Orlando Winters's Blog

As you’re probably already aware, Miami has received annoying, bloodsucking assholes from Brazil. And more recently, they’ve sent over mosquitoes as well. Zika fever has been an ongoing problem in Asia, Africa, and South/Caribbean America, but has recently become a real problem now that white women are at risk.

Little is known about the long-term effects and risks of Zika, but we’re learning a lot as time goes by. In this article, we’ll go over the things we know and how we can use this information as Miamians.

How Zika is transmitted

Scientists have confirmed that there are a few ways to contract Zika. These include:

Going to Wynwood.
Having sex with anyone who frequents Wynwood.
Going to South Beach.
Having sex with anyone who frequents South Beach.
Being bitten by a mosquito.
Having sex with a mosquito who frequents Wynwood or South Beach.

Avoiding Wynwood and South Beach is a surefire way to prevent Zika for the time being. 30-somethings who are “tired of that shit already” will have a much easier time with that technique. However, that strategy will only work for maybe another week, because Miami hates condoms more than it loves cocaine, and I bet that as I write this some Miami Millionaire from Brickell is disappointing his Tinder date with aggressive sex after their Coyo Taco date. Not to get ahead of myself here, but somebody’s getting a little head, and it’s not Brickell bro.

What’s the primary vector of Zika?

Sorry to put you on blast, but you won the “let me Google ‘Wynwood hipster'” lottery.

The symptoms of Zika

Zika symptoms are usually so mild you’d actually have to lie to take a day off work. 30 squats, eating Taco Bell, or reading pro-Trump wall posts will have you feeling shittier than Zika would. A sizable number of infected people will have no symptoms at all.

Zika fever … has recently become a real problem now that white women are at risk.

There is, of course, the small minority of the infected who get something called Guillan-Barré syndrome. GBS is a shitty disorder of the nervous system that will either make you weak or kill you. GBS is bad for anyone, but it’s especially bad for many Miamians because without the ability to work out, they’ll look fat and nobody will respect them at all because ew, gross, they don’t have a six-pack.

For those who do contract Zika and experience symptoms, it’s usually just a fever, red eyes, joint pain, headache, and a rash. Not to be confused with Chikungunya’s symptoms, which are fever, joint pain, headache, and a rash. Or dengue fever which is fever, joint pain, headache, and a rash. Or West Nile virus which is fever, joint pain, headache, and a rash. I did check Web MD and found that those symptoms could also indicate cancer, so be aware that having even one of those symptoms could mean you’re going to die of cancer.

Zika and pregnant women

Pregnant women should avoid being pregnant while on Zika. Pregnant women with Zika risk transmitting their disease to their fetus, which could end up with microcephaly, a condition that makes a baby’s head as tiny as an orange, with a brain as useless as a vote for Gary Johnson.

If you’re not pregnant but are considering becoming pregnant, the CDC advises that you wait a little longer before doing so. In fact, they’ve already sent out a memorandum to your parents explaining why they still don’t have any grandkids, and they CC’d your grandmother as well.

Expected prognosis

If you have already been infected with Zika and you haven’t been inseminated by a guy you’re statistically likely to divorce later on, you’ll be fine in a week. Yes, there has been some preliminary indications that Zika may cause brain damage in adults making you more likely to support Donald Trump this November, but the science is still young on that.

On the other hand, if you are pregnant, and you do contract Zika, and you do give birth to a baby with microcephaly, there aren’t really many jokes I can make about that. Except that joke I made earlier about getting a little head.

Enjoy your summer.

For the most part, I don’t disagree with Hitler’s actions. What I disagree on was his choice of victims. Jews are awesome, gays are fabulous, and the handicapped don’t really need any more shit piled on them. If the Third Reich decided to gas and bury all those shitty drivers clogging up every intersection from Kendall to Aventura, I’d be Heil Hitlering my ass to work with a normal blood pressure.

Six years ago, I wrote about five symptoms of vehicular assholery, and I’ve decided to revisit the topic with five more that have been driving me insane lately. It’s one of those things we’re simultaneously aggravated with and proud of. Whenever someone from any other American city says, “my city has the worst drivers”, you want to remind them that your typical Miami ref doesn’t even respect traffic signs in a language they can actually read.

Enough foreplay, let’s get to it.

First, let’s see the legend.

As you can see, it is pretty self explanatory. The white car shows [currently] innocent drivers, the booger green car is your sweet little ride with a sun roof, and the orange-red car belongs to Satan’s ejaculate: The typical Miami driver.

My eye is twitching just thinking about these.

