I stopped by Muchas Gracias and picked up 3 bean burritos and 2 shrimp burritos last night to bring to a LAN. An appropriate review with pictures will be posted upon my later return to Muchas Gracias.

The Burrito Bash kicked off a bit earlier than expected, as I was able to locate a burrito outlet in Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. during my layover. One could say the Bash started on Thursday with my purchase of a burrito from the Mc Neil room, but it was more of an precursor, an exhibition burrito so-to-speak. Irregardless (my favorite non-word word), here’s the first entry in my Burrito Log, or BLog for short. Damn, BLog is such a cool word! AND STOP AUTOCORRECTING ME, WORD—I know the L is capitalized.

Outlet: California Tortilla
Location: Gate C22, Dulles Airport, Washington DC
Items Ordered: 1 Veggie Burrito ($6.29), 1 Combo #2 (regular drink, chips, and salsa, $1.79), 1 Side Guac ($.99)
Total: $9.07, $9.52 with tax
Means of Consumption: Ordered from counter to go (only option)

Initial impressions: Immediately, I was skeptical of the name, especially given that Washington D.C. is not located in California. However, my fears were assuaged when I arrived at gate C22 and took a gander at the menu. This wasn’t your typical crappy airport place, this was a Mexican chain with an airport franchise. They had a good variety of traditional favorites and unique specials.

Ordering: My clerk spoke English fairly clearly. After ordering the burrito, she asked me if I wanted cheese and sour cream in it. I found this very responsible, as how else we should know if I wanted it vegan or just vegetarian. However, she then asked whether I wanted to upgrade to a combo, but I had trouble understanding this the first time. I then explained that I wanted chips with guac, and she explained to me that it was cheaper to get the combo, which included chips with salsa and a drink, then add the guac separately. I agreed to this proposition, selected my drink, and paid obediently.

Waiting: There were 7 or 8 people standing near the counter waiting for food. I had been assigned #757. I was temporarily worried that I would have to be waiting for a while. Things progressed pretty rapidly, #755 was called almost immediately. #756 followed a minute later, then #758, then #757. I was very impressed with the speed of the construction of my burrito, and I believe the delay that caused #758 to cut was due to my chips and guac.

The Unwrapping: I had to walk all the way down the C concourse to the D concourse (which annoyingly were in the same building, not really unique concourses at all. My mouth was watering with the thought of a good burrito. I sipped intently on my lemonade as I negotiated the throngs of people in Dulles. When I arrived at the waiting area, I set my belongings down, and peered inside the bag. On top was a stack of napkins (5 to be exact) with the phrase “IT’S A PARTY IN THAT DISPENSER, LET ME TELL YOU”. I was initially boggled by the use of the word “dispenser”. What was this dispenser they were referring to? Is a styrofoam clamshell carton considered a “dispenser”? I suspended my disbelief, and read the smaller text below, “If you’re having a party outside of this dispenser, call us to cater it or go to californiatortilla.com.” Hmm, so maybe the whole bag is a dispenser? Then it clicked. I was supposed to have removed the napkin from a napkin dispenser. However, the placement of the napkin in the bag without my interacting with said napkin dispenser ruined the effectiveness of this phrasing. Okay, enough with this dispenser nonsense. I noted that the side of guacamole was outside of the clamshell, and that there were no other items in the bag. I opened the clamshell and was greeted with an assortment of tortilla chips, a black cup of salsa, and a rather large burrito wrapped in tin foil with a green “Veggie” sticker on it. I paused my explorations to take a quick photo.

In order to make room for the burrito, I moved the chips into the top of the clamshell. I then grasped the burrito, and began unwrapping. I was surprised that the foil was actually paper backed, meaning it ripped like paper rather than tin foil. Upon opening, I was quickly impressed by the scale of this burrito! While not very long, it had a massive radius. Briefly, I was worried that I would be unable to eat this burrito without the assistance of utensils. I paused once again to take a picture of the naked burrito.

The First Bites: Perhaps I was simply famished, but the first couple bites were pure bliss. I encountered a large pocket of guacamole mixed with delicious, somewhat spicy, black beans. Yum, I thought, this is a lot like a Chipotle burrito! I continued taking healthy bites from my prey, encountering a mix of sour cream, Mexican rice, and black beans.

