For too long I lived without a grill of me own. I had to rely on the generosity of others to roast meats over an open flame, fueled with charcoal or propane or lighter fluid and deodorant.
But no longer.
For yesterday I received a belated Father's Day present - the Char-Broil Commercial Series 500. 48,000 BTUs, 680 square inches of cooking area, and big honking knobs to crank up the juice.
Do I know if that's a lot of BTUs? I do not. Do I know what a BTU is? I'm guessing it has something to do with temperature, since I've only ever seen it on grills and air conditioners. But I don't care. Because now I can grill anything I want, anytime I want.
Grill a steak? You betcha.
Burgers and hot dogs? Natch.
Chicken? Why not.
Salmon? Okay...
Vegetables? I mean, I guess, if I was out of meat...
Tofurkey? Get the fuck off my blog, commie.
________________________________________________
I'm sorry Michael Jackson died. He had a fantastically successful life, and he loved children. LOVED little boys. Adored them. And now he's dead. So...that happened.
________________________________________________
Bernie Madoff was sentenced today. 150 years. Not bad for the guy who wrecked the Jewish philanthropic world, shut down entire foundations, and bankrupted whole families. I feel...nothing, strangely. No elation, no satisfaction. To me, justice isn't really served. Yes, he'll suffer, and probably be violated in interesting ways in prison, but it's just not - I guess I'm looking for more visceral retribution for his victims. So here's what I came up with:
A global manhunt. The complete list of Madoff's victims would have joint access to his fortune, and they would use it to hunt him down. They could participate directly, or hire a proxy to do the actual hunting. And then day by day, hour by hour, they would close in on him.
And after a few weeks, or months, they would corner him in a Taiwanese alley. His clothes shredded, his face scarred from a thousand thorns and brambles, his eyes alight with fear and recognition.
And then they would take turns kicking him in the crotch.
First, what network wouldn't pay millions to broadcast that? Second, raise your hand if you would watch that show. I would Tivo it, and then rewatch it every time some politician lied or I was just feeling down, or slighted in some way. "Well at least Madoff took it in the nuts on live TV," I could say, and feel better about the world, and dead pop star pedophiles.
Showing posts with label yay beef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yay beef. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Cookie dough ain't just for dumped, weepy chicks anymore
Ordinarily, the Fancy Pants dining room table is chock full of goodies after Purim. Israeli chocolates, unidentifiable candies, and hamentaschen of all levels of quality.
Most of this is thorough unimpressive to me. I 'm not a big dessert or snack person. What I like, I love, but if it's not in that narrow category, I can do without.
So imagine my shock and glee when I open up one of the bags...and therein lay a small plastic container of chocolate chip cookie dough. Not unnecessarily roasted, not surrounded by superfluous vanilla ice cream, just straight up dough, in a cup. The only improvement would have been if it had come in a cone, like the aforementioned iced cream, or like ground meats should be.
I'll explain: I believe the overheating of food into some sort of crispy or chewy new food is a surrender to convention, and a waste of precious time and fossil fuels. Steak tartare, sushi, dough of any kind - these are my basic food groups. I was raised to chase my roast beef down and pin it to my plate before I was able to eat it, because it was still screaming for help. I was raised to mock those who fretted about uncooked meats and eggs, to wonder what it is an oven was for other than storing dishes.
I spent months eating brownie batter - it's even my favorite ice cream. My favorite dessert? Chocolate pie, which is not cooked at all but refrigerated, raw eggs notwithstanding. Second favorite? Wife's mundels, which aren't double-baked like mundel bread. They're not even fully single-baked. The official term is NFC - Not Fully Cooked. Baked just long enough for the chocolate chips to get all gooey and melty.
If you mention nuts or fruit, you can get up and walk away.
There's a new standard for shalach manos. Take your tiny liquor bottles, your whimsical and poorly-structured Purim poems, your fresh-baked whatsnot. Just give me some flour, some raw eggs, some sugar, some vanilla, and mush it up and shove it under my door.
For those of you who bake your own fortune cookies, or send entire meals (spaghetti, anyone?), you're in a nutty class all by yourselves. But you know what would really put you over the top? Some challah dough in a single-serving tupperware. You'd have my undying gratitude.
What did WE send, you ask? Did we go all out, and craft some clever package neatly wrapped and zanily captioned? No, because the Fancy Pants are fancy, but we are also quite lazy. So no food for anyone. Sorry. Maybe if more of you provided some raw stuff, we'd be more inclined to return the favor.
And don't come with that "raw vegetable" crap. That would result in obnoxious retribution of a completely immature nature. So save yourself some time and aggravation, and give us a box of cake mix, a couple of eggs, and some oil, and get out of our way.
Oh, in case you were curious, Child was James Bond.
Most of this is thorough unimpressive to me. I 'm not a big dessert or snack person. What I like, I love, but if it's not in that narrow category, I can do without.
So imagine my shock and glee when I open up one of the bags...and therein lay a small plastic container of chocolate chip cookie dough. Not unnecessarily roasted, not surrounded by superfluous vanilla ice cream, just straight up dough, in a cup. The only improvement would have been if it had come in a cone, like the aforementioned iced cream, or like ground meats should be.
