WTF Mate?

Dear jerkfaces friendsI think y'all need to understand the nature of this situation. I'm putting an adequate amount of work into this blog and I need instant gratification. I want your comments. This isn't another casual travel blog. This is essentially an important part of the western canon in the making. I expect your full participation (it will count for 10% of your grade). Sorry to lecture you, but jeeze. Now enjoy this amusing picture.

Memphis Part II: Odd Times

Some thoughts, blogging takes along time so bear with me as I keep up with the blog and the road trip. We're in New Orleans now but there is plenty more to report on Memphis. Some quick notes on Memphis of  a non food nature. We met some quirky folks who showed us a cool bar. We also saw this:

The world's third largest pyramid and apparently an abandoned sports arena. Apparently Memphis is a town not short of two things, BBQ and sports venues.  

About the civil rights mueum, The e museum was very cool but there were two problems with it.One: It is at the sight of the MLK assasination which is a bit odd. They oopened a new wing which is in the building the shooter occupied. I found the exhibit to be in poor taste, they point out the shooter's view, not exactly the part of civil rights history I want to remember or celebrate. A protester sits at a table outside with signs saying "Stop worshiping the past and start living the dream". Memphis is a city with deep political and cultural history and we really enjoyed our visit.

Memphis Part I:BBQ Extravaganza

 I'm sure Molly's dumb ass blog will have highlights of the civil rights museum and the soul museum at Stax records, but I'm going to give you what you want, pictures of BBQ.

Central BBQ: This was the whitest place we went for BBQ with hippies in tie dye shirts as staff. But those hippies served up some decent que. In addition to greens, slaw, and half dry half wet ribs we had a bbq bologna sandwich, a Memphis invention. A thick slice of smoked bologna gilled up and topped with slaw (another Memphis bbq tradition). It was like a smokey porkey hot dog and very tasty. Sweet tea was enjoyed as well. This was many cuts above our St. Louis BBQ experience.

Gus' World Famous Fried Chicken: Before going to the civil rights museum on Wednsday I decided we should go around the corner for a light breakfast of deep fried chicken. When we arived Gus' wasn't open but I couldn't help notice many people sitting in their cars. Like the line up to Di Farras in Brooklyn I knew this was a good omen. We took a brief walk and when we returned Gus' was more than 2/3 full and the first order of the day was just put in. I conservatively ordered two pieces but coldn't resist trying the fired green tomatoes. The verdict: The dark meat was perfect, the white meat a tad dry; however, the spicy flaverful crust on this chicken was heavenly. The tomatoes were perfectly crisp on the outside, plump and tart on this inside, the best I have ever had.

No we didn't go to a glue factory.

Before we visited Wash U on Tuesday we visited the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. Don't worry no one got wasted before interviewing for law school. Don't wory I still think Bud tastes like water, which makes sense since it is made from rice. The highlight was the clydesdales. They have 50 on sight but we saw 2. This one can't ride with packs because it is 600 polnds bigger than the others. Look at its huge neck. 

We were joined by a charming Minnesotan family who took time at the bottling floor to talk smack about I.P.A.'s and their snobby son in law. Zing!  

When we got to the tasting we could try any of 10 or so beers including the actually decent 

Michelob amber-boch. As the Minnesotans slurped down their bud lights Molly and I tried the two "premium" beers a supposed Belgian  and a wheat beer with fake micro brew names. Two sips later and we were out of there.  

I forgot to mention On the way out of the brewery the tour guide turned into a half unicorn and attacked me. Luckily my hands turned into hammers made out of salami, more luckily only the middle half was unicorn, meaning  only a unicorn torso. He quickly buckled under the weight of his Unicorn parts.

Road Trip Now in Progress

We are officially Road Tripping. Yesterday we left lovely Westmont, Il and traversed the great plains (named for their boringness)  and crossed the mighty Mississippi into St. Louis. Today we visit Washington University but last night the BBQ' eating began. A quick rundown as we are about to go visit the Budweiser Brewery:

1. Pig Sandwich: It's like eating chewy pig jelly with mustard and hot sauce. Tasty but real weird. They wouldn't sell us a small order of snouts so that remains a mystery.

2. St. Louis Ribs. Looks Good! Tastes ok but far from fantastic. The meat was a bit pink but I am suspicous that these were baked ribs, hardly BBQ. As my dad and Calvin Trillian say, "No wood, No Good!"

UPDATE: Molly's Blog Sucks

Here are the facts we know so far. My blog, The Critical Dunce, came to the internet (super information highway) at 9:47 am internet time. Molly's blog, Adventures in and out of the Blogosphere was published at 11:08am internet time. As you will see it is a complete rip off in content and form. Molly only knew to say where we were going after seeing my earlier post. More on this after the jump.

Welcome to The Critical Dunce

If your reading this you are likely my friend. Congratulations you made a nominal choice. As you may know I am heading to Guatemala for 11 weeks with my romantic companion, Molly. I am setting this blog up to chronicle our adventures. You can also follow the happenings on Molly's blog. I would link to it, but apparently Molly is too busy shopping for Fabergé eggs to set hers up. Upon my return I may turn this into a politics/food/entertainment blog. In the meantime you can look forward to:

• Reports from our road trip to St. Louis, Memphis (BBQ), New Orleans (Po-Boy), and Florida(Grouper Sandwich).
• a lot of smack talk about Molly's blog.

• and colorful commentary like "politicians are so dumb, it's wild" and "This place was nice"