two-twenty

hard rock café roma | mister hamburger • post/haste

Hard Rock Café Roma, Via Vittorio Veneto, 62/A, 00187 Roma (RM), Italy - +39 06 4203051

BURGER NAME: HRC Hickory BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger 11.75 Euros (About US$4,327.65)

FIRST IMPRESSION: Mister and Missus Hamburger has a friend in town, and we went out and got smashed last night. In fact, when we got home, Missus Hamburger tried to puke, and could only sneeze. Mister Hamburger gave her for that because it was funny. We decided to get a burger after a heavy day of tourism, and in context with playing visitor, Mister Hamburger and entourage went to Hard Rock Cafe.

APPEARANCE: The bun was a little wrinkled like an old Roman bitch pushing in front of Mister Hamburger at the supermarket. They're so bad here. Mister Hamburger gives pushy Romans . The cheese wasn't completely melted either. The fries looked a little yellow which was weird.

MEAT: The meat didn't look very appetizing. Mister Hamburger thought it looked like it was prepackaged meat rather than a burger that had been made when Mister Hamburger ordered it, which is how they should have done it. It looked brown gray on the inside, which means it wasn't cooked well, and Mister Hamburger wondered what they were trying to hide.

BUN: Mister Hamburger hates brown bread. Especially on his burgers. This bread was doughy, not toasted nearly enough, and it had definitely been sliced by a machine, not the loving hands of a chef who knows burgers.

PACKAGE: Booooring. The owner of Hard Rock Cafe Rome has hard rocks in his head.

TASTE: The brown bread overpowered the flavor of the meat, if there was any to begin with. You see, Mister Hamburgers burger was totally overcooked, and therefore there was no flavor left anymore. The Ketchup was good, because it was Heinz, and not stupid Hard Rock Cafe brand. The fries were crunchy, which Mister Hamburger likes, but they didn't have much flavor.

DRIPPYNESS: Disgustingly overcooked burgers don't drip.

MEAT TEXTURE:   Burnt. Idiots. Mister Hamburger would like to go one on one with the chef in the colosseum.

MEAT COLOR: Missus Hamburger had a burger that was red in the middle, which looked alright. Mister Hamburgers was disgusting.

SIZE: Mister Hamburger thought it was a little big.

VALUE: Mister Hamburger wouldn't pay diddly squat for this second rate poor excuse for a burger.

COOKED TO SPECS: It was verging on well done. Mister Hamburger would give the silly bastard himself a rating, but he doesn't deserve it.

AMOUNT OF LOVE FROM CHEF: See above.

FROM DELIVERY PERSON/WAITER: The waiter who brought the food was straight out of a book Mister Hamburger imagined up at lunch called "99 reasons not to become a coke addict" or one of the eighties rock videos showing all through lunch. He also had a stupid accent.

ONE HOUR LATER: Mister Hamburger became very tired, which might be because the meat was bad and was overcooked to mask the bad flavor of meat gone bad, but it made Mister Hamburger sick all the same. Even if was totally overcooked.

BELLS AND WHISTLES: The Milkshake was alright. Though cream on the top was stupid. Where's the ice cream? Or something? The beer was warm. Yuk.

FINAL IMPRESSION: Lamest burger in a long time. The Hard Rock Cafe in Rome is totally lame. One of the stupidest things there, of their collection of important rock memorabilia was a "Staff Jacket from summer '95 festival of Eros Ramazzotti." I mean, who the fuck is that? And who ever it actually was, why don't they get his jacket. LAME.

[ed/missus note: I give my PERFECTLY medium rare burger . I think Mister Hamburger does too; he looked like he enjoyed it when he tasted it. Mister Hamburger LOVES to complain, though. I give this review for being a grumpy rant.]

you — not i — will always have paris | joanna • post/haste

On December 31st, 2005, I resolved that for twelve months, Paris Hilton would not exist for me. It was not as easy to pull off as I thought it would be.

It didn't matter that I lived more than half the year abroad, often without access to the internet. I had to force myself to cover up her photo in the Herald Tribune's People column a few times. I had to cover my ears, sometimes figuratively, occasionally literally, when people gossiped about her seemingly constant string of antics. During a particularly dicey drive from Tuscany to Rome, I had to switch radio stations five times in two hours. It would have been six, but I didn't know that she was singing the first time Ash and I heard her song. It was a catchy song.

Yesterday Ash told me about her latest public modeling session in Sydney, and how fashionistas on the Vogue.com.au site are questioning her LV-sprinkled bikini's authenticity. I finally looked at the pictures today.

I don't care at all. About the swimsuit's provenance, about her trip to Sydney, about anything that she does, anywhere.

Not to sound surly — or surlier than I feel — but I no longer have any interest in the rest of them, either. Lindsay and Tara, Ashlee and Jessica. I can't help myself when it comes to Nicole Ritchie, but that might be because I think the chick has a personality.

It's a relief to be able to say her name, to write it. Paris Hilton. But it feels dirty, in the bad way. And though as of January 1st, I'm off the hook from my own decision, this is probably the last thing I think or have to say about... um... her.