Help Us Zombi Reagan, You're Our Only Hope!!-less... (REAL REVIEW)

I haven't posted in some time, other than to say I hadn't been posting in some time, but in perusing the App's store it was suggested by Genius (part of the App's store) that I may like this app...

Firstly, I lived all of the Reagan Era and was none too impressed by Bedtime for Bonzo's twin partner in crime. People really seem to have a short memory, sorry Ronnie, pun intended! Where should I start??

Well let's see, the busting of the Air Traffic Controllers Union, I know don't start federal law prohibits government workers from striking, blah, blah, blah! The social impact was the target here. 11,000 plus workers---GONE a big thumbs down to unions and both thumbs up for business.

Reaganomics, a term that still haunts us to this day! While the promise of low taxes hits the average Pepsi-swillin', McDonald's eatin', American squarely in the pleasure centers of his/her monobrowed brain-case; that policy did very little for most middle class people. The military budget was raised higher that any other peace time Prez, 30%+ higher!! His policies toward Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps, were so profound that many elderly were eating canned dog food cause they couldn't afford med's, etc. At the same time all budgets that may have had an air of coffee house hangin', art fag-ish, crystal waving, incense burnin', liberalism were sent to the budgetary shitter!! Things as wacky as, federal education programs and the EPA to name a few!! All of this to eventually grab the American people the largest known deficit in history at that time, 3 trillion dollars!!!

While many people argue that it's a good thing the stance he took on Communism, the so called Reagan Doctrine was a very mixed blessing, if one were to call it that. "To provide overt and covert aid to anti-communist resistance movements in an effort to rollback the Soviets and governments with their backing." The biggest baddest piece of under-handed law breaking bullshit was the Iran Contra affair!! This is one of the biggest pieces of chicanery in our American history! Do you know how many people went to jail over that shit?!? High Treason I tell ya!! Does anybody know how many very poor south American countries he help to utterly decimate?!
How about "The War On Drugs"?!?!? This has got to be, and backed by statistics, the biggest waste of time and tax-payer money ever!! Well, second probably to our never-ending war in Iraq, when I think about it. Tell me one good thing the War on Drugs produced!! I can tell the reader of some. Millions of nonviolent offenders being taught how to very violent! Millions of kids growing up in broken homes, which compounds the situation! Assets that get seized that go into voluminous coffers to which you or I get to see none of, or know what gets done with! That's just to name a few.
Oh one good thing... I guess we all got to understand exactly what Alzheimer's disease is!
But I digress.
This is a review of an app. It's an app about a president that just wants to gloat about who "King Ronnie Raygun" was. BORING!!! ZERO stars.
Oh yeah anybody remember the Star Wars program?? That was sockin' money down a rabbit hole for ya'!!

Angry Brady

Real Review - Legion: What A F-ing Waste!

Legion
Directed by Scott Stewart
Written by Peter Schink and Scott Stewart

WorldFullofIdiots Rating:

Saturday my wife and I went to the movies. The plan was to see Daybreakers, the latest vampire movies. It looked good, but apparently its not. Its been out only a few weeks and its already down to one show, at 10pm on the smallest screen in the theater.

So we went for my next choice, another movie that during the trailer I remember saying, "oh fuck that looks goood," Legion.

The plot basics of this movie are nothing new, its about Judgement Day or Armagedeon, or whatever name (insert name of religion here) calls the end of the world at god's hand. The twist this time is that god is mad at us, and decides that he isn't going to put up with any more of our bullshit so he send a legion of angels to earth to kill us all. The crazy thing is that the angels possess our bodies and turn us into evil, flesh eating zombies.

I'm not sure but I think angel-possesion-induced-flesh eating-zombieism is mentioned in Leviticus.

Anyway the deal is that the angels are to wipe us out, buuuuut, god missed something. He didn't remember that this trailer trash little whore in the desert of New Mexico somewhere, is pregnant with what is eluded to be never called the Second Coming.

It's weird that omniscient God missed this. Seemed obvious enough to me within the first 10 minute.

