afterglide

For your safety

2012-05-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

A scene from the latest Viagra commercial

2012-02-25T22:25:00.001-06:00

Smoking the bowl

2012-02-17T19:03:00.000-06:00

Longtime readers will recall the ongoing struggles we've had over the years with inconsiderate poopers dirtying the workplace toilets and environs with assorted human filth. Whether it's somehow managing to make the stall appear as though a fight with ass peanut-filled pillows had taken place or coating the bowl and underside of the seat with high velocity, omnidirectional blowback, walking into the infamous Stall Two can be a literal shit show.

Though our company isn't tiny, it's small enough that through careful observation of coworkers' digestive schedules and dietary habits, ultimately those dirty of ass and devoid of consideration for others are identified. It may take months, perhaps even years, but you will be found, publicly shamed, and permanently barred from using any toilet closer than the truckstop by the freeway.

Today I discovered the identity of the hedgehog who has been littering the toilet seat with a sea of curly ass hair and toasty poop crumbs. Through pure coincidence, I walked into the mens room just as he was exiting the stall. Normally I would never follow someone's opening act and sit on a warm toilet seat, but the other bathrooms in the building were occupied, and I was already crowning. As he washed his hands, I walked into the stall to find the seat looking like the floor of a hamster barber shop. I felt like turning around and yelling, "My God, man! Did you shave a fucking chihuahua in here?" I made a passive aggressive show of spraying the whole mess down with Lysol before I closed the door, wiped the seat down, and caked it with 4 rolls of extra chalky discount warehouse toilet paper before I sat down to unload.

The hedgehog, however, is the least of my worries these days. The particularly vexing mystery shitter has been the anonymous soul who has somehow managed to coat the bowl above the water line, all the way up to and including the inside of the rim, with solid chunks of spattered cake balls that no amount of water alone will wash away (trust me, I've tried urinating these chunks away with all of the pressure I could muster, to no avail). This is not your typical shit-through-a-screen-door cloudy ass water. These are dollups of solid shit ranging in size from pushpin head, all the way up to a smashed Peanut M&M found on the bottom of your shoe.

Though this fecal blunderbussing is disturbing enough, what's more unsettling is the lone quarter-sized wad of poo that intermittently appears on the back of the rim, immediately beneath the seat. How is this even possible? Perhaps he is touching his toes whilst shitting or sitting on the throne backwards, leaning back, and renacting the chair scene from Flashdance. But the most likely theory involves the poor, fiber-starved chap halfway through squeezing out a cheese grater-textured gorilla fist. Suddenly he finally gets three stars on the last level of Angry Birds, drops his phone on the floor admist the excitement, and leans forward to retrieve it. The lever action of his body raises the femur-straight log, rippling with musculature and self-awareness, to kiss the rim gently, leaving a minature unfrosted cupcake clinging to the porcelain with the power of Fixodent and strong nuclear force.

Until we catch this ill-mannered artist-in-residence Bob Rossing the commode with happy little brown trees, we will take shifts surveilling the mens room, lingering far too long after we pee, and stopping random office mates to make desperately contrived conversation in the hallway within view of the bathroom door. Take care out there, people. Wear your vest and keep your safety off.

CES 2012 Preview: Life Alert for Heirs

2012-01-06T16:26:00.001-06:00

While most of the buzz around the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas centers around the latest smart phones, touchscreen pads, and 3D televisions, a surprise entrant in this year's fray is Life Alert. Life Alert is most famous for its commercials featuring frail pensioners flailing about on the floor, woodenly wailing "Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!" For nearly 25 years, the company's bread and butter has been selling products and services geared toward the health and safety of senior citizens. However, jumping into a market apparently spawned by the economic downturn of recent years, Life Alert will soon sell a service aimed toward children and grandchildren of the elderly teetering on the brink of poor health and mobility.

The equipment for the new service, dubbed Life Alert for Heirs, looks identical to the current incarnation, but the system does not contact an ambulance or fire department when the button on the pendant is pressed. Instead, it will play a message previously recorded by one of the ailing elder's heirs. In the promotional video shown to reporters this morning, a thin white-haired senior writhed on her kitchen floor in pain. In response to her button press, the system barked in the tinny, digitized voice of a husky sounding man. "Hello, Grandma. This is David. Sorry to do this, but this system won't contact emergency services until you agree to sign over your power of attorney and assets to me. To approve this, simply press your pendant button three times in a row. Per your contract with Life Alert, this will act as a legally binding electronic signature. Once this signal is received, emergency services will be contacted. Love you, Grandma!" Less expensive versions of the system will simply make passive note of the emergency request and send no help.

The Heavy Vending Machine: Cram It Up Your Arizona

2011-11-08T15:38:00.000-06:00

Though I've already reviewed and long since shat out a "locally" produced fish sandwich, the colorful packaging and gargantuan size of this offering of compressed whitefish and gluten was too much to resist. The BIG AZ line of vending machine foods comes from our old friends at Pierre Foods. I don't know if the AZ is a reference to a large Arizona or supposed to be pronounced "AZZ," as in, "Damn, that girl got some BIG AZ titties! Ima smack 'em with my cod and squirt tartar sauce on 'em." Either way, your "AZ" will be quite large if you make so much as a semi-regular habit of eating these.

The BIG AZ's mammoth sesame seed-covered bun is dwarfed only by the unwieldy, elongated triangle of breaded Alaskan pollock draped in cheese. The shape and arrangement of the patty and cheese, perhaps by no coincidence, is reminiscient of a somberly folded American flag handed to the grieving family of a soldier, who was killed in action by being forced to eat one of these sandwiches by the enemy. Those sick fucking terrorist bastards!

