John Cleese Has Seen Better Days

This was my website o’ the day:  http://tbshumorstudy.com/main.html

I highly encourage utilization of the “Funny Movie Maker” tool as well as the “Wallpaper Generator,” if you’re like me and the only means you have of making your drab, claustrophobic, office existence bearable is by creating a desktop that looks like something Napoleon Dynamite vomited after eating too many tots.

Now in to-go sizes!

On a loosely-related topic, I took a few of my work-friends (isn’t it kind of shameful that I call them that instead of just “friends”? you decide.) to one of my favorite restaurants today, Blue Nile (www.bluenilehouston.com).  Blue Nile serves the most delicious Ethiopian food this side of Addis Ababa.  I am such a dork.  And yes, I’ve heard the joke about “How many ways can you cook a grain of rice?” or the one about “It’ll be a quick meal; we’ll order two empty plates and leave,” both courtesy of my boss.  Quick visual of my boss, while we’re on topic:

He usually wears sleeves, but the accent is still Da Bears.

Ethiopian food is pretty much the same food we eat over here - chicken, beef, potatoes, lentils, greens, etc - just prepared differently and with very distinct, unique spices and lots of clarified butter.  It’s also eaten without the use of utensils; you use pieces of injera bread to pick up your food.  Injera is a slightly sour-tasting flatbread made from teff flour, which is very nutrient-rich and does a good job of balancing out the spicy nature of most Ethiopian dishes.

Now that we have that out of the way, I’d just like to say that I’ve learned a lesson today.  Don’t force Ethiopian food on good friends.  It will only make them fear and resent you.  Also, when you’re driving back to work, sheepishly, let them listen to the radio and don’t force them to listen to your Coheed and Cambria CD, which also - clearly - is not for everyone.

Within five minutes of returning to the office, everyone had heard about the fearsome meal.  I’m not going to say that Ethiopian food is an aquired taste, because I instantly liked it from the first time that spicy, rich, earthy doro wot first passed my lips.  I just think that maybe it isn’t for everyone.  As my friend Aurora pointed out, it’s hard to get past that first visceral reaction to food that looks as if it were a challenge on Fear Factor.

Okay, I admit that the injera does look a little like a Dr. Scholl’s insert.