11:21. Leaving Houston on Friday the 13th. In the rain. Not worried, however. Optimism is high. Our destination is Louie Mueller's (pronounced "Millers") in Taylor, Texas for a late lunch.
11:29 Leighton -- You know a buzzard's defense mechanism is to throw up? Vik -- I realize we're going to small towns in Texas, but I don't plan on being in any situation where provoking a buzzard is an option.
11:50 Vik -- Guys, I forget the Febreeze. We might need it. Leighton -- What are you planning back there? Vik -- You never know man. Wes -- Are you wearing a thong? Vik -- Good things these are leather seats.
12:03pm Vik -- I'm getting hungry. Leighton -- Me too. Wes -- I have some crackers in the back to tide you over, big guy. Vik -- That won't do. At this point, it has to be beef.
12:18 Driving through Brenham. Sure am glad we moved to Houston back in 1992. Thanks Mom and Dad. Vik -- There is a Chili's!! Leighton -- Brenham is booming, man.
1:40 Arrived at Louie Mueller's in Taylor Texas. Here is everyone's review, in their own words.
Wes: Shiner bock in a frosted mason jar. Perfect. 8 out of 10.
Leighton: 7.5 Pork ribs were very good. Covered in a ton of pepper and enough grease to drown a small child. Two kinds of brisket: moist (aka fatty) and lean. The moist was excellent, a lot of flavor. I found the lean brisket to be too dry for my taste. Sausage was alright, my least favorite of the stop. Potato salad was just right, maybe too much celery. The surprise of the stop was the pickles. With their full flavor they were the perfect combo with the BBQ. I must say that I was disappointed in the sauce. IT was vinegar based and way too runny for my taste. All in all a great first stop. Top quality family run joint. Actually met the third generation owner, very nice guy.
Vik: 7.5. Pork ribs were great. Unlike Leighton, I liked the lean brisket better. The moist one was too fatty for my taste. I do agree with Leighton tat the sausage was only ok. It was too loose of a consistency for me. It just fell apart when you cut into it. The atmosphere was great, even if it was cold because Leighton hid my jacket in the car. We met the third generation owners, 2 sons of Bobby Mueller. One served us and the other spoke with us at length. We told them that we were on a bbq road trip for spring break and they thanked us for including them on our trip. We learned about the history of the place and the area. For some reason they were under the impression that we were from Texas Monthly and doing a bbq inspection. Wayne Mueller gave us a media kit after running back to his office for it. Overall, it was a great experience.
3:00. We went to Wes's family land in Jonah, Texas. Saw some really wet cow dogs and an old dairy barn. Too cold to stay much longer that the time required to look around. On to Austin, Texas.
3:35. In Georgetown, Texas. Met with Travis and Meredith Holmstrom (Wes's brother and sister in law) along with their son William and 2 huge dogs. Leighton was almost castrated by a golden law named Brandon. He would have had to change his driver's license.
8:05 Luke Wilson walks out of Guero's Taco Bar. Delicious Tacos were then consumed.
So, spring break (Spring Break?) starts tomorrow (or this evening, if you don't have Friday classes [or whenever you decide to stop going to classes]) and this is the last spring break of my life. Sad, a little, admittedly. But, along with Leighton, I decided to make the most of this week off from class and work. After discussing the merits of a road trip across the country and stumbling across Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ joints in Texas, we struck lightning in a bottle. Road trip across Texas for BBQ. We spent a few hours mapping and planning. We have our five thousand country songs on our mp3 players (Note: it's not a Zoon, because we are not losers) and are set to leave Friday morning.
I am planning on blogging from the road with updates on BBQ, small towns in Texas and general shenanigans. Things will only be editted for language, as I'm sure some people (probably me) will get possibly (its pretty much a sure thing) carried away. Upon our return, we will provide our top 7 BBQ joints from the trip. Why 7 you ask? Well, 7 days on the trip, it just seems to work. (Also, 7 is a much better number than 8).
