Dave Alpert: I Know Where You’re Going with That

I rarely speed.  It’s not that I’m particularly law abiding or that I’m intentionally conserving fossil fuels.  It’s partially that  I know the extra 10 mph won’t make much of a difference in my drive time.  But, mostly, it’s that as a freelance writer, I am constantly broke.  So, I can’t afford a moving violation (or even a parking ticket for that matter).  Now, because I do drive the speed limit, I am keenly aware of all the super agressive driving around me.  At times, I’m even the victim of that agression.  So, I wasn’t surprised when a guy came whipping up behind me in the slow lane on Soldier’s Field Road, made an aggressive move to get around me, shot me a dirty look and then sped far ahead.  However, I was a little surprised and particularly amused that the guy was driving a Toyota Prius.

It would seem to me that the main reason people buy hybrid cars is for the better gas mileage.  The reasons people want better gas mileage is to reduce their “carbon footprint” and cut costs.  Many of my composting, recycling, solar panel owning, MASSPIRG volunteering friends drive them.  Anyway, it got me thinking about whether an aggressive hybrid driver is more damaging to the environment than a non-aggressive driver of a regular car–thus my amusement.

 VS
Ford Focus                                                                  Toyota Prius

After researching a little bit, I was delighted to find this Edmunds article discussing fuel efficiency.  According to their test results, non-aggressive drivers save 31% on milieage on average; non-speeders save an additional 12%.  So, the Prius guy that slammed on his brakes, whipped around me and then stepped on the gas again potentially burns over 40% more fuel while only saving about 20% due to the environment friendliness of his car.  Thus, the guy may still burn 20% more fuel than a guy with a regular old Ford Focus or something. 

The author of the article even mentions hybrids in discussing the results:

Our tests showed that the most significant way to save gas is: you. And we’re talking massive fuel economy gains. Think you need a hybrid? Chances are you’ve got hybrid-style mileage in your gas pedal foot.

Attention Mr. Fancypants Prius driver: Greenpeace wants their membership card back!

Today, my roommates took me out for a little birthday feast at Bugaboo Creek.  While I am not the biggest fan of Bugaboo Creek Steak House, it was convenient and full of meat.  Lou, Chris and I had some laughs and put our stomachs through their respective paces.  Groggy as hell, we awaited our check.

As we sat there, we heard this faint clapping from across the huge dining room.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a troop of different sized and shaped waiters and waitresses marching towards us–one tall sorority-sister-looking woman was fisting a giant stuffed moose puppet.  I had one thought and couldn’t help from letting it slip past my lips: OH, GOD!

Suddenly, we were flanked with no means of escape.  This meat-wielding Greek chorus started chanting some “Happy Birthday” cheer, which Lou speculated is sung so Mr. Bugaboo doesn’t have to pay any “Happy Birthday” royalties to ASCAP, BMI or SESAC.  The entire time I was transfixed on that moose head–for 2 reasons, really.  First, I couldn’t help but think that this was such a miserable part of the job, and I didn’t want my eyes to reveal the humiliation I felt for them.  Second, I was sitting next to a tall attractive woman with her hand up a moose’s ass.  Wouldn’t you watch?

Just when I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, the song ended, and the woman shoved the moose doll in my face and exclaimed, “Now, kiss the moose!”  Lou started yelling, “Kiss it. Kiss it!”  Chris was muttering, “I’ll kill you if you don’t kiss that moose.”  I reached around to the back of the moose’s head–visions of snotty-nosed kids licking it, herpes-riddled housewives smooching it, and the employees rubbing their junk on it in the back room–and went in for the kill.

As we drove home, my imagination took over and I started creating this futuristic sci-fi thriller that begins with the narrator saying, “In the year 2010, a Swine Flu pandemic gripped the world and changed humankind forever.  The original drug-resistant mutation was traced to a moose puppet at a Bugaboo Creek restaurant in Watertown, Massachusetts… chusetts… chusetts…”

I’d like to thank Lou and Chris in advance for any potential STD or incurable disease that comes my way–and for potentially bringing on Armageddon.  This is shaping up to be a memorable birthday week already–and the real day isn’t until Thursday!

