Dan's View On The World

OK, maybe I lied a

OK, maybe I lied a little bit. Guess my new piece isn't going up until early next week. Right now I'm enjoying a long weekend respite from the horrid New England winter in -- where else? -- Las Vegas. Best thing I've overheard in Vegas so far was the female tourist in New York New York, who offered the following insightful observation:

"Hey, that's just like that thing in New York."

[Posted with hblogger 2.0b http://www.hexlet.com/]

This Is Just Dumb

Public Service Announcement:

If you're in the middle of breaking up with your psychotic girlfriend, do not agree to let her tie you up before having sex with her.

This guy found out the hard way.

Props To MacInTouch

I noticed an enormous spike in my bandwidth usage this morning. It looks as though the Apple Product Cycle piece got picked up by MacInTouch today. I've been a regular reader of Ric's for years, so now I feel like I've really made it big.

In related news, my next Cult of Mac-based artistic endeavor will be available in this space shortly. Stay tuned to be the first on your block to read this amazingly disappointing follow-up effort.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Jose Canseco And the truth will set his fee

Dear readers, I have a confession to make. I realize that what I'm about to tell you all might shake the faith that you've come to have in me, both as friends and as readers. I realize that it might be difficult for you to read this. What I have to say might hurt you, and I'm deeply sorry if I am about to end our friendship. But we can only grow as people by acknowledging our mistakes, and hopefully I'm going to grow a little today.

In 1995, I took steroids with Jose Canseco.

At the time, Jose was playing for the Boston Red Sox and I was working as an analyst at a consulting firm in the Back Bay. We used to meet in the dark corners of college dive bars or in Green Line subway stations late at night. Jose would wear an old brown bowler and mirrored aviator sunglasses, so as not to be recognized. We would exchange only a few words in his native Spanish, barely acknowledging each other's presence, before we injected each other with those sweet, sweet synthetic hormones.

I don't know why Jose didn't mention me in his new book. Particularly seeing as how he dropped the dime on nearly everyone else he's ever met. I'd like to think that it was some small token of respect. We were, after all, 'roid buddies for two whole seasons. It's also entirely possible that his publisher read the passage about me and said, "Who the hell is that?" Perhaps my name will come up during his highly publicized interview with 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace on Wednesday evening. Or perhaps it will never come up. The point, gentle readers, is that I can no longer live with the guilt, so I must come clean.

In light of this revelation, I feel that all of my records from 1995 and 1996 must be looked upon with skepticism. My second place finish in the 1996 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament office pool should probably have an asterisk placed next to it. The night I rolled 11 Mexicans during a single game at a Labor Day barbecue in 1995? Never would have happened if I weren't on the juice. My streak of 22 consecutive days of showing up at work before 8:00 AM happened mainly because I couldn't sleep with all those steroids coursing through my veins. And on the advice of counsel, I'm afraid that I can't bring up my 1996 Federal Income Tax Return.

Confession is good for the soul, and my soul is feeling better than sucker-punching a hobo during a full-on 'roid rage. To Jose, I hope that coming clean about your past gives you peace. Or at least enough money to get far, far away from all the people you ratted out.

Chantico = Sicko

I was walking around downtown this afternoon and I decided to walk into Starbucks and try one of their new Chantico drinks. If you haven't read about it, Starbucks bills the Chantico as "drinking chocolate." It's definitely not the same as hot chocolate, being about the consistency of warm maple syrup and only slightly less rich. The flavor probably is about as close as you'll ever get to drinking a melted chocolate bar without burning your tongue. Even though I really like chocolate, I found the Chantico to be kind of disgusting. You feel like you need a chaser after every sip. They're only serving it in 6 ounce cups, which is probably a good thing because 6 ounces packs in 390 calories.

I'm not sure whether the Chantico is long for this world. It's fairly marginalized on the Starbucks web site, with no mention of it on the front page or the menu page. Some things are just a little too revolutionary.

Or perhaps the word I'm after is revolting.

Great Scott, It's Great John!

Marginalized No Longer Praise the Lord and pass the extra-value meals!

So this is what it's come to. America is now home to so many frightening hambeasts who are too large to use a normal commode that there's a company making oversize crappers for their fat asses. This web site is disturbing. How disturbing? I dare you to click on the "See the Difference" link about 3/4 of the way down the page, on the right. I double-dare you. But don't say that you weren't warned...

The Big Tease

So it's currently 52 degrees outside here in Portsmouth. It's sunny and there's a light breeze. All around you can hear the dripping and trickling of water as the mountains of piled-up snow begin to ever so slowly recede.

In New England, we call this The Big Tease. Every New England winter has a few of of these days. The point, of course, is to taunt you. To give you one sweet taste of spring before the temperature plummets and it stays cold and wet and dreary out until June.