Mr. Fuck You, I’m On My Phone

In our egalitarian society, this should never happen. People who do this should be publicly shamed for their complete disregard of other human beings. The person right behind the dick will usually inch as close as possible, getting so close to their tailpipe that a good lawyer could claim it’s sexual harassment, but that’s as far as they’ll take it. They’ll never honk on your behalf, though, because it’s not their problem. It’s your problem.

When the light turns green, the worst ones will make that slight right turn onto that street anyway, because they were too busy on their phones looking up directions the whole time.

The people who chill in the parking lot

This one isn’t a driving infraction, but I’m sure you’ve all experienced it. Picture this. You’re in a crowded-ass parking lot driving around looking for a spot on a Saturday afternoon. Some places are particularly prone to this, and I don’t want to name names, so let’s just say it rhymes with Costco. You’re looking for any spot in the Costco parking lot; far as hell, close to the front, the center, wherever. There are no spots. You manage to get behind someone walking to their car. They see you, make eye contact with you, look into your fucking eye sockets and connect with your soul in a way that only your parents or spouse ever have, and they continue walking to their car. You maintain your course. They get to their car, and put their groceries in there. By the time they finish and get inside their car, you’re leading the biggest vehicular conga line in the Eastern seaboard. It’s only a matter of time now, you’re going to get that sweet spot. You see their red brake lights turn on, and you’re excited. You wait.

And wait.

And wait.

OMG WHAT THE FUCK IS TAKING THIS PIECE OF SHIT SO LONG.

He didn’t look into your soul the way your love does, he looked into your soul the way murderers do. Everyone in line behind you is livid, but you hold strong because it’s your spot. The honking behind you begins. Then the aggressive ones drive through the opposite lane to pass you. You can’t handle it anymore, so you leave because that dickhead is clearly either solving a sudoku puzzle or creating one.

Then right after you leave to begin the hunt for another spot, he pulls out and the guy behind you gets it.

The entitled merger.

I haven’t seen a merge with more “because fuck you, that’s why” panache since Comcast bought NBC. The sense of entitlement that comes with this one is astounding. It’s like if you were in line at Publix and it’s pretty long: would you just casually walk through the closed lane next to you, then come out near the front and just silently butt in front of the next person in line? If you answered yes, you’re a sociopath. Ballsy, but a sociopath.

This one is more permissible in normal streets, but on a highway you’re just slowing down the highway’s flow, which brings me to another point…

Slowing down on the highway.

Have you ever been on the highway, hit a traffic jam, then at some point the jam clears up through what you can only surmise is evidently the blackest of magic because there was no accident or bottleneck in an exit? That’s caused by come mierdas who slow down on the highway. Some common reasons:

They’re going to miss a turn, so rather than taking the next one they slow down, almost murder 12 people and leave behind eight orphans when they cut across three full highway lanes, and cause a jam in the process.
“I need to Snapchat the guy next to me picking his no–oh shit I almost hit the HOV barrier.”
Old people.

Hell, this morning I drove behind someone who tapped their brakes so much I thought I was behind a Chinese seamstress with crazy muscle memory.

Hazard lights in the rain.

What kind of third world ignorant-ass immigrant weird panicky bullshit is this? You know what hazard lights are for? They’re to tell other drivers, “hey, there’s a hazard here, stay clear.” Not to say, “RAIN FALLING! WATCH OUT OK!!1?” You don’t need to warn other drivers of the rain as if they weren’t already aware of it. You won’t use a turn signal to give people info they wouldn’t otherwise get until they’re seething with rage when you cut between them and the car that’s barely a car-length ahead of them, but you’ll turn on ALL of your turn signals simultaneously when you stay in your own lane? What about just using your regular fucking lights that are on the same four corners as the hazards?

Even though hazards while moving are illegal (the only exception is during funeral processions), this is the logic employed by those people:

Yeah I’ve done one of those before, but whatever.

Miami’s wage gap is bigger than the ass implants of its most vain citizens, everybody knows that. Housing is generally not affordable. We outrank Detroit, AKA “We Can’t Even Afford an AKA”, as the worst place to live. We have Zika. That last one isn’t relevant, I just wanted to remind you in case somehow you forgot about that shit.

But even with all that, luxury cars litter our streets. The 836-826 interchange was paid for exclusively with a 10% tax on two weekends of bottle service. New condos are being erected as if Brickell’s soil were fertilized with Viagra and not the remains of the Tequesta Indians. What could possibly explain this disparity in narratives?

Miami Millionaires.

What does a Miami Millionaire look like?

Like they really need you to know they have money.

