Lee "LeeboZeebo" S.'s Profile

Pho John's is unfortunately overpriced and the food is honestly sub-par.  My fiancee's father is Vietnamese and everything he makes at home puts this food to absolute shame.  The spring rolls are honestly the only item in this restaurant that I ever have any interest in, as they are actually fairly good.

I had a friend who was very into Pho John's when I was in college, so I ended up eating here a few times.  Every time I went, the service was fairly slow, which I would normally attribute to cook time, but the food I was served was traditionally kind of lukewarm, so I'm not sure what exactly goes on in the back.  An underground fight club?  Games of Russian Roulette?  Cultivating an ancient blend of noodles and spice to cure cancer?  It must be something incredible to wait so long to bring me food that was obviously done long ago, especially when my friend and I are the only ones in the place.

Stover Boys Burgers are a heart attack waiting to happen, but you'll probably never die happier than when you bite into their thick, juicy Double Bacon Cheeseburger, topped with all the fixings (minus lettuce), and actual CRISP bacon.  The meat is definitely high in fat content, but the grease factor is what makes the whole thing so delicious, I'm shocked to say.

Unfortunately those greasy patties will soak through your bun within thirty seconds, which is my only complaint about the restaurant, honestly - if you guys know you serve a fatty burger, invest in some tougher bread.  I'm willing to spend the extra dough if you are, and few things are more annoying than having your burger experience marred by saturated bread that begins to fall apart.

But this one oversight is made up for, in my opinion, by ambiance. A wall plastered with comic book pages?  As a major comic book nerd, I can spend half my meal just reading all the panels on the wall and admiring the awesome poster art.  I actually wish they'd carry the theme over to some of the other walls, in fact, so that you could enjoy checking out the work regardless of where you choose to sit.

Case in point - if you're the kind of person who doesn't mind a gigantic, thick, greasy hamburger, this is definitely your one-stop-shop.  Pick up that hefty 1/2-pounder and enjoy, because they make everything the moment you order it, from scratch.  If you're looking for leaner cuts of meat and more veggies, don't come in, because you're definitely not Stover Boys' target audience.

I've been shopping at Ross for years, and quite frankly, I don't care who knows it.  There is nothing you can find at Abercrombie and Fitch or American Eagle that I cannot find something comparable to at Ross.  I go here in particular when I need to spruce up my business wardrobe, because it's not unheard of for me to spend $100-150 on nice clothes that would have run me more than TWICE that amount at any store in the mall.  My fiancee came here with me after starting a new office job and was dumbfounded at the selection of actual suits for women in the $20-$30 range.

But the beauty of Ross is that it doesn't stop at clothes.  I've bought shoes, both leather dress and casual converse, nice watches, Fossil belts, kitchen decorations, full silverware sets, and even bedding at this store, for prices that make me want to cry when I think about how much I could have spent anywhere else.  Do they last?  Definitely.  When I throw something away that I bought at Ross, it's almost always because I REPLACED it.

Hell, the last time I visited this store I noticed that they even had fragrances.  I had literally JUST been considering purchasing a new cologne from Macy's, and then ran across the same thing at Ross for less than half the price.

Now, don't get me wrong - Ross is fairly inconsistent.  Because of their ever-changing stock, there may be times that you walk out of the store empty-handed because they didn't have exactly what you wanted at that time.  But for the patient bargain hunters, this store is like something magicked to earth by the love child of Gandolf and Dumbledore.  If there's something specific that I'm interested in, I've just gotten into the habit of ALWAYS checking Ross first.  The savings really are that good.

Growing up, my dad had a very strict, "I don't eat food that comes from gas stations" rule.  I'm not sure where he came up with this - family lore has it that in his youth he would actually stop and buy food from streetside vendors, which I would wager is a much more dangerous proposition than eating barbeque from a place that happens to be attached to your local Texaco - but these are the rich mysteries which populate the river of my life.

