issues with food

- First, a supermarket aisle gripe

Walking past the orange juice cooler, I saw the low carb OJ (which I think I previously laughed about here). Then I saw the new "Tropicana Immunity Defense Orange Juice." Immunity Defense?? Sounds like something from a courtroom, not a juice box. I took look at the side of the carton to read how the stuff fares by FDA standards. 240% of your recommended daily vitamin C intake per serving.

I know the FDA's numbers aren't the holy bible of daily consumption, but I do assume they are at least in the ballpark. So who the hell needs 240% of any vitamin or mineral?? And assuming that anyone who is conscious of such data and would buy "Immunity Defense" also has a decent diet and/or takes regular vitamin supplements, that glass of Tropicana super-duper-mega C probably takes them to 340% of what they need everyday.

But this is America. I'm sure there's at least one asshole out there having unprotected sex thinking "there's no way I'm catching anything tonight thanks to that glass of Tropicana's Immunity Defense!"

- And now a gripe about my own stupidity

Mary and I planned an early evening track workout for tonight. I should also mention that I have been fighting off a persistent cough for a week and had not moved a muscle since last weekend. In preparation for this serious athletic activity, I sat down to an absolutely monstrous pepperoni stromboli from the Tysons Sbarro at 4:15pm. And just in case that didn't do the trick, I also had a slice of pizza to go with my death-roll.

Shortly after 6:00pm, we hit the track. During the first 200/400/200, my legs are actually willing, but my lungs and especially my stomach are laughing at those legs. Somewhere in me, however, something tells me I can tough it out for the second and third 2/4/2s. I sprint the first 200 of the second set and that something in me quickly shuts up when faced with significant and persistent nausea -- I am ruined only 40% of the way through a light track work-out. I can barely jog the remainder of the 2/4/2s, struggling to even pass the old man walking backwards around the track rolling Chinese Health balls in his hand.

The name of my ultimate team is "Run." That name represents a pretty simple activity. No real skills or experience are called for. Yet somehow, tonight I found the one way to fuck that up. Its a good thing I was doing the assigned work-out on my own. If the guys had seen me tonight, they might have demoted me to the "Walk" squad.

I can't believe [insert runner up's name here] didn't win last night on American Idol. I was up all night crying about it. And that bitch [insert winner's name here] won. WTF is up with that???

Is there no sanity left on this Earth?

At least Ryan Seacrest is still as dreamy as ever. Oh well. Can't wait for the next Idol season!

Stein out

Blah Blah Blah vs. Wah Wah Wah

I played with Mary at the PUFF co-ed tournament this past weekend outside of Pittsburgh. Our team was a loose pickup squad. The team didn't play so well, but the competition wasn't too tough, either. We took second in our pool and made semis on Sunday which sounds nice, but only one of the teams we beat was actually a good squad. And both our pool play loss and our semi-final loss were pretty lopsided.

I noticed when we got back to Maryland that Pittsburgh and Washington both have a certain, distinct white noise about them. Around Maryland and DC, that white noise is the cicadas (we could hear them along I-70 west of Hagerstown despite the noise of driving 65 mph with the A/C and radio on - with the windows rolled up). Around Pittsburgh, the white noise is the Kerry/Bush advertising bombardment.

So which number is more staggering - the trillions of cicadas emerging around the region or the millions upon millions of dollars spent on only a few thousand swing voters within a few big swing states?? I find it kind of amusing that both white noises could be described alternatively as pleas for attention or mating calls.

The bottom line: Folks have it good here in Maryland. I think its easier to ignore or accept the sounds of nature, however loud they may be, than all the crap that has basically made Pittsburgh-area television painful to watch.

Stamp This Out, Bitch!

Something yesterday reminded me of a scene from my apartment building that took place a week ago. I was just coming home, walking up the back fire escape stairs. The new guy in the
building was standing out on the mini-patio at the top of the stairs by my apartment.

He's wearing a wife-beater and smoking a cigarette. I try not to pre-judge, but the wife-beater/cigarette combo is REALLY tough to look past. He's chatting on his cell, so I just walk by
instead of talking. As I get inside, I turn around and see him through the window tossing his cigarette butt on the ground and stamping it out, leaving it there. Infuriating.

The worst part of when someone does something like this is that, in their minds, they obviously know they're doing something wrong (tossing their butt on the ground), but think that by stamping the thing out, they are actually righting that wrong ("now the apartment building won't burn down... gee wiz... I'm such a great guy!").

I think I'd almost rather see the guy just leave the thing burning without a second thought. At least in that case, you know the person is just a flat-out jerk, oblivious to the world around him. But the stamp-out-and-leave move is more complex. It shows the person is both a jerk AND is too lazy to carry a stinkin one ounce cigarette filter an extra 15 feet to a trash can.

I tried to muster up enough juice down in the cojones department to pick the thing up and shove it under his apartment door, but it wasn't in me. Instead, I just mentally wrote the guy off as a jerk and tried to forget about the whole thing. Though I guess if I'm writing about it now, I didn't forget about it.

