Local media outlets, blogs, and discussion forums are abuzz over City Pages' 2006 edition of the Best of the Twin Cities. In typically satirical form, amidst the best local restaurants, dating hotspots, and parks, City Pages chose Crystal Meth as the "Best Cheap Thrill". As always, the thin-skinned, self-important public immediately shot back en masse burying City Pages with letters and emails decrying their insensitivity. And much to my disappointment, City Pages editor Steve Perry did a 180 from his initial defense of the editorial decision and has since apologized.

My take? Sure it's in poor taste, but SO FUCKING WHAT? People get so goddamned worked up about perceived meaning. "Oh, meth is such a terrible and serious problem. How DARE they make light of it?" Ok. How DARE someone make light of domestic abuse? How DARE you joke about the very grim issues of herpes, chlamydia, teen pregnancy, the war in Iraq, homelessness, low water pressure, worn brake pads, gassy dogs, or corpse fucking???!! We're outraged at the outrage!!!

In my mind, the goal of satire, humor aside, is to spark discussion of a topic. Guess what? It worked. We're talking about meth and the hole that abuse of it and other drugs has ripped into families across Minnesota and our nation. Take your pretentious pissing and moaning, and focus your energy on a solution rather than on someone with the balls to talk about the problem in an unconventional format.

Who knows what brings back these long-dormant, random memories, but in my earliest years, while my dad farmed the land and my mom worked as a nurse, she sometimes left me in a daycare run by a local woman out of a home in town. One day at lunchtime, several of the kids she cared for sat around the table eating when one toddler adamantly demanded, "More milk! More milk! MORE MILK!".

Trying to remind him of his manners, the daycare lady prompted, "More milk what?"

To the toddler, the answer was clear. "More milk in my glass!"

And there you have the tamest humor you will likely ever see on my blog. Oh, fine. I'll change the end to "More milk in my muthafuckin' glass, bitch!" Are you happy? Another perfectly heartwarming story ruined by poopmouth.

A friend of mine, who we'll call Ferbella Biggateat, recently discovered her breasts had grown. Whilst brassiere shopping at Victoria's Secret, she was delighted to find she'd gone from a 32A to a 32B. Hooray for her, I say!

A woman's breast size changing as she gets older certainly is not unusual. But what about the men? No, not our boobs! We all know that if we're not careful with our weight, we can get a nasty case of "mantititus", but I'm talking about our penises. Guys don't go cup shopping at the sporting goods store and discover that their dick is suddenly an inch longer.

Really I have nowhere to go with this other than to say that it's just not fair!

As noted in a previous post here, a marketing genius in the Minneapolis area has decided to pull out an old Subway commercial from the early 90's and heave it's rotting corpse onto the airwaves once again. Comments from readers date this commercial to 1993 or 1994. File this in the "What Were They Thinking?" drawer next to Coca-Cola Blak.

UPDATE: I don't have the original video file anymore, but if you'd like to download videos from YouTube and other video services onto your computer, check out KeepVid. By the way, as of June 17th, they are STILL playing this commercial in Minnesota!

UPDATE #2: All mysteries resolved!

Attending the Geek Prom the other night got me thinking. I don't struggle with the fact that I'm a geek. I am proud of my geek, nerd, and dork trifecta. Sure, I had my awkward (and fat!) teenage years, but over time, I learned that I love meeting and conversing with new people. So it was that I realized that my very ungeeky outgoing nature lifted the one huge burden of geekdom, which is being a social outcast.

I can't help but feel conflicted, however. Have I betrayed my nerdly heritage? I am ashamed to admit that I sometimes catch myself tsking certain geeky passions of others. I, of all people, should know better and should be more understanding since geekiness is all relative. And that is the point of the Geek Prom. Rock out with your Spock out without fear of being judged, and know that they really are laughing with you and not at you.

And now, just for fun, a few of my geek identity crisis issues:

-I can log into my house remotely over a secure internet connection to monitor several video cameras, control lights, etc.

-I refuse to carry around technology short of a watch (an analog watch at that) and a cell phone. I will not be caught dead with a cell phone or Palm Pilot strapped to my belt.

