That’s the slogan I found on a paper cup of Green Mountain coffee, and my face scrunched up into a rictus of disgust when I read it.

I love Green Mountain coffee, don’t get me wrong; I practically lived off the stuff in college. The snack shop in our art building sold Green Mountain coffee exclusively, and every morning, students and professors alike lined up to get their caffeine fix. (Fun fact: it’s impossible to create art without coffee.)

But who came up with this advertising campaign? There’s even a website where you can share your revelations with friends. The last time I checked, you’re supposed to do that while wearing a cardboard sign and a ragged beard.

My morning coffee is a staple, but I’m not suddenly gaining insights into the secrets of the universe. Unless Green Mountain is somehow lacing its brew with some hallucinogenic substances, I seriously doubt anyone’s having a revelation while drinking the stuff.

The warm weather is upon us, and everyone loves s’mores. (If you don’t, go back to Zeta Reticuli.) But I have a big problem with these graham cracker “squares.”

They’re specifically designed for people who are too fucking lazy to break a graham cracker in half.

Is this how far we’ve fallen?! Regular graham crackers are already scored so they’re easy to break evenly. It’s not difficult, people. In fact, it’s the part of making s’mores that takes the least amount of time and effort. Chocolate bars have to be unwrapped and broken up into smaller pieces, and the marshmallows have to be speared and cooked first over a fire.

This kind of sloth boggles the mind. If you see someone buying that shit, you’re legally obligated to laugh at them and call ‘em out for being lazy.

Your eyes do not deceive you: these pizzas come with a batch of cookies.

Pizza is already bad for you. Premade pizza is even worse, as it’s loaded with more fat, sugar, and salt. Cookies aren’t exactly healthy, either, and Nestlé Toll House cookies are heavyweights. In moderation, both pizza and cookies are perfectly fine. But that’s not the target demographic here: most frozen pizzas are not consumed by a group. They’re consumed by maybe one or two people, which is double or triple the serving size. And the cookies? Same deal.

More importantly…since when do pizza and cookies go together in the first place? Did I miss that memo? The last time I checked, pizza goes with beer, pretzels, chips, or buffalo wings. Pepperoni and a sugar rush don’t seem to mix.

Ah, Fat America. How will you disgust me next?

I know some may consider it shameful to be a glutton on Thanksgiving, especially when so many people the world around are starving. I do not share this belief, but not for the reasons you might think. I do feel for the plight of hungry folks worldwide, but at the same time, I’m grateful that I live in a society where I can enjoy a feast with my family. For me, it’s not just the copious amounts of food that are important; it’s the company. I could buy a bunch of food and engorge any time I want, but only once a year does most of my family get together to give thanks and enjoy a large meal.

There’s really no arguing with that.

She got me a Bodum Brazil model (pictured at right), and it works great. She also bought me a blade grinder and a selection of beans, as a French press works best when you coarse grind your own. Being the master mechanical engineer that I am, I figured everything out without a problem. My friends were correct: French press coffee is fucking badass. The flavor’s richer, and the overall brew is like rocket fuel. (Which, if you work in IT as I do, is quite a boon.)

After a few weeks, though, I’ve been running into trouble. My coffee ends up consistently tasting wrong. This happened once in a while before, but now it’s constant. Sometimes it’s burnt, sometimes the flavor’s gone, and sometimes it just tastes like shit. I can’t figure out what the damned problem is.

So what the hell am I doing wrong? Is the water still too hot? I have no idea what the proper temperature should be, other than “not boiling.” (If the water does accidentally boil, I take it off the burner and let it cool for thirty seconds.) Plus, I don’t know what kind of thermometer to use to check the temperature; I’d imagine that a simple meat thermometer would be thrown off by the metal pot I heat the water in.

I only let the coffee brew for three and half to four minutes. I’m experimenting with shorter brew times, but I don’t want the coffee to be weak. Also, I carefully wash and rinse the press and all of its parts after each use. Finally, I grind a fresh cup of beans every few days and store the grounds in an airtight container. The beans are also stored in airtight containers, so I doubt the coffee itself is getting stale. (It sure smells great when I open it up!)

Few things in the morning are worse than subpar coffee, so this issue needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. Any thoughts? I know some of you readers out there have French presses (some of you were the aforementioned coffee aficionados who recommended it, after all), so I’m willing to bet that you can help me. Any advice would be appreciated!

This blows.

Sure, there’s delicious healthy food out there. But it’s often expensive, difficult or time-consuming to prepare, or just not filling enough. Ever since I started going to the gym on a regular basis in January, my hunger has been ravenous. This would be normal if I were actually losing flab and gaining muscle mass, but I am not. In other words, I’m angry because I can’t eat, and I’m angry because improved eating habits aren’t helping. It’s a no-win scenario, and I sure as hell am not James T. Kirk.

During the week, eating healthy for two out of three meals a day is a cinch. Breakfast for me has always been a bowl of whole grain cereal and some juice. Lunch is always light, as I work a desk job; I don’t need to pig out, much as I might want to sometimes. Dinner is where things get difficult. Three times a week, I go to the gym after work. I get home, and I’m starving after my shower. I try to cook simple, low-calorie dishes and whatnot, but after I’m done eating…I’m still hungry, as if I never ate in the first place!