This particular Popeye's happens to be located in a Valero gas station at the corner of Highway 6 and William J. Bryan, and despite its proximity to noxious fuel fumes, it is awesome.  If you've never eaten at a Popeye's before, then I heap shame on you.  Seriously.  Popeye's is better than Church's and Kentucky Fried Chicken combined.  Eating one of their biscuits is like motor-boating an angel. And (I know somebody's going to disapprove of this, but I'll say it anyway) I think their red beans and rice are actually BETTER than most high-priced sit-down restaurants.  I could live off that side dish.

I'm not going to pretend that this is a restaurant you go to when you're watching your belt-line, but good God, if you ever just want to let go once in a while, you can't sin any better than at Popeye's.

Over the course of the one year that I lived at Renaissance Park Apartments, from 2008-2009, the management changed three times.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I'm not sure what it is about Ren Park that drives out management faster than Kevin Smith's Dogma drove out the Catholic community from theaters.  By all accounts, it is not a bad space for the price.  A two bed/two bath for less than $700/month?  Nice sized pool, barbeque area, plenty of parking?  It sounds like a dream spot.

It's not, just in case you were expecting anything different from that lead-in.  It is a space of nightmares and assorted psychological trauma.

Despite its proximity to major roads and high visibility, it wasn't exactly a place where you'd feel comfortable turning your car alarm off.  My fiancee's brother came to stay with us during Hurricane Ike, and his very first night somebody smashed the window of his car and took his stereo deck, right in our well-lit parking lot.

I was told three different things about painting during the time I lived there (which I only realized later was due to three separate sets of management - there was never any notification about the changes in apartment leadership sent out the entire time I lived there).  At first, I was told to feel free to paint my apartment, as long as I painted it back before I left - hell, the main office will even supply the paint!  Fantastic, right?  Well, that generous offer morphed into something illegible over time.  Later I was told that I would have to BUY the paint to paint my apartment back from the main office, and they only sold paint in some kind of jumbo tub.  Then I was told that they're changing the color motif in all the apartments, and I would have to check back with them to see what color I needed to order from them.  THEN I was told that the office would NOT sell me the paint, but that they would supply me with a paint swatch to take to any paint store to be color matched.

The moral that I inevitably came to learn from this, and one that I would urge all you apartment hunters to keep in mind, is that no apartment complex owes you anything.  Get agreements in writing.  Make somebody sign it, because if that apartment representative leaves the premises, the person who takes his or her place may have no interest in honoring former policies.

My fiancee and I took this to heart after we were given our "color swatch," which essentially was just a torn up scrap of white paper with a dollop of actual paint on it and had it color matched.  The moment we started painting with it we could see that it wasn't an exact match.  I expressed this to the office and, after a little arguing, was able to secure a promise (and a written note in our file) not to charge us for that debaucle.  I am positive that I would have been given a giant painting fee had I not gone to that length.

The maintenance was awful the entire time we lived there.  At one point we noticed some brown mold on the side of our bathroom cabinet.  Nearly a week later (this was not an unusual wait for service), a repair person had come out to fix the issue....by painting over it.  Because that's not a health hazard, or anything.

To be fair, there were some positive points.  When our dishwasher broke down (it was emitting an ear-deafening metal grinding noise which we later found was due to some kind of a loose bolt flying around in the inner workings of the machine), the office actually replaced the whole unit with a new one.  It took three weeks for this to happen, since the maintenance person never heard the noise when he came to check on it, but it did finally happen.

And, I have to say, the most current (as I write this) management of the property actually seems to know what they're doing.  I have no idea if the level of maintenance has improved, but the customer service seems to be there now, and the folks in the office actually appear to be on top of their game.  They were able to resolve several issues that my fiancee and I had with our final charges (we were sent a fee by the company, despite dropping $500 in both apartment and pet deposit money) that actually resulted in us being sent money BACK.

And realistically, that was more than I could have ever hoped for after a year of utter bullshit.

I'm both shocked and a little ashamed that I never ate at Caffe Capri when I was a student at A&M.  It even took me a year and a half of working in the Bryan/College Station area before I finally walked through Rami's doors.  But really, that was all it took.