-The day they can fit a powerful PDA, MP3 player, and a high resolution digital camera into a cell phone the size of a Razr or smaller will be the happiest of my life.

-I would probably wait until the second or third generation of said PDA/MP3/Camera phone to let the price fall and let them work out the kinks. I've been burned too many times by being an early adopter.

-I could probably recite every line of dialog in Star Wars, The Matrix, Serenity, and several Star Trek movies.

-I would sooner cut off my own pinky than wear a costume of any sort to a movie or in public, save costume parties (even then, I refuse to dress up as a sci-fi or fantasy character).

-But I not-so-secretly am jealous of people with kick ass Star Wars and Star Trek costumes.

-I'm a computer programmer for a living (does it get much geekier?)

-There is many a day where I'd rather make my living writing words than software (but my love of solving logical problems creatively and paying my mortage always win that internal argument).

In response to maarmie's fridge post, I have meticulously cataloged and documented all which is stuck to my fridge. If your refrigerator is indeed a window to the soul as maarmie suggests, then my soul is a tangle of random, disjointed, expired, and long-forgotten brick-a-brack.

Click here or on the fridge photo for a ridiculously detailed exploration of my fridge and my soul. NOTE: This takes you to my Flickr account. Once there, click on each photo and hover over the boxes in the photo to see the notes describing each item on my fridge.

A delightful time was had by Alix and I at the Geek Prom at the Science Museum last night. We had our handwriting analyzed (evidently I'm a very independent, creative thinker with a goofy, twisted sense of humor and a stubborn streak--NO WAY!!!), galavanted through the exhibits, had our photo taken with the T-Rex skull (I'll post that once it's emailed to me) and had a boozey good time. I even met Alexis, aka Girl Friday, my first time meeting a fellow Twin Cities blogger.

Alix and I only stayed until about 10:30 though. We just had to sate our overwhelming craving for Crack Ho Mojitos at Chino Latino in Minneapolis. Of course, neither one of us stopped to think what utter dorks we were dressed like until we walked in. Alix looked like a 15 year old skater girl, and I was a mess--hair parted down the middle, Mystery Science Theater 3000 t-shirt, and black pants, white socks, and brown shoes. Ouch. But who cares??? We got our Ho on, and that's all that counts. The rest of the night was a boozy blur of mint leaves, crack vials filled with fruit puree, and little plastic elephants. I'm currently operating on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep and plan to go back to bed tut friggin' suite.

All said, the Geek Prom was quite fun, and I definitely would go again. Hopefully it was successful enough that they'll bring it back to the Twin Cities next year.

UPDATE: Plenty more Geek Prom pics to be found out on Flickr.
The geeky night is young.
Spazz dance!
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
OMFG! I totally saw his comic books.
I didn't even have to pay for this Crack Ho!
First plastic elephants, then the pink elephants
Alix loves her some Crack Ho, mofo!
I am so tired this morning.

Ah, the internet. Time and time again, I've explored the nooks, crannies, and fist-holes of online douchery at its finest. I'm talking about guys who just plain don't know how to interact with women online (and I assume offline, for that matter). Today one of my friends received this gem from a guy on MySpace.

Subject: U so hot

Im 23 years old male I live in Minneapolis ....I
live with my parents now but in couple week im
gonna move out and live by myself...lol Do u like
me or love me?....If u do send me a message..I be
back to u for sure....lol
THANKS

His inability to spell or use proper punctuation aside, he's a peach, isn't he ladies? Why even mention that you live with your parents, especially if you're moving out in "a couple week"? As for whether she likes him or loves him (WTF?), she assures me the answer is NEITHER!

Now if I were a meaner soul, I'd link to his profile so you could see for yourself, but suffice it to say, he does not appear to be the brightest star in the sky. The second "friend" in his top 8, is clutching ridiculously gigantic bosoms (see the pic to the right), and his third "friend" is a fake profile that he obviously fell for. The rest are 19 year old women unfortunately stranded in the genetic hinterland.

