Monday

I brought in leftover pasta on Monday, which had shrimp and asparagus with garlic and oil.  Because I get pretty fired up anytime someone heats up fish in the office microwave, I decided to eat this meal cold, which was perfectly okay for me.

The Don, who has been under the weather lately, went out to buy lunch, something that rarely happens but luckily is captured on this blog every time it does.  He is out of the office today, so I can’t ask him what was in this wonderful schmorgesborg, but with good enough eyes I’m sure you can figure it out:

ManMeat went on the wild side for his Monday lunch: Korean stew, with kimchi, fish cakes, and spam.  I am not even sure how to comment about that lunch, but ManMeat wanted me to include the fact that it was the first time in twenty years that he’s had spam.  I am not sure I’ve ever eaten it in my entire life.

Tuesday

I switched it up on Tuesday because I don’t have class at night, going with a traditional ham sandwich.  I have not been the biggest ham fan growing up, but for some reason I’ve developed a strong liking to it.  It could be that I have just become so incredibly bored with turkey, but for whatever reason ham is becoming a go-to cold cut these days.  With the sandwich was a yogurt (fruit on the bottom – peach), grapes, a banana and some blueberry crumb cake that was incredible.

ManMeat brought a baked pasta concoction, which he drowned with his his habanero hot sauce.  An interesting combination, I must say:

ManMeat is on vacation, so I can’t ask him what was in the pasta, my apologies.  Maybe he can comment below when he gets back.

Wednesday

I went out for lunch and forgot to take a picture and since I wasn’t in the office, no other pictures were taken.  Sorry.

Thursday

My wife made chili this week and I brought in some leftovers for lunch on Thursday.  We don’t traditionally put any vegetables into our chili, but she’s decided that it’s better for us if we do; unfortunately, I can’t really argue with her.  And while I hate to admit it, it was delicious, even with the veggies.

BLD/HG was back in the office on Thursday and went a little exotic with his lunch, picking up some sushi, chicken noodle soup and, of course, a bag of Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles.  The perfect trifecta!

I usually bring in a sandwich for dinner on nights that I have class, but on Thursday I brought other leftovers of a wonderful meal that my wife put together: spicy chicken, asparagus, and roasted yams and carrots:

Why would I add a picture of my dinner on a post covering our lunches of the week?

Friday

Because I forgot to take a picture of my lunch today before I ate it.  I can’t believe this happened but it did.  I was so excited about my egg salad sandwich (no meat Friday) that I inhaled it before I could even think about taking a picture.

Luckily, BLD/HG was in the office and went with a $5 foot long from Subway.  One  highlight of the lunch is that BLD/HG got a new work drinking cup to replace his old Subway one that has been featured in many Lunches of the Week posts.  The foot long had grilled chicken breast, lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, pickles, olives, light mayo, mustard and vinegar.  Needless to say, the Subway guy was thrilled once BLD/HG finally stopped piling items onto the whole wheat roll.

Mexico

That’s right, we have pictures from Mexico.  Mr. and Mrs. ManMeat traveled down to Cancun for a little fun in the sun and I’ve received the following pictures from him so far:

His first margarita of the trip:

Shrimp Tacos:

Octopus ceviche:

And two more margaritas and his suntan oil spray bottle (a bold move for an Englishman!):

Nothing more to say until next week!

Coaches are often accused of funneling kids into easier classes, or classes that barely even exist, just so that they can keep their minimum GPAs up to remain eligible for play.  There have been stories of players being paid under the table for their commitment to certain schools, or scoring jobs and houses for their families close to campus.  Even high school coaches are part of the mix, joining college coaching staffs only because they are the representative for a big time athlete on their high school team.

Here are some key quotes from the article:

“It is different because in the last 20 years colleges have allowed their ‘money’ sports – football and basketball – to become farm systems for the professional leagues, and in so doing have permitted their athletes to embrace a terrible myth: that attending college with the sole aim of making the pros is compatible with the academic environment, even at the expense of scholarship.  Scholastically handicapped players are thus invited into college to pursue an impossible dream: to become one of the small number of college players (less than 2%) who make it into the NFL and NBA.”

Sure sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  How often do we picture college coaches visiting recruits and showing them how many players they have turned into professional athletes?  Ever hear of one that goes onto say that even if they don’t make it, their education will carry them through to a different lucrative career?  I didn’t think so.

