I love buffets. The gooey portions of me perched over my belt prove it. Since leaving Las Vegas, the options for quality buffet are much more limited, but I still go now and then; Chinese and pizza mostly. But the people are pretty much the same. I hate them. I hate pretty much everyone at the buffet. Mostly because I don't like being seen making a pig of myself, I suspect. What follows are some of my least favorite characters present at every buffet that I have ever been to.

Buffet Assholes

Big Family - Fuck you, big family! You should never go out into the world as a group. You make an instant crowd everywhere you go which craps all over everyone else's good time. I hate you, big family. Use a condom.

Fat Family - Not only do you also create a crowd everywhere you go, like Big Family, but you also remind me of the fact that I skipped a trip to the gym to go to the buffet. Does your doctor know that you are throwing fistfulls of egg rolls down your wobbly gullet? Do you think its cute that your 230-pound twelve year old is going to graduate with diabetes? Go home and make your family a damn salad, I'm trying to eat here.

Fried chicken and pie is not good parenting.

DoubleStack - You don't need two plates. Its a buffet. Make a second trip. Half the beauty of the buffet is that I don't have to wait for anyone to bring me some fried shrimp; I can have it right away. Unless, of course, I am stuck behind some ass who has to go through a complicated ritual of putting down, picking up, balancing, and so forth. If you can't make the second trip to the food, you probably don't need the second plate.

Newt is gonna get his and thats all there is to it.

Muncher - Good grief, can't you wait until you get back to your table? Do you not see that there are other people around that can see you? This isn't the party tray at your grandson's graduation party. Even a fat, lazy glutton like myself can summon the patience to make it back to my table to sit down for my meal like a civilized person. You can too, Muncher.

Hayden Panettiere licking the Stanley Cup is so much cooler than you, muncher.

Squeaky Wheel - The Squeaky Wheel doesn't seem to get the point of a buffet. This person wants to make requests and ask questions whose answers should be obvious: "Is there any lobster bisque?" Do you see any fucking lobster bisque?!! The Squeaky Wheel is an annoying jackass everywhere, but in many places that I run into him or her there is someone at least pretending to care what he or she wants. At the buffet, however, no interest in your desire has been expressed or implied, so keep it to yourself for once.

This is you, squeaky wheel. This is how the rest of us see you.

If you've seen some other obnoxious characters consistently screwing up your buffet experience, let me know and we will make fun of them.

Bagpipes Pub and Eatery on Research Blvd is your typical American version of an Irish Pub. Brass and wood, with a few big screen televisions showing soccer, rugby, and more mainstream American pasttimes. There is a large selection of foreign and domestic beers and a a very good selection of pub food, Irish and otherwise. Shortly after entering, or immediately upon loading their website, you will discover one of Bagpipes' proudest assests; I won't dwell on it, but only say that the wait staff is all female, and, though capable, clearly not chosen for their skills at serving as much as their suitability to the 'uniform'.
If the staff were the only reason to go to Bagpipes, I would recommend against it, but the food there is also very good. I have had about a dozen things there and they were all delicious. There is also a full bar, so those that are so inclined, there is ample opportunity to drink enough to spray your Irish Dip on the bathroom, the help, or my car in the parking lot. Enjoy.
Good news: I talked to someone recently who advised me on where the really good dive bars are in Austin, so I might be able to bring you some more inspired reviews very soon. Look for that.

Not sure what is going on in this picture. I tried to read the text around it, but could make no sense of it. Perhaps you can do better.

Bagpipes has a site, but the photos are embedded in flash. I guess they don't want you setting their talent as your desktop, or something.

