So sick of being tired and oh so tired of being sick

According to Webster's dictionary, sick is defined as being not in good health, ill, nauseated or disgusted. What Websters needs to do is update its entry to include sick as in awesome or sick as in "sick nasty." Either way, using the conventional definition, I have come to a conclusion. Ladies and germs, I am sick. So sick that I am not really in the mood to write (hence the nauseating opening I wrote. I promise I don't support such writing). In an effort to fill my blog-day quota and whine to you all, I present the following word vomit while I fight the urge to vomit. This will be one of my frustrated, rushed posts that I will never bother to re-read.

Even vomiting can be artistic when it's painted.

As a hypochondriac I am shocked to be feeling so under the weather. Any chance of having germs I rush to the sink and start scrubbing. Thanks to my crazy hand washing habits I rarely get sick. When I am under the weather, I try not to let it get in the way of work and chores though. I only have my mother to thank for my indelible work ethic. She passed this on to me by refusing to ever let me call out of school. Thanks to her I was awarded perfect attendance in 8th grade and cannot bring myself to ever call out of work. I rarely get sick, but when I do it is sufficient to say that I turn into a big baby.

Big, big, big baby.

Normally when people are sick around me I have the same advice for them every time. Now that I myself am sick, I am forced to eat my own words and follow my own crappy advice.

Orange Juice: Every jackass on Facebook likes to mention vitamin C whenever someone is sick. I hate to say it but it does work. Even if it's purely psychosomatic, buy a whole gallon of orange juice and start chugging. Note: Sunny D and Orange Soda is not a proper substitute.

Who loves orange soda?

Medicine: Too expensive. Yes, some Nyquil works wonders but I don't have this money. So I'll have to do without it or at least try and steal from my roommate. I'm sure he won't mind. My parents grew up in houses where the only medicine was Robitussin and Vick's vapor rub. So guess what I have to smear on my chest whenever I'm congested.

Soup: Never been a soup fan, but chicken noodle is pretty irresistible. Note: you can never have too many crackers.

Tea: I'm a tea drinker, I won't lie. Probably one of the happiest moments of my past few months was when my friend got a tea infuser. Lame? Perhaps but it's cool as hell. I always find that tea helps relax the throat and adds some nice warmth to the body. Also I remember a past co-worker swore by green tea and honey when you have a sore throat. So ever since then I've been a tea nut. Biscuits are optional.

Staying hydrated: Really all I end up doing is having to refill my roommate's Brita pitcher. Also, I remember that the only good part of being sick was getting to drink ginger ale while lying in bed. So why not throw some ginger ale in there too?

Sleep: No time for sleep.

So there is my potboiler post. I hope you enjoyed it. At the very least I hope I didn't turn off any readers for such a crappy post. Tune in next time when I actually have something important to say. Just don't ask me what next post will be about, I haven't thought that far ahead.

P.S. Congrats Arcade Fire on getting Album of the Year

First Signs Special Report: Wings

One Sunday a year, people gather together on their couches to watch the pinnacle of pigskin, Super Bowl. The majority of the nation gather with their favorite drinking buddies and watch grown men pummel each other for a few inches of progress. To quote Grand Theft Auto III, "Football now that's an American sport! It teaches you good wholesome American values man, like stealing other peoples land by force and wearing tight pants while you do it!"

Super Bowl was always special to me for two reasons. For one thing, it got me out of Sunday School. Yes, even though I never went to church I had to go to CCD every Sunday evening. There was one day a year we got off the hook, Super Bowl Sunday. This, to me, proves once and for all who really owns Sunday. Sorry Jesus, but football takes precedence.

Jesus still decides who wins though.

Secondly, it was the buffalo wings. I don't know how wings became synonymous with Super Bowl parties but I like it. Maybe it's Pizza Hut's fault. Either way, it's only during the game that I don't feel like a slob having a plate full of wings in front of me. With buffalo sauce smeared across my mouth and a plethora of soiled paper towels to my side, I am thankful for social norms being abolished for one evening. All because of Super Bowl.

Eating wings during the Puppy Bowl isn't as socially acceptable.