Going into the actual cost of these programs, the article touches on the dollars that are spent in scholarships for 95 football players, plus the salaries of the head coach and ten assistants, all of which must be paid even “before the first pair of sweat socks is handed out.”  Going further into the point:

“What fans do understand is that they don’t have to spend Saturday afternoon watching ol’ State lose, no matter what the school’s team has cost.  And they don’t.  Which means that if a university is going to get even financially, not to mention tap in on the huge profits earned by the most successful football schools, those 95 scholarships had better go to athletes who can deliver: fill those stands, get the team nationally ranked and on TV – and let’s not hear about a star running back losing his eligibility because he cannot conjugate the verb ‘to run.’”

The act of getting these kids through their classes just so they can play is hardly a new story.  The article touches on the point that these kids are losing a tremendous opportunity in school by not taking classes that prepare them for life after their college careers are over, since such a large percentage don’t end up playing sports for a living anyway (and even if they do make it, the average career in basketball and football is less than five years).

“Since television got its thumb on the windpipe, there is so much money to be made in big-time sports that everybody cooperates….The colleges know they cannot justify their sellout by saying they’ll use the loot to give athletes better academic training, so they try to justify it with dream talk.  School publicists send out press releases bragging about their ability to place players in pro ball and decorate the pages of their sports brochures with photographs of those who have ‘graduated’ to the pros.  Last year the University of Miami shamelessly produced a four-color recruiting poster, captioned A PIPELINE TO THE PROS, that included pictures of those Hurricane players who had ‘made it.’”

The points made in the article are hardly shocking.  The purity of college sports was lost years ago.  Arguments about paying players are constantly being brought up, not because we think they need a little extra income while they dedicate so much of their time to their respective school teams but because there are BILLIONS OF DOLLARS being made on their backs.

What’s the real reason this article was so shocking to me and I felt I needed to share it on this blog?  Because it was published by Sports Illustrated in their May 19th, 1980 issue.  That’s right, John Underwood’s article, which I quote extensively above, was written almost 30 years ago and absolutely nothing has changed…in fact, it may even be worse today.

Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.  He’s addicted to booze and cigarettes.

And shockingly, the picture above is not the chimp in question.  That is actually another chimp with the same problems!

Click here for the full story.

Monday

I brought in turkey meatloaf with roasted cauliflower:

The Dude brought in three  multiple meat and cheese sandwiches, one of which he ate at 9:45am.  He heated them up in the toaster oven that we have at work and based on the picture, decided that putting the napkin in with the sandwich was okay.  Also please note that the silver-looking fork is actually plastic.

ManMeat brought in leftovers of a lentil soup that he’s had before and didn’t feel the need to take a picture of it.  However, he did take a picture of his Sugar Free Jello Snackpack:

BLD/HG made an early run at Lunch of the Week with a combination plate of Chinese food that, not surprisingly, smelled delicious.

Tuesday

The Dude stayed on the sandwich train on Tuesday, but decided to outsource the making of it to Subway.  A solid $5 footlong, clearly soaking wet with oil and vinegar, and an apple that has been sitting on his desk for at least three months, are what filled him up on this day.

I brought in more turkey meatloaf with cauliflower, but put it in a round container to make it feel like it was something different:

BLD/HG, clearly confident in his lunch from Monday, went with a mixed salad on Tuesday, a healthy-looking concoction of…well, you know, salad stuff:

ManMeat spiced it up a little, literally, bringing in a chicken curry with cauliflower, spinach and rice that again brought me a step closer to trying curry again.

Wednesday

I brought in turkey meatloaf for the third day of the week, although I substituted the cauliflower for broccoli and added in some roasted yams.

The Dude had another sarnie-day, but brought this one from home.  He toasted this one as well, although it appears he did not toast any napkins with it.  Extra points to The Dude for the placement of the sandwich for the picture allowing us maximum exposure to the layers of meats and cheese:

ManMeat went to a place called Pump, where he ordered a “12-hour turkey burrito” (you read that correctly) and is still talking about how upset he is that they charged him more for an extra vegetable over the allotted three that you are expected to have.  The burrito includes: brown rice, lettuce, 12-hour turkey, spinach, zucchini (called courgette in England), tomato, cucumber, cheese and hot sauce on a whole wheat tortilla.  The extra vegetable cost him an additional $0.49 and he further described it as a “healthier but less tastier version of Chipotle.”  Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Thursday

The fourth day of the week was my first without meatloaf, as I brought in leftover steak with sauteed spinach and roasted potatoes.  I added in some Costa Rican Lizano salsa, which I have discussed before on this blog.

