Maybe I'm a bit of an attention whore?

Actually, if someone's only a bit of a whore, then are they really a whore? I don't think so... What would you call them? A tease? I'm a bit of an attention tease? That just doesn't sound like it works... I'll have to ponder.

Anyway, the reason I say this, is because I really thrive on comments and likes. I find that when I post pictures on facebook, I wait a while to see if anyone will like them or comment on them. And then, if no one does, I delete it. Haha. Unless I really liked it. Like one of my profile pictures is of me and Mark from markreads.net and markwatches.net. He's awesome and I love that picture, so I'll keep it forever. But there's been plenty of profile pictures and now cover pictures that didn't make the cut, and I delete them and pretend like they never existed. Usually I wait at least a year for pictures, but occasionally as little as 4 months. For statuses, I usually don't delete them, but if I ever find myself on a friend's facebook, I'll go over and like my status from their page. Haha.

And with my blogs, I don't delete them if they haven't had any comments, but I find that I'll put off writing more posts until someone comments on them (btw, for my one or two friends who read this blog but don't have their own blogger account, you can still comment, too, if you ever feel the urge). I'll usually wait at least a couple weeks before posting something new if no one's commented.

Apparently I don't put these things up because I like to document my life. I do it solely for the attention of others and their comments. Haha. I guess if I like getting comments so much, I should make it more of a habit to comment on other blogs.

As a completely random aside, I'd like to point out that every paragraph in this post has started with an a, and each word has been different. That started out as just coincidence, but I made sure to keep it up. Haha. I actually had to go back and add a word to the beginning of my first paragraph to make it work out. But I had two extra paragraphs that started with additional a-words, but I decided to take them out because it made this post far too ramble-y.

Awesome. I'm awesome. In case anyone was confused. Not lame, but awesome.

Culver's: 1.5 stars

 Culver's

Notes from this lunch: I am totally digging the plastic number thing that all these restaurants are doing where you get a physical plastic number, and then they bring your food out to you. Also, what a delicious shake! But my condiments are coming through the bun. Seriously, where'd that hole come from? The people here talk too fast, ahh. They tricked Sara into getting a double burger! Fiends! The food was slightly chewy, but it was a good float (root beer float, that is).

And yes! The rumors are true! I have now confiscated Sara's Burger-Rating Notebook so that I can put all her ratings and comments in, as well. The way I've set up these posts is: Name of restaurant (in bold), Paragraph incorporating all the notes we took while eating, Paragraph describing food, Pictures of food, Ratings of food (usually mine first, then Sara's), Pictures of us eating, Description of our experience and/ or justification of ratings, Summary of where we ate and average rating, Picture of number of stars awarded to restaurant. You may go back (like you needed my permission) to see Sara's older ratings. Except for Smashburger-- she forgot her Burger-Rating Notebook and instead wrote everything on a sticky note, and has yet to transfer her notes.

Alright. So we get to this place, and it is much more fast-foodish than either of the other restaurants we've been to. So we decided, instead of ordering our sandwiches and getting fries/side dish to split, we'd just each get a meal. We got the uh... bacon something something. Just a bacon cheeseburger, I don't remember the fancy names they gave it. I got regular fries as a side, and a chocolate shake to drink (top). Sara got sweet potato fries, and a root beer float (bottom). Note the random pickle on top of her food. Haha. Excccellent.

Freshness: 7

Juiciness: 3

Deliciousness: 4

[Bun-soakage: 2]

Flavor awesomeness: 3

Uniqueness: 1

Condiment-ratio: 4

[Greasiness: 3]

Appearance: 5

Side dish deliciousness: 6

Side dish uniqueness: 1

Price: 4

Fullness Level: 10

[Messiness: 8]

Freshness: 7

Juiciness: 2

Deliciousness: 4

[Bun-soakage: 2]

Flavor awesomeness: 3

Uniqueness: 1

Condiment-ratio: 5

[Greasiness: 4]

Appearance: 5

Side dish deliciousness: 3

Side dish uniqueness: 2

Price: 5

Fullness level: 10

[Messiness: 8]

Here is my first bite.

