Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Great Bachelor Recipes!

No wife? No problem. (No decent woman would walk barefoot on your kitchen floor anyway!)

SOUTHWESTERN TORTILLA WRAP
1. Tortillas
2. Any pre-cooked meat item in fridge
3. Kraft BBQ sauce
Spread meat onto tortilla. Pour BBQ sauce to taste. Roll tortilla into a tube. Microwave 3 minutes. Eat over the sink.

TURKEY-CRAN SALAD SANDWICH
1. Canned turkey meat
2. 1 bottle of Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail
3. Lettuce
4. 2 slices of white bread
Soak turkey meat in Cranberry Juice Cocktail, then microwave 5 minutes. Put on bread, add lettuce. Spit out. Gawd, it's disgusting. Are you nuts or what?

WHOLE-WHEAT ENGLISH MUFFIN PIZZAS
1. 2 whole-wheat English muffins
2. Leftover pizza – not too old
3. Butter
Put English muffins in toaster. Take leftover pizza from fridge. When muffins pop, glaze with butter. Put leftover pizza slice between the muffins and eat like a sandwich. Chase down with gulps of grape soda! This is your house – you are king!

FILLO DOUGH SPINACH POCKETS
Search all over supermarket. Eventually ask a clerk what the hell "fillo dough" is, and where in the damn store it is located. When asked why you want it, say "I'm making Fillo Dough Spinach Pockets for dinner, nosey whore – shut up." Search around supermarket some more. Stare blankly at spinach in produce section. Give up. Buy a whole box of frozen burritos.

HAWAIIAN CHICKEN PITAS
Nearly same procedure as for Fillo Dough Spinach Pockets above, only a little easier to think through without the aid of the filthy skank clerk. No, Hawaiian chickens don't cluck with a Hawaiian accent. "Clook-clook, brah." Think about it – it's chicken and pineapple, Junior Space Cadet. Cook it up, and put it in a pita. Yes, pita bread... you know, that goofy round bread that splits open like a flat football, and you can put stuff in it. Like at Jack-In-The-Box. Only from the supermarket. Yes, they have it here.

CHEF JON'S COOL FRUIT SOUP
The gayest recipe in years. No need to go into detail. Suffice to say, you may want "Waiter Shaun's Hot Meat Rod" for dessert.

PROSCIUTTO & GOAT CHEESE CROSTINI
This is either a dinner entrée or a strange medieval weapon.

BROCCOLI & CHEDDAR PASTA SALAD
Need this one explained to you? Gawd!! Well, alright. Put broccoli, cheddar cheese and pasta together. Nuke 'em. Take out when cheese melts. Eat and burn a hole in your throat. Have soda ready, in case.

PBJ & MORE!
Oh give me a break. Okay. Make a PBJ. Your PB. Your J. Your bread. It doesn't matter what brands, you obviously made that decision already when you bought them. It's passed. It's over. Deal with it. Now... have something IN ADDITION to the PBJ. That's the "& More" part. Got it? Awwwrriiighhhhh.

CHEF RON'S CREAMY DIRT CAKE
Someone is out to get you. Do you have any enemies? Any names come to mind off-hand? Well, this is what you'll be dining on at their house if you're stupid enough to accept the invite. Chow down! Don't spend too much time thinking about what the "creamy" ingredient is.

Monday, May 19, 2008

My Power

I have an uncanny power to control people. My most offbeat whim is their command. On my cue, they put important errands on hold and abandon even the most meticulously prioritized assignments. And I need not give them a glance.

There are those who envy this gift of mine. Everyone harbors a fantasy to change people with only a thought – to never compromise with family, friends or, well, anyone. No more to settle for second choices, or a backup plan when the original falls flat.

"Never Again" would be their personal mantra to everything bad that has ever happened to them in life – and their escape clause to every imaginable bad thing still waiting to strike.

Admit it, your attitude would take an upswing if you could count on everything going your way, every single day.

People would wonder where you get your uplifting outlook, your energy, your positive aura, your ambient joy. "It's because I control everyone," would be the secret answer behind your gregarious grin.

I must start practicing that grin. For if you ever see me with it, you may also see that it's forced. I can control people, but in ways that I can't control.

No, I can't make the guy turning right on the red light without braking, yacking on his cell phone, see me in the crosswalk. But when I'm driving and want to change lanes, I can make every driver in that lane floor it to get by me.

My power can't suddenly make that cute supermarket cashier charge me half-price for my groceries with a twinkle in her eye. But by simply deciding that I'm tired and want to go home, I can make every other shopper in the store suddenly logjam the check-out lines. Those same check-out lines may even have been completely empty, with bored cashiers, just moments before. It doesn't matter.

