Starbucks vs McDonalds

We keep hearing that a lot of people now prefer McDonald's over Starbucks for coffee. Since we go to Starbucks all the time, tonight we decided to give McDonald's a chance. We normally steer clear of any fast food, and especially McDonald's, but we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Wow.

When ordering, the guy had a lot of trouble getting our order right and was really thrown for a curve since Tracy wanted sugar-free syrup. He eventually decided that they were out of sugar-free syrup after a long wait. He also was definitely not fluent in English.

Then when we got our drinks, Tracy's was a medium instead of a large. When we corrected them, they said "That drink only comes in medium" That seems like the kind of thing they should tell you when ordering. Not to mention that their website and menu says they have that in a large. When we had our first sip while driving away, all we could do was laugh at how inferior it tasted. Even the whipped cream tasted off. Needless to say, we'll stick with Starbucks.

FYI: We didn't order straight coffee; maybe that's not as bad?

-Blake-


My review:that was awful.

I tried getting a Nonfat Vanilla Latte with sugar free syrup, which, in a large, was only 50 calories. Since they didn't wind up having the right ingredients, it went from a nice 50 calorie drink to over 300 calories. Definitely not something that a health food nut wants to eat. Needless to say, I took one sip and gave the rest to Blake. Who still hasn't drank it. The drink itself tasted kind of like burnt coffee beans mixed with a lot of water and a ton of sugar. EWE. But really, what were we expecting from such a high quality establishment such as McDonald's!! Now I remember why I haven't gone there since I was a kid. Soooooo, my review is this...I'll stick with Starbucks Skinny Vanilla Lattes!

-Tracy-

Fish rights,grilling, and personal space

This blog entry will be pretty random, as they mostly are when I(Tracy) write them. First topic of the day is over the question "Is fishing cruel???" Blake and I and some friends went to the lake house last weekend and had a blast. I discovered a new interest of mine and that's fishing. I wound up catching 9 fish in a span of probably 4 hours or so, not counting the 4 or 5 that I "caught" but just couldn't get out of the water. Feeling the bobber go down when I had a catch was an incredible rush for me, no matter how lame that sounds. It made me so excited!

So everything was great and fun until we were driving home and I started wondering what happened to all the fish I caught and threw back. Did they die? Are they swimming around crying little fish tears from the pain? Are they going to suffer a slow and painful death because of me? Before and while I was fishing, Blake told me their brains are so small that they don't feel pain....but now he tells me he wasn't serious. So I'm not really sure what to believe. I did some research into it over the internet and found results everywhere from telling me that fish are worthless, basically like moving plants, to others telling me that fish can be trained to tell time. Everyone I've talked to at work and everywhere else thinks I'm being stupid for even considering fishing being cruel. I mean, I eat hamburgers and chicken all the time so what's the difference right? I guess the difference is I wasn't the one to PERSONALLY MUDER THE ANIMAL....So this new hobby will go one of two ways, I'll either decide it's cruel, never fish again, and say a little fish prayer that all the fish I caught at doing okay....or I'll decide it's not and go fishing all the time. Dad has already told me that he has a bunch of fishing gear I could use if I wanted to and my friend Ashleigh at work likes to fish too so she's invited me out. I guess only time will tell what I decide!!!

In another completely unrelated topic, Blake and I went to this really great local Austrian restaurant in Plano tonight called Jorg's. I will say I wasn't a fan the first time I went there with him, but this time I got something completely different and it was AMAZING. I think it was chickensnitzel or something, who knows. Quick background info, we were eating at a table that was actually two small tables pushed together. When the host sat us down, we didn't think anything of it.

But then 5 minutes after we get our food, the host comes and sits down this older couple right next to us at the other table that was pushed into ours. They were literally sitting at our table. Both Blake, I, and the other couple felt extremely awkward. I hate situations like this. I have no idea who these people are and we can hear everything they are saying and they can hear everything we are saying...because, they're sitting 2 inches from us. I think they thought it was even more awkward than we did though because the first 10 minutes or so they didn't talk to each other at all hahaha. The whole time neither us nor them looked at each other or even acknowledged each other were there, possibly to help with the awkwardness of it all. Normally I would ask for a different table, but it's a small restaurant so I could see that there were no other tables open.

One thing Blake did that I'm sure he thought was funny is he told me that he left the house without putting Penny in her crate "because she looked comfortable on the couch", which he knew would get me riled up because anytime that has ever happened, she's destroyed anything she could. She mostly will head straight for my shoes. But I think it amused him to know that I couldn't freak out or argue with him about it since, of course, we were sharing our table with guests hahaha.....And he really did put her in her crate, he just wanted to see my reaction.

I also didn't know if I was supposed to say "bye" when we were leaving hahaha. So this situation brings up the issue of personal space. We Americans sure do like it and are definitely out of our zone and uncomfortable when this is taken away from us.

And lastly, Blake and I are super excited about our new grill! Jim and Tamara got Blake one(they're ordering it-it will be delivered Tuesday) for his birthday. We already went out and got new patio furniture in preparation for it. It's a really cute circular black table with 4 chairs and I picked out cute black and white patterened seat cushions for them. We're also going tomorrow to Lowe's(Blake says thanks for the gift card Claudette!!) to look at adding a little more lighting to the backyard as well as mosquito lanters or options to keep bugs away since we are now going to have a really nice outdoor living space to enjoy! We both don't know much about grilling but are really excited to learn and will definitely be having some fun cookouts and will be grilling out dinners probably once a week! I can only imagine how good yams, asparagus, and chicken will be on the grill! And of course I'm sure Blake will love grilling out all types of sausagey things! Blake also loves the guitar pedal that my parents got him and says thank you for that too! Overall I'de say he had a great birthday!!!

P.S. Look for an update and pictures later this week of our new grill and re-decorated patio!