I'm Not Alone

So I recently stumbled upon a pair of connected sites that have really made me feel good about my personal opinions. By now my readers (do I really have readers or just a few folks who check the site randomly) had better know who my least favorite band is. And I've always known that Nickelback is a critically panned group, but I always find amusement in the fact that there are a lot of other people just like me who not only hate them, but find new and creative ways to show their displeasure that a group like this even has the nerve to make money off their lack of talent.

First off, anti-Nickelback groups on Facebook aren't anything new. I became a fan recently of a group call "Not Listening to Nickelback." While I thought that was funny, I found my most recent discovery much better due to the fact that it not only has a Facebook group, but a related blog. The group is called "Can This Pickle Get More Fans than Nickelback?" And you've got it, the page is just a large picture of a pickle with a wall for people to post their dislike for Nickelback. The page has over 100,000 fans so far and is constantly growing!! I can't get over this, but then to top it all off someone (I'm guessing the creator of the page) began a blog on Blogspot to supplement the Facebook page. The link can be found here.

It's always nice to know when you are not the only one who has strong opinions about something. I began disliking Nickelback a long time ago, but in the past 6 months I have discovered a large support group online that has helped me know that I am one of hundreds of thousands of people who feel the same way. If only there could be this kind of support for people with real problems, our world would be a much better place.

On the Road Again

It's been several weeks now since I made the observations that inspired this post, but I found it somewhat interesting noticing some differences between St. Louis and Louisville the last time I was in St. Louis. I got to spend a full week in St. Louis in December for the first time in several years, and it was hard not to make comparisons. This time, my observations concern some things I notice while driving the highways in St. Louis.

The first major observation I noticed was that the highways in St. Louis are much more crowded than those in Louisville. I'm not talking just during rush hour (which I generally avoided) but throughout most hours of the afternoon and the night. You can drive stretches of the urban highways in Louisville and not have a car next to you or in front or behind you for several hundred yards and that's nothing strange. But if you're driving in St. Louis, you will generally be driving in close quarters with several other cars. I always talk badly about Louisville because I say that rush hour lasts roughly 5 hours in the evenings because there's only one way to get anywhere, but I have to say that it is much easier driving the highways in Louisville generally. I noticed the crowd in St. Louis the most because you always have to be very careful changing lanes since there will be so many cars close to you. You have to start thinking about getting into exit lanes far in advance. In Louisville, you can change lanes during the early afternoon and late evening and night almost without thinking and be perfectly safe. I'm sure the size of the cities plays some role in this (even though officially Louisville is larger than St. Louis in terms of population, but I'll get into that later). However, St. Louis is also much more spread out than Louisville, so I don't know what is the true cause.

Something about the highways in St. Louis that I really enjoy (using the term enjoy loosely) is the exit signs. As you're driving on any highway, signs list the distance to the next 3 exits. I've always found this to be very helpful because if you're unsure of where you're going, the signs alert you well in advance of exits. Depending on where you're at, you'll know what exits you'll hit for the next 5 miles. In Louisville, you generally get notifications of the next exit, and these notifications start at just under 2 miles. Now there are some exceptions, namely driving on I-265 in some places where exits are spread out several miles apart. In these cases, you are told the next exit as well as the next 1-2 interstates you will hit (sometimes they are listed as 15 miles away). But generally, exit signs are given only for the next exit. I guess I always took the 3-exit notifications for granted in St. Louis.

A final thought I had was a burning questions from childhood that was answered when I came to Louisville. When you are driving in St. Louis, state highway signs are marked with the highway number being placed inside a white outline of the state of Missouri. I always wondered as a child if all states did this. Of course, thinking about this I imagined these signs would look strange in states like Tennessee and Kentucky because of their long shapes. Anyway, in Kentucky, as in most other states, state highways are shown within a white circle. Pretty boring if you ask me. Imagine what a state highway sign in Hawaii would look like if the used the state outline. Just a thought.

I'll end this with a notification that this summer, plans are in the works to take on a test of endurance and will power that should far surpass my infamous staying awake for 101 hours quest. I may or may not post a story about this on here when and if it happens, but suffice it to say that if I complete this, I believe I will join a club more rare and exclusive than those who have stayed awake for 100 hours. I'm very excited at this prospect.

The Fox Rocks (Or Does It)?

Ok, I know I've posted about radio stations before but I've gotten very frustrated with what I once proclaimed was the best radio station in Louisville, 93.1 The Fox. It used to be a decent station because it mixed classic and new rock with a pretty even split. They also had Mandatory Metallica every night at 6:00. And their playlist was large. Well guess what? The station seemed to have sold out. And even worse...it's still the best station in Louisville.

