16 JUL 07: GONNA DRESS YOU UP

An old yellow truck in the parking lot tells you you're getting close. In fact, that truck looks a bit out of place. They've renovated The Landings shopping center on Airport Thruway a lot in the last two years - but there's no sign of a new car lot anywhere.

That yellow truck came in handy the other night, as it led me to Fuddruckers. The restaurant was part of a one-night-only special, where ten percent of the sales were donated to the Open Door Community House. As I write this, I'm wondering if Fuddruckers went ahead and donated ten percent of the leftovers as well.

It had been several years since I'd eaten at a Fuddruckers - and that one was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was a fun change-of-pace place for a group of single people to go, at the end of a church convention. You don't know how many times the consensus, one-size-fits-all choice is a cafeteria.

If you haven't been to Fuddruckers yet, it bills itself as a gourmet hamburger restaurant. I mean, when the person at the counter actually asks how you want your burger cooked, that comes across as gourmet....

But there's a nostalgia theme to the gourmet burgers. It hits you with old-time rock music outside the door, and really confronts you with old metal coolers of soft drinks along the path while you're in line. You can take milk and IBC root beer bottles now - but they really do have fountains with diet cola hidden around the corner, after you order.

The recommended burger on the Fuddruckers menu board is a half-pounder. At least that's what they highlight - but you can drop down to one-third pound or up to something larger. So you can leave as obese as you want....

(The menu board also includes chicken items, salads and even turkey burgers. But let's face it: you go to a gourmet burger restaurant for burgers. I know from experience that if you go to a pizza restaurant and order spaghetti, you're simply asking for trouble.)

The Fuddruckers server will presume you want fries with your burger, and ask what size. But I've stopped eating fries, since I read online that non-organic potatoes can lead to cancer in areas where they're grown. When that news is posted on a church's web site, I assume it's sin until told otherwise.

So I ordered onion rings with my burger, and found a small table to wait for the order to be prepared. Fuddruckers gives you one of those light-up electronic coasters, like other restaurants do while you wait for a table. The 21^st-century version of watched pots never boiling is: "A watched coaster never glows."

Fuddruckers has filled the walls with memorabilia, for you to consider while you wait for dinner. But some of the items didn't seem quite appropriate for Columbus. I mean, posters for stock cars races are fine - but for races in Zanesville, Ohio?

The wall closest to me at Fuddruckers also included an old poster saying the U.S. Army needs "500 bakers" to bake bread. If you didn't know how to bake bread, it promises "Uncle Sam will teach you how at a Government school." I guess before McDonald's came along, this was all our country could do.

The half-pound burger (I asked for cheese on mine) was ready after a few minutes - and then came one of the most fun parts about Fuddruckers. You go to several counters and build what you want on your burger. OK, so admittedly it's like a glorified trip to a church picnic....

Fuddruckers offered two options for lettuce, and several different kinds of mustard. I took brown mustard over the honey mustard -- remembering brown bread also tends to have more nutrients.

Fuddruckers also lets you pour on ketchup, barbecue sauce and some kind of liquid jalapeno cheese. I could have saved 50 cents if I had known that. But then again, my little carton of milk to drink might not have been enough.

The big burger, regular-size rings and milk cost me a bit less than nine dollars. That's admittedly twice the cost of what Burger King would charge - but then, you're paying for the atmosphere and mood at a restaurant like Fuddruckers. Buying all the pictures of Elvis Presley on the walls through eBay can't be cheap.

I should note I did NOT take a camera to Fuddruckers to record all these things. I remembered visits in metro Atlanta years ago, where signs specifically said photography was not allowed. As if a flash would ruin the nutritional value of the meat?!

OVERHEARD OVER HERE: A church service is over, and a young mother is getting help from Grandma in changing a baby. With no tables available, the women find the closest flat thing they can - the top of an upright piano.

A man watches this from a short distance away. "You're giving new meaning to a 'baby grand.'"

E-MAIL UPDATE: Oh where, oh where has Don Siegelman gone? Oh where, oh where can he be?

Can't believe former AL governor thinks he is too good to be treated as a regular criminal when being housed in OK as he is being moved to a TX prison...I bet he has eaten bologna sandwiches all his life.However,now he says he does not like them,his cell is too small and he is too far from home...As Jessie Jackson says,"You do the crime, you do the time."

First of all: did Jesse Jackson make that statement first? I recall Sammy Davis Junior saying something similar to that 30 years ago. It was the theme song to the TV series "Baretta...."

So since he was sentenced in June, Don Siegelman has traveled from a Montgomery courtroom to a federal prison in Atlanta -- and since then he's been to Michigan and New York. Now he's in Oklahoma, on the way to Texas. Someone should tell him to take notes on all this, and publish a travel guide to pay his defense lawyers.

(In a way, it's too bad Don Siegelman is in federal prison as opposed to the Alabama state system. We're far less likely to see leaked pictures of him in an orange jumpsuit.)

Don Siegelman should be thankful, if the jailers are feeding him bologna sandwiches. I recall the three famous words of a county commissioner in northwest Oklahoma, when asked about jail food: "Beans and cornbread."

Meanwhile, our Sunday topic confused one reader for a moment:

When I saw that title I thought maybe you were liveblogging a funeral, or better yet had figured out a way to liveblog your own funeral.

That would be quite a feat.

Buckblog

This brings up something I hadn't considered before. Should I specify in my will that I want someone to blog my funeral? If the memorial services for Carl Patrick and Lonnie Jackson didn't get live TV coverage, I seriously doubt mine will.

Now a quick check of a quiet Sunday, in terms of news:

+ Flags flew at half-staff across Georgia, on orders from Governor Perdue. It was a tribute to the late Lady Bird Johnson - but sadly, I didn't see anyone climbing the poles to put bouquets of wildflowers on top.

+ An online check revealed the "Columbus 2.0" blog we mentioned in June has left Columbus, and relocated to Atlanta. We are resisting the temptation to post the lyrics to "Another One Bites the Dust."

+ The Columbus Catfish rolled over Rome 8-1. Rome's starting pitcher was ailing Atlanta reliever Tanyon Sturtze. Don't you love a name like that? It sounds so much like a scenic natural attraction in the German countryside....

+ Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Chris Chandler won the "American Century Championship" of celebrity golf. The fact that I actually watched the trophy presentation should tell you how desperate we are for Sunday sports at this time of year.

+ Instant Message to the two youths I passed on Brown Avenue, who were walking down the street throwing lit firecrackers: Why don't you walk all the way to Fort Benning? You could start a counterinsurgency surge among the young people of Iraq.

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