Todd Stadler's blog

rejoice

I'm also happy, because my wonderful girlfriend Julia got into town today, and will be here through the weekend. Hip-hop hooray! Could it be a better day?

king fry-day

Today was a great day for me and the fast food consumers of these United States. For today was the french fry taste test. Let me explain.

A few weeks back, Gerry saw an ad in the paper asking "Do you like french fries?" I'm not sure if that's supposed to be rhetorical or what, since I'm fairly sure that's the number one vegetable in America. Anyhow, he gave me the number for the Food Innovation Center. I waited a few days, so as to avoid the inevitable busy signals from millions of Oregonians calling in to pledge their love for fried potato sticks, and called and left a message.

For a few days afterwards, I received no call back, and I assumed I had been deemed not worthy of the french fry taste test. After all, hadn't I had a few meals without french fries? Maybe I had accidentally had chips or onion rings on the side. Was I really prepared for the ultimate test in fry connoisseurship?

After those agonizing days of self-examination, it turned out I was deemed worthy. I was told to appear at said innovation center, without having eaten for thirty minutes, and wearing no perfume or cologne. Those were sacrifices I was prepared to make.

All in all, it was an exciting view into the future of food. I was given a number and told to go sit in a booth in a room where everything was white. I could see nobody else, and I could talk to nobody else. I was told to wait for the little door in front of me to slide open, then follow the instructions I was given. Just like being a lab rat, only with a smaller chance of dying!

For a while, I considered that the whole setup was instead a psychological experiment. For as I sat there waiting, I could hear those in the neighboring white booths eating fries. The smell of browned potato filled the air, as did the crinkling of grease-marred wrappers. I kept looking around my booth to see if I was missing my instructions. Would I, in fact, get any fries? This was, after all, my planned dinner for the evening.

It turns out I had nothing to fear. The door opened and out slid a tray with two small servings of fries in white wrappers, each numbered differently. I was told to eat a few of one bag, and a few of the other, then answer some questions. Then I was told to eat as many fries of each as I wanted, and answer even more questions.

And did they leave no stone unturned! How is the flavor? How potatoey is it? How is the texture? How about the crispiness? What do you think of their appearance? What about the color? Are they too dark or too light? How is the aftertaste? Are they too oily? Too salty? And so on, and so on. I'd never before realized how many axes define the total fry experience. Truly, this day would change the way I viewed fries forever.

After the first set of two bags, I put the tray back and was given another two bags. Four small bags of fries isn't too bad, even if I only had water to wash them down with. The fries varied over all the potential axes I mentioned, but it seemed that there was a definite trend towards what I call the "new fry".

This is that creation - and that is the best word for it - that is served by Jack in the Box and Burger King. It is a very crispy fry, but it isn't very reminiscent of its potato origins. It retains heat well, has an odd texture to it, and tastes of "fry", that intangible flavor that comes in so many Long John Silver items, for example. I have read that in Burger King's case, this is due to a lactose coating. I'm not sure.

What I do know is that, although unnatural, these new fries are tasty. So I voted for them over and over. My apologies to those out there who enjoyed their fries more potato-ish. But honestly, if you want real vegetables, what are you doing in a fast food restaurant?

it's the american way

So instead I will simply think on Godfather's pizza itself. They sure do have a lot of weird things passing for pizzas here.

Taco pizzas with shredded lettuce, tomato, shredded cheddar, and sour cream. Burger pizzas with hamburger, onions, lettuce, and even pickles. Barbecue pizzas. And of course, the dessert pizza, which is stretching the concept about as far as it can go. It's not even the same dough, and there's no cheese, just flat bread covered mostly in some sugary substance and sprinkled with tiny candies.

This got me thinking. Pizza is basically a meta-food. Sure, at one point it was a legitimate cuisine with cultural roots and all. But those days are long gone. Most Americans wouldn't even recognize an Italian pizza.

Once Americans got a hold of pizza, they loved it so much they made it look like whatever else they liked. They kept on stretching the definition of what constitutes a pizza until only the most basic elements were left. Which, as the dessert pizza proves, pretty much leaves us with flat bread, a sauce of some sort, and something particulate on top.

