INKSTAND

Man, I love Count Chocula. I remember it being a treat when I was a kid because it wasn’t always available in the area I lived in. In high school I even sent away for a bean bag toy that I’m sure I still have somewhere at my folk’s house. We just started carrying Count Chocula at the store where I work and the first thing I noticed was the odd design of the box.

It wasn’t that compared to Sonny, the cracked-out Cocoa Puffs bird, he looked more like a stoned greaser. Naturally I’m fine with that. What it was was that there is no cereal on the front. If you don’t already know what Count Chocula cereal is composed of this box design would not convinvce you that you want to eat it. You don’t know what it is! I think it takes a lot of balls for General Mills to think that the cereal will sell on it’s own reputation. It might, but for such a company to dumb down it’s advertising, especially on the product itself, is just a bad marketing move. They have done the same thing with their other cereals in the monster-inspired line, FrankenBerry and BooBerry.

There IS an image of the cereal itself on one of the narrow sides of the box, of all places. If I sound too nit-picky, I’m telling you: This is the first thing someone would point out in a critique if this were an assignment for a first-semester graphic design course.

Ever since I started going to the gym and walking up from 2nd Ave to 4th, to catch the 17 bus home, I have passed this tiny place, curious about it’s quality and enchanted by it’s aroma. Today I decided to boldly go somewhere I’ve never gone and try it out.
The prices seemed decent. It was five-something for a sandwich, seven-something for a sandwich, side, and soda. Once inside I noticed that the place was even smaller than I though it would be. It was about four feet wide and ten feet deep, at the most. The register was at the far end and there were two small tables along side the windows. I’ll tell more about those tables in a minute. I saw two dudes sitting, waiting before me and a lady making a purchase at the register. I wondered how long the whole process would take, from ordering to leaving the place. I shit you not, it took less than three minutes. No, less than two. I ordered, paid, and right after she made my change, she handed me my sandwich and potato salad in a to-go container. Damn, I was impressed. But…how was the sandwich?
I decided to wait until I got home to eat because I didn’t feel like getting into a sloppy bbq sandwich on the bus. I did, however, sneak several bites of the potato salad. They have a sign that says something like “Best Potato Salad Served Here.” I admit it was pretty good. There were no crunchy little surprises like onions or pickles or anything. But I like hard-boiled eggs in my potato salad. I’m a weirdo that way.
They have a choice of bbq: mild, medium or hot. I always go with mild. I recently tried to raise my spicy tolerance and I think it worked a little, but I usually want to “taste the meat, not the heat.” In this case “mild” pretty much meant no spiciness at all, so if you like spicy you should probably go all the way. The sandwich was good, hearty and full of slathery goodness that didn’t fall apart all over. I set it down when I felt full, but mere minutes later I picked it back up again and finished it.
Now back to those tables. When I was growing up the Wendy’s burger place in my town had these tables with old-tymey newspaper prints on the top. The last time I saw them was about seventh grade, before they remodeled. Well I’ll be fucked wide open if this place didn’t have two of those little tables sitting right there. I almost took a picture with my camera phone, but that camera sucks and I would have looked like a freak.
I definitely recommend the Mad Oven Barbecue for a good pulled-meat sandwich. Although it was so indulgent I probably won’t be able to go back for a little while. When I do, maybe I’ll try “medium”.

looks exactly like:

Jesus, if a hippie, would have stated his main idea as: “Hey, man, just love each other.” Although I have a little trouble with the Savior/Son of God thing. I’m not saying he was lying. All of his lessons, aside from the son-of-God stuff, are pretty reasonable so that gives him some credibility. But claiming to be the son of God does not.
However, if he could turn water into wine (which I’m guessing at the time would not contain sulfites) and inspire Daniel Smith’s music, then Jesus is just alright by me.

I was thinking that I’m allergic to sulfites, a preservative in wine. Wine would make me nauseous and give me a bad headache. I hated it before I could even try to enjoy it. So tonight I tried a wine with no sulfites. I’m buzzed and not sick, so I’m all for it. I only had half the bottle. If I drank it all and was with friends, I’d be having a great time.

This British mockumentary follows a wedding magazine’s competition for the most original wedding. It’s done in the style of a Cristopher Guest movie with interviews and candid footage of the characters interacting. The only actor I recognized was the adorable Martin Freeman, “Tim” from the British “The Office” series. He played part of a couple who had a Hollywood Musical themed wedding. Others included a Naturist (nekkid) Wedding and a Tennis Wedding.
I really did like this move, it entertained me throughout. It was not, however, laugh-out-loud, side-achingly funny. It was more of a cute, subtle humor. And because of the accents, I might not have noticed a lot of the jokes if I wasn’t too lazy to turn the captions off on my television.
The weddings at the end were great fun to watch. The naturist one was kind of lame, but you get to see no-no places. The tennis one was just absurd. OF course, the Hollywood Musical was the most fun to watch. The number they did was great, and they sang their vows in a song that got stuck in my head fo a couple of days ( I forgot it now).
What struck me at the end was the relationships all the couples had. It was sort of obvious who was going to win, first of all, but still, each couple genuinley loved each other. The element of super-competitivness in the tennis couple could easily have broken the relationship apart if they didn’t win, but they didn’t and they still had a happy ending. In fact, the DVD has alternate ending where each of the three couples wins, and they all end up happy.
Because the Naturist couple were naked all the time, and lived in a commune or something, there is some mad full frontal in this movie. Boobies and weiners everywhere. Even the wedding planners strip down for the wedding. Speaking of those wedding planners…
The thing that stuck with me most about this movie, and it’s almost unquestionably because I am gay, is the relationship of the wedding planners, seen here:

They are the ones planning all these weddings and claim that no wedding they have ever planned has broken up. They are obviously a couple who live and work together, even hanging a Gilbert and George-inspired portrait of themselves on their office wall. It’s when Freeman’s character has a fight with his fiance’s family and stays with them that you see them in their domesticity. As they read the morning paper and get their coffee, the song “Marriage is For Old Folks” plays. It’s actually a little sad to see these two who plan so many weddings for others but can’t get married themselves. Sometimes I think marriage is archaic and there’s no need for it, and sometimes I feel some people SHOULD get married, and it’s a matter of extending equal rights to everybody. This aspect of the film appealed to the latter.
So, If you are looking for a date movie, with weiners, and can stand british accents, this movie is totally for you.