I love the ambience and atmosphere of Caffe Capri.  You're not going to get candlelight and a thin-mustachioed gentleman playing you a romantically inspired violin solo, but who has time for that anachronistic crap?  Caffe Capri has a cozy diner feel with food that is much better than you'd expect from a place with a cozy diner feel.  Like most Italian joints, this one will be lamented for not having "authentic" food, but as I've said before, unless you recently befriended a world-wizened old Italian grandmother who still keeps her pasta sauce simmering with secret spices for 72 straight hours, you're going to find that very few Italian restaurants are going to capture that level of magic.  Drop the standard a notch - after all, if Caffe Capri and the Olive Garden were visiting the beach, Olive Garden would be the ninety-pound weakling getting his face pushed into the sand by Capri's muscular behemoth.  And the woman they chauvinistically squabble over?  That's you, consumer.  Go with the Charles Atlas look-a-like and brag to all your girlfriends.

The last time I went to Caffe Capri I ordered something fairly innocuous: A chicken caesar salad.  And you know what?  It was beautiful.  There was a PERFECT dressing-to-lettuce ratio, just the right amount of cheese topping it, and the grilled chicken (crisp on the edges, delectably seasoned throughout) was arranged in a flower pattern atop my dish.  Caffe Capri is not afraid to dress it up for you.  Their food is like a hooker with a heart of gold - slutty enough to make you want it, but with just a touch of class, so you're not afraid to show these meals off to mom.

My girlfriend and I have been scrambling this entire week because her entire family is being evacuated from their homes due to Hurricane Ike.  Her family has two full-grown boxers that need a place to stay, so we booked spots at this Medical Clinic to board them, and from what we could tell, it was the last two spots in town.  The charge was $20/dog/day.  This is more money than they would like to spend, but these are harsh circumstances.

My girlfriend goes with her brother and sister-in-law to drop off the dogs, and then receives a call less than thirty minutes later saying that the dogs had not received the bordetella vaccine.  For those of you who don't know, this is a liquid that the vet will basically shoot up your dog's nose to try and avoid "kennel cough," and the only reason these boxers had not received it in the past is because they are outside dogs.  The vaccine would cost $15/dog.  Okay, an additional $30.  They agree.  The vet says that normally they don't give a vaccine without also doing a check-up, and that this check-up would cost $40/dog.  But this time, they would waive it.  Excellent, wonderful.

The vet calls back AGAIN and says they will NOT waive the check-up fee.  So now my girlfriend's brother and sister-in-law are officially going to be charged $110 MORE than the original agreed-upon price.  My girlfriend pleads with the vet, telling her that these people are evacuees and have no place to go, nor any place to make sure their dogs are reasonably taken care of while they wait out the storm.  No dice.  They will not waive the fee.  This is officially expensive, and we're all beginning to feel steam-rolled as the vet's office continually reminds us how lucky we were to get these last two spots.  It starts to feel like, "How much are you willing to pay to guarantee your dog's safety?"

So my girlfriend's brother says no way, and we take the dogs back.  Wellborn Road Veterinary Medical Center just officially bought themselves some bad publicity from us, because that is some truly incorrigible behavior.  Evacuees?  Seriously?  You're going to financially stick it to hurricane evacuees?  These people are having a hard enough time as it is - they're already worrying about losses both at home and in the workplace.  This is the wrong time to play hardball to get the most money out of a client.

When my girlfriend went to go pick the dogs up, the vet basically told her to take the dogs to Veteran's Park with all the other evacuees.  This works out well for them, I'm sure, as it frees those spots back up to wealthier customers who don't mind being extorted.

The moral of the story is, if you're in an emergency situation, you can't trust Wellborn Road Veterinary Medical Center to help you.  With all the stress we're under, this was the worst possible customer service experience to offer.

I've eaten at Pyro a few times since it opened in Bryan, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the experience every time.  Pyro's prices are low for a restaurant that comes off as a trendy, upscale eatery, and therefore even allows the poorest of us to feel as though we've "moved on up" to the finer things in life.

