| Dragon Buggering

r00d: The Dragon boating is pretty cool. My special lady friend was into it for a few seasons. Her company had a couple of teams in the local races up here. The atmosphere seemed pretty cool amongst the regulars and she was tempted to join a more regular team, but decided the time commitment was just not in the cards at the time.

jA -eL, like a lot of restaurant food, it can be had at home for a lot cheaper (ignoring the cost of your time). Barbeque is an exaggerated example because it is so simple for John Q. Working-stiff to whip up a good barbeque that rivals many restaurants'. A barbeque just doesn't demand of the kitchen what other restaurant meals require: decadent sauces, long prep work, complex recipes, mad skill, constant supply of fresh ingredients and the facilities/tools to prepare them in. So it really feels like a bad deal after mark-up costs (3x-5x is typical) for overhead (lion's share of the actual costs) as compared to other less attainable meals. Really at a restaurant, you are not paying for the food so much as the hospitality of the waitstaff, the ambiance, the time and experience of the head-chef, the labor of line cooks, the dishwasher, the rent, the utilities, etc. So if the ambiance and the decadence of wait-service is not worth it, well the food will certainly not hold up. Now if they served me a turd and gave me the best service in the world, I am sure I would be bummed.

Good example: every time I go to a crap place (Chili's, Olive Garden, Outback, Chevy's, etc.), I pretty much dislike the food, but I have to remind myself that it was okay because I was looking for convenience (read: I'm lazy or "in the sticks") and not because the food was delicious.

D>M>