Miami has a number of millionaires, and even a number of billionaires. I’m not going to show you how to become a millionaire; you don’t have the skills, ambition, or luck to get to that level, and my portfolio consists of Beanie Babies (they’ll be back, you’ll see.) Instead, I’m going to show you how to become a Miami Millionaire.

Before we get started, you must meet a few prerequisites:

Live in Miami
Don’t give a shit about retirement funds

That’s pretty much it. Let’s begin.

Assess your finances

When looking through their finances trying to figure out what they can and cannot buy, normal people usually ask themselves, “can I afford this and be able to pay my rent/mortgage, utilities, food, and put some money away in savings?” But you’re not normal. Instead, follow this flowchart.

If you only have one credit card, you’re already at a disadvantage. Miami Millionaires need at least 10 credit cards, and a total credit line of at least your annual income is essential. Whenever you’re checking out at a department store and the cashier asks, “would you like to open a Whatever Card and save 10% today” your new answer will be, “yes, my social security number is…” not because you want to save 10%, that’s for poor people, but because you need to make sure your credit limit will be high enough to afford better things than your coworkers.

Put everything on credit

You don’t put in more than minimum effort at work, so why pay more and end up with less money at the end of your pay period?

Cash is for drug dealers, immigrants, and strippers. Millionaires pay for everything with credit cards. The most baller thing you could do is whip out your American Express Centurion card, in its black metal glory, and drop it within view of everyone around you. It moistens more vaginas than a heavy period, but unfortunately you need to be an actual millionaire to even be considered for one of those. Lucky for you, there’s Luxury Card®, made specifically for Miami Millionaires. It’s literally just a regular credit card with a pretentious facade. Get that card. If you have an underage sibling, get that shit in their name too so you have a spare once you hit the credit limit.

And for fuck’s sake, don’t pay more than the minimum on your credit card. You don’t put in more than minimum effort at work, so why pay more and end up with less money at the end of your pay period?

Get a luxury car

You’ve got your Luxury Card®, now you need a luxury car to go along with it. The pickings are slim in this category, because you’re limited to either a BMW, Mercedes, or Lexus. Most go for the BMW, the Honda Civic of Miami Millionaires, but I think you can get a little more bang for your buck with a Mercedes. Get a used one, but tell everyone it was “technically used, but not really, it was in a garage the whole time.” If you have shitty credit, don’t let that stop you, just go to one of those no credit check places and eat the 25% APR like it doesn’t matter (it doesn’t, you’re a Miami Millionaire.)

If you’re not paying at least $600 on your car and insurance every month, you’re fucking poor and nobody will respect you. Get a better car. Get a better life.

Buy expensive things

You can’t go around telling everyone you have a lot of money, that’s tacky. But at the same time, you can’t live in Miami and have people thinking you’re just a sad statistic without any real assets. Sounds like a Catch-22. The solution is expensive shit. Your car will do a great job during those moments when you’re getting out of it in the parking lot at Starbucks, but what about the other 23 hours, 59 minutes, 55 seconds of the day? That’s where your Louis Vuitton purse, Tag Heuer watch, and Bvlgari sunglasses come in.

What other expensive shit is there?

If you take “expensive shit” literally, there are gold pills you can buy that will make you shit gold. Seriously.

Don’t limit yourself to things you need. The foundation of the American spirit is build upon competition, so if an acquaintance spends $700 on a phone, it’s your goddamn duty to spend $800 on the one with the curved edges.

Don’t worry about your house

Get whatever shitty one bedroom apartment/efficiency you can find, because you only really use it to relax, eat, fuck, shit, bathe, sleep, and store your expensive things. Nobody can see you front in your own home, so who cares?

If you follow this guide, I guarantee you’ll be a Miami Millionaire.

You’re an April Fool.

I don’t feel like fucking writing right now, OK?

Ever since Sarah Palin burst into the global spotlight like that embarrassingly stupid friend you have that you put off introducing to your other circle of friends, I’ve mistrusted Alaska. Nothing good could come from there, or so I thought.

I have an aunt who lived in Alaska for a few years, and she’s fucking insane. I know I’m going to get shit from my mom for saying that, but let’s look at the facts:

She moved from the Caribbean to Alaska. Not even shooting yourself in the face is more extreme than that, because then at least you wouldn’t have to live in Alaska.
Etcetera…

I had a brief conversation with the owner last night, and she told me about how Alaska Coffee Roasting originally started in Fairbanks, where the average annual temperature is below freezing (I spent 10 minutes on Wikipedia: 1 of which I spent on Fairbanks, 9 of which I spent on this.) On their website it states that their focus was on “roasting and preparing the best coffee in the world”, so they chose a city so fucking remote, it’s 14 miles northwest from a town literally named “North Pole”. That’s ridiculous. That’s like opening up a black salon in Maine, or a bagel deli in Baghdad. I told you, Alaskans are insane.

