Honestly, up until a day or two ago I thought that everyone who reads my Live Journal also reads my comic strip, Schlock Mercenary. That turns out not to be the case. This raises a couple of interesting questions, and I’d love it if as many of the (*gasp*) four-hundred-and-thirty of you as possible would answer…

Thanks for your participation. Hopefully the results will be informative (or at least marginally entertaining) for everyone.

–Howard
p.s. please note that this is NOT an attempt to lure more of you into reading the comic. I’m much less subtle with those attempts. Also note that I’m not going to be offended if it turns out that lots of you do NOT read the comic. After all, more than six billion humans are in that same category… getting offended at a group that large would be inane.

An artillery shell lands in your back yard, explodes messily, and emergency services rush in to see if anyone is hurt. Question: Where do you live?

A) Tikrit, Iraq
B) Kabul, Afghanistan
C) Pleasant Grove, Utah, USA

Have a look behind the door labeled “C,” folks.

Upshot (pardon the pun…): A Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) avalanche control team used all seven bags of powder instead of just five, and fired a howitzer round clear over the mountain. It came down in Pleasant Grove, where residents heard “a whistling noise, then an explosion.” Miraculously, there were no injuries.

My Take: Idiots. Does nobody train these people with this equipment? I have mental images of a group of teenagers going to work for UDOT instead of playing with pipe-bombs in their back yards, and applying the same sort of devil-may-care attitude towards loading the artillery.

The good news here is three-fold:
1) Nobody was killed or injured.
2) UDOT admitted fault immediately.
3) UDOT has suspended avalanche control operations pending results of an investigation.

My Other Take: This is hilarious. I have to laugh nervously, but I still have to laugh.

–Howard

Well, I tried the Pizzahut.com thing, and I don’t know why I was expecting the pies to somehow be BETTER than if I’d called them in using that whatchamacallit… telephone. After all, it’s just pizza. They got my order right, and the food was fine. I mean, it was Pizza Hut food, which you may or may not be down with. Me, I like it, but I know my limits. That pan-pizza crust is like crack. Sandra practically had to push me out of the room to keep me from goldfishing on it. You could top it with poopsauce, limberger, and sardines, and I’d still eat it up.

–Howard

ps. No I wouldn’t.

On Saturday and on Wednesday I ate at the Blue Iguana Restaurant in Salt Lake City (175 S. West Temple, in the alley back behind the parking plaza at 165 S. West Temple). Saturday I TRIED to get my out-of-state friend Chris to try one of their moles, but he got a very loudly sizzling fajita platter instead. On Wednesday I made a discovery that I simply MUST share:

You can get a sampler saucer with a dollop of each of their six mole sauces for FREE.

I LOVE THAT. Now anytime I eat there with someone unfamiliar with the cuisine, they don’t need to take any huge risks.

I plowed through the saucer with whatever the spanish word is for “aplomb.” The coloradito and poblano were sweet, with the coloradito being just a touch sweeter. The negro (the one with the most chocolate in it) was less sweet, because cocoa is naturally bitter. The amarillo was less sweet still, and fiery thanks to the habaneros. The verde and the one whose name I’ve forgotten (Voldemole? Moledemort?) were about as tasty as a light gravy, and were therefore crossed off of my list of possible ordering options.

I got the poblano. It had a touch of the chocolate that makes the negro so tasty, but wasn’t noticably bitter.

We ALSO got the stuffed jalapenos. These were NOT the “TGI Friday deep-fried appetizer” thingies. These were more like chiles relleno, only done with jalapenos, and with all the seeds left inside them. Holy wow… they were gently spicy (but I’ve been doing hot food lately, so I’d say they’re probably going to burn a hole in the roof of the average Norteamericano’s mouth) and smothered in a cheesy red sauce.

The only shortcoming… the dessert menu. The fried ice-cream is very ordinary, and the flan was blah. That’s okay. If you do the jalapenos and a good mole, you’ll not need to top off the tummy with sweets.

So… if you go to the Blue Iguana (and if you live in the Salt Lake area, or are visiting it, I suggest that you DO) be absofreakinlutely sure to get that saucer of mole samples. And bear in mind that if you like ’em, they can put that sauce on ANYTHING on the menu. An amarillo-smothered carne asada burrito is a thing to behold.

–Howard