It seems that summertime means flip-flops, and in turn, flip-flops incur more obnoxious Dave Alpert rants.  I’d like to thank Ellen for inciting this one.

I’m not going to go into all of the reasons I can’t stand them.  If you’re interested you can go here, find additional links and take a walk down blog memory lane.  Now, this just in from one of my most trusted health information sources, the NY Daily News: flip-flops can kill you!

Flip-flopping reporters          Source: NY Daily News   Xanthos/News

DIE YOU EVIL FLIP-FLOP WEARERS!!!

I want to start off by apologizing to my loyal readers for my failing to post over the last few months.  I’ll try to be better about telling humorous (read: obnoxious) stories online for the world to enjoy and discuss.

Okay, on to some topics of interest…

I love bones.  I think the US must be the most boneless country on earth, however.  Meat starts out being attached to bones.  Now, it’s like they are genetically breeding animals without bones.  And boneless buffalo wings are totally stupid.  They aren’t even made out of wing meat.

Speaking of bones… I have a bone to pick with performers who get on stage wearing flip-flops.  If you want to play music wearing flip-flops, roll yourself a fatty, sit in the back yard and strum away.  But in the Stage Clothes Handbook, flip-flops are on the no-fly list before sandals and after clogs.  I’m not the only one who thinks that flip-flops can be detrimental to your career.  I particularly like this line from the Reuter’s article: “‘Wearing flip-flops conveys the mood that you are relaxed and on vacation. That’s not a good message in the office,’ said Meghan Cleary, a style commentator.”

photo credit: Patrick Schneider, The Charlotte Observer via WPN

Next topic… insane environmentalists.  When I started hanging out at Esspreso Royale Caffe in Boston 4 years ago, this much older woman was dating one of my Berklee friends.  She talked a lot and only about depressing topics.  She was a total punisher.  Fast forward to last week.  I walked into Porter Square Books to buy a cup of coffee to extinguish the fire in my head, and I saw her standing at the coffee bar. 

It took some time to get my coffee, but to my horror, she was still there.  I needed some milk and had no choice but to interact.  I watched her pick up straws and put them down, grab a fork and drop it, stare at the sugar packet in her hand.  Pick up and put down a milk container.  So, I joked, “You seem perplexed by the coffee bar.”  She said nervously, “Yes. Yes.  Perplexed is the right word.  I put too much cream in, you see, and then I put in sugar, so now I have sugar on the cream.”  She lifted the raw sugar packed and continued, “You can’t even recycle these because they are lined with plastic, and I can’t decide what to use to stir this that will be the most earth friendly, and now, i can’t decide, the fork or the knife [both metal].”  I realized that she’s not just annoying; she’s also bat-shit crazy.  I interrupted, “Look.  If we continue this discussion, I’ll go completely insane.”  I made my escape.

But it really got me thinking about environmentalism.  We all just want to “have our cake and eat it, too”.  It’s not about recycling.  The real problem is that we have managed to overpopulate the world at an alarming rate, so that we are consuming at an alarming rate.  And we have advanced medicine so much that people are living a long time–far too long if you are REALLY concerned with  the environment.  If that woman really wants to reduce her carbon footprint, she should just kill herself.  According to these life expectancy stats from the CDC, if it were 1900, she’d already be dead.  Back then, the life expectancy at birth was 47.3.  In 2005, it was 77.8.  The additional 30 years of consumption means something.  And shouldn’t we start limiting the number of children people have?  Remember the crazy octuplets woman:

Wow.  Now, that’s a lot of bones.  Nuff said.

Meet my new favorite hot sauce…

Isn’t she “good lookin’”?

I’ve always been a fan of spicy food.  I’d probably put hot sauce on my breakfast cereal if it wouldn’t make the milk curdle–or if I actually ate breakfast cereal.  Anyway, I’ve always been a fan of Tabasco.  While I have been a long-time user of the original Tabasco pepper sauce, I’ve always felt that their newer varieties fell short, mainly because they are less hot.  Original Tabasco is just barely spicy enough, and with that classic vinegar-y flavor.  But sometimes you need even more fire–not less!

