Food Porn

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Are you tolerant of your oven?

Remember way back when we were children and were introduced to the slutty ways of the Easy Bake Oven? Sure, anyone could stick a bun in its oven but we whole-heartedly accepted her loose ways. But that wasn't good enough. Now there's a gay oven uprising!

Recently Quiznos introduced the Toasty Torpedo. The sandwich alone is over a foot long and is incredibly phallic-shaped, especially when cut in half. The bread is "ciabatta" which is apparently Italian for "penis." The safe way to eat the thing is to utilize the special wrapper it comes in. You can insert your own Italian sausage joke here.

Now to the crux of the situation - the gay oven. Here is a sampling of the dialogue found on their new commercial:

Oven: "Scott, I want you to do something."

Scott: "I'm not doing that again. I got burned."

Oven: "We both enjoyed that."

...

Oven: "Put it in me, Scott."

...

Oven: "Say it, Scott."
Scott: "Only four dollars?"

Oven: "Say it sexy."

Scott: "Only four dollars."

Oven: "Sexier."
Scott: "Only four dollars."

I'm still haunted by the oven's baritone voice saying, "Put it in me, Scott." That doesn't leave much to the imagination. I think we all know what was stuck where to get that burn. On the web site linked above, you can hear some of the dialogue and when you mouse over some of the graphics, the oven moans in sheer ecstasy. I know ovens are supposed to be hot, but this one is flaming!

I actually tried these sandwiches and I'll tell ya, I felt dirty for putting that thing in my mouth! First I pumped out some horseradish sauce into a cup, unwrapped the sandwich, dipped the end into the thick, white sauce and had my first meaty bite. I felt like I could've been in a George Michael video.

10 Tweet Fiction

Since I've always been a fan of flash fiction, I took a cue from @Zombie_Frenzy and decided to try writing Fiction in 10 Tweets over on Twitter (@tokyosteven). Anyway, I went ahead and collected the tweets as a whole here.

"Granny's Love" ©2009

A warm, lazy southern summer day. It seemed like nothing could go wrong, but the chirping birds and white clouds belied the bad news.

Little Suzy carelessly kicked her legs as she sat in her tree swing. Her gaze met the ground where the grass seemed just a bit sadder today.

Earlier in the day, Suzy was told that her grandmother had died. It was hard for her young mind to grasp the concept of death.

Never more would Suzy wrap her arms around her granny. Never more would she smell her grandmother's sweet perfume.

The girl hopped down from her swing and stepped on a passing insect. After all, why should it get to live?

A shrill scream pierced the air. Suzy looked up, toward her home. She didn't see any movement. The girl hopped back into her swing.

After a few swings, tears fell down Suzy's cheeks. "Why did granny have to die?" she asked. Suzy buried her face in her hands as she bawled.

A few heavy footsteps filled the air. Suzy heard them but assumed it was only her mother or father coming to comfort her.

A low, rumbling groan made Suzy open her eyes and look ahead. "Grandmother!" the girl shouted as she ran for a hug.

Suzy's embrace was not met. Instead, only another groan. The girl felt something wet drip onto her head. "Grandmother?" she asked nervously.

The Snow

Since moving to Middle Georgia about 9 years ago, it has only snowed twice - once in 2001 and then again yesterday. Sure I went to bed hearing the warnings of possible snow flurries but really thought nothing of it. I mean come on, it was 65 degrees the day before. But sure enough, when I woke up and looked out the window, I noticed that the precipitation I saw wasn't rain at all. Not hail nor sleet either, it was fine flakes of snow, just as predicted. I marveled over the accuracy of the local weathermen for a moment and then took note that not a single flake had stuck to the ground yet, instantly melting as it lit upon the red Georgia clay.

Mother Nature didn't mesmerize me long as I turned to the television for entertainment, glancing outside only once in a while until about 30 minutes later I noticed that the flakes actually looked larger. I went back to the window and saw that the ground was now covered in snow. Hallelujah! Sure, there was zero accumulation on the roads, but this was bonafide snow! OK, now I was far more impressed.

I couldn't stare out the window all day though; I had plans for lunch. So I got ready and as I drove to the restaurant, I saw a kid in the neighborhood trying his best to make a snow angel in the 1/4" of accumulation. I don't know if he was successful, but it looked like he was having fun. At lunch, my friends and I discussed the snow further as the flurry dwindled down to nothing more than an afterthought.

If there's one thing I can say for Georgians, they're an industrious lot. On my way back home, I noticed no less than half a dozen partial birth snowmen. True we didn't get much snow, but they made the absolute best of what we did have. Oh, and it was also enough to close down all the schools and go to work 2 hours late.

