It’s officially winter here in Indianapolis.  Snow is in the air and coating the ground just enough to cause chaos for the folks who every year forget how to drive in the snow.  As I went out this morning to go to Hardee’s (apparently they got rid of the Hash Rounds in favor of “Country Potatoes”…which were good, but I was wanting my Hash Rounds) and the bank, I witnessed a handful of people spinning tires, sliding around and locking up their tires as they just smashed the break instead of letting up for a moment.  And this was in a mere 2 mile round trip.  I know that we all side around in the snow a bit in the winter, but come on guys, an inch of snow shouldn’t cause such a commotion that it closes down I-69 due to the number of accidents.

Eating shrimp #82

Tonight was the night for our 5th annual Shrimp Fest at Red Lobster during their all-you-can-eat shrimp offering.  This year Jeff joined Kurt and I for the fun.

Here are the rules:

• You must eat a biscuit
• You must eat your salad (sans “veggies”)
• You must eat your side (mashed potatoes in my case)
• You can only eat “normal” sized shrimp (tail on, no popcorn or minis)

102 Shrimp Tails

I’ve been undefeated for four years running (I’m not sure if that’s something to be proud of) and my previous record was 81 shrimp.  This year I went for triple digits.  Here’s the breakdown:

• Jeff: 53 shrimp
• Kurt: 87 shrimp
• Brian: 102 shrimp

Jeff didn’t do too bad for his first attempt.  That’s probably close to what Kurt and I did the first time (I don’t recall the number for sure, but know it was far less than 70).  Kurt set a new personal best and better than my previous record.  And I raised the bar by 21 shrimp over the prior record and 15 shrimp over Kurt’s new personal record.  But this took around an hour and twenty minutes since it takes a while for each order to be cooked, so none of us will be beating Joey “Jaws” Chestnut any time soon.

And I have to give a shout out to the Blue Shotgun Twitter followers for following along and making this even more fun.  In particular mikerccie, mdsf, maya311 & bnpositive. And be sure to check Jeff out on Twitter too.

Now the glutton season has officially been kicked off.  We’ve got oodles of candy coming up, followed by big birds, Christmas hams and the New Year’s get together.  It’s time to fatten up for the winter.

[If you have any similar stories you'd like to share, please do so! If you want to leave a voicemail for Utter Oddcast, that number is 317-565-4250. And we did record the audio for the entire meal, but we'll have to see what, if anything, we can pull out of that...the best comment of the night was in reference to the FFA Convention at the table behind us when the waiter said "Good luck with that."]

Today’s Drive Thru Nightmare took place at McDonald’s on West 38th Street & Lafayette Road in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This one actually isn’t that big of a deal, but I do find it a little funny.  I received the correct change back, my food order was correct and they were fast.  When they asked if I’d like some sauces, I asked for Sweet & Sour, which they had to go somewhere to get and then they ended up giving me ketchup instead.  What’s up with that?  Again, it’s not a big deal, but kind of funny, at least to me.

Maybe it’s just me, but I constantly have horrible drive thru experiences.  In the event that they actually get my order correct, my jaw drops.  But for some reason I keep going to them.  So to share my stories I’m adding a Drive Thru Nightmares category.

I have never worked any sort of food service related job, so if you have, please let me know what the problem is.  Is it the speakers?  Is it the employees?  Is it the computers?  Is it a language barrier?  Is it the phases of the moon?  Or is it just me?