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fabot. funny enough to read

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Organic Toxins...

When i used to live in the south, the word "organic" referred only to a compound contaning carbon (and this only in high school text books, where the information would remain as in a locked and sealed vault never to escape into the minds of those living in the vicinity).

After moving to california however, i have been inundated with the term "organic" referring to having been grown and harvested (and something about pesticides or something). My point is, everyone here tries so hard to be "hip" and "healthy" both things i run away from as fast as possible, that people are quick to adopt things that will serve to make them either more hip or healthy.

Organic foods are the latest trend. When i say latest trend, of course i don't mean in the last several weeks or even months, as everyone knows that the organic food has been around for several years but the organic movement has reached a new high.

I met with a company over the weekend that loves the fact that they are organic and natural. I was given a list of the plethora of ways this company loves being natural and organic with the salesman pointing out that the catalog he handed me was made of organic materials (made of organic materials shall henceforth be referred to as being organic), the ink that was printed on the organic paper was organic, the cups that they were serving samples in were biodegradable, the carpet i was standing on was organic, the free tshirt i was given was organic, the shirt he was wearing was organic, and i believe possibly the air i was breathing was organic as well. Not for nothing, but that just seems to be a slight overkill.

I for one actually enjoy things that are tasty not taking into consideration whether or not it's organic. If the taste i've been raised on is that of pesticides, all i can say is: "mmm, tasty." I mean, the organic energy bars, the organic pizzas and crap just all seem to lack a certain... deliciousness. I mean, they taste fine, but i never find myself craving the stuff as much as the non-organic foods. I suppose it's possible that the ingredients used in pesticides are as equally delicious to humans as they are deadly to insects in which case, isn't that a great trade-off?

Maybe someone should make a pesticide popsicle. I mean, cut out the middleman and get right to the meat of the burger. Seeing as how the pesticide is what i crave anyway, i could only imagine that i could just eat the pesticide directly and not have to deal with the whole "cooking it with vegetables" aspect. It's kind of like the idea behind eating peanuts. I mean, if you wanna eat peanuts, you might as well just go out and buy a can of peanuts, and not book an international flight in order to get some peanuts. Ok, that was a terrible example, but all this organic food in my body is allowing the bugs in my brain to thrive. I need to get some pesticide in there.


Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
They say the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime. I tried to make it at home. There's more to it than that. "Hey, you guys want some more homemade Sprite?" "Not until you figure out what the fuck else goes in it!"

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The Joy of Cooking... among other things...

So, this post is going to be a little short... for various reasons that will soon become clear...

So, the bracket shall remain un-updated as of now because it's really hard keeping up with the scores... no, cuz tennessee lost and now i could give a crap less what the hell happens...

Cooking is usually fun. I say usually here, because there's some times where it's not fun. I mean, cleaning up is not fun, and prep is usally not fun. Apparenlty a wife or significant other would come in quite handy at this point, because if i didn't have to prep or clean up, i'd cook constantly. Maybe i should become a chef afterall...

But i digress. The reason i say that prep isn't fun is because unless you're making a salad, the entire prep process leaves you with nothing more than a bunch of random ingredients strewn about the kitchen that have to be manipulated again before they become the final product. I mean, you're going through all the trouble of cooking, and not getting to eat yet. It's like if you went to the mcdonald's drive through and they made you pay at the second window, then have to drive all the way back around and pick up your food at the first window again, then have to throw away your food at the order microphone after you're done eating. It's redundant...

So, on to the reason the post shall be short. My usual 80-90 word typing ability has been severly hampered by the fact that i tried (unsuccessfully) to chop off one of my own fingers over the weekend whilst, you guessed it, prepping food to be cooked. Normally i'm pretty handy with a knife, and by handy i mean, not cut myself, but in this situation, i was faced with a foodstuff with which i wasn't too familiar. The bastard in question? The evil cabbage. The cabbage, apparently angry that it had been decapitated and sold at my local grocer, decided to make a pact with my henkel's knife and take it's revenge on me. This isn't the first time the german knives have taken revenge on me for no other reason than having purchased them from my friendly local linens n' things. Anyway, needless to say this time was undoubetly a major offensive on the part of the knife/cabbage coalition.

