#20 - ol' smoky.

i've smoked a lot of cigarettes in my life. that's a fact.

it all started when a few times in my early teens, pat cody & i snuck mores from his mom & walked down the dirt bike trail near his house to smoke butts & play with wd-40 & a lighter. cigarettes never caught on for me a that point in my life though. i didn't know anyone old enough who would buy them for me anyhow.

...& then along came college, where there were people from outside nh, people who knew actual lesbians & had friends who had gone to rehab & so cigarettes were around more & i found myself smoking cigarettes a lot more regularly during that time, although the habit gained the most strength from the summers between college, when i was back in nh with all my high school friends sitting on porches running through packs of camel lights. i blame you, martin.

the simple scientific fact is that in 90% of situations you look much cooler with a cigarette. without fail, a cigarette enhances your presence (for better or worse). a cigarette can help you strike up a conversation with that girl who "only smokes when she drinks." when you're in a conversation & don't know what to say, you can take a long drag off your cigarette & stare up slightly up towards the heavens. people will think that you're really deep when you're actually quite clueless. when you're attempting to get information from a perp, if you're smoking a cigarette, he will be much more intimidated if you're smoking & if he isn't, you just put out your cigarette on his forehead to remind him who's in charge (unless you are on network television & aren't allowed to smoke on your show).

...so i smoked constantly & thirteen years later, i finally stopped smoking at least 15 cigarettes a day & blowing tons of money supporting the routine. my decision was partly for my health, partly for my finances & partly for the smell. i still like cigarettes though. they're sweet...& smoky...segue...just like...

#20 - ol' smoky.
snack: t.g.i.friday's sweet & smoky popcorn chicken
drink: schweppes dry grape ginger ale

this sunday, i was in the mood for some snackin' & went for the recently purchased box of t.g.i.friday's sweet & smoky popcorn chicken. normally, i wouldn't bother with such an item. i'm not really one of those "go to t.g.i.friday's" types & given the choice between the t.g.i.friday's in times square and the approximately 73,000 other restaurants in nyc, t.g.i.friday's probably falls in around 53,476th place in my choices to eat...but, if t.g.i.friday's boxes up their dishes, puts them in the freezer section of my local grocery store & slaps a sale tag in front of them, who am i to deny them?

...so i went with the sweet & smoky popcorn chicken & it's pretty dang good. at first, it's weird to be faced with a plateful of what look partly like mini falafel balls & partly like chunks of clif bar, but the chicken is solidly sweet & smoky and the right color. for me, it's always best when chicken is a nice, whitish color. it tells me that the meat isn't actually pigeon or from the ass of the chicken & most importantly, that the chicken didn't have scurvy or something. throughout the course of my sunday, i finished off the entire box. here's to fulfilling 92% of my rda for sodium.

i had a few glasses of schweppes dry grape ginger ale along with the chicken balls. i love this stuff. whenever i'm feeling guilty about the amount of caffeine i inhale on a daily basis, i switch over to a two-liter of the schweppes. any time i can lessen the impact of my caffeine intake, it's a victory in my book. without the guilt from smoking hanging over my head, i have to worry about something...why not caffeine?

#19 - feeling blue never felt so good.

you know what food i'm (sort of) crazy about (today)? i'll give you a hint...a certain stoned-looking non-casper cartoon ghost loves them so much that he became the mascot for a cereal bearing their flavor. give up? too convoluted of a clue for ya?

if you guessed the blueberry, you win the food guessing game. bonus points if you identified the ghost...boo berry. a hearty virtual pat on the back to you, reader. please note that by inserting the word "virtual," i am denoting that this pat on the back is not in any way real.

#19 - feeling blue never felt so good.

snack: frosted blueberry pop tarts
drink: lipton blueberry pomegranate pure leaf red tea

in celebration of the blueberry, i've decided to pair a package of frosted blueberry pop tarts with a bottle of lipton blueberry pomegranate pure leaf red tea, my own personal devil-angel combo. as we all know, some sort of canceling out will occur when the extremely manufactured nature of the pop tart comes into contact with the guarana-ginseng nature of the tea. that's just science.

also in celebration of the blueberry, i've decided to gather three blueberry related tidbits from around the interweb & present them here, in no particular order (other than alphabetical):

blueberry diapers - the blueberry diaper is one of them cloth diaper doohickies for baby mommas. probably good for the environment & your baby & self-esteem & junk. on their website, they offer up disappointment in the form of their "blueberry cloth diaper guide" section. the link to this section features a confused woman, with bubbles around her head depicting the various questions she has. one of these questions is "what about poop?" when i saw this question, i thought to myself, "yeah. what about poop?"...so i clicked on the link. i was met with a list of eight questions, none of which were "what about poop?"...so disappointing. i still really want to know about poop.

