Top 5 Fast Food Restaurants

Acourding to me anyway.
as a nod to John Cusack in High Fidelity and to clear up any fast food confusions. here are my top 5. First there needs to be some ground rules: 1. You need to enjoy multiple items on the menu, every place has at least one killer thing and it may be your favorite item but that doesn't make the restaurant the best. 2. you need to be able to eat the item at anytime, lunch/snack, and 2am. 3. Needs to be cheap which pretty much eliminates Quiznos, Chicken Kitchen, and Pollo Tropical.

top 5 fast food restaurants
1. Popeyes - i could eat the spicy chicken strips at any meal and i've even gotten them for breakfast before. the multiple side items are fantastic, fries, cajun rice but the top of the menu is beans and rice.

2. chic-fil-a -> once they make those breakfast chicken minis available all day, this could slide into the top spot. regular sandwich, nuggets, grilled chicken - all enjoyable. one slight - too often the number of fries in the basket are not acceptable.

3. Arbys - uniqueness of a roastbeef sandwich and curly fries. Biggest surprise about arbys; their regular fries are great as well.

4. Baja Fresh - i eat so much mexican food that one had to make the list. I gave a lot of money to baja when i lived in NoVa. it is missed. (Salsalitos is quickly on its way to bumping this)

5. toss up between wendys and subway. i go with Subway because while i will constantly crave wendys, i'm usually disappointed. Subway has the problem that too many of their locations are in terrible locations (therefore are crappy) and slow but the product itself in a vaccum makes the top 5.

Philadelphia Eagles Free Agency Summary

It works on so many levels.

Revenge, I mean Return of the Darth Doody

Family Guy has developed from an early Simpsons ripoff into one of the most memorable and funniest TV shows ever. At the hight of their brillance, the Star Wars episode entitled Blue Harvest from 2007. The characters were perfect matches, Quagmire as C3PO, Adam West as Grand Moff Tarkin and Meg as the trash monster. Not only the Family Guy randomness (Peter and Brian's determination to take a old couch) but the satiring of the greatest sci-fi movie ever (not negotiable) was spot on, see the clip below of the famous Darth Vader torture scene.



Previosly they've announced a Empire spoof that is going to air either at the end of this current season or in fall of 2009. With the Evil Chicken as Boba Fett. Enough said.


And today its rumored that they'll be completing the "holy trilogy" with Episode VI: The Great Muppet Caper. Nice.

oh good for you! A new Terminator Salvation Trailer

I'm working on a weekly schedule to make sure that I keep writing consistently and don't fall into just having blogs that are links or video. But saying that, here's the new Terminator Salvation trailer. More than explosions, it actually shows a good deal of plot and the new direction that McG is taking the series. Looks really good and I'm excited to see the new twists he has planned. Little disappointed there's not a single F-Bomb though.

Business takes Eagles' Heart

During the Eagles’ 2^nd game this past season, the defense gave up over 30 points to the Cowboys. We couldn’t stop two things, Marion Barber in the 4^th quarter and Jason Witten on every other play. I thought that game singled the end of Brian Dawkins. He attempted to cover Witten on the majority of those play and on the majority of those plays, he was beaten by an embarrassing margin. He just couldn’t cover anybody anymore. He’s too slow I thought. A thought that was punctuated by Dawkins giving up an easy touchdown to TO on a goal line slant. When TO saw Dawkins covering him, he was waving his arms and setting off flairs at Romo because he knew it was an easy score. The entire week after the game I repeatedly said he was done, old, washed up. A once great player that didn’t have enough in him when it matter.

Then he helped destroy the eventual SuperBowl champions the following week. This time the punctuation of his dominance came during a play when he went Flying Squirrel over an offensive lineman to strip the ball out of Rothlesburger’s hands. Dawkins worth at this stage of his career was in his ability to motivate those around him with just a touch of dominant play making ability left.

He ran up and down the field each and every game giving players on both sides of the ball encouragement. He wasn’t just a motivated player on the field; he embodied the pain and desire of an entire fan base. In a time when athletes care more about the money and the business of their profession (I don’t blame them), it was nice and encouraging to see a fan’s passion on the field. That passion may be in every player (stoically) and it may or may not be a difference maker in a game (although I find it hard to believe that it doesn’t after seeing him carry the defense on more than one occasion when he was physically outmatched), but it was a pleasure to watch for 13 years. He’ll be missed.

NFL Free Agency Wishful Thinking

NFL free agency began at 12am this morning and so far, its been a soft open. When restaurants, stores, casinos, etc open new venues, they'll have what they call a soft open where the venue is open to the public but without the grandiose display of a Grand Opening event. This gives the venue opportunity to get the staff some training for the avanlanche that is the Grand Opening. Usually this is not the case for free agency. Every year people rush into the crowd to get the biggest names (plural) as quickly as possisble but as baseball proved, the economy is affecting everything. Even the untouchable NFL. Of course, don't tell that to Dan Snyder who once again won the money-pissing contest of off-season moves by giving $100M to Albert Haynesworth. The Washington Redskins - Free Agent Superbowl Champions 5 years running! Quick Reaction: I think this is a mistake. I understand he's an upgrade for them at that position but is making a realy good defense better worth the cost of 30 plus million guaranteed? I'd say no. The Skins need offensive line help, better wide receivers (unless they feel their 2 second year WRs will have more of an impact this year. how could they not since they barely got off the bench last year) and a quarterback. Some disagree with me on the QB situation there but I don't see Campbell as the answer. Of course, the Skins may have decided to copy their neighbors the Ravens by creating a great defense with an average offense. The Ravens seem to do that every year so it may just work.

