Blog of Josh Hall

There are some crazy foods out there from around the world.  Kallie has introduced me to pluots (apricots and plums cross planted), and I know there are a bunch of stuff on the west coast that I’ve never seen on the east coast.  I had never heard of fennel or leeks before valentine’s day 2010, but now I’ve seen them more and more.  here are 2 crazy vegetables. the romanesco broccoli is pretty crazy looking! it comes from rome and is also known as broccoflower.

another one would be the purple cauliflower. why aren’t these vegetables present at rave parties? these things are nuts! well vegetables, not nuts, but you get the point.

This is effing ridiculous.  A class action lawsuit waiting to happen.  If anyone knows an attorney, I’d be willing to talk to them and split the winnings with you.

So I get contacts earlier this spring, and each of the 4 boxes come with a $10 mail in rebate for CooperVision.  So i send in the UPC box tops and after like 3 months, i get this stupid visa debit card in the mail.  WTF is this crap?  Where’s my $40 check??

So here’s the deal with this thing.  It’s like a credit card with a $40 limit.  If I want to buy something that costs more than $40 – I’m screwed because it won’t accept the charge.  I’d have to be able to tell the cashier, “Take $40 from this card, then the rest on this other one.”  That’s hassle.  Coopervision has an anti-marketing campaign here because their name is tied to all of this frustration.

The trap doesn’t stop there.  As if that wasn’t making it hard enough for you to spend, you have 6 months to use the card, or you get assessed a $3 “monthly maintenance fee”.  WTF.  I want to [do very violent things].  This thing has a time limit?  That makes me feel like I’m really just borrowing money from Coopervision, and if I don’t burn it all before they remember they lent it to me, they’re going to take it back.

Keep in mind, since it’s a credit card, If I spend $35.32, I have to do the math in my head to know what is left on the card.  Then I have to remember how much is on the card for the next time I use it.  The closer I get to $40.00 without approaching it EXACTLY, the less likely I am able to actually use the full value of the rebate.

Whatever.  I can use this thing in 6 months.  I’ll just take Kallie out for a nice dinner, split the check, and it’ll be nice.  So here we are, at a swanky restaurant in Chicago, and I explain to the waiter what I need him to do.  He comes back and says, “Sorry, this card was rejected for $40.”  I’m livid.  WTF.  I tell him to try $39.99 maybe???  It dawns on me that perhaps I have had it for 6 months and they pegged me with the maintenance fee.  Anyway, after a second time, and much embarrassment, he says that it accepted $30 and he put the rest on my other card.  I apologize, and thank him for his patience.

So I go home and log into the webpage account for this card to figure out what the crap is going on here.  Here’s my statement.  Can you decypher why it didn’t let $40 through????  WHAT THE EFF is that $36????

I’m so sick of this card, I just gave it to Kallie and said, “Buy something.  NOW.  GET RID OF THIS VICIOUS CARD.”  So she gets on half.com and buys a book for $8.99 shipped….WTF IS GOING ON WITH THIS STATEMENT?!?!?!  DIE, COOPERVISION.  DIE, PREPAID VISA REBATE CARDS.  You’re effing ridiculous, frustrating, and should be banned before water boarding.

This is just disgusting business tactics to not give money.  They say they’ll give you a rebate, but they make it nearly impossible for you to claim that money.  It’s like a carrot dangling on a string, and I’m about ready put that carrot someplace that CEO won’t appreciate.  Or maybe he would.  I’m throwing down some serious hate here.

Had they just cut me a check, I would have enjoyed the experience, and done business with them again.  Now I don’t trust them, and I want to kill anyone will the last name “Cooper”.

BUYER BEWARE

You should never be surprised that something has caught on, no matter how stupid you think it is.  There are enough people in the world, that anything can be successful as long as it reaches the right market.  Look at the Chinese technology entertainment industry.  Look at LARP’ing.

Kallie and I drove to Chicago on Oct 15th for the Urbanathlon on the 16th.  We were a little scared about the 7.5 hour drive since our car has been giving us so many (expensive) problems.  It lasted though, and hopefully we didn’t shave off too many days of it’s life.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in the West Loop, which was a nice short walk to the starting line.  when we got to our room, it was a 2 double bed suite.  Whenever something is not as it should be, I let Kallie be in charge.  I’m too nice and just suck it up and take the hand I was dealt.  Kallie goes to the front desk and she gets us a room with a king bed, the only “downside” is it’s a handicap room.  So, where we asked for a different room because we’re tall and need a larger bed, we got a larger bed, but the room has light switches and counters at about half-height.  The bathroom was just a big tiled room with a curtain and shower head off to the side.  I’ve never seen that before.  It was very mental hospital-ish.  Whatever though.

The race was fun, but I didn’t get the time I wanted due to muscle cramps around mile 7.  It took me nearly an hour to finish the last 2 miles.  It was frustrating and embarrassing.  I don’t know what caused them.  It wasn’t unusually cold and I should have had all the nutrients I needed.  I hadn’t had anything like that come up in my training.  When I got to the finish line, as I was jumping off the first taxi hood, my right calf cramped and I almost fell on the ground since I could use it to balance when I landed.  I also couldn’t get up over the second cab until it stopped, so I just stood there stretching and rubbing it, while all these bystanders looked at me.  Ugh.  I think the picture to the left sums it up pretty well.  Even after the race, just sitting on the ground drinking water, my muscle was cramping.  Ridiculous.  Nothing I could do about it though, and I raised a bunch of money for the Living Ministry, so it wasn’t about me, it was a race for the ministry.  Now it was time to have a great weekend in Chicago with my wife.

