Should I drink it, or skip the middleman and pour it directly down the toilet?
Say, I haven’t posted anything pointless and excruciatingly personal in almost a week. That ain’t right. So, behold! The only passion Bill Clinton and I share: Diet Dr Pepper.
Better, when I can get it: Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper. I don’t usually like excessively sweet things, but DCVDP has a fake fruit metallic zing that is perfect for barking the scunge out of a weasel’s gob. [That was an unpleasant phrase. Please forget I wrote it. Thank you]
My last trip to the supermarket, they had this swill instead of my usual tipple: Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr Pepper. So I bought it. Shall I tell you why it’s labeled ‘limited edition”? Because I guess they made a whole shitload of it before they realized what a gustatory horror show it is.
Does it taste of chocolate? Oh, yes. Yes, it does. That’s the problem.
Ummmm…okay. Politics. Right. Read Iowahawk. This one got the Uncle Badger Seal of Approval, and Uncle B knows him some Chaucer. And some Englande folk.
February 13, 2008 — 10:17 am
Comments: 17
Ewwww…
The team of nine students instructed volunteers to take a bite of a wheat cracker and dip the cracker for three seconds into about a tablespoon of a test dip. They then repeated the process with new crackers, for a total of either three or six double dips per dip sample. The team then analyzed the remaining dip and counted the number of aerobic bacteria in it. They didn’t determine whether any of the bacteria were harmful, and didn’t count anaerobic bacteria, which are harder to culture, or viruses.
[…]
On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip. Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least
50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.
January 31, 2008 — 8:28 pm
Comments: 10
Please help me! I’m trapped in an episode of Masterpiece Theater
What are these, you say? I’m glad you asked. They’re CHESTNUTS. ROASTING ON AN OPEN bloody FIRE!
Yes. Yes, they were very nice. That’s not the point.
January 3, 2008 — 7:53 pm
Comments: 36
Balls!
Here, Uncle Badger holds out the traditional New Year’s Day Balls of…oh, screw it, I forgot to post something, didn’t I? Hope y’all had a splendid first day of 2008. We spent ours as we mean to go on: sleeping, eating and a-drinking of alcoholic beverages.
We slunk down to the Adolph and Eva Memorial Recycling Center with our empties after dark tonight, and it took both of us to lift the box. Hooray for the noble mustelids!
And tomorrow afternoon, if all goes according to plan, several elderly persons of the district are coming to help us exhume a fifty year old veteran from the back garden.
Sweet dreams!
January 1, 2008 — 7:05 pm
Comments: 23
Smack! Ah!
Chicken fried bacon! With cream gravy dipping sauce. Once again, you can thank jw for this. The “chicken fried” construction — for the sake of you Johnny Foreigners out there — means ‘dipped in batter and deep fried.’ Yeah, you can KEEP your fagotty deep-fried Mars bars!
What’s that? Only posting a Weekend Weasel on Friday is cheating? Geez, okay:
Another sex manual stolen from Tokyo Damage Report.
Look, I know you guys will figure this out for yourselves…but…never, ever, EVER, EVEREVEREVEREVERRRRR say anything in this book to a woman. ‘K?
December 14, 2007 — 7:17 pm
Comments: 34
Oh. Right. Thanksgiving.
My assorted brothers had spousal families to eat with in the afternoon, so we had a Thanksgiving brunchy thing.
Have you ever had riced eggs? My stepmother is generally a very good cook, but I don’t know about this one. You boil eggs and then “rice” them with a cheese shredder, make a roux and pour it over the top. “The boys fight over this,” she said. And I saw them do it, too, but damned if I can work out why.
Anyhow, she makes the only edible grits in the world. She makes them the regular bland way, then mixes in raw egg and cheese and bakes it. Nice. Basically, you melt cheese on something, I’m going to eat it. I’m an au gratin kind of a gal.
