Birthday Burger Cupcakes!

THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.

Update: Cristina baked and iced these bad boys for me this afternoon, before treating me to a night of decedent churrasco. Now I'm off to watch Fringe and eat more burgers cupcakes.

Kyle's bad-for-your-body birthday, Pt. III.

Only one week of high-stakes shopping until my birthday

I require sweet, sweet stress relief in the form of bullet-point blogging and nicknack posting.

• Last night's show was interesting but not unfun. No one expected The Faint to take stage until after Ladytron (since the show was billed as "The Faint with Ladytron") so you can imagine the chagrin on the muted faces of all those tween-punkers and tiny, tatted-up scene girls who were still galloping to the show when Todd Fink took the stage. April 20th isn't exactly the best day for a dance-punk band to expect thrashing and skanking from the disaffected stoner youth: Most of the crowd was deathly still until the end of The Faint's set. Despite all this, I had a rip-roaringly good time watching all this musical nonsense unfold. I heard "Destroy Everything You Touch" and "I Disappear" live: That's all I needed. And The Faint's animated backdrops were pretty entertaining to watch.
  
• I got free ice cream today. Okay, fine, not free-- the aroma of baking batter assaulted my smellbuds and forced me to splurge on a $1.50-after-discount Cherry Garcia waffle cone. I figure if you're going to enjoy America's finest ice cream flavor, you might as well commit to a sweet, crisp waffle cone over the cardboard-based sugar cones they were peddling. I work next door to Ben & Jerry's but hardly ever visit. It's part of my "at least do one thing to avoid early onset heart disease" life plan.
• Still no word on a place to live come May. I'm still sticking to the guidelines I set for myself earlier this year, but I'm now open to house designs besides modern-neo-deco-rary. If you're moving out and need a tenant in the Rice Village area come May, give me a shout.
• I'm giving Twitter a chance. There, I said it. When I become incredibly engrossed into the whole idea and give up real-blogging entirely, you'll know why.
  

Finally, the best thing I've seen from SNL in years.

photo c/o Cristina

*YANK* The breakfast burrito says "I'm delicious!"

My family went on a skiing trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, when I was about 14 years old. One dark, early morning, we all woke up and joined a bunch of elderly tourists and snowboarders on a re-purposed school bus bound for one of the state's more remote slopes-- which is totally redundant since I'm pretty sure ten people live in Jackson Hole.

It was still too dark to see anything but the slightly yellowed tips of the early morning mountaintops when we all stopped at the strangest, most remote ski shop ever for a potty break. Inside was a kitschy mix of huge, stuffed bears and elk and nice, expensive ski equipment. And off to the corner was a windowed countertop where a toothless old man was hawking breakfast burritos out of a Rubbermaid cooler for two bucks.

There weren't your soggy, deflated Sonic burritos-- they were the Peter North of elongated breakfast foots. These were Chipotle-size behemoths stuffed full of chorizo, cheddar, eggs, bacon, tomato, onion, peppers, thick salsa, and wrapped in the first whole-wheat flour tortilla I ever remember eating. They were spicy as hell, I recall, and believe me when I say I was raised to endure the pain of spicy food.

They were honestly the best breakfast burritos I've ever had. Nothing since has been able to compare to the wild ratios of egg-to-cheese-to-meat present in this godly morning phallus.

I stumbled upon an article this morning about breakfast burritos being the perfect make-in-bulk food. They really are. I'm off to the store right after work to make about a thousand breakfast burritos, in search of that childhood burrito that has so enticed me.

[The Simple Dollar - Bulk Breakfast Burritos: Convenient, Cheap, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think]

Japanese-Brazilian Fusion. In Houston. I'm not kidding.

Every time I hear fusion food described in conjunction with the phrase "Next Big Thing," I sort of imagine rich, uncultured obese restaurant entrepreneurs throwing darts at a board of countries, trying to decide which two uncanny places to fuse to create the NEXT BIG THING.

Not that Brazil and Japan are all that incompatible, foodwise. I mean, both countries are traditionally known for their high-quality beef products (Kobe yum yum) and their... no, wait, that's basically it. Their native fruits&veges aren't exactly polar opposites; both cultures have explored both the sweet and the savory.

