What-A-Crock of $#!+

The one problem I have with travelling is that on Wednesday’s, when new comic books come out, I am away from my home shop and can’t do my Comic Book Day ritual. That is that I go get my comics at lunch, head across the street, and grab a Whataburger with bacon and cheese. I then sit in a state of bliss for the next 20-30 minutes as I eat my meal and read a couple of comics. I make due when travelling by finding the closest comic shop and visit on Wednesday to pick up a single issue so as not to tempt the comic gods. You must make your weekly sacrifice of $3.


As I was driving into Columbia on Sunday I was dumbfounded to find something so disgusting, so utterly shocking that it makes every tabloid rumor, every American Idol results show, dare I say even every Telenovela dramatic reveal pale in comparison. Some sonofabitch in Columbia, South Carolina has defiled the Whataburger.

I know, I know. I almost shit my pants with disgust when I saw this blatant disregard for decency. The sign says “Since 1954” and after some fact checking I confirmed that Whataburger was established in 1950 which means that this pitiful excuse for a human being is a thief.
I went undercover today to find out how deep this conspiracy goes. My coworker and I went to eat lunch at this imitation and my level of disgust deepened when I stepped into the door. Look at these combos:


#1: What A Burger (What A Crock is more like it)
#2: What A Burger w/cheese (Yeah, that’s original)
#3: Double What A Burger (Double Suck my ass you copycat)
#4: Double What A Burger w/cheese (Now you just put cheese on my ass so you could keep sucking it)
#5: 8 inch Philly Cheese Steak (This is blasphemy. At least have the decency to copy everything. You probably didn’t have time to write down the combos as you were running away from the flavor police)
#6: 4 oz Ribeye Steak Sandwich (That one sounds kind of tasty.)

I tried a regular burger just for safety sake. The food itself wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the caliber of food that a Whataburger loyalist would come to expect from the name Whataburger.


And look at this drink. This is minute. I could drink that in one gulp. Come On! I guess Fancy Ketchup would be too much to ask for?


I can’t believe what this world has come to. Shame, shame!

That is all,

Newt

Travels for Work - Columbia, South Carolina

I am currently sitting in my hotel room at the Clarion and tomorrow begin another fun deployment at a company here in Columbia, South Carolina. Today was a hellacious day because I have spent most of it on a plane. Diana and I were in Amarillo, Texas this weekend visiting a friend and I had to fly from Amarillo to Dallas to Columbia today and landed around 5:30 p.m.

Columbia is the capital of South Carolina yet as I drove around today I can't say it screams "STATE CAPITAL!". It is a nice enough town from what I have seen but nothing so majestic that I would instantly recognize it as a special place.

I went and took in 'The Losers' at the local mall tonight and felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone. Their mall is like nothing I have ever seen. It had no real front entrance and after circling the entire building, I found the Barnes and Nobles right next to the T.G.I.Fridays and guessed this was the place. I never saw a sign for the movie theatre but assumed it was inside and after being unable to find it, I checked the mall map.

What's this? The mall is on the roof? Huh? So I got on the elevator and went up to the roof and found nothing. It opened to a parking lot. I went back down and tried going to another area of the mall but it took me back to the roof. I finally found a mall cop and asked and apparently the theatre was up there but on a totally different part. I went back to my car and drove up the three ramps of the parking garage to the roof, silly me I hadn't thought to park up there, and finally found the theatre.

I was blown away. Sitting on the top of a two story mall was a 7 screen movie theatre that had absolutely no signs other than the small lettering above the door that said Regal 7 Theatres. I would never have found it. FYI: check out the movie. It was a lot of fun to watch.

After dinner I wanted to try something local so I drove around and found Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits. I was greeted by a ton of black people so I knew it was going to be good. This nice old black lady named Nancy recommended I get the Supreme, which was 4 chicken fingers, fries and a biscuit and I was not disappointed. And this was at 9:30 so it was not the freshest it could have been. I love that it was named Bojangles. That seems kind of racist since they sell fried chicken but I honestly can't say why.

That is all,

Newt

Moving is a pain in the ass

FYI: It sucks to move. Since my old lady went and got herself knocked up we decided we didn't have much of a choice though, so to make room for our little bundle of joy we put our house on the market. I mean, I could have given up my comic book room but, come on, we all know that isn't happening.

I spent a couple of weeks, with the help of both mine and Diana's dad, updating our house and a For Sale sign went up in the yard. We saw a lot of action in the first week and after 10 days had accepted an offer. I think I might be spoiled on real estate because when we bought this place it was super easy and now selling it was too. We made enough cash for the down payment on a new place and as of today we now have an offer accepted on a new home.

Come May 14th we will hopefully be moving a little bit north of our current home and taking up residence in the house we will raise our kids in. With that we have started packing. God I hate packing. It is the worst experience because essentially you just take all your crap you never use and move it to somewhere else. You also are forced to do without things while they are in boxes. So far we have packed up the study, the living room's miscellaneous artifacts, and some dishes.

I have to go visit with an inspector on Thursday to make sure nothing is wrong with our new abode and then we can start getting our paperwork ready.

One of the funny things about selling this house is that the buyer is a fellow comic book collector. Since this is the case he has asked me to walk him through the house and get together to talk comics while he is here. Kind of odd but I am looking forward to it. He claims he has more comics than I do so I want to challenge that while he is here.

Oh the joys of real estate.

That is all,

Newt

I'm getting a tadpole

I can't believe I get to type this but...I am going to be a father! (yes it was intentional)

My wife, Diana is 14 weeks pregnant and I have been informed that not only is it mine, but I am somehow responsible for it. WOW!

We waited to announce this news until the first trimester had passed and now that it has, the entire blogosphere is now allowed to know this. So, Newt the Wonder Frog is getting a sidekick. Not sure what kind yet but sometime in the first week of October we will be welcoming an addition to our lives.

I have a policy about writing about kids, and that is I don't care for it. I think of my blog as an arena for releasing the gremlins in my head so they don't completely take over. That being said I am sure I will want to write everything in the world about my baby so my wife decided to start a family blog for us. So, if you are interested in knowing my feelings on parenthood, family, and babies or you just want to follow along as God gets even with me for all my past mistakes, you can follow our journey here.

That is all,

Newt

To the Mystery Machine

I've got a mystery and I need YOUR help to figure it out. I was reading "Exile" a week ago and got to page 100 or so and found something interesting. A receipt was in the book.

I thought to myself, "Now that is funny. Someone wanted some pastry while reading this book so they had to stop at the 7-11." I looked down at the receipt and at the bottom was the transaction date.

08/12/03

Thinking about this, the dates in the story were more in line with 2006-2007 so I decided to look at the publication date of the book and I found...dun dun duuuuunnnnnn....It was a first edition hardback that was published in 2007.

What does this mean? Why would someone hold on to a receipt for at least 4 years and then put it in a library book? Why this book specifically? Was it a bookmark? If so they didn't finish the novel or maybe they did and just left it in after. But again I am left wondering why?

I have a few theories. The first is that the 7-11 reciepts use a different date distiction and this is actually from 12-03-2008. If that is the case then the date is not as odd and the rest is pretty simple. I am going to go to this 7-11 since it isn't far from me and see if I can verify this.

Any other thoughts? Come on Velma! Grab Fred and Daphne and lets figure this out!

That is all,

Newt