Further downhill

The nation's third highest trade deficit in history rose to $59.03 billion in August. Keep in mind, this happened before Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Over at talking point memos, another great Bush administration moment.

In this morning's gaggle, Scott McClellan got asked whether the teleconference the president had with troops in Tikrit was scripted. Here's what he said ...

QUESTION: How were they selected, and are their comments to the president pre-screened, any questions or anything...
MCCLELLAN: No.

QUESTION: Not at all?

MCCLELLAN: This is a back-and-forth.

Here's how the pool report (i.e., from the designated reporter on the scene) described what happened.

The soldiers, nine U.S. men and one U.S. woman, plus an Iraqi, had been tipped off in advance about the questions in the highly scripted event. Allison Barber, deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for internal communication, could be heard asking one soldier before the start of the event, "Who are we going to give that [question] to?"

Perfect timing

Bill Frist has been indicted for insider trading. Bush puppeteer Karl Rove is possibly going to be indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Tom DeLay has already been indicted on a few accounts for messing with campaign laws in Texas. With all these scandals occuring over such a short period of time, it only makes sense for Republicans to not move for cleaning up their parties image, but rather make things harder for whistleblowers.

Stephen M. Kohn, a leader with the National Whistleblower Center, said that a victory for the government would mean "whistleblowers who expose waste, fraud and corruption will have less constitutional protection than Ku Klux Klan members who burn crosses on their front lawns." While mysweetbeard agrees with Kohn, we don't want anyone to secretly point us in the direction of waste.

If certain people in the Supreme Court get their way, your first amendment right will be restricted in favor of catering to corrupted businesses who are a harm to the public. God bless America.

Rushing to idiocy

Another very busy day, so I have to hand it over to the always terrific media matters: On the October 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that the recent beating of a man by New Orleans police was not receiving the media attention of "a Rodney King moment because it's in a Democrat-run town and state," adding that the beating is not considered a "big deal" because it occurred in a "Democrat-run town." But at the time of the King beating -- March 3, 1991 -- Los Angeles also had a Democratic mayor, Tom Bradley.

The New Orleans incident occurred on the evening of October 8, when an African-American retired elementary school teacher was beaten and arrested by a group of police officers in New Orleans, three of whom appear to be white. It was taped by the Associated Press, with an AP producer on the scene subsequently being manhandled by one of the officers. Three officers have been charged in connection with the beating.

Over and over again

I thought to compensate the lack of posts recently (sorry, I've been extremely busy) with something rather long. Here's my take on the glaring similarities of the Spanish-American war and our current situation in Iraq:

In 1894 the Wilson-Gorman Tariff was passed by Congress, placing restrictions on sugar imports to the United States, and thus, causing a decline in Cuba’s economy. Nationalist grew increasingly angry and revolted against the ruling Spanish regime. In an attempt to control the situation at hand, General “Butcher” Weyler was sent to Cuba. Within a year, Weyler was sent back to Spain after placing Cuban rebellions in unsanitary concentration camps. American businessmen had invested interest in the situation, as much profit was to be made from relations to Cuba. Their worries were amplified when the general public began to echo the anti-Spanish sentiments that William Randolph Hearst spread throughout his newspaper empire. Still, President Cleveland was hesitant to go to war with Spain.
The Cuban revolt grew to a roar that would not be tamed as Cleveland’s term ended and William McKinley took office. In 1898, McKinley sent the USS Maine warship to Cuban water to patrol the activity occurring there. The ship was placed there to rescue Americans who were potentially endangered by the conflict in Cuba. On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded, leaving people even to this day to debate just how the ship blew up. Naturally, Hearst, Congress and the American public took this tragedy as a catalyst to go to war with Spain, even as there was not conclusive evidence that Cuba was responsible for the explosion.
Two months after the explosion, McKinley sent the United States to war with Spain and passed the now-laughable Teller Amendment, which stated that Cuba would be granted its independence after the war had ended. Just as the war was ending, the United States forced the Platt Amendment upon the Cubans constitution, placing an American military base in Guantanamo and contradicting that which was promised to the Cubans in the Teller Amendment.
The detriment we placed upon Cuba and everything in the aforementioned summary of the Spanish-American war is absolutely frightening in just how close history is in repeating itself with the current situation we have been involved with in Iraq. After the al-Qaeda network attacked us, we briefly went to war with Afghanistan, and have since spent a significant amount of time in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11, 2001. Just like William Randolph Hearst's days of either making things up or exploiting situations, the media has done quiet a knockup job in the last few years. In the same manner as anti-imperialist were angered at the hypocrisy during the Spanish-American war, there is a growing number of people who are angered by the oil profiting in Iraq. Similar to the Platt Amendment, we are promising liberation while actively destructing parts of the country.

