Back in the Saddle

Let’s dispense with the pleasantries -- it’s been a long summer, you’ve missed me, and you’re feeling random.  I totally understand.  Let’s get started...

I don’t know if they’re running these ads where you are, but around me, McDonald’s is making a fuss over their new iced coffee, with billboards proclaiming, “Cold is the new hot!”  I really love how the marketing geniuses at McDonald’s think -- when they finally decide to catch up with the rest of the world, it’s suddenly breaking news.  I mean, how long has Starbucks been selling Frappucinos -- 10 years?  I remember when McDonald’s realized people were actually using credit cards for food purchases, and decided to accept this novel “plastic currency” as a form of payment.  They plastered billboards everywhere with their “Yeah, we take ’em” slogan, as though they were the first fast-food joint to let you pay with a credit card instead of the last.  Looking back, I think the last genuine innovation McDonald’s can lay claim to is the Chicken McNugget...

Speaking of fast food innovation, I’m alarmed by Burger King’s latest line of burgers:  the BK™ Stackers.  As they describe them on their website, “Get meat and cheese your way with BK™ STACKERS.  Choose from double, triple, or quadruple layers of beef and cheese -- topped with bacon and sauce.  It’s the flame-broiled meat lover’s burger and it’s here to stay -- no veggies allowed.”  I don’t doubt their deliciousness, of course -- they include both bacon and cheese, after all -- but I believe this beast may spell the end for Burger King.  You see, the Quad Stacker -- a massive monolith of bun, bacon, meat and cheese -- gives flame-broiled meat lovers 1000 calories and 68 grams of fat.  Using recommended Daily Values off a jar of Jif from my pantry as a reference and doing a little comparative math, that Quad Stacker takes care of 50% of your calorie intake and 104% of your suggested fat intake if you’re on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.  Tack on a king-size fries (because I believe most states prohibit the purchase of a quadruple-decker hamburger with anything less than the largest order of fries available) and you add another 600 calories and 33 grams of fat, which means that even if you’re on the more robust 2,500-calorie-a-day diet, and you wash it all down with a Diet Coke (which I believe they call irony), you’re still getting 64% of your calories and 126% of your fat intake for the day from one meal.  Now, I appreciate that fast-food places don’t make people fat, hamburgers do.  But shouldn’t there be a greater obstacle to ordering 101 grams of fat than simply mumbling, “Give me a number five with a Diet Coke”?  Shouldn’t there be at least some sort of shame, some sort of guilt associated with putting that much fat in your body in one sitting?  Apparently Burger King doesn’t feel that way, which is why when the lawyers get their act together and go after Big Food, BK’s payout is going to be enormous...

In the competition for beverage with the most adjectives in its name, the new product atop your leaderboard is Diet Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry French Vanilla, obliterating the lead once held by Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper...

I’m generally not a vindictive man, but two weeks ago when I saw on ESPN that Terrell Owens had hurt his hamstring and was going to miss practice, I couldn’t stop grinning, and I’ve watched with a demented glee as the T.O. circus has arrived in full force at Dallas Cowboys training camp.  As T.O. finally returned to practice this week and continued his reign as the most talked-about man in the NFL, I got to thinking that while he has written two books about himself -- in the last two years alone -- nobody has yet attempted to write a book about him.  Of course, this is probably due to the dearth of sportswriters sufficiently versed in abnormal psychology, and of clinical psychiatrists with backgrounds in sportswriting...

You know, I shouldn’t be that hard on T.O.  After all, Ron Artest makes him look positively sane.  This week, as part of the community service he earned for his part in the Malice at the Palace two years ago, Artest came to the Mathis Community Center in Detroit . . . to talk to kids.  Who thought this was a good idea?  Better question -- who would want their children anywhere near him?  When you are Ron Artest, and you are performing community service, you should not be assigned to participate in a panel discussion for kids, at which you regale them with nuggets of wisdom like, “I sold crack when I was 13” and, in reference to his role in the Pistons-Pacers brawl, “I never say it was a mistake.”  Perhaps there’s something I don’t get here, but it seems to me Artest could perform a much greater service to the community by picking up litter from the side of the road, or pulling weeds in the park...

“Snakes on a Plane” opens this weekend, and that’s my joke -- in its entirety...

Just wondering -- has there ever been a rock band that looked less like a rock band than ZZ Top?  I can’t wait for the day when those guys do their first commercial for Just for Men Mustache, Beard & Sideburns formula...As many of you know, I moved this summer, and while this move wasn’t quite as traumatic as my moving misadventure of two years ago, it nevertheless involved a lot of purging.  This, time around, though, not everything went to Goodwill -- stuff I suspected had actual value went to Craig’s List.  The best part of selling your stuff on Craig’s List, I’ve learned, is getting some sucker to pay cash money for crap you don’t want anymore anyway.  Alternately, the worst part is that sinking feeling that you could have fleeced the sucker for more -- and never knowing exactly how much more...

Speaking of Craig’s List, I’m sad to announce the premature end of my relationship with my 1994 Saturn SL2.  Our time together was brief -- those 12 years and 151,000 miles (give or take a few -- the odometer got stuck at random points this last year or so) just flew by.  Those of you who enjoyed the privilege of riding in the Bruise or heard me pontificate about my Saturn experience in a leadership-workshop discussion of vision and mission know that it was more than just a car -- it was an extension of me.  But when the mechanic at Saturn said it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000 to get my 12-year-old friend to be able to pass an upcoming state inspection, I decided I simply couldn’t afford to invest that much in a relationship when I had no guarantees about how much longer it would last.  And so, I’m now in a new relationship, with a 2006 Toyota Prius (more on that in a future episode), but I haven’t completely cut things off with the Saturn.  That’s because I’ve posted its eulogy -- known in some circles as a For Sale ad -- on Craig’s List, in the hopes that someone will, you know, pay me cash money for it.  Even if you’re not interested in buying the beautiful blue/black Bruise, you should check out the post -- it’s hardly your typical For Sale ad -- and perhaps nominate it for the Best of Craig’s List.  Of course, if you are interested in making a purchase, you can email me directly -- I’ll give you a special reader’s discount, and maybe sign the steering wheel for you or something...

Sad as surrendering the Saturn is, I do have some good news -- I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to GEICO.  I’m totally serious...