This Blog Celebrates its First Birthday

This Blog Celebrates its First Birthday

 

Almost exactly one year ago, May 20 2011, I posted a few short essays and a poem here at www.lygsbtd.wordpress.com. One year, 185 essays and over 170,000 page views later, I still don’t know what I’m doing here, but now, every minute of every day, over 1,000 times a day, someone visits this blog looking for something.

185 essays in one year! Can you believe it? That’s one every other day. That seems a bit excessive to me. Don’t I have something else to do with my life? Apparently not.

It’s not like this stuff just appears out of thin air. No, there has to be a lot of marijuana smoke in the air for this stuff to appear. That means I spend a lot of time smoking marijuana and staring at a blank sheet of paper, before I remember that I’m supposed to be writing something, and even longer before I remember what on Earth I am supposed to write about. Speaking of which…

What am I supposed to write about? My remote off-the-grid lifestyle imposes some limitations on my subject matter. With no internet connection or phone, I don’t exactly have a world of information at my fingertips, so I don’t write about anything that requires research. I stick to what I know, make up, or hear on the radio. Since I really don’t know that much, and the radio doesn’t give me a whole lot to work with, I rely on my imagination quite a bit. I have a much more interesting life in my imagination, and it gives me plenty to write about. It is where I prefer to spend my time

Still I try to write about stuff that normal people can relate to. Hence the recurring themes of sex, junk food, and economic oppression. I suppose there is more to life than sex, junk food and economic oppression. I just can’t think of anything else right now.

I know some people like to make a big deal out of politics and sports, but they don’t mean anything, change anything, or make any difference in anyone’s life, except for the worse. No, sports and politics just distracts us from the fact that all we have to look forward to in life is sex, junk food, and economic oppression.

So, basically, the way I see it, if you are not getting laid, your life pretty much sucks, but even if you are getting laid, junk food and economic oppression can still get you down, if you don’t find a way to laugh at it. Which is why we are all here, right?

I mean you’re not here because you want your penis tattooed, or because you are looking for a prostitute, or want to see a good image of necrophilia, are you?

 

You are?

Really?

All of you?

Oh well. Here’s to a solid year of online masturbation at http://www.lygsbtd.wordpress.com

You Call That Cooking? Ketchup Flavored Potato Chips

You Call That Cooking?

…or How to make not quite a meal, from stuff that is not quite food.

Ketchup-Flavored Potato Chips

Feeling a bit peckish, while shopping for groceries, I stuck my hand into a sample bowl of, what I thought were, BBQ potato chips. I thought they were BBQ potato chips, because they were red, and looked like potato chips. They looked like BBQ potato chips, but the taste that registered on my tongue was something else all together.

 

They tasted like the chips that you get at a place that can’t be bothered to make fries, so they serve you a few potato chips instead. These chips taste a special way, because some of the ketchup invariably leaks off of the sandwich, and onto the chips. “That’s it”, I thought, “ketchup?”

 

That’s when I looked at the package of the product I had just sampled. Sure enough, I had ingested, for the first time, intentionally ketchup-flavored potato chips. Specifically, Heinz 57 brand ketchup. While the brand of potato chip seemed quite generic, at least the flavoring had a famous, if not exactly prestigious, pedigree.

 

Who thought this was a good idea? Like everybody doesn’t already have a bottle of Heinz ketchup in their fridge. If anyone ever wanted to put ketchup on potato chips, they’ve had ample opportunity. And it’s not like we don’t all already know what ketchup on a potato chip tastes like, because of all of the, accidentally ketchup tainted, chips we’ve consumed, with sloppy sandwiches, in greasy-spoon restaurants.

 

Most of us, having tasted these carelessly condiment contaminated chips, have spent more time thinking of ways to prevent ketchup from polluting our pristine Pringles, than dreaming of whole bags of chips infused with the very essence of… ketchup?

 

I remember trying some of Kettle Chips gourmet flavors a while back, “Cheddar-Beer” “Vidalia Onion” “Vinegar and Sea Salt”. I paid money to try these flavors. None of them disappointed me. Even as a free snack, these ketchup-flavored chips left me feeling ripped-off. Somehow, ketchup just doesn’t make my mouth water the way those other flavors did. Now that I have tried them, I can’t imagine eating them, on purpose, again.

