Idiot of the Day XV

Yep, that is someone's shoe partially consumed by the Metro Center escalator. Now, when I was a kid, my grandmother once chided me quite harshly in public because I was one of those kids who thought escalators were fun and should be played on all the time when parents are shopping for useless crap.

I've since become one of those people who loathe others who don't follow proper escalator etiquette (stand to the right, assholes, while us fleet-footed folks walk on the left), or get pissed when Metro thinks it's funny to shut down every escalator in a station and not tell anyone of the physically disabled sort (like when the elevators were broken in Farragut North once and this poor lady in a wheelchair was stuck on the platform until they got it working again). Or, when Metro gets even dumber and decides that if a escalator is broken they'll keep the ones going down functioning but the one going up unworking instead of making life a little easier for those going up (it's called gravity people, it'll carry you down the stairs).

Anyway, I don't know if the person on the other end of that shoe is a pile of mushy goo or just wandering aimlessly one-shoed, but the lesson, as always: fear and respect that escalator.

What I've Read: The Foie Gras Wars

Keeping up with my tradition of reading nonfiction books about strange, singular food topics, my mother gave me The Foie Gras Wars as a gift, and so of course I had to read it. It's probably the most open and least aggressive food book I have read in terms of trying to drive a message home. And I saw this as a good thing. Too often these food books are either trying to glorify or destroy something, not just inform me and let me make my own decision. Guess this is the benefit of the book being written by a journalist who had no opinion going in and just as little coming out.

In trying to sum it up quickly, here's the gist: Foie gras is duck liver, and it's a rather expensive dish that restaurants serve. Besides the price, what makes it stand out is that the ducks that produce these livers are force-fed for just under a month so that their livers enlarge about 10 times their normal size. This gets them fatty and rather delicious tasting (yes, I've eaten foie gras several times in my life, but none since I started reading the book).

The book is great because it centers around a famous Chicago chef who decides in the early 2000s that foie gras is inhumanely produced and he doesn't want to serve it anymore. Innocent enough, I suppose, (except for the fact that he loves serving steaks, chicken and whatever else you may deem as 'inhumanely treated animals'), except other chefs got pissed and then cities and states start trying to ban foie gras, the animal rights people get involved and then everything goes to shit rather quickly over something rather innocuous like duck liver.

It gets super crazy from there. Videos are produced (beware, it's rather gross stuff if you don't have an easy stomach). Protests get a little out of hand and F-List celebrities who don't know jack about shit get a little too worked up. Restaurants go out of business, politicians get all hopped up and crazy, an industry gets more or less eviscerated, and there is not a chance in hell that anyone comes out on the right side of things.

It's a really cool book to read, and in the end I didn't have a real dire-hard opinion about whether this production process if cruel or not. I think it is, but I'm not 100% sure. And I really don't think it matters and should be this big a deal when we have WAY bigger food things to worry about, like how cattle and chickens and other animals are 100% treated like shit because someone needs their Big Mac to be less than $5. There are a lot of sketchy things that go on in the food industry and we still no more about how these ducks are treated after one book than entire shelves of books on other food industries that more directly affect our daily lives.

When it comes down to it, I'll probably avoid foie gras from now on. I'm not boycotting restaurants that serve it, but I'm not going to order it anyway. I don't think it's a 5,000-year-old delicacy that should be preserved and maintained. If it goes away, fine. I won't miss it. If it stays, fine, but I'm probably not going to get as upset over it as I am about things like The Cove. Just don't be surprised if I try and educate you a little and make you think about it. Because I'm happy enough to say that I feel more educated and knowledgeable about it, and being a smarter eater and consumer is a damn fine place to be. But I'll definitely pass on the foie gras, thanks.

Game On: Week of May 20

My column from last week. I reviewed the game Alan Wake and Lost Planet 2.

Game On: Week of May 13

My column from a couple weeks ago. I reviewed Iron Man 2 and Super Street Fighter IV.

Friday Funnies

Last weekend when Luke was in town, it was discovered he had never seen the hilarious Dramatic Chipmunk videos. Once we loaded it up on the ole iPhone, he went into a laughing fit that only better better described as a full-bore belly spasm. His face went red, he laughed for about 6 minutes straight and replayed the video about 23 times before stopping to catch his breath. It was awesome. His initiation into the Dramatic Chipmunk made me realize there may be others of you who have not been properly introduced into the chipmunk's gloriousness. So here is the original, and then a few alternate mixes that we all find quite funny.

