The lozenges, they do nothing!

My discipline has its limits. If I'm expected to go to work 5 days a week, stop going on costly makeup buying binges, diet, not purposely run over slow-moving pedestrians when driving to/from work, and drag my fat ass to the gym for 30 minutes of cardio every goddamn morning, something's going to fail.

So, yeah, I bought a pack of cigarettes last Monday. I have two left, and it's killing me. As I type this, I'm fighting the urge to smoke them and run out for a pack of Dunhills before the froufrou tobacco shop closes.

I didn't mean to backslide. I had been grudgingly engaged in week four of quittery, grinding my teeth and chewing generic Nicorette. Then I spent an afternoon watching the Venture Brothers season 2 DVD commentary. Commentary on all thirteen episodes, and those sons of bitches smoked through all of them. You try listening to the incessant lighter clicking and see how long you can hold out.

I didn't realize this would be the case, and had actually been avoiding any and all instances of people smoking. Patty & Selma-centered Simpsons episodes? A thing of the past. Wong Kar Wai films? Hell fucking no. That coffee shop that serves Irish coffee? Won't be visiting them or their smoking section for a long time.

There's also the part where I realized that of the people who decided to quit smoking with me, none had actually done it. Add on the fact that my morbidly obese relatives were regularly hounding me about my progress, while ignoring the fact that I could outlive them a million times if I smoked a carton a day. Seriously, none of those bitches exercise or eat healthy, and they haven't worn a single-digited dress size since the Nixon administration.

Anyway, I'll finish off this pack, and then it's back to the gum and the sweaty sleepless nights fantasizing about running down to the 24-hour drugstore, buying a carton, and smoking 4 cigarettes at once until the whole thing is gone crochet. I may feel like shit, but at least I'll know that I let a group of middle aged fatties bully me into doing something I didn't want to.

Radio Off

I purged my MP3 player last week, so I now need to find new music to fill in the empty 800mb. While I do have several GBs of stuff on my computer's hard drive, I decided that I should have some music that was recorded since I graduated from college. You know, what the kids are listening to.

While the local “indie”/alternative rock radio station actually plays decent music, they have a way of running virtually every song they play into the ground. I really want to like the new Shins song, but it’s hard when they’ve been playing it hourly for the past two months.

Instead, I decided to try the top 40 pop station on my drive to work yesterday. I wasn’t feeling particularly road ragey, and if anything, it would be good for a laugh.

Damn, I can be stupid some times.

Gwen Stefani, Beyonce, Fergie, Nelly Furtado, Nickelback, and Justin Timberlake will never be featured on my MP3 player. Scattered among the endless stream of crap were songs by My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, which I can’t stomach on the indie station, but were like beautiful oases here. I finally reached my end point when a song came on that I thought might be a newer one from Liz Phair. What? It might not completely suck.

Anyway, my train of though as the song progressed went like this:

This shit sounds like Liz Phair… run though ProTools a million times… singing something written to appeal to angsty teenage girls… that belongs on a straight-to-DVD Disney sequal. If this is her, what the hell happened? Liz Phair sucked, but not like this.

Song ended, DJ announced: That was Avril Lavigne with a song from the Eragon soundtrack.

Eh, close enough.

Diet Coke Minus: Those bastards broke my soda

I drink a lot of Diet Coke. During an average week, my liquid intake is roughly 40% water, 40% Diet Coke, 15% coffee, and 5% other. On multiple occasions, I have consumed an entire 2 litre bottle in an afternoon.
I may be the only person in the world who actually likes the bitter aspartame aftertaste. I can't stand the cloying sweetness of Coca-Cola Classic, or any form of Pepsi. Diet Rite is even worse. It's so flat and sweet and just... ew.

Anyway, in an effort to health up their product, Coke has introduced "Diet Coke Plus", the Diet Coke with vitamins and minerals. When I heard vitamins and minerals, I assumed it would be calcium or vitamin C, but it's multiple B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc.
I don't think this is a bad idea. It's gimmicky, sure, but they didn't jack up the price or spend the past three months bombarding us with a tacky ad campaign about how this is the second coming of diet soda.

