Draconian Solutions

Mathmatica, biz-itchez!

Ah, the story here...

    Here's an excerpt from my International Relations class I had to do as a light posting for the final week.  I added a little anecdote of my past that I thought I'd share here.  The article we had to read is from the Huffington Post which is a largely spread though mediocre publication.  I'll post the article here from them. 

The father's the one on the left, interestingly.

   For those that don't like to read my work, because they're Generation Zero and just like to look at the pictures, I've included non-related images of bad family portraits, because I have to cater to the masses such as the TV show, "Ow, my balls!" from the movie, Idiocracy (2006) because it'll be just as entertaining.  See?  I'm catering to two groups at once!  That's freakin' amazing, but that's expected from a bard-demigod (bows).  Enjoy, ALL!  1997... NOW.

Leonardo has schemes for this one.  Ah yes... perfect.  You ARE the chosen ONE!  Soon.. young one.. soon!

Huffington Post:

The only pussy this guy will ever touch.

Think Globally, Act Locally: 

"Soon, my plans will come to fruition!"

In India, the Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship turned the social innovation technology model on its head five years ago. Through supply-chain and engineering methods, the Center tackled the global issue of hunger on a local scale. They developed a system to provide daily hot meals to poor Indian schoolchildren for only 12 cents each. By bringing the for-profit discipline to the compassion of a non-profit, the service provided 85,000 affordable, locally sourced meals. Now, the program has been scaled to feed 1.3 million kids a day across India.

 

Which is the mother of which?  Answer: Follow the goat.

 

This idea to pioneer new models to solve global problems, perfect them by partnering with local leadership and spread them to other parts of the world is the foundation of the Deshpande Center's Social Innovation Sandbox. In the Boston area, the Merrimack Valley Sandbox promotes social entrepreneurship and leadership in Lowell and Lawrence, by funding more than 600 student and youth entrepreneurs, working with more than 300 adult entrepreneurs, and partnering with 30 community organizations. The Center's founder, Desh Deshpande, enthralled and inspired me with these stories as he eloquently spoke about the potential for innovation and social entrepreneurship to meet commercial and social needs both locally and globally during Wheelock College's inaugural international conference on Global Challenges and Opportunities Facing Children, Youth and Families this past June.

 

Taboo: American Style IV: The Exciting Conclusion (1985) staring Raven, Gloria Leonard, and apparently in this deleted scene, "Little Timmy" replacing Tom Byron.

Eight hundred plus professionals--representing 5 continents from over 40 countries in the fields of health, education and human rights attended the Conference to discuss the challenges facing global society today and to collaborate on possible solutions. Plenary speakers, such as Desh Deshpande and Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, urged attendees to engage, stay connected and above all to remain hopeful as we work together across continents to ensure a brighter future for children, youth and families.

 

I actually think I work with this guy.  Notice the kid hates his life and was obviously abducted.

 

During her keynote address, Cherie Blair shared how cross-specialty international partnerships have developed innovative and long-term solutions to an array of complex, global issues such as widespread poverty, discrimination, violence against women, and corruption. Blair's foundation has worked in 70 countries in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, to develop programs that build confidence, capability and capital in women. She cited an example of how her Foundation partnered with a phone company in India. They developed a mobile application to allow women to sell dried goods more efficiently via text message orders rather than spending a day traveling door-to-door.

 

When in Rome.

 

 "Now is the time to seize the opportunity to make a collaborative impact. Now we must work together to develop long lasting solutions to these problems," she said. "Big challenges require big solutions, and we cannot effectively address them alone."

 

This is why you don't want the "Ring of Calibos"

As the four days of the Conference came to a close, agent for social change and Founder of Katalyst LLC, Kevin Carroll, reminded us how to fuse together thinking globally and acting locally or as he stated, how to create a "glocal attitude." It is critical that participants remain engaged as global citizens and advocates for education, health and human rights after the conference by bringing the ideas, discussions and dialogue back to their communities. We must continue to exchange best practices for improving the lives of children and families globally. As Cherie Blair voiced "If we're going to truly solve the problems of the world we've got to share our information whenever we can and strategically include one another in or efforts."

