It’s Nutrish!

Newsflash.

Rachael Ray now has her own line of dog food

What is the world coming to?

An interesting assignment

Normally professors warn against using the dreaded Wikipedia, however this week I was given an unusual assignment.

Choose one Wikipedia entry and attempt to purposely corrupt it with false information. Choose another and work to build and preserve it throughout the semester.

I know which one I’m going to preserve, but I’m not sure which I’m going to try to mess up. Maybe Rachael Ray.

Travel myths busted.

People always say you need to get to the airport early to allow plenty of time to go through security. This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Security, if you follow the rules, doesn’t take long. The only exception is maybe on a Saturday morning when a lot of families are flying. I fly all the time and have never waited more than 15 minutes in a security line.  As long as you take your shoes off and put your laptop in a bin all by itself, this isnt going to take long.
What you really need to come early for is the bullshit the airline tries to put you through. Waiting at the ticket counter is always a longer line than security. There’s always a problem..sometimes they  loose your reservation,  other times it didnt get ticketed in their system, so they want to charge you the extra $30 to ticket you at the gate (No, thanks).  My favorite is when I pick my seat online, weeks before the flight, and then I get to the airport and its been changed to row 27.  Nobody wants to sit there, sorry.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get there and then your flight will be delayed, or possibly oversold,  so there wont be enough seats for ticketed passengers.

All of these things contribute to very unhappy travelers. That and the possibility of a  300 pound greasy long haired man falling asleep on your coat when you finally find a spot to plug your computer in.

Blame the University.

Finals week (or weekend) for an English major is hell. Not a lot of things can be considered “hell” when you’re talking about such a subjective discipline, where there are no right and wrong answers. But finals week, or weekend, or the week before…that is. In all “normal” majors, you actually have to take finals. You know, those tests, with questions that you answer? Virtually unheard of in the English discipline, where (like I said), there are no right answers (or wrong ones, either)

I’m working on my second paper of the week, I have two more due, which totals around 50 pages of writing. Recently I attended an entrepreneurship panel at my university where some business people and CEOs suggested that to learn how to write, students should just write topic sentences and paragraphs over and over. They also thought long papers were five pages.

Not to say that other majors are easy, but nobody looks as bad as we do right now. I just took a glimpse in the mirror and I was shocked. I can’t count the number of caffeinated beverages I’ve consumed today. I had to come to the 24 hour computer lab because the library decided to close at 10pm (why would they do that to us?). I guess they had a point, considering at 7pm the only two people still left in the computer bank were my classmate and I.

It’s a little strange, but the only people that have caffeinated beverages in the lab right now are my fellow English majors. Well, I had to put mine down due to a fear of heart failure. My classmate, working on a paper that I didn’t even get to yet, is on her second red bull and it looks like she’s had a frappucino too.

To the business majors who are all out drinking right now, and who will all have jobs long before I will? Suck it.

If I wanted to feel homeless, I’d go sleep outside

The all you can eat buffet. Americans love few things more. Not exactly the epitome of class is it? Commonly found in Chinese food restaurants, overcrowded cruise ships, college cafeterias…..the buffet isn’t really somewhere you go for a special occasion or to have a very tasty meal. Accomplished chefs in acclaimed restaurants don’t choose to serve their food buffet style, because it does nothing for the food, except lend convenience to the servers.

So why on earth would anyone pick to have a buffet at their wedding reception? Isn’t a wedding supposed to be the most important day in two peoples lives? They probably go out to eat at sit down restaurants all the time, but on their wedding day, they’re having their guests line up like cattle waiting to be fed, or the homeless at a soup kitchen? I don’t want to share in the most important day of my friends lives and eat food that is being reheated with a candle.

Damn. Should have skipped the reception and gone to Applebees.

Was that McDonalds?

Shamefully, yes. I was eating McDonalds fries before takeoff as the plane sat on the runway. Did the captain say we were 30th in line for departure? My new McDonalds envying friend had been stuck in the airport all day after a canceled flight and wished he had known there was a McDonalds. Great, I thought maybe this would be like last time, when I asked the man next to me where to eat in Chicago and he gave me a list of national chain restaurants.

My seat cushion was loose and every time I slid forward it almost fell off. Did someone actually try to use it as a flotation device?

My saving grace was the realization that my McDonalds loving friend was actually a lamb-loving foodie in disguise. We talked food for the entire three hours (what should have been one and a half) we were on the plane, although his recommendations were a little bit vague. He couldn’t seem to remember the names or locations of a lot of his favorite Atlanta or Chicago eateries, but at least it made for some good conversation.

My faith is (partially) restored in the ability of Americans to appreciate food. And I know where to get lamb from a street cart next time I’m in New York.