Girl Drinks and Stray Cats

I'm back from Aruba with some sweet delicious Veganmofo action for everyone who accidentally stumbles onto this blog searching for a Michael Phelps puff piece. That's right! It's the Vegan Month of Food and blog 'scuse me? has plenty of treats planned this month in the way of vegan food and our feverish attempts to destroy pop culture.

My trip started out with a hunt for some soy milk for my morning coffee. I was tempted to use coconut milk, but I found soy milk at a local convenient store. The restaurants in Aruba are generally vegetarian friendly and most places are willing to alter menu items to veganize them. La Trattoria El Faro Blanco and Sawasdee Thai Restaurant both had vegan friendly items on their menus. The Thai place also had an excellent mock duck that you could add to any dish. At Papiamento Restaurant, they had a separate vegetarian specials menu. Texas de Brazil, a churrascaria where guys walk around with huge sword-like skewers of meat, oddly enough had a good vegan selection at their salad bar. The guy that kept the salad bar stocked gladly followed me around telling what was in everything. I had an insanely good tabbouleh here and this superb penne pasta with grilled portobello mushrooms and tomatoes.

I went to this juice bar on the beach where I got a watermelon, mango, and orange juice that was super delicious. Perusing their menu, they also had this drink there called a banana nog with milk, banana, and peanut butter. They unfortunately used cow's milk, but I plan to make my own as soon as I get some ripe bananas.


Curry and Coco - Papiamento Restaurant

This dish was curried vegetables with coconut milk. If you look at the upper right corner of the plate you will see these orange-yellow fruits with tomatillo-like husks. They are my new favorite food and I'm not 100% sure what they are exactly. The waiter at Papiamento told us they were tomatillos. The waiter at Wacky Wahoo's told us they were physalis, which happens to be the same genus of the tomatillo plant. All I know for sure is that it's a delicious fruit they import from Brazil. Wikipedia cleared it up a little. We all know that Wikipedia never lies.


Veggies on the Stone - Papiamento Restaurant

Assorted vegetables served on a sizzling hot stone with an herb-infused olive oil for dipping.


Mixed Vegetables in Peanut Sauce - Sawasdee Thai Restaurant

I also got a vegetarian satay here made with their mock duck. However I scarfed it down before I could take a picture.


Broccoli with Tofu and Cashew Nuts - Sawasdee Thai Restaurant


Seasonal House Salad - Wacky Wahoo's

They made a special pasta with veggies for me here since there was nothing vegan on the menu.


Insalata Ortolana - La Trattoria El Faro Blanco


Linguini Primavera - La Trattoria El Faro Blanco

The pasta was cooked to perfection and had eggplant, zucchini, squash, and red peppers.


Cat watching me eat my pasta - La Trattoria El Faro Blanco

In addition to the adorable cats wondering the outdoor terrace, there was an amazing view of the island from this restaurant.

Random Note: I saw quite a few stray cats and dogs on the island from time to time. I was told they currently have a neuter and spaying program in place for strays. (Information about animal protection in Aruba.)


French Fries - A Taste of Belgium

Not much for vegans on their menu, but they had good fries.


Espresso - A Taste of Belgium


Bruschetta - Salt and Pepper

Mostly tapas here. They had a veggie burger made with eggs and pasta that was also made with eggs.

Are You There, Michael Phelps? It's Me, Done-ness.

I've heard quite a bit regarding your 300-egg-n- cheese-sammich breakfasts. I've heard more than enough about you groping nubile bunnies at the Playboy mansion. So, now that I've paid my dues, can you go away? We all know that Milorad Cavic finished before you and the photo finish was tilted in your favor because you're American (aka a cheese-munching capitalist sofa jockey). We all know that your doofus grin is by no means going to grace the pages of US Magazine two years from now, unless you develop a drug habit or start dating Jessica "Fartin' Under the Sheets" Simpson. Why not throw in the sweaty, chlorine-scented towel while you're on top? Take your chiseled abs and recede into the night, leaving extra space for LoRo and Tiffany Pollard. Also, keep in mind that 140,000,000 calories a day is a touch unwise even for an Olympian.

