Thursday, March 29, 2012

Don't Become An April Fool, Read Up On These April Fool's Day Pranks

Sunday marks April Fool's Day, so I wanted to take this time to warn you not to believe everything you read on that fated day. I'll accomplish this by taking a look back at some of the greatest pranks ever pulled. You can take these in and know some of the tropes people have used in the past and how to avoid them on Sunday.

Gmail
When Google prankedly announced the release of Gmail on April 1, 2005, everyone kind of snickered at the release. “Yeah, like some megalomaniacal company would just give away nigh-unlimited inbox space to people who will just use it to make fake accounts aimed at bringing back Legends of the Hidden Temple. We ain't falling for it, Google!”

Faced with this unanimous prank-fail, Sean Herman, a 27-year-old developer at Google loaded up on Red Bull and off-brand Cheez Balls. Five hours later, Google had the complete and thoroughly bug-tested Gmail on its hands. While its prank earlier in the day didn't trick anyone, creating the actual project tricked everyone.

Mayan Prophecies
Thirteen Uinal, a date on the Mayan Base 20 longcount calendar which roughly translates as April 1, 231 BC on the standard Base 10 system, saw the first April Fool's Day prank ever. A bunch of Mayans were hanging out, feasting upon the brains of their recently fallen adversaries/comrades/alien invaders, when they realized they needed to trick people.

“If we don't trick them, they'll know the delicious of brain and then they'll eat us!” shouted J'hanGi as he riled up his friends. “We must make them paranoid and stupid, then they'll never think to do what we so thoroughly enjoy. But what can we do?”

“Convince them the world is ending?” said Milk, a fairly stupid Mayan. Instead of dignifying this bit of stupidity with a response, everyone merely ate his eyes so he'd never have to glance upon his stupidity again.

“Oh, don't worry, we don't even need to do anything,” said Archana. And 2088 years later, Jon Gosselin was born, completing the curse of the Mayans.

Cuba Gooding Jr.
On April 1, 2002, Cuba Gooding Jr. tried convincing people he still had a career. A good laugh was had by all.
Shot solely to make the April Fool's Day
joke even funnier.

Cuban Missile Crisis
If there's one thing President John F. Kennedy was known for, it's how noted horror writer Stephen King murdered him in cold blood. But if there's a second thing he's known for, it's his winning sense of humor. And this is most evident during the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis, or as it's better known by its codename “Mission Lots-o-Yuks.”

History books will try claiming that a “tumultuous” thirteen days occurred from October 14, 1962 to October 28, 1962. During this time, people freaked out, committed suicide, stabbed friends, neighbors and countrymen to secure the last box of Twinkies from the local A&P. They also pet kittens. Yet coming from the Oval Office all that could be heard were belly laughs as JFK, RFK and Robert McNamara could not stop laughing.

How this prank played out is the powers that be got together and decided to use national fear of Mutual Assured Destruction as the springboard for a joke about Mutual Assured Destruction. He convinced the Soviet army to build a nuclear weapons base on Cuba, which then lead to hilarity as world-ending nukes were launched back and forth across the Gulf of Mexico.

"And everyone thinks the world
will end! But it won't! ROFLMAO!"
After a while though, Kennedy decided the country had laughed hard enough and addressed the public from the porch at the White Housue Rose Garden. However, when he saw the literal waves of blood rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, he started laughing so hard he fell off the podium. Only then did a wounded country realized they'd been had and could join in the comedy as well.

Some might point out that going over the course of 13 days and taking place in October might disqualify this as an April Fool's Day Joke, but that in-and-of-itself was part of the joke. Kennedy used his presidential powers and access to the “Lost”-esque time shifting device to permanently make those 13 days occur on April Fool's Day. Ironically enough, this time shifting also brought Lee Harvey Oswald and the guy who killed JFK into the '60s, in the end, making Kennedy the big April Fool.

I'll end with one final word of warning. This weekend, don't be a Kennedy, realize anything published online that day probably isn't true. But also, please realize that anything published right now is dead-on serious and true... you fool.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Let's sweep sweeping under the rug

With calendars officially turning over to spring, that means everyone can start spring cleaning!