The sandwich's microwave cooking instructions indicated it should be cooked from a thawed state for 2 minutes. If it's frozen, it should be thawed in a refrigerator overnight. So if you are picking these out of the deep freeze and can patiently await the gentle tug of babbling, non-violent diarrhea (this diarrhea is more about protest songs at Occupy Toilet than turning over cars and lighting them on fire), this is the vending machine fish sandwich for you.

Unlike myriad previous microwaved sandwiches, the bread on the BIG AZ didn't turn completely soggy after 2 minutes of irradiation. In fact, the bread was oddly chewy. It wasn't offputting, but not particularly appetizing either. The fish itself, was surprisingly bland, though it didn't suffer from the dry, gritty texture of the last fish sandwich I reviewed here. This one could have been improved by following the example of its predecessor and including a tartar sauce packet. It still would have been a shitty sandwich out of a vending machine, but it would have been enough of a distraction to stop my crying, even if just for a moment.

Product: BIG AZ fish and cheese sandwich
Price Paid: $2.25
Availability: Inside vending machines and dryer lint traps everywhere
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars (.5 given for the patriotic shape of the fish and Lee Greenwood single that played with each bite)
Harassment Factor: 19.7 on the Cain-Berlusconi scale

Hey ya'll!

2011-06-21T14:43:00.000-05:00

Make way for 5k race day the Illinois way

2011-06-16T22:23:00.002-05:00

Last winter I got back on the (relatively) hardcore running horse after a difficult several months of agonizing paint and stiffness directly resulting from a surprisingly horrific tumble I took in February of 2010. The full details of that fall, by the way, are in another story I am long overdue in posting here, but one thing at a time. The fall wrenched my neck at a grisly angle, completely destroying what little poor spinal alignment I had left. At the time, I was more focused on the head injury, and it wasn't until months later that I realized just how badly it had thrown the rest of my body out of whack. Late in the summer, I tried to start running, taking baby steps by starting with the treadmill. It was impossible to make much progress, however, as I would run barely a mile before my legs began to throb, and one of my hips clicked and popped like a music box with the tines broken off. I would walk as much as I could, but after about 20 minutes, I had to give in to the excruciating pain. After a decade of considering myself a runner, this was a frustrating feeling of defeat.

In September, I had picked up a couple of smaller projects leftover from the house remodel, including replacing the closet doors in the master bedroom. Instead of buying cheap, shitty doors at Home Depot, I was inspired by a website selling custom closet doors to build my own. More accurately, the fact that the website was charging about $1,500 per set of doors was an inspiration for me to say, "Fuck that, I can totally build those myself!" Defiantly, I bought the necessary tools and assembled the first set for about $160 in materials. Near the end, however, the constant kneeling, crouching, and bending over to work on the door frames took their toll on my already weakened back, and I completely threw it out while picking up a bolt of canvas. Seriously. My back was completely seized, and I was barely able to walk for a couple of days, forcing me to call in sick to work. Even when I was back on my feet, it took me nearly a week before I could move without pain or near misses in seizing it up anew. I was 34 and felt like I was 64.

When October rolled around, I took a long-planned trip to Chicago to visit Jen and Rich. Unfortunately a weekend of fun and relaxation turned into a slightly less fun weekend when on Saturday morning, I threw my back out even worse than before. My mistake this time? Bending over slightly to adjust the water temperature for the shower. There I was, as naked as a congressman's cock on Twitter, frozen in place by horrid pain. There were a few moments when I thought I was going to have to call poor Rich in to help me out. What he could have done, I don't know. Cry at the sight my hairy bent-over man ass and throw a blanket over me? "Best of luck, Jeremy. My only regret is that I only have this very loosely knit afghan and not a thick wool blanket or blackout curtain. You'll be ok if I turn the light off, won't you? No sense wasting electricity. Oh, and I'll close the door, too. The dogs have your scent, and it looks like you had a difficult time wiping. See you when I get home." Thankfully, it didn't come to that, and I was able to hobble around after a warm bath (incidentally, I now know that a warm bath or heating pad is NOT recommended in that situation - ice that shit down!)

On Sunday, I awoke around 6:30 am and attempted to get out of bed to use the bathroom across the hall. I was staying in the bedroom of Rich's son, who was out of town that weekend. Not helping my back situation was the fact that this bed had a rather poor mattress (which they have since replaced out of mercy for all involved, not the least of whom, Rich's son), and was on a frame that comes up to my ribcage. So I rolled over to get out of bed and threw my back out yet again. This time was a killer. I couldn't so much as roll over without my back completely seizing up or trembling in a manner that threatened to. I was stuck but good. Without exaggeration, I spent the next 45 minutes desperately, yet slowly and gingerly finding a way to maneuver myself out of that bed. Finally I had my feet hanging over the edge and had to bite the bullet and throw myself to the floor. Of course, my back seized up all over again, and it took me another 15 minutes to straighten up enough to hobble to the door. After using the bathroom, I spent the next hour pacing their living room, sitting, standing, stretching (if you could even call it that), and otherwise trying to work out the kinks so I could walk. An acquaintance of Rich who worked for Google had invited us to a tailgating party and the Bears vs Seahawks game at Soldier Field, and I was god damned if I was going to miss out on an opportunity like that (admittedly I was more excited about the prospect of seeing what kind of crazy-ass shindig Google threw than the game, and their giant RV full of booze did not disappoint). In the end, I was able to hobble my way through the rest of the day, but it was crystal clear to me that professional medical intervention was necessary.

