Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Watching movie from the 50s
My mind, every once in a while:
"Wow, the vast majority or all the actors are now dead"
shut up, mind!

But yeah, enjoying some Hitchcock recently.

@NintendoByNature Funnily enough, I live in the same state as Chi-town and have never had a deep dish pizza from the area. I need to make that a bucket list item the next time I'm up there. I've had deep dish pizza from chain pizza places, but I'm sure the real thing is loads better.

My favorite pizza place is a family-owned eatery about 45 minutes away. It's a thin crust pizza, (not as thin as a place like Monical's, but somewhat thin/average thickness) that's pretty filling. It's a little pricey, but worth it IMO.

I love almost all pizza, but here's my general preference order:
Local/family-owned joints with their own formula > most chain pizza > Little Caesar's to order > gas station pizza (though some of this ranks near the other chains, depending) > most frozen pizza from the store >>>>>>> Little Caesar's Hot 'N Ready.

@bimmy-lee The only reason they even had Captain Novolin was because the game is specifically about diabetes. Two of my cousins are type 1 diabetics. It's a pretty meh platformer with aliens as "bad" foods and a lot of educational in-game text.

@Tyranexx yea, you have to try it next time you're up here. Almost all of it is good, so it's more hit than miss. I've had Monicals once or twice it's pretty good. I think i had pan though if i recall. And im 100% with you,mom and pop is the way to go.

@NintendoByNature There's a place with thin crust pizza in the nearby town I really like too. Plus the staff is friendly and the owner is a pretty nice guy and helps the staff out when they're short on people too.

In my opinion, it's hard to go wrong with pizza. I've had very few bad pizzas in my life. Besides disliking the hot & ready pizzas from Little Caesar's (usually because they've sat under a warmer and taste bleh), there were also these barely passable square-shaped things my high school had for a little while. Thankfully they changed up to actual triangle slices that sometimes had cheese in the crust at some point. That was LOADS better.

@Tyranexx its always nice when you get to know the owners and they know you back. It makes dining there that much more special.

Usually my cut off is gas station pizza but In a pinch, I might go for it. The only one I would say is a step above gas station pizza is Casey's. I'm sure you have them down by you. We have them west and South of me and they're throughout Illinois I'm pretty sure. Their pizza is pretty decent I would say.

Little Caesar's hot and ready hand tossed is not my favorite, but their deep dish is actually pretty good in a pinch too, but very greasy. And honestly i usually go for the crazy bread anyway 😋

@NintendoByNature We have some great pizza places over here as well. And there's this small town in Italy, I forgot the name, that is supposed to be famous worldwide, and arguably one of the birthplaces (if not THE) of the modern pizza, and people come there from miles around, just to have one of those famous pizzas.

@bimmy-lee Yeah, I guess we're pretty much on the same page here. Must be an age/generational thing, then. Except thanks to my job, I've learned to use fancy words to describe my thoughts with...

Nah, just kidding. As an empath, I've always been able to (quite elaborately) put my thoughts into words, and I'm all for people speaking their minds, because I myself also do that. Of course, it is often not what you say, but the way you say it, but in general, I don't feel any need to sugar coat anything (although I do always weigh my own words before I post them), except where more grave matters such as disease or death are concerned.

@Heavyarms55 Well, not necessarily, but your comment made me think about Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters". And yes, I live over there. Amsterdam to be exact. Originally from a small town in California, but I've lived here since I was 9.

As for pineapple on pizza: the trick is to put the pieces of pineapple in a sieve first, so that most of the excess moisture is drained, and then the oven will take care of the rest. The moisture should bake in and it will then still result in a good, firm pizza base. Where I always go to get my pizza Hawaii with salami/pepperoni, I've never once had a soggy pizza.

@NintendoByNature Casey's was actually what I had in mind when I mentioned gas station pizza; it's pretty good! There was also a Citgo near my house growing up that had some decent pizza from the Hunt Brothers brand too.

Little Caesar's to order isn't bad, but I consider their hot & ready pizzas emergency only food. I've never had their crazy bread though...I'm curious now.

I'd say my favorite chain pizza is Domino's. I used to really like Pizza Hut too, but the one here has definitely gone downhill. Papa John's is good but a little too greasy sometimes. Monical's is good, but I have to go a little ways to get to one and have to be in the mood for thin crust.

We've got most half of those pizza franchises here too, except for Little Caesar's and Papa John's. And besides Pizza Hut and Domino's, we've also got New York Pizza. I usually go to the local Italian though, instead of to what's basically the pizza version of a fast food chain...

We only have locally owned pizzerias here in this town.

I have this nice memory of eating the best pizza ever in a Little Caesars when I was a kid. Unfortunately that specific restaurant is closed now, and all the Little Caesars I've seen since have been exclusively of the hot & ready variety.