I got three jackets, two pairs of slacks (slacks! That I should wear slacks!), several tops, a skirt and five pairs of shoes out of the deal. I like two of the jackets and one of the pairs of shoes, so I’m going to call this a success.
Now I’ve essentially got two weeks to de-junkify this place. And a headcold, which I presumably picked up in the airport in Cincinnati. Yeah, I knew that germy infant in the seat in front of me was going to give me a disease.
November 28, 2007 — 4:49 pm
Comments: 37
There I go again
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s about two things I’m especially good at: gluttony and gratitude. And four days off!
I do it up big every year, with turkey and dressing and potatoes and peas and candied yams and those peculiar gluey white supermarket bake ‘n’ serve rolls I love so dearly but only buy for special occasions because they’re pharmaceutical-grade empty stodge. Then the cats and I sit down and eat ourselves spherical, pass out in an unseemly tryptophan coma, and wake up to three more days of vile, uncontrollable gas and glorious leftovers.
Friends and coworkers — and family especially — have always considered my attitude toward holidays unseemly and inappropriate. As an old maid, I guess I am expected to spend national holidays drinking weak tea, nibbling a dry biscuit and thinking how different things would be if only I had a family. At least two relatives phone each Thanksgiving (and, for that matter, Christmas) and ask wistfully if I am celebrating again. “What, with the turkey? And everything?” They sound exasperated.
My stepmother is especially resentful. She likes nothing better than getting us all together for T’day — but not for warm, happy, a very special episode of the Waltons reasons. See, she can use the big diningroom when there are people over. And the good silver. And we can all sit up straight in our Sunday best and pick at tiny servings of exotic food.
I did it, like, once. I was terrified the whole time I’d have a sudden, mysterious outbreak of adult-onset Tourette’s. I did say something especially stupid to my little brother. I forget what it was. (I’m lying. Of course I remember what it was). The experience was everything Thanksgiving isn’t.
Well, this year, she wins. This is likely to be my last Thanksgiving in the US, and she’s going to buy me a…a…oh, sweet Jesus…a dress. So, see, I have to go. I’m leaving this afternoon.
Back on Saturday. I don’t know how often I’ll have net access, so I’ll auto-post some shit while I’m gone.
What’s the opposite of thankful? Oh, yeah…dead drunk.
Ohmigosh! I almost forgot! It’s the anniversary of my favorite own post ever. Last year, I spent some time over the Thanksgiving holiday creating this moving tribute to Damien’s jaunty balls, snipped off in a tragic veterinary incident the week previous. The procedure did not, contrary to expectations, mellow him in the slightest.
I’m especially proud of the soundtrack. Do you know how hard it is to compose appropriate theme music for excised testicles?
November 19, 2007 — 6:25 am
Comments: 43
No, Father Christmas, I expect you to DIE
Please enjoy Stoaty’s Chococaffochili Surprise!
Make coffee. Pour it over 2 tablespoons of ground up milk chocolate (or dark chocolate. A good quality candy bar will do. But no nuts or raisins). Add cinnamon, nutmeg and a few flakes of dried chili pepper. Yes, really. Whisk until the chocolate dissolves and the liquid froths a little. Add a glop of heavy cream.
The chili doesn’t add flavor so much as a slightly perceptible sting. It’s…weaselicious!
I got the idea from some pretentious, hoity-toity flaked hot chocolate I bought in England. The Aztecs supposedly did it. Or the Olmecs. Or the Toltecs. Or whichever ancient Mexicans invented chocolate, hot peppers and ripping still-beating hearts out of the chests of prisoners of war. Mmmm-mmm!
September 6, 2007 — 11:52 pm
Comments: 14
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Gummibärchen!
It’s a beautiful language, isn’t it? That means “happy birthday, gummy bears!” unless the internet is lying to me, which it hardly ever does. Although, it turns out there’s, like, a trillion ways to say “happy birthday”, depending on what dialect of Germanium you speak. Anyhow, gummy bears turn eighty five this month. Wee!
