Daily Archives: December 28, 2009

The Beefy 5 Layer Burrito: Soft focus

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I saw an ad for the Beefy 5 Layer Burrito during last night’s Jets’ game, so I went out to the Worst Taco Bell in the World in nearby Elmsford, N.Y., today to try it out.

The Beefy 5 Layer Burrito is a burrito filled with refried beans (you know, like in pintos and cheese), taco beef (the standard stuff), nacho cheese (plain old nacho cheese, the stuff that comes with nachos), sour cream (ie Supreme) and shredded cheese (which you may recognize from every Taco Bell product ever).

Wait, hold on. Burrito, beans, ground beef, nacho cheese, sour cream, shredded cheese? What is this, 1992? Honestly, when was the last time Taco Bell introduced a new menu item that didn’t involve a Chalupa shell or Gordita flatbread or crispy red strips or Zesty Pepper Jack sauce? Everything in the Beefy 5 Layer Burrito has been on the Taco Bell menu in some capacity since the dawn of time.

In fact, I’m damn near shocked Taco Bell hasn’t rolled out the Beefy 5 Layer Burrito before. It’s basically just all the soft things from Taco Bell’s classic selection of items, so if you’re ever mandated by a dentist to shy away from crunchy or crispy foods, I heartily recommend it.

Other than that, though, it gets a resounding meh. It’s from Taco Bell and it’s loaded up with staples of Taco Bell cuisine, so it is, of course, delicious, but it lacks any sort of distinguishing feature. It’s certainly a lot of good food for 89 cents, and that’s cool. But it’s just a giant heaping mishmash of Taco Bell stuff, and just tastes exactly like anything else you’d get at Taco Bell, only without any crunchiness whatsoever.

Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. It’s Taco Bell, like I said. But I’ve come to expect more at this point. Like Lava Sauce. Throw some Lava Sauce on that baby and you’d have a seriously awesome burrito for .89 cents. As it is now, it’s merely a tasty but somewhat bland reminder of how far Taco Bell has come since my childhood.

Hall of Fame robble robble robble

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Apparently Hall of Fame ballots are due soon, so Hall of Fame voters are posting their ballots on Twitter and Hall of Fame voter naysayers are all up in arms over who the Hall of Fame voters voted for.

As area wiseass @samtpage put it: “@famoussportswriter your hall of fame ballot is wrong!”

Here’s my thing about the Hall of Fame: There’s a big group of guys who obviously deserve to be in, the Babe Ruths and Tom Seavers. There’s a bigger group of guys who obviously don’t deserve to be in, the Roger Cedenos and Andy Stankiewiczes. Then there’s another group of guys who might deserve to be in, and for every one you can pick out a better player who isn’t in or a worse player who is, and that’s where the debate lies.

I always kind of liked it that Jim Rice wasn’t a Hall of Famer because he always struck me as a perfect benchmark for offensive production not meriting Hall of Fame entry. If you’re a significantly better hitter than Jim Rice, you make the Hall of Fame. If you’re not, you don’t.

But I failed to consider the fear, of course.

Anyway, the most important thing is that it’s not really important at all, and the Hall of Fame is just a fun thing to talk about and a nice place to visit and not at all a good justification for any heated rhetoric. Normally it’s a debate I find fun and interesting, but this year, for whatever reason, it has grown tiresome. I suspect Twitter is partly responsible. It seems like Twitter makes everyone angry, or at least exposes everyone’s anger. Or maybe 140 characters just force everyone to seem rude.

Whatever it is, I’m finding it difficult to care too much about the Hall of Fame balloting. I’m more concerned with the general direction of the Hall, anyway. The way I see it, there’s about a 50/50 chance that in five years, the Hall of Fame is completely meaningless.

If Barry Bonds and his ilk are shunned from the Hall for a crime they were clearly allowed to commit, the Hall of Fame will be rendered a silly, whitewashed pageant. It will have no more value than the Gold Glove, something that might look nice on a plaque but will mean nothing to anyone who knows anything about baseball.

Fun with graphs

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Look: I have no problem with athletes who celebrate their accomplishments on the field. In fact, if they’re athletes who deserve to be celebrating, I support them wholeheartedly. This is why I think Jose Reyes is so cool.

Kerry Rhodes is not one such athlete. Kerry Rhodes can not tackle. When an opposing running back is bearing down on Kerry Rhodes, he turns his back and falls down. It’s terrible looking, and embarrassing. Then, in the rare event that Kerry Rhodes knocks a pass down or does something vaguely good, he gets up and carries on like he’s God’s gift to football.

It’s particularly awful because Kerry Rhodes plays in the same defensive backfield as Darrelle Revis, who might actually be God’s gift to football. And Darrelle Revis almost never carries on. He just trots back to the huddle and prepares to do something else unspeakably awesome on the next play, while Kerry Rhodes is dancing around trying to take credit for something Revis just did. It’s infuriating.

There was actually a kid like this on my high school team. I hated the kid. He never made any tackles, but after every play, he used to run over to the spot where the tackle had been made and flex in the general vicinity of the tackle. Often the statistician would assume he made the play and give him credit, but he never actually did. He just had the gall to flex like he had made the play even though he was 15 yards away, getting knocked around by some weak-ass opposing blocker.

That’s Kerry Rhodes. So in honor of Kerry Rhodes, I’ve made this graph. It’s a bar graph, charting the rate of posturing per defensive contribution. Check it out:

graph

Items of note

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Today’s the last day of my too-brief holiday vacation, but I’ll try to post a few things just to keep you entertained if you’re unfortunate enough to be stuck in the office. I’ll be in the same spot tomorrow.

The Jets won by forfeit yesterday when the Colts brought in some Brit-rocker looking dude named Curtis Painter who promptly made Kellen Clemens look like Johnny Unitas. Now they’ll make the playoffs if they beat the Bengals next Sunday.

The Daily News provides Top 10 best and Top 10 worst New York athletes of the decade lists. I’m sorry, but up until this year, the Daily News definitely would have had A-Rod on the Top 10 worst list. Also, Kei Igawa’s inclusion seems kind of random and mean.

Oliver Perez surfaced to talk about his knee and his outlook for 2010.

Omar Minaya said some stuff.