My First Shake Shack Experience

It seems lately there's more hype around here every time a new burger place opens than when any other restaurant arrives. Naturally, I tend to pay attention because, well, I like burgers. And you may remember that I waited in a line for 90 minutes in 2010 to try to get a free burger at the newly-opened 500° -- though I only got a buy one, get one free deal instead. And I compared 500° to Five Guys.


Since I wrote that post Five Guys opened a second downtown location, as well as one at Grant Ave. near Roosevelt Blvd, which is a lot closer to my house. So when I get a chance I stop in either one of these locations.


Based on the comments I've seen online from New Yorkers, where the Shake Shack chain originated, I was very excited to hear that Shake Shack was opening here, at 20th and Sansom Sts. This is right next to one of the comic book stores I regularly frequented, which would be great if I hadn't cut back on comics after DC Comics decided to have Superman wear his baby blanket as a cape.


So the other day, after it had been open long enough (almost 2 weeks) that the lines during off-peak hours (such as between lunch and dinner) pretty much dwindled, I visited the Shake Shack. At 3:20 pm, the wait in line was maybe five minutes. And also because of the time, I was able to sit at a table with no problem.


After looking over the various menu items, I decided on a single ShackBurger, which is a basic single-patty burger with lettuce, tomato and their own special sauce.  I also got an order of fries, a regular-size soda and a dessert item. They have what they call Concretes -- described on the menu as "dense frozen custard blended at high speed with mix-ins." They have some that are Philly-centric, or you can just pick your own mix-in items. I ordered the "Center City Pretzel," which includes vanilla custard, "Philly-style soft pretzel," caramel sauce, marshmallow sauce and banana. I ordered the regular size instead of the half-size.

It took about ten minutes for my order to be ready. So how was everything?

Odd Timing...Oh, And My Blog Is Free Today!

...I mean, it's THREE today. (I can say "today" because it's after midnight.) Happy birthday, blog!

So this actually happened earlier...

I decided to start watching "The Big Bang Theory" regularly. I've sampled it a number of times but never really gave it a chance, and now it's part of the roster of shows I watch. You could say there was an opening, with "Desperate Housewives" ending its run, but that's not really relevant. Anyway, TBS is running the episodes from the first four seasons in order on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, which is part of the reason I jumped in when I did. I'm also watching the reruns from this past season on CBS, but there will be a few I'll still have to catch up on.

Anyway, tonight I was watching an episode from the third season, which was when Leonard and Penny got together as a couple for the first time. In this particular episode they were explaining to Sheldon why they were in Leonard's bedroom instead of in her apartment: it seems they broke her bed.

And just as they're discussing the broken bed, that's when I heard a snapping sound and felt a sudden jolt.

My rocker-recliner broke. A spring on the back snapped, causing the back to loosen from the rest of the frame on the right side. I hate this because now I can't rock in the chair (I looooove rocking). In fact, I had to move the chair back against the wall just so I can sit on it without one side sagging back. And of course I need to buy a new chair now, which means spending money. This will be, I think, the fourth rocker or rocker-recliner I've owned. At least number three lasted longer than the other two.

Sister Cities Park, 30th Street Porch

More photos! First, a rant:

ONCE AGAIN I CAN'T FIND A PHOTO SERVICE THAT ALLOWS ME TO POST A DAMN SLIDESHOW TO THIS BLOG! LAST TIME IT WAS SHUTTERFLY, NOW IT'S PHOTOBUCKET. WHY THE HELL DO THEY GIVE YOU HTML CODE TO PASTE IN, AND THEN WHEN YOU DO, IT DOESN'T WORK? I AM SO SICK OF THIS!

Or maybe I'm stupid and don't know what I'm doing. Anyway, here's a direct link since I can't post a stupid f---ing slideshow.

On a Sunday last month my friend Kurt and I checked out the newly renovated Sister Cities Park at Logan Square. They did a beautiful job with it. Then, a few days later, I went to look at the Porch at 30th Street Station, on Market Street adjacent to the train station. As it was really late in the afternoon nothing was going on, and the umbrellas at the tables were folded. But they reclaimed an area that was just a driveway and made it a pleasant place. There's a number of activities held there regularly, including live music and -- for the entire month of July -- free mini golf. I can't wait to see how they set that up!


And these pictures were taken with my new digital camera (the one I got for my birthday. Below is an example of its zoom prowess. In the first picture Kurt is circled (you can see it larger if you click on the image for the larger version). The other one is with the camera at maximum zoom.

Creepy Girl Gets Around

You may recall my post about the sticker featuring what I referred to as "Creepy Starbucks Girl" because of its proximity to, well, one of the eight million Starbucks locations.

I've actually seen her multiple times since then, often on newspaper boxes. Here's the most recent example, which I found on a Philadelphia Weekly honor box. She's got a new outfit...and a friend!

I'd really like to know if this is from a street artist and if there's any particular significance to this girl.

Meanwhile, I updated this post from Sunday.

Mailbox And Mural

Some more random photos I took last month. The first two I took as I was on my way from the Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Celebration in Franklin Square to the Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival on Walnut Street. Photos from those, as well as the Trenton Avenue Arts Festival/Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby, all of which I hit on the same day, will be posted some time before I die. Anyway, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I believe this was on 16th Street south of Market Street...

