Tapas Rage

A Word about Nando’s

I didn’t realize Nando’s was a thing until I went to Ireland. Being isolated in a Dublin suburb left me with few food options, so I basically ate my round the circle of chain restaurants that surround the mall across the street from my hotel.

Brief reviews:

Captain America’s – More like Captain Ameri-what-daf-is-this-charred-mess-on-a-bun-in-front-of-me.

Wagamama – The cheesecake here gave me life. If I were Beyonce and releasing an album about turning something awful into art it would be called Wagamama Cheesecake.

TGIFriday – Like, I don’t mind if every day is Friday.

Milano – The highlight here was the Croatian waitress who just goes “Why are you in Ireland?” Then invited me to visit her. #stillgotsomeheteromagnetism

Nando’s – NOPE.

Flashback fifteen odd years to a board room where some guy named Nando was like:

“Guys, I’ve got a great idea for a restaurant. We’ll make it look like a restaurant, but then put all the condiments on a rack so that the patrons have to set their own table. Then they go to the front and order food which will be overpriced and ½ the portion of a real restaurant. We save on overhead but we’ll have fancy light fixtures so people think they deserve to be paying more than McDonald’s!”

That is probably what happened. Because this place is a chain that’s concept is you set your own table and they give you 0 food for double the price of any restaurant in town. I ordered the double chicken breast assuming the chickens wouldn’t be American-sized, but also assuming that they wouldn’t have gotten them from Pygmy Chicken Island.

Literally, like two chicken nuggets put together for 17 bucks.

Brief excerpt from the third track on Wagama Cheescake. A song called “Nando.”

You gave me chicken

But after lickin’ the plate with my tongue

Everything was gone

So was my paycheck

‘Cuz you done overpriced this breast of chick

I was wanting to complain about it to other people and the opportunity came up when a coworker who lives in London brought it up on our work chat tool.

I went to Nando’s – he typed innocently.

I couldn’t stop it. A stream of hate and bile directed at Mr. Nando and the millions of people who have allowed this chain to thrive. WHY?!

The only thing even close to causing me as much food hatred is tapas.

Oh

My

Lordt.

If you want to piss me off invite me to get tapas.

“Hey, Tedd, you know what sounds like a good idea? Rather than spending $20 on an entrée and drink that fills you up, let’s spend $50 apiece on 3 small plates that force you to go to McDonald’s after!”

Yes, thanks, Nando. I will come to your birthday. Let’s invite 5 people so that all the tiny plates of food with 3 things on them don’t cause any awkward tension at all. There is nothing more pleasurable than taking a scalpel out of my pocket to shave off 1/3 of a bacon wrapped date so that everyone at the table can place a shard on their tongue and get a rough estimate of the flavor.

Flashback 40 years ago where Tapas, a Spanish-American business man is in board room:

“So we’re going to say this is a Spanish thing and charge Americans $15 a plate for tiny appetizers that in Spain are free and come before the food you really order. We’ll put in fancy light fixtures so they think it’s a cultural experience.”

The first tapas were actually pieces of bread to keep flies away. FLIES. Now we pay $20 for a sophisticated piece of fly paper.

Thanks, Mr. Tapas.

Anyway, the point of this is that Nando’s is stupid but Tapas are more stupider. Either way people have made a fortune off of charging for tiny amounts of food. Maybe I’ll make tiny beds and say that they are like the beds in Croatia. It’s cultural. Here’s a light fixture, don’t think too much about it.

Tour de Belfast

When I was in Ireland I spent one whole day during the weekend on a tour of Northern Ireland. This was my second visit and on the first visit I went on another tour of Western Ireland. The Western tour had a lot of wonderful info about the history of Ireland and the guide knew more than most encyclopedias.

Northern Ireland… notttt sooo muccchhhh.

The bus driver to Belfast didn’t know anything. Like anything. Someone saw a flower on the side of the road (by flower, I mean 1500 flowers because these yellow things were everywhere) and she asked, “What are those yellow flowers?”

Response: “Har har! Call’em whatever you want! I call’em Irish northy flowers!”

I allowed this as this driver’s only job was to get us to Belfast. Maybe he was someone’s cousin who needed a job? Or something? Let’s be generous.

