While one of the disadvantages of not bothering with cable or other access to broadcast television is that I don’t stay current on “hot” shows while they’re hot. So I tend to get to them a little bit late if I get to them at all because I usually wait until I can rent the DVDs of a show one season at a time or hopefully they’ll make their way to the Netflix instant streaming so I don’t have to bother with a disc being mailed. The advantage to this is that I get to enjoy the show commercial free and several episodes at one time. In a way it’s kind of like taking a crash course in show. Recently one of the shows I’ve rented from Netflix is the “How I Met Your Mother” series.

As far as I know, “How I Met Your Mother” is still on the air producing episodes, and I’m sure if I cared enough, I could Google it and and find out for sure, but in all honesty it doesn’t really make much of a difference to me because I’m not going to be watching it when it broadcasts. I had added the first season of the show to my Netflix rental queue ages ago and it finally made it’s way to the top of the list and it was delivered to me on DVD courtesy of the US Postal Service. While I was a bit reluctant to start a television series, this one actually was a lot of fun so I added all the other available seasons to the top of my list. I made my way through all four of the seasons that are presently available on DVD in about three weeks time. So instead of having to suffer through four years of waiting, I got it all in a very short period of time.

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Thanks to Netflix’s ability to stream movies directly to my television using their Instant Streaming technology, I took the opportunity to check out a really interesting documentary called, “Google Me.” The film is a look at what happened when Jim Killeen looked up his own name on Google and decided to see what would happen if he met the other people around the world who shared his name. The movie is a fascinating journey as Jim meets six other men named Jim Killeen from all walks of life.

What Jim found was more than six other Jim Killeen’s but was only able to get six of them to agree to meet with him and be interviewed on camera. Additionally he also asked each to submit to a DNA test so that ultimately it could be seen if any of the family blood lines for any of the men are related. What he found in his Google search ended up meeting an Irish Priest, a retired cop, a father of eight, a Scottish traffic engineer, a sexual swinger, and even an Australian CEO. As Jim gets to know each of these men, he becomes inspired to take it to the next level and not just have the experience of meeting the other Jim Killeens all to himself, he gets them all together and using Google, found the perfect place to do it, Killeen, Texas.

In the process of meeting these Jim Killeens and looking to create a film about the experience we also see Jim go through the trials and tribulations of securing permission from Google to do the film, and even teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and winning money on a poker circuit to be able to finish the film. Ultimately, this makes Jim Killeen a lot more of an every man as you can’t help but emphasize with him with every minor setback in the process and celebrating the triumphs as we discover how seven Jim Killeens from around the globe who most likely would never have met without a little search engine called Google.

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No sooner than Tim Tams become an extinct at Target, did it seem that Tim Tams were popping up in other places. As some of my friends in San Diego said, they had sighted them in other supermarkets such as the Ralph’s on University Avenue, even a recent trip to visit my folks in Temecula, a walk through their Wal-Mart Supercenter also yielded some Tim Tam sightings. Probably one of the least expected sightings I saw was a display at Fry’s Electronics.

While Fry’s Electronics tends to specialize in all kinds of electronics and home appliances, they do like to litter their check out section with food options to appeal to the impulse purchasers. A cardboard impulse purchase display sitting in front of a row of children’s toys in the middle of the aisle make it look as out of place as it was unexpected. But in any case, it was a nice surprise to see some of the Tim Tams still available for purchase before they become hard to find thanks to Pepperidge Farm’s strange decision to only make Tim Tams available for just a few months each year. Unfortunately Fry’s wasn’t selling them for a decent sale price like the other places still with Tim Tams. But as a last resort it’s good to know Fry’s is another avenue to find some Tim Tams, at least for now. (more…)

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It seems that there’s always a new competitor out there in the field seeing to claim ownership of the best burger title, and this month a new competitor is throwing their hat into the competition here in San Diego. Smashburger, a chain of premium burger joints, has opened their doors of their very first store in San Diego county. Their first location is located in downtown La Jolla, home to some fine restaurants and premium shopping experiences. Perfect for a place offering superior quality burgers.

I’ve actually been to Smashburger twice now. The first visit was with a couple of friends. I met them there after I got done with work. They had driven up from San Diego and I was heading South from work. The restaurant itself wasn’t jam packed with people yet, but the parking in La Jolla was a challenge. The only unfortunate side about La Jolla is that parking and getting around there are not the most enjoyable experiences. So until Smashburger opens some more locations, the La Jolla location is just going to be an occasional visit depending on how willing I am to put up with frustrating parking.

The second visit I went with another friend who was out of town at the time I went with the first two friends and while we were there my friend had a suggestion for their manager and he came out and talked with us for a few minutes. Apparently the success of the new La Jolla location has been far exceeding expectations so they’ve been readily welcomed into San Diego. At peak meal periods they’re struggling to meet the demand and that’s always a good sign.

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My recent visit to Target also brought about an unexpected and not so happy sight to be seen. The Pepperidge Farm Cookie section in Target not only had no Tim Tams left, there wasn’t even a spot on the shelf for them any more! This criminal injustice left me a bit angered at Target because in the heat of the moment, they were the easiest uhm… target… to be upset with.

If you’re not familiar with Tim Tams, they are just the most amazing cookies from Australia (although Aussie’s will correct you and state they are “biscuits” not “cookies”). In early 2009, Pepperidge Farms cookies brought them in to be sold at Target exclusively for a limited period of time to test them out to see if they’d take off in popularity here in North America. The Tim Tams are not actually made by Pepperidge Farms, but by Arnott’s of Australia, who in turn just wrap the cookies in Pepperidge Farms logo packaging and ship them off to America. So to those who think the Pepperidge Farms packaged Tim Tams are inferior to Australia’s Arnott’s labeled Tim Tams, they’re exactly the same and made by the same machines.

