Saturday, April 26, 2008

Outback and the lack of sleep

I have to head down for a cousin's wedding, but instead of heading down Friday I decided that I was going to take off of work a little early, pack, and sleep the sleep of the very very tired. Fate and friends, as they both often do, conspired against me. I first went to the Post Office to see if they knew where the package that had been marked online as being delivered actually was, since it certainly had not be delivered to ME. Turns out they had mismarked it and they had it. Sweet, because it was Absolute Sandman Vol. 2. I've finally gotten into Sandman, despite years and years of reading Gaiman's other works. I don't know why it's taken me this long, because everything he does is bloody brilliant. But needless to say, I was going to do a little reading before nighty night.

That was, of course, until my PS3 showed up at my door. Then I spent about 10 minutes hooking it up (using the wrapper it came in to not put fingerprints on the high-gloss black shine of it's curved fascade) and about 30 minutes turning it on (a sure sign of age setting in). Then I started plugging stuff into it, and it was like Cartman's Trapper Keeper - it just could use everything I could throw at it. Harmony remote? No problem. Bluetooth headset? Just fine. Wireless USB keyboard and mouse? Who's your daddy?

I found some pretty cool demos to play, but most of my PS3 time initially was taken up by setting up my media computer to share with it (which took way less time than doing it with a 360 for some reason), watching the HD Ironman trailer (which I think I watched about 8 times - it looks really good, and the casting appears to be inspired), playing around with Folding@Home (which is great, since it makes me feel like I actually am contributing something to better the world by having my PS3 doing computational work when I'm not using it - slick move, Sony), and watching 300 in Blu-Ray HD (which, truth to be told, may be too high a resolution - you can actually see the film grain, which is odd because I believe that 300 was an all-digitally shot movie). I think I love my PS3.

My neighbors then invited me to go eat supper with them. We settled on Outback, which is both a safe choice and usually a good one. Not last night. It took a while to get my beer (although I knew that - the waitress had informed me that they were clearing the line, so that really wasn't so bad). However, the cheese fries were both dry and lacking in the bacon and cheese department (they were more like inedible potato sticks with some cheese) and the chicken I ordered was COLD. So, for the first time in recorded history, I sent something back at Outback. It was a truly momentious occassion, marked by them coming back with the same chicken about 3 minutes later. It had been microwaved. The waitress, despite numerous warning signs that I must have been displaying, asked me how was it, at which point I told her. I did not raise my voice, nor did I even hint at the fact that it was disturbing to me that she thought they had put it on the grill instead of microwaving it. What happened later, however, was worse. She came by as I had thrown in the towel on eating the food (or, in this particular case, the napkin) and asked if I was OK. I wanted to respond "No, your horrible chicken and craptacular cheese fries have pushed me over the edge - please be sure to read the newspaper tomorrow as it will assuredly have details of how I jumped from the bridge to my death in the Ouachita River." I didn't say this for several reasons: 1) she might take me seriously and call the police 2) I doubt the newspaper would get it right and 3) I honestly can't think of a bridge that I could jump from here that could kill me (I could be wrong about that - maybe jumping from I-20, but there's all that traffic - too dangerous). I mean, the service was consistent with what it would have been if Rick James (not THE Rick James - read my earlier post for clarification) had been with us, except he wasn't, but it wasn't gonna break my stride, it wasn't gonna slow me down, oh no, I've got to keep on moving.

So we got back and I made the mistake of playing Rock Band with them. Not that I didn't enjoy myself, but I got the delusion for a little bit that I could actually sing and stayed up until 1:00. No nighty nighty for me. Now I'm trying to get ready to leave, and it looks like I'll need a Red Bull (or too).

3 comments:

Giftie Etcetera said...

This is what a blog should be like!

Now, please tell me you didn't actually pay for the crappy food. A tip to the waitress I can understand, since it sounds like she was fine. But the food?

Brien Louque said...

I paid for the food, but they're going on my probationary list - I won't go there again for a while, and if the food is bad when I do go back, they go on my permanent list.

Beorn said...

I'm not eating at Outback again until they make things right by buying me a new television. I had to pour Coleman fuel on my last TV, set it ablaze, and throw it onto the street outside my second floor window to silence their lame ass jingle and that bastard with the fake (BAD fake) Australian accent. Damn them--ALL of them, with their stupid "Down Under" conceit and their horrid, horrid song and their fake-ass accents and their grease sponge blooming onions. Damn them to hell!