ASU Food Adventure: Smashburger

I've seen Smashburger a few times before. It raised my attention because it's logo reminded me of Gamestop, as shown below.

I ordered the Smashburger, which came with cheese, ketchup, onion, pickles, and their smash sauce. I also got their smashfries which was tossed with olive oil, rosemary and garlic. A lot about it strangely reminded me of the burgers at the BYU Creamery: The loosely-pressed patty, the red onions, the lettuce that wasn't iceberg, and the egg bun. Plus the fact that they had specialty-seasoned fries. All this together costs a hefty $7, plus the crazy %10 sales tax here.

It tasted good. The meat was nicely seasoned and the other toppings went well with it. I have no idea what was in the smash sauce but I barely tasted it. The fries were really good too. If the fries were by themselves then there would be nothing special about them. In the rosemary and garlic, however, they were uniquely very tasty.

Was it good? Yes.
Will I go there again? For the price, no.

ASU Food Adventure: Vegetable Salad Sandwhich

I try to make my own food as much as I can to save money, and take what I can to campus. At BYU there were microwaves in nearly every building, so I often took leftover dinners and reheated them there. At ASU, however, the only microwave I've been able to find is in the GPSA building, which is not very convenient. So what I'm trying now is to come up with meals I can make that don't require cooling or heating. The only thing I can think of at the moment are sandwiches, and only the boring kind like turkey slices on white bread.

My first experiment is basically a vegetable salad in a sandwich. I chopped up some green bell pepper, carrots, green onions, lettuce, added some grapes I had at the time, and tossed in some Italian dressing. I put it in a bag to keep it separate from the bread so it's not soggy by the time I eat it. I used Oroweat whole wheat bread.

The end result was...marginally more exciting than turkey on white bread. It was messy, the taste of the vegetables blended together into boring, and the grapes added a nice sweet taste. And I was still hungry.

Was it good? Sa'll right.
Will I make it again? Yes, but only if I tweak it.

ASU Food Adventure: Whataburger

I'm now attending ASU to get my Masters, and it's been a lot of adjustment; new school, new state, new climate, new home...all of these things have been tough, but one of the exciting things is new food. I figured that I'll make blog entries of my new food experiences, though it's probably pointless considering the traffic this blog gets.

Anyways, the first new thing I tried was Whataburger, which is conveniently close. When trying new hamburger places I get their basic meal, which was their classic Whataburger and fries. It comes with mustard instead of ketchup, which I ordered without because I hate mustard with a passion. Other than that it's the basic lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions. The bun was also slightly grilled which I really like.

It's been a few days since I went there, actually, so I can't recall any descriptions about the taste other than that it was okay, and I don't remember the price either, but I remember it not being bad.

Was it good? Yes.
Will I go there again? For the price and distance, occasionally.

Not How Competition Should Work

I believe that competition is a good thing in general. It pushes companies to improve their products and services, making things cheaper and more efficient. Yes, it means that those who can't compete end up being left behind. No one wants to loose money, or worse, their job. But for the future of everyone, it's a good thing.

That's why cable and television companies are bugging me lately. Some companies like Comcast have started data caps on their internet service, which means hefty fees or termination of service. Also, sites like Hulu don't get the rights to show certain shows or episodes, or can't show them until thirty days after airing. All of this because cable companies and others don't want to loose money from TV viewers in competition of the web.

This isn't the strive for improved services to beat the competition, this is more like underhanded schemes to hold on to their profits against competition. I wish something could be done, but I don't know what I could do about it.

A Theory for Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Just watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and there's a part that wasn't explained. I'm going to give my theory on what happened, which means, spoilers alert.

So, there's the part where that guy asks the mermaid for forgiveness, and she then kisses him and brings him under the water. What then happened? Here's a nice little theory: She brought him to some magic-thingy that turned him into a merman. Since he was once human, and doesn't want to kill people, he teaches the other mermaids not to kill people. They later make him their king. He changes his name to Triton, and has a daughter named Ariel.

I Made a Video Game!

I made my first video game! When I was young, I decided I was going to be a video game developer. That has since changed to general program designing, but it's kind of an accomplishment of sorts to have actually done something that I dreamed of when I was younger.

The game I created was for a school project, and it's nothing shnazzy: horribly simple, blocky, few colors, and only about five minutes worth of gameplay. But hey, it's still a game! I called it Randzle, and it's a puzzle game with Tetris-like pieces. Randzle is a contraction, with rand coming from random colors, and the zle comes from puzzle. When I was able to add sound to the game though it was a lot better. I used VIRTUALVIBE's AmberTrance from OverClocked ReMix, and sound effects from Gemcraft and SimCopter.

Video Games Used to Bring Women into Computer Science

A recent study gives a solution to a problem I talked about once before.