Continuing Onward: Around the 10th bite or so, I encountered an onion. What an outrage! Onions were nowhere on the list of purported ingredients! I continued eating, and encountered more undesireables. Lettuce was on the ingredients list, so I can’t really complain about its presence, but I don’t like lettuce, so I will complain anyway. The worst was about 1/3 from the end, when I excavated a humongous hunk of zucchini. ZUCCHINI?!?!?! In my bean burrito? Angered, I removed the large, green, invasive vegetable from my burrito and dropped it in the clamshell. I soldiered on, determined to like this burrito. My efforts were for naught though, as I encountered more large chunks of onion and another large zucchini piece. Discouraged, I gave up. The reward was no longer worth the hassle. Result: roughly ¾ consumed, ¼ remaining. In retrospect, I don’t believe there was any sour cream in the burrito.i

Post Burrito: I turned to my other food items: chips with guacamole. At a glance, the chips looked bad—somewhat like your run-of-the-mill Tostitos chips. However, a closer look and taste revealed that they were quite tasty! The taste was equivalent to Baja Fresh chips, however, the texture was a bit more crunchy. Some chips showed uneven amounts of grease. The guacamole was quite good, as well. It was a bit saltier than my preferred guacamole; however it was not offensive to me in any way. It featured well ground avocado and small, cube sized chunks of tomato. I noted the lack of chunks of avocado, which dinged it a couple points in my scoring system. I finished the guacamole before I was half done eating my chips—proof it was pretty damn good. I didn’t touch the cup of salsa. I ended up not finishing the chips, as the meal filled me up.

Closing thoughts: Things started out great, California Tortilla, then you betrayed me. The first half of the burrito was pure, unadulterated burrito bliss. But, why did you have to include the things! I hate things! Especially when things appear in my burritos that aren’t on the list of ingredients on the menu!

And now some arbitrary ratings!

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: 3.5/5 – Fast shipping, excellent seller, product not as described, might buy again.
Ordering Experience: 4/5 – HABLAN INGLES! Y me ayudan mucho.
Waiting Experience: 4.5/5 – Quick, prompt
Presentation: 3/5 – confusing slogan, crappy foil wrapper, ugly black clamshell
Quality of Lemonade: 4/5 – typical fountain minute maid
Size: 5/5 – This was the black penis of burritos
Build Quality: 3/5 – some ingredients were spilling out, some tears occurred in the tortilla
Burrito Taste: 4/5 – Good balance of spicy and delicious
Burrito Texture: 1/5 – GTFO ZUCCHINI
Ingredient Quality: 4/5 – Quality all around
Ingredient Mixing: 2/5 – Highly unbalanced
Chips Taste: 4.5/5 – nearly flawless
Chips Texture: 3/5 – Bit too crunchy, too mainstream Tostitos
Amount of chips: 4/5 – Could’ve used a bit more
Guacamole Quality: 4/5 – solid taste, missing yummy avocado chunks
Amount of Guacamole: 2.5/5 – Maybe I just love guacamole, but it really didn’t last
Burrito cost in terms of value: 3.5/5 – Not a bad price for such a huge burrito
Drink cost in terms of value: 5/5 – Combo #2 was an amazing deal
Chips cost in terms of value: 5/5 – Combo #2 was an amazing deal
Guacamole cost in terms of value: 3/5 – Not enough! But I understand Guacamole is expensive
Number of napkins supplied: 5/5 – I had just the right amount of napkins
Location: 4/5 – Mighty convenient, I didn’t even have to change concourse
Outlet Interior: 3/5 – doesn’t really apply, but it was bright and cheerful on the outside

According to RPI public safety, at exactly 18:37 EDT, student Liliana Rivera choked and died on a piece of garlic bread. An unnamed informant who was familiar with the situation reported that Rivera had just sat down to eat in the North West corner of the hall. She proceeded to take 4 bites from her cheese pizza before deeming it unfit for human consumption. Rivera then focused on her garlic bread, which was smothered in butter. While the first two bites went as planned, the proceeding bite of garlic bread manager to plant itself in Rivera’s trachea.