blueberry hill - ok. first off, apparently st. louis has a walk of fame and a ton of important people have stars there...we're talking william burroughs, miles davis, redd foxx, both ike & tina, michael mcdonald, harold ramis...the list goes on. i tell you this because along this walk of fame is the loop, a shopping mecca of some sort and inside this mecca is blueberry hill, a restaurant/music club. chuck berry plays here once at least once a month. dude is friggin 81 years old, which would be impressive if les paul, aged 93, didn't play a show here in nyc every single monday. give me a holler in 2020, chuck.

blueberry month - in 2003, the u.s. department of agriculture issued a proclamation that declared july "blueberry month." never one to be shown up by their neighbor to the south, the canadians issued a royal proclamation decreeing august "blueberry month." which is the true blueberry month? as the blueberry is a native north american plant, both countries can rightfully lay claim to the official blueberry month (can they even grow blueberries in mexico?). i just wish we could come together as north americans on this one & pick one month to celebrate blueberries in. it's just like with independence day. did you know that canadians celebrate their independence on july 1st? when i heard that, i was totally all "wah? you crazy canadians. c'mon get it together." seriously canada, get it together.

EDIT: this week's weeds opened with a conversation about pop tarts!

#18 - satisfied?

what do you need in life?

is it a deeper spirituality? is it a soulmate? is it financial security? is it another drink? is it adventure? is it a winning team? is it relief from back pain? is it tropical climates? is it to be thanked? is it another kid? is it another cheeseburger? is it a daily jog? is it an alibi? is it peace & quiet? is it another scratch ticket? is it a hand to hold? is it companionship? is it taller shoes? is it to get a man? is it to get away from your man? is it a ride to the mall? is it hot sauce? is it deodorant? is it a digital converter for your tv?

have you already found what you need?

i know i have.

#18 - satisfied?

snack: snickers rockin' nut road bar
drink: coffee

dude, all i need in life is a snickers...& a coffee, i guess, but mainly a snickers. they are so satisfying, especially when i'm not going anywhere for a while. i don't retain that much advertising, but i can't recall coming across an ad for the snickers rockin' nut road bar, so i've come up with one for them, based on their past ads, which i've slightly retained/looked up on the internet. mars corp...if you'd like to use my idea, please leave me a blog comment & i will get in touch with you with my price.

ext - iraqi desert - night.

the night sky is pitch black & in the distance, there are sounds of bombs falling. suddenly, the blackness is broken by a flame from a large lighter, positioned underneath a smore on a stick.

off screen, a voice shouts "put out that light right now!" the fire goes away. we see a dejected soldier giving his commanding officer the finger in the darkness.

title card: NOT GOING ANYWHERE FOR A WHILE?

the soldier breaks into a box of mres, pulls out a snickers rockin' nut road bar, tears it open & bites into it. he is clearly satisfied. he passes out snickers bars to the other soldiers & they are all satisfied. everyone in iraq gets snickers rockin' nut road bars & the satisfaction is contagious.

title card: GRAB A SNICKERS.

#17 - head.

on wednesday, i made my way up to the boston area on the megabus with ryall to meet up with m.j. & my bro for the radiohead concert at the venue formerly formerly known as great woods. my trip began in the prospect ave stop on the r train, where after a few minutes, the train entered the station. as i waited for the train to stop & the doors to open, i looked at the torn advertisement behind me, which had the following message scrawled across the bottom of it:

i snapped a quick pic & got on the train. it's safe to say that as the lead singer of belle & sebastian (the band that acted as the jumping-off point for pretty much everything i've listened to since 2001), i'm not sure if i could ever let go of stuart murdoch, no matter how twee he is. regardless of this person's personal struggle with stuart murdoch, musically speaking, i took my random path-crossing with this particular message to be a positive start to radiohead day. usually the subway ads feature no more than crudely drawn penises on them.

the megabus busride was fine overall, other than the non-functioning wifi. the southwest airlines-influenced bus driver even quipped, "there's wifi on board. sometimes it works." they played two dvds during the five-hour drive--benji: off the leash! & shark bait (the reef), which is a budget attempt to cash in on the success of finding nemo. it appears that somebody else has the upper hand in the wifi-inclusive bus service market at this point, megabus...or should i say, megabutt?

radiohead was friggin' amazing, as was expected. as i have probably expressed to everyone & their mother at this point, i can not believe how lovely & clean they sound in a big open amphitheatre. i was in the absolute back of the lawn & it still sounded wondrous. my personal fave...jigsaw falling into place. my personal victory...we were the very last people they sold beer to in our section. they literally gave us our beers & shut the gates to the stand, making lots of people behind us quite sad.

