Like a Shitty Horror Movie Villian, the McRib is Back

The Huffington Post reported that The McRib is returning nationally through Nov. 14th. The article goes on about the McRib’s “cult-like following” inspired by the sandwich’s sporadic appearances in various McDonalds’ locations. There’s even a honest to god fucking McRib locator map where people can find the nearest McDonald’s with a McRib and go on a goddamn roadtrip (there’s even a forum where you can discuss such topics as “How many McRibs have you eaten?”)


While the cult following is hard enough to explain, the bigger question is “why isn’t it always available?” Why only release it in certain stores rarely release it nationally? Marta Fearon, McDonald’s US Marketing Director said it “adds to the excitement” but I know the real story about it’s limited availability.


We all know that the current Ronald McDonald isn’t the first. The mantle of The Ronald has been handed down from generation to generation. Only the most worthy of clowns may put on the yellow jumpsuit and lead millions of young children to obesity. Such a weighty responsibility isn’t rewarded without a test, though and every potential Ronald must complete the task of killing The Grimace.


pure evil




Anytime the reigning Ronald is felled in the field due to massive cocaine overdose or gunfight (the only two ways a Ronald has ever died), hundreds of possible Ronalds are called to McDonald’s corporate headquarters.  Dozens arrive in the same tiny car that you think could barely fit one as they gather to hear the CEO deliver the official news.   He stands over his balcony and bellows “ONE OF YOU ARE THE NEXT RONALD.  PROVE IT TO ME, YOUR KING, BY BRINGING ME THE CORPSE OF THE GRIMACE!”


The crowd of clowns roar as the bloodlust overtakes them.  They storm McDonaldland mountain where the Grimace lies in wait in a cave at it’s peak.  blood flows down the mountainside in streams as the grimace tears through clown after clown with his razor sharp claws.  The stench of death is almost overwhelming as the bodies pile up and the cave fills with the sounds of screaming clowns, cracking bones and squeaking noses.  This will last for days as each clown hurls himself at The Grimace hoping for the ultimate prize until finally one succeeds.  Victorious, the man who would be Ronald straps the 2000 pound corpse to a sled and takes him down the mountains to corporate headquarters.  


Once he presents the bloody corpse to the CEO, a quick criminal background check is performed, a urine sample is submitted and some tax forms are filled out. If the urine comes back drug free the world has a new Ronald McDonald. To celebrate, the corpse of the Grimace is processed and sold nationally as The McRib.

Eat up, America!

Please Hammer, Don’t Search ‘Em

Can we all just admit that google won? Does anybody use other search engines? The only other one I know still exists is bing because they spent a gazillion dollars advertising and it turns out they were just ripping off google anyway. Google’s the best when it comes to searching. The reason they’re on top is because nobody can do better.



While google may be on top, there’s one man that thinks he can do better. That man is MC Hammer.



MC Hammer is making his own search engine called wiredoo. I initially found out when friend, comedian and black person Brandi Brown shared an Onion AV club story about wiredoo. I initially thought it was an actual Onion article because he’s MC Hammer but it turns out it’s true. I guess somebody had to fill the void in the tech world that was left when Steve Jobs died.



The search engine is supposed to do “deep searches” and “relationship searches”. So (from the CBS article) “An example Hammer gave is searching for a zip code. On top of basic search content, WireDoo would also give related information like schools, homes and hospitals. Let’s say you click on ‘schools.’ Related content would include detailed information, like academic performance index scores, teachers’ credentials and truancy rates.”



So wiredoo is for all those people on the internet sick of google giving them what they want and not giving them kind of what they want?



While it would seem the most logical route to make hammerpants jokes I’ll refrain because every other article on this ever made hammerpants jokes. Also, I’m a bit biased because MC Hammer and I are friends. He follows me on twitter (I’m one of the lucky 38,109!) Here’s how we met on the internet.



I began following MC Hammer because he’s a famous rapper and probably tweeted interesting things. I was not wrong. One morning he tweeted “Hammertime!” so I sent back three immediate responses.



10:04 AM – @MCHammer you can’t just yell “HAMMERTIME!” You have to yell “STOP!” first and give us a beat to prepare ourselves mentally for hammertime

10:07 AM – @MCHammer I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, I just wasn’t ready for hammertime.