Ok maybe the first 5 minutes.

So he send the Archangel Michael down to kill the mother or the baby or something. Its never really spelled out because before we know what is is supposed to do, we discover that he's not going to do it.

So far, pretty cool. Michael is some dude I've never seen before but he reminds me of whatever that guy's name is that play James Bond now and he seems to be capable of ass kicking.

The movie dissolves to a scene out in the aforementioned desert where the pregnant girl is working as a waitress in a shitty little diner owned by Dennis Quaid. The first and only scary scene in the movies occurs here and you've already seen it. The one with the demon-old lady? Yep that one and its pretty cool, but I had already seen it, for free, in the trailer. Kind of like when you used to by a CD for 14 bucks to later realize the only good song is on the radio, for free.

After this scene the movie begins to suffer from EXTREMELY poor editing. There's a bit where everyone is in a truck trying to get the victim of the old lady to a hospital. They're driving like mad across the desert straight in to a plague of flies. Next scene everyone is back at the diner, like the last 5 minutes never happened, leaving me wondering "how did they get back and who is the shit head that edited this movie?"

Editing is obvious throughout the movie, something that good editing should never be leaving you with several instances asking what just happened. Steven Kemper and the director Scott Stewart need to go back to film school and retake The Art and Craft of Film Editing. UCLA is offering it this spring through their extension campus.

The remainder of the film suffers from overwriting. Each of the characters that are in the diner at the beginning of the movie are given a sappy soliloquy about the tragic life, to the point that you hope the angel-possesion-induced-flesh eating-zombies come and eat them all and get it over with. I think the most memorable line is one delivered by Charles S Dutton playing Percy Walker the amputee fry cook. He tells us that when he was a little boy his daddy used to sit with him before he fell asleep and would ask him if he died in his sleep tonight, would he beproud of what he had done in his life so far, because if not he needs to get square. Or something like that.

At this I turned to my wife and asked, "who the fuck says that to a little kid right before he goes to bed?"

The movie's action and plot follow along a highly predictable formula; tough guy Michael, fights God's other right hand man Gabriel to the finish, saving the trampy waitress and her unborn baby, the diner owners semi-retarded son ends up with the waitress and all the angel/zombies go away and everything is fine.

I guess there is very little originality anymore, and even less in biblical fiction, but come on this was the best they could come up with?

All in all the movies gets a one ass-fist out of five, which means it sucked.

The Chief

Real Review - The LG FX-1 Multimedia HDD

I recently decided to purchase a multimedia control unit for my wife to use. While I was fine hooking up my Mac to the LCD TV and plugging in my terabyte HD to that to watch movies, it was not the most user friendly experience.
I did my homework. I got to see some of my buddies media centers in action. I priced units and decided on two models that would probably work for us. We went to Worst Buy and started looking. Immediately, we were approached by someone that could possibly be of service. After some discussion with the "expert",  he convinced me to purchase the LG FX-1 Multimedia HDD. This sounded great! It was supposedly capable of reading virtually all needed files, including the ever-so important subtitle files, SRT's, etc. The bonus being that unlike its competitors, it has a 500 gig HD built in! This is important because it was the same price as the non-HD units I was considering. It also said "Mac compatible".
Eagerly we drive home to set up our new gadget. I unpack the unit, making sure all is there. The first sign something may be amiss was seeing one of those mini-cd/rom's in the box and no hardcopy owners manual. 
The paperwork that did come with it told me I could go straight to LG's site for further assistance. I decided to fire it up plugged into the Mac. As I suspected, the HD was formatted NTFS. 
No worries, the Mac has a nifty little program called Disk Utility in which I can format any drive into just about any conceivable format. This includes FAT-ass 32 and NTFS (NoTFuckingSafe).
I format the mounted volume to Mac OS Extended(Journaled), and drug some files over to test. Things go down hill from here.


