Burger Lab: Experiment #1

This past week, I had a burger craving. I didn't want a fast food burger, and I didn't want to put up the scratch for a burger at one of the classier joints here in town, so I decided to Build-A-Burger. Kroger is just a five minute walk from our apartment, so I took a trip to pick up a few of the necessary items. I stuck to the basics: Kroger-brand hamburger buns, 73% lean ground beef, and Kraft Deluxe American singles.

I considered truly making this an experiment, grabbing what spices and ingredients I could find in our tiny kitchen and infusing it with the ground beef. I'd made Ernest Hemingway's manburger a few months back, but the recipe called for all things exotic in the land of the burger like red wine and relish. But, like all good experiments, I needed a control group first. I went completely plain.

No salt, no pepper. Nothing at all in the burger patty except the meat itself. I formed three patties out of the one pound of hamburger meat. Two I wrapped in parchment paper and placed in Ziploc bags in the freezer. The third was mine that day.

Spraying down a thin layer of canola oil on a skillet, I let it heat at medium-high. As soon as I dropped the uncooked meat onto the skillet, the sizzle let me know I was in business. Four minutes seemed an ample time to let it cook on one side. Then I remembered the inherent problem with using the skillet: the hot splash of grease that bursts forth like a small stinging fountain. Spots of sepia dotted the white surface of the stove, forming a silhouette around the pan. I cleaned as I went, unable to cover it because there was no lid for the skillet. I was focused--determined to cook a basic burger.

Four minutes up and I flipped the burger with difficulty. My spatula did not slide under the burger as easily as I had imagined it would, so it pushed it up to the edge. Pangs of panic shot through me as I dreaded pushing the half-cooked patty onto the stove, causing further mess and inconvenience. Finally, I gritted my teeth and used my free hand to negotiate the patty onto my spatula, hot needles poking at my skin.

Four more minutes. Almost home. The outside was black and brown, but mostly black from the skillet. I wondered if it wasn't as cooked as I had hoped. I wondered if I'd be missing a day or two of work because of a burger blunder. What joy.

Three minutes in and I took a slice of cheese I had at the ready and blanketed the burger's naked surface in processed yellow. Heat made the slice wrap itself tighter across the surface, almost to the point where the four corners touched the pan. By that point, the final minute passed and it was time to enjoy the product of my labors. Bun opened, I lay the burger down. Juices ran down the bottom half of the bun. The top half set itself on top like it was destined to stay there. I dug in.

The charred black from the skillet made the burger crunchy but not inedible. I saw that the burger was pink but reasonably cooked, so it was unlikely to cause me much grief in the following days. Overall, I was satisfied. I'm easy to please when it comes to my burgers. But there is more to be done in burger science, a frontier not yet fully discovered.

Chris Evans' Beard is Neatly Trimmed in the Post-Apocalypse: A Review of Snowpiercer

Let's play Count the Hatchets.

I often gauge the quality of a movie on how much it keeps me from breathing. The death of brain cells from lack of oxygen might play into that, but this is not a self-diagnosis of brain damage. To get lost in a movie so deeply so as to forget to do such an involuntary action as taking a breath is a hell of a thing to experience. It's a reminder that you're watching something special, maybe even important.

Snowpiercer is special. Usually when a movie captivates me so fully, it happens midway through. Peckinpah's Straw Dogs stopped my breathing in its final act as Dustin Hoffman defends his domicile from the horde of angry drunken Englishmen. The Evil Dead remake of 2013 had a similar effect. The original Old Boy's famed hallway fight didn't even let me blink. Intensity that locks you in and refuses to release you until it decides--that's what these movies share. That's what Snowpiercer has. And a lot more.

Snowpiercer is the marriage of South Korean film sensibilities and French graphic literature. Director Bong Joon-ho, best known for his monster-movie-with-a-message The Host, extracts some fine performances from Chris Evans, Octavia Butler, and Jamie Bell. All of whom play passengers damned to the back of the train carting the remnants of humanity for eternity. Song Kang-ho, lead from The Host, and Go Ah-sung portray a father-daughter pair of drug addicts. Their relationship is genuine and heartwarming without verging onto the sentimental. The strongest performance by far comes from the villainous mouthpiece for the front of the train--the upper crust of society--played by Tilda Swinton. She brings a religious zeal to her character that really drives home the idea that there's a spiritual necessity for an established class system.