I was sitting at Nasty’s, polishing off my last PBR and half-listening to my good friend, Chunder, talking to me about putting together a rugby team for the ‘huskier’ players in the Austin area when he says something like, ‘I’ll get BD Riley’s to sponsor it.’ “What the hell is a BD Riley’s?” I simultaneously thought and said. ‘It’s a bar on 6th street that I half own,’ he says, like it’s no big deal. As if everyone owns a piece of a 6th street bar. I haven’t even formulated a thought when I hear my own voice say, ‘How do I get there?”
20 minutes later I am walking into a bar that is very much what I have come to expect of a good Irish pub. There is a lot of brass and wood grain. Everyone is drinking and they all look like they have showered recently. It reminds me very much of McMullan’s in Las Vegas. No PBR is no surprise. There is probably some cheap swill that I have never heard of that I could learn about if I was going to spend a lot of time here, but I won’t bother because I can’t see that happening.
BD Riley’s is not the kind of place that I would typically hang out in. There is no pool or shuffleboard tables, drinks are expensive, and the danger level from the staff, clientele, and food is very low. There is no PBR and no interesting graffiti in the men’s room. For most places in the world, BD Riley’s would stand out very little, but BD Riley’s is not located just anywhere. It is located on Austin’s 6th street, one of the more famous blocks of debauchery alongside such legends as Seattle’s Pioneer Square and New Orleans’ Bourbon Street. Most of the bars on 6th street cater to the all-you-can-drink, vomit-party Saturday night frat-boy crowd, but BD Riley’s makes for a pleasant oasis from that.
This is a place that I would take my parents when they visit, but not just them. Being ‘experienced’ like I am, I have a lot of friends who don’t share my taste for dingy, dank, and scary. They prefer clean, well lit places with good food and clean glasses. People who will think that taco carts are neat, but do not want to eat at one. When those people come visit, I will take them to 6th street to walk around and look at all of the crazy places and people around there, and then we will duck into BD Riley’s for a pint and a couple orders of nachos.
Mmm…nachos. A moment about the nachos. I have had lousy nachos, but not very often. The most basic nachos are just chips and cheese and they’re delicious. To really screw up nachos, you almost have to be trying. But, while nacho failure is almost impossible, there are varying degrees of nacho success. The best nachos that I have ever had were at a place called ‘La Cucina Cantina’ in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district. I believe that place is closed now. The best nachos that I have had since that place were at BD Riley’s. They start by frying their own homemade tortillas, and end with perfectly grilled chicken. What happens in between is your typical nacho stuff; beans, cheese, salsa, and jalapenos, but somehow it came out perfect. We had two orders and couldn’t quite finish the second one, so we took it with us. That turned out to be a good thing because I thought maybe I just remembered them being so good because I was drunker than I thought I was, but, no, they were still delicious the next day.
You want to get wild and drunk and crazy, don’t go to BD Riley’s, there are over a dozen places right there on 6th street that are way better for that, I recommend Shakespeare’s. If you are on 6th street and find yourself wanting to stop at a nice place with good food, good service, and clean tables, go to BD Riley’s.

Check out BD Riley's. The website doesn't have any good pictures on it, so I just put up one of Chunder. What's funny is that is what he looks like at work.

The other day I went to see Reno 911. It was pretty funny, but that doesn't really matter here. What does matter is where I saw it. The Alamo Draft House is a movie theater with several locations here in Texas, but it is more than a movie theater. It is a movie theater with these people who will bring you beers and or food. When I say food, I'm not talking about popcorn and candy, I'm talking about hot wings, poppers, pasta, and a kickass meatball and sausage sandwich. They would not bring me a PBR at any price, but they did have Lone Star, the official beer of Texas. The prices are not fantastic, but paying $3.25 for a bottle of beer didn't seem so bad when I considered what a small Hi-C would cost me at your average movie theater. The atmosphere of the place is casual enough so that I felt like I could put my feet wherever I wanted, but not so trashy that I was afraid to eat the food. The Alamo Draft House is nothing if not unexpected, for instance; tomorrow the Mentors are playing there and the following day there is a specail show for parents of infant children. The Alamo Draft House isn't really a pub, but it isn't really a theater or a restarant either. I am including it here as part of my site because I felt the three drunks that find occasion to read my stuff would want to know that there is a way to see first run movies without losing your buzz or smuggling gin in your pants(doesn't help the smell of the pants or the gin).

