Author: derick

I went to Subway for lunch today with Kathy, one of my work mates. After waiting in the line for our turn to order, Kathy was up.

“Ummm.. I’ll have a Veggie sub on Italian bread”.

I quickly seized the opportunity to make fun of her for it. “Kathy, that’s not a sandwich; that’s a salad on bread.” When it was my turn, I ordered an Italian BMT, the meatier the better. I have no reservations against eating meat. In fact, if I can swing it, I’ll have it breakfast, lunch, dinner, in-between meals, inside my Powerbar, puréed into my water (just kidding). But you get the picture, I like meat.

Well, there is nothing peculiar with Kathy’s abstention from meat. Albeit, it suddenly dawned on me while sitting at the booth mauling my BMT that Kathy’s newfound vegetarianism is just that, “newly” founded. I could of swore that a few months prior, she had participated with me in seeing how disgusting Subway’s “Barbequed Pork” sandwich really was. In fact, I remember being confused cause she actually liked the darn thing. Anyway, this brought up a rather interesting and lengthy conversation I had with her on her newfound vegetarianism.

I attempted to get some answers, “So, are you doing this for health reasons, or do you just have moral reservations against harming animals for consumption?” She answers, “neither… it’s actually a long story”. The plot thickens. “Okay, so you just don’t like the taste of meat?”. “No, it’s not that”. Now she had me completely confused. “Well, there has to be some reason..”. “It’s a little complicated” she retorted. She wasn’t making this easy.

“Okay Kathy, there has to be some way you can sum this up in one sentence”. She tries. “I don’t think humans are meant to eat meat.”

Kathy’s conviction: human’s are just not supposed to eat meat– we are physiologically engineered as herbivores. She further backs up this claim by a study she read that had produced results supporting the notion that a diet with meat in it, leads to a higher risk of developing various ailments: cancer, heart disease, etc. A strictly vegetarian diet is allegedly healthier and in a way, is it’s own preventive measure against illness later-on in life. Also, our long intestines are typical of herbivores, since the complex nutritional elements in plant-life take longer to break down. And the opposite is true with carnivores; They have smaller intestines in order to process meat quicker, purging it from the system before it becomes deleterious.

Our conversation was overheard by a woman sitting behind us, who, before leaving the restaurant, put her five-cents into the discussion. “I don’t mean to interrupt, or eavesdrop into your conversation, but how does this explain canines”. We were taken aback by this stranger accosting our conversation, so my immediate reaction was to smile and say “good point”.

But, it’s an interesting question. Are we really supposed to eat meat, as a species? We’re also the only carnivores who go through the trouble of preparing our meats– cooking them. Maybe there is some merit to Kathy’s argument. Who knows? I just thought it was an interesting point-of-view. One I’ve never heard before.

Let’s break-out the Rorschach inkblot test for a moment.

When I think of Ebay.com, my first verbal knee-jerk reaction is “Damn, why didn’t I think of that”, in a tone of transparent jealousy, with maybe a dash of self-enmity.

When I think of that peer-to-peer late 2000 sensation, Napster, my reaction is similar, probably a little more pretentious: “This isn’t all that special. I can code this, give me a month.”

But, if you show me an insignia t-shirt of a professional sports team juxtaposed with a price-tag, or if you playback a 30-second clip of monkeys in suits, and then whisper over that this Superbowl commercial costs over 2.4 million to air on TV, I would probably drop my jaw for a few seconds, capitulating my haughty-air of feigned business acumen, and simply concede, “Wow… that’s a stroke of Genius”.

Alright, so this is the makeup of the football product:

1. A group of guys with enormous athletic talent.
2. The important claim that these guys “represent” the citizens of a particular region of the Country.
3. Then, let sit over time till the eventual engendering of an artificial solidarity by the community they represent.
4. Make money. If you’re a decent team, charge 80$ for a seat in your stadium. Start with this “till-jar” of ticket sales, and quickly advance to the more lucrative potential in million dollar TV ads, products, magazines, etc. Sky’s the Limit.

