Newsflash: You’re Fat Because…

…you’ve made certain choices in your life.

Now, before I go on here, I’m going to exclude all those of you out there who have legitimate medical reasons for being overweight from the following discussion – there’s no reason to feel bad about your body if there’s nothing you could/can do to stop your [insert malfunctioning body part here] from making you extra-large.

Everyone else… well, you’re exactly who I’m talking to.

When you wake up every morning and look yourself in the mirror, do you loathe what you see because your body is statistically extra-large?

Guess what got you there?

You don’t know? Or, do you think you do know?

As a blogger that is always trying to be helpful, I will explain to you why you’re fat in terms that I hope you understand – but it’s going to take a very healthy dose of reality checking and honesty with yourself.

Also, this blog is somewhat aimed also at the Sally DoGooders who live in the proverbial land of milk and honey – the United States Of America – who are taking it upon themselves to sue every purveyor of delicious food in the public retail spaces of malls, plazas, and corner shops all across the land.

First, let me get straight to the facts of the matter… the complete and total truth, no matter who might want to argue:

1. McDonald’s hasn’t made one single human on this planet fat.

2. Burger King isn’t responsible for making your neighbor chubby.

3. Wendy’s had no part making that guy at work rotund around his middle section.

4. Hostess – the maker of the venerable Twinkie – can not be held accountable for shut-in video gamers being so big that they have to wear a muumuu around the house.

5. Little Debbie is not at fault for your Type II diabetes.

6. Neither Coca-Cola or Pepsi (and their Frito Lay snacks division) is on the hook for your massive stored energy deposits.

7. Hershey’s is not answerable for your pudgy fingers.

8. And finally, the local movie theater is not to blame for your adding a melted stick of butter to your popcorn.

Wait… how can that be?

You hear every day on the news that So And So is suing these companies for making people fat… so surely there is some merit to what they’re paying public interest law firms to make a case for… right?

No.

Not a single claim by these people can be born out in a court of law without the court itself being corrupted by social shortsightedness.

See this guy here?

Not a single corporate employee or company policy is responsible for him being a fat tub of lard – and let’s be honest: he most likely doesn’t have a thyroid issue.

Nope… he’s fat because of what he’s doing in the photo i.e. stuffing his face with food that has very little (or completely zero) nutritional benefit.

As much as society would seek an easy scapegoat for it’s rising number of obesity cases, there is not a single person to blame but himself.

Look at that photo very carefully.

Do you see anybody forcing him to chow down on that massive burger? Is there a representative from The Burger Shack holding his family at gunpoint, promising him that they’ll be released without harm as soon as he consumes all those fats and carbs?

No.

Chubby McFatass there is using his own, God-given free will to consume that sandwich.

So tell me – please – why The Burger Shack, McDonald’s, or Little Debbie should be held accountable for the choices that YOU make?

Yes… the retailers make products that you feel compelled to eat – either for their taste or their affordability or both – whenever hunger strikes you, but in no way are you mandated by law to consume their wares.

You, the consumer, have every bit as much power to consume a bowl of fruit salad as you do eat a box of Chicken McNuggets and a side of delicious McDonald’s french fries.

The fact that you opt for the Mickey’s fare is completely on you.

Television advertising makes you eat it? Hmmm…. okay – let’s look at that.

Pundits would say that the commercials you see on TV up to 100x a day have brainwashed you into being constantly wanting fast food or the kind of junk offerings you find at the neighborhood convenience store.

I suppose this could be held out to be true… if there wasn’t a whole lot of other crap on TV that’s being marketed directly to you that you blissfully ignore: how many of you out there order everything you see in infomercials?

Raise your hand if you’ve compulsively ordered the Snuggie For Pets? C’mon… it’s only $9.99! Who can resist that kind of deal?

Or… how many of you ran out and bought that Head On headache reliever? You know… the stuff you apply directly to the forehead?

I’m going to wager not a lot of you did either of those things because you were smart enough to realize the products were pure crap – choosing not to waste money and hurt your pocketbook by being stupid.

