No Reason to Lie

I've come to the conclusion, through a rigorous process of trial and error, that McDonalds does not sell hamburgers. My proof of this fact is very simple. When you are out and about, driving from point A to point B, and you feel the hunger start to crawl up your esophagus, you get cravings. Cravings for unnatural foods that the body surely can't digest. Cravings that can be likened to forbidden actions not deemed suitable by civilization.

Then you see it. Rising over the hill like a Siren cresting the horizon: the Golden Arches. And suddenly you realize you are not hungry for burgers. You are hungry for McDonalds.

[Note the distinction: Not burgers, but McDonalds. Nobody (in their right mind, except for maybe the first time) went to McDonalds because they wanted a hamburger. They went because they wanted that peculiar quasi-food that is a McDonald's product.]

It is this sub-conscious determination that informs my belief that McDonalds does not deal in hamburgers. In much the same way that Columbia does not exactly export powdered sugar, McDonalds does not exactly serve beef hamburgers.

But if they are not burgers, then what are they? What are we to call this "thing" that McDonalds sells so many of every day? To simply label them "McDonalds Hamburgers" would still be deceptive, and might lead the weak-minded astray. No, we need something more separate, more definitive. But "meat-based pseudo-burger" is too much of a mouthful.

What I recommend is a system that I like to call "McDonalds Food Units" or "McFUs" for short. Due to a sneaking suspicion that all of the Clown's fine foods are really composed of the same substances, I think that assigning a McFUs value to each item on the menue would be a fair and balanced way to evaluate what it is we're actually ingesting. For example, you would not order a "double cheeseburger"; you would order "2 McFUs". Deception is abolished, and we all understand, deep down in our hearts, that we didn't really want a burger, we wanted to be wronged.

And for those of you who are asking yourselves, "But doesn't McDonalds also serve chicken?" I say, "Really?" Have you seen their recent add campaigns concerning their now "100% chicken" sandwiches? Well, what in God's name were they selling before? The answer: McFUs.

I admit, I still eat McFUs. I get cravings for them when I'm driving by those blasted Golden Arches. But I refuse to lie to myself. I know, in my heart of hearts, that what I'm eating is not some sacred cow, not some lonely Argentinian cowboy's dream date, not some sake-soaked Japanese bovine thats been marinating in its own juices. No, I'm eating a handfull of McFUs.

So, as I polish off this last meal of many I raise one more McFU in salute: here's to you Mickey Dee's.

The (Rotten) Core

Now, this could be all too easy. Tearing apart a movie like The Core would be about as difficult as tripping a blind man with Parkinson's. But I don't like things that are that easy. Instead, I shall take a different view altogether of The Core, starting from the orientation of a very well known name in psychology. Our good friend Sigmund Freud would have had a field day with The Core, for reasons which shall be come exceedingly obvious.

To begin with, the movie is named The Core. This is a clear sexual reference. The hot, liquidy, pulsating core of the planet is experiencing difficulties in maintaining its constant spin, and needs a good "explosion" to set it back to rights. This can only be delivered by a long (phallic) drilling rocket full of "seeds of destruction" (WMDs) that will be injected into the very core of the planet before being detonated. Sound familiar? Seventh grade sex education familiar, perhaps?

For further proof, examine the manner in which the drill enters the earth's crust. As it is plunging through thousands of feet of water to a place where "the crust is thin", the earth begins trembling with seismic activity, splitting open its crust and spreading its proverbial legs. Finally after the tension has built sufficiently, and the drill rocket is spinning faster and faster down towards the crust (punctuated by a man in the rocket screaming "Do it!" (no joke)), the rocket fires its little laser heat blaster at the crust, liquefying it for easy entry. Good God.

I can't go on. This movie screams "Bad Idea!" louder than wolves in a nursery. It hurts my head to even try to comprehend its badness. Please don't watch this movie.