Here is the thing, eating wings is not about the sustenance. Nobody goes into it expecting to have a full tummy by the end. In essence, it's all about the work it requires. It's the act of having to rip apart the cartilage and tearing the tendons. It's cheap, trashy food but it's oh so satisfying. The greatest payoff, for any true wing lover, is the bones piled up in the corner of the plate. The accumulation, piling up to the point where you need an auxiliary plate solely for the bones itself. This is why real men don't buy boneless. It's too easy. It's the sissy way to go about your munching.

Boneless is like eating pizza with a fork and knife.

There are two camps of wing eaters: wings and drumsticks. For me, wings are better. Don't ask me why I cannot say. Equally important is the sauce. Forget about BBQ, it's all about hot buffalo sauce. The best sauce is borderline masochistic. The best sauce clears your sinuses and burns your mouth. If your lips don't burn from post-traumatic stress induced flashbacks about the devil sauce than it's not hot enough. My personal favorite hot sauce? Franks. Franks makes everything taste better.

Buy a gallon of it.

Appetizers are hors d'oeuvre's idiot cousin and wings are the king of the appetizers. With the Wing Bowl (starting every year since 1993) there is even a competition devoted solely to man's love of wings. Jonathan "Super" Squibb, winner of the past three Wing Bowls, is even a South Jersey resident. Appetizers could never constitute a whole meal, no matter how many you stick on a plate. But, wings are better than a meal, what wings are is heaven with a side of celery sticks.

Taco Bell beef controversy

If you eat at Taco Bell, you have no concerns for what you put in your body. Just look at the menu and try to convince yourself that what you're eating is, not only good for you, but actual food. I'm not trying to be a snob or anything. I've previously professed my love of fast food, however Taco Bell is a different story. I don't care if the talking chihuahua says otherwise.

R.I.P. 1994 - 2009

And now an attorney in Alabama is suing Taco Bell about their meat. Apparently, with all of the additions, including silicon dioxide, the filling only contains 36 percent beef. According to FDA regulations, it must contain at least 40 percent of beef to be truly be considered meat. So even with such a broad definition such as that, Taco Bell still fails to live up to real food. And this is Taco Bell, where 40 different things on the menu are made out of the same six ingredients. Now, with one of the ingredients under scrutiny, what will Taco Bell do now?

I'll still buy the Cheesy Gordita Crunch though.

I've never grown up with Taco Bell so I can't say this news has destroyed me as much as it has others. Whenever I did get it I liked how cheap it was, but I never considered the reason for that cheapness being crappy beef. I stayed away from the sour cream but never worried about the beef. When your sour cream comes out of a caulking gun, I'm not that interested.

Think like this, only in your chalupas.

Cinnamon twists have equally boggled me. I don't know anybody that actually eats them. You would think that nachos would be the designated side for tacos but somehow they pulled cinnamon twists out of their asses. One thing I did like was that Taco Bell carried Pepsi. Beings a Pepsi fan, I always found myself out of place in a Coca-Cola world. Taco Bell was nice in that regard.

Hard out there for a Pepsi drinker.

There is one bright spot for those Taco Bell fans out there. Whether this lawyer in Alabama has a case or not, Taco Bell has some face to save. In order to save face, they'll be smart to start giving out better deals or food. Even if it's only for a limited time, Taco Bell should want to earn our respect back. Then again it's Taco Bell, I doubt they had our respect to begin with.

First Signs Special Report: The McRib

I'm a sucker for gimmick sandwiches at fast food joints. How many of you remember the Quad-Stacker? With four burger patties, eight pieces of bacon and four slices of cheese; it was every fast food lover's wet dream. It was the kind of sandwich you eat when you're considering suicide, hoping that the grease and calories take you out in delicious glory. The KFC Double Downs was a recent favorite. Advertised as a sandwich without a bun, the Double Down is the most insane yet amazing creation ever devised. You can imagine that Colonel Sanders himself dictated the sandwich recipe to its creator by a Ouija board from his home in Hell, where he spends all eternity getting tortured by badly treated chickens. This is the only possible explanation for the sweet chicken-on-bacon-on-chicken goodness that has been gifted to man by the devil himself on a mission to clog arteries.

