The Death of Enthusiasm

Sometime during the mid-to-late nineties there descended a strange and repulsive custom among the children and teenagers of northern Utah (and probably the entire world as far as I know). I am of course, talking about dipping Wendy’s French fries into Wendy’s chocolate Frosty desserts.

I mean, really people, this is totally disgusting right? Am I the only one that can recognize this? I know I’m not professor emeritus of Food University over here or anything, but I think that even a toddler could recognize that salted fried vegetables do not combine with frozen chocolate flavored dairy in a pleasing manner.

I feel like Walter Sobchak in the Big Lebowski when he pulls out his gun at the bowling alley and bellows, “HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE MAD?!” only I don’t have a gun and I don’t actually say that phrase out loud, I just think it really intensely. I just can’t believe that when I call out the ridiculousness of dipping your French fries in chocolate ice cream I am met with a chorus of “Oh, but it’s so good! Seriously! You just have to try it!” If we go with this same line of food logic, this list of food combinations should totally be OMG amazing and we should starting eating these right away despite the fact that they are equally disgusting and ridiculous as the Frosty/French fry combo:

1. Drinking a tall glass of pomegranate juice through a hollowed out Slim Jim

2. An entire pineapple filled with garlic infused mashed potatoes and gravy

3. Topping your bowl of peaches and cream with barbeque sauce and sautéed onions

4. Waffles served under a thick layer of Dinty Moore beef stew and cucumber slices

These are like, so delicious you guyz! I mean, I know they sound weird but you just gotta try it!

So, despite the fact that I know that dipping fries into Frost(ies?) is totally gross and I shouldn’t have to try it because, hey I’m a 26-year-old man and I can use my higher cognitive functions to realize this, I decided to go to Wendy’s to see for myself. I went to a Wendy’s restaurant near my house on a Tuesday night and ordered a small French fry and small Frosty dessert.




First impression: Well, it tastes like a French fry with runny chocolate shake all over it. It’s not actively making me wretch or anything, but it doesn’t exactly taste good.

Next three fries: If these fries were slightly less salty I could imagine that I’m dipping something else into the Frosty, but they aren’t. Sorry, I can’t control the salinity of French fries, but I can play the banjo; to each his own.

Last 3 fries: I can’t believe I’ve eaten almost all the fries. I think I’m just trying to suck off the Frosty and swallow it and then eat the fry so the flavors don’t mix as much in my mouth.

Final Verdict: Sorry Frosty Fry people, it’s still gross and I tried it with an open mind. But, see, I already knew it would be gross, because of DUH. So I win, and it’s because of SCIENCE, IN A LAB. You cannot dispute the results of my scientific taste test.

Labels: food

So, I went to Austin with my Dad for the music festival; that is a real-life thing that happened.

Here is a summary of these events. I'll probably break it into a few posts, cuz hey, I don't want to write some super really long thing right now.

Day 1:

On Thursday we flew to Austin. I don't want to make it look like I'm one of those people who complain about the privilege of flying around in a plane and going to some super rad multi-day concert, but the flight(s) there really sucked--thanks for nothing guy in front of me! My knee still hurts from your sudden and ultra violent shifting of your seat into the reclined position. I hope your Werther's Original Candies taste really good and take your mind off the cold, slow creep towards death, old man.

We ate at the Whataburger right across the street from our hotel when we got there and I have to say my reaction was more like, "whatanaverageburger!" LOL. They do have cheap breakfast food though (biscuits and gravy for $1.50!).



After that we decided to walk around a bit and it turns out that we were about a block away from the bat bridge. (I guess it's this bridge? That bats live in? And they fly around sometimes?) Anyway, here is a picture of the bridge that bats live in. You can't see the bats though. Sorry.



The next day was the beginning of ACL 2009, so now the pictures will be of bands! First, we saw a band called Leatherbag, which is kind of a gross name, but hey, they were decent. Really decent!



And then we saw The Low Anthem, and wow, they all played several different instruments! But they were kind of too soft and slow/gentle for a big music festival like this. Still very decent though!



Then, we saw Blitzen Trapper, and boy oh boy! They were the Blitzen Trapperiest! Very good!



I think The Avett Brothers are probably the best live band ever, so I really liked seeing them play for the third(3) time. Here is the crowd behind me enjoying the show:



And here are the brothers themselves:



Later we saw Daniel Johnston, which I was kind of nervous about since he is sort of a mentally unstable guy and I was a little worried I was just wanting to see him as sort of a side-show act or something, but not really because I really love his songs.

The first thing he did when he got to the microphone was throw up a one armed salute and yell "Heil Hitler" really loud. That drew an audible gasp from the crowd and we were all wondering if he was off his meds or what, but then he sang some songs with his new band, he was decent! Fairly decent considering all the things he's been through in his life. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should watch the documentary about him called The Devil and Daniel Johnston. You can borrow it from me if you want.)



That was pretty much the first day.

Labels: ACL