more on In-N-Out

...the wikipedia site included a link to this interesting NY Times article on my new favorite burger joint: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E4D7113AF937A2575BC0A9649C8B63&sec=travel&pagewanted=2

Looks like the guy who wrote "Fast Food Nation" also loves the place (seriously, read the article!).

Gettin' some animal-style at In-N-Out

In December, I went to In-N-Out Burger, a fast food chain on the West Coast, for the first time. Them's some tasty burgers!! They have like 4 0r 5 menu items - just burgers, fries and shakes. The burgers are huge and de-lish, and the fries are made from real potatoes. You can watch them make the fries and they actually use real potatoes! Did i mention the fries are made out of real potatoes? I don't know why I'm so excited about this but I am. The company is owned by a very Christian family. One of my friends noticed that the inside of the bottom lip of every cup has "John 3:16" printed on it. I also learned an insider tip for ordering burgers - if you ask them to cook your burger "animal-style," they cook mustard into the hamburger patties and top it with fried onions. Wikipedia has info on more "secret" menu items and the cult following the chain has developed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out#The_.22Secret.22_menu) Plus, the burgers are really cheap. Thanks In-N-Out Burger!

college sports and academics (now that football is over)

Here's a link to a USA TODAY listing of the top 25 college football and basketball teams, but rearranged to show the schools in order of graduation rates (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2005-12-19-graduation-rate-chart.htm). BC slipped to third this year, but 89% is still fabulous (whats the overall college graduation rate, anyway?). Under this scenario, looks like USC will be playing in the Pets.com Kidney Bean Bowl, while BC draws the Orange Bowl. The basketball list is interesting, but the teams are so small and graduate so few each year, its hard to make much out of the differences. Duke is only at 50% but that might have a lot to do with players leaving for the NBA. Thats cool - I don't think players should be required to stay if they can make it professionally (this applies to Maurice Clarett as well, who was screwed over by extremely unfair NFL drafting rules). Athletes only have some many years to cash in on their altheletic skillz before injury or age make those skillz no longer marketable. When Mick Jagger dropped out of the London School of Economics to pursue a musical career, he famously remarked that he couldn't afford to stay in school. Its the same for some of these guys - I'm sure they too wish they could study the effects of speculative lending practices on agrarian market economies, but alas, pro sports proves to be lucrative diversion.

Flutie's drop kick

This weekend, Doug Flutie kicked the NFL's first successful drop kick in over 60 years. I didn't know exactly what this meant when I first heard it- but ESPN has a good article about it: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2277308

I remember reading an article about 5 years ago where Flutie talked about doing drop kicks in games. Apparently he studies the rules and tries to find obscure plays that are legal in the NFL and the drop kick was one that he mentioned. It worked!! (yea, one point!)