It is Thursday and after a break from the norm last week, I am back with my typical Thursday night random rundown. This week’s edition might be as insignificant and boring as ever so read below only if you have two minutes of your life to waste. Here we go…

Derek Jeter – I piped up at the halfway point of the Major League Baseball campaign and I am going to sound off again since the end of the regular season is just about here. The Derek Jeter farewell tour went way too far. I dare to even say borderline ridiculous. The whole MLB season was a devotion to Jeter. It was completely about his stats, completely about his stadium gifts, completely about his press conferences, completely about his every at-bat…completely about Derek. The man was christened a god. And for what? Because he stayed with the same team and put up Hall of Fame stats? As a Yankees fan myself, I hate to say that I am a little bit relieved that New York won’t be in the playoffs this October simply because it will end the Jeter hysteria.

Intern Help – The #CCUSocialMedia program got better this week as my brand new student intern started work for me. A couple weeks ago we held interviews to bring on someone who can assist me with our social media campaigns and goals at Coastal Carolina University. Jada Bynum worked her first day on Monday and I am so happy to have her on board. She is a Wall Fellows student which means she is one of the very top students at CCU and a much better person than I ever will be. Jada will take over Pinterest/Snapchat/Google+, contribute content to all of our social channels, and help me with all the essential tasks that go into building and maintaining a social media program. My number one hope for her is that she gets a great look at what goes into the social media marketer profession.

Take-In-Bake-Pizza – What is one reason you know you are a bachelor? You bring home a large take-in-bake pizza, cook it, and then eat off of it for a few days. When I moved to Myrtle Beach I was distressed to find out that there are no Papa Murphy’s locations. I salivate just upon thinking of the take-in-bake stuffed meat pizza I used to always get that would feed me for four days. However, I have had to adjust, and thankfully Costco offers a suitable alternative. After I finish this blog post I am heading to my refrigerator to pull out my Tupperware container filled with the pepperoni Costco pizza I baked last night. With take-in-bake pizza, it just gets better and better each night after you originally cooked it.

Me with my container of take-in-bake pepperoni Costco pizza.

Football In, Movies Out – For a few months I was watching close to 4-5 movies a week. This has now changed. Hello football season!! With college ball and the NFL now in full swing, my evenings are no longer filled with awful Redbox movies but rather hard hitting football played under the lights. Thanks to Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football (an NFL game and at least one college game played), and of course Saturday evening college football I now have little use for movies. There is always at least one nationally televised college game on Friday night as well. Pretty soon, the Wednesday night college football games will be starting too! I always take the greatest game on the planet over movies.

Mikayla – My niece is now one day shy of three weeks old. Mikayla has been doing great and is gaining weight. I am just two months away from meeting her. The other day I got to Skype with the little baby! Here are some of her latest photos.

Here are some of the latest shots of Mikayla.

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Well, you all know what I am going to do now…eat pizza and watch football! Have a great weekend and be safe. Don’t Blink.

Sometimes goofy business models will pop into my head. Sometimes, I will even blog about them. The one I was thinking about driving home from work today might be the dumbest idea of them all so why not jot it down for everyone to laugh at?

Which Wich is an amazing sandwich chain with an interesting ordering method. When you walk inside the store you go up to a side counter and pick up a sandwich bag. On that sandwich bag is basically your directions for the creation of your sandwich. Just as if you were filling out a multiple choice test, you darken in bubbles to indicate how you want your sandwich made. You indicate your bread type, size of sandwich, toasted/not toasted preference, cheese, sauces, etc. You then take your bag up to the main counter to an employee and they make the sandwich for you. The filled out bag says it all, there is no need for talking or any unnecessary opportunities to waste time.

This is what a Which Wich bag looks like.

As the rain poured down during my drive home I thought to myself how I hate running across parking lots to enter and exit grocery stores, especially when the weather is less than ideal. What if there was an option where someone else would do all of your shopping for you while you sat in your car and listened to the radio or talked on the phone? Besides missing out on bad weather you would also save yourself the frustration of finding items in the store, the annoyance of packed aisles, and the agony of standing in a checkout line. I like to call my idea “RESERved Grocery Shopping.” (Reser being my last name of course).

With RESERved Grocery Shopping all you would do is fill out a paper brown grocery bag with your desired items. Just like with Which Wich you would only need to fill in bubbles to designate your choices. Since the ordering medium is a paper grocery bag there will be plenty of room to put most of the store’s inventory on that bag.