#17 - head.

snack: flaming hot flavored munchies
drink: pomegranate blueberry mash

after the concert, an hour or so in the parking lot & an hour or so drive back to my brother's place in j.p., we went to pretty much the only thing open in the neighborhood after 1pm...7-11, where i, of course, spent in the area of $10 on snacks alone. clearly a smart allocation of my funds.

for this particular night, i decided i needed to eat from a bag of flaming hot flavored munchies. it was after 1pm. i had just been at 7-11. munchies were clearly the right snack for that moment. each munchies flavor features rold gold pretzels, sun chips, cheetos & doritos, with the last three ingredients changing depending on the overall snack mix flavor. you would be correct in assuming that this particular flavor features the flaming hot versions of the sun chips, cheetos & doritos. as my brother informed me, they used to have a kids' version with doritos, cheetos, popcorn, m&ms and captain crunch. if you ask me, that is one hell of a snack & should probably only be available for adults due to its high awesomeness content.

...& seriously, people. pomegranate is not going to save civilization. it is just a fruit. i defer to bevnet for or a link for the pomegranate blueberry mash, as boylan bottling apparently doesn't care enough about this product to have a web page for it. in fact, they care so little about this product that they appear to have even spelled "pomegranate" incorrectly on the label..."pommegranate" ain't correct, mr & mrs boylan. look it up.

#16 - billions served.

here's what i love about the olympics...& by saying "love" & "olympics" in the same sentence, i am not implying that i love the olympics. i hardly ever watch them really. actually, now that i think it through, i'm using "love" in a sarcastic manner. like, "wow, i love your haircut a wicked lot. seriously."

so what i love about the olympics is the over-the-top melodrama & the stories that the announcers use to enhance it. friday night's opening ceremonies were cool visually & all but incomplete without the announcers' calm description of tai chi (not an olympic sport, btw) or quick mention during the parade of nations of the recent assassination attempt on the president of maldives, which was thwarted by a boy scout...son probably got a mess o' badges for that. on an announcer-related note, can we please force tim mccarver to retire? in conclusion, without the announcers' brilliant words, the games would be incomplete. once again...sarcastic.

i suppose i could have shut off my tv & not watched the olympics at all but the important fact here is i that didn't. china & its billion citizens were trying REALLY HARD to impress me & make me forget about all the bad things the chinese government has done in the past, so i stuck around. i mean, you wouldn't walk out on your brat niece's big flute recital no matter how many times she's peed on your carpet & no matter how much the rug ties the room together, would you?...so while i watched "china through the ages" & the announcement of for the most part, every country in the world, i passed the time with a "tasty" snack & drink pairing...

#16 - billions served.

snack: pringles extreme screamin' dill pickle
drink: samuel smith organic cider

when i was purchasing the evening's snack & drink pairing, i grabbed the items at different stores & it's safe to say that i was so drawn to their individual characteristics that i gave no thought to their to their combined tastes. zero.

dill pickle & apple.

on an individual level, the dill pickle pringle concept is quite comical. they've made them a part of their "extreme" series, which also includes kickin' cheddar & blazin' buffalo wing. from these flavor names, i instantly deduced that in order to be extreme, you must drop your g's. beyond that, i'm confused as to how the dill pickle became an extreme item & for that matter, why the particular dill pickles used in the making of these chips are screamin'. am i to believe that the dill pickles used in the making of these chips are akin to barreling down the face of a mountain bellowing into the wind with excitement? even though these chips are tasty & at times overpowering, i'm skeptical that there is or ever will be anything extreme about a pickle. prove me wrong, vlasic. prove me wrong.

as for the samuel smith organic cider, i love everything i've ever tried by good ol' sammy & his sons. i love the oatmeal stout, the nut brown lager, the taddy porter...all of them. i would even love their organic cherry fruit beer if they let me...& told me where i could locate said beer. if wikipedia can be believed (& we all know it can), in addition to being the oldest brewery in yorkshire, in the past, samuel smith brewery has removed its logo from pubs & in pubs that it owns, no "large-corporation spirits" are served. those crazy crazy u.k. people with their nutty socialist economic beliefs. it's definitely no capitalism, i tell ya! luckily for us, it's no communism either.