Boca Raton and the $100 burger.....

I'm going to Boca Raton to eat a hamburger.

...ok, I'm not- but there's a part of me that REALLY wants to.... and Boca Raton owes me a hamburger- but I'll explain that later....

According to this story at cnn.com, there is a restaurant at the Boca Raton Resort and Club which is now selling a $100 hamburger. You can click on the link and read all the decadent details of this delightful delicacy.

.... yeah- I know- a lot of "d" words. Get past it......

Personally, a $100 burger not a bad thing for a town to be associated with- especially since one of Boca Raton's claims to fame is that they are the hometown of the National Enquirer (motto: "We feature only the frumpiest of celebrities!").

I mentioned the burger story to Mrs. Pearce last night, and she asked "why do you want to eat that? You're not a big burger person."

I answered her that I do not eat burgers, but it takes a determined effort on my part not to eat them. Seeing "Supersize Me" helped a bit with my focus to stay on the straight and narrow, burger-wise. But regardless of that movie, I've been determined not to indulge in burgers for about 12+ years now, with various degrees of success. I've even been a vegetarian for a while.

And I tried REALLY really hard, too- eating nothing with any animal products in them whatsoever. One of my preferred foods in my vegetarian phases were something called "Boca Burgers"- which were made entirely of grains and veggies. I won't go into details on the taste, other than to say a Boca Burger is to a hamburger what Jessica Simpson is to John Lennon: not even close, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise. But I tried- believe me, I tried. I even went so far as to put the Boca Burgers on our grill to give them grill marks. I'd put the Boca Burgers on buns and load the whole thing up with as many toppings as I could.

The result? Jessica Simpson singing "Give Peace a Chance"........

But I soldiered on- and I'd be doing so well, too- while munching away on the Boca Burgers, my weight would be wonderful, I'd be full of energy and clear mental thinking (well, relatively speaking). In fact, I was the healthiest and most alert miserable person you'd want to meet. Eventually, I'd fall off the wagon in a big way, and go on the kind of "meat bender" that Dr. Atkins would have deemed excessive. When I'd awaken from these benders, I'd be surrounded by fast food wrappers, empty boxes of beef jerky, and usually a couple of very angry live pigs with very big bandages on their rear ends.

So after more than a year of eating a Boca "burger" every time I had a craving, I'm thinking that the town owes me one of the $100 burgers.

Being a musician, I'd even be willing to work out a deal with the Boca Raton Resort and Club: I'll show up and play a concert at their place. And when they decide to hand over the burger, I'll stop playing. I'll even buy one of their $75 milkshakes to wash it down with. And the National Enquirer can report the whole thing ("Frumpy looking man devours burger, mentions something about Jessica Simpson").

yet more older posts....

Yet more posts from the jeffpearcemusic.com website, since I'm about to start using this page full time for all my blogging needs...

January 24, 2006

"Mom has gone organic crazy!"

The words of daughter #1 just a couple of weeks ago- and pretty accurate, from where I sit at least. Mrs. Pearce has embraced her inner granola muncher, and has taken the rest of us along with her. This is not a bad thing; as time goes by, I know that I'm getting less and less enthusiastic about food loaded with so many preservatives that the expiration date on the package reads "don't worry- you won't live long enough for this to expire". And a whole lot of the foods are really quite tasty; Mrs. Pearce has bought everything from organic veggies and organic pasta sauce, to something I didn't know existed- organic Pop Tarts. For the kids, of course.

........hey- stop looking at me like that- they really ARE for the kids!

For clarification, these aren't technically "Pop Tarts", since everyone knows the phrase "Pop Tarts" is a registered trademark of the company which makes them- Microsoft (motto: "the next version won't have bugs in it- promise!") (which is the motto for their software AND their pop tarts, which I'm almost certain they make...). These are "organic toaster pastries", and although their taste doesn't exactly hit home, just the presence of the "pop tarts" in our house takes me back to my teen years, and a culinary crime against nature that I gleefully indulged in.

What I'm about to reveal now is something that I've not revealed to another living person- not even to Mrs. Pearce: At age 17, I created my one and only truly original recipe- it was fast and easy to make. It was sinful..... . It was:

"The Peanut-Butter Pop-Tart sandwich".

