7 Raddest Things from the 90s
Posted: November 19, 2010 Filed under: Importance of Being Earnest 1 CommentI was looking through my old blog posts and I found one about fads that I didn’t miss. It got me thinking about some of the awesome things from my childhood that I miss. Here my list of 7 things that made the 90s bodacious!
7. The Arcade
These were the coolest
Yes, there are still arcades, but they don’t hold nearly the pull of the old arcades. I remember riding my 10 speed out to the local arcade to play amazing games that you couldn’t get at home. In the modern era of HD game consoles and motion controls, you would be hard pressed to find an arcade game that looks better than a game you can play at home.
6. LASER backgrounds
Who didn’t want to have the laser background for their school pictures? By the time I was in high school, your options were basically grey or blue.
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Pizza this way dudes!
These pizza-obsessed crime fighters occupied much of my Saturday morning routine. Have you tried watching kid cartoons these days? I’m pretty sure that the Ninja Turtles could kick Dora’s butt. I don’t even know how many of the TMNT action figures I had, but I remember being jealous of the kids that had the Turtle Van.
4. Lisa Frank
Why is it always dolphins? Neon dolphins?
What list of awesome things from the 90s would be complete without Lisa Frank? The psychedelic stickers went on everything. Binders, shoes, bed stands. I remembered that if there was a girl you liked, you made sure she got the Lisa Frank valentine. What better way into a first grader’s heart than neon dolphins dancing over neon penguins?
3. LA Lights
light it up!
High tops were all the rage back in elementary school, and LA lights were the king of high tops. These were especially cool for when you were out playing during the night. I’m pretty sure that at least once I had a sleepover just to show off my LA Lights at night.
2. Trapper Keeper
For all of those Lisa Frank stickers
I’m almost positive that every single kid in my class had a Trapper Keeper. It has all sorts of pockets for pens and pencils. It was half backpack and half binder. Science cannot explain why, but putting some velcro on a binder suddenly made it awesome.
1. Slap Bracelet
Definition of "rad"
Slap bracelets were the ultimate fashion accessory. I’ll never forget the day that my sister came home with a slap bracelet; it was magic. It looked straight, but then you put it on your wrist and BAM! now it is a bracelet. You could get all of the cool styles (zebra print, neon green, neon zebra print, etc.) and just swap them out as needed.
Did I miss anything?
Texas Roadhouse – Orem
Posted: November 18, 2010 Filed under: James and the Giant Peach 2 CommentsTexas Roadhouse opened up one of its chains in Orem, UT on November 15. I will admit I was pretty excited. When Roni and I were driving out to North Carolina for the summer, we stopped in Louisville. While there, we had the chance to go to a Texas Roadhouse, and found that it was quite good. Because of our the arrival of a Texas Roadhouse in Orem, we decided to place an order for pick up in order to review the food and fixins at this new hot spot.
Remember when I reviewed Carrabba’s and I praised them for their online ordering system? Sadly, Texas Roadhouse does not have a comparable system in place. You just have to call up and place an order and pray to high heaven that they get the order right. It was almost as if tonight’s experience existed solely to highlight how great online ordering is. When Roni tried to place the order, Jr. started fussing, the Bwun started wanting attention, and I was trying to clarify the order with Roni while she was on the phone. Roni got so frustrated trying to place the order that she just had to hang up and try again. All of this could have been avoided with a simple online ordering system.
Remember how much I liked the curbside pickup offered at Carrabba’s and Outback? Unfortunately, Texas Roadhouse has not caught onto this concept. I went into the restaurant and was immediately grateful that we decided to pick up our order instead of eating there; the place was packed. It wasn’t immediately apparent where I was supposed to pick up the order, and the first couple people I tried to talk to in the reception area either ignored me or didn’t hear me. Finally a passing waitress saw that I was trying to talk to somebody, and she directed me to the order pick up counter.