I tried a bottle today, and my problem lies in the taste. It's more like Diet Coke Minus. It tastes sort of like regular Diet Coke, but it's somehow lacking. I drank a 20 oz. bottle today, and noticed that it was a little off on the first sip. By the time I finished the bottle, I realized that it had the same bland, flat after-tasteless taste as Diet Rite.

I compared the ingredient lists on the Plus bottle and a can or real Diet Coke, and saw that Plus had less aspartame and contained acesulfame potassium. A thread on the BevNet message boards confirmed that acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) was used as a secondary sweetener. This crap is, apparently, also used in Coke Zero and Diet Rite. This wouldn't be so troubling if it wasn't for the rumour that Coke may start using this lower-aspartame-plus-Ace-K formula in real Diet Coke.

Alright, bitches. If you want to add my daily allowance of vitamins and minerals, be my guest. Hell, you can pack it full of bovine grown hormone for all I care. However, if you change the base formula and turn it into another bland, cloying Diet Rite, I will come down there and stick a shank in your ass. I'm already sharpening one out of an empty 2 litre bottle. Don't make me use it.
If that doesn't convince you, just remember "New Coke".

Pay Now, Bitch

This completely makes up for Blades of Glory.



The video refuses to embed properly, but this video must be seen. Watch it. Love it.

The Air That I Breathe

I'm currently in the process of quitting smoking. I'm also on a massive diet/exercise thing to lose the 20 pounds I've gained from quitting smoking. The combination of these two things is making my life miserable. For the past month, I've had a persistent cold, am constantly nauseous, and have had two migraine headaches. I may actually be less healthy than I was when I smoked.

When it comes to this topic, the people in my life are divided into two camps: The Empathetic and The Sanctimonious; or, the smokers/ex-smokers and my family. The pressure to quit comes solely from my family, yet they're completely unsympathetic. If I should mention that I'm not particularly enjoying this, they treat me like a Nazi war criminal. When I half-jokingly said I wanted to start smoking again to lose the weight I gained, I was treated to a lecture on how horrible that would be and what a bad person I am. I was also told that the cravings would go away soon and I would feel so much better. By someone who doesn't smoke. Yeah.

When a morbidly obese member of my family lectures me on how my habits are bad for my health, it's really hard not to respond with a punch in the face. Especially when the pot smoker and the fatty, who are also supposed to quit smoking, don't seem to be held up to the same standard. Really, really hard not to choke a bitch.

If any of these people appeared to be at least a little healthy--if they exercised or ate well or weren't 100 pounds overweight--I wouldn't find this whole affair so offensive. I think the next time someone asks how the smoking's going, I'll sarcastically ask how the diet's going.
I don't care if they like me, I just want them to shut the fuck up.

Which Easter candy are you?

You Are Peeps

You're the type that's more likely to play with your food than actually eat it.

What Easter Candy Are You?

Peeps? Yarg. Anyway, actual post:

Xmas is about presents, Halloween is about costumes, and Easter is about candy. At least for me it is. I don’t eat ham, I’m not into Jebus, and rabbits always make me think of The Wicker Man, and that’s just… shudder.

Anyway, no holiday is better for seasonal candy than Easter. My dad was always into Peeps. My mom liked the Robin Egg variety of Whoppers. As a child, Cadbury Cream Eggs were a highly coveted item for my brother and me. The solid chocolate bunnies would go largely ignored as I struggled to choke down a Cream Egg and convince myself that I liked it. The attempted eating of a Cream Egg remains a yearly tradition—thank Jebus for the mini sized ones—but, my current favourite is Cadbury Mini Eggs. Solid milk chocolate eggs in a pastel candy shell. So addictively delicious, I suspect the candy shell is a mixture of powdered sugar and cocaine.

Jelly Belly jelly beans were another mainstay of my Easter basket, and they were always a bit of a crapshoot. Were you getting cherry or cinnamon? Orange or cantoulope? Coconut or buttered popcorn? These days, I just buy a bag of cherry, margarita, toasted marshmallow, and pink grapefruit from the bulk candy aisle at the grocery store. Because of this, they’ve lost their lustre. There’s no thrill when I reach into the bag.

