RAW: Hand me the Easy Cheese!
Jay: Here.
RAW: [it pours out in some creepy liquid form]
Jay: Ewwwwww...
RAW: Yuck...
Jay & RAW: [look at each other]
RAW: [eats it]
Jay: And?
RAW: It's good!
Jay: Woohoo! Pass it over!

Linus: Okay fine. I'm going to try the Easy Cheese just to see what the fuss is about.
Jay: You're going to hate it. It's like salty cheese.
Linus: [tastes] This is not cheese.
RAW: No, but it's good, so it doesn't have to be cheese!
Jay: It's like the breakfast burritos at McDonald's.
Linus: How so?
Jay: Well you know at Whataburger or Sonic, it tastes like what you might make at home with sausage, eggs, cheese, and so on.
Linus: That's debatable
Jay: Well, compared to McDonald's. McDonald's filling is more like a separate entity. While it mimics eggs and cheese, it really transcends the genre. Modern science has given us a breakfast burrito that has become more than the sum of its ingredients and has become an ingredient upon itself.
RAW: A really good ingredient!
Jay: Damn straight!
RAW: [looking at Easy Cheese can] Hey look, the first ingredient is milk. How do you like them apples!
Linus: [looks at can] This has way too many ingredients. Lactic acid? That's what builds up in your muscles and makes you sore.
RAW: So it's like exercising without ever having to do it!
Linus: Look at that, cheese culture is the last ingredient!
Jay: Embracing Easy Cheese is embracing the modern age!
RAW: Besides, they spell "cheese" with an "S"... you know when they spell it with a "Z" it's as much a disclaimer as being cute.
Linus: Kind of like pasteurized processed cheese food?
Jay: Did you know that there's a cheese making company that calls itself 100% Real so that they can call it 100% Real Cheese?
RAW: That's like the phone companies.
Linus: The what?
RAW: The phone companies that name themselves "I Don't Care" so that when an operator asks you what long distance company you want to use and you say that you don't care, that's the company that you get and they can charge you like fifty cents a minute.
Linus: And I'm sure you believe that's just good capitalism?

In a supermarket in Jackson, Wyoming.

Linus: What kind of cheese do we want?
Jay: American!
RAW: American!
Linus: No, seriously.
RAW: There's not a Sam's around here, is there?
Linus: No. Why?
Jay: Oh yeah! The Sam's cheese!
RAW: Heck yeah!
Linus: The what?
Jay: Sam's has this cheese. We used to make grilled cheese sandwiches at Alex's with Sam's cheese. We'd put one slice on each slice of bread and then be swiping slices off the top and eating them while we wait for the sandwiches to heat up.
Linus: Taking slices off the top?
RAW: Yeah, you get like a foot of it for $5 cause it's not individually wrapped.
Jay: But it's okay because that just means we cat eat it faster!
Linus: [confused look] Oh wait. You're serious?!

Linus: Okay, so do you want this cheese?
Jay: No way! That's generic.
RAW: Trust me, Linus. You never, ever, ever want to eat discount slices of American cheese.
Linus: I can honestly say that I am in no danger of ever doing that...
RAW: Good.
Linus: Okay, so what kind of American cheese is quote-good-unquote?
RAW: If it's not Kraft or Borden, you don't want it.
[RAW and Jay get into three minute debate over the comparative virtues of Kraft and Borden American cheese slices]
Linus: Guys, can we stick to the task at hand, here?
RAW: Okay, this looks good.
Linus: Alex, this isn't even cheese! It's "pasteurized processed cheese food product."
Jay: They all say that.
RAW: Yeah, that doesn't mean it doesn't taste good. Woah! Look at this. A whole stack of bologni for $3!

RAW: Hey Linus, what about some Easy Cheese?
Jay: Dude! Easy cheese!!
Linus: Oh brother...
Jay: I'll split it with you, Alex!
RAW: Hot diggity. Should we get the Chicken Biscuits, Wheat Thins, or Bacon potato cracker chips?
Linus: If you get Wheat Thins I'll eat that.
RAW: With the Easy Cheese?
Linus: If you get Wheat Thins, I'll eat Wheat Thins.
RAW & Jay: That'll work!

"I was on a bus and it was the middle of the night. I had a box of crackers and a can of Easy Cheeze. But it the middle of the night so I could not see. I could not see how much Easy Cheeze I was applying to each cracker. So each bite into the cracker was a surprise as to how much Easy Cheeze had been applied, which makes me believe they should have a glow-in-the-dark Easy Cheeze. It's not like the product has any integrity to begin with. If you buy a room-temperature cheese that you squeeze out of a can, you probably won't get mad because it glows in the dark, too."