10:10 AM – @MCHammer I should apologize. I know hammertime is a two way street and perhaps I’m not entirely blameless.



We’ve been friends ever since.



Since we’re such close friends, I’m not going to make any hammerpants jokes. I will, however, say that wiredoo sounds like an awful fucking idea.

Hot Sauce Names.

Let’s talk about hot sauce.


I was never a spicy foods person when I was younger. Growing up in a… Minnesotan household usually exposes you to only the blandest of foods. We never had much beyond mild salsa in our fridge and chili may as well have been spelled “chilly”. Only in the last couple of years have I started craving spicy foods. I hope I’m not pregnant.


It started with Cholula. I bought a bottle for taco night and liked it. I started putting it on other things. Hashbrowns, mac and cheese, pizza. I started to expand my horizons and got a bottle of Tapatio to change things up.


Eventually that wasn’t doing it for me. I was getting used to the heat. It barely registered. The Guns N’ Roses song “Mr. Brownstone” started finally making sense to me.


I’m currently on Sriracha. It’s replaced ketchup in my diet. I’d put it on ice cream if I thought it’d taste good.


Several months ago when I realized I was starting to build a tolerance to spice I searched the internet for different hot sauces and came across hotsauceworld.com. It had literally thousands of brands of hot sauce categorized by level of intensity. I checked the “hot” page and noticed that the names of these sauces followed three distinct themes.


S&M NAMES
Several sauces suggest that the reason you’re putting this on your food is because you get some sort of sexual pleasure out of it. The bottles usually have a picture of a woman in leather brandishing a whip because that’s why you eat tacos.

– Goddess of Fire
– Pain is Good
– Kiss of Fire
– Pleasure and Pain Rated XXX Hot Sauce


VAGUELY POLITICAL NAMES
You’ve got political opinions but how are you going to share them? Voting? Writing an op ed piece for your local newspaper? How about making your own hot sauce? Descriptions from the website included.

– PETA (People for Eating Tasty Animals) Hot Sauce: Where’s the beef… and the veal, pork and chicken too? And don’t forget the whale, dolphin, baby seal and Panda. Loving all God’s creatures next to my potatoes!

– The Final Countdown Hot Sauce (George W. Bush): 01-20-09 Poor Georgie boy. His days are numbered and the nation is counting them down. Help celebrate the countdown when America will regain it’s ability to actually think again in the year 2009.

– Teddy’s Sauced Hot Sauce: Get Ted’s new book “How to Navigate a bridge while under suspicion of being impaired and without a valid drivers license”.

– Hillary’s Diet Sauce: For use in place of health insurance! because this is all she is going to leave you with! Just Imagine Hillary Clinton as President!


PUTTING THIS ON FOOD AND EATING IT WILL MAKE YOUR BUTT HURT
This is by far the most popular method of naming hot sauce. The world’s hot sauce makers have literally used every synonym for rectal discomfort in the naming of their sauces. I think one is actually named rectal discomfort. This list doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of butthurt names

– Heiney Hurt
– Colon Cleaner
– Hog’s Ass
– Hemorrhoid Helper
– Wet Fart
– Fiery Fart
– Sphincter Shrinker
– Flaming Coon Ass
– Red Rectum
– Assplosion
– Bayou Butt Burner
– Weapons of Ass Destruction
– Rectal Revenge
– Rectum Ripper
– Butt Plug Relief
– Butt Twister
– Brenda’s Booty Burner
– Bubba’s Butt Blaster
– Rectal Rocket Fuel
– Reindeer Revenge (check the picture to see why this is a butt one)

If that doesn't make you hungry for hot sauce I don't know what would.


Thanks, hotsauceworld.com but I think I’ll stick with the Sriracha for now.

Milk.

I’m on a see-food diet. I see food and then I eat it HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (FART)!


Seriously, though. I’m not the kind of person that monitors what he eats. It may be one of the reasons I’m fat (recent studies at many universities are starting to show a growing link between eating a ton of shitty food and being overweight).


What’s worse is that the food I eat may constantly be making me high.


