Hard to be mad at bigger bacon. We turned your favorite season into food New Buttermilk Chicken Sandwiches Sign up and receive offers delivered directly to your inbox or mobile phone. Use our nutrition calculator to plan your meal. Find Your Nearest Arby'sFind Texaco Service Stations Are you looking for a Texaco Service Station? Use our Station Locator: Find Texaco Service StationsIf this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. Red Hot Chili PeppersKC and the Sunshine Band 13. 160 lire nel mio acuenta [Here the 44th President of the United States has affixed his signature] Dear Mr. President -- I waited 100 days before commenting on your administration and its policies (see here, and here) as a sign of respect for you and the office that you hold -- an office that I esteem highly.

When you walked out to throw the first-pitch at the 2009 MLB All Star game, it angered and disappointed me to hear anyone booing you at such an event. You and the office deserve respect. However, I believe in respectfully disagreeing, as well, and so I say "pace professore." Jen Zahigian (blog linked here) is a talented photographer whose work has been featured on NBC (and elsewhere) for their New York weekend guide. vax zen vacuum cleaner with powerheadShe was recently in our little corner of the world (a quaint little 'burb called Los Angeles) and dedicated the above postcard to all of us (okay, we had to share 1/3 of it with the city of Miami). milagrow redhawk robotic vacuum cleaner priceHer oeuvre includes roadside images steeped in an aged and worn patina of backwater stops and once-great towns longing for better times.koblenz industrial wet dry vacuum cleaner 19 gallon

I must doff my cap in his direction, though (2,800 miles east in NY) because whilst he was on Route 66 he would, from his Blackberry, send these wonderful vignettes of life on the road, filled with descriptive prose and colorful passages where you felt as if you had indeed met these folks he wrote about. Now that I think about it, my GM may have hated my guts b/c I sent around our L.A. office a little JibJab video featuring an elf singing with ole Bob's head (my GM) on this rather jovial elfin visage, replete with green feathered cap. anyhoo ... take a look at her blog (or her website here) and if you like what you see you can click on the links to purchase these unique nostalgic photos online (and get them framed if you'd like!). And, in honor of her (and my former GM's) trip on Route 66, I offer this following suggestion: watch the movie "Cars" from the guys at Pixar. It is an amazing road-trip film, that slows us down to appreciate life off the beaten track; plus your kids will love it if they haven't seen the movie yet.

makes True Blood tick? How does it work so well? Based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries by New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris, True Blood is an intelligent, ensemble, character piece containing intriguing themes and large ideas executed through confrontations between characters and provocative story telling. Six Feet Under creator and producer Alan Ball is the showrunner behind this HBO network drama (his second for HBO).Ball, the Oscar winning American Beauty scribe (and a personal favorite as far as brilliant screenplays go), brings the familiar theme of misunderstood outsiders and sympathetic heroes into a more dangerous world of mystery and sorrow through the southern gothic genre, seen here as the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. contretempsTwilight True BloodTwilightTrue Blood Sookie, like Twilight’s Bella, is taking a risk by being intimate with one who craves her blood. Her attraction then is key to understanding the vampire as the quintessential bad-boy.

Gone are the leather jackets, Ray Bans, half lit cigs and motorcycles. Bill represents a different type of strong and dangerous man, the powerful dark-side protector who is ennobled by dealing with a multi-century alienation and ever-present feeding urges, even against those he may care for. Or as Roger Ebert once lamented in his Twilight review, “Why do girls always prefer the distant, aloof, handsome, dangerous dudes instead of cheerful chaps like me? posits the existential answer to Ebert’s timeless inquiry: Vamps are naturally erotic creatures, though they live in mystery and prone to a solitary irromantic lifestyle – a timeless cognitive dissonance if there ever was one. Bill is already dead, and as such life, by definition, cannot get worse for him. When this “living dead” bad-boy sits at the end of the bar at Merlotte’s (where Sookie works) with his “I don’t give a damn about anything” insouciance, he means it. interesting that Harris and Meyer, both female writers, chose vampires to write about, yet each focused on strong human female protagonists.

As Sookie, Anna Paquin delivers but occasionally annoys in her Golden Globe winning role. Being the second youngest person to ever win an Oscar (1993’s The Piano), Paquin is the “name” (along with Ball) providing a “critically acclaimed” patina for the series’ initial HBO run. Paquin’s Sookie is sweet, honest, sincere but often times bothered, hot-headed and bitchy (indeed the only time Bill comes off as uncharacteristically weak, is when he puts up with Sookie’s “moods”). Nonetheless the character grows on you as her tolerance, good-hearted nature and ability to cope with the death and trials around her, win you over to Team Sookie (plus the mystery surrounding her telepathy). Being honest, like Paquin’s Rogue from the X-Men series, Sookie would rather live a life without her special power. It’s Sookie’s ongoing task then, to see this oddly unexplained ability as a gift rather than a curse. I recently heard Jerry Springer comment about television’s early years (up through the 90s) containing predominantly good-looking white Americans, in nice city apartments or suburban areas without any black characters occupying professions as doctors and lawyers.

Enter series characters Jason Stackhouse and Lafayette Reynolds, who shift the casting paradigm in unconventional ways. As the Stackhouse brother, Australian born Ryan Kwanten is a revelation to watch. The “V” addicted, womanizing, road crew working, “dumb-ass” hillbilly is a chiseled charmer, delivering lines with the swagger of a young Brad Pitt. As observed by his bad-girl bohemian girlfriend Amy (a welcomed Lizzy Caplan), Jason doesn’t think, so much as throw himself into situations with Macbethian ambition and hopes-to-God that he can swim. Jason’s subtle redemption and growth is a series highlight. Likewise, Nelsan Ellis routinely steals scenes as short-order cook Lafayette. He plays a black drug-dealing homosexual prostitute (any of which could raise an eyebrow in Bon Temps) who is a joy to watch. Quick-brained with a charming sincerity, Lafayette frequently tells people off and is a lesson in confidence. In this Louisiana town, much prejudice exists against homosexuals (embodied by Tara’s mother) with a haunted undercurrent of segregation and racism yet running through Bon Temps.

As the new minority, Vampires metaphorically represent the past and present struggles of these subcultures. Those who sleep with vampires, dubbed “fangbangers,” are identified by hickies that give new meaning to the term “love bite.” When a few of the fang-bang-gang are murdered, local law enforcement (including the genuine Sheriff Bud and first class a-hole Andy Bellefleur) look the other way as they knee-jerk blame the vampires. Many of the locals see the female murder victims as having it coming, deepening the levels of discrimination at play in Bon Temps, LA. the end of day (when dawn reaches twilight…wink, wink) True Blood succeeds because of the mind of Harris, the talents of Ball and the impressive commitment of all the cast players. True Blood, which just launched its second season, embraces the new and exciting and redefines the edge in which to live on … it’s the bad that opens up a world of good. It’s what makes True Blood tick. Like Jace Everett belts-out on his single “Bad Things” in the phenomenal opening credit sequence, “I don't know what you've done to me, But I know this much is true: I wanna do bad things with you.”