The 'Skinny' on Energy Drink Boosters

It is hard to imagine that the world’s leaders are always talking about trying to dig up and invent new sources of energy. Haven’t these people been up the street to a 7-11 or to any store check-out lane on the planet? I mean you really have to be wearing ‘ultra-dark’ sunglasses, slapping ankles and small children with a white cane to miss the so called energy ‘booster’ drinks and shots displayed everywhere.

What happened; did somebody forget that soda, tea, and coffee already had the caffeine and diuretic department covered and locked up? Now it seems anyone with a cute diminutive bottle, flashy label, and some filtered water is getting in on the action. Yeah I could toss out any ol’ pale yellow secret ‘witches brew’, featuring liquid vitamins with caffeine, and fitness fiends would take to it like summer bugs to a porch light.

Now I know being naturally hyper-kinetic, I’m not the best authority to speak to this subject. Beyond that, I suck-in my fair share of diet soda and coffee every week, which keeps my hot-air mouth afloat and the bathroom porcelain well exercised. In general however, it is probably best, if truly health- conscious folks would try to avoid these stimulant boosters as a part of their ordinary routine and diet.

The fact is, most of us ALREADY get a fair dose of these mild stimulants during the course of a day without the need for excessive supplements. I have linked a caffeine database here so ordinary sane people can look up and compare favorite beverages against the myriad of energy potions available. If you are insane (like our world leaders), and refuse to listen or learn in the face of established fact and historical data, I am linking the most powerful caffeine ‘buzz’ per ounce known to mankind. Yep, just pop an ounce or so of this ‘super nova’ stimulant and you won’t sleep for a week. Of course if you do it often enough, the next ‘booster’ energy shot you’ll get is from your doctor. He'll 'FIXX' you right up with a pair of cold metal defibrillator paddles,and if you are good and wake up - he'll give you a pale yellow 'Lolly'!

Suicide Sauces

Obviously blogging stuff should be an outlet, not a chore. So of course I remember sitting down to write at 9:30AM and still by 1:30PM I had not finished a single post for the day. Yes, I was up and down, distracted, too cold, hot, thirsty, tired … well you have probably been there a few times too. It is not my favorite part of the ‘creative’ process but when I get into a grind, I try to move around a lot, percolate, and do anything else than write, to mix-up the syrup in the synapses.

So as the sun irritatingly kept changing positions in the sky, I could tell it was well past Noon. Despite my lack of finished production, I decided a break for a big bowl of applesauce was in order. Please don’t mock me just because my lunch is on par with most 3 year olds. I know it is actually more sugar than apples, but secretly I LIKE thinking blueberry PopTarts and Strawberry Twizzlers ARE also healthy eating.

Anyway, the refrigerator is filled with Styrofoam take-home containers because my daughter brings home stuff every day from the restaurant where she works. That is great except those bulky foam things are always in the way of my applesauce. With a deftness worthy of those bomb-defusing spacemen in the Hurt Locker, I maneuvered the plastic jar of 'apple-pablum ecstasy' to a small opening in the front of the fridge. Sure enough at the last moment, the jar caught a small, translucent take-home cup of some kind of red sauce and it fell to the tile below. I was relieved to see that since the sauce was capped, there was no collateral damage and the floor was perfectly clean and the red stuff still edible.

Without hesitation, I temporarily suspended my rescue mission of the applesauce jug and tucked it innocently back into its burrow. Unbeknownst to me the applesauce jar’s lip was actually resting at a launching angle on top of a shiny slick ranch dip tub. As I let go of the portly jug of applesauce and began to bend down to retrieve the little red sauce, the obviously jealous-jug immediately slid off its perch and hurled itself out of the refrigerator to the ground below.

Now you know the ending to this story already don’t you? I mean, if you have ever sat through the slapstick hilarity of Abbott and Costello or the Three Stooges, you HAVE to know where that 2 pound jar of applesauce hit right? Yes indeed, the jug whizzed by my head in mid-flight, then completely flattened and obliterated that puny see-thru cup of red stuff. It was like Fat Albert had just done a cannonball on a Roma Tomato HOLDING onto a Cherry tomato.

My beautiful tile floor, table, walls, pant legs – you name it, they all instantly looked like a crime scene. Any C.S.I. could have analyzed the accident through the sauce splatter and oblong droplet patterns up to 6 feet away. This was definitely blunt force trauma, and the clean-up job was best left to our resident professional, my daughter the “Crushed Sauce Investigator". Remember, my kid works in a restaurant and has seen her share of horrific food tragedies – but why do they ONLY happen when I’m at HOME blogging?

Barefoot Bandit needs clown shoes

Well justice finally caught up with that scoff-law, the so called “Barefoot Bandit”. I actually resent using his media moniker because in some odd way I feel it validates his criminality. The simple truth is the guy was a petty low-life thief and I was ecstatic that the Bahamian authorities paraded him down the streets like a little puppet-monkey, before extraditing him back to the US. It seems the Swiss could have learned this lesson too if they would have pulled their finger out of their chocolate, and quickly Fed-Exed Polanski, the “Namby-Pamby Pedofile” back Stateside.

