A Trip To The Chinese Market

Whenever I’m back in LA, at some point I end up with my parents at Chinese supermarkets. The Chinese supermarket experience is magical, and honestly, it’s better than Disneyland.  People have been afraid to say that, but not me. I’m not scared of you, Disneyland. Anyhow, a photo tour for the uninformed:

 Look at how pretty her lips are, must be from drinking a LOT of instant coffee.

This is an Australian king crab, but it reminded me of the boxes of blue crabs they sometimes have. As a kid/last year, I loved poking them with tongs and seeing which crab jumped the highest. Someone got all upset with my “animal cruelty” at which point I tried to make something up about how crabs have exoskeletons, so they don’t have any pain receptors. I should have told the truth which was, “Poking crabs is a hilarious good time.”

My favorite kind of fiesta. The Danish kind.

 Don’t eat the non-edible beef blood, it’s not good. Stick to the edible blood.

 The Cordyceps Fungus isn’t even one of the 10 most expensive fungi in the store.

I immediately bought 14 of these. My favorite thing about this might be the label at the top – “Communicate Everywhere”, evidently marketing the pearl earpick as a substitute to satellite phones.

 I never know what this means.

Regular supermarkets maybe sell like one footstool. The Chinese market invariably has its own footstool section. Is it wrong that I chuckle when I see this? I think it’s probably okay.

When I was little, my friend Ali had a pet turtle. It cost $110 from the pet store. My dad couldn’t believe Ali got his parents to pay roughly $250/lb. for a turtle when the going rate at the time was only $7.99/lb. 

I Strongly Dislike Subway Sandwiches

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people like to eat at Subway. I get that it seems relatively cheap thanks to their $5 footlong sales campaign, but I seem to be constantly surrounded by people who actually LIKE eating there. Not for the savings, they think the sandwiches are tasty. I always say I don’t want to be another guy who blogs that “everything everywhere always fucking sucks”, but Subway really does suck.

Myth #1: Subway bread is great and freshly baked.

Reality: No! It tastes like crap! If you bought a loaf of Subway bread at a supermarket, or a deli, you would be angry at the lack of quality control! The bread, while freshly baked, is flimsy and insubstantial, and utterly devoid of any character or flavor. The “lengthened” bread tastes about as bad as the bread at Blimpie, only the constant marketing of “fresh baked” seems to have fooled people. You would think since they’re supposedly baking bread around the clock they could give you warm bread, but instead you just get this cold, sad pocket of garbage to hold the other garbage in the sandwich.

Myth #2: Subway meat and cheese is great.

Reality: Actually, I just made up this myth. Nobody believes the Subway filling is good, even Subway supporters. They use almost comically low-quality meats and cheeses. What’s sadder than seeing the Subway guy pick up your individual paper carton of pre-separated meat (because god forbid you get even one gram of extra meat), watching him peel off the separating piece of wax paper, and then dumping the contents of said paper carton onto your overly long bread? When you see how little meat there is relative to the bread, you start getting super-psyched-up for all the empty bites of bread, bell peppers and jalapenos you’re about to enjoy in only a matter of minutes. The only thing that might be sadder than the meat is the 3 small triangular pieces of cheese that may not have been acceptable at your second-grade cafeteria, depending on how nice of a school you went to.

Myth #3: Subway is great because you can get unlimited vegetable toppings.

Reality: Hey here’s a genius idea I just thought of: BUY A SALAD! How about that?!? In no other circumstance would you eat a sandwich that was 85% comprised of shredded lettuce from a bag, sliced olives, bell peppers, mushy tomatoes, jalapenos, banana peppers and onions. And yet somehow people who go to Subway think this is a good idea, even though (1) they never eat sandwiches like that anywhere else and (2) they would never make that sort of sandwich for themselves. If you mixed the Subway vegetables into a salad, everyone would say, “whoa, that’s a disgusting salad”. But dump it all in a foot of bread, and suddenly this is a great idea.