As for my Eagles, I feel it'll be another disappointing free agency for the Eagles fan in me. Year after year I hope the Eagles will make the moves that seem necessary - big backup running back and quality wide receiver. And year after year, they get lineman or running backs that do nothing like Lorenzo Booker. The only year was the year they got Owens and Kearse...and then they went to the Super Bowl. For some reason, Andy Reid and the Eagles organization have erased that year from their memory. I just don't get it.

UPDATE: While I would like TJ Howsmydriving, I do like the rumor they're going after another Bengal, Stacy Andrews. I like it because of the eventual loss of Jon Runyan and maybe Thomas. Still, get TJ on the phone, PLEASE!

Signs you can't wait until 9pm Tonight

Ok Grammar, you win this round - Emmitt Smith rumored to be fired from ESPN

It’s a sad day for football fans everywhere as we lose a true American Icon, no, a Hero. According to DallasNews.com, Emmitt Smith has been relieved of his duties has an ESPN analyst. We saw this coming after he was removed from ESPN’s Sunday pregame show last year but that doesn’t make it any less painful. You see, Emmitt was the gift that kept on giving thanks to his inability to speak in public. ESPN apparently found this to be a character flaw of a TV analyst, I think it made him unique.



Here are some of Emmitt’s greatest hits. Goodbye Emmitt, I’ll have a slice of humble pie in your honor tonight.

And here's a nice video collection of some of his highlights. haha, rice of passage.

Franco and Rogen's Oscar short...makes me give Pineapple Express a Second Chance

The funniest bit during the Oscars presentation was the digital short starring Seth Rogen and James Franco with them reprising their characters from Pineapple Express. It was so good in fact that it made me want to give the movie a second chance. I only saw the movie once when it first came out and was disappointed. I had high hopes for the film because I’m a fan of Judd Apatow, Rogen and the trailer was great. So when I first saw the movie, I was extremely disappointed that the action was lame, the movie was slow and all the funny lines were in the trailer. Maybe that’s what made the clip last night so good; these characters are good together but only in small and controlled doses, like most substances.

Here’s the clip from last night.

And the trailer that I’d rather watch than the movie.

Finally Getting Excited for Baseball

Thanks to SI for putting this in my mailbox this week.


Seeing this cover and reading the corresponding cover story about Cole Hamels, I finally started to get excited about my Philadelphia Phillies defending their title this year. Good article, great cover. Lets play ball already.

Here's more insight into Cole Hamels, the person.

Fringe - Great Show, Below Average Lead Actress

I spent the past month rejoining Fringe because A. several people assured me that the show had grown far beyond its subpar pilot (it has), B. lots of free time and C. constant pestering by one Irish tool. Even with my dedication to becoming invested in another JJ Abrams show, it still took several episodes for me to get hooked. It wasn’t until the Observer character (see picture) was introduced in the show’s 4^th episode “The Arrival” that I finally gave JJ the props he deserved. Until that point I just wasn’t invested in the show for two reasons.

The first, like most JJ Abrahams shows, Fringe took several episodes to fully explain the connections between the series of strange events and introduce the complicated characters. It was moving at a slow pace that relied heavily on the 3 central characters’ interactions to keep you invested. And that lead to problem number 2, the lead actress kind of sucks. Anna Torv is suppose to be a tough, smart and emotionally driven FBI Agent who is supposedly so good at her job that she was picked to lead the Fringe team with little oversight AND is being aggressively pursued by one the largest production companies in the world, Massive Dynamics. Unfortunately for us the viewers, she’s not convincing as tough or confident. Say what you want about Jennifer Garner’s post Alias career, but when she played Sidney Bristow on ‘Alias’ she was always believable as a secret agent week to week. She pulled off threatening badass, conflicted double agent, and widower to a murdered fiancé. I’m not sure Anna Torv would make a convincing accountant. Too often the show calls for the character to be emotionally troubled by the Earth threatening events happening around her and too often Anna appears disturbed that somebody didn’t turn off their cell phone in a meeting.

The only time she’s managed to show any personality throughout the season was the scene when Torv and Joshua Jackson were drinking together in a bar. Suddenly free from the seriousness forced pon her and her character, Torv was able to exert a personality. Unfortunately those scenes will be few and far between because that’s not who her character is. Maybe if the writers take advantage of the recent revelation that she was tested on as a child, they could allow both Torv and the character to be infected with some personality. This could possibly lead Torv to emerge as a serviceable lead character. And if not, the show will have to rely even more so on Walter Bishop. A character that is fantastic in small doses but cannot sustain a show on his own.