For months, seeing me hobble around in various states of discomfort, my coworker Jameson had relentlessly tried to convince me to see his chiropractor. It wasn't that I didn't think it would help, I simply kept procrastinating in calling her. No more. The day after I returned from Chicago, I called and made an appointment. Dr. Nicole, as she goes by, was working temporarily out of a basement in a residential neighborhood in Burnsville. $40 a visit, cash, no insurance. Considering my damned office co-pay is $45, that was fine by me. Now the basement part might sound a little shady, but she came highly recommended, and it was clear from the start that she knew what she was doing. I limped pathetically to the first appointment with my right foot jutting away from my body at a right angle, my lower back sending quivering threats to seize up at any moment, and a neck that I could barely turn more than a few degrees. I filled out some paperwork, including a medical history and questionnaire about my symptoms, and she threw down a back cracky that straightened my leg and had me walking confidently, albeit still slowly and somewhat painfully, back to my car. Over the ensuing weeks and months, the adjustments continued, and I was soon running several miles at a time on the treadmill with no pain.

In February, Dr. Nicole and a partner opened up a practice in Eden Prairie, and I didn't blink an eye in making the trek over there to continue my appointments. Of particular interest, her new office also had a physical therapy area, and I was given a full range of exercises to build my core strength to help maintain my adjustments and reduce the chance of injuring my back again. This is where the real work started. No longer was I going in for a passive back cracky, I was in for a grueling addition to my normal workout routine that included dreadful lunges and crunches. But I continue with them because they clearly are doing the job.

In the spring, once it wasn't snowing in May anymore (what the fuck was that?!?), I started running outside, increasing my distance and pace, and decided to sign up with Jen for a 5k race in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago. I had already been running 4 to 5 miles in a stretch, so I knew I could do it (5k is 3.1 miles), but to me the challenge was getting myself ready to run a set distance on a set course at a date and time set in stone. I had to be prepared, in shape, and rested ahead of time. Sure, it's no marathon, but I had never done anything like this before, so it was a bit of a daunting, but exciting prospect. So, this last Sunday, I awoke at 5:45 am in Chicago, rode in the car with Jen and Rich to Highland Park, and Jen and I ran the shit out of that race. We managed to average a 10:12 mile. Yes, it wasn't so many years ago that I could run 10 miles simply because I felt like it, but especially after a huge setback like my fall, I'm still proud as hell, and I don't feel like I pushed myself to the brink to do it. Next stop? 10k!

Would you like to see where my poop goes? (no, really!)

2011-04-29T21:00:00.002-05:00

In order to cut down the amount of waste water being treated, The City of Eagan is requiring all homeowners to have their sewer connections inspected for illegal and improper connection (e.g. sump pumps dumping into the sewer, etc). The choices are have your sewer inspected or start racking up fines. I decided to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

The inspector arrived on time for our 7 am appointment on March 16th and set to work at getting the cover off of the sewer drain pipe. After about a half hour of struggling with the cap, which probably hadn't been removed in over 40 years, he let his fancy camera do the walking. I passed the inspection, but was surprised when they mailed me a DVD of the whole thing. Dear homeowner, in commemoration of looking down your poop hole, we thought you'd enjoy looking down your own poop hole, too. Guess what -- I did! This is the actual video from the inspection, albeit slightly sped up. There are annotations and hints on extended portions that are skippable. But please, I invite you to look in my poop chute.

U-turn fail

2011-04-28T13:59:00.001-05:00

This poor guy found out the hard way that big rigs and muddy shoulders do not get along very well. We spotted this disaster on a frontage road along I-35 in Lakeville near the County Road 70 exit and decided to take a detour to document his shame -- I mean, the scene.

May I degrade your performance?

2011-03-10T14:18:00.002-06:00

Hello there! I hope you are doing well on this fine day. Well, actually that's why I approached you. I noticed that you're performing at a very advanced level. Your level of performance is so great that it exceeds mine, and let me tell you, I've always prided myself as being in the top tier of performers! I have to say, though, that I feel threatened by your superior skill and efficiency. It makes me want to smack you in the face with my rape whistle. Is there anything I can do to degrade your performance to the point that it matches or falls below my own? Would insulting your mother or waving my dick around help? I think if we work together, you and I can come up with mutually agreeable methods with which to fuck up your shit. What do you say, chum?

The Heavy Vending Machine: Going Greek

2011-01-17T07:55:00.020-06:00

Today we'll discuss by far the most exotic offering I've seen in our vending machine to date. Of course, in this day and age, gyros are about as commonplace as mellifluous-voiced homeless guys and cell phone self-portraits of shirtless teabags on the internet. But in our humble little vending machine? Get the fuck outta here! And just look at that wrapper. Full of delicious meat, tomatoes, and onions -- marvelous! And tzatziki sauce -- I don't know what that is! But I couldn't wait to tuck and roll under that flavor bus. And since the brand is "Grecian Delight," when I'm finished I can color the gray out of my hair and get a firm-gripped wand wave from a hairy potter behind the Falafel King.

Of course, as is the cake, the tomatoes and onions were a lie. Opening the deceptive packaging revealed nothing but a stark pita folded with all the art of a file folder containing neatly stacked tax receipts in the form of thin, greasy strips of... of... uh, well to be honest, now that I think of it, I don't know if it was beef or lamb, and I never bothered to read the package to find out. But does it really matter? It was slices of meat I got out of a vending machine. Pardon me for being distracted at the impending risk of contracting an unstoppably quivering and catastrophically demoralized rectum. While I may not have taken the time to identify the meat's animal of origin, fortunately I did notice the enthusiastic exclaimation on the packaging about the tzatziki sauce prior to cooking these well-organized business documents for the recommended 90 seconds. Had I not, I may have missed the sauce packet secreted away between two of the glistening manimal slabs and ended up with a blistering mouthful of seared plastic and strained sun-temperature yogurt.