Myth #4: Sure Subway doesn’t taste all that good, but it’s so cheap!

Reality: Yes, you can get moderately full at Subway for $5 before tax. But you could get VERY full eating seven Cup of Noodles for even less money. It’s all about what you get for the $5, not the fact that it’s $5. And what you’re getting is garbage. People seem to be under the impression, “what a great deal! A FOOTLONG sandwich for $5!” But the amount of meat and cheese (setting aside the quality for a second) you get in a footlong sandwich is only as much as any deli would serve in a sandwich half as big. The trick Subway has mastered is baking this long, thin bread (almost like they took regular, acceptable bread, and then just stretched it from both ends, making the inside of the bread more hollow) and sort of playing with geometry to make it look like you’re not getting screwed on meat and cheese. It’s no accident Quizno’s unveiled their “Torpedo” sandwiches, which are even thinner – they saw what Subway was succeeding with, and took it one step further. Apparently a lot of people don’t mind eating a crappy sandwich, provided it’s a really long sandwich! (Feel free to insert your own highly appropriate follow-up joke here).

Myth #5: Subway is great because it’s nutritious!

Reality: I suppose many of the sandwiches are less unhealthy than other fast food options, but if this is a big priority, the answer is not to eat at Subway, it’s just to eat less fast food. Quizno’s first big wave of expansion occurred when I was in middle school. (Sidebar, my school was called an “intermediate school”, and I used this term for years on the east coast before finally giving up because people thought maybe I went to a remedial school for low-IQ children. I always thought my school was called an intermediate school because the other middle school in the district started with a “P”, and conceivably could have been abbreviated “PMS”, which was apparently not acceptable.) In middle school, after eating Quizno’s for the first time, I thought “oh man, Subway is SCREWED.” I don’t think Quizno’s is great or anything, but the comparison to Subway is a complete joke. Yet as the years have gone by, people continue to prefer Subway’s untoasted, flimsy, meatless “weight-loss” concoction, and I just can’t understand.

Anyways, don’t ask me to go to Subway with you. I guess that’s the only conclusion here.

Girl Scout Cookies Versus Movies

It’s that time of the year. That’s right kids, girl scout cookies have arrived! (Fu hooked me up). Sujit, Joanna and I were talking a few days ago, and we collectively all extolled the merits of fresh-baked cookies. Sujit in particular was fiercely adamant that he doesn’t really like any pre-packaged cookies, like Oreos or Chips Ahoy. I definitely agree with him that freshly baked cookies are ideal, but it just seemed like he was overstating things. Suddenly it came to me:

“Wait a minute, man – what about girl scout cookies?”
Sujit’s eyes quickly became the size of airplane hangars. “Oh my god, I forgot about those,” he said, almost incredulous that he could have forgotten that.
“Like, I still really love Thin Mints,” I continued.
Sujit was nearly salivating in front of our eyes. “Hey hey what’s that really delicious one, like in a ring, with the coconut and chocolate?”
“Samoas?”
“Ohhhhh man Samoas! Those are SOOOO GOOD!” Sujit went on to say that he would eat an entire box immediately. Then we all just kind of thought about girl scout cookies for a moment, and ultimately Sujit had to modify his original statement while bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have any to eat right now.

Three boxes of girl scout cookies now costs $10.50, which, incidentally, is roughly the price of most non-matinee movie showings. It’s an interesting thought exercise to see which movies I got more satisfaction out of seeing in theaters versus having three boxes of cookies. In all seriousness, I’ve probably seen fewer than 40 movies in theaters that would defeat three boxes of girl scout cookies. If I ever become a movie critic, that’s going to be my version of four stars. I can hear the voiceover in the commercials now – “Roger Ebert says, ‘Epic filmmaking of the finest caliber!’…The Los Angeles Times raves, ‘the year’s first sure-fire Oscar contender!’…Eric Ma says, ‘Provides greater utility to the consumer than three boxes of girl scout cookies!’”