Dana and I had passed this place a few times, and each time we would make a comment like, “oh, that looks nice, we should go there” and proceed to Little Caesar’s to eat a slice of regret. I’m not much of a coffee guy, but I was particularly turned on by the neon sign that stated they make wood oven pizza. I love pizza, and as you can see by my Little Caesar’s reference, I know quality pizza. Last night, we finally decided to go there and give it a shot, and let me tell you, I wanted to vomit. I wanted to vomit, so I could make room to eat all that shit again.

What kind of pizza are we talking about?

It tastes better than it looks, and it looks like a goddess. Photo credit: G. H.

I normally don’t like white pizza, because pizza without red sauce is like Sarah Palin without a helicopter and some wolves to mercilessly slaughter, but I really enjoyed their “Green Goddess” pizza. It’s ricotta cheese that I’m 97.3% certain was made by an illegal Italian immigrant they have chained in the back, spinach that I’m 91.6% sure was picked by a legal Mexican immigrant, and garlic from Todd. But what really makes the pizza is the dough. The lady stressed to me that she works hard on that dough, and that unlike most places, they don’t throw sugar in there. That dough is so good, I’d burn down a Papa John’s for the chance to lick the palm of her hand after she kneaded it.

I wanted to vomit, so I could make room to eat all that shit again.

We also had a shepherd’s pie. Listen, normally I think any food originating from the British Isles is atrocious and should’ve been justifiably raped and pillaged by the Vikings out of existence, but shepherd’s pie is an exception. And this shepherd’s pie steps it up a level. It’s so buttery, so garlicky, so meaty, and so goddamn delicious that I’m irrationally angry right now thinking about the fact that it’s over there and I’m over here. We couldn’t leave it at that, so we each had a sweet: a cronut, and a chocolate chip cookie. I had never had a cronut before, and didn’t even think they existed. I thought it was a myth, like unicorns, fairies, and unsuccessful Asian-Americans. However, I brought it up to one of the office fat guys and he was like “oh yeah, cronuts, they’re great.” WHAT?! It’s like I live in a different world. I did some research (spent 1 minute on Wikipedia: 5 seconds on cronut, 55 seconds on this) and found that it wasn’t masterminded by a fat bastard as I originally thought, but by a very skinny chef.

One thing I really appreciated is how they make everything there. Everything. Not like how some places claim to make everything fresh, then lie to your fucking face. Panera, for example, is guilty of touting freshness, yet you order mac and cheese and you watch them go grab a hot plastic sac of pre-made shells and cheese and dump it in a bowl right in front of your eyes. This lady had us sample their soup of the day, a carrot bisque, and she brought the young dude who made it, stood him in front of us, and basically gave us an opportunity to tear him apart if his food sucked. I LIKE THAT SHIT.

The bottom line is I love this place now. The owner was nice as hell, clearly treats her employees well, and loves what she does. All those things, in Miami, of all places. Who the hell treats people well in Miami? Like I said, Alaskans are fucking crazy.

People who would enjoy it

Wood oven pizza lovers; cronut lovers; clean eaters.

People who would not enjoy it

Irrational 1-star reviewers.

So where the hell is it?







13130 Biscayne Blvd
North Miami, FL 33181
(786) 332-4254
acrcmiami.com

There’s something very American about a restaurant owing its beginnings to a food truck. No, not because of the “can-do” attitude that comes with starting from the bottom, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and working your way up to success. No. It’s because a truck that literally drives food to your location just isn’t enough for us fat fucking Americans. We need 10,000 square feet of space to store all the grease we need to assassinate our pancreas.

I loved Ms. Cheezious the first time I had it, and now that they’ve set some roots and I don’t need go through my usual ritual of bribing someone at the NSA for their current location, I love it even more. I never really got into the food truck thing because of that. Nobody wants to hire Dog the Bounty Hunter just because they want a grilled cheese sandwich, you know? I mean, nobody wants to hire Dog the Bounty Hunter at all, really.

…I don’t need go through my usual ritual of bribing someone at the NSA for their current location…

Dana and I went the Sunday on its opening week. I expected to find hordes of people, and I anticipated maybe eating in the car, or if we were lucky, getting a standing room only spot near the restrooms. The place just opened, and they have a reputation for making the best grilled cheese out of a truck in Miami-Dade county, so that wasn’t some wild assumption I pulled out of my ass or anything. I mentally prepared. I drank my pre-workout drink just in case. I had my Swiss Army knife handy. I braced myself as I entered and holy shit it was empty. Two people there. Sunday at, like, 7 PM on its opening weekend and it was empty. I wondered if maybe people were driving around with a bloodhound and Daryl Dixon aimlessly looking for the food truck.