Before we leave, however, I will do a pre-season top 7. Feel free to discuss. Also, and I always took pride in this, but people from Texas always (almost always, at least) say they are from a city, Texas or are going to a city, Texas. For example, when Vince Young was being interviewed after winning back to back Rose Bowls and a National Championship, he said he was bringing the trophy back to "Austin, Texas." My brother was born in Brenham, Texas. I go to school in Houston, Texas. It's just how it is. I can dig it (which is becoming my new phrase of the week).
1. Lexington, Texas. Snow's BBQ. Only open Saturday morning from 8am till they run out of food. The top place in Texas, according to Texas Monthly. Run by an 80 year old woman. Supposed to be the best brisket in Texas. It's the favorite, going in.
2. Lockhart, Texas. Kreuz BBQ. Supposed to have the best sausages in Texas. You don't even get a fork at Kreuz BBQ. Forget a plate. You get your meal in butcher paper along with an optional plastic knife. Use bread or tortillas to dig in. The spot that will take the top spot if Snow's fails to deliver.
3. Driftwood, Texas. The Salt Lick. Not much needs to be said here. This reliable joint outside of Austin is annually on the lists of top BBQ places in Texas. It is also one of the last open pit places in Texas.
4. Taylor, Texas. Louie Mueller's BBQ. This is the darkhorse to win the championship. All-beef jalepeno sausage, two kinds of brisket. Screen door. Order by the pound. No plates, only butcher paper. This is the way BBQ was meant to be eaten.
5. Dickens, Texas. TC's Ponderosa. Even though Dickens, Texas is awful close to the Sand Aggies, TC's is a beacon of BBQ light in the deserts of West Texas.
6. Luling, Texas. City Market. Another dark horse to rise up in take the top prize. Only serving brisket, ribs and sausage. Again, no forks. But you won't need a fork here. The same pit has been smoking post oak wood for more than 50 years.
7. Monahans, Texas. Pappy's BBQ. You're asking yourself, how could a place called Pappy's be last? Well, it's not last, it's just number 7 on our top 7. It's still good. Also, we will be leaving the West Texas town of El Paso (Texas) before eating at Pappy's. Just thought I'd get that Marty Robbins song stuck in your head.
Just for the record, the worst BBQ in Texas is served at the cafeteria at the Criminal Justice Center in Houston, Texas. Just awful. They should be slapped.
Over his admittedly illustrious career Shaquille O’Neal has proven himself one of the most dominant big men in the history of basketball. He’s a 4-time NBA Champion, the 2000 NBA MVP, was the ‘92-’93 NBA Rookie of the Year, has been a NBA Finals MVP three times, was the NBA scoring champ twice and has earned a trip to 15 All Star games.
You can’t argue with that success. What you can say, though, is that he’s an obnoxious ingrate that doesn’t deserve a lick of it.
Shaq hit the genetic lottery and he’s translated that into a remarkable career. Good for him. But it’s been a decade since we can actually say he worked hard for an entire season. He takes more games off than any player in the league and more often than not shows up to camp woefully out of shape, content to rest on that raw physical supremacy and never push himself to his fullest potential.
He’s never bothered to learn to shoot free throws. He hasn’t made a 12-foot jumper in about four years. He’s never made an effort to foster team chemistry or to get along with teammates or coaches. He’s never put the team before his own bloated, sweaty ego.
He’s feuded with Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson, ending a Lakers dynasty that could have been one of the best in NBA history. He’s made racist remarks about Yao Ming. He’s dug on nearly every former coach and former city and team he’s played for. There’s a reason fans in every city he’s ever played in have learned to hate Shaq shortly after his departure (usually by virtue of a trade demand): he’s an ass. Be careful where you devote your idolatry, Phoenix. You’re next. Nobody in the NBA better personifies petulance than the Diesel.
