Gripe of the day: Pepsi vs. Coke, who cares!?

I tend to disregard commercials, too few are entertaining or informative, but yesterday I was captivated by this yawning ad. It starts with one person yawning, and obviously everyone else catching the contagious act, spreading to inexplicably large crowds of yawning proportions. I was mostly watching to see which product they were pushing, but my curiosity turned to anger when it made me react before showing me the punch line.

Here's a note for Diet Pepsi Max-ers:

If an ad makes me yawn, I will NOT buy the product, no matter how much it promises me “more caffeine”. I don’t think an ad campaign with a slogan of “yawn-a-thon” is particularly smart either. In fact, when (or if, and it won't) DPMax comes to Canada, I look forward to invoking the law of my “slap-a-thon” to whomever comes in reach of said product. You really want some sweet caffeine? Chew on some choco-spresso beans why don’t you. Or if you’re a corporate slogan whore, reach for Coke’s “side of life” which at least is trying to inspire you to be spontaneous, positive and find the ultimate happy. Give the big C-C props for making us feel happy again by buying the world some coke. Er.. a coke. Hey, it’s their slogan.

Mmm.. c'est teeeeeellement booooon!

On one of my very spiritual quests for chocolate at the office, I purchased this super flavorful bar of 99% cocoa Lindt Excellence chocolate.

I’ll admit to having some favoritism for Lindt over the other euro brands thanks to a student exchange trip to France as a kid. The mother of my French host family discovered my love for all things chocolaty within an hour of my arrival and made it her mission to turn me into Üter. There were chocolate rice krispies, homemade real hot chocolate, nutella and box after box of the incredible Champs Elysées by Lindt. I was in luck, she worked at Lindt and endlessly supplied me with kilograms of the stuff. Sure, I ate other things, all of which were delicious with the exception of a traditional meal of inedible lard in weird sauce (who likes lard?!), but the sweets were the most memorable.

Back to that super flavorful bar or 99% pure caca-oh. It tastes like black crap. Not that I know what brown or corny crap tastes like, but this stuff is so vial and bitter that it turns me off the taste of cocoa. I can’t imagine the people at Lindt tried it before selling this asinine product. I tried it again just now (for effect), and tears stained my cheeks. BARF! Non, mais vraiment, je pense que mon lunch remonte.
Beware:

To freak or not to freak

My left pinky finger has been handi for more or less ten years now. Sounds weird? Not so. Handi would be short for handi-not-capable in my case. Back in the day, in the midst of a creative spurt, I tried to split a jumbo straw for some art I was creating. I placed the jumbo straw in my left palm, gripping it tightly as I tried to force a knife into the straw to cut it length-wise. To my surprise, and I should have seen it coming really, the knife easily cut the straw and my pinky finger along with it. Shocked, I opened my hand only to see something I expected even less: the opponens digiti quinti, in short, the bone.

I ran upstairs to tell my sister I cut myself “taking the knife out of the dishwasher” and I did what our cumulative minds thought was best, I placed my pinky under cold running water until she could solve the bandage situation. Twenty minutes later, she emerged with peroxide and forty pounds of gauze in hand. I should have taken pictures then because she did the best mummification on a live human I’ve ever seen and wrapped my poor digit in the forty pounds of gauze. The bandage job was so good in fact that I didn't feel the need to trek to the doctors.

Skip ahead a couple years when I realize that I’m no longer able to bend the end bit of said finger (flexor digitorum profundus). I accepted the consequences of my momentary stupidity until a doctor said it could be fixed. I made an appointment with a hand specialist who was a little too excited to hear about my case. He said my finger-bending ability could possibly be repaired. However, since the cut ligament causing the handicap shrinks when unused, there was no way of knowing how much it had shrunk. He would have to perform an invasive surgery, cutting from mid-pinky in a small zig-zag pattern and extending the disfiguring and increasingly large pattern down my forearm. (As shown here if you strain your eyes and look at one of the superimposed photos.)

I immediately refused the procedure after the doctor explained he had never done such a thing and would be happy to do the explorative surgery. Another option was to forge the joint in a permanently bent position to stop my tip from extending back. Oh, oops! Did I leave that out? Since no ligament is attached to my fingertip, I’m unable to bend the tip of the finger, but there’s also nothing holding it from bending backwards. Now you understand how much of a freak show this is? Back to the point, I didn’t like the idea of my finger being more susceptible to breaking by having a stiff and forged joint (no pun intended), and I also refused this procedure.