The Patriots have won their 3rd Superbowl in over 4 years, and now the whole of New England is in a state of accomplishment, as though they had some contribution to this victory. And, I am one of them. I was squirming on every New England fumble, jubilant for every McNabb sack, and sincerely joyful at how the game overall turned out, a Patriots Victory.

It’s easy to forget that the Patriots, and all professional teams, are: First, a business, and only Second, a sports team. And hey, if you can combine the two and be filthy rich in the process, Amen, it’s America.

I was watching Comedy Central Presents for like 5 hours yesterday (I have that kind of time). And it was all well worth it because Stephen Lynch came on singing those hilarious songs that a lot of you know like “hermaphrodite” and “Just a little bit Special”.

Ever since, I have been scouring the internet trying to find clips of these songs (I just can’t get them out of my head).

So far, I’ve found a video clip of “She Gotta Smile”. It’s very funny and definitely worth a look!

He has two albums out:
1. Little Bit Special
2. Superhero

It took me 3 hours yesterday to shovel the snow from our small little driveway, and an additional 30-min-or-so to clear the walkway that leads from the front door to the street. The walkway is as important since the mail has a tendency to never make it to your door when no path is available.

What a snow storm! According to the news, anyone born after 1978 has never–in their life–seen a snowstorm of such enormity.

Rhode Island is still in a “State of Emergency”. It may be just me, but the term “State of Emergency” has always seemed to me a little too dramatic when it’s called upon by something like a snow storm. Although, I won’t deny, snow can be very disabling, and roads can be very slippery, but the snow is still just sitting there. It’s not holding the governor and general assembly hostage (well, for the general assembly it may behoove us to look the other way); it’s not a giant lizard terrorizing providence, belching high piercing moans as dispatched tanks and armored apache helicopters unload futile rounds on an attempt to slow it down; it’s not the hour before an asteroid the size of Brazil, is supposed to directly collide into Kennedy Plaza. What state would we be in then? A “State of Emergency”–does it really hold the same doom-and-gloom connotation in these more dire situations, since we already used it up for the blizzard of 2005?

But, I digress.

Either way, today is a State of Emergency. I have no work. I am probably going to re-watch my season 3 DVDs of Seinfeld, followed by maybe some Madden 2004 on my Xbox. Then maybe I’ll go outside and point and laugh at my neighbors who were lazy and waited till today to shovel their driveway—snow the day after is always twice as hard to shovel, com’on people. And then finally, to fool myself into feeling productive, I will write a post on my website. 😉

Done and Done

Russell Peters is one of the funniest comedians I know of, and he’s Indian too– who would of thought? Anyway, my friend had sent me this great 45 minute clip of Peters doing his bit, and I promise you, it is the funniest thing you will see all day.

So park yourself down for 45 minutes and watch this clip; I guarantee you’ll love it!

Russel Peters Clip
(oh by the way, it’s a .ram file, meaning you need RealPlayer to view it)

Imagine a justice system where every time a crime is committed, you had to gather your things, put your jacket on, drive over to the local police station, and prove your innocence. Sounds like one of those apocalyptical fictional stories found only in Hollywood, or in Orwell novels. In fact, we pride ourselves as models of justice with our hackneyed dictums like �innocent until proven guilty� or �guilty beyond a reasonable doubt�, and of course our enforcement of those inalienable rights that require warrants, and sound reasonable cause before any indictments. But are there exceptions ? If the evidence for a crime was not as forthcoming, and the resulting set of possible suspects included the entire population of a town, or a state, or the entire country, are we still following these creeds? The notion of �innocent until proven guilty� just may be a little to idealistic to be practically applicable.

This question has come up in light of the DNA sweep that is being performed in a town in Cape Cod Massachusetts. In an effort to identity the suspect responsible for the murder of Christa Worthington–an investigation that has been ongoing for 3 years now, investigators have asked all 790 male denizens of the town of Truro, to provide samples of their DNA so that it may be compared with–what forensics believes– is the DNA sample of the suspect. In essence, they�re asking the entire male population of this town to �prove� their innocence�provide a DNA sample to be removed from the list.

fair? Ummm… no.

Here�s the news story if you want to read more.