The best part is that all of the comments on his page are from the same 28 year-old chickie and say things like "I LOVE AND MISS U BUNCHES" and "I LOVE U POOH I MISS U AND I DONT EVER WANT TO LOSE U POOH". So is this his girlfriend? Or just some gal near 30 with low self esteem who is blindly throwing herself at this dude living at home with mom and pop? Below is just a sampling of her professions of adoration.

I noticed recently that they started airing a commercial for Subway sandwich shops that I swear first aired about 10 or more years ago. It starts with a chain link fence, and a guy lecherously uttering to a blonde, "How 'bout a burger, baby!" She launches into a song and dance, part of which goes "Don't want no greasy burger. Don't want my dinner from a [big?] machine. I want a fresh, delicious sandwich..."

It's not unusual for companies to keep reusing certain commercials for many years, but usually they have a timeless element to them. The actresses in this commercial look like they came straight from 1995 with big hair, makeup applied with a shotgun, and clothing from the wardrobe of Saved By the Bell.

So my questions to you, dear readers, are:

Has anyone else outside of the Minneapolis area seen this commercial recently?

If not, do you remember the commercial I'm talking about? Like I said, I'm thinking it first aired in the mid-90's or even earlier.

If you remember the commercial, can you pin a year or general time period in which you first saw it way back when?

I'm just curious how on earth someone could have consciously decided that it would be a good idea to throw this time capsule back on the air.

UPDATE: See the commercial here!

UPDATE #2: All mysteries resolved!

This list is compiled from my real experiences on MySpace. Additions are welcome.

-All of her photos are suspiciously hot modeling photos in lingerie and swimwear with professional backdrops.

-No town or state is listed in their information. Is she local? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?

-She has 5,000 friends, all of them men (with maybe a couple equally suspiciously hot girls in her top 8 for effect).

-In one of her photos, her tongue is quite clearly covered with jizz.

While the rest of the Christian world celebrated our risen savior, Jesus Christ, I held vigil with bated breath in anticipation of the birth of our new and more fashionably worshipable savior, TomKitten (glory be to Her name). The divine TomKitten graces the earthly plane answering to Suri, a name bestowed by Her mortal zygotic host, TomKat. Her birth truly is a miracle of miracles, as TomKat's two personalities share no love or true emotional attachment to each other. They exist as a singular entity for the sole purpose of hiding the true nature of their individual weaknesses and fading appeal. And to promote Mission Impossible 3.

Just in time for your post-Easter hangover, let's talk about the young, cute chickadees. Why is it now that I'm almost 30 that the 18 to 20 year-old girls are suddenly diggin' my shit? More than once in the last month, I've been hit on both online and off by the barely legal set. WHY NOW?? Where were you when I was 18? Or hell, when I was 23? Where were you when I wanted nothing more than a face-numbing bonefest free of commitment or care? Evidently you were banging 30-year olds unfettered by my level of moral turmoil.

Is the attention of girl-next-door coeds flattering? Well, of course! But more than that, it's frustrating, particularly when I'm at a stage in my life when I sincerely do want to find the right girl to settle down with. Yet somehow finding a woman relatively close to my age who wants the same thing has proven more of a challenge than I thought. I want a real relationship, not a free knob polish from some hot, firm-buttocked, perky-breasted, taut-stomached little bird who doesn't even care if we so much as watch a movie before we...um...hmm...if you'll excuse me, I've got a couple phone numbers to fish out of the trash.

I'm resigned to the fact that if I am ever to be laid again, I will have to see "The Notebook" at some point. I managed to avoid seeing it while in the cozy confines of a committed relationship, but that's different. I was already getting a regular spit n' polish, so why see it?

Don't get me wrong--I enjoy doing romantic things for my significant other, but having my soul torn from my body through my eye sockets is not one of them. Now I'm single, kinda sorta back in the dating world, and need to impress the ladies. I'm no good at sports, can't dance, and don't like old people or children. Without that movie, I'm doomed to a life of celibacy.

Damn your eyes, people who made that awful movie. I curse your mothers and shit on the leather seats in your expensive sports cars purchased with the money you made from the pain of men everywhere.

