Respect Authority

After watching chef Tom Colicchio on countless seasons of Bravo stalwart Top Chef (and by countless I mean five), I’ve grown to respect and perhaps even like the bald-headed foodie icon, whose presence on reality television softens the fact that his Craft restaurant empire is way out of my price range. 

So it was a little disappointing to discover during the 81st annual Academy Awards Sunday that Colicchio has joined the ranks of celebrities hocking something inane just to make a quick buck. 

Indeed, despite Top Chef’s ludicrous pandering to sponsors Glad and Kenware, I was surprised to see Colicchio himself starring in a Diet Coke commercial. Joining the ranks of former Diet Coke spokespeople Adrian Brody and Kim Basinger, the renowned chef has hardly sunk to the bottom (where there’s currently a tie between Tony Hawk’s Bagel Bites and everyone who’s ever endorsed Right Guard Xtreme Powerstripe), but considering chemically-sweetened diet soda is a far cry from gourmet dining, it’s a rather odd pick for Colicchio. Sort of like Rachel Ray’s endorsement of Dunkin Donuts, except Colicchio wasn’t wearing a scarf that small-minded morons might confuse with traditional Arab garb. Smart thinking, Tom. 

I guess with this whole recession thing putting a damper on fine dining, even a culinary scion has to sell out every once in awhile. 

[Fun Fact: Past Diet Coke slogans have included three reprisals of "Just for the taste of it!," as well as "You are what you drink" and -- oddly -- 2006's "Light it up!"]

Hangovers have always existed, even before color was invented!

The dark shadow of suicidal gloom enveloping you after enjoying a few too many glow sticks the night before? Call up Dr. Green. Or perhaps you’re a real bad ass, and drank a few too many glasses of red wine while watching America’s Best Dance Crew, so now your brain is pulsating more than Mario Lopez’ pants every time he locks eyes with JC Chasez? Dr. Green’s got an herbal remedy for that too. However, if you’re not a devout vegetarian, you could just drink some more wine, but I find alcoholism doesn’t really compliment the taste of Frosted Flakes all that much.

Obviously, the easiest way to avoid a hangover is to simply not drink at all, but that’s no fun (except for not feeling like a drowned, bloated corpse the entire next day, I guess). Plus, just like how nobody liked the militant straight edge kid in high school, once you graduate to the adult world of working full time, paying bills, and being able to afford better drugs, nobody likes a teetotaler either. Because they make people feel guilty about their drug problems, and that’s not very nice at all!

Some may say it’s irresponsible to encourage substance abuse as a cure for substance abuse, but I say, that’s why God blessed us with so many different varieties of drugs in the first place! Imagine a world where there weren’t vines flowering with beautiful PCP blossoms every Spring, or proud groves of crystal methamphetamine trees. I mean, fuck, Kentucky would have to find a new state tree in that case!

Curing a hangover isn’t about making good choices; after all, if you knew how to make those you wouldn’t be hungover in the first place. It’s about making less bad choices, and personally, I’m of the opinion that skipping out of work so you can smoke marijuana all morning and chase it with a couple glasses of scotch is a lot healthier than eating all that greasy diner food the hungover many tend to gravitate towards. By noon, you’ll be ready to start drinking again!

Excessive cheeseburger consumption and social isolation have always gone hand in hand, so it’s no surprise really that Burger King’s “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign, which offered Facebook users a free Whopper for every 10 people they de-friended on the site, was wildly successful. So successful that it drew the ire of Facebook itself, which forced the burger chain to discontinue the promotion — but not before it could end over 230,000 friendships.

Though some of Burger King’s analysts – you know, adults that cover the company for financial instead of pop culture reasons – seem to think the company has jumped the shark in its effort to thwart recession-related declines in unnecessary spending, I am of the opinion that the BK can do no wrong. With a plethora of fast-food options available to me—and with no real allegiance to any of them save the occasional McDonald’s cheeseburger or Wendy’s Frosty craving, Burger King executives seem to know how to make their brand stand out.

The King, weird as he may be, was only the beginning. Last year, after the viral success of the Whopper Freakout, BK launched Whopper Virgins, a new play on the original taste-test model perpetuated by Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Outside of the fact that my hunger may or may not at times be influenced by illegal substances, I have to say seeing people experience their first Whopper really and truly makes me want nothing more than a big juicy cheeseburger. Read More ›

The fact of the matter is, we’re not all cyborgs yet (unfortunately), so the periodic intake of nourishment is kind of a must in order to, you know, continue living. There are people who dedicate their entire lives to the pursuit of food — they’re known as food bloggers… and also the morbidly obese. So, whether you were sampling the Crème brûlée wherever all the rich assbags are having their meals lately, scraping cold SpaghettiOs out of the can, or shamelessly polishing off an entire tin of chocolate frosting before throwing it back up, here’s what had us licking our chops in two thousand and eight.