Attaching the FX-1 to the TV, I turn the unit on and then the television. The FX-1 immediately informs me it is formatting itself... I start to frown a bit. It finishes. I check for my files. Gone! The FX-1 gets unplugged. I plug it back into my Mac. Disk Utility reports as I had feared, NTFS format! I repeat the steps. To no avail...
To those of you that know Mac's, they are very forgiving. They can read FAT and NTFS files like a champ! The same is not true of FAT and NTFS! Hence my need to make this FX-1's HD Mac OS compatible. NO DAMN DICE!!


Here's where the teeth gnashing and hair pulling session come in. I'm not about to stick that miniature cd of death into my laptop, so I go to LG's website, per the instructions given in what little paperwork I had. 
UHHHHH.... LG's website has never heard of this product. I even tried typing in it's fucking serial number, to no avail. I tried LG's over-sea's sites. NADA!
At this point I'm relegated to looking for a pdf of the owners manual. Nothing on RapidShare or like sites. Nothing on Bitorrent. Nothing on sites that reviewed the damn thing!! ZERO!
I calmly wrapped the piece of stinking, poorly engineered, shit up and returned it the next day!
 I considered loosing my cool to a manager at Worst Buy, telling him/her about my wasted gas, wasted time, and the employee that recommended this contraption, knowing full well I asked about its Mac compatibility. I did not this time, for fear my anger may get the best of me.
I haven't given a rating for anything yet on this site, so I have no guideline. So how about this... I'll call them ANGRY YELLS. The order being 1 Angry Yell being the best and 10 being the worst. This steaming hunk of wasted time gets 7 ANGRY YELLS.

LG has FAILED!!!


DO NOT BUY!!
P.S.   Just today while writing this I found the damn thing on LG's site dedicated to it's junk. Try sitting through the "flash fest" that is it's site and tell me if you still have the nerve...
On another note--- I got the Western Digital TV Live. Works like a damn champ!!




ANGRY BRADY

Five Great Places to Eat within 5 Minutes of the Lone Wolf Coffee Company

Being a West St. Louis County resident presents a dining dilemma; where to eat/drink/hang that isn't a chain restaurant. In the Ellisville/Ballwin/Wildwood area there are many places to eat, but really only a few that offer a quality, varied menu and good service in a atmosphere that makes you feel like your eating a place that loves your community. We've lived in the Wildwood area for 17 years, and have impatiently waited for the menus to grow with the population. There have been some great places come and stay, and a few that stayed too long and we've tried them all.

As you may have read, a couple of our readers think that I am unsatisfiable. I am critical, picky, a bit harsh and sometimes downright nasty, but I want something other than Sysco re-heats and Sam's Club products for my dollar. 

To remove any concern that I "hate everything" I offer this "cluster-review"of my favorite places to dine, with your family, within five minutes of my least favorite place.

5)  Peppers Deli and BBQ - near Summer Winds Nursery, close to the corner of Clarkson and Manchester
     36 Clarkson Rd
     Ellisville, MO

After 11 years of serving some of the best smoked and barbecued meats in the area, Pepper has our vote. The location may not be glamorous, but the food kicks ass. My wife is the real Peppers fan. We get a big tray full of their smoked chicken quesadillas for our annual Halloween Party, about 50 and they are usually gone within first 10 minutes. Almost every year we have people ask us where they come from and we never hesitate to tell them.

We love to stop in for a quick and simple dinner during the week and typically split the Southwest BBQ Wrap with pulled pork. Its huge and filling and delicious. They have a big menu with everything from their 11 different wraps to 10 salads and gourmet dogs and sandwiches. Best of all though is they have like 11 different meats that are rubbed and smoked to perfection. Anything from angus brisket to buffalo burger to half chickens and most if not all of it is ready to take home in the coolers or can be order for pick up.

Like all the places in this review, the service here is as good as the food. Its a small place and there are usually just a couple of people working, but they knock out the orders in minutes and have the time to chit-chat with you while they do it. They even have a little patio area to the side, which is where we usually enjoy our wrap when the weather is decent.