Forget buns.

The McRib has been around off-and-on McDonald's menu for awhile. The McRib is like that ex-girlfriend of yours that still bothers you on Facebook. To be fair, McRib is really just one big marketing scheme. McDonald's takes it off the menu until you care about it again. All the same it became a punchline and even had its own episode on the Simpsons. There were even commercials about it when the Flinstones movie came out, using the live action stone age family as marketing fodder for the porky goodness.

I've always heard about the McRib as the pinnacle of fast food sinfulness in pop culture. A sandwich perfected by the unhealthy experts at McDonald's to be mindblowingly awesome. A molded patty of pork, smothered in BBQ sauce (which goes good on everything), and topped with onions and pickles. Now, it's back for a brief amount of time and McDonald's is probably making bank off of me and my friends finally being able to try it. While before you may have needed special tracking software to find it, it's everywhere now.

My friends and I were finally able to get our hands on the pop-culture/fast food white whale today. We ordered it all at the same time and refused to open our sandwich boxes until we were all ready, in some form of unspoken reverence. My one friend ate two and immediately regretted it. Friend #2 tried one of them and felt sick to his stomach. It was finally my turn and after a bite I was shocked. There was no fanfare, no unanswered questions resolved or enlightenment. It tasted just how I expected it to. It was good and all, I finished it, but it just made me think that the whole McRib cult was one big sham. An astroturfed minority that would buy anything they were told to. I can't attest to the health aspect of the McRib but I can tell you it wasn't anything special. For those worrying if they are adequate happy meal substitutes, remember that the Flinstones endorsed it and the Flinstones could never endorse anything harmful. They make their own vitamins for god's sake.

Aww crap...

Happy Birthday Cracker Barrel

Traveling down a highway, there is no sight more welcome to the eye then a billboard advertising the location of the nearest Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. God help you if you are a parent and one of your kids spy this sign because Cracker Barrel is probably one of the greatest establishments created by man. On Sept. 19 Cracker Barrel will celebrate its 41th anniversary.

Cracker Barrel and Hampton Inn: a symbiotic relationship.

When you immediately arrive at your local Cracker Barrel you are immediately met with a stable of rocking chairs. These chairs welcome you to sit in them as you wait the next 40 minutes for seating. The rocking chair welcoming to arrivals is just one instance of how the word comfort is brought to new levels at Cracker Barrel.

Some may argue that Cracker Barrel is just a commercialization and bastardization of nostalgia and a false sense of community. At 41, the age of Cracker Barrel is still younger then the median age of old aged patrons who come by the busload on their way to Niagara Falls or on their way back from Branson, Missouri. A tourist trap it may be but it is an elegantly created tourist trap. The first half of the restaurant is a gift shop made to look like an old general store. Gadgets and nostalgia inducing products are abound, extolling the virtues of old country goodness. Here you can buy something that will make an excellent gift for any grandparent or a gift that will disappoint your poor grandchild.

They even have their own damn record label (picture from Cracker Barrel's website).

The dining area sets a mood with its fireplace and checkerboard some bored eight-year-old is always playing on. The inside the restaurant area abides by the "nail cool looking things on walls" theme that so many restaurants employ. Their menu is a laundry list of calories that make me hungry just thinking about it. They even serve breakfast all day. The only other place that allows you to order apple strudel french toast all day is heaven, and their syrup isn't nearly as good as Cracker Barrel's. I personally endorse Cracker Barrel's milkshakes. My fondest memories of riding in a car to Flordia is our stop at Cracker Barrel where the men of the family would rest their laurels and indulge in a mug of the finest milkshake you will ever taste.

Cracker Barrel is the kind of brand that feels like it's been around forever when really it opened at a time where town general stores were just dying out. With suburbs becoming more popular, Cracker Barrel bottled the old town general store that now allows any road weary driver haven. Here's to plenty more years of Cracker Barrel. I haven't been there in awhile but every time I go it's a treat.

Happy Birthday Cracker Barrel (picture from Cracker Barrel's web site).