Jonathan Davis Does Lil Wayne...

...with disturbing results. For reasons that most likely all trail back to the fact that KO(backwards friggin R)N has not released any decent original material since I sat in a classroom watching a filmstrip about lab safety, the man I will from now on refer to as Sweet Johnny D has decided to add Lil Wayne's Got Money to his roster of stolen goods. The song is somewhat delightful, a touch addictive, like heroin that's been left in the sun too long and has a green tinge to it, but come on Sweet Johnny D - the squiggly voice device? Is this your equivalent of a teddy bear t-shirt? Are you shooting for irony, or do you dream of the day when 16-year-old girls who smell of bubble gum and pony stickers call Z100 begging for your dulcet tones?

I know this much is true - if I ever hear SJD singing (Everything I Do) I Do It For You while dressed as a Musketeer and running his voice through Peter Frampton's guitar processor, I will hire Lil Wayne to fracture my sternum with his nosebleed-inducing guitar riffs and a fine, fine set of brass knuckles.

Actually, rumor has it that Bryan Adams has recently recorded a cloying, gently Canadian version of Lollipop. I don't know how you do it, Lil Wayne - enticing the musical masses to mimic you in a way that will never come close to your squeaky-voiced, heavily tattooed, guitar-killing splendor.

Blog-A-Thon Colon Impossible?

What do you get when you mix pad thai, coffee liquor, and tons of lime wedges? A crappy excuse for us to blog while drunk.

We're halfway through a bottle of coffee-infused vodka, and we've polished off about half a pound of the pad thai in all its rice noodley, saucey goodness. Will we make it to the next post? Will our audience be panting at their monitors, practically licking the screen while they await our next pop culture slaughter session? Will we rupture our vocal cords screaming over celebrities without makeup?

Really, this is just an excuse to get drunk, watch The Golden Girls, and take pictures of delicious wittles. I bet you wish you stayed in tonight.

Highlander Was a Documentary, and the Events Happened...in Real Time.

I was watching the kiddie cartoon Chowder fairly recently and was trying to figure out where I knew the voice of shopkeeper Gazpacho from. I was certain I'd heard it before - neurotic, insistent, a little Nathan Lane-y. After days of remembering nothing (I literally sat in a corner of my living room for three straight days, wracking my brain, while spiders covered me with webs) I checked online (remember when it was 1994 and when you wanted to find something out you had to go to the library or talk to people?)and found out that the guy doing the voice is Dana Snyder, who not only does the voice of Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but has the same first name as Dana Carvey, who probably likes cartoons. See how life comes full circle? I don't either.



Anyway, this pretty much sums up why I love Dana Snyder.

Myspace & Facebook Go the Way of Friendster

The internet has a new social networking darling: Hoffspace. Have you ever been on Myspace and just couldn't click with your random fake friends on something that really matters, like an American pop star famous in Germany who enjoys lying on hotel room floors at 4am devouring cheeseburgers after 15 shots of Jim Beam, and habitually talks to his Pontiac Trans Am who sounds like Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World?

We're talking about the man who was there right after the Berlin Wall collapsed to help unite East Germany and West Germany... and now, he wants to help unite the world. Over 14 thousand devoted followers so far have become hooked on David Hasselhoff's feeling. We estimate that it will take 3 to 4 days for that number to quintuple. The format is strikingly similar to Myspace, only good. Even better, there is no fear of logging onto your page one day and finding a douche with a shit-eating grin gazing over his shoulder at you. So join us on this Hoff-tacular journey before you're the only loser not on Hoffspace.

Below you will find links to our respective Hoffspace pages. Join, befriend us, appreciate this barrel chested, permed god as he unites the world in the fight against inspirational headlines and sparkly pink backgrounds.

Tara's Hoffspace page

Monica's Hoffspace page

When you plant shit seeds, you get shit weeds.

Looks like the residents of Oregon finally got to Season 6 of the Trailer Park Boys.

It's the way of the road.