Here's a basic rundown of what happened immediately following the attack.
  • 4:45:30 - looked down, realizing two pieces of skin normally attached are no longer so... also, connective tissue visible... interesting sensation.
  • 4:45:31 - jumped up and down about 3-5 times
  • 4:45:32 - blood begins oozing...
  • 4:45:35 - grabbed paper towels to er... "mop up" and quell bleeding... patted myself on the back (figuratively) for having "splurged" on the nice bounty paper towels with the thirsty pockets.
  • 4:50:00 - tried to figure out whether or not it was a good idea if i should go to the emergency room without health insurance.
  • 6:05:30 - head to emergency room (after having made about an hours worth of phone calls and referencing webmd literally single-handedly)
Anyway, for the benefit of the kinda disturbed people out there, i shall add a link to the aftermath photos, so don't click if you don't like that sort of thing (it's after the emergency room visit, which i had to consult 4 people about whether or not they thought i should go), so for the real freakos out there, no bloody mess or anything...

Pictures here.

So, i hope you understand, even though it now looks as if i have written a pretty hefty post, but it has taken me many extra seconds being limited to the mid/ring/pinky fingers on the left hand. Try it sometime. Type a response to this message pinching your thumb and second fingers together, and also try to do stuff without being to pinch the thumb... yay.



Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
You know they call corn-on-the-cob, "corn-on-the-cob," but that's how it comes out of the ground. They should just call it cotn, and every other type of corn, corn-off-the-cob. It's not like if someone cut off my arm and they would call it "Mitch," but then re-attached it, and call it "Mitch-all-together."

Friday, March 17, 2006

Jon's Bracket (updated)



Results after Day 2...

23 out of a possible 32 points...

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

International Tongues...

I often like to eat.... you know, food.
I think everyone likes to eat food. But there's always something that happens when eating food. One gets tired of eating the same kinds of food all the time, and so one looks for alternatives to their normal fare. The only problem with this is that at this point, we are now at the mercy of the restaurant owners and their idea of what's "good" or even worse, what "stupid americans will eat that we can charget them for."

Of course i'm talking about different ethnic foods that we have trained our tongues to enjoy. Just take a look at the list of different etnhic cuisines that are available in your local yellow pages. I mean, it reads like a veritable united nations of restaurants (ok, that was a terrible thing to say... but i'm tired).

Just to name a few, you've got:
- american food
- chinese food
- mexican food
- japanese food
- korean food
- cuban food
- greek food
- indian buffet (because apparently this is the only method in which they serve food)
- middle eastern food
- brazilian barbecue (brazilians love cooking on swords...)
and so on and so forth.

The question i have is that if we're eating all these foods thinking we're so damn worldly, are we just fooling ourselves? Or is the food that we consume actually that good?

You have to ask yourself whether or not the different cultures bring over the best types of food for us to eat, or the worst types of food, just to see if we as a group (collectively known as "stupid americans" btw...) would eat it.

"haha look!, they're eating the dog food, i mean, combo #4 again! hahahahaha"
as the dog looks on with a sad look on his face.

I mean, has anyone who eats at an indian buffet ever been to india? I didn't think so. And how come you'll never find a chinese person dining at a chinese restaurant? Some people might argue that it's because they can cook the food at home just as easily, and oftentimes do. If that were the case, wouldn't places like mcdonald's go out of business because it's so easy to paint a bun with some beef flavor at home? (this is how they make their burgers just in case you didn't know... the brown part in the middle? yup, painted bread...)