So, I have yet another dollop of wisdom for my hordes of followers. Do not drive 1000 miles with everything you own towed behind a truck that is held together by your own questionable mechanical acumen. If, for some insane reason, you decide to do so, don't go dirtbiking the day before. If you elect to spurn the wisdom of my recommendations and go tearing ass around the desert, do not blast into the biggest hill that you can find, thinking to yourself some shit about 'last day in town' and 'go big' and whatever other silly shit might make you think its a good idea to go way bigger than you know you should so that you almost flip over and fly off the back straight down onto your tailbone, bruising the living shit out of it right before a twenty-plus hour drive. There are more than 1000 miles between Las Vegas and Austin and I don't even know how many bumps, but I know that every one of them shot blinding pain up my spine from my ass. It was truly awful.
Everything has been great since I got here, though. I have experienced several sub-remarkable chicken fried steaks, but the weather and the people have been magnificent. The people have been so magnificent in fact, that they took the time to show me a fantastic new dive bar. Nasty's, on the corner of 38th and Guadelupe, is small, square, and decorated with rugby and football stuff everywhere. It also has cheap beer, quick service, an outdoor beergarden, and two pool tables. It is the team bar for the Austin Huns and it is owned by one of their members, so there is a good chance that you can catch them downing beers and singing lewd songs. There is something called a hip-hop night on Mondays and pretty random specials and happy hours. My ass and I both regret that the chairs are not the most comfortable, but it doesn't see to be much of a sitting kind of place. The crowd is young-ish and looks pretty working class. Nasty's is a dive. One of the better ones that I have been to. I think that there are probably better ones in Austin, but I haven't found them yet. If you manage to find it before I do, please let me know.
I'm still in search of a chicken fried steak that is better than the one at the Grand Cafe in Green Valley Ranch, but I am pretty confident that it is somewhere in Texas. I will keep looking. In the meantime, check out a nice shot of my purple ass. Try not to get too excited looking at it.
I could not find a Nasty's website, but here is a link to their page on the Hun's website.

When someone joins the armed forces, one of their first stops is at MEPS(Military Entry Processing Station). My memories of MEPS are similar to my memories of the day I lost my virginity; watching bad movies, smoking lots of cigarettes, and wondering how I am supposed to feel about a finger in my butt. The smoking room at the MEPS was filled with an amazing sampling of the American existence: There were guys in polo shirts and girls who looked like they got their shirt out of the trash on the way to the place. Bus stations have the kind of sleaze that the MEPS has, but they lack the youth and variety. Just a few years later in life, I would try selling plasma for cash at North Seattle plasma center and the waiting room there would be the only place where I would meet a less encouraging group of people than I did in that MEPS smoking room. Though it never occurred to me that cocktails and karaoke would complete this smoky filth menagerie, it should have. The smoke may sting your eyes upon entering the lounge at Ellis Island, but hold them open, it is worth it. This is a full on freak show of PT Barnum proportions. Mullet-sporting lesbians, the guy in the leather pants who thinks that he is Axel Rose, the black guy in the red suit that is announced as "The Quentin Haywood Experience", and a toothless lady working through all of the Beyonce songs on the list. I hear stories about freaks on American Idol, but I refuse to believe that they hold a candle to the crowd at Ellis Island.
Technically, Ellis Island is a casino, but the casino portion is so uninteresting that I only think of it as some junk that you have to walk through to get to the lounge. The lounge is smoky, loud, and ugly, but there is kind of a sense of family there. No matter how bad the 'performers' are, no one ever boos or says anything bad. Occasionally there will be one very overworked waitress, but you will have to get most of your drinks from the bar. The good news is that the drinks are pretty cheap ($2 beers and cheap well drinks). The security staff there is professional and gentle; the one time that I was escorted out of the place, they chilled me out with the 'come on, this job sucks and you are just making it worse' routine. They also let me drop one of my business cards into the fishbowl on the way out, and you know what? They called me! I won a $50 bar tab! Ellis Island is something that you can't often find so close to the strip: genuine personality. I highly recommend that anyone who hasn't already been to Ellis Island, go there and see the lounge.
Cheapo Vegas has great reviews of casinos, including Ellis Island.