… crud.

This landfill in Barclay, ON represents one of the
most successful sweeping operations ever. The broom
collected a particle of dust!
It's not so much the concept of cleaning that I'm against, it's what goes hand in hand with it, sweeping. Sweeping is extraordinarily inefficient. I'm pretty sure it's the only activity in the world where achieving three percent of the goal is an unmatched triumph. Keep in mind, if we translated that three percent to a standard elementary school grade scale, it'd be far below the tortoise level. Far below.

Yet people trumpet up sweeping as some great end all, be all of cleaning prowess. But at no point in life has anyone sat back and said “You know what, I really like sweeping. The way I wave that wand and just watch the pile of stuff build up, it's truly magnificent. I just really, I just really like it.” The closet thing anyone has ever come to that is “Sweeping!?!?!?!?!? (really horrendous profanity that is unfit to print on such a nice, kind family oriented blog).

No matter how many times you run the broom across a surface, you're not going to get all of the debris swept up. The design of a broom lets little bits of annoying through it. If you try going back and doing a second pass, it will still miss parts. A seventeenth pass? Sure, you might have created Carpal Tunnel's syndrome, but that doesn't sweep get any more fragments of vintage Urkel-O's cereal into the garbage, where it belongs.
Fantasia--the only time brooms have done anything worthwhile.
... they did kill Mickey, right?
There's got to be a better way. If you really think about it, the broom probably hasn't changed much since its invention some time during the middle ages. Sure, these days it probably doesn't cause massive amounts of plague and dysentery, but we can thank modern medicine for that advantage—the broom had little to do with it.

But improving this torture device can't be something as simple as a vacuum, because those have already been invented, so inventing that wouldn't net me any lush royalties, and that's really the reason I'm into this whole improve the mousetrap sort of endeavor.

Why don't we have like laser guided brooms now, ones that zero in on and destroy debris in a totally bitching fashion. That concept alone is making me antsy to get sweeping, but then I realize I have modern day brooms with their modern day shortcomings. The shortcoming mainly being lack of laser.

I realize much of our lasers are probably devoted to trivial tasks like curing vision ailments or providing special effects in sci-fi films, so scientists probably wouldn't let that tech out, no matter how awesome it looks.
Check out how seamlessly the Wond-O-Brick sweeps
away those corpses!

My solution for a better broom is just use a straight up brick. Lord knows they're heavy, but that also means nothing is going to escape from their grasp. Dust, ain't happening. Orange peels? They'll get bricked. If anything can escape under the

As for that whole lush royalties argument I mentioned earlier, don't worry, I'll still get justly compensated, because I have come up with such an amazing name for it “Wond-o-Brick.®.” Sre, it might not actually work any better, but it will definitely “sweep up” millions of dollars into my pocketbook. And that's the type of sweeping I can support.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Go ahead employers, take a look at my thoroughly pointless Facebook page

Kevin Nelson... is really good at Scrabble!!!! GASP!
Kevin Nelson... likes talking about his cats!!!! GASP!
Kevin Nelson... shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die!!!! GASP!
Kevin Nelson... is far too cute!!! GASP!

Any prospective employers wanting to look into my social media background would find bits of information such as this. And that doesn't frighten me.

So when news hit this week that some people are actually asking for potential hires' FB passwords in order to thoroughly vet them, it also didn't frighten me. If you're stupid enough to put stupid stuff on your Facebook page, you just might be too stupid to work.

I approach Facebook as a publishing medium, and as a result, I know (and expect) people to interact with the information I place on it. I know everything that goes up on my Facebook page is something I have written or something I support. I have placed it there for a reason. If someone doesn't like what I have placed there and chooses not to hire me, it's their loss. Yes it's a horrible invasion of privacy, but it's privacy I'm already sacrificing. Nobody has come up to me and threatened to kill me if I didn't reveal how cute I think my cats are (very).
This Scrabbleism might even help in the hiring process.
My main issue with this is why do the companies care. If the person has it set on private settings, do you know who's going to see the updates/pictures/rants/artfully erotic pictures of corncobs? Very few people. 