That’s probably one reason girl scout cookies can’t be sold at movie theaters. If they did that, you would be constantly reminded of how bad a deal it is to watch movies in theater.

Girl scout cookies are delicious. I have the munchies. That is the end of this post.

This Is Why You're Fat

Courtesy of Allison, the latest food blog to sweep the nation - "This Is Why You're Fat". Here's a few of my personal favorites:

French-fry encased hot dog on a stick.

Krispy Kreme donut bacon cheeseburgers.

Turbaconucken. It's a Turducken entirely encased in bacon.

Here's the link again for the full sight, some of the pictures are simply glorious.

First rule of Fat Club - you do not talk about Fat Club.

More On Sea Kittens

Stephanie urged me to mention the "Sea Kitten Stories" on the PETA website, which you can access here. I hadn't even seen these when I wrote the earlier post, but they definitely bear mentioning. It's an illustrated book, with stories of sea kittens and the cruel things humans do to them. Here's one tale, reproduced in its entirety:

Tony the Trout is the smartest Sea Kitten in his school. Already litter-trained at 2 months old, Tony went on to double-major in neuroscience and environmental studies at Clamford University, eventually graduating with honors. (Accompanying this is a drawing of a fish throwing his graduation cap into the air.)

When Tony is caught and fed to a precocious young child who, having eaten one mercury-filled sea kitten too many, falls to the bottom of the class, the irony is not lost on him. (Accompanying this is a drawing of a sad kid, staring at the skeleton of the fish he just ate, and for some reason the aforementioned graduation cap is also on the table.)

That isn't even the best one. I encourage you to look yourself.

Sea Kittens!

Navid alerted me to PETA’s latest campaign, which is so ridiculous that I don’t even think I need to make any jokes. I think I just need to state it. Here goes:

PETA has launched a campaign aimed at getting people to stop fishing and eating fish. This is the premise – people don’t eat dogs and cats because they are considered cute and friendly. People don’t think fish are cute and friendly. The reason, for the most part, is the name “fish”, which does not connote any warm and fuzzy feelings. So the way to fix this “problem”? Change the word “fish” to “sea kittens”, and develop an extensive “sea kitten” marketing campaign with graphics of anthropomorphic “sea kittens” doing things like reading books. Once you have effectively removed the word “fish” from the national vocabulary and replaced it with “sea kitten”, people will stop eating “sea kittens” and causing “sea kittens” to feel pain.

The campaign is so ridiculous, when I sent the link around, some people asked me if it was a joke website meant to mock PETA. Seriously, people need to eat more fish, not less, and if certain practices help bring fish at a lower cost to the obese masses, I am all for it.

Making fun of PETA is, to paraphrase Chris Rock, “Like calling double dribble on a retarded kid. You just gotta let some shit slide.” But I can’t completely resist, so I’ll end with this one, from Navid.

"I'll have the sea kitten. Grilled."

C is for Cookie

Hemanshu sent me a link from the Consumerist the other day, with a picture of a Kentucky restaurant that devised a clever little way to disguise its “C” health rating.

Reminded me of a time back in 2002 – LA County was one of the first places to require publicly posting health ratings. I was in the Century City mall food court, and the pizza place there had a “C” health rating. An elderly Hispanic lady walked up to the counter, and the following conversation ensued with the pizza shop owner, translated from Spanish:

“What is that letter on the wall?”
“What letter?”
“The big ‘C’ there.”
“Ohhh! That! The ‘C’ is for Jesus Christ!”
“Ah! How wonderful, of course it is! I will have that slice there, to go”

Awesome.

Quick Hits

I should start off by making a lot of excuses for the lack of blog entries in the past 3 weeks. Basically, it all stems from my slow-to-heal sprained left ankle. I can walk now, but I really still can't run, so as a result, I'm inordinately sluggish, and when I get home, instead of thinking up blog entries, I just pass out on the couch around 10:30 pm. The scary part comes 4 hours later when I come to. Did I drool on myself? Why do I have 5 missed calls? Why is Carson Daly still on TV?

