mercatfat

IN: Albinism:



EVERYTHING ELSE IS OUT.

There are some things we are better left not to think about. One example that immediately comes to mind is the meat scale at Quizno's. If you've ever had a sandwich there, then you know what I mean. They take the meat that's been sitting in a bin for untold amounts of time, they set it on the scale, dip it in the meat brine, and layer it on your Baja Chicken Chomper. This would be fine, but you know that the employees don't wash that damn scale more than daily, and the meat germs from countless sandwiches that came before yours makes it a point to co-mingle with yours as your sandwich artist follows his Jeff Koonsian series of instructions to build your twin towers of toasted meat, cheese, and zesty chipotle mayo. Following that, there are things I wish people would actually think about, because I can't figure out an answer as to why the hell it happens. People who refuse to pull into parking spots in a parking garage are one of the biggest offenders of this in my eyes- it takes far longer to angle a car into a spot by backing in, and the time savings one gets from being able to simply drive forward when they leave is easily outdone by said time taken to initially park. Seriously, if you can give me a rational explanation, preferably one that doesn't involve you getting “just enough time” to finish the Lil' Wayne song you're currently blasting, and I'll take you to the Arby's restaurant of your choice for a free sandwich combo of your choosing. You will, however, only have the option of getting curly fries. Sorry, but it's a personal thing.

Anyway, I need to reign things in to the point that I'd actually like to discuss. I'm not sure which of the previously mentioned categories of Thinkin' Things that this belongs to, but it begins with a recent experience at my workplace. A group of three people walked in- a man in his 50s wearing a leather trench coat, and what appeared to be a 20-something kid of his along with said kid's significant other. They may have been brother and sister, I seriously have no idea, but their relation is ultimately insignificant- it's their manner of dress that spoke volumes. The casual eye would likely dismiss them as Hot Topic shoppers but, as bizarre as this may sound, that would be grossly defaming the quality and tasteful sensibility of the products offered at that retailer.

Well, perhaps that's a bit of a lie- but it would make the clothes at Hot Topic actually arguably subversive. The outfits they wore were of an astounding nature, the kind not seen since people realized industrial music tends to get slightly repetitive (ergo, roughly 2 months after the modern industrial scene began in 1995). It's the kind of outfit you see in a music video and dream about, much akin to Michael Jackson's red leather jacket in Thriller or the stage costumes of Gwar. You always hope that you'd eventually be able to purchase such things at your local JC Penney's, but the closest thing they ever get in are cotton/spandex blend pants tailored and dyed to look like actual jeans. But yet right there in front of me were two perfectly preserved specimens, seemingly coming straight out of a casting for the next Evanescence video.

The boy was wearing a shirt type thing that would be roughly described as a Japanese student's uniform, except sleeveless and with shotgun shell pockets that, from a distance, resembled two row of bow ties. His pants were nicely cut for being zipper laden and featuring a built in (but functionally useless) chain-drive wallet style chain. Ultimately, though, it was all about his upper half, which was completed by a short-shaved purple mohawk and what was essentially a fly fishing lure that predominantly featured in whatever you call that area between your lower lip and chin. I'm not just trying to insult the piercing- it actually looks to be completely plausible that he was in a fishing accident at a young age and was advised by his pediatrician to live with it.

The girl he was with took a bit more of a describable approach, but only if you're familiar with Super Mario Brothers. Remember when Mario and Luigi are assaulted by a large black woman in a spiky jacket named Big Bertha, who is carrying a crystal that the brothers need to keep out of Koopa's hands; and after said crystal is stolen by Goombas, Bertha provides the Brothers with her jump-rocket shoes? Neither did anyone else that ever loved a Nintendo, but that certainly didn't stop the creators of Max Headroom from directing a movie starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo that made it a major plot point to a soundtrack of Everyone Get On The Floor (everybody walk the dinosaur). Anyway, I'm derailing here. The girl in question was essentially a white version of Big Bertha, heavily spiked jacket and all, except the jacket was black instead of red; that color instead going to her crimson pigtails.

Typically, I would be completely clueless as to the source of their garments, thinking only that it must be some amazing mail-order type thing. It's not even the kind of stuff that you might expect to find at any decent mom and pop fetish shop in your local red light district, considering the distinct lack of both vinyl and any sort of taste. Had it not been for my discovery of fuckthemainstream.com, I might have wondered this forever. A website, which also runs under less “totally edgy” names, dedicated specifically to tightly woven fishnet t-shirts and all the other gear you need to cosplay the latest (and future!) Final Fantasy outfits without even having to spend a modicum of effort. Just add solid-hold hair gel and oversized novelty weaponry.