It is in this class system we find our strongest conflict: back vs. front, lower class vs. upper class. Out of this conflict, we get some mesmerizing fight sequences. The progression almost plays out like a video game: the ragtag group of caboose dwellers must make their way through several train cars, each one with a different purpose and aesthetic. Their first destination? A prison car. The next? The water treatment car. The further up the line, the cleaner and brighter the cars get. The contrast between rear and front emphasize that the front folk live in a facade, completely oblivious to the plight of the rear.

The first push towards the front immediately reminded me of Old Boy's hallway fight: tight quarters and improvised weapons. Only here, the close quarters are emphasized with tight shots convulsing with the train rumble and the desperate push towards control. Here's where I stopped breathing. The tension builds as we see the characters go through a routine we've already seen play out twice. We know things are a little different as they've dragged barrels out from the rear. When the timing is right, the revolt goes off like a short fuse.

There is some philosophical meat to chew on, and nothing terribly subtle. Thinly-veiled allusions to order and necessary placement appear as if they're meant for meditation but in truth feel more like glorified elements of foreshadowing. That's not to say that they're intellectually unstimulating. In spite of their overt presentation, the ideas of class and order are expressed in bleak but uncertain terms. In keeping with a dystopian spirit, those in control may be brutal but not completely malevolent; they believe in order and its need to keep things in line. It's hard to sympathize with those at the top, but we're not meant to.

In accordance with the Netflix method of rating movies, I give Snowpiercer four stars ( * * * * ), meaning, "I really liked it."

A Tale of Two Snakes: Adjusting to a New Voice from an Old Face

To complain about Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes' length would be to beat a dead horse, so I won't even bother to pick up a club. It's a tight game, one that's pushed the series further from top-down sneak 'em up gameplay to tactical shooter mechanics that rivals most military shooters on console. The story is compelling, and they waste no opportunities in terms of getting you up to speed. Didn't play side-story game Peace Walker? That's alright. The loading screens are rife with context. Not that it will do you much good. This is a Metal Gear Solid game, after all.

That being said, what little story you do get is good. It's intense. It's much darker than its predecessors, even more so than Metal Gear Solid 4's theme of an aging soldier who may or may not be knocking on death's door. You get some unexpected social commentary with Guantanamo Bay stand-in Camp Omega. All in all, it's clear that Metal Gear Solid is doing some growing up. 

To amp up the maturity levels, Hideo Kojima sought out some Hollywood talent for his cast of battle-hardened characters. Enter Jack Bauer himself: Kiefer Sutherland. The growly son of Donald now voices Snake as opposed to fan favorite David Hayter who, for many people, is the voice of Snake, whether Solid Snake or papa Naked Snake. A lot of folks weren't happy, especially Mr. Hayter himself, and understandably so: Hayter's gravelly intonation was Solid Snake. It only got more gruff when Solid Snake aging sped up in MGS 4, and it felt right. Hayter is Snake.

It's jarring to see the face of a character who is recognizable, regardless of polygon count or texture detail, but instead hear the voice of another, a voice that doesn't quite fit. For over fifteen years, gamers have consistently had the same voice for Solid Snake since his delivery unto a 3D canvas. Why change it now?

It's already evident that MGS V is a game of change. The game is a transition for the main character from protagonist to antagonist. Already, there's a tonal shift between MGS V and its predecessors. In spite of its depressing content, MGS 4 keeps the razors from the wrists with moments of the comedic and bizarre. A gun dealer who looks oddly like Dennis Rodman in Simon Sez with a pet monkey in silver hot pants? MGS 4 is abound with Koijma-san's signature quirk. In the brief window of MGS V, we don't get that with the exception of his Frankenstein-esque, anachronistic iDroiD, but even that is easy to overlook. No guardsmen with diarrhea, no roller skating grenadiers. For a Hideo Kojima production, it's all very straight-forward. 

This is a prequel, of course. Post-origin story, pre-epitaph. This is us seeing Anakin tossed into the lava pit. This is us seeing the hero become the villain. We need to see why Naked Snake becomes Big Boss and why Big Boss becomes hellbent on renouncing his allegiances with private army and a giant robot. Heavy moments are bound to happen. Kojima needs an actor who can handle some emotional weight, and disappointingly maybe Hayter's not cut out for it. 