That also leads to the question of why the potential hires care. They should know they're being looked at from all angles. They wouldn't have put their love (as in "love love") of barnyard animals on a cover letter/resume so shouldn't be surprised when it causes issues from being on Facebook.

I realize this is done just to analyze another portion of the person, and that person can control that point of view, so why aren't they using it to their advantage?

It's weird how people want to distance themselves from social media profiles, yet these same profiles are actually them in a nutshell. The reason employers look at them is they can see how people act. If you don't want someone to think you're a hardcore alcoholic, remove those keg stand pictures. If you don't want someone thinking you cried while watching “Eat, Pray, Love,” take it off of your favorite movies list. And if you don't want someone thinking you're a furry, you probably shouldn't have shown up to that interview wearing your unicorn outfit.

Where these companies have slipped is by asking for the passwords of people who have an account set to private. That I can't support and mainly because I thoroughly enjoy my passwords. My passwords are really good. Sure, I didn't use a string of random alphanumerics, but I'd guess no password cracker would happen upon my codes. I simply based it on a nonsense line I thought up when I was like 12. If I told an employer this password, I'd have to change it. And then odds are I wouldn't get the job. And then I'd need to change it. And then I'd probably forget I changed it. And then I'd try access Facebook from a coffeeshop and/or brothel. And then I'd be locked out. And then I'd curse the company even more for not hiring me.

It's really a vicious cycle.

If a company wants to look at my profile and see how awesome I am at Scrabble, they don't need my password for that. They can simply challenge me to a game of Scrabble and I'll show them how right there live in the office. Scrabble is only the greatest game ever created, odds are the company has a copy, let's game. And if they don't, well I don't want to work there anyway.

Oh, and my social media profiles do showcase how I would kick their collective asses. Don't worry, I definitely have that covered.

Monday, March 19, 2012

March Madness marches to the beat of insane drummer

Wow. Just wow. That's all I can say. What an insanely great weekend of March Madness. The upsets were absolutely astounding, and I'm certain we'll talk about the 15 seeds for years to come. What occurred this weekend exemplifies what exactly is mad about this month.

Oh, before I go any further, I'm not talking about the basketball event, because why bother. Instead, I'm actually referring to my version of March Madness, the version where I go around my apartment, grab random items and cue up the John Philip Sousa and have them engage in march offs. Sure, many of these items are inanimate objects and/or my cats, but when that “Stars and Stripes Forever” gets a-rockin' they start-a marching'.

And by marches, I mean I move them about in a vaguely tea party like fashion, complete with talking to the inanimate object and coming up with responses for them to have. It's captivating. Who ever sasses me back the best or I don't have a mortal hatred of wins. Sorry mushrooms, you will always repeatedly lose the first round.

With that out of the way, let's get to some of the great March Madness madness that we've already encountered so far during this event that has nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with my compromised mental state.
Scene from the thrilling march pitting girlfriend's shoe
vs. season four of Dave Foley-starrer "NewsRadio"
The march that will go down in history is when my salvaged Zune took to the field. Already it's defying all logic, because really, who has Zune? But it became even more shocking when it started playing its own music. Technically this is cheating, because Sousa has little in the cannon of Dexy's Midnight Runners, but that sheer gumption will go down in history as it beat a piece of gum in its march.

Another match saw 15 sunflower seeds perform a Turkish waltz. Nobody thought they stood a chance, especially up against something as deliciously awesome as its competitor, French Silk Pie. They didn't have water or dirt or anything, but man, did they get destroyed. People just don't like seeds, and pie is just amazing. Sure, none of them marched, but it will go down in history as one of the worst matchups in the history of March Madness, which I just started doing this year.

Not too surprisingly the bracket for the Sweet 16 looks rather sweet. Anyone filling out brackets for this event probably should have guessed that though. When the main things I have in my apartment are sweet things, and the main things I like are also sweet (they go hand in hand), we are going to have a truly sweet Sweet 16.