I'll explain: I believe the overheating of food into some sort of crispy or chewy new food is a surrender to convention, and a waste of precious time and fossil fuels. Steak tartare, sushi, dough of any kind - these are my basic food groups. I was raised to chase my roast beef down and pin it to my plate before I was able to eat it, because it was still screaming for help. I was raised to mock those who fretted about uncooked meats and eggs, to wonder what it is an oven was for other than storing dishes.
I spent months eating brownie batter - it's even my favorite ice cream. My favorite dessert? Chocolate pie, which is not cooked at all but refrigerated, raw eggs notwithstanding. Second favorite? Wife's mundels, which aren't double-baked like mundel bread. They're not even fully single-baked. The official term is NFC - Not Fully Cooked. Baked just long enough for the chocolate chips to get all gooey and melty.
If you mention nuts or fruit, you can get up and walk away.
There's a new standard for shalach manos. Take your tiny liquor bottles, your whimsical and poorly-structured Purim poems, your fresh-baked whatsnot. Just give me some flour, some raw eggs, some sugar, some vanilla, and mush it up and shove it under my door.
For those of you who bake your own fortune cookies, or send entire meals (spaghetti, anyone?), you're in a nutty class all by yourselves. But you know what would really put you over the top? Some challah dough in a single-serving tupperware. You'd have my undying gratitude.
What did WE send, you ask? Did we go all out, and craft some clever package neatly wrapped and zanily captioned? No, because the Fancy Pants are fancy, but we are also quite lazy. So no food for anyone. Sorry. Maybe if more of you provided some raw stuff, we'd be more inclined to return the favor.
And don't come with that "raw vegetable" crap. That would result in obnoxious retribution of a completely immature nature. So save yourself some time and aggravation, and give us a box of cake mix, a couple of eggs, and some oil, and get out of our way.
Oh, in case you were curious, Child was James Bond.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
It's my party, I'll eat meat if I want to...
Get ready, we're going crazy with the homonyms this week...
My streak of bringing championships to cities is safe for one more hometown. My presence in Pittsburgh compelled the Cardinals to ignore their tried and true passing game for 3 quarters, almost forgetting that Larry Fitzgerald existed until it was too late. For those of you counting at home, this is my championship tally:
Chicago, 92-95 - Bulls 3peat.
New York, 96-99 - Yankees 3peat.
Boston, 99-08 - Patriots win 3 Super Bowls, and the Red Sox win 2 World Series.
Pittsburgh, 08-present - Steelers, Super Bowl win no. 6.
My offer to Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinatti, and Dallas still stands - if you want any of your teams to win a championship in the next few decades, pay me several hundred thousand dollars, and I will gladly move to your city. Because I want to spread the love.
Steeler fans truly believe they are the craziest. And pound for pound, in terms of sheer volume, they may be right. But Red Sox fans are just as passionate, and Patriots fans just as annoying. Yankee fans are, if anything, worse, because they expect all that cash to buy them wins. And Red Sox fans are getting to that point, but still get to burn off 86 years of misery, so they get a pass for say the next year. After that they can be snooty and proud all they want, but they have to concede that they are the new Yankees. A fair trade-off for all that success, I say.
A quick word about the actual Super Bowl "party" I attended. As some of you may know from my weepy phone calls, the menu was dairy. Furthermore, I was asked to bring a salad.
I'm not normally an angry person, and I like to believe I give people the benefit of the doubt. But the whole thing seemed like a setup. The hosts know me well. They are all too aware of my disturbing fixation on raw animal flesh, preferably fried or ground up and shoved into some sort of bun, or maybe a wafer cone. And yet there I was, picking up a forkful of ziti and trying to keep from sobbing. I don't know the complicated physics behind the equation, but everyone knows that
Football = meat.
It can = poultry, or ham, or fish (although that too is a reach unless it's well fried beyond recognition as such), but football does NOT = leafy greens, or kale, or jicama, or any other roughage. I could have sworn I had moved back to the Midwest when I came to Pittsburgh - the clear disdain for nonfatty foods, the pleasant bovine-like expressions on drivers obeying speed limits, the suspicious looks cast at people with foreign accents - but now I'm not so sure.
As for the other crappy party, I want to say this: for a group of people who are allegedly supportive of taxes, and using them to generate revenue for use by the federal and state governments, the Democrats sure are forgetful when it comes to actually paying those taxes.
If I wanted people who were out to cheat the government to run the government, I would have voted for McCain. Right now it's a little embarrassing. I guess it's something that Daschle is stepping down, but don't they have a vetting process for this? If you were a White House staffer, trying now to push through a massive stimulus package that both cuts and raises taxes, wouldn't you want to be sure that your political appointees knew H&R Block's phone number? I would think that would be a priority. But what do I know.
My streak of bringing championships to cities is safe for one more hometown. My presence in Pittsburgh compelled the Cardinals to ignore their tried and true passing game for 3 quarters, almost forgetting that Larry Fitzgerald existed until it was too late. For those of you counting at home, this is my championship tally:
Chicago, 92-95 - Bulls 3peat.
New York, 96-99 - Yankees 3peat.
Boston, 99-08 - Patriots win 3 Super Bowls, and the Red Sox win 2 World Series.
Pittsburgh, 08-present - Steelers, Super Bowl win no. 6.
