Batson's Blog

It's National Chocolate Milkshake Day! You know what that means -- it's time to celebrate accordingly. Although I don't like chocolate in baked goods, chocolate is my first choice when it comes to milkshakes -- not ice cream, just milkshakes. There are several different locations you could go to fill up on a nice chocolate shake. Here a few recommendations to make your choice a little easier: Jack In The Box There may be some bias here because they've given me two chocolate shakes for free at different times. I guess that's what happens when you have a friendly server and you make a late-night stop? Anyway, their prices are reasonable and the Jack In The Box chocolate milkshake is worth a try. It's made with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped topping. It comes with a maraschino cherry, but I always tell them to hold that (not a fan of cherry's, myself). Find a Jack In The Box location near you

During a trip to Sam’s Club I saw the most amazing thing: Red Lobster biscuits in a box! They were only about $5 too. It was amaaaazing! I didn't know if the product was available for a temporary amount of time, so I took full advantage. I mean, really, it doesn't get much better than Red Lobster biscuits! I only bought one box, but it makes about 30 biscuits. That's about 4 or 5 small dinner parties. There are three pouches of biscuit mix inside, making it easy to get the same flavoring they have at the restaurant. Thankfully, the directions are easy too. You put the mix in a bowl, add 3/4 of a cup of water, throw in a handful of cheddar cheese, and then roll the dough into little biscuit balls on a cookie sheet. I only got 9 out of that batch, but some were a little larger than others. Once I made the first couple of biscuit balls they were hard to roll together. A large portion of the mix stuck to my hands. While the biscuits were in the oven bakin...

Jenn's Suglarlicious Bakery in Gastonia is the kind of bakery you'll want to stop at if you're looking at a large bakery with fanciful frosting and lots of treats. I'd Googled the bakery to find the address, but I didn't know what to expect when I went in person. Located in Franklin Square, Jenn's is right next to a Subway off of East Franklin Blvd. There's a purple carousel pony placed against the window, which actually gives an idea as to what the cupcakes are like. There were 12 different flavors of cupcakes available. Each cupcake had a different color (or, in some cases, two) of carefully decorated frosting. With pink, purple, turquoise, yellow and orange frosting, the cupcake case almost looked like a rainbow. I've been taken in by colorful, decorative frosting before, though, only to be disappointed by the flavor of the actual cupcake. I probably could have picked more flavors, but I ended up settling on three: the Neapolitan, the Lem...

Jennifer Nettles is going solo. So long to Sugarland and hello to new adventures. When I heard that Nettles was going solo, I was excited. She has great range and a charming twang to her vocals. I always find it funny when a singer, who is pretty much the main singer, or only singer of the group, goes solo – like Gwen Stefani, Rob Thomas, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce. They were pretty much singing 85% of the songs they churned out anyway. I assumed we’d be getting some of the same kind of music from Nettles that we got from Sugarland. Now I’m not so sure. Nettles debuted her new song -- "That Girl" -- almost two weeks ago on Good Morning America and it was....different. It’s described as a follow-up, of sorts, to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” It's not the catchiest of songs, but I do like it.

I blogged about Ben Affleck being Batman the other day and why I think it could work. One of the reasons I mentioned was his performance in Daredevil. While some critics and viewers didn’t like the movie, I thought it was decent, if not borderline good. So Batman and Daredevil will both be on Ben Affleck’s list of super hero portrayals. Not too shabby. He’s actually not alone in playing more than one super hero. Affleck joins a short list of actors who have played more than one hero or villain in the Marvel and D.C. universes.

You go away on vacation for a week and the world turns upside down aka Ben Affleck being cast as Batman . There's been a pretty severe backlash against Warner Bros. for the casting decision. There's also been some angry comments towards Affleck for being cast in the part. I have to admit: my initial reaction was, 'WTF?' Now, I'm oddly OK with Ben Affleck joining the ranks as the The Caped Crusader. First off, there's no denying that he looks the part. Second, I enjoyed his work in several movies, including his original super hero flick: Daredevil ... even though many did not . Don't get me wrong -- I would have preferred seeing Christian Bale resume his role as Batman in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel.

This Sunday I tried Sweet Lorraine’s cupcakes. Sweet Lorraine's is a cupcake shop on East Blvd. in Charlotte. First things first though. Don't judge the cupcakes by their somewhat sloppy appearance! They looked much nicer before spending three hours sitting in my car on a 90 degree day. For what they went through, they held up pretty well actually.