It is a new year and I am rudely reminded that going forward is not an option, it is an imperative. My granny hurt herself, so I was forced to make an emergency trip to the Pacific Northwest last week. One of the things that I was looking forward to while I was there, other than comforting GrammaG, was the use of my father's crapper. The bowl is not terribly interesting, but he has always kept a stash of quality pornography in the drawer within arms reach. When I first discovered this, I thought that dumping and looking at porno was kind of an odd combination, but now that I am at an age where I don't have to immediately start jerkin it every time I see a picture of a naked lady, I find that looking at the girls of the SEC's cooters while having a bm to be a pretty good time. The kind of quiet, relaxing good time that you can only have after 30, or so. I got myself situated reached for the skin mag drawer and was horrified at what I found. Costco catalogs? Surely, these are just surface camouflage for the good stuff, dig deeper. Networking world? Oh, come on, doesn't this guy ever take a second off of work? Its in here, its got to be, dig deeper. At the very bottom. A book on dog training. Dog training?! If he really cared about that dog, he would clean the shit out of its fur now and then. But a boring poop and a smashed up granny weren't all of the bad news waiting for me. The world famous Windmill Saloon in Edgewood, which I have described in a previous post, has finally been sold and the bar is going to be shut down. The best part is what the future plans are for the place. Nothing! Just a vacant lot in the middle of town. Time does indeed march on, and often in bizarre and unexpected ways.
Of course, the fact that everything must move forward also gives us permission to change and grow, ourselves. In the past, I have always ignored the custom of making new year's resolutions, arguing that I break enough promises to myself throughout the year that I just don't need to add a superfluous one at the end just because everyone else is. But, I have actually been trying to improve myself in various ways recently, and thought that I would take it up a notch with something simple: I have decided that I am going to remove the word 'fuck' from my vocabulary. I'm just going to stop saying it and its derivatives, like 'fucker' and 'fucking'. I'll still use it when quoting something or referring to the word. I'm not going to say 'f-word' to refer to fuck, like news people say "n-word" so that they won't have to say "nigger"; that is just so third grade. I wish those people knew how they sound talking like that. What I am going to do is find alternate ways to express the 100 or so ideas that I daily feel the need to express using 'fuck'. I am going to need a lot of alternatives.
Fuck - The standard. Great thing about 'fuck'; it can be all by itself and express an idea that is easy to understood. Fuck!=I am very frustrated right now. I may have to make up a word to replace this one. My friend, Jason, says that 'firetruck' is a good replacement here. I'm not sure I agree. I am going to have to try a few things here. Fuck may also be a person, 'that fuck that works with my girlfriend who thinks that I don't see whats on his fucking mind because I am a goddamn retard who hasn't ever been anywhere or seen anything and won't punch some fuck right in the throat in front of a store full of people.'
The Fuck - As in 'what-' and 'get-' and 'shut-'. I really don't know what I will change this to, as I don't believe that there is an alternative.
Fucking - There are far too many words to describe the sex act for me to put them all here, but I'll just name a few: snarfing, boning, boinking, boffing, beefing, shtooping, snogging, scrogging, fornicating, screwing, and nailing. But there is another use of fucking, as in "if that fucking dog shits on the fucking bed one more time, I'm going to fucking eat it. The dog, not the shit." Fucking, in this case, can be attached to the dog, the bed, and the act of eating; its an adjective and an adverb. Fortunately, there are a ton of adjectives like this that I can still use. It could be "if that fart-sniffing dog shits on the stinking bed one more time, I'm going to blood gutting eat it." Perhaps not as good, but I am hoping that I get better at this as time marches ceaselessly on.
Fuck this/that/you/them/him/her - Another of my favorites. This is a rude dismissal. "Fuck you", says that I just don't care about you and would very much like you to know it and feel smaller for it. I am awesome with this. In fact, I dress up my "fuck you"s so nicely that I don't think that the fuck itself will be terribly missed. "They can fornicate themselves with a rusty hammer" works at least as well as the same phrase with fuck. Along with fornicate, "rape" is a good substitute because of the violence suggested and the natural revulsion to the word, although I would be careful using it with "you" as someone might get a very different message than intended.
To give/not give a fuck - I use this one a lot. Of course, its really just a case of using fuck instead of shit so that its more offensive. I don't think that I can go back to shit. "I don't give a bloody stool" could work here. Remember, this is a process.
I'm sure that there are many other uses for fuck and even more alternatives, I'll keep you posted as they come up.
The loss of the Windmill saloon affects very few people directly, but the world becomes a slightly colder, more sterile, and lonely place.
This week's picture is Tallulah Bankhead, a Broadway legend who said 'fuck' a lot. I found her while looking through the 'fuck' section of wikipedia. She seems like someone that I would have gotten along with very well. Kind of an old-school Paris Hilton but with talent and personality instead of all of the stupid.