We get to Belfast and meet our guide.

Somehow, this guy must have gotten the job from the cousin because, if possible, he knew less. He tried to cover this up by telling random weird jokes about every 20 minutes over the intercom. What added ambience to this set up was the fact that for a chunk of the trip we were listening to peppy Irish music. So essentially it was like hearing a joke, followed by Irish Benny Hill music.

For example:

“Aye, that cemetery is where the inventor of the crossword is buried. Not sure of the gravestone but I think it’s four down and three across.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

ad nauseum.

This theme music (with an Irish twist) was perfect for the roughly 15 mins we got at every stop. My bf and I were literally sprinting around the first castle to see all four sides before the bus got away. I BARELY had time to take a picture of the restaurant called “The Swift” so I could make a humorous Taylor Swift joke on Instagram. (Follow me!)

Actual shot of me on the tour:

The other stops were slightly better, but bf and I still ended up running halfway down to Giant’s causeway so we could see the whole thing, rather than just one view of it. This was much appreciated as when we saw it from afar I had the same reaction as the girl next to me:

“Dat’s it?” she asked. “Jaysus…”

5 hours on a bus for a blob of blocks.

It actually is pretty cool though. I saw it for 50 seconds, looking down as I sprinted by.

Old Friends Come Back

I have no idea how this guy entered my social media life, but I have religiously followed him for the last couple years or so. I think it was through a mutual friend, but his posts were the highlight of my week.

“Is he humorous?” you ask. Very, but not because he is trying to be.

“Insightful?” Attempting, which led to the humorous part.

“Shirtless a lot?” Um. Absolutely.

So this guy makes posts that are him figuring out life. But him figuring out life is like a unicorn not having enough golden syrup to get full in his fifteenth meal of the day.

For instance, one post was about him giving money to a poor person and someone saying they were surprised because he’s attractive.

MY GOD THE STRUGGLE!

This led to a (very articulate, full of big words) rant about beauty and inner beauty and how we should all treat each other as equals. You could tell it was sincere because it was sandwiched between two pictures of him in speedoes.

I hope this doesn’t come off as judgmental. He’s living his life and being pretty and struggling, I just find great humor in his insights that most people have at the age of four.  One post had him talking about his struggle of getting work done and social obligations, but most importantly getting back to himself and his goals of working out 4 hours a day.

I just… what?

Compounded on top of this sociological interest in what human existence is like for those in the top .10% of attractiveness, is the sympathy he elicits from seemingly ordinary people.

His status about his kampf working out 4 hours a day elicited like 150 FB likes and 30 comments. Most people telling him to not worry, he’ll get through this.

Of course, he f%^king will. Like – what? Why don’t you comment on the newsfeed of the single mom who is working and trying to pay for her kid’s dinner. Or donate a can of food to a shelter? Or stop trying to make your “sympathetic” comment into a veiled come-on?

“A cutie like you will definitely push through this. #believe #bestrong”

An excerpt track 14 from this guy’s album “Golden Syrup That Is Slightly Old but Still In-Date”

Life is hard,

I know because I saw a movie once

And that feeling of having wet things

On your face

Happens to me sometimes

Of course, on top of all this “interest” is my own feelings of attraction to his shirtless form. I like don’t mind that he’s holding up a sign with an inspiring quote wearing only a jock strap. It had an impact on me. It was rousing spiritually and in other ways that aren’t spiritually.

Sadly, this guy disappeared from social media completely for like a year. I would check occasionally but, sigh, he wasn’t there and I had no inspirational quotes or insights into struggles about trying to date when you’re better looking than most people in the Western Hemisphere.

BUT THIS WEEK HE CAME BACK.

He has moved from the world of Facebook to the hashtag cornucopia of Instagram. And he does not disappoint.

He’s always on the way to the gym or sitting shirtless somewhere. Sadly his insights have ebbed. Most of his hashtags and captions are goofy. There was one amazing one of him flexing and somehow it being tied to his career goals. I don’t get it but I’m fine with it.