Pretty easy to make:

1) get two pieces of white bread (you certainly don't want any extra fiber)

2) smear both pieces of bread with peanut butter

3) put a pop tart on one of the pieces of bread (and it had to be a FROSTED pop tart- those non-frosted ones were icky health food in comparison)

4) put the other piece of bread on top to complete the sandwich

5) sneak it out of the kitchen so: a) your mom wouldn't see what you've made and pass out from shock, or: b) your dad wouldn't see what you made and ask you to make him one

The truly frightening thing to the calorie-counting, fat-restricting, fiber loving, sugar limiting Jeff of 2006 is that for at least a few months in late 1984-early 1985, I ate one of these EVERY SCHOOL DAY for breakfast- I'd secretly make it in the kitchen, sneak it out to my car, and eat it on the way to school. Once at school, I'd buy a Coke out of the vending machine to wash it all down with. Do I even need to mention that for the rest of the day, I was REALLY REALLY GLAD TO BE IN CLASS and wanted the teacher to TEACH FASTER BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS MOVING TOO SLOWLY? Had my gym teacher asked me to, I'm pretty certain that I could have played a game of dodgeball. Against MYSELF. On the PLUS side, it was an effective study-aid (mom: Jeff, do you have any homework to do tonight? Jeff: NO, MOM! I DID IT ALL ON THE DRIVE HOME!!! Mom: Do you mean "on the RIDE home"? Jeff: YEAH, SURE- WHATEVER HELPS YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT- WHICH I HAVEN'T DONE FOR THREE WEEKS STRAIGHT!!!").

Eventually, I did a little improvisation with the recipe. For example, one time I inadvertently broke the pop tart. Thinking this could add texture, I broke the remaining pop tart into pieces and scattered them over the peanut butter. Eventually, I learned that a knife would make a cleaner cut, so I'd dice up the pop tart before laying it on the peanut butter. Emeril Lagasse I was not.

My ultimate improvisation came the morning that I went to the kitchen and saw that we were out of bread. I grabbed a pop tart, and started to head out of the kitchen. However, an otherworldly force drew me back. I grabbed another pop tart, the jar of peanut butter, and a knife.

......yeah, you know where I'm going already:

I spread the peanut butter on the non-frosted side of one pop tart, pressed the non-frosted side of the other pop tart into the peanut butter, and made the bread free peanut butter pop tart sandwich- a sandwich that had 98,056% RDA of sugar, and 0% RDA of "what the !*&^ are you thinking?!?!?!".

Of course, the punch line to all this is that, despite my eating roughly 80 pounds of pure sugar every morning, my body certainly didn't LOOK like it rightfully should have. The teen-age male metabolism- one of the seven wonders of the world, in my opinion. It didn't matter how trashy the fuel was, my body would convert it into all the energy I needed to stay focused on the important things in life: girls, music, and video games.

In 2006, however, eating just ONE peanut-butter pop tart sandwich would quickly put me into the "training to be a sumo wrestler" phase of my current exercise program. Of course, I could take some of this organic sprout bread, smear it with organic peanut butter, and drop on one of these organic pop tarts. Hmmmmm.....

HEY- I NEVER FINISHED THIS ENTRY!!! WHOA- MUST HAVE BEEN DISTRACTED BY SOMETHING ELSE!!! I HAVEN'T BEEN THIS AWAKE IN YEARS!!! THANK YOU ORGANIC FOOD!!!


January 11, 2006

I hope this note finds everyone enjoying 2006 thus far.

For a bit of new year's fun, go to archive.org it's a huge "internet archive". Right there on the front page of archive.org is something called the "wayback machine"- enter a web address, and you'll see how the website developed over the years. Just yesterday, I spent more time than I should have entering every website I could think of and watching how it changed over time- including my own (note to self: it was a GOOD decision to remove my photo from the front page of the website...).