Look, I know it must have looked really weird when you walked in on me the other day at you and Jason's party. I swear I wasn't snooping through your things. As for how I ended up wearing your underwear, that's very difficult to explain. But it's logical. Very logical. Not sexual at all. Ok, maybe a little sexual. Ok, very sexual. But if it makes you feel better, that was the only time I tried on your underwear that you caught me.

Mom arrived in town on Thursday for the Easter weekend (she was originally supposed to come last week, but had to reschedule). Last night after grilling some steaks and having a few beers and my brother and sister-in-law's place down in Savage, a couple of their friends stopped by.

Fueled by additional alcohol, the six of us decided to head out (my sister-in-law was good to go, so she drove) to a bar in Burnsville called Primetime. It's tucked inside a nondescript strip mall next to a furniture store, but entering was like walking in on 1995 screwing 1987 from behind. Mullets and long metal hair for the guys and gigantic, teased hair on the women. Granted, those with the big-ass hair looked like they were older and grew up in that era. The younger 20-something's looked like time travelers from the future who came back to warn the rest of them about their fashion and hairstyle choices.

I had a couple of beers and participated in a couple rounds of shots early in the evening, but abstained after that so I could drive the crew back to Savage and then drive Mom back to my house. It was about 2:30 or 3 am when we got back to my place, and we were bushed. I have a feeling the rest of the weekend will be far tamer.

It's official. I'm totally gay for Roomba. I'm Roombasexual if you will. No, I haven't dry humped the Roomba yet, but life has been grand. My floor has been vacuumed more times in the last few weeks than it has in the entire 6 years I've lived in my house.

The challenges so far have been relatively minor:

There are a couple cabinet corners where the Roomba sometimes gets itself wedged in so tight that it can't free itself. I will permanently fix that eventually by simply using wood glue to affix very small wooden blocks under those corners. They will be just large enough to keep Roomba from getting wedged, but small enough not to be readily visible.

There were instances where it became entangled in a phone or speaker cable. I moved the cables out of the way by running them above the baseboards or moving them out of Roomba's reach.

The change of height difference between the living room carpet and dining room hardwood is such that once Roomba gets into the dining room, it has trouble making it back out unless it hits the carpet at an almost perfect angle. It then tends to spend most of the cleaning cycle in the kitchen and dining room. The workaround was change the vacuuming schedule from Tuesday and Thursday to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Mondays and Fridays, one of the programmable virtual wall units turns on and keeps the Roomba out of the dining room so it can focus on the rest of the upstairs. On Wednesdays, the kitchen and dining room get more attention.

I also occassionally manually run a "Max" cleaning cycle. I believe the scheduled cleaning cycle runs 45 minutes to an hour, but if you hit the Max button, it will clean until the battery is almost depleted. Regular cleaning cycles are good for maintenance, but Max is good for a nice touchup before guests are coming over.

Another added bonus is that since Roomba runs three times a week, I'm more mindful of keeping obstacles off of my floor. It's been a great incentive to not leave dirty dishes in the living room, dirty clothes strewn about, etc. I'm bad about clutter, so this has been great.

Roomba may not have changed my life like Tivo, but it sure has made it a lot better.

Exactly one month from today, I will be 30 years old. Here is a list of the kick ass things I've done in my (almost) 30 years, and a few things I thought I would have accomplished, but didn't.

Kick ass:
-Touched a boobie
-Got fat, but lost the weight (all 110 lbs of it!). I'm in far better shape and general health at (almost) 30 than I was at 20.
-Touched a girl's boobie!
-Bought a house
-Established myself as an expert in my career
-Briefly dated a stripper and got to go to strippery parties with her strippery friends
-Went to Hawaii and Alaska (among myriad other US destinations)
-Did I mention the fucking stripper???

Where I didn't meet my expectations:
-Not married, nor in a long term relationship headed in that direction
-Not making as much money as I thought I'd be (though I entered the job market during the height of the dot com boom of the late 90's, so I admit that skewed my sense of reality)
-Never been overseas. I would love to travel to Italy, England, and Australia, and go from there.
-Never been rollerblading(!). But there's still time.

