I shunned this beverage for ages because I don’t generally like sweet drinks, and beverages in beer-shaped bottles that aren’t beer bother me (think: Zima). However, on a singularly hot summer day, sitting in the full sun at noon at a baseball game, I gave in, and this tasted like the sweetest elixir on earth.

simple repetitive motion eye strain strain strain strain reading mindfully crazy buttons gouging eyes strain strain train crappy sucky artfully nonsense hated it.

in other words, gertrude stein invented spam.

I had a number of problems with this novel, but none of them severe enough to restrict my eagerness to suggest it to others. Really, one of the most interesting books I have read in a long time.

It is beautiful in that poetically-phrased, creepy sort of Nabokov way.

This book is really straight-forward and easy to understand, especially if your eyes glaze over at the mere mention of financial matters, like mine usually do. The book covers all the usual suspects of early-adulthood financial crises (debt, loans, credit cards, savings accounts, early investments, etc.). A good place to start if you are totally clueless.

I am horrible with scary things, and this was terrifying within about fifteen pages. I can hardly be alone at night as it is, all I needed were more terror-inducing images to scarify my brain into delusional madness.

In short, if you like scary stuff, this is your cup of tea. If you are a wuss like me, stay away!

I am still scarred by the pesto craze of the late 1990’s. Everything was pesto: pesto carrots, pesto pizza, pesto chicken, pesto pesto, pesto potato chips… lots of pesto, and most of it done poorly. Pesto was ruined for me by all of the hype and unabashed abuse of this delicate, refined dish.

I share this tale not for flagrant sensationalism, but that the suffering of the pesto-deluged masses be not unduly prolonged.

Many look at a cauliflower and ask “why?”

I look at a cauliflower and wonder “why do you smell so bad when heated?”

Espresso is best had in the Turkish fashion: so thick and sludgy that your spoon will stand up in it, and so caffeinated that it burns your nose hairs when you drink it.

I ate a sweet potato once. It gave me a cavity.

There’s a reason why we make Southerners eat these and keep all the real potatoes for ourselves.