 

Little Rachel learns to count to carrot the next month.

 

"My Tholian Web is nearly complete, Captain Kirk!"

Boring read.  My requirement was such:

1.  Consider a community that you are familiar with, whether you are living in the place where you grew up or in a different community at the present time. What issues do you see around you that could be alleviated by the idea to "think globally, act locally"?  Keep in mind that we are focusing on the power of the individual citizen, as opposed to government solutions, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kanye West's next album cover, "Sugar and Spice (2015)"

My response is here:

 

After reading the Huffington Post article, I can see that the scope is to solve a worldwide issue on a local basis.  This really is the key here, because some issues on a worldwide level can seem far too overwhelming.  One example of this could be an impossibly cluttered, messy room.  One might just instantly "give up" in exasperation because of it's massive undertaking (on a humanistic scale) but then if one just started on one small area, say a buried chair or desk for that day and worked at it, eventually, the whole room would be clean.  This is the small-scale example of a "think globally, act locally" concept.  In the example we read (in which I actually lived exactly in between Lawrence and Lowell in the Merrimack Valley) the focus is not all of the US or even Massachusetts but two towns.  Others should follow-suit and if so, worldwide efforts can be accomplished.

"Do you wanna be hypnotized?"

 

So many problems to choose from, some are assumed problems but are just cultural diversity and shouldn't be touched.  Quite a complex final-post which no doubt would create some interesting results from the students.  Very provocative and interesting!  Hunger, violence, illiteracy, gun-control; these are obvious choices so I'll avoid them.

Christmas of the Planet of the Apes (1977) unreleased pilot.

To Triangle, perchance to dream.

I worked as a security guard called Altron in 1992.  I had worked 48 hours non-stop at some other locations that weekend and this would make a 3rd and last 12-hour shift due to people calling-in sick.  Altron was a chemical company that cleaned computer components using some volatile chemicals.  Catwalks were required to be navigated over open, 5000 gallon vats of toxic sludge blue-green like "Smilax" right out of Batman (1989).  Hydrofluoric acid, silver-nitrate, and things that displayed dangers cryptographically such as a man falling backwards from a lightning-bolt entering his brain after smelling three chemicals simultaneously and Chinese warnings with exclamation-points were the norm.  There was an "Ammonia Room" where the room had to be saturated with 10% pure ammonia-vapor for certain computer components to be assembled.  Workers at 2am were busy manipulating them wearing only paper face-masks.  I had to travel that room to the next checkpoint every hour and nearly passed-out each time, light-headed and dizzy.  I can't imagine the longevity of those workers, or if they had evolved to be able to process pure ammonia to survive, needing a vial to take home after work to just function?  I'm sure they're all dead now.

This... this.. I have no caption for this.  Imagine the chaos getting these monkeys here to the local WalMart photo booth alone!

 

Yep.

Altron was by a swampy area just north of Boston.  Altron had waste they had to get rid of from their cleanings and other unknown actions.  Properly disposing of the chemical doom in barrels and shipping them to proper facilities was very expensive.  The fine to dump all that death into the swamp annually was cheaper, so they did that.  There was a mild chemical reaction that made the swamp glow a dull orange on its own.  The lieutenant was giving me my final briefing to be careful when I noticed something broke the sludge's surface and ducked back-down into the mildly glowing mess in the evening murk and he nervously laughed and drove off.

 

Kitty-kitty!