[Other Hedberg quotes]

If you're a waiter at a restaurant, here are five ways you can quickly and easily diminish your tip into nothingness:
1. Get the order wrong. For instance, giving me chicken enchiladas instead of cheese enchiladas.
2. Get the order wrong and then save time on the replacement by serving undercooked food. For instance, cheese enchiladas where the cheese isn't melted. Sending it back only makes it take longer than it would have to cook thoroughly in the first place.
3. Get the order wrong by replacing it with a more expensive menu item without replacing it on the bill.
4. Get the order wrong by replacing it with a more expensive menu item without replacing it on the bill and proceeding to argue that there is no price difference.
5. The point is not the thirty cents, it's that you gave me the wrong food, undercooked the replacement food, charged us for the original food and then demonstrated that you don't know your restaurants menu as well as I do when I've only eaten there once before.

• I usually don't loathe morning so, but I have just been dead these last couple of mornings. And it's not been because I've been saying up too late.
• Batman Begins is in theaters and all that. One neat thing about being up here is that I can watch it at a drive-in theater! One day next week I'm definitely going to stick around and catch it on the big big big screen.
• Being clean-shaven is generally a way to avoid acne, but since I shaved my beard off I've been having more acne trouble than I've had in a long time.
• My boss's first words upon seeing the new, shaven me: When did we start hiring 15 year olds?
• Since Camille is often mistaken for being younger than she is, we look like the perfect teenage couple... except that we're closer to 30 than 19.
• I had lunch with a couple coworkers yesterday. They'd had a BBQ the night before and we feasted on leftovers. I'd already wolfed down my steak when they determined that their meat was bad. Word still out on whether or not I have anything to fear.
• Camille's parents are in town and we're all planning to go up to Island Park this weekend. They asked if there was any food I wanted them to buy. I suggested Easy Cheeze. First, I had to successfully [explain] what Easy Cheeze was. Second, I had to successfully explain why someone would want to eat room-temperature-oils-masquerading-as-cheese-in-quasi-liquid-form. I batted 1-for-2.

*Edit made by TEFKAM to avoid confusion/comments

Eel has been giving me a hard time because I've been buying and consuming some Easy Cheeze since I got here. She goes on and on about how cheese is supposed to be solid or something like that. Blah, blah, blah.

Well, she no longer has any right to say anything. I was getting a snack yesterday and saw some peanut butter out. Mmmmh, peanut butter and crackers!

The peanut butter was in liquid form!!!

Worse than that, it's apparently supposed to be that way! You're supposed to stir it or something and then it becomes more solid. It's low fat and one of the ways they cut down on the fat (or is it carbs? whichever) is getting rid of the enamel that holds it together.

I think I'll just hold on to my Easy Cheeze, thanks!

(and never, ever eat peanut butter ever again)

Last week we discussed the importance of remembering when your stove is on, disabled smoke detectors, and patient roommates. This week will be more pedestrian, I'm afraid. However, pedestrian (ie easy) cookies is essential for bachelors! Plus, as opposed to a diet consisting of Hot Pockets, Mac'n'Cheese, and Ramen, you can tell the ladies that you are a cook with this very simple meal.

This week's RAW Bachelor's Cooking Dish: Ground Beef, Cheese, and Tortilla Lump... or GBCTL (prounounce it GibiCkiTLe... and try not to work up any spit doing it).

All you need is:
One (1) wad of ground beef. This is important. A wadlet is too little and a glop is too much.
One (1) tortilla. Size doesn't matter here. The runt of the litter (ie Mission Tortilla sack) is just as good as the prize pick.
One (1) helping of grated cheese. Not to be confused with a "serving" as labelled on the back of the package so that it doesn't look like you're eating a days worth of fat in a single serving. Remember, fat has been declared healthy, so get a real bona fide helping. Actual size will vary according to appetite, belt size, and pregnancy status.

Steps:
1) Take the wad of beef and stomp it as it if were the mailman who left your delivery out in the pouring rain... outside the canopy in front of your door.
2) Roll flattened wad up and stomp again, this time imagine the head of the person that lives next door with the loud barking dog that he left at home alone... AGAIN!
3) Do not reroll the ground beef patty. Marvel at your awesome sense of restraint.
4) Disable fire alarm.
5) Put the patty in the frying pan, turn stove on "HI"
6) While the meat is frying away, quickly take cheese and spread it around tortilla and put on plate. If you have a styrofoam plate from yesterday, that'll do. Conservation of resources is what good-thinking people believe in.
7) When meat is sufficiently cooked (on both sides!! That's important!) place in the center of the tortilla. Fold tortilla around beef patty and industriously figure out a way to put the Ground Beef, Cheese, and Tortilla Lump on the pan upside down so that it burns wrapped up. By putting it in the pan where all the grease from the ground beef is, you are again maximizing resources. Think about it this way: An animal died for the fat you are consuming, so the lease you can do is use it for maximum effect to clog up your arteries. Besides, fat has been declared healthy.
8) Flip tortilla. It won't take long for the fat to burn in so keep an eye on it.
9) Place on yesterday's styrofoam plate and enjoy.

Note 1: Those who are in a hurry can freely skip steps 2,3, and 4.