The first to arrive at the scene was RPI Public Safety officer Steve Williams. Said Williams of the incident, “It couldn’t have occurred at a better time. I was stationed merely 25 feet away, meaning that Liliana’s death set the new record for the fastest response time!” Regardless of the reaction time, this is the first report of someone who has died in a bread accident. Sodexo, the hospitality services provider at RPI who operates Russell Sage Dining Hall, could not be reached for comment.

Editors Note: This was a proof on concept article that worked in about 8 hours.

My roommate and I set up all 7 of our screens to loop the “Never Gonna Give You Up” video. It was loud, annoying, but pretty sweet.

These sprung up on campus last week, and I think they’re complete genius!

ALMS, my favorite variety of sportscar racing, has been amazing this year, and today’s race at Mosport did not disappoint! During qualifying, Audi turned a lap in excess of 138 mph, making Mosport the fastest sportscar course in America!

I was watching the race in style:

On the left, my new T61p is sporting streams of onboard and overhead cameras. From left to right, top to bottom the views are Highcroft, Fernandez, AGR, De Ferran, Audi, and the Overhead camera. On the right, my old T23 was displaying live Speed coverage streaming from my roommate’s capture card.

The racing was exceptional all the way through. Early Audi dominance gave way to superior LMP2 strategy and pitstops. Though there were a couple nasty cautions (I hope John Faulkner in the #30 Intersport car is alright!), the green flag sections created close racing both for overall, LMP2, and GT2. The end of the race was spectacular, with several cars needing to stop for fuel, and two more running out of fuel! Shame for De Ferran… But, that gave the LMP2 victory to the Highcroft Acura (my preseason pick). The LMP2 points battle is shaping up to be a classic! Also, special congrats to BK for finishing the race! I can’t wait for them to get their coupe!

Congratulations to the Highcroft team!

F1 this weekend was a bit of a parade… and Raikkonen getting knocked out was a bummer. Congrats to Massa, Kubica, Kovalainen, Trulli, Vettel, Glock, and Rosberg for good finishes (notice who I left out?).

Fia GT was racing at Bucharest this weekend, which was a unique course with a great sense of speed. Points were divided between two hour long races. While evil yellow cars won both races, Vitaphone still did nicely, finishing 3rd and 4th in the 1st race and 2nd and 3rd in the 2nd race (due to a mistake by one of the evil yellow cars). Go Maserati! The competitiveness of all the non-Corvette GT1 cars was pretty impressive, and there was a lot of action overall. AF Corse was dethroned in GT2 by CR Scuderia.

Classes start tomorrow, and I still haven’t even memorized my schedule! So, posting this is benefitting me just as much as you!

It’s a screenshot of the RPI scheduler program, which is quite handy. It lets you choose the classes you want, then it calculates all the possible schedules using those classes. In my case, it found 72 schedules (!), which I narrowed down with a couple of filters: no 8:00 classes, and no classes from 12:00 to 1:00. What came out was my perfect schedule!

For all those that thought I was insane at DDR, you may still be right. But compared to others at RPI, I’m not that good =/.

Saturday was the RPI Freshman Olympics! I competed in the DDR tournament (what else would I do) at the heavy level. The tournament consisted of the same 3 songs, played be everyone, and the highest score won. The songs were Silent Hill (7 feet), Spin the Disc (8 feet), and Burning Heat (9 feet). Things started off pretty bad, somehow right in the middle of Silent Hill I managed to get off rhythm (or, the song switched off rhythm and I didn’t notice), and got 8 misses/almosts in a row… I did basically the exact same thing during Spin the Disc, which is very out of character for me. Usually, I’m much more reliable. Burning Heat gave me a shot at redemption, however most of the other “serious” players used a bar (actually a chair) to hold on to while playing. This basically sealed my fate. While I nailed the first 3rd of the song, there was some pad slippage and I basically floundered through the rest of the song.

The result? 6th place. But! Of the non bar users, I finished 2nd. Perhaps I should practice more with the bar…

As part of being an RPI student, I am required to have a new laptop! RPI’s laptop program this year chose the Lenovo Thinkpad T61p to be the laptop of choice for distribution! I received my laptop yesterday, and slowly but surely it’s becoming “my laptop”.

Full specs on the “My Computers” page.

Here’s a meta-pic!