Having watched enough of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" as I child, I remember how the wayback machine was used by Mr. Peabody and his assistant Sherman, allowing them to travel through time and go sailing with Magellan, flying with the Wright brothers, and whispering in the ear of 1995-era Jennifer Aniston "don't do it- he's not worth it." . This is usually the time of the year that I wish I had my own personal wayback machine. However, this time around, here in 2006, I don't find myself wishing for a wayback machine so I could fix past mistakes of mine (they belong to me, for better or worse), but so I could, as an observer, get another perspective of things that have happened in my past.

Specifically, if I had a wayback machine, my first stop would be January 1991, at the apartment Mrs. Peace and I shared as newlyweds. I know that most people would love to travel into the past and offer pearls of wisdom to their younger selves. And if I had any to offer, I certainly would. Instead, I'd drop in on those young newlyweds and make one request of the 22 year old Mrs. Pearce:

"Make me some dinner".

Why this request? Because sometimes we need a reminder of how the good old days weren't really all that good.....

In the early days of our marriage, cooking wasn't exactly one of Mrs. Pearce's talents. In fact, all of her recipes involved pretty much the following instructions:

1) spread a bag of tater-tots on a cookie sheet

2) pre-heat oven to 8,000 degrees

3) put tater-tots in oven

4) take them out sometime next Tuesday

Needless to say, we didn't have a whole lot of dinner guests in those early days of our marriage.....

Mrs. Pearce came by her early recipes honestly- she learned to cook from her mom. Knowing this, I should be surprised that either of us made it out of our first year of marriage alive. The first Christmas after we were married, we had Christmas Eve dinner at my mom-in-law's place. The dish of the evening was spaghetti and meatballs. I don't know how she did it, but mom-in-law managed to burn spaghetti sauce- at least that's what my tongue told me, before it started tying a noose for itself out of a strand of spaghetti. Everyone else at the dinner, however, was apparently de-sensitized to the food. I, on the other hand, found myself in the in-law's bathroom two hours later thanking the gods that they had a full package of Charmin Ultra-soft.......

Mrs. Pearce, the 2006 model, is light-years from those early "kitchen malfunctions". She now has some great recipes- everything from cinnamon muffins and chocolate chip cookies to more exotic fare like naan and Caribbean shrimp. Just a week ago, she fixed salmon with a wasabi-ginger dressing, and it made me completely forget the tater-tot casserole from 1991 that was simultaneously half burnt and half frozen.

I can't speak for Mrs. Pearce, but I'm somewhat certain that if SHE could get into the wayback machine, she'd set course for this past summer, where she went to a good-bye party for a co-worker at a local pub and was carded at the door. "And the guy who carded me was REALLY young!", I can still hear her say. THAT was a good week in the Pearce household.......

some older posts from my website

Here are a few posts from my website- I'll be importing them over to this blog as part of a mass migration of sorts ,as I make this my prefered place to blog.

June 4, 2006


Daughter #1 and Mrs. Pearce really enjoyed this last season of "American Inventor"- and I could see why. Some of the ideas were truly inspiring. Of course, the main reason for watching the show was the same as watching any reality contest show: to see the clueless folks who had no idea that they were clueless presenting bad ideas with a clueless grin on their faces. The final four ideas on "American Inventor", though- pretty good ideas, and pretty great implementation of technology.

Technology is great- when it's an improvement.

You don't have to know much about me to know that I love technology; my music depends on it, to a major extent, and my entertainment depends on it as well- what I'm doing at this moment DEFINITELY depends on technology.

This past week, my cell phone was "upgraded" by the lovely Mrs. Pearce. This was an example of an improvement. Concurrently, my cell phone PLAN was upgraded (the motto of my service provider apparently being "why stick with your old plan when we have a new one that costs twice as much?"). This wasn't as much of an improvement. Oh, sure- on this new plan I can surf the web and play a lot of games on my cell phone, but that's not a big deal- and I know of what I speak, since I've spent about 20 hours this weekend web surfing from the phone. No big deal at all. I can stop any time I want. Really.

So when it's an improvement, technology is great. When it's not, it makes you feel like the butt of a joke played by a major corporation.

Case in point: the "new" camera Mrs. Pearce bought in late 1997. She bought this just in time for Christmas, the reason being that she wanted some great pics of daughter #1 celebrating her first Christmas. This new camera had a bit of then-new technology- a "red-eye reducer". This worked by putting out a "pre-flash", so that every picture turned out red-eye free.