I perform this feat of mass mind control on a regular basis. Sometimes I even make the shopper ahead of me try to pay by check, minus a usable I.D.

I may just as easily make them request something that forces the cashier to phone for a manager and hold the line up – long enough for my cold sodas to get warm and my frozen dinners to thaw. Have you ever wondered about this phenomena? Look behind you, it's me. Asshole.

I can't make my coworkers the least bit interested in my personal life. I get the usual "how was your weekend?" But do they listen as I regale them with the requested tableau of my adventures? No, they're already on the phone, or rushing to get their turn with the copier.

Yet by simply taking a moment to check my personal email, I can cause all office activity to stop cold, and everyone within eyeshot of my screen to lean in, as if on spontaneous coffee break, and chime "say, what'cha reading there, hmm?" Suddenly I am my company's official ambassador to all things fun and distracting, despite not being worthy of a yawn, one minute prior. Such is the immensity of my power.

If I could bottle it, I'd be worth millions. Any live telecast would become like nothing ever seen before when I picked up the remote. How about an entire half hour of involuntary flatulence at the anchor desk on tonight's news? It could happen. Or for that obnoxious DJ that everyone else likes at work, how about a sudden bout of Tourette's Syndrome? On second thought, no one would really notice a DJ with a potty mouth, would they? It's too commonplace.

I'm the one fighting off a sudden outbreak of Tourette's, here. It's been that kind of day. A day ruled by... my power.

If I ever find out how to control how I control, the world will become a nicer place for me. Selfish? No, because you'd do the same thing yourself. Now answer me.

Monday, May 12, 2008

May Randomness

Red punch always makes me forget I'm not thirsty.

Everything you know means nothing, if you can't present it well.

Only a Vietnam veteran with a club foot and tattoos up both arms can get away with saying at Carrows, "Can a limp-dicked turd sniper get a cup of mud from one of you clap magnets?"

It's time you knew the truth. So go find it!

There are some guys who could use a good panic attack.

"Big glass of milk" is a phrase that sounds right. Correct and good on a cosmic level. Serene. It brings on an enveloping sense of peace and calm. "Small glass of milk" just sounds wrong, almost perverted.

Behind every man there are two ex-girlfriends who have coffee together and talk crap about him.

If I never risk offending you, we will never truly communicate.

A speed freak is someone who stops to eat the roses.

"Have a great day" is the new "eat shit and die."

Everything today is worse, but packaged way better.

An all-midget TV network would be fun. Admit it.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Starbucks Makes You Stupid

DECAF CASH COW

Each and every one of us can be proven to be a total idiot, in some area of life or another. But Starbucks makes idiots out of staggering numbers of people, every day. Maybe they're idiots to begin with.

If you purchase a Starbucks "grande" size coffee drink at approximately $4 every day, that's $28 a week, not counting sales tax.

You can purchase a 12-ounce bag of grounds of the same coffee, or one that's practically identical, at most supermarkets for between $8 and $12. You get about 6 full pots of coffee to that bag of grounds. Each full pot equals about 8 regular cups, or about 4 "grande" paper cups of coffee.

If you're going to argue that it's the TASTE that makes the difference? Please. You probably also still believe that M&Ms have different flavors. It's all psychological, and the makers of M&Ms know it. They are all just SUGAR-COATED CHOCOLATE... every color. The colors are just vegetable dye – no flavor. Nothing more.

And if that designer coffee tastes so wonderful, Ms. Gourmand, why all the add-ins? Milk, honey, cane sugar, nutmeg and powdered lhasa apso urine?

The only real difference between Starbucks coffee and homemade – besides the sucker-bait prices – is that you must make the coffee yourself, and be denied the 10 minutes of STANDING AROUND while a lanky, uncombed music major with jagged bass-player's fingernails handles your order and chats up the female employees with his rapier-wit and charisma, while "processing" your expensive, chic coffee THEMED beverage. Sometimes you even get to witness his finesse at flipping the fridge open with the grungy toe of his sneaker, making the coffee maker gurgle oh-so bubbly and juggling a gallon milk jug with his pinky. A honed machine, this t-shirted champion. Your money at work, oh connoisseur. And you can even get your coffee with some LEFT OUT. That rip-off is cleverly called "room for cream." Putz.

You also get your coffee in a tall paper cup, with one of those clever wrap-around cozies to keep your special little multi-tasking fingers from getting burned, you workhorse you, and don't forget the plastic lid... and the wooden stir... don't let all those trees die in vain, Mr. Greenearth.

When you make coffee at home, do you use such trivial accessories? More than likely not. And if you do... what kind of trend-whoring moron... nevermind.

