1-16-10 Saturday (What A Drag)

We started off our day with a visit to Golden Corral.  Yes, I’m aware this is a big no-no on so many levels.  Culinary arts no-no, sanitary no-no and a dieter’s nightmare no-no are just a few I can think of off the top of my head.  Don’t judge.  So we arrive and Jim says, “oh, it’s a new location”.   Well, new according to their sign – we hope.  The sign said, “now open.”   I then realized it could mean – now open – as in was closed due to Health Department violations and has now reopened.  Or perhaps the “now open” banner has been on the building for months and months?  Anyways, it was 10am and packed.  Breakfast was good.  It’s pretty hard to screw up bacon, eggs, waffles and the like.  I must say that this location had a huge selection of delicious desserts (I would know). 

Let me tell you about sanitation.  Buffets are disgusting.  There’s 3 recommendations I have about buffet eating.  1- Don’t do it.  Simple.  2 and 3 have to do with people who have dirty hands or as I witnessed people who get a little food on their fingers while dishing up the food and then LICK their finger.  Ewwwww.  So #2, use a hand sanitizer each time before you eat the food, but after you served yourself.  Luckily Golden Corral had hand sanitizers all over the place.  I think the restaurants get bonus points on Sanitation Scoring since even non-buffet restaurants seem to have them at the front door.  #3 – Don’t eat with your hands.  I realize it’s difficult.  It’s not just buffets, it’s the ketchup, salt, pepper, etc on the table and then you pick up that burger.  It seems to me the best solution is to dress your burger, salt your food, apply the ketchup or whatever else and then sanitize. 

Above: Their most recent inspection report.

Wow, I really didn’t think I’d have so much to say on the subject of sanitation. 

Next bitchfest.  Pan-handling.   Sort of.  So out front of a Harris Teeter (grocery store chain) is a guy who’s collecting for some sort of men’s home ministry something or another.  We drove by so I didn’t get a perfect look at the sign.  It troubles me that a supermarket allows this.  If they want to be the community hero, take donations at the registers.  One of those “would you like to donate a dollar to” type of deals.  Let them collect the money and let them make sure it’s a legit thing.  Let’s make sure the money gets to the causes it’s meant for.

So… we went in search of a new gym today.  These people are dumb and they just don’t get it.  We stop in to several and say we’re shopping for a gym and we’d like to tour the facility.  We have to sign in.  One place asked for my name.  I said Garret.  She said Eric?  I said yes.  Last name Jones.  It was fun.  She gives us over to a someone to take us around who then asks for our names.  Of course I said Eric.   I’m not sure if I was Eric or Erik.  So hard to decide.   What do you think?

2 places didn’t know if we could plug earphones into their cardio equipment to watch TV.  They had to ask someone else.  At one place the someone else said they thought so but I looked closer and saw that they just have the client tune into radio stations to listen their TVs.  Glad I could be of help – no charge.

At one of the gyms, Valerie the trainer/signup person/whatever was trying to get to know us.  She sits us down at her desk and closes the door.  Where are you working?  Where are you from?  What is this, speed dating?  I just want a frickin’ tour and the prices.  She asked more of this and that.  What are we interested in working out on?  Who cares – is this a gym or not?  Perhaps she finally caught onto my shortness and off to tour we go.  She takes us into a spinning room.  It smells.  Jim says “I can’t take the smell” and we walk out of the room.  Oh, there was a recent class.  Great.  She basically asks what are workout goals are.  I think she was trying to get us into a trainer/coach situation too.  I cut her off and said that we just want to workout, we know what we’re doing, we’ve had a trainer for a year.  She’d be a perfect used car salesperson.  Valerie, you suck.

Another gym, the girl, we’ll call her Girl-x because who gives a rat’s ass.  Girl-x is one of the employees who knew nothing about the cardio/TV situation.  She takes us just about machine to machine.  At one she demonstrates (with her hand) how this particular abdominal machine works.  She asks Jim if he wants to try it.  Jim tells her he’s full from a big buffet lunch.  She gives the disappointing grunts/groans.   Screw you.  She looks at me and asks if I want to try.  I wasn’t so nice.  I said - “look, we’re just here to…”

Girl-x, you suck.

The rest of the day was spent grocery shopping, lounging and napping.  For the evening, off to Macaroni Grill we went.  It was a celebratory dinner in honor of Jim’s new job.  I went to check in for the 20 minute wait.  Name please?  I of course responded “Eric” and got my pager.  Jim and I chuckled.  Our usual at Macaroni Grill seemed very different at this location.  Different and disappointing.  The Penne Rustica – pasta firm, shrimp was rubber, chicken seemed cut like a 5 year old (who would give a 5 year old a knife?), the portion seemed smaller, the prosciutto was oddly julienned.  Oh well, we’ll give this location one more try and then we may have to complain and/or go to a different location.  Macaroni Grill on Research Drive… you suck.

We were going to see a movie but by the time we pigged out, we were content with just going home.  Ahhhh, oldness.

Jim surfed the internet and chatted with friends Sandra and Amy while I watched mindless TV.  I channel surfed the 9,456 channels of nothingness and stumbled upon RuPaul’s Drag Race.  It’s on LOGO.  I just know our friend Tim would LOVE this show!

I don’t typically do reality shows but I enjoyed this one.  The premise?  Drag Queens compete against one another.  They have eliminations, gain immunity, etc.  It’s a lot of fun.  I season passed it with the TiVo.  I had already watched 3 episodes last night so might as well.