Then, a week later, I took the SEPTA Regional Rail train home instead of my usual El/66 combo. On weekends you can use the regular Transpass on the Regional Rail lines, so it's like a free ride. At my stop, the Torresdale Station, I noticed yet another mural from the city's Mural Arts Program. I love seeing these murals so much...

No Umpires, No Managers

So...what about hitting coaches or trainers or scoreboard operators?

This sticker is above the doorway of some bar or lounge. I've forgotten exactly where it was that I took this photo, but it's in Center City. I recall what I was doing the day I took it, so I think it's somewhere between 20th and 23rd, between Market and Chestnut or Sansom Streets. That's the best I can do. I plan to go out tomorrow and take my camera with me, so perhaps I'll run into it again.

UPDATE: It's outside a place called the Medusa Lounge. 27 S. 21st Street.

Quick Reviews: June 2012 (So Far)

With this I'll be caught up in my movie posts! Woot!

Snow White and the Huntsman: I liked this more than I thought I would, although it was a bit ponderous at times. Charlize Theron seems to be specializing in extremely icy characters right now. She pulled off the evil queen bit without overacting the way Julia Roberts did in "Mirror Mirror," the first of the Snow White movies. To be fair, though, the two films are very, very different. My grade: B-minus.

Prometheus: Charlize Theron icy performance number two. But this thing...oh, dear. A mess of a plot about a space exploration to find and make contact with the apparent creators of humanity on Earth, ridiculous characterization, and what strikes me as a deliberate shoehorning of enough details to allow people to think of this as the prequel to "Alien" just to make money. My grade: D-plus.

Rock of Ages: I can see how this became a Broadway hit, a love story combined with 80s hair-band rock.  But this movie is absolutely terrible. I never was a big fan of that music, and although some of the original songs admittedly are great, as performed here by the likes of Tom Cruise (as seriously messed-up rock god Stacee Jaxx) even the good songs lose a lot. Let's put aside how the ostensible stars, and subjects of the love story, Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta, might as well be invisible for all their impact. I ask you this: how can Hough's character, a wannabe singer first seen on a bus from Oklahoma to Hollywood, be named Sherrie Christian, leading to her (and her fellow bus passengers) singing Night Ranger's "Sister Christian," and NOT have her boyfriend sing Steve Perry's "Oh Sherrie" to her? I waited for it in vain the whole damn film. I nearly walked out a couple of times. In retrospect, after seeing the duet of "Can't Fight This Feeling" towards the end by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand (I'm saying nothing more), I wish I had. My grade: F.

Quick Reviews: May 2012

Since I continue to procrastinate and waste time (not entirely wasting it, as I've had some stuff to deal with as well), I have to lump together the films I've seen instead of trying to do post after post. After today I've got seven that I've seen since the start of the "summer" movie season (which this year was, I suppose, the week "The Avengers" was released, which was before Mother's Day). Since I saw four of them in May, I'll wrap them up. Really, though, what's finally spurring them on is the one I just saw a few hours ago, so stay tuned.

Marvel's The Avengers: Do I really have to refer to this as "Marvel's"? Anyway, I am a bigger fan of the DC superheroes -- although with their "New 52" crap driving me away from the comic book stores, not to mention the better success of the Marvel character movies, it's a bit harder to say that. I have high hopes for "The Dark Knight Rises," but once Christian Bale's final Batman movie is over with, anyone trying to make a DC movie will seriously need to step up their game to come close to what "The Avengers" pulled off.  I was so dazzled that I had to really think of a reason to not give this a perfect A-plus grade. I finally came up with this: there's an obligatory scene where some of the heroes fight each other. This happens in the comic books and almost always is contrived -- they have to fight each other before teaming up to fight the bad guy. Even though in this movie it was almost plausible and understandable plot-wise, it was still there. My grade: A.

Dark Shadows: It started with a surprisingly long prologue before getting to the 1972 setting for the main story, which turned out to be quite disappointing. I love that Johnny Depp throws himself into these roles, and there were a few moments that were enjoyable, but resurrecting this old TV show just seemed totally unnecessary. My grade: C-minus.

The Dictator: If my generalization is correct, people mostly loved Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" and mostly hated "Bruno," although I loved both,

Sucker-Punched On SEPTA

So maybe a few people are curious about what happened the other night, although you wouldn't know it by the number of responses I got on Twitter and Facebook. Last week I was helping my friend Kurt pack his things in semi-orderly fashion so he could move on Friday, so I was at his place a few times during the week. On Thursday night I caught the bus from South Philly to Market Street to catch the Market-Frankford El at 8th. I was lucky in that I managed to catch both the bus and the El with little or no waiting. Or so I thought.

I was standing next to the doors on the opposite side of the doors that opened to the platform, because there were few seats available and I was carrying a laundry bag with some stuff in it, and I didn't want the bulky bag on my lap or disturbing the person next to me. So there I stood, reading the paper.

There were 2 or 3 young black guys -- teenagers or a little older -- in the seats on the same side as where I was standing. They got up as if they were getting out around the York-Dauphin station, but instead stood near the doors, and then were joined by another couple of guys who arrived from the next car. The train arrived at the Allegheny station at almost 8:35 pm, and they all left the train except the guy directly in front of me, who stayed on and had his arms outstretched as his hands were on both poles by the doors.

There was a brief delay for some reason -- the train's conductor later said he thought the others were holding the door open -- and then, just as the computer voice began to announce "Doors are closing,"