I discovered it nearly two years ago, but was always left to wonder who exactly would purchase such goods outside of the models, and although this would seem to give me my answer, I'm not satisfied. In a town as liberal as Seattle, a place where people can dress up in such garments and only get a minimal amount of stares, I would expect to see a sight like this far more often. Even during the heights of fashion based on “The Matrix,” I swear these people never came out into the sunlight. So despite the fact that I've been in plenty of situations where one might expect to see such people, my customer count still stands at a steady “two.” There is simply no way a business can stay profitable with such a small customer base, no matter if your limited market gives you an excellent chance to set the prices at whatever you'd like.

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps my limited understanding of a movie I've never seen, Underworld, might actually be based on a slice of reality. As I've been made to perceive the film, there is a land of the living and land of the dead. Although one might be expecting such a setting to feature the living to rise up and invade the land of the dead, it is in fact the opposite! Yes, the dead and occult, who have always been living close to our world, have chosen to invade a world who previously was able to confide in a belief that such creatures don't exist. Although we were able to survive thanks to the magical on-screen chemistry between Kate Beckinsale and a tight leather outfit loaded with guns, I can't help but feel if perhaps there is a similar world that most living don't dare perceive. A land where non-cotton trench coats are standard issue and one can't bare to leave the house without first asking themselves whether their outfit's 37 theoretically functional accessories are extraneous enough. A land where the bells of the local religious sanctuaries chime the chorus to 'Bela Lugosi's Dead” every hour.

If such a land is fictional, please do me a solid and tell me where the hell these people actually come from. Where do they eat and sleep? What do they do for money? You would be a true social anthropologist and hero if you could simply answer me these questions three.

have you seen the new five dollar bill? it makes me
want to shoot myself in the face, seriously.

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/09/21/the-new-colors-of-us-money/

i decided to write something about it.

America. A land defined by its idiosyncrasies. Let's take a look at a few:

-Apple pie.
-Guns.
-Blind jingoism.
-Cereal created by companies typically associated with dog food.
-Always Remembering, Trying Not To Forget.
-Steve Vai.
-Robots who have the ability to talk, thanks to high-tech "cassette tapes."
-Really boring money.

America cherishes its institutions and clings to them like it was the last available copy of Wild Hogs at the local Blockbuster. So why the hell is perhaps the most important of all, our money, under continued attack by people whose design work portfolio (apparently) seems to have been primarily in Geocities template websites circa 1997? From the looks of things, we're only one bill away from a "poster edges" effect over George Washington and a lens flare over the Illuminati eye. The latest bills are so obsessed with obnoxious watermarks that I feel like every bill is a picture taken by some dude with a $800 Nikon SLR that swears he has to do it to keep "even more people" from stealing his brilliantly original photographs (even if in reality 900 people take the SAME EXACT picture of the Space Needle from the SAME EXACT 'subversive' angle every freaking day). Hell, it's sometimes even worse than that- the $10 bill looks like someone got excitable with a $15 "All-American Clip Art 2005!!" collection from the Target discount software wall, what with its awkwardly placed liberty torch next to Hamilton. Note to budding currency artists: if the art you're appropriating cost you only slightly less than double the bill you're designing for, it probably isn't suitable for nationwide viewing.

I'll admit that as much as the treasury has tried, the new five dollar bill isn't the most horrid bill made to date; aside from its brilliant new "poor vision feature." Yes, because Lincoln is no longer synchronized enough in our brains to mean "$5" and "proof of why concealed weapon laws are actually not such a bad idea," there is now a gigantic purple 5 on the back of the bill. It seems that, once again, the only way we can deter counterfeiting is by making things look as much like they are "amazing" recreations of the $5 bill by your "totally gifted, oh my god he is so great" 4 year old son who had to make do with other crayons when his green ran down to the paper and his built-in crayon sharpener jammed. That, and the fact that the purplish shading on the new bill makes it look like Abe has decided to hold his breath until decides he doesn't prefer dicks after all.

Really, what was so bad about changing to gigantic pictures of the presidents, besides the fact that they made them look as though they were well-suited for a Steve Madden magazine advertisement? I mean, the huge heads might have been about 5 years late to 1994's "IN YO FACE" trending, but they still managed to be less irritating than an ad for America's Best Eyeglasses.

I realize the importance of keeping money from being counterfeited, as I used to be a retail employee who regularly had to deal with bills that were clearly printed on a $50 Lexmark inkjet, crumpled up, then put in a moist pocket that caused the colors to run together more than just slightly. However, before we continue the current disaster I think we need to look at a subject that parallels what is happening to our money that is yet another long-running American tradition: Cereal mascots that not only promote a cereal- they promote a LIFESTYLE.