The first bite didn't contain much of a surprise. Prior to chowing down, I had tasted the tzatziki sauce (I used my clean finger!) to see if I wanted to put any of it on the paperwork (I thought of it as edible whiteout to correct the mistake of eating it in the first place). It was surprisingly tasty, so I squirted a modest streak of the tangy yogurt onto the meat (hey-ohhhhhh!) and knew what to expect in that department. And, as we have found almost unfailingly in past reviews, the pita bread was made soggy by its brief encounter with microwave radiation. However, as it quickly cooled, it did seem to take on the slightly tougher, more chewy texture one would expect. The meat remained unidentifiable, with the slick feel of Spam or some other potted meat. Its flavor wasn't entirely unpleasant.

Overall, I admit that I expected this barely edible assembly to be much worse than it actually was. There were no reverse blowouts or escapes from beyond Thunderdome, and no undergarments had to be disposed of through ritual burning. At the end of the day, however, it was a gyro out of a vending machine, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone save those for whom I held the utmost disdain.

Product: Grecian Delight Gyros Sandwich
Price Paid: $3.00
Antonymns: stellar, successful, savory, handsome, wistful, choleraless
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars (in appreciation of not killing me instantly)
Rating on Cat Anger Scale: Cat in Shoebox

Hey, Amber, am I internet dating correctly?

2011-01-06T02:01:00.000-06:00

Afterglide goes to London: don't it make my white shoes brown

2010-12-17T11:59:00.001-06:00

As some of you already know, I recently returned from a fairly whirlwind trip to London. Being my first trip ever that required a passport, it was quite exciting. Making things a bit easier, I went with my longtime friend Mary, who is quite an experienced traveler, both domestically and internationally. In fact, she had been to London once before back in 2000, so she was somewhat familiar with getting around the city. So we rode the tube, minded the gap, and punched a Midlander in the back (I was just going with the flow).

On Monday, we stood patiently in the cold to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Fair warning, if you ever go, it isn't the 15 or 30 minute ceremony I envisioned, but rather a 9 hour ordeal in which they produce the complete, unabridged works of Shakespeare and vacuum up an entire horse under the watchful eye of Sir James Dyson. Am I glad I saw it? Yes, it's crossed off my list of life experiences. Would I see it again? No, not unless promised an ungloved dry rub behind the guard hut 'round the corner.

Since it was our last full day in London, we packed in as much as we could. Before heading out to a performance of Les Misérables, we stopped back at our hotel across from Victoria station to freshen up and rest briefly. As I plopped down to sit, Mary opened up the window. Immediately, I noticed a strange odor and thought to myself, "Hmm, something sure stinks outside!" A few minutes later, while crossing the room to get to the bathroom, I noticed brownish streaks and chunks mottling the carpet. It didn't take me long to make the connection between that and the smell. I lifted my shoe to inspect the bottom, and sure enough, the treads were completely mashed full of moist, gooey dog shit. FUCK!

I hurriedly kicked the shoe off and made my way to the bathroom, alerting Mary to the problem along the way. She set about scrubbing the carpet with a wet towel while I gingerly picked and prodded shit out of my shoe with wads of toilet paper. Judging from the putrid smell, the dog must have eaten a burrito and a hedgehog just prior to releasing crosslaid logs, which I presume were emitting a healthy, roiling steam given the glistening freshness of the shit and the crisply cool weather conditions. I'd say it was a wonder that I missed it, but I imagine I was busy gawking at a landmark or at some English bird's tits.

Normally when I travel and know there will be a lot of sightseeing and walking, I just wear my running shoes. I know they'll be comfortable and won't tear the the hell out of my feet, even after putting several miles a day on them. Thankfully, I had the foresight to pack a separate, if not slightly less informal pair of Rockport walking shoes for this trip, because that dog shit just wasn't coming out easily, and Mary refused to let me use her hairbrush. I sealed the offensively browned kick tightly in a plastic shopping back, and stowed that in one of the airtight Space Bags I had brought to make more room in my luggage. I really didn't care to get turd residue all over my clothes and toiletries on the way home, though that might have made for an interesting conversation had my bag been selected for inspection when going through customs.

Alas, arriving home didn't absolve me of the task of cleaning shit out of my shoe. I thought if I froze the shit, I could tap it out of the treads. But wailing upon my concrete front step with my poop shoe proved to be a fruitless endeavor. I really haven't had the heart or stomach to attack it with any further voracity, so for now, I have returned the shoe to my uninsulated garage, where our Minnesota winter icebox has frozen it solid, locking its foul fecal odors firmly in place until the first thaw reminds me of the duty I shirked. I would like to resume my workout routine, however, so I will make due with an older, more worn pair of running shoes until I either break down and attack the problem with your Christmas Sonicare or give up and purchase a new pair of shoes. Right now I'm leaning toward the latter and finding an alternate means of ruining your expensive toothbrush.

Monday encapsulated

2010-11-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars at work. This is a paraphrased email exchange with federal government contractor. Name-calling added solely to illustrate his consistently snide, prickish tone.

Me: [a week ago] I’m getting error XYZ [a completely undocumented error message]. Is it because of reason ABC? Can I get access to the test website so I can set things up to avoid this error?