That round will see drama with the following matchups—Sprocket(2) vs. Yellow #5(14). Kibble n Bits n Bits n Bits(15) vs. Gunk they ate in the “real world” in the 1999 box office smash “The Matrix(12).” Candy necklace(3) vs. Astronaut Ice Cream(5). Duke(2) vs. Soylent Green(7). Five pound bag of sugar vs. Calisthenics (concept of)(4). Cookie Dough(1) vs. Rubbing Alcohol(14). Banagrams(1) vs. Actual Alcohol(4).

Stay tuned to hear the thrilling conclusion. Who will walk away with the victory title and who will be declared the best marcher in all of the land (my apartment).

… it will be the five pound bag of sugar.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Robin's Eggs hatching plan to make me not want to eat them

Oh delicious. So tasty. So chocolatey. So malty. A quick look at the calendar reveals it's March, and that means, Robin's Eggs. I absolutely love Robin's Eggs. Imagine a Whopper, but with a thin candy shell. The lovechild of a malted milk ball and an M&M, with none of the awful after taste.

Being such a fan of the malty delight, I decided I wanted to know more about them, where they came from, the genius who came up with them, who paints the speckles, why the normal sized ones showcase quality over quantity, basically everything there is to know about Robin's Eggs, I needed to know.

But, much to my horror, I so did know everything about them.

I called up George Jones, a product designer at Hershey's. I figured my contact on the inside would know a thing or two about why such a delicious product remains so scarce on the shelves 11/12 of the year. We had the following conversation.

“Hey George, I noticed the batch of Robin's Eggs was really good this year. Of course, I'm sticking with the regular sized Robin's Eggs—not such a fan of the bite style of the mini eggs, although it does have a higher candy shell surface area.”
“Yeah, nobody likes the mini ones, not sure why we keep them around.”
“Anyway, as I said, I'm loving the orgy of eggs right now...”
“Yeah, everyone likes orgies, not sure why we don't do them much.”
“... yes. But continuing, why does this... gift of delicious candy only come during the Easter season? Why not make them available year round?”
“This is robin orgy season.”
Robin's Eggs, Awesome Whoppers
Indisputable photographic proof of the
robin's eggs killing fields.
“You really need to get off that.”
“No, it's true. This is the season when robins get amorous and lay a lot of eggs. We can then package them and sell them at an extraordinary profit. Oh... crud. Please don't print those last two words. Also should probably avoid the deviancy”

But before he could finish that sentence, I had already hung up the phone. With just a slight slip of the tongue, this sexual deviant candy designer had let out the biggest secret of any candy season—Robin's Eggs are actually robin's eggs. Please take note of the capitalization.

And for those of you who didn't like grammar class, Robin's Eggs come from real, actual robins.

Obviously there's a conspiracy afoot. Robin's were happy before we started eating them, and now are we to believe they're still happy? The happy-go-lucky robin on the cover would certainly seem to make you think that. Also, do actual robins then have malted milk flowing through the veins. We, of course, already know they have a thin candy shell.

In addition, this thing opens up a whole can of worms. Such as vegans who ate Robin's Eggs because they taste so much better than kelp, no longer can. And every time I power through a 33 ounce bag during my mid-morning snack, I have committed genocide on one of the friendliest birds around.

Worst of all, those robins probably ate the can of worms before laying their tasty children., which means I have now eaten worms. What a bizarre bargain, I want candy, I get worms. And not candied worms at that.

Although this has kind of blown my mind, I'll still eat Robin's Eggs. Why? Because they're still delicious. And if I stockpile a lot of them, I'll have some excellent lunchtime trading fodder. Hopefully they don't hatch before September.

Monday, March 12, 2012

We've come full circle on celebrating Pi Day

This just screams fun.
Hey, quick question, do you have any plans for Wednesday? Any things on your to do list? Is there something you'd like to do 3.14159 times?

For you math geeks out there, you know exactly where I'm going with this. Wednesday is March 14th. A rounded numeral of π is 3.14—that means, Happy π Day!