Yet… you CHOOSE to eat vast amounts of fast food that you know are pure crap and are going to hurt your body in the long run.

Why is there such a disconnect between choice and result?

There is nothing simpler than what’s going on here: it’s cause and effect – one of the most basic scientific concepts.

You do one thing and you get the predicted effect – in this case, you stuff an entire 12-inch pizza in your face in a single sitting which causes the effect of you gaining a few pounds.

Of course, this is assuming you’re not a professional athlete like Michael Phelps that consumes massive amounts of calories to fuel their workout routine.

Which is the backside to this issue: your buttocks take up two seats on the airplane because you refuse to do to the physical exercise required to burn off all of those calories you consume.

You’re choosing in your life to eat a Double Big Mac, large fries, large Coke, and two apple pies – without also choosing to engage in the physical exertion necessary to scrub all of those calories and saturated fats out of your system… which leaves your body no choice at all but to store those things as fat around your middle/butt/legs/arms/neck/chin.

Sure, there are pharmaceutical alternatives to exercise… substances that will make your body burn calories at an accelerated rate, but they are no substitute for using your own muscles to naturally do what that pill does nowhere as efficiently.

And yes… there are radical surgical procedures to physically limit how much food you can eat.

But why?

Why take these pills? Why go under the surgeon’s knife?

When you can simply CHOOSE to not eat these things in such great amounts that you become the size of a small Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon?

Society needs to give it’s collective head a shake and stop trying to blame others for our choices in life.

You can not sue Burger King for your own laziness.

The fat guy you see mowing his lawn – wearing shorts and a wife beater tank top – can’t seek damages from Dairy Queen because he can’t be bothered to get on an exercise bike.

In closing, let me make this abundantly clear, in case you are still confused:

Nobody other than you can blamed.

So stop trying to take kid’s Happy Meal toys away because you think they’re what cause childhood obesity – it’s the parent’s choice to buy them the little box of fats and carbs and then let the child sit around the house all day playing video games instead of running around outside for 20 minutes.

Take some fucking responsibility for your actions in life, and leave people alone who are trying to make an honest buck.

Dear Fast Food Retailers: An Open Letter

How are you?

Everything good? Money’s okay and everything?

Great to hear it.

Your fiscal health is very important to us… your valued customers.

Remember us? How we give you money for food and the occasional toy/promotional item?

You know why we do that?

There are three reasons why we go to you and buy Big Macs by the billions – or millions and millions of Whoppers – and the golden brown french fries that go with them… oh and the drinks, pies, shakes, sundaes, or whatever the hell else we want in our meals.

Reason Number One: Your food tastes good… and you know that.

Every food item on your menu is designed, engineered, focus grouped, and test marketed solidly until you’re completely sure about that product’s cost vs. income future. (Well, Arch Deluxe and McPizzas aside).

Reason Number Two: It’s convenient.

Sometimes we’re just too busy with our lives to go all the way home and cook up a meal, or we’re just too lazy, or we feel like treating ourselves to a cooking-free meal, or any combination of the above.

Reason Number Three: It’s food we can’t have at home.

Sure… any dumbass can go down to the grocery store and buy hamburger patties, buns, condiments, a bag of frozen french fries, and a bottle of Coke, and take them home to form the basis of a meal – but it’s not going to taste as good as your Big Mac, Whopper, Baconator, or Flamethrower Burger.

We just don’t have the resources and time it takes to formulate the right combination of ingredients, spices, and preservatives to match your delicious wares.

It would be incredibly easy for you, McDonald’s, to team up with a company like Con-Agra or McCain’s to release a frozen, take home version of your french fries and even charge a marginal premium over and above what you’d make selling the same fries in one of your franchise locations – but that would make the masses have less of a craving for your beef-tallowed and special salted offerings at the local Golden Arches.

Or maybe you, Pizza Hut, could team up with the Pillsbury Dough Boy or Nestle’s Delissio Division and devise a pizza that we could come home and toss in the oven?

Maybe the ghost of Colonel Saunders would haunt the product research department over at Kraft’s Shake N’ Bake division?

