Month: February 2012

Take it from Snee: Lent Edition

If you’re of the Catholic persuasion, then you know that we are one week deep into Lent.

For everyone else: every year, shortly after Valentine’s Day, the Almighty decides that he’s tired of putting in all the work into this relationship — including that freaky four-way with his son and a ghost we asked for. After Mardis Gras, God sobers up and turns into the princess from A Knight’s Tale and asks us to prove our love by giving up something we love for 40 days.

I, for instance, gave up the slide whistle this year, which means 40 days of stern erections: a price my wife will just have to pay. In prior years, I’ve given up monologuing in the shower, checking my tissues for productive noseblowings and Chalupas because

  1. It has to be something difficult to live without. (I ate nothing but Gorditos in 1998 to keep to my non-Chalupa agreement.)
  2. It can’t be a repeat.

But, you don’t have to be Catholic to participate. In fact, Muslims have their own version, Ramadan, while Evangelical Protestants swear off of gay sex for their entire lives — which often leads to failure for extending it beyond the Lent season.

It is in this Christian spirit that I’ve prescribed some Lent suggestions to others. Who knows? Maybe it will change their lives permanently for the better. Continue reading Take it from Snee: Lent Edition

Japan REALLY looking toward the future

Japanese construction company Obayashi is planning the construction of a space elevator which would carry passengers to a station about a tenth the distance to the moon. According to the company, the project could be completed as early as 2050.

Made of super-strong carbon nanotubes, the elevator would stretch some 60,000 miles from its anchor point, which would be built on an ocean’s floor. The opposite end of the building would dangle in space serving the role of a counterweight. Powered by magnetic linear motors, elevator pods would move at a speed of roughly 125mph, meaning it would take about one week for passenger to reach the top. The design would allow for up to 30 people to travel simultaneously. Acrophobics need not apply.

While at the moment it is difficult to estimate the total cost of the venture (we guess it’ll be many, many moon-dollars), it’s presumed that space elevators would, in the long run, be significantly more affordable than rocket launches, but significantly less (or would it be even more so) phallic looking in design.

Get personal with your food

Today most of us no longer know the satisfaction of hunting down, killing and eating our food. It’s a sense of satisfaction in both sustaining oneself and doing one’s part in the War on Animals that so few get to feel. Germany’s tried to reverse the trend a bit.

At Meine Kleine Farm (or in English My Kleine Farm), customers can enjoy sausage, but they can take it to a new level by picking out the pig to be slaughtered and made into the sausage. There’s even a picture of the pig. It’s like a dating service, but for food.

Eat My Sports: May the Best Man win

Here in February, we have discussing a whole lot of love, I mean a lot of love. So I figured I would keep with the theme.

Later on this year, one of my close friends is getting married, and, for the fourth time in my distinguished career, I have been selected to be a groomsman. Selecting groomsmen is like selecting the starting five of your friends. Sure, you’ve got some good role players, but these are the guys your either:
A) Trust
B) Are stuck with and don’t have anyone better
Or, C) Have been around with you for so long that you have no choice but to have them there.

Most of us get a combination of all of the above, but this got me thinking the other day, what if we got to choose a starting five that were actual athletes for your wedding? Here’s what I came up with. Continue reading Eat My Sports: May the Best Man win

Drinks on Angela Merkel

History teaches us that it’s unwise to make a German leader angry. Fortunately for one waiter, Chancellor Angela Merkel isn’t quick to get angry.

Merkel was at a meeting somewhere in Germany where they were serving beer. Keep in mind, this is Germany, where it is illegal to hold a public meeting without steins. A waiter was coming over to Merkel’s table with a tray full of beer when, according to the waiter, he was pushed and accidentally dumped the beer on the chancellor.

Fortunately, dumping beer on a woman in late winter is a German sign of fertility, so we wish Merkel a healthy mating season.

Archaeologists find earliest evidence of Peter Benchley in 1st Century tomb

A group of archaeologists who thought they found Jesus’ tomb a few years back believes they struck paydirt again, this time unearthing what may be the earliest grave ever marked with the Jesus fish. The inscription (see above) is theorized to represent Jonah — the testicle hanging off the fish’s lip — being eaten by the fish God sent after him. (It was the Old Testament. Fatherhood really changes a deity.)

The tomb in question dates back to the 1st Century. Previously, the Jesus fish has only been found on tombs as far back as the 2nd Century, when early Christians believed in adorning the most expensive thing they owned with faith-advertisements and representations of how many times they’ve procreated.

Even if you don’t believe, just remember: one day in the future, somebody is going to unearth your remains and think you might be Steve Jobs because you insisted on being buried with your iPad.

It’s an exchange in the loosest term of the word

Let your alcohol-enjoying taste buds fear tyranny at the gas pump no longer! Beer-anny, as we like to call it, for the longest time, was relegated to forcing a person to drink down the worst swill possible: Icehouse, Bud-anything, Colt 45, King Cobra, Coors, MGD and so forth. At some locations, you might be lucky enough to score a Sam Adam’s sixer, but hope is little and far away. But no more if the gas station you frequent is of the Sunoco brand!

Sunoco has so far piloted its Craft Beer Exchange program at 12 locations and to much success! The program allows customers access to 64-oz. growlers or 6-packs of 12-oz. bottles that can be filled with craft-brew brands like Allagash, Abita, Dogfish Head, and Victory. In other words, beer that actually tastes good. This program will now be tested out in South Carolina and hopefully into other locations!

May your gas tank be full and your mouth be overflowing with tasty beverages! Just not necessarily at the same time.