My Favorite Stories of the week:
1) 4 States pass law allowing guns to be brought into restaurants.
Woe is me on gun control laws. I mean, I understand that guns don’t kill, people kill. It makes sense to me. If a drunk driver kills somebody, we don’t blame the car and start protesting car production. (Unless it’s one of those PT Cruisers. Man I wish they would stop making those things.) The point is, the person pulling the trigger is the one who’s responsible. (Unless it’s the PT Cruiser version of a gun. In that case maybe the person looked down and got really scared and shrieked and the gun went off by accident!) I guess my views on gun control are we should be allowed to carry guns, but only if we pass a test that confirms that we’re not complete morons. I have the same views on childbirth/childrearing, but that’s for another day.
Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia and Virgina are now allowing customers to bring concealed loaded guns into restaurants, per new legislation.
My question is: who thought to introduce this law, and what purpose does it serve??? I mean, are we allowed to shoot the chef if we find a fly in our soup? What if I order my burger medium rare and it comes out medium? Can I pull out my magnum and just bust a cap on the waiter? Service is not all that great these days, probably because waiters and waitresses make most of their income from tips and the economy is in the toilet. People are being kind of stingy with their tips. So what’s next, servers can carry guns and shoot people that don’t tip 20%??
I understand that carrying a loaded weapon into a restaurant doesn’t mean that the person has the right to shoot somebody. But honestly, why bring it in there in the first place if you’re not thinking about possibly needing to use it? Where are these gun toters dining?? Maybe I don’t want to know. God forbid this law get passed in NY State.
_________________________________________________________________
2) San Francisco considers banning Happy Meal toys
This SERIOUSLY bothers me. I mean, what do people think we buy these crappy little cardboard boxes filled with junk food FOR? The fine examples of food pyramid specimens inside?? What’s next, banning toys in cereal boxes?
Let me tell you something. When I was a kid, my brother and sister and I would ask our mom to buy cereal solely based on the toys they were offering. We’d take the toy out and proceed to not eat any of the cereal, forcing my father into a breakfast diet of Fruity Coco Puffs, Count Chockula, and some cereal that I can’t remember the name of that was supposed to taste like frosted donuts but actually tasted like paste-covered dog food. I can’t remember what we actually did eat for breakfast, but I still have some of those toys somewhere.
No more beanie babies or Disney toys in Happy Meals? Are they crazy? Is this some sort of way to get kids to eat more fruits and veggies, and they’re going to stick a carrot in that box instead of some $.35 cent “Made in a 3rd World Country by Small Children” toy? Because I’m heading out to SF to protest. Forget gay rights, they’re pretty close to getting those out there. This banned toy idea must be stopped.
_________________________________________________________
3) The TV show “Man vs. Food” is deemed “gluttonous” and “disgusting”
If you’ve never seen the Travel Channel show “Man vs. Food”, you seriously need to Tivo at least one episode. The host, obviously a future Mensa candidate, goes from restaurant to restaurant finding the most horrific food challenges around the country. Some of his challenges have included eating a 52 oz steak in an hour and eating a bowl of chili so hot the Sun called and asked that we keep the bowl at least a trillion miles away from it. This genius tackles serious challenges like that. Most of the time he’s forced to eat roughly 10 lbs of food in a very limited amount of time. He always starts out with this shit-eating grin and the crowd cheering behind him. After about 1/2 the way through, he looks like he’s going to have a coronary. And the crowd behind him is studying him like children at a birthday party study a pinata.
I can’t begin to understand why somebody would call this “gluttonous”. I mean, recent polls say about 65% of the US is obese. Not a few pounds overweight. OBESE. More than 20% over their normal weight. I’m 5’10, the top of my “normal weight” is 160. If I hovered anywhere near 160 I would send myself to a Mexican prison for a few years. I would be considered OBESE if I weighed about 200 lbs. Like if I decided to eat my co-worker and her office chair, then I would probably be considered obese.
This guy is eating his weight in godfather’s pizza about once a week. I think it’s genius. You watch him at the beginning of the season and he looks normal. Through the season he gets heavier and heavier and his eyes start to bulge a little. By the end of the season he’s sweating profusely all the time, even when standing naked outside in a blizzard. But think about it: Not only is this guy getting paid for this show (meals included), he’s also setting himself up for future reality tv shows. First it will be “Celebrity Fit Club”. Then when he’s in shape and hooked on diet pills and cocaine, it will be “Celebrity Rehab”. When he’s turned himself into a whiny little bitch because the world is against him, he can go live with the Kardashians. Seriously. True genius. I can’t wait for the next episode, when he goes to IHOP and orders that rooty tooty fresh and fruity plate. I’ve never seen ANYBODY get through that entire thing without vomiting profusely. Good luck Food Guy!
__________________________________________________________
4) New survey by the Journal of Sexual Medicine proves that men have more orgasms than women
First of all, who knew there was a Journal of Sexual Medicine? Is there a journal for everything? I’m imagining “Journal of Peanut Butter and Jelly with the Crust Cut Off”, or maybe “Journal of How to Get the Woman Down the Hall to Put Her Cell Phone on Vibrate During Working Hours”. (To keep it easier to remember we could always use the acroynm “JHGWDHPHCPVDWH”.
If these were available, I would read them. And now obviously I have to go try to find a copy of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Because I’m insanely curious. Where do you pick one up? Newsstand?
Secondly, who approves the money that’s spent on these studies, an idiot savant that lives on a deserted island? I think I could safely take over this job.
“You want a grant to prove that you shouldn’t drink a gallon of gasoline and then throw a lit match down your throat? Hmm. Yes, I’m not sure that the conclusion to that is blindly obvious. Here’s 20 million dollars. What would we possibly do without rocket scientists like you on our side?”
Things that I would approve to be studied:
A. How I keep blindly getting suckered into buying fruit from the fruit guy on the corner of 34th and 7th. I’ve tried everything that he has to offer. Bananas, pears, apples, grapes, strawberries. The man’s fruit is disgusting. My dog wouldn’t touch it. (And, by the way, my dog ate a rock the other day.)
And yet every other week I walk by him, he tips his hat at me, smiles and says something like “Yousooopreeeetty”. And I blush, and stop and think “Yes, I should eat more fruit. Maybe a banana”. I pay $.50 for it, walk away thinking, “Wow, I’m pretty AND healthy.”
And then during lunch I open the banana ,and instead of finding fruit inside I find a tiny coffin with a “Here lies Banana” tombstone. One of these days I’ll learn my lesson. Once we study why it is that a mumbling fruit stand guy has some sort of magnetic power over my brain.
B. Why people in front of me deliberately walk very slowly. And also, why people walking towards me veer directly into my path. I really wonder about these two. NYC walking is like driving a car anywhere else. There are “lanes” on the sidewalk. Inevitably, I end up in the slow lane behind Corky the first day driving student. Corky veers side to side, as though he’s watching me in the rear view mirror and attempting to stop me from passing by him. He’ll randomly slam on the brakes and give a look of amazement at a mile marker or, in my case, absolutely NOTHING. What is he staring at????
This is coupled with the people that are human bowling balls and I’m the last standing pin that’s going to get them the spare in the 10th. No matter where I move, they move with me. Bobbing and weaving we walk closer and closer towards each other on the sidewalk until we’re directly in front of each other and blocking each other’s paths. At that point Bowling Ball looks at me like he’s been blind for the past 50 feet and he suddenly got a cornea transplant and for the first time in 20 seconds he can see. I get a glare and a huge huff.
I swear to God if I’m ever in a restaurant in Tennessee with any of these people….