I feel a need to document this, as it seems that it will soon become illegal to advertise cereal with sugar in it to children, thus negating the legacy of the Joe Camels of promoting complete breakfasts. Like plain, clean, good-looking money, cereal mascots will become all but a thing of times past thanks to "The Man" cracking down on a great thing.

Let's start with a classic example: the Golden Crisp bear. Once nothing more than a cute young bear, happy to do nothing more than provide kids with a delicately balanced cereal packed with both essential vitamins and minerals, he eventually fell victim to a changing cultural tide and attempted to get "with the times." In 1965, for example, he began to make a clear bid towards the emerging homeless free-loving stoner demographic of the time, affecting a thick sweater, relaxed eyelids, and no pants. Continuing his tendency to be far ahead of the cultural curve, he would eventually be known to exclaim "Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp... Sugar Crisp... Sugar Crisp... Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp... It keeps me going strong." This would eventually become the adopted slogan of most crack cocaine addicts of the mid-80s.

Today, the Golden Crisp bear has settled down a bit. Clearly, he still enjoys the occasional smoke, particularly before a session of new box shots, but he carries it with confidence. He's lived a long life, and he can live comfortably knowing that he's will remain the only cereal mascot to successfully encapsulate the brat pack generation, but still remaining true to himself despite the eventual change from a nice Sears-Roebuck wool sweater to a Hanes Beefy-T. In other words, he was so unique and ahead of the pulse of American culture, no one could ever hope to even try and duplicate his style. It suddenly becomes overwhelmingly clear who Kanye West's mascot is truly made to represent.

Perhaps a better example is that of Captain Crunch. Captain Crunch himself hasn't changed a single bit since his inception, but yet somehow manges to continue to change in a bid to stay relevant. What sounds like a clear contradiction is muddied by a glance through a history of the supporting characters in the Crunch legacy. Here's a short list:

-Seadog, a canine pal that sold original Crunch as well as "Vanilly" Crunch.
-Magnolia Bulkhead, Captain Crunch's original arch-enemy. Her evil superpower? Trying to get to the Captain to marry her. No, really.
-Smedley the Elephant, a pachyderm whose character design looks earily as though his brother may have recently heard a "Who."
-Harry S. Hippo, a pink hippo in a navy uniform. Between him and Jean LaFoote the "Barefoot Pirate", Post apparently was bent on creating the original Village People.
-Wilma the Winsome White Whale. God, kill me now.

Almost all of these characters were created to sell a new flavor of Captain Crunch, from the aforementioned "Vanilly Crunch" to the rather bizarre "Punch Crunch." All of them failed, except for one: Peanut Butter Crunch. And why, you may ask, did it succeed, besides it being delicious? Because they didn't make a mascot named Legume G. Harding to try and drum up business. All they ever needed was the Captain himself to agree to put his ever-unchanging Nordic god face on the box while holding a jar of peanut fat. It sold like waffles in non-cereal form, and so it exists to this day, remaining one of the most decadent cereals on the market. Not to mention one of the best to put Hershey's chocolate syrup on when your mom isn't looking.

What am I trying to get at? Well, in light of the dollar tanking, it seems to me that the reason why is neither economics nor coincidence- it's because no one wants to look at our ugly gross money that's trying to grab attention simply by adding flair; the same way that Captain Crunch once tried to and failed. Further, it's doing so in a way that's completely unforgivable- it's way behind the American design taste curve, unlike Sugar Bear who has managed to keep his finger well ahead of the pulse of American society to great success.

I think the best course of action to completely overhaul our monetary system; like, completely. I don't mean that we should start to pay in gold flakes, even if that might finally make a bottle of Goldschlagger seem like a good investment. Keep the presidents, keep the masonic symbols, that's all fine. With cereal mascots as my guide, I just refuse to believe that the only way to keep people from copying one another is through tacking on gaudy color schemes and finding new ways to work a watermarked "God" into our currency. I suppose all we need is a readily available new material to print on that only the US has easy access to... perhaps the charred skin of dead Iraqi civilians? (note: email that joke to Mencia asap. he'll be so glad to have new material to steal!)

