Unicorns - The New White Meat

On April Fool's Day, the website ThinkGeek put up an ad for Canned Unicorn Meat. 

The ad pretty well thought through, including a recipe for Savory Unicorn & Heirloom Tomatoe Bruschetta, and an anatomy diagram of a unicorn, including parts like Sunshine, Dreams, Wishes, Giggles, Rainbows, Stars, etc.

Figure it gets taken down on April 2, and the gag is over. 

Then, on May 5th, the National Pork Board sent ThinkGeek a Cease and Decist Letter over the use of the slogan/tagline, "Unicorn - the new white meat".  The National Pork Board has "The Other White Meat" trademarked, and was sending a C&D to protect it. 

ThinkGeek calls this letter officially their best ever C&D.  Here is an excerpt from the article that ThinkGeek posted about the C&D:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork--and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist.

I haven't been able to stop laughing.... and yet it got better!

"It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet.  

In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity.

'Nuff said.

Corn on the Cob

For the first time in at least 15 months, I had corn on the *cob*. What a treat! Don't know what you got till it's gone.... And even better when it's back!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.

I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

AND THEY'RE OFF!!!!!!

My braces were removed today.  What an ordeal that was...

First, the pop the brackets off.  This literally took no more than 10 minutes.  When she popped the brackets off of my very back molars and my bottom front teeth, she had to really yank.  It didn't hurt, but it wasn't comfortable.

Next, she scraped off the epoxy or whatever the stuff is that they use to bond the bracket to your teeth.  And she scraped.  And she scraped some more.  More.  More.  More.  She used both a scraping tool, and a small power sander.  She'd pick at the teeth with a fine pick, find a spot, and sand some more.  By the time she was done, it probably took an hour.  And then the orthodontist checked her work, too.

In the middle of that, the orthodontist smoothed out the ridges on the edges of my front teeth, both top and bottom.  I haven't had that happen since I chipped my tooth in the bathtub when I was younger.

The technician then took an impression of my top palette/teeth which would be used to make my top retainer.  Rinse.  Lots of rinsing, actually.

Then she cleaned my teeth.  More rinsing.

Now it was time to install the permanent bottom retainer.  It's bonded to the backs of my bottom front teeth, between the cuspids.  It's a really thin wire, so it's really not invasive, but my tongue naturally goes right to it.  That probably took about 15 minutes to install.  It's the same process as putting a bracket on your teeth.

Then she took a 3 dimensional x-ray of my teeth, and pictures of my mouth from various angles, including palette shots. 

The orthodontist fit my top retainer, they handed me a bag FULL of candy and gum, and said, "See you in 10 weeks!  And don't forget to bring your retainer with you!" 

WOOHOO!!!!

My permanent bottom retainer only places one restriction on me; I should not bite into a whole apple.  Totally cool with that.  Keep it clean with good brushing and floss with a floss threader.  I will have that retainer the rest of my life.

My top retainer is like a mouthguard like I used to wear for playing field hockey/lacrosse, except it's truly clear/colorless, it's light years thinner, and it's far more comfortable because it's an exact fit!  I am to wear it 10-12 hours per day, especially at night when sleeping.  Since I don't get 10-12 hours of sleep at night, I'll probably put it in after dinner.  But until I figure out a routine that maximizes wear time, I'll take it to work with me (fluorescent green case!), and wear it a few hours there.  Maybe it'll keep me from snacking.... ok, I'll keep dreaming.  I am to wash it with a toothbrush, paste, and water, probably drop it in denture cleaner once every couple of weeks for 15 minutes.  All in all, not bad, considering I have friends who had braces as an adult and they had to wear their retainers 24-7 except when eating for the first 3 months, minimum....

When I got to work, my manager had a King Size Twix bar and two packs of Bubblicious waiting for me on my desk.  The Twix didn't survive 2 minutes.  And a piece of Watermelon Bubblicious is gone.  :-)

I've been running my tongue over my teeth incessently, and checking out everything in the mirror frequently.  Other people have said, doesn't it feel weird?  And I can honestly say no... it's freeing.

However, I'm still getting used to eating... and not having to think about it.  I don't have to worry about a rubber band.  I don't have to worry about breaking a bracket.  I can eat!!  Huh... I'd better stick to my workout routine!!!!