The Original


Because the Internet was made for Star Wars geeks


A favorite of Kelly and I: The Monocle

Idiot of the Day XIV

Walking to the grocery store yesterday, I found myself behind this lady. Look, I don't have a problem with people doing crazy things to their hair. I put some high-priced, naturally made fancy stuff to make myself look as awesome as I do. But I had to do a double-take and laugh when this woman turned and I saw that she was easily in her mid-to-late 60s.

I mean, damn lady, talk about taking the concept "blue hairs" to a whole new level. It was just so tacky looking. It's uneven, looks like someone flipped her over and dipped just the top of her head in a vat of Bic ink, or maybe she got punked by someone in a movie theater spray-painting her head during a viewing of a Meryl Streep film.

Either way, it looked really damn bad. And let's also be clear: In a couple weeks I am going to my grandmother's 80th birthday celebration (way to go Gramma!), and if she comes out looking like this (or fire engine red) I'm going to be supremely disappointed.

Mmm, Ribs

So yesterday I smoked three racks of ribs. Jamaican jerk BBQ style. Damn tasty if you ask me. Plus, everyone there seemed equally satisfied with the results. In any case, it took no time for a few of the participants to get uber-sleepy. It may have been that they started watching the Miss USA pageant, and that'll kill any attempt at remaining awake. Me, I'm going with the more likely culprit.

Chappelle's Show
Ribs Sleep-Aid
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

They all got the itis, I'm sure of it.

Bye, Bye Banks ... Until Another Day

One of my best photo experiences ever coincided with being in NYC and shooting one of my favorite things to watch, skateboarding. Kelly and I went to NYC a couple years ago and went with Eric to the Brooklyn Banks, this kickass spot under the Brooklyn Bridge that is a mecca for skaters. I got some great shots (though Kelly hates many of the ones I took of him because he never nailed things the way he wanted to) and you can check them out here.

Sadly, it looks like the Banks are going away for awhile. I caught this story online and got a little sad. They are making some improvements and fixes to the Brooklyn Bridge, and they have to close off the Banks in order to do it. Just had to take a moment and acknowledge the Banks for the sweet skate spot that it is, and hopefully one day I'll be back up there to photograph Kelly landing a tre flip or something.

Friday Funnies

A couple weeks ago Kelly was sent a link to a recut trailer to The Shining, in which it makes the movie look like a G-rated Disney flick. I told him that many moons ago I had found what I thought was the originator of this trend. He instantly wanted to see it, and I forgot to send him the link, so instead, here it is. I give you, Sleepless in Seattle: The Horror Movie.



Now wasn't that fun? Of course, it doesn't stop there. And no doubt the wife's friend Mandy would be appalled at the recutting of what she claims is the greatest movie of all time, the horrendous You've Got Mail.

Greening My Mother: Gettin Clean

My mom's been doing lots of things to improve her eco footprint, but there's no shame in nagging her about more things she can do. Plus, most of the time it's not me nagging her; I just need an excuse to talk about more things I've learned and what better way to do it than point the finger at her. One of the focal points I've been researching and trying to improve upon is cleaning products. The two main ones I will discuss right now are shampoos and laundry detergents.

For the shampoos, I proudly plunked down the money to get Aveda's Pure-Formance Shampoo. It's one of seven Aveda products to earn the coveted Cradle2Cradle certification, and achieving that is, as Ron Burgundy would say, kind of a big deal. I previously tried some other "organic" and "all-natural" shampoos that lacked a lot of man-made chemicals and animal testing and all that stuff, but they just weren't working. Aveda has always been a rock-solid company in terms of trying to achieve a better balance of materials and impact and such, so it's cool to support them when they get a rating like this, plus it's a men's product, which is also a bonus considering 99% of stuff out there is clearly geared toward the ladies.

Moving on to laundry detergents, this one has always been a tenuous subject in the household. We do a decent job of air drying some of our clothes to reduce how much we use the dryer (because, shockingly, oxygen does a decent job drying things). But I've been pissed about how there should be a better way to clean your clothes without dumping Tide's chemical-heavy gel into a washer. And thankfully, the fine folks at Method figured it out. This stuff is made using 95% natural and renewable ingredients and the packaging is awesome. Since it's concentrated, the tube uses a third less plastic than traditional tubs of detergent, and 50% of the plastic used is recycled, so it's winning on all fronts (the fact that it takes up a ton less room in your closet is a big plus on its own). And best of all for us, they make a fragrance-free version because the wife has crazy allergies to traditional detergents.

