Are there certain words which, for one reason or another, make you want to forsake humanity, move to the hills and become a hermit? I do, and here they are.

5. Pecan
Only when it is pronounced, “peecan”. Everyone knows it’s pronounced, “puhcon”.

4. Soda
What? It’s either coke, or the equally acceptable pop, but never is it “soda”. An example of the proper way to ask for these carbonated drinks would be as follows:

Waiter: Hi, what can I get you to drink?
Customer: Coke.
Waiter: What kind of coke?
Customer: Dr. Pepper.

3. Gravitas
The only people who use this word are unimaginative reporters.

2. Memory
Okay, so I don’t hate the word itself, but I do hate when people misuse it. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard someone use “memory” while meaning, “hard drive space”, I would make Clay Bennet look like a hobo. You spent $800+ for your computer; learn something about it.

1. Fixins
Call them sides, extras, accoutrements or even the still annoying yet acceptable, trimmings. But for the love of all that is holey, do not use the word fixins. Nothing will make you look like a mouth breathing hick faster than the use of this most of this terrible, terrible word.

I realized today, that after a year of having this blog, I have yet to review a single beer. Whats with that? The answer is that not only have I been too lazy to post a review, but I have also tried well over 100 new beers in the last year. Keeping proper notes on each new beer has become a daunting task.

For example, while in Las Vegas for business back in April, I tried 11 new beers (only after business and in the evening, of course). “But Matt”, you say, “can it really be that hard to write a few notes about each beer?” Until you’ve had the nirvana like experience of washing down a Kobe beef burger on artisan ciabatta with a bottle of Samichlaus, don’t talk to me about taking notes. This oh so rare lager that is brewed once a year, is not only the worlds strongest lager, but one sip will have you convinced you have transcended your earthly meat bag of a body and are tasting beer straight from the taps in heaven. Follow that with two more beers the likes of which you never dreamed you would have the pleasure of imbibing, and you can forget about talking, let alone playing beer stenographer.

However, as luck would have it I happened across a new application for the iPhone. I know, you’re thinking, “C’mon, enough with the ‘I love my iPhone’ garbage. We get it!”. But hear me out. The app is called BeerPad and is for aiding in keeping propper notes on beers. You can take photos and write descritions, as well as look up classifications. This is what I have been in need of! No more wadded up napkins with more remnants of last nights meal than discrernable notes on mouth feel and aroma.

Ponder no longer why this advocate of ale has been slack in his efforts. Beer reviews I promise, and beer reviews I will deliver.

Click the banner to see what wonderful QT food item The Irritated Tulsan has picked to review for this week.

As I wrote in my last post, my friend Mark is in the hospital. The worst hospital in Oklahoma City. Well, not the worst in terms of quality of care, but the worst when it comes to ease of use. Which hospital am I talking about? OU Medical Center.

Complaint 1: The Name

When we first learned of Mark’s accident, we were told he was taken to Presbyterian Hospital. Everyone was at a loss as to where this hospital was. Even the folks who have lived in OKC their entire life were scratching their heads. After mapping it, we soon realized it was actually OU Medical Center. When you approach the hospital, all the signage refers to OU Medical Center. The only reference I saw to it being Presbyterian, was the word beneath the ginormous OU Medical Center sign on the hospital itself.

Okay, so this is a silly complaint, but when you are trying to find out where a friend or family member has been taken it becomes a big deal. So drop the Presbyterian or do better advertising. Sure, there may be a small contingent of old folks who know it by the former name, but based on my own very unscientific polling, most OKC residents have never heard of Presbyterians Hospital.

Complaint 2: Information

So after parking, I rush inside to the information desk where I find nothing but a terminal with a weeks worth of dust accumulation. After looking around, I notice a sign stating that if I want information I should dial a number given using one of the phones on the wall. Great, except I do not see any phones on the wall!

Thankfully, an employee saw my look of confusion and asked me if I needed help. After relaying my story she told me where she thought I should check. Upon arriving at the right floor, taking THE single elevator, I see a sign pointing to the surgery waiting room. I walk the length of that hall until I see another sign saying the same, but pointing the opposite direction. The waiting room itself had no sign indicating what it was. I would have been able to figure it out for myself had there not been three other waiting rooms in that same hall. Signs, people. Signs.