Best of all, this year the owner called my wife to make sure that the quesadillas met her expectations and to thank her for her business over the last few years. He didn't have to call, we would have ordered next year anyway, but its nice to know that he noticed.


4)   Senor Pique - in front of Marshals and Homegoods
      14870 Manchester Rd
      Ballwin, MO 63011-4620

I am a mexiphile. Love the country, love the food, y la gente.  My whole family does. There are lots of mexican joints in the far West County area, but for my peso this place is the best. They don't sell you ground beef tacos and bland chicken fajitas that taste like your Aunt Edna made them with a Lowrys Seasoning packet. Their flavors are strongly authentic and their offerings are well beyond the standard Tex/Mex style of many of their competitors. They offer plates you just don't find anywhere else that I've been; like Tacos de Chicharon Verde - small "open face" tacos of porkloin cooked in jalapenos, or Tacos de Cameron - spicy grilled tiger shrimp tacos with chipotle cream and avocado or my personal favorite Chile Morita con Puerco - porkloin simmered in the house chile morita sauce that will burn your frigging eyes out but god its good.

As good as the food is, the service is better. The wait staff are all super friendly, super attentive and all seem to be having a good time. I've never had the opportunity to meet the owner/manager, but I've seen him in action. He always seems to be smiling and having a good time as well. Speaking of good times, they love to party at Senor Pique because they throw huge outdoor parties throughout the spring and summer starting with Cinco de Mayo.

And BTW they were voted the Best Mexican in St. Louis in the RFT for 2007. Great place.


3)  Sarah's Cafe and Bakery - by Elegant Child and Zick's Nursery
     505 Strecker Road 
     Wildwood, MO

I love breakfast. I love cupcakes. My wife does too.
We love Sarah's

I think we have been here almost every Saturday morning since sometime in March, with the exception of the past few months due to early morning 6th grade football games. I've had every scramble, the wheat germ pancakes, the waffles and the Southwest burrito. All crazy good. 

They serve espresso drinks as well a good cup of coffee and they keep your cup filled which I love.

The bakery stuff is ridiculous, -ly good. There are a lot of cupcake places in St. Louis all hoping to cash in on the Sprinkles craze and to be honest they all pale in comparison to Sarah's. These cupcakes are the right size, they have just enough frosting and the cake is high quality, not too sweet, moist, yum. The other bakery items are excellent as well like the cake truffles, the cookies and the bars. My wife is partial to the apricot bar which when they don't have it she almost cries.

They also do lunch but not dinner and the lunch menu is very good as well. I've only been there once for lunch and I had the Provencial Salad. The flavor and ingredient quality surpassed its $7.99 price tag.

Again, the service here is also excellent. You never wait for anything, your coffee cup is always full, your water glass is always full, your food is always hot and your order is always right. 


2)  Mulligans Grill - next to Gaffneys Sports, behind Pizza Hut
     11 Clarkson Road
     Ellisville, MO

21 beers from across the world, killer martinis, hot wings that call your name and burgers that could be served to royalty. Not your usual sports bar. I hate to even call it a sports bar because to me they're not places I usually want to go, but Mulligans is different, yet still a sports bar with TVs at every angle with every game on and the requisite Golden Tee.

They have honestly the best wings around. So good in fact, we have friends that come back to St. Louis three times a year after having moved to Wichita and always stop at Mulligans for wings, and take some home. I can't even imagine the way their car smells when they get home. Actually I doubt they make it home without eating the wings anyway.

My personal favorite is the Divot (all of the food items have golf related names) which is a huge albacore tuna fillet grilled with sautéed mushrooms and provel cheese on a kaiser roll. Its something that I can only go about two weeks without having to have it again. My wife craves the PGA wrap with their buffalo chicken strips, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and green onions. When she doesn't do the PGA she does the house salad with their homemade ranch. Simple and delicious.

One of our family's most requested items from Mulligans though is their waffle fries, which really are the best I've ever had.