ManMeat had a salad that Mrs. ManMeat put together.  Looking somewhat like a traditional cobb salad, he also had a small pack of Jello that he claims was regifted after he tried to sneak it into her lunch bag.  Nice try.  You will also notice the small plastic container of salad dressing on the right side of the salad, a much better looking carrying device than the ziploc bag of last week that looked like a baggie of heroin.

Speaking of little baggies, ManMeat also had this great afternoon snack packed for him:

Friday

Because of the snowstorm on Thursday night and all-day Friday, I worked from home.  While I am not Catholic, my wife is and therefore I join her in no-meat Fridays during Lent.  So, my Friday lunch was a tuna fish sandwich with Utz Crab Chips and celery stalks:

Even though she makes fun of me for posting about our lunches at work, she insisted on a plate that looked good for the camera.  Mission accomplished.

On the other side of the spectrum, ManMeat and BLD/HG (who did make it into the office) decided to go to Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Friday.  With the excitement of little kids on Christmas, they took pictures of everything including:

The peanuts they ate while they waited for their burgers to cook:

A bag of Cajun fries that they each got…

And of course, their burgers (BLD/HG first, then ManMeat):

And just to prove how dedicated they are to their lunches being on this website, they left this behind at Five Guys:

Thank you, gentlemen.

Nevertheless, it’s back and here is what we all ate last week…a quick note, we were off on Monday thanks to Presidents’ Day, a wonderful free day off to celebrate absolutely nothing!

Tuesday

ManMeat and BLD/HG didn’t bring their lunches on Tuesday so they went on a lunch date to Subway to pick up some $5 foot longs.  I was too lazy to get out of my chair to take a picture of BLD/HG’s sandwich, which appears packed with vegetables from the unzoomed picture, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that it was generously healthy.  The Subway cup is a long-standing fixture of BLD/HG’s desk and not purchased with the 12-inch wonder.

ManMeat was much more prepared for his picture, as you can see on the extreme zoom that he used to show the full texture of the bread.  I believe I see some turkey on that sandwich, along with tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cheese, either hot peppers or pickles and something that looks like avocado.  I didn’t know Subway had avocado as an option, so who knows what it really is in that sandwich.  I believe ManMeat only took down six inches during lunch, then ate the other six for dinner that night.

I brought leftovers of a lemon pasta with string beans and chicken, which I ate cold because I think 15 straight people used the microwave when I was going to use it.  I am usually pretty quick to eat pasta cold if it’s with a non-marinara sauce, so doing so with the lemon pasta wasn’t out of the norm for me.  There was some discussion in the office as to what kind of pasta it was (BLD/HG guessed fusili, which somehow ultimately led to a conversation about Giada de Laurentiis) and many were surprised to find out that it was called cavatappi.

Wednesday

Hump Day became Salad Day for ManMeat and BLD/HG, with a strong effort to not cross the 2,000-calorie mark which becomes easy to achieve at these “create your own salad” places in New York.  BLD/HG’s looks surprisingly bland with only lettuce, chicken, tomatoes and cucumbers in the picture.  I have no recollection as to what type of dressing there is, but the salad actually looks pretty dry in the picture (I can assure you it wasn’t undressed):

ManMeat’s salad was a little more action packed with lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, hard-boiled egg, celery, black beans, chick peas and peppers with a sesame ginger dressing.  There appear to be some olives in there too, although they weren’t on the list of items that ManMeat emailed to me with his picture.

Based on the number of ingredients, I can conservatively estimate that the salad cost $5,239.25.  However, he did find a rogue piece of carrot in there, so at least he got something for free.

I stayed on the leftover train and brought in a stuffed pepper with asparagus that my wife made.  In a word, delicious.

It’s no wonder that the stuffed pepper was good – it’s basically just ground beef with some seasoning…how can you go wrong with that?

Wednesday Night

ManMeat was so excited about what he was going to bring for lunch on Thursday that he actually sent me two pictures on Wednesday night to whet my appetite for what was to come the next day.  According to ManMeat, De Lorenzos Pizza in New Jersey is the best pizza in the state and he took a picture of the full pie to prove his point.

There are a ton of toppings on that pizza and I’ll get into more detail later on.  The other picture he sent me was a salad that Mrs. ManMeat put together that ManMeat would also get to enjoy on Thursday.  While the chop sticks were included in the picture for aesthetic purposes, ManMeat assures me that the Mrs. could eat the salad with them if she wanted to.

Thursday

BLD/HG went back to the salad well on Thursday, possibly because he is still full from his BBQ business trip down south last week.  The lettuce looks a little more exotic than his Wednesday special and I believe I see a few crutons in there.  And, well, that’s all I have to say about that.

