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I’ve been really bad about writing recently, mainly due to laziness, not lack of material. Today, as both an intellectual excercise and because it’ll help me decide what to have for luch, I thought I’d come up with a list of some of my favorite chain restaurants. Not fancy, not expesive, but tasty, quick, and reliable. And sometimes that’s all you can ask for! So here they are, in no particular order:

1. Burgerville:
Mmm…black forest shakes…and since I only eat vegetarian-feed beef (no mad cow for me!) it’s one of the few burger joints that still go to.

2. Bugatti’s in Cedar Hills:
More expensive than fast food, but still pretty reasonable, with a great happy hour menu including $3.99 Painted Hills beef burgers and $2.99 pizzas big enough for 2 people. Even if you miss happy hour, most of the pizzas are under $10.oo and are big enough to share. And they give you foccacia bread with garlicky olive oil dip as soon as you sit down. Can’t argue with that.

3. Noodlin’
I really wanted to hate this place. It’s a knock off of Noodles & Company, which was one of my favorites when I lived back in WI. But despite the fact that Noodlin’s mac and cheese doesn’t hold a candle to Noodles & Company’s cheesy goodness, the rest of the food is better. And it doesn’t require a plane ticket to get there. Noodlin’ is owned by the Burgerville people, so they also use Oregon Country beef, which is a definate bonus, although I usually get somthing with chicken anyways.

4. Bandito Taco
I don’t think that this place is a chain, but it’s fast food, so I thought I’d include it. Bandito Taco is one of my husband’s favorite restuarants. The food is always fresh and yummy, nine times out of ten it’s the owner that takes your order, and they have 55 cent tacos on Sundays. And as an added bonus, it’s next to a bubble tea place, so I can satisfy my craving for coconut bubble tea while Jon eats super nachos.

5. Big Town Hero
I’m not a huge sub sandwich eater, but when I have a craving for a cream cheese, cheddar, cucumber, lettuce and mayo sub (I know it sounds wierd, but it’s good) I hit Big Town Hero. The only drawback to Big Town Hero is that the closeset one is a 20 min drive, and Jon’s not really a fan.

6. Cha! Cha! Cha!
One of my friends introduced me to this place, and I’m so glad they did. The food is cheap, filling, and good, everything Mexican food should be. Lately I’ve been into making my own Mexican stuff at home, but when I lack the ambition and time, Cha Cha’s is a nice alternative.

Well I’m sure there are places I’m missing, but for now, that’ll have to do, since it’s time for lunch.

So what a shock, it’s been a while since I’ve written. But seriously, not that much has been going on. I’ve been reading obsessively for the past 3 wks or so, so the end of this entry will have a rather extensive addendum to my booklist. In other news, Jon got a new car on Saturday. It’s a ‘05 Mazda 3. Very cute and sporty, with all the bells and whistles. I found it amusing that when we went to “look at” cars on Saturday, Jon swore high and low that there was no way he intended to by a car that day. And then 2 hours later, we drove home in one. I think he’s got pics of it up on his website in case anyone is curious.

I got a new ‘puter yesterday too. I’ve joined the dark side; it’s a Mac mini. It’s been a little frustrating to have to figure out how to do what I want in OS X since I’m used to Windows, but I’ll get it all down eventually. I’m amazed at how small it is, but it’s nice to have more space on my desk. And Jon assures me that once I get the hang of it, I’ll like OS X much better than windows. Time will tell.

I decided to be ambitious and actually plan our dinners for this week instead of running to the store at 5pm every night and trying to figure out what to eat on the fly. It seems like we’ve been going out to eat a lot, too, which is both expensive and not too healthy. Anyways, I’m making tortilla soup tomorrow night, and so I made chicken stock today. The house smells so good. I got the tortilla soup recipe from a Rick Bayless cookbook, so hopefully it’s yummy. The recipe calls for epazote, which is a mexican herb, as one of the seasonings, so I took that as an opportunity to go to a little Mexican grocery store down the street and explore. I didn’t see too many things that I couldn’t get at a regular grocery store, but they did have epazote, and I also got a tortilla press, which I’ve wanted for a while, for $6.99. So all in all it was a productive trip.

And now on to the books:

Faerie Tale….Raymond Feist
The Overnight….Ramsey Campbell (sucked sucked sucked!)
Carpe Jugulum….Terry Pratchett
Archangel….Sharon Shinn
Jovah’s Angel….Sharon Shinn
The Alleluia Files….Sharon Shinn
Angelica….Sharon Shinn
Angel Seeker….Sharon Shinn
Equal Rites….Terry Pratchett
The Language of Baklava…..Diana Abu-Jaber
Songs of the Gorilla Nation…..Dawn Prince-Hughes