I haven't posted any bar reviews in a while because I haven't been to any bars in a while. I'm trying this new thing where I pay my bills when I get paid instead of investing it all in the cheapest Burbon I can find. So far, I am not caring much for it. My creditors seem to prefer the new system, but I never liked them anyway. So instead of drinking in bars, I have been daydreaming about drinking in bars; I guess this is what it is like to get old. One of the nights of drinking that I often reminisce about was a night out at a bar called Bomber's in the Greenlake portion of Seattle, WA. Its on the corner of Greenwood and 85th on the north side of Seattle. Behind the dingy bland exterior is a pretty dingy interior that, at the time, was well brushed with thick waves of cigarette smoke. Of course, I am certain that the dinginess is much clearer these days: thank you health-conscious, turd-sniffing, legislate-me-into-submission, think-you-know-whats-best-for-everyone, fascist scumbags. Bomber's has wood paneling on the walls, and the opportunity to purchase a Grolsch mini-keg, which I seized upon, of course. Now, its important to realize that this wasn't terribly long ago, and I had already been living in Vegas for some time. It is also important to know, that although it constantly haunts the minds of countless millions of enthusiastic drinkers tortured by such a monster, last call is very easy to forget about. In retrospect, the bartender had to know what time it was and that there was no way a mere mortal was going to finish that mini-keg before last call, especially one who had so clearly started the party much earlier, like myself. He must have known that there would be a substantial amount of Grolsch left to finish at 1:45am. His strategy would pay off for both of us, when the witching hour hit and he just locked the doors and grabbed a glass. The one pool table at Bomber's is lumpy and grossly unfair to me, but the service and atmosphere made up for it. I highly recommend the place for anyone in the Greenlake area. I don't remember eating any food there, but whatever I threw up at my buddy's apartment later that night wasn't remotely appetizing.
I've decided that if I can't get my mitts on a photograph that applies to the bar that I am writing about, I am just going to put their name into Google images and root around until I find something that I like. This baby dressed up in a suicide bomber outfit complete with Hamas headband gets the nod this round. I found it on twin-towers.net, the most comprehensive site devoted to 9-11 that I have seen. I can laugh at a juxtaposition of babies and terrorism, you should too.