Note 2: Sausage can be substituted for ground beef, though some butter would be helpful as the sausage creates surprisingly less grease than one might expect.

Note 3: It really does taste good, honest.

Next week's lesson: Who knows what splendor I'll discover or disaster I'll create!!

I had my last lunch in Houston with some of Dad's coworkers. Of all days for me to leave, it was the one that his department at NASA had their monthly department lunch. My brother (who works for a contractor on NASA grounds) also stopped by, so it was a really nice send-off. I took it easy the first day and drove up to Fort Worth and spent the night with my aunt and uncle. That helped me avoid rush hour traffic and gave me a head start for a couple of grueling days of traffic. Early Thursday morning I left for the browner pasteurs of New Mexico.

North Texas - Eel makes a lot of jokes at Texas's expense, so I found it amusing that the route she had me go kept me in Texas for as long as imaginable, barely missing the Oklahoma border and driving all the way up to Texline in the northern part of the panhandle.

There's a place called Jim Bowie Beef Jerky in Montague County that I happened to notice out of the corner of my eye. Figuring that I could use something to much on for the drive that wouldn't make me fat, I plopped down $22 for some of the best beef jerky I've ever had. It also came with some smoked cheddar (or jalapeno) cheese.

Wichita Falls was smaller than I thought it would be.

The patch of road north of Amarillo made me seasick.

I kind of expected a visitor's center or something at the Texas/New Mexico border. I was counting on it for restroom-related purposes. Instead I got a decaying sign that said "Welcome to New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment."

Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries and I packed them away so I couldn't take any pictures. There was much cursing at the discover of this at the border.

New Mexico - As near as I can tell, no one actually lives in New Mexico. After Clayton (which says it is in New Mexico, but it can't be because people live there) and before Raton (ditto), there is absolutely no one or nothing there. Quite odd.

The other odd thing was the street signs. It seems every few miles there would be one warning drivers that auto speed is monitored by aircraft. There were also a lot of signs telling you that fines in the "safety corrodor" double. The problem? Signs telling what the actual speed limit is were few and far between. I was careful to watch my speed cause of the aircraft and fines, but I didn't know what I was watching for, exactly.

Southeastern Colorado - Wooooowie! It was like a roller-coaster ride. All down-hill all the way. Not only that, but there were all kinds of twists and turns. It was fun and exciting, reminding me of a cross between an arcade game and an amusement park ride. I was kind of sad when I reached civilization (Trinidad, CO).

Colorado Springs - Eel complained about the winding roads here, but they didn't bother me. This is where I stopped for the night. I figured that in a town the size of Colorado Springs there'd be more Internet-ready hotel rooms, but that didn't turn out to be the case. As near as I can tell from asking at various hotels, every single hotel on the planet will have high-speed access in the next six months. As it turns out, the hotel I resigned myself to had a "business center" that had a hookup so I could check my email.

Denver - I was unimpressed.

Cheyenne, Wyoming - I blinked and it was gone. Not that the town is small, it's just that I only touched a corner of it. Not a problem except that I was counting on getting gas there. I sweatted the whole way to the next down (45 miles away) as my trackometer hit 350 miles.

Eastern Wyoming - Both Audrey and Eel warned me about eastern Wyoming, but I have no idea what their problems was. It was absolutely gorgeous! I wish I would have stopped to take a whole bunch of pictures. Every bit of it from Cheyenne to Laramie was like a pastural painting. There was a certain beauty in the mountains, abandoned wooden shacks, and sporadic fencing. I swear, if I ever make it rich I want a summer home in this area!

Central Wyoming - Laramie is the strangest college town that I've ever been to. It made College Station look bustling. That said, it was a neat little down with little to nothing in the way of "neighborhoods"... all of the houses just randomly plotted here and there.

Western Wyoming - Not as pretty as the eastern part, but the towns were A-W-E-S-O-M-E. Someone really needs to use Green River as a setting for a movie or something. Rawlins was also pretty neat. There's something really nice about a town being built around nature, instead of man-made nature being built around a town.

Utah - The Nordic Valley was absolutely wonderful. It was almost as exciting as southeastern Colorado, but a whole lot more beautiful. On a side note, it's amazing how every university in Utah that I've heard of is on the northeastern side of the state. BYU is in Provo, south of Salt Lake City. The University of Utah is in SLC, Weber State is in Ogden, just north of SLC, and Utah State is by the Utah-Idaho border.

Utah & Idaho - They apparently have little to no use of those little things called "U-Turns." If you make a wrong turn, you can literally spend half-an-hour on the road before getting a chance to turn around. In the meantime you're going to see 15 emergency U-turn places for emergency vehicles. Perhaps they wouldn't have to have all those signs up talking about the kind of trouble you can get in for illegally using one of those if they would actually give us the real thing?!

Idaho - It was late, I was tired, I didn't notice a thing. Except the lack of U-turns.