Jena was installing a computer the other day for some doctor reasearch sciencey person and they got to talking about Jared attending online school and the reasons for that. One of which being his ADD (which I also have the pleasure of having) and anxiety. The doctor then mentioned how she had conducted a study on the link between casein proteins and the exacerbation of inflammatory disorders like IBS, anxiety and ADD. Jena suggested we try going casein free for a month and see what happens since everybody in the house has at least one of those disorders.


This will be a bit tough since casein proteins are found in dairy products. Milk, cheese, most chocolates. Basically all the stuff I love to eat.


I decided to google it a bit to find out more about the whole casein / ADD connection. Turns out, according to a livestrong.com article that “people who lack the enzyme that breaks down proteins like casein are left with an opoid substance in their digestive system. This theoretically can produce an opium-like effect that alters perceptions and behavior and accounts for the spaciness and poor attention in ADHD.”


Wait a second. I’m getting high off of milk? Is it like Requiem For a Dream where I’ll slam a glass of milk, cut to my pupils dilating, my veins expanding, me collapsing on the couch.


I’ve been getting high off milk all these years. My parents, my teachers told me how important it is to drink my milk when I was a kid unaware that they might as well have been telling me how important it is to shoot heroin.


Shit. Am I going to go through withdrawal now? All cold sweats in the bed, looking up and seeing a cow walk across the ceiling turning it’s head 180 degrees?


Whatever. It’s for the best. Nothing but clean, drug milk free living for me for the next month. Thank god there’s no casein protein in beer.

Occupy Umbrellas.

Lord, it ain’t easy being a cop in Seattle these days.  The city of lights’ (that’s Seattle, right?) boys in blue are being worked to the bone trying to defend the populace from the terror that has become Occupy Seattle.  These sadistic criminal masterminds or “protesters” have done everything from standing around in Westlake park to sitting around in westlake park.





Since this is a free country and the first amendment protects the right to peacebly assemble or whatever the cops just can’t arrest the socialist nazi hippies but thankfully city hall has recently taken to interpreting certain laws as loosely as possible to make them horribly uncomfortable and easier to arrest. The Daily Kos reported that open umbrellas are now illegal to hold unless you are standing.





At first glance that seems like one of those wacky laws that was put in place 100 years ago that cities never bother repealing and never enforce. Stuff you find in some travel size bathroom reader almanac like “it’s unlawful for women to wear Santa Suits” and “it is illegal to cross state lines with a duck on your head” (actual laws! thanks dumblaws.com!) but the actual law focuses on not being able to erect “structures” in the park. The City of Seattle’s reasoning is that if you’re standing with an umbrella, you’re just a dude holding an umbrella. If you sit down holding that umbrella, that umbrella is now a house somehow and that house is on city property.





So if you sit down holding an umbrella in a park in Seattle you can be arrested. Some people have.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_cs2b5RA3Y&w=560&h=315]





While arresting people for sitting down with an umbrella is quite an ingenious way to skirt around stupid formalities like “civil liberties”, I think the city of Seattle can create even more laws to get these malcontents to leave honest, god-fearin’ corporations alone. Here’s some suggestions.


– It is illegal to be in a Seattle park with an empty bladder.

– Owners must clean up after their dogs mess with their mouths.

– For everyone’s safety, you must wear a helmet provided by the park when in the park. All helmets are 20 pounds to ensure maximum safety.

Hopefully this all ends soon. I shudder to think what will happen if people keep voicing opinions like this.

King and Queen of Norway Visit Minnesota.

King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway visited Minnesota this weekend, causing anybody living in a small town over the age of 50 to go completely ape shit.

King Harald of Norway

After arriving on the shore of Lake Superior

The Royal Transport

they were greeted by representatives of the Norse Cultural Society of Minnesota.

Traditional Norwegian garb

As is custom, apologies were made by all parties present for 20 full minutes.   After the traditional telling of the Ole and Lena joke, the king and queen were treated to Norwegian foods such as –

Fiskepudding (fish pudding)

Poteboller (potato balls)

Fiskesalat (fish salad)

Lompe (potato pancake bread)

Fiskesuppe (fish soup)

Fiskepote (fish potatoes)

Fiske Fiske (fish in fish)

Lutefisk (poison fish)

After dinner the king and queen delighted Minnesotans with interesting facts about Norway such as –

1.  Norway is a monarchy.

2.  The chef from The Muppets is from Sweden.

After dinner and a visit to each of the 5,000 towns in Minnesota with a Scandanavian name, the royal couple mounted the eight legged horse, Sleipnir and rode the rainbow bridge back to Valhalla.  Governor Dayton bid them farewell covered in Lingonberries (as is tradition).