Of late he’s been spouting off with renewed vigor. His idiot man-child brain unable to process his own increasing irrelevance, he’s lashing out. Hot off his unprovoked attack on NBA good-guy Chris Bosh in which he called the Toronto Raptors center, “the RuPaul of big men,” Shaq proved to be just getting warmed up. O’Neal tried to start a war of words with the gregarious Dwight Howard prior to their meeting on Tuesday, one which Dwight wisely didn’t want anything to do with. Dwight, the NBA’s current best center despite Shaq’s indignance, and the Magic prevailed. Poor Shaq didn’t like it. The big man’s response proved the axiom: jealousy is ugly.
After the game Stan Van Gundy, his former coach from Miami, expressed dismay at a Shaq flop. It’s understandable because not only is O’Neal the biggest man on the floor but he’s also been the most outspoken critic of flops in the NBA for ten years. Van Gundy said after the game, “I was shocked, seriously, shocked. And very disappointed cause he knows what it’s like. Lets stand up and play like men, and I think our guy did that tonight.”
Shaq’s response? Take gutless, shallow, and pedantic shots at everybody he could think of from Stan Van Gundy to his brother Jeff to Patrick Ewing. The transcript is below. I’ve never understood why he gets such a free pass for his childish behavior and remarks and why the NBA blogosphere is always all-too-eager to yuck it up at the latest instance of “Shaq being Shaq,” but I think we can all agree that this time he’s not just crossed but obliterated the line of decorum, professionalism and adult behavior. The man is an insufferable jackass by any definition of the term.
Can we finally stop shrugging his antics off and call a spade a spade? Shaq is the most classless professional athlete in America.
He (Howard) came with the same old, stale Patrick Ewing move so I tried to stand there and take the charge. The new rules say if you come through, you fall. But as I fell, I realized that it was a flop and it reminded me of Coach Van Gundy’s whole coaching career. The one thing I despise is a frontrunner. First of all, none of his players like him. When it gets tough, he will become the master of panic like he did before and he will quit like he did before. The one thing I despise is frontrunners. Yeah, he’s got a young team playing good but don’t be a frontrunner. Him and his brother and even the legend on the bench ain’t done what I’ve done in my whole career. So flopping would be the wrong choice of words.
I just tried to take a charge. The (expletive - deleted) rules say you can’t stand there and get hit. You’ve got to fall. He got the same old stinking move that Patrick Ewing has been doing his whole career. I went down, got up and didn’t complain. I see him and Stan complaining the whole game because they’ve got to. Remember, I’ve done more than him, his brother and Patrick Ewing.
Stan Van Gundy reminds me of a broke navigational system. He knows everything about everything but ain’t never been nowhere. Think about that. If I’m right here and I type in the address of where you’re going, I know where it’s at but I’m not going there.
When a bum says some shit about it and I respond, you can (expletive - deleted) cancel that cuz I know how he is in real life. We’ll see when the playoffs start and he (expletive - deleted) panics and quits like he did when he was here (in Miami). And you (expletive - deleted) print it just like that. Do I look soft to you like you can say something and I’m not going to say something?
Notice they didn’t play me straight up. We’ll see how far they go cuz I know Stan. I said this a long time ago but I was actually talking about him: ’When the general panics, the troops will panic. Like in business, when the head panics and takes out all his stock, what happens?
All the players hate him. The players don’t even like him. I hate frontrunners. I really do. I don’t like any frontrunners. There’s a pecking order involved. I’ve been there six times.
I ain’t going to let no bum like him rip me and not say anything back. You can cancel that (expletive - deleted) all the way. Usually, I let (expletive - deleted) go. Not that. Not him. Hell no.
The rules say when a guy goes through your chest you’ve got to fall to get the call. It was a flop. You’ve watched me play for 17 years. I don’t play like that.
I’m not going to sit around and let nobodies take a shot at me and he is a nobody to me. And if he thinks he can get in a little press conference and take shots at me like I’m not going to say something back, he’s got another thing coming.
Usually you let things go, Shaq? Strange, I can’t remember that ever happening.
For me it took place long ago, but hopefully for many others that’s the final straw. Hopefully he’s ensured that we don’t remember Shaq for any of his on-court greatness, but as one of the biggest jackasses in sports history. A big, hyper-sensitive child.