I realize I made reference to math geeks in the previous sentence, but don't worry, π is a universal constant that when multiplied by 2r fully encompasses all the fun. It's a number that anyone can celebrate and love and on Wednesday, I'm certain everyone will.

But there is some debate about how exactly to celebrate this renowned holiday. It seems like the easiest way to celebrate the day would be to have people gather around and see how far many digits of the acclaimed irrational number. However, that would actually cause the concept of the word “party” to implode. That's something middle school nerds do to impress the opposite gender.. they also don't realize that it impresses no genders. Also, no matter how much it π s things up, don't calculate the volume your party hats could hold. Just don't.

Key to any good party is having some sort of delicious dessert item. What better choice than serving actual pie to celebrate the day. I imagine a good banana cream pie is the best way to go, but feel free to use your imagination—lemon meringue, apple, blood. Anything would be good, it is pie after all. I've always wanted to bake a cake and cut it into the π shape. That would create pi cake, which would be delicious and ironic and deliciously ironic all at the same time.

Another way to celebrate is to play off the 3.14159ness of the day and doing things 3.14159 times. Walk around a circle that many times, which actually doubly celebrates the day. Of course, you can also have sex 3.14159 times. And to make that one even better, I highly recommend not rounding off to the .00159—expand out another decimal, you'll thank me later.

You can also take in a viewing of the movie “Pi.” However, be forewarned, I'm pretty sure it makes no sense, but at the end of it, a guy jabs an electric drill into his head, much like the real π forces people to do. Recalling that, I realize this movie would be extremely apropos for your π celebrations.
This just screams fun.
Figuring out all the digits of π is another great way to celebrate the day. I realize I said earlier reciting digits was an awful way to celebrate, but this isn't reciting, this is deducing what comes next. This number has plagued mankind ever since Archimedes hilariously approximated it as 3 in the 3rd century BC. Modern technology is making it even easier to figure out π—supercomputers have calculated it out to 10 trillion digits. You can bring it even further out, maybe even to upwards of 11 trillion digits by using this simple philosophy, make stuff up. It's not like anyone can or would call you on it. And I can now say with extreme certainty that the 3,325,436,626,462th digit of pi is a 6.

Just try and prove me wrong. You can't, so go and eat your humble π while I have the greatest π day ever.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Shorely that interview with Pauly Shore could have gone better

“Hey Kevin, this is Laura, I'm Pauly Shore's agent, he's coming to Madison in a couple weeks, and I was wondering if you wanted to do an interview with him.”
Pauly Shore
Pauly.

I received that voicemail almost seven years ago, when I worked as the arts editor at The Daily Cardinal, a student daily newspaper at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The arts page chiefly concerned itself with music and movie reviews, but when something like this happens, we shift our focus. Sure, when given the opportunity to interview someone of the stature of Paulie Shore, star of “Jury Duty” and “Goof Troop,” it's not something you really jump at. It's something you say “Eh,” and shrug your shoulders.

And I did shrug my shoulders. I figured, no way was I going to interview that joke of a celebrity. But as I continued through my two week backlog of voicemails, I realized it could be funny. When I got to Laura's second message that said essentially the same thing, I became set on doing that interview.

I hung up my phone and immediately picked it back up so I could give her a call.

“Hi, this is Kevin Nelson from the Daily Cardinal. I received your message about Pauly coming to town, and I think it would be pretty cool to talk to him.”
“Oh, that's great, when's good for you?”
“Whenever is good for Pauly,” I said, being mindful of celebrity and the pitfalls inherent to it.
“Did you want to talk to him... now?” Laura said, not really being mindful of celebrity and the pitfalls inherent to it. But I suppose “celebrity” and “Pauly Shore” don't really go together in the first place.
“... I should probably prepare some questions for him first,” I said.
“Oh yeah, right right,” Laura said. “Should I have him call you in like an hour?”
“Sure. Thanks,” I said as I hung up the phone.

Then it hit me. I'm interviewing Pauly Shore in 60 minutes and I have absolutely no clue what to ask him. Sure, my brothers and I grew up watching “Encino Man,” and I was the person who saw “In the Army Now” in the theaters, but I couldn't think of a question related to those factoids aside from “... really?” or “....... really!?!?”