My offer to Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinatti, and Dallas still stands - if you want any of your teams to win a championship in the next few decades, pay me several hundred thousand dollars, and I will gladly move to your city. Because I want to spread the love.
Steeler fans truly believe they are the craziest. And pound for pound, in terms of sheer volume, they may be right. But Red Sox fans are just as passionate, and Patriots fans just as annoying. Yankee fans are, if anything, worse, because they expect all that cash to buy them wins. And Red Sox fans are getting to that point, but still get to burn off 86 years of misery, so they get a pass for say the next year. After that they can be snooty and proud all they want, but they have to concede that they are the new Yankees. A fair trade-off for all that success, I say.
A quick word about the actual Super Bowl "party" I attended. As some of you may know from my weepy phone calls, the menu was dairy. Furthermore, I was asked to bring a salad.
I'm not normally an angry person, and I like to believe I give people the benefit of the doubt. But the whole thing seemed like a setup. The hosts know me well. They are all too aware of my disturbing fixation on raw animal flesh, preferably fried or ground up and shoved into some sort of bun, or maybe a wafer cone. And yet there I was, picking up a forkful of ziti and trying to keep from sobbing. I don't know the complicated physics behind the equation, but everyone knows that
Football = meat.
It can = poultry, or ham, or fish (although that too is a reach unless it's well fried beyond recognition as such), but football does NOT = leafy greens, or kale, or jicama, or any other roughage. I could have sworn I had moved back to the Midwest when I came to Pittsburgh - the clear disdain for nonfatty foods, the pleasant bovine-like expressions on drivers obeying speed limits, the suspicious looks cast at people with foreign accents - but now I'm not so sure.
As for the other crappy party, I want to say this: for a group of people who are allegedly supportive of taxes, and using them to generate revenue for use by the federal and state governments, the Democrats sure are forgetful when it comes to actually paying those taxes.
If I wanted people who were out to cheat the government to run the government, I would have voted for McCain. Right now it's a little embarrassing. I guess it's something that Daschle is stepping down, but don't they have a vetting process for this? If you were a White House staffer, trying now to push through a massive stimulus package that both cuts and raises taxes, wouldn't you want to be sure that your political appointees knew H&R Block's phone number? I would think that would be a priority. But what do I know.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
In Steeler Country, no one can hear you belch
I thought I would totally be down with Cally. I thought I could groove on their laid back vibe, float happily on their self-righteous extreme liberalism, gorge myself on their free-range tofurkey.
How very wrong I was.
I can never live in California. Not even San Diego, allegedly possessing the most wonderful weather on the planet. False. There is no snow, there aren't even clouds. There is only sunshine and smiling, tan people. And do you know why everyone is smiling? Because it sure as hell ain't natural. We had to shop for food for Child while we were there, and the supermarket we entered had a larger vitamin department than its food department.
But now I'm ready for Child to be rejected from every top university. It's because we abuse him by neglecting to provide him with invaluable supplements and boosters and Power Gels. There are Achievement Supplements (15 drops a day adds 1.6 IQ points, on average), Attention Focusing Minerals, and Brilliance Boosters! Whether this will lead to an epidemic of teenagers trying to inject extract of exotic insects sometime in the future, only time will tell (now that's a fun sentence to read out loud. Go ahead, try it. I'll wait.).
So for fear of superhuman overachieving insect junkies, we're not moving to San Diego. Also because it allows certain relatives to subject their 5-year-olds to acupuncture. Now don't think I'm one of those old-school folk who think acupuncture is hoodoo. One of my good friends is an acupuncturist, and he's not even one of the weird ones. But maybe wait on the needles until your kid is old enough to read? Perhaps. Just a suggestion.
A quick word on La Jolla. There are certain cities and neighborhoods whose property values make no sense whatsoever. Case in point - Skokie, IL. It should cost about $1.25 for those ugly ass houses. What an eyesore (sorry, Arica's parents. But then, that's why you're moving, isn't it?). Or Brooklyn. Or any of the non-Manhattan boroughs, for that matter. Someone would have to pay me to live there. To be fair, I'd make the same demand to live in Manhattan, but at least I understand why people like it there. It's exciting, and fun, and you never know who's going to assault you, or in what new and interesting way. Also, someone should take an eraser to Florida, and just start over. It's no wonder most of the residents are elderly - they're the ones who can't see how hideous their neighborhoods are.
But La Jolla makes sense. It's the most beautiful, most expensive place I've ever been to, and it's completely understandable. At least until an earthquake shakes it all away. But until then, you've got mountains, and coastline, and weather, and really hot women.
As much as I love Brother S, and new Sister...S (what can I say? They both have names that start with S), I can't live in LA. My profit motive just isn't that strong. Not even with Jeff's Gourmet Glatt Kosher Sausage Factory. And not even considering how great a gay porn title that would be. Because seriously, you should stop reading this right now, fly to LA, fill your mouth with a hot beef injection of cased meat, and feel awkward about how much you enjoy it. Then go back for more. Then get on a plane and go home, because you can't afford to live there.
Wife and I also went to Rodeo Drive, for Wife's Pretty Woman montage. I think we went into one store, and that was because we were lost, and needed directions. It's a little bit ridiculous.