I am an avid fan of the american style of cuisine. Burgers, steaks, pork chops, just any form of dead animal carcass really. Whenever i go out of the country for an extended period of time, i oftentimes crave these foods that i can get so readily in the us. So, i'll make my way down to the local "american" food joint, aptly named something like "sioux falls palace garden" and order myself a steak. I should know better when there is no mention of how i'd like it cooked, and when it arrives bears a striking resemblance to a shoe sole (one time it actually said dexter on it i think). I look around the restaurant and everyone is happily eating away at these monstrosities that are being passed off as good american food. They're all munching away at their corn, bacon, avocado, cabbage topped pizza thinking "man, this american food is awesome."

Who's to say that's not exactly what we're doing here? I mean, if you think about it, mexican food is just meet, vegetables and cheese on a tortilla in different iterations, middle eastern/greek-ish food is all some sort of mystery meat and vegetables on a pita (no cheese even...), and sometimes the meat turns out to not even be meat (a la falafel).

You think they even actually sell sushi in japan (well, they actually do, but for the sake of my argument, let's pretend no one knows)? I mean, can't you see it now?
"Yoshi, yoshi! i have a brilliant plan!" (p.s. 1 out of every 2 japanese people is named yoshi or some derivation...)
"whatu isu your pranu?"
"let's feed this fish to the americans... but we won't even cook it... aaaaaaaaaaaaaahahhahha"
"oooooooooooh, thatu iju goodu ideu...."

And so sushi came to be... a big countrywide joke on us. But the jokes on them, cuz it's delish... Now you'll have to excuse me while i go and eat some indian buffet with 12 "different" types of curry, that all suspiciously taste the same.





Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, and then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me."

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Con This...

There exists a word that strikes fear into the lazy legs and asses of officeworkers everywhere. This word, which causes people to have to walk around in a maze of people and product and solicitation of your attention and business that is necessary yet completely unnecessary at the same time. What is this word you ask? Ok, well, you probably didn't, but that's not the poin...


CONVENTION!


Ok, there it is, i sorta sprung it on you so that you had to read it. Conventions are basically traveling human zoos. The animals on display are otherwise known as "salesmen" sitting in their cages a.k.a. "booths" trying as they might (although it does seem to be an exercise in futility) to peddle their wares off onto an unsuspecting public. Prey does occasionally fall victim to the advances of the lions of the business world, and thusly, other people go to watch.

So, the percentages work out roughly as follows:
- 5%, "vendors" a.k.a. "human specimen" a.k.a. "salesmen" a.k.a. "expense account over-chargers"
- 10% "buyers" a.k.a. "losers" a.k.a. "dumbasses" a.k.a. "gullible fools" a.k.a... you get the idea
- 10% "watchers" a.k.a. "people who aren't gonna buy anything but just want samples" a.k.a. "losers"
- 75% janitorial and other nondescript staff

It's true. Every time you go to a convention, there are always more people "working" on the convention center staff than people actually attending the convention. This is due to the fact that there must be 10 workers for every bathroom stall (not to clean it, just to sign their name on the piece of paper in the bathroom saying they signed the piece of paper in the bathroom, 9 are there to "supervise"). There are concession stand workers whose sole purpose in life is to give efficiency experts aneurisms with their effictiveness at being completely inefficient.

"yes."
"i'd like a hot dog, and..."
(Walks off to get hot dog, searches for tongs, finds them, holds hot dog teetering precariously in tongs whilst looking for the bag of buns. Finds bag of buns, contemplates for 3 minutes on how to open the bag and retrieve a bun whilst still holding tongs with hotdog in it. Finally decides that it'd be a better idea to set the hot dog down on the counter for a minute, where it proceeds to roll off onto the floor. Sensing that there is a 5 second rule that is about to expire, bends over, picks up the hot dog, shoots glance back at customer, and proceeds to put it in bun that has been hopened too wide so that there is no longer a "pocket" for the hot dog to rest in and instead, it falls through like a sideways sandwich, brings back to counter.)
"a slice of pizza..."
(Walks into back room past the pizza, disappears for about 8 minutes, emerges with shirt no longer tucked into pants and toilet paper stuck to shoes, proceeds to reach into pizza warming area and pull out slice with thumb on cheese, holds it for a minute whilst contemplating best service vessel, decides on plate designed to hold 3 m&m's)
"and a cok... nevermind"