I resorted to calling my brothers to see if they had any ideas. When that only netted further variations on “... really?” I had one of my friends post to the Something Awful forums, asking for any question to ask the Weasel himself. But being true to Something Awful, the questions all mocked and chided in a hilariously blunt fashion.

I didn't use any of the Something Awful questions.

But time eventually ran out. When my phone rang, everyone in the office knew who was calling. I looked at the ringing phone and then up at the 40 student journalists looking at me. I didn't pick up the phone, but ducked into a side office where I could at least have some privacy. Privacy I needed, because the “conversation” started like this.

“Hi, this is Kevin Nelson with The Daily Cardinal.”
“Hey Kevin, it's Pauly!!! Waaaa oohhhhoh blah ahhhhhhh!” It then followed with a solid minute of sounds and noises. I imagine my face went completely white. Not only had I set up this interview, I needed to use this interview, and in our first minute of conversation, I had encountered nothing but noise. Stupid noise at that.

We eventually got on track and did talk about things that could actually be used in an interview. His stand up comedy career, his reality show and “Pauly Shore is Dead,” a mockumentary he made.

One of my favorite parts of the interview came when I asked him what he considered the pinnacle of his career (thank you Something Awful for that suggestion). After explaining to him what the word “pinnacle” meant, he responded that it had to be “Pauly Shore is Dead,” because he wrote, directed and starred in it. It was just really close to his heart. “But if you ask the fans, it's probably 'Son in Law.'”
2/3 of these actors have appeared in Oscar winning films.
I have never talked with someone who appeared in
an Oscar winning film.
Upon hearing this statement, my immediate, heartfelt reaction caused me to blurt out “More than 'Encino Man!?!?!” As expected, this caused some hate daggers to fly. The response he mustered after an icy silence was “Yes. More than Son in Law.”

By the time we started talking about the pluses and minuses of being a celebrity guest at the opening of a Whole Foods (plus—free food), I realized the interview was coming to a close. With most people a standard “Thanks for the interview” suffices. It lets them know everything is done. In this case, it certainly didn't suffice. Instead, it just got more bizarre.

“Thanks for the interview Pauly.”
“Hey, hey, how old are you.”
“........ 21...”
“Ohhhh, that's the best age! I want you to promise me you'll have a lot of fun. Just go out there and do everything that's fun.”
“... okay. Will do, Pauly.”

And I did, Pauly. Thanks for the advice. Sorry about the career.


Monday, March 5, 2012

Breadmaker Cooks Up Craigslist Deals

“Getting a bread machine is a great idea! We'll be able to have bread every day, and we'll know exactly what's going in our bread! Awesome!”

Thinking like this has lead to the noble downfall of many a specialty cooking product. People see a product on sale that makes something they like and immediately want it. Once they have it, they use it once (MAYBE twice) and then sequester it to the darkest corners of the attic or dumpster and never think of using it again. And I love these people for this rationale.

Who wants some squared, randomly holed bread?
While some of these items go for over $100 on the retail market, they go cost significantly less on the “I want this crap out of my house” slums of Craigslist. They generally list it for 70 percent of what they paid for it (they want it gone) and I do the standard “offer 10 percent less than listing price,” which they always agree to (they really want it gone).

It's not just bread machines that fall into this delightful slum. There's also ice cream machines, back up bread makers, ravioli presses and diapers that populate my house as a result of my bargain shopping. Sure, I don't have a child, but diapers are great for other things... like they have funny cartoon characters on them?

These purchases resulted in lower cost jalepeno cheddar bread, near free beer bread (just add beer... bread) and an amazing sweet potato ice cream. Were I to get these at a normal store, I'd be out a lot of money and, in the case of the latter creation, I'd get odd stares. Sure, I do need to factor in that 80 percent of face into my value equation, but the cost of goods is so low, I definitely come out ahead.

But I realize there's got to be more to my searching than just amazing breads and mostly unused diapers. I know there had to be more to it than that, so I decided to expand my search.