Here is Sara's pissed-off-that-you-would-dare-to-take-a-picture-of-me look.

Haha. When Ally took the pictures, she took them right in a row so this is actually just mid-glance for Sara. But I thought it was an awesome picture anyway. Hopefully she agrees ;)

Ok. So, as I believe I said earlier, we got to this place and it was much more fast-foodish than restaurants we have previously been eating at. They still gave us plastic numbers and had people run out and give us our food, instead of making us come up to the counter to get it, but that has little pull in the fanciness of this restaurant. Luckily, the fanciness of a restaurant does not affect the quality of food. At least, not directly. It's a strong indicator of the food quality, but not a direct factor. Sadly, we were not living in the future. The drink machine was just a regular one. And if I remember correctly, it was behind the counter anyway. Don't quote me on that, though. I got a shake, so I didn't care much about the pop.

That shake, man! It was really good. If I ever returned to Culver's (not likely), then I would only get the shake. And maybe some fries. Their regular fries-- the ones I got-- were pretty average. Which is more than I can say for their sweet potato fries. While I may not have technically rated those, I still tried them. They were terrible. Worst sweet potato fries I've ever had in my life. And I like sweet potato fries, so it's not a prejudice I have against the food itself.

Our burgers were... less than par. The meat was really dry, but the tomatoes and pickles kept dripping down and made the burgers pretty messy. And the condiments! Mine had a terrible ratio! I'm serious, at one point, there suddenly appeared a tiny hole in the bottom of my bun that everything just started leaking through. It was messy, to say the least. And the bacon... That was also less than par. It was really chewy. In general, the burger was just not a good experience. But as a plus-- possibly the only plus-- the tomatoes and lettuce and pickles all tasted fresh enough.

When we decided we were done, we still had some food left over. We weren't hungry, so we still gave it a 10 for fullness level, but it wasn't a good full feeling. You know how when you eat a really delicious meal, you might be full afterwards, but you don't feel like crap? You still feel good? That didn't happen here. There was actually a point after we finished eating where I said, "I am not pleased right now. This was not a good lunch." There are not many times in my life where I've actually just been upset at the food I've eaten. Which is a good thing. It reminds me of Ratatouille, where Anton Ego says, "I don't like food; I love it. And if I don't I love it, I don't swallow." There is not even a slight chance he would have swallowed this. I doubt he would have put it in his mouth in the first place.

Oh, and can I just take a second to talk about the price? I paid 8 something for my food, Sara paid 10 something (the reason mine was slightly cheaper was because I got regular fries, and apparently sweet potato fries add a bit of money. Also, I had a single burger, but Sara's cashier confused her and she ended up with a double burger). I paid less to eat at both restaurants we've previously reviewed. And-- AND-- I enjoyed that food. This food was total crap. There is no excuse to sell something so expensive and not have it be amazing. I could expect to go to a sit-down restaurant, even, and get an awesome burger, and still not top how much we paid here. Ridiculous. Ally told us that her family has been coming here for years. I cannot fathom why. Upon further questioning, she said they maybe get it once every 6 months. I still can't fathom why. I'm serious, after eating here, I went running for an hour and then ate fruit to try to cancel out all the bad. I don't recommend eating here. Ever.

So, there's Culver's for you. Mine and Sara's average ratings are 4.6 and 4.5, respectively. That would equal out to about 2 stars, but I'm docking them half a star because I was so displeased after the meal, which leaves them with:

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!

I was wrong, everyone. Haha, my bad. It's not free to get into the rec center. Soon, there will be a sale on our punch cards so that it's only 2 dollars to get in, but the magic "scan the card and walk in thing" I saw was not taking into account that, by scanning the card, that uses one of your punches. Or you can put money on  that and use it to get in.

