Friday, August 31, 2007

Vacations from Purgatory

So, recently the Today show had a special segment called "Vacations from Hell." In it, they featured the sob stories of four families who claimed to have the worst holiday. After they told their tales, America got to vote on which family they thought had the worst vacation. So, I only heard the last of the four stories. It was about some family on a Mexican cruise, and they suffered power outages at random intervals. Oh, boo hoo. They even stated explicitly that there were others who had it worse than they: families with screaming infants who got separated in pitch black and people on the lower deck with no air conditioning, for example. I thought to myself, "What a bunch of whiners. There's no way they can win this competition."

They won.

I'm sorry, but that is not a vacation from Hell. Not a chance. Being unable to play midnight shuffleboard off the coast of Cancún is not a vacation from Hell. You are not allowed to call your vacation a "vacation from Hell" unless it's something on the level of "Saharan marauders attacked our caravan, ate our dog, and flipped off our youngest child." Now, had there been Somali pirates who infiltrated the cruise ship and cut the power, then robbed everyone, set fire to the deck, flipped off your youngest child, and tossed the captain overboard, then I can imagine your vacation being the ultimate vacation from Hell.

Here, I'm going to make my own vacation-from-Hell submission. *Ahem* "I was in Hawaiʻi, and it was like the greatest vacation ever, and we got free candy in the hotel room. So I grab some Starbursts, and I open the first one, and I'm almost done opening the wrapper, and I hear a tearing sound! The humidity made the candy all sticky and a little piece of the wax wrapper got stuck to the Starburst! It was rendered absolutely inedible! So I go to open the next one, right? And the same thing happens! Same with the next one! And the next one! It was sooooooo tragic!"

I feel like a total whiner now. Awwwwwwwwww.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Wasabi fraud?

This Wikipedia article blew me away. Apparently, the sinus-incinerating green paste we all eat with sushi is not genuine wasabi. It's horseradish dyed green. This, like so many petty other things, upsets me to no end. We call this horseradish stuff "wasabi" even though it's not even from the same genus of plants as real wasabi!

How, then, did we reach the naming convention that we did? Is there some massive conspiracy in the Japanese food market? Real wasabi is expensive and difficult to transport, sure, but that's no reason to dupe us into believing we're eating something exotic when in reality we're eating something boring and ordinary! Something bordinary! Maybe this is bad knowledge to possess. Perhaps the next time I eat at a sushi bar, the food will taste like ash in my mouth. Ash seasoned with lies.

Now I feel obligated to import some real-McCoy wasabi (called "hon-wasabi" in the biz) and compare the two substances. It'd be an interesting taste test, to be sure. But how to obtain it....

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

A Recipe (In English)

So, essentially I just now mixed some milk and rice flour and ground tea leaves and stuck them in the microwave for 90 seconds. DAMN that was some tasty tea-milk-rice paste. I recommend everyone try some variant on this, like with pork or vanilla bean instead of tea, or something that isn't rice flour (potato flakes! Use instant mashed potato flakes!), or different proportions of ingredients, and then report back to me. I don't even think this can be classified as a food. It's like industrial-grade paste that will turn out okay no matter how terrible a chef you may be. Mmmm, industrial-grade paste.

In completely unrelated news, the phrase "industrial-grade" is a bahuvrihi.

Monday, August 13, 2007

A cop-out blag post: More Leedsery

to: info@leedsmattress.com
re: Dubious statistic

Hello all,

I have e-mailed your organization once last week, but received no response. However, I will remain persistent. I would please like to know how Leeds determined that "9 out of 10 people need a new mattress," as is claimed in the commercial. The question of how you arrived at your unique conclusion has been bothering me for quite some time now, and you are the only individuals with the power to fulfill my request!

Gratefully,
Sam Ettinger


Blah.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Leeds has yet to reply

Leeds has not given me a response, which is surprising considering the prompt reply I got from Sit'n'Sleep. I will draft a letter to the Better Business Bureau soon. Woo!

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

CNN is an idiot too!

Okay, this is upsetting. Does everyone remember when CNN did a geography quiz on the streets? Well, maybe CNN could have used a geography lesson or two today.