Armed with this knowledge of the cheap and easy, I took to Craigslist to see just what else I could find. And then after I amended my search to NOT include the phrase “cheap and easy,” I found a lot of the results actually were quite intriguing. Everything from a dolphin candle holders to bathroom sinks to horse embryos were close at hand. Since I know these were hiding away in some darkened closet, they probably haven't been ravaged by the scourges of time and when combined will make an excellent multi-use tool. Would anyone like to eat horse embryo skewered on a dolphin out of my new bathroom sink? No? I can pair a bread with it too! Sounds good.

Mother said I no longer needed that ice cream maker.
The only downside of this whole Craigslist phenomenon is people who are going to firesale their items are probably not the most sane. They should know what value they have lurking in their closet, but they don't. And therefore, they are insane.

A good rule of thumb is when you go over to pay, if they say “I just didn't need that thing. That thing you're here for. Whatever it is, it's right over here... in my basement...” and then make a swooping gesture as they open the door, you probably shouldn't buy that item. Or, at the very least, you should do like I did and take a look behind you with each step to make sure he's not whipping out a machete... or whatever else can be whipped out.

Because of that strategy, I got a dirt cheap bike. Thank you Craigslist for your bizarre but awesome bargains. Now I'll have some of my popcorn bread.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Pretzels in Chex Mix Claim Another Victim as Awful Snack Results in Crash

The crash that took the life of Wayne Sanderson, 47, of Cheyenne, WY, was not caused by drugs or alcohol. Sanderson wore his seat belt and his brake lines were intact. What took Sanderson's life is one of the newest, but most dominant, killers on our nation's roads, Chex Mix.

Specifically driving while eating Chex Mix and having to take one's eyes off the road to separate out the pretzels. The sheriff's office reportedly found a half empty bag of Bold Party Blend Chex Mix and a cupholder overflowing with the squared pretzels that go hand-in-hand with Chex Mix.
Look at all that evil undelicious in one handful.

“How many people have to perish? How many children must be made orphans before those fat cats at General Mills realize nobody likes pretzels and their inclusion in Chex Mix represent a very real danger?” asked Michelle Novak, chair of Mothers Against Pretzeled Driving. “There's no way to drive and separate out pretzels, but there's also no way to eat Chex Mix with pretzels. This puts drivers in a very dangerous catch-22.”

While exact numbers are hard to ascertain, it's estimated that roughly one in six accidents in America are caused as people try to separate out pretzels from Chex Mix. This makes it even more dangerous than texting teenage drivers running red lights while speeding and on cocaine cut with rat poison.

“General Mills (producer of Chex Mix and Cinnamon Toast Crunch) is obviously beholden to some sort of pretzel lobbying group. Anyone with the basest level of taste would know to not combine something reviled with all the other bits of awesome in Chex Mix,” said Novak.

In recent years, General Mills has added pretzels to items that were never intended to bear the salty awfulness of pretzels. While the limited edition “Muddy Buddy” variety correctly featured no pretzels, the 2011 seasonal hot cocoa variety featured thoroughly out of place pretzels amongst other bits of chocolatey delights.

“You do realize some people actually do like pretzels, right?” said Frank Sommers, head of a Washington D.C.-based pretzel lobbying group. “Why would General Mills include something in its product that not only do people no like, but also causes hideous car accidents?”

Reportedly last shot of Sanderson's cupholder, confirming
the pretzel theory.
Sommers refused to answer any other direct questions about Chex Mix.

The one bit of solace Sanderson's family can take away from this terrible ordeal is preliminary toxicology reports show his blood pretzel level was at three parts per thousand. While this is over the normal levels for people with taste, it can probably be attributed to inhaling the dust that had spread itself upon other parts of his Chex Mix.

“I just hope final reports lower that number,” said Maureen Sanderson, wife of the deceased. “If we get definitive proof he had no pretzels in his system, I'll know at least his last moments were happy and pretzel free. But at this point, I can only hope.”

We can only hope that too, Maureen. We can only hope that too.