Child, in case you were wondering, was fantastic. He slept, he ate, he flirted with anyone who made eye contact. He's a complete baby whore. Strangers don't even need candy to entice him into their cars. All they need is to play peekaboo, and he's gone. "Parents? I have parents? Hey look, a sketchy guy in a baseball hat! dadadadadadadadadadadadada!"
Brother S's wedding was fantastic. Smorg, molten chocolate cake, good scotch, smoking band, crazy, crazy people. And also beautiful bride, and flowers, blah blah blah. The corniness was effectively countered by wildly inappropriate honeymoon suite care packages. I feel dirty just thinking about what was in that bag.
And now we're back in Pittsburgh, where evidently a local sports franchise is competing in a high level match of epic proportion. I will say this for Steeler's fans: they're not nearly as annoying as Patriots fans. But I will miss rooting against those cheating, model banging bastards. Wait a minute - who said I have to stop rooting against the Pats? Or any Boston team, for that matter?
G-d, it's great to be back on the East Coast. Excuse me while I go chisel my car out of the ice and pay $15 for an avocado.
That's right, I eat avocados. What, you wannafightaboutit?
How very wrong I was.
I can never live in California. Not even San Diego, allegedly possessing the most wonderful weather on the planet. False. There is no snow, there aren't even clouds. There is only sunshine and smiling, tan people. And do you know why everyone is smiling? Because it sure as hell ain't natural. We had to shop for food for Child while we were there, and the supermarket we entered had a larger vitamin department than its food department.
But now I'm ready for Child to be rejected from every top university. It's because we abuse him by neglecting to provide him with invaluable supplements and boosters and Power Gels. There are Achievement Supplements (15 drops a day adds 1.6 IQ points, on average), Attention Focusing Minerals, and Brilliance Boosters! Whether this will lead to an epidemic of teenagers trying to inject extract of exotic insects sometime in the future, only time will tell (now that's a fun sentence to read out loud. Go ahead, try it. I'll wait.).
So for fear of superhuman overachieving insect junkies, we're not moving to San Diego. Also because it allows certain relatives to subject their 5-year-olds to acupuncture. Now don't think I'm one of those old-school folk who think acupuncture is hoodoo. One of my good friends is an acupuncturist, and he's not even one of the weird ones. But maybe wait on the needles until your kid is old enough to read? Perhaps. Just a suggestion.
A quick word on La Jolla. There are certain cities and neighborhoods whose property values make no sense whatsoever. Case in point - Skokie, IL. It should cost about $1.25 for those ugly ass houses. What an eyesore (sorry, Arica's parents. But then, that's why you're moving, isn't it?). Or Brooklyn. Or any of the non-Manhattan boroughs, for that matter. Someone would have to pay me to live there. To be fair, I'd make the same demand to live in Manhattan, but at least I understand why people like it there. It's exciting, and fun, and you never know who's going to assault you, or in what new and interesting way. Also, someone should take an eraser to Florida, and just start over. It's no wonder most of the residents are elderly - they're the ones who can't see how hideous their neighborhoods are.
But La Jolla makes sense. It's the most beautiful, most expensive place I've ever been to, and it's completely understandable. At least until an earthquake shakes it all away. But until then, you've got mountains, and coastline, and weather, and really hot women.
As much as I love Brother S, and new Sister...S (what can I say? They both have names that start with S), I can't live in LA. My profit motive just isn't that strong. Not even with Jeff's Gourmet Glatt Kosher Sausage Factory. And not even considering how great a gay porn title that would be. Because seriously, you should stop reading this right now, fly to LA, fill your mouth with a hot beef injection of cased meat, and feel awkward about how much you enjoy it. Then go back for more. Then get on a plane and go home, because you can't afford to live there.
Wife and I also went to Rodeo Drive, for Wife's Pretty Woman montage. I think we went into one store, and that was because we were lost, and needed directions. It's a little bit ridiculous.
Child, in case you were wondering, was fantastic. He slept, he ate, he flirted with anyone who made eye contact. He's a complete baby whore. Strangers don't even need candy to entice him into their cars. All they need is to play peekaboo, and he's gone. "Parents? I have parents? Hey look, a sketchy guy in a baseball hat! dadadadadadadadadadadadada!"
Brother S's wedding was fantastic. Smorg, molten chocolate cake, good scotch, smoking band, crazy, crazy people. And also beautiful bride, and flowers, blah blah blah. The corniness was effectively countered by wildly inappropriate honeymoon suite care packages. I feel dirty just thinking about what was in that bag.
And now we're back in Pittsburgh, where evidently a local sports franchise is competing in a high level match of epic proportion. I will say this for Steeler's fans: they're not nearly as annoying as Patriots fans. But I will miss rooting against those cheating, model banging bastards. Wait a minute - who said I have to stop rooting against the Pats? Or any Boston team, for that matter?
G-d, it's great to be back on the East Coast. Excuse me while I go chisel my car out of the ice and pay $15 for an avocado.
That's right, I eat avocados. What, you wannafightaboutit?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Don't tell me I don't love America.
Thanksgiving, according to a wise man, is a special night.