The fines allowed Altron to cheaply devastate the local landscape which I doubt will fix itself in 10,000 years.  The EPA needs to ramp-up that region's fines to a ridiculous level so Altron (and presumably other companies) will not continue to choose the financially obvious choice of straight dumping.  By the EPA hiking the rates to a level that would devastate a company, they might think twice on their practices and chose the then cheaper choice of properly disposing Smilax-like death.  Local county and State fines could also be introduced to add-on to the penalty.  If Essex County where Altron was located followed suit, other local counties would impose their own penalties.  This would stop that sort of practice outright (for the most part, lest they do so in extreme clandestine).  This would help nonetheless.

Exercise the demons!

The puppet knows one must die.

I remember it was cheaper for me to park in Boston and risk a parking ticket on the side of the street than actually park in a parking garage by 50%.  The gamble was that I might not get a ticket and the odds generally were 3 to 1 a traffic-cop would not issue one.  This made my actual costs 88% less each time.  If the tickets were 5 times the cost of a garage to park-in, I would not have parked on the street as the odds would not be in my favor.

"Good, my brother.  Soon this one will be sacrificed to Cthulhu and the Shoggoth will rise from the swamps.  Gooood!"

 

Fines, though draconian, may be the key.

Ghost BUSTERS!  YEAH!

  I'd like to point out that sometimes some hard penalties are a solution to a criminal act, such as what Altron provided here.  They're interestingly still in-business because hyper-liberal Massachusetts isn't fining them properly yet, even after 20 years of devastation. 

That beeper...

  My brother used to joke that a cereal we used to get that had random colored smiley-faces and tasted like chemicals was "Altron Cereal" because it tasted like fruity chemical death, smiled sarcastically and defiantly, each disc smile of cereal unknownedness in some sort of denial like a scientist who's also a Christian and just clings to some specific Old Testament detail without really caring about the very important message within the text because otherwise they can't believe in the whole of it for some reason. 

"You know, El Diablo, with the claws, and the beak..."



Stupid Voo-doo!  Shucks, not again!

These discs were more than that: they mocked themselves in denial with the bitter knowledge of a crueler, more evil fate like a heroin junky who knows that sharing that needle with Tray-Ray who was just vomiting blood is probably not a best-choice, or that Hitler dude who thought his uber-men were going to take Russia in the winter like it was nothing but an inconvenience, or that Christian evangelist who knows that sleeping with that gay prostitute here in Colorado Springs for the 50th time "bare-back" is probably going to bite him in the ass both literally and figuratively with no exit-strategy. 

One bunny is missing, "My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today."

Lunch: caught.

Those fruity smiles, crunch-crunch-crunch.  Smiles of denial.  Smiles of failure and evil betrayal and more like a grimace, holding back the fear.  Crunch crunch crunch.  Stays crispy in milk, and lava, and black-holes, and suns, and time, and Dimension 5.

Someone is going to get their wish...

I never had to work back at Altron.  That time had past, with a stronger knowledge that the World is a pretty bad place like some Phillip K. Dick novel or other William Gibson cyberpunk misery and that fatality was an inevitability for the Human Race.  I had gone home to Derry, NH that morning and crashed for 24 hours, wrecked.  Marysol left me because I had gone to shit two months later, and I was a jerk, and enough was enough.
 

Dodged the Bullet: A Rememberance

  Sometimes I didn't come back to her for weeks in that apartment to stay in Reading, MA to watch USA Up-All-Night with my cousin to just vent that Life wasn't quite working out the way I had hoped.  Stupid choices.  My path was taking me nowhere and I was not turning into the man I wanted to be.  Her leaving me was the slap in the face I needed.   I cleared out all that poison from my system (she was definitely NOT the cause of that, but what I lost), and the USAF told me what a man should be, how to stand on my two feet and remember to be strong under adversity, because the whole world is like that Altron, and for lunch, it might sometimes be "Altron Cereal" but you don't have to accept that, make your family eat that.  Sometimes you have to put a stop to Altron, and if you find you're Altron yourself, sometimes you gotta put a stop to yourself. 

Lady Death the Eternal enjoys the last moments of this doomed fool, "..to burst the bubble and watch him suffocate..oh, so soon, the exquisite agony, the grasping of the throat, and the turning blue, oh so pretty blue, then he'll shit himself." she muses.

