Losing: The New Winning

This post was spurred by a recent commercial I saw that confused me.

Little Boy dressed in a baseball uniform: "I used to be mad when we lost, but not now, because after a loss dad takes us to Pizza Hut, so it's still a win even when we lose!"

I am willing to grant the fact that may not be what he says verbatim, but I assure you it is pretty close to the actual commercial.

This struck me as odd. You get rewarded for losing. This brings up a oddity in a similar vein; ribbons and medals for PARTICIPATING. When did the ego's of today's youth become so fragile that they can't actually lose?

I was at a tee-ball game recently and saw a kid completely whiff the ball on the tee three times. Despite is obvious failure, he still ran to first base and everyone cheered for him. That is like going to college and failing out three separate times and then the dean calls; "I know you got all F's in all of your classes three semesters in a row, but we're still going to let you take part in the Graduation ceremony.

What we are teaching our kids: that failing is just as good as passing. That the reward for working your tail off is the same reward you get if you don't. What happened to the gratification of accomplishing a feat? The great feeling of training, studying, working hard and seeing the fruits of your labor?

I'm not a parent, if I was however, I would be sure to explain to my child that the real world has winners and losers.

hmmm.

So I realized that I am not blogging as much as I had intended to upon starting up a blog. Funny how that works.

What's In A Phone?

Hello world. (And I mean that)

How many of you are reading this article from your phone? How many of you got an email on your phone saying this article was posted? Yesterday was a very trying day for me. However, like most trying days, a lot of growth and experience came becuase of it; yesterday my phone died. Meow my phone has died a lot of times, but this time it was dead dead. Sometimes my phone would just shut of randomly, one or many of the buttons wouldnt work, long story short I am no stranger to phone troubles. This time however it was completely gone. Nothing a quick "take the battery out and restart" could fix. So from 5 pm on January 20th to 2pm on January 21st, I did not have a phone. This doesnt sound like a big deal... and it shouldnt be.

Again I ask, how many of you are reading this article from your phone? How many of you got an email on your phone saying this article was posted? I understand it is a little contradictive to complain about technology through a similar technological medium, but stick with me here.

Why was I completely paralyzed without my phone? I didnt miss any of my calls, I missed 2 arbitrary text messages and I missed 1 email from Borders. Big whoop. All day at work I was reaching in my empty pocket to check if I had any new messages, to check the time, to see if anyone posted anything funny on twitter, it felt so odd not having a phone. But friends.. isn't THAT odd.

I know I am not alone here, I know there are other phone junkies out there. I urge you to look into your cell phone habits. I'm not suggesting we all find our nearest river or tributary and launch our phones into the current. But isnt there something to say about people who have to be on their phones constantly.. checking facebook, texting, myspace, twitter... always trying to be somewhere else via one iphone app or another. Meow, I understand people need to get ahold of people, business needs to be conducted, movie times need to be convienently looked up. But how did our parents do it? How did we do it 10 years ago? All I am saying is everyone should take a look at how healthy their relationship with his or her phone is. How obsessed are you? Are your bosses mad that your always texting? Do you spend your work breaks texting instead of eating? Do you race to your phone when you forgot you left it in your coat pocket? Do you give your phone more attention than your family? Most importantly, what message are you sending to those around you when all you can do is focus on your phone?

I can definitely see the positives of having a phone linked to all these other social mediums, dont get me wrong. That's why when I said "hello world", I meant it. It does makes me think of the old "fake number" trick though. If you give people a fake number now a days.. they still have 6 million other ways of getting ahold of you. Will people start making fake facebooks to accomodate their fake numbers?

My New Favorite Recipe

So, for the last few years of my life I have really taken it upon myself to cook my own meals and/or cook for others. Naturally this process happens as you get older, hungrier and more demanding of the timing of your meals, i.e. - late nights, early mornings, the twenty minutes you have available between your plans for the day.

Now for the most part this process has led me to creative Ramen recipes (another post for another day) and interesting cold cut sammiches (sandwiches). Let's just say until a few months ago my life was different. Before the recipe, the backstory.

It was a sunday, it was cold, football was being watched. I had the hankerin' to make my own chili. If anyone knows me at all, they would know his could be close to impossible: I don't like beans, I really don't like big tomato chunks and I really really don't like big onion chunks. So I basically eliminated 65% of the average chili. What did that mean? It meant I had to make a very B.A. ('Bove Average) chili. Long story short, I made a three meat chili and it was pretty tasty. HOWEVER, with the leftovers... I took some cheese and melted it into the chili and I was blown away. At this point in time I knew I had a delicacy in creation: A Chili-Cheese dip for the ages.