Sounds like history repeating itself to me.

Crude, crude oil

Yesterday in a rowdy meeting on the House floor, an energy bill was passed that would make oil companies richer. Democrats chanted "shame! shame!" as the vote was passed 212-210. This is quiet a different response from eight years ago when Democrats shouted "We want the funk!" at President Clinton. (George Clinton and members of the P-Funk had no comment at press time.)

The bill includes incentives for oil companies to build new refinaries on former military bases. Permission to build on the federal land is given by the president, who has been sporting some of the new Haliburton clothing that's been shipped to his office in the past day.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, asked at one point: "Doesn't this make the House a banana republic?"

Republicans scratched their head (and each other's) before a representative from Ohio stepped up to the podium to say "We have come to a consensus that we prefer to think of this as a J. Crew". He then proceeded to bang on someone else's gavel and scored a high five on the way back to his seat.

Although mysweetbeard may joke around a lot, there is still a lot of detective work around here. Actually, the extent of detective equipment is my bookmark to google.com but I still correct people when they don't say "detective" before my first name at parties.

The bill was sponsored by Republican Joe Barton who is from- and don't say you didn't see this coming- Texas. In an article dated April 14, 2005 the Washington Post says "Since 1997, oil, gas, electricity, nuclear, coal and chemical companies have contributed $1.84 million to Barton, more than to any other House member. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, these same energy interests gave Bush $9.2 million, more than to any other presidential candidate".

Oil vey.

He told me to do it, blame him! Wait, don't, he's got lightning

White House officials are denying reports that President Bush said that God told him to go to war with Afghanistan and Iraq. After all, when you make one of the most catastrophic lie-ridden mistakes as leader of the free world, you might as well point fingers (upwards) at God.

George: What should I do?
God: Be good to your people
George: ...andddd anything else?
God: Keep your faith
George: Yeah, yeah, I get that.. I get that stuff. But what about, oh, I don't know-- Afghanistan? Iraq? What should I do about them?
God: And why do you bring them up, George?
George: War? Karl, he said it, push some buttons!

When intending to please the middle America that voted you in with your overtly faith based decisions, you know you are screwing up when they won't even back you. Pissing off Republicans and Christians within one week? George is losing more friends then the fat kid from Sandlot once he got to high school. In regards to using God as an excuse for war, Andrew Blackstock (director of a Christian group) says ""History is littered with examples of people doing the most bizarre and sometimes wicked things on this basis. It is a line of argument that can be used to justify anything without ever being verifiable." Mysweetbeard agrees, although it would be hard to justify God telling you to cook spaghetti with a toaster.

BBC attempted to give the White House a tape of their program on this situation, but they refused to comment on a private conversation, which somehow negates the purpose of the press conference that a White House spokesperson held, thus rendering this post worthy of spontaenously combusting. Poof.

The war on whoever

I am going to break from the norm and just present what I deem worthy of reading from the NYTimes article on President Bush's speech today:

He said that the United States and its partners had disrupted at least 10 serious Al Qaeda plots in recent years - including three in the United States - and had blocked five attempts to case targets or infiltrate the country. By citing such numbers and cases, but without offering further specifics, President Bush appeared to be seeking to focus attention on the sweep, high stakes and successes of the antiterrorism campaign at a time when the war in Iraq has become increasingly unpopular and has opened divides even in Mr. Bush's own Republican Party.