All of this great food, served in a quaint Pub atmosphere that's super family friendly and served by people that say things like "great to see you guys again" and "welcome back we missed you" make Mulligans a place that my family will always return to.


1) Faraci's Pizza - right in front of Shop and Save in Ellisville
    15430 Manchester Road
    Ellisville, MO

The Faracis; Joe, Dorothy, Vince and Pete are like family to us. We have been regular customers since 1994, eating there every Friday night as a family or with friends and sometimes Saturday too. We bring everyone we know here, especially people that have never had St. Louis style pizza.

Now, if you don't like St. Louis-style pizza they have great pastas a killer house salad, great sandwiches and heck they even have a burger that my picky-ass son loves. But seriously what's wrong with you? St. Louis-style pizza is like heaven and makes Chicago-style look like the overweight, greasy mess it is. Thin crisp crust, provel cheese, square slices, ahh St. Louis style pizza is the best.

The thing though about Faracis Pizza that brings us back is the people, the owners and the staff. They are just really good, friendly, caring people. They love what they do and it shows. The Faraci elders, Joe and Dorothy are there to greet you at the door, ask how your kids are, how's business, how's life, et cetera. While the boys, Vince and Pete, yell "hey guys" from the window between the counter and the kitchen. The wait staff, Rene and Michelle have worked there forever and bring you your usual beverage without having to ask. Its that kind of place. Their back up crew, Tim and Anthony, are right there with whatever you need and are always hustling. And everybody is having fun. Lots of laughs, lots of smiles even when they place is completely full and has a line out the door.

There are other places in the five minute zone that are good too, but these are our favorites. If your favorite is not here, sorry, but feel free to say so. 


With all due respect,
The Chief

Quick Review - Shitty New Cafe´ / Coffee Place in West County

LOGO REMOVED BECAUSE SOMEONE GOT THEIR FEELINGS HURT


ALERT! This is a real review! Not the usual Bullshit!


Lone Wolf Coffee Company
15480 Clayton Road
Ballwin, Missouri 63011
Phone: 636-527-7027

They've been open for a month, maybe more and we've been twice. Both times for an early dinner and post-mangia coffee. The first night we arrived to a chaotic gathering of people, presumably friends of the owner or family maybe, and even though their numbers we less than 20, the FIVE people behind the counter acted like a circus train just pulled up. It was kind of funny, in a very irritating sort of way, like the kind of funny you experience when a clown steps on your foot.

We worked for about 10 minutes to order our food, two sandwiches, to only discover that they don't have a soda fountain. They only serve 1-liter bottles of Pepsi products out of an open-face cooler next to the register. Very tacky and disappointing 1) because we hate Pepsi and 2) because duh! people usually want fountain soda not plastic bottled soda especially in an eat-in restaurant.


Once we had finished our order, we sat at a two top by the windows near the register so that we could watch people coming in and out and to see their reaction to the place. The reaction was pretty universal; a mix of "what do you mean you don't have fountain soda" and "how fucking hard can it be to order a sandwich" with a touch of "hey a new place!".

My wife and I sat and watched and looking over the decor while we waited and waited for our food. It was maybe their second week so we expected it to take a while. The ambiance is, well not particularly appealing unless you like eating in a cycling center. Our guess is that the owner Ralph Pfremmer is a cyclist. (Refer to an earlier post on "Ah This Is Bullshit" for our opinion on cyclists) There are pictures of dickfaces in those stupid skin-tight cycling outfits all over the place. These pictured are scattered among framed racing numbers, because you know they're artwork, and photos of mountain landscape that they got at a starving artist sale. The walls are clad in fako-stone as to give the feel of a mountain lodge I suppose, but it really just doesn't make any sense with the rest of the cycling shit. There is a fireplace in one corner with a stage set up for a two piece band, which might be nice at some point, but I hope they stick with improving the food and service first.