For some reason, Americans seem to really love such meta-foods. Indeed, most of the basic American staples are capable of mimicking other foods.

I've seen burgers, for instance, that mimic tacos, vegetarian food, barbecue, and, of course, pizzas. The definition of a burger seems to be something like "two pieces of bread with a large protein or protein-like chunk in between, often with other things like vegetables". Here again, we've pretty much boiled it down to bread and something.

To a lesser degree, tacos are a meta-food as well. Choco Tacos, anyone? Of course, tacos are still considered exotic in some parts of America, and they are not as popular as pizzas and burgers, anyhow.

So what is it about meta-foods that Americans love? Is it their obvious technological superiority over traditional ethnic foods? Or their ability to be whatever Americans want them to be? After all, when one wants a taco but the family wants pizza, isn't it nice that everybody can win?

Or maybe Americans simply can't get enough of their disturbing, disgusting, cholesterol-laden food. Either way, we all win.

he's sleeping with the anchovies

I was sitting in a Godfather's Pizza joint the other day. (pause) You know, I'll bet there are a lot of good stories that start that way.

Anyhow, Godfather's is a really weird place. How many other American chain restaurants can claim to be named after organized crime? Especially ones that started in Omaha, Nebraska. When I think of the mob, I think of Omaha.

It just struck me as odd that anyone would think it a good idea to associate their pizza with murderers and drug dealers. Does it give it that special "edge"? Lend an air of street cred? Or is it simply an arrangement with the mob, maybe serving as the PR branch of the Genovese crime family?

But then, it's best not to question too deeply here. I may have already said too much.

songwriter's blues

You know, I've been wanting to write song lyrics for years now to accompany the slowly growing collection of tune sketches I have. Because it's hard to make a song go without lyrics. At least, if you imagine the song to have them.

I've especially been wanting to write lyrics in the past month, since Julia and I started dating. You know, if you can't write songs about love and girls and such, then you're sunk, right? And yet, it's no easier for me. I try writing down things I want to write about, phrases I like and such, but to no avail.

Is it that I innately fear rhyming, metered poetry? That I think it sounds cheesy? Sure, I do when it comes to most printed poetry. And song lyrics are nothing but a vocal version of that.

Maybe my problem is that I'm given to long, rambling prose, the likes of which don't translate well to any style of lyrics except perhaps political rap. Shudder. Or maybe I just have a hard time being serious about anything.

It's easier to write songs about intentionally goofy stuff than it is to earnestly write about the girl you love. Because somebody might make fun of you when you're trying to be serious. Sigh.

free live chat with hot salesmen!!

I looked into buying a scanner the other day. HP has a deal with Intel whereby Intel employees get "employee purchase program" prices on HP products. But all the scanners I was looking at didn't seem too discounted. On a whim, I decided to see what the prices would be if I didn't tell them I should get a discount. It turned out the prices were the same.

As I was pondering this matter, I noticed a link on the website labelled "live help", so I clicked on it. I was somewhat surprised when a chat window popped up with some fellow named Tomas asking how he could help me. A real person! Or at least a program that passed the Turing test. Mind you, the system wasn't perfect - things went pretty slow, and it seemed that Tomas was cutting and pasting some of his phrases in. But eventually, he helped me to figure out how to find the discount I was looking for.

As it turns out, my reward for digging this far was a $20 discount on a $200 scanner. Whee. After talking to Beeman, I discovered I could get the same scanner from buy.com cheaper from buy.com, who also had free shipping.

So thank you, HP, for paying somebody to chat with me, but maybe next time, fire him and pass the savings on to me, hmm? Or at least bother to price your employee purchase program products similarly to what companies like buy.com pay for them. Thanks.

who debugs the bug-tracking?

Another annoying thing about work is the new bug-tracking interface I have to use. It's actually the same bug-tracking program I've been using for a few projects now, but they change things like background color for each project so you can tell at a glance what you're working on. That's fine.

What's not so good is that the person they unleashed to design the look and feel of this project's bug-tracking system is a fifteen-year old AOL user, or so it would seem. I have never seen a more unprofessional webpage at work.

