Tastes (Kinda) Like Chicken, Looks Like The Lower 48?

Call me old-fashioned, but I like my food to look like food.  Sure, it's a well-known fact that I enjoy the little cheese crackers with the peanut butter in them, and that color does not occur in nature except to scream 'poisonous!', but they do look exactly like they're designed to.

On the opposite side of the coin, what's the deal with chicken nuggets?  First it was McDonalds, and now it seems everyone is jumping on the 'that's-not-shaped-like-food' bandwagon.  I don't eat McNuggets, but on occasion, nuggets from other fast food icons make a quick and tidy snack when I'm on the run, and they're all shaped the same. Some of them look like Minnesota.  Some of them are shaped like animators used to draw pork chops back in the 1940's.  Some of them are shaped like paramecia.  Some of them have no rhyme or reason whatsoever, and they're only benefit is the ability to fit neatly into a vat of barbecue or sweet-and-sour.

I get the dinosaurs, the stars and the other amusing kid-friendly shapes, because we want our kids to eat something besides paste and scabs.  But unless you come out with the full fifty state nugget pack to teach them geography, it seems wrong to pick on one or two.  And 50 nuggets would just add to the growing childhood obesity issues in this country, especially dipped in honey mustard.

Round is good.  Shape them like drumsticks, I'll be happy.  It's an extrusion, you can't tell me these are the only shapes we can come up with.

Does that look like a McNugget/New Hampshire to you?

I mentioned my curiousity about this to someone the other day, and they sent me to this article about genetically engineered ground meat.  That's right, scientists are developing cell structures that will grow a hamburger without ever needing to be farm-raised, slaughtered or butchered, and it won't create the mass amounts of greenhouse gas expelled by real cows and chickens. 

This makes perfect sense to me, that half of the meat we consume is already ground, so why not remove the animal cruelty from the picture?  I love the American farm and the American farmer, but I've read much on the environmental impact a single cow can have on global warming, and how each cow produces 1/16th the meat-to-pollution ratio of smaller animals like chickens.  And now, everyone could grow their own meat.  I'm on board.

The only tragedy here?  Every day I don't finish my old novel is a day that my imaginary happenings become closer to truth.

Damn.  I wish I had some of those cheesy peanut butter crackers.

Blast from the Past - Haiku

January's a busy time around here at CDS Enterprises (A wholly-owned division of NFG Worldwide, Ltd.)  As such, I don't have the time to rant anew - at least not in print.  Being as we are four months from my cresting (and subsequently being 'over') the hill, it seems only appropriate that I share with you some crotchety posts from the past.

This dates from early 2006, when GERD was the word...

Indigestive Haiku

I

i lie here awake
now my stomach tortures me
churning endlessly


II

i can barely breathe
the acid climbs and won't cease
all i feel is pain


III

why did i eat that
when I know it brings me pain
anger makes it worse


IV

now my brain joins in
overload of stressful thoughts
my goals never met


V

restless endless nights
sleeplessness my constant foe
i think im going mad


VI

pain just grows and grows
im taking purple pills now
they dont seem to help

And what is the Ponz? He's cool.

Correctamundo.

The times, they are achangin' here at Cheesehead Displacement Syndrome. Once upon a time, the concept was that blog tags would allow you, dear reader, to find those items of greatest interest to you, to neatly flag and categorize my brilliance. Click on a tag for 'bacon', for example, and you get a list of salty, smoked belly goodness.

However, much like the obvious 'Contents may be hot' label on a McDonald's coffee cup, we will be discontinuing the use of the 'nerd' tag for the duration. Because really, I feel like I've been overusing the tag, resulting in an overwhelming mountain of posts for anyone searching the nerdosphere.

As an example of my ever-present nerdiness: After reading news articles, I've come to the logical conclusion that hard work is for suckers. I live in want, a victim of our materialistic society instead of one of its beneficiaries. Where's my reward for a life of ease and shortcuts? How can I best profit from the human need for something for nothing, leveraging both humanity's greed and inherent laziness? After all, one of my co-workers just pulled in with a brand new shiny BMW 7-series this morning, while my old Buick is becoming increasingly temperamental in this un-Floridian cold snap.

As such, I'll be starting a Ponzi scheme immediately, consequences be damned. On December 26, 1919, after spending two whole years trying to earn an honest living, Carlo (or 'Charles', if you prefer) Ponzi established a firm called The Security Exchange Company. He boasted a return of 50-percent interest in 90 days, and the world wanted in on it. And who wouldn't? Paying old investors this return from funds given to him by later investors, Ponzi didn't invent the scam but instead perfected it. He took in $20 million in a few short months, equal to $222 million in current dollar values, and when he fell, six banks crumbled with him.