One of my pet peeves is when local areas have specific temporary names for roads. So like, when you're driving, you just keep driving straight, only suddenly the name of the road you're on is totally different, and then like 10 minutes later you have no idea where you are anymore. Richard told me that in Detroit, not only is there an "8 Mile" road, but also a "7 Mile" and "6 Mile" road. I think that's just so stupid. If you later on decide to extend or alter roads, the names no longer make any sense. Of course, all this complaining will be reversed if someone decides to name a road after me. "Eric Ma Lane" - that just sounds like a fun road to drive. If you're reading this AND you happen to be the mayor of some town, let's make this happen.

I've been going out to eat less often with the gimpy ankle, so I've had to do a little more grocery shopping. The closest market to me is a Trader Joe's, which is both a great and incredibly frustrating market. Trader Joe's is really good for ridiculously specific things - frozen desserts, herbal supplements, cheap red wine. Unfortunately, they're bad in wide-ranging categories like "produce" and "milk" and "jellybeans". Sara reminded me of one of their most ridiculous marketing techniques - when Trader Joe's sells "ethnic" food, it gets branded under "ethnic names", like "Trader Jose's Chicken Empanadas" or "Trader Ming's Sesame Ginger Noodles". I'm stunned that someone out there thought this was a good idea.

The writers' strike continues to drive me insane. Fox has this horrific lie detector show coming up where they basically strap someone in, and ask questions like, "would you donate your kidney to save your father's life?" Or, "do you expect to still be married in three years?" Entertainment Weekly had a quote calling it "the end of western civilization", which sounds about right to me. But then, Fox turns around and tries to USE THAT in their marketing. The commercial I just saw said, "is this show the end of western civilization?" (attributed to Entertainment Weekly) "...tune in and find out!" I'm serious, President Bush is not going to solve any Israeli-Palestinian conflict at this point in his presidency. If he wants to redeem himself in even some minuscule way, he should broker a deal to end the writers' strike. I'm about to lose my mind. Fox is even bringing back the "reality" show "Paradise Hotel", which I had thought already ended western civilization back in 2003.

Oh, and watch "Juno" if you haven't yet. Very funny.

Grape Nuts

All around me, the signs of old age are flashing. I can't watch MTV. I don't like this guy. I like wearing wool sweaters. I go to Costco and buy Metamucil in bulk. Maybe not the last one, I won't say for sure, it's too personal.

The latest sign that's been on my mind is my choice in breakfast cereals. Long gone are the days of colorful, exciting cereals with cool shapes and meaningless nutritional content. The only cereals I used to eat as kid that I would even consider eating today are Corn Pops and Apple Jacks, and even then, not so much. And you can forget about stuff like Rice Krispies Treats cereal or Cookie Crisp. (Seriously, I cannot believe that the FDA would approve of Cookie Crisp. Whoever thought of this "cereal" was an evil genius - "let's sell a cereal like Frosted Flakes - only with one minor change - all the flakes will be cookies! Awesome!" Come on now, that's not a freaking cereal, that's a big bowl of cookies. That's like feeding a little kid crack!)

I've long since advanced to the next tier of adult cereals - Smart Start, Blueberry Morning (which is just delicious), Great Grains, etc. At least I've managed to not eat the truly fogey cereals, like (unfrosted) shredded wheat, or worse, Grape Nuts.

Grape Nuts has got to be the worst cereal in the history of the world. I can be prone to overstatement at times, but seriously, Grape Nuts is horrible. They had pretty good commercials, and decent packaging, so one time as a kid I got a box of Grape Nuts at the supermarket. I was feeling good - at last, I had advanced to adult cereals. And it was going to be delicious to boot! Man, was that a mistake. Unbeknownst to me, the cereal doesn't even taste like grapes! Or nuts! Honestly, it really doesn't taste like anything at all. Except for crap. It does taste like crap.