Terribly sorry for the confusion. It's still much much cheaper to climb there than it is to climb at a climbing gym, and we have one of the coolest pools that exists. But yes, my bad. D:

Please still come climbing with me?


Oh, and I'll put up my review for Culver's tomorrow.

Climbing! :D Who wants to join?

In my entire life, up until 5 weeks ago, I had been rock climbing a total of 3 times. Chaelomen took me twice like, what, 10 or 11 years ago? Then about 6 or 7 years ago, we had a mutual activity where we went climbing and I got about half way up the wall.

I do however belay people more frequently than is normal. But I've never been formally trained or anything so when I was getting hired at the rec center and to get belay certified, I decided to take the climbing 101 class where they go over how to tie your knots and such. I learned something pretty important there: I can't climb to save my life. Haha. It's terrible. I got maybe 6 feet off the wall and then didn't know what to do and didn't feel solid on any of the holds, so I just sat there for a while until Adam told me I could come down if I wanted.

I still got belay certified and now I have the job. It's all awesome. But, unfortunately, Melissa (my boss, not my sister in law) asked me if I had been on the auto belay. Heh... no. So she had me try it out. Haha. I don't know if everyone knows what an auto belay is. It's pretty simple. One end (the big round one) is secured to the top of the wall, and you hook the other end up to your harness. It lets you climb alone and you go up the wall, and then if you fall or when you decide you're done, you just let go of the wall, and you've got like 3 feet of free fall, then it catches you and lowers you to the ground. The reason Melissa wanted me to do it was so that way if someone asked what it feels like, I would be able to tell them.

Unfortunately for me, the auto belay is hooked up to a wall where the easiest route is 5.7. There was also a 5.8 and maybe a 5.10 on the wall, so if I used any hold I wanted, you could probably call it a 5.6. That's not too bad. Except I couldn't even climb our 5.4, and it's on a really easy part of the wall. I had no chance of getting off the ground here. Also especially because when you're being belayed by a person, you can feel that they have you. You can feel that if you lean back, they've got your line on break and you'll only fall maybe 6 inches. On an auto belay, it doesn't catch you until 3 feet of rope have been pulled free, so you don't feel that it has you. It's just a little less secure feeling-- still about as safe as a regular belay, it just feels less comforting. And being a completely inexperienced climber, I really wanted that comfort.

All of this combined, I only got like 3 feet off the ground. Ha. It was ok, though. Not everyone who works at the wall is a climber. And if I'm not a climber either, then at least I can still do my job. Climbing apparently was just not my thing. I don't really know the techniques of climbing, so all it was doing was exploiting how weak my arms and legs were. What's the fun of that? At least, getting like 3 feet off the ground before I slipped, I still felt it catch me, just barely.

Well, Melissa sees that I'm terrible at climbing, and we actually were offering a woman's climbing class (ages 15 and up) on Thursdays this month. We had an open spot, and one of the perks of working at the rec center is that I get to take the classes we offer for free. So she sent me an email asking if I'd maybe be able to work on Sat (I couldn't, I had COPE) and if-- no pressure-- I was interested in taking the class. I really was, because I remember way back in the day when I was much smaller, I enjoyed climbing with Chaelomen. I mean, thanks to physics, climbing is just easier for smaller children. But I really enjoyed it back then. I'd like to think I could enjoy it again.

So I've been taking this climbing class every Thursday this month from 7 to 9, and it's been really awesome. All I think about it climbing. Scooter may or may not have had to tell me I couldn't climb one of the Miner's Memorials at the city she lives in. I go to the rec center frequently so I can traverse around the wall a couple times and boulder some and climb the auto belay route-- they just redid the routes on that wall so it's like a 5.8 5.9 and 5.10-- and I can get about 10 feet off the ground consistently before I slip.