However, until he was arrested, Ponzi lived the high life. As did Bernie Madoff, who sustained his house of cards for decades before being called to task. And whoever this guy was.

Granted, I'm not looking for 300 cars, a pair of luxury yachts, penthouse apartments (or models) or anything of the sort. But a little taste of the easy life would be cool.

Please send large denominations, non-sequential bills, unmarked and wrapped in a leather jacket. I'll make it worth your while. Really.
Aaaaayyyyyy.

I can feel you but you're nowhere in sight

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I am a nerd of the multi-purpose variety. However, you may have also discerned by now that I am not, despite my work in the software field, a gadget nerd. I was the last person I know to buy a CD player. Ditto with the cell phone. I don't know what I'll do if the cassette deck in the Buick ever gives out. I only have a laptop because work provides me with one. Ditto with the cell phone. And I own no mp3 players, Bluetooth devices, gaming systems or flat-screen televisions.

It isn't that I don't like these things, per se. I just don't feel compelled to own the latest and greatest.

I mention this mild technophobia because until a few months ago, my crackberry was set to vibrate with every email I receive. That's about 80 in a normal work day and 20 more after hours, and it was getting to where I couldn't concentrate on the task at hand. I finally found the 'phone only' setting, to fight the compulsion (and uncontrollable compulsion it was!) to check email every time the phone went off, and now it only vibrates when my phone rings, about five times in a normal week.

The issue I'm having is that my hip and leg still vibrate 20 times or more in a given day, even when I don't wear the phone. People refer to this as "phantom vibration syndrome", or "vibranxiety". Apparently our bodies just grow so accustomed to the vibration that when the phone isn't doing it, our bodies take over and mimic the sensation. Cell phone companies have paid doctors to insist there's no real nerve damage behind this phenomenon. That's akin to the National Diamond Council suggesting the appropriate price for an engagement ring. Can you say conflict of interest? Good, I knew you could!

Because apparently our nervous systems are screwing with us.

I used to just worry about the potential brain tumor from the phone's radiation, but now it's attacking me even when I'm not talking.

At least I can rest securely knowing that as I struggle furiously typing my manifesto in a tiny shack in Montana (on a manual typewriter, of course), I'll never develop Texting Thumb, or Guitar Hero Wrist, or Wii injuries. I'd be especially worried about that last one.

It's a small world, after all.

When I was a child, my elementary school was HUGE. In my mind, the doors were four inches thick and 20 feet tall. When I visited again as an adult, somehow the building shrunk four sizes to human dimension.
I get that, because size is relative. What was a giant bottle of soda that took both hands to manage when we were kids is now three swallows.

However, when manufacturers start shrinking their products on purpose and think we'll just shrug it off, I get a little upset. The marketing genius who thought we'd pay the same price for 25% less product should have received a monster bonus, because we're suckers and well, we will. What choice do we have when everyone does it?

It started with ice cream. Let's go to the metric system, because there are, perhaps, three Americans who aren't fooled by grams versus ounces. Let's keep the lid the same, and rakishly taper the container, because it will just look like forced perspective when they're scooping.

And I was livid when the major cola manufacturers switched from the 12-pack to the 8-pack, and STILL raised the price from $3 to $4. They're slowly moving back to the 12, because America wouldn't stand for it. Same thing happened when they tried to switch our bottles from 20 ounces to 500 mL. Metric system! 500 is more then 20, right?

And now, after buying the same unnamed quilted toilet paper from up north for years, the rolls shrank almost 3/4 of an inch in width from the last package to this one. I could understand one tier getting cut down a little off, it happens. But EVERY ROLL IN THE PACKAGE? Not coincidence, not an accident, this is purposeful, malicious downsizing. Cornholio does not like this. Not one bit.

Pretty soon, we'll all feel like Andre the Giant drinking our adorable little carbonated beverages and daintily wiping, as we all run out of ice cream and potato chips long before we should. I take it back. That marketing genius shouldn't have received a monster bonus, shouldn't be celebrated in the annals of marketing history. He should be unemployed.

In Greenland.

Pie can make the world go 'round

I've always leaned toward the conservative side of moderate, and public welfare projects are fine as long as they aren't at my expense. I've also leaned toward food, because that's how I roll. Today, while thinking about pie for lunch (which I am wont to do from time to time), I discovered there is actually a growing movement in this country where diverse individuals from all over gather in towns across the country to give out FREE PIE.

This is not like the free pie you get at Village Inn on Wednesdays, where you can only pick from three kinds of pie with an accompanying purchase, and they're the crappy pies. Instead it is an assemblage of real, honest-to-goodness home-made pie, passed out by common folk like you and I. They'll even give you assistance setting up a Free Pie Day in your hometown. It seems simple enough. Of course, many of you know that I don't bake, but Lori makes the best pie known to creation, and she loves me, so that's a bonus.