And it DID work- there were no red-eyes in the pics of daughter #1. You want to know why? Because daughter #1 had her eyes closed for EVERY one of those pictures; apparently, this "new technology" was never tried on a baby. Babies close their eyes when they see bright things. Which means that a baby's eyes would be WIDE OPEN when looking at the engineer who designed this piece of technology.

There's still one area, though, where technology has been somewhat lacking: the area of raising children. So far, we've been relying on Dad 1.0, but I can tell you, that gadget is full of bugs and quirks and has been making some REALLY weird noises lately.

Fortunately, we have access to Courtney 2.0. The amazing and affordable Courtney has been our salvation for two years now, in quite a few ways. She has taught us a lot about our daughters. After returning home from one of our first night's out, Courtney told us that daughter #2 (then two years old) was a little naughty, and had to sit in the corner. Later on, Mrs. Pearce and I had the following conversation:

Me: I didn't know daughter #2 would sit in a corner

Mrs. Pearce: I didn't know daughter #2 would SIT!

Up to that point in time, my "corrective methods" for dealing with daughter #2 have been time-out's. For ME. I'd send myself to my room when I heard the sound of plates breaking or warranties being voided. Not terribly effective, but it kept me from calling area adoption agencies to see if some kind soul would be willing to adopt me.

And that's where the future of technology lies, in my opinion- child discipline. Here's an idea that is worthy of the next season of "American Inventor", although that's not saying much for either the idea or the show:

Discipline via odor.

It will work like this: the child in question wears a neck-band. It will look fashionable and nothing at ALL like a dog collar, so get that out of your head right now.

On the neck-band will be tiny vials. Each vial will have a specific odor in it. And each vial will be controlled by remote control (and this is where fathers can get REALLY excited about taking part in helping rear the children, because it will be a REALLY cool remote control).

When the child misbehaves, no more yelling, spanking, or writing them out of your will. Instead, you push a button on the remote. The corresponding vial will shoot a little mist upward, and- WHOA!- "over-cooked liver and onions" scent hits the kid's nose.

....talk about negative re-enforcement.......

In the spirit of "let the punishment fit the crime", you could have the odors range from "minor offenses" to "criminal behavior". Playing ball in the house might get a shot of "wet dog on a summer day", while breaking a window would get a whiff of "trapped in the car with dad after a trip to Taco Bell".

In an attempt to make kids WANT to wear these neck-bands, I propose bringing in some fashion designer type to make them look great. And, with a nod to "American Inventor", I already have the jingle written for the commercial- kids would be singing it non-stop, almost against their will after hearing it. Want to know what it is? I close this entry with the jingle to end all jingles:

"Be kind to everyone you meet
'cause naughty smells like grandma's feet"




May 21, 2006


I like white rooms. Apparently, this is a mental disorder in the eyes of my wife and many others.

I like white rooms because they look clean and neutral, and even natural (yes- white occurs in nature- ever see a cloud?). Yes, white is boring- it looks like a piece of paper. But just like a piece of paper, it's the prefect blank canvas for jotting down great ideas- throw on a few pictures, place a few pieces of furniture around, and everything comes together- if not in an exciting way, at least not in a way that overwhelms the eyes.

But no more in this house. As of yesterday, come through our front door and you'll feel like you've stepped into a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

It's pink. Our dining room is pink. And it's a shade of pink that screams "nothing male is allowed to live here!"

For the most part, Mrs. Pearce likes my decorating ideas. I've proven pretty good when it's come to arranging the furniture and things of that order, making sure that everything looks uncluttered (leaving plenty of space for the daughters to insert the preferred amount of clutter). Unfortunately for me, I was also of the opinion that the white rooms looked nice and clean- thus alerting my wife to my apparent mental disorder. She responded by bringing out Terrie, the "color specialist". And this color specialist absolutely HATED white houses and white rooms- she made mention of this first thing, saying that she had a grandmother who had such a house, and she couldn't stand it. Looking back, I think Mrs. Pearce did a little victory dance when Terrie said this.....