This is an article about a cholera outbreak in Comoros. It's sad, and I don't mean to cheapen the deaths of those people, but I need to bring something to your attention. Notice the URL of the story:



See how it says asiapcf, as in "Asia and Pacific Ocean"? Yeah...this story is filed with the Asian/Pacific stories. Really. Oh, here's a map of the southern tip of AFRICA and the INDIAN OCEAN. Comoros is circled in red.



No stretch of the imagination could place Comoros in Asia or the Pacific Ocean. This is a horrible geographic transgression, CNN.com! I am ashamed!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

I am an idiot.

Yeah, I feel pretty stupid right now. Sit'n'Sleep is not the mattress company that makes the "9 out of 10" claim. Leeds is. I was told that "Sit N Sleep’s commercials are very distinctive and memorable because of the 'Your [sic] killing me Larry' that is said at the end of each commercial." However, the Sit'n'Sleep representatives were very polite and I've now sent my complaint to the proper organisation.

At least I still have a shot at bringing down a mattress magnate, I guess.

Monday, August 6, 2007

A Letter to Sit'n'Sleep Headquarters

To: feedback@sitnsleep.com
From: Sam Ettinger, kepisottlegione@gmail.com
Re: Dubious statistic

Dear Sit'n'Sleep representative:

I have seen the same Sit'n'Sleep television commercial for at least two years, or what seems like two years. At the beginning, your spokesperson (spokeself?) named Neil makes the claim that "nine out of ten people need a new mattress." Personally, I find this statistic to be rather dubious, especially since Neil fails to cite any studies nor mention a single criterion. Instead, he expects us, the consumers, to take his word unquestioningly, which implies one of two things:

1) There is no statistic and the fact is in reality a lie.
2) Sit'n'Sleep assumes its consumers do not need to fret over things like facts, which seems condescending and disrespectful.

Please respond to this e-mail with the source of Neil's aforementioned claim. Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,
Sam Ettinger


Seriously. It seems like no one has brought this up before, but the lies stop now! I AM DEMANDING THE TRUTH FROM THE MATTRESS MAGNATES!

Friday, August 3, 2007

I just watched The Bourne Ultimatum.

The way I see it, there's no way any of us could ever join a secret agency like the CIA, NSA, FBI, KGB, or any other TLA (three-letter acronym). So what we need to do is create our own privatised secret agency. Man, that'd be totally awesome. I'd spend all my days stalking ambassadors of Pacific nations, tracking their activities, then sneaking into their offices so I could obtain secretive documents, like official border maps. Then I'd reapportion the border maps so some of the islands would magically become unclaimed. I'd use my super-secret secret-agency speedboats and stuff to claim them myself! Finally, my own islands!

I have a problem.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Sugarsugarsugarsugarsug--oh, and other crap too

Does anyone out there remember The Iron Giant? It was a very well-animated movie about a child in Cold-War-era America and a giant space robot from space that likes to kill people who have guns. Yeah, don't worry about the layers of hypocrisy there. The point is, there's this one scene where Hogarth (the child) makes MEGA-TWINKIES. He takes a standard Twinkie, puts it on top of a can of aerosol whipped cream, and sprays the whipped cream into the Twinkie until it leaks from every pore. Then he eats the whole thing in one bite. Holy CRAP I need to try one of those.

...

This would be a way better blag post were I to try one right now. Unfortunately, I have no whipped cream. This is a problem.

Now I can't get those mega-Twinkies out of my head. I do fully intend to try one. I have this idea in my head that trying an extremely excessive food once, and only once, then it's okay. Inexplicably, I think it has no health impact that way. I've done a couple things like that. Colee and I started the Super-Great Self Esteem Club, for example. To join the SGSEC, one has to consume five cupcakes and not feel any twinge of guilt That's pretty sugar-heavy. Then there's the time that I ate an entire jar of pickles in one sitting to see if I could. That's %700 of your daily sodium intake, right there. I still have this desire to eat a hummingbird--I guess that kind of fits into the "One-time food that's probably really bad for you" category. Mmmm...pickled hummingbird mega-Cupcake with whipped cream filling.

Oh, hey. I made a new blag. Check it out, if you're feeling particularly multilingual.