After the president spoke today, the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, offered a toughly worded analysis, saying that Mr. Bush "continued to falsely assert there is a link between the war in Iraq and the tragedy of Sept. 11th, a link that did not and does not exist. The truth is the administration's mishandling of the war in Iraq has made us less safe, and Iraq risks becoming what it was not before the war: a training ground for terrorists," Mr. Reid said.

In his remarks, the president sharply rejected a suggestion - hinted at even by some in the military - that the very deployment of a large United States military force in Iraq was itself a catalyst for building the insurgent and terrorist ranks. Some critics, he said, had claimed "that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals." But, he continued, "I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001, and Al Qaeda attacked us anyway."

It's all gonna break

UN nuclear chief ElBaradei said today that there is a "hiccup" in the talks between the European Union and Tehran on the Iranian nuclear crisis. With this termonology in mind, mysweetbeard is anticipating the press conference in which the nomination of Harriet Miers as Supreme Court justice is referred to as "projectile vomit" for conservative Republicans.

ElBaradei insists that Russia has the same goals as other members of the international community in regards to Iran's nuclear program: "I think everybody, Russia included, agrees that nobody wants to see Iran develop nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said.

Unlikely, seeing as how the Russians are building a nuclear power plant in Iran. If ElBaradei couldn't be (or at least act) more blind to the situation at hand: "Russia, like all other members, has been trying to see what is the best tactics to achieve that objective ... You have differences on the best tactics to be pursued, but that is democracy."

Does he consider giving Iran the opportunity to develop nuclear weapons as one of those tactics to achieve democracy? This is the equivalent of handing a pyromaniac a few lighters and an empty house. The parent who knows of the situation says that the kid who handed the lighters to the pyro has the best intentions. Makes sense? Didn't think so.

High chance of rain... but what does it mean?!

A company that trains BBC forecasters is attempting to simplify terms used in weather reports. The Met Office suggests "patchy rain" as oppose to "showery outbreaks", while mysweetbeard suggests "are they serious?" as oppose to "you gotta be fucking kidding me".

In trying to dumb down weather reports, we have to wonder what's next; perhaps commercials advertising medicine will be shortened to five seconds with the narrator quickly blurting out "WORKS BUY GO". BBCNews.com has already found it to be too difficult to be proper journalists anymore, simply listing the quoted person in the above linked article as "the Met spokesman".

Fired BBCNews.com writer: Dude, I got fired today.
Friend: Your boss let you go?
Fired BBCNews.com writer: The bad man with the tie!

In May, Scottish nationalists hit out over the three-dimensional map... Having trouble with the weather forecast, Scotland? Here's my prediction for the next twenty years: rain, rain, rain, snow, cloudy, miserable, rain.

If you want to see an excercise in poor writing, just check out the aforementioned article. I think the stupidity of the following sentence (which gets its own paragraph) will speak for itself, but what a way to end an article: "And others said they disliked the brown colouring of the map and its use of moving graphics". How many complaints were actually lodged to constitute "others"? My guess is two-- the one person complaining about the moving graphics and the writer of the article who doesn't like the color brown.

Today, the flags at Cinderella's Castle in Magic Kingdom are at half-mast

Embattled CEO Michael Eisner took one last trip to Space Mountain today as he officially ended his twenty-one year tenure at Walt Disney Co. After the ride was over, Eisner quickly darted down to see how the mid-ride picture came out, only to widly laugh when his raised middle finger was blurred out.

The following Disney characters have issued statements today:

"Mike would always make fun of my ears. That wasn't cool. Otherwise? Not a bad guy... not a bad guy at all", said Dumbo.

"We are sure gonna miss him", cried Perdita on behalf of the other hundred dalmations. "Now whose office are we gonna poo in?"