  

Kilrathi: "Tholian Web technology successful, commander!"  "Meow!"

We've all been that poison at one point, to others.  We've all been a little "Altron" at one point or another, usually unknowingly, but we can at least not grin and accept it like the Altron Cereal discs, frozen in their chemical crunch shape.  We can change, apologize, attempt to fix and heal, and move-on the wiser, never repeating those evils and turn-over a new leaf, and that's what Christianity is all about, Charlie Brown.

For the laaaadies!

Out.

Your author.

Quick Star Wars 7 News

Yub YUB!!!

 A lot of folks know already that JJ Abrams is finishing-up on Star Wars VII.  Apparently, Warrick Davis is going to reprise his role as Widget the Ewok in it.  Just found out.  Unless he invokes some of his character, "The Leprechaun" from the eponymous film series, I'm quite concerned.  Certainly good news having Max von Sydow (aka Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon) is a treat, but Ewoks?  Doesn't JJA know that sort of killed Return of the Jedi for a lot of folks (the ladies seemed to have liked it though, if I remember correctly back in 1983).  Might as well call him "Jar Jar Abrams" now, no?  Well, we'll see.  Just sayin', JJ.  Better not suck.  Ewoks?!  God help us.

Here's an actual filmed scene from RoJ that George Lucas did as an extra scene.  Notice Boba is still alive.

                                                                                                               

  On another note, the band Cameo's first album, "Cardiac Arrest" is very good from 1977 and worth a listen.


                                                                                                            
Out.

Burger Quest 2014

    

  There's two fairly new burger joints in Colorado Springs, each touting that they're "the best".  Strong claims, and I, of course, am an official "burger connoisseur".  Few meet my A+ status grade, indeed, the only one that ever did that hasn't closed due to the owner dying of old-age yet is Kohala Burger and Taco on the main island of Hawaii of Rt.270 in the middle of nowhere.  I swear the cow had eaten a steady diet pineapple and flowers and Kentucky bluegrass it's entire, happy life.  It's worth the ridiculous flight just to go there for that one, simple $6 (now $9) burger.  God help us all it was that good.  Oh, Gracious Lord Jesus Christ Himself would grin in blessed approval and we shalt all feast upon the holy cows in Thy Mercy amongst the humpback whales frolicking in the Pacific distance as tears of joy flow from our eyes and crave not orangutans or breakfast cereals, Amen.

This cook.. is he.. in disguise.. The Lord Himself ?!  Gracious God I kneel before the LORD of All Burgers!

     Anyway, all other burger places are merely a tribute to Kohala.  There is no finer.  I violently recommend this place!   Succulent Brazilian bikini-clad-chipmunks feed you while singing Rush songs simultaneously rubbing your tummy at Kohala (aka God's Dining Table).

Inside of Bingo Burger.

    The two I'm reviewing today are Bingo Burger and The Skirted Heifer.  Interestingly, both are on (or very near) annoyingly-trendy Tejon Street in Colorado Springs.  I loathe Tejon Street because it's trying WAY too hard to be upscale and metropolitan when it's really sort of a pretentious strip like lipstick-on-a-pig.  Pricey restaurants and sad teeny clubs litter the street on both sides catering to a ho-dunk from Iowa looking for "class".  Top-shelf booze is Jack Daniel's and Bacardi.  Wells are unmentionably contained in screw-top Chinese-plastic 1-gallon cleaning-supply-sized jugs.  Music is an emphasis on bass as if we're on Key West during Spring Break.  One can't help but ask one's self, "Who indeed let the dogs out?"  Fights ensue after midnight in tween-cred pressed-shirts straight out of the package with boys that "pre-gamed" the evening by drinking cheap no-name tequila-shots beforehand, of course bringing firearms "just in case" often being the problem instead of the solution.  It's retarded, this street, set for age 18-22 (fake ID included).  If you like "stupid", go to Tejon, aptly named after the "badger".  Seemingly harmless, until you get tore-up by it.