The new candy roulette comes in the form of Russell Stover chocolate eggs. You know, it’s some sort of filling enrobed in milk or dark chocolate. There are a million different flavours, including the non-Russell Stover brand, but similar type eggs. I buy one or two every year, but I can’t remember which ones are the good ones. The problem lies in the filling. They're all called "cream" or "marshmallow", but there's not consistency between brands. Some are actually smooth and creamy, while others are horrible nougat-y crap.

This year, I randomly grabbed three to try: Coconut Cream Egg, Starwberry Cream Egg, & Marshmallow Egg (all from Russell Stover). The results:

Marshmallow – Oh, Jebus Christo, it’s that dense, chewy “marshmallow” kind of center. Yarg. Moving on.

Strawberry – Oooh, dark chocolate. Ewww, gummy grainy nougat. It doesn’t really taste like strawberry. There’s a generic, super-sweet pink taste to it.

Coconut – Dark chocolate again. But, it’s another “cream”. I’m scared. Well, there’s actual coconut in the “cream”, but it’s the same gritty nougat as the strawberry.

I think the coconut was the “best”, as it actually tasted like coconut. However, they were all sort of disgusting. I may scour the post-Easter sales for different brands of cream filled eggs, and see if I can get some of the good ones.

Which one plays Balki?

I can't wait 'til they movie-ify Mr. Belvedere.

Q: What day is it?

A: It's NWA day.

Five for 5: Trader Joe's Food

I have a love/hate relationship with the local Trader Joe's. Unlike the nearby Whole Foods, I actually have to drive to TJ's, and the parking sucks. It's regularly packed with people who, apparently, have never seen food before and stand in the aisles gawking.
Still, I drag my ass over there ever couple weeks to stock up on an assortment of random crap and stuff I actually like. Five favourites from my last trip:

Blueberries Go Nuts Over Candied Pecans – This is the reason why I go back to Trader Joe’s. Dried blueberries, walnuts, almonds, and candied pecans. It’s good on it’s own as a quick snack. But, when I want to pretend I’m healthy, I’ll dump some on a salad with a frou-frou vinagrette dressing. If TJ's ever discontinues this, I will set the building on fire in protest.

Frozen Fettucine Alfredo – Because sometimes I want to give myself coronary artery disease without having to cook or go to a restaurant. I grabbed this, half expecting to get mediocre, bland sauce and overcooked noodles. Not quite. The sauce was okay, if a little bland, but the noodles actually came out al dente. Really, the main selling point for me is the fact that it’s ridiculously easy to make. Seriously: dump it in a pan, cover, turn on low heat, come back later.
There's also a mushroom variety that I haven't tried.

Trader Joe’s Faux Terra Chips – Okay, I don’t remember what they’re actually called, but they’re exactly like real Terra Chips. Seriously. So similar that I think TJ’s just repackages Terra Chips and prices them 30 cents cheaper. I worried that they'd be horrible, but there is no bad here. I like Terra Chips, I like saving 30 cents.

Marcona Almonds with Rosemary – so fatty and oily and delicious. Yet another TJ's product contributing to my future coronary artery bypass. Sweet. Many a night I’ve had a fistful of these with a Diet Coke for dinner. My main complaint is that as you get to the end of the bag, you're mostly left with an oily puddle of rosemary leaves. And they don't taste good.
The non-rosemary variety are also good, and benefit from being available in a smaller size.

Fage Greek Yogurt – I fully expected to hate this stuff, because, really, it’s just plain yogurt. Still, it’s denser and creamier than regular yogurt, and somehow better. The kind that comes with honey is good, but you risk getting one where the honey has crystalized and is no good to no one (unless you're the type of person who's willing to return food, but I'm not). Buy the 2% instead and use your own honey. There’s half the calories & you get a big-ass container for the same price. Lucky for me, this is also sold at (the within walking distance) Whole Foods.

For more Trader Joe's food, check out Trader Joe's Fan.