Of course, this original test marketing was right around the time I was starting the Belly Fat Cure so cookies were not part of that plan due to the high sugar content. I didn’t buy any of them during Target’s originally carrying the product but I certainly made sure to tell people about them because I really wanted to see them become a permanent product on store shelves here in America. I knew when the test was done they’d be gone, but I was hopeful they’d be back some day.

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I don’t normally write about social networking sites designed for dating purposes, so this is a little bit of an unusual entry for me. When I first felt comfortable enough to come out it was really the bear community that was the friendliest and most welcoming to me so naturally I felt it best to fit in with people who friendliest with me. Fast forward to today, most of my best local friends are members of the bear community and I have really enjoyed getting to know so many great people.

Recently a new site meant for bear community members to socialize has come on the scene called BearGrind and can be found at BearGrind.com and it’s founding has occurred as a result of complaints addressed to the management and handling of another site. As I like my blog site to focus on the positive, I’ll leave you on your own to discover those complaints if you choose to find them, in any case, the newly born site that came online this month is rapidly growing everyday as the word gets out. I learned about it from a Twitter post by Brian Hill of the 619 Bearcast podcast and it seems he was one of the first in San Diego to learn about it.

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One of the unexpected surprises that lead to a brief hiatus here on Ryan’s Incredible World was that my roommates of the last couple of years had decided they wanted to get back to having their house to themselves. They are a married couple and I work with one of them at the casino on the same shift, so for the time I was there it worked out to be convenient for both of us to live in the same house and commute together to work since we worked in the same place. However, my roommates have decided that it was time to be on their own again and in mid January, I asked to find a new place to live and was given until the start of April to find a new place.

I initially wasn’t thrilled with the request, but my roommates reassured me that they felt I was the best roommate they had ever had, and the only reason they were asking was because they wanted to be on their own and have the house all to themselves again. They reassured me that it was not anything I had done and that they feel I’ve been the most considerate roommate they’ve ever had in their lives and I had been there the longest any roommate has ever stayed with them. When I originally moved in they envisioned my stay there being about two years, and I was there two and a half years. They have been the best roommates I’ve ever had as well and I look forward to continue having a great friendship with them well into the future.

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I don’t often make it to the coastal areas of San Diego any more, and these days when I do it’s the coastal areas near San Diego, not so much the North County coastal areas. I opted for a nice drive down the coast and when I neared Encinitas, it struck me that it’s been ages since I last visited Lou’s Records on Coast Highway.

I spent a fortune there back in the day as they were the best place to get import CDs back when I used to buy a lot of music. In fact, my very first visit was an expensive one as I found some amazing hard to get ABBA imports that to this day I’ve never seen anywhere outside of overpriced eBay auctions. Lou’s Records was also the store where I did my very first special order of an import, which was for a Swedish language solo album by Marie Fredriksson of Roxette. So when I decided to stop in at Lou’s I wasn’t sure they were even still around as it seems stores dedicated to selling music are harder to find than they used to be. Fortunately Lou’s was still there and I was instantly nostalgic for the hours I would spend combing the racks there for the many treasures I would find there.

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To most of the rest of the country, Sonic Drive-In restaurants are a common, everyday sight and experience. Perhaps, one hardly worth taking note. However, they are relatively new here in San Diego, with their first store appearing in Santee about a year ago. I still have not visited that location, but on my way to my Post Office Box in Carlsbad I was driving through Vista and found they had put in a Sonic Drive-In near the recently redeveloped Main Street area. In fact, it’s really close to the old Peppertree Frosty shop that has an amazing variety of milkshakes and other ice cream treats.

I decided to give Sonic a try as I haven’t done a “drive-in” experience in years and thought it might be fun. I pulled into an open stall, decided on what to have then pressed the button to call the store to let them know I was ready to order. Once the order was placed, I loved the fact I could just pay with my Debit card (using it as a Mastercard) right at the menu board right next to the speaker and within a few minutes a young girl on roller skates was out to deliver my order and receipt. It was really cool. I know once the drive-thru was introduced, the drive-in’s were pretty much existing on borrowed time and nearly disappeared permanently, fortunately Sonic has been able to revive the format and make it accessible to folks who might never know the concept ever existed.

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To help promote the Belly Fat Cure book, Jorge Cruise has been making a couple of appearances to sign books for the public. At the moment only two appearances had been scheduled, an appearance earlier in the month at a Costco membership warehouse in New York, and today at the Morena Boulevard Costco here in San Diego. The signing started at noon.

I wasn’t planning on attending but I had an appointment to check out a room for rent in the Pacific Beach area at 2 pm and Pacific Beach is just a couple of miles from the Costco location. I took care of my morning errands and got to the Pacific Beach area at about 1 pm and since I had an hour before my appointment, I headed right over to the Costco. I wasn’t sure if it was still going on but thought I’d check it out just in case.

Sure enough, the signing was still going on and Jorge was busy talking to folks and as soon as he saw me he introduced me to the group of people around the table. He invited people to ask me questions and I did field a few from people who had seen the sugar video I did with Jorge. Overall it was really nice to meet some people interested in losing weight. Also there was Michelle McGowen, a fellow Belly Fat Cure success story. Jorge then shared samples of his sugar free brownies with the crowd and amazed them all with how sweet tasting a sugar free treat can be.

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