It's still weird, though. It's like seeing a friend you knew as a kid but didn't see again until after puberty struck: voice is deeper and attitude is different. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it's for damn sure a weird thing. Kiefer Snake is definitely different from Hayter's Naked Snake. Kiefer Snake's seems more haunted, more weighed down by crises. I need more time with Kiefer Snake, but Ground Zeroes is, by all means, a glorified demo. 

Wondering About Wiz: A Review of Todd English P.U.B. in Birmingham, AL

Todd English P.U.B. in Birmingham, AL, is attached to a Westin Hotel, which is in turn attached to a Sheraton (which we stayed at). A whole cluster of city blocks are connected by veins of skywalks, no doubt to shelter travelers from the sweltering summer sun of the American South. Because we refused to expose ourselves to the heat after a productive day of sightseeing and museum meandering, we had few choices: Casey’s Sports Bar and Grill, the Atrium Café, or Todd English P.U.B. Casey’s looked hopelessly bland and the Atrium Café looked rich for our blood. So, we navigated the labyrinthine corridors that led from our hotel room on the 15th floor of the Birmingham Sheraton to the very trendy Todd English P.U.B adjacent to the Westin’s lobby.

My first impression of the P.U.B was tainted by the presence of what I imagined was a wedding rehearsal dinner—tables guarded by wine glasses, guests in business casual attire, the nervous atmosphere of a time before the knot gets tied. It elevates a location to a level of sophistication it otherwise doesn’t enjoy. When we returned the next day to dine, I saw behind the curtain.

Now you might notice that not only pub an acronym. If your next question is "Why?", take comfort in knowing that much of this review will be spent on meditating that very question with regards to the aesthetic and philosophy of the restaurant itself. First thing’s first, though: let’s talk about that name.

"Todd English P.U.B." is no doubt a play on the phrase "English pub." But it’s taken a step further. No longer is pub just a word, but now it’s an acronym that stands for Public Urban Bar. Now, any English major or anglophile worth their salt can tell you that pub is a shortening of the term public house. Bar here now just seems redundant since a bar tends to be a necessary factor in a pub setting. Urban, it seems, is unexplainable. I suppose it is located in an urban environment, but there isn’t anything about this place that is distinctly urban. Oh wait. The servers wore T-shirts. Maybe that was the urban element.

The interior decorating doesn’t shout urban, unless urban can be interpreted as an American imagining of an idyllic pub in the United Kingdom. It doesn’t have to be England. It could be Scotland. Hell, why not Ireland? We have a couple of fake dartboards painted on sheets of metal that appear to have dents on them. That’s like an English pub, right? They do darts. Or how about our placemats? We put a bunch of quotes because we’re intellectual, too. We printed them in old-looking typefaces because that’s what an English pub’s printed quotes would look like: fresh off the Gutenberg printing press.

I'm not a stickler on service. You can insult my lineage back to medieval Poland and if you give me good food, I'll still give you a tip. But the service that evening in Todd English P.U.B. was, to borrow very English, very trendy terms, shite and bollocks. After we were sat, we waited a good while before we were asked for our drink orders. In the interim, we subsisted on the complimentary cup of popcorn that the hotel compound seemed hellbent on serving to everyone and Sam left to get ibuprofen from the lobby of the Westin. She took said ibuprofen and returned in time to join me in a game of "Who's Our Server?" in which we craned our necks to figure out who the culprit was. Waiters and waitresses all buzzed by our table avoiding eye contact. It was like Clue except ideally we'd be fed in the end and not dead.

The menu was a collection of modernized pub favorites--burgers, tacos, et cetera--but given that special Todd English touch. What that Todd English touch is I can't quite tell you except pretentiously presented bland food boldly branded with TE before the title. Feeling some Mexican food? Try our TE Tacos. What makes the TE Tacos? They have "wiz." Cheese Whiz but not all share the wiz that makes the TE Tacos oh so TE. A few items are simply branded with Todd's name, like "Todd's Fish & Chips." It's got aioli, just like the TE Tacos, so maybe I'm getting somewhere.