In some ways I’m hoping for some kind of Harry Styles break up so that we’ll get some really juicy posts about life and love and #whatever and #goldensyrupstruggles but until then I’ll have to be satisfied with him standing on a rock (why are hot gay guys always on rocks?) and hashtagging his #fitfam.

I honestly wish him the best… but some of the worst. I have to have something funny to read on the train.

The Single Life f/ Glenn Close

I've been in Ireland for a few weeks for work. Rather than following the advice of every living, breathing human being and getting a hotel in the middle of Dublin, I got one in the middle of a suburb to be closer to work.

In general, this has been fine. I did eat at TGIFriday's twice. I also had the worst burger of my entire life, but work was pretty hectic, so there wasn't a ton of time during the week to do city stuff. It's also important to note that everything but bars and restaurants in Ireland shut down at like 8 PM, so unless you're grabbing a drink, there's not much to do.

Well, Friday came along and I had nothing going on. My coworkers had told me to meet them downtown, but my ride never showed up, so I just sat in the hotel lobby for 45 mins alone. Normally I'd be irked by this, but in this case if I hadn't been in the lobby, I'd have just been sitting in my room on Instagram, so it didn't make any difference to me.

After 45 mins I was like, "Huh... Looks like they're not coming; I should probably do something."

I really wanted TGIFriday's. Like a lot. To be honest, around minute 30 of someone not coming I actually was beginning to prefer the idea of going to TGIFriday's and eating alone.

When I was younger doing anything alone basically brought on a panic attack. I have a bit of a reality perception/anxiety problem, so I thought that if I was alone somewhere people would all turn to me at one time and whisper, "Oh my, what is that gentleman doing... alone?"

Essentially, Glenn Close in this final scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvQXbmtSmL0

As I've gotten older, though, I realized that I don't even like most people and sometimes dinner alone texting friends I do like is much preferred to eating with someone boring.

Ireland didn't want me to feel this way, though.

I get to TGIFriday's and walk in. A short extremely Irish girl meets me at the door. She smiles and then stops smiling and is like:

"Oh, jus'a table fer one, den?"

Now, remember she has an Irish accent, so it's basically like a pan flute asking you if you're going to die alone.

Essentially, what I assume to be Glenn Close playing a pan flute in this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHVjNyr9fGU

So I'm like, "Yes, please."

At this point, I still don't care. I'm probably going to eat a chocolate lava cake in 30 mins, so there is no need to pity me.

The girl sits me down in the very front of the restaurant, close enough to the door to get a nice draft when someone (with lots of friends to enjoy for dinner) walks into the restaurant.

Sitting next to me - literally, 12 inches to my right at almost a shared table is a happy Irish couple. Again, I don't care, but the female in this group was extremely concerned about me being there - and alone. "Oh, Tedd, she was probably checking you out." Says my girlfriend who always looks at the bright side - "No, Tracy, she was appalled." This girl was lip-curl disgusted that I was alone and sitting a foot from her and her boyfriend's big date. Every third word she would side eye look at me, afraid that my singleness was contagious.

"Yeah, so I went to da theater to - side eye - if my da was der with me br'other - side eye"

*Sigh* at this point it was starting to get on my nerves - read, I was becoming Glenn Close of Dangerous Liaisons. Luckily, the pan flute waitress was back and took my order, which included a Long Island Iced Tea.

Dinner went on with few more hitches. Side eye left, and I ordered fajitas and a second liquor drink to kill my emotions. At the end of the meal I looked around and realized that I had roughly 5 plates scattered around me - fajita plate, side plate, tortilla dish, empty drink dish, empty salad plate - and I thought, "Wow, this is slightly sad..."

The pan flute must of heard my thoughts because she was by my side in no time.

"Oh, all finished 'der?"
"Yes, thanks."
"Oh, ya liked the fajitas, looks like! Mos' people don' finish - they take half 'ome."

Wait - what? So now, I was alone, and basically called fat by an Irish girl for eating seven plates of food at TGIFriday's.

That's - fine... Not at all feeling like Glenn Close here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec4nMM9KSKA

At dinner I had also decided that I was going to see a movie. This movie happened to be "How To Be Single."

At the beginning of dinner this seemed like a fine idea. But now after being glared at for being alone and being called fat I was doubting the decision.