And then the paper packet of Equal... and the cinnamon... and nutmeg... and the dab of honey. Test the spirits to make sure whether you feel like whole milk or half-n-half today. Oh, I forgot, it's milk on workdays, half-n-half when you "splurge" on the weekends. This all qualifies as obsessive-compulsive behavior, did you know that?

Damn the torpedoes! This cup of colored water with heaping dairy and spice additives is visual proof that you are hip. 21st Century. You've arrived. Now back to some more WoW on your $4,000 laptop! Worth every penny when you're a Level-70 Dwarf Priest and Hand-to-Hand Battle Shaman! A back alley encounter with a drunk Marine would do you wonders, oh mystic warrior.

Wow, am I bitter. Anyway...

A decent travel mug costs about $10. It holds about 2 regular cups' worth, or about the same as a "grande" size paper cup. Maybe a bit more. If you want to go further, a stylish metal thermos will run you as little as $20. And it's the SAME COFFEE, Sherlock. It really is. Don't "oh contrairé" me – get over it.

So, are you ready for this? A $4 Grande size coffee every day for a year comes out to $1,456.00. No I didn't misplace the decimal point. You're pouring a part-time McDonalds employee through your bladder every 4 years – with room for cream.

On the other hand, a travel mug of coffee, yes, coffee made by YOU (sorry), is... nearly twice as much coffee per day as a single Starbucks cup, with a price that figures out to about $2.50 per pot, or 41 cents per travel mug. Or $179.65 for the whole year. That's the 41 cents, times 365 days a year, plus the 1-time $20 and $10 costs of the thermos and travel mug.

Let's see now. $1,456.00 vs. $179.65. Again... $1,456.00... $179.65. PUTZ!

But wait, you didn't just buy a cup of coffee. You got a decaf double-espresso latté frappiola with fog grass germ and extra foam. You can't just whip those up at home, now can you?? Well, alright, you got me. (Pardon my nit-picking, but what the hell is the flippin' POINT of a decaf espresso? And isn't foam just AIR? Sorry – those are such nagging concerns.)

Could such an otherworldly beverage be proof of your sophistication? Would Bach or Voltaire even comprehend a double-mocha soy-caramel machiatto with sprinkles? Where were such drinks before Starbucks? In the minds of crazy people, that's where.

Yes... yeah... okay... the other case for coffee is that it's a medicinal herb and that the coffee-culture is really our health consciousness raising its head triumphantly at last. I ask, if you drink coffee for health reasons, why aren't you matching that robust self-heroism with an equally sound financial sensibility? And where was all this health-consciousness before Starbucks came along? Dennys?

But you can't afford not to look cool – got it. Don't let me block your determined path. By the way, if you've ever seen a prostitute strut up and down the boulevard, you must know that all whores consider themselves cool.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Tonight On Showbiz Moments You'll Love

YOU'D LOVE IT! ADMIT IT!

Ann Coulter flees up a dead-end staircase... from zombies.

Babs Streisand discovers the secret trap door onstage, mid-song. "People... People who need people... are the luckiest pe –"

A swarm of hornets is released in the studio, on-air, as Rusty Humphries rants about himself. "And the other thing I find bemusing is – SSHHEE-ITT!!!"

The American Idol judges get up on stage and perform their version of "The Aristocrats."

Dick Cheney has his final heart attack, at the wheel of a golf cart rolling toward the lake, with a 50-year old bleach blond "masseuse" trying to unzip his fly with her teeth.

Garrison Keillor has an off-moment. "And that's our show for tonight, bitches."

A sudden change in Bill O'Reilly's voice mid-sentence, as intense rectal itch syndrome (IRIS) strikes.

On a dare: Nancy Pelosi. Condi Rice. Rush Limbaugh's spare bedroom. H.L.A.

Katie Couric, on her last CBS Evening News broadcast, pops top, hoists her jigglers and shouts "Can't find Bin Laden? I got your OSAMAS right here!!"

Danny DeVito runs as fast as his stumpy little legs will propel him, from a marauding giant robot yelling "DESTROY... DESTROY..."

Charlie Rose has sudden convulsive diarrhea, mid-question.

CNN suddenly cuts to something else – the weather, sports, an old scratchy "Mayberry RFD" rerun from Nick-at-Nite... shit, anything – as Larry King and guest Whoopi Goldberg discuss producing offspring together.

During an interview, Oprah casually gets up and puts on a strap-on dildo.

Maury Povich confronts Dan Rather in a trucker bar.

Alan Colmes admits on camera that he hasn't defecated since age 10.

Bigfoot on the Hollywood Squares! Oh wait, it's Al Roker, nevermind...

The President closes his farewell address to the nation with "and now, my fellow Americans, fuck this shit!"