In the end I have no idea really how the book will be divided into Chapters and Parts. Currently I am using “chapters” to break up the story between characters and “parts” to bridge gaps in time. I think it helps move the story forward, but then again I could be completely wrong with my methods. I am currently over optimistic and toying with the idea that I may actually have the first draft completed by October. Whether I am ahead of schedule or not, once I go back and start working on the second draft I’m sure a lot of stuff may change.

Oh well, time to top guessing and get back to the story.

I was extremely happy with myself when I looked up tonight and realized I had just crossed the half-way point for the goal I had set for myself. That’s right, I’m staring at “Approx 35,001 Words” at the top of my manuscript! Okay, its just a first draft, but at least it’s something. If a writer never sets goals for themselves they’ll never write anything.

Shady Palms - Concept Art

To celebrate the midpoint of this first draft I am posting a mock-up of my proposed cover for the novel. I want the artwork to be a little more refined in the end, but I figure it’s a good teaser. I figure if a publisher doesn’t pick up the story then I’ll self-publish electronically and I’ll need a cover anyway. I whipped this together in just a few hours with Photoshop, but I think it gets the point across. Please let me know what you think.

While I am not working as much at the hospital as I normally do, mainly because of our seasonal slowdown in admission rates, I have tried my damndest to work as much as I can on the novel on my days off. I feel that, at the least, I have been able to move the story ahead on a weekly basis. I wish I could pound out novels at the pace Stephen King can, but maybe one day with a shitload of hard work and bloody fingertips I will be able to.

One of the biggest reasons I had started on the novel was because I felt I wasn’t giving my characters justice in a screenplay format. After living with them running around my head for 8 months, I am finally beginning to feel like I actually know these people. Due to the nature of the beast I have to kill a few off and critically injure some others, but I’ve already determined who my survivors are going to be so they can live another day in another story.  To stoke the fire a little bit I dropped a hint at what one of my characters next adventures may be. It may take a few years for him to get there, but it will be well worth the long wait. Fans of my short film Sustenance should be able to easily pick up on the clues that Dr. Phobia may come to life again in the pages of a future novel.

For a moment there, I was thinking I would never meet my personal goal of having the first draft completed by December. It’s baby steps like these that help keep my goals within reach.

But enough on that for now. I am happy to announce that I have passed the 100 page mark while writing the first draft of Shady Palms. As I have stated numerous times before, my free time is few and far between lately, so I typically only get a few days a month to work on it.  If I could devote my time solely to writing, I would have probably been wrapping up the final draft of the novel rather than patting myself on the back for achieving another small mile-marker.

I think most all aspiring writers have their own personal roadblocks they have to overcome when crafting a story. For me it’s the 100 page mark.  When I started writing years ago, I would be happy with the occasional short story that ran 40-60 pages long. Then when I started writing screenplays, most were around 90-100 pages until I tackled Redress, which is currently sitting around 135 pages and desperately in need of a final review.

As I cross the 100 page mark, I’m actually at 111 pages as of this blog post, I think the story is exactly where it needs to be.  My main characters are defined, the intrigue is in the air, key plot points are set in motion and the blood is spraying across the walls ever so often.  When it comes to drawing from the original source material, I’m about halfway through the old screenplay and I’m staring at page #7 of my 14 page treatment. All signs point to the middle of the story, but I know there is more to this story to tell.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to writing the story for you…you’re really going to love this when I’m done.

Tentatively Part Two of the Story is entitled “Furlough” as it deals with a new main character and her release to work at the Shady Palms as part of a crooked work furlough program. In the original screenplay I had hinted at some of the struggles this character had been challenged with through her life but not I have the liberty to explain things a little more and flesh out my characters motivations a little more.

As of right now, I have written approximately 1/3 of the story. In the end I think I will have a total of five parts in the book, each one dealing with a specific time frame in the story.  As I look back at the original screenplay and look forward to the development of the characters in the novel, I have often found myself using the former work as a skeleton to build the muscle of the story on.