The Old are only getting Older

It's true. The old are getting older even as you read this. Their hands are getting all shriveled and prune-like, their eyes are glossing over with galloping senility, and somewhere, some old guy is growing lots of hair out of his ears, which by now qualify as prehensile. Even their chalky, dusty pelvises are thinning out with the onset of osteoporosis. One fall and ker-chunk: Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable.
But they still have their uses. I can still be gleefully amused whenever I see one of those emergency services commercials where some old geezer has managed to fall smack dab in the middle of his house, miles away from windows, phones, and food. If an old person falls alone in their house and no one's there to see it, do they still make a sound? The answer, apparently, is yes. And it goes something like: I've fallen and I can't get up, oh where's my damn ADT emergency services beeper? Oh son of bitch, I left it with my tums in the other room. Help! My emergency services beeper is miles away from me in the middle of my condo!
I always laugh when I see that. Because I know that I'm not them, nor are they anybody I know. So I laugh, right deep from the belly, where all good laughs go to be born, and someday, die.
Also, besides being a source of amusement, old people also comprise the #1 essential ingredient in the food source of the future: Soylent Green. Remember, Charlton Heston said it best (the old bastard), "Soylent Green is people!" No need to be wasteful with our elders. We should learn from them, ingest their stories that keep repeating like a broken record, take their wisdom and grow strong in knowledge. And then we should recycle them, so dinner will be hot and fresh by 6 pm.
Man, old people sure are tasty.
Nutritional value aside, I also like talking to old people. They always have a fresh perspective on those new-fangled gadgets and technologies that I'm always so interested in. Unfortunately, their new perspective is that it's witchcraft, but I still enjoy the look of fear on their ancient faces when I show them Matlock's grizzled old mug on my new video-playing iPod. Winning court cases on the small screen never felt so good as when Grandma nearly burst a blood vessel at the sight of such sorcery.
Grandma will be okay though. We got her one of those emergency services beepers. I'll just have to remind her not to forget it with her tums. But that might be a problem,,what with the Alzheimer's. Oh well. She won't know what she's missing.
So, in summation, old people have their uses. We just have to be careful that we don't confuse "uses" with other words like "rights" or "individual freedoms". Once you pass the age of bladder control, you automatically abdicate such rights. It's in the Constitution people. Look it up. Those Founding Fathers may have been old in their own right, but they were right. Whoever ate that batch of Soylent Green probably felt smarter just for digesting.
Seriously, old people have got to go. It's the only way to truly end world hunger.

A Modest Proposal to Increase Productivity

I recently spent a week staying with a married friend of mine who has several children. During my visit, I made it a point to observe the dynamic of his family, to appease my own curiosity on the subject. What I found was quite eye-opening.
For starters, the parents are two very productive members of society. They work, pay taxes, and own their own home (on which they pay more taxes). They even vote in local elections. They also mow their lawn on Sunday. But these two hard-working, productive members of society have three little remoras who seem to have attached themselves like inveterate leeches to the supple underbelly of their parents productive faculty.
The entire time that I was at my friend's house, I didn't see these tiny little bundles of laziness do anything besides eat, watch television, and color in Donald in old Disney coloring books. I did not see them work, pay taxes, own homes, or vote. Given, they don't currently have the right to vote, but that didn't stop women's suffrage. I bet Susan B. Anthony was a very productive woman in her own right.
Every time I watched these three children sitting transfixed in front of the television for hours on end, I couldn't help but think, "Why couldn't they be stitching low-quality leather wallets for some cost-cutting corporation right now?" All of that latent productivity, just going to waste. There are Nike shoes to be made, just waiting to be assembled by the agile hands of youth. The Kathy Lee collection does not just make itself. If these wastrels won't voluntarily be productive with their time, it is in their best interests that they be put to work.
Whenever I see news stories decrying child-labor sweatshops in Malaysia, hyping up the cruelty and abuse, showing pictures of crowded workshops full to the brim with tiny Asian children, I don't feel pangs at the loss of innocence and youth, I feel respect for the high volume of products that are currently being exported to the U.S. Those little children are making our economy stronger. They must have a productive work ethic to reach their daily quotas despite lousy conditions and half-rations of rice.
Perhaps we should take a cue from our good friends in Malaysia. Laziness should not be rewarded, but met with a strong opposing force of child labor. Please, for the sake of America, write your congressman. It's time for a change.