NYC mandated calorie counts in restaurants
Listen, I know Chipotle is bad for me. But I don’t need to be reminded that a burrito and a soda is 4,000 calories. That is all. — lou

New York Pizza
It’s a classic, but who could deny the timeless perfection of Brooklyn style pizza? I’m not talking about the pizza you order from Dominos.com at 2 in the morning when you’re stoned claiming to be “Brooklyn style” — I’m talking about the baseball-pennant-sized slice of grease and early-death you pick up from the poorly lit health code violation on the corner of Church and Coney Island Avenue. Moving to Chicago, where everybody is under the impression that “pizza” actually means “a circular loaf of bread with sauce smeared on top of it” has only solidified that when it comes to pizza, New York City has all the fixings (Ed. note: That “zinger” is the STUPIDEST FUCKING THING I have ever written). — aaron

Sparks
In a fitting tribute to the end of the period in my life where it’s really and truly okay to party until 6 a.m., Miller agreed this year to end the six-year run of Sparks, an alcoholic energy drink that gave me massive headaches and tasted like condensed Sweet Tarts. Now young adults devoted enough to mix caffeine with Friday-night rabblerousing will have to go the old fashioned route: cocaine. — kira

Well… it’s basically a Thursday :\

Only a few short weeks after a New York woman joined the ranks of ladies suing bars for their mechanical bull standards, this woman has an issue with the drinks themselves.

An Upper West Side bar left one woman “engulfed in flames” and — according to the New York Post, which apparently didn’t think being engulfed in flames encompassed this — “horribly burned,” after a bartender poured Bacardi 151 on the bar and then set it on fire.

Really, I’m surprised no one thought that would end badly.

Apparently the bar-fire gimmick comes into play whenever “Great Balls of Fire” comes on the jukebox, which is kind of a bizarre reason to put the lives of your entire patronage in jeopardy. Brother Jimmy’s pulled the drink of the shelves in all of its locations the next day and the victim’s lawyer said she’s trying to rid the city of 151 altogether.

While I can’t imagine I wouldn’t be more than a little pissed off if I was set on fire simply for trying to knock back a few beers, I have to believe someone will eventually tell this woman that more or less any liquor could be set on fire with a lighter, regardless of its potency. So knocking 151 off shelves won’t solve whatever fire bar-stunt epidemic there is out there. That said, after a brief flirtation with 151 in my youth, I have absolutely no problem with it being abolished in New York, or frankly the world. Even without a lighter that drink sets fires – in my throat.

In fact, I’m not entirely confident that a 151-hangover is any less severe than a third-degree burn, so perhaps I should look into a lawsuit against Bacardi for physical and emotional distress caused by getting tore up in freshman year of college. I’ll aim low: $15 million. 

Do you know what my TiVo can do now? Well I’m going to tell you because this thing evolves so quickly that by next week it’ll be flying to the moon.

According to an announcement, TiVo signed a deal with Domino’s that makes it possible to order a pizza through the TV. Let me repeat that: I can order pizza. On my TV.

Now, this may not work in my particular neighborhood, since I am not aware of a Domino’s within range of my apartment. Though perhaps TiVo will work its magic there as well — the more important part is the concept, the fact that TiVo has made it possible for me to do just one less thing anywhere else.

In the interest of science, I took it upon myself to investigate what else I can acquire through TiVo, and the results astounded me. Here I was passively appreciating the little device’s ability to record shows and rewind and pause and make embarrassingly accurate program suggestions, and all the while it was also a powerful vehicle for advertising — and an unknown fountain of entertainment.

I can order songs, investigate traffic conditions, look up weather, load photos, get music videos - the possibilities aren’t quite endless but they’re certainly significant.

I feel like I just found out my best friend can poop money.

Dearest Aaron,

Hello, old friend. It is with refreshingly cold sentiments that I write to you now. It’s been a while since we’ve last talked. Like maybe 16 hours. Do you miss me yet? My subtle citrus tones… my touch of spice… my dash of coriander? By the way, I know you have no idea what coriander even is — but I also know you miss it anyway. I know, because this is the bottle of Blue Moon you left in the fridge speaking, and you have so much of me inside of you that we now have a mindmeld — it’s like E.T., only I’m a totally inanimate liquid and this is probably just the onset of alcoholic hallucinosis.