Inside, the place looked great. It had that “we found this shit on Etsy, that’s why this chair wobbles a bit” decor. You know what I’m talking about. Mason jars, reclaimed wood, muted pastel-colored chairs; the works. It’s the kind of stuff women pin on Pinterest. They have an outdoor area too, with some trees and very tastefully done. It almost makes you forget that someone was murdered a few blocks west. That’s Miami for you.

I’ve never been on Etsy, what’s the decor like?

You just said, “oh”, didn’t you? Photo credit: Sunflower F.

Before I get to how great the food was (and it was), I should mention that even though the place was as full as Kanye West is humble, it took over 30 minutes from when we placed our order for us to receive food. Again, I don’t know if they had to track the fucking truck down to get the food, but it was an absurd amount of time for us to wait. And we were hungry as hell. The second time we went with some other people, service was quick, so it was more than likely an isolated incident. Still, I felt the need to point that out for both posterity and the opportunity to make fun of Kanye.

The sandwiches are, of course, scrumptious. I scrumpted™ the hell out of my food. We shared a Southern Fried Chicken and Waffle Melt, which is self-explanatory, and a Mackin Melt, a sandwich that gained sentience and decided to eat a bowl of mac and cheese. I also had a side of fries, which tasted fresh and greasy. All in all, I ate enough carbs to make a morbidly obese man tell me he’s concerned for my health. I wanted the s’mores sandwich, but Dana threatened to leave me, and I figured it wasn’t worth it. I could always just come back another time without her knowing.

Even with the obscenely long wait, I left happy. Happy enough to return a couple of times, which for a place that hasn’t been open for more than two months, that’s not bad.

For them, I mean, it’s not bad for them. It’s terrible for my health.

People who would enjoy it

Anyone who tracked down their food truck.

People who would not enjoy it

Anyone currently lost in Florida City still looking for their food truck.

So where the hell is it?







7418 Biscayne Blvd
Miami, FL 33138
(305) 989-4019
mscheezious.com

I can unequivocally state that this place is, in fact, the best thing Doral has to offer. The second best thing is the awful traffic, and the third best is that it’s still technically in America. Doral has a lot going for it.

I haven’t decided yet whether I think Doral is shittier than Kendall. On the one hand, Doral contains everything I hate about Miami, but on the other hand, Kendall contains everything else I hate about Miami. It’s like trying to decide whether Honey Boo Boo’s mom hit rock bottom when she gained enough weight to personify “rock bottom”, or when she started dating a sex offender. It took me a bit of tabloid magazine browsing to figure out that the guy is a sex offender because he molested a child, not because he offended everyone by hooking up with Lard Boo Boo.

I haven’t decided yet whether I think Doral is shittier than Kendall.

So anyway, I only go to Doral when I need to visit my parents. This past weekend, Dana and I decided to just eat in the area, and Green Plate seemed like a good enough option. I didn’t go in with high expectations since it used to be a buffet, and the only time I eat at a buffet is when I’m at some all-inclusive Mexican gluttony fest. Yeah, it’s in Mexico, but it’s only white people eating it. It’s such a western thing to know most of the world barely hits a caloric equilibrium, and we’re here challenging people to eat as much food and norovirus as possible for a low, flat rate.

Even though I didn’t expect much, I was pleasantly surprised. So pleasantly surprised, in fact, that I had Dana take photos of our food. I never give enough of a shit to do that, mostly because I’ve always silently openly judged people who do that, but I ate some cognitive bias for breakfast, so I gave myself a pass. Plus, technically, I wasn’t the one taking the pictures, so I’m clear.

Stop saying things. What are some of the dishes?

I didn’t know they had black people in Asia.

The menu looked appetizing. The first thing I picked were the chicken and waffles. If there’s a menu with “a big stack of cash” and “chicken and waffles”, I’ll take the chicken and waffles every time, mostly because I’d have to pay taxes on that cash. I don’t know what that red sauce they poured over the chicken was, but even if it’s dog blood (which according to the Internet is a real possibility), I’d order it again. That waffle was so good it made me adventurous enough to eat sushi. I mean, yeah, the sushi was cooked and then fried (America.), but it’s still sushi so that’s a huge step for me. It’s like getting Honey Boo Boo’s mom to admit that maybe dating the guy who molested her daughter is a terrible fucking idea. I won’t admit whether I liked the sushi or not, but the fact that I’m not talking shit about it is probably pretty telling.

