Fazoli's, Pepsi Blue, White Castle & Other Bits of Nostalgia

I am pushing this out right before Memorial Day weekend as I actually have plans for the extended weekend (and a few days after) which I'll explain sometime in June when I return. As typical in the past year or so, things have been not exciting aside from events that I mostly won't share here. At least I feel better than I did the last time one of these were typed up... at least this time there was no random person that completely acted rude to me when I needed them to fix something-long story. There have been ups and downs; at least things are more normal now than this time in April. I once again visited restaurants I had been to before-such Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux-although that was fine because I really dig their food; I also returned to Blaze's Pizza at Disney Springs. A new (to me) place was visited... for years I drove by Fiddlers Green Irish Pub & Eatery in Winter Park and finally one night it was time to try it out. It had fine food and was a nice cozy place.

The rest of this short entry will concern nostalgia; recently I was at the Magic Kingdom and for the first time in years I went on the Jungle Cruise ride; it was as cheesy and corny as ever. A few weeks ago I saw Top Gun theatrically-yes, really. Speaking of cheesy and corny... finally, a few times I was reminded of being a young adult in Illinois before I moved down here to Florida. To my surprise, in a Walmart cooler I saw that Pepsi Blue has made a return for this summer season. It tastes exactly like how I remembered... many will think that's a bad thing but to me it was more odd than bad. It will be drank a few times in the upcoming months. Not that long ago, Fazoli's returned to Florida after being gone for years; those in the Midwest will be surprised to hear that; as one of the few locations is in my town, that will be visited more than once in a blue moon.

Finally, the restaurant just opened in Orlando that has had hours long waits ever since the door first opened is... White Castle. I know people in Illinois will HOWL with laughter when they hear that WHITE CASTLE has been so popular, every day for a few weeks now people have had to wait hours at the drive-in and in the restaurant. I have no idea why Floridians are so insane for burgers that I don't even eat (way too many onions) and the rest of the food is acceptable at best and many-including me-only ate there late at night after a drunken night out or in my case, the times I was around Chicago attending a wrestling show and needing a quick bite before going back home. Needless to say, it will be a long while before I can discover if their chicken rings combo is as OK as I remembered.

When I return sometime in June, I'll have some pretty exciting things to share; stay tuned...

Second Vaccines, Wawa Pasta, Internet Issues, Weeb Establishments & Mortal Kombat

The reason why I did not post this late last month was that I've had Internet issues which I don't even want to get into as I wish for this to be positive instead of negative. Just note that these issues have finally been fixed just earlier today. Things haven't been great since I received the second vaccine on the 19^th but that has nothing to do with the vaccine itself aside from it making me feel puny (to borrow a term I heard elsewhere) for about a day-when the first shot did not have that effect on me. Of course I am glad to now be fully vaccinated; that is one less thing to worry about. Despite what's happened to me as of late, I can't complain; a sobering reason why: something terrible happened recently to two people I know... I feel horrible for them both.

I will mention a few positives that have happened for me. I've been forced to go to Starbucks a few times as of late (long story) and at least they have some tasty drinks that aren't coffee-which has way too much caffeine for me, to be honest. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to try any restaurants new to me but at least recently I returned to a Miller's Ale House, which has tasty food; hopefully that will change this month. At least I discovered that at some (but not all) Wawa convenience stores they now offer pasta. It was not an A+ meal but it did taste fine, especially for the price. One night last month I had to pick up someone late from Orlando International; to kill time I visited a place I heard about from someone I know. Ready Game Begin is a joint which has computers for people to game that way, along with the modern consoles to play various videogames, an anime store, anime playing on a TV (when I was there, it was One Piece), and even a small cafe which offers a few food & drink items. I posted about it on Facebook and the person who I figured would love to visit the place... I was correct. It was nice to pay a flat fee and spend some time playing fighting games, such as the latest Mortal Kombat. Speaking of that...

Recently I saw the new Mortal Kombat movie on the big screen; in the 90's I played the first few games at the arcade and as an adult, some of the games were played on console. Yet I am not a superfan of the property, so that does affect my opinion. While I do get why some were disappointed or didn't even like it at all, my opinion was that it was a goofy movie which at least was entertaining nonsense and had the gory moments you'd expect from a game that got a LOT of heat in the 90's for having those graphic kills. Another movie I saw theatrically was one of those pretentious horror movies-which have become popular in the past decade even though most of the ones I saw were overrated to me-called In the Earth. It's set in the woods and only has a few characters; while having some interesting ideas, overall it was not that enjoyable to me so my opinion was “meh”.

Barring any new issues/complications, I will be back late this month with hopefully a surplus of positive, interesting tales to tell.