Sampling Florida’s culinary delights

Love how pork is in really small letters here:

And I could wash it down with:

Or, if I wanted to spice things up a bit, I’d could use any of these:

Dimpled chads anyone?:

Well, we are in Florida after all, the reason George “I scraped bird shit off a fighter jet in Texas air national guard to avoid the draft” Bush is the supreme leader of the world.

But this last one, well, as usual, it is the best:

I’ve been searching for this for over five years. I saw it at some restaurant in Virginia forevers ago and unfortunately, didn’t take a picture of it. Now we are reunited and I am now the proud owner of a bottle of this substance. I am truly pathetic. Oh and a close up of the bottle? OK:

Perhaps they should have one called “Cheney’s Breathe?” Just a suggestion.

Must this haunt me, constantly?

Can I just never see this name again? Must this haunt me always? Here, alas, it was a store:

And what a store it was, selling some of the most delightfully, deliciously tacky things I have ever laid my eyes on:

Little known fact that Santa does in fact vacation in warmer climates. Who knew? After getting lost in the woods without his Nokia phone with the GPS, he needs to go somewhere warm, preferably where he gets to wear a grass skirt:

But I saved the absolute best for last. This was just, well, take a look:

Oh my god Florida, how did I not realize your wonders earlier? If it wasn’t illegal and if I wasn’t such a stick in the mud, I would have grabbed this thing and ran away with it. Its Santa in his summer clothes. OK. He’s in Florida, so he might have an alligator for a pet, if he’s I don’t know, crazy or something, but to me what puts this over the top is the alligator hat. I don’t know if this is actually “so bad that it is good” or so good that it is bad, or just plain good. I’m going with choice number three.

Cribs

One of my favorite shows is MTV Cribs, where you get to see the truly horrible/wonderful things people can do with money. OK, mostly horrible.

What always surprises me is how many people feature large paintings of the people who live in the house. They are invariably really tacky looking and I always wonder where you get such a thing. Well, going to delightful Florida, I found out. Seriously, poor Bishop Tutu:

I don’t feel sorry for whoever this is. They apparently wanted to be painted in the portrait equivalent of dogs playing pool:

These are enlarged digital photos that are painted on, slightly. I guess I made my photographing of these “works” “of” “art” too obvious, because I got shooed away from taking the pictures. I have no idea why. I mean I’m not going to ridicule them. Oh wait, I am.

But where am I experiencing this weird sunshine thing?

Sweden? Are you kidding? I don’t want to get frost bite. No, let’s spin the globe and go 5,160 miles to a place I swore I’d never set foot in — Florida. Why the bitterness? Well, here’s probably the first (and last) reference to my personal life — Cliff Benson. This name means nothing to almost anyone who reads this thing, so its fine. For 15 years, I swore I’d never set foot in that state because of that name up there. Perhaps though I was wrong, because it isn’t too bad there:

OK, yes, this isn’t what this really looks like. But it wasn’t too far off:

Yes, Florida. I give in to you.

Glorious Gastronomical Gluttony

Airline fuud. Never that good. The hunger, hits you hard on the plane and makes you want to eat almost anything. Even, uh, this thing:

This sandwich will receive the first zero I have ever awarded in my illustrious food reviewing career. OK, I subtracted three points (would have gotten a three otherwise) for the fiendish stealing of my bag. So, yeah, that sandwich. It looks better in the photo than it did in real life. That’s never happened here before. It was totally flavorless and didn’t even have mustard on it. Zero. Big fat zero, Lufthansa.

On the other hand, LTU did a bit better:

Looks like a 1950’s TV dinner. Wasn’t too bad though.

There was cheese:

It wasn’t bad. There was salad too:

It too wasn’t bad. The main dish:

I was hungry, so it probably improved the flavor, but I still give this whole thing a 7, which isn’t a high score, but its airline fuud, I mean food, so I have to again randomly change how I judge things. Oh Nigel, you look so sexy today!

The long journey home

Travel. Boring. Boring as hell, so I gotta find a way to amuse myself. And does it come as any surprise that the amusement comes from my lovely camera? Well, on my last flight home I decided to photograph almost all of it. I’m upset because I couldn’t get a shot of this 10 year old girl who gave me the stink eye for my entire time waiting on line to check my bags in Sweden. Here’s an approximation of what the ten year old’s stink eye looked like:

“You’re slipping red. That look used to scare me. The withering glance of the goddess.” Well, good I didn’t take the picture because my camera would have turned to stone.

Nevertheless, the journey had its highlights. We boarded on the tarmac:

Come on Lufthansa. Who am I? Brezhnev? Otto in the climactic ending scene of A Fish Called Wanda, when he is schooled by John Cleese’s character about the real outcome of the Vietnam War? Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevenge!

And, Lufthansa, bane of my existence, not only did I get to breathe in diesel fuel, but I got my backpack with my laptop taken away from me at the last second:

Herr Lufthansa employee assured me that this expensive appendage was safe and sound. Why was it taken away? Because there wasn’t enough space on the plane. My god, look at this plane, full of people:

Look here, barely any space:

And, check out this fat guy I got stuck next to:

No, I don’t have an imaginary friend. Lufthansa, uh, what? Do you have imaginary friends, that you see a full plane and I do not?

Well, never fear. Me and the bag were reunited, joyfully:

And of course, I got more random shots, of a random airport somewhere:

OK, OK, its Dusseldorf, Germany. Nice airport, featuring what I believe every airport should feature:

An H&M. I need another article of clothing like I need a hole in the head, but I went in anyway.

And then there is the little matter of this thing:

I was kinda worried, because the luggage check in lady in Sweden said “LTU? I’ve never heard of that.” Neither had I, but it turned out to be a real airline. In fact, Germany’s second largest after my luggage stealer. I write that because my “fan(s)” from that part of the world will fill me in on this if I didn’t write it here.

Anyway, it is a real airline and we flew in an actual plane:

This is one of these newer airline, so they give all kind of trinkets to keep people from going insane being stuck in that pressurized tin can for eight hours:

Ear plugs, face mask, mystery object. All things to make the flight just that much more pleasant.

Mystery object:

I stared at it and wondered what this could be? Flashlight? Something this ain’t that blog. No, its just this:

There was eating. There won’t be a photo, because that gets its own entry. My long time fan(s) have to know that.

And, the air travel gods were smiling on me:

Three empty seats. Three. My butt still fell asleep when I tried the regular sleeping. At least I didn’t have to contort myself into some kind of weird positions to go to sleep.

Oh and just as a bonus to close out this thrilling post. Helga and Hans are heading into the Schwarzwald to do god only knows what:

Ich liebe es!

OH MY GOD

What are those round disks with the points coming out of it? Could it be? Is it possible? Sunshine in the forecast for Sweden? It was such an event that people in the airport actually got up to take a closer look and make sure it was real.