The taste itself is only "very bad", but what puts Grape Nuts in the Eric Ma Food Hall of Shame is the texture. A bowl of Grape Nuts is like eating a bowl of gravel rocks. I think I chipped three teeth just trying to eat it. I immediately switched to a different cereal, and just left the 90% full box of Grape Nuts in the kitchen cabinet. This past summer (9 years later), my mom was cleaning out the cabinets we never clean (you know you have some) and asked me why we had a box of Grape Nuts with a 1999 expiration date. I didn't know what to say. The only thing that came to mind was this line I sadly heard on MTV's Emmy-award winning "Yo Momma": "Yo momma is so stupid she thought Grape Nuts was an STD." I mulled this over, and decided not to relay that zinger to my mom.

Since I'll probably never give in to Grape Nuts, it seems the logical course of culinary destiny is oatmeal. My mom eats oatmeal in full force, and several years ago she forced my dad to stop eating toast and instead eat these giant bowls of oatmeal. Now whenever I'm home, I suffer the same fate. I have to eat this ridiculously large amount of oatmeal, which throws off my schedule for the entire day. It's like some weird form of immersion therapy. Oatmeal immersion therapy.

Miscellaneous Monday

I have a lot of half-written blog entries, based on ideas that I initially think merit a full entry. Then I make one joke and realize I really have nothing else to say. Since today is a slow day inside my brain, let's just clean up all my half-ass entries and a few other spare thoughts.

-----------

I absolutely love this whole Senator Larry Craig story, I find everything about it completely hilarious. Especially his claim that he adopted a "wide stance" and "leaned forward" because he was having what the Mexicans call "problemas" on the toilet. In college, Rich once told me that in fact one should do exactly the opposite when faced with such "problemas". I asked him how he knew this, and he said he had a friend who "knows about these sorts of things". I always wondered who this was.

Some people were surprised a conservative anti-gay senator would try to have sex with other dudes in a public restroom, but ever since Chris Kattan announced his engagement (to a woman!) I've come to accept that anything is possible.
-----------
Why is it an outrage than Apple dropped the iPhone price by $200? If I make something, I should be able to sell it for whatever I damn well please. And I should be able to change my mind on that whenever I damn well please. If you agreed to buy the iPhone at $599, that meant you wanted the iPhone more than you wanted 599 dollars. You experienced what economists call "consumer surplus". Apple gave you a fair deal. You know how I know it's fair? Because you bought it, that's why. If it were "overpriced", you wouldn't have gotten one. Whether other people get it months later for less has no bearing on the fairness of the original economic trade.

People need to shut up. Apple shouldn't have to give anyone anything. They already did those people a favor. They gave them a product they would have paid more than $599 for, but only asked for $599 back. But as usual, whiny bitches get rewarded.
------------
I find mayonnaise really gross, but if you add some food coloring and call it aioli or "special sauce", then it's all good.
------------
If you like tennis, I can instantly name about 42 states I am 100% sure you do not live in. Roger Federer just won the U.S. Open, concluding a tournament with the best U.S. Open total attendance in history. And the highlights struggled to even crack the first 30 minutes of that night's SportsCenter. SportsCenter would rather air "Fact or Fiction: Stuart Scott has no friends" than show tennis highlights. Unless you live or are from a coast (and not like, the Gulf Coast), nobody, and I mean nobody, cares at all about tennis. What a shame. Oh, and in case you're curious, that is a FACT, Stuart Scott does not have any friends.
----------
Beef is so absurdly delicious, I got to wondering how much they would have to charge for beef for me to stop eating beef. $20 a pound, I'm definitely still eating beef. $30? $40? Even at $100 a pound, I think I would still at least occasionally have some beef, like to celebrate a special occasion. It's just too damn good. What is your beef price point? I can't decide what mine is.