I brought some leftover pasta with marinara sauce and sauteed spinach, which I did heat up because of my rule of heating up tomato-based sauces.  I believe the pasta was technically Rotelle, not to be confused with its skinnier cousin Rotini.

And now for the Lunch of the Week: ManMeat’s Pizza, Salad, Yogurt and Orange extravaGANZa.

If you’re curious, the ziploc bag with the brown liquid in it is salad dressing and not a small bag of heroin, which certainly would have changed this lunch in a big way.  While I don’t necessarily think this is the best lunch of the week, the picture clearly says otherwise.

Friday

As I mentioned before, I was out of the office on Friday, but ManMeat was so disappointed and impressed at the same time with what BLD/HG brought in for lunch that he had to take a picture and send it to me.  In the shot below you will see bags of blueberries, raw almonds, celery sticks and cucumbers, and a plastic container filled with tuna salad with chopped pickles, onions, celery and dill.

BLD/HG was so happy with his lunch that he did this later in the day:

I don’t think I can add any more to that, so I won’t.

I do hit some dead spots during my commute and occasionally in the office and it’s always frustrating while you are at work and trying to do anything that requires the internet on your phone and you’re unable to do so.  In an effort to learn more about its own problems, AT&T came out with a free iPhone application called “Mark the Spot,” which AT&T iPhone customers are supposed to use when they hit a dead spot or have a call dropped.  I thought this was a great idea, but had the obvious question of “if I don’t have service in a certain location, how does it send the information to AT&T about the dead spot?”

I finally tried it today after having no service at work and here is a screenshot from my phone:

Unfortunately, just what I expected.

My lunch on Monday was rotini with a basic tomato sauce and meatballs that we had left over.  I added a ziploc bag of grapes that may have been the biggest grapes I’ve ever eaten.  The picture below doesn’t quite do them justice, but these grapes were a small step away from being apples.

ManMeat was out sick on Monday, along with The Don and The Dude.  We’re still not sure what they caught, but I will guess that it was some type of DrankTooMuchWhileWatchingTheSuperBowlitis.  With BLD/HG on the road, I was the only one in the office on Monday, hence only one lunch from the group.

Luckily, Tuesday more than made up for the lack of action on Monday.  It was somebody’s birthday and they brought in two dozen donuts from Dunkin Donuts.  We have an interesting tradition here in the Paperwork Department that people bring in breakfast for the entire group on their own birthday.  It’s almost like how you used to bring in cupcakes for your classmates when you were six.  For those of us who work here, we know this isn’t the only thing that occurs that makes us feel like we’re six.  Anyway, The Dude threw down some type of powdered donut and ManMeat felt it needed to be captured:

Later on, The Dude enjoyed a full three course meal for lunch: four mini-slices of pizza for an appetizer (two with hot peppers, two plain), pork tenderloin with some type of spicy pepper sauce for his entree, and then four more mini-slices of pizza for dessert.

An impressive feat, I must say.  However, not to be outdone (even though he had no idea what The Dude had for lunch), BLD/HG visited the Railhead Smokehouse in Fort Worth, Texas and took down an assorted plate of ribs, chopped brisket, coleslaw, potato salad and beans.  He was so impressed with his own meal that he had to take a picture and send it to me so that it would be included in this week’s roundup…and we thank him for that by giving him the award for the best lunch of the week (click on the picture for a clearer view).

Gotta love the two pieces of white bread and the raw half-onion.  The South just does it right!

I brought in a turkey burger with tater tots and sauteed spinach with garlic.  The problem with tater tots is that the only good way to warm them up is in an oven, which we didn’t have (we have since gotten a toaster oven in the office, of course).  While the microwave makes them hot, it also makes them very soggy.

The turkey burger, or any burger really, was quite bland without any ketchup or mustard, which I forgot to add before I left the house that morning.  After asking around to see if anyone had any of those two popular condiments, ManMeat said that he had a hot sauce that I could use.  Always open to try a new hot sauce, I jumped at the opportunity to use it.  And of course, I took a picture of the bottle:

I ended up spreading it around my turkey burger and a little on top of the tater tots before I tried it, which of course is a huge mistake when it comes to hot sauces.  It was pretty hot, not the hottest I’ve ever tried, but I added enough to make my lips burn for an hour after I finished eating.  Lesson learned.

ManMeat brought in something called jap chae, which smelled very good, but was apparently packed with multiple kinds of mushrooms, which are all off limits to me.  There was some meat in there, possibly short ribs, along with carrots and noodles and “other types of funky asian things” that are delicious, according to ManMeat.