We were actually retiring a couple ropes at work last Sunday, and to get the new rope up, you just tie it to the old one and pull it through. Alas, my knot was not tight enough, so it slipped out at the most inopportune time, and both ropes came falling to the ground. To get the new rope up, Melissa made me climb the back wall (3 routes on that one, 5.7, 5.8 and 5.9) and string the new rope around the belay bar. And it may have taken like 20 minutes, but I made it to the top of the wall! It was awesome. I was very happy. Such an accomplishment.

Recently, I've been taking my friends climbing at the rec center, which is fun and all, but they don't know how to belay, so basically I go and traverse around the wall, boulder, and climb the auto belay, and belay them on their routes. And get frustrated when I try to tell them what their next move should be and they're just like, "I need to come down." And I'm like no, your next hold is right there, you're only like 7 feet up, come on! And they're like, "No, I'm coming down." Yeah, fine, ok, you can try again later. (That experience brought a whole new perspective to how I probably appeared at my climbing 101 class. Heh.)

But yesss. If anyone is looking for a climbing partner, I'm totally available. I would love to teach you to belay and climb. Only $5 to get a pass at the rec center, and it's good for a year. If you already know how to belay, getting the belay certification only takes like 20 minutes. We have 9 routes, and they get changed every couple months. Renting the gear is free, you just need to bring your rec center card. Once you're certified, you can belay and boulder and use the auto belay. Please... Haha. Who's down?

Smashburger: 3.5 stars

Smashburger

Sara and I think it's important to note that, as we were reviewing Smashburger, we were super hungry. Some fun quotes from this particular lunch: "It got on my bun!" and, "You are juicy." Haha. Made us laugh.

The day before we ate here, Sara also made me choose whether we were going to try to order roughly the same thing at each restaurant or take the specialty from each restaurant. At first, I had decided 100% that we needed to get roughly the same thing at each restaurant because that way we could see which burger joint cooked the best. But then-- and it was a sudden flip in my decision-- I realized that we're not looking for the best burger joint, we're looking for the best burger. And the two are definitely related, but to find the best burger, we absolutely need to be comparing each burger's specialty.

That being said, the next day, once we got to the Smashburger, I had forgotten my revelation that we're looking for the best burger. So we got almost exactly the same thing that we had at Larkburger. Haha. Oops. Maybe, to make up for it, we'll just have to re-rate Larkburger and Smashburger and get something more specialty-ish. We did decide that we have to be eating the same kind of burger, though, so at least we got something set that we've managed to keep up. We both got the Classic, and Sara kept hers with American Cheese (left) and mine is with pepper jack cheese (right) because, come on. Pepper jack always wins against American. Most things do. And, as a side, we got smashfries (french fries with rosemary and maybe something else).

Freshness: 9

Juiciness: 10

Deliciousness: 9

[Bun-Soakage: 1]

Flavor-awesomeness: 9

Uniqueness: 7

Condiment-ratio: 3

[Greasiness: 2]

Appearance: 7

Price: 8

Fullness level: 10

[Messiness: 9]

Side dish deliciousness: 7

Side dish uniqueness: 5

Sara's first bite. Haha. My picture was actually taken first, so in this one she's just trying to top me by going cross-eyed.

My first bite. What was going through my head was that scene in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days where Andi is eating a burger for lunch, and her boss tells her to take smaller bites on her date that night. We're super attractive, right?

Smashburger is actually set up really similarly to Larkburger. Or maybe Larkburger is set up similarly to Smashburger. Either way. The food got out to us pretty quickly, they both have the awesome futuristic drink machines. It was all fun and lovely. No one came to ask us to fill out a survey this time, sad. Haha. But it was still good. They brought it out, and mine was actually really messy. It was ridiculous. I used at least 10 napkins. And I'm not that big of a napkin-user. I mean, I use one when I need to, but I don't usually use ridiculous amounts or anything. It wasn't greasy or anything, it was just messy. Condiment-ratio was allll kinds of off. But, as a nice bonus, this one didn't come with a wrapper around it, so its excess and messy juices would have just fallen to the tray, and left all of the bun complete unsoaked. Of course, that means it was a little more messy, but hey. Win some, lose some.