How could a non-religious person be a vegetarian? It boggles the mind. Once my cousin Bryce randomly decided to become a vegetarian, ostensibly for health reasons. I didn't see him for a few years, and when we met again he was no longer a vegetarian, he said he missed beef too much. In related news, Bryce also had long hair during this phase. His family refuses to display pictures of him from this time period, which makes sense to me, if the reason is the vegetarian thing.

Did Somebody Say...McDonalds?

Do you guys still eat at McDonalds? Ali asked me about this the other day, and I realized I hadn't eaten there since August 2005, which was creepily specific, but nonetheless true. So I've now gone two years without once eating at McDonalds (excluding the time last month I got a Powerade there for 49 cents).

Two years marks the longest period in life I have gone without eating a meal at McDonalds, and I don't miss anything from their menu. I don't like their meat, their cheese, their buns or their toppings. If I want a burger, I can't imagine why I would ever go to McDonalds over In-N-Out or Shake Shack or 1000 other burger places. I used to eat their Chicken McNuggets, but then they made this horribly misinformed decision and eliminated all the "dark meat" nuggets, which, as anyone I trust with regards to food will tell you, are the only ones you really want. In fact, if I made a list of every fast food place out there, McDonalds would only beat out Hardees and possibly Burger King.

Stuff like "Super Size Me" and "Fast Food Nation" isn't really what turned me off to McDonald's, though I admit it doesn't help. I do think for the level of damage you're doing to your body, more deliciousness should be required.

Even their massive advertising budget has ceased to have any effect on me. As a kid, McDonalds had some classic advertising, like the Michael Jordan/Larry Bird game of horse. And Grimace, the purple blob that can't talk, but don't get me started on that. Now it's just a slew of crap, much of it painfully attempting to be hip. I cringe all the time at McDonalds commercials these days. The worst ones I ever saw were the various "rap" songs promoting McGriddles, showing people (who would get their ass beat if they looked that corny in those neighborhoods) devoting their day to eating McGriddles. Eventually this gave way to the marginally less stupid "a woman is like a McGriddle" metaphor commercial where this bitch totally eats this guy's McGriddle without even asking him, forcing him to go buy another one. Unfortunately I can't find any of these commercials online, because generally, nobody bothers to post terrible commercials. Except for this one.

This isn't an anti-McDonalds manifesto, really just wondering if anyone else stopped eating there.

Positive Thoughts

The blog has been a little downbeat lately - so in an effort to fulfill the self-proclamation that this won't be a "this is why everything sucks" blog, here's a few things I enjoy and recommend.

For Reading: For several years now, Emily Yoffe has written an interesting column at slate.com called "Human Guinea Pig". In her own words, she "[tries] things you might want to do but don't have the time or opportunity." Her latest experience was to be a "standardized patient" at Georgetown, receiving 23 head-to-toe physicals from 23 second-year medical students. The account is hilarious, highlights being her blood pressure reading ranging from 87/60 to 125/90 and a student-doctor who removes her bra to listen to her heart. The sample medical patient article is here; I find her column even funnier given all the first and second-year medical school friends I have who have undergone the same (undoubtedly) awkward experience. I first encountered her column a couple years ago when she recounted her attempts to defeat a lie detector test. That, and other accounts definitely worth a read, can be found here.

For Listening: For years now, my favorite artist has been the incredible Talib Kweli. To call him a "rapper" (which he is) feels like an insulting term, as it suggests similarities to D4L or implies that he's working on the next "Party Like a Rockstar". So "artist" it is. He has a new album coming out on July 24th called "Eardrum" which I'm looking forward to eagerly. He's long been a favorite within the music industry, and his collaborators on "Eardrum" would be fitting for a multi-platinum superstar (Norah Jones, will.i.am, KRS-One, Justin Timberlake, Just Blaze, Musiq Soulchild, UGK). The longtime Kweli favorites, like Hi-Tek, Kanye West and DJ Khalil are around again, although Mos Def isn't. The leaks I've heard sound extremely promising. He took a lot of flak for his supposedly overly commercial mindset on his last album, but I don't mind it - extending someone with this much talent to the masses can only be a good thing. I've heard him say plenty of times that he views himself as a piece of hip-hop and not its savior. Talib and I will agree to disagree.