(Pinocchio would only release a statement if he was allowed to prove with DNA lab results that he was a boy but no one believed him.)

"Who's Michael Eisner?", said Mulan. "Yeah, I didn't see my movie either".

Beast, who initially said "asjfasofijasfa" would like the general public to know that he's launching a rap career, with a single titled "Beauty's Jus' A ****" to hit radio stations never.

Monkey business

For the first time, biologists have documented gorillas in the wild using simple tools, such as poking a stick in a swampy pool of water to check its depth. This is seen as a vast improvement over the gorilla's penchant for sporadically flinging poo. Scientists involved in the research celebrated today by discarding the life sized diapers they wore as protection.

Now that the gorillas can test the water before going in, biologists expect the animals to use the international ape symbol for "no way, that's fucking deep".

Supremely bad judgement

When a Supreme Court Justice steps down or passes away, what's the most logical thing to do? Apparently, appoint someone who has never been a judge to one of the most important positions in our country. If it is of any comfort to you, the next choice on Bush's list was Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader who is under investigation by the SEC for insider trading.

Some are considering the nomination of Harriet Miers to be a victory for Democrats, as conservative Republicans are sceptical of Mier's abortion stance, prior donations to Al Gore and possible past as a registered Democrat.

You can decide for yourself on the matter, but keep this in mind: Miers is said to have called President Bush "the most brilliant man I have ever met".

Thou shall not use codes on level two

Sony has gotten so tired of throwing and eating money from the success of the Playstation 2 that they had to cause some good old fashioned controversy (as opposed to new fashioned controversy, which in actuality is just vintage 1970s controversy).

Catholics were angered by an ad depicting a young man wearing a crown of thorns with the slogan "ten years of passion" to commemorate the product's tenth anniversary. This is considered to be the most terrible religion-themed gaming ad since the Super Nintento advertisement showing Bowser blowing Kwanza candles out of Luigi's ass.

Yo quiero Punky Brewster

A group of anti-illegal immigration activists are voluntarily patroling the US-Mexico border. When asked why, the most common responses were "hoping for a spring break discount" and "wait, I'm not getting paid for this?"

"None of us want to be Border Patrol agents," said Tony Dolz, a Cuban-born Santa Monica businessman." And just who does? Little children want to be astronauts, firefighters and transformers. If I was a kid and another child stated that he wanted to be a Border Patrol agent, I'd slap him with a building block and sit myself in the corner for five minutes, just for being associated with such a person.

The group also condemned businesses that hire illegal immigrants as part of the problem. I find it highly unlikely that these people even have jobs (or a clean pair of underpants, for that matter). It's not like you've heard a variation of this conversation transpire:

Employee: Sir, I have to take the day off.
Boss: Why?
Employee: (proudly) To protect the Mexican border.
Boss: That is terrific! Take the week off. In fact, I just fired myself and peed my pants.
Employee: What?
Boss: Yeah, I don't even work here.

Unfortunately, the Taco Bell dog could not be reached for comment.

She scratched the surface of my nano, is that bad?

Customers are complaining that the iPod nano screen scratches too easily. Steve (get a) Jobs says that the problems only effect "less than one-tenth of 1 percent" of the product, a number that, like the nano, is impossibly small and cute.

The Artics ice cap are melting and just like your son not doing his homework, global warming is to blame. This year has been a record year for sea-ice shrinkage, causing a rapid decrease in fisherman self esteem. The melting is occuring drip by drip, which means that we should expect a summer blockbuster with Bruce Willis starring. Expect the timeframe of events sped up to suggest that this has all occured in twenty minutes.

$100 laptops are being developed for poor children in America, meaning most of the keys will be missing on the keyboard. Many children will cry as they compensate spelling in favor of a wireless morsecode pad. The excitement in receiving one of these laptops will most likely be in line with the sensation of renting a movie on VHS at the public library.

Getting DeLay-ed off?

