Servings

I purchased a Diet Coke from the BP today and I was looking at the label to see how much sodium it had in it. I didn’t know exactly what I would do with that nutrient information — maybe avoid crackers and oceans for the rest of the day if it had 94 or more percent of my daily FDA-approved amount of sodium, but probably just tell someone about it like, “Hey dude, dude. Did you, I know this is stupid or whatever, but did you know Diet Coke has like, 94 percent of your FDA-approved amount of sodium for one day. Yeah, one day. Wild, right? Yeah.” — Anyway, it was something like 1 percent, which I felt pretty good about, especially since Diet Coke then contains only 1 percent more sodium than its semi-generic competitor, Diet Rite which, if you’re a numerical analyst like myself, you can calculate at 0 percent. Diet Rite also tastes like slightly diluted upholstery cleaner spiked with formaldehyde. Needless to say, I was pleased with myself for isolating the drink’s sole natural and taste-sustaining element.

But, despite my patient mathematical work, this figure of 1 percent was in goddamnit shitass error. No, it didn’t have that 1 percent daily value of sodium vital to my well-being; it had 2.5 percent. Why? Because, being a numerical analyst, I can add up the bullshit. Here’s how: according to the FDA, I’ve got 2.5 servings of brand-name refreshment bundled up in my bottle of Diet Coke. (Is liquid bundle-able? Anyway,) I knew those 8-ounce baby cans of pop that girls like would amount to no good. “Not a serving!” I have often insisted without being asked. “Not a serving and you’re a whore!” But in my bottle, MY bottle, there were reportedly 2.5 of those whore-sized servings. “Hey, just doing the math for you, Perry. You’re welllcccome.” No, fuck you, Team FDA Coca-Cola. Look, I want to drink my pop, not practice for an upcoming wine tasting event. I’ve got pop to drink and things to do. The only reason I didn’t get the 44-once-big-gulp-bucket-o-kidney-stones size was because I didn’t feel like taking the chance of misapplying the lid and having that shit spill all over the genital area of my khaki pants. I know, I know, what better way to show a potential employer what a sloppy-ass weirdo you are. “Sir, sir, there’s no need to move your coffee to the window sill. Please, I do have some self-contr…..Give Me That! Give-ME-That! LIQUID! YUMYUMGUYMBLBLBBLUM!!”  (that was me drinking the coffee)

Speaking of, have you ever gone out to breakfast at a diner and switched it up with some orange juice? Nice try, they’ll bring you a SIX OUNCE glass, and you can bet your sack there’s no refills. “What? Are you giving me this to sip on while I wait in the bread line? Waaaaaait, has the From-Concentrate Union gone on strike? I knew it.”

Alright, I love large soda portions, so gas stations listen up: how about we get our nuts in a row and take it to the next fucking level. You’re been a front-runner in the large portion circuit for years, and I’ve seen a couple 64-oncers out there. But someone with a double-stock pair needs to take the lead and Hardee’s-ize the fountain drink bar of their store. But you’ll need a gimmick to get it off the ground. Maybe something like: the most pop you can fit in your trousers for $5. I don’t know why the target audience would be British, but, alright, let’s make it 8 pounds. (“I don’t know if that’s the proper conversion rate, let me look it up…ooo, pretty close, pretty close. Smartass.”)

Okay, this post kind of trailed off, so how about we wrap it up with the mega-zinger Larry the Cable Guy just un-fucking-leashed on the Tonight Show. Here we go: “Well, over the weekend, Jay, I went into one of them Bed, Bath, & Beyonds,” he told the late night host, the audience already snickering with delight. “I liked the place alright, sure, but I thought of something I’d like a little bit better — Bed, Beer, & a Blonde!”  

What?! Larry! OUTRAGEOUS!!!

Hurricanes

I don’t know what Doppler is, but I know it’s important to storm-fighting and vital to the survival of a given weather team and its ability to interrupt network programming. It’s also vital in capturing and replaying a 0.8 second clip of hurricane Ernesto traveling west. If there were any doubt, a weather team member will motion westward. “As Doppler is showing us, Ernesto is heading west. Ernesto, that’s Spanish.”