Though I have no compassion for villa-bound Polanski, there was a liberal part of me that felt concern for the poor barefoot kid’s damage - TO THE EARTH! Who wants this dumb dude’s dirty feet walking unprotected on any of our precious soil? I wondered, had this loser’s ‘Gigantor’ feet made it impossible to find properly-fitted footwear, possibly spurring on his antisocial life of crime? I shudder at the thought of the magnitude of the bandit’s crime spree, if big-boy ‘pants and panties’ had been as hard to come-by as apparently his shoes were.

Understanding this relationship between crime and footwear caused me to take preventative STEPS with my own daughter. She won’t mind me telling you that she has really big feet. Actually they are more like bridge abutments with toes. This obviously concerned us when she was young for fear that her future career was limited to two choices . . . Clown or Criminal.

So with a ‘life on the run’ out (tripping hazard), and Ronald McDonald’s refusal to retire gracefully to let a real GIRL do a clown’s job, my wife and I had to act to save my daughter’s future. For her birthday, we broke into our bacon money and covered the cost for our daughter to buy some custom designed shoes. Since the Chinese have nothing better to do than mold rubber for freakishly large American feet, they also give you free reign to choose colors, laces, imprint, styles, height etc.

Yes it’s high time for the Barefoot Bandit to reach down in his ‘sole’ to declare ‘Carpe Feetum’ and embrace law-abiding footwear. I have linked the NIKEiD site here if you too are blessed with the Monitor and Merrimack instead of feet at the end of your legs. Now there’s no reason to skulk around barefoot and live a life on the lamb or any other farm animal. Because with today’s technology, it’s a simple feat to confidently KICK crime to the curb, and make your very own pair of custom clown shoes!

Boogers and Fries

Tonight my wife said we had to run a few errands before dinner. The promise of food is her effective lure as my compensation for the tortures of shopping. We agreed after our stops we would head to a small shopping center for a hamburger. That is not ordinarily an eventful activity but today was disgustingly different.

On our way into the parking lot of our second destination, we saw a uniformed man standing at a bus stop in a green hat. He seemed like an ordinary ‘sub-shop’ guy in every other way; in fact so much so I am not sure why both my wife and I noticed him. It was hot out, so as he raised his hand to his face to wipe his brow, his finger extended and did not stop until it reached its hilt - IN HIS NOSE?.

Excuse my primal,teenage vernacular screaming, but ‘OH MY GOD’?! If that was not bad enough, despite a bit of a gut, ‘Nostril-damus’ proceeded to predict impending hunger, so he popped that tasty morsel into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten for a week. After our ten minute stop, I guided the car back onto the street and can you believe it – ‘sandwich man’(with gusto), snatched yet ANOTHER jalepeno from his double-holed ‘Durante’ and tossed it back faster than you can say ‘chewy satisfaction’.

Now folks, this is why I don’t ride buses any longer and am willing to pay exorbitant fuel costs to drive a surplus Sherman tank around town. I am all for recycling and ‘Green’ transportation but not anywhere near to this ‘nugget cruncher’s’ warped definition. Why on one of my few trips out for good behavior, must the boogeyman PICK this one, to show me the benefits of self-sustaining organic food? I honestly just wanted to put this guy, with his formerly white cap and his obviously ‘gold-finger’, out of my mind and get to the restaurant quick. Needless to say, my wife and I ordered TWO burgers with fries – but predictably. . . we skipped the chunky neon-green relish!

I love my MUG

Admit it … so now you think I’m vain don’t you - just like that stupid song . Has society become so judgmental these days, that a guy cannot spend a little face time staring at his mug in a mirror anymore? Well, I have it on good authority that Carly Simon might have been having some varicose vein issues when she wrote that tune, so I would not read too much into 70’s pop culture.

No the mug to which I am referring and truly love is my little Mikasa “Teddy” mug. I guess you could pollute its butterfly cavity with tea and milk and all kinds of homeopathic colonics. But when REAL work has to get done, I fill that bear to the broad-brim with some hot java and watch him and his little mouse friend sweat. Truly, I am such a supporter of this cup and it fits me so perfectly, that despite the obvious ribbing, if it had straps on it, I would use it at the gym too.

All kidding aside, other than the effeminate ‘berry picking’ animals, this is the greatest mug I have ever owned. There is something special about the gentle slope of the lip-ledge and its comfortable geometry. That along with the antique white coloring of the china helps hide my obligatory dribbles and unsightly lip-prints. Even as a weapon, this thing has the roomiest two-finger handle and perfectly sized thumb rest ever. If this mug shot hollow points, it would be the standard issue in every police precinct of San Francisco’s finest and most fabulous.

If you were to visit me at home, I maintain a special coded system of ‘mug-dom’ to denote your relative beverage status. For ugly guests, I have a closet filled with dark, heavy, and imposing stoneware mugs. You know the ones, with their ‘oh so macho’ manly missles and boy-toy icons emblazoned on the side. For beverage drinkers of the weaker sects, I offer up the virginal all-white mug with maybe a flower or two for their ‘special’ designer, non-caloric ‘kool-aid’. But for the truly honored and most special guest, I will begrudgingly surrender my treasured Mikasa mug for you to love and briefly lock-lips. You’ll soon discover, just as Carly did in her musical lament, when it comes to mugs “Nobody does it better” than my ‘Teddy’!