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted for conspiring to circumvent Texas election laws during a campaign. Although he is claiming innocence, mysweetbeard believes it as much as the possibility of Beowulf swimming for seven nights straight and killing nine sea creatures.

Come on, nine sea creatures? You have to figure that at least one of them had spikey tentacles that spew venom. In what is certaintly more shocking than my patening of Beowulf swimmies and goggles, Howard Dean made a terrific point today:

"The Republican leadership in Washington is now spending more time answering questions about ethical misconduct than doing the people's business".

I wouldn't want Howard Dean to "do my business".

Jared: Howard, I have to use the bathroom
Howard Dean: As your House Majority Leader, I will do it for you
Jared: I don't think that's possible
Howard Dean: ...
Jared: ...
Howard Dean: I swallowed your Beowulf pogs

I never had the intention span for Reading Rainbow

A new sports drink called Spark is being marketed to children as young as the age of four. AdvoCare-- the company that makes the liquid cocaine drink-- says their product is for kids to "kick-start the morning"; In actuality, it's a good source of energy for children to dropkick your neighbor.

I can not imagine many soccer moms reading mysweetbeard, so I will make it a prerequisite to reading the rest of this post for you to first follow these instructions:

-Show up at your next local Sunday morning childrens soccer game. The first thing you are going to want to do is find the team with the coolest jerseys and name. If you see kids wearing magenta, do not look at them in the eyes.
-Never choose the squad with too many dads with moustaches and fleece vests-- they always finish last and have the most kids pee their pants once the whistle blows to start the match.
-Watch the teams practice a little-- if you see fourteen of them within a five feet radius just kicking anything and anyone, lost like a pack of rabid chickens in Time Square, then don't even bother.

So now that you've got your navy blue wearing Dizzy Cougar team to root for, it's time to check out signs that show Sparks is harmful:

-If a player does a bicycle kick and spontaneously combusts
-If the goalie makes a save while also re-financing your mortage
-Although the whistle has blown to end the game, the kids are still playing... for three days straight

In all seriousness, it is concerning that AdvoCare is the leading company in dietary supplements for athletes in America. Implementing performance-enhancing products at such a young age can certainly be harmful to a child.

By the way, Dizzy Cougar's beat Psycho Hungry Vipers 4-3 in overtime last weekend. And if you were that parent that started shouting when we won, IT WAS CLEARLY A GOAL AND YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO STEP FOOT ON MY FIELD!

Somewhere, a Halliburton employee is crying

Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia has asked the state's schools to close down for "two early snow days" in order to save gas during the recovery of the hurricanes. Reports are stating that while many kids in Georgia are excited, approximately fourteen overeager children dove headfirst out their door this morning expecting snow and instead finding concrete.

By closing the schools, an estimated 225,000 gallons of fuel would be saved by keeping buses off the road and teachers in their respective huts and shacks. A few schools have not been willing to comply, but in the interest of hurricane relief, there is a solution to this:

BICYCLES WITH TASSLES


The worst that can happen is a few bikes will lose some air, but come on, we've got a ton of that. Although everyone would show up to work or school about twenty six days later then expected, it would save gas (and give us a reason to say "bike tassles").


The IRA decomissioned their weapons today. Thank goodness.

She blinded me with science

The teachings about the origin of man have long caused a rift amongst scientist and devout Christian conservatives. The debate will make its way into federal court next week, leaving only the six living devout Christian conservative scientists wondering what the fuss is all about.

A theory called "Intelligent design" is being implemented into high schools in the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania. It holds that "nature is so complex it must have been the work of an God-like creator rather than the result of natural selection, as argued by Charles Darwin in his 1859 Theory of Evolution".

Gary Coleman is not an intelligent design.



I believe that it is plausible to teach both theories and let the students decide for themselves. After all, science is largely based on theory and not fact. This debate has been the elphant in the room until political agenda reared its head.

O'Reilly, fool?