As I conducted research on radioactive materials used for medical treatments, I found that I would have to go back and tweak parts of the story so they were clinically correct. I have also been spending tome researching the long term effects of radiation on a quarantined zone in Chernobyl.  At first I was just looking for hideous photos of genetic mutations of people and animals but I ended up coming across information at was a great benefit. As I had discovered, fallout from the Chernobyl Accident, not only caused thousands of cancer cases, it may have also grossly mutated insects in the fallout zone.  Some people still debate this, but scientific evidence points to the fact most of these mutations were caused directly by exposure to ionizing radiation.  I was thrilled as I consumed all of the information I could on the subject. After all, I am writing a story about killer bedbugs mutated by radiation.

I am greatly appreciate the words of encouragement some of you have been sending me. I am trying to add a few thousand words every week to the story. Thanks to the fact I have some extended time off this summer, I am finding that I have more time to spend working on the novel. At times I am extremely optimistic about my progress. I may even complete my first draft ahead of schedule…that is if I don’t suffer a hard drive crash or a FarmVille relapse.

After much deliberation I decided to break the story into three parts. This was mainly because the characters from the beginning of the story have nothing to really do with the characters in the middle of the story, but their actions are the catalyst for the rest of the story. I guess I could liken it to writing a story about the nuclear testing on the islands where Godzilla came from and then later writing a story about the emergence of the giant, fire-breathing lizard that destroyed Tokyo. In my case it’s mutated insects, but radioactivity still plays a key part in the story.

I have also been doing substantial research for the story in my precious spare time. My topics of study have included medical radiation therapy, bomb building, and bedbug allergies.  After the events of the past weekend with the terrorist trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, it reinforces to me how real the world in my story actually is, with the exception it will one day be crawling with mutated insects. Now I’m just waiting for the FBI to come knocking on my door since  I have been rampantly searching Google with terms such as “Oklahoma City Bombing”, “Fertilizer Bombs” and “Dirty Bombs”. If the agents show up to question me, maybe they will offer to serve as technical consultants for the story.  As of right now, I am relying on various movies and reruns of The X-Files to conjure up my theories of how they would conduct their anti-terrorism investigations.

I am confident that if I can continue at this pace, I should be able to complete the first draft of the novel by the end of the year. With the summer months headed my way and my regular job slowing down, it certain seems promising.

Saturday was no exception to this rule. I awoke in bed holding my beautiful girlfriend in my arms.

“Good morning,” she said in her slightly raspy morning voice.

“Good morning,” I said as I kissed her forehead. “What do you want for lunch?”

Yes, lunch. As a night shift employee my day usually begins somewhere between two and four in the afternoon, so lunch is usually the first order of the day. Working night shift tends to make you crave fats and sugars more for some strange weird reason. Scientist say it has something to do with your circadian rhythm, the natural rhythm that regulates your sleep patterns. I just blame it on being an American and having a ton of shitty food available to me 24 hours a day.

She giggled, “You always think with your stomach”.

How can I argue with that? “I Know.”

She yawned as she stretched her nude body alongside mine, “How about Chinese Food?”

“Chinese?” Hmmm….yes…. the mere thought of sweet and sour sauce instantly kicked my salivary glands into overdrive.

“Yes, there’s a buffet my friends were talking about but I’ve never been there yet.”

“So it’s pretty good then? Because I have had some scary experiences at Chinese buffets.” No shit. Stephen King would be scared of some of the dishes I’ve seen.

She smiled, “From what I’ve heard, its pretty good. They have all-you-can-eat sushi.”

I forced a smile on my lips. She giggled because she loves seafood and I on the other hand, well…let’s just say you will never see me author a post entitled “All You Can Eat Mussels – Yum Yum Mother Fucker”.

[Insert Dry Heave Here]

One of the best things about my girlfriend is that she loves to eat just as much as I do. Sure, sometimes she pulls the “I’ll just have a salad” trick, but most often she picks up a hamburger right beside me and hers is dripping with mayo.

After some research using the website known as Yelp, we managed to track down the New Century Buffet in El Cajon, California. I had actually wanted to try this place for a while, so now my excitement was building and so was my hunger. The reviews were all mostly positive and if I know one thing about Yelp, it has never steered me wrong yet.

After some sweaty but almost-too-dry morning sex and quick shower we found ourselves pulling into the restaurant’s parking lot. We had worked up our appetite and now it was time to cash in.