The biggest problem I have is they got rid of Mandatory Metallica!! I don't know if they changed times or something, but as far as I know, it's gone completely. So now they very rarely play Metallica, and what songs they do play seem to be limited to "Nothing Else Matters." I refuse to make this excellent song turn into for me what "Sweet Child of Mine" has...a fantstic, but grossly overplayed radio song.

And speaking of overplayed radio songs, The Fox has become a terrible culprit of playing the same few songs into the ground. Their playlist seems to have shrunk to nearly nothing. And their most-played songs (or what I call their "Top 3") only change every few months. And these songs generally tend to be true pieces of shit. Right now there is a very clear Top 3, with 4-7 or so being close on their tail (Yeah, there's also a Top 7). But the Top 3 stick out because of the horrendous rate at which they are played. So I'm sure by now you're asking what these Top 3 fantastic songs are, that are so good that they need to be pounded into our eardrums at a rate of roughly 1.5 per hour (meaning I personally believe that if you listened to The Fox for 24 hours, you would hear these 3 songs in some combination a total of 36 times). I would actually love to put this theory to the test if I had the time.

As for the songs, here they are in no particular order: "Uprising" by Muse, "Panic Switch" by Silversun Pickups, and "Kings and Queens" by 30 Seconds to Mars. How are those for winners? Not one of these songs has any redeeming value. I have no idea how they got to be so popular because I put each of these in the same boat as any music by Nickelback. Speaking of Nickelback, did I never do a full post on how much I hate them? I meant to do that a long time ago. Hmmm...

But I digress. I have to tell you, that as I was writing this post I was streaming the Fox online, and I was fortunate to hear "Uprising" during my time writing. That gave me some more motivation to write. Actually, right now they're playing another of their top 7 or so, "Just Breathe" by Pearl Jam. That probably ranks about 5 or 6 right now. But of the top 7 songs, the only one that's really any good is "Savior" by Rise Against. I don't know why I like this song so much, but I think it's damn good. Anyone can disagree with me, but I enjoy that tune.

To finish off, I have to go back to those Top 3 songs and make the comment that not only are the songs terrible, but how the FUCK did these groups come up with their band names?? These are some of the worst band names I've ever heard. I mean, I guess band names in general are pretty strange, but seriously, Muse, 30 Seconds to Mars....Silversun Pickups?!?!?!? Go onto their Wikipedia page and read their explanation...idiots. At least Rise Against had a pretty decent band name...I wonder if that band name and the song "Savior" would hold up if The Fox played good music. I guess I'll never know. But despite all of this, I'll still listen to The Fox because it is, what I like to call "The Least Shitty of Them All."

Not Just Steak Any Longer

I imagine anyone who has been to a Steak 'n Shake in the past 12 months or so has noticed the sweeping changes that have been made to the menu. As far as I can recall, Steak 'n Shake had the same menu from the time I was a child until about a year or a year and a half ago. However, now if you go in there, the menu items are entirely different.

Fortunately, the number of steak burger and melt varieties is close to the same, as well as the chili variety. However, now they offer a vast array of other selections, some good and others not so good. I remember as a kid you had your choice of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry milkshakes. In my teenage years, they added chocolate chip, cookies 'n cream, and a few other flavors. Now there's something in the range of 8,000 (probably an exaggeration) different varieties of milkshake, if you include the side-by-side shakes. And that's just the beginning.

Who the hell thought of putting hot dogs on the menu?? Now, I guess I shouldn't judge until I've tried them, but they have something like 10 different types of hot dogs, most of which weren't available last time I was in there. I mean, the menu keeps changing!! Just today I saw about 6 items on the menu marked as "New."

Another big one on the menu is the "Shooters." Are tiny burgers the new fad in food distribution? I don't know where these things started, but you can now get mini burgers at just about any restaurant, even KFC!! I have to admit the "New" buffalo shooters are damn good. I've been on a buffalo kick lately. I've had probably 15 "buffalo" themed meals in the past 2 weeks. I can't get enough of the stuff. So when I saw the buffalo shooters on the menu, I had to get 2 of them. So right now, I have 2 buffalo shooters, a ketchup and onion shooter, an order of fries, and 2 Cheesy Gordita Crunches in my stomach. I can't wait until tomorrow.

So anyway, is the new menu a good thing or a bad thing? Personally, I think it's a bit strange, and Steak 'n Shake definitely doesn't feel the same as it did when I was a kid, or even when I was a teenager. I've also done a bit of research and found out that Steak 'n Shake is planning on vastly expanding its franchise availability in the next 5 years, so we may see these new, different Steak 'n Shakes popping up all over the country. In closing, I have to admit, the food is still pretty good if you're in the mood for a sit-down fast food type atmosphere.