What else did you eat?

Bacon and things.

If I ever opened up a restaurant, I would give items the least-appetizing names I could think of. Bacon-wrapped figs? No, it’s a ficus dropping enveloped in fatty flesh from a swine’s carcass. I would open this restaurant up somewhere on Kendall Drive and people would be like, “oh, finally, good things to eat around here.” Just like the other stuff, these figs were tight. I almost ordered another, but I looked at an ice cube in my drink and remembered the wise words of ’90s Ice Cube before he sold out: “Check yoself before you consume too much LDL cholesterol which, according to the American Heart Association, increases your risk of heart disease.” It’s just like Ice Cube to start off thug as fuck, and morph into a family-friendly shell of a gangsta.

Shame about Ice Cube. Any more food?

That duck risotto looks like a cross section of a Miami lawn. Grass, roots, dirt, and limestone.

If someone gives me the choice between duck or chicken, I’ll choose duck every single time. It’s like leveling up. It’s a bit gamier, and every time I eat it I imagine I’m tearing apart one of those annoying-ass canal ducks we have all over Miami. This duck didn’t taste like a canal duck, though, because it didn’t immediately give me duck AIDS, which I know must be a thing.

It’s getting a little long, wrap it up. Dessert?

Don’t fucking talk to me like that.

Desserts are my kryptonite. Bullets, knives, parasites, fungi, prions, bacteria, viruses, cancer, accidents, gamma ray bursts, etc. are my kryptonite as well, but desserts are what’s gonna kill me. Any time a place has key lime pie, it doesn’t matter if my stomach feels like what Honey Boo Boo’s mom’s stomach looks like it feels like all the damn time, I’m always going to order the key lime pie. If it’s what causes my stomach to rupture, so be it. Lots of times, they end up disappointing, but this was not one of those times. My favorite part is the crust, and if I could just order a big bowl of crust, that would be my Valhalla.

For now, though, Green Plate will be my Valhalla in Doral, and when I go back, they better have a bowl of pie crust for me or I’ll amend this entire review.

People who would enjoy it

Doral citizens; adventurous Asian cuisine lovers; me.

People who would not enjoy it

According to Yelp, all the fat asses who are bummed about this place no longer being a buffet.

So where the hell is it?







9901 NW 41 St
Doral, FL 33178
(305) 513-8518
greenplatebistro.com

My girlfriend and I casually decided to visit Spain one day, because we have credit cards and a high threshold for financial anguish.

Madrid would take up the first leg in our trip, and when looking for things to do, Parque del Retiro was up there along with “I don’t know, just, like, see the city and stuff?” I figured there were two ways to best pull this off. One was requisitioning the services of a slave with a rickshaw, but to my surprise, I was told Spain stopped that practice two centuries ago. The other option was renting a bike.

I like to ride bikes, but at the same time I don’t, because my nuts always regret it after. I would ride bikes more often if the seating situation were more agreeable with my testicles. It would be cool if I could get a bike with a more comfortable chair, maybe something that straddles my butt. Something with leather. Ideally, this seat would have arm rests too. And it would be nice if there could be a seat next to me, so my girlfriend could ride along with me, and her chair should be as comfortable. It gets hot in Madrid, so maybe enclose the chair in a frame of some sort, but make sure it has transparent glass windows so we can still see the scenery. You can’t really have an enclosed frame without air conditioning though, so throw that in there, along with a radio for entertainment. Pedaling gets a bit tiring after a while, so what about a combustion engine that’ll do the work for me? That would be awesome.

I Googled where to find bike rentals, and Rent & Roll was the closest to the park, right next to a metro station just a couple of stops from my hotel. I was under the impression that we needed our passports to rent the bike, but an American driver’s license works just fine. I mean, it could just be because it’s an American one, and the dude was in awe of the power of my freedom card, so I don’t know if, like, a Guatemalan or Sri Lankan ID have the same sort of cachet as my liberty badge. Since I didn’t know that at the time, we ended up riding around with our passports, but luckily none of those damn gypsies got their hands on our stuff, mostly because we were riding around peering at people, asking, “wait a minute… are you a gypsy?”

The bikes themselves were in great condition, and as I said, they were only mildly irritating on my testicles. I remember the first time I went mountain biking (Miami has some menacing “mountains”) I ended up with a vasectomy. However, this rental wasn’t that bad, it was more like getting a consultation for a vasectomy and walking away with a brochure, you know?

…they were only mildly irritating on my testicles.

