Spherx's Domain

I was orphaned at a young age and, thankfully, never taken in as a ward of the state. Instead, I grew up on the streets, scavenging for food and shelter. Because most of the stuff I found to eat was either tasteless or extremely flavorful (read horribly flavored), I learned to mix foods and flavors to make it easier to eat. I eventually was able to mask the flavor of rotting meat, or make flavorless old shoe leather taste great. It was either that, or waste precious nutrients puking from the flavor.

Because I was a street urchin, I was constantly running from the police and Quirxfleet. I was barely able to eat enough to survive. Back then I weighed a svelte 6 pounds, in contrast with my current 21. I was constantly on the move in order to avoid being caught by the fleet. I hitchhiked all around our galaxy, looking for the next best restaurant dumpster to scavenge. One pilot I hitched a ride from tried to stick his finger in me, so I bailed onto the nearest moon. I had to hang around there for months until another ship came by.

This cocky looking, punk kid (Spherx), barely managed to land his ship without crushing half the station, then wandered out as if he pwned the place. He was followed by a dog that was covered in it’s own feces and urine, I felt bad for the little scamp. It wasn’t ’til later that I realized that it wasn’t a dog at all, but Idiot Chittix. I was scouting his ship to see if I could grab a meal from its galley when a Quirxfleet ship, expertly piloted, landed just next to it. I’d developed a healthy mistrust of the fleet, and immediately ran onto Spherx’s ship and, naturally, made my way to the galley.

I had my run of the place. There didn’t seem to be a chef on staff, so I just played it off like I belonged there. With all that food around, and all my experience telling me to eat while it’s available, I ate both my servings, and the leftovers from other’s plates. Spherx crashed the ship of course, and just acts like it’s not a big deal. Nobody has ever realized that I don’t really belong there, and I’m happy because I get free food. On a happier note, my ability to hide the off-flavors in the food worked in my favor, there aren’t many grocery stores in the vast reaches of space so food has to be stored for a while, and we still haven’t figured out how to generate a steady income here on Earth so I take the stuff the stores are throwing away.

A couple weeks ago, I was cleaning out the domain’s store room when I decided to take a break and get some food. Out of nowhere I got a strange craving for an Arch Deluxe! So I went down to the nearest McDonald’s and would you believe it!?! They don’t make them anymore! They haven’t for 15 years!

So what ever happened to the Arch Deluxe anyway? The burger with the grown up taste! They have all this new shit like salads and flatbread wraps, but no Arch Deluxe! Where was my quarter pound of beef, on a split-top potato flour sesame seed bun topped with a circular piece of peppered bacon, leaf lettuce, tomato, American cheese, onions, ketchup, and a “secret” mustard and mayonnaise sauce?

Apparently some assholes decided it wasn’t very healthy and requested it be removed from the menu. Typical. Someone has a beef (hehe, beef. Get it?) with something and decides to crusade against it in the name of everybody else and assuming their opinion is the popular one because it’s THEIR opinion.

Long story short: I couldn’t get the fucking burger I wanted. So I went back to the warehouse and ordered Mac to make me one. I showed him the recipe and he slapped it out of my hand. He said he wasn’t my bitch and challenged me to a contest. He said if I drank half a bottle of old honey, then he’d cook my burger.

Desperate for food, I agreed to his wager and guzzled the bottle of honey. I figured it would be like eating a bag of halloween candy. I was wrong. It was rancid and it felt like my digestive system had dried up. When I was done I didn’t even want the burger anymore because I felt so sick.

To add insult to injury, Mac made a regular cheeseburger – ate it – and farted it back out completely re-assembled as it looked before he swallowed it. It was the most amazing trick I’ve ever seen! Mac compared it to ”solving a Rubik’s cube with his butthole”.

Usually Mac comments on food, but after I recently had some trouble with my lunch, I couldn’t stay quiet. What’s with the “toasted” craze? It’s been around for a while now and it shows no signs of going away. I’m pretty sure Quiznos started it and pretty soon Subway and every other purveyor of sandwiches followed suit. I, for one, do not enjoy toasted sandwiches. I do enjoy toast, but that’s because toast is not exploding with meat, cheese, and numerous vegetables that force you to over-stretch your snout just to fit it into your mouth!

Eating a toasted sub is like stuffing a handful of razors in your mouth. Your only friend is your tongue who’s delicately rolling the sharp edges of the bread out of danger’s way. But it seems it can’t protect you 100% of the time as some chunk of your cheek always seems to get carved out at some point.

Yet, whenever I go out to order a sandwich, unless I specify “not toasted” ahead of time, by default I get “toasted”. Why is toasted the default? Once it’s toasted, you can’t go back and fix it.  Sure, once and a while they actually ask you before they put a mouth-shredding crust on it, but if neither of you are paying attention, soon you’ll be drinking Neosporin to soothe your wrecked esophagus. “Untoasted” should be the default condition of bread! This world is so backward.

In other news, I saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus last night and have posted the review.

So I went to dinner with a new family of mine, I adopt families like others adopt ethnic babies with cleft palates. So we were roaming around California’s central coast when we decided to eat at a restaurant called Jocko’s in a little town called Nipomo. I had heard wonderful things, but words cannot do it justice. Walking into Jocko’s was like walking through a wormhole from California to Wyoming. Walking around the bar, you need to be careful that you don’t put your eye out on any of the ten sets of antlers from the taxidermied assortment of game. Men with cowboy hats and tight jeans regale women who have yellow teeth and waistlines just below their busts with stories about how their trusty steed got sick and they had to carry it to the nearest jiffy lube for some Authentic Californian veterinary services.

Anyway, after a glass of wine or two, we were seated and I was instructed by my companions to order from the “Oak Pit”. I ordered a cut of meat called the Small Spencer, again on the advice of my new family. Needless to say, I was a bit worried about the portion. I’m a big chittix and I need a big meal, you know. I was not disappointed, the meat was about twice the volume of the potato! And this wasn’t a dinky red potato, but a nice big brown idaho potato, the kind Spherx uses for his sexual experiments.  In addition to a MASSIVE steak, I was served salad, beans, garlic bread, and coffee and ice cream. The steak was prepared perfectly to order, not over or undercooked. This in itself is a miracle since the cut of meat in question was nearly 5 inches thick.

A normal person could get three square meals out of the amount of food I was served for just 21 dollars. An awesome value, great food, and an environment that encourages you to drink to your heart’s content. In all, a GREAT restaurant, I’ll be sure to return whenever I’m back in the area.