[Next week in the cigarette butt series: Assholes who toss lit cigarettes out of car windows despite the amazingly close proximity of their car ashtray.]

Iraq = not the best place to travel just for the hell of it

okay, so its been a couple weeks now and i still don't understand something (okay, one thing among many things) about the Nick Berg beheading:

What the hell was he doing in Iraq? He was not with the military. He was not working with a contractor. And he was not there with the Red Cross or something like that. It seems like he just decided one day, "I'm bored. I don't like my job prospects here around Philly. Fuck it. I'm going to Iraq!"

I feel horrible for his family of course. Nobody should have to see/hear of something like that happening to a loved one. But I'm not even sure if I feel so bad for the guy himself. Maybe he had a death wish?? And in a way, I'm actually pretty pissed that he would go off and do something like this to his poor family.

I mean, what events of the past 14 months in that part of the world made Nick Berg think that he WOULDN'T end up with his head chopped off after strolling around Iraq by himself... without military or Haliburton protection or without the relative safety offered by presenting oneself as a legitimate aid worker.

The perpetrators of the act are surely evil motherfuckers, but at the same time, I'm not going to feign surprise on behalf of the victim in this case.

I Take Everything Back. George Bush was right all along.

I started today off by getting a much needed haircut. Towards the end of my clip session, I became increasingly alarmed about the accreditation of the HairCuttery I sat in. It had been over a half hour and I had not heard a single Phil Collins tune piped in over the salon sound system. Was I really in a hair cut shop? or was this actually some sort of al Qaeda front? Surely, a legit salon would know about Hair Cutting Regulation 1.0: "All customers shall be subjected to at least three minutes of Phil Collins."

As I got up to pay, I was relieved to hear the familiar Collins line "take a look at me now" from one of those seizure-inducing songs of his that were actually written specifically for hair salon play. I could now fork over my fifteen bucks without fear of supporting terrorists.

Anyway... when I got in the car, I heard on the radio that an artillery round with chemical contents was found in Iraq. I rushed to check FOXnews.com to get the TRUE story. They of course are blaring the headline "Chemical Weapons Found in Iraq" and feature a picture of an explosion with a menacing red cloud (which actually has nothing to do with chemical weapons).

I am now sick to my stomach thinking about how much the fringe is going to milk this. Even though it was one stinking round that was probably left over from the 1980s war with Iran, surely the hawks will now proclaim "Bush was right" until the end of time. In contrast, I find it quite interesting that it was only found 14 months after we invaded Iraq. And that there was only one shell. This is more a testament to Saddam's regime's lack of administrative competence than its desire to maintain WMDs as of winter/spring 2003.

Shit... Karl Rove probably secretly flew in and planted the thing himself.

International Mountain Registry

Name a Mountain, that's right, an actual mountain! International Mountain Registry (IMR) is your mountain naming resource! What do you get for the person who has everything? For $54, plus shipping and handling, you can name a mountain!

Naming mountains since 2004, our list of satisfied customers [will] include celebrities, dignitaries, and individuals worldwide. So, whether it be for your sweetheart or your top sales agent, a mountain name makes a unique and welcome gift.

The IMR gift package includes a beautiful 12" x 16" parchment certificate, available framed or unframed, with the name of your choice, dedication date, and GPS coordinates of the mountain. Because these mountain names are copyrighted with their GPS coordinates in the book, "Your Place in the High Country," future generations may identify the mountain name in the directory and locate your mountain.

Note - no geologists, geographers, climbing associations, governmental entities, or anyone else in the scientific or mountaineering communities recognize IMR mountain name designations.

Call 1-800-UR-A-SUKR to speak with a customer service representative with questions or to place an order. We accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Checks and Money Orders. We look forward to helping you.

[see the International Star Registry's homepage for the true mother of all scams - you pay to have "your star" name included in their copyrighted book which actual astronomers ignore with a vengeance]

Four semesters in the bank, two (plus a bar exam) to go

10.5

In case you are in need of some Mystery Science Theater 3000-style fodder, I *HIGHLY* recommend viewing the Monday night conclusion to this "NBC mini-series event." I flipped on the TV tonight and saw some of part 1. I could not take my eyes off it. It was hilarious. Made me stop stressing about finals for a little while.

This movie is AWESOME! Everytime there's an earthquake (this seemed to happen pretty frequently in tonight's portion), the camera flashes to some Big Board New York Stock Exchange sort of display at the disaster headquarters where a designated earthquake play-by-play announcer sitting somewhere in the room yells "6.5... 7.4... 8.0!" as the numbers climb.

And the acting. Oh my god. The acting. Quite horrible. There are a couple decent performers mixed in. And then there are some folks that deliver a line about as well as I might if suddenly thrown in front of a movie camera.

And the scientific knowledge to be gained from watching is equally fantastic. Apparently some of the big action for tomorrow will involve FEMA using nuclear weapons to "fuse the rupture." Didn't they rip that off from the first Superman movie??