Gut Check

It must be tough to work in research and development for a company whose product requires neither research nor development. Mass-produced foods immediately spring to mind. Pizza, for example. Once you've offered a wide array of toppings and stuffed cheese into every possible orifice, we're set. A pizza isn't complicated. Nevertheless, Domino's has Bread Bowl Pasta. It's pasta. In a bowl made of bread. People are clamoring for this? Pasta alone is a tad too light for the discerning palate? Take the noble taco: steeped in simplicity and needing no exaggeration. Nevertheless, Taco Bell has a Volcano Taco, covered in "spicy hot lava sauce". Now, I love Taco Bell. But, a delivery system for instantaneous diarrhea isn't a plus. How many more permutations of meat, cheese, and beans do they think we need? (Speaking of hot lava sauce, who really thinks toilet paper needs to constantly undergo cosmetic changes? Animated Charmin bears don't distract me from the fact that their "improvement" is a new 12-ply which is "20% more absorbent". Yuck.)

Aside from being unnecessary, these products are insulting. With everything else in our lives experiencing a seismic shift toward caution, it would be nice to see our diets follow suit. I know the mantra "less is more" is seen as vaguely French by most red-blooded Americans, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Life On The Street

This week is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street (prompting those of us who grew up with it to feel especially old). But with innumerable reasons to be depressed these days, sometimes finding a bright spot is as simple as revisiting the basics.

10 Awesome Moments From Sesame Street

Loose Change

At a Memorial Day press conference, the President told the WH Press Corps, "we are out of money". At what point does this guy just say, "Fuck it. I want to pack my shit, grab Michelle and the girls, and just head for the caves with Elijah Wood and that blonde chick, Deep Impact-style"?

You know, like you and I whisper to ourselves every day.

Morituri Te Salutant

As surprised as I am to say it, one of my biggest regrets is that I never spent any time in the military. I was born at Ft. Lee Army Base in Virginia right after my dad had gotten his orders to Vietnam. The fact that I was born by emergency caesarean section (a big deal in the 70's) kept him from going. In high school, I joked that he had me to thank for still having his legs. A week ago, my girlfriend's grandmother was laid to rest at Great Lakes National Cemetary in Michigan. As a Coast Guard vet, she got the 21-gun salute and the whole pomp and circumstance. I'm usually guilty of looking at Memorial Day as just a day off, but I've given more thought to the sacrifices our veterans have made and how poorly they're generally treated upon their return. I'm a proud liberal and I scoff at a lot of empty gestures. People with "Support Our Troops" stickers on their cars who ignore the homeless vet at the stoplight don't impress me. However, I'm also deeply grateful to the thousands of our brothers, sisters, moms, dads, sons, and daughters who are half a world away continuing the life-threatening work that you and I will never have to do.

I Guess Clean Water Will Have To Wait

Some of the the finest engineering minds in the world are sequestered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ostensibly working on some of society's most pressing issues. Evidently, they think a pimped-out bus shelter tops the list. It seems other humanitarian considerations have taken a backseat to the homeless toilet of the future. Finally, our mentally ill veterans will be able to check sports scores while taking a dump. What a gift from the nation they fought so hard to defend! And that touchscreen is going to look sweet covered in crudely-drawn penises and Vice Lords graffiti. Bravo, eggheads.

Pole Position

It's interesting how we re-evaluate our standards in times of crisis. More unemployed, well-educated women are looking for work in adult entertainment to pay the bills. Despite the fact that women still earn less than their male counterparts in most job markets, biology becomes the great equalizer in a down economy. We all gotta make a living and the skin trade is a built-in option for women that guys just don't have. I guess desperate times call for sexy measures.

Arizona Bay

New stats from YouTube report that 20 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. I can only assume our collective response would be something like, "let me get my camera if you're gonna light that fart!". As enamored as I am of the possibilities inherent in advancing technology, I also appreciate that we will use it in the most mundane and banal ways possible. YouTube is great for a lot of things- if you want to see an old George Carlin appearance on Johnny Carson, you're golden. Get a midday hankering for some OG DeGrassi episodes? Go nuts. Flock Of Seagulls videos? Take your pick. But with 20 hours uploaded per minute, that means a lot of the public are also spending an inordinate amount of time on their "What My Nipple Is Doing Today" video log. (Which reminds me, my left one is feeling a bit peckish. I'll post later.) Some people decry these trends as cultural de-evolution. I prefer to enjoy it as the sum total of what we'll leave behind; an exquisite balance of the sublime and the ridiculous. Millions of terabytes of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Exactly as it should be.

Mal Content

Not satisfied dragging the shallows of their own archives for ideas, now the networks are cribbing from each other. ABC has announced that they will remake the 1984 NBC lizard-alien series V for their 2009 season. The show was pretty kickass (in a completely cheesy kind of way), and featured a pre-Nightmare On Elm Street Robert Englund. I wonder how they'll update the FX for a generation weaned on Saw and Hostel movies?

Dig all the latex and hamster-chowing craziness below!

Abort Mission

With the hullabaloo over Obama's remarks on abortion at Notre Dame's commencement, it's interesting to note a predictable inconsistency. While a recent survey says that the majority of Americans consider themselves "pro-life", a significant number of those also support the death penalty. Given the number of protesters who interrupted the President's commencement address on Sunday, where was this righteous indignation at any of President Bush's speeches? Where are the pro-lifers protesting the thousands of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Anti-choice advocates have fooled themselves into believing that "pro-life" is confined to the abortion issue. Nope. Doesn't work that way. You don't get a pass by making a distinction between children and adults. It's PRO-life and if you acquiesce to a grey area on the subject, then the issue of a pro-choice President getting an honorary degree from a Catholic university is moot. It's a football farm, not the Vatican.

May The Fierce Be With You

Last night was the season finale of America's Next Top Model, and I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for this show. I don't wait for each "cycle" with bated breath, but if you can withstand the insufferable ramblings of Tyra Banks, it's a very entertaining hour of television. On the one hand, it's fun to mock young women who are convinced that being the hottest chick at their jerkwater high school puts them on the fast-track to the good life, despite being in an industry that considers 25 "too old". On the other hand, criticizing models for being vapid is missing the point; they're not trying to win a Nobel Prize. The show proves that modeling isn't nearly as easy as the rest of us would like to believe. Even if you're impossibly attractive, that's different than knowing what to do when the camera starts clicking. You and I couldn't do it. So, god love these little vessels of delusion and their fight to be on the cover of Seventeen magazine, where they can possibly inspire 13 million young girls to explore the empowering world of bulimia! And the cycle begins anew.