Things you would think I'd have done by now, but I really don't care:
-Never been to Winnipeg
-Haven't done two chicks at once. Ok, I care. And there's still time!

I was years behind on the blogging trend (I really only started blogging last summer), and probably a full decade behind on the webcam trend (also just bought one last year). I admit I didn't get it. Blogs? Why would someone want to read about me eating a chicken pot pie and paying the light bill? And webcams? Those are for pervs wanting to wave their dicks in the camera at saucer-eyed Catholic school girls.

Flash foward to 2005.

Realization: You can write essays and be a total jackass on a blog!
Solution: Started afterglide.

Realization: It's more fun to chat with friends and cute girls when both of you have a webcam.
Solution: Bought a webcam.

And now in 2006...

Realization: People are voyeuristic and want to watch me eat a chicken pot pie and pay my light bill.
Solution: Embed a webcam viewer in my blog.

I don't know the exact inner workings of the economic model, but the way I figure it, blog + webcam + Jeremy = PROFIT!

Jeremy's webcam. If it's online you'll see a "Live" on the screen. Otherwise, it's a still shot when I'm offline.

Yes, I'm fully aware this has been flying around for a while, but this video slays me everytime I watch it. It's still real to me, dammit!

UPDATE: Evidently this guy's name is David Wills. His explanation on a wrestling site makes this all the sadder (and funnier). This guy takes this shit seriously!

CNN: New rings found around Uranus.

*smirk*

*stifles laughter*

*raises finger, draws a breathe, and opens mouth as if to speak*

*stops himself short*

*stifles more laughter*

*composes himself*

Will they just change the name of that goddamned planet already?!?!

Usually I'm Johnny on the fucking spot when it comes to tax time. In past years, I took almost perverse pleasure in it. Each a new 1099-INT, W2, or year end financial statement would arrive, I'd jump on the couch, let out a whoop, and enthusiastically pump my fists with vigorous glee. But not like Tom Cruise on Oprah. I mean REALLY enthusiastically--like how he would act if he loved Katie Holmes for really reals.

This year, however, I put off doing my taxes for as long as my conscience would allow. I knew that Uncle Sam was going to spread my ass cheeks wide, use a hot blow dryer to make sure my corn chute was good and dry, then ram his tax collecting fist so far up my ass I'd taste the flaking gold plating from his cheap commitment ring.

How did I know? Simple math. I won't bore you with the details of my ledgers, but a couple of unplanned financial events last year caused me to come into a small cache of economic relief (money, bitches!). Hooray, you say! Indeed. It was enough to pay off a couple of minor nagging debts, but certainly not enough to give me the freedom to barge into my boss's office, slam a resignation letter on his desk, and sign it by dropping trou and shitting on it. Not that I'd do that anyway--he's a good guy (and is probably reading this). Hi, boss!

At this stage, the financial threat level was still only yellow. I adjusted my withholding on my W4, tweaked my 401(k) contributions, and upped my charitable donations. And by upped, I mean gave something instead of the usual nothing. Fuck society! What has it done for me lately?

Then late in the year, another financial event. Again, I will spare you the details, but this one was not as positive. It managed to suck my liquid assets nearly bone dry while acting as a double negative in terms of my tax liability. I knew it was going to be bad come tax time. Painful. Ass blood everywhere.

The first tax statements began arriving in January. I winced. I filed them neatly and left them to sit. Then the first weekend of April came, and I knew I had to grit my teeth, bend over, and think of my happy place full of pastoral countryside, vast blue skies, and fluffy clouds shaped like kitties (ok, boobies).

After all this consternation, all this worrying and fretting, what was the federal damage? About $180. I ran through my numbers in TurboTax, made sure I'd entered everything, and the bill was unchanged. And this even included a $20 tax penalty for underpaying. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on to my Minnesota return. Within 15 minutes, it was clear that the news from St Paul was not quite so rosy. I had a four figure, bone dry ass raping to look forward to. Aw nutsack!