It is my favorite holiday. Better than Passover, better than Kwanzaa, better even than Hobo week. And don't tell me that's not a real week, because Google says it is. And if you've never gotten down in August during Hobo week, then you have not lived. But despite all that frivolity and bindle-weaving, Thanksgiving is the best.
Is it the history of brutal oppression of an indigenous people? Maybe. Is it the awful football games? Doubtful. Is it the airing of grievances over heaping piles of white and dark meat, fueled by liquor and stuffing? Bet your ass. Mostly, though, it's the quintessential America-ness of the day.
You can have your 4th of July, your Memorial Day, your Arbor Day. Thanksgiving is the only one that combines gluttony, sloth, greed, wrath, lust, pride and envy. I don't know what it means that I associate America with the seven mortal sins. Could be that I just love Brad Pitt. Or maybe it's that I celebrated this holiest of days by participating in all 7 capital vices.
Gluttony - this is almost too obvious, but to wit: I ate an obscene amount of turkey, fought viciously against Brother A for the stuffing, and inhaled an entire chocolate pie. "Good pie, Ma." Damn skippy it was. And that was before Friday night, where the family dined on raw beef and leftover turkey.
Sloth - so much turkey, so much napping. And as for those terrible football games: did I watch them? Hells yeah. What am I going to do, get off the couch to find the clicker to change the channel? That sounds an awful lot like work, buddy.
Greed - this is the one I'm most embarrassed about. So you know how some malls opened Thursday night at midnight to bring in Black Friday early? And you sat at home wondering how unbelievably avaricious some whackos could be, how addicted they could be to good deals? Yeah, that was me and my family. Ostensibly the idea was to go at night, so we could have fun on Friday. That didn't actually work out, and we ended up going at night and during the day. This led to...
Wrath - wherein I cursed the gods, my own brothers, my wife, my child, capitalism, and the other whackjobs shopping at 3 in the morning, and almost stabbed a poor checkout girl with a cufflink. Plus the sleep deprivation gave me a nice short fuse right up until the holy Sabbath.
Lust - I'm just saying, Thanksgiving does some weird things to your brain. One minute you're staring at the perfectly cooked turkey, all gold and stuffed with stuffing, and then next your shirt is across the kitchen, you've got gravy all over your naked belly, and all the stuffing is gone.
(Note: that came out a lot more disturbing than I thought it would be when I started writing it. And yet...I'm not deleting it. So I guess the lesson is that I have no shame.)
Pride - Carving the turkey is a grand tradition in my family, passed down from my grandfather to me and Brother S. And I have to say, I carved the shit out of that turkey. It was magnificent. There was nothing left but gristle and bone, because I have the hands of a surgeon.
Envy - I'm pretty certain that, in the end, Brother A got more stuffing than I did. And I had to leave all that extra beef in Florida to be consumed by the rest of my family. And Brothers S and Z got some sweet-ass clothes. Should I care? Shouldn't I, who has talked up socialism and disparaged the free market all these months, let it go?
I should. And maybe if I'd been able to eat some more turkey I'd be ok. But you know what? While the rest of the country is gorging on leftovers this week - turkey sandwiches, turkey loaf, turkey burgers, turkey soup, turkey salad, turkey jerky, turkey stew, turkey chips - I've had to subsist on non-turkey roughage. And that's not cool.
My resolution for next year? Ether for the brothers, turkey for me. And lord help Child if he ends up liking dark meat instead of white...
It is my favorite holiday. Better than Passover, better than Kwanzaa, better even than Hobo week. And don't tell me that's not a real week, because Google says it is. And if you've never gotten down in August during Hobo week, then you have not lived. But despite all that frivolity and bindle-weaving, Thanksgiving is the best.
Is it the history of brutal oppression of an indigenous people? Maybe. Is it the awful football games? Doubtful. Is it the airing of grievances over heaping piles of white and dark meat, fueled by liquor and stuffing? Bet your ass. Mostly, though, it's the quintessential America-ness of the day.
You can have your 4th of July, your Memorial Day, your Arbor Day. Thanksgiving is the only one that combines gluttony, sloth, greed, wrath, lust, pride and envy. I don't know what it means that I associate America with the seven mortal sins. Could be that I just love Brad Pitt. Or maybe it's that I celebrated this holiest of days by participating in all 7 capital vices.
Gluttony - this is almost too obvious, but to wit: I ate an obscene amount of turkey, fought viciously against Brother A for the stuffing, and inhaled an entire chocolate pie. "Good pie, Ma." Damn skippy it was. And that was before Friday night, where the family dined on raw beef and leftover turkey.
Sloth - so much turkey, so much napping. And as for those terrible football games: did I watch them? Hells yeah. What am I going to do, get off the couch to find the clicker to change the channel? That sounds an awful lot like work, buddy.
Greed - this is the one I'm most embarrassed about. So you know how some malls opened Thursday night at midnight to bring in Black Friday early? And you sat at home wondering how unbelievably avaricious some whackos could be, how addicted they could be to good deals? Yeah, that was me and my family. Ostensibly the idea was to go at night, so we could have fun on Friday. That didn't actually work out, and we ended up going at night and during the day. This led to...
Wrath - wherein I cursed the gods, my own brothers, my wife, my child, capitalism, and the other whackjobs shopping at 3 in the morning, and almost stabbed a poor checkout girl with a cufflink. Plus the sleep deprivation gave me a nice short fuse right up until the holy Sabbath.