At some point I'm going to start checking out soaps and other cleaning products. I'll let you know as I discover more.

Friday Funnies

This has been around for years, but damn it makes me laugh every time. The good folks at Robot Chicken made a uber-long stop-motion movie based on all the Star Wars films. It's damn funny, is all I will say. This is just one scene from the movie, but I highly encourage you to scour the interwebs and watch the whole thing.

'robot chicken star wars' Papa Palpatine @ Yahoo! Video

The Female Dickey

So on the tube the other night pops up this commercial that made me laugh and feel uncomfortable for the "actors" who have to star in this commercial. My joy in watching this TV spot was as boundless ...



First off, this is quickly entering the pantheon of hilarious infomercials. How many takes do you think that office guy asked for to get the "awkwardly staring at her breasts" look juuuuust right? 20? 50? Plus, I watched the scene a few too many times and started wondering what the dynamic is. Because she's sitting at a desk with lots of leather-bound books and oak furniture, so is she the boss that has the uber-creepy assistant? What kind of profession is she in that she gets a full office but just now realized it might be a bad idea to show off the boobs to co-workers? I'm captivated by the thoughts of what this office must be like. Or, what was the casting process like ("Uh, yes, we're looking for large boobs and someone who doesn't mind a stranger staring at them and you have no lines." Sold!) And, yes, I have re-watched this commercial too many times, but damn it's funny.

And the script is classic. For instance, they even worked in a frickin rhyme into the commercial:

You love the low-cut top for going out at night,
But in the office it’s just not right.
You’ve tried safety pins but they leave holes and just look wrong.
And with a camisole you end up tugging and adjusting all day long!

Don't think Charlie Kaufman was writing that up. More than anything, I was shocked that this camisole thing was such a problem that it required a dickey to fix it. After bringing up this commercial to women I know and trust to not slap me, they in fact agreed that this situation is real and something like this makes a modicum of sense, even if the construction and product itself looks like it costs about -$.05 to make. Just never thought women had this kind of problem, or else why would they wear them (of course, that then opens up a whole door to high heels, pantyhose and whatever else).

Anyway, this commercial made me laugh for the longest time, and then I got real mad because I was fearing that this Cami Secret thing would try and trump the greatest Dickey of all time, and then relaxed knowing it could never beat Cousin Eddie.

Getting Back in the Groove

Well, it had to happen eventually. I was getting fed up with not getting enough running in, and after several months of not getting out there enough, it was time to hit the pavement and start getting back into running shape.

About a month ago, I found my motivation. The Takoma Park 5K (comically called the TKPK5K) was coming up, and that was all the motivation I needed. Well, it also helped that the entry fee was super cheap, the race took place 4 blocks from my house and after all that I have been through in the past weeks, having the fees go toward helping students have safer routes to school was all in my wheelhouse.

I hopped back on the treadmill and found that I was way out of shape from my normal rhythm. In my prime of high school, I was running around 7:30 minute miles. Not great, but not shabby either. Up until about two years, ago, I was sitting comfortably around 10-minute miles. Not great, but I'll take it. I'm not looking to break records, just finish and keep the ol ticker in good health. When I got on the treadmill about 45 days ago, it was rough. 12-minute miles. Damn, I felt like an 80-year-old up there. But screw it, I'm not gonna get all that normal pace back in 45 days, so I reluctantly decided to suck it up and just do it. So I ran a few times a week and got myself back into a comfortable pace.

Today was the race. I talked the wife into running it with me, though she has the knees of 120-year-old, and she's much better suited for biking and other aerobics; she's just not a runner. In any case, we ran it, and it went better than I expected. I finished in 35:51, which was 11:30 minute miles. And best of all, we had to stop three times to give the wife's knees a break. I think if she wasn't holding me back (heheheeheee, she'll love that), I think I could have hit around 10:30 minute miles without trouble. So I'm getting back into the game, and for now I'm thinking I can get to maybe 9:30 minute miles if I stay with it.

So I need to keep it up and stay in the game. And, I need to get the wife to run one more with me, because she beat me today and I can't let that stand! (OK, she admits that I let her win, but I'm proud of her for gutting it out and not letting that woman we passed catch up to us in the final sprint).