Okay, they don’t say that second part, but they almost do because, really, is it necessary to name hurricanes? Couldn’t they just say “the hurricane”? If, in the rare occurrence there were more than one hurricane in an area, couldn’t they just say (for instance) “the hurricane hitting at 1 p.m.” and “the hurricane hitting at 5 p.m.”?

Naming hurricanes is the most meteorically destructive and romanticized practice available to overweight people who couldn’t cut it reading stories about the local wiener dog race off a teleprompter. Naming hurricanes, goddamnit, encourages tropical storms to grow in size and force by promising notoriety. “Oh, I’m just hanging out in the Caribbean twirling around and not hurting anyone. Wait, I could get really pissed and attack some beachfront property and finally get a name. Then I finally could get someone to listen to my tape!”

Jesus, since when are hurricanes so frequent that the only way to identify them is to assign them a white, black or Hispanic person’s first name? “You know that huge storm that killed 50 people and caused $83 million worth of property damage?” Yeah. “Yeah, well, I know it happened two years ago, but I just wish I had a handy way of separating it from the one that happened 5 years ago. If only there was a way…”

But why that way? Why does the name of a hurricane have to be a person’s name? Wouldn’t “the Huge Fucking Hurricane of 2005” do the trick? If we have to do names, can’t we at least do nicknames? I like Stumpy. “Stumpy is heading for Wrightsville Beach! All people in the area are required to evacuate immediately!” And leave Stumpy to find his way around a new town? He’s the new guy. Not a chance.

If we just went back to calling hurricanes “typhoons”, I think that would be enough to satiate romantic impulses. “Look out, a hurricane’s coming!” Eh, come back to me.  “Look out, a typhoon’s coming!” Alright, alright, I’m sold.

Waterbeds

My friend told me his roommate has a waterbed and I was like “Oh, cool, a waterbed, I remember those.” But then I was like, “Wait, no. A waterbed? Who has a waterbed? Is this guy someone’s 42-year-old single uncle or something?”
I’ll credit my initial reaction to every child’s fascination with a waterbed — at least in the 80s. At that time, waterbeds were really the benchmark (what’s that?) of home consumer decadence. “Oh, foam and springs, hmm, I guess that’s alright. But for me, it’s got to be real — it’s got to be water.” (Who is this talking? Corey Haim?) “It’s all like I’m floating in my bud dad’s pool, sipping some g & j, you know?”
My second reaction I’ll credit to the fact that waterbeds are (a) ridiculous, (b) uncomfortable and (c) no longer popular among people without animal-print bedding. Or, possibly, it could be that I was unduly impacted by urban legends surrounding waterbeds involving property damage and/or drowning.
Also, I always had a dream to have a waterbed mounted on a fish tank tank filled with exotic fish swimming around in the tank part. That’s probably been done, though, and, come to think of it, the idea sounds terrifying. I’d feel like I was stranded at sea or, at any moment, a pirana could be nibbling at my genitles. But, to be fair, filling a waterbed fish tank with piranas would probably be a poor move on my part. Plus, I don’t know why my genitles would be the first thing a pirana would go after if it had the chance.
Because it’s got eyes, that’s why.

Blinds

I heard a car settle down outside my apartment but I didn’t want to open the blinds when I checked to see who it was and if it was my girlfriend coming home. “There has to be a easier way to do this,” I thought. “Maybe something else besides opening the blinds, something more…better.” I suppose, in hindsight, I could have “waited four seconds”, but I needed to know right then if she was coming (giggle) so I could look busy or presentable the moment she swung some sweet ass across that inviting threshold (what?). But, dribblyshits, I panicked, just moving my eyes back and forth back across he living room like I was waiting for the instant some grandfather clock would die of old age. Look, I didn’t want to open the blinds because, if it wasn’t my girlfriend, I’m sure I would see that person again and subsequent encounters would only get increasingly uncomfortable, especially and exponentially with window encounters. (Window Encounters sounds like a goof-jam band with multiple auxiliary percussionists, anyway) But, ahh, those windows, those blinds, were YES my only avenue if I were to continue distancing myself from authenticity in that trivial situation and I was not going to let an overpriced housewares item stand in my way.

