Not Easy Being Cheesy

Sorry for the long delay in-between postings. I’ve been off doing research for an essay I am writing, that I will eventually post on here, and sadly it’s slowed down my ability to write as much as I would like. My apologies.

What the hell is a bygone? The phrase “let bygones be bygones” is a weird one because no one ever uses the word bygone unless you are saying to let the bygone be bygone. Have you ever head someone say, “I remember the bygone time when you and I were driving a Chevrolet Impala and had the pull the car over because it was raining so hard.” Of course not. Very strange phenomenon. There must be other words that only get matched up with a certain phrase. If anyone can think of some, please let me know.

When I was kid, I thought a wheelbarrow was a wheelbarrel. Also, I thought it was “all intensive purposes” for a long time, before learning it was actually, “all intents and purposes.”

Ever notice on The Real World how all the cast members refer to their time on the show as an “experience.”

- I hope to learn a lot from this ‘experience.’
- I hope to meet an actual gay person or a minority during this ‘experience.’
- I hope I don’t catch an infectious STD during this ‘experience.’

Ryan and I were watching MTV’s Laguna Beach on Monday night … Remember that drinking game where you would watch a movie like Fargo, and every time someone in the movie said something like “oh, you betcha” or “yeaaah” you would have to do a shot? Well, if Ryan and I had been playing that game on Monday every time they said “hook-up” on Laguna Beach, we would both be at Denver General Hospital getting our stomachs pumped and suffering from alcohol poisoning right now. Seriously, we need to find a new phrase for hooking-up besides hooking-up. The phrase “hooking-up” is to teenagers what “fughetaboutit” is to gangsters.

Q: What’s better, a Lincoln or a Cadillac?
A: Both are hooked-up.

Q: Who’s hotter, Jessica Simpson or Scarlett Johansson?
A: I’d hook-up with both of them.

Q: What’s the weather suppose to like tomorrow?
A: I’ll hook-up with weather.com and check the forecast.

On Saturday I went to McDonalds to grab some good anti-hangover medicine in the name of a Big Mac combo. As I drove around the building towards the drive-thru, I pulled-up behind a fully-loaded red mini-van. And I don’t mean fully-loaded as in it had power windows, a sunroof and cruise control. I mean it was fully loaded with about 7 people. Right then, I knew I was in for a really long wait.

Is there a worse drive-thru feeling than being right behind a car that you know has a ridiculously large order that is going to take a long time to speak into the little drive-thru speaker, for the order-taker to actually get the order right, for the restaurant to make the food, give it to the waiting vehicle (always a few bags worth of food and a tray-full of drinks) and then have the car-load make sure they got all the right food and then ask for condiments, extra napkins and straws?

(Before anyone says anything, there was a bus-load of people inside the McDonalds, so going in to get my food and getting it to-go was not an option)

For those of you who have read The DiVinci Code, is anyone else a little uneasy about Tom Hanks being cast as Robert Langdon in Ron Howard’s upcoming movie? I love Tom Hanks as much as anyone – I still get mad that he didn’t win Best Actor for Saving Private Ryan and that blabbering idiot Roberto Benigni won for Life is Beautiful (who could forget that monumental performance? Somehow Roberto also beat Edward Norton in American History X?) – but I just didn’t see Tom Hanks in my mind when I visualized Robert Langdon. I hope Hanks proves me wrong because I am really looking forward to the film adaptation, and with his resume he definitely deserves the benefit of the doubt, but I still can't shake the skeptical feeling about his casting. It doesn’t help that Tom’s last two movies were The Terminal and Ladykillers, either.

(I just learned that Russell Crowe was considered for the role of Robert Langdon … my gut tells me that may have been a better choice – time will tell. Oh, and Paul Bettany of Beautiful Mind and Wimbledon fame was cast as the albino redhead, Silas! I definitely didn’t picture him in that role, but now I get to make, “tell him you’re the Holy Grail! Tell em’ you’re a genius, Robert,” jokes throughout the whole movie.)

One more thing about The DiVinci Code, I bet $100 right now that the movie will be 3+ hours in length.

Isn’t brushing your teeth after you have eaten Oreo cookies really, really disgusting? Seriously, does your toothbrush ever look grosser than after you have downed a half dozen Double-Stuff Oreo’s? I would be happy with my life’s legacy if I could somehow rid the world of nasty post-Oreo-eating toothbrushes and figure out a way for Cheetos to not leave that neon-orange residue on your fingers after eating a bag. I would wager that if the Cheeto-People included a moist towelette (like they do at KFC) that sales would increase 7-12%.

The Cheetoo-People don’t realize they are inadvertently limiting the times in my life when I can eat Cheetos. For instance, because of the neon-orange residue, I cannot eat Cheetos and operate a car. Why? Because you can’t get all that stuff off your fingers unless you wash your hands (and licking that stuff off your fingers is just wrong), and I am certainly not getting that gunk on the radio buttons, the climate control buttons or on the inner-thigh of the girl sitting next to me. So that eliminates Cheetos from road trips. You can’t eat Cheetos and read a book – you don’t want to leave orange stains on the pages. You can’t eat them at social events – no one wants to shake hands with Chester-the-Cheetah. You can’t commit a crime and eat Cheetos – can you imagine the CSI or Forensic File episode with a criminologist pulling Cheeto fingerprints from the scene of a crime? You can’t even work and eat Cheetos – who wants that orange crap all over their mouse and keyboard?

All of these problems could be easily eliminated with the inclusion of a moist towelette in every bag. The additional cost of including a moist towelette would be negated by the increased sales to people who can now eat Cheetos while having thumb-wars, giving full-body massages, playing cards, working in laboratories and of course on the Space Shuttle.

I really need to put in charge of Frito-Lay.