Krusty Krab Pizza is the pizza for you and me!

By the way, we have Domino Pizza in Indonesia.

@ThanosReXXX oh there's no doubt in my mind most European counties have great pizza, so I don't doubt that.

@Tyranexx now i want Casey's pizza lol. And Dominos is the better of the 2 for sure ( pizza hut)

@redd214 - Oof, that’s an excellent combo with the chicken and the bacon. They do work so well together. It’s become one of my favorite pizza combos over the last few years even though I’m more of a pizza traditionalist. There’s a place close to me that does a great chicken and bacon with a ranch sauce on giant folding crust. I’m sure it was great. I have a nice baking stone for homemade pizza, but I buy my dough.

@NintendoByNature - I was in the moment Michael dropped that giant sausage patty on top of the sauce and dough. I could smell that video man. I do appreciate knowing that was the daughter of Sweetness! I just heard someone talking about the way Chicago has supported the Payton family since he passed on a pod dealing with the Kobe situation. I really like how you use the double Z in Zza. I’ve always been a single Z guy, but this makes perfect sense. I’m double Z for life now.

@Tyranexx - Wow, I didn’t know such specific edutainment like that even existed. This was a SNES game? It almost seems like something like that might hold some value at this point. It’s really cool that kids could learn about something serious like that in their lives through video games.

@ThanosReXXX - Yeah, I think you being towards the front of GenX and me being at the very back puts us on a pretty even wave length, though our positioning may make you sway a bit more towards Boomer and me a bit more Milennial. Tone is the key to conversation though, and the first thing lost in written word.

@Anti-Matter - I cant decide if I want to put my face in a Cheesy Meatball Blast or run from it.

Big dog broke a nail on her dewclaw. When I put her in my room to go get bandages and antiseptic from the pet store, I came back to find my good glasses chewed. Thank goodness for my 6 year old backup pair.

@ThanosReXXX Ah. I've heard good things about that city.

As for Pizza, yeah, no semi-respectable pizza place will let a soggy pizza get to a customer. My point was that learning how to do it right was annoying and if you do it wrong you very much ruin the pizza.

Personally though, nothing beats simple cheese and pepperoni/salami. I like others but I always go back to the pepperoni.

@NintendoByNature It's been awhile since I've had Casey's pizza; maybe I should drop by there for a slice soon! A friend's mother works there anyway, and we've never been properly introduced.

@Anti-Matter As I'm what I consider a very brave person when it comes to most food, I'd totally try that meatball blast pizza.

@bimmy-lee It's pretty easy to find a playthrough on the likes of YouTube of that game; it's pretty short. I think Jimmy Fallon had it on his show at one point too, but I may be misremembering.

I'm not sure of how much of an impact that game had on my cousins it was intended for, but throwing all that jargon such as "glucose" and "insulin" at a kid who wasn't really used to that didn't leave much of an impression lol. I at least understood the healthy eating then. I can appreciate nowadays what the game attempted to do, but at the end of it all it's still a pretty mediocre platformer.

I played Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario All-Stars, and Toy Story most of the time anyway.

@bimmy-lee oh yea.. that Patty has brought me many days of joy. It makes sense about the paytons. Walter was loved by this city. The whole family pretty much considers Chicago their home and Jared has a restaurant/ bar somewhere in the area last I remember. Ahh... the Zza vs. Za discussion has been around for centuries. I don't fault anyone for using either term. I just add an extra Z to give it that extra kick. After all, pizza is my favorite food.
@Tyranexx do ittt!!! Grab a donut too. Love their pastry corner 😂
@hobbitgamer Sorry to hear dude. At least you had a backup..i guess? Lol
@thanosrexxx you aren't missing much by not having little Caesar's and papa johns, if that helps any 😉. Papa John's isn't bad but they give this garlic sauce that totally saves the day. So yea... I guess you miss out on that lol

@NintendoByNature Haha, I'd also be tempted by a donut if tomorrow wasn't monthly donut day at work! The company orders enough donuts from a local grocery store on the last Wednesday of the month (usually; sometimes the day changes) in celebration of all the employees who had birthdays during the month. They tend to give my group enough to last us a couple of breakfasts.

@Tyranexx That's awesome! It reminds me of another of my previous jobs (that seems to be a thing today). I used to work night shift at a hotel before I left the US, and one of the last things I did toward the end of the shift was to put out donuts for the guests that we ordered from the local bakery. Whatever donuts were leftover from the previous day, we were allowed to just take home. And the fact that my favorite donuts are the plain ones or the simple chocolate glazed ones meant I always got what I wanted - since most guests seemed to prefer the jelly donuts and other more "fancy" types.

Man, that was another fun job. It paid well for the time, but unless a manager died or something, there was no room for advancement and a raise was unlikely... still, I had a lot of interesting 3am conversations with customers.