The fries were lovely as well. I quite enjoyed them. They were particularly salty, but still good. Not terribly unique, but more unique than just regular fries. It got a pretty average score there. And the price was about the same as at Larkburger-- just under $5 for the burger, a buck or so for a drink, and a couple bucks for the fries. Not too bad, and the food was definitely worth it. It was really good, and I would definitely go back. I had to fold my lettuce over. It was far too large for the burger, and it kept getting condiment on my hand! Drove me crazy, but once I folded it over, it was totally fine.

As a side note-- and it wasn't a problem with this burger, so it was penalized at all here-- the first time I went to Smashburger, the burger was as greasy as a pubescent teenager's face. It would have easily scored a 9 or 10 had I been rating it (which would have been pretty detrimental to the score, equally out to be a 0 or 1). I'm lead to believe that it depends on who the cook is? I don't know. I've been twice since then, and it wasn't a problem at all. I just don't want someone to go and happen to get a ridiculously greasy burger and be like, "Bridget, what's your problem? That was terrible and it ruined my experience! You couldn't have warned me?" because people I know and am friends with have gone their first time and gotten a really greasy burger, and now refuse to go back. It's happened to me, but so far, it's been the minority of my experience. And I would suggest giving it another shot, if that was your first experience.

That's Smashburger in a nutshell. It was fantastic, and gets an average rating of 7.3, making:

I love messing with kids' heads.

Sara and I were going to review a burger place last Saturday, but then I remembered that I would be at COPE for the weekend. Rather than put off the rating for a week, we went on Thursday, and I haven't really had a lot of free time to upload pictures since then (except for yesterday morning, before work, and today after work. Turns out, I'm just lazy enough that uploading the pictures upstairs, then transferring them down here is too much work). Also, I really don't want two burger ratings right next to each other. But I promise, I'll upload the pictures soon. And get the next burger place officially rated by the end of the week.

As I said, I went to COPE this last weekend. There's some school that's had the last couple weekends reserved for us at COPE. They had a grant that let all of their seniors and juniors go, in two separate trips. They have about 50 of each, and the first weekend was the seniors' weekend. I wasn't at this one since it was my first weekend working at PDRC, but that was fine because a lot of the kids didn't end up coming. So there were only 35 or so of them. (I use the term "only" loosely, because that's still a ton of kids to try to get through COPE in a weekend. But we were lucky they didn't all show up, or it would have been much more stressful.) They asked the teachers how many of the allotted 50 kids were expected to show up when the juniors came, and they predicted about the same number. Thank goodness.

I'm not entirely sure what happened next. My guess is that the seniors who went, got back to school and told all the seniors who didn't go how awesome it was, and also told all the juniors that it's awesome. Because we had something ridiculous like 22 girls come up, and 24 boys, plus 5 teachers. Making a total of 51 people to get through the program. This is easily double what we consider a big group. Lucky for us, we had scheduled extra staff to come up, because although (pre-weekend) we were only expecting 35 people, we still had to staff for 50. Unlucky for us, a good deal of the staff that was supposed to come up had major problems come up, and weren't able to make it.

This is ok with me (except that these people had major problems, which is never good) because it means that, although I have done a COPE course in just over 2 years, I got to facilitate the entire time-- I was in charge of a group of 8 or 9 kids, sending them through the low ropes courses, making the Land of the Cony come alive for them. COPE is awesome. We pretend they've entered a different world, where magic is real and they have to do certain activities while they're there. One thing we do is tell them that the giant king stole the elf king's ring, and now they have to get the ring (a tire) off the giant's finger (a tall wooden pole), without touching the finger. Sometimes without touching the ring directly. As soon as they get it off, you tell them that the elf king just came and told you that the ring was actually keeping the giant asleep, and they have to get it back on right now, before he wakes up completely!