The dude we got the bikes from was also cool. I don’t remember his name, because this was weeks ago and I’m rude. I’ll just call him Antonio, because he looks like a Spanish Tony Parker. He was great, he gave us a great recommendation for a place to have dinner that didn’t have any annoying tourists. He directed us to a spot where you order cider and they give you a bottle, a glass, and a bucket. A BUCKET. How cool is that? Rent & Roll gets 5 green circles for Antonio alone.

People who would enjoy it

Active people; tourists.

People who would not enjoy it

Americans with a little *too much* freedom, if you know what I mean. (Morbidly obese people. I mean morbidly obese people.)

So where the hell is it?







14 Salustiano Olozaga Street
28001 Madrid, Spain
+34 915 76 35 24
rentandroll.es
TripAdvisor

When looking for quality television, scoping out the reality genre is like asking 2 Chainz to double check the grammar in your research paper. You should already know that reality TV is stupid as fuck just by the name. Why? Well, pick one of two reasons:



1) Reality gets boring. That’s why humans watch TV and/or partake in drugs, so we can escape our reality and focus on something that isn’t as mind-numbing as just being alive while your cells replicate so you can do the same damn thing tomorrow.

2) Reality TV isn’t really reality, because in my reality I’m not put in a house with a bunch of loudmouthed assholes I don’t know. That’s the reality for some people, I guess, namely prisoners and frat houses, but those are only interesting to watch if you’re cool with Neanderthals who are seriously into “no homo” dick play.

With that said, I’ve been guilty of catching a few episodes of various reality TV shows. In fact, I watched the entire season of an awful show called The Player, which was UPN’s answer to WWII’s “The Holocaust”. In it, thirteen guys shamed themselves in front of a woman who doesn’t even list that shit in her TV credits on Wikipedia. If I were on an episode of Fear Factor drinking horse cum I would’ve told everyone, including my second grade teacher Mrs. Kidnapping (I don’t remember her real last name, I just call her that because I associate her with something terrible), but this Dawn chick didn’t tell anyone. That goes to show how bad The Player was. It’s the only show in history where the guy who won was the first dude eliminated.

Can you find any clips to show how bad it is?

This is literally the only thing I could find.

Last weekend, Hulu bamboozled me into something. My girlfriend and I were looking for something to watch, and I saw this:

It’s a show titled I Wanna Marry Harry. I immediately guessed what the plot was. If your guess is, “it’s like the Bachelor, except they’re lied to and told that the bachelor guy is Prince Harry,” then you’re on the right track. And of course it’s produced by FOX, who brought us gems like Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire, where we watched a hookercontestant marry a “multi-millionaire” whose money came in handy so much she had to pose for Playboy to make ends meet. FOX doesn’t surprise me anymore. That’s why I’m, um, surprised any of those contestants fell for this shit.

So, obviously, I watched the first episode. Dana was on board, though she regretted it and yelled at me for wasting her time after the episode was over. But the whole idea that these girls (some of them, at least, since I hope for humanity’s sake not all were fooled) thought it was really Prince Harry is insane to me, so I decided to write some clues that should’ve immediately put that idea to rest.

There are some dead giveaways

To be fair, the guy they chose looks a lot like Harry.

How much?

A lot. They’re both white.

But even so, they could’ve cloned the motherfucker and it still shouldn’t fool any of those girls. Here are some reasons why:

These girls.

What about them?

They’re a tad too ethnic for the crown’s tastes.

Those are four of the twelve contestants. Those are all beautiful ladies, to be sure, but the only way any of them would be allowed in House Windsor is if they’re cleaning it. The Queen’s ancestors invented white people, and something about all that pomp and circumstance the Crown exudes tells me they may “like” non-noble non-whites, but only in the same way they “liked” all those colored people we watched them subjugate on color televisions.

You could argue that there’s a precedent for high nobility marrying commoners, and you’d be right. Edward VIII gave up his throne to marry an American. But she was white. And not a reality show contestant.

That dude’s accent.

I’m by no means an expert linguist, and I probably can’t tell the difference between a London and a Manchester accent, but I can at least tell when an accent is fancy. This dude’s accent isn’t fancy. I had a server at Bennigan’s who sounded more royal than this guy, and he was Australian.

But the biggest reason of all…

WHY THE FUCK WOULD THE ROYAL FAMILY ALLOW IT?

Who in their right mind, regardless of the amount of mounting “evidence” during the show (mind you, the producers never actually refer to him as Prince Harry, or even Harry, they just do everything possible to make it seem like he is) would think that the most prestigious family on the planet would take the guy fourth in line to the UK’s throne and put him on a reality show where the ultimate outcome is marriage? Yeah, that makes sense.