Gummies are made by the Haribo company, which is derived from Hans Riegel, Bonn.
The very first Haribo gummy bear was created in 1922. A bit taller and thinner than today’s bear, it was modeled after the dancing bear. (From the Middle Ages through the last century, street performers kept brown bears, forcing them to entertain crowds by pulling on a chain attached to a ring in their nose.) Some three decades later, the popular dancing bear became a bit smaller and thicker, resembling a teddy bear. Today’s version entered the market in the late 1960s.
A cheerful people. Production was suspended during the war, when demand for sweets was low and Hans Riegal was a prisoner of war. I would have thought the latter fact more of an obstacle.
Something must be controversial in Gummibärchenwelt, because the Wikipedia page is barred from change by newbies (a safeguard they don’t provide obscure, uncontroversial figures like George Bush). Perhaps someone disputes the claim that gummies produce bezoars and bowel obstructions. Or perhaps it’s the fascinating gummy fact that isn’t there. Wait for it. Wait for it…
Gummy bears are a pork product! Yes, it’s true! The Germanians render pigs into sweeties! That’s where the distinctive gumminess comes from. I hate the damn things, myself, but now that I know the act of eating them is haram…
Postscript: the British Jelly Baby is even older, though I don’t know which unclean animal they’re made of. They were created by Bassett’s in 1919 to celebrate the end of the Great War; they were called “Peace Babies.” Production had to be suspended during WWII for lack of raw materials.
Don’t you love irony? I know I do!
Jelly Babies are subjected to ghastly High School science experiments in the UK. Behold: the Screaming Jelly Baby.
August 16, 2007 — 10:16 am
Comments: 34
Trilogy of Terror
Earlier this week, Weirdomatic published a series of creepy ads from times gone by. You probably saw it; the link was going around. In fact, they got so much traffic it knocked their server down and they had to throw up a temporary Blogspot page for that one post. Check it out if you missed it; there’s some fun stuff there.
I wanted to call your attention to three images that especially creeped the bejesus out of me. They all involve children, food and madness. Take this little girl. This isn’t how you look at bread and jam. This is how you fix your gaze upon the world-crushing tentacles of Cthulhu. That sammich must be positively non-Euclidean. This is what it looks like when you stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back. And she’s the abyss.
I can’t imagine there was ever a bread called “Cellophane.” It must be an advertisement for cellophane, that marvelous, hygeinic modern packaging material that drives small children yodeling mad.
And speaking of creepy teeth…we weren’t, but I did think that little girl had the creepiest teeth ever, until I saw the porcelain tiles on this strapping lad. His teeth are so terrifyingly wrong that a forkful of spaghetti is recoiling in fear. Check it out.
I don’t know how the food stylist made pasta defy gravity, but I imagine the photographer was thinking, “see, he’s shoving that spaghetti in his mouth so fast, it’s blowin’ in the wind.” That or, “he’s screaming ‘thanks Mom!’ so enthusiastically that spaghetti is whipping around like a sail in the breeze.”
Look, he’s clutching a half-eaten weiner in his fist. And there’s another weiner, and a Vienna sausage, lying right on the fabric tablecloth next to him. As god is my witness, I will never be hungry again.
This little girl Cannot. Fucking. Believe. that piece of ham. Nothing in her five fucking years on the planet could even BEGIN to fucking prepare her for that fucking piece of ham. Fuck.
She is hamsmacked. Hamblasted. Hamstruck. Behamnifyed. Hamazed. Hamstonished.
Awww…I’m just joking. She’s obviously not even looking at the piece of ham; her eyes are unfocused, off in the middle distance. It’s an expression poised so poignantly between rapture and terror, I’m guessing her water just broke.
I can’t begin to explain these ads. My only thought is, maybe it was so difficult to get kids interested in food that images of children staring at comestibles with psychotic lust was a selling technique.
Man, we fixed that problem, didn’t we?
August 2, 2007 — 6:30 pm
Comments: 38