Another one we do is tell them they have to get across an "acid river," which is just a bunch of woodchips between two beams of wood on the ground-- and one side is a little more narrow than the other. But they can't step in the river (obviously. Who would step in acid?), they can't jump over it-- they must step-- and they have to get their entire team across. Once across, you tell them they did a good job, but unfortunately, they're all now stuck on the wrong side of the river and they need to get back. They usually get over the first time on the narrower side, and if they do it too quickly, you can add a new rule that on the narrower half, the acid unfortunately just concentrated a lot, and if you even put a limb over it, you lose the limb. So getting over on that side is out of the question.

There's tons and tons more elements like these two that we have them do, and they're all challenging and require the group to think. But what makes it really fun is that we get COPE bandannas that represent different handicaps. You can tie them over someone's eyes and blind them, around their mouth so they become a mute, tie up arms or legs to represent a broken limb, whatever. We've tied someone's hand to their leg before and gave them a hunch back. With all these handicaps, they still have to get everyone over, and they have to learn to use the entire team-- handicapped or not.

Another thing that makes it really fun is the kids themselves. They get into so much trouble. I had broken one kid's leg, and he flat out hopped into the acid river with the other leg, so he ended up breaking that leg as well, becoming a bigger burden on the rest of his team. Or as I was about to hand out handicaps while we were doing the giant's ring, one girl made the comment that I was probably going to injure all of the tall people, making it harder to get the ring off. When she said that, I looked her in the eye and said, "Good idea!" then proceeded to break a lot of legs and arms of the taller boys in the group.

A general rule we have set at COPE is that after you give them the objective of their activity, you send them on their way. Any questions they ask you, then answer is no. "Can we use the tree to cross?" "No." "Can I get on the other side and pull people over?" "No." If they come up with something clever that you kinda hope they'll still use, then instead of just saying no, you change it a little. "Can I use my coat as a bridge?" "No, you cannot." Eventually, they'll have asked enough questions and put enough restrictions on themselves, that you just start to feel bad for them, because you really have no idea how they'll get out of it. "Can I stand with one foot on each side of the river and help everyone else over?" "... Are you asking me that?" The idea is to try to teach them to be more independent, and to not look to their leaders to solve all their problems. If you've found a solution, then do it and don't second guess yourself.

And there's some times where you have to throw them a bone. While we were doing the acid river, the kids kept stepping into the river, or falling into it, until enough of them had injuries and couldn't use legs/hands, that I honestly couldn't think of a way they could get out of it. And they knew it, too, because they started joking about all of them just jumping in the river and doing a mass-suicide thing, that way they could start over. Haha. I quickly offered them a better way, by picking up two pine cones and telling them that the elves are watching them, and just feel sad watching them, so they've given me the power to heal two of their handicaps. The only quirk was that they all had to talk together and agree upon which two handicaps would be healed. Once they figured that out, they were still in a challenging place, but at least they had a way to get over.

It was a ton of fun. Those kids were awesome. And, as an extra bonus to me, there was this one point where we were sitting there waiting for somewhere between 15-20 minutes for our low-ropes course to be set up. Now, if anyone has hung with me and Nicky/Alex in the past, oh, two months, you should be fully aware of the different mind games I've been playing with them. I've done "If this is a hand, and this is a hand, is this a hand?" and we've played with my friend Princess Annie (called Apple Annie up a COPE), and we've done "This is 0, this is 1, this is 2, this is 3, this is 4. How many is this?" and Johnny Woop, and a couple others. I only have two of these mind games that they have yet to figure out, and for one of them, I need at least one other person who knows the rule to do it. But generally, they already know the tricks, so I haven't been able to mess with their heads as freely as I used to be able to. But, during this 15-20 minutes while we were waiting, I had 9 fresh minds that I could play with, and it kept them distracted until the course was set up for me. Love it.

