A Wisconsin Yankee in Walt Disney's Court

Thanks to our old pal Jimmy for pointing out a Canned Tamales group on MyFace or somesuch social website, but I’m not joining up with any of those anytime soon. I even avoid Facebook Scrabble. I’ve been sticking with the Hormel tamales, but I saw a bag of frozen corn-husk jobbers at the Costco that I may try someday.
On a similar note, back when I lived in the land of plenty, I still supported ChiliCheese.org, even though we were blessed with the fabulous Chili Cheese Burrito from Taco Bell. Now, of course, they’re nowhere to be found around Orlando. Arguably one of the most interesting items they sell, the chili sauce doesn’t seem to combine in any other products the way their 7 other main staples combine to form 140 different taco-like foodstuffs.
I don’t miss them like I do, say, White Castle (We have Krystal’s here, which have a similar “slyder” and may actually be affiliated with WC, but it doesn’t feel the same) but it seems an injustice when you can get it in one area and not another. And it’s not like I go there much, but when I do it’s be nice to get one, now that I think about it.
With the lonely, sad death of the disenfrachised Taco Bell Chihuahua looming over them, TB could use a better PR gimmick than adding bacon to everything for a couple of months. Bring the Chili Cheese Burrito to a national audience, and while you’re at it why not bring back the mysterious “Mexi-Fries” that had an even smaller regional distribution? How could Mexi-Fries have possibly been a failure? C’mon, TB, you’ve stagnated since the days of promising a free taco to all comers if a satellite crashes into a target in the middle of the ocean. Now that was genius.

As usual, I’m consumed with Scrabble. Lately, not so much with fruitlessly trying to learn new words (what the hell’s a QUADRAT?) but with my new products I’ve mentioned here before. The wife is sewing constantly on the Tilecans, my new type of bag, and I’ve been sculpting and pouring mold rubber for my Tilecouch, my all new tile rack.

I just put up a site for them at tilecan.com and I’ll be selling them at the National Scrabble Championships up in Dayton, Ohio next week. As glamorous as it sounds, flying into Dayton might be a little stressful, with 31 games of Scrabble and dealing with this side venture.
I’m rooming with a guy named Stu Goldman, who I didn’t realize is the proverbial “old man of Scrabble” until after I met him and agreed to share the room. He’s played more tournament games of Scrabble than any other person, from the 1960s or ’70s until today, and still attends just about every major tournament. I hope he wins the big one this year, or some year.
I’ll try to blog my results and anything else that happens from Dayton, so keep posted…