Seriously, though, there's got to be a better solution than making our bills look like Ted Turner spilled his Technicolor into our ink vats. It is your duty as an American, particularly if you love your prized cereal mascots, to stand up to the injustice of our sorry state of industrial design and demand change. Surely, you can come up with a better idea than I can, but I dare you to be a bad enough dude to stick it to the treasury and make money that looks better (and one that hopefully smells better too. i swear it didn't always smell like the inside of a clamshell VHS tape.) than our modern currency. I assure you that it'd be a better use of your time than making a video where you roll round fruit at your cats at high speed, add an audio track of Yakkity Sax, and subsequently post it on Youtube. Even if you are guaranteed to make the front page.

you know what's awesome? making NES games into brootal metal lyrics.

i was originally inspired to write these when i discovered that Alaska has the world's largest remaining landmass of rain forests. yes, really, RAIN FORESTS. being that it is alaska, and that's there's nothing more metal than being cold, i mentally came upon the term "SNOW FOREST." bad ass, to be sure. a lush forest where it snows almost every day and freezes every night. a land ruled by moonlight.

that inspired a song based on Contra, a game about running and shooting things, in particular its snow level. which is, as you might already know or guess at this point, is a forest. of agony.



a rainforest of snow
a blanket of white
the cock always crows
in the dead of the night

the sun never rises,
the moon never sleeps
midnight blood reprise
where the contra man leaps

a feeling of crush,
SNOW FOREST SNOW FOREST
attack with a rush
SNOW FOREST SNOW FOREST

it's too cold to rain
it's all cold for pain
just give me the spread
till the snow runs red

(solo for 30 seconds or so)

SNOW!

(weedly)

FOREST.

(weedly backpedal)

SNOW!

(weedle)

FOREST.

(caterpie)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

now, this wasn't enough, obviously. i was on a roll here. i had to make another song: this time, about the classically brutal Ninja Gaiden.

(spoken)

the deepened blackness of my blade
with every thrust, another life flayed
for what reason
did my father fight and DIE

(guitars come in, words still spoken)

a gun in my back! I fade to black
just a girl
get out of here!

(serious guitar work)

awakened!
in the dungeon
a knock at the door
a demon statue in my hand
swiftly, a candle cut
now all who oppose me,
a living cremation
my fire wheel burns for endless destruction

demon!
statues aligned
a demon will rise
on a black moon night
and lay final blight
amidst humanity's cries

my only hope, fleeting chance
the demon must feel the power
of my spinning crimson blade

(guitars kind of mellow out for the chorus)

Death Demon I Slay
the master of pain
begin your entrails decay

Death Demon I Slay
end of death's reign
begin your entrails decay

(fade out to chorus reptition)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

finally, for all you The Wizard fans, here's one about Super Mario Brothers 3:

i lost my humanity
inside my aching body
raccoon becomes me tonight!

as i take to odin's skies
the shells of my victims
ring out their cries
in a rain of sage and crimson

Chorus:

my head turns brown
death crawls around
the king is decrowned
MANCOON ASSAULT!

consume the leaf green
a fur tail becomes ringed
to crippled life you cling
MANCOON ASSAULT!

(serious keyboard/drum solo)

a kingdom! of reptilian waste
i create with a Procyon face
the unholy kingdom becomes baptized
and in its water, fungus again will rise

fumes rise as airships fall frail,
a stench of remains blows in the gale
as long as the king has another vassal
the princess remains in another castle

(breakdown, followed a crazy solo involving a ton of whammy bars and a final repeat of the chorus)

WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS: Snow Forest, at the very least, will become an actual song by awesome Chipmetal group Electrostatic Discharge. how exciting!

it's National Hot Dog Month... In March! it's much like Black History Month... in any month that's not shorter than National Iced Tea Month, because I think that's kind of racist!

FACT #1:

Helen Keller loved hot dogs! HISTORICAL NOTE: the ingredients list is still not available in braille.

for my next trick, i will attempt to make puns out of each and every bodily organ using only important political figures and objects. i will refrain from using too many dick-parts, because those puns are most likely to be stolen and used in a Fark political debate.

also, this list is by no means complete just yet. obviously.

Esophagus Unum
Martin Vas Defrens
Tonsulate
George Washington Liver
Donald Lungsfeld (it's better than Millung Fillmore)
Stromach Thurmond
Colon Powell (Or the less obvious Abraham Lincolon)
Ronald Rectum (there has to be one better than that, and not e pluribus rectum. that also sucks.)
Howard Spleen
Hannigallbladder Hamlin (lincoln's first vp)
Appendixander Hamilton
Hillary Clintestine
Thurgood Marshsmall Intestine
Spylorus T Agnew
Barparathyroid Boxer
Chester Hearthur
Achilles Tendon B. Johnson
William H. Pancreas (say it with your toungue out and it sounds like "rehnquist")
Ruth Bladder Ginsberg

i give up for now.