We here at mysweetbeard (staff= me) have a strong disdain for Bill O'Reilly. Often, we will watch him spin on "The O'Reilly Factor" and then proceed to change our underwear for the immense amount of shit during his show. Sometimes we even change everyone's names in our phone book to different pirate vocabulary, hoping that when "Scarvy Plank" calls, it isn't going to be my grandmother.

(If you have yet to see the recent show with Phil Donahue on as a guest, I highly recommend you check out this)

On last night's "O'Reilly Factor", our titular host repeated his previous claims that anti-war mom Cindy Sheenan is an "outright radical". Considering the immense amount of disapproval with the war in Iraq, it is implausible to give thought to the aforementioned quote. In the latest polls conducted, only 37 percent of people approve Bush's job in Iraq, as well as only half of Americans believing that we should have stayed out of Iraq.

And just what is "outright radical" anymore? I'd say sticking your head down the toilet with your hand on your hips.

More then 100,000 people are protesting today in Washington.

Pretty rad, isn't it?

Let's just give them all an iPod nano and call it a day...

The Vatican is attempting to ban homosexuals from the Roman Catholic priesthood, sparking a fiery debate. My solution? Have a Vatican softball tournemant, then hand out keychains commemorating the event. No matter what occurs when the situation is resolved, at least no priest can go without saying they had a kickass time when the game goes twelve extra innings at an astounding 0-0 tie.

In what may certainly be greater then the future conversations of who has the more awesome priestchain (softball tourny '05!), the Newsday article contains this passage:

Experts in sexual abuse also expressed skepticism.

"You can't really screen for homosexuality," said Dr. Martin P. Kafka, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "Unless they're going to do visual sexual arousal testing, I suspect that all this is going to do is drive this underground."

The suggestion of using the penile plethysmography is ridiculous as that device is mostly used for sexual predator cases. The PP (sorry) tests are also not sufficently accurate and are said to be unreliable for predicting sexual behavior.

Someone should send copies of "Angels in the Outfield" to the Vatican.

Excerpts from emails strewn across a bedroom floor

I am seeing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah next month in Phoenix. This is from my confirmation email from ticketweb:
JARED *******, you have purchased the following:
-----------------------------------------------
Ticket face value: 10.00
Service fee: 3.27
Total charges: 13.27

I am seeing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on New Year's Eve in NY at Irving Plaza. This is from my confirmation email from the devil:
Seat location: section GA
Total Charge: $36.10

It's too easy to rant about ticketmaster. Instead, I am going to list ideas of how I can deal with how absurd this is:

-light my head on fire
-write "clear channel" on a napkin and pee on it
-light your head on fire
-clap my hands, say no

I am open to suggestions.

In the kingdom of kitsch, you will become a monster

-Is he Alou-sing his mind? (sorry.) On the same day that Barry Bonds pulled out his patriotic card and used the hurricane tragedy to sidestep his steroids scandal, San Fransisco Giant manager Captain Obvious Felipe Alou said "I'm going to try to keep as strong a team as possible even if we're eliminated. The best place for anybody to finish is first place. The second-best is second place.''

-Where's the beef? A year and a half ago, Japan placed a ban on American beef in fear of mad cow disease, albeit there being only two domestic cases as oppose to twenty over there. Japan had agreed to lift the ban months ago but has yet to do so. Today,the Senate voted to keep Japanese beef off the U.S. Market in retalation. To further escalate the childish nature of this issue, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson said "It's just unfair". Maybe each side can write a two paragraph essay on how they feel, list suggestions of improvements and then trade papers?

Juicebox, the new single from The Strokes has leaked on the internet and it prompts me to ask: is this it?

Tap that key (quietly)

Our worst fears have finally come true: some clever hooligan can figure out your passwords by just listening to you type.

And so a new reason to be paranoid arises while some adjustments to our every day lives need to be made.

For example, if you are at work and you look over at a co-worker, lift your stapler and put a "fuck you, not my password" look on your face.

The article states that "the bad guys can get access to your physical space, they can eavesdrop on your stuff. They can install a camera or a keyboard logger on the wire. They can install a microphone."

