editing skills.
Jan's Village Pizza of Westfield, IN
Because good taste matters. For mass/volume, I'd rate their pizza 3cr/2.5ce/3ch.
Their crust gets a 1/5 rating. It reminded me a lot of Red Baron's classic crust but less dense. It was moderately undercooked, dry, and biscuity. The lack of chewiness did make it easy to eat, like a comfort food or a food you want to rapidly stuff at a buffet.
Their sauce gets a 3/5. Pretty good. The flavor reminded me of ShowBiz Pizza, the counterpart to Chuck E. Cheese.
Overall quality gets a 2/5. The cheese had no chew. I understand, not everyone who goes into the pizza business cares about detail the way I do. Pizza is pizza and pizza is good, after all. Perhaps in Westfield, Jan's Pizza is the place to go. They've got a buffet, which was closed. While typically I go for a fresh pie, maybe their pizza is best when it's been sitting under a heat lamp for a little while.
Style gets a 3/5. While the pizza was completely unremarkable, I liked how the place had an old fashioned cash register (not used, just for show). On an antique serving hutch, they put some posters for new breweries. Not the kind of thing you'd see at grandma's house. Checkered tables, classic chairs, pizza holders, fake brick, amateur local art. They have an uninstalled drinking fountain by the front door and it's full of starlight mints. There's nothing pretentious or non-awesome about this place.
Refugee by Piers Anthony
Most books don't grip me too hard when I dig in but you know how it is. I wanted/needed to read a space adventure, especially one by the hugely prolific Piers Anthony. He wrote a lot of hits, often taking place in space and fantasy worlds. This one looked good. Check out that spine.
It's been loved. There were some very romantic, sexual fantasy-type moments in Refugee. Those were the best parts. The parts is famous for. There were characters more interesting than Hope Hubris, our protagonist. I don't expect to hear too much about those other characters in Volume 2. Oh well. I'll still read it and report back. In the meantime, check out these alternate covers. I don't know about you but I love sci fi and fantasy art. I wish more art galleries were full of stuff like this instead of the classic movements, culturally relevant to everyone who isn't a total nerd.
While I found Refugee to be pretty boring, it still got reprinted a bunch. I'm going to find Piers' secret. Surely, he wrote a book at some point early in his career that was so good he could spend the rest of his life writing somewhat boring stuff and making money. Perhaps most of his readers are teenage boys with his largest demographic being teenage boys in the 80s. That's okay with me. I want to see what they saw and read what they read. You might think I have better things to do and better things to read but I doubt it. This is the world I want to explore.
Which one is best?
Jimbo's Pizza and Wings of Washington, IN
The title says it all. Jimbo's is kind of a sports bar, really into IU (whatever their mascot is) and some team called the Hatchets (from what I recall). People at the table near me got bread sticks that were soft pretzels. I got a standard cheese pizza with a side of red sauce. When asked if I meant "Pizza Sauce", I said yeah. I can't bring myself to say Marinara when referring to pizza sauce, which is usually more of a Pomodoro. Either way, I just want whatever they give out when people want a side of non-meaty, non-ketchup tomato sauce.
Remember how I gave a score to Bambino's of Hopkinsville? I would give Jimbo's a 3cr/3ce/3ch. that's 3/5 mass for crust, 3/5 for sauce, and 3/5 for cheese. Spoiler alert. This pizza was made wonderfully and it was delicious in every aspect. However, this pizza was also average in every way possible.
The crust scores a 4/5. Like a traditional midwestern pizza, it was cooked in a greased pan. Sauce and cheese grease soaked into the dough from the top, creating a perfect "goo" and leaving a fluffy little center between the buttery chew and the greasy goo. If I were to be really picky, I'd say the dough was a little bit under-kneaded but this style of pizza leaves a huge margin for error. It's hard to go wrong and I'd rather have it like this than covered in bubbles.
The sauce scores a 4/5. It was substantial enough to receive an adequate spread without becoming runny. It's flavor was just right. Rich tomatoes, zesty garlic, and whatever it is you get from the right amount of herbs. I don't know how so many pizza joints get it so wrong. While I dig Jimbo's sauce, I do find it unremarkable. That's why it gets a 4.
Overall quality gets a 5/5. As I said, it's hard to go wrong with this kind of pizza.
Style gets a 1/5. There is nothing adventurous here. Jimbo's didn't invent the generic midwestern pizza. I don't care about the sport's bar motif and I don't appreciate my pizza money being spent on pay-per-view and espn.
Jimbo's Pizza and Wings. You get a 70%. I certainly hope to enjoy your completely average pizza again someday.
What do you think I'm doing?
Bambino's of Hopkinsville, KY
I like to sample the regional pizzas. In Hopkinsville Kentucky there is Bambino's. The inside has a pool table and a bar. There are neon lights. There are some decorative chalk drawings along one wall.
There is a scale for thickness of crust. 1 is paper thin, usually new york style. 5 is a sicilian or thickly crusted deep dish. Papa John's would get a 3. Pizza Hut pan pizza would get a 4.
There is a scale for the volume of sauce. 1 is a very thin spread. Not enough to make a 1 crust become soggy. 1 sauce with any other type of crust will make the pizza seem like cheesy bread. A 5 for sauce would be a lake between a curved bowl of crust and cheese. Papa John's would get a 3. Pizza Hut would typically get a 2.
