Spongy milky balls soaked in rose scented syrup

It’s been way too long since I’ve written. I’d like to apologize to my readers. Especially the loyal ones who have been with me since way back in the beginning, since the toast entry that put me on the map and sent ripples through the worldwide blog community. The fact is, as Safeguy mentioned in response to my last post, this blog has indeed become overrated.

The truth is I have commitment issues. I have blog commitment issues. But I’ve talked to a counselor, one who specializes in this sort of thing, and we’ve decided that it’s best if I give it another go. In the interest of doing so and getting some dialog started again, I decided to create a quick list of things that are either over or underrated, rather than to delve deeply into one issue. I really will start to write entries more regularly. And I’ve got some great topics in mind. But here it is, my short list with short commentary:

Chicago Style pizza – Overrated. People rave about this, but the fact is, it’s just not that great. I mean, I’ll eat Chicago style, but New York style has it beat hands down. When I eat pizza, I prefer to be able to eat a lot of it, not just one or two slices. Plus, I prefer to not have to wait 30 minutes for my pizza to be cooked. And inevitably it arrives a little doughy as well. I can’t be alone on this, either. There’s a reason it’s called “Chicago style pizza”, as opposed to just “pizza”. If it were so great, it would be everywhere. Sure, you can get it in most cities, but it’s still pretty rare. The one redeeming quality of Chicago style is the fact that putting the sauce on top of the cheese makes it a little less likely that you’ll burn the roof of your mouth on the cheese when you first bite into it.

Motorola – Overrated. I think a lot of people hate Motorola, but I think that the general population doesn’t quite hate them enough (that is, as much as I do). I have a KRZR, and it’s the worst phone I’ve ever owned. The battery lasts about an hour and a half of conversation time (but it starts beeping at me way before that). It has about a 3 second response time to me pressing a button. It has lots of fancy features none of which I can use without paying more money. Not too long ago I met some guy who works for Motorola. He's a likeable guy and I had nothing against him -- until I found out he worked for Motorola, that is. It’s hard to communicate my extreme dislike for this company. It’s too bad, because I like to see American companies do well, especially electronics companies. But sometimes you just have to let things die.

Sprint – Overrated. The fact that I have both a Motorola phone and use Sprint service is serious evidence supporting my lack of intelligence. Sprint’s prices are a little high, and there coverage isn’t so great, but my main problem with them is how you have to pay extra for everything, and there is very little flexibility. People send me picture mail, but I can’t see it. If I want to send a picture, in addition to paying more money, I have to first upload it to some online account. The ringtones on my phone are very cheesy, but I can’t download another one. And if I did it would have to be through sprint. I dislike sprint enough that I’m seriously considering breaking my agreement with them and paying $400. (That’s right, it’s $200 for EACH phone I have through them. They offered me an extra phone for free, which I took after asking several questions to try to figure out the catch. I called them a few times to set it up but it still doesn’t work. And now I have double the cancellation fee.)

Indian buffets – Underrated. Despite generally being liked by most people, I feel these are still underrated. Of course the quality ranges greatly from restaurant to restaurant, but if you find a good one, it’s hard to beat. Indian food in general is excellent, but the particularly nice aspect of buffets is the great variety of food it affords you. (Man, I need to eat some Indian food soon. Fearlessvk, you down?) The one bad thing about Indian buffets is that they typically skimp on the desert. What I mean by this is that they usually offer that rice pudding sort of desert, which is pretty good, but not nearly as good as those soggy honey balls they occasionally serve. Man, those soggy balls are so good they deserve their own mention.

Soggy Indian honey balls – Underrated. I just looked these up and apparently the actual name is gulab jamun (incidentally, I found this by googling “soggy Indian honey balls”). These are basically like they took doughnut holes, and soaked them in a sweet syrup, but they are stinking good. There’s nothing quite like a freshly prepared set of warm gulab jamun. It’s breathtaking. I suggest you try it.

Law and Order – Overrated. I don’t have too much to say about this. There have been way too many Law and Order derivatives. I haven’t watched many of them, but they ones I’ve seen have been underwhelming. I’d rather watch Matlock.

Boggle – Underrated. Peggy Hill can back me up on this one. It’s a great game. But maybe I only like it because I’m stinking good at it.

That will due for now. Let me know what y'all think.