Assclown: [this morning] You’re getting that error because of reason ABC. If you would read the documentation, you’d know that you need to log into the test website to set things up. Self-educate, fool!

Me: That’s exactly why I requested access to the test website. Can I get access to it?

Assclown: How do you expect to keep up with business rule changes if you don’t log into the test website, you baboon-titted pillock? Your userid is: [completely invalid, non-existent userid]

Me: *headdesk*

Pizza Hut unveils Poop Stuffed Pizza

2010-11-23T00:31:00.000-06:00

DALLAS (Nov. 23, 2010) - For some reason, the public asked for it, so we delivered. For the past 15 years, Americans have salivated over our tasty Stuffed Crust pizza. And when they cried out for a pizza crust filled to the brim with piping hot human feces, we were like "Seriously? What? No, really, you want a SHIT-FILLED PIZZA?" Then we were like, "Dude. Whatever the fuck. If your credit card's still good, we've got what you want." After tripling the salary of our disgusted test kitchen chefs and giving them Hepatitis shots, they finally agreed to drop the class action lawsuit and get to work making you a turd-filled pie glistening with hot pepper oil and smelling of fresh mozzarella and Flaming Cheetos. God, I think I'm going to be sick -- oh, I mean PRESS RELEASE!

The Heavy Drive-Through: elusive McRib was hidden in your lower GI this whole time

2010-11-08T07:58:00.001-06:00

You know a "limited time only" fast food sandwich has acheived cult status when there are websites and fan groups devoted to following its availability around the country. And when McDonald's rolls out just such a sandwich nationwide for the first time in 16 years? Well, even the mainstream news media go apeshit like a cat with a turd and a lollipop stuck to the end of its tail.

The last time McDonald's had the McRib available nationwide was in 1994 as part of a tie-in to the god-awful live-action Flintstones movie. So why did they choose election day to pull the compressed pork patties out from behind the box of Boys Life magazines and The Cure LPs in the attic? I would have made more sense to tie it into a summer blockbuster like Iron Man 2. Up the red dye factor in the barbeque sauce, squirt some mustard stripes in there, and stick a glo-stick in the bun like a birthday candle -- Iron Sandwich! Or lace it with Ambien, wait for the customer to teeter on the brink of slumber, kick them in the neck, and yell, "INCEPTION, bitch!!!" You don't need a degree in marketing to print money.

I had a McRib or two during its brief stints of availability during my childhood, and at the time, I thought it ranked up there with the awesomeness of birthday cupcakes and Cheez Wiz (I was a kid with a limited range of eating experiences, so cut me a break). This made me all the more curious about how I would react to the McRib with a vast range of adult culinary bliss (meaning that I've eaten some awesome shit during my adulthood, not that I ate a fudge pecker or had tiramisu shoved up my ass during a threesome or something). So last week, I gave the McRib another go.

At 1 pm, the McDonald's down the street from where I work was still teeming with lunch hour madness. As I smoothly maneuvered my door-dinged whip into the drive-through line, I immediately spotted the McRib on the outdoor menu. Even from two car-lengths back, I could see the perfectly photographed sandwich with edges of glistening, barbeque-slathered pork peeking out provocatively from between a fluffy, golden bun. I knew it was all lies, but I was here on a mission, so I soldiered on.

Once it was my turn at the order box, I rattled off my order, a McRib value meal with a Diet Coke (I realize the irony of ordering diet cola with a fast food meal, but I actually don't care for the sugary counterpart). The box squawked back, "Would you like to add another McRib for only a dollar more?" Considering the McRib's footprint is about the size of my entire hand, fingers and all, there was very little temptation for me to accept this offer, so I politely declined.

Five minutes later, I was seated at my desk ready to chow down. Upon opening the McRib box, I was surprised at how plump the bun looked. It was actually quite close to the photo on the drive-through menu. But I'm sure they pump the dough full of tetrafluoroethane and Mr. Bubble while its rising in order to maximize the fluff factor. Under the top bun, I found that in addition to the sauce, the sandwich was covered with onions and a few pickles. I didn't recall that part from my youthful encounters with the McRib, but it was a welcome surprise (or at least as much of a surprise as I could tolerate when it comes to eating meat of questionable origin).

I took the first bite and was overwhelmed with well, blandness. The sauce was certainly identifiable as barbeque, given its smokey flavor and mild tang, but I doubt you could get anyone south of Des Moines to call it that. The onions added a much-needed kick to the equation, but short of overpowering the palate with an entire uncut, unpeeled onion, there really wasn't anything that was going to keep this flavor train on the track. And the pickles (I personally think a good pickle on a sandwich, cold or hot, is highly underrated) were barely detectable, since they were sliced rice paper thin with a hot samarai sword. Meanwhile, the slab of pork itself was rubbery, and the manner in which it gave way to the teeth is best equated to mashing up chunky wet cat food with a fork.

So was consuming 450 calories and 24 grams of fat worth it? In this form, the answer is certainly no. And perhaps it isn't a bad thing, but this fast food meal wasn't particularly cheap, either. I nicked my credit card for $7.91 with the value meal consisting of the sandwich, medium fries, and a medium soft drink. I could go to a local deli chain and get a fresh, albeit cold, sandwich the size of my forearm and a drink for that much.

Patriotic wet wipe not included.

Old animations

2010-11-03T20:05:00.003-05:00

Yes, for the first time in the history of this blog, I've gone more than 2 months without posting. I can't promise it won't happen again, but I do have some posts in the hopper, at least one of which I hope to finish this week.