We also got to play a couple games at night, like Yee Haw-- which was actually really fun-- and Who Sir Me Sir-- one of my favorites-- and Pineapple/Banana-- which we never got all the way through because everyone was too confused-- and a couple other fun little games. Maybe next time I go up, I'll try playing Wanna Buy a Duck with a few people. They were all having a lot of fun, which makes it like ten times more exciting for us, because we're the ones helping them have fun, and then they're in good moods and want more. And, it's not just the participants I get along with so well, but also the other facilitators. It never fails to amaze me-- I go up there barely remember the name of two facilitators, and by the end of the weekend, I feel like I have 6 new really close friends. It's really cool.

Unfortunately, I had to work on Sunday at PDRC, so I couldn't stay up the entire weekend. It was fine and everything, I was there for most of it, but I just worry that since I wasn't there for the full time, I won't have made as much of an impression on their lives as they did on mine. They were all really awesome kids, all 46 of them, and I wish I could know that they'll remember something about me. Not necessarily my name, but just something so that I know I'll have made a difference to them and made them better in some way. It's times like this where I'm positive that I should be a chemistry teacher, because teachers always change lives, and that's really something I want to do. Make other's lives better.

Coming home early ended up being ok, though, because work was really awesome on Sunday. That's a story for another post though, seeing as this one is already way too long haha. But don't worry! It's a wonderful story, so it will still come. :)

To sum up, though, COPE is awesome all the time and I had a great weekend.

Larkburger: 4 stars.

I once watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother (s4e2) where Marshall, years earlier, ate the best burger in New York, and now they all run around trying to find it again. In this process, they eat at a lot of different hamburger places until they finally find the one that Marshall ate at before, and it is indeed the best burger they've ever had in their lives.

While I like this episode quite a lot, I thought it was going to be about all of them deciding they wanted to find the best burger in New York, and going out and trying a ton of different ones (versus what it was actually about, where they had already found it, they just couldn't remember where it was). That made me want to find the best burger in the Denver-ish area. And I told my friend Sara about this wonderful dream I had.

Unfortunately, Sara (at the time I told her about this dream) was a vegetarian. So she couldn't really join me. And who wants to go alone? Though she did volunteer to come with me and test out all the french fries and find the best kind in the Denver-ish area. But that just wouldn't be the same, so we never actually did it. Fortunately, about 10 months ago, Sara decided, because there was actually animal product in so much of what she was eating without realizing it (jello, pudding, etc), she'd rather just put meat back into her diet (which also means I have a hilarious and terrible story to tell her. I think everyone knows it, but once I finally do actually tell her, I will put it up, just in case).

So, many months later, we actually have decided to go out and find the Best Burger in the Denver-ish Area! We made a list of 14 criteria, and we're rating said burgers on a scale of 1-10 for each criterion. 1 being terrible, 10 being perfect. Most of them are on a positive scale (fresh, juicy, delicious, flavors, uniqueness, condiment-ratio, appearance, price--cheaper price=higher score, and fullness-level, side dish deliciousness, side dish uniqueness), and a few of them are on a negative scale (bun soakage, greasiness, messy). For example, if the burger leaves you feeling full and satisfied, we'd give it a 10-- for being perfectly satisfying. Similarly, if the burger was really greasy and I hesitated to touch anything without first using 5 napkins, it would also get a score of 10-- for being perfectly greasy.

For the negative criteria, when we average out the ratings at the end of the meal, we negate/invert the score it was given. So, averaging the two ratings I listed above, we'd take a 10 for fullness-level as it is, and then we'd flip the 10 for greasy and make it a 0. Then average 10 and 0 together, and come up with 5. It's a little complicated, and I don't really know why I decided that would be the way it is, but it made more sense at the time in my head to rate it like that, and I still know how to do the math for it, so hey. Why not.

[Basically, for the positive criteria, 1=1, 2=2, 3=3... 10=10. For the negative criteria, 1=9, 2=8, 3=7... 10=0.]

Sara and I have a great list of restaurants to try, starting with just fast food joints, and toward the end we'll probably take it up to sit down restaurants as well. We'll be reviewing one restaurant about every two weeks, and we actually reviewed this one last week (so get ready for rating number two next week). One of these places just barely opened off of 120th and Washington, on the southwest corner.

