Waiting for milk, man

It’s a strange thing I do for the many people I love.  Earlier in the week, my hot Cousin Larry sent me a tweet telling me he’d love me for ever if I’d take the fam to the Dairy Queen that Parker Posey worked at in “Waiting for Guffman” and take pictures of us eating a blizzard.

I suppose it’s a logical assumption that as a Texas I should be a huge fan of Dairy Queen?  I mean, after all, the Dairy Queen sign pictured above is “the official stop sign of Texas”.  But, like being a bad gay, I’m also a horrible Texan.  For example, I don’t support “Death Penalty Thursdays”, and as of today I’ve only eaten at Dairy Queen twice in my life. 

It’s not that I don’t like Dairy Queen.  I suppose it’s tasty enough.  But their menu is harder to figure out than your federal income taxes and there are MUCH better places to get “ice cream” than Dairly Queen.  And yes, “ice cream” fully deserves to be in quotes there.  Cuz I don’t know what that shit they serve is, but it surely ain’t ice cream.  Apparently it comes in a colostomy bag that is pre-mixed and frozen on the spot???  That ain’t ice cream folks.  I’ve made ice cream, and I know that ain’t how it’s done.  So how do I know so much about the DQ having only been twice in my life???

As I was ordering our lunch-by-number from the apathetic angry person behind the counter, I started, as I always do, with the kids. 

“I’ll take a number 8 (three tacos) with a milk”.

“We don’t have milk”.

I laughed, because surely this cow behind the counter was yanking my chain.  “You don’t have milk”?

“No.  I di’uhnt stutter.  We ain’t got milk”.

I asked, “Well how do you make MILKSHAKES”? 

She said, “Like everyone else.  I lift the lever up”.

Whore.

So, I’m guessing the milkshakes you get at Dairy Queen aren’t, uh, authentic? 

Since I had “ordered a combo” she pulled down a 3 liter Styrofoam cup for me to get the kid some soda from the teeth rotter.  I told her it wasn’t necessary, that if THEY DIDN’T HAVE MILK, the kids WOULDN’T BE DRINKING ANYTHING…and CERTAINLY NOT 3-liters of soda…each.

So I ordered the second meal, the #6 (“The Dude”) with a diet soda for Jed.  I think Jed was hoping I’d actually say, “Give me the dude” instead of “I’ll take a #6”.  Sorry to disappoint again.  Then I went on to get Nate’s.  I said, “I’ll take the number 9 (chicken strips)" and as I gave a long pregnant pause to order something for myself, I noticed Ms. Mensa 2008 pull another 3-liter soda cup down.

Now, I sort of see the confusion.  I had just ordered Jed’s meal WITH a soda, but I didn’t ask for one for the chicken strips.  I went on to add to my order, “and a number 2” (the “belt buster”) with a coke.  When she pulled down another cup I said, “I only need two cups.  I asked for a coke and a diet coke”.  And  she said, “But you keep ordering by number and the combos come with a soda”.  Uhhhh, NO MENSA, THEY DON’T.  Perhaps it would benefit you if you looked at your own menu once in your career at the Queen.  ALL of the combos CLEARLY have the option of the meal by it’s self AND, priced separately, the same combos “WITH A SODA”.

In an effort to not have Mensa wipe my bun on her crack for pissing her off, I just dropped it and told her I was done with my order.  Four meals, two sodas, and a smile.  BUT, having gotten my lunch.  I have a question.  If you’re going to label a DOUBLE PATTY BURGER a “belt buster” WHY NOT GO AHEAD AND THROW A SLICE OR THREE OF CHEESE ON IT?  For real?  Can it really be THAT difficult to … never mind.

So, for the pics…

And JUST for my hot Cousin Larry…

Can I go ahead and make this one of my official restaurant reviews???

5 stars for eating where Parker Posey filmed, 1 star for the rest.  For reals.

 

P.S. For any of you regulars who are in touch with DQ Rick (the Dairy Fairy), make sure he sees this.  He’s got some splaining to do!  :-)

Comic Con 2008

We, the fam, just came off the best family vacation in the history of family vacations. I’ll try to keep it short, but I wanted to share my fabulocity with you. Rather than make a long(ish) blog even longer, I’ve uploaded pictures of the trip at my Flickr account…feel free to check ‘em out.

We left Austin for San Diego last Tuesday. I did a fabulous job chosing flights this time, as we were able to take a direct flight and cut our travel time down to only 2.5 hours. A perfect time limit for traveling with toddlers. Now if we could just figure out our packing! Getting through security with 4.5 carry-ons, 2 toddlers, 2 strollers, and 2 carseats is NOT FUN. YES, I realize we can rent car seats when we arrive, but kids travel on planes MUCH better if they’re actually IN their car seat. So we arrived in San Diego around 1030 in the morning; got our car; and navigated ourselves to the house we had rented…which just so happened to be next door to my ex, Steve, and his awesome new husband, Danny. As an added bonus, my good buddy, Shawn (Steve’s sister), drove down from L.A. to surprise us. We stopped to pick up provisions for a picnic later that evening and we all headed out to the most fabulous San Diego Zoo.