"How sad does it make me to see 'How To Be Single' alone...?"

But I still had some of my Bey "Single Lady" powers, so I went to the movie. I sat toward the front so I didn't have to see other people come in with friends - and I really enjoyed the movie.

I think, at least, that the movie did a pretty good job of showing positive singleness? I mean, I'll never watch it again, and I basically forgot every scene with Dakota Johnson in it. (Like, have no idea how someone saw a screen test and was like - this ordinary girl with no magnetism is what we want!) But Rebel Wilson was funny and the relationships were pretty believable-ish? (They could have used some more crazies - Hollywood can't even come close to portraying the zaniness of real online dating. People would think it was absurdist... when really when I was dating, I'd call it Tuesday.) Even though I'm not single anymore, it gave me a nice pause to think about my own time being single and how good/bad it could be.

Being Single isn't quite this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T1TKgXMMYs

But it's not this either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY

It's more like a meal at TGIFriday's. You definitely enjoy it, it may cause some unwanted bowel activity, but in the end, all said and done, it's pretty good and leaves you satisfied for a time.

The Force Awakens - To Be My Dream Movie!

I don’t usually write movie reviews, and generally, when I do write them, they are about more complex issues than something like, “That kicked a lot of ass.” (See my meandering thoughts on Zero Dark Thirty, here.)

But Star Wars: The Force Awakens kicked a lot of ass.

Like, a lot. The amount of ass kicked was so high it may have pressed into “blowing minds” territory.

To start with though, we need to go back to 1991 and Baby Tedd in his toy room. The bored child was digging through piles of his brothers’ toys when he discovered a Darth Vader action figure case.

Mind. Blown.

The towhead immediately went to his mother for confirmation on who or what this creature was on the case.

Then to find out there was more!! There were three movies about this masked person – THREE. (It is important to note that in 1991 Hollywood hadn’t become the trash regurgitating whore that it is today. A movie trilogy was rare – there was only one Batman, Harry Potter had yet to teach us the totally necessary trick of turning the last book of a series into two movies to drain even more money out of the willing public, and Disney hadn’t begun pushing movies out in phases, quadrilogies, and spin-offs to the point where one can barely count the number of Marvel movies on hands and feet combined.)

In 1991 someone getting three movies was absolutely mind blowing, ass-kicking, awesomeness.

From there the blond baby’s love of Star Wars only swelled. He had 3 copies of the trilogy on VHS, the blue-ray copies, the DVDs, he re-bought VHS’s to get the letterbox 1992 editions with the hologram cover. He collected Hammerhead and Bossk figurines – he even found the trash compactor monster in the basement of his grandmother’s house. In a notebook in his room in sixth grade he charted out 8 additional Star Wars movies, while laying on his Star Wars bed sheets, about where Luke, Han, and Leia would end up after the Battle of Endor.  (Yoda was resurrected because he needed to be, and Sy Snootles played a disproportionately large role in Tedd’s Episodes 7-15).

When The Phantom Menace came out, he saw it four times in theaters. FOUR. In Guantanamo Bay that was a form of torture. BUT HE WILLED IT TO BE GOOD.

Then Episode II happened. And it was time for him to give up. The New Hope (see what I did there?) that the new Star Wars trilogy would live up to eight years of his expectations was destroyed like Alderaan (okay, I’ll stop). Why would George do this to us? It wasn’t even enjoyable. There wasn’t banter! R2-D2 was flying around? Yoda (god bless him) could somehow do ninja flips? Sy Snootles was nowhere to be seen. The romance of the movie was as painful as watching your parent’s make out. What was this?!

The only good thing that came of Episode II was that it brought the series of films to such a low point that they literally could have just put a screen crawl on the front of Gigli and called it Episode III and people would be like, “Well, at least it’s better than Episode II.”

My nephew, when he was about ten, and I once got into a quasi-discussion about which trilogy was better – the old or new. His response of “the new” made me want to weep for the future generations. I call it a quasi-discussion because I was so disgusted with this response that I quarantined myself in a room with sackcloth immediately after the talk to try to and repent for his horrendous sin.