Bad guys? Somebody get the bat signal going.

Now, I don't give the majority of people access to my "physical space", not even the bad girls. Unfortunately, I've lost access to my physical space-- my password was hacked by an unknown person who probably qualifies as having both excellent hearing and nothing better to do.

Let's do the moon walk, again?

Seattle Times is reporting that NASA intends to send six astronauts in 2018 to land on the moon for the first...

Here's some figures for you- the Gulf cleanup is looking to exceed $200 billion, the Iraq war costs about $5 billion a month and my tuition is a lot.

With that in mind, now must be the perfect time to lay out a plan for this moon trip that will cost $104 billion over 13 years while our deficit swells to a possible $500 billion figure by 2008 and $873 billion by 2015.

The best part of this is a quote from NASA administrator, Michael Griffin. When discussing the new shuttle, Griffin references the older model, saying, ""Think Apollo on steroids". With all the disasters that NASA has been responsible for in the last few years, do we really need an impotent shuttle?

You look like David Bowie but you have nothing new to show me

For what seemed to be the umpteeth time, my order at Wendy's got screwed up. While you'd expect me to rant about how pissed I was (seeing as how blogs appear to be modern and digital one-sided therapy), I'm going to instead quiz you on what I was talking about before all that was just typed in the parenthesis.

While eating my wrongy mcwrong meal, I was startled to see just how many signs in Wendy's read: "Quality is our recipe".

There's one with David Thomas in the background- apron on, heart (presumably) beating. Every time I go into a Wendy's I feel this immense guilt trip as if I should pour a lil barbeque sauce on the floor for my dead homez, DT. (Side note: Don't ever disrespect Dave Thomas while pouring water. You will drop it as I just did. Sorry, dude)

Another sign bears the words "Quality is our recipe" and what is underneath looks like the Wendy's constitution. I did not read what our forefathers of frosties wrote about in regards to our right to hold mayo (but not actually use mayo unless in defense), but I imagine that it is spelled out in this greasy document for those inclined to read.

Here's my issue- what do they tell the new worker that cooks?

Manager: Alright, the nuggets are made with quality. Fries too, those are also made with quality. What do you think we make the hamburgers with?
New Employer: Two buns, pickles...
Manager: QUALITY!
Employee in the background: Uh, we had an order for a cheeseburger deluxe and we ran out of quality
Manager: Oh David Thomas Christ!

UPDATE: Unbeknownst to me, the president of Wendy's resigned today

A saucerful of secrets

Unlike most of my friends, I can not grow a sweet beard over the course of two to three minutes. No, but seriously-- it's ridiculous how quick some guys can grow facial hair. Most of these dudes will sport a new look every day as if to say "fuck you" to guys like me, still wearing out the "hey, I'm trying" look.

And so I'm on a mission that may last your entire life time. Here are the vital stats:
-I'm about 139 pounds and 5'9"
-I really feel as if tofu isn't that bad. Now, I'm by no means a hippie (ew), vegetarian/lesbian (same thing) or a plant, but I feel as if I can make a decent arguement for tofu.

Often, you will find people either loving it or hating it with absolutely no in between (bring me a man who feels "so so" about tofu). Only two conversations can arise from this:

Jared: Do you like tofu?
Person: Yes, I love it
Jared: Lesbian plant.

or...

Jared: Do you like tofu?
Person: NO! I HATE IT! FUCKING SHIT! (*proceeds to headbutt the closest thing to them*)
Jared: Have you ever even had it before?
Person: No.. no, I have never tried it. You know.. because it tastes like nothing
Jared: So then how can you take issue with it?
Person: NO TOFU!


So back to the whole beard growing thing, this is a picture of me with a completley shaved face:




And so it begins. There will be updates when anything significant happens. By the time I deem my beard "sweet" and worthy of bragging about, I am going to shut this whole operation down before the licensing corporations want me to sell out with "mysweetbeard. ponchos".

Would you buy one?