Regarding Hot Pots

 An oven mitt is for people who who lack the dexterity or confidence to physically operate a pot holder. Either that, or they can't deal with the psychological implications of using something that doesn't have a silly puppet-like face or feature a hilarious play on rap lyrics to entertain you while you burn your hot pockets and probably your groin on the oven door. How long until someone invents a way to clip your mitt to the snot-covered shirt cuff so you never lose it. Oh wait. BADERRRRP!

Psychosuchronology 101

 You can tell an awful lot about someone just based on how they approach eating candy. I'm serious. There's actually an award-winning Harvard thesis written on this which refers to the study of candy eating strategy and Psychosuchronology. Just kidding. There isn't...yet.

For this theory I use the example of Starburst (original flavors, not that tropical poison garbage). Here's what I do:

1. Rank the flavors from best to worst according to your personal taste.
I have them as pink, red, yellow, and gross orange.

2. Which order would you eat them in if you had them all in a pile outside of the yellow sheathing?
I know I'm eating them all when I open a pack, so I start with the bad ones first. I eat in my reverse favorite order: orange, yellow, red, pink. I like to finish strong and not have the taste of orange plastic in my mouth when I sit down for breakfast.

Now it's much easier to eat Starburst leaving them in the sheathing because you won't have a huge mess of them all over the place. It also keeps them unexposed to poachers (more on that later).

3. How many Starburst would you remove from the package in order to follow your preferred eating order (they are normally arranged in a repeating pattern of red, orange, yellow, and pink in some order)?
I go ahead and take all four out if necessary and put the remaining three back in the package in the reverse order in which I plan to eat them. By my calculation, this causes minimal damage to the packaging and to repeat four times - there are 16 candies per package - takes a total of 20-30 seconds, or slightly longer if you're colorblind.

3. Now let's suppose with your crazy candy eating habits you happen to have a friend or loved one willing to endure your insanity. The only problem is that most people like Starburst, so now you've added an external factor to your methodical approach. What do you do?
First of all, don't ever let anyone throw a wrench into your system. There are a couple of ways to manage this type of situation that will leave you satisfied without costing you friendship or female companionship. If you're a chick, give the man the flavors he wants. Men care more.

a. Choose your friends wisely. I know when I meet people I always wonder if we could be eating candy together one day. In my case, I try to make friends with people who like orange Starburst since those are the ones I despise. I've found through extensive field work that most people like two flavors best. In that case, my ideal match is someone who likes orange and yellow. If it's someone really great, you can settle for one of your lower two and one of your upper two, but never the top choice, and they better be able to ride a unicycle or do magic tricks or something, because you'll need to be distracted after forking over your precious to that clown. Here's my friendship compability chart in order of descending compatibility.
1. orange and yellow, 2. orange and red, 3. yellow and red, 4. red and pink

If you like red and pink we're officially enemies. Change your tastes or I'll change them for you. Try those delicious tropical dingle-berries instead why don't you?

b. If you have to be friends with someone who likes your flavors, you can "stack the deck in your favor". When they're not looking, organize the package with the ones you want them to have in alternating order starting with them. You're being courteous by giving them the first choice, so if they say "ugh, I don't want that one", tell them to eat shit and die.

You can run these experiments on yourself and see how much of a weird freak you are. If you're weirder than me, you're fucked.

Brami's Big Bay Area Burrito Board

The Current Pecking Order in Burrito Land:

1. Gordo's -  1423 Solano Ave Albany, CA 94706 Albany
Now these are all over the place, but I like the one in Albany best. The one in South Central (Berkeley) blows and it's overrun with damn dirty hipsters. The burritos at the good ones are straightforward, fresh ingredients, good sauce, and the staff is a bunch of chill dudes. It's unassuming, but that's part of what makes it so excellent.

2. La Taqueria - 2889 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94110
This is prime stuff. The tacos and burritos are solid all the way around. The atmosphere is bustling but relaxed and you can stumble into any number of sketchy bars nearby when you're done punishing your stomach and want to go a few rounds with your liver.

3. Chile Jalapeno - 6706 San Pablo Ave Oakland, CA 94608
Highly recommended for a few reasons. First off, they burrito has some sort of magic cheese in it that induces crack-like convulsing. They also have great tacos. Cheap too! $1.25 a pop. Last, they have a very peaceful outdoor space so it's a great place to chill and drink beers while you enjoy the traditional style Mexican eats.

4. Juan's Place - 941 Carleton Street Berkeley, CA 94710
The place is a little dark, and I could see it being the scene of some violent fight seen in a Tarantino movie. Of the places I've been to, this seems the most like Mexico. No one speaks English really, and you grapple with the prospect of never being seen again when you walk in. Everything they make is huge and delicious though, and they have great fish tacos. Tip: Try their salsa and chips that they give you before the meal. I tried to get take out and ended up staying because the stuff was way to good to pass up.

5. Cactus Taqueria - 1881 Solano Ave Berkeley, CA 94707
Best roll I've had. I've heard the fish tacos are good here but so far I've stuck to conventional meats. Very solid choice with lots of options, but it takes a while especially on weekends and I say just go to Gordo's down the block. Plus there are always kids there giving each other the swine flu and whatnot.

6. Tacubaya - 1788 4th Street Berkeley, 94710
They have some good specials and nice turnover on the menu. The fact that they have something different everyday means they're keeping things fresh. Important, especially when it comes to seafood. I feel like they need to beef their food up a little bit though. It's tasty, but I can always go for more afterward. They did have VERY good churros though.

More to come...I'll also try to include other metrics in upcoming posts: Post-meal hallucinations, level of regret, degree of digestive exhaustion, magnitude of loss of will power, etc.

How to get hit by a car

Step 1: Be an idiot
Step 2: Dress up like a deer and learn the language
Step 3: Earn the trust of the other deer by stabbing rival deer gang members
Steps 4 through 367: Refer to the deer version of this blog for further details. Expect typos.

Quoting the Bible without knowing how to read?

For most of my life, I thought that all of those wrestling shirts with "John 3:16" written on them were referring to some douche named John that the douche named Stone Cold Diamond Dallas Goldberg or whatever beat down in 3 minutes, 16 seconds. That makes a lot more sense than aligning fake wrestling (or real wrestling for that matter...) with Jesus and his homies. He sure did have a nice wrestling coiff though. Not to be confused with a coif. Those are almost never cool.

Welcome to the next level of blogging.

Just wanted to give a shout out to all the fans who followed me from my previous blogs:

http://www.fullduplex.org/tardblog/
http://mymomisafob.com/
http://stupidnailpolishnames.blogspot.com/

It's because of your generous support that I finally got that sex change operation I've been desperately needing! Thanks and god bless!