Also, who seems to be making the money at the conventions? That's right, the convention center. No one else really makes any money there. They think they are, but they're not. Once the price of the booth, the labor and all the samples are taken into account, it takes a company approximately 12 years and 9 virgins to recoup the cost. The convention center charges money for people showing off their wares and charges money to people who want to buy things from said merchants. It's genius. They're creating a solution and the problem.

As everyone knows, the only place that actually has a convention center that gets used as a convention center is las vegas. All other cities build convention centers, but they are mainly for show. Much like the "living room" in a house that no one is allowed to use or live in. Las vegas is a good place for a convention because you can go under the rouse of doing business, and stay under the rouge of a prostitue (oh man, that was clever right there...). Oh man, prostitutes, what a great way to end a post...




Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
Swiss cheese is the only cheese you can draw and people can identivy. You can draw American cheese, but someone will think it's cheddar. It's the only cheese you can bite and miss. "Hey Mitch - does that sandwich have cheese on it?" "Every now and then!"

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Messages From Space...

I am a fan of the show star trek, among other shows like, super-jock-kick-ass hour (those two should cancel each other out right?). Anyway, since we all know that the show is called a "show" to throw the feds off the trail of the reality that it is in fact a true story, there are a few observations that i would like to share. And i'm glad that with that last sentence, you too know that star trek is real.

Ok, now that we've established that the shows we watch are transmissions from the future, it's time to dissect some of what the show is trying to tell us. Obviously, the shows are being filmed as a documentary and are being sent into the past for us to be able to learn about the ways of the future and the ways of the stars. (people laugh at geeks for taking this stuff too seriously, but they'll be the only ones prepared for the impending alien revolution) Anyway, there are some things that strike me as, well, let's just say different than what we're used to.

Everyone is usually pretty well made up on camera on star trek. Its cool because you would think that at some point, the cameras would happen upon someone who was having a bad hair day, or maybe having a "fat" day. Either the camera crew is really good in warning that they're coming, or in the future, everyone has those makeup tattoos.

It's also amazing that the camera crews were always around when there happens to be an extraordinary event taking place. Usually this event serves to put the lives of everyone on board the ship in mortal danger. I'm no expert, but if i were in command of a star ship (not out of the realm of possibility in my mind), i would never allow a film crew on board. Even worse would be if my ship were supposed to meet up with another ship at some point because it's always the ship that was supposed to be somewhere that ends up missing, and the camera crew laden ship would come by later to find that my ship had been destroyed by space-snot. So on second thought, i guess i'd rather have the camera crew on my ship.

The future is very exciting because it also seems to hold several significant physiological evolutions. One of these is that no one ever sweats. I don't know if its just a better anti-perspirant that they're using, but there doesn't seem to be such a thing as sweat in the future. Good times for the people not wanting to be stinky... bad times for the makers of old spice.

But perhaps more significant that any other biological and physiological evolution is that no one has to go to the bathroom anymore. I mean, have you ever even seen a bathroom on star trek? Or star wars for that matter. I mean, no one poops, pees, has stomach aches, or has to run off right quick to releive themselves. Either they're just really good at holding in their pee, or they just don't have to pee anymore... I kinda wish i had such capabilities at this point, because holding in pee is hard... as can be evidenced by my wet pant leg thanks to trying to finish this post....



Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
I was at a bar, and this guy bumped into me, and he did not apologize, and he said, "Move!" I thought that was rude, so I said, "Go to hell!" Then I started to run. He caught up to me. He had a mustache, a goatee, a pair of earrings, sunglasses, a ponytail and he was wearing a hat. He said, "Hey, you got a lot of nerve!" I said, "Hey, you got a lot of... cranium accessories!"


 


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