Treating the kids to a meal

Yesterday morning I had breakfast at Bob Evans.  On the table was a placard advertising “Trick or Treat Tuesdays: Kids eat free!”

As I sat there eating, I kept wondering, “That’s fine for the kids who get free pancakes, and it’s certainly a treat for the parents who don’t have to pay for a meal.  But what about the “trick”?  Do they bring some random kids a plate full of liver and Brussels sprouts?  Or do they just show up with an empty plate to provide those children a valuable lesson: There’s no such thing as a free Trick or Treat Tuesday?

Break time’s up

While watching TV this evening, I happened upon a commercial that really caught my attention.

Like most people, I am constantly pressed for time.  (Disclaimer: I don’t have a wife and children and a lawn and other things to legitimately consume my time.  No, I am pressed for time because I waste time on things like watching TV commercials and writing about watching TV commercials.)  So whenever I see a new time-saving invention, I immediately perk up.

Like most of you, one of the things that makes me late for appointments, causes me to miss deadlines, and contributes to the half-completed projects in my life is eating candy bars.  Candy bars are a huge time suck, what with the biting* and the chewing and the swallowing.  Who has time for that?

Thankfully, the efficiency experts at Kit Kat are looking out for you.  In their own words, “Now you can take a Kit Kat break, even when you don’t have time for a break!”  The secret: Cut a Kit Kat bar into 16 pieces, wrap each piece individually, and put them in a bag.  And voila!  Kit Kat Minis!  “Poppable, bite-size minis that let you make break time anytime!”

In the modern cutthroat world of business, break time has been shown to be most effective for morale and productivity when it is doled out a dozen seconds at a time,  far too little time for a modern Three Musketeers bar, let alone the Charleston Chews of our parents’ generation.  Studies have shown that up to 93.25% of candy-eating time is spent eating the last 15/16ths of a candy bar.  I myself have had to rush to meetings because I squandered precious seconds eating the last 15/16ths of a fun-size Snickers†.  But thanks to Kit-Kat Minis, now I have time to learn a new language, exercise more, and pick up 16 times as many candy wrappers before I run the vacuum cleaner!  (Disclaimer: I have someone come in to run the vacuum cleaner for me.)

Having said that, now it’s back to watching TV.  Time’s a-wastin’!

* One of greatest lines of dialogue in the history of television is this line from Doctor Who: “Biting is excellent.  It’s like kissing, only there’s a winner.” 

† Is a full-size Snickers bar 3 times as much fun?  Or does all the extra nougat and peanuts somehow detract from the total fun quotient?

Getting drummed out of the NFL

Last weekend, I went to the Colts-Seahawks game in Indianapolis with my best friend and his girlfriend.  It was a good game, and we had a great time, but I kept getting distracted by the stadium music.

One song in particular got me thinking.  Whenever the Colts scored, the stadium would reverberate to the dulcet tones of Todd Rundgren’s “Bang the Drum All Day”.  In particular, they would play the refrain, which goes like this:

 I don’t want to work; I want to bang on the drum all day.

 I don’t want to play; I just want to bang on the drum all day.

It seems to me that this is the wrong message to be sending to players and coaches whose livelihoods depend on, well, working and playing.  (Disclaimer: I’m also worried about the effect of this song on the sanity of professional drummers.)

A severe shortage of

When I used to do improv, we had a game we played called “Hesitation”, where we would do a scene, and at random times one player would hesitate (“I need to go to the… ummm…”) and the audience would yell out something random (“Opossum!”) The player then had to justify why he needed to go to the opossum. (To seek advice on how to play dead more convincingly, for example.)

One of my favorite songs is Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough. I find the intro note pattern thingy at the beginning (Disclaimer: I’m clearly not a musician.) very catchy. But I find the lyrics even more intriguing, because they speak to the soul’s insatiable need for.

No, I did not forget to finish that last sentence.