The zoo was fantastic. Adrian had set a goal to see all of the animals from “Kung Fu Panda”, and I think we might have accomplished that. There was a creepy guy working in the panda exhibit that was sitting in a chair talking in “sexy voice” about the panda exhibit. When we approached him, we noticed he was sitting with a blanket in his lap with a hand under the blanket. It was 90 degrees folks…it wasn’t like we were in Antartica. It was just plain creepy.

Wednesday morning Jed, the boys, and I drove a little bit north of San Diego to go to Lego Land. It was the most fun ever. Unlike Six Flags, the minimum height requirement for most of the rides was 36-40 inches…so even Nathan got to ride most of the stuff in the park. We ate lots of nasty park food and Adrian got to pick out some new Lego toys for himself.

Thursday morning we left early to head out to Comic Con International. I have never seen so many people in my life! We attended a couple of panel discussions on a variety of topics. A major disappointment for me was the panel on the “re-imaging” of the 70’s classic(s) Escape to Witch Mountain. We got to see the trailer for the movie and it, in a word, SUCKED. The film is going to be a TRAIN WRECK. It was a bit hectic navigating the convention center with the boys in their strollers. The size and scope of the convention was just overwhelming. One of the highlights of my day, however, was getting to meet Steve, one of my GuySpace pals. He was more obsessed with the convention than Jed was, and had already attended Preview Night, as well as getting there hours before we did…so he was able to offer us tons of tips and suggestions of where to start and fun things to do with the kids.

Thursday night Shawn came back down from L.A. and we all had dinner together. After the kids went to bed we drank every last beer in San Diego proper and played some poker. Now there’s a disagreement of who ultimately won it all, but Jed and I ended up taking the pot…the whole pot…all $25 of it! Not bad for my first time playing poker…and I must thank both Steve AND Shawn for replenishing my chips every time I lost ‘em!

Friday Steve and Danny took the day off of work and kept the boys for us so Jed and I could have a full da y of Comic Con without lugging the kids around. We met up with some of Jed’s comic nerd herd and hung out with Comic Steve some more. It was a completely different experience not having to fight the crowds with the strollers. We had a blast. Friday evening Danny’s parents came over to babysit the kids so the four of us could go out and have adult night. We started off with dinner and some “kick ass Margaritas”. And yes, they were…both of them. We strolled around the Gayborhood afterwards and played pool at one bar (more drinks) and went to another bar (more drinks) where I got to meet one of my podcasting friends, Wes Stone, from Live It Up!

Saturday morning, following breakfast with Steve n’ Danny, Jed and I headed out to the beach with the boys. We went to Hodad’s, a place I had heard about on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” for burgers and to meet Wes Stone and Nessa from “We’re Mean Because You’re Stupid”, another one of my favie podcasts. If you’re not listening to either of these shows, you should be! Nessa and Wes were just as charming as could be. Afterwards we all went down to the beach and drooled over hot lifeguard boys and chatted for a bit. We said our farewells and headed back to the house for a quick nap before hoping on the trolly and going back downtown to meet up again with Steve and his super adorable husbear, Dennis. They’re the kind of couple that make you wish lived in your city so you can hang out with them EVERY day. After dinner we headed back to the casa, put the kids to bed, then spent the rest of the evening packing for the return trip home.

Sunday was another flawless travel day. Made it through airport security in no time flat. Kids were in a decent mood the entire time we waited to get on the plane. The SECOND the plane took off, Nathan fell asleep in his carseat and slept for the entire trip…while Adrian watched movies on my computra. It was another direct flight, so only 2.5 hours of travel time. It couldn’t have been a more perfect ending for a more perfect trip.

I can’t thank Steve and Danny enough for all they did in helping put this trip together. They really went above and beyond. I also can’t say how much I enjoyed hanging out with all the new people we met on this trip. You each made this a trip I’ll never forget. I’m truly blessed to know so many wonderful people, and look forward to meeting more of you in the future. FYI: Jed and I will be in NYC coming up at the end of August…sanz kids…so if any of you want to meet up…or meet up again TRALFIE…let me know!

Ramblin' with a red head while pluggin' Eric Himan

I realize this is like, OH MY GOD, so 2005, but I wanted to share something with you that I’ve recently discovered…I figure I’m not the only dinosaur out there that was discovering “new” technology. And no, I’m not talking about my new bag-phone.

