When the orange Fresh Direct vending machine arrived at our office I thought it was a real mitzvah. Somewhat impressively, instead of your usual cardboard Automat cheeseburgers, it features pre-prepared, re-heatable food from a few well known chain-ish restaurants in NYC.
The day the Fresh Direct machine arrived hired guns even came in and did free tastings of all the repasts; which I completely overindulged in along with former Shallow Divers member K-Tray. For pre-packaged, pre-cooked, reheated food, it actually tasted pretty good.
Then a few days ago, I was short on time and decided to go down and purchase my first Fresh Direct vended treat. Now let me first say that I’m no salt Nazi. But I do usually try to steer clear of canned soups, Mac n Cheese, high-test soy sauce, or any other single meal that can single handedly put me over my daily sodium allowance.
As a precautionary measure, I glassed the nutritional information for each meal posted on the vending machine and Holy NaCl!!! These things had more salt in them than I’ve ever seen on a label of anything. A few of the prime offenders had 80% of your daily allowance of sodium; something on the order of 1,600 mg.
I didn’t wind up buying a Fresh Direct vending machine meal that day, nor do I intend to ever. Too much salt for this guy.
In fact, they ought to call these blood-pressure jacking machines Freshwich Direct.
During this Winter’s T Woods escapade, you might have heard the old guy, Tom Watson, bemoaning the lack of respect for the game of golf these days. But what about the lack of swagger in golf these days? Those guys are BO-ring.
Check out this photo of Greg Norman from 1976. Bowl-cut and all, he looks like a throrough badass.
I know the band recommendation I’m about to put forth won’t resonate with errrbody. The kind of music they make is basically disco, which as a musical chapter, is not remembered fondly and didn’t end very well.
Music Go Music is an ensemble, modern disco outfit helmed by the husband/wife duo behind the overlooked band Bodies of Water. They’ve created an entire backstory for the project, replete with fake names and a fake 70s TV show called Face Time. Here they are doing one of their songs live on the fake TV show Face Time.
I think they did a damn good job of recreating a sultry 70s vibe. Instrumentally they’re super put together and the guitarist is a total shredder. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hear a DJ spining this stuff soon, it’s great party music.
This Gucci Mane song (that I found via Pitchfork’s best songs of 2009 mix) reminds me of the really good, old Hot Boys stuff. As ludicrous is the song is, it’s kind of great.
Ski Ballet is kind of the overused tidbit that ski people invoke when trying to capture the ridiculous skiing zeitgeist of the mid to late 80s to early 90s. Thankfully, ski ballet didn’t stand a chance once skiing started to get cool again in the mid 90s. But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate it every now and again.
This clip is the best one I have ever seen. They fey man doing his routine looks like a truly tortured soul. Sort of the Marat Safin of ski ballet.
No, not Shaun White. Sadly, the Olympics are almost over. I’m talking about snow, baby. Once again, my predictions for an especially snowy winter are proving true. The western corridor of New England and parts of our fair state are going to get bombed on in the next 48 hours. Easily 12+ inches in many areas. Get your skis or board and go have a powwow.
Only Cuba Gooding junior, aka Cubastank, can capture this kind of winter anticipation:
I’ve been on a new freelance gig lately and have not had the free time, to which I’m accustomed, to populate this blog with necessary news nuggets. Apologies to my readers. Oh, I was also skiing for 10 or so days and didn’t spend much time at a computer. I did slay icy conditions from Colorado to Vermont, though (god damn el nino). I hope to have some video up very soon documenting it all.
In the mean time, I’d like to give a shout out to Shaun White–who definitely reads this blog–for completely manhandling the competition, like nothing I’ve ever seen, in the Men’s snowboard half pipe at the Olympics. And I’m glad to report that NBC announcers didn’t refer to Shaun as the “Great White,” like X Games’ Sal Masekela was doing a few weeks ago. I get it, he meant shark, but it’s a little too much grand wizard for my taste.
Sometimes, when it comes to the content on Medium Happiness, I feel like a nutritionally clueless/lazy parent who only feeds their child junk food. But then to make up for it, there are days like this one, when by chance some produce at the internet-news market catches my eye and I decide to go home and cook up some itellectually nutritious content.
Here it is. An amazing and also very sad story from the BBC. It’s sort of long so click below if you’d like to read it.
I’ve been known to turn my sanctimonious nose up when discussing reality TV with people who watch a lot of it. I can’t help but to think that they’re simultaneously rotting their brains and our culture. The people I know, like most people, watch the big shows: Biggest Loser, American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, Jersey Shore, The Hills… The list goes on and on.
The thing is, I don’t have any right to judge anyone if they choose to watch the same television shows that every third person in the US is also watching. Because the modicum of reality TV that I do watch (maybe 1 show at a time) is so bad it’s probably the equivalent of watching 20 different shows a week.
Here are a few of the reality shows I’ve regularly watched:
Salt N Pepa Show: Boring, irrelevant, boring. Ax Men: Boring, like Deadliest Catch (which is already boring) in a forest.
And now, my latest find is a the little show that could, Johnny Weir Be Good. The star, Johnny, is the self-proclaimed badboy of figure skating. The show works because contrary to Johnny’s subjective assessment, he’s not the badboy of anything. In fact, he’s a neurotic, sassy prince with a penchant for sequins and lace gloves who can skate his balls off.
Here’s a preview. In the words of Ferris Beuller, I Highly Recommend It.
Have you ever heard someone say that the kind of dog a person owns is an extension of their personality? Or, what about the expression, “That is so you.” The person who said it means that whatever material object it is you’re thinking about buying suits you.
Well, today, as I was browsing the trash recepticle of news that is CNN.com, I found out that inventors’ inventions are just extensions of their personalities.
Consider Einstein. He looks like he invented the idea of relativity. Ben Franklin and the bifocal? Ditto.
Here’s what I found on CNN.com that further proves the theory:
This is a photo of Doug Hines posing with his great invention, the world’s first talking sex robot. I’m sure when Doug unveiled Roxxxy (that’s her actual name) to his friends, they said, “Oh, Doug, it’s great. It’s so you, man.”
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