Comic for Monday, March 5th, 2007

Posted: 8:40 am, Monday, March 5th

I realize Pete should be saying 'even' in the second panel, but I'll fix that later today. Want to get this up first.

The Times was strangely light-hearted yesterday with this photo scavenger hunt. After the weather gets nice, I may try to do a few of these. I know of an ATM down in Soho that wanted $2.75 for a withdrawal, which is probably the steepest rate you'll find outside of a strip club (just guessing)(no, honest). And I'm fairly certain I can find someone wearing Shitwit apparel - I work in the middle of the tourist zone, after all.

Also from yesterday's Times was this article on how global warming is fucking with the maple syrup industry in Vermont. Man, there is not much I love more than maple syrup. I'm like that dude in the Dunkin Donuts ad tapping a maple tree in his cube, except bound by the laws of reality. (2.0 actually prefers artificial syrup to the real thing, which I can't wrap my head around.) I will be *pissed* if there's no more maple syrup.

I usually find a way to work stupid ads into a Five and Dime, but the ads that are on TV right now are so mind-bogglingly stupid that I just find myself in an inchoate rage about them. Like that one for Applebee's or Chili's or one of those places, where the girl's like, "I *love* fire-grilled food!" What the fuck? Someone *wrote* that? "Fire-grilled food"? You love "fire-grilled food." So it could be a wombat put on a metal grill, over a fire, and you'd eat it? And they all stare at the doofusy guy with them in disbelief when he says he can grill. What fucking moron can't grill? Is there a back story there? Has the guy done hard time for grilling his ex-girlfriend? God, I hate that freaking ad. And that one for the bank where the chick gets her first paycheck and there's a vaguely rocked-up version of the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song going on, that's been running for about nine years now? Argh. I don't know why I watch TV when all it does is make me angry.

I knew most of the stuff in this article about how the Ultimate Warrior was completely insane. I did *not* know of his hatred of Santa Claus. (SFW, but disturbing.)

And that's the way it is.

bullfrog

Stacked has a crummy Quizno's ad, which reminded me of yet another crummy ad.

http://stacked.patrickstack.com/archives/2007/03/05/quiznos-endorsing-big-dude-meat/

Have you guys seen the Subway one where it ends with a construction worker yelling, "Where's my Subway store? 14 floors down, they call me Mr. Big Hot Pastrami!" Stop over-sexualizing sandwich ads, people.

And, as usual, forgot to post something I meant to. The first post, on autism, on this page is a bit heavy, but scroll down and check out this dude's awesome steam punk Star Wars drawings.

http://ericpoulton.blogspot.com/

Proof yet again that basically going in any direction that didn't involve Jar-Jar Binks would've been way cooler than what Lucas did.

I like that you have a comments thread with yourself.

For real, though, I feel you on that "fire-grilled food" ad. The part that gets me is this notion that grilling can take place without fire. You could make an argument that the Foreman grill constitutes actually grilling, but if you ask me it's more of a griddle than anything. Likewise with those big sheet metal griddles that restaurants use, but even those involve fire.

And grilling is perhaps the easiest thing in the cooking world after scrambled eggs. A fucking monkey could do it. Sorry, Chili's, you may have really good nachos, but you didn't invent "fire grilling". So damned redundant.

Grilling may be physically easy to do, but not always easy to do well. I've suffered through enough dried out BBQ Chicken to know that some people cannot be trusted. And, in fact, the other day the wife ordered the new dry rub ribs from said Chili's and they were pretty dry. Had my grill not been encased in ice, I would have made them myself.

And - finally - off into the night goes my laptop with a nice gentleman from DHL. I hope I see it again.

Chicken is really easy to dry out even when you're doing everything right, or so I hear. Global Warming is doing a number on Lake Tahoe's snowfall. They've had 11 inches less snow (cumulative) every year since 1990, and this year, they were barely had 3 inches of natural snowfall until a very late snowstorm a couple of weeks ago. And then it all melted because of 50 degree weather afterward.

Think we could blame global warming on the Yankees?

Speaking of commercials, the Phat Phree did the 50 best local TV commercials, and one of the commenters linked to this bit o' gold:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SvFX4uDGi_s

Man, I could find a way to blame the Pelopennesian War on the Yankees if you gave me time to think.

I went to a regular old dance club that charged 5 dollars for its ATM...and 6 for a Budweiser.

This venue was NOT my idea.

And yea for the return of the Bayside Tigers T-Shirt!!

Dennis Haskins is looking terrible. He

That's because he just saw "Screech"'s latest video...