I'm a simple man with simple tastes, so I forewent anything with Todd or TE attached to its name. I ordered the “Pub Burger,” which surprisingly wasn’t the “P.U.B. Burger” in a rare show of restraint for the establishment. An old standard, the fanciest things about it were its “brioche bun” and “fatty fries” (or potato wedges, as we plebes call them). The server asked me if I wanted cheese or bacon. I voted both, with a choice of cheddar. When our food arrived (timely, surprisingly enough), I was presented with my burger atop not a plate but a wooden paddle shaped like a cricket bat with a piece of parchment paper to cover the surface. Cricket bats, as you might be aware, are narrow, not the optimal space to eat anything on at all. Fatty fries came in a small metal pail like one might put peanuts in. The burger was underwhelming, even more so given its $12 price tag. Never before had I been so bored with a burger with bacon on it. I found myself getting distracted by the toppings, thinking that maybe they were to blame for the burger’s poor performance. In truth, it was that “8oz. all beef patty” itself. What happened? I whispered to the burger before I finished it. Expectedly, I received no response.

Zach Braff and His Cannibalized Kickstarted Movie Clone

Sheldon skips a couple centuries for this one.

I rented Garden State during a lonely period in my life. It got me into the Shins and indie comedies that weren’t 100% ha-ha. I connected with Andrew Largeman, Zach Braff’s emotionally numbed protagonist, or at least envied his medically induced serenity. At the time, I counted it among my favorite movies, somewhere between any Tarantino movie and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I haven’t watched it since.

I remember the trailers for it. The goofy daydreaming doctor on Scrubs made a movie and it was quirkfest with Natalie Portman as MPDG. It had a quiet quirkiness that made it alluring to the misfit who wants nothing more than to seal their ears in headphones, listening to acoustic rock from the Pacific Northwest.

A little over a year ago, Braff caused an uproar by coming out and asking fans to fund his next movie via Kickstarter. The beef most people had about it was, “Why’s Hollywood coming in and asking for some money for a movie?” The assumption was that, if the movie needed to be made, Braff himself had the connections to ring in Hollywood or indie investors and make it happen. The way it looks, he did but he needed some extra scratch to boost the production up. It looks like he succeeded. Enter the trailer for the movie.


When I first saw it, I had forgotten it had existed. Seeing Braff’s mug yelling “Dammit!” at the beginning of the trailer gave me hope. And slowly that hope slipped from my fingers. The Shins jangling on acoustic with some melodic woo-wooing immediately evoked Braff’s last effort; indeed, many credit him for growing the Shins’ audience, so it’s understandable that he’d throw them a bone again—or they’d throw him one. It’s not clear just yet. And then we get a slow motion shot of children running down a road while James Mercer’s singing confirms any suspicions you might’ve had that the Shins were doing the soundtrack. Not a terrible thing to hear, mind you.

But then half of the spoken lines in the trailer hit the rim but never quite make it through the basket. As Braff’s character learns that his father’s going to be “laid up” for a while and needs someone to watch his dog, he laments, “There’s so much bad news, all at once.” It could be his delivery or the maudlin importance of the words themselves, but comes in like a speed bump. And then Braff tells his daughter to pick a wig that is “unique and amazing—like you,” as if he wants us to remember weirdo Natalie Portman with a fetish for the unique in Garden State.

It doesn’t stop there. Kate Hudson drops the truth bomb about how “Your boys will remember this time for the rest of their lives. It will shape who they are as men.” Braff serves up a truth taco to younger bro Josh Gad: “We both spent our entire lives wishing we could be something great. And now we’re finally called upon to do something that requires some actual bravery.” And then, to ice the truth cake, Braff says, “When we were kids, by brother and I used to pretend that we were heroes—the only ones who could save the day. But maybe we’re just the regular people, the ones who get saved.” Again, it may all just be the way the lines are delivered—with more gravitas than the words deserve. But it’s ham-fisted.

Finally, it hit me: I’ve seen a lot of this before. The Shins soundtrack, “unique and amazing” people, Zach Braff as a struggling actor with dad issues, people shouting at the elements, Jim Parsons in period garb—he’s done recycled his first movie. It’s one thing to say that Zach Braff has a distinctive flavor to his work, but from what it looks like just from the trailer, it’s all he’s got. I don’t think I’ve got the taste for it anymore.