We were immediately impressed by the smiling staff who seated us and took our drink order in the blink of an eye. The interior was clean and there was plenty of comfortable seating. The buffet area was large and contained a wide variety of the usual items you would expect to find at any given Chinese Buffet: Sweet and Sour stuff, Orange Chicken, Beef and Broccoli, Dumplings, Fried Rice, Chow Mein….the list goes on and on. I was surprised to see corn on the cob and steak – it was probably there just to appease the super picky friends of visiting round-eyes.

All of the food looked delicious. I never once found myself staring at a bin of food and wondering, “What the fuck is THAT?” and trust me, I have been there before. The only items I personally didn’t try were located in the Sushi area – and I believe I already explained my love of raw fish earlier – [Insert Dry Heave Here] – a few paragraphs ago.

There is a big difference between look and taste when it comes to buffet food. Some things look great simmering on top of steam baths, and if you ate them right there, they probably would taste really good. However after you have orbited the buffet a few times before returning to your table, some items begin to seriously lose their luster. In my case, the fried rice became a little too sticky as it cooled and for my girlfriend, the crab legs were far more work than they were worth for the tiny bit of black muscle waiting inside.

[Insert Dry Heave Here]

I snapped a few photos of the buffet and my girlfriend’s plate as we joked about posting our experiences on the blog. She offered to start grabbing handfuls of food from the buffet so I could take a few funny photos. We laughed about how humorous it would be, but in the end we decided not to do it because we were really thinking about coming back here another time. This place was pretty good, for a Chinese Buffet that is.

We joked and flirted through our several plates of food and even though were we getting full, we made sure we saved room for the ice cream machine and desert bar. We held each other’s hands as we walked up and took our place in line for ice cream behind two other kids. My girlfriend grabbed her cone and filled it with a delicious looking chocolate and vanilla swirl. Then it was my turn. I pulled down on the lever and suddenly I was surrounded by a horde of pudgy Samoan children (yes, I know that’s a redundant statement) who were crawling all over each other like insects as they screamed and jumped around the ice cream machine. For one second I wondered why they “weren’t in line”, but then I realized this was quickly turning into a clusterfuck and I needed to grab my ice cream and get the fuck out of there before one of these little bastards chewed my legs off.

Somewhere in this turmoil I had lost sight of my girlfriend. I glanced around and noticed she had escaped safely to the trays of cookies and Jell-O. I raced toward her, leaving the festering mob of kids behind me. Just as I approached her side, I heard the distinct sound of a plastic bowl full of ice cream bouncing across the floor before ending with a loud splat. We glanced over at the swarm of kids fighting over ice cream and questioned each other about the whereabouts of their parents.

We heard another bowl of ice cream hit the floor!

“Fuck, really?” my girlfriend gasped. “I’m so glad I don’t work here!”

As we were walking back towards our table we were stopped by an amazing sight: an Asian guy was standing near the seafood area and just piling crab legs into his bare hands. And I don’t just mean, like, he was grabbing a just crab leg or two. This motherfucker was piling crab legs in his hand like he was shoring up a levy for a category 6 hurricane. We watched him walk back over to his booth and plopped his ass down, spilling a few crab legs along the way. This was the exact same type of shit we were joking about doing, but here was some asshole actually doing it – at it wasn’t a joke! If my hands hadn’t been filled with plates of food I would have taken a photo with my cell phone. Oh well…the memories will haunt me for a long while.

Within seconds I saw an employee wiping down the buffet while another was mopping up ice cream while another was picking up the crab legs. Damn, now I was really impressed with how clean this place was kept, given the fact that sloppy assholes appeared to be eating everywhere around me.

My girlfriend and I laughed our asses off as we returned to our table. Handfuls of crab legs, really? I mean, REALLY? Fuck me, that shit was incredible.

Who knew the New Century Buffet would ultimately satisfy our appetites and entertain us to the point of tears at the same time!

When our server dropped off our check, I was delighted to see the cost was only $9.99 a person and that included our beverages! What a fantastic deal.

My girlfriend and I promised, despite some of the crazy events which had just unfolded, that we would indeed return another day, but the next time we would bring bear mace with us just in case that pack of kids returned as well.

I work in a hospital plagued by numerous vending machines. This especially sucks because on a really busy night, when I’m hungry as a MoFo, I may easily walk past these automated junk food whores ten or twelve times. Every time I get near them I tell myself not to look…to keep walking with my head down and keep my mind on my work…but then their brightly illuminated contents call to me…and I can’t help but stare at what they have to offer.

