Continuing with my theme for this week, here are my top ten fast food chains, as far as burgers are concerned. And note that I have only lived in So. Cal and Central Texas, with a few years in Japan.

1. In-n-Out (Double Double)
2. Fatburger (Egg Burger)
3. Carl’s Jr. (Famous Star w/ Cheese)
4. Sonic Drive-in (Supersonic Jalapeño Cheeseburger)
5. Wendy’s (Classic Double w/ Cheese)
6. Burger King (Texas Burger)
7. Whataburger
8. Jack in the Box
9. Dairy Queen (Belt-Buster)
10. McDonald’s (Big Mac)

Honorable mention goes to Mos Burger (Japan and Hawaii) for their yummy burgers and dogs, including the rare “Nan-curry Dog”. Mmmmm….

This morning on my way to work, I drove by the Wendy’s and I noticed that they had a new fluorescent advertisement in their window. It was for their new “Wild Mountain” menu. Now, what in the world could that be? Porcupine burgers? Pinecone soup? You gotta hand it to them for coming up with an interesting name. It might actually get me into a Wendy’s just out of curiousity. (I do like their burgers, as far as fast-food is concerned) The new menu sounds much better than their other “Tuscan” menu. I am not sure what Tuscan food is, or even if it resembles anything that people in Tuscany eat. Maybe some kind of herb-chicken thing?… I think it sounds a little too elitist for me. I’d rather feast on Wild Mountain fare.

I did a little research, and found that Wendy’s and Baja Fresh are owned by the same company, while there is a similar alliance between Carl’s Jr./Hardees and La Salsa/Green Burrito, not to mention the McDonald’s – Chipotle axis of evil… It’s kind of bizarre to see certain fast-food restaurants actually share the same building too. There’s an A&W/Long John Silver’s near our place, and you see lots of Pizza Hut/Taco Bell combinations along the highways too. I guess it makes sense for the company to do that, and it does make it more convenient for the consumer too.

Some good stuff this week at The Onion, including this story entitled infograph, “Prehistoric Discoveries” is also pretty funny.

Here’s an interesting site. It shows the average IQ’s of the 50 states, and how the states voted in the 2004 presidential election. Fascinating….

I was watching “The Empire Strikes Back” and listening to the commentary, and I noticed just how nicely shot this film is. Of course it is widescreen, and I noticed that the main subject/characters in each scene were rarely in the center. In fact, it seemed that they were positioned well off-center. In photography, there is the “rule of thirds” in which you divide the frame up like a tic-tac-toe game, and place the subjects at one of the four intersections. I wonder if that applies to movies as well. At any rate, they did a wonderful job with Empire, especially the scenes on Dagobah.

I did a little searching on the Internet about aspect ratios of film and came across “The Letterbox and Widescreen Advocacy Page”. They describe the aspect ratios of the different lenses and companies, such as Cinemascope and Panavision. They also show have examples of movies in their original widescreen format compared with edited pan-and-scan formats, and it really illustrates how much gets chopped off when you view the full-screen version of a movie. Check out the examples of “Star Wars” and another classic, “Escape from New York”. I always buy the widescreen versions of dvd’s whenever I can. It’s a much more enjoyable way to view a movie, in my opinion.

Click here to see a great flash movie that perfectly explains the difference between widescreen and pan-and-scan full-screen.

I was trying to write my signature on a piece of paper to scan into my computer, but I couldn’t do it. It was really weird. I tried about a dozen times and I couldn’t make it look like it is supposed to look like. That hasn’t ever happened to me before. I remember when were closing on our house, and had I had to sign about 20 papers, towards the end, my signature was starting to look all screwed up (more than normal). But I was just getting tired at that point, so it’s not the same thing.

Anyways, you can see what I came up with last night by clicking here. I am not worried about putting it on the Internet, because the signature I linked to has only a tiny resemblance to my real one. And I just wrote my signature now, and it is back to normal.

Saw this on cnnsi.com today and had to comment on it. For some reason, I don’t like baseball caps that stick up high like the photo above. Some people like it like that, I don’t. It just looks too damn big. I also don’t like caps that look like they are balanced on top of the head and show too much forehead. The cap should cover most of the forehead. And the brim of the cap needs to have a strong curve. I like the “snug cap look” like the way Eric Gagne wears his:

As for me, I love to wear baseball caps, but it has been difficult to find any that fit good. It’s much easier to find the “tall and proud” type that Eric Karros sports below.

But last year I found a brand that fits me pretty good. I have several caps now: Dodgers, Astros (hey, it’s the closest MLB team to me), Padres (the friar is too cool), and Angels. They are all old-style replica caps. The Astros is from 1965, Padres from 1969, and Angels from 1971.

Here’s a cap sported by Raul Mondesi that has it all: it’s too tall, sits too high on his forehead, and doesn’t have enough curve:

And Drysdale’s cap is just plain weird:

Jeff Weaver’s cap is a difficult one. He’s got a good curve of the brim, it’s pulled down over the forehead to give the nice “shadowed eyes” look, but the top of the cap has a strange wrinkled look. Not unpleasant, a little refreshing actually:

And finally, Derek Lowe wore his cap the “correct” way during the playoffs this year:

That dude who broke the Jeopardy record is still going! Can you believe that? I figured he had lost a while ago. Apparently he has just set the record for game-show winnings. Freaking unbelievable!

It’s getting “cold” here in Central Texas, so we decided to make a big pot of Japanese-style curry last night. It was very oishi, with chicken, potatos, and mushrooms. Served over a generous serving of steamed rice, it’s a perfect meal. Accompany that with a cold beer, and you are in heaven! I love all kinds of curry, but I particularly like Japanese curry rice. There are many different variations of it. Of course there is the degree of spiciness, but also sweet curry (kid’s curry) too. I don’t like it too sweet, but now we make curry for Bay also, so it’s a little sweet, and we have to put chili powder on at the table.

Later this season, we will make another cold-weather favorite: oden. I love oden with mini-sausages in it. And lots of hot mustard (karashi) too. Mariko sent me a link to an oden recipe from Whole Foods, which surprised me. But it’s very cool that they are posting a recipe to a great Japanese dish!