Author: Dick

Big Mac: Wouldn’t you really rather have me? 

Wow, everywhere I look I see McDonald’s new Fruit and Walnut Salad.

” … it’s just what a girl wants. a heavenly combination of fresh, crisp apples…juicy, seedless grapes…creamy, low-fat yogurt and sweet candied walnuts. and the best part? it’s perfect for breakfast, lunch or snacktime, so i can get a “fruit buzz”…whenever … “

Every girl wants a fruit buzz? I guess that explains where I have been screwing up with women all these years. How thoughtless of me never considering that women really want a fruit buzz. What the hell is a fruit buzz anyway? Is it like apple crack, or melon smack,or satsuma sinsemilla?

McDonald’s is going on a health kick and they’ve enlisted Destiny’s Child and Venus Williams. I guess we’ll soon be reading in the papers about those poor celebrities — all strung out in some roach-ridden motel — eyelids half closed — sprawled out over their squeaky beds.

Detective Owens: “Damn, ain’t it a shame. Venus was the best tennis player in the world and now look at her!”
Detective Jones: “Yeah. Fruit. Grapes to be exact. This poison is making all these women higher than a kite. We need to put these dealers so far behind bars that they can’t see daylight.”
Detective Owens: “If only McDonald’s stuck to Big Macs instead of fruit. What a waste!”

You’ve got to give McDonald’s this, they aren’t afraid to try something different. Take the McDLT.

I once interviewed for a story the man who invented the McDLT. For those of you who don’t remember, the McDLT was a hamburger in a Styrofoam container with the meat on a bun on one side to keep it warm, and the tomato and lettuce on the other side to keep it cool. The McDLT is no longer around.

The inventor was a Mickey D’s franchisee in Lufkin, Texas. He just came up with this idea one day. I don’t know whatever became of the fellow. I don’t know if anyone’s sculpted a statue commemorating his invention of the McDLT. I don’t know if he is rich. I don’t know if he is poor. I just hope he hasn’t gone broke, trying to support the habit of a wife strung out on McDonald’s new Fruit and Walnut Salad. Would that be irony — or just a crying shame?

“It’s the little things,” said Farmer Jones, as his cornfield was being eaten by a swarm of tiny beetles, “that can really tick you off.”

I know that feeling. Tiny obstacles standing in the way of my finding what I want on the computer really flame out my emotional circuitry these days. First you had pop-ups, the annoying little advertisements that sell products on the principle that if something is irritating enough you will certainly remember it. This computer I am using can block most pop-ups.

But plenty other fuel online exists to burn down the old dwelling your mental health calls home. For instance, some news I might want in an instant from some Web site will require registration. And even if I am registered on that Web site it is no guarantee that I will get to see what I am looking for before the next millennium. One set of newspapers and television stations I visit online sometimes supposedly have one login, or registration, that fits all. It must work on some other planet than ours.

I was trying to read a story on the main page of Washingtonpost.com a little while ago and my vision was intruded upon by the site of giant laser printers dancing across the screen in an ad. Fortunately, it was a silent invasion and was not accompanied by some obnoxious exploding sounds or rumbling that may also attack your senses on some sites. You know, sometimes you just want to use the computer and not have a miniature audio earthquake from Surround Sound in your room.

Most likely some software either is developed or will soon be made to soothe these online wounds that rip my saneness into confeti. That is great, would be great, could be great and on and on. But instead of using the power of computing and the Internet to annoy and advertise, why can’t it be used for the good of mankind? For instance, why not have computer hardware and software that, when I click on it, will make me a sandwich right then and there? Click to choose whether you want French’s mustard, Grey Poupon, or horseradish. Rye, wheat, sourdough, white, Italian bread. Click. Pastrami, bologna, ham, turkey, chicken, roast beef, buffalo, veggie patty. Click. Cheeses. Yes, and cheeses too.

I know such technology would be for the good of this man-kind. It would right at this particular moment, at least. Oh no! I hear that rumbling going on again. What is that annoying sound? Is it some movie trailer? Oh, sorry. It’s just my stomach. Or is it my brain?

Judge not, lest ye be judged! 

Browsing the news at my alma mater, Stephen F. Austin State University, I see congratulations are in order for their Poultry Judging Team. I understand from a college news release that the team brought home a flock of individual and group awards from the 58th U.S. Poultry & Egg Association National Poultry Judging Contest in Baton Rouge, La.

I have to confess something. I never knew competitions existed for poultry judging, not to mention at the collegiate level. I wonder if the teams have cheerleaders and mascots dressed as chickens? And do you have highly recruited students sought for scholarships to such programs? And do those hotshot students get sports cars and hookers?

That is not to say I do not know about various other animal judging events, sheep, meat pen rabbits, bovines,etc. To know there are contests pitting fowl against fowl (and ones which do not involve bloodsport like cockfighting) doesn’t greatly surprise me.

It is all a matter of personal taste I suppose. Still, I cannot look objectively at a chicken to tell whether it is a good chicken or a bad chicken, (or not a chicken a’tall) unless it is wrapped in plastic and in the poultry section at my grocery store. I suppose a nearly naked chicken with sparse feathers and a glue-on beak might signal that this isn’t going to be the prize winner. I know that in judging other animals, a lot of the contest is about how the individuals show that particular animal such as a steer or lamb. I am no expert, although I did take care of a pen full of laying hens when I was a kid, but I find chickens to be about the least cooperative animal of which I know. You may have heard the saying about something being as difficult as getting kittens to march in a parade. Well, in my experience just trying to get a chicken to do anything willingly deserves a prize.