On weekends, it’s even more difficult (if not impossible) for me to eat healthy. I’m usually not at home, so I don’t have access to my own foodstuffs to prepare. I’m not being force fed dishes, but lack of healthy options combined with my relatively weak willpower usually ends with me eating things I shouldn’t.

Then there’s the whole matter of comfort food. I’m the poster boy for that shit, and I don’t think there’s a such thing as healthy comfort food. Still, I enjoy a good meal when I’m feeling down or angry, but it once again feeds the vicious cycle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not scarfing a box of donuts on a routine basis. In fact, since donuts are my favorite food, I’m obligated to avoid them. Ugh.

When it comes to healthy eating, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I can only hope to struggle my way through this, since no logical solution seems to be in sight. I’ll be miserable, but at least I’ll be a bit more healthy.

My gym has a barbecue joint right next door.

Every time I walk out of my gym after an hour of working out, I’m greeted with a rush of barbecue flavor wafting over from the neighboring building. Cripes, I’m already extremely hungry from the exercise, and the scent of wonderful food makes things ten times worse.

Surprisingly enough, my gym is not full of big fat fucks, so it’s not like the place next door is contributing to a vicious cycle. It’s just annoying.

In their infinite wisdom, ABC has decided to air the classic special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving…at 8 PM EST on Thanksgiving itself.

Are you fucking kidding me?! First of all, who’s going to be home from their relatives’ houses by 8 PM? And more importantly, who’s going to be fully conscious by then? I don’t know about you, but Thanksgiving dinners tend to knock me the hell out, what with the turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and all. The special’s worth making an effort to watch, but this is just very poor timing. I know they aired it on Thanksgiving last year, but they had also aired it a few days prior. No such luck this time.

This is a disgrace! A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is the only Thanksgiving special worth watching that still airs annually (the Garfield one has been long gone for ages), and throwing it into a timeslot where most people are going to be too busy to watch it is really aggravating. You can’t miss the lawn chair fight, or Vince Guaraldi’s excellent song “Little Birdie.”

Sure, you could buy A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on DVD, but you know damned well that’s not the same as watching it in realtime as it airs.

We’ve got a Quiznos franchise right down the road from my office. Although their subs are tasty, and they sell gourmet sandwiches not found elsewhere, I rarely go there. The food’s not exactly healthy, and worse, their prices are far too high.

However, I got some coupons for the joint from my employer. (We often get business coupons with our paychecks.) I figured that would help defuse the cost, and I could head down there to score a cheap lunch. After placing my order, I’m getting out my wallet to pay, and I hand over the coupon…

…only to be told that this particular Quiznos franchise doesn’t accept coupons. Bear in mind, this is the only Quiznos that’s local. Need I remind that you that my employer receives and passes out coupons from Quiznos specifically because they’ve got a location right down the street?

There’s obviously some miscommunication going on between Quiznos corporate and our local franchise. I know that it’s up to the franchises themselves whether they want to participate in promotions and whatnot, but the morons who work there should at least keep the powers-that-be abreast of this, so we’re not getting false hopes in the form of coupons they won’t even bother honoring. Sheesh!

(Topic suggested by Pizza Girl.)

Of course, it eventually closed as Dunkin Donuts grew ever larger and squashed everything in its path. To add insult to injury, Dunkin Donuts moved in to the old Mister Donut location down the road from my house! They may have renovated the place to make it look more attractive to customers, but it didn’t matter; Mister Donut was gone. (Oddly enough, Mister Donut is hugely popular in Asia. I found that out a month or two ago, and it floored me.) Don’t even get me started on the clerks that worked at this new Dunkin Donuts, either; what a bunch of fucking morons. These clowns could barely brew a pot of coffee properly!

I guess even that’s apocryphal now, as the entire half of the plaza that Mister Donut/Dunkin Donuts sat on was recently razed to make room for another massive CVS. Cripes. A brand-new standalone Dunkin Donuts was opened next to it, but based on what I’ve seen at the new joint, it’s not looking good.

We also had a family-owned bakery known as The Doughnut Shoppe in my hometown, which made the best damned donuts I’ve ever eaten. Of course, they closed down too. The only non-Dunkin place left was The Whole Donut, which operated two locations in my hometown. They’ve hung on for years, and I’ve always enjoyed their donuts and coffee.

A few years ago, though, one of them disappeared, to be replaced by the Sugar Shack. This place sells big donuts, as well as soft-serve ice cream. The latter is most certainly what’s kept them in business. Recently, the other Whole Donut franchise has become King Donuts. With a Dunkin Donuts one block away, I’m not so sure King Donuts will stick around for too long, especially since I’ve never even heard of the company before.

There’s eleven Dunkin Donuts locations in my hometown now. Eleven. Eleven! Shit, do we really need that many?! The town’s not that big, people. Some of the stupid things are literally across the street from one another! As delicious as Dunkin Donuts products can be, it pisses me off to see them put smaller donut chains and shops out of business. Competition breeds creativity, and in the donut world, that means tastier stuff! Not to mention that places like the Whole Donut, Sugar Shack, and so forth have cheaper products that are just as good, if not better, than Dunkin Donuts. With the little guys out of the picture, Dunkin can raise their prices with impunity, and we all suffer.