So Mrs. Pearce has been very enthusiastic about changing the color of every room in our house since the visit of Terrie the color-specialist. And Mrs. Pearce told me early on that the color of the dining room would be "a light coral". This was a safe thing for her to say, because there are very few chances of me seeing coral here in Indiana. While the paint was going on yesterday, I commented "this looks pink".

"No- it's more of a coral color", Mrs. Pearce replied. "It will dry lighter".

Don't believe it. It didn't.

After the painting was done, I looked at the lid of the paint can- it said, quite clearly, that the color was "orchard pink".

Pink. Now I know the shock and fear the "Da Vinci Code" guy felt when he stumbled across the big secret.......

I remarked to Mrs. Pearce that right on the paint can lid, the color was orchard pink.

"No, it's more of a coral color", was her reply, this time a little more forceful than before.

The painting juggernaut has started, and the next room to get it will be the living room, which Mrs. Pearce says will be a "light gray". Ah- leave the bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and enter the lung of a light smoker.

I propose that the powers-that-be start naming colors with a reference point everyone can understand (can anyone reading this tell me what color "taupe" is? Ok- can any MALE reading this tell me what color "taupe" is?)

.....I looked it up on-line. The definition? "a grayish brown" That's like saying something is "a blackish white"......

Some suggestions for these easier to understand colors:

"nose-bleed red"- see? you know that one from the offset. "Driveway gravel gray"- don't need a lot of explanation there. "Cheap-o disposable hospital gown Blue"- you see that one in your head already, don't you? "Taco Bell brown". Speaks for itself. "Dr. Pepper can red". A totally different kind of red from "nose-bleed red", right? "Really bad bruise green". A little disgusting, but a lot easier to visualize than "breath of spring" green- yes, that's a REAL shade of green!

But "orchard pink"? As far as I can tell, there's only one thing that grows in that orchard- and that's Pepto Bismol........

first post...

The following is the post that I made a couple of weeks back on my myspace blog. I present it here to kick off my blogger.com blog- which will soon replace the blog on my website www.jeffpearcemusic.com

I've been gently reprimanded by a friend for leaving my blog nice and empty. :) This is probably because there's not a whole lot going on at the moment.

And that's not entirely true- there's ALWAYS something going on here, but very little is music related. I WILL say that there's a very good chance that I may be playing quite a few shows in the upcoming summer/fall, but I'll not announce those things until there's something concrete. Until then, it's mostly the usual stuff that goes on around here- and you can read about those things on the blog at my website www.jeffpearcemusic.com and then click on the "about Jeff" tab. If you've already checked that page out, then to update: yes, the dining room is still pink. Despite what the kind and beautiful Mrs. Pearce insists, it's NOT a coral color, but good old fashioned pink. Pink Panther pink.

This is not a completely bad thing- for example, it's now safe for my daughters to load their super soakers with Pepto-Bismol and shoot at each other in the dining room.

(oh- yeah- better pop a glamorous "life of a musician" bubble for all of you right off: my "day gig" is taking care of my two young daughters. Daughter #1 is nine years old and likes to write stories and ride her bike. Daughter #2 is four years old and likes to void warranties on every device in this house, using such creative techniques as stomping them, throwing them, or head-butting them. My day is spent, for the most part, begging them for mercy.)

(Oh, you're probably wondering why I don't list the names of my children here or on my website. The main reason being that the internet is a scary place, and there are plenty of nutjobs out there who would love nothing more than to get the names of little kids and find them and do horrible things to them. I'm not going to make it easier for them. The second reason is that most of the time, I can't technically remember their names. I try- I try really hard, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is "hey....ummm.....YOU! Get over here- and tell me your name, while we're on the subject". I remember once, when I was 16 years old, my mom accidentally called me by our dog's name. It seemed really funny at the time. Now that I have kids, it's not quite as funny, and it makes me glad we don't have a dog....)

Ok, that should do it for now- it's going to be breakfast time for the little ones very soon, which means that I will be fixing toast and fruit while they beg me for something with 10,000% of their daily requirement of sugar. And yet another advantage of a pink dining room: I can serve them grapefruit, and they can defiantly throw it at the wall all they want to- it will blend in....