ManMeat said that there are some mushrooms that he likes and others that he doesn’t (he liked all of them in the jap chae), whereas I absolutely can’t stand any kind.  Everyone keeps saying I just need to find one that I like and that they don’t really taste like anything, it all depends on how you prepare them and what kind of sauce they are smothered with.  I think I have more of a problem with their texture than their taste, but either way, I keep them out of my food.  Sorry, moving on…

As mentioned earlier, I worked from home on Wednesday, but ManMeat was able to get into the office and had one of the finest lunches I’ve ever heard about.  Spicy beef short ribs with chicken and potato stew that Mrs. ManMeat’s “mum” put together.  If not for the Texas BBQ, this would have easily won Lunch of the Week.

We were all back in the office on Thursday and the impressive lunches kept coming.  The Dude was very anxious to show me the “sarnie” that he brought in, which appears to have two different types of meat, along with cheese on the top and bottom.  He was so excited about it that he took a good 60-seconds to decide the best way to showcase the sandwich for the picture I was going to take of it.  I think he nailed it:

I brought in leftovers of marinated chicken with roasted cauliflower topped with cinnamon.  I am not normally a big cauliflower fan, but this was excellent.  Apparently ManMeat is a cauliflower lover and he was very intrigued with this side dish because, as he puts it, “it’s always great to hear of a way to cook vegetables that’s not just boiling them.”  I agree with him 100% and must say how much I enjoy roasted vegetables, now including cauliflower.  I would go into more detail about the marinade for the chicken, but my wife put it all together and I don’t remember exactly what was in it.

ManMeat brought spice marinated chicken sauteed with broccoli and spicy enchilada sauce, coupled with a low carb-high fiber-high protein wrap on the side.  As he said, “you’ll look like Rambo with his shirt off after eating that wrap.”  However, ManMeat did not.

Before I posted about this lunch, ManMeat felt he was obligated to tell me that the broccoli was actually frozen.  He felt somewhat guilty about it, but I think he feels better because the meal smelled and apparently tasted so good.  In fact, it was so good that he had it again on Friday.

I also duplicated a meal on Friday, although it was my Monday meal: pasta with meatballs.

This was a classic “what’s left in the fridge?” lunch and now we’ll have to stock up again this weekend.

The Don brought in the same lunch every day this week, but today was the first day I could get a picture of it.  The sandwich was made up of bologna, ham, yellow american cheese and “a very little bit of mayo.”  Accompanying this culinary delight was a huge banana, a ziploc bag of baby carrots and blackberries (the non-email kind) and two small brownies (food placement in the picture by ManMeat).

To close out this week’s summary, I had to include a picture of the two chocolate chip cookies that I am about to eat, homemade by my wife on Wednesday during the snow day.  These cookies rival any other cookie in the world and I am simply posting it to challenge anyone else to make a better one…and I volunteer to be the judge.

Until next week…

Not only does it love Google, it also seems to like Gmail, Google Maps and Google Images.

You see, Google doesn’t advertise on television.  It has made billions of dollars figuring out how to best advertise on the internet, so why start spreading the gospel of Google during the most expensive time of the year?  From the moment that I heard they were going to have an ad, I was intrigued.  How would they do it?  Would they only show the search engine, or would they also show Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps and YouTube?  Would they try to introduce Google Wave to the masses and show us why it’s the future of communication?  I had no idea, but I was very very interested.

The opening shot hooked me.  A blinking cursor in a search box.  Not everyone would know what it was immediately, but I knew, since I was anticipating this ad more than any other:

What came next was nothing short of genius.  Playing off a Parisian love story, Google’s search engine wafted us through a life story of a young man who meets a girl in Paris while studying abroad and leads us all the way through their long distance relationship, to their eventual marriage and the birth of their first child…all through the search engine.

We all know that Google is the top search engine in the world.  What this company has been able to do with its invention is incredible.  It has taken on titans such as Microsoft and Yahoo! and yet still maintains itself as a company for us, the internet users.  Microsoft’s Bing search engine is certainly a well done site, but it continues to struggle to take market share away from Google.  With this Super Bowl ad, Google may have ended the fight.

The single greatest aspect of this ad is that it was able to bring us through the story while never leaving Google.  And that in itself is something incredible; it showed us how to use Google and what it looks like working for us.  It’s not a Snickers ad that shows Betty White getting tackled during a football game, it’s not a beaver playing a violin and then using a job search site, and its certainly not a baby talking about trading stocks online.

It’s simply Google being Google.