On the day you need to do your shopping you simply take ten minutes to fill in your grocery sack* and then get in your vehicle. You drive to the store and park in one of the designated RESERved Grocery Shopping parking spots and a store employee promptly greets you. Upon giving the employee your bag, he/she enters back into the store and works as quickly as possible to fill your order while you sit in the comfort of your car. When the employee has done your shopping for you, he/she comes back out to the parking lot to place your grocery bags in your car. You then pay your bill and tip at your discretion.

Now my suggestion is for a new chain of grocery stores to open up that specializes solely in RESERved Grocery Shopping. However, I am not ruling out the option that existing supermarkets can offer this service as well. They would just need to designate parking spots for the RGS customers and make sure their professional employee shoppers have easy access to supermarket items and an exclusive checkout lane so they don’t have to wait in line with the masses who are doing traditional shopping.

In order for RESERved Grocery Shopping to work, there would need to be some simplifying. We all know there are about 500 different brands and types of bread. On the ordering bag, you would probably only get the option of five different kinds (wheat, white, rye, etc) with a couple different brands (i.e. generic or Pepperidge Farm). Also, the variety of products offered won’t be as vast either. Rest assured, you will be able to select all the major essentials such as meat, milk, ice cream, mac and cheese, fruits, vegetables, toilet paper, etc. However, if you were looking for a bubble to fill in for strawberry flavored malt balls you might be out of luck.

But you aren’t utilizing RESERved Grocery Shopping for endless choices. You are using it for convenience and speed. The employees will be trained to quickly analyze your order bag and obtain your items in under 30 minutes. Many orders will only take 10 minutes. RGS would be completely revolutionary and a game changer in the supermarket industry. If you would like to take a chance on this idea and make me a millionaire, please contact me. I would love to chat. Don’t Blink.

* – A supermarket chain would market RGS by aggressively entering all neighborhoods possible and leaving an order bag on the porch of each house to get customers their first bag. Then, whenever they stop by the store they will be replenished with new bags for their future orders.

Although I am pretty good at limiting my fast food intake, if given the opportunity to chow down on greasy and quick food I will. In order to get me even hungrier for a late dinner tonight I wish to present my list for my top five favorite fast food restaurants. The list will start at my all-time favorite fast food joint and descend from there.

1. Subway – While I had to think a little bit about the positioning of my favorite restaurants in the #3-5 slots, my king of fast food places was a clear-cut, undisputed no-brainer. I absolutely LOVE Subway. My love goes so deep that I even wrote a blog post devoted solely to the best sandwich shop ever. My mouth waters just upon entering a Subway restaurant because the smell of their fresh bread is so heavenly. I could eat cold cut combos every day of my life if I wanted to. Throw in a bag of chips and the crunchy combination that results is incredible. Best part about Subway? You can find a restaurant ANYWHERE. Our nation is covered with them in standalone stores, food courts, gas stations, stadiums, and other random spots. I can’t get enough.

2. Taco Bell – Notice how I said above that I had a tough time positioning the #3-5 restaurants on my list and not #2. Yep, earning the runner up position on my list in easy fashion is Taco Bell. In high school I would eat inside a certain Taco Bell restaurant with my friends quite often. We loved how cheap, and, coming from a high school student at the time, how delicious it was. These days I might not call Taco Bell’s food delicious but I still think it is good and it is definitely still cheap. My favorite menu items are the classic bean burrito and the half pound beef and potato burrito. Even when I do order the beef and potato burrito I still like to get a side of fiesta potatoes to go with it. I enjoy zipping through the drive-thru, picking up my order, and then going home and dousing it with Sriracha sauce. It has been a good seven months since I ate Taco Bell last but it sounds pretty good right about now.

3. Jack in the Box – I really appreciate the sheer convenience of Jack in the Box. Open 24 hours with a very diverse menu, the restaurant can meet your needs at all times. Oh, and just like Taco Bell, it is cheap! Who doesn’t like a restaurant where you can go at any time to pick up a burger, taco, egg roll, breakfast, or milkshake? While maybe not a master of any of these items, it is definitely a “Jack” of them all. Tied with Taco Bell for my favorite late night fast food restaurant, I love the concept of the Jack in the Box franchise.