And then came Tabasco Habanero Sauce.  Weighing in at over 7,000 Scoville units, it is, by far, the hottest Tabasco brand sauce.  Read about why hot peppers are hot and Scoville units here.  If I ever become a scientist, I’d like to study a correlation between use of hot sauces and drug addiction because eating them releases endorphins in the same way that many drugs do. Hmmm…

Anyway, the problem I have with many habanero sauces is that they tend to be too much fire and too little flavor.  I believe that Tabasco struck the perfect balance with this sauce.  It’s tangy, flavorful, and unmistakably habanero. 

I have only two gripes.  First, it is almost impossible to buy in the Boston area.  Neither Stop & Shop nor Shaw’s carry it.  The only supermarket chain that keeps it in stock, with at least a few stores in Massachusetts, is Hannaford Supermarkets.  My only other complaint is that they only ship small 2oz bottles to these stores.  That’s like a week’s supply for a spice addict like me!  In any case, if you love hot sauce, and haven’t tried this one, run out to Hannaford in Waltham, MA (the closest store to Boston) and pick up a bottle.  You will not be disappointed.

I LOVE Whoppers.  As a kid, I was a Burger King burger lover.  I’m old enough to remember the romance of the 99 cent Whopper.  I even took advantage of a $1 Whopper Jr last week.  BUT, their latest ad campaign is the worst and most insensitive EVER.

The Whopper Virgins campaign (www.whoppervirgins.com) brings us to the corners of the earth to find people who have never seen a burger, never mind a Big Mac or Whopper.  There we see Micronesians, Tibetans, Aborigines,  and all the peoples of the earth who have never seen a hamburger, asked to taste test Big Macs vs. Whoppers.  According to the commercials, they unanimously choose the “flame-broiled” Whopper.

From the first moment I saw these commercials, I thought one thing: these people are ALL gonna yack.  I mean, I grew up eating these over-processed pleasures, and they nauseate me whenever I give in to those tasty temptresses.  And I am NOT a Whopper virgin; I’m a Whopper slut.  All I think is, “We have replaced your normal diet of millet and fresh fruits and vegatables with the most unhealthy meals on earth.  Tell us.  What do you like better?  The Big Mac ( 540 calories) or the Whopper (770 calories w/cheese).”  Once they comment on the taste, their bodies need to digest the 48 grams of fat and 52 grams of carbs they just poisoned their bodies with.  I wonder how many of these “virgins” die during Whopper “sex”.  It is so horrible.

Admittedly, I’m a little jealous of the creators.  There was a team that sat around a room (probably replete with one of those garbage cans with a small basketball hoop attached to it) brainstorming ideas, drawing pictures and reading marketing reports.  At the end of a few weeks of sushi lunches, meetings, market research and planning sessions, the development team emerged with this retarded campaign.  Couldn’t you have made the same point by using like Martians or Klingons?  We get it: we need an impartial jury to have a true and honest taste test.  Did you really have to reach for out to the most unspoiled and untainted beings on the face of this planet and rape them with American gluttony??  Did you pay them with wampum?  Maybe they agreed to die of colon cancer for a few cases of fire water.  If someone from this agency reads this post, please hire me on a contract basis just to be the one to fire these bleeding asses.  Good job, dickheads!

Crossing the Mass Ave Bridge is a pleasant experience.  The views on both sides are beautiful, reminding me of why I love living in Boston.  Heading to Cambridge yesterday, I turned to check out the Charles and the skyline, and this is what I saw…

Okay.  Forget the girl in the orange for a second.  See the buildings in the back right?  Well, it wasn’t foggy out; it wasn’t raining either.  That blur is due to the particulary juicy grease spot on the window.  I never knew human heads could create that much oil.  I mean, forget bio-diesel; forget recycled vegetable oil.  I bet we could run the entire public transportation system just on the human oils stuck to the windows.  We could lead the country in eco-fuel–powered by the people, for the people.  We could cut fares in half, too.  After all, we’re supplying all the gas.  Think about it, MBTA! 

Still… YUCK!

I was buying a little multi-grain roll the other day, and I was reminded of a trip I took to the bakery with my good friend Allison many years ago.  What prompted this recollection was the fact that I was using a piece of wax paper to remove the roll from the bin at the store.  I was at a crossroads: discard the wax paper or toss it in the bag with the roll.