It has a stupid faux marble image background instead of the usual solid color. It has animated gifs for headlines in which the words get progressively smaller, meaning you can only read them half the time. It has wildly varying font sizes. It has swaths of text that are blue and underlined but are not links, presumably because someday there will be working links there. But for now, you have to put your mouse over them to figure out that they don't do anything when you click. And the designer (who looks rather old for a fifteen year-old, put his own picture at the bottom of the page, making the "peace" sign, for heaven's sake. Next to that is a small picture of a mailbox and an exhortation to e-mail him with suggestions. If I can find which part of the blue underlined text actually leads to a mailto link, I will be using that very soon.

But the two most incomprehensible features of this webpage are as follows:

1. It has a banner-sized animated gif at the top that looks for all the world like an advertisement, which naturally makes me want to ignore it. And what exactly does it say? It trumpets the bug tracking system as "the ultimate database tracking solution", reminding me for no apparent reason that "precision does matter". And these words are surrounded by daisies. Much as I am apparently surrounded by doofuses at work. And yet, that is not the weirdest thing about this page. That would be that...
2. This page has bloody background music. A midi file of blues music. There are not words to describe how flabbergasted I am at this. Hello? This is Intel! Why am I hearing blues music every time I go to file a bug?

initial grumbling

Gads, it's been a while since I wrote an entry. As might be expected, I have been busy of late, but not so much with things like work as with my beloved girlfriend Julia. As long as I have my priorities straight.

Actually, I'm thinking I might look for a new job. I'm not enjoying my time at Intel. But then, this isn't exactly the best time to be out of work. But then, I really hate taking two hours of my day to take the train to work and back.

spam, spam, karate, spam

I got a really nice spam e-mail today that I wanted to share:

Become a certified Kung Fu Blackbelt in five easy moves for just $499.00 !!

Do you want the prestige of becoming a Certified Kung Fu Blackbelt?? Call (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

Can you handle the respect that comes with the rank of Blackbelt??

IF YOU ANSWERED, "YES" TO BOTH OF THESE QUESTIONS, YOU ARE ONLY ONE PHONE CALL AWAY FROM ACHIEVING THE RANK OF KUNG FU BLACKBELT. CALL (xxx) xxx-xxxx !!

Hi, my name is Sifu Edwards, and I am a 3rd degree Blackbelt Sifu Instructor. I have been a martial arts instructor my entire adult life. I am a decorated combat Vietnam Veteran and I received a purple heart for wounds received in combat. I currently own and operate a professional bodyguard agency for wealthy clients outside Orlando, Florida.

After years of study, I have developed a unique, easy to learn home study program. All you need to perform are the following stances:

1. Crane
2. Leopard
3. Praying Mantis
4. Dragon
5. Serpent

After performing the five animal stances and your fees processed, you will be awarded:

1. A FIRST DEGREE BLACKBELT in Kung Fu.
2. An official BLACKBELT CERTIFICATE with authentic seal with my original signature and the original signatures of two other Blackbelts.
3. A notarized certificate of authenticity.
4. A copy of my 3rd Degree BLACKBELT SIFU INSTRUCTOR CERTIFICATE, signed by a World Champion Grand Master, authorizing me, to certify you.

Simply purchase my course, learn five moves, and verify you can perform these stances by emailing me (ON YOUR HONOR) that you have completed the course and I WILL CERTIFY YOU AS FIRST DEGREE BLACKBELT...

For more information call (xxx) xxx-xxxx. We will answer any questions you have personally; we also offer Kung Fu uniforms, Blackbelt sashes, dragon patches and other martial arts supplies. Our web page will be up soon. Hopefully when you call, we will have the site available for you to view.

You are only one call away from being a Kung Fu Blackbelt...

Sadly, Sifu, after having spent a long time considering this, I have decided that I am, in fact, not prepared to handle the respect that comes with the rank of black belt. I also do not have $500 right now. Additionally, I am waiting for the website to go up so it will be easier for me to, on my honor, indicate that I have learned the required stances.

Finally, I'm hoping that you will add the centipede, turtle, and robot stances at a later date.