It’s unfair to dismiss the film as a Garden State for the West Coast, trading suburban New Jersey for glitzy LA, based solely on the trailer. But for a moment, I wondered if there might be merit to the tired Hollywood method of film production. Could the fact that the script is fifty shades of meh be the reason why he couldn’t secure more funds in Hollywood? They churn out crap by the shovelful, but they know their audience. They’re not targeting the art house crowd with a Katherine Heigl flick. Who’s Zach Braff’s audience? Maybe it's not me anymore. His fans gave him money, so surely them at least. But others? Maybe it will be crap. But to those who funded it, it will be unique and awesome crap.

Late to the Party: Knights of the Old Republic II

No eyes, glowing eyes, lightsabers...oh baby.

I played Knights of the Old Republic long after its original release. Despite its wonky controls and my lack of game mechanical understanding, its plot grasped me. It has one of the most baller twists at its climax. The writing is pretty good and its voice acting is very good. It's Star Wars. You are a Jedi. The fact that BioWare--the Canadian developer responsible for Mass Effect--made it didn't hurt, either.

I knew KOTOR had a sequel, and I knew that sequel wasn't the work of BioWare but Obsidian, a developer known for its veteran management team comprised of the brains behind critically lauded Planescape: Torment and the first two Fallout game--all of which known for their excellent storytelling. Unfortunately, Obsidian is not known for its original IPs: to date, only two of their released games are non-sequels: Alpha Protocol and South Park: The Stick of Truth, the former being a misfire of a good idea and the latter being a pretty good game.

"Buggy" doesn't necessarily denote "bad," however, as between Obsidian's bug fest Fallout: New Vegas and Bethesda's bug casual get-together Fallout 3, I got more enjoyment out of Fallout: New Vegas. Part of my appreciation of New Vegas stems from a better understanding of its mechanics and a better understanding of role playing games in general, so I can't give Obsidian all the credit. But their writing did keep me going.

And so far, the writing of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has been compelling, maybe even more so than the original KOTOR. The dialogues between the player character and NPC Kreia contemplate the role of the Jedi in the Old Republic and what purpose they serve, rather than reduce the Jedi to merely the side of good as the films are wont to do. The previous game is even referred back to, even though The Sith Lords isn't a strict continuation of the original's story. The fate of KOTOR's player character is discussed by characters, and KOTOR II's player character can even speculate what happened.

It's a minor thing, but such writing allows for the player to rewrite the mythology of a game, even if they previously rewrote the mythology themselves. We don't get that sort of writing often, though it may be the product of KOTOR II's being a sequel to a game by another studio. The fact that they didn't produce the original didn't give them a strong enough attachment to characters and locations to just let The Sith Lords be KOTOR: The Next Chapter. That wouldn't be a bad thing, but dispensing with the old allows for new worlds to be trod.

Not all of the old is dispensed with in The Sith Lords, however. Characters from the original make appearances, but they make room for new characters. I got a warm feeling seeing these characters, then an immediate chill because I don't know what happened to them and the game hasn't told me yet. Still, it's all a comforting callback while letting us go elsewhere.

I am not done with KOTOR II. So far, I've had an easier time with it since its mechanics are distantly based on Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules, which I now get. Mysterious NPC Kreia intrigues me with her unknown origins and hood pulled down so it obscures her eyes. Blaster noises make me giddy. I still need a lightsaber. Six hours in, I still look forward to what's left.

The Burger Town Manifesto

In the beginning was the hamburger, and it was good. In its simplest form, it consists of a disc of ground beef called a patty comfortably placed between a halved roll of bread called the bun. The patty and bun are required for the formation of the hamburger. The addition of cheese transforms the combination into a cheeseburger. The hamburger and cheeseburger are fundamentally different as the latter intermingles cheese and meat. Additional ingredients can be added such as onion, tomato, pickle, fried egg, bacon, and lettuce--all glued together with a paste of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, or barbecue sauce.

These ingredients do not fundamentally change the cheeseburger. A woman who has her burger dragged through the garden is still eating the same burger as the woman with only mustard and ketchup on hers. At its core, the cheeseburger remains a simple combination of meat and bread and cheese but the types of meat and bread are what set the hamburger apart from a boring ham sandwich. French fries accompany the burger as an iconic side, and while the burger is still a burger without French fries, it looks happier with deep fried potato comrades.