This has been the first time a foreign head of state has visited Minnesota since 2009 when the Prime Minister of Japan flew in on a giant robot.

One Year.

This Sunday will mark the one year anniversary of me and Jena being all husband and wifey so I thought I’d tell the story about how she stole my proposal idea.

I decided that I was going to ask Jena to marry me in the summer of 2009. I was collecting unemployment and doing some stand up here and there. Enough money to pay the bills but not pay for a wedding. I had resolved to not ask until I had a steady job. On the way back from a show in Iowa I did a phone interview with Comcast that seemed to go well and they said they’d call again to set up a face to face interview in the next few days. That was close enough to having a job for me so I planned out my proposal.

There is a tree on the sidewalk behind the apartment building she lived in at the time. When we first started dating, I asked to come over to her her place under the (kind of) false pretense of bumming a cigarette. We smoked under that tree the first night we kissed. I was going to ask her to come out for a smoke and get down on one knee. I was writing a speech in my head for a whole week trying to properly express how she made me feel and how I wanted to feel that way for the rest of my life.

Then I chucked all that out the window and stammered out a rambling proposal in bed because I’m a fucking moron.

I still don’t know what came over me to decide that was the perfect time and not this grand scheme that I had playing out in my head. We were just in bed (fully clothed), holding hands and talking. Shooting the breeze. I then started choking and stuttering about “how… how the last year has… b-been really good. Like, the best year of my l-life and I don’t kn-know if, I hope it’s been really g-good for you because I was thinking.”

The worst part about all of it was that after fifteen seconds of me falling down a flight of verbal stairs I could tell she knew what I was getting to. The look in her eyes and the expression on her face screamed that she knew I was going to ask her to marry me and she was going to say “yes”. I could see that plain as day but that didn’t stop me from two more minutes of twisting in the wind and stammering bullshit about how we were “really cool together”.

After I finished, she said “yes” and all the requisite phone calls were made I told her about my plan with the tree and the speech. She agreed that it was very romantic and I should have done that instead.

Several weeks later, with the engagement in full swing she asked me to come out back for a smoke. We went out under the tree but before we lit our cigarettes she got down on one knee and asked me to marry her. I accepted. Now every time we go by the old apartment she’ll point and say “Hey, remember when I proposed to you under that tree?”

Happy anniversary, you idea stealing bitch. I love you mostest <#.

Pee Patrol

Let me start by explaining that I’m scared of police. Pathologically scared. I don’t know what it is but even when I’m completely law abiding (98% of the time) I just tense up when around a uniformed cop. It’s weird but some people are afraid of clowns so don’t judge me. Judge them.

I spent the evening last night at Drink! in uptown. Not exactly my scene but my friend Brian was hosting trivia and I was learning the ropes to fill in for him next week. Two of the tips I was given was “just talk over the drunks” and “pretend there’s way more people in here than there actually is.” So basically this is going to be a standard stand up comedy show.

I watched Brian do his thing, chatted and drank some of my favorite kind of beer (free!) and walked home, stopping at Rainbow to pick up a few things on the way. I was two blocks from Rainbow with a grocery bag in each hand when I realized something. I had to pee.

I really had to pee. Bad. This was something that needed to be taken care of. I couldn’t walk back to Rainbow. I was lugging 20 pounds of groceries and already two blocks away. Pee needed to get out of me and in a few minutes it wouldn’t care if pants were obstructing it’s path. I looked around. No dark alleys in this part of uptown, just well lit new condos and open lots. I then realized I was standing right near an entrance to the Greenway Bike trail.

I didn’t want to go completely down to the trail because that’s where the homeless sleep. If they see me pee down there they might think I’m trying to mark their territory and attack me. The entrance, however, was half a block long and sloped downward. I took a few steps in, low enough to be out of sight from the street level but close enough to the street to run if the underdwellers smelled my fear. I unzipped and let nature take it’s course. That’s when the sirens blared.

Two cop cars a block away light up and drove in opposite directions. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. How did they see me? I stopped mid stream (which you’re totally not supposed to do) grabbed my groceries and ran to the street. I started thinking of excuses or alibis or something to tell them. Do I lie? They couldn’t have had a good look at me. “He ran that way, officer! Smelled like piss, he did!”. That could work. I’m carrying groceries. That’s respectable. “Just bringing some groceries to my home, which has a perfectly working bathroom that I use like a normal person.” I was so busy thinking of what to say it took me a full two minutes to realize that the cops were gone. I calmed down and kept walking, confident that I just got away with the crime of the century. I turned the corner onto 28th street and was greeted by five cop cars, blocking the street and right sidewalk with their lights on.

“Fuck!” I thought. “They’ve set up a blockade! I’m going to jail and the groceries are going to spoil and Jen’s going to have to bail me out and I’m going to get a lecture and some guy’s going to make me his bitch in jail. Not if I make him my bitch first. The second I get in there I need to establish dominance. I’m not that kind of person but this is prison and you do what you need to do to survive.” I walked toward the blockade, ready to turn myself in when I noticed that a car was pulled over. Oh thank god. It’s somebody else just getting a ticket or something. I walked by and the driver looked at me and kind of giggled. I don’t blame her. That’s a scary situation and fear makes you react in strange ways.

I got home and ran to the bathroom to finish the job I started on the Greenway trail. I went to unzip my pants and I realized the reason that girl was laughing was because my fly was down.

Billionaire Waiters Complain About Credit Card Fees.

The City Pages has spent the last week following a story concerning Parasole Restaurants skimming 2% of their waitstaff’s credit card tips to cover charges from the credit card companies. The embattled corporation has stated the move as necessary due to higher use of credit cards among customers and higher credit card fees from banks. Rather than raise their prices or pay out of their own pockets, the executives passed along the fees to their highest earners, the waiters.

Just so we’re clear, the waitstaff is already making minimum wage, which alone should be enough for a waiter/waitress to support a family (7.25 an hour? Ritzy!). On top of that hefty paycheck, these people get tips? Last I checked, executives didn’t get tips for doing whatever it is executives do.

These greedy servers are in a whole uproar about the new fee just because when a customer gives a tip they expect it to go to the waiter that served them. As if a tip is some kind of reward for good service.

Supporters of these fatcats in aprons suggest you tip in cash if you eat at Parasole Restaurants Parasole Restaurants so they don’t have to pay the fees out of their wages. It’s also nice for them to have cash on hand so they can light their expensive cigars and swim in their giant moneybanks.

made his first million slinging hashbrowns at a greasy spoon. Everybody knows that.

Human Poopipede, Unnecessary Sequence

I saw the first Human Centipede in the theater with my friend Mike.  It was gross, over the top and unintentionally funny.  I don’t regret seeing it but I wouldn’t watch it again.  Movies about people sewn ass to mouth don’t really lend themselves to repeat viewings, much less beg for a sequel.

Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence), however, was released last week in the US and answers all the questions nobody ever asked ever after watching the first movie.  Questions like –

1.  What if somebody watched the movie more than once?

2.  What if somebody watched the movie more than once and got off on it?

3.  What if that person tried to make their own Human Centipede out of 12 people?

Seriously.  Human Centipede 2 is about a guy who gets obsessed with the movie and tries to make his own human centipede.  Also, according to the Human Centipede wiki, “the director promises that the movie will be much gorier than the first full of ‘the blood and shit’ that viewers did not see in the first film” because that’s what was lacking, I guess.

What’s even worse is that horror movies never have just one sequel.  By creating one sequel to Human Centipede, IFC Films has unknowingly opened the floodgates to a franchise that will give us a new movie about people forced to eat poop every year until the concept of sewing asses to mouths is tired and stale.  People will see Human Centipede Halloween costumes at Target and roll their eyes because that was so last year.

I wouldn’t be suprised if, two years from now, we see a Movie poster with a human centipede wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses on a surfboard for “Human Centipede 5:  Hang 30!”.