What are you doing this weekend? Do you like Starbucks coffee? How would you like some for free? Here is how!

Starbucks wants you to “Take the Starbucks Via challenge”.

Starbucks Via Ready Brew is a new instant version of Starbucks coffee. They want you to do a blind taste test of the traditional Starbucks coffee, and the new Starbucks Via Ready Brew, and see which one is better. Can you tell the difference?

It reminds me of “The Pepsi Challenge” from back in the day. Except, both the regular Starbucks coffee and the Starbucks Via Ready Brew are both made by Starbucks.

So, basically, it works like this:

*Go in to a Starbucks starting on Friday October 2, 2009, and ending on Monday, October 5, 2009.

* Tell them you want to take “The Starbucks Via Challenge”. From what I can tell, this means the barista should hand you not one, but two, mini cups of coffee. You taste both, and figure out which one tastes better to you. Let them know what you decide.

* Get handed a coupon for a FREE, tall, brewed coffee. You have to use the coupon “on your next visit”, and you have to bring in the actual coupon card they hand you when you go. Sounds good to me!

Go here to find a Starbucks near you. Somehow, I don’t think you are going to have any problem finding one!

I am going to try this out, and I will let you know how this goes.

One of my favorite parts of Brewfest was the Pink Elephants (Ok, pink Elekks). You had to be on a certain quest, and very drunk, to see them. Check it out!

The pink elephants were larger than Ogres:

It looked pretty cool to “channel” the pink elephants:

Lots and lots of elephants!:

And a close up! :

This concludes my wandering through Brewfest.

Taco Roco is one of my favorite restaurants that serves Mexican food. Everything I’ve had there is consistently yummy. There is one near where I live, so I have been there quite a few times in the past. I recommend it!

Taco Roco is another place to go for “Cheap Eats”. Food that tastes good, for not too much money!

On Tuesdays, you will find signs like these:

PRICE:
Shawn and I went and got two steak tacos, each, and we split a soda. It cost us under ten bucks, and we even got free chips and salsa.

This is because we went on a Tuesday, after 3 in the afternoon. You can select from a few different choices of meat for your tacos, including steak and pork. (If you want fish tacos on Tuesday, it’s going to cost you two dollars, instead of one). I haven’t tried to see if Taco Tuesday can include veggie tacos, so I’ve no idea if they will do that. My best guess is they will, but if this is your plan, you may want to call ahead to check before you go to the restaurant.

Even when it is not Tuesday, the food here is not super expensive. But, Tuesdays are wonderful when you are short on money.

MORE INFO:
You can go to their official website and to find out if there is a location near you. Unfortunately, unless you live on the Central Coast of California, you won’t find a Taco Roco close to where you live. However, if you do happen to live here, you can order food from Taco Roco directly from the website, which is kind of nice.

FOOD:
They serve food you would expect from a Mexican food resturant. Tacos, Burritos, Tortas, Quesadillas, and Nachos. They also have combination orders which include a main item, along with rice and beans. There is a Kid’s menu, (Los Niños). Taco Roco has a couple of dessert items, and it even serves Breakfast, until 11:30 in the morning. There is even a Breakfast menu for the kids.

For more details about the exact menu items, you can go to their official website, and take a look. The prices don’t seem to be listed there, however. But, it does have some nice pictures of the food.

Even with all my food allergies, I can find a lot of things to eat at Taco Roco. My favorite is the fish tacos, which you can choose to get either breaded (fried), or grilled. They do serve some items with shrimp, so avoid those if you have shellfish allergies. I have problems with dairy foods, but so far, none of the food I have tried at Taco Roco has enough cheese on it to bother me. (Needless to say, I cannot try the Quesadillas).

Vegetarians can enjoy the veggie burrito, which is really good. (I eat it fairly often myself). Another option would be the Bean and Cheese burrito. (This is also available from the Kid’s Menu). You can also get some “Crispy Tacos” made with potato instead of meat. Or, you can also get a Quesadilla, and choose not to add meat, (which costs an extra dollar anyway.)

I’m not sure what Diabetics can eat here, because I am seeing a whole lot of carbs. Their two dessert items almost certainly have sugar in them. They do offer a “Fresca Salad”, but I’m not sure what is in it. If you plan on doing Taco Tuesday, I cannot see how you can do it without eating the carbs from the tortillas.

OTHER NICE THINGS:

* They often play Mexican music in the restaurant for diners to enjoy.

* You don’t have to dress up to eat here.

* Families are welcome. They also seem receptive to large groups.

* If you go to the official Taco Roco webpage, and click on “Kids”, you can download and print out a coloring page for your kids to do. They can color “Rocky” the parrot mascot of Taco Roco. Rocky reminds me of an old Disney cartoon, where Donald Duck, and a parrot, and some other cartoon bird were dressed up in sombreros and serapes. The link didn’t happen to be working as I was typing this blog, but it might be by the time you read this.

Inside My Head Podcast show number 92.
Yeah, I know I said it was show number 91 on the show. It’s not. This is not the first time I have screwed up the show number.

I’ve not done an IMH podcast at all since school started. This episode will tell you what has been keeping me away from recording, as well as some interesting things that have happened at my (former) job.

