And Rachael Ray Shot JFK

I've never been particularly worried about things like Mad Cow Disease or e. coli outbreaks--probably because I'm no longer a carnivore--and at one time I had no qualms about eating an M&M off the ground under a loosely timed five-second rule. When I say that I've recently become paranoid about food and started calling conspiracy theory, it's a cause for serious concern.

*Adolescent vanity trained me to stringently track down the nutritional contents of everything that slides down my gullet. So naturally, when I became hooked on iced coffees at McDonalds, I went to their website and looked it up. A 32-ounce coffee has 250 calories. I didn't believe it for a second. Those things are sweeter than a debutante and have enough cream to make a heifer blush. Therefore, I believe the core of McDonalds' new nutrition-consciousness consists of lying about how bad the products are for the customers by falsifying the caloric and fat content. If I had a way of finding out the truth, I would sue them for millions of dollars, which would allow me to buy millions of delicious iced coffees.

*One of my friends got tricked into buying a pack of Limited Edition Retro Starburst. The kid at the Kum and Go counter said that he'd give my friend his more expensive coffee for free if he bought the candy because his boss said he "wasn't selling enough." Taking advantage of the deal, my friend agreed, only to find out later that there was a nationwide contest among Kum and Go employees to see who could sell the most Retro Starburst. Upon closer examination, I found the bite-sized taffy to come in four flavors: Psychedli-Melon (representing the sixties, I'm assuming), Disco Berry, Hey Mango-Rena (I shudder to think that's what the 1990's will be remembered for), and Optimus Lime. This "inadvertent" promotion coincides remarkably with the release of Transformers: The Movie --a little too well, I believe. Either the guy who gets paid to name the Starburst got geeked out on Mountain Dew and pop rocks when he received the project that he'd waited twenty years for, or the Transformers producers slipped him some bills under the table for some low-cost-yet-high-exposure promotion. I'm positive the film features Los Del Rio's acting debut as the Bee Gees, who operate a yellow submarine that morphs into a three-headed bone-crushing rainbow-bot. The prize package will be two tickets, a pair of platform shoes, and two tabs of acid.

*Water is supposed to make you not thirsty. It's also supposed to alleviate dehydration-related symptoms of a hangover such as nausea. In the past few weeks, I've found Kirksville water to do neither of these things. I believe the water "purification" plant is distilling our faucets with chemically fine-tuned crap to make the drinkers sluggish and sick, not only so they will want to consume more and turn a profit for water-related utilities and services, but to also sap the desire to emigrate from this Surrogate-Motherland and allow them to raise the aggregate I.Q. so we may finally have the cultural capacity to necessitate a Target store being built.