BUT – perhaps, Lucas was just taking us through his own genius three-act structure overlaid on the first three films. There is the first act (Episodes IV-VI) – the heroes triumph! There is joy! But evil survives. Then there is the second act (Episodes I-III, especially II) – our heroes are brought to their lowest point. They are scattered to the wind and evil has its great triumph. Then act three (Episodes VII-IX) – the heroes pull themselves back together. They get back in the saddle – AND THEY MIND BLOW AND ASS KICK LIKE IT’S THEIR JOB!

Because The Force Awakens is so freaking awesome. Some people complain about plot holes or the fact that it’s basically Episode IV 2.0, but you know what? Episode IV was a really good movie. It’s not like it was Episode II 2.0 (Talking in front of a green screen for 2 straight hours then a lot of CGI people killing each other – interlaced with scenes of your parents making out), it was built on the bones of a really good movie!

This one guy I know posted a Facebook status that was like “Omg, more like Star Bores. I was so bored solo in that movie!” Aside from where he learned his shoddy pun work, I would also like to know what movies excite this individual. My guess is he’s like a Funny Girl, musicals only kind of a guy. Because you can’t like action movies and not at least appreciate the action pieces in this movie.

A truncated list Episode VII Awesomeness:

1.     Kylo Ren is an awesome character.  A lot of people were bitching because he’s not badass enough, but THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ~SPOILER ALERT~ DEATH OF HAN SOLO. The movie builds Kylo up to be a whiny weak man, but then he slaughters his father so he can give himself to darkness. This guy is now free to be the worst of the worst. If you think about Darth Vader being bad, he turned evil to, in the end, help people. With darkness he was told he could save people like his wife and mother. Kylo’s like f$%k that, I want death and annihilation. This guy is set up to be an existential nightmare in the rest of the new trilogy.

2.     Real things are in this movie. Remember how in the prequels, they couldn’t muster the budget for anything other than a green screen room? The actors spent all their time talking to nothing, which might explain why even Ewan McGregor put in a performance worthy of a fourth grade talent show. JJ Abrams saved us from the same fate. He built things and the actors of this trilogy aren’t just as surprised as we are at the final product.

3.     Independent women (real ones). It’s become a trope in the new wave of action movies to make sure that women have autonomy. This is good in some cases. In other cases, it’s more of an afterthought – i.e. Deadpool, where the hero’s gorgeous female, waitress girlfriend kind of fights back? Or something? Before being ultimately saved? But she punched the bad guy, so she’s basically proved that she isn’t a caricature. (Movie executive tix a box on his “politically correct” checklist). Rey is an organically active, heroic female. She supports herself, she’s a survivor, and she’s human. She also doesn’t need a roided female counterpoint in the movie to point to to be like, “I mean, she’s a bit weak, but that girl who can lift a car balances the movie’s gender gap.” #reyforever #ithoughtaboutbeingstraightforasec

4.     Goodbye and hello – the movie does a good job of nodding to the past, while blasting us forward. Starkiller base, Tatooine Part II, etc. were all basically Episode IV 2.0, but the movie didn’t stagnate there. Han died – oops, sorry spoiler alert addendum – Kylo went from a Vader protégé to a fratricidal monster, the base was destroyed, and Rey is going to seek her destiny. I’m not worried about Episode VIII being Empire Strikes Back 2.0. JJ just wanted to say thanks to everyone for weathering the parental make out horror of the prequels and get us ready for a brave new frontier.

5.     It’s just a good, progressive action movie. Yes, there are plot holes. (Starkiller base is the size of a planet, but somehow they hustle from point A to point B like it was the kitchen in my grandmother’s trailer.) But the movie has great action, it has a diverse cast, a decent plot, heroes for people to look up to, and ultimately it explores timeless themes of good v. evil, family, and love that transcend genre, space, and time.

I think that’s all I’ve got on this. I’m super pumped for Episode VIII, super pumped to (hopefully) see Kylo Ren evolve into the monster he sets out to be, and excited to see him thwarted by Ren after she becomes full Jedi. (Sidenote: I believe Ren’s true identity will be revealed to be the love child of Sy Snootles and an X-Wing figher – not pilot – the actual starship.) At the very least, I hope this blog entry was better than watching your parents make out in front of a green screen.