Pancakes.... or not...

Okay, I normally don't use my blog to vent, but this time... I couldn't resist. I will not be using the name of the restaurant, or the town it was in (because it was a very small town).

So today I went out to brunch with my family. My parents, siblings, and I live about an hour and a half away from where my aunt, uncle, and cousins live, so it was a long drive for brunch. I had an Eggo waffle before we left, but by the time we got there for our 12:30pm reservation I was definitely hungry.

We got seated quickly, but it took awhile for us to get menus. Argh. First the waitress came around and asked for our drink orders; I ordered orange juice (which was supposedly fresh-squeezed). That came a few minutes later, and it was bitter. I don't mean "it wasn't sugary sweet", I mean it tasted like there was either grapefruit juice or something mixed into it, or the oranges or juice had gone bad. Gross. My brother and I tried to explain the situation to our waitress and another woman who I think was the "bartender" or something, and they didn't seem to understand it for whatever reason. Eventually we ended up getting some good orange juice, but it definitely wasn't fresh-squeezed, it was Tropicana or something (which is fine by me, really).

So we got to ordering our food. I ordered pancakes, with nothing in them (they offered both fruit and bacon pancakes), and asked for some maple syrup and butter on the side. First, the food was taking awhile to get to our table, so they sent us some cheese and bread. That was okay, since I wanted my pancakes, but I mean I like cheese so that was fine.

Eventually our food came. I spread some butter on one of the pancakes, and poured the syrup on it. The pancakes were room temperature, and the syrup was cold, which combined to make the pancakes cold. So I explained very nicely to the waiter that the pancakes were cold and asked if she could please heat them up and could I please get some syrup that was warm too. She said okay, and took my plate back to the kitchen. We spoke with another waiter, who might've been the host or something, I don't really know, and he said that heated-up pancakes aren't good, so they'd just make a new batch.

Okay. Whatever. I didn't need a whole new batch of pancakes, but that's fine. Eventually they bring me back the "new pancakes", I take a look and see that they've taken the same pancakes and rearranged them and put them on a different plate- I can tell because I'd taken a bite out of one of them. No big deal, whatever. So I pour some more syrup on and cut a bite out of the pancake, guess what there's a piece of something pink/white/red and greasy, a.k.a. bacon,  in it. I haven't eaten red meat (by which I include pork) since May 2005 (over 5 and a half years) and I've been completely vegetarian since October 2006 (over 4 years). I didn't eat it, thankfully, but needless to say the presence of the bacon disturbed me.

We explained the situation to the waitress, who apologized and said they'd bring me some new pancakes. My brother and older cousin, not wanting the bacon pancakes to go to waste, ended up eating them anyway. They've both already finished their food- my brother had corned beef hash and I think my cousin has the same thing- and most other people are about half finished.

So eventually they sent me another stack of pancakes. There were four this time, not three. I knew I probably wouldn't eat four whole pancakes, but whatever. I put some butter and syrup (which, thankfully, was warm) on the pancake, and took a bite. Yum. These were good pancakes. But I took another bite and then saw that the middle of the pancakes were COMPLETELY uncooked... like totally liquid. I am not kidding. It was unbelievable. I'm pretty hungry by this point, considering it's about 2 o'clock. We talk to the waitress, I tell her that I'm sorry to keep sending the stuff back but I don't want to eat a raw pancake. She said they'd send out some more pancakes. I thanked her, but I was pretty frustrated. Everyone else had pretty much finished their food by that point.

The manager eventually came over to me and apologized and asked if I maybe wanted something else to eat. I appreciated that, since by that point who KNOWS what else they could mess up about the pancakes... ugh... I told her that I'd like the french toast, please, and thanked her. A few minutes later (by this point every other person at the table was done eating; it was like 2:30 or something ridiculous) THE CHEF finally brought out my french toast. The french toast had some berry jam on it, I didn't really want that but was sick and tired of dealing with everything so I just scraped it off.

Yeah, that pretty much SUCKED. It's a pretty nice restaurant. I've never been there before, but my aunt and parents have, and they've all had good experiences there. No one else had any problems with their food. I was kinda pissed that I got the short end of the stick.

My aunt and uncle spoke with the manager, and she said they were completely mortified by what happened... frankly, they should be, because I know some things are out of there control (the bacon thing is almost understandable, and it's happened to me before) but really is it that hard to (1) properly cook pancakes (my 12-year-old sister can do it) and (2) send things out on time? It was a pretty small place, but I guess either they were really busy or were understaffed (my grandma's boyfriend kept going on about how the chef must've left, or something, because of how slow it was), because it took FOREVER for me to get my pancakes and then the french toast.