For those of you who plan to immediately disregard all of this because you hate rap, take a look at this video, which is technically poetry (although I'm certain in 500 years, historians will think they are one and the same.) Even if you disagree with the message, his talent is undeniable.



For Drinking: On one of my last days in New York, I went into a Tribeca drugstore to get some bottled water. The incredibly attractive woman walking in front of me picked out a bottle I had never seen before, so naturally I just bought the exact same thing, because that's how I roll. Turned out to be this mint-flavored water called "Metromint", and while both looking stupid and sounding stupid (direct quotes from the bottle-text include "Real mint stimulates the brain to open your senses and send cooling sensations throughout your body"), I have to admit it was pretty refreshing. I'm not sure if they sell this everywhere, but if you already buy bottled water, give this a shot. I'm buying it again if I ever see it somewhere, unless a different hot chick buys something else.

For Looking: Tribeca drugstore customer was hot, but nowhere near as hot as my "celebrity" crush of the moment, Miranda Kerr. I'm sure there's a lot of facts to know about her, but since she's a model, who cares. Google away.

Stone Cold

I had to travel again for work yesterday, and arrived at the meeting site about 90 minutes early, so I decided to kill some time and go to the Coldstone Creamery across the street. As a sidebar, you know how if you tip them a dollar at Coldstone, they have to sing some kind of super-enthusiastic T.G.I. Fridays sort of song? Apparently in high school, James used to go to his suburban Coldstone Creamery, where he was the only customer and there were only like one or two people working there, and bring maybe 6 dollars, and just periodically tip a dollar for no reason other than forcing them to sing those stupid songs, which they did with furious rage on their faces.

Anyways, I walk in, and it's chock full of high school or maybe middle school kids and a few poorly dressed parents. In I come, on a lovely 75 degree day, in a full suit and tie. Pretty awkward - everyone had this look on their face like "Who does this douche think he is?" But what the hell, I already walked here - no 13-year olds are scaring me away. So then, picking up my briefcase, I walk up to the 16-year old cashier, resplendent in his acne and braces, and muster the straightest face I possibly could.

"Can I help you, sir?"
"Yes, I'll have a Cookie Doughn't You Want Some, please".
"Sure, a Cookie Doughn't You Want Some. You want a 'Like it' or 'Love it'?"
"'Like it' is good."

As I tossed my tie over my shoulder to avoid any ice cream stains, it occurred me that I'm rarely overdressed for any situation. The whole experience threw me for a little bit of a loop. I'm wondering, is it better to be overdressed or underdressed for a given, typical situation? Like, would you rather be in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts at a wedding, or wearing a tuxedo at someone's beach house? Annie said she'd opt for being underdressed, because it's embarrassing either way, but at least when you're underdressed, you're physically comfortable, which I think is a good way of looking at it. Eager to hear other thoughts on overdressed versus underdressed.

And in case you were wondering, my Cookie Doughn't You Want Some was tasty, but melted extremely quickly. It would have been a lot of wasted ice cream had I gone with the "Love It" instead of the "Like It".

Candy Rain

I was a convenience store today and was blown away by the variety of candy and mints that were being sold. I don't mean to suggest this is some kind of new phenomenon, but I never really thought about it before. How do all these product lines survive? I understand that the same company is making like 15 different chocolate bars, much as one cereal company has a lot of different cereals, but still - to maintain the separate production of a type of candy has substantial costs, but I never see or hear of anyone ever eating a lot of the things I see in stores. At least with every cereal I see frequently, I know people who eat (or as kids, used to eat) those cereals. Almost half the candies feel like they have no audience. One time, when I was maybe 8 years old, Rich gave me a SKOR bar, which I had never noticed before, but he claimed was good. I had it, it was in fact good, and I never had it again. I never saw anyone else eat one. I never even heard of anyone eating one. Yet there it is, sitting in the store, waiting patiently for no one to buy it.