A Tale of Two Animals

All women have snakes in their heads and all men are dogs. OK, that's a broad generalization but let's look deeper into the situation. The basic premise of the assumption is that women are crazy and men only care about sex. Go ahead and think about it.

Think about that ex-girlfriend who went nutty on you. Think about what she did - all the little things. When you start to piece all the tiny bits together, you realize that she was crazy, don't you? That chick had snakes in her head! Maybe you're married to a crazy lady. Are you allowed to have friends who are females? Can you still hang out with your friends? Nope? Snakes in her head!

Now ladies, don't think I'm biased. I know that most of us guys are dogs. All we're interested in is food, sex, and sleep and not necessarily in that order. Hell, if we had a fur coat and a tail, most of us would be barking at the moon! I'm sure most guys will readily admit to this so that's not exactly breaking news.

There is somewhat of a bleed over though. Roughly 10 - 15% of women are dogs and about the same amount of men have snakes in their heads. These are the folk you really want to stay away from. The bitches will stab you in the back and the crazies will just stab you...repeatedly.

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is about 10% of the population that the rules don't apply to. There are actually a few good, decent people left on this rock. Sure no one is perfect. We all have carnal urges sometimes and we all need to be just a little bit crazy to put up with the rest of the world.

90% of all of the people on earth are either snakes or dogs. The other 10% are those who float to the top and that's who you should strive to surround yourself with.

Migrating Soap

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I like to keep things at a certain level of cleanliness and wash my hands often. For years, I never used public restrooms and even to this day, I still have my problems.

Generally, I trust the people I work with so when I'm on the job, I get over most of my idiosyncrasies and take care of business. At the office where I work now, there is a row of five sinks in the mens' room. Because we men as a collective are lazy, the sinks across from the urinals are the ones most often used. Therefore, these are the sinks I tend to stay away from. When I see them, I cringe because the chrome handle is always either wet or smeared where the last person has used it. So, I use the sinks on the other end of the counter. However, the solution is not that simple.

When I first started working here, there were only two soap dispensers in the mens' room. Now, you would think that a peaceful solution could be reached by placing the soap between sinks 1&2 and sinks 3&4. I know this leaves sink 5 out in the cold, but honestly I don't think that many people other than myself use sinks 4&5. So yes, I'm willing to give up some ground to get what I want. Well, every day I would go in there and the soap dispenser that I had previously placed between 3&4 would have always inexplicably migrated to either between sinks 2&3 or the one between 1&2 would be placed to the left of 1 while the one between 3&4 was now to the right of 1. Every day I would move the soap back to a decent position and every day it would be moved closer to the urinal sinks. I tried a few variations, even extreme ones like putting both soaps between 4&5 to display my general displeasure and then both to the left of 1 to show how silly keeping soap in that position would be. Alas, the battle was long and the battle was hard.

Finally, after months of playing musical soap, a third dispenser was brought in as a peace offering. On the whole, this has worked. But imagine my surprise when I witnessed the scene pictured below. This arrangement is perfect for the person with two left hands, one right hand and no shits left to give for anyone else wanting to wash their hands. Oh, and the one on the wall? It doesn't work.

The clue x 4

Over the years I've done a lot of stupid things, but overall I really do try to not be that much of a douche bag. I didn't do the whole popped collar, pink shirt thing, never got into the emo junk and skipped out on the whole tricked out import car movement a la the Fast and the Furious. Hell, I've never even created a real myspace page. But, every once in a while, I do succumb to one of the latest fashion trends, or at least what I perceive to be a fashion trend.

Today I'm talking about that thin, scraggly beard look which was thrust into the pop culture limelight by the emergence of 'Lost'. That's right, the TV show where the plane crashes and people are marooned on an island where after weeks and even months of life without modern day amenities, the girls still look hot and the guys' facial hair never hits the Grizzly Adams stage or even the shorter, yet still very manly, Chuck Norris length. While some thought that this ragtag group of haphazard gentlemen could somehow take a page from Gilligan's book and MacGyver themselves some sort of crude razor to stay clean and tidy, others lauded the look as bold, edgy and hip and hence adopted it for themselves. After three seasons, I finally gave in. I stopped formally shaving, only picking up a trimmer once every few days to keep the short stubble look going. Then I went home.

This past Christmas, I went to stay with my parents for a week. We were all glad to see each other and many pleasantries were exchanged. For the first few days, absolutely nothing was said of my new facial hair, not that I minded. But then from nowhere as I was driving my parents around town, my mother looks up at a billboard and says, "Oh, there's Dr. Eisner! I see he shaved his beard. I think he looks so much better that way." I rolled my eyes. "I don't think a beard looks good on anyone."

::sigh::

"Subtle, mom," I said. She pretended like she didn't hear me and nothing more was said on the subject. The next day, I shaved. So the rule here is: No matter how cool you think you are, your mom knows you're not.