POUND EXCLAIM # !

At the time of this writing it has been a fortnight and four since the drop of Taylor Swift's hot new record Reputation. And since its midnight release I have been listening to the album on repeat non-stop except for breaks to listen to The Writer's Almanac. Even in my sleep my eardrums thrum to the thuds of the deep throbbing bass, wondering what I made her do. I'm ready for discourse. (Note to self: in that last sentence I see potential for some type of disc golf course related play on words. Circle back to this in the future)

Gather 'round children. It's time for the classic tale of the short-lived sandwich from Wendy's. They called it the Bacon Queso Burger and it was available on either beef (hamburger) or fried chicken patty (chicken sandwich). It was the year of our Lord, 2017, and it was a crazy times. Emperor Trump had just come to power, Taylor Swift couldn't come to the phone because she was dead, and OJ Simpson was released from prison.

Haha! Yes! I also watch television programs!

We're well into the new year (new you!)--so much so, as a matter of fact, that we can basically already consider this year [2017] OVER! More or less. Less is MORE! But for the time being we're just going to hit some bullet points from the week ahead so we can talk about the things that we're going to be talking about around the water cooler at work in order to seem personable despite all of our inner fears of making a real human connection.

Daylight Savings Time
It's so close, that by the time you read this it will probably have already passed. And you will have passed...one hour into the future. We're living on borrowed time, folks. Why do we still do this? Is it for the cows? Is it so we can pretend to be Time Lords and feel like we have some sort of tenuous grasp on the ethereal strands of our own withering destinies?

The 2nd Monday The 13th In A (Monthly) Row
Garfields of the world know about these kinds of days. They're almost as bad or possibly worse than being murdered by a guy with a big knife and a hockey mask on an unlucky Friday, because you have to go back to work and wallow in the sameness of your meaningless routine. This Monday the 13th is extra special because it happens after a full moon. I'll start heating up the lasagna now.

MARCH MADNESS!
If you ask an average American "why do you live?" a great majority of answers will be "to watch sporting events, of course!" And what other pinnacle of athletic competition garners more attention than the NCAA men's basketball tournament? And it's great for advertisers because it's an entire half a month, not just a 3-5 hour Super Bowl event. These highly unpaid "student" athletes make millions of dollars for many people all for a shot at The Big Game. Sure, many will go on to be talented professional athletes, but what about the scrappy point guards of the world who graduate with a degree in Health Teacher or Gym Teacher and have learned no other professional skills? I guess you do a couple John Deere commercials or something and then go play for an international team.

Get your office bracket filled out and prepare to lose to the guy/gal that picks teams based on mascots.

Beware The Ides Of March!
The fifteenth of the month is when "Orange" Julius Caesar was famously murdered by his best friend Brutus. At least that is what I remember based on reading Shakespeare in high school English class. "Shakespeare is cool because of fart jokes, ya dig?" said the cool high school teacher, deeply in touch with what the kids find cool. "What scene is this?" the cool teacher continued while showing the class a series of emoticons.

St. Patricks Day
Yup, everyone is a little bit Irish if it means you can get out-of-control-drunk. This is especially true since it's on a Friday and you don't have to show up at work the next day green-tongued and barely functional. It's also a little bit like Halloween for some reason, where people dress up in weird costumes and girls act extra, uh, promiscuous. Is this a racist/xenophobic/insensitive tradition here in USA?

That's all  I can think of as far as big days this coming week. I guess there's always the weather too. Weather is crazy, right? Haha.

Chill out. "Last Minute" is a figure of speech. Did you really think I would wait until the literal last minute to publish a Super Bowl preview? That wouldn't give you enough time to read beforehand and you might miss an advertisement. I mean last minute like doing your summer homework assignment on the final day of summer break before schools starts. Speaking of last minutes, I will bet this sports contest of champions comes down to the last minutes. Get information about this and the full pre-game analysis in my annual "Non-sports-fanatic lambasting of American culture and consumption: A post-cynical view of society and its whims."

It's Facebook Official: Autumn has occurred. And continues to occur. The equinox has passed and we mark this segment of our orbit around the sun as our fall season. There is so much to cover. At least one fourth of our yearly traditions take place (occur) this season.

"Whatever, just give me the bullet points, filthy blogger," said the rude website reader. "It's new TV episodes season and I have much much viewing to do. Like, I know it's mindless garbage structured around advertisements, but it just helps me relax at the end of the day. And as a HardWorkingAmerican, I just want to come home from my job (vital to the economy) and relax with an ice cold Bud Light Lime, some Cheeto's dust coated Burger King Chicken Fries, and kick back to some good old fashioned network television programming."

I understand your plight. Who knows what trending hashtags you might miss out on if you don't catch every second of Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X? Well, pop in a blank VHS and press record, because it's time to read about:

Pumpkin Spice

Love it, Hate it. The over-saturated flavor Pumpkin Spice has reached a tipping point. The p-spice stock has been on the quick rise over recent years and it's either going to enter the eternal pantheon of autumn indulgences, or it will be dethroned and forgotten like so many flavor trends. I feel we are at a critical juncture for p-spice and it will be immortalized or immolated very soon-like. More than likely, it's here to stay. If that is true then I'm going to need companies to CTFO about blasting it in my face.