Lust - I'm just saying, Thanksgiving does some weird things to your brain. One minute you're staring at the perfectly cooked turkey, all gold and stuffed with stuffing, and then next your shirt is across the kitchen, you've got gravy all over your naked belly, and all the stuffing is gone.
(Note: that came out a lot more disturbing than I thought it would be when I started writing it. And yet...I'm not deleting it. So I guess the lesson is that I have no shame.)
Pride - Carving the turkey is a grand tradition in my family, passed down from my grandfather to me and Brother S. And I have to say, I carved the shit out of that turkey. It was magnificent. There was nothing left but gristle and bone, because I have the hands of a surgeon.
Envy - I'm pretty certain that, in the end, Brother A got more stuffing than I did. And I had to leave all that extra beef in Florida to be consumed by the rest of my family. And Brothers S and Z got some sweet-ass clothes. Should I care? Shouldn't I, who has talked up socialism and disparaged the free market all these months, let it go?
I should. And maybe if I'd been able to eat some more turkey I'd be ok. But you know what? While the rest of the country is gorging on leftovers this week - turkey sandwiches, turkey loaf, turkey burgers, turkey soup, turkey salad, turkey jerky, turkey stew, turkey chips - I've had to subsist on non-turkey roughage. And that's not cool.
My resolution for next year? Ether for the brothers, turkey for me. And lord help Child if he ends up liking dark meat instead of white...
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Do you know where I can get a hot beef injection, now that Iowa is closed for kosher business?
Best Kosher? Gone.
I will forever miss those fantastic bagel dogs and mini corn dogs. Now I'll probably live till I'm 95. What the hell am I supposed to do with those extra years? I should probably stop wasting my money on M.U.S.C.L.E. toys.
Goddamn the Rubashkin family. First they make me care how cows die. Now they interfere with my meat intake. What's next, I'm going to start eating more salad because I find out that beef isn't healthy? I should say not. This is America, not Holland. Stupid Dutch people.
Not that Pittsburgh's got great meat anyway. I'm from the Midwest, where cows are robust but easily duped into being killed and chopped into cutlets. I lived in Chicago, where it's a rite of passage to befriend a calf, raise it as part of your family, and then slaughter it and eat it raw. Because they're committed to the carnivorous lifestyle. And because if they want to catch up to Milwaukee in the percentage of morbidly obese adults, they'll have to suck down more Polish Sausage.
Even when I lived in Boston meat was decent. Romanian pastrami was made by the local butcher, who flew in tiny Romanian grandmas to properly spice the meat, and paid them in calls from their grandchildren and shelled pistachios.
But here, the meat sucks. And it sucked before the whole Agriprocessors embarrassment. And it will continue to suck until they admit that Pittsburgh is not, in fact, a mid-Atlantic city, whatever that means. It's a Midwest town, complete with a stagnant economy, declining population, and tons of fat, cigarette-smoking children. Revel in your middle America-ness! It will make everyone feel better. Maybe I'll even get some decent cold cuts soon.
A side note: I'm not sorry for the lack of postings recently. I have a real job, that requres actual brain power, so I can't make up the funny as often as you'd like. I am sorry, though for the lack of downright bizarre posting. There aren't enough weird people here, so I find my weirdness dissipating. It doesn't last all day anymore. So I'm working with a team of scientists to come up with some sort of solution until I sucker my whacko friends into moving here. I'll keep you posted on those results.
Also, the Bears suck in a completely uninteresting way.
I will forever miss those fantastic bagel dogs and mini corn dogs. Now I'll probably live till I'm 95. What the hell am I supposed to do with those extra years? I should probably stop wasting my money on M.U.S.C.L.E. toys.
Goddamn the Rubashkin family. First they make me care how cows die. Now they interfere with my meat intake. What's next, I'm going to start eating more salad because I find out that beef isn't healthy? I should say not. This is America, not Holland. Stupid Dutch people.
Not that Pittsburgh's got great meat anyway. I'm from the Midwest, where cows are robust but easily duped into being killed and chopped into cutlets. I lived in Chicago, where it's a rite of passage to befriend a calf, raise it as part of your family, and then slaughter it and eat it raw. Because they're committed to the carnivorous lifestyle. And because if they want to catch up to Milwaukee in the percentage of morbidly obese adults, they'll have to suck down more Polish Sausage.
Even when I lived in Boston meat was decent. Romanian pastrami was made by the local butcher, who flew in tiny Romanian grandmas to properly spice the meat, and paid them in calls from their grandchildren and shelled pistachios.
But here, the meat sucks. And it sucked before the whole Agriprocessors embarrassment. And it will continue to suck until they admit that Pittsburgh is not, in fact, a mid-Atlantic city, whatever that means. It's a Midwest town, complete with a stagnant economy, declining population, and tons of fat, cigarette-smoking children. Revel in your middle America-ness! It will make everyone feel better. Maybe I'll even get some decent cold cuts soon.
A side note: I'm not sorry for the lack of postings recently. I have a real job, that requres actual brain power, so I can't make up the funny as often as you'd like. I am sorry, though for the lack of downright bizarre posting. There aren't enough weird people here, so I find my weirdness dissipating. It doesn't last all day anymore. So I'm working with a team of scientists to come up with some sort of solution until I sucker my whacko friends into moving here. I'll keep you posted on those results.