There is a scale for the volume of cheese. 1 is a dusting of a finely shredded cheese. The sauce will be visible and there may be holes in the coverage. 5 is a piling that spills across your pan (or box) when a slice is pulled away. Papa John's would get a 3. Pizza Hut would get a 4.
For scale, Bambino's get a 2.5/2/4 2.5 for crust. 2 for sauce. 4 for cheese. Let's simplify this for future reference. Bambino's pizza is 2.5cr2ce4ch. That's the code.
I'm also going to rate my general satisfaction within categories.
Crust gets a 3/5. Cooked on a a grill pan, it would have been pretty dry without the cheese grease.
Sauce gets a 3/5. Adequately thick. Quite plain but that's okay. The tomatoes know how to do their job.
Overall Quality gets a 4/5. As you can see, this bad boy was made with love. The cheese had a very nice stretch. However, without toppings the pizza was fairly bland.
Style gets a 2/5. Bambino's makes a very plain, midwestern pan pizza. There was effort into making the joint a cool place to hang. Not for me, though. I'm not into playing grabber games and shooting pool at their one table. At least they didn't go too fancy. I should've included some pics. Maybe if I lived in Hopkinsville I'd want to party there.
They get 60%.
That's okay because even bad pizza is better than non pizza and I think their pizza was great. If they had a Bambino's in my neighborhood I'd get it all the time. Overall quality is a pretty big selling point.
Why you should and shouldn't get blasted.
Yesterday I had the high privilege of visiting the Kroger in Martinsville, IN. No free randall amps and dean guitars for me. Anyway, they had a deal. Buy 5 bags of goldfish and they will only be $1 each. So I had to do it, filling my cart with: parmesan, flavor blasted cheesy pizza, pizza, flavor blasted xtra cheddar, and flavor blasted cheddar jack'd. The cashier assured me they were all good. I didn't bother with the regular goldfish because let's face it. Original goldfish are boring. I'd rather have whales and dolphins. 
Why should you get blasted? While Flavor Blasted Xtra Cheddar Golfish are cheesier than cheese itself, one should always shoot the question. "What kind of fisher am I?" Let's refer to my Chad vs Virgin meme.
I was personally more into the Flavor Blasted Cheesy Pizza.
Worth the Wait. Again
For weeks I had a hankering to see this film. Was it on Soulseek? No. The Pirate Bay? Still No. Demonoid? Probably too sketchy for my Windows 10 desktop. I found it on Google Play. $4 just for a viewing? Surely a disc of it is sitting in some thrift store for 50 cents. I went with the next best thing. $1 + $3.50 shipping from ebay. For what seemed like a month, I replayed every (remembered) scene in my head. After several tries I got the dvd ripped and streaming from Emby to my Chromecast to my tv. I pretty much killed my popcorn trying to get it all together. After all strife, Leave it to Beaver did not disappoint. All the jokes hit home. All the characters were played hilariously without being total parodies. The score? To die for. You also get to see the world's smallest football player kick some serious butt. That's all for spoilers. It was like an extra long episode of a wholesome family sitcom. The best type of film. Better than D3? Maybe. It's not as emotional. Better than Quiet Place part II? We'll see.
Child of Munch 'ems
I don't know if you all have ever had Munch'ems. If not, this article isn't for you. Anyway, there's a new cracker in town, helping to fill the void in our souls left by the absent Munch 'ems. Like Munch 'ems these newbs also come in ranch and cheese flavors. The Gardetto's cracker comes so close, it might as well be holding a cigar. Its flavor has more of that dehydrated worchestershire and less of that vegetable-thins vibe. Once in 1999, I stayed a few nights at my grandma's. Before the visit she asked me what I liked to eat. I said Munch 'ems and she got me these. 
Classic Grandma. I didn't complain. However, on a saturday night in 2001 I ate an entire box of Munch 'ems in one sitting. The next morning I ended up (for the first time) sitting next to the only cute girl at our church. I don't remember who she was so don't ask. I kept farting and my farts smelled like Munch 'ems. I burped and my burps tasted like Munch 'ems. I sniffed the air and it smelled like Munch 'ems. And I didn't learn my lesson. I'm waiting for the new Gardetto's cracker to take off. Then I can find a giant, Sam's club-sized bag and eat the entire thing while watching D3.
I'm worth it
I gave my heart a condition. To calm my nerves, I had another piece. Delicious and suddenly gone. Again. To defy my lessons, I'm stuffed with regret long outliving the memory of satisfaction. I had a good meal, testing the power evil. I suffered his gushing. Glorify the one who broke my compass. We're sharing a fish bowl and I'm going to learn my own way.
A meme I made about Pantera
I made this meme a while ago. I think it's funny. People talk about Pantera being problematic. Likely story. If Pantera were still a band, they would probably have good PR. Like better PR than Five Finger Death Punch. Pantera would be so rich, they'd be donating randall amps and dean guitars to every underpriv in texas. However, we know PR don't change the color of one's soul. Also, D3 was a dank movie. Better than Quiet Place Part II? Probably.
Quiet Place Part II
On June 24th, I spotted this bag of Bugles advertising the film "Quiet Place Part II". You probably don't know this but I'm a long time fan of Bugles. For this reason, I presume they have great taste in films. What do you all think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)