White Castle's Buffalo Chicken Bites

Today for lunch, I went to White Castle and got three cheeseburgers (no pickle), a Coke and a small order of their new Buffalo Chicken Bites.

You can read more about the Buffalo Chicken Bites by clicking here and reading the article by the fine people over at — wait for it, wait for it — MeatNews.com.

How did I never previously know such a website existed? I’ll be pursuing employment opportunities there immediately.

Anyway.

The cheeseburgers met White Castle’s usual standard of steamy goodness. (When I was little, my parents would always get me a Star Wars action figure and a White Castle cheeseburger every time we’d go through New Albany. I was only the happiest kid ever.)

The Buffalo Chicken Bites, however, weren’t so good.

There were packaged in a small box reminiscent of a little Chinese food container, and there were plenty of them crammed in there for $1.78.

True to their name, each Buffalo Chicken Bite was bite-sized, about the same size as a bite-sized Snickers candy bar.

And though they were indeed very spicy, they didn’t really taste “buffalo” at all.

Furthermore, I don’t think they were really made of chicken. The consistency of the “chicken” beneath the breading looked more like … crab cake? It’s hard to explain. Either way, they neither tasted nor chewed like chicken.

I find this disappointing, because I’ve been a big fan of White Castle’s Chicken Rings ever since a very weird lady got behind me and Bob in the order line one time and suggested we try them because “they’re good for you.” This incident was not connected to another time when Bob and Daemon and I were eating at White Castle and, without provocation, two strange old men started lobbing half-eaten fish sandwiches at us from three tables over. Nor was it connected to the time that Greg and Dan and I stopped at White Castle on the way home from seeing a movie to get a late-night snack, even though we’d eaten a giant Wick’s pizza before the movie, and Dan got a sack of 10 burgers because he wanted to take some home for the next day but ended up eating all 10 of them right there anyway.

I will recommend White Castle burgers and fries and onion rings and chicken rings and mozzarella sticks and fried bologna/egg/cheese breakfast sandwiches with hash browns until the day I die, but please steer clear of the Buffalo Chicken Bites.

They don’t taste “buffalo,” and that’s clearly not chicken.

What are you eating? Because I’d really like to know.

Smallville casts its Supergirl

Source: Superhero Hype

Supergirl is coming to Smallville.

There she is. The actress is Laura Vandervoort, and yes, that’s her costume.

I used to be one of Smallville‘s biggest fans and defenders, but I started losing interest when they killed off Clark Kent’s dad, Jonathan (John Schneider), in Season Five. Then, near the beginning of Season Six, I stopped watching entirely when they brought in the Green Arrow as a recurring character and I couldn’t stand the arrogant jackass they portrayed him as.

It looks like Supergirl’s going to fill a similar role as the Green Arrow. The writers were like, “Okay, we’re six seasons in and we still can’t figure out how to make Clark heroic. So let’s bring in Green Arrow to be the hero.” And now it’s going to be, “Okay, we’re seven seasons in, and we still can’t figure out how to make Clark heroic. So let’s bring in Supergirl to be the hero.”

So far on Smallville, Clark’s got all of the classic Superman powers but flight. Supergirl, however, will be able to fly.

They’re also going to make her a love interest for Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore).

And that’s another of the show’s problems — it’s devolved into such a pathetic soap opera that the characters are actually regressing rather than growing.

What particularly sucks about all this is that they’ve got an amazing cast. Tom Welling can bring the thunder as Clark Kent (and has proven himself a skillful director on the show), but the writers never give him decent material to work with. Erica Durance is the hottest Lois Lane in history, but the writers all-too-often try to pawn her off as the love interest for everybody but Clark. (In fact, they’re introducing a new Daily Planet editor next season as yet another love interest for Lois.) Allison Mack’s Chloe Sullivan is one of the most beautiful and vibrant sidekicks in television history, and there will never be a better Lex Luthor than Michael Rosenbaum. And yet the writers still spin their wheels and rely on the same old sad dynamics. It breaks my heart.

As for Laura Vandervoort, I think she looks exactly like a Michael Turner Supergirl comic book cover:

And I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I think she needs some cheeseburgers and fries. I want to take her to Wendy’s for a Baconator. (She can handle the calories. She’s Supergirl, for crying out loud.)

I wish her luck, and I hope they give her better material to work with than they’ve given poor Tom Welling. Then again, according to upcoming episode summaries posted on Kryptonsite, Clark takes her to the Smallville Harvest Festival and she enters the Miss Sweet Corn Pageant.

I am not making that up.

And let us not forget the first Supergirl we ever saw on Smallville. She was played by Adrianne Palicki, seen here wearing a classic Supergirl shirt at some event she attended:

She was only in one episode, and she didn’t turn out to be the real Supergirl. But I certainly believed she was, and I love how healthy she looks.

Whatever.

Smallville is dead to me.

However.

If I were making a new Supergirl movie, there’s only one actress I’d cast:

Brittany Snow, from American Dreams, Nip/Tuck, John Tucker Must Die and Hairspray. Look at her! She’s every bit as beautiful — with amazing blue eyes — as Supergirl should be.

But she also looks like a real woman, and I’d have no problem believing she was powerful enough to throw a submarine through a dump truck.

And finally, let’s take a moment to honor lovely Helen Slater, who played Supergirl in the 1984 movie:

The movie was kind of terrible, but there was something really special and alive about Slater.

I also liked Supergirl in the Justice League Unlimited cartoons.

And there you go.

Hilary Swank and Samuel L. Jackson join Iron Man!

It has long been rumored that Hilary Swank and Samuel L. Jackson — Samuel L. Jackson! — will appear in cameo roles in director Jon Favreau’s Iron Man adaptation.

Marvel Studios producer Avi Arad confirmed to MTV Movies Blog today that the duo will indeed appear in the film.

I don’t know much about the Iron Man comics so I don’t know who Swank might be playing, but take a look at the official Marvel Comics biography of General Nicholas Joseph Fury to get a clue about Jackson’s role.

Swank and Jackson join Robert Downey, Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges in Iron Man, which opens May 2, 2008.

And!

Robert Downey, Jr. is going to wear the Iron Man armor to San Diego’s Comic-Con International this weekend.