At the beginning of this, I was deciding between ordering the pancakes and the french toast, but ended up going with the pancakes... of course now I'm kicking myself for not having ordered the french toast.

Your life will never be the same...

...after you listen to Brokencyde.

No, really. Your life will be changed FOREVER when you listen to Brokencyde. You will never look at music the same way again.


("Freaxxx" by Brokencyde)
 
I stumbled upon Brokencyde a few weeks ago (I'd heard of them before but had never taken the time to listen to one of their songs... and now that I have, my life will never be the same again...) on Your Scene Sucks (look at "crunkcore poser") and decided to take a listen.

Brokencyde is described as "crunkcore", but really that's just code for shitty dance-pop music about going to clubs and getting drunk and "sexy"... with screamo vocals. Yes, really. It's like someone took the world's most awful electronica/club song and basically added some screaming. The best way I can describe it is if you had some screamo band covering Ke$ha. It's actually pretty entertaining, if nothing else for the fact that I never thought music could get this, well... weird (I was going to say "bad", but I hate dismissing entire genres on principle).

 Apparently the name "Brokencyde" comes from the fact that they are (get this) "broken inside"... or their music is about being "broken inside" or something (don't you just love how wikipedia has information on everything?). They're from Albuquerque, and the band consists of Se7en, a.k.a. David Gallegos, on unclean/rap vocals; Mikl, a.k.a. Michael Shea, on clean vocals; Phat J, a.k.a. Julian McClellan, on keyboards, synthesizers, guitars, bass guitar, programing (which I didn't realize counted as an instrument?), and death-growls (which are apparently distinct from unclean vocals); and Antz, a.k.a. Anthony Trujillo, on programming, beats, backing vocals, and fog machine and lights in performances (which I also didn't realize counted as an instrument).

I am not really sure what the purpose of the nicknames ("Se7en"? really?)  is. I'm also not really sure what the purpose of having a band member designated as the one to do lights and fog. I have no clue at all what the point of screaming to obscene club/party/dance/pop songs it, but maybe the point of Brokencyde is that you're not supposed to get it, because it doesn't make sense.

Why I Love Small Concerts

I've been to a lot of concerts: a few really small concerts (a few hundred people or less), a lot of medium-sized concerts, and a handful of big concerts (arena-type shows with several thousand people). They're all enjoyable, but there's something special about a concert that's really small, for a few reasons:

1. You can get really close to the band. Often, these really small venues have no barrier or security preventing you from getting right up in front of the stage, which tends to be lower to the ground than stages at bigger venues. At the Grog Shop in Cleveland, the stage is barely two feet off the ground, with nothing blocking it. At the Heirloom Arts Theatre in Danbury, CT, the stage is about four feet off the ground, again with no barrier- when I was there, singers would get down on the front of the stage and audience members would actually sing into the microphone. 

2. Even if you're all the way in the back, you can still see everything that's happening on stage. When I saw New Found Glory at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ, I was in the back for some of the opening bands (almost outside- the show was in August, and the back doors were open, and people were standing on the back porch), but because of the size of the venue even if you were outside, you could still see everything. 

3. Because of the size, and small number of people there (400 versus 4,000 versus 40,000... that's a difference of a factor of 10 or 100!), small shows are more intimate than bigger shows. Band members can actually see the individual people in the crowd (and the people in the crowd can see them), and the shows are more personal. When there are 20,000 people in an arena, a singer can talk to the audience, but when there are 200 people in a tiny venue, a singer can actually talk to an individual, and it feels more personal. When I was at the CT Holiday Throwdown, a guitarist in one of the bands came up to me and said he'd seen me having fun in the crowd. The number of people you're sharing the experience with is smaller, so it's more special.

4. Tickets for small shows are usually cheaper than at bigger shows. I don't think I've ever paid more than $20 for a really small show. On the other hand, I've paid $30 to $50 for tickets at the House of Blues and ~$90 for tickets to a concert at an arena. Of course, if I wanted to see someone like U2 at an arena, it'd be in the hundreds.

5.  It's way easier to meet band members. When I saw Hey Monday and Cartel at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, Jordan Witzigreuter (a.k.a. The Ready Set) literally walked by me and my friend three or four times on his way to go backstage. After the show, we met one of the members of Cartel when he was standing by the bar. I met tons of the musicians that played at the CT Holiday Throwdown. I met one of the members of New Found Glory when he was standing outside the Stone Pony (since the tour bus was right there- no special lot with extra security or anything).