The short answer to this question is no, no we should not smell like hamburgers. After the holidays, I found in my mailbox the Burger King Flame “body spray” that I ordered some time ago and thought “heh.” It comes in a tiny bottle much like the bottle in the picture, in fact it’s almost actual size in the picture depending on your monitor, and with due diligence I sprayed as bit on my wrist.

Let’s just say it doesn’t exactly smell like hamburgers, or really much of anything at all except for the cheapest, crappiest cologne imaginable. Every. Single. Person. That has smelled this stuff has likened it to Sex Panther at some point in their reaction to it, without exception.

To make matters really much worse, the bottle leaks slightly and while holding this demon concoction in my pocket, it got all over my hand and I’m pretty sure I can still smell it, almost 24 hours and several hand washings later. No bones about it, this stuff is not good. It got to the point last night where some friends and I were pranking each other unfortunate bar patrons (inadvertently) by spraying one another during fake hugout sessions, effectively ruining our chances of being normal parts of society for the time being. This crap is truly abhorrent.

In close, while Burger King may have the occasional stroke of brilliance with their advertising schemes, they really ought not to try body sprays again. Please, really. For all of us.

Whilst engaged in an online discussion regarding gross soft drinks, the usual suspects of seasonal Mountain Dew flavors versus Mr. Pibb XTREME were thrown around, until someone dropped a big, fat, curious bombshell:

Yes friends, if your eyes are working properly you are seeing the same thing that I did; the unholy union of Budweiser Brand beers and Clamato. CHELADA. After stifling a dry heave, I decided to look into this seemingly nightmarish drink idea and sure enough, dated January 14th 2008, the fine folks at Anheuser-Busch put out a press release announcing their triumphant foray into the world of…. latin-themed drinks. Apparently, “Chelada” is like a Mexican’s drinkable BFF.

The press release is a true gem of industry-speak in motion, observe:

The name Chelada is a shortened form of the Spanish word michelada which loosely translates to ‘my cold beer.’ To order Budweiser or Bud Light & Clamato Chelada, one might say: “Una michelada con clamato, por favor.” To shorten that but still keep the beer recognizable as the traditional recipe, Anheuser-Busch focused on the name Chelada.

“One look at the can and you know that this beer is the real thing – Budweiser and Bud Light mixed with authentic Clamato,” Vitrano said. “This is a savory beer that will appeal to adult beer drinkers, particularly those who enjoy beer mixed with Clamato.”

That last sentence is fucking hysterical.

At any rate, I electronically saunter over to wikipedia and find that yes, in fact, Michelada is a real drink made by real Mexicans. Having read the full list of ingredients provided, the immediate words out of my mouth were “It’s a ghetto bloody mary.”

Michelada Recipe (thanks Wikipedia)
Into a chilled salt-rimmed mug or glass pour 325 mL (12 fl. oz.) of tomato juice or Clamato. Clamato is becoming more common.

* A few drops of hot sauce, such as Valentina, Bufalo or McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce.
* A few drops of Worcestershire sauce
* A few drops of Maggi seasoning or soy sauce.
* Squeeze a lime wedge (lemon would neither be strong nor sour enough).
* Mix the ingredients in the glass.
* Slowly add one 325 mL (12 Fl. oz.) Mexican beer (preferably a light beer like Tecate or Dos Equis)

And as I read about this savory beer, this once revolting concept, a certain curiosity overwhelms me…. I have to try this shit. I’m going to try this shit.

YEAAAAAAH BUDDY

My BFF and I have been noting as of late the pervasiveness of general malaise that seems to ooze from Federal Hill proper on the weekends. Stabbings, melees, loud and drunken horror that seems to outshine any pleasantness that might come out of a weekend night seem to stick out in my head, and this past Saturday evening was no exception.

We met up with some girls who were hitting up the douchebar trifecta (Mothers, Mad River, MaGerks) coz they all had shiny dresses and pleasant perfume aromas and wanted to shake their wobbly bits, no shame in that, I’m more than happy to be a part of it. Things were going pretty much as expected right up until about the point that everyone decided to go to Ropewalk. After standing in Ropewalk for a while, not getting service and watching music videos on a giant TV screen, we’re standing out on the sidewalk and a very drunk girl is moaning loudly sitting in the back of a cab, with her friends loading in. Apparently she was yelling at some guy who was talking to her through the open back door of the cab and the guy didn’t approve of what was going on, so he slammed the door directly on her leg which was sticking out. Yeesh.

After getting a little disturbed by this, we decide to walk over to Mum’s (instead of MaGerks, which I think made some of the ladies a little upset) and that’s when it happened.

I’m rounding the corner and chatting when I notice behind myself a guy who’s laying flat on his face in the middle of the intersection. I instantly thought he had hit by a car and ran over, two other guys are trying to help him up. Blood is pouring from his face, he’s drunk as all fucking hell and I’m picking his teeth out of the asphalt. Well it maybe wasn’t the case that he was hit by a car and rather just plain fell flat on his face, but it didn’t change the fact that he was incredibly injured, his blood is all over the guys helping him up and my hands, and oh his teeth too. At first the two other guys help him up and he’s pretty out of it, he doesn’t seem to understand what had just happened to him. But after a few seconds of “you need to go to the hospital, man” and sounds of debate over the closest hospital from the others he suddenly gets very agitated and starts shouting “GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME. GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME. I DON’T HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE. I’M NOT GOING TO THE HOSPITAL.”

This astonished look of just ‘what… the… fuck.’ creeps over my face as they lead this guy over to the corner and try to sit him down. They tried to get him into a cab, but he wasn’t having it. The only question the cab driver had was “Does he have money?” and the astonished look just sort of melts into disgust. I’m still holding his teeth in my bloody hands.

Well fortunately after a minute or two, the other girls came back to us from running into Ropewalk in search of some milk to put the teeth in. They didn’t have any, but they did have creamer. So I plopped the teeth into the creamer, handed the cup to the guy and gave him a big ol’ PEACE OUT, and went to Mum’s.

….jesus

Mum’s was fun.