can anyone answer me the following inquiry:

what makes ska superior to any other form of music?

i mean, really, why do some people get so dedicated to this stuff? it seems to me to be like drawing anime: there are actually set rules on how you must create it, and therefore it tends to blend together with every other artist. sure, there's little differences like the vocalist, but that's more or less like drawing an anime succubus with red wings and blonde hair; then drawing another with green wings, glasses, black hair, and a phallic tail and then calling both completely different characters. at the end of the day, you still drew a goddamned succubus with an overly disproportionate chest. not to mention that you're probably a lesbian.

i have two theories, but they may be wrong:

1. it's one of those musicks that have to be seen live to appriciate. in other words, it's a "scene" thing- the music can't stand for shit on its own, but the energy it creates in person makes it seem worthwhile.

2. you can wear stupid hats:





thoughts, anyone?

oh my god, so i just had the best idea today.

so, i've long said world wrapps should replace plates altogether. it'd save gallons of water that usually go to washing them, the savings of which could go right back to subsidizing companies and employees whose income previously relied solely on there being dishes to clean!

thinking of expanding this idea of using mexican food holders to well beyond the realm of just plain jane meals, i came up with the newest sweet treat to hypothetically sweep the nation: tacookies.

simply bake cookies in a taco mold (they mold them kind of like pringles, right?) and fill with crisp iceberg lettuce, succulent meat and aged cheese. You get a desert and a meal in one handy, go-anywhere snack! lunchables ought to be ashamed of themselves for not thinking of it sooner.

tacookies just flows. it rolls right off the toungue like, um, ball bearing bubble tape. you can still say "oh honey, don't eat that tacookie. your appitite will be absolutely shot!" and "welcome to taco del galleta, would you like to try our new carne asade grilled stuft tacookie supreme today?" with absolute ease.

i should patent this and Flintstones Ice Cream SAT Study-Ups immediately. what is the latter, you ask? let's just say that someday, i will be doing this and simultaneously learning how long it takes a 35 metre long train going 45 metres an hour to chug through a tunnel that is 400 metres long:

i've been running around my whole life thinking the proper name for my dresser was a "chester drawers." FUCK YOU MOM AND DAD! I HATE YOU!!`/

it's kind of sad that 90% of my 10 best ideas have to do with smoking.

i just had another one today.

Now, think about this: what are the patch, gum and pill all missing? A round object sticking out of the mouth. So here's my brilliance:

Tootsie Pops. Nicotene center.

Now, certainly, Nicorette Blow Pops have potential too. As an aside, am I the only one who hears "Blow Pop" and thinks of Coca-Cola?

Here's another one- Many underage teens can barely afford to keep up a smoking habit, particularily if it's also being used as their primary contraceptive. Also, man of those same teens suffer from vitamin deficiency.

My solution? One-A-Day Smokables. 200mg of 23 essential vitamins and minerals and a day's worth of nicotene in every 7 inch long stick. We've tried to create a healthier cigarette. I think I've pretty much hit gold.

In case you were wondering, rolling Crunch Berries into a cigarette didn't quite get the uniquely fruity flavor I was going for. Cerealrettes completely went down the drain.

someone brings out a chocolate custard

and you say "it looks like the shit has hit the flan"

i love making up conversations!

i joined the sparks revolution. i also joined the Bud Extra revolution.

guess which one i'm sticking with.

According to CBC reporter Evan Soloman, no friend of Japanese syllabary, South Asia was hit by a tunami. Thailand has, apparently, been flooded with Chicken of the Sea.

you may remember a recent story about a woman naming her child "tsunami" after the recent disaster. isn't that darling? what you may not remember is that a little over a year ago, the same thing happened when a woman in iraq who had twins named them Bush and Blair after her coutry's "liberators". Cute sentiment or infant media conspiracy? Are there any babies named "killing fields"? "napalm"?

AMC, also known as American Movie Classics, decided to do the sensitive thing and play disaster films all day including Volcano, Joe vs the Volcano, Dante's Volcano, My Mother the Volcano, Herbie Goes Volcano and, of course, Breakin' 3: Volcano Boogaloo.

nothing says money in the bank like heartfelt tradgedy.

1220!

what a nice feeling it is to be better than 90% of the nation at english.

not to mention better than a whole 15% of the nation at geometric reasoning.

i have no internet and i'm forced to spend time with family.

no, this isn't whining about christmas.

http://www.trutje.nl/images/shitsies/dragon.jpg

suddenly getting a <3 tattooed on my back doesn't seem so lucrative.

not even patches are safe from the diet craze.