[Boat 'n Net on Everhart, Corpus Christi, Texas] I love seafood. Always have. Especially from the cheap-as-chips fast-fried-fooderia named "Boat 'n Net" with 8 locations all around Corpus Christi. When I go visit friends and family in the Sparkling City by the Sea, one of my visit's requirements is to dine al fresco on a cheap plastic bench outside a Boat 'n Net. I can never get enough of the: Fried fish. Fried shrimp. Fried chicken. Fried okra. Fried hushpuppies. Fried fries. Prices haven't really changed much since the 70s. In fact, if they have, then you can tell because someone has scratched off the out-dated price on the plastic menu next to the walk-up window and handpainted over the old price with the new price. At night, when the menu is backlit with irregular flourescent lighting from humming sticks way past their prime, you can see all the corrections blot out the light behind the price, making the menu prices almost impossible to read. To order, you walk up to the window, usually a misaligned slide window that never shuts right and is more a parallelogram than a rectangle. You order by number from the type and quantity grid, either some kind of "boat" (just fish and fries), "net" (just shrimp and fries), a "boat 'n net" (mixed fish and shrimp), or "chicken" (just chicken). [My favourite is the #2: 3 shrimp and 3 fish.] And then you wait a second lifetime for your order number to be scratchily mumbled in English and Spanish thru the microphone as you re-read your order number for the umpteenth time. Sometimes, the cashier just bypasses the microphone, agressively slides open the parallelowindow and bolts out your order number using El Grito lungs of a short, Mexican lady (which she usually is). Or, if you're a lazy Corpus Christian terrified of humidity and must remain in your vehicle with the A/C on Full Artic, you could drive thru -- if you car is high enough to maneuver the deep ruts in the asphalt that hasn't been repaved in decades. And, when you finally arrive at the ordering box, you have to ring the cowbell (yes, COWBELL) underneath the handpainted menu on a plywood board to alert the cashier that you are ready to order. The "ca-lunk-ti-clunk" sound travels thru a PVC pipe to the cash register where the cashier jots down your order on a small slip of paper and hands it to the fry cook. No computer, software, or "Would you like fries / a fried pie / a shake / our new blah-blah-blah?". Simple. Easy. Boat 'n Net is only found in Corpus Christi. I never want to find one outside my hometown. NEVER. There is abso-smurfly no way to recreate the ambiance anywhere else. How can you franchise the experience of bad-attitude teenage cashiers who speak Tex-Mex and whose English is just a direct translation of Spanish? Or the ever-present seagulls always hovering, cackling, cawing, and waiting for you to discard them excess fries and rolls? Or the heat, the ever-present heat beats down on you, making you shiny like cheap asphalt? Or the ruts in the drive-thru from years of neglect? Or the hour-long waits on Lenten Fridays in Catholic Corpus Christi? Or the fresh humidity that coats you always? Always. Always. Without those factors, the Boat 'n Net experience just won't be the same. What surprises me is that Boat 'n Net is never mentioned in any tourist materials. Only locals know about it. I would have thought that tourists would flock to it because it's dirt cheap. Because it is its own reality show. Because it's True Corpus. [Nov 2005: Added to the Top V 111 group]

I got tagged a little while ago but because I am somewhat shy it took me a while to figure out how to do a picture of myself while not really showing myself. 1. I love playing video games (Halo, Oblivion, Arkham Asylum, etc.) and reading comics, plus I essentially live in a toy store what with all the toys everywhere. Sometimes I really feel like I am living the dream of a twelve year old boy X_X 2. My music taste is fairly eclectic. I love Green Day, Eminem, Everclear, My Chemical Romance, System of a Down etc.... but I also listen to everything from classical music to Alice Cooper the only thing I won't listen to is country music. 3. My favorite colors are green and orange. My current car is orange and nicknamed Pumpkin, I jokingly nicknamed it but now virtually all my friends/family refer to my car as the Pumpkin. 4. I originally had no interest in the reboot of the Batman franchise, I had loved the Batman animated series with a passion when I was younger but I hadn't really given it much thought since then...Unfortunately being dragged to go see Dark Knight in theaters had the unintended consequence of opening up the floodgates. I ended up going to see Dark Knight in theaters like twelve times (in my defense, I was also heavily pregnant at the time and had taken some time off of work so it wasn't like I had much else to do at the time). I never really cared for Batman per say but I always loved the villains especially Joker and Harley Quinn. 5.I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies and have no interest in remedying that anytime soon, even though people have attempted to bribe me to do so in the past. I also have no interest in Star Trek, hell Sci-fi stuff in general doesn't really interest me although I love Futurama and Invader Zim- go figure . 6. I am rather petite, I am only 4'10. 7. I just recently started watching lost... I'm about halfway through season 4. 8. I love BAD horror movies, I like horror films in general but I love the horribly made ones even better for the sheer hilarity. Stuff where people just randomly disappear and no one seems to notice/care and even the dog even has a flashback. The more incoherant the better, bonus points if it is horrendous dub of a film that was already terrible in it's original language. Zombie Strippers is a real favorite of mine. 9. I don't watch as much anime as I used to, I just don't care for a lot of the newer shows. When I do watch anime these days I tend to go for slightly older stuff. 10. I have one child, a daughter nicknamed zilla she is almost two years old now. She is my little ball of sunshine, she is always happy and bubbly but she is also fearless and can be very cunning at times.