I guess I have a hard time imaginating exactly how the hell you blend the feel of traditional Japanese with the feel traditional Brazilian fare. And that's the problem I have with all these fusion restaurants popping up around Houston-- it seems like an attack on our perceived lack of cultural identity. It's as if we Houstonians are willing to call this ridiculous combination the NEXT BIG THING just because we don't have a solidified identity of our own in this city. Or because we're dumb, and we'll fall for anything.

I for one will probably succumb to our homogenized cultural overlords, who will be serving sushi churrascaria style and dashing table-to-table barefoot on a floor covered in edamame beans and plantain peels.

[Houston - Eating Our Words - Japanese-Brazilian Fusion the Next Big Thing?]

I expect to lose 20 friends before noon tomorrow

Burger King has unveiled the most awesome incentive to un-Facebook those kids you met at a music festival three years ago that have been stalking you from afar ever since.

It's called the Whopper Sacrifice application, and it's going to make you carefully consider if your online life is worth a couple dozen free burgers. All the application requires is that you pick ten of your Facebook friends and dump them in return for one free Whopper. Though unlike the normal ritual of booting someone from your online life, it notifies the people you remove that they've been traded for consumer goods. I figured I would stay one step ahead of the app.

So here's to you, those about to be sacrificed. Those random friends of my exes. Those hometown friends of friends. Those kids who went to my high school but were in my brother's class and I don't really know you but I guess you like to see my pictures. Those kids from my grade school classes who haven't seen me since I wore my hair spiky. And yes, even those employment recruiters who I friended just to see if I could find a job.

You've all brought me so much. Application invites, mostly. Some of you may have read my blog once or twice, in which case you're actually cooler than 70% of my close friends. But all&all this hasn't been a fulfilling relationship. So, I'm leaving you for processed flash-cooked meat and vegetable blend on a chewy wad of bread ass.

And to the Kyle Barnhart from Ottowa who got really high one night and decided to friend me: Don't worry, dude, we're friends until the end.

[Unfriend 10 People on Facebook, Get a Free Whopper | A Hamburger Today]

Late-night sushi? No thanks.

Katharine Shilcutt (the bimbo who stole the Houston Press food blog job that I wanted but didn't apply for and I actually love her but I love calling people bimbos even more) reports today on Eating Our Words that Crave Sushi is one step closer to opening a late-night raw roll retailer in Midtown Houston. And she's predicting windfalls for this trendy tuna tavern, based on nothing but its location and originality.

Uh, what?

I feel like I understand the late-night food industry pretty well, having been a connoisseur since before I started drinking heavily. Going to Waffle House at 3am used to be one of the only entertaining things for a kid to do back in Panama City Beach. Me and my friends would sit back and swap stupid stories while ignorant drunk rednecks would bring in their scantly-clad escorts and get into fights about things like F-150s and mud.

Since moving to Houston, I've navigated the late-night high seas like a stoned stalwart pirate of munchies. Like all Rice students, I started my love affair with the freshman year staples: House of Pies and Taco Cabana. Since then I've conquered all the places that matter. You know, BB's, Bibas, Katz's, Tacos a Go-Go, and etc. There are plenty.

The one trait all these places have in common is that they serve piles of hot, delicious food that caters oh-so-well to the inebriated taste palate. The drunken taste palate, of course, is driven by the basal need to kill something, fry it, and dip it in jalapeno ranch dressing. Cajuns, Greeks, Mexicans, and Jews New York-style delis all know how to do this really, really well. The Japanese, on the other hand, wrap cold fish in cold rice and cold seaweed and douse it in black salt water.

Sorry, Crave. I really am. But considering the decor and the price tag, I just don't see sushi being more than a passing fad in the world of Houston late-night food. Drunks crave fat and stoners crave quantity (of anything edible). Sushi provides neither. Even if this Crave place is initially successful, I have a feeling that Houstonians will be back to their late-night staples of gyros and chimichangas before you can say "I'm not driving."

[Houston - Eating Our Words - Craving a Sneak Preview?]