Monday, June 17, 2019

New Coke, Shaft, Fire Ants & Salem's Fresh Eats

The preceding week was a more entertaining one than usual. Monday and Tuesday weren't too eventful (except for losing power for almost 2 hours late Tuesday night! I wasn't pleased by that although at least it wasn't during the hot muggy day) so I'll mention something that happened to me for the first time: a fire ant bit me. Yes, for a creature so tiny, it does sting like an SOB. It was literally only one of them, which I did not even see before it ended up biting me on my right forearm. Thankfully, after only stinging for a little bit, that sensation went away and it was like that never happened. I am glad I did not stomp on one of their nests or accidentally do something else which caused a swarm of them to attack me as that would be a nightmare; I saw online that cold soap and water would help for bites and at least for A bite, that seemed to do the job.

Wednesday, I went with someone to a restaurant I went to late last fall, Saltgrass Steak House. Back last year, I visited their location on Vineland in Orlando; Wednesday, it was their second location on I-Drive, at the building that formerly housed Brick House Tavern & Tap, which was a decent place I ate at a few times. It's not like that joint just opened so I presumed they would have their act together... I was mistaken. The service wasn't great (that includes the food taking forever to come out, and it wasn't too busy at the time) & my burger was more burnt than medium-well-at least the person I was with had a better time and they loved what they ordered. The Texas theme there was great so I will say that for now people should go to the one on Vineland and maybe in the future the I-Drive one will be better.

Also on Wednesday I received via Fed-Ex what I ordered a few weeks ago: the Stranger Things promotion that Coca-Cola is doing. Yeah, it's overpriced yet I wanted to be guaranteed to have New Coke, as even living near Orlando it'd be unlikely to stumble upon a pop-on vending machine briefly offering it this summer. At least the packaging was nice and those two small bottles of Coca-Cola and Coke Zero looked neat... the New Coke was the one I was interested in. I put one can in the fridge to consume on Thursday. That's what I did and... meh. Note that I like consuming all sorts of caffeinated sodas and I don't have a particular favorite, aside from avoiding most of the generics as generic cola usually is mediocre at best. I don't remember having New Coke when I was a kid as I was 4 when it first came out and I am sure my parents weren't fans of it so whether it was New Coke or the rebranded Coke II in the 90's, it was never purchased.

Having it in 2019, I was not a fan of its taste. I get why some don't care for Coca-Cola's unique properties and the tang it has; to me that's never been an issue and New Coke not only seemed like a worse version of Pepsi, it also came across as a lousy generic soda. I understand why some would like it-it is not for me. I'll save that second can to drink sometime down the line, even if that is weeks away from now. Friday I did nothing and the same goes for Sunday (except for wishing my dad a Happy Father's Day) so let me talk about Saturday. I went and saw Shaft, the new version. In the past I have seen the 1971 original a few times but never the sequels. Friday night was the 2000 movie of the same name, which I wasn't a fan of although I found out on Saturday night that it's better than Shaft 2019.

Before that I ate at a small fast food chain new to me called Salem's Fresh Eats-their offerings include seafood, subs, gyros and chicken. My meal was fine so I will have to visit them again in the future-their closest location is in Lakeland. As for Shaft 2019, I was not a fan. First off, the movie was a comedy, and one not too funny to me. Samuel L. Jackson (Shaft II) suddenly has an adult son (Shaft III) and the movie was made by old men in Hollywood woefully out of touch as all this did was crap on millennials and how they are “soft” and love such things as respecting women, coconut water, texting, are anti-gun, and use terms like “cis-gender”. III is made out to be a wuss because this is how he leads his life, while his incredible crude dad is awesome for being politically incorrect; it's an awful buddy pairing sort of movie, and Richard Roundtree doesn't even show up until deep in the final act. This was also incredible crude and vulgar; between that and this not having memorable villains, original music or action... I was not a fan. For what it's worth, the rest of the crowd at the screening seemed to love this.

It has rained all of June, which is fine except for dealing with Florida drivers in wet weather-yes, still amazingly clueless. Saturday had some heavy rain so no surprise I saw the aftermath of a few wrecks and of course some people still drove like A-holes despite the conditions. Hopefully I don't have to deal with any of that in the upcoming week.

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