No… no… no.

These things won’t happen because you want to protect your point of sale… controlled by ill-educated high school girls at computerized checkout terminals so that we have greater options, especially enforced by “Do you want fries with that?”

We as the fast food consuming public never begrudge you this… as you can tell by every purchase of an $8 ‘value’ meal.

Even when you spread out into such ‘healthy choice’ options as chicken salads and low-carb wraps – ostensibly to care for our well-being, and we’re touched that you care about us so deeply.

However…

We have to draw the line at oatmeal.

Yes… you read that correctly: oatmeal.

Stuff we have zero problem obtaining in our daily lives.

Most of us have a half-used box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal in a cupboard somewhere, our a bag of Quick Oats that can be thrown in a pot on the stove if we’re feeling so industrious as to slow cook our breakfast.

Some of us might actually like Cream Of Wheat as well… but don’t get the idea that we’ll pay for that gruel.

We honestly want to know where you get off trying to sell to us for three dollars that we can have at home for something like thirty-five cents per single-serve portion?

You put berries or other fruit in it?

Oh my goodness! Where, oh where could we get these berries and other fruits?!?!

Surely there is no other store in our neighborhood that would sell us these things in bulk… so where else could we get oatmeal with fruit in it other than the Tim Horton’s or McDonald’s just a short drive from our homes?

Why… you’ve surely developed a product that can’t be matched!

***sigh***

Honestly… what the hell are you thinking?

It’s oatmeal.

Plain, ordinary, run of the milled oats OATMEAL.

The only way that this makes sense is that the oatmeal itself is ridiculously cheap, and so easily prepared in factory machines that the profit margins are high enough to justify it’s niche status on your breakfast menu.

Who is the customer you’re marketing oatmeal at?

Old people? Rushed business types? Health Hippies? Ironic hipsters?

Your bread and butter customers want NOTHING to do with something so completely ordinary and lowly as oatmeal.

Let me repeat this unless you weren’t paying attention earlier: we can go home and have oatmeal… that we bought at a store… put in a microwave… in our home.

Please, for the love of whatever gods you believe in, stop sullying yourself in attempts to both make money and pander to whatever crowd you think is going to buy this crap.

It doesn’t suit you, Ronald… Timmy… and whomever else wants to follow suit.

We as your adoring fans expect more from you.

Now… with that said… pass the McMuffins/Crescent Sandwiches.

Yours truly,

The Public.

Product Placement Blog: The McMini

I’ve yet to try one of these as they’re not out in Ontario until March 30th.

However, word is good from other areas of Canada that has had them for a while already.

The limiting factor here is that they only come in Pesto or Thai – however, I’m sure that you can customize the hell out of them with various McD toppings.

The small size and $1.99 price point makes them for a perfect on-the-go snack if you’re out and need a protein/carb boost.

I may be on a diet, but I’m not dead!

Video Blog: OH MY GOD! MAKE IT STOP!

Pray to whatever God or Gods that you believe in that you will never have to watch this again.

Things That I Don’t Understand… Vol. 2

So here again I go… down that smokey, crater-pocked, ranting road – bringing nonsense and jibber-jabber out into the bright sunlight where one would expect it to shrivel up and die like so many witches who have had houses dropped on them.

But no.

These items will go on, almost like a ballad by Celine Dion, and continue to curse society as a whole for God only knows how long.

Oh well…

On with the show!

ITEM NUMBER SEVEN

Violence perpetrated by young girls.

Where did this come from?

Back in the day, girls were supposed to be the fairer sex – not the one that will shank you with a pair of scissors for talking trash on Facebook.

What is the source of this simmering anger in today’s generations of teens? Who is causing this?

Is this a product of the generational battle for women’s equality?

Is it some bizarro manifestation of penis envy?

Have girls come to the realization that the only way that they can top their male classmates physically is to go bat-shit crazy at the drop of a hat in ways that most guys would never consider?

Young men are often perplexed because they don’t know how to react if a girl gets violent with them because – despite outward appearances – boys still adhere to the ages-old mantra that females are delicate and therefor not to be roughed up.