Some of you may remember my blog about my new mistress, my Ipod that I posted last year? If not, here’s the link if you’d like to see me making sweet love to my Ipod. And I casually mentioned how I had gotten turned on to “podcasts”. I thought now would be a good time to explain that for the people who live in Arkansas, or are over 20, or both.

When I first got my Ipod and installed that cursed ITunes on my computer, I actually took the time to look through the entire ITunes catalogue. I noticed this link for Podcast, and clicky clicky’d on it. I about shit myself when I learned I could have ALL of my beloved NPR shows downloaded directly to my IPod when a new episode came out. For some of the episodes, this was daily, for others it was weekly. I nearly double-shat myself when I found out I could download Ira Glass’s “This American Life.” I nearly always missed it when it aired on the “real radio”, but now I was able to capture it every week and listen to it at my leisure. How very cool was that?

In the beginning, I stuck to the NPR programming that I loved. But then I was running out of stuff to listen to, so I started clicky clickying around the ITunes again to see what was out there. What I found was a wealth of wonderful independent media out there. I found there were many people out there with just a microphone and a recording device that were putting out some, often, entertaining shows. Some of the shows were solo persons yacking on about random shit; some of the shows were “gang-bangs” of various people all talking about a variety of topics (current, and not); some of the shows were scripted; some of the shows were interviews. The one common theme of these shows were they were all independent “artists” (cuz folks, some of these people really ARE artists!) that were able to have their voices heard on a global scale that they otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity with via traditional media.

Now, on each “shows” ITunes page, there are links that say, “People who enjoyed this podcast also listen to these podcasts”. This was a dangerous thing for me to find. I went from listening to my 8 NPR shows per week, to subscribing to nearly 28 shows a day! I’ve since found a 12-step program and have cut back to a manageable level! So I wanted to take a few minutes out of your day to turn you on to some of the shows that I’ve really come to enjoy…in no particular order!

Ramble Redhead is an interview show. Tom, the ramblin’ redhead, is “The gay Barbara Walters”. He interviews a variety of people within the GLBTQQ community: STOP!

Patience queer people…I gotta ‘splain to the straighties…

GLBTQQ=Gay, Lesbian, Confused, Transgendered, Queer Questioning (seriously??? ANYONE ELSE WANT TO BE ADDED TO THE ROSTER???)

Okay, back to Tom. So he interviews a bunch of folks from the GLBTQQ community. I’ve actually gone back through his archives to catch up with some of his older shows. He’s interviewed some really fascinating people. I’ve also been chattin’ with Tom via GChat lately. Tonight he gave me the surprise of my life. He sent me a chat message shortly after 8 and mentioned he was getting ready to interview “Eric” and asked if I wanted to sit in on his show. I thought he was talking about another “Eric”, so I hesitated. Then he mentioned that it was Eric Himan, one of my favoritest Indy artists, and I nearly shit myself. I seriously got a little light headed. For reals. I said, “YES!” So Tom conference called me with ERIC (hehehehehe) and I got all fan-girlie. And it seriously made my night. Hell, it seriously made my week! So if you wanna hear the voice to put with the (F)reddy name, AND hear a great interview with an AWESOME singer/song-writer, check out Ramble’s link above (or subscribe to him on ITunes!).

I’ve also become a huge fan of We're Mean Because You're Stupid. Hell, the title alone is worth listening to! WMBYS follows Walt, Nessa, and Holly. They’re basically 3 “super-fans” that get together twice a week and talk about random things; guess what various celebrities smell like; and laugh hysterically. You just can’t help but laugh along with them. I fell in love listening to them, because listening to their conversations feels like being in a conversation with my own IRL friends.

Archerr Radio is another one of my favorites right now. Everyday is a new topic for Archerr. I have no idea how he puts out so much media in a week, and still keeps it fresh and entertaining. You can hear him discuss everything from politics to wine to his boyfriend’s weiner. If you’re really lucky, he’ll hit all three topics on the same show!

Big Fatty is not for the faint of heart, nor is he appropriate for the office environment, but he is one sick and twisted mother effer. He will keep you in stitches for exactly 20 minutes most days.

Dial H for Homo is a new podcast that has been put out by a few of the various podcasters that I listen to that is geared specifically for the gay comicbook nerd crowd. I started downloading it for Jed, but have enjoyed listening to it myself too. I know there are a couple of you nerds out there that would appreciate hearing 5 gay guys talking about their gay perspective on comics. Check ‘em out!

Live it up! Is a podcast put out by a little boy in San Diego. His is a relatively new podcast too. His shows are getting stronger, and it’s been interesting to see his progression from virgin to slut…in the podcasting realm, that is. I’m sure he’s very wholesome!

There are others that I listen to, but these are just a couple of my favorites right now. Take some time to check some of these out if you’ve never heard them. You may just find yourself hooked. Oh, and definitely check out Ramble Redhead’s interview with Eric Himan if you want to hear (F)reddy swoon over his idol!