Be A Man – Grow A Beard In November

Zach Galifianakis

The Bearded Zach Galifianakis

When you think Manly thoughts, what is the number 3 thing you think of behind cars and women?  You got it, Beards!

Last year as November came to a close, I saw a lot of people tweeting before and after pictures of their beards.  They had me at beard, but I had no clue what was going on until someone mentioned No Shave November.  All I knew at that point was that I was disappointed because I’d have to wait a whole year to participate!

Let’s define it.

No Shave November (NSN) is the act of shaving on the last day of October then not shaving for the entire month of November. On December 1st you compare your facial hair with your friends and are allowed to shave again.

That’s right, some brilliant bastard came up with an excuse for us to to not shave for a whole month.  I go a week or two at a time due to laziness, so needless to say I’m up for the challenge.

I leave you with this awesome song I found on Spotify, about what else, beards!  Apparently if your dad doesn’t have a beard, you have 2 beardless moms.  So grow your beards proudly this November!



ZabaFOOD Review – Taco John’s New Baja Boneless Wings

I am fortunate to work at a job where we get a lot of free stuff, which includes FREE FOOD!

Taco John's Baja Buffalo Wings

Taco John's Honey Habanero Buffalo Wings

Today I had the opportunity to try Taco John’s new Baja Boneless Buffalo Wings.  You can get your wings in 3 different flavors: Honey Habanero, Bold Buffalo and Sweet Chipotle BBQ.  Being someone who loves hot and spicy food, I heard Habanero and it was a no-brainer.  I completely zoned out the word honey, which is usually a balance to reduce heat in spicy food.

In the interest of full disclosure, Taco John’s is probably my 2nd favorite fast food restaurant, but I remain unbiased.  Now on to the review.

The Baja Buffalo Wings, and I’ll lose that term loosely, come in a nice little container which makes them easy to eat on the go.  When you pop open the top, you may be surprised what you see as these are being sold as “buffalo wings”.  You won’t find an excess amount of sauce waiting to fall off and stain your t-shirt or large chunks of chicken waiting to be devoured.  What you will find for a regular order is around 16-17 nuggets of chicken that are slightly bigger than bite-size.

The first bite of the Honey Habanero wings will smack your tongue around a little bit, but after you eat a few pieces, it will be easy sailing.  If you don’t handle extremely spicy food well, but enjoy a little heat, you should be fine with these wings.  Once you defeat the heat, the flavor really hits you and the wings are really enjoyable.  After the heat comes the sweetness from the honey and then of course the chicken which is nice for fast food and made from chicken breast.  I really enjoyed the texture as they were soft, but there were small bits of the breading that were still crunchy.  I’m not sure how they do it, but thank you Mr.  Taco John.

I also had the chance to sample both the Sweet Chipotle BBQ and the Bold Buffalo, but the Honey Habanero is my favorite by a long shot.  The Buffalo style has a very traditional buffalo wing taste with very little kick to them.  The chipotle has a nice smokey taste, the BBQ sauce is sweet and slightly tangy, but again with no kick.  The chipotle wings are coated in the most sauce making them the messiest!  The Taco John’s Baja Buffalo wings are extremely addicting, so be aware you can order a small, 1/2lb or 1lb order.

Pros:
Boneless
Easy To Eat (think slightly larger than popcorn chicken)
Easy To Carry and Eat On The Go
Easy To Share
Little To No Mess

Cons:
Not Truly Buffalo Wings
Not Enough Sauce (Buffalo Wings = Sauce!)
Not Your Healthiest Food Choice (high calorie/sodium)

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

Personal Trainer Goes Crazy – Gains 70 Pounds!

Would you hire a trainer to help you lose weight and get in shape if he spent the last 6 months of his life eating burgers, burritos and desserts in an effort to gain 70lbs?

Don’t answer just yet…

McDonald's Angus Burger

Photo Credit: BlueisCoool - Flickr.com

Meet Drew Manning, a 30 year old Personal Trainer from Utah.  As I’m sure is common amongst personal trainers, they have to put up with clients who are having trouble sticking with losing weight.  They often hear from clients that they can’t do it, it’s too hard and that someone who is in such great shape just doesn’t understand what it’s like to be overweight.  The latter statement has motivated Drew to set out and build some ammunition to fight that excuse.

With that in mind, Drew came up with the concept to go from FIT to FAT and work his way back to FIT, while showing all of us (and his clients) how it can be done.

A friend shared the Fit2Fat2Fit YouTube Channel with me last night and I watched every single video one after another and couldn’t stop watching.  I suggest you do the same if you have the time.  Start from the beginning and you will see a man who is in much better shape than your average person; in fact he’s ripped!  He talks about the bad food he is eating, he shows us what he’s eating and he participates in food challenges voted on by people who visit his website.

In a matter of 8 weeks, almost all of his definition disappeared and it’s been all downhill from that point on.  Fast forward nearly 6 months and a man with six pack abs now has one big keg.  For most people this would be a nightmare, but a point is about to proven.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Custom Jack-O-Lanterns in Adobe Illustrator

Pumpkin

Pumpkin drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS3

I have been a Photoshop enthusiast the entire time I’ve been creating graphics.  I put most of my focus in Photoshop because it is what I used to do promotional graphics, to layout my web designs and slice them before I coded and published them.  With that said, I have been neglecting Illustrator for years.  I have never fully immersed myself in to the program like I have others.  Now my goal is to finally learn the in’s and out’s of Illustrator and will be posting everything I create and eventually post my own tutorials.

Today I had a few extra minutes and decided it would be a good time to get started. My goal was to create a drawing or 2 from scratch in Illustrator for the splash page of the blog.  I came across a few good tutorials such as cob-webs, spiders, night-time scenery and a jack-o-lanterns.  I decided on the jack-o-lantern, because it looked easy enough and the final product was really cool!

You can see my final pumpkin to the right or on the Zabafoo Splash Page at full size with a background.  I am not satisfied with it, but it’s only my first attempt.  The biggest problem I ran in to was that I have an older version of Illustrator than the tutorial was using.  I worked my way around most things, finding an alternate way or tool, but I could not find one for the Width Tool that is new in CS5.  If you have CS5 the Width Tool really gives it a more wicked look!  If you’d like to give this tutorial a try, visit The Illustrator Tool Box.

 

Now go make your own and decorate your website for Halloween!  Good luck.

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Free WP Themes | Thanks to Free WordPress Themes, Best Free WordPress Themes and Online Shopping