Newsletter 3

Newsletter Update Corner

I’ll be honest, I’m pretty stuck with my newsletter. I might have already written everything I wanted to say to the world with my first two posts. Right now I’m sitting on three corners: one is an extremely late piece about the Thanksgiving Day parade, which is a real stinker and ended up going nowhere. The other is about a memory of an adult website which I may post later (PG). Lastly, I have two photos of my visit to Taffer’s Tavern accompanied by zero writing beyond “I went to Taffer’s Tavern.”

They say write about things you know, but what if you’re an idiot homebody? Out of the three above topics, I only know enough to finish the one about the porn site. It’s embarrassing.

Maybe I could do something with the parade if I were more interested, but I lost motivation as the distance to Thanksgiving increased and we firmly entered the Christmas season. I even signed up for the Macy’s Parade Wiki so I could read the comments.

With Taffer’s Tavern, I thought I had a winner. I actually went somewhere and had an experience at a weird, interesting place. As I excitedly sat down at my computer prepared to write, I realized I’m completely unqualified and out of my element to write about anything related to Jon Taffer. I’ve only watched a few episodes of Bar Rescue on stream, and don’t know enough not to write a braindead string of words.

Quickly, here are my reflections:

        Obviously the giant portrait is quite funny. His sheepish grin makes him look like an old bar regular being asked to get his photo taken, rather than the confident bar savior we know and love (to reiterate, I’m unqualified to say such a thing since I’ve barely watched his show, but let’s continue).

        I ordered a plate of onion rings and the LTO “Harvest Margarita,” and my buddy ordered an Old-Fashioned and some deviled eggs. I tried to convince him to order the “Smoked Old-Fashioned,” which is served in a box full of smoke which disperses upon opening, but he refused.

        As for the flavor, well, it was very sweet; one of those cocktails you drink and say “Wow, it tastes like juice!” like an idiot. No specific fruit came to mind, although the menu says cranberry and apple butter. The menu’s description of “a salt rim with cinnamon stick garnish” was blatantly incorrect, however; the rim here was clearly lined with cinnamon sugar, which did enhance the autumnal vibe.

I tried eating the dried orange slice garnish, which I’ve always wanted to do but was too embarrassed to try, and I almost cracked my tooth on it. Taffer should thank the dancing robot god he worships that my teeth were unharmed and I didn’t have to send a fat lawsuit his way.

        Unfortunately I took no photos of the food. The onion rings and deviled eggs were pretty good and I won’t bore you anymore about them.

Next, my friend ordered a “The Prohibitionist,” which caused him to immediately overdose on mother freaking class.

        I ordered a cheeseburger, which was a good pub-style cheeseburger, along with a “Lost at Sea” which the menu told me was “garnished with a mermaid.”

        Wow, this tastes like juice! Orange and ginger don’t exactly evoke a “tropical” flavor to me. They say you taste with your eyes, but the buxom siren wasn’t enough for me to ignore what appeared to be dishwasher powder dissolved in Windex. Some sort of oceanic microplastics are sprinkled on top of the foam. I only had a couple of sips of this because it wasn’t appetizing and I didn’t want to over-indulge. Frankly, I was expecting weaker drinks, given Mr. Taffer’s phobia of overpouring, so hats off to him there.

My rating:

⭐⭐⭐

My Week

        Once again I’m traveling for work. The hot topic among my coworkers here is the paltry $50 per diem we get for meals. Sure, it sounds like a lot at first, but when you’re stuck in a hotel and don’t have access to a kitchen, you find how hard it is to achieve this Rachel Ray-esque feat.

Today at lunch we all pooled our money together and headed over to the local salvage grocery and bought a big can of beans with a dent in it. There was no label but two of the veteran employees claimed to know its contents from its shape and weight. An argument broke out between them about whether they were light red or dark red kidney beans, which almost turned into a brawl, but it was put to a halt as soon as the project manager fired a warning shot with her sidearm.

Barrel smoking, she then fired a hole in the can and we were able to jimmy it open wide enough to dump the legumes out onto a plate. We all cheered as the dark maroon gems spilled out; we then looked to the man who had predicted light red, who began stammering excuses. Gradually, however, a bashful smile overtook his face and he admitted his prediction was mistaken, and we all had a good laugh.

We were in the middle of settling how to divvy up the pile when we noticed one greedy worker reaching for one of the larger beans. Well, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise (for us, not so much for the thief, who was slain on the spot by our Scrum Master) because it alerted us to the fact that there were some size differences among the legumes, which made us rethink our initial strategy.

We decided that it was best to take turns picking one bean each, with the order being determined by a quick rock-paper-scissors tournament. The winner would get the choice fruit, and we agreed to accept this as the will of God. The contest surprisingly finished without incident, with the victor and first-runner-up shaking hands in a display of good sportsmanship.

A convivial atmosphere had emerged, which was then shattered almost immediately when the champ dug through the mound to find the single piece of salt-pork packaged in the can and began smugly taunting the rest of us. We were all livid, and one younger employee even began crying. But, he had won fair and square, and we had never considered the salt-pork; he had every right to boast, dammit.

The rest of us proceeded to sourly pick our meals bean-by-bean until there were none left. We had miscounted the beans so one person got an extra, but no one even cared at that point. What we had once thought of as a glamorous feast we now ate without expression, as if it were flavorless gruel.

Screenshot Corner

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