Also, the Bears suck in a completely uninteresting way.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Cows will not rest until we're all dead, and blah blah Bears lose
I spent the last couple of days in agony. Agony because I was felled by a sinister plot hatched by our bovine nemeses.
I've written of this threat before, but evidently even I am susceptible to overlooking this clear and present danger to our American way of life. "Sure, they're always mooing, prophesying our doom, and seeing our extinction in their vacant black-eyed stares, but we eat them! Aside for some e.coli and Mad Cow, does anyone among us really suffer?"
I am here to tell you that I am on the bloody, smelly front in this gruesome struggle. Because I am one of the many who suffer from their vile biological weapons. And now I have to sleep on the couch because of it. Don't you see? These dopey bastards are attacking marriage, the fundamental pillar of our nuclear families!
I am lactose intolerant. This does not make me a bigot. I mean sure, I hate tall people, and men with very tiny chins. Women who can't pronounce the letter Q. Elderly folk who don't think it was better when they were young. And P.Diddy. But I am no racist. My intolerance is biological, according to my doctor, Nick Riviera.
Milk has its place. Milkshakes, cereal, mixed with Nestle Quik - not Ovaltine, because that's the devil's chocolate. Swiss Miss is a dirty whore.
Cows have developed this chemical as a weapon against the human race, to debilitate us so they can conquer us all. Lactaid is no shield - eventually our bodies acclimate to its power, and we are again relegated to the bathroom for hours, leaving it a dead zone, where nothing may grow again.
For three days after eating ravioli, an "innocent bystander," I was a noxious geyser of unpleasantness. Wife banished me to the basement. I haven't seen Child in a week. Someone with a deep voice was making Wife laugh hysterically last night - I can only assume Child has gone through puberty in my absence.
Once I warned you never to abandon the consumption of beef in all its forms. I come to you again with another responsibility:
Stop eating dairy. Stop drinking milk, stop eating cheese. Do not support the amoral, venal practice of keeping cows alive just so they can poison us with their parmesan cheese, their ice creams. It's a sacrifice, no question. I love pizza, and ice cream, and Wacky Mac macaroni and cheese. But I will not abandon my species for some cheesy fries. And neither should you. So put the mozzarella stick on the table, and back away.
Meanwhile the Bears lost to the Titans because their defense is intimidating in name only. You argue their run defense is amazing, and held Chris Johnson and LenDale White to under 30 yards total. I counter with the fact that KERRY COLLINS picked them apart like a three-day-old Thanksgiving turkey carcass.
Here's a fun fact about Kerry Collins that I don't think you knew - three months ago I was walking along the street when a homeless guy asked me for change, then fumbled the quarter I handed him. That man? Kerry Collins.
So don't tell me that the Bears defense is so great. They're getting by on reputation alone, and that's not even so stellar anymore. They're the new Ravens, which were the old Bears. So that means that in a few weeks Brian Urlacher is going to kill someone, then get away with it. That should be exciting.
Rex Grossman had another typical Sex Cannon-y day - 50% completion rate, 1 TD, 1 pick, 30 cheerleaders knocked up. Maybe a new nickname would be better: the Quarter. Flip it 5 million times, and half the time it comes up heads, the other half it gets picked off or fumbles the ball.
I've written of this threat before, but evidently even I am susceptible to overlooking this clear and present danger to our American way of life. "Sure, they're always mooing, prophesying our doom, and seeing our extinction in their vacant black-eyed stares, but we eat them! Aside for some e.coli and Mad Cow, does anyone among us really suffer?"
I am here to tell you that I am on the bloody, smelly front in this gruesome struggle. Because I am one of the many who suffer from their vile biological weapons. And now I have to sleep on the couch because of it. Don't you see? These dopey bastards are attacking marriage, the fundamental pillar of our nuclear families!
I am lactose intolerant. This does not make me a bigot. I mean sure, I hate tall people, and men with very tiny chins. Women who can't pronounce the letter Q. Elderly folk who don't think it was better when they were young. And P.Diddy. But I am no racist. My intolerance is biological, according to my doctor, Nick Riviera.
Milk has its place. Milkshakes, cereal, mixed with Nestle Quik - not Ovaltine, because that's the devil's chocolate. Swiss Miss is a dirty whore.
Cows have developed this chemical as a weapon against the human race, to debilitate us so they can conquer us all. Lactaid is no shield - eventually our bodies acclimate to its power, and we are again relegated to the bathroom for hours, leaving it a dead zone, where nothing may grow again.
For three days after eating ravioli, an "innocent bystander," I was a noxious geyser of unpleasantness. Wife banished me to the basement. I haven't seen Child in a week. Someone with a deep voice was making Wife laugh hysterically last night - I can only assume Child has gone through puberty in my absence.
Once I warned you never to abandon the consumption of beef in all its forms. I come to you again with another responsibility:
Stop eating dairy. Stop drinking milk, stop eating cheese. Do not support the amoral, venal practice of keeping cows alive just so they can poison us with their parmesan cheese, their ice creams. It's a sacrifice, no question. I love pizza, and ice cream, and Wacky Mac macaroni and cheese. But I will not abandon my species for some cheesy fries. And neither should you. So put the mozzarella stick on the table, and back away.