Yes, you read that right, I am now unemployed!
For play by play details about just how and when that happened, listen to Hyper Nonsense.

Music on this show by:
* Black Sabbath, with a song called “Ironman”
I didn’t play the whole song, but you can here it in this video:

* Cruisebox, with a song called “On a Podcast”. Anyone know what the link is to this band’s page? Let me know, and I will add it here.

* Kyle Dine, with a song called “Epi Man”.
This video shows an interview with Kyle Dine, telling about what he does, why he made songs for kids about allergies, and what inspired the song “Epi Man”. He sings “Epi Man”, live, on this video.

* Underwhelmed, with a song called “Freak Like Me”.

* The Priddle Concern, with a song called “I Had A Job”.

* Deathboy, with a song called “Smile, You Fuckers”.

No haiku of frustration on this show, because, honestly… where to begin?

Enjoy the show! I should be able to create new episodes more often now that I’m unemployed. I got tons of time!

I recently guest produced an episode of the Millionaire Or Bust podcast. (An interesting coincidence, considering recent events.) I’m syndicating that episode here. I had fun putting it together and I hope you enjoy listening to it. Comments are welcome here.

… you think the Brewfest Organizer is your boyfriend:

…. you think it’s a great idea to dance on top of the kegs:

… you got your “beer goggles” on:

… you are sitting nearly naked in the snow, wearing the Brewfest hat:

…. you can’t stop spewing in neon green:

See you at next year’s Brewfest!

The Universe continues to laugh at me. It’s sending me little reminders that yeah, I am, in fact, unemployed, almost on a daily basis now.

There is a magazine I get because of my job. It is called “focus magazine”, and it is put out by the California School Employees Association. Inside, you find the usual stuff : where to get discounts on things because you work at a school, blurbs on teachers who are retiring this school year, random little articles about somebody getting a scholarship, etc. Each magazine also focuses on one topic of interest to California School Employees.

The cover of the magazine I got in the mail today looks like this:

Stop the cuts, indeed! To summarize, the article talks about how California schools have been holding back on hiring staff for years and years, keeping most schools just barely staffed. This, of course, means less teachers, but also less paras, less secretaries, and also less custodians.

Now, California has decided to cut away even more jobs in education. This means some schools are having to close their libraries, because they have fired all the library staff. One school had a secretary who had been there for years and years, and who was so good at her job that the parents adored her and appreciated her help on the first day of school every year. She got cut, and they hired two brand new secretaries in her place, instead of keeping the person who was doing a great job. There are schools that share their custodians with other schools, which means those school buildings are getting cleaned three days a week, instead of every day. Imagine what the bathrooms the students use must look like!
There was one little paragraph mentioning that California is even cutting jobs in Special Education. That’s what my job was in.

I’m beginning to hate the mailbox.

I signed up for the Hometown Buffet eClub when I was first looking at their webpage. If I had to guess, it must have been sometime after midnight, on Monday, September 28, 2009.

Later today, when I woke up, I checked my email. There was an email from “Buffets, Inc.” that had arrived at 12:47 this same morning. It turned out to be from Hometown Buffet. This email was basically a confirmation email, telling me to click on a link inside it. There was also information I could read if I did not know how I got on this email list in the first place, but, to be honest, I didn’t read it.

Mere seconds after clicking on the link to confirm that yes, I did want to be part of the Hometown Buffet eClub, I got another email from “Buffets, Inc.” titled “Welcome to our eClub!” Inside, as promised was a coupon for me offering a “FREE buffet meal with purchase of one adult buffet meal”. Hometown buffet has kept it’s word about what you would get just because you joined it’s eClub!

Helpful Hints about this coupon:

* You are going to need to print the coupon out of your email so you can bring it into Hometown Buffet in order to use it.

* Mine will expire about two weeks from when they sent the email.

* The fine print at the bottom of the email says, in all caps, “Coupon not valid on Sundays”. They really, really, really don’t want people to come in on Sundays with this coupon, for some reason. However, you can use it on most Mondays through Saturdays with no problem.

* This coupon is not valid on holidays either, so, check your calendar before you drive down to Hometown Buffet with this coupon.

On the receipt Shawn and I got from Hometown Buffet when we visited the other day, there was a phone number I could call if I wanted to do their survey, and enter for a chance to win $1,000. I had time today, (imagine that!), to see what this was all about. It turned out to be quick and easy to do.

Important stuff about the survey:

* It’s a 1-800 phone number, which means it’s a free call

* You have to push “one” for English right away. (You can also take the survey in Spanish if you want to).

* The first thing they told me about was that in order to be entered into the chance to win $1,000, I had to be a legal U.S. resident, who was 18 years old, or older. It actually made me punch in what my age was. This was before the survey itself even started.

* There are two questions on this survey. It wants to know if you ate in the restaurant, or took their food “to go” (which I would never have thought about doing). Then, it wants you to rate your overall visit on a five point scale, according to how satisfied you were.

* At the end, it will ask you for your home phone number, so that they can contact you if you happen to be the lucky person who wins the $1,000 prize.

Again, wish me luck with that!