| 12:45
am - May the force be with you in the workplace |
I'm
watching a recording of "The Biggest Loser," the new
show about huge losers -- I mean, weight loss. Oh, I get it!
Honestly,
the pun does make sense and is sort of funny. But it's still kind
of awful to see a promo with slow, tearjerking "The More
You Know"-type piano music with the title "The Biggest
Loser" plastered onto the screen. It degrades the music,
or pianos everywhere, or something.
First
line of the show: "These. People. Are. FAT." Um, thanks.
We know. But guess what? I kind of like this show. At least the
contestants are losing weight the old-fashioned way intsead of
getting stapled and tucked and lifted everywhere. That will always
be gross to me, no matter how pretty the final product looks.
And they're losing weight for the old-fashioned reason, too: a
$250,000 prize. Bullshit! Give them a million. Cheap... losers.
Needless
to say, after seeing Jillian the Trainer stand next to the flabby
Red Team, I just set my alarm for a 7 a.m. jog.
Picture
time?
Here's Union Square Park and half
of Zach's face. We're making fun of the figure in the circle.
Why?
He
had a REINDEER SWEATER on. In October! Actually, we sort of loved
the effort. It was more funny that someone was wearing a reindeer
sweater in Manhattan than the fact that he was way off month-wise.
It reminded Zach of when his uncle wore a cowboy hat during his
entire visit here. He's working on an essay about it, entitled
"Udderly Fabulous: The Life and Times of an Urban Cowboy."
Today, I visited the vending machine at work. Actually, I went
three times, but this one was the most significant.
I
selected F1: Diet Pepsi, and the VM suddenly spat out a Pepsi!
Note that Pepsi is not even an option in this particular VM. Best
Surprise Ever.
Oh,
and then this happened:
Darth
Vader and a Stormtrooper stopped by EW to promote a new line of
vintage toys. I felt like a tool with my digi (not a new feeling
for me) but then the cam ended up being a hit. In case you weren't
sure, that makes one whole "digi cam." God forbid I
use complete words.
BT
double-u, I'm not really getting up at 7.
Tuesday,
October 19, 2004 |
| 12:45
am - In pointless graphical news... |
Sometimes
I use the Internet at work. Not often, just for research. Like
when Rebecca and I send each other links to obscenely expensive
bags over Instant Messenger (a newfangled computer program I've
recently started using).
On
the Coach
site, there's a "try this bag on" feature which
I originally found rather cute and helpful. But then, for "fun,"
I selected the 4'11"-5'4" height range instead of my
own, and was horrified to compare the two resulting diagrams.
Does
anyone else think this looks disproportionate? The mini-me short
girl might as well be the six-year-old child of the gargantuan
taller one. Plus, who the F is 4'11"?
Despite
the new
law banning photography in the subway, I risked my life and
this website's flailing reputation to snap a shot of this ad for
Manhattan Mini Storage:
Okay.
Fine. As uncomfortable as the thought of "BURNING YOUR CROTCH!"
while riding a crowded subway car is, I tolerate this ad because
it includes a large spaghetti dinner. But let's look closer:
The
spaghetti area is the only portion that has literally been peeled
away. This means that someone was bored or hungry enough to longingly
scrape his or her nails against the poster as if it was scratch-'n'-sniff
or something.
I
respect the effort (though I personally would have gone for the
garlic bread first), but I wonder if finally peeling away the
top layer of poster was at all gratifying. To me, that'd just
be a huge letdown: No, it's really not food. You lose. Maybe it
would have been better to just wonder and wonder and never find
out.
| 9:48
am - I really am so very cool |
Big
news! Pick up Entertainment Weekly magazine at a newstand today
and then don't feel the need to buy it but do feel the need to
stand there, read the mostly meaningless text on the right half
of page 17, and maybe steal a candy bar or two.
Pretty
cool, huh? I can now die happy. (But I probably won't.)
12:30 am - The Mouth Swish: Weigh In! |
I
thoroughly enjoyed a large slice of Whole Foods cornbread at my
desk this afternoon, 5-ish. (It was like I was intentionally sabatoging
my chances of going running at 6:30. Okay, it wasn't "like"
that, it was that.)
I
almost freaked out because as a result of what I thought was an
ingenious plan to be tidy and let extranneous crumbs fall into
the garbage can, I unwrapped the cornbread above the can only
to watch a third of it crumble instantly and fall in. I took a
moment and actually considered retrieving it, but realized it
wouldn't be "it," it would be one million little pieces
of "it" that I'd have to scrape up (against a banana
peel) and re-mold as a dense little crumbly nugget of greasy cornmeal.
"Oh no she di-int!" the coworkers would say.
Well,
they probably wouldnt' say that because nobody ever speaks out
loud in the office. But they totally would've e-mailed me about
it.
When I was wee, we had cornbread for dinner a lot. I was obsessed
with it. Eating the cornbread today triggered an intense memory
about my previous cornbread experiences. I realized that I used
to swish room-temperature water in my mouth with every small bite
of cornbread. Why the F would I do this? What a horrible idea,
especially when there are so many other beverages I could have
sampled?
The
beverage-swishing process itself doesn't strike me as that strange,
considering I still have a vast repertroire of food-drink combos
that MUST go together. For example, you must not know me that
well if you didn't know that I relish the mouth-swishing combination
of 1)turkey sub and 2)regular cola. I like the cola to be ice-cold,
but not on ice. Fresh out of the vending machine is perfect. The
sub should include crusty, somewhat "challenging" bread
and a sizable, but not overwhelming, amount of mayo.
The
Mouth Swish (MS) is key to our appreciation of food. Why shovel
in more and more of one thing all at once when you can sit back,
take little bites and little sips together, and really relish
both what you are ingesting and the fact that -- hey, you're ingesting...
and that's awesome.
My
own swishing process is not so much active swishing as an intense,
euphoric period of comingling. First comes the bite, then the
sip, and then you should just let the elements come together on
their own. Don't force it. Each bite/sip will be unique, according
to the materials' whimsies. It's out of your hands. Just let them
sit there and settle, and then 7-15 seconds later, let the tongue
slowly compress the mixture...
This
is getting weird. Rather than go into this more, I'll just list
a few more of my favorite MS combos:
--Fritos/Diet
Pepsi
--Taco Bell Mexican Pizza/Mountain Dew
--anything cake-based/milk
--Nilla wafers/Minute Maid fruit punch
--Brownberry croutons/Five Alive citrus drink
--blueberry muffins/Tropicana OJ
--Pepperidge Farm gingerbread men/Haagen Dazs raspberry sorbet
--chicken pesto sandwiches/orange-banana smoothies
Hmm.
Maybe THIS should be a book.
I
know I come off as alarmingly extreme regarding this topic, but
I seriously doubt I'm alone in savoring the slight swish. Leave
a comment with your favorite MS combo! And if you think I'm disgusting,
go ahead and keep that to yourself. You don't have to be here.
But the Five Alive does.
Thursday,
October 7, 2004 |
1:30 am - Maybe this will be the only post for October |
I know, I suck. But, new headshot!