I say screw that!

Boys, if you’re reading this, fight back!

If a girl thinks her pants are big enough to take a swing at you, and it connects, feel free to slug her back.

Equality for women works both ways – not just the positive things like bigger paychecks.

It means equal treatment, and equal treatment means that they can get a whole hearted return on all their actions – they should be perfectly ready to take any bruises that they have coming to them as a result of things they’ve done.

Call me a brutish caveman if you like, but fair is fair.

ITEM NUMBER EIGHT

12 year old girls that have cleavage that would put Barbie to shame.

Twenty-two years ago, when I was 12 years old, my female peers were flat as a lumpy board for the most part.

What is the process behind this gender acceleration?

Is it the metric tonne of growth hormone that preteens have consumed by the time puberty rolls around through various foodstuffs?

Every piece of meat… every glass of  milk… every single item that we put in our mouths that came from an animal is loaded with growth hormones – drugs that are fed to cow, pigs, and chickens to speed up their maturation so that they can be slaughtered, be milked, or lay eggs faster and be more profitable.

Society in general sees sexual activity statistics of the very young and shake their heads without taking into account that little Krystina isn’t so little anymore and is giving J-Lo and Shakira a serious run for their money.

It’s a biological certainty – hardwired into human DNA – that once girls develop the equipment, they feel the need to employ it.

All they have to do is find a male who’s reached an equivalent state of sexual maturity – and I can only presume that the genders are on equal footing since they all eat the same food.

As Sherlock Holmes would say, it’s elementary.

If you parents want to put that sexual genie back in the bottle, demand that the food you buy is organic and not modified by big corporations for a faster buck.

Assuming that this trend hasn’t already bound itself it to our DNA, the 38DD 12 year olds should thin out over time.

ITEM NUMBER NINE

Virtual copies that you never actually own.

There’s a push amongst the tech savvy to get rid of hard copies of DVDs/Blu-Ray discs/CDs in favor of virtual copies that you purchase online from Amazon or iTunes that will ‘always be there’ for you to stream whenever you feel like it.

How does this even make sense?

Do you not understand how fragile corporations are?

What happens to that $20 investment if the company you ‘purchased’ it from goes tits up?

Your movie, TV shows, music, or book will go bye-bye and you’ll have zero to show for your money.

This may seem like an odd argument coming from me – someone who likes to stay somewhere near the cutting edge of technology – but it’s firmly rooted in reality.

Have you ever experienced a service outage from an online business that you rely on?

YouTube is down for maintenance?

Getting the Fail Whale page over at Twitter?

Your internet service provider is having a bad day?

Your copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 isn’t working because Ubisoft’s  DRM servers are offline – making it so you can’t play the game you just paid $60 dollars for?

How is it even sane to trust an online company to keep your precious purchase for posterity?

Are you frakkin’ kidding me?

Hollywood, I demand that you keep pumping out hard copies of your entertainment products so that I can always access the media at any second of my life that I wish to enjoy it.

I take pride in looking at my shelf of DVDs, visually confirming at a glance that I spent my money wisely on things that I enjoy.

I don’t think that I have to explain the tactile joy of holding something that you just spent money on – a self-justification that you’re living a life that you that you’ve worked hard at.

Online digital copies are abstract thoughts – ephemeral by their very digital nature, nothing but a series of ones and zeroes residing on a server thousands of kilometers from where you live.

You don’t own it.

All you’ve done is paid someone for the privilege of maybe looking at that media item if all the various techno gods are smiling on you today.

Fuck that.

ITEM NUMBER TEN

Spending ridiculous amounts of money on your child’s first birthday party.

You do realize that 1 year old Bobby Junior is going to have zero recollection of the event, right?

I mean, other than the cute/embarrassing photos that you will take of his face covered in chocolate ice cream cake.

Exactly what are you trying to prove?

Do you think that the number of balloons, quality of the hired entertainment, and size of the cake and goody bags is somehow relevant to the amount that you love your child?

