It’s a pomegranate world whether you want it or not

Whenever I manage to find something I like, I generally stick with it and don’t feel much obligation to change. Change is only good if it’s better.

I can't begain to tell you how many of my favorite things have been discontinued just to make way for something "new and improved".

For example, I grew up in a simpler time when juice came in flavors like orange, apple or grape. There was no need for exotic stuff or weird blends.

Anything fruit flavored was based off these simple flavors and it never got more unusual than maybe raspberry or cherry.

In the 80s however, something seems to have gone awry. Someone discovered that they had these large weird green berries in the land of goofy animals and suddenly everyone on the planet was trying to figure out what they could stick kiwis in that had never had it before.

So who was the first guy to think "That looks like a fuzzy green testitcle, let's try it out" anyway?

Kiwi wasn’t really good enough by itself so you had to mix it with something else, usually bananas. I never have liked bananas so I never really like the weird mixtures of kiwi either. Kiwis are OK by themselves but to be honest, it’s just not as good as orange, apple, grape, cherry and the oh so exotic raspberry.

Apparently enough people like having kiwis mixed with other crap though that it was deemed a success. I’ve got no real beef with that except once kiwis became “de riguer” the entire product development staff at every large food conglomerate suddenly seems to have realized that they have to keep concocting weird ass tropical fruit flavors or there is really no justification for their jobs.

So, starting in the 90s legions of people with no real purpose in life started concocting all sorts of bizarre and clearly inferior mixtures of whatever oddball fruits and flowers they could find on the internet. It became like the great race to the south pole and eventually jumped the shark.

Mangos, dragonberrry, quince or whatever oddity you could find a native eating began to infiltrate the food isle. Weird flowers and spices are starting to appear. Pomegranates and some nasty tasting thing called Acai berry have risen to the top lately as the Lindsey Lohans of weirdo fruit of the day.

To be honest, pomegranates suck as food. You have to pick at them, they are full of seeds and the flavor is mediocre at best. It’s sorta like trying to unwind the rubber bands on a golf ball core just to find out there’s nothing more interesting inside than a rubber ball (of course, I’m sure golf balls aren’t made that way anymore. There’s something new and exciting now like Nike balls made out of titanium hair wound around a balled up core of Tiger Wood’s tramp’s phone numbers or something)

Gratuitus photo of Racheal Uchitel nearly naked

Problem is, there is only so much shelf space on a rack so to make room for all these weird flavors, something’s gotta go. Well, have you noticed lately how you can hardly ever find plain old orange soda or grape gum down at your local zippy mart? To hell with that, we need something new and fashionable like pomegranate mango.

I’ve had this habit of drinking wine coolers instead of soda since the 80s. They taste good and aren’t as sweet as soda and I just like em. That’s about to end though as now the only tolerable flavor left is something called “Seagrams Exotic Berry” (raspberry flavored) and even that’s getting hard to find.

Gone are lemon-lime, orange, lemonade etc. They’ve been replaced with weird stuff like “Calypso cooler” (this is bright blue colored) and “Jamaica me Happy” or “Fuzzy Navel”. Ad men suck alright. I have to confess that drinking wine coolers is a bit “frue-frie” at best but it’s downright intolerable to be drinking something that tastes weird and has a name only Richard Simmons could appreciate.

However, this is what broke the back of this old camel. I went to loot out the kids Halloween candy and boosted a Tootsie pop. The wrapper looked a bit off to me so I looked a little closer and saw this:

Come on people, - You know this isn't right!

Islamic gay bar at ground zero?

So it seems in the furor that has erupted over the building of “something by Muslims” near the site of ground zero in New York , conservative blogger Greg Gutfeld has come up with his own novel response to this.

He has proposed the building of a "islamic freindly" gay bar next door. I guess the logic behind this is that Muslims find homosexuality to be an affront against Islam and would be equally offended as he is to building “a mosque” next to the former site of the World Trade Center.

Here’s his entire proposal, including the part about not serving alcohol in his bar since Muslims “don’t drink”: http://www.dailygut.com/?i=4696

However, I can’t get over some conservatives proposing opening a gay bar. This has got to be a first or at least the first time they’ve been willing to admit they consider gays more “American” or “normal” than Muslims.

I suppose there’s a master ranking of “hated people” tacked up on the walnut panelling in some smoke filled backroom of the RNC national headquarters up in the Hamptons or something.

I’m curious though, what does a conservative gay bar look like anyway?

Do you open the door and walk into a tiny room full of coats?

Sharia vacation photos

"Smile Neda and don't forget to remember where you were standing in line"

The Great American Short Hair conspiracy

This is one of those things I’ll probably get a lot of flack over but I’ll say it anyway. I spend a fair amount of time reading the tripe on http://www.msn.com/ Kinda for the same reason they still have local news. It’s light and mildly entertaining.

About once a month they have some civilization altering article to help you determine if you are “age appropriate”. These articles are almost always aimed at women and usually a thinly veiled attempt to sell jeans or sweaters.

As pointless as they are, they do strike a nerve with me,-a pretty big one actually. What is this shit about women needing to cut their hair short in their mid to late 30s? I live and work in Mexico most of the time and this culture has not bought into this bullshit at all. Most, (not “many” or “some” but a solid “most”) women keep their hair long well into their late 40s or 50s. I’d say at least 60% keep it long for life. If you don’t believe me, just watch Univision for a couple of hours and check out the villainesses.

And you know what ladies? It looks great. No, they don’t look like desperate cougars struggling to maintain their youth. In fact, they look alive and vibrant. In fact, a lot of them look “hot”, how ‘bout that for an adjective? Here’s a few samples for you:

Salma Hayek now 42 years old (An owner of a website with alot higher traffic than mine once said that if there was such a thing as the Salma Hayek channel, he'd watch it all day long)

Mirabelle Guardia, 49 or possibly north of 50 (Maybe not the best example to make my case as she's alot like a restored old car - much of the original equipment has been replaced or upgraded)

Angélica Rivera, 38. Perhaps the best example I found of a pretty older girl without a bunch of modern plastic parts.

You’ve read everything from Cosmo to Redbook your whole life trying to determine what men like. Don’t try deny it, these magazines wouldn’t still be around printing the same articles over and over if you were not buying them. I’m a pretty average guy and let me tell you what we like – long pretty hair.

Very few women can pull off short hair and look good. If you’re older and your face isn’t perfect guess what? It makes you look 10 years older, instantly. Gotta big snozz, guess what? - the “Night Ranger” look is for you. Overweight? Just like loose fitting clothes hide the armpit rolls, long hair is going to hide a bit of those labrador retreiver jowls on ya. Short hair is nice on your son, not you.

I suspect that they age appropriate haircut myth is being perpetuated by late 20 something hotties who realize they are about to pass that crest and are trying to thin out the “MILF factor” down at the local Radisson lizard lounge. Probably it’s recited in secret sorority meetings until believed as fact.

Don’t do it, you look better with long hair.

Anyway, why do I care? Well, as my 5 year old daughter tells me “I just want to help people.”