I miss you too, buddy. I miss you slowly dipping your orange wedge into my mouth, heck, I even miss when you start getting a little sloppy and cram one that’s just a little too big down my neck with your thumb. And I know you love throwing me back up at 4 AM, too — it’s like we get to hang out all over again! Come on, it’s all part of the fun. Read More ›

Let’s end the Coke vs. Pepsi debate right now, once and for all: nobody cares. Rather, nobody significant cares, because if the difference between the way Coke and Pepsi taste is honestly a serious issue in your life, you need to reevaluate your priorities hard, my unfortunate friend. In our time of resource wars, environmental collapse, and economic dysentery, there are way more important debates to be engaged in, such as, obviously, Nacho Cheese vs. Cool Ranch.

However, upon literally two seconds of thought and one delicious Dorito being ground into decadent, cheesy muck in my mouth, this debate is also pointless. As far as I’m concerned, Cool Ranch can go be cool all by its fucking self, because I’m a Nacho Cheese kind of guy, and it just so turns out that I’m also always right.

This is not the real issue at hand, but while we’re dealing with things that nobody except out of touch big wigs in corporate headquarters care about, did you know that Pepsi is undergoing a complete rebranding? Well… now you do. Read More ›

Wednesday night marked the much-anticipated premier of Bravo’s Top Chef, the only reality television show both high-brow and popular enough to compete with Project Runway in terms of fans who aren’t willing to get progressively stupider in the name of pop culture (sorry VH1, I call ‘em like I see ‘em). Adding to the hype is the fact that this season is Top Chef’s first in New York City, arguably one of the most important food towns in the world, and definitely more important than past host cities like trashtastic Miami and icky old Chicago.

Like any real reality TV fan, I made sure to catch the show’s premier, in part to do a necessary faux-hawk count (shockingly, only like 0.5 this season), and in part because ever since this show started, I have just really really wanted to like it. Read More ›

Want to look older? Eat a lot!

A new study released this week shows obese children as young as ten years old have the arteries of 45-year-olds, as well as a series of other abnormalities that raise their risk of heart disease. Considering that about a third of American children are overweight, one-fifth are obese, and we don’t even have enough Social Security left for the actual 45-year-olds, this is bad for both health care and the future of our society, though perhaps good news for Gymboree Big & Tall.

Okay, that doesn’t exist.

“As the old saying goes, you’re as old as your arteries are,” Dr. Geetha Raghuveer of a Kansas City children’s hospital told The Associated Press. Despite the fact that I would hardly classify that as an “old saying,” the doc has it right. Kids these days are just piling on the pounds that the rest of us earned after hard-fought battles with “adult things” like beer, and nacho cheese. Read More ›

"When you gotta go, you gotta go."

No offense Jersey, but after giving you kudos for the whole “affordable gas” thing, I couldn’t walk away and let that praise just hang there, untainted by commentary on all of the various other factors that make Jersey a cesspool of gambling and beach towns and big hair. It’s time for a reality check .

Jersey City Councilman Steven Lipski vowed Monday to quit drinking, less than 48 hours after being arrested for reportedly urinating on a crowd of concert-goers in a Washington, D.C. nightclub. Lipski, who has yet to specifically confirm the pee-pee allegations, was charged with assault after he supposedly relieved himself from the second balcony of D.C.’s 9:30 Club Friday night during a concert by a Grateful Dead tribute band.

Dude, come on. I’ve been to the 9:30 Club and while I wouldn’t exactly call it a paragon of cleanliness, I can say with some degree of certainty that there isn’t urine actively flowing down the walls. And if urine were to make a more prominent appearance, I consider a Grateful Dead tribute concert the last place for it to happen — fans were likely so high (and overdue for showers) that they didn’t even notice what had gone down until someone’s designated driver went “Dude, you smell like piss.”

Supposedly, Lipski is telling local papers that a spilled drink fell on first-floor fans, but I find it hard to believe the councilman would call the incident “deeply humiliating” if all he had done was spill some vodka tonic on fellow Deadheads. If I got deeply humiliated every time I knocked my drink into some unsuspecting bar-goer, I’d probably never leave my apartment again. Shit, I’m pretty sure I spilled beer on myself all of 20 minutes ago.

The bottom line here is that you can take the mildly-alcoholic publicly elected riffraff out of New Jersey …but you can’t get them to use the men’s room.

[Newsday]