THE RECIPE

Warning: Unfortunately, this recipe is definitely not designed for those "anti-meat" people out there.

You'll need: Ingredients, frying pan, crockpot, love.

Ingredients:

3 small cans of Tomato Paste

1 hunk of green onions

1 white onion

Varied Spices: Chili Powder, Cayenne Pepper, Hot Sauce (add to your liking of spiciness)

About 10 ounces of Chicken Tenders from your meat department

1 8 ounce hunk of Pork Chorizo

1 bag of shredded Mexican or Taco cheese

1 jar of Tostitos Smooth and Cheesy cheese dip

Your favorite BBQ dry rub

Your favorite BBQ Sauce

Olive Oil or Canola Oil

In this picture I have an already cooked Rotisserie chicken because I was pressed for time.

Directions:

1. Put three cans of tomato paste into crockpot set on high. Fill up 2 of the empty cans with water and add water to crockpot.

2. Finely mince both onions, throw into frying pan and add necessary amount of oil. Caramelize the onions until well... they look carmel-y. Once carmel-y add onions to crockpot.

3. Throw still raw chicken tenders onto still oil-y frying pan. Cook thoroughly and will cooking add BBQ dry rub. Once they look almost done, start tearing chicken tenders into smaller chunks... add BBQ dry rub again while tearing.

4. Once chicken is thoroughly cooked, dump it in a adequate sized bowl and then add a healthy amount of BBQ sauce and mix throughout. Add to crockpot.

5. Add chorizo to frying pan and cook thoroughly, drain chorizo in a colander to get rid of the excess grease, then dump into crockpot.

The key to this recipe is in timing. You want the above ingredients to "get to know each other in the pot" for a while, as Kevin from The Office would say. Leave the crockpot on high and stir these ingredients around until it looks like a healthy chunky chili. Let it all sit in the crockpot and cook together on high until it starts to bubble up. At this point put the crock pot on low and let it simmer and cook a while also (time allowing).

6. 15-20 minutes prior to serving add shredded cheese and stir throughout the chili.

7. Soon as shredded cheese is mixed well, add Tostitos cheese dip and stir again.

8. Open up your favorite kind of tortilla chips and serve!

If you do all those things properly and add a lotta love, your dip will be bigger than Zack Morris' hairdo and cellphone combined.

Notes

I now also have a Flickr account. The link is to the right of this post! Check it out! Here is a sample. :)

Benny's Pizza

The initial reason I ever had the intention of starting a blog was to chronicle my culinary adventures and while doing so to maybe mix in some Saved By the Bell or Seinfeld references. I then realized it would be fun to also share some of the photo’s I randomly take and get excited about. I’m so excited, I’m so excited, I’m so…. scared. (Saved By the Bell reference #1)
So here it is. The beginning. (Not the true beginning, for that read the first chapter of the Book of John.) Benny’s Pizza.

I had driven past Benny’s Pizza on several occasions traveling to different fishing locations. Long story short, its relatively in the “boonies”. Then it came to pass that my fellow band mate, Kelly Bisby(myspace.com/thebeatboxcarchildren), had grown up not to far from Benny’s and also had grown up eating Benny’s Pizza. Need I say more?

Upon entering I was pretty excited. Another fellow band mate, Jake Lyle(myspace.com/thebeatboxcarchildren), had told me that the pizza wasn’t all that great. I didn’t let that hold me back though. I went ahead and order a large half BBQ Chicken Pizza half Pepperoni pizza. (The pepperoni half was me playing it safe.) Think about it… here I was… first time at a restaurant and also the first time eating BBQ chicken Pizza. It was officially risky business. Long story short I ate the entire BBQ chicken half (this was a large… it was about 6 nice sized slices on each half) and all but 2 slices on the pepperoni side.

Now maybe I have been drowning in the stunningly similar quad city pizza joints usual flavors and styles of pizza, but this was fantastic. It is officially my new favorite pizza joint. I know that seems extreme, but for the time being, Benny’s pizza is just so refreshingly delicious. The only downside: I will have to do more one armed push ups than even A.C. Slater could even dreamt of doing in order to work off all the pounds I put on eating! (#2)

P.S.- thanks to Kelly Bisby Sr. for funding this occasion!