Sometimes on a slow night I find myself standing before of these sons of bitches and taking my sweet time staring at every single thing they have to offer. I know damn well that none of it is good for me. I know that eating a candy bar at 3:00 AM isn’t really going to satisfy my raging hunger. Oh well. Fuck it.

To make my snacking experiences a little more exciting I have created a game I like to call ”Vending Machine Roulette”. The rules are simple:

1. Stick a dollar in a vending machine.
2. Randomly press buttons until something drops.
3. Eat the something that drops.

This week’s prize was a bag of Salsitas.

The graphics on the bag were amusing to say the least . First off, these were “Original Salsitas”, not to be confused by that bootleg stuff sold on Ebay (that’s a joke). Second, I know some of you are asking “What the fuck is a Salsita?” Well, the package revealed the answer of this mystery to be “Spicy Salsa Tortilla Rounds” and they were made with “Real Tomatoes and Avocados”.

I had high expectations when I read they were made with “Real Tomatoes and Avocados”. I expected the chips to be loaded with chunks of tomato and avocado, so I tore the package open to see what was inside.

Epic Fail.

These snacks were nothing more than round taco chips covered with some bizarre orange spice haze. I stared at the chip in my hand until my squinting eyebrows cramped. I think there were some red and green specs in the mix…maybe these were the “Real Tomatoes and Avocados” the package was boasting about. My stomach growled and reminded me of its presence so I stopped analyzing the chip and popped it in my mouth.

Hmmm….my taste buds pondered the flavor of this Salsita.

As a chip goes, or should I say as a salsa flavored taco chip goes, they were a little salty and I didn’t see what the big deal was with the seasoning. They were not the worst things I’ve had to eat out of a machine (That’s sad when I have to say, “I’ve had to eat out of a machine”) but they were not the best by far either.

“Real Tomatoes and Avocados” on these chips? Really? The bag should have just read “Real Disappointment.” I was so distracted by packaging and experience of trying something new that I almost forgot I was starving. Almost. Nonetheless I swallowed my criticism and inhaled the rest of those chips at damn near the speed of light.

Sadly, the next thing I knew I had $1.00 less in my wallet, I was extremely thirsty and my stomach was still growling with hunger. Worst of all, there were still three hours left in my shift. The hunt was on for something else to help fill my stomach, but the other treats inside the vending machine didn’t seem to grab my attention. The picture of salsa and chips on the bag of Salsitas looked so damn good. There was no way I was going to find anything that tasty in a hospital at 3:00 AM. No way in hell.

After staring broken-hearted through the vending machine’s window for a few more seconds, I decided to just suck it up and wait to eat until I went home. I grabbed my usual Diet Coke from the soda machine and trudged back to my department as my stomach cursed me with growls and gurgles.

Epic Fail indeed.

I have no idea why they are so delicious. Fuck, I know they can’t be good for me, but why do they have to taste so good then.  If broccoli tasted like Jack in the Box Tacos I am sure we could cure heart disease.

The biggest problem I have is that I never think to go to Jack in the Box just for tacos. I usually end up going there for a burger or a chicken salad and tacos are the furthest thing from my mind.  The act of ordering the tacos always occurs to me at the last second and I really hate that. It’s like I just completed my order and forgot to ask my fat white ass what it wanted to eat so it feels it has to pipe-in so it doesn’t starve to death.

The conversation usually goes like this:

Jack in the Box Employee says in her monotone I could give a fuck about you voice, “Welcome to Yack in tha Box. May jie take jore order?” The fact that she is usually stepmother ugly never helps the matter because I think I am always staring at her with a cringe. Her accent is thick and difficult to understand because she is enrolled in an English as a Third Language class.

To this I happily reply, without trying to stare at the long black whisker growing out of her mole’s mole, “Yes, I’ll take an Ultimate Cheeseburger Combo with curly fries.”

“Do joo want that medium whore large size?” She never blinks.

Damn…now she’s working the numbers on me. “Um, I guess medium sized.” She never tells me I can take it just like it is with all the smaller stuff and that the extra 40¢ she’s about to charge me will cost me $40,000 in related healthcare bills in another 10 years.

