:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Server Stories: More Idiot Customers ::

Last weekend was Winter Music Conference here at Miami. Any time there's an event or a convention here, there's usually welcome uptick in local businesses here. Most of the time, we welcome any and all patrons to our restaurant but in the case of WMC weekend, everyone at my restaurant had to deal with a rather odd crowd.

Don't let the title fool you. "Winter Music Conference" is actually a mish-mash of events featuring mostly DJs and electronic music artists (i.e. guys who remix music). People who attend this are usually ravers, partiers, clubbers, and Eurotrash hipsters that think wearing sunglasses after dusk is cool (this is a growing trend that I'll never understand, by the way. Most of the bars and clubs here are so dark that you can barely see anything with the naked eye, and you have these idiots walking around with sunglasses. I don't get it.) So while most of out customers very friendly (probably because they were buzzed on x-tacy) we had more than the usual amount of halfwits and douchebags. For example:

• A guy at my tables asks what beers we have. By the bottle, we have Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, Anchor Steam, Bud, Bud Light, Stella Artois, Heineken, Corona, Amstel Light, and Michelob Ultra. (Yes, that's our actual selection, and I have to repeat that every time someone asks for beer.) "Do you have Land Shark?" (A what???) No. "Do you have Budweiser Select?" My server smile fades and I stare intently into his forehead. "What about Miller Genui..." (Firmly, and probably louder than I intended) Nope.Would you like me to repeat the selection? "Amstel Light, please."

• Another guy orders a trout with a side of pasta. I ask if he wants marinara or white whine clam sauce. "Do you have alfredo sauce?" I shake my head. "Can you make it?" This table is right next to where we keep the pepper mills and I'm seriously considering grabbing one and taking batting practice with this guy's head. I throw him my server stare and say no, we will not. "Well what kind of pasta is it?" Linguine, sir. "Do you have angel hair?" No. "What about penne?" My stare becomes withering and I reply; sir, maybe you should've just stayed at home and have your mom cook for you. And the second I say it, I see my entire waiter career flash before my eyes. SHIT. This guy's going to bitch the managers and I'm gonna get fired. Instead, he simply lowers his head and says "white sauce." Thank you sir. As I take their menus, I see his date glaring at him and shaking her head. She must be a server somewhere.

• I greet another couple that just sat. Welcome to Seafood Grill, we have a couple of specials tonight... "What's the difference, between marsala and piccata?" the lady interrupts. Great, one of those types. It's all explained right there on the menu, ma'am. Can I start you off with a drink? "Oh. Umm, I really don't feel like reading all this, can you just explain it to me?" (I swear to God that's exactly what she said.) I explain. Then she asks what our soup of the day is. New England Clam Chowder. "That's it?" Yes, ma'am. "You don't have like, a vegetable soup or anything?" I was about to saying something I would have regretted, except the guy she was with suddenly interjected, possibly because he felt the steam coming out of my ears. "We'll take a couple of glasses of water for now please. Thank you."

• On our menu, the fish selection is all under the heading "Grilled Fish." Just under that explains how our fish is "...cooked on the grill..." in case there's any confusion. And yet, all weekend I was getting questions like "how is the fish prepared?" (Oh, we cook it.) "How do you cook the fish? (Carefully.)"Can I get it deepfried?" (Can I pee on your face?).

Those three questions, along with the three incidents I listed, all happened on Sunday night between 8:30 and midnight. And believe me, that's way too much stupidity crammed into a three and a half-hour period for a waitstaff to handle.

Labels: server stories, stupid customers, waiting

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 8:47 PM [+] :: | 0 comments
.....

:: 300 ::

Long time ago, in a gala...er... country far, far away, there was a group of overly militant Greeks that lived under constant threat of being invaded by the Persian Army. (Or something to that effect.) They lived under a perpetually cloudy sepia-colored sky, amid sepia-colored wheat fields, in homes made of sepia-tinged stones, in weather so warm that men walked around in Speedo-precursors despite the fact they rarely went swimming since the ocean (also sepia-colored) was days away by foot.

Yes, I'm talking about the movie "300." It's a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn't the gore (not really that heavy compared to, say, "Braveheart"), or the slow-motion action scenes (very cool, but all the "Matrix" movies did it better), or even the cheesy-yet-chill-inducing-one-liners ("Then we will fight in the shade."). And it didn't bother me at all that the movie was simultaneously homoerotic (apparently, all Greeks males were Bowflex-using steroid freaks that liked to walk around in little more than fabulous red capes and tiny leather man-briefs, all the while being disturbingly hairless) and homophobic (Leonidas calls the Arcadias "philosophers and boy-lovers," and really, who likes those fey-sounding philosophers? And you can't honestly tell me that RuPaul wasn't having the time of his - her? - life playing the god-wannabe-dictator Xerxes - who by the way, is adorned by jewelry so ridiculously elaborate and unabashedly gaudy that B.A. Baracas from the A-Team is seething with envy. Not only that but he has eyebrows so perfectly tweezed that the girl I saw it with wondered who performed the waxing. Oh, and he's asking everyone to kneel before him. Interpret that as you wish.)