Are there other flavors that could fill in for p-spice? Caramel apple, maybe. Apple pie. Who am I kidding. PS4L.

Oktoberfest

It has come and gone and it left me feeling underwhelmed. That's what she said. This is supposed to be the big "welcome to fall" festival to celebrate the German traditions of drinking beer and listening to polka and eating German food. Except my local O-Fest was charging way too much for a liter of beer and a bratwurst. The wenches were in short supply, but the trendy Americans in Alpine hats were aplenty. Is this kind of cultural appropriation inappropriate? Imagine Germans celebrating American Independence Day by serving $8 hot dogs and $16 tall-boy Bud Lights while wearing American flag clothing and listening to either Kid Rock or, like, John Philip Sousa. Seems weird.

Football

Sports. It's always fun to catch a few football games until your favorite local team loses more games than they've won and you give up hope on the Bengals again and say well maybe next year is our year. More importantly, are your favorite players sitting or standing during the national anthem? What is their message? "I am protesting this great nation, but will continue to fulfill my sports contract in order to make millions of dollars." Honestly, I don't really understand the reasons for this. Is it a display of general dissatisfaction with something about this country or its leadership? Or is it specifically a Black Lives Matter themed protest? Or is it just like you know people like being part of something--a movement--even if they don't fully understand the reasons or results they hope to achieve.

I think it's more that last one. People live their lives and as they get older they're like "this is it? this can't be it" and look for things to make it feel like they might make a difference or are doing something brave or important but it's all really as inconsequential as posting a status on a social media webpage for their friends to see and maybe talk about but still in the end it's a topsy turvy world where we're all striving our hardest to make sense out of anything as this rock we call earth hurtles endlessly through the vaccuum of space.

Politics/Elections

Can we please just stop? Neither major party candidate is my friend, yet they keep showing up in my Twitter/Insta feeds. Shouldn't elections be like choosing between a chicken sandwich or a hamburger? You'd be fine with eating either one but maybe you want one more than the other based on the policies of the hamburger? Instead it's always a strong dislike of both candidates, but one is maybe slightly less terrible than the other. South Park nailed it by describing elections as the choice between a Giant Douche or a Turd Sandwich.

I've taken some online surveys and they're like "if the elections were today who would you vote for" and I answer "undecided" and the next question is all "yeah, but if you had to chose one today who would it be?" and I'm like damn, neither of these two. I'm voting for Jackie Chan. And that's politics. You have to chose today! It has to be one of these!!! What happened to my voice? This surely isn't democracy. I don't feel represented.

I may do a separate post on voting and these elections on darkblacknetsite.

Halloween

What will the too-soon/in-poor-taste Halloween costume be this year? There's always something that someone daring tries to pull off and it makes everyone go:

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground

Flannel/Sweaters

Thanksgiving

Black Friday

I've got another confession to make and it's not a Foo Fighters song. (Foo Fighters cover band Goo Gighters?). The cold hard truth is that I've been figuratively sitting on this review for literally months. Deletes, re-writes, procrastination, fear. In fact, by the time this is published this soda might have already failed in the free market economy and been scrapped by PepsiCo for something more tuned-in to today's soda drinkers.

The trouble has been that I want to write a comprehensive review, but soda pops come with so much baggage. I would have to start at the beginning of soda in America to really convey my great and well-reasoned points. I would have to cover the entire history of beverage marketing for this article to really make sense. And this includes The Cola Wars--no small topic in itself. And then I would have to examine current trends in culture and lifestyle choices. You guys, I have a 200-level college course about cola trapped in my head. Sure there are a lot of familiar faces/students taking my class just because they loved me so much in my "Gossip Girl & Modern Ethics" course last semester. But can you begin to see how daunting a simple cola review becomes?

So I will write this abbreviated review with the understanding that you have a firm foundation in the cola market and are familiar, in general, with pop culture (get it?!). (In case you're wondering, I read Freakonomics, so yes I am as knowledgeable as an actual economist)

Well, anyways. Let me dig out my tasting notes from May 20, 2016 and get back into this review. I could just buy new cans and re-taste for today's review, but (spoiler alert) nope, no thanks.

Attractive three-quarters view of the box of crackers

Introduction

For many of us crackers are an important part of daily life. From breakfast to all-day snacking to hosting outrageous and/or classy parties/sorties, crackers are there for us. Remember when you were a kid and you were sick? Your mom gave you crackers. Remember when you wanted to eat a brick of cheese but felt socially embarrassed to just go for it? Crackers.

Crackers aren't usually expensive--maybe a few dollars for a box--but there are so many varieties that you'll never try them all. Even such a small investment can be a huge risk when it comes to crackers. What if you don't like the flavor? There is so much that can go wrong. The possibilities for failure, like varieties of crackers, seem literally endless.

That's why I'm here. To taste your crackers for you and then give you an indication as to whether or not it's worth buying and eating that variety of cracker. But the decision to do so is still up to you! That's the beauty of free will. Or is free will an illusion? I'll have to ask my psychic what she thinks.

There's one thing that I don't have to ask my psychic about, though, and that's a question of how thorough this review will be. The answer is: quite so. A secondary effect feature of a rambling incoherent thoughtful and thorough review is length. Thank Al Gore (inventor of the Internet) for jump breaks. Click on, brave reader, to the full review!