“Okay, so joo got tha medium size Ultimate Cheeseburger Combo with tha curly fries. Do joo want anyting else with that?”. I would like to add the bitch has never smiled this entire time.

And to this, my fat white ass replies, like I’m shouting the winning bid at Sotheby’s, “Oh yeah, and I’ll also take two orders of tacos, please.” Inside I am instantly panicking. Fuck you big white ass, why do you always have to sell me up the river like this?

At this point she finally blinks. “Do joo want just two tacos or four tacos cuz each order comes with two tacos?”

I’m hungry. I can’t do math right now. This lady with just about blew my mind with a quantum physics equation. Did Einstein know about this shit? Oh hell, I just wanted some food. Not a math exam. “Four tacos total, please”, I state politely. Hopefully she “compredes” this of I may end up with 8 tacos.

She totals my order, takes my money and says, “Jore number is 63″, as she gives me my receipt, change and medium cup.

As I slump over to the soda bar I am already cursing to myself. It’s a love hate relationship really. It’s not that I don’t like the tacos. I love those tasty little bastards. I could eat 20 of those tacos if I really wanted to – and yes I know I can..don’t ask me how though…that’s a long story and a different category down the road when I start blogging about “Nightmare Binges”.

I sit patiently at my table watching the other freakish patrons eat their food. I talk to myself as if I am a serial killer standing over the corpse of a small child I have just decapitated. “You said not again Dave. Not again Dave. No more tacos plus your food. What were you thinking? Four tacos plus a cheeseburger and curly fries? You fat idiot! You need to start putting money in a piggy bank for your first triple-bypass. You know what the doctor is going to say when they crack open your chest like a clamshell and stare down at your blubbery heart? Do you Dave? The doctor is going to say, this motherfucker ate way too many fast food tacos.

A distant voice calls to me in my self-loathing daze, “Number 63! Number 63!” The ugly mean lady holding my tray of food suddenly looks like the most beautiful senorita. I’d fuck her and her mole to get to those tacos about now.

“Move it!” My fat white ass says as I run up to grab my tray.

She eyes me one last time. “Do joo wand catch up or hot sauce?”

“Both, please.  Just a few.” Really my mind is racing. I’m hungry lady.  Hurry your ass up!

She slowly reaches under the counter and magically her stubby little hands are spilling over with condiment packets.

“I don’t need that many.”

She either didn’t hear me or understand me because the pile of packets she left on my tray weighed more than my tacos. I’m pretty sure of it. Without another word she shuffled off into the back to work on the next order.

I stare at my tray like its Christmas. I run back to my table where I begin inhaling my burger. I have to eat it fast so my stomach doesn’t have time to tell my brain I’m full before I start shoving the tacos down my throat.

As I savor the greasy warmth of my first taco, I begin to wonder what makes these little things taste so damn good.  I’ve never actually looked inside a Jack in the Box Taco before. I have peaked inside through the chewed up edge from time to time to make sure a bug isn’t staring at me, but never really examined one.  Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I’ll see something in there that terrifies me and makes me question why I ever started poisoning my soul with these damn tasty tacos.

I peel open my taco like a skittish gynecologist and slowly peak inside. Hmmm…

The Jack in the Box “Nutrition” area of their website states that their “Regular Beef Taco” consists of a “Crunchy corn tortilla, spicy beef, American cheese, shredded lettuce and taco sauce.”

I attempt to discern the presence of any cheese in my taco. There is a spot of sauce, a shitload of lettuce and some smear of stuff that must be the spicy beef.

Oh well. Enough playing doctor.  I was hungry.  I doused that taco’s guts with hot sauce, folded it back together and chomped it down with four bites. I repeated said action with the remaining  three tacos and within a few minutes they had all officially become stomach contents.

I stared at my pile of crumpled food wrappers and the remaining pile of condiment packets resting on my try. I wondered if there is that one person out there who balks at the 18 packets of hot sauce in his hand and says, “No, I need a lot of hot sauce.” Oh well. At least I can go to bed tonight knowing that guy is probably fatter than me, even if I just consumed over 2000 calories in a single meal at Jack in the Box. At least I washed it all down with a Diet Coke.