If you haven't seen this yet, forget any historical facts you might know about the Battle of Thermopylae. This is a painstakingly recreated celluloid visualization of a graphic novel (i.e. 'comic book' for you neophytes of geek etymology) as envisioned by Frank Miller. And that's why I love this movie. It's a movie that isn't afraid of the fact that movies, far beyond any other purpose, is meant to be a form of entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good movie that's serious (Zodiac), thought provoking (Children of Men), or even forces us to re-examine ourselves (Blood Diamond), but I also love a movie where everyone involved, from the directors to the actors, knows that they're making a movie for the sole purpose of being entertaining.

I've read reviews where critics try to interpret this movie as a metaphor of the misguided war in Iraq, or even macho white guys beating the crap out of faggoty Middle Easterners. Whatever. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and in this case, a codpiece is just a codpiece.

Forget about historical accuracy, fundamentally sound acting techniques (Gerard Butler screams almost all his lines; after a while I wanted to scream back "we can hear you, already!! Shut up!") or life-like characters that we can relate to, then don't see this movie. But if you can appreciate a movie for just wanting to be a movie, nothing more nothing less, then run to a theater now and see this spectacle.

A co-worker, gay one at that, told me that he didn't want to see it because it looked brainless and too simple. I wanted to kick him into the deep fryer and yell "this... is... SPARTA!!!"

Labels: 300, movie, reviews

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 2:47 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
.....

:: I Could be an Alcoholic, but I'm not Trying Hard Enough ::

... not that I actually want to become alcoholic or anything but my ability to consume large quantities of beer (and other forms of alcohol) without major adverse affects isn't disuading me either. For example, last Saturday night, I went out with some co-workers to Dewey's for a "few" drinks and this is what I ended up having:

• 2 Yeunglings
• Knob Creek on the rocks (it was chilly)
• 4 pints of Guinness
• 2 Crown Royal on the rocks (it got chillier)
• 2 shots of Sandeman's Tawny Port

11 drinks in 3 hours and no ill affects, no stumbling, no slurred speach, no awkward dancing on the bar, and postively no hangover the next morning, as I woke up around my usual time at the crack of noon. (It probably helped that I ate a pile of pulled pork with collard greens and fried green tomatoes.) It's not like I do this often but this is just going to encourage me.

Labels: Beer, Dewey's, drinking

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 1:51 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
.....

:: New Comments ::

My old comment feature has been down for quite a while so I finally changed everything over to Haloscan. So if you wanted to leave a comment for the last few posts (whether to profess your undying admiration or - more likely - tell me that you print out my blog so you don't have to waste toilet paper) feel free to go ahead and do so. Or at the very least, leave a comment here just so I can see whether or not this one is working properly.

Labels: comments

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 10:20 PM [+] :: | 0 comments
.....

:: Beerfest ::

Last Friday was spent at my first ever Beerfest. I went with a friend from work, who also happens to be an avid beer fan. The event seemed promising enough from the radio ads that we went and bought advance tickets ($20; $25 at the door) and made plans to show up before doors opened at 7.

Perhaps due to my admittedly high expectations, this Beerfest turned out to be, for lack of a better word, crap. Don't get me wrong. Any time you can try out dozens of beers for $20 and get free shit in the process, it's not a bad thing. But I was expecting a somewhat organized gathering of breweries in a large building, containing dozens of booths, with the chance to sample hundreds of beers.

Instead, it was a haphazardly cobbled array of temporary fences, folding tables, and ice coolers in the parking lot of Gulfstream Park. It was nice of the organizers to provide fee grub to soak up the alcohol but the lack of port-o-potties was glaring (we're drinking BEER, people!). There was a shocking lack of variety. There were only 14-15 tables and while most breweries brought two or three different bottles, did we really need a Bud Light, Corona and a Heineken booth? Does anyone really not know what they taste like? (The fact that by our observation, over half the attendees seemed to be there just to get fucked up is beside the point.) And it's a good thing we got there when we did since people started running out of beer by 9:30 and the few that were left was warm since the didn't bring enough ice buckets to pre-chill the bottles. One of the event people we talked to said they weren't adequately prepared because they didn't expect so many to show up (again, we're talking BEER, people!)

And for me, the idea of a beer festival is getting to taste stuff I've never had before but I have to point out that - though I'm not sure if it says more about me than it does the Beerfest - of all the beers they had, I've already tried at least 75% of them.

Labels: Beer

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 7:40 PM [+] :: | 0 comments
.....