Is how much you love your offspring measured in dollars and cents?

Of course not – unless it is… in which case you really need to get yourself some therapy and perhaps give your child up for adoption.

No… the only reason you make such a big deal of his or her turning the ripe old age of 1 is so that you can stake out your position in the social hierarchy of your circle of friends and acquaintances – and not for any valid emotional experience between your and your child.

Let’s be honest here: the party is going to emotionally overwhelm little Bobby/Sally as they simply don’t yet have the faculties to process the information overload that’s on offer.

The parents that do go to these insane lengths wonder to themselves why their child – in more cases than not – is in a rotten mood and making such a fuss amongst all the faux revelry.

Do yourself a huge favor if you have a child who is going to complete their first year on this planet of ours: buy or make a cupcake and stick a candle in it – maybe even a sparkler if you want to go for some wow-factor.

Chances are that it’s going to be 1000% more of an genuine emotional bonding experience with your baby than the three-ring circus happening at the birthday party down the block.

And really… isn’t that what you want?

Product Placement Blog: Cadbury Snack Cakes

Epic snacks are epic!

Advertising Blog: Gruesome Violence!!!

Shocking!

Product Placement Blog: Cadbury Moments – Deliciously Dark

What’s this?

Stormcastle’s favorite chocolate bar, that’s what!

Seriously… I’ll whore my blog out for some of these, LOL.

How’s that for journalistic integrity?

Christmas is coming up… so now you know what to put in my stocking, Santa!

Things That I Don’t Understand…

Today’s sermon from the pulpit is about understanding.

In this case, the lack thereof.

There are  many things in this world that I think I have a real good grasp of, and there are many other things that I know of in passing.

But sometimes I’m confronted with things that my brain (such as it is) cannot comprehend – in fact, if someone tried to explain them to me, I’m pretty sure that I’d mistake them for speaking Swahili with a touch of Polish.

I fully admit that this is through my own ignorance – which is probably incurable at this stage in my life.

For those who want to look down their noses at me for the following, please harken back to a simpler time in the golden age of cinema to the immortal words of Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Shall we get on with it?

ITEM NUMBER ONE

People who wear their watches on the inside of their wrists.

What is that all about?

Isn’t that a sure-fire way to guarantee your watch get’s scuffed up as it’s constantly rubbing against your clothes or things you’re carrying under your arm?

Also, it defeats the purpose of wearing a nice watch since nobody can see it.

Are you expecting people to compliment you on your outstanding choice in watch bands? “Hey, Frank! I admire your choice in stainless steel wrist bands. You should definitely see me after closing about a raise.”

Does this stem somehow from your being to lazy to turn your arm 45 degrees so you can tell the time?

I have no idea why this bothers me so much, but it does.

It’s just damn odd.

ITEM NUMBER TWO

Why do parents insist on bringing their screaming children to a store with them?

Are they so blissfully ignorant of their child’s wants/needs/tantrums that they don’t actually register the cacophony escaping little Jimmy Junior’s yap?

Do they simply not give a rat’s ass? Either about their child or the shoppers 20 aisles over that have to listen to the screaming?

Is it simply a symptom of parents being afraid of disciplining their children lest the Children’s Aid Society come and take their child away from them? (If this is the case, I find it on the whole unacceptable that a public bureaucracy has become such a boogeyman to society on the whole.)

If I had carried on like some of these kids do while my parents were in a store/restaurant/other public place, I would have for certain gotten a thump on the head – what us older people commonly refer to as a “brain duster” – for my effort.

Now, before you say it, I’m well aware that it’s hard to discipline a toddler or someone younger – and I’m not suggesting you apply the above method at all.

However… I am saying you should have the common courtesy of taking your child out of the store until she or he calms down.

Why is it that we have learned to tolerate ignorant people? It wasn’t so long ago that people would cluck their tongues and shake their head in an obvious manner as to let the parent know that they were being a major nuisance – or a store employee would politely ask you to step outside with your child.

I think store owners are just too afraid of being sued in this day and age for even suggesting something like that.