Everybody has their favorite when it comes to Girl Scout Cookies – but I don’t give a fuck about their favorite…I care about my favorite, Thin Mints. Fuck your Samoas, your Tagalongs, your Daisy Go Rounds, your Trefoils and most of all fuck your Do-Si-Dos. You can go Do-Si-Do your ass off a bridge for all I care. Thin Mints…those are my gateway drug.

My first memories of Thin Mint infatuation are filled by my grandmother. She would always buy a few boxes from the local Girl Scouts. I can remember a purple box and an orange box and two green boxes sitting on the counter. The peanut buttery things in the orange box were okay but left my mouth feeling dry. The purple ones were slathered in caramel and coconut with decadent fudge stripes but they were almost too sweet to eat too many of. But then there were the brown chocolate covered ones…the magical ones. They were so crisp and tasty; each bite filled with a perfect blend of chocolate and mint. I ate both boxes as fast as I could. As I laid on the couch holding my aching stomach I remember my grandfather eying the empty green boxes in the trash can as he yelled, “Who the hell ate all my Thin Mints?” I couldn’t read yet but at least I knew what those magical cookies were called.

Now that I’m older I have learned to pace myself when it comes to eating Thin Mints. Usually I only relapse every few years and devour an entire box in a sitting. I know it’s bad. I know it’s unhealthy. But if I have to die of something, I would prefer to die of Thin Mints rather than AIDS.

I have come to depend on a number of suppliers to feed my Thin Mint habit. There are a few people at work who have scout cookie peddling daughters. There are also always a few scouts at the local grocery store selling their delicious minty crack. I often have to bite my tongue around the scouts because when they approach me and ask if I would like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies, the first thing that comes to my mind is, “Fuck yes! I would love to buy some of your delicious fucking cookies and rub them all over my cock”. I know I would probably get arrested if I really said some horrible shit like that to a 10-year old, so instead I usually say “Yes, please”. I have to bite my tongue again when they ask me how may I want because I want to say “As many of those yummy mother fuckers as you’ve got.”

An ex-girlfriend once had the nerve to tell me that Keebler Grasshopper Cookies were the same thing as Thin Mints. I stared at her as the utterance of her blasphemy sank into my skull. Okay, maybe chocolate and mint tastes like mint and chocolate, but these are Thin Mints we are talking about. Tasty Christ on his Mother Fucking Throne Thin Mints! Let’s just say I’m not dating her anymore and the sole reason may involve her ignorance when it comes to the supreme flavor of Thin Mints – not shitty tasting Grasshoppers. Who names a cookie after an insect anyway?

Luckily Thin Mint addicts such as myself have a number of options available when it comes to feeding our habit. There is Dreyer’s Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie Ice Cream and Dairy Queen has a Thin Mint Blizzard which is one of my favorites. Blizzards alone are magic (and I’ll blog about those later) but you really let the infected monkey out of the cage when you mix some crushed Thin Mints into one of those sum-bitchez. If you are good in the kitchen you can even whip up a Thin Mint Pie and gobble it down before your kids get home. When they ask, “What were you cooking Mommy?”, you need to reply, “Mind your own damn business. There are apples in the fridge if you are hungry.” There are even recipes for Thin Mint Cupcakes….sweet Jeeezus!

As of this very moment I have two boxes of Thin Mints in my cupboard and four in my freezer – yes, my freezer. Thin Mints freeze really well and they taste pretty yummy when they are ice-cold. I think that’s enough to last the year, even if it means crawling into next February with my last box of Thin Mints clutched to my chest. I may have to find a pack of those green-sashed pixies at the local strip-mall and buy a case of Thin Mints just to have some around for an emergency. God help me.

Without naming names and causing a whole stir with the issue of patient confidentiality, I will simple state that the other night was really mother fucking busy. No easy way to say it…it’s winter…there are a lot of sick people…swine flu be lurkin’ still… and we were running our asses off.

As we were proceeding to deliver excellent health care with the strictest professionalism, my co-worker and really good friend Tony turns to me and says “Hey, Davey” – he always calls me Davey – “Did you want to grab some food after work?”

Of course my stomach is instantly screaming PANCAKES!!! but I try and play it coy. “Sure. What were you thinking?”

Tony said with a smile “I heard there’s a place in Mission Valley that serves really good steak and eggs.”

“Steak and Eggs?” Damn. My stomach is still screaming PANCAKES!!! “I’m down.”