The good news is that with some shifting of debts, payments, and assorted smoke and mirrors, I will be able to pay both tax bills before this year's deadline of April 17th. The bad news is that this financial ball tickling will end up costing me additional money in a few short months. When it's all said and done, however, I'm mindful of just how lucky I really am. I have a good job, own my car outright, am able to pay my bills and debts on time, including the mortgage for my home of nearly 6 years. My problems pale in comparison to those without a home, without a job, or an education to fall back on. But I still say fuck everybody but me.

I realized I did nothing to celebrate, or rather mourn, the one month anniversary of the day I found out my precious Diet Mountain Dew had been laid to rest in favor of its bile-tasting Splenda'ed up successor. So I threw myself a sad little Diet Dew party. I didn't have a cake, so I substituted an empty can of OFDMD. I also didn't really have any regular birthday candles or a "1" candle for 1 month, but I had a "2" from when my brother turned 24 a few years back. I didn't want to blow through my remaining supply of Dew, so I chugged bloody marys until I passed out at the kitchen table. It was then that Boba Fett tried to rob the Diet Dew can of its sweet nectar. Too late, Boba Fett. PepsiCo beat you to the punch.

Though it was with a small AM country radio station in rural Arizona, not exactly the likes of KROQ or even Minneapolis' own 93X, my radio interview was a fun experience. They called me at about 10:10 am Minneapolis time, or 8:10 am AZ time. All said, the conversation probably lasted 15 minutes.

The questions were fairly standard--how did long I've been drinking Diet Mountain Dew, how much I drink, how and when I found out, etc. The host, Keith, evidently just found out about the change a couple of weeks ago. Coincidentally, he discovered it on the air and commented about how his Diet Dew tasted funny. Taste tests ensued (funny, because we actually had a taste taste where I work, too--believe it or not, it wasn't my idea!). I got a couple plugs in for fightforflavor.com and the petition, and thus my 4 seconds of fame came to a close.

All in all, I'd say I was so-so in the intervew. I wasn't 100% mentally on my game this morning. The conversation was easy and open, but I expected to be ribbed a little bit about my obsession. Problem was that the host was equally obsessed, so perhaps I should have been giving him a good-natured hard time instead. *grin* Though he did throw me for a loop at one point. He claimed that he sometimes nukes his Diet Dew for a warm cup of it and suggested I do the same for those cold Minnesota mornings! I joked that such an act was almost sacreligious, but that I would try it if it weren't for the fact I have a limited supply left. Nuked Dew! Why?????

For the foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists out there, you can quit flapping your gums about aspartame's link to cancer. This article on MSNBC.com reports on a study of over 560,000 people that found no link to aspartame and cancer. So keep chugging that original formula Diet Mountain Dew 'til it's gone without fear.

So last night I was looking into buying tickets to the Geek Prom at the Science Museum of Minnesota on April 22nd. Out of the blue today, I get an email from Bob Breck, Director of Marketing and Membership at the SMM offering me two free tickets. I'm sure it's their way of building up some buzz in the local blogosphere, but obviously it worked since I'm talking about here. I, for one, am pumped and am looking forward to some geeky fun! So thanks, Bob!

The Geek Prom is an event with live music, dancing, contests, and all around dorky fun for all nerds, spazzes, dipsticks, and the uncool at heart.

Oh, and does it ruin my geek cred if I already have a date and she's (no joke) a former Victoria's Secret catalog model? Sorry, BJ, but how could I not brag that up a little? *grin*

P.S. Here's an ep of Rocketboom from a few weeks back with a report on the Geek Prom.

UPDATE - I'm scheduled to be on the air tomorrow at about 10:10 am central (8:10 am Arizona time).