So we were going to meet up with Kallie’s cousin, Julia, for lunch.  Julia was thinking a place called “The Girl and The Goat” (check out my review) but they were only open for dinner.  She also had to work, so that limited our time.  What we decided to do was Kallie and I would go to eat dinner, then come see a show, where Julia worked, and then we’d get drinks afterward with her.  I’ll tell you more in the reviews of the restaurant and the play “Detroit” at the Steppenwolf theatre (review here), but to sum it up, we had an awesome day.  So great.  We couldn’t have planned it better ourselves.  THANKS, Julia!  Sunday morning we got some fruit sushi / frushi at Orange before heading out for home.  We had eaten there last year and thought it was so good that we made a point to go back this year.  If you’re in the Chicago area, I’d recommend it.

Kallie’s cousin, Julia, works at the Steppenwolf Theatre, and while we were in town, she hooked us up with tickets to see Detroit, by Lisa D’Amour.

First off, Kallie and I had never heard of the theatre, let alone the play.  Maybe it’s because we’re not from Chicago, or maybe it’s because we are uncultured neanderthals.  Either way, we were thoroughly entertained.  The set was beautiful and even the theatre itself told me that I’m in a place that’s taken seriously.  As I browse the program, I see that Gary Sinese and 2 friends started the company back in the 70s, and now there’s a ensemble of MANY familiar faces!  I was very impressed, to the point where I felt ashamed I didn’t know anything about this place before hand!  I would think a place with the caliber of it’s ensemble would be as well known as Second City (which we tried to get tickets for, but they were sold old 3 days out).

To the actual play, a cast of 4, most recognized by Laurie Metcalf (Jackie from Roseanne), Detroit is a play that tackles very modern american ideals and circumstances.  A long time married couple without children in the suburbs of Detroit struggle in their relationship while a younger, recently clean and sober, couple moves into the house next door.  There are some great laughs, but it also has a lot of deep meaning.  Something I’ve never heard of before, after the play, they have a discussion group with an assistant producer of the play.  They talk about the characters, how the definition of the American dream has changed, and what changes we saw in the characters.  It was awesome.  Kind of like a college class, with a bunch of old people in it. 🙂

It was a great play, a great place, and a great night.  Consider it RECOMMENDED.

Related:  Detroit is a focus for Palladium and Johnny Knoxville in their exploration how Detroit Lives – http://www.palladiumboots.com/explorations

So, I called this Girl and the Goat place after looking online and seeing they were booked for 2 weeks out.  They did have a cancellation at 11:30pm if I wanted that.  I had just read an interesting article about getting into elite restaurants, and was excited to try my hand at some of the tactics.  The first one, is just show up.  They opened at 4:30, and we got there around 4:50.  We got seated right away, but at a table for 8 they call the lounge.  It’s actually a pretty sweet idea.  It’s a very wide table, and couples sit next to each other.  We were seated at one end, and a guy and his son were at the other end across the table.

The menu was “interesting” to me.  I’m not all that adventurous with food, so I look for familiar things on menus.  There was a lot on the menu that I wasn’t sure what it was, let alone if I’d even like it.  I found a few things that I would be comfortable with though.  It is served “small plate” style, so you order like 3 different items and split it between the 2 of you.  So we got the ravioli, the mussels, and skirt steak.  I also had been told by a few friends to try the Golden Monkey from Voodoo Brewery, so since I saw it, I got one of those as well.  Later, I also downed an Left Hand Brewery Polestar Pilsner.  Left Hand has a dear place in my heart, originally just because of the name, but I really like their beer.

Anyway, back to Girl and the Goat.  As they’re bringing out food to Tony (the guy at the other end of the table) and his son, the server is giving him the full schpeel about what it is, what Chicago Magazine had to say about it, and used a bunch of colorful adjectives to describe what went into it, almost as if Tony was a food critic.  There was too much laughing and smiling about it though, as it turns out, Tony was an employee just stopping in with his son.  Tony strikes up a conversation with us, and tells us about the sharing food idea, and he said that a little known secret is to use the sauce from the mussels with the fries, which he had, so we ended up putting the dishes together.  As we’re doing this, 2 other couples join our table and join in on the plate sharing.  Tony ended up passing around his extra lamb shank.  It was soooooo good.  Everything was so good.  I have no idea what was on the skirt steak, but it was awesome.  This could very well have been the best food I’ve ever eaten in one sitting, and I don’t usually get excited about food.

One dish had brussel sprout leaves in it, and since Kallie has been growing brussel sprouts, she asked Tony and our waiter if it was indeed the leaves of the brussel sprouts, or if they were the bigger leaves of the brussel sprout plant itself.  Tony said that particular dish was just the sprouts, but there was another dish that had the large leaves.  We ordered that so Kallie can see if it’s something she wants to learn how to make.  A few minutes later, our waiter brought the owner, Stephanie Izard.  Wow, what a surprise.  The waiter was just so surprised about Kallie growing brussel sprouts, that he asked Steph to come out and share the recipe with us.  It was a short conversation, and you could tell she was very involved in taking care of the restaurant, but it was an awesome surprise.

This place was awesome.  The food, the staff, the atmosphere were all exceptional.  It was a little on the pricey side for small plate, but it’s one of those great date dinners where you get dressed up for a night out.

I’ll give it 10 feet out of 10 (that’s a good thing).  If you’re in Chicago, GO.