Which means the rest of us have to suffer as a result – at least until decency becomes trendy again.

Trust me… I’m not holding my breath.

ITEM NUMBER THREE

The machinations of the ice cream industry puzzle me to no end.

Can someone please tell me the difference between ice cream and frozen dessert? Especially since they’re  both packaged and marketed in the exact same way?

Ice cream comes in a 2 liter tub.

Frozen dessert comes in a 2 liter tub.

Both come in a cavalcade of assorted flavors.

Both are made from milk.

Both taste the same to me.

So what the hell is the difference?

Also… why has the price of store-purchased ice cream gone up by a margin of 100% in the past 3 years or so?

Are cows more expensive lately? Has the cost of feeding them skyrocketed?

Has the ice cream market chilled out to the point where they have to charge twice as much to make up for the fact that they’re making half the sales that they used to? (Yes… I’m discounting the circular logic that people are buying less ice cream since it’s more expensive.)

How has the price of ice cream at Dairy Queen or McDonald’s not followed suit? Ice cream at these stores has generally stayed the same with an allowance for inflation.

Why does it cost me $7 dollars to buy a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream when it used to cost $3.50 only 3 short years ago?

Seriously.

What the hell?

ITEM NUMBER FOUR

Non-Alcoholic Beer.

What’s the purpose?

Does beer taste so great that you’re willing to forgo the actual reason for drinking beer in the first place?

Is this a product to make people who can’t handle alcohol look cool to their peers by supporting a popular beer brand?

If you’re a recovering alcoholic and purchasing this fake beer, doesn’t that make you masochistic?

ITEM NUMBER FIVE

People who bring large baby carriages onto public buses.

If two people do this, it remove six seats from the seating pool since they will flip up the two 3-person benches at the very front of the bus in order to park their carriages.

A) That seating is for the elderly, pregnant, and otherwise infirm populace.

B) It eliminates seating on already packed bus routes.

C) It creates difficult bottle-necking when it comes to getting on and off the bus.

When this situation occurs on a heavily utilized route, the bus ends up looking like a train in India.

When you think of it in civic terms, this is clearly a public safety issue, so why aren’t there firm policies in place to exclude this situation from happening?

ITEM NUMBER SIX

Finally, given the time of year it is, I ask this?

Why do TV networks pull new shows after like 3 episodes?

In this day and age, television shows are thoroughly tested with potential audiences for weeks (sometimes months) before being put on the airwaves for the mainstream public to consume.

This normally happens when they stupidly put their new show – which they’ve touted as the next best thing – against a ratings powerhouse like American Idol or Dancing With The Stars which have their own firmly entrenched fanbases which aren’t likely to switch to something unknown.

I understand the mechanics: poorly performing shows don’t pull in eyeballs to the advertiser’s commercials – which are what pay for network programming.

Instead of shifting a program around on the schedule to compete against something really weak – say, I don’t know, America’s Funniest Home Videos or some tripe like that – they just pull it off the air without trying  to foster audience growth which could lead to a bigger audience share for the network.

This happens to a lot of top-notch programming and is the major force behind the trend that results in pure crap Monday to Friday.

The best example I can think of in recent history was NBC’s short-lived Journeyman which built up a decent fanbase who were on the internet being quite vocal about their adoration of the program and the philosophical debates it inspired.

Though, I must admit, NBC did give the show a fair shake and allowed it to end somewhat on it’s own terms  with 13 epsiodes – which completely bucks the trend.

3 or 4 episodes tops! That’s all you get!

Unless your show is on Fox.

If it’s Fox, you’ll notice the inverse of this problem.

Successful shows are moved to days where nobody watches TV i.e. Friday night, and the shows that appeal to the lowest possible denominator move into the vacuum that’s left behind.

In case anyone missed it, Fringe has started that march to the TV Death Slot.

The show was on Wednesday with a solid American Idol lead-in last season, and now will be found on Thursday opposite CBS powerhouse C.S.I. and the like.

Watch it move to Friday at the mid-season point.

Then again, it IS Fox. It’s hatred for the television format is universal.