So my hat’s off to those poultry science students at my old schoool who took home contest honors. It makes me proud that I graduated from a really chicken outfit like SFA.

The world is just totally insane. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to recognize that fact after almost 50 years. I guess it is because I was born naive and it takes some people longer than others to shed such traits.

Do you need proof the world has fell off its rocker? Meet Perry Lonzello.

An Associated Press story this morning said the New Jersey man carved a primitive drawing of “runaway bride-to-be” Jennifer Wilbanks on a piece of toasted Wonder Bread, then put it up for bid on eBay as a joke. Wait, that’s just having a little fun. Where insanity rolls up and starts bellowing show tunes is that:

“As of about 5 p.m. Friday, Lonzello’s eBay posting had 134,300 visits and 111 bids made on the toast, with a top bid of $15,400. Bidding closes Sunday. The toast is still a long way from equaling the grilled cheese sandwich with an image of the Virgin Mary that sold for $28,000 on eBay in 2004,” the AP story said.

Sadly, I found 54 items related to “Jennifer Wilbanks toast” this morning on eBay. This includes:
— “Jennifer Wilbanks Toast Found Again,” going for $1
— “Jennifer Wilbanks Runaway Bride Cookie better than toast,” costing $2
— “Jennifer Wilbanks Runaway Bride toast,” bidding at $10,000
— “Jennifer Wilbanks Runaway Bridge toast with kidnappers,” at 99 cents

And a guy is also selling his “bottled rage against Jen, toast, the world!” Priceless? Of course not. He wants $37 for the bottle with a printed label of him screaming.

It’s all good fun, up to a point. But think about it. If people start buying toast regularly for exorbitant sums, what do you think that is going to do for condiments? There is no telling what those little packages of jam you get for your Egg McMuffin (I don’t know about that practice either)could end up costing. What’s next, a pat of butter for $650, knife not included?

Please, I beseech you, stop the madness!!! Then, bring me a piece of toast, plain, and no illustration.

Ye-oww, please stop this thing! 

Millions will be tuned in today see if George Steinbrenner can buy the Kentucky Derby as he has past World Series with his New York Yankees. The George’s Bellamy Road is a 5-2 favorite as of this morning, according to the Kentucky Derby Web site. My money, speaking figuratively, is going on Afleet Alex, whose odds are 7-2.

Fewer folks will be watching the run from the cook pot this afternoon as the crawfish races gear up at the annual Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival in Louisiana. But I imagine the crowd witnessing this battle of mudbugs will be equally as enthused as those gathered at Churchill Downs in Louisville. I also forecast a lot of drinking going on at both places, though I could not predict which would have the drunker pool of spectators.

Although I am a native of Cajun Southeast Texas, I have never seen a crawfish race except in clips from television. A Cajun fellow named A.J. Judice, who ran a grocery store in Groves, Texas, was a big promoter of crawfish racing. Former Texas Gov. Preston Smith even named Judice a state “crawfish racing commissioner” in the 1960s. Judice probably did more for publicizing the “sport” in Texas than anyone. But I have yet to see an organized event in which these red crustaceans run, which I imagine would be for their lives because they probably would end up being boiled or in a dish of etouffee were they not to win.

Crawfish are pretty curious creatures. Scientist Christopher Mims writes on Zoogoer the Web site for the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., how fighting among the 10-legged wonders would be the spectator sport most likely to leave you dumbfounded were you able to figure out what the heck they were doing.

When two crayfish of about equal size meet, they rear up on their tails, spread their claws wide, whip each other with their long antennae, and engage in what is literally a pissing contest. Openings in their faces called nephropores eject streams of urine to communicate each individual’s status, health, and identity.
Then the fighting commences. Gripping each other with crushing pincers, both crustaceans churn the water with their tails in a show of strength. Limbs may be lost in the heat of combat; like geckos dropping their tails, crayfish autotomize a damaged or entrapped limb by closing a sphincter of muscle at its base, and then regenerate it.

Yet, they are delicious with red sauce. And, I wouldn’t have a problem eating up the racing team at Breaux Bridge. Not so for the field at Churchill Downs. Although some of the Cajuns’ long-lost cousins among our French friends across the Atlantic might not be so picky. Strange how that all works.

UPDATE: Giacamo, at 50-1 probably making a wagerer or two a millionaire, won the derby. Alex finished third. It’s a touching story about the little girl for whom Afleet Alex was named and how the horse itself faced hardship as a colt. But you can read that at a real news site. The important thing to realize here is how I am gloating over how Steinbrenner’s horse didn’t win. I kind of feel bad over such glee since the horse Bellamy Road did not choose to be hooked up with George. But then again, I doubt if the Yankees’ third baseman and zillionaire Alex Rodriguez had any choice being born into a life that would ultimately see him playing for George Steinbrenner. Not to mention his playing for a New York Yankees team starting out the season in last place in their division despite being the best money can buy. Strange how all that works.