Alright. Now that all that's out of the way, onto the review!

Larkburger

Really cool restaurant. Super awesome customer service. Gotta love the toasted bun. And, they have an awesome drink machine-- I'm livin' in the future! Very eco-friendly. Awesome staff. Clean and fresh environment.

I guess Sara and I actually have really similar tastes in food. Larkburger doesn't actually have a lot of options burger-wise, but they do have a ton of options in total. It's not strictly a "burger joint." They have tons of chicken sandwiches, I think there were a couple turkey sandwiches, and they also have vegetarian food. Maybe they had some vegan food? I don't really remember because we're looking to find the best hamburger in the Denver-ish Area, and so we clearly went for a hamburger option. We just got their regular larkburger (with pepperjack cheese), and garlic truffle fries.

Freshness: 9, 9

Juiciness: 10, 9

Deliciousness: 10, 10

[Bun-soakage: 3, 4]

Flavor-awesomeness: 10, 9

Uniqueness: 2, 2

[Messiness: 4, 6]

Condiment-ratio: 6, 5

[Greasiness: 5, 5]

Appearance: 8, 8

Price: 8, 8

Fullness-level: 9, 10

Side dish deliciousness: 10, 8

Side dish uniqueness: 9, 9

Sara's first bite. She looks confused, but happy.

My first bite. I look betrayed, and not happy. But trust me, that's a look of disbelief that a burger could taste so good.

The food got out to us really fast, and they didn't have a lot of different options as far as what kind of burger you could get, and all the options they did have (that we saw, at least) were regular burgers that you can get pretty much anywhere. So that's why uniqueness got such a low rating. The bun was not soaked until you got to the last couple bites, so overall that was good. Generally, I loved it. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get a delicious burger. They don't do combos, and the burger itself was about 5 bucks, then the fries were an additional 2 or 3 dollars. The drink was like 1.50 or something. Not terrible pricing, and definitely worth it.

Let me just take a minute, though, to talk about the future-drink dispenser. It was amazing! It was a touch screen, so you go up to it and think, "Hm. I'll have some Coke!" so you touch the Coke-button on the screen, and it doesn't just give you Coke-- no no. It pops up with a ton of different options! Do you want Vanilla Coke? Lime Coke (pretty nasty)? Orange Coke (also pretty nasty)? Raspberry Coke? Cherry Coke? Vanilla Cherry Coke? Or just plain old Coke? And Fanta! They had tons of flavors for that as well-- I've never even heard of Peach Fanta! But it was an option. So awesome. We actually started off with just a couple water cups, but I made Sara go back up with some money and buy us soda cups because we were both so excited about this amazing machine!

[Funny story, when we bought our food in the first place, Jennifer (the cashier) says, "Do you want any drinks?" "Uh, no. That's ok." "Ok. Do you just want some water cups?" "Yes. That would be lovely, thanks." And then, after seeing the machine, and after we finish our meal, we decide we're going to have to get some soda so we can try it! Larkburger was on me, so I give some money to Sara to go buy the soda cups, and she looks at me incredulously. "You're not just going to use your water cup?" So I quote a little The Way of Kings at her and say, "No. Sara, 'someone has to do what is right because it is right, or no one will follow.'" She takes my money and goes up to get a couple sodas, and Jennifer was also very confused. "You... you don't just want water cups?" "No, we changed our minds..." Haha. Gotta love it.]

[One more funny story: I don't know if the people who worked there thought we were secret shoppers or anything, but we're sitting there, taking pictures of the food, and we've got our notebooks. It looks like we know what we're doing (HA.) and at the end of our meal, one of the girls asks us if we'd mind taking a survey really quick about our experience. Fantastic. It made us laugh.]

So yes. Larkburger was delicious, it gets an average rating of 7.8 from me and 7.3 from Sara, which makes for: