Well, its official, Chips and Salsa are dead. Now, for the record, I'm not talking about nachos, because nachos will be with us until the end of time due to the MCF - melted cheese factor. The MCF is a scientific theory I have developed that postulates that human beings will eat 83% of the substances on the planet if you pour melted cheese on top of them. When you throw in the BC - the bacon corollary, that percentage skyrockets to 99% - only excrement and "things found stuck to a subway platform" were eliminated. You can read all about my findings in the June issue of The Journal of Angioplasty and Coronary Disease.
But chips and salsa (sans cheese) are over as a primary food source. I don't know when it happened but I have noticed it for quite some time, yet I didn't say anything for fear of declaring a premature death (kind of like those news stories you occasionally hear about a hospital or nursing home sending some poor person off to the morgue while they were still breathing. For God's sake, how hard is it to stick a mirror under some one's nose - you don't even need medical training! But I digress.) I went to two parties this past weekend, both incredibly fun affairs (a Kentucky Derby party and a Cinco de Mayo party if you must know) and both served copious amounts of food, including (the dearly departed) chips and salsa. And, as I suspected, the chips and salsa were routinely ignored in favor of new flashier appetizers like those cheese/spinach puff things, spring rolls and dim sum, or old standbys like pigs in a blanket, chicken skewers and the cheese and cracker platter. And chips and salsa can't even hold their own against other dips, routinely getting their asses kicked by artichoke dips, sour cream and onion, crab, and its own cousin - the Mexican cheese dip (MCF at work in two of the three dips of course). Did I mention that one of the parties we went to this weekend had a Mexican theme? If you are chips and salsa and you can't even defend your home turf, what chance do you have in a non-Latino setting? Where did it all end? One minute chips and salsa were the talk of the town - a must have if you were throwing a cocktail party. Now, they sit lonely and ignored until the chips are so stale and chewy, you can blow bubbles with them, and the salsa gets that crusty green film on top from sitting untouched for so long.
I can't tell you how many times we have hosted a party and as I am cleaning up afterward (or is it afterword, I can never get that straight), I empty an entire bowl of salsa back into its container. And it goes into the back of the refrigerator with the other seven partially-full salsas until two years later when you end up cleaning out the refrigerator and you come face to face with six to ten dead salsa containers. Where have you gone Jose' DiMaggio? A nation turns its hungry eyes away from you. But the chips and salsa industry doesn't seem to mind because until now, no one has had the guts to declare them dead. So people will still keep buying them and putting them out, and stuffing them in the backs of their pantries and refrigerators, refusing to acknowledge they are gone. But I will. I will stand up and publicly mourn this first ballot Appetizer Hall of Fame inductee. Take your place in the Pantheon with the retired appetizers like Potato Skins, Pickled Eggs, and Cru-de-te (other than the carrots and broccoli). Enjoy the hereafter.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
People I've Got My Eye On
The world is a pretty big place full of a lot of people, most of whom have annoyed me at one point or another, I think. There is no getting around it, there is just way too much time in the day and way too many people with whom you come into contact not to be completely annoyed by a whole host of people for a whole host of reasons. In fact, I was going to call this column "People I Hate", which would have been much catchier, but I had to change it because, A) when it comes right down to it, I don't hate them because, B) life is way too short to waste precious moments hating these, well, losers (or jackasses, I can't decide which), and C) there is far too much hate in the world as it is without me adding any to the pile. And when you think of it, hate is a pretty harsh word that should be reserved for reviled figures throughout history like Hitler, Pol Pot, and Barney (the purple dinosaur, not some random guy of the same name). So, I've renamed the column "people I have my eye on" (I'm too tired to capitalize it again) so I can A) come back to hate them later if my philosophy of life changes or, B) if the people on this list become any more annoying (cause let's face it, a guy can only take so much). So without further ado, here is my list of people I have my eye on:
1) The guy who uses a Latin phrase for his high school yearbook quote. Is there anyone on the planet who is more annoying that this guy? Way to stamp yourself as a pompous ass right out of the gate there sport - nowhere to go but down and you're only 18 years old. You're in the prime of your young adulthood, preparing for four great years of college, you have great song lyrics, a passage from a great book, movie quotes, and random friend moments at your finger tips, and your decision is to go with e pluribus unum or whatever? Authored by a guy who has been dead for six hundred years? Where is the logic in this idea? No one except you and three other losers can understand it, you immediately announce yourself as the aforementioned pompous ass, and twenty years later when you are showing your kids your yearbook, you will have instantaneously lost their respect forever, and you will have no idea what the quote even means. And all to prove what exactly? That you think you are smart or better than your classmates? That you studied a dead language for four years for no reason whatsoever? That you spent your high school years playing Dungeons & Dragons in your basement instead of, you know, making actual friends and stuff? That you took a cousin to your prom? I mean, if the quote is so deep and so memorable, and had such an effect on you, you might want to think about translating it into English and save yourself a lifetime of ridicule professor. What sane person - especially an eighteen year old - is going to read your yearbook quote and say to themselves, "Wow, Stan used a Latin quote for his yearbook, I'll bet that is a deep and powerful message. I had better run to him, or to a Latin teacher, or to the internet to find out what it means!" I'll save you the trouble - None. I'll also save you time and preview everyone's actual reaction: "Man, what a tool Stan is."
2) Snooty, condescending barista. First of all, 'barista' is to coffee service as 'sanitation engineer' is to garbage man - let's call a spade a spade, shall we? You pour cups of coffee for your job (you know, until that degree in philosophy or anthropology starts to pay big dividends). So the next time you go into a coffee shop to order a medium coffee with milk and this idiot looks up and announces that what you really want is a "demi-grande hazelnut Colombian blend con leche", kindly reply, "Yes, as a matter of fact that is exactly what I want and I want it extra hot so when I dump it over your head it will hopefully scald the pretentiousness right off of you". This is not open-heart surgery, or cancer research, or splitting the atom, this is grinding a bean and filtering water through it, so lose the 'tude will ya? Gracias.
3) Snooty, condescending waiters/sommeliers. See barista above. Hey, Bottle Jockey, all I want is a halfway decent wine that tastes good, that doesn't require a second mortgage to purchase. So kindly do not look at me like I have not showered in a week when I choose to ignore your recommendation of the $180 bottle of Opus One in favor of the $13 Bobby's Jo's Big Bottle of Red. Kay?
4) The guy who feels the need to shout things out at concerts and comedy shows. Dude, as hard as it is for you to wrap your little pea brain around the idea that no one is there to hear your pithy little witticisms, we have paid good money to hear the musician or comedian currently on stage. And trust me, he/she is not there to have a conversation with you, or in fact, acknowledge you in any way. And your date/girlfriend/wife/buddy is not impressed unless they too are gigantic jackasses. So, if you can go ahead and kindly keep your unfunny, inane comments to yourself, the rest of us would really, really, really appreciate it.
5) The guy who feels the need to shout things out at the movies. The Cro-Magnon man of "idiots who yell things in public places". At least the moron who shouts things out at a concert is speaking to an actual live person. You are shouting at a screen.
6) Guys with two first names like Dave Davidson, Chris Christopher, Mike Michaelson. Wait, I'm amending that because, more often than not, this is not their fault. It is the parents of people with two first names that I've got my eye on. If your last name is Thomas, and you have every single other name on the planet available to you, including any number of names you can just make up (like any Hollywood star kid's name - Apple, Rumor, Goat Cheese, for example) and you come up with Thomas again - well congratulations because you have made the top 3 of most annoying people alive. How can one even justify this? Is it stupidity? Mind numbing lack of creativity? Or is it a marquee-sized neon sign that you have just given up? Whatever it is, it couldn't be any more annoying.
7) People who don't obey the rules of 4-way stop signs. Now, as driving rules go, this has to be one of the more simple concepts because we learned it in freaking nursery school - take turns. If you go first, then I can go, then she can go, then he can go, then we start all over again. So if a four year old can master this concept, why does it seem to escape so many adults?
8) Parents who send out chain letters on behalf of their kids. Those of you who have kids know exactly what I am talking about. You go get your mail and there is a letter for one of your kids with three packs of stickers or stamps, or something sticky with glitter on them which, as we all know, is like heroin to a six year old - they absolutely can't resist it and can't walk away from it. And the letter says something to the effect of, "I have sent you these stickers, now you send this letter to ten kids and include my name and then we will both get 4,000 stickers back!!" Yay!! Listen, first of all, I don't want two stickers in my kids' hands never mind 4,000. My house already looks like the back of a Deadhead's VW bus because of the stickers already in their possession. We have stickers on refrigerators, windows, headboards, cork boards, posters, bikes, scooters, helmets, and occasionally, paper. I'm pretty all set with stickers. Second, its fine if you want to teach your child the fine art of the Ponzi scheme, but can you leave my kid out of it? If I want an Amway salesman, I'll drive to the Midwest and look for a guy with a mustache and a mullet, but I certainly don't need one under my own roof, thank you very much.
1) The guy who uses a Latin phrase for his high school yearbook quote. Is there anyone on the planet who is more annoying that this guy? Way to stamp yourself as a pompous ass right out of the gate there sport - nowhere to go but down and you're only 18 years old. You're in the prime of your young adulthood, preparing for four great years of college, you have great song lyrics, a passage from a great book, movie quotes, and random friend moments at your finger tips, and your decision is to go with e pluribus unum or whatever? Authored by a guy who has been dead for six hundred years? Where is the logic in this idea? No one except you and three other losers can understand it, you immediately announce yourself as the aforementioned pompous ass, and twenty years later when you are showing your kids your yearbook, you will have instantaneously lost their respect forever, and you will have no idea what the quote even means. And all to prove what exactly? That you think you are smart or better than your classmates? That you studied a dead language for four years for no reason whatsoever? That you spent your high school years playing Dungeons & Dragons in your basement instead of, you know, making actual friends and stuff? That you took a cousin to your prom? I mean, if the quote is so deep and so memorable, and had such an effect on you, you might want to think about translating it into English and save yourself a lifetime of ridicule professor. What sane person - especially an eighteen year old - is going to read your yearbook quote and say to themselves, "Wow, Stan used a Latin quote for his yearbook, I'll bet that is a deep and powerful message. I had better run to him, or to a Latin teacher, or to the internet to find out what it means!" I'll save you the trouble - None. I'll also save you time and preview everyone's actual reaction: "Man, what a tool Stan is."
2) Snooty, condescending barista. First of all, 'barista' is to coffee service as 'sanitation engineer' is to garbage man - let's call a spade a spade, shall we? You pour cups of coffee for your job (you know, until that degree in philosophy or anthropology starts to pay big dividends). So the next time you go into a coffee shop to order a medium coffee with milk and this idiot looks up and announces that what you really want is a "demi-grande hazelnut Colombian blend con leche", kindly reply, "Yes, as a matter of fact that is exactly what I want and I want it extra hot so when I dump it over your head it will hopefully scald the pretentiousness right off of you". This is not open-heart surgery, or cancer research, or splitting the atom, this is grinding a bean and filtering water through it, so lose the 'tude will ya? Gracias.
3) Snooty, condescending waiters/sommeliers. See barista above. Hey, Bottle Jockey, all I want is a halfway decent wine that tastes good, that doesn't require a second mortgage to purchase. So kindly do not look at me like I have not showered in a week when I choose to ignore your recommendation of the $180 bottle of Opus One in favor of the $13 Bobby's Jo's Big Bottle of Red. Kay?
4) The guy who feels the need to shout things out at concerts and comedy shows. Dude, as hard as it is for you to wrap your little pea brain around the idea that no one is there to hear your pithy little witticisms, we have paid good money to hear the musician or comedian currently on stage. And trust me, he/she is not there to have a conversation with you, or in fact, acknowledge you in any way. And your date/girlfriend/wife/buddy is not impressed unless they too are gigantic jackasses. So, if you can go ahead and kindly keep your unfunny, inane comments to yourself, the rest of us would really, really, really appreciate it.
5) The guy who feels the need to shout things out at the movies. The Cro-Magnon man of "idiots who yell things in public places". At least the moron who shouts things out at a concert is speaking to an actual live person. You are shouting at a screen.
6) Guys with two first names like Dave Davidson, Chris Christopher, Mike Michaelson. Wait, I'm amending that because, more often than not, this is not their fault. It is the parents of people with two first names that I've got my eye on. If your last name is Thomas, and you have every single other name on the planet available to you, including any number of names you can just make up (like any Hollywood star kid's name - Apple, Rumor, Goat Cheese, for example) and you come up with Thomas again - well congratulations because you have made the top 3 of most annoying people alive. How can one even justify this? Is it stupidity? Mind numbing lack of creativity? Or is it a marquee-sized neon sign that you have just given up? Whatever it is, it couldn't be any more annoying.
7) People who don't obey the rules of 4-way stop signs. Now, as driving rules go, this has to be one of the more simple concepts because we learned it in freaking nursery school - take turns. If you go first, then I can go, then she can go, then he can go, then we start all over again. So if a four year old can master this concept, why does it seem to escape so many adults?
8) Parents who send out chain letters on behalf of their kids. Those of you who have kids know exactly what I am talking about. You go get your mail and there is a letter for one of your kids with three packs of stickers or stamps, or something sticky with glitter on them which, as we all know, is like heroin to a six year old - they absolutely can't resist it and can't walk away from it. And the letter says something to the effect of, "I have sent you these stickers, now you send this letter to ten kids and include my name and then we will both get 4,000 stickers back!!" Yay!! Listen, first of all, I don't want two stickers in my kids' hands never mind 4,000. My house already looks like the back of a Deadhead's VW bus because of the stickers already in their possession. We have stickers on refrigerators, windows, headboards, cork boards, posters, bikes, scooters, helmets, and occasionally, paper. I'm pretty all set with stickers. Second, its fine if you want to teach your child the fine art of the Ponzi scheme, but can you leave my kid out of it? If I want an Amway salesman, I'll drive to the Midwest and look for a guy with a mustache and a mullet, but I certainly don't need one under my own roof, thank you very much.
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