Starbugs

Welcome back faithful few! It has been a bit since I have put fingers to keyboard..but I am here to deliver on Arnold's promise...I'm back. As many of you know, I am an old school coffee kind of guy. Starbucks is not my friend..I don't do snob coffee. I can handle Dunkin Donuts and their Al Pacino commercials for Dunkaccino before I will consider letting an Italian Bartender make my cup of Joe. So what is it that brings me back? Is it to discuss Tim Tebow ordering a Virgin Mary from a bar in New York City? Is it Rex Ryan choosing his starting quarterback by how sexy his feet are? Is it the fact that the Prince of Tides was neither about Princes nor Tides? Nay nay...it is once again, Starbucks!

Starbucks apparently has a new menu item. Strawberry Frappuccino. You can order this item in small, medium, or large...(just don't try to order it that way...they don't respond to English). What you can't order this item without though...is bugs. Cochineal bugs to be precise. What the hell is a cochineal bug? You may be asking yourself. Well let your friend and humble narrator show you!

This little bugger is killed, dried out, and crushed to make a pretty red powder. This red powder is used a dye for things. It is also recognized by the World Health Organization to cause allergic reactions and asthma in humans. Starbucks is trying to get away from using artificial colors and ingredients in their beverages...so instead they give you insects in their coffee?? I will take my FD&C Red Number 5 over some poison covered beetle any day!

For those of you who feel the need to drink your 5 dollar coffees because they come in a fancy cup with your name written on it....knock yourselves out. For this guy, this is just one more check in the column of Dunkin Donuts. Carry on, my wayward children. Until next time...Stay Salty.

-Salty Dog

People Are People

Welcome back faithful few! I am sorry to disappoint, but I am not here today with a tirade. I was just cleaning around my computer room and I saw a picture of some friends and myself in front of the Naro Theater in Ghent. The majority of you reading have no idea what the Naro is, nor where in the hell Ghent is. Let me explain a little bit...The Naro Theater is a one screen movie theater with a stage and balcony. The performing group "Fishnet Inc." does a live rendition of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Naro 2-3 times a month. This is where the picture was taken.

When I look at the guys in this picture, it makes me think of the melting pot of friends and acquaintances I have come to acquire. One of them is gay, one of them weighs over 300 pounds, and one of them is a hillbilly. Now, if I were to further expand my collection of friends I would see that I have both gay and lesbian friends, Christian and Satanist friends, black and white friends, overweight and nearly anorexic friends, and old and young friends. I look back to high school...I had friends that were jocks, heads, preps, band geeks, nerds, closeted gays (it isn't like they could just be "out" in the late 80s in high school), and all other subclasses. This blog is for all of them (hell, there are many of those categories that I fall in as well....Satanist, overweight, geek, jock) and for me as well.

If you wear a XXL t-shirt or bigger, you are looked at like there is something wrong with you. If you believe that Jesus was something more than a character in a book (like Moby Dick) there are people who ridicule you. If you don't believe in Jesus at all, you are laughed at. If you are a guy that is attracted to other guys or a girl that is attracted to other girls you are called names, or beaten, and not afforded the rights of your heterosexual counterparts. If you speak with a Southern accent you are considered a redneck. If you speak with a Northern accent, you are considered a dumb Yankee. When we become adults, we find ways to deal with all of these issues. We shrug them off, we protest against the treatment, we hole up in our homes and shun the outside world...the list goes on.

In general, I could care less what people think about me. Let me qualify that statement. I don't care what people (who are not friends or family) think about me.I have told you all before that my friends and family are my life. I will do whatever I can to help them and keep them happy. Ignorant outsiders, I could give a shit. People that have issues with my friends (or me) for the way that they choose to live their life, or how they were born, or the things that they like (or don't like) drive me insane. I am not here to give them any of my time....I am here to tell my friends and family... The world will tell you who you are...until the point comes where you tell them.

I guess that is all I came here to say today. Just letting you all know that I am here, and I have heard you all when you have shown me your true colors. I accept all of you for who you are, just as you all accept me. Don't waste your time listening to the nay sayers...(just this here nay nay sayer). Don't let them tell you who you are....you tell them! Until next time...Stay Salty.

-Salty Dog

Flush, You Will

Welcome back faithful few! Hope your New Year has been going well, since it will be your last! That is if you believe in all of that 2012 garbage. For the rest of us...Happy Tuesday. What is it that brings me to you fine people today? Is it I cannot believe that the Republican candidate choices are a guy named Newt and another one named Mitt? Is it that I need you to sign a petition to get BJ and the Bear on Netflix? Is it that you got your chocolate in my peanut butter? Nay nay...I am here to ask what happened to public bathrooms.

Back in the day (which we all know was a Wednesday) a guy could go to a store or restaurant and use the bathroom. You walked in, did your business, flushed the toilet, turned on the hot water (because cold wouldn't get off whatever diseases were on the handles) then turn the paper towel roller twenty times to get a sheet of paper grocery bags to dry with. If, for some strange reason you had to do it, you used the crapper, you had that fancy piece of wax paper that was the shape of the toilet bowl seat. The one with the center piece that hung down in the water. When you completed that evolution, the process was the same; flush, wash, grocery bags. Try to find this setup now!

When entering the bathroom at one of the local eateries here, I sat down to give back the lunch that I had rented. Half way through my evolution, the toilet flushed! I guess I had reached the bowl's limit. In doing so, the water not only sprayed all over my arse, but shot up out of the toilet between my legs. While this is mildly disgusting, I continued my evolution. Upon completion, I turned to flush the toilet, but it flushed before I could even stand upright...again a tidal wave of shitter water. After leaving the commode, I went to wash my hands (and possibly the backs of my thighs) but there were no knobs on the sink. Most of you are thinking...well why don't you just put your hands under it and wait for the water? I know, right? That is exactly what I did...but no water. I was running my hands back and forth like I was DJ Jazzy Jeff on the ones and twos...to no avail. I could only assume that this was a special Jedi bathroom...and my midichlorion levels were very low that day.

Being the smart guy that I am, I checked the water valve and lo and behold...it was turned off. Was there a motion sensor that made the valve turn on? Nay nay..plain old, tried and true knob. I turn the water on that proceed to wet my hands. I then look for the soap dispenser. It is hanging on the wall, but there is no button to push to get soap. I waved my hand beneath it and told it these weren't the hands he was looking for. Magically, the soap appeared in my hands. By this time, the water had stopped running, so I had to coax the water back out of the faucet. Finally, time to get some paper bags to dry my hands with...same thing, stupid motion sensor. So instead of a sheet or two to dry with, I am greeted by 4 feet of brown grocery bag. I reach up to pull it off and another 4 feet shoots out! I finally exit the bathroom (although this time, there was no sensor to open the door for me) and continue with my day.

I am all for modernization. Work smarter, not harder. But when it comes to dropping the kids off at the pool...taking the Browns to the Super Bowl...releasing the chocolate hostages...whatever you want to call it.....we all learned the procedure looooong ago. Stop screwing with simple things and get me my flying car from the Jetsons already! Until next time....Stay Salty.

-Salty Dog