Sorry-ass middle-agers dancing at Southside Johnny's on S.Tejon

 

Colorado Springs zombie-kids when the bars close at 1:45.  Note, this is in June. Not in costume.

 
  Bingo Burger is on the corner of Tejon and Bijou (more Tejon than Bijou).  Inside is the size of an elongated living-room.  It's an order-and-sit affair (the way Crave Burger comes-off but oddly, Crave wants you to have a waiter for some stupid reason).  Finding where to actually order is awkward, and the seats and wooden benches are placed exactly wrong, "long-wise" with chairs placed along 12 foot benches.  You have to work through the dining room area to get to order food.  Luckily, I went at 2pm so the nearby college kids were back learning about what teachers think is correct. 

  There was one trio of students discussing philosophy of what was true and right in one's own universe or some such pre-adult drivel that goes around and around but they were excited about it anyway.  Ten points for the passion of logic, minus 100 for not being useful in any way because the Orobus Circle of it never ends and in the meantime you go hungry due to the impracticality of it.  I say, with philosophy, take it lightly, then learn a worthwhile trade and get your hands dirty.  Lingering on it will make you go mad at best.  Seems they were on the cusp of it, so I hoped not too late, though they were wearing Gen-Zero garb, so I suspect all is lost for them in this tip-of-the-iceberg situation.  I dismiss them utterly.

Generation Zero without smart-phones.

I examined the menu beforehand.  I'll place it here (click it to make it larger of course):

   The idea with this place is that they use local grass-fed beef.  Their shtick is they add local Pueblo chilies some 40 miles south.  They dub it the "Bingo Burger".  It's quite popular in Pueblo where its first store opened.  I ordered one with cheddar and bacon, all-"garden" items, no onion (only because most places over-do it).  Basic fries (sweet-potato fries are over-rated these days, and a bit 10-years-ago for me) and for the "dipping sauce" I picked the Yelp-recommended Thai-ketchup.  Soda is Boylan's sugar-cane cola, which is above-average, and Bingo's set the self-serve fountain correctly, though you can also buy bottles of the stuff if you want (oddly repetitive).  Boylan's soda is very good, reminiscent of Throwback Pepsi or Coke-with-sugar (aka Mexi-Coke). 

Why is the bun greasy?  Bingo Burger, Colorado Springs.

 
   I was concerned because Yelp says the burger comes-out burnt.  Not mine.  I got one rare.  Meat consistency was decent but not great.  It was sitting (once picked up) in a large pool of red cow blood.  Not quite desirable.  Took a 7-napkin "bib" to soak it up, which it soaked right-through.  Burger is unseasoned.  Lettuce was upscale "Loose-leaf" species (lactuca savita) which is rather upscale for Colorado Springs.  Pickle slices were annoyingly garlic and pale like an insult.  Bacon was raw and salty and very fatty, though thick-cut.  Tomatoes were over-ripe but not spoiled and slightly over-acidic and mushy.  Bun was meh, though it tasted like a bakery gave it a go.  Burger fit well in the hand in the same way a Burger King double-bacon-cheeseburger might (for scale).  Fries were limp like Five Guys but with a lot less flavor.  Thai ketchup is ridiculously sweet and meant for a kindergartener.  They offered Heinz packets but I went for the house-ketchup to try.  It had cinnamon in it, which was odd, and a lot of salt.  Taste was alien, but I put it on the burger and it seemed flat.  Cheese was flavorless utterly.

  At first, I was upset because I didn't see any peppers, mistaking the red tomatoes for them, until I realized the Pueblo chilies were supposedly "inside" the burger meat mixed-in.  I couldn't even notice them and they weren't visible.  Burger tasted a tad "sour", perhaps by the microscopic peppers added.  I noticed a very slight heat (and a bit sour), perhaps a 12 on the Scoville Level so that was probably it I guess.