Now let’s rewind.  Probably 10 years ago, Allison and I were at a bagel bakery.  We were watching the guy behind the counter conscientiously use a piece of wax paper to gently toss the bagels into the bag.  You see, at bakeries, wax paper is the first line of defense against the spread of disease–protecting the bagels from all the nose picking, butt scratching, sweat wiping, door knob touching and everything else we do that is human.  But when the 13th bagel (baker’s dozen) went in the bag, so, too, did that piece of wax paper.  I saw the horror on Allison’s face, her flailing arms out in front of her.  NOooooooo!!!!!

Those bagels were now swimming in the very sea of germs the wax paper was meant to protect them from.  That wax paper was crowd surfing across all the bagels; every bagel wanted to touch the rock-n-roll wax paper punk as it floated by.  Allison looked on, disgusted and broken.  We discussed the wax paper in depth.  While we did eat the bagels–toasted–she did mention something to the guy.  And I think of this visit to the bakery every time I watch the wax paper go into the bag.  It’s sort of like correctly and skillfully using a condom, and then, after sex, leaving it inside.  But I digress.

This was a world Allison took very seriously, and more than a pet peeve.  In fact, her father had opened the first bagel bakery in Greensboro, NC.  For years, the bakery was one of the most celebrated in the South.  That all ended when Einstein Brothers, Bruegger’s and other chains all decended on Greensboro.  Of course, the final nail in the coffin was when Dunkin Donuts and other coffee chains started pushing bagels as well.  Her dad probably woke up in cold sweats hearing the announcer from Mortal Kombat command “Finish him!” as Fred, the Dunkin Donuts baker, dealt a crushing death blow by blinding him with a scalding cup of coffee and cracking his skull with a chocolate glazed.

Oh, and what did I do in the end with my own piece of wax paper?  I threw it out, of course.  Who the hell knows where my hands have been?!

Correction 8/31/08: Finagle-a-Bagel was not among the bagel chains crushing the little guys down South, only around here.  Long live Bagel Rising! And my main point was that in the past 10-20 years, large bagel chains started springing up across the US, forcing traditional bagel bakeries–unable to compete with their buying power, marketing dollars and automated conveyor belt, buzz saw bagel cutters–to close their doors. 

Channel 5 in Boston was my favorite news channel growing up.  I trusted Chet Curtis, Natalie Jacobson and Dick Albert.  Even when I was older and some of the other stations went to a tabloid format, channel 5 stood its ground.  But, something happened over the past 5 years.  First, that Ed Harding guy sucks; he’s such a hack.  And they have become one of the fluffiest tabloid stations out there.  I especially hate the way they cover weather.  During one storm this winter, they had Ed Harding–their frigging anchor man–live at a mall parking lot.  To make his point about the depth of snow, he asked the camera to zoom in on his boot which was a WHOLE ankle deep in snow.  So scientific.  So helpful to the rest of us.  So stupid!  This morning, I watched a reporter throw her clipboard on the ground and kick snow on it as a way to prove to the rest of us that there is actually snow on the ground.  Do you people actually think we are really that retarded?  Or is it that you are that retarded?  Either way, shame on you Channel 5 Boston.  You officially suck like everyone else.

I got a new computer about a year and a half ago–a Toshiba laptop.  You can find out why HERE.  So far, I’ve had no problems with the new computer until the AC adapter started to go last week.  There is a loose wire where the cord meets the transformer box.  I went to the Toshiba web site to find a replacement.  I found the appropriate adapter, only to find that they sell it for a wopping $80.  You’d think for that much of a hit, they could produce it without LEAD.  Yes. Lead!  WTF Toshiba?!?

 When I opened the box, I found a slip of paper inside that said this:

WARNING: Handling the cord on this product will expose you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.  Wash hands after handling.

Allow me to say again: WHAT THE FUCK TOSHIBA?????  Why?  WHY?  I know: let’s sell a cord with lead in it and charge the buyers $80 to poison themselves.  Brilliant.  Well, I’ve gotta go now… and wash my hands.