I normally avoid franchises because I can't stand the corporate, 'sanitized for your protection', lowest common denominator setup in such places. The antiques and nick-nacks at Friday's and Chili's just piss me off because I figure that a lot of those things had real purposes and now they just sit there, not rare enough to be artifacts, but although they have long since outlived their usefulness, they aren't allowed to rot or be recycled; they are ghosts forced to continue among the living only to be gawked at and boogered on by the local little league team. It is good for company to build consumer faith in their brand, and it is great for that same company to expand that brand into other markets and grow its business. What I have a problem with is that chains provide us with a "safe choice"; an option that will give us reasonable satisfaction without having to expend any real effort or run the risk of an unsatisfying experience. These "safe choices" seem to be proliferating while "real choices" that involve some effort and risk are having more and more difficulty carving out an existence in the face of a constantly more and more "wussified" culture that is content with a safe, flavorless experience as long as it doesn't offend anyone or run any risk at all. I go to chains (I don't see how anyone in America could avoid them), but I try to keep my eyes open to alternatives.
PT's is THE pub chain in Vegas. There might be more PT's than McDonald's in Las Vegas. With 30 locations scattered around the city, if you are in Las Vegas, you are near a PTs. I say let Seattle have their stupid Starbuck's, Vegas has PT's. Though I do not drink coffee and would never stoop to ordering a 'venti' anything, I imagine that Starbuck's does so well because they are clean, consistent, and good at what they do. This is PT's. They provide a great place to drink beer, play video poker, shoot pool, watch the game, or just hang out. None of the PT's that I have ever been in are particularly spectacular or interesting, but they are all very good bars. There are three different versions of PT's; PT's Pub, PT's Gold, and PT's Place and they have slightly different menus and varying amounts of poker machines, but, for the most part, they are pretty much the same. I took my parents to PT's when they came to visit, and took my sister to a different PT's when she showed up; both had a great time, and when an old pool partner came for Thanksgiving I took her to a few different places, but PT's was easily the most fun. It is my opinion that there are better and more interesting bars to go to in Las Vegas, but if you find yourself in an unfamiliar neighborhood hurting for a place to have a beer and chill for a bit, PT's is a good, safe choice.

Great website at PTs(I stole this picture from there, but don't tell anyone.)

McDonald's, you can hate on them if you want to, but I like salt and fat.

I know that I initially said that I would not be reviewing restaurants, and I am sticking to that. I only wanted to touch briefly on a common bar food staple that I consider to be one of the crown jewels of American cuisine; the chicken fried steak. If you've never had one, it might seem like a horrible thing to do to an otherwise perfectly good piece of meat, but for those who are not afraid to take a good meal, then batter and fry it and smother it with gravy , know that going over the top is the only way to go. Chicken fried steak is the most American food that I can think of; the culinary equivalent of a V8 engine. The chicken fried steak knows what you want and willfully flips the bird at what you need.
I love chicken fried steak. If you don't love chicken fried steak, fuck you. I wanted to put up this post so that I could announce a couple of my favorites and declare the best ever. It is my hope that someone out there in the big, bad internet takes umbrage with my selection and points me toward a steak that they think is better. It would be my pleasure to investigate.
There are two runners-up for best chicken fried steak ever. Ollie's in Las Vegas, NV serves a delicious chicken fried steak breakfast that I have mentioned before. I have also profiled the world famous 5 Point Cafe in Seattle and their delicious chicken fried steak dinner with mashed potatoes. It is this dinner that ignited my affection for the artery-clogging delicacy and prior to just a few days ago, this was my very-most favorite.
The Grand Cafe at Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas seemed an unlikely place to get a really good chicken fried steak, but I really wanted one, and I was already in the casino trying to make up all of the income that am still not getting from this site, so I decided to risk it. Oh. It was so good. If you haven't had it, you really don't know. The steak was only top round, but it was tender and delicious. The batter was light and flaky and golden brown. The best part may have been the gravy; they use sausage gravy with big chunks of sausage in it. I can't think of a meal that doesn't get better when you add thick chunks of sausage. It was delicious. Truly fantastic. It comes with three eggs, hash browns, and biscuits with gravy, but they barely make an adequate frame for the jewel of deliciousness that is the chicken fried steak at the Grand Cafe at Green Valley Ranch.
I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of this gravy-soaked masterpiece, so instead of showing a scavenged picture of a lesser meal, I am including a picture of the coolest thing that I can think of; Elvis Presley on a motorcycle.

The Grand Cafe is easy to find.