   The burger actually continued to cook as I ate it.  I myself do not give off more than 350 degrees of heat I'm pretty sure, but I understand red meat will continue to do so.  By the end of my getting through halfway, the burger became medium.  I wish they had held onto it an extra 5 minutes or so to allow it to settle.  This did not improve the flavor though, and my bill of a burger, cola, and fries was a slightly over-priced and unnecessarily expensive $17.  The owner and a cute chubby sweeper chipmunk-girl checked on on me a few times (oddly) to see how things were.  I only ate half, dumping the rest, and made my escape. 


Bingo Burger (Colorado Springs location)  Final Grade: D+
 

Angry owl does not like Bingo Burger Colorado Springs, CO

=========================================================================================================================

  Walking across the street 100 feet northward I worked my way to  The Skirted Heifer.  The place is about half the size of Bingo's.  The deal here is they like to chop-up the burger and mix it in with cheese.  The owner, Suzette was excited to see me.  I noticed they too used Boylan's soda.  She explained they stole her idea of using that brand because she was there first.  She was incredibly chatty (for some reason) and went over her organization happily.  Having owned Bambino's (the worst Italian restaurant in Colorado, though she's quite proud of it) for 30 years with her husband, she's expanded-out by herself to open Skirted. 

Suzette (co-owner) at Bambino's catering to a bowling party there.

Here's what one Yelp describer offered on Bambino's:

"Finally made it into Bambino's on a blustery Sunday afternoon. Place is right out of the 60s/70s - which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good.  Has that mom and pop feel, which I like. 

 They have what looks like a standard pizza/salad buffet all-you-can eat -option.

I opted for the ravioli, which was pretty standard, with boring, jar-tasting pasta sauce.  Their salad bar is what you would find at any basic all you can eat place (iceberg lettuce, and typical accompaniments.)

Service was ok.

Overall, probably not a place I would return. I make better pasta and pasta sauce at home." -- Anonymous Yelp'er 2014

Skirted Heifer at lunch.  Photo taken from near the exit door (small place).

  I ordered a similar burger as Bingo's with bacon and cheddar.  They use local, grass-fed beef.  She insisted Bingo's used corn-fed and that's a no-no by her.  I'd disagree but whatever, though I did agree with her that the taste would be different, depending on a lot of factors.  The bacon was pecan-wood smoked so I was excited by that, and got lettuce and tomato as well as her "home-made" pickle on it.  They also make a home-made ketchup as well, and I got the "waffle fries".  She was very friendly and I guess this place is her baby, though I know Bambino's sucked.  I told her I went once or twice in 1993 and she was a bit taken aback.  Yeah, Suzette.  It ain't good.  I was concerned about my burger-fate, but I kept an open mind.  She chatted with me, "So what do you do?  Do you just go and try different restaurants?"  That's an odd question.  Who doesn't?  Weird.

"I may be retarded, but.. wtf, bitch?"

  The ebony chef handed me the burger in a basket and said with all his heart, "Sir, I truly, truly hope you enjoy this burger today."  Well then!  At least the place has heart.  Burger looked fine enough.  Similar in small size as Bingo's but with a standard sesame bun.  Fries looked beer-battered and long-cut and tasted like burnt funnel-cake with salt and pretzel batter.  Very weird. 

     Overcooked slightly to a correct well-done, though neither place how I'd like them cooked.  Burger tasted like manure!   Yikes!  I'm not kidding here.  It tasted the way manure smells.  Runny, diarrhea, animal feces. 

 There are some places where this would be a preferred, high-quality offering.  Bacon was possibly pecan-smoked, but was so salty and cooked black into long, very thin chips it was like eating pure salt-rectangles.  Simply over-cured.   I've never in my life tried bacon that salty and it was a concern.  Meat was not seasoned as I picked through it, trying to find non-shit-tasting bites.  I was quite concerned with the animal-feces flavor.  This is not normal.  It's as if Bossy went to the animal-shredder and took a massive diarrhea all over the butcher's room before she got blitzed.    