 

Since that initial experience, I have seen at least three different brands of Heinz ketchup-flavored, generic potato chips. This makes me think that Heinz itself may be behind this new proliferation of potato pollution. Have they developed a new dry ketchup powder that adheres to the grease on chips? Is this the same Heinz 57 brand dehydrated ketchup powder that comes with Easy Bake Ovens? Will we soon see other ketchup-flavored junk foods?

 

How long till we see ketchup-flavored cheese curls,

ketchup-flavored Doritos,

even ketchup flavored popcorn?

What about ketchup flavored Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner, ketchup-flavored corn dogs, and ketchup-flavored Spam? Perhaps this is the beginning of a new ketchup-flavored future for Heinz.

 

For years Heinz endured complaints about just how long it takes to get ketchup out of the bottle. Heinz even highlighted this apparent drawback, with the “Anticipation” ad campaign, but as our entire culture continues to accelerate, Heinz 57 ketchup has become the dial-up connection of the fast food world.

 

McDonald’s solved this problem, decades ago by putting ketchup in tiny tear and squeeze envelopes. These envelopes greatly sped up ketchup application, but the non-biodegradable envelopes quickly became, and remain, an environmental disaster.

 

Heinz eventually addressed this problem by marketing ketchup, especially for restaurants, in upside-down plastic squeeze bottles. These bottles can deliver ketchup with lightning speed, but they invariably produce rude and disgusting noises in the process, noises no restauranteur wants to hear in his establishment, and that no one should have to endure at the dinner table.

 

So, apparently, Heinz has opted for a strategy that won’t slow down fast food industry, minimizes waste, and eliminates the diarrhea noise. By adding ketchup to your food at the factory, Heinz will help the environment, and silence the slurp, without slowing down your hectic day.

 

Rather that adding ketchup, in the future, we’ll just look for the Heinz 57 logo. It will tell us, like the little “Intel Inside” sticker, tells us about our computer, that the food product is “ketchup equipped”. Ketchup will cease to be a bottle in your fridge, and increasingly become available as a preloaded application.

 

In much the same way that cell-phones evolved into smart-phones, new high-tech junk food will evolve into…. I don’t want to call them “smart junk foods”…lets call them, “Mwahahahaha junk foods”, with preloaded apps that let you tailor your junk food experience to your lifestyle.

 

Several developers are currently working on various hands-free devices, compatible with these new snacks, that will actually propel the snacks from the package, directly into your mouth. Some prototype systems wirelessly communicate with your cell phone, automatically shoving snacks into your mouth whenever you shut up for more than three seconds.

 

These systems remain in the development phase, but I have tasted the future of junk food, and it has ketchup on it already.

New Drug Infused Junk Foods

New Drug Infused Junk Foods

HuMMAPPS, the local growers organization helping to navigate the course towards legalization, points out that edible products containing cannabis is the fastest growing sector of the marijuana market. We all know that Coca-Cola originally contained cocaine, and still would today, were it not prohibited by law. Now as we approach the end of prohibition, we may see a whole new generation of drug-infused foods hit the market. Would you try these?

 

Cap’n Crank- Sugary cereal, stays crunchy even in milk. Now fortified with crystal methamphetamine.

 

Maritos- Crisp, high-tech simulated tortilla chips. Fried in ganja butter, salted, and dusted with kief and desiccated cheese powder.

 

Laze Potato Chips- With heroin. Bet you can’t eat just one.

RRRRuphles have RRRRuphenol- Potato chips with ridges that stand up to dip, even when the dipper can’t stand up.

 

Marshmollies- Jet puffed confections contain MDMA. Toast them over a campfire, or in front of a laser at a rave, put some in your hot chocolate or just eat them straight out of the bag. You’ll love ‘em.

 

Tranquilized Animal Crackers- Little cookies, shaped like sleeping circus animals, laced with ketamine.

 

Life Saving Devices- Multi-flavored roll candy with LSD.

 

Grandma’s Old Fashioned Hard Candy- with Viagra. Give ‘em something to suck on, just like in the old days.