So I did it. I did it like was arthritic, light-sensitive and creepy as all shit. I peeked through the blind — yes, peeked. This [peeking], as you know, is an action less socially acceptable than, let me think, exposing onself in mixed company or taking a pet ferret for a evening walk. And, as you know, it wasn’t my girlfriend who pulled up, because who the hell could get away with peeking through a blind for such an arbitrary-ass reason as that? Not me, not you, and, I’d gamble, not even the man in white. Come on, he’s got some clocks to fix, anyway.

Sotra

Sotra Reine didn’t know they were going to use that picture for the newsletter. “You’re going to use that picture for the newsletter?” she said. “It wasn’t a serious picture. I didn’t know you were going to use it for that.”

Of course they were going to use it for that, her boss said. Didn’t she know? “I didn’t know,” Sotra said. “Can we take another?”

Another? Why? Well, the picture would run next to Sotra’s popular advice column. “Please,” Sotra said.

Okay, her boss said.

“Thank you,” Sotra said. “I’ll be ready in a second.”

Drawn by the sounds of desperate professionalism, Benjamin from across the hall got up from his desk and stood inside the doorway.

“Leave me alone,” Sotra said. “I need to put on some make-up.”

“You need to put on some make-up,” Benjamin said. “I’ve told you that.”

“Yes,” Sotra said. “Wait, no. No. Well, you might have, but I don’t care what you say or what you have said, Mr. Benjamin. Whatever nonsense that’s came out of your mouth doesn’t concern me. This make-up is for my picture.”

“Your picture?” Benjiman said. He waited for something to say. Nothing. “I thought you already took that picture.”

“No,” Sotra said. “That wasn’t the real one, this is the real one.”

“Why?” Benjiman said. “Why is this one the real one?”

“Because I’ll be ready,” Sotra said. “With make-up on. And that’s the picture I want.”

She held out her pocket mirror like a sparkler. “I’m going to ignore Benjamin now,” she thought.

But Benjiman, leaning his head against the doorway and pretending to chew gum or tobacco or to be a cow, would not ignore her back.

“I’m sorry to say it,” Benjamin said. “I’m sorry to say it, I swear. But you can’t paint a turd, Sotra Reine.”

Us

Political bloggers are people too ugly for radio and too preposterous to realize that writing a synopsis of a few links to their favorite commentator doesn’t constitute as a post — especially if the writing is in the borrowed lexicon of that FOX/MSNBC commentator. (Which is in the borrowed lexicon of that party, which is in the borrowed lexicon of Karl Rove or whoever is trying to tell the Democrats to stop using Karl Rove’s lexicon). These buzzword halfshit bloggers are popular, however, because people picture them as a New Repulic staff member who’s following the scent of story and throwing it up on a website the moment after he’s spoken with an Austrian agent on piece of information her etrived with secret codes in the recesses of a private internet chatroom.
“You got somethin’, Mikey?”

“No.”

“No? Then what you smiling for?

“You asked if I have something.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t have something. I have the truth.”

Extrapolate: “Hey, check out this Sean Hannity article” or “Hey, check out the response to this Sean Hannity article.” Now it’s time to write about it and the amount of work I have to do before a major biology exam.

Too often, the dispersion of knowledge is confused for the inception of it and, frankly, sending out mass emails isn’t nearly as sexy as being part of what’s happening in the offshore insulated communities.

People also like the idea because “blogger” sounds like a hacker/highly skilled savant who would exist in the future and would handle explosives with a keyboard.

(Shit, flight to catch and I just had to retype this anyway and you don’t care anyway and there.)