I brought the food home and we dug in. Roni ordered the combo plate of USDA Choice sirloin and ribs; I ordered the pulled pork and ribs. Can you tell that we like meat? Now, maybe it was just because we were spoiled with superb barbecue in North Carolina, but the pulled pork and ribs did not quite stand up. To be fair, the ribs were flavorful and had a lot of meat on them. However, Roni reported that her ribs were a bit dry. The several pieces of bone in my pulled pork also failed to impress.
The star of the show was definitely the sirloin that Roni ordered. She let me have a bite, and it was instantly clear it was belle of the ball. The steak was cooked and seasoned perfectly. It was tender, flavorful, and had just a hint of smokiness to it. The rolls included with the meal were also quite good. Furthermore, I appreciated that the menu offered a definition of rare, medium rare, etc. It seems that what one place calls medium rare, another restaurant will call medium well, so it was nice to have a baseline.
The portions were, to use the cliché, Texas-sized. I would be surprised if a person could finish their plate after an appetizer and have room for dessert. If you eat conservatively (i.e. you want less than 1,000 calories out of your dinner) you could easily get two dinners out of one entrée.
We enjoyed our dinner, but I’m not sure that we’ll be ordering from them again anytime soon. To be perfectly honest, there are local places with better barbecue and better prices.
Ease of Ordering: 3
Food Quality: 3.5 (3 for the barbecue, but a 4.5 for the steak)
Portion Size: 4.5
Overall Experience: 3.5
Price Range: $10-$18
tl;dr: Barbecue is only decent. Stick to the steak!
Texas Roadhouse
1265 S. State Street
Orem, UT 84097
Politically Incorrect
Posted: November 16, 2010 Filed under: War and Peace 2 CommentsSomething happened in class the other day that really got me thinking. Let’s start from the beginning.
This semester, I have been taking a class on employment discrimination. We talk about ways that employers and businesses become liable for how they treat protected groups. Different groups are protected based on statutory provisions. For example, Title VII of the United States Code provides protection against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, etc. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), not surprisingly, requires employers and businesses open to the public to make certain accommodations for disabled people.
During the class period where we were discussing the ADA, our professor told us a story about her husband. Her husband has a condition that confines him to a wheelchair. In this story, she told us that they took a trip took to New York. They were standing in line at a deli; the line was long enough that it went outside of the store. An employee came out multiple times and asked them to come inside. When my professor asked why, she was told that it was because my professor’s husband was disabled. They both politely declined, saying that they could wait in line just as well as anybody else. Finally, the manager came out and brought them inside to a table. He explained, “If a city official were to walk by and see you in line at my store, I could get a fine for making you wait in line. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re OK to wait.”
As my professor told us this, she said something like, “While the statute was without a doubt meant to make things easier for disabled people, it ended up making my husband feel like he was singled out!”
Right after she said this, a student in the back mumbled a comment. The professor asked the student to speak up, and the student said, “Not ‘disabled person,’ but ‘person with a disability.'”
This really made me upset, and I’ve been trying to figure out why ever since that class. I couldn’t help but wonder if this student had heard a black person refer to himself/herself as “black” would she have correct them? “Oh, sorry. It’s ‘African American.'” If they had been calling each other the “N word” would she have corrected them?
"I'm sorry, you can't say that."
My problem is this: why does this student think she can correct my professor when the professor is talking about her own life. Here was my professor, talking about her own life, talking about the challenges she and her husband face on a day-to-day basis, and the student has the audacity to correct her. Has being politically correct become such a social necessity that we have to right to correct how a person refers to their own group of people?
Don’t get me wrong, I think that some there are certain words that are so offensive, that I think they shouldn’t be said. But who am I to correct a person who is talking about their own life? Since when do I have the right to tell people how to refer to themselves? to a person they love? Telling people what they can and can’t call themselves seems overbearingly paternalistic. It is as if we are saying they aren’t even competent to pick a name for themselves.
Jarom
Mika
hilleries 