Imagine looking through a genealogical list of the royals and their spouses, and seeing, “His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales, and his wife, Meghan Jones, winner of I Wanna Marry Harry“.

So is this show bullshit?

I don’t know if the girls are completely out of the loop or if they’re in on it to some capacity (they are now, since filming concluded months ago), but the “I think that’s Prince Harry” chatter in the first episode was very convincing. If they’re not all fooled, at least some of them are, which is absolutely insane to me.

Hey FOX, I have an idea for you. A show called Green Card Bachelor where a bunch of illegal immigrants fight to marry a line cook at P.F. Chang’s for a green card. The tag line can be “Find That Special Anybody”. You’re welcome, assholes.

Politics, even in the most indirect of ways, tends to shit all over everything. I use Groupon like a poor person, and I treat it like a good way to discover restaurants I normally wouldn’t think of visiting. That’s what happened this time.

I found a pretty decent Groupon: an appetizer, two entrees, and two cocktails for $45 at a restaurant with a 4.5-star Yelp rating. That’s a pretty solid rating, and I’ve never been let down by a place with such rave reviews, so it’s a no-brainer. That was in February. Fast forward a couple of months, and we’re finally making our way there when we look again to Yelp for directions.

3 stars. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!

Immediately I started running through scenarios that could cause a place to drop from 4.5 stars to 3 in a matter of months. These were the most plausible scenarios I could come up with:

1. Cockroaches, rats, British cooks, or other unwanted lifeforms in the kitchen.

2. The manager touched literally every guest inappropriately.

3. Obama.

Neither of those were it, obviously, because they’re absurd. But the last one, “Obama”, isn’t even that far off the mark. Why? Because the truth of the matter is this restaurant’s ratings dropped due to politics. POLITICS! It turns out I didn’t anticipate how bitchy Venezuelans could be. As the story goes, the owner of Zielo is the nephew of Luisa Estella Morales, someone I stopped giving a shit about after three sentences because her Wikipedia article was written in Spanish. They’re seething with rage because this guy shares 25% of his DNA with some politician they don’t like. How fucking dare he, right?

Listen, this guy doesn’t strike me as a commie. You don’t charge $26 for risotto if you’re all about the proletariat. You also don’t live in Miami (where it’s as risky as a transvestite living in Birmingham, Alabama), or open up a fucking restaurant where your target demographic would hate you if you actually were a commie. That’s like a skinhead moving to Harlem and opening up a hair salon. This isn’t Joseph Kony running a Chuck E. Cheese franchise, this is a guy whose aunt happens to be a judge.

Has he given any indication that he’s pro-Chavez

Only that free bread is given away.

So, as far as I know, he’s not some underground sleeper cell working diligently to communistize Miami on behalf of his aunt. You don’t see Jews boycotting Mercedes (quite the contrary) because Daimler AG made Nazimobiles and designed gas chambers. And no, it’s not because the name “Mercedes” throws them off thinking it’s named after some Hollywood producer’s Mexican housekeeper. “That’s because the people who did that don’t have anything to do with Mercedes-Benz today,” you think to yourself. I know, I guess I shouldn’t hold someone liable for something they’re tenuously connected to just because I feel like bitching about something and use knee-jerk reactions to do so rather than employ critical thinking for a few seconds. I’m such a stupid asshole.

That’s like a skinhead moving to Harlem and opening up a hair salon.

The food itself was great. It’s a Mediterranean-Latin-seafood fusion style. As an appetizer we had the crab cake and bacon-wrapped dates. The crab cake was on a bed of avocado, and we left no trace of either of those components by the time we were done with it. The dates were sick too. If someone told me I had to eat the flayed flesh of swine, curdled goat’s milk and enzymes, and tree sperm I’d think this was a challenge on Survivor, but it was amazing. As an entree I had some ravioli and Dana had the grouper. Or, rather, I had ravioli and 3/4 of Dana’s grouper, which had a side of mashed sweet plantain with what I could swear tasted like honey. We didn’t have a dessert because we’re doing some 30-day no added sugar thing. Why? Because we’re experimenting with masochism to see if it’s a “thing” either of us have.

Communist bullshit rumors aside, all of the food exceeded our expectations, and it would’ve been even better if we didn’t have to share most of what was on our plate with everyone else at the restaurant. Overall, though, A+.

People who would enjoy it

Chavistas.

People who would not enjoy it

Only the most rational of people.

So where the hell is it?







264 Giralda Ave
Coral Gables, FL 33134
(786) 953-4182
zielorestaurant.com