Butcher got blasted.

     A few nibbles around the meat were not as ca-ca flavored and tasted like absolutely nothing (which was a pleasant relief-treat).  She asked me what I thought about it.  I told her I'm not really impressed but she just blew me off at that point to attend new customers.  Pickles tasted indeed home-jarred but of course, quite garlicky.  I feel Burger King's pickles are the standard to which other burger's pickles should abide.  Ketchup was flat and Hunt's-like but not as flavorful.  Lettuce was shredded iceberg in the same vein as Bambino's salad-bar.  Tomatoes were generic and forgotten.  Bun was just a bun. 

Décor was an odd western motif with saddles for bar-stools and some wooden tables.  Music was some random western forgettable stuff.  Initials BF scored into the wood, probably standing for "bad food" (4 life).  Not certain.

I wanted to like this place because of the intensity of Suzette and her cook but, alas, even though I watched him cook the 1/3rd pound patty and sure-enough he did not take a massive ass-dump on it, there just wasn't any soul in it.  She admitted (because I asked) that the burger is not seasoned except a dash of salt/pepper/chili-powder after cooking as a sort of spice-mix.  I think it was added in the same style a bartender will whisk Vermouth over a Martini's Gin such that the essence of Vermouth molecules share the same air-space for an extra-dry Martini without actually pouring any in the glass.  Indeed, I think they just waved the spice-mix nearby the burger, not on it, per-se.  I tasted only salty, burnt bacon and shit-meat and garlic-pickle-roundhouse kicks to the mouth.  Sigh.  I dumped most of it. $23 for a burger, fries, and a cola. 

Burger-Chihuahua does not approve.

The Skirted Heifer  Final Grade: D+



=====================================================================================================================

Epilogue: My final thoughts... of anger!

I wanted to like both places, but I could not.  I could not like either.  Both fringing on the eclectic, like some neo-places that try to "spice-up" something simple.  One would think it's not hard to make a burger.  It is.  As Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2012) the ingredients are simple and expertly prepared correctly if done right.  I've been to a lot of burger joints in my day, such as the supposedly famous Cherry Cricket in Denver which ends-up just being another Crave Burger with a bar-atmosphere and some odd toppings (such as corned-beef, wing-sauce, and raspberry jam).  Both disguise that they make a horrible burger with "fluff" and "razzle-dazzle".  Idiots rave over it.

Purity in burger love.

Actual "Ninja Joe" burger!

A plain, bacon cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and pickle should be the expert-balance.  Truly, just cheese should be the purist's method.  From that point, from that perfection you can tenaciously and scientifically add things (at great peril) like a taste-bud reverse Jenga game. Almost no one in Colorado can seemingly get this right.  BALANCE BALANCE BALANCE! 

                                     

   Don't try to freak me out with odd sauces and weirdo spices!  "More Siberian saffron and aged Allspice with your burger sir?"  STOP THAT!  Meat must be pre-seasoned and of high-grade.  Cheese must be high-quality.  Bun must be dense and rich (or at least flattering).  Most places make a burger as a quick afterthought.  When a place makes a burger it's main item, it better get it right.  Then again, it's all a matter of taste.

  Recommendation:  For the same price in this town of Colorado Springs, get the burger at The Famous: A Steakhouse (don't get the steak or anything else) and get their home-made cheesecake for dessert (and ask for the white-chocolate g'nosh sauce on the side).  If Mackenzie's Chophouse is offering their Kobe Beef burger (imported, and very seasonal) then get that.  If you're in Denver, get the British beef burger at Pints and a pint of ale with a fine 18 to 30 year-old scotch and an aged cigar for dessert.

Out.

Oh.. sorry.. and one for the ladies..

What's "orange's" right hand doing there?!

SASSY!