Enjoy these animations I created about a decade ago when I owned JeremyGibbens.com and HugePoop.com. Reload if you miss one before the animation ends.

The Heavy Vending Machine: Not So Diggity

2010-08-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

If fools rush in, then I essentially take it a step further by rushing in, dropping my pants, closing my eyes, and waving my privates toward anything that sounds remotely animal-like or metallic. Or in this case, anything that smells of marginally food-grade beef or beef-like substitute. Such was the case when I purchased a Hot Diggity Italian Beef Charbroil from our break room vending machine. The Hot Diggity line (yes, it is a product line) is grown in a dampened plastic Igloo brand cooler behind a radiator by Pierre Foods, whose logo is a surprised chef who lost an eye in a spattering hot grease incident.

Given past reviews of microwave sandwiches here, it almost goes without saying that a mere 45 seconds of radiation caused the curiously phallic bread to turn into a porous vinyl seat cover purchased out of a JC Whitney catalog. I could have just as well wrapped the greasy compressed meat slab in an imitation ShamWow. It probably would have tasted better and absorbed far less of my precious internal liquids (trust me, they're precious). The meat itself was typical of microwaved sandwiches of convenience -- solid enough to pass for seared animal flesh, but with a level of cohesion similar to moist pencil shavings, allowing it to be easily chewed by mandible or slate clapboard.

The sauce on this mess confused me greatly. Both the flavor and texture of patty and faintly orange sauce reminded me of a cheeseless elementary school pizza burger. I checked the wrapper, and sure enough, the second ingredient listed was pizza sauce, clarified as consisting of primarily tomato puree, diced tomatoes, and tomato juice (really, I think just listing "tomatoes" or "tomato stuff" would have given us the idea, guys). I'm not really sure how pizza sauce makes this an Italian beef charbroil. For truth in advertising, I would consider calling this the Hot Diggity Elongated Cheeseless Pizza Burger Mark IV (the last part just makes it sound kick ass). In the future, please leave so-called Italian beef to expert chefs, food stands, and Jersey Shore cast members.

Product: Hot Diggity Italian Beef Charbroil
Price Paid: $1.25 + eternal damnation
Splashback Factor: Trail of tears
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars (for fond pizza burger memories of yore)

How we grow 'em in Eagan

2010-07-31T13:33:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I noticed while mowing that a weed behind the house had gotten a bit out of hand. It had grown to a whopping 3 feet tall. I made a mental note of it, continued about my business, and then promptly forgot about it. The following week, it had grown 4 feet tall. Well, hell, at that point, it wasn't so much of a blight as a challenge. Let's see how tall this fucker gets. Here's where it's at so far.

Tidy chortle, sloppy meow

2010-07-29T14:33:00.006-05:00

How appropriate

I've known for years that I'm not much for unnecessary responsibility. Shit, I'm not much for necessary responsibility (I make my mortgage payments by conning particle board-quality cougars out of their barely earned cash). So therefore, dog ownership is right out. You can't leave them panting in a hot car while you shop for World of Warcraft expansion packs, and you can't leave them alone for a weekend because they'll shit all over your freshly refinished interlocking maple planks and chew up your mattress. I hear kids will do the same thing, so they're out the door, as well. Cats, on the other hand, I've been open to because they do their own thing. You can leave them alone for a couple of days while you drink yourself under a fair-trade coffee table in Portland and come home to find that maybe they frayed a curtain and left an extra cigar in the sandbox. Plus, not to say I dislike dogs, I quite honestly do enjoy cats because they are hilarious to have around.

It should come as no surprise then that we now have a 10 year old cat we rescued from a shelter, as well as a 4 month old kitten. The kitten, Tootie, who we brought home several months after the older cat, is a playful, insolent little shit who you can't get mad at because she behaves like a personable dog. She must be under your feet at all times, plays fetch with her toys, and licks my salty face while I sleep, which only occasionally wakes me. The older cat, Pooty, has had an extremely difficult time adjusting to the new kitten. Unfortunately, our initial reaction was to overindulge her with treats, and her reaction, under constant threat of a spastic kitten dive bombing on top of her at any given moment, was to begin a pattern of overeating so she could quickly get the hell away from the food bowl to hide in an enclosed space. This has caused a fast and alarming weight gain. In a few weeks, she has gone from pleasantly plump to morbidly unable to lick her own asshole.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not done shitting in your short pants yet.

Cats are naturally neat and tidy creatures, at least when it comes to their own hygiene. But when a cat can't clean it's own pot pie, you are forced to have frequent and uncomfortably close encounters with a brown, splotchy crab nebula of dried, hairy turds and other myrid fecal splashback. If she sits in your lap, suddenly you've got a toddler's drawing of a chocolate starfish soaked into your denim. This is why we took matters into our own hands by buying special kitty wet wipes to clear her rainforest of fallen logs and seasonal day mud. We've severely limited her treat intake and have made an extra effort to keep her active and engaged each day. This is a challenge, because she was lazy and unmotivated from the start. Now that she's packed on a freshman 15, she's often content to watch laser toys from afar, taking minimal effort to mentally note its existence.

So if I can't keep a cat from getting so fat it can't wipe its ass, it frightens me to think what would happen with a child. Then again, with a child, you could just pressure wash his buttery crack in the shower or back yard.

