Bryan writes:

Hey Ted, you ever think about doing a mailbag feature? I know it’s kind of become a Bill Simmons trademark, but I feel like the TedQuarters mailbag would be hilarious. Maybe you could call it something else, put your own spin on it . . . I would be stoked to read such a post/series.

Well here you go. I thought about making this entire mailbag post consist of emails from readers requesting mailbag posts because a very high percentage of my reader emails do just that. I’m totally down — actually, I’ve done this once before. It’s just that I kind of space out and respond directly to most of my emails instead of posting responses here. My bad.

(And if I don’t respond ever, then that’s a double my-bad. I try to get to everything. Problem is I get a ton of emails — not because I’m special, just because I’m on a ton of silly distribution lists. So if I don’t reply it’s probably because your email came between a Red Bulls press release and a flurry of quote sheets from the Giants.)

There’s a contact form on the site now and a lot of you have been using that, so keep it up and I’ll do more of these. And please, feel free to send forth any random questions you’d like. I have opinions on nearly everything and I’m willing to formulate opinions on everything else. And tips to awesome stuff. I really appreciate tips to awesome stuff.

As for a name, I don’t know. I went with the above title because I couldn’t come up with anything more clever on a Friday afternoon. And as for my own spin, I’m not sure. My own spin is that I write it, I think. So it will most likely contain stuff about Taco Bell. Speaking of:

Catsmeat (who has a real name) writes:

I finally had my crack at the carnitas from Taco Bell.  Sorely disappointed and, frankly, a little grossed out.  It was a lot like the picture you posted on the blog — a nasty mess.  They even skipped out on the corn tortillas and left me with the regular flour tortilla, which was quite a travesty.  I’m also not impressed that I asked for carnitas and the girl looked at me and said: “Do you want the steak, pork or chicken carnitas?”  Sigh, Taco Bell.  Sigh.

Dude, our experiences could not have been more similar. Honestly, I’ve been mustering up the strength to write about the carnitas cantina taco for a couple weeks now, but it was just so underwhelming that I haven’t found the time.

Basically, it was exactly what Seth “Ted” Samuels described. Maybe worse. A pile of flavorless, unpleasant-smelling stringy pork in some sort of goo, overwhelmed by the onion salsa on top. Unlike Catsmeat, I got the appropriate corn tortillas, but they were dry, spongy and also flavorless.

And I also had trouble ordering! I figured it was because my local Taco Bell is the worst Taco Bell in the world, but Catsmeat has previously boasted a good local Taco Bell. Yikes. You’d think Taco Bell would have its employees adequately prepared to serve such a revolutionary new product. But the voice on the other end of the drive-thru menu acted like it had never even heard of the Carnitas Cantina Taco before. Also “Carnitas Cantina Taco” is very difficult to say.

Honestly, I didn’t even finish the thing. That is a terrible, terrible sign for a Taco Bell product. I even polished off the Pacific Shrimp Taco when I took it out for a test drive, even though it wasn’t exactly my thing. Plus — like always — the Volcano Taco I ordered came in a plain, yellow crunchy taco shell.

I really don’t even know what’s going on down there. I’m concerned that standards have slipped since the passing of Glen Bell.

Danny writes:

There’s some funky building in the works in Taiwan, with strange bulges in and out of it. And it’s called…TED!

Holy crap, what is that thing? I don’t know, but I know it’s awesome. The link within the link mentions that it’s “evocative of a mushroom,” and I’d say, ahh, which kind do you mean there, Mr. Huxley?

Also that ampitheater on top? Probably a badass place to take in a show, except that the renderings alone make my head hurt. Plus there’s almost no way that thing’s not going to leak. Whatever, that’s fine. Awesomeism in architecture never called for any sort of utilitarian design. It’s the opposite of that.

Wait a minute, hold on. Team Ted co-founder Ted Burke points out that this has to be some sort of practical joke: The design firm’s website is big.dk.