Once again, I accepted my fate and lived on to see the disgusted looks on people’s faces as I showed them my very own conversation piece of art. It’s been a long and harrowing road of freakdom, but alas I managed to get through it, using it to my advantage. (My longtime high school art teacher took 10% off my project mark for drawing my hand with a demented finger, but later gave me a perfect score when I showed him how close to reality my drawing had been.)

Spring forward to this morning, when I considered amputating my finger after seeing this on gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pull-my-digit/video-of-artificial-finger-shows-its-neither-digital-nor-made-of-chicken-268412.php (it’s worth the jump, but come back here, YOU!)

Problem solved? Possibly, but is it better to have a mechanical blue finger covered in fake skin or one that doesn’t bend at all but has a nail perfect for painting? Let’s just say I’m sitting here re-reading my post as I apply vampy red polish to all my ten digits.

“I’m just too punk rock for this" morning’s post.

.. sad!

The one and only Frankie Abernathy from Real World: San Diego (aka the funny season) passed away Saturday June 9th, succumbing to Cystic Fibrosis. The cutter will forever be remembered for giving me one the of the best quotes from tv "I'm just too punk rock for this".

Nerd accessories are cool?

This month's Vanity Fair showcased the newest trend in fashion : nerd goggles, by D&G of all people.

No joke, this is what's being designed for us tech-wise kids. I'm happy nerds everywhere now have the options to pimp their eye shields, yet I'm secretly cursing all the cookie-cutter over accessorized non-nerds holding daddy's (or worst, Husband no.4's) credit card, who are going to sport these thinking it makes them look smart, without any visible need to shield their eyes from wafted particles of harmful chemicals. Oh, the shame, and how dare they. (nerd tear)

I heart Nerds

Because I just do. Geeks too of course. There is a difference between Nerds and Geeks according to the world of Wiki, but I’m not one to discriminerd.

That being said, I'm letting out my inner nerd.

What's the deal with bad videogames? I recently rented the new Pirate of the Caribbean game on PS2. How could www.ign.com readers rate the game as an 8.7? The game is lame, folks, real lame. The initial gut busting laughter of watching Capt. Jack Sparrow walk around in a drunken stupor isn't enough to support yet another repetitive button mashing game. It's also not fun to have little puzzles pointed out to you with a "glowing light". If there's a dangling rope, I assume I have to slide on it. Why would I want a light beam shinning and calling me to it. Seems like the game was designed for children (despite the obvious drunkenness displayed throughout). The story isn't fun to follow (like the new movie I hear), there's no challenge and no surprises. It took us about 5 hours to finish the game, and only about a fifth of that time was mildly amusing.

The God of War franchise ruined every other game for me. Intricate puzzles, lifelike movement, endless awe-inspiring scenery and a great story taken from Greek mythology. Sure there's some violence, but you're fighting gods and monsters, not people. The best part? My recent mythology studies were put to good use! I was no longer "just watching" the story develop, I was involved, captivated and understood every aspect (finally). Who said videogames were a complete waste of time.. pffff!!!!

Let me get back to being a girl here, why haven't any media gossip sites picked up on the nipple outage of the first Miss Universe contestant during the bikini judging?

Another cancellation?

Veronica Mars is a brilliantly witty and entertaining show, week after week, getting episode ratings that are among tv.com’s top 10. Thanks to the new “Sun” channel, I was able to watch the 2 hour finale on the original US programming time slot, prime time Tuesday night. It was the first time I’ve watched the show live in Canada, and maybe the last.

I feel on edge, nervous, and I keep checking its status every few hours for updates and miraculous news. The show may be added to the “shouldn’t have been cancelled” list. CW who has already announced and left the show off its fall schedule, has yet to definitely cancel the show. Mixed signals are being sent, confusing fans everywhere. One day the show’s outlook seemed promising (a new direction for the show was rumored to pick up at the FBI academy, a couple years after present-day VM) then conflicting articles surfaced the next day about the show not being renewed. While rumors now seem to go towards the cancelled path, all I really want to know is, WHY? Why _wouldn’t_ they renew the show? The series finale proved the show still packs the same punch as the first season, while leaving _plenty_ of unanswered questions and possible key character developments.

Until they bring it back for another season, I'll refuse to believe yet another great show's been cancelled.