The Heavy Vending Machine: Buddy's Grilled Ham & Cheese on Texas Toast

2010-07-13T16:01:00.000-05:00

Today's selection presents an inauspicious achievement. This is the first selection that was so disgusting that I couldn't finish eating it. Now this is quite an accomplishment for any food. While I appreciate and crave carefully prepared, high quality food served in restaurants and my own home, I don't consider myself to be a food snob. I enjoy a good Subway sandwich or a shitty Lean Cuisine as much (or as little) as the next guy. Hell, let's be honest -- if it tastes at least 14% better than a lumpy, tapeworm-filled bowl of Lindsay Lohan's room temperature diarrhea, I'll probably finish it.

Buddy's Grilled Ham & Cheese on Texas Toast is produced by Buddy's Kitchen, Inc, a Burnsville-based company whose limply syntaxed motto is "We manufacture custom frozen and fresh food for a variety of customers!" Not discerning customers, mind you, a variety of customers. Similarly, I've eaten a variety of items in my lifetime, including an untold number of spiders and engorged deer ticks that crawled into my mouth as I slept (variety is colorful, turgid, and filled with acrid juices). Additionally, Buddy's website crows, "Whatever business our customers are in, we find they demand the same things: Outstanding quality, Flawless performance, Competitive price, Clean and safe opperations[sic]." That is a lot to live up to, but fortunately they follow that with "At Buddy's we strive to make our customers happy on all three of these dimensions at the same time." So as long as they're happy "on" three of the four items listed, that's a victory. By gum, that sounds alright by me.

As for Buddy's sandwich, the recommended cooking time was 45 seconds, but a coworker was using our break room's full-sized microwave to nuke what appeared to be a Tupperware container full of moist fish food, so I was forced to heat my food in the smaller unit, whose wattage is somewhere between that of an emergency weather radio and an Easy Bake Oven. I added a whopping 5 seconds, for a total of 50. Immediately upon grabbing the still-wrapped sandwich (left that way per the cooking instructions), I could tell that it had fallen victim to the same issue with microwave sandwiches that we've seen here nearly every time -- structurally furtive and possibly temporally displaced, immoral bread. And yes, you are welcome to use these words in ways completely outside of their dictionary definitions, as well.

Opening up the uncircumsized sandwich hood, I found richly colored, passable looking ham (as in "acceptable" or "I will pass this to my table neighbor without partaking," depending on your viewpoint) slathered in light yellow American cheese that appeared to be in the form of a somewhat viscous lactic robot ejaculate. The first bite, unfortunately, confirmed my observation of radiation-compromised bread. One would expect Texas toast to be crunchy, buttery, and moist, but this bread was obscenely sponge-like. Without exaggeration, it felt like I was chewing on a foam "#1" finger emblazoned with the logo of your favorite sports team, which I hear is the Minot State University Beavers wrestling team. Initially, the texture of the bread was so offputting and distracting, that I had utterly no sense of what the sandwich tasted like. Finally, I could take no more, peeled apart the bread, and took a big bite of the ham swimming in 5W-Velveeta. Oh GOD! The meat, perhaps tainted by the "real cheese" touted on the product label, tasted as though it had been resting comfortably behind the dishwasher next to the bagel twisty tie that fell behind the counter last Halloween. I actually had to spit the partially chewed ham into a paper towel and throw the remaining mess into the trash.

Now, all snark aside, I really don't like ragging unmercifully on a small, seemingly successful local company, particularly one that by all appearances is committed to using locally raised and produced food products whenever possible. Or rather, I don't like to do that based on a single product. So, I will keep an eye out for more Buddy's products and report my findings to you, the uneducated Google searcher who landed on this page by mistake while searching for butt fingering porn.

Product: Buddy's Grilled Ham & Cheese on Texas Toast
Price Paid: $1.60
Apt Adjective: Spongiform
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
Calories: 330 (220 as eaten, 0 recommended)

Pooped under the bench

2010-07-09T16:24:00.001-05:00

My half-assed first attempt at using xtra normal, which a Best Buy employee used to make this now-infamous (and hilarious) iPhone 4 video.

The Heavy Vending Machine: "Steakation" makes me wish I'd left town

2010-07-09T15:37:00.003-05:00

Today's vending machine selection comes to you courtesy of a momentary bout of dyslexia. While Great Steak's Angus Cheeseburger Twins may sound disgusting enough on their own, my misreading of "Anus Cheeseburger Twins" made me think I was in for a hell of a lot more of a chore. This is the sort of fat end of the bat I'm willing to take up my ass for you, the discerning vending machine food consumer. Fortunately, this ended up being the skinny end of the bat, or possibly even just a large novelty-sized pencil from an amusement park.

Clearly these twins are fraternal.

Great Steak, which I was not familiar with prior to eating these burgers and desperately seeking out a responsible party for litigation, is apparently also known as The Great Steak & Potato. TGSP is chain of presumably shitty fast food restaurants available in fine food courts as close as the Mall of America, Southdale, and Rosedale Center. Their specialties are Philly cheesesteaks and strained cummerbunds.

Unlike previous sandwich and hot wiener contenders reviewed here, the cheeseburgers' bread survived a 45 second microwave radiation assault surprisingly well. I suspect Great Steak achieved this astounding feat by using a denser bread and leaving it to stale in a pile of sawdust behind a shop bench for 2 score and a fortnight. Moisture from the soulless meat and cheese-like substances inside of the sandwiches reinvigorated the bread, bringing it to a nearly food-grade quality. Add hot processed cheese and piping hot meat the texture and flavor of wet cat food compressed into a slim hockey puck, and you've got a recipe for a burger even a dog wouldn't sniff. In fact, as I write this, it really concerns me that the anus twins are still bouncing around in my stomach. Why are you still in there?!? Come out of there! But not too quickly or liquidly. I am NOT getting that mess on my leather seats again.