Recently, Shaq knocked down Dwayne Wade towards the end of this weeks Phoenix - Miami game. In trademark Shaq fashion, instead of offering a hand to help his former teammate up (the guy he rode to an NBA Championship), he chose to arrogantly stand over Wade, glaring at him like the big, stubborn mule that he is.
You’ve recently seen him jumping onstage at a rap show to belittle Kobe Bryant, heard his hil-ariousracial jokes plucked straight out of the ‘50s, and seen him on TV spouting off innumerable quips and one-liners that get the adoring media in stitches.
It seems he’s now added another trick to his repertoire of uproarious hijinks—making prank calls to female rappers in which he heavily pants into the phone like a hippopotamus in heat before hanging up:
The Suns center has been slapped with a temporary restraining order by hip hot artist Alexis Miller – known professionally as Maryjane – the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported today. Miller filed the restraining order in Atlanta with Fulton County Superior Court, alleging that O’Neal stalked her, threatened her with bodily harm and made harassing phone calls in which he breathed heavily into the phone before hanging up.
The Journal Constitution reported that Miller, 23, claimed she ended an intimate relationship with O’Neal last month. She alleged he then threatened to pay performers $50,000 each not to work with her.
Under terms of the temporary restraining order, O’Neal is prohibited from having any contact or coming within 200 yards of Miller or her 19-month-old son. O’Neal, who resides in Florida, is not the father of the child, Wolfe said.
The fun just never ends with this gentle ambassador for the NBA. We could not confirm that O’Neal is now available for appearances at your child’s next birthday party.
Call me old fashioned, but there is something wrong with people today. I'm not claiming to be a saint, by any means, but there used to be a certain level of decency and decorum in society where every personal thing in somebody's life was up for public debate.
By way of background, I went to get a hair cut today at Fantastic Sam's on West Gray. Half way through the hair cut, all was good. I'm not much of a talker during the hair cut. I want the person cutting my hair to pay attention and not screw up my hair. Yes, I know, I don't even brush my hair but it still doesn't need a huge gash in it from the shaver. Anyway, back to my point. The lady next to my chair was, oh, about 275 pounds and 5'4". She was bemoaning the fact that her fiancee would not let her get a dog, unless she ensured that the dog would not get on the bed or couch. This seems reasonable. What you do in your house is your business. I have no problem respecting that.
Then, however, things took a turn for the worst. The same lady who wanted the dog said that her fiancee would not let her sit on the couch unless she was wearing proper panties. If she was wearing a thong under a dress, she could not sit on the couch because her "bare a$$" would be on the couch.
Now, I don't even know where to start. I'll leave it to your imagination to fill in the gaps (no pun intended), but I found problems with the controlling nature of the fiancee (that can't be a healthy relationship [ he also won't let her wear shoes in the house and since she is a self-professed snorer, she has to go to bed after him]), the image of that "beefy" woman in a thong, and, finally, the notion that a woman that large is even able to purchase a thong. I won't make cheap jokes light maybe it was a pair of bloomers that just got stuck in the crevasse of her backside. I just won't make that joke. All I'm saying is, there should be a maximum size that thongs come in. I'm also not going to judge people for being overweight. But you can't wear belly shirts if you have a gut, ladies. Fellas, if you need to wear the next size up on your shirt, do so. Nobody needs to see the imprint of your back fat. That's just gross.
Shaquille O'Neal, a force never before seen in the NBA, is a big baby. Not Big Baby on the Celtics. But an actual baby. Sure, Shaq has been dominant. But he's only been able to use his immense size to overpower opponents. All he can do is dunk. Without a doubt, he's an incredible athlete. A man of that size, doing what he does (did?) is truly remarkable.
