17 November 2005

just like mary shelley

last night i met a friend at the world financial center and i saw a "blockheads". i had no idea this place was a chain. the first time i saw one, walking downtown from work one evening, it struck me as impressively confusing.

firstly: what does a blockhead have to do with a burrito? "blockhead": n : these words are used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence. true, i don't need my burrito to be in mensa or anything, but why would naming a place "blockheads" give me any sort of positive feeling? and is it really intuitive to think "that place is called 'blockheads', they must make burritos"? (the answer is 'no', by the way.)

second: "burritos brought to life" is the slogan of this gimmick-laden purveyor of "san francisco-style mexican food". am i to understand that blockheads is actually a city-wide network of scientific labs in which dr. frankensteins are electrifying tortilla-encased mounds of meat, cheese, and sour cream (mmm, sour cream) and screaming "it's alive!"? personally, i do not want my burrito brought to life. i much prefer it to be inanimate. it is, after all, a burrito.

third: this whole "san francisco-style mexican food" thing. everyone knows a san francisco burrito has about one grain of rice in common with real mexican food. so just call it "san francisco style" that's enough. clemen's knows what's up.

fourth: this place becomes more and more excruciating the more i learn about it. a visit to their website yielded a wave of nausea not felt since tuesday morning. there is irritating mariachi music and i was introduced to a grating cast of puppets who were friendlier than a washington mutual atm. they said all kinds of cutsey things via speech bubbles and have moronic names like "zippy".

fifth: this is the saddest part. somehow, these people are connected with benny's burritos in greenwich village. it appears they own it or something.

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