Complaint 3: Pay To Park

That’s right. When visiting OU Medical Center, you must pay to park. Now, you know that I am a die hard capitalist and defender of the rights of business owners, but paid parking at a hospital, let alone any business, is ridiculous. Never in my life have I visited a hospital (and I have visited many) where one had to pay for parking. To make matters worse, the hospital receives public money! I’ve already had to pay for the facility to some extent through the forcible theft of a percentage of my income (state income tax), I damn well better be able to at least park for free.

St. Anthony does not charge for parking and Integris goes one step further: they have free valet parking. Why? Because they realize that it creates a positive incentive for people to want to use their services in the future. Charging people to park carries the incentive to make visits shorter, freeing space for more visitors. This is the incentive, along with that if increased revenue, which I am sure the executives of OU Med Center had in mind. However, there are unintended incentives created which include the incentive to not use that hospital in the future. I personally will never use OU Medical Center in the future, for this reason alone.

I’ll end this long rant with the final blow I received as I attempted to leave the parking lot. My parking fee for the time I was there was $2. However, being someone, like a large majority of people today, who rarely carries cash, was informed you cannot use debit or credit cards to pay. The attendant told me not to worry, filled out a form, handed it to me and sent me on my way. It was a $5 ticket for not having cash. Worse yet, he dated it the 8th, when it was actually the 11th. This would not be a big deal were it not for the fact you must pay extra fees if it is not paid within 7 days. I have no doubt this was done intentionally by the parking company that manages the parking lot, Republic Parking.

Over all, OU Medical Center is the worst hospital I have visited in Oklahoma. While the employees are very friendly and capable, its board and executives could use some lessons from Integris on how to run a hospital people would want to use.

Yesterday, my friend Mark was on his way to work when he was in a motorcycle accident. He was less than a half a mile from the office when a woman pulled out of a parking lot onto the street. Due to the fact that it was raining, he was unable to brake or maneuver around the car. He ran right into her wheel and was thrown off of his bike, over the car and onto the center divider.

Thankfully, Mark is a very cautious rider who always wears not only a helmet, but also riding boots and a full protective jacket with padding. Though he had this protection, he was still left with some pretty nasty injuries, including: a fractured pelvis, a fractured left leg, a bad skin tear and a black eye. He will probably be in the hospital for a while, and then even longer before he is back and riding and at work. Here is to wishing him a quick recovery. After all, someone has to take Ghost Rider’s place (and no, I don’t mean that horrible movie or lame comic. I mean the REAL Ghost Rider from Sweden).

A few months ago I stumbled across a local blog called The Lost Ogle. I was delighted to find a group of malcontents, who, much like myself enjoy railing on Oklahoma City “celebs”, commercials and mouth breathing politicians. Shortly after becoming a regular reader, the gents at Lost Ogle though it wise to help those of us in Oklahoma City connect with the poor saps in Tulsa, by bringing in a weekly guest columnist. Enter The Irritated Tulsan.

Being a native of the Tulsa area, my first reaction was to pick up surrounding objects and begin throwing them at this guest writer. I left for OKC over 8 years ago, and though, while I miss those green things called trees, Coney Islander, BIll & Ruth’s, Kilkenny’s and my beloved QuikTrip, I have never regretted my move. Tulsa is, and will forever be, an avatar of my redneck past. So I did what any jerk on the interweb would do: complaine. However, the Irritated Tulsan being the swell guy he is, we came to an understanding. An understanding based on our mutual love of QuikTrip. As an even greater gesture of understanding, he began writing a weekly post called, Mattatarian’s Food Offering of the Week. In this column, he has kept me apprised of all the wonderful food QT has to offer.

So now my friends, I am launching Irritated Tuesdays on Mattatarian.com. Every Tuesday I will be posting a banner linking to that weeks Food Offering. While you are there, read the rest of his blog. His has become one of my most frequently visited blogs, enjoying his irreverant and entertaining stories on life in T-town.