Burgers are universally available. One can purchase a burger anywhere from Fast Food corporate giants McDonald's and Burger King to smaller regional chains like the West's In-n-Out Burger and the Midwest-based White Castle. Independent establishments, or Mom and Pop places, serve burgers of substantial quality for a slightly higher premium compared to the franchised restaurants whose meat and bread come prepared by a factory. Fancy or gourmet restaurants who serve sophisticated clientele serve their own burgers for their pickier guests. If none of that satisfies the hunger, one can simply buy their own meat and prepare it to their preference.

I argue there is a hierarchy to the burger and it is based on the simplicity of the burger itself and its ease of preparation. At the top stands the independent, the Mom and Pop place whose influence stretches no further than its city limits or even its own parking lot. These establishments eschew the online or televised advertising for the oldest form of media: word of mouth. Some places struggle, and worse so, others become complacent. But rarely does the quality of the burger itself suffer. These burgers are handcrafted by a worker of the restaurant or the meat market from which the meat is ordered. Though they make many, they are not mass produced. There is no opportunity for additives or preservatives to be injected into the burger. The burger is barely tampered with from cow to Styrofoam container.

Just below the top sits the Fast Food restaurants. The quality of their burgers will never exceed those of the top tier, but their philosophy keeps them above the bottom. Speed and cheapness are the hammer and sickle of Fast Food. They are cousins to many of the Mom and Pop joints in the sense that the hamburgers are to be made as quickly as safely possible and sold as cheaply as economically viable. While the quality of the product may differ significantly, most Fast Food restaurants have no illusions about what their product is. In their advertisements, they may apply makeup on a burger to make it more aesthetically pleasing, but they know that once the baited customer enters t heir store after witnessing a near-pornographic hamburger commercial, they're not going to complain that their Hefty Burger w/ Bacon doesn't look exactly as it did on TV. Both the restaurant and the customer have identical expectations, even if they are low.

At the bottom of the hierarchy sits the fancy restaurant with their Gourmet burger. Here sit the liars, the charlatans, the snake burger salesmen who believe they can justify charging at least $15 for a burger because everything else on the menu costs at least $20. They follow the formula to a T: meat and bread. They also mutate it.

The bun is not a standard hamburger bun but an artisanal brioche roll baked in our adobe kiln by a baker trained in Baguette, France. The meat is a Kobe-style beef that comes from free range cows who watch French New Wave films as they enter the slaughterhouse. The lettuce and tomato come from our rooftop garden where we use gutter water for irrigation but use no harmful pesticides. The cheddar cheese comes from a small dairy farm in northern Wisconsin where there is no electricity or 4G. Price: $18.

Buzzwords blind the burger buyer to the truth that, while mathematically what they eat is a burger, it is a burger that has lost its innocence and been sullied through hipster-Frankenstein super science. The price elevates the burger to bourgeoisie heights. It may taste good, but look at where you are, look at the square plate on which your burger was delivered. Were you even able to get French fries as a side? I should be clear: the Gourmet burger may actually be tasty. I've had them before. I will continue to get them. But the pedestals on which they set themselves are so high that any fall is disastrous. The Gourmet burger cooks are deluded, and the idea of a Gourmet burger in itself is pretentious.

There exists an ideal hamburger. I believe it has been made but I have no way of knowing if I've had it yet. It might not even sit on the top tier among the Mom and Pop restaurants. It could even be among the Gourmets. It falls under the following criteria:

• The burger must be inexpensive. I do not outright say "cheap," but it cannot cost an exorbitant amount.
• The burger cannot take long to cook. This will differ depending on how busy the establishment is and whether the hamburger is the restaurants meat and potatoes.
• The burger must be obvious. On the menu, the burger must be advertised in a clear and concise manner. There is no room for buzzwords. And most importantly:
• The burger must stand on its own. Without topping, without condiment, the burger will impress at its basic formula of meat, bread, and cheese--or even just meat and bread.

It is not enough that the ideal burger should exist. It should be a guideline for burger cooks everywhere to follow. In an ideal burger world, the standard is perfection; anything less is trash.