When retired General Wesley Clark was running for president, I saw him on TV giving away Clark candy bars, and I thought it was weird that he would develop a candy bar just for his campaign, until someone told me that it was actually a commonly sold candy brand. I went to the store, and what do you know, a Clark bar. Never eaten one, never seen anyone else eat one. Then there's 100 Grand, which I've eaten myself because my dad had a buy one, get one free coupon for Halloween candy when I was a little kid, but I don't know of anyone else who eats it, save for the kids who came to our house that Halloween. I just don't comprehend how these obscure candies make money.

I also saw Certs in the store - have those become obsolete? I know they existed before Altoids became popular, but since Altoids burst onto the scene, I haven't seen anyone with Certs. There were a whole variety of newer Certs mints, which I've seen people buy, but they still sold like 5 flavors of the original roll Certs, which I don't think I've seen anyone with since like 1995. Maybe it's just so cheap to make candy and mints that even when the entire market passes it by, it's still better to continue producing. In which case, I demand a price drop - I rarely buy candy or mints anymore, so it won't save me much money, but it's the kids I'm looking out for. Children are our future.

Spare Thoughts

I've noticed that no matter how full I am, or how recently I just ate, if there's guacamole in front of me, I will eat it. Even when it's mediocre guacamole, I still can't not eat it. I don't normally crave guacamole, but when it's just sitting there, it's virtually impossible not to eat. For me, guacamole is kind of like Rocky IV. Everyone agrees it is awesome, but you typically wouldn't plan your night around watching Rocky IV. But if it's on, man, it's pretty much impossible not to watch.

Steve alerted me to ESPN Classic showing reruns of American Gladiators at 7 pm on weekdays. ESPN Classic could be awesome but isn't - I guess they're afraid of showing anything remotely interesting 98% of the time in fear that it will divert ratings away from their more meaningful sister channels, so they show kickboxing and karate and poker reruns around the clock. Finally with American Gladiators, they've found something that isn't sports, but also doesn't suck. The show was great - I don't know why it wouldn't work today, I'm sure I'd still watch. I always enjoyed the comedy of jackasses like Nitro and Turbo, and the challenges were always cool, particularly the joust and the atlasphere, where they rolled around in those steel cages. They never implemented the "Fastest Steroid Injection" competition like I kept suggesting. I guess no one read all those letters I sent in.

What I've been reading: More Sex is Safer Sex, by Steven Landsburg. It's sort of a wannabe Freakonomics, with more absurd conclusions and less supporting hard data. It's also not as tightly written, but despite the flaws, it's still an interesting read. The title comes from an essay Landsburg published for Slate in 1996, arguing that increased sexual activity from sexual conservatives would create a safer environment. He implicitly contends that pro-abstinence campaigns are likely to resonate more strongly with sexual conservatives, thereby biasing the pool even more towards those who are infected. The more clean people in the pool, the less chance your random hookup poses any danger. He fleshes his thoughts out much better than that in the link, and even more so in his book. An interesting viewpoint, which is, within certain boundaries, quite clearly correct. Not everything else he throws against the wall works, but the book is engaging and clever.

What I've been listening to: I finally got around to buying Lupe Fiasco's debut album, Food & Liquor. It's been out for half a year already, but somehow I never got around to listening to it even though I loved the initial single "Kick, Push", a masterful skateboarding-coming-of-age story with a great hook. The rest of the album is consistently thoughtful and entertaining, and Lupe Fiasco exhibits the same electric flow as he had on Kanye West's "Touch The Sky" on nearly every track. It's my favorite rap album since Talib Kweli's "Quality" - I don't know many people who listen to this sort of stuff, but if you do, check out Lupe Fiasco's "Hurt Me Soul", "The Instrumental", or "Just Might Be OK". Best stuff I've heard in a while. Or listen to Avril and Fall Out Boy - I'm not here to judge. Really.