To quote the intent, The Free Pie Movement is the first community outreach venture of PieLab. The message is simple: Sometimes life is bad; free pie isn’t. The Free Pie Movement is founded on the idea that simple gestures, like giving away free pie, can unite communities and spread joy.
They even have a full-time free pie center in Greensboro, Alabama. I'll take that over a Starbucks to plan my anarchy any day!

Spread joy. Share pie. Make the world a little better. This is the kind of charity I can encourage without hesitation.

You are what you eat and I'm a real fun guy.

It's important to me to learn something new every day, to keep the sparks firing in the synapses of my gray matter. Generally speaking, these sparks wind up being useless tidbits of knowledge that result in me not being invited to many parties.

Because I'm annoyingly inquisitive by nature, and because I still view veganism as, well, WRONG, as I ate my free bagel this morning, I decided to do a little research. The Vegan Society defines veganism as such:

"[T]he word "veganism" denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

I really was thinking about what constitutes the simple breakdown of Animal/Vegetable/Mineral, and was curious about where yeast fell into that simplest of categorization. Yeast is related to mold and mushrooms, and apparently a biological gray area. They fall somewhere between plants and animals, but to me, anything that can turn my white cheese blue, or raise my baguette, or produce alcohol in my beer and wine, is not a stoic little plant. These individual little organisms give their lives to the production of good eating and drinking, and isn't that animalian? I think so.

I declare, therefore, in my little corner of the world, that henceforth, vegans don't get pennicillin or beer.

The Manifesto Obvioso

Author's note - Yes, I have a manifesto. No, I don't have a shack in Montana, so nothing to worry about yet. This is not a complete document, but instead something I've been batting around inside my skull for years. There are more rights we have as humans, and certainly more responsibilities. If I've missed something, please add it to the comments! -E-

Many people are confused about the difference between their rights and their responsibilities. You have no right to be handed everything on a silver platter. You DO have the responsibility to work hard and the right to be rewarded for that hard work.

Closed-minded ignorance is destroying world society. You have the responsibility to be informed about the world in which you live, and the responsibility to keep your mind open. If you refuse to listen to opposing viewpoints, your opinions become weak and ineffective. Derogatory, hate-filled opinions give others the right to ignore you (if they weren’t going to, already). By the same token, you have the right to ignore anyone or anything that causes you offense or pain, whether physical or emotional. This does not negate the responsibility you have to be aware of those offenses when forming an opinion.

Get over yourself.

You need not walk a mile in someone’s shoes, but you do need to acknowledge their right to walk that mile themselves without your uninformed and un-requested input. Even if they decide not to wear shoes, and the road is really gravelly and there might be broken glass.

While perhaps you were born yesterday, the modern world society was not. Different countries, different peoples, different cultures and traditions have survived and evolved over centuries to create the world in which we live today. Failure to realize this is nobody’s fault but your own.

History isn’t always beautiful, it isn’t always fair or just or humane. Ignoring the past is wrong as it denies the long and difficult journey behind today’s and tomorrow’s world. However, acknowledging the cruelties of the past does not require us to continue or celebrate those cruelties.

You can complain about anything you want, as long as you realize that nobody wants to hear it. Life is not fair, so if you bring unfairness upon yourself nobody wants to hear it. If you buy a car that gets 3 MPG, you relinquish your right to complain about gas prices. Nobody is force-feeding you saturated fats, injecting lard into your veins while you sleep. Coffee is hot. Knives are sharp. Animals bite and plants contain allergens, and unless they’re an invasive species, they were there before you. If they’re invasive species, another human being screwed up and introduced them, so again, not the plant’s or animal’s fault. Unless the worst of an event actually happens to you, you have no right to say ‘Why did this happen to me?’ ‘Bystander’s Remorse’ is an asinine assumption.

The effectiveness of standing on the street corner with a ‘Homeless, Jobless, Please Help’ sign is often reduced when you’re standing next to someone who took the responsibility to get a thankless, low-paying job holding a sign for a clearance sale or new apartments.

Honesty is not always rewarded, nor is honesty its own reward. Honesty is yet another responsibility, as is tact. Being honest solely for the sake of hurting another person is not right, or fair. And yes, just because life is unfair, you don’t have to go adding to that uphill battle.

You have the responsibility to think of who else you might affect if you’re being selfish. You have the right to be selfish all the same, but the responsibility to know that people might not like you.

Oddly enough, you have the right to be wrong. Nobody can force you to be correct in everything you do. However, you do have the responsibility to accept someone else pointing out your wrongness, and the responsibility to correct anything that can be corrected.

You have the right to fight at a party. The host, at his or her discretion, has the responsibility and right to set you straight.