Product: Great Steak Angus Cheeseburger Twins
Price Paid: $2.50
Risk Factor: N
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
Wine Pairings: Drained radiator water, fortified Hi-C, and boxless juice

The Heavy Vending Machine: white fish, can't dump

2010-06-30T14:47:00.002-05:00

Unlike last week, which offered the overtly horrid chili dog twins, this week's vending machine selection was relatively bland (or more accurately, the more disgusting options were picked off by now-deceased coworkers). With few options, I settled for a seemingly innocuous fish filet sandwich that was prepared and packaged by the vending machine company itself, C&S Vending of Faribault, MN.

Interestingly, C&S Vending's website indicates that it also provides catering services:

"Need variety? C&S Vending has over 20 different menus to choose from. Our catering clients come to us time and time again because of our consistent service, wide variety and most importantly, delicious, professionally presented food."

Catered menu options include microwaved hamburgers with mandatory boiling hot ketchup, expired Mallomars, and brown lettuce salad. All items are "professionally presented" by staff wearing kick-ass tuxedo t-shirts and jaunty hair nets. Free open-air toilets are provided at the end of the serving line (as well as the start and middle of the serving line).

Before continuing, I must disclose that I have eaten this fish sandwich on multiple occasions. Conceptually, this may actually be more disgusting than eating the horse plop-covered hot dogs, because that means I ate this product pushing against the full weight of prior experience. Not only did I ignore instinct and common sense the first time, I made the same decision again -- multiple times, mind you -- as though there was a reasonable expectation that the outcome would deviate from a well-established pattern of fluttering cheeks and skidmarked porcelain. This is not unlike picking the same path again and again in a Choose Your Own Adventure book and becoming irate when you learn that the author has not yet broken into your home to personally alter your copy so that you do not die in the cave.

As with the hot dogs, the fish sandwich's bun suffered greatly during its mere 45 seconds in the microwave, turning into a mushy mass of structurally inconsiderate pre-moistened towelette leakage. Any finger contact with the sandwich resulted in the bread immediately compressing and vacuum packing itself to the filet, allowing the molten Kraft American single sitting atop the filet to singe off my fingerprints. And though the sandwich does come with a packet of Heinz tartar sauce, even a thick application didn't protect me from my inevitable calling as a gloveless sneak thief.

In comparison to a fresh McDonald's Filet-o-Fish, the C&S rendition's filet was slightly mushier with a grittier feel to the breading and was only slightly less flavorful. If compared to a Filet-o-Fish that had been sitting under a heat lamp over the lunch hour, there probably wouldn't be much difference between the two, ignoring the collapsed bun (not to be confused with a prolapsed rectum, which may or may not result from eating this poorly on the regular).

Product: C&S Vending Fish Filet Sandwich
Price Paid: $2.25
Symptoms: Shortness of breath, taste of copper, bursts of hail, levee damage
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Bathroom Forecast: Partly shitty with a chance of temporary paralysis

The Heavy Vending Machine: Ball Park brand Twin Chili Cheese Dogs

2010-06-24T15:47:00.008-05:00

This is the first in what I foresee as an intermittent series of posts in which I purposely subject myself to the most vile vending machine food imaginable. If I see it and throw up in my mouth at the thought of eating it, then I'm chowing it down like a starving cat gnawing on its elderly owner's fly-covered corpse. Note that the key word is "intermittent" because I can't eat like this every day and still expect to maintain a healthy weight, blood pressure, and shit viscosity/velocity level.

Somewhere between the top and side of the package, the 's' in "Twin Chili Cheese Dogs" is mysteriously lost, perhaps stolen by a desperate, untalented Victorian busker. Incidentally, the expiration date of 6/24 means I snatched this pair of beauties from the cusp of unfreshness.

In addition to this distinctive vending machine offering, Ball Park is probably best known for its line of hot dogs found in supermarkets and hobo jacket pockets. Ball Park is owned by Sara Lee, so I feel confident that a company whose primary trade is in frozen pies and coffee cakes served as a means to insult unexpected guests will handle these lip and asshole grindings properly so as not to infect me with listeria or mad raccoon disease.

The cooking instructions on the package indicate that the tray of wieners (my word, not theirs -- hee hee!) should be removed from the plastic outer sleeve and microwaved on high for 90 seconds. I was dubious, as if you've ever nuked a couple of cold franks on high for 60 seconds, you'd know that they char and split open like a delicate meaty, nitrate-filled flower awaiting pollination by the elusive turkey bee. But these suckers must be infused with Borox and vermiculite, because damned if they didn't look exactly the same after 90 seconds of radiation treatment. Other than the once-coagulated chili melting into glistening globs of cheesy Alpo dog sick, of course.

Because these twin dogs were packed so tightly into the tray, it took some considerable effort to get the first one out without completely destroying it. Ball Park should have injected the same heat-resistant chemical soup from the franks into the buns, because they collapsed into wet, soggy clumps with the slightest touch. As I slid the whole mess into my mouth and took my first bite, I imagined the experience was probably not unlike fellating a sickly foal whose wobbly sibling had managed to shit on its pale member. As for taste, there was very little to speak of. The wiener itself was bland, and I couldn't tell where the chili ended and the cheese began. It was a piping hot, sloppy, unsatisfying pile of disappointment and shame.

Product: Ball Park Double Play (Twin Chili Cheese Dogs)
Price Paid: $3.00
Calories: It is probably more accurate to measure this in years subtracted from life expectancy -- 6
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Bathroom Delay: Accident on the shoulder. Gawker slowdown. Allow 40 extra minutes.