Spring [1], Wlofie [2] and I spent the evening having dinner with Mark Hamzy [3], who I knew in college and probably haven't seen in a dozen years (since IBM (International Business Machines) [4] moved him to the Republic of Texas [5] and has yet to relieve him of his employment). We ate dinner at Havana [6] in West Palm Beach [7]. The food was quite good there.
Fortunately, we managed to avoid the whole process of selecting a restaurant that we used to employ when in college (Florida Atlantic University) [8], which went something like this:
[Cast: Sean “Demigod” Williams (lead vocalist) , Bill “Giant Hogweed” Lefler [9] (keyboards, guitar), Sean “Captain Napalm” Conner (electric clarinet) and Mark “You're a member of our group, damn it, whether you want to be or not” Hamzy (evil eye and set prop). Setting: Bill's room, any given Friday or Saturday.]
Sean (Williams): So, what do we want to eat?
Mark: Food.
Sean: Sigh. What type of food?
Bill: Edible.
Sean: Okay, where do we want to eat.
I: A restaurant.
And so on, for about an hour. The thing was, we each had an unconditional veto for any restaurant suggestion, except for Mark, who had two (well, rather, he had the one we all have, plus an additional “permanent veto” on all food related to oeans, streams, lakes or rivers). The entire process would take something on the order of two or three hours and there were plenty of times when we got into Bill's car without the slightest clue where we were going to eat and just randomly drove around town until we ran out of vetoes, or we had at least two votes for a single restaurant.
Fun times, but of a different time, and a different place.
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas
[6] http://www.havanacubanfood.com/