Meanwhile the Bears lost to the Titans because their defense is intimidating in name only. You argue their run defense is amazing, and held Chris Johnson and LenDale White to under 30 yards total. I counter with the fact that KERRY COLLINS picked them apart like a three-day-old Thanksgiving turkey carcass.
Here's a fun fact about Kerry Collins that I don't think you knew - three months ago I was walking along the street when a homeless guy asked me for change, then fumbled the quarter I handed him. That man? Kerry Collins.
So don't tell me that the Bears defense is so great. They're getting by on reputation alone, and that's not even so stellar anymore. They're the new Ravens, which were the old Bears. So that means that in a few weeks Brian Urlacher is going to kill someone, then get away with it. That should be exciting.
Rex Grossman had another typical Sex Cannon-y day - 50% completion rate, 1 TD, 1 pick, 30 cheerleaders knocked up. Maybe a new nickname would be better: the Quarter. Flip it 5 million times, and half the time it comes up heads, the other half it gets picked off or fumbles the ball.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Take that, ColBERT
There are many, many things that dissatisfy me about our dear country right now. The quagmire in Iraq, the drooling idiot in the White House, the possibility of a Colorado-Cleveland World Series, my inability to grow a halfway-decent moustache…I am an angry man. And then I see this .Typical Colbert, always taking my ideas and passing them off as his own before I even have chance to make them up. Not this time, Steve-O. You think you’re running as a “Favorite Son?” (and I can’t believe it’s already up on Wikipedia!)
Allow me to introduce a true favorite son: Robert S. Atwahl IV, the Fancy Pants candidate for Leader of the Free World. A 6’5” blond Adonis, this hulk of a man has earned two Congressional Medals of Honor in the Coast Guard, graduated with the highest GPA ever from Princeton Polytech School for the Elite and Astute, and speaks Swedish, Mandarin, Farsi, and seventeen different African bush dialects. A P.H.D. in metapolitics, Dr. Atwahl lives in Middle, Nebraska, with his wife Jane and their seven children, Amber, Michael, Eric, Robert V, Isaac, Candace, and little Anastasia.
He looks just like this, except his eyes are green, not blue. He's also usually wearing a business suit.
Robert (“Call me Dr., dammit”) Atwahl made his money on the rodeo circuit, sending his winnings back to Jane and his brood. After breaking his hip for a world-record 19th time, he decided to go into international finance, through the sale of “alternative methods of negotiation,” and large-caliber firearms. This provided Dr. Atwahl with real hands-on foreign policy experience, interacting with dignitaries from
Over the next few weeks you’ll be able to learn a lot more about the Fancy Pants candidate, his political platform, and which laundry detergent is the best to use when fighting global terror.
If you have any questions for Dr. Atwahl, send them to the Fancy Pants, and he will answer them, as long as they don’t relate to the
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Beware the Revolution
I want to start by talking about a growing threat that only a courageous few even acknowledge, let alone actively combat. There is a serious danger in our midst, and not enough of you are taking it seriously. I have spoken of this menace with many of you, and some have been sympathetic, and others respond with a rolling of their eyes, or barely-stifled snickers. But you know what? If I don’t help ensure that the consumption of beef remains a patriotic, nay, humanistic imperative, we will be overrun by dirty, smelly overlords. Do you want overlords? Because I sure as hell don’t.
It is your duty as a man – or a woman; ladies, now is not the time to hide behind your domestic duties, your laundry, your soap operas – to keep cows from beginning their revolution. For those of you raised in rural areas, or who have been to petting zoos and dairy farms, you yourselves have seen the rebellious look in a bovine eye: disdainful expressions, masked expertly by child-friendly moos, and methane-filled flatulence. Sure, they can forget how to turn, and have no opposable thumb with which to grasp simple tools or a lectern. But if we, as a species, turn our backs for just one second, we’ll be out in an unheated barn, peering into our cozy former homes where, on E!, Bessy the supermodel wears Wisconsin’s newest couture: babyskin cocktail dresses, perfect for that elegant dinner of the finest Iowan grass. And I for one will not stand by while anything from
Some say we’re perpetuating this problem by devoting excessive resources to overstimulating our cattle, encouraging overpopulation. The only thing we’re over-ing is overeating. Anything other than beef, that is. Too long we have allowed Big Cucumber to set the health agenda in this country, and do you know who’s behind Lettuce, Inc.? That’s right: those four-legged, lowing herbivores, our nemeses in black and white. The more greens we eat, the more we’re just like them. Soon we won’t be able to escape their corn-fed broken wind; in our own homes, where we will have “smelt it,” we will indeed have “dealt it.”
So fire up that grill, layer an extra slice of pastrami on your sandwich, put another pound of ground chuck in that taco. Support the cause by eating as much beef as you can, if only so one day you can look your granddaughter in her baby blue eyes and tell her that, when the time came, you did your part in the great Man-Cow conflagration. And tell those traitorous vegetarians that they can choke on their perfidious parsnips, that you love mankind too much to chuck it all for some ratatoo- for some rattatowe – for peas.
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