It took 15 months, exactly what was estimated, but that's ok.  I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Sportsmanship

I was reading ESPN.com when I came across Rick Reilly's post condemning a coach in Texas that continually runs up the score against clearly inferior teams.  Here is the text of the post:

I am not generally a spiteful man. I pat toddlers' haircuts, donate to the glee club and mostly greet the world with open arms.

But when I think of coach Greg Wise of Houston's Yates High School, I become darker than Johnny Cash's closet.

The things I would like to do to Coach Wise would curl an executioner's toes. For starters, I'd like to see him dipped in seal butter and dropped into a polar bear's cage.

Coach Wise is the hammerhead who believes it's his right to toast other basketball teams by 100 points. Sometimes more. He thumped Lee High School this season by 135 points, 170-35. Wise's team was up at the half, 100-12. And full-court pressed to the very end!

Wise is to sportsmanship what tsunamis are to beach chairs. So far this season, he's beaten teams by 135, 115, 99 (twice), 98, 90 and 88 points. Trying to get to 100 points in a crushing of Westbury, his players intentionally fouled to stop the clock.

I'd like to clock him.

If Wise doesn't stop, somebody's going to get hurt. In a Feb. 20 home game, Wise refused to pull his foot off the accelerator in a 132-68 fricasseeing of Booker T. Washington. Nobody likes to be humiliated, and this includes fans. Like at some of Yates' games, there was fighting. This time it happened in the parking lot afterward. Shots were fired, though nobody was hurt. This time.

What's it going to take for Houston Independent School District officials to stop Wise? Or suspend him? What's it going to take before Yates principal Ronald Mumphery grows a pair and disciplines his coach? Somebody dying? "These are tough kids from a tough part of town," says Jacques Armant, coach at Lee, which also lost to Yates by 99. "Beatings like this can turn out to be real dangerous."

At the very least, USA Today ought to remove Yates from its national rankings -- the school is No. 1 -- as a statement about basic sports decency. That'd be the un-Wise thing to do.

This is not war. This is not the pros. There's no bonus for belittling young men in front of their parents and girlfriends. These kids are getting their pants yanked down in front of the whole playground. They don't deserve it.

"A lot of my kids went into a kind of depression after [losing by 135]," says Armant. "They thought the game was over, but when you turn on your radio and every deejay is saying how you got beat for an all-time record, it hurts. I took one kid home, and he said, 'Coach, can you please turn the radio off? I can't take it anymore.'"

On second thought, I'd like Wise to spend a day as a speed bump in the Lee parking lot.

I was unable to reach Wise or Principal Mumphery, but Wise has defended himself by saying he practices pressing and trapping, and that doing anything else during the game would be bad coaching. He's said that all 15 of his players -- 11 of them seniors -- play. "The [third string] deserves the chance to play hard and compete too," Wise has said.

Yes, those kids deserve to play hard and compete -- every day in scrimmages against the best team in Texas. In games against schools with no chance, they need to back off. Basketball isn't Greg Wise's personal vanity mirror. He needs to say, "We're going to work on passing. Anyone shoots and they're running stairs at the Astrodome."

But Wise won't say that because Wise is about Wise. He's after records. He wants teenage scalps. He tried to break the record for most 100-point games in a row (and failed). He did set the state record for points in one game (170).

And I wouldn't be surprised if he goes for the national record of 211. If he gets it, I hope they add an *:

*Set by Yates High School, Classless of 2010.

I could not agree more with this post if the facts are as stated.  This is dispictable behavior and disrespectful to kids themselves and the whole of the institution of interscholastic sports. 

Coach Greg Wise of Houston's Yates High School = FAIL.

Tinsel E - 1 year update

Yesterday, I visited the orthodonist.  It's been just over a year since I got these retched braces, but the orthodontist gave me some good news!!  He likes the way my teeth look, and my next appointment (in 5 weeks) will be to take impressions of my teeth.  The impressions are to make my retainers, which means the following appointment after that (5 weeks after that?), the braces come off!!  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!

Naturally, I couldn't get away with no extra torture just because I'm almost done.  They put a rubber band chain(as they call them) around each one of my top teeth brackets to pull all of my top teeth together and close the gaps between them.  These rubber band chains, whether on my top front 4, bottom front 4 or all of my top teeth, give me headaches for the first few days of having them.  Seriously.  Before this, I had no idea your teeth could make your head hurt.  Now I know... ugh.

But the light at the end of the tunnel is there... faint, but there!