And yes, I am totally ripping off The Lost Ogle’s idea, though I don’t like to call it that. I like to call it, synergy. Or maybeyou would call it a blog-énage à trois?

After years of losing their identity, many chain restaurants sail past mediocre and straight into boderline terrible. Sonic, along with Braum’s (I’ll save my rant on Braum’s for another day) is one of those. It has become one of those chains which I frequently tell myself not to return to. Yet, foolishly lured by a desire for all things new and being bombarded with advertisements, I eventually succomb thinking, “this time will be different”.

This time, Sonic’s siren song was their new Angus Bacon Cheesburger. Their website describes it as:

100% pure Angus Bacon Cheeseburgers just for you. Choose from Hickory, Jalapeño or Classic style topped with all the fresh fixin’s, crispy bacon, American cheese, and served on a soft ciabatta bun.

Upon arriving at the Sonic drive thru, I had to hastily decide between classic or the other two styles. This being a Sonic known for getting orders wrong, I went with the classic since that is what I would have been given had I ordered the jalapeño. However, when I tried placing my order, the girl working the drive thru kept reading it back as a regular bacon cheese burger. Both of us at a loss, she requested that I drive to the window and order there. When I arrived at the window I tried once again to order, “The Angus Bacon Cheeseburger, and that will be all.” The girl looked as if I was speaking another language. Finally, after repeating my order 3 more times, she cocked her head and asked, “a who?”

It was at this moment I realized this girl had probably made the best possible career choice for herself. I made one last attempt, speaking very slowly and pointing to the picture of the burger. Success! After waiting for a few minutes for my burger to be cooked to order (something I actually appreciated) I had my order and was on my way back to the office to chow down. To be fair, although my mind was replaying her asking, “a who?”, over and over, I must say she was very friendly during the whole ordeal.

Now, to the burger. It was assembled with care, still very hot and obviously fresh. The bacon was cooked perfectly and the angus patty was actually pretty good. The bun, which was supposed to be ciabatta, was anything but real ciabatta. It was a very fluffy and light bun that had the outer appearance of a ciabatta like bread, but lacked the firmness and large air bubbles of the real thing. Overall, it was actually a pretty good burger. That said, it was definately not worth the $5 and some change that I paid for it. Had that total included a drink and a side, or if the patty had been more substantial in size, then we would be looking at a great deal. Unless they lower the price before taking this off the menu, its probably okay to skip it and just get the regualr bacon cheeseburger. Your wallet and your full stomach will thank you for doing so.

I just finished updating to the latest version of Wordpress, as well as creating a new look for the site. This new version should load faster and will allow me to add more features.

Not to mention the fact that the brighter look should help you avoid the urge to load a playlist full of early 90’s mope rock, draw spider webs on your face with mascara and write poems about how sad you are. The old look was so dark, even I got down in the dumps when making a post. Well, no more because its a new day at Mattatarian.com. A new day full of sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and tacos and QuikTrip and Muchacos….
More posts to come!

The amazing Steve Jobs and his fabtabulous iPhone have done it again. Much to my delight, when I checked the latest apps on the Apps Store, I noticed the addition of a Wordpress app. For over a year I have been searching for a way to make posts through my phone. It wasn’t until I bought my iPhone in April that this became a reality… sort of.

While the last two posts were made from my iPhone, I have had to jump through hoops to make that happen. As a result, I rarely ever post. However, this new Wordpress app will change that problem. I’m not promising a new post everyday, but I can say they will now be more frequent than once every two months.

So rejoice, my one or two readers, and give thanks to The Steve.

So those of you who know me might be shocked to learn I recently visited a western clothing store. While there, I found what is quite possibly, the most awesome shirt on the planet. My wife begs to differ, but when has that ever stopped me?

The only problem is these shirts are a little more pricey than the fine Target tshirts which make up my current wardrobe. But if I have my druthers, and about $300, I’m going to change my look from Techno Hobo, to Western Swingatarian. Of course, that’s if the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise. See? I’m already working on the lingo.