4. Dairy Queen – Because it is home to my all-time favorite dessert item, Dairy Queen is #4 on my list. I am addicted to blizzards. Even with the numerous great ice cream shops here in Myrtle Beach, I have managed to still visit the local Dairy Queen for my blizzard fix a couple times. The actual food at Dairy Queen is so-so. I usually won’t order anything too elaborate just because the grub is somewhat pricey and they always seem to mess up on my order. However, if you order their cheese curds and pair it with a blizzard you can’t go wrong.

5. Bojangles – Living in the South now, I have grown to like Bojangles. Although not too impressed with it the first time I visited, I have since discovered that they offer a great breakfast. About 75% of the time after church on Sundays I will swing by Bojangles and pick up a couple breakfast biscuits. I also enjoy their chicken rice bowls that they whip up. I ate free at the place a few times over the past several weeks because of a promotion ran by the local minor league baseball team in town. I enjoyed these meals just enough to have Bojangles take the final spot on my list.

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I hope I didn’t get you too hungry…or disgusted. If you still have a stomach I would love for you to respond with your top five fast food restaurants. Keep eating my friends. Don’t Blink.

I bleed teal and am a Chant 100%. However, I do keep tabs on the athletics program of my old school just because I worked thousands of hours over four plus years at the University of Montana. I enjoyed my time as Griz I have a lot of friends working there. So When I learned that the Montana vs. North Dakota State game got picked up by ESPN Gameplan, I decided to find a bar that might carry it.

Looking for a place that I hadn’t frequented before, I went to an establishment just a couple minutes from my apartment. Tucked away in a rather run-down strip mall I knew it was going to be a dive. But I am a guy who likes dives and since it was clearly identified as a sports bar I decided to give it a try.

Now I said I like dives. However, yesterday I learned that there are bars that are even a little too “divey” for me. I will not say the name of this bar because I don’t want to do it a disservice. I think it probably satisfies its customer base just fine and who am I to give it a bad review and soil its name on Google? I am not about that. I will just share with you some details on why I won’t be returning.

I walked inside and immediately I knew that even if I left right then and there my clothes would smell like an ash tray for the rest of the day. In South Carolina you can still smoke in bars. The atmosphere fit the definition of a dive perfectly. Dimly lit, clutter all over the place, shabby fixtures, and weird smells. Again though, I expected this type of environment and it didn’t serve as the reason why I won’t go back.

I sat down and the bartender came over to me with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and asked what I wanted. For the roughly 30 minutes I spent in the place she always had a lit cigarette in between her lips except for when she was taking vodka shots. She treated me very well but as a non-smoker I would prefer if the smoke from someone’s ciggy isn’t infiltrating my drink while it is being handed to me.

The bartender was really nice, I just don’t think you should be able to smoke behind the bar.

However, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I knew I wouldn’t be staying long. The place had only a few clunky televisions and I am sure management had never heard of “ESPN Gameplan” in their lives. Yes sir, a wasted trip. But I tried to make the best of it and observe my surroundings.

You ever watch “Bar Rescue” when they show some places that have drunks that drive away customers? Welcome to the place I was at yesterday! At 1:30 p.m. there were two obnoxiously loud, belligerent men hooping and hollering about the most random topics the whole time I was there. Even if the bar had the game on each of their three televisions I wouldn’t have been able to stay.

I love peanuts and I love bars that offer peanuts where you can discard the shells on the floor. This place had a different take on one of my favorite tavern traditions. At every other seat at the bar they had a baby food type container with unshelled peanuts in them. At my seat I had a container that was half way full. The notion of others before me, most likely with tobacco stained fingers, grabbing peanuts out of the cup absolutely disgusted me. If I was Jon Taffer (host of “Bar Rescue”) I would have gone in the place and used my hand to violently swoop the peanut containers off the bar.

I had some other food concerns. The kitchen in the back looked like it was permanently stained brown. The cook had long greasy hair and was drinking a beer. From what I gathered, it looked like the regulars didn’t think much of the food either. A group that was playing pool had brought in big bags of chips and sack lunches that they were munching on. Of course doing something like that probably says more about yourself than the food at the bar.

The last thing that really accelerated my departure was the arrival of an unwelcome guest. As I was watching one of the games I heard barking. I looked back and sure enough someone had brought in a dog! One of the drunks started barking back at it. I got up and left.

I walked to a real sports bar right by my apartment and the bartenders promptly put the game on for me. I enjoyed watching the Griz in comfort. Although I will never go back to the first establishment again, I do thank them for re-educating me on what a real dive bar is. I am just thankful that I never had to use the restroom there. Don’t Blink.