We took a quick break, typed “Steak and Eggs Mission Valley” into Google and clicked on the first place that showed up. BAM! Adam’s Steak N’ Eggs at www.adamssteakneggs.com. We visited the site, checked out the menu and sealed our plans with a handshake.

So as we battled death and disease for the remaining nine hours of our shift, I found myself getting hungrier and hungrier. Tony admitted he was getting hungry too. We stopped for a lunch break around Midnight Thirty, but our little sack lunches from home could not even begin to satisfy the hype we were creating over getting some piping hot steak and eggs. Mmmmmm. As the night progressed we found ourselves frequently talking about our high hopes for this place. In fact, it had no longer become a social function to eat some breakfast with a co-worker. It had become a quest for steak and eggs…quite possibly the Best Steak and Mother Fucking Eggs my fat ass had ever shoved down my throat. It was sure to be a glorious event.

Work ended. We left, showered the blood and disease from our bodies at our respective domiciles, and met at the agreed upon location at the designated time. We nervously grinned at each other as we looked around.

Wait a minute! WTF? Adam’s Steak N’ Eggs is nestled directly next to the lobby of the Travelodge in the Mission Valley area of San Diego. By “nestled” I meat that when you enter the restaurant you can either be seated by smiling hostess or take an immediate right and get a room. Well, we were here and it was time to get down to business.

The nostalgic interior was clean, adorned with darker wood furniture and a “western” theme echoed from the art on the walls.  Hell, it even had a bar and there was an older guy sitting there finished off what looked like Steak N’ Eggs…this establishment’s namesake. Steak and Mother Fucking Eggs! Overall the dining room was probably at 60% capacity when we arrived

We were promptly seated at a table and served hot coffee by a smiling but kind of creepy guy. The menus…there were none. The entire menu is printed on the place mat – an accolade from a more simple time.

For those worried about prices, the Steak N’ Eggs was $11.00. That price included , and I quote : “Our Namesake! Top grade sirloin steak, two ranch fresh eggs, potatoes or buttered hominy grits, toast & jelly or flour tortillas.”

Our smiling waitress promptly took our order and as our food was being prepared my friend and I did what most men would do: we stared at her as she went about her job and made horrible sexual comments about her behind her back. By the time we were done laughing to ourselves we were convinced she must have been a former pornstar but she wound up here because she blew her cash on cocaine instead of a college tuition. Cruel. I know. Harsh? Absolutely. But I would still have sex with that woman…and with the extreme proximity of the front lobby and her employee discount that chance went from one in a billion to one in a million.

We were starving and thank god after a very short amount of time our smiling WILF (Waitress I Would Like to Fuck… bad, I know) was headed towards our table with some large plates in  her hands…it was time for Steak and Mother Fucking Eggs.  She served our food…we kind of looked at it…she asked if she could get anything else and we were numb…we didn’t need anything else yet. The glimmer of defeat had begun circling around us as we stared at our plates. It smelled great, it looked good – but we were two grown starving men and those steaks sitting before us on the plate were tiny. Did somebody screw up our order with a shish-kabob?

At this point I was so hungry I didn’t care.  I tore into that meal with such ferocity my friend stared at me. “Slow down Davey. Savor your food.”  Tony was right.  I slowed my pace and began to savor every bite.

The steak was small but thick…I had envisioned a massive t-bone steak, something a waitress from Bedrock would mount on the side of my car perhaps, so maybe I had my hopes up a little. It was cooked a good medium rare – as I had ordered – and it was sporting a lovely pink-almost-red center. The side home fries were steaming hot and mixed with onion and peppers – I normally hate onions, but I inhaled these. There was a cup of spicy salsa sitting in the middle…I used it for my potatoes and eggs but not the steak. The eggs were a good over-medium…I’ve found it’s hard to screw up eggs but when it does happen, man are they screwed up! Last but not least I inhaled my short stack of two fluffy pancakes – look I had to compromise with the stomach because it had been screaming PANCAKES!!! all night long.

When it was all said and done, we had enjoyed a good breakfast…just not as satisfying as we had hoped. As we left we agreed that we were now embarked upon a quest to find an even better place with Steak and Mother Fucking Eggs.

If you know of a spot that serves good Steak and Eggs in San Diego, please let me know. Thanks!