But, at the same time, he's not the best basketball player. He can't shoot. He can't shoot from more than three feet away from the basket. Forget free throws. He's never won anything without a dominant player next to him. Kobe in LA. Wade in Miami. Even now in Phoenix, he's got Nash and other good players around him. In Orlando, he had Penny and shooters around him. He's nowhere near the player Hakeem was. (As a note on Hakeen, remember what happened to David Robinson in 1995? Here's your reminder.) And don't forget what happened when Dream and Shaq played in the Finals in 1995. Sweep, back to back, Clutch City.
But Shaq can NOT take a joke. One jab at Shaq and he's calling everyone else this and everyone else that. He's thrown every teammate under the bus who ever crossed him or said one word edge wise. Even to D-Wade, who placated the Big Aristotle. He asked Kobe how his "backside" tasted. Then, when he got called out for it, claimed it was a joke. Forget the rest of the feud, when two grown man threw away at least 2 championships because of ego. He always has an excuse. He always whines. He's called out coaches Stan Van Gundy, Phil Jackson, and Pat Riley. Every owner. As soon as he leaves somewhere, he feels the need to burn bridges.
Its almost pathological. Allow me to play amateur psychologist for a moment. Since Shaq's step-father, Sgt. Phil Harrison (do I know too much about sports if I knew that off the top of my head?) moved around so much in the army, causing young (notice I did not say small) Shaq to constantly need the grass in his new destination to be greener than in his old stomping grounds? Did his desire to not be the new guy but everyone's friend require him to make fun of everything in his past so as to gain acceptance in his present? Does that metaphor work? I think it does. What's the deal with that? Any thoughts from you guys?
(Disclaimer: Some people could argue I've had senior-itis since I was 13, but that's not the point here, folks.)
I'm in the last semester of my last year of law school. Spring Break starts next week (more on that later -- a running blog is likely in the works on a week long BBQ road trip across Texas). School is almost out for summer.
I'll be honest, in law school there have been times that have been tough. Other times have been a little less tough. There have been some good times and some bad times. (Enough with the Charles Dickens, you say? I get it. Sorry.) For the most part, you show up, go to class, shake some hands, talk to some people, eat lunch, go to another class, read a book and then go home. Overall, it hasn't been that bad. I've made some good friends and had some good laughs.
But, back to that last semester, last year thing. Senior-itis (and I'm pretty sure it needs to be hypenated) has definitely kicked in. I don't care when professors (read: Wheeler) hide the ball. I just want the black letter law so I can study for the exam. I shouldn't feel this way, but I don't even care about exams that much. My grades have stayed almost the exact same all of law school (except for consumer transaction of all things). The last 9 hours that will be graded aren't that important when you consider the other 81 in the bank. I also don't want to burn out before the bar exam (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). So, to cut a medium length story just a tiny bit shorter, I have senior-itis.
But there have been some strange examples recently. There was the guy who wet his pants in Pretrial last semester. I've already discussed that so I'll just move on.
But today I heard of another strange happening. I'll admit, I wasn't there. I was studying for the MPRE (which is really starting to grind my gears. Katy, I'm sure you agree) at home. Mostly. I also watched some TV and chached around. I won't lie. But I was told by a reliable source (Leighton, who is quite the gossiping Betty if I say so myself) that a student who I won't name (Michah Binum) volunteered to recite in First Amendment and somehow convinced the professor to allow him to make a demonstrative on the board. Now, and this has been confirmed by Nathan Wood (hi Nathan), Mr. Binum decided to draw a penis on the board. Yes, you read that correctly, a penis. I don't know why. Maybe he thought he could get everyone to laugh. Maybe he wanted to get tossed out of class (which happened).
Look, I never claimed to be a shining beacon of morality (actually I have, but indulge me) but there are just some stupid people out there. If you want to go get a drink or two with your friends, go ahead. But don't come to class so drunk you pass out and wet your pants. If you don't want to go to class, stay home. But don't draw a penis on the board to get kicked out. It's just dumb.
11:21. Leaving Houston on Friday the 13th. In the rain. Not worried, however. Optimism is high. Our destination is Louie Mueller's (pronounced "Millers") in Taylor, Texas for a late lunch.
Oh, that Shaquille O’Neal is such a kidder. 