Acres

People always talk about land in terms of acres and, sure, who could argue with that? It sounds like the right thing to do. That’s why I always, of course, nod along like, “Yep, mmm. 32 acres? That’s a good share, a mighty good share,” when, really, the measurement of acre brings me no closer to understanding the size of the land in question than if it were approximated in cubits.
In my heart of hearts, though (what does that even mean?), I suspect the figure of an acre has no bearing on anyone’s life except for people who (a) like to romanticize prairie/agrarian living or (b) like to make the size of their property sound bigger than it actually is. So you have a one square mile tract of land? Terrific, who gives a shit. Wouldn’t you rather have 640 fucking acres of land? Thought so.
Wait. And what the hell is a hectare? Why it’s 2.471 acres, of course.
Okay: inches, feet, miles. Let’s not fancy this shit up. Look, I know you’re trying to help when you talk about distances in terms of football fields or people stacked on top of each other or soda straws laid end to end, but it’s pretty meaningless when you get to distances, say, over 10 football fields long. “ It would take 123,321,695,888,888 Eiffel Towers glued to the tip of our fastest rocket ship to touch Alpha Centauri within 691 Earth years.”
I remember in Sunday school sometimes, they would try to bait your enthusiasm by talking about Biblical measurements. “Twenty Gerahs, that’s one Shekel for you nubies (sidenote: I de-fucking-test the word ‘nubies’), is equivalent to about 1/4 of a ounce. Now, let’s talk about converting your spiritual measurements.”
Great, time to build a fucking ark.

Cut

I got my Hair Cut cut yesterday at Fantastic Sam’s by Jessica who was and is I’m assuming still having problems with her grandmother who listens to a police scanner and tells her far too much gossip that I bet Jessica probably wants to hear anyway. Just not in that fashion. Or maybe it gets old or uninteresting and she kept donking the clippers zum zummm zummmm against my head and I thought that I was going to come out with a patch of missing hair or, christ forbid, ear flaps. Ear flaps are hair flaps over your ears that hang down over your ears when Jessicas don’t cut them because maybe just maybe their fine maybe motor skills possibly are impaired by a butterfly tattoo on the nerve ending clump patch between thumb and forefinger. But she did, I would say, well. Well, obviously I would say that because I did and I almost just said “stellar”. But stellar saying stellar makes me feel like I did yesterday when I said “that would be much appreciated”, “could I get back to you on that one?” and, oh yes, “hoisted by my own petard”. I don’t even know what a petard is. I suspect something nautical – let me look it up. Nope, it means something I’m not sure of; but it is Shakespeare. Bluedamnshit, I just thought about learning that stanza so when someone said that phrase I could tell them where it was from but I would act casual because everyone’s supposed to know Shakespeare, like Joyce like Bush like Self like Truth.
Well, I went onto just neaten it up in front of the mirror, just to give it more of a “messy” look because that’s so me. “That’s too angular, that’s not me,” I said. “Messy is me and I’m bringing it back with Old Hair Cut Me to New Hair Cut America.” Anyway, I did that but I didn’t do it quite close enough, so I went back and did it a little more too far. Then it was uneven. So I went farther. Etc., etc. Now my head looks like a motorcyle helmet without a visor.
Anyway oh well and on, I congratulated myself on having someone other than my mother cut my hair who, including that last one, conducted probably 94.7 percent of all the Dave Frank-certified hair cuts. (1. I love how people will begin something with “about” and end it with a decimal. 2. What would be gained by certifying the existence of a hair cut?).
Mom did a nice job on a regular basis. What can I say, it’s hard to mess up this handsome-ass head.
When she was done she would sweep up my hair which my cats smelled like it was a new cat and I would brush off on the porch in my underwear. And I would lean over one of the pillars and cars would drive by koossh and it was alright.
Shit.
Sometimes mom would do, I’m assuming, two, three, four cuts a day in on menboys in two, three, four various stages of back hair growth.
School was still far away or it was summer.
I would always get excited about picking out which music to put on but never could hear it well and I would get all antsies in my pantsies to hear the lyrics and then all disinterred when the buzzsaw sounds went through the windows. And (and and and) the day went from quick to traffic to early evening.

And someone went to bed and someone went downstairs to watch TV til everyone waited for everyone else to fall asleep upstairs by the traffic slow cars that came by and wouldn’t ever scare anyone in their sleep.