Speaking of the food, once it came we were overwhelmed with boredom. I had the Mt. Fuji ($6.95) which is thinly sliced house-roasted beef with red pepper, cilantro, red onion & a wasabi sauce. Its served on split baguette. My wife had the St. Helena ($6.95) a swiss, cheddar & mozzarella cheeses w/ grilled pepper sandwich, served on balsamic-rubbed baguette. Hers came with house-made chips and mine the Paradise Lake salad. My sandwich was really just a dry roast beef. The red peppers were nearly untastable and the wasabi sauce tasted like little more than mayonnaise. The cilantro and red onion were represented by a single sprig and two rings respectively. The best part of the sandwich was the bread, which was actually very good. The salad was decent but drowning in its dressing, something that I really hate. The St. Helena was equally boring and tasteless. The cheeses were ice cold so they tasted like nothing and the grilled peppers were bland and kind of oily. The bread was clearly rubbed with something as evidenced by the oily stain on the slices, but it offered little to tickle the tongue. The chips were regrettably overdone and tasted like that nasty burnt Lays that you accidentally eat when you're not looking.


Once we finished the sandwiches, which took 15 minutes to get, I orders the coffee. They pour Kaldi's coffees which are in my opinion some of the best beans in the St. Louis area, if not the best. The barista (funny word) was very competent but under supported by his fellow counter-staff. I had a brewed cup, which was good, but then again its Kaldi's coffee really al Lone Wolf did was brew it. My wife had a caramel macchiato which should have been excellent given the coffee, but it had that burnt taste that espresso takes on when it's over-expressed or burnt in the grinder. Again it was early in their run so we figured we'd come back.


And we did about three weeks later (maybe two) This time we were the only people there. It was about 4:45pm and we had the place and staff to ourselves so we expected a different experience. Instead we were met with two different counter people that didn't know the menu or how to operate the POS machine. This time I had the Marrakesh ($6.95) Harissa-grilled chicken breast with lettuce, tomato, onion, spices and yogurt sauce, served on grilled flatbread. My wife did the St. Helena again. She wanted soup because it was ass-cold out, but all they had was some kind of beef stew soup that just didn't sound appealing. I had the salad as a side again and she the chips; we're predictable like that. When I read the description of the Marrakesh my first thought was of savory spiciness and tangy yogurt sauces, the flavors of Indian and Moroccan cuisine, all held in a soft buttery naan. Instead what I got was a shitty, dried up cracker with room temperature chicken strips and lettuce. There was absolutely no spice, no seasoning, no flavor. It was so bland that I had to open it up and salt and pepper it. The flat bread was like a bad lavash that completely disintegrated when I tried to eat the sandwich ala an old Ortega Taco shell. My salad was floating in dressing again. My wife's St. Helena was a little better than the last time, but the chips tasted like they were fried in oil they'd been using since we were in last.


The best part of this second experience was that we were the only people in the restaurant for quite some time, except for a couple of guys that we know to be the owners. They didn't know that we knew, but we did. As we sat and ate these two walked around the cafe and talked to each other periodically, moved a table here or there but were definitely not busy. They were however too busy to bother to ASK THE ONLY DINERS IN THE PLACE HOW THE FOOD WAS or even say hello. Very disappointing. But the stupidest thing I have ever experienced in a cafe was when one of these dipshits took the idiot that couldn't figure out the POS when we ordered and started showing her how to fold cloth napkins AT THE TABLE RIGHT NEXT TO US. There are probably 25-30 tables in this place but the only one they could use was the little two top next to us and all the while he never looked over and asked how we were doing, ever. Total Asshole.

We did coffee again but it was the same shit they served last time, so I won't bore you with the details. The only remarkable part of the coffee this time was that it took nearly 15 minutes for the girl behind the machine to make a vanilla latte and when she handed it to me she gave a half hearted "sorry". I wasn't sure if she was sorry for the wait or for how bad the latte was.


Now again the place is new, but come on. This Ralph Pfremmer guy is supposed to be some kind of big foodie but his cafe is crap. I give it 6 months, 9 tops, unless Mr. Pfood has enough cash to pump into it and keep it open. In that case I'll give it a year, unless they (he) gets with the program.


-The Chief