If the title of the restaurant is confusing, that probably means you've never dined at a mongolian grill or a fusion restaurant before.  This is perfectly okay.  Foreign nations and fusing used to scare me, too.

You begin your dining experience with an activity that will probably be familiar to many of you: Picking up a plate and hitting the buffet line.  What may confuse, however, is the abundance of raw meats and vegetables that will confront you when you get there.  At Pyro, you choose the items you want to be grilled in their raw state, and then take that bowl up to the Grill-Meisters (as I call them) to be prepared for you.

The fun thing about fusing, however, is that you get an abundance of other items that you may not have considered when trying Asian cuisine.  Why not top your vegetables and chicken with alfredo sauce, for instance?  Add fajita spices and chili oils to create something spicy, but don't forget to throw in those little baby corns for a touch of class.  I love those goddamn baby corns.

If the whole process seems daunting, don't worry.  Pyro is nice enough to offer up a giant board with changing suggestions.  Pick an existing recipe and go with it, or get creative.

Try to picture a beautiful basket of puppies crapping a rainbow of pure joy.  Now imagine that a mystical unicorn has leapt over this rainbow to defeat an evil minotaur and rescue a virginal princess, who will then go on to be a ladder-climbing corporate superstar.  Picture everyone singing your favorite song while all this is happening.

Now put that in your mouth.

Jimmy John's sandwiches are delicious considering the restaurant's shortcomings.  These are people that just seem to innately KNOW how to increase the deliciosity of bread and meat.  In fact, the only reason I had to strike off two stars is for the lack of different kinds of bread (that's easily a one-star loss), and the decor.  Some people really enjoy tiled walls in a sub sandwich shoppe, but for me, clean white tiles just remind me of a bathroom, and that's not the mental image I want to conjure up right before I eat.

Everything else is top notch, though, and I highly recommend you visit this place at least once.  They have some great cheese, really high quality meats, and they are all too aware of the appropriate bread to condiment ratio, which is fairly brag worthy in the sandwich industry.

A great experience, I promise!

I've lived in Redstone Apartments for almost five months now, and I can honestly say that I've wanted to move for at least four.  The name, you should be aware, is a bit of a misnomer - the front office is made of red brick, yes, but the remaining apartments are a mixture of faded yellow brick and awkward brown siding.

No two buildings are alike.  Some have classic roman style pillars, some have curved awnings, and some are as plain as unflavored yogurt.  The parking lots are cracked and filled with potholes.  Half the machines in the laundry facility don't work properly.  And no, the neighborhood isn't the safest.  I've come home on more than one occasion to the sight of flashing lights by one of the buildings in my complex.  Domestic disturbance?  Drugs?  Redstone is filled with rich mysteries.

The upside?  This place is cheap.  Incredibly cheap, actually.  I pay barely over $500 for a two bedroom apartment that's over 800 square feet in size.  No utilities are paid, but most apartments that pay for your water or sewer are usually ripping you off for that priviledge, anyway.  I've never had a water bill over $15.

I think the owners of Redstone would invest more money in making the complex look nicer if it had more visibility.  The apartments themselves are relatively hidden - they're aligned down a dead-end road that only receives traffic by tenants, and all sides of it are bordered by the backs of shopping centers and other apartment buildings that look nicer.

I will give props to Redstone for one thing, and that's service.  They were very competitive and willing to negotiate with me when I moved in.  They work hard to give their customers what they want, and they have never hesitated to provide maintenance.  Speaking as someone that has lived in a great deal of apartments that skimp on this issue, I can tell you now that it means a great deal.

Unfortunately, it isn't enough to make me overlook this establishment's other shortcomings.  I don't always feel safe where I live - the few times I've tried to walk to my mailbox after dark I can hear loud arguments and fights coming from some windows, and I always wonder who I'm going to run into around the corner.  I just can't live long-term in a place like that.  There are some things that even I am willing to pay a little extra for.