Anyone out there within listening range of KLPZ 1380 AM out of Parker, AZ? Sounds like they might want me to gab about the Diet Mountain Dew thing on their morning show Tuesday or Wednesday morning. The first person who can send me a decent-sounding recording of the whole piece (I'm told 15 to 20 minutes) gets their choice of a 12-pack of original formula Diet Mountain Dew shipped at my expense or a gift card for a restaurant chain of your choice (one that sells cards through its website like P.F. Chang's, Applebee's, etc.). Gift card amount will be determined by how much work I have to do to convert it to an MP3. Send me a tape? You'll be lucky to buy an appetizer. Send me a CD? Appetizer. Send me a wav file? Um...maybe almost enough for an entree at Chi Chi's. Send me a clean, good quality MP3? An entree and a soft drink at T.G.I.Friday's or B.G.McPuffybutt's or whatever.

And nope, this isn't GNAHHHH either.

On the shoulders of American society's case of mass germophobia comes a new technological revolution--not having to touch things that other people have touched. Because touching stuff that other people have touched is just so...so...icky poo!

Years ago, the burden of pushing or pulling a door open was removed from most supermarkets and warehouse stores. Originally, the thought was that it made for easier access to the disabled and easier for customers to push Wonder Bread and Cheez Whiz-laden carts out the door to waiting faux wood-paneled station wagons. But some smart cookie eventually realized that it also meant there was now a place in this world where we didn't have to indirectly touch the penises and vaginas of hundreds of unsanitary clods who refused to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Now if one does not care to come into contact with the dermal essence of a stranger's genitalia, what is the next and most obvious public space for advancement in sanitary technology? The restroom! It's one thing when people don't wash their hands in the privacy of their own homes, but it's quite another when you witness firsthand a guy shaking the dew off the lily and proceeding directly to touching your only way out of the room. So stores automated their restroom doors next, right? Why, of course not, you silly twit! They installed motion-sensitive flushers for toilets and urinals and motion-activated faucets and soap dispensers on the sinks.

Fine, fine. We now can make it from the truffle pool to the sink without touching someone else's wee wee or hoo ha juice. So what about that restroom door? Shut your mouth--here's a motion-activated paper towel dispenser instead. Um...ok... but that old school paper towel dispenser was easily operated with a forearm or elbow. It wasn't that difficult to avoid touching it, and germophobic nancies still have to use that paper towel as a damp barrier between their delicate skin and the Petri dish that is the door handle. Now we have a growing pile of moist paper towels festering by the door at room temperature.

We've painted ourselves into a sanitary corner. Or have we? Perhaps if restaurants and businesses are unwilling to invest in automated doors on the loo, they would be willing to remove the doors completely. Take a cue from airports, sports arenas and shopping malls, and take out the doors. Sure, the other customers will get an earful of tearful grunting and echoed flatus, but we'd all rather hear a stranger's ass than touch it.

I am bursting here, people! I was just emailed a link to this press release that went out yesterday. Why didn't anyone tell me sooner??? 8-D We have our old Diet Dew back.

PURCHASE, N.Y. (PRNewswire) - PURCHASE, N.Y., March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, in response to overwhelming consumer demand, Pepsi announced it will reintroduce its previous formula for Diet Mountain Dew as "Diet Mountain Dew Subzero" on May 31, 2006.

Diet Mountain Dew was recently revamped with a new taste featuring a blend of sweeteners including Aspartame, Sucralose and ASK (Acesulfame Potassium). The reformulation was met with much fanfare and packages of the product were stamped with the slogan "Tuned Up Taste".

"We've received very positive feedback on the Tuned Up Taste of Diet Mountain Dew, but were surprised at the volume of consumers who still crave the original formula. We had planned on reintroducing it as a new product late this fall, but have decided to move up production to show our appreciation to our loyal customers," says Frank Cooper, vice president of flavored soft drinks, Pepsi-Cola North America. Cooper was also quoted as saying, "April Fools, chumps!" He then hopped into a waiting stretch limo, went home, drank a Big Gulp-sized martini laced with flecks of gold, and took a nap in a large nest fashioned from several million dollars in tens and twenties.

Someone from Senegal made me smile from ear to ear today and didn't even know it. I was scanning through my site traffic logs today and noticed that someone had found this afterglide posting by means of what I deem to be the most sincere (and polite) Google search ever: please kindly show me %100 free current dating sites