CodeNameSarahToo many secret identities for just one person.

Everybody seems to be aghast at KFC’s new offering, the Double Down, which is a “sandwich” with no bun featuring bacon, cheese, and some hot chicken on chicken action — not to mention a side of Moral Panic.  “OH NOES,” exclaims popular sentiment, “Teh Obeeeeesity Crisis ™ just got eleventy times WORSER!”

Yeah, okay.  Let’s do a little reality check here.  Check, check.  Is this mic on?  Can you hear me in the back?  Good.

First off, how is this much different from other fast food offerings?  Not much.  It just doesn’t have a bun, which would have been welcomed with open arms during the worst of the Atkins fad.  (Have you guys forgotten how evil buns were supposed to be just a couple of years ago?)  But more to the point, this thing has about the same number of calories as any fast food chicken sandwich.  It has, according to the Magical Interwebs, 540 calories and 32 grams of fat.  Burger King’s Original Chicken Sandwich has 630 calories and 39 grams of fat, while the Original Whopper has 770 calories and 48 grams of fat.  That almost makes the Double Down look like a sensible choice in comparison, right?  The grilled version of the Double Down has 460 calories, which is about comparable to the Whataburger Grilled Chicken Sandwich and its 470 calories.

I’m not saying that you should run out and gobble up a Double Down the minute it hits the streets.  (I have zero interest in eating it, frankly, and I’m a big old Fatty Fatterson.)  But I am asking you to look at media hype with a critical eye, especially when it comes to moral panic regarding food.  (The Fat Nutritionist is a wonderful resource for that kind of thing, by the way.)  There’s always such over-the-top hand wringing whenever some new “high calorie” food item pops up, but it seems like the average person understands very little about calories — other than the fact that fatties should eat less of ‘em, of course.  (Insert eyeroll here.)

Calories are simply units of measurement — and not the yardstick of one’s moral certainty, either.  As an ex-dieter who currently practices the tenets of Health at Every Size, I know that my perspective is somewhat unique in this culture.  But the Double Down is just…no big deal.

So can we all just let it go now?

I read somewhere (Twitter, probably) that Coke Zero tastes like “existential bankruptcy.” Well, having finally tried it, I can only agree.

But…it does taste more like Coke Classic than Diet Coke. So I guess that means that Coke Classic also tastes like “existential bankruptcy,” but Chapter 7 existential bankruptcy (“real” bankruptcy) as opposed to the Chapter 13 (“reorganization”) bankruptcy of Coke Zero.

Your life is filled with terrible emptiness either way. I think I’ll stick to water, then.

(Sometimes I like to take a metaphor not to its logical conclusion, but much farther than it should ever go. You’re very welcome.)

Okay, internet. My secret fantasy is actually real, and now I’m completely disappointed. I had been fantasizing about a Twitter trend that couldn’t possibly exist: #TMITuesday. Like #MusicMonday and #FollowFriday, it could perk up the workday and allow great swathes of people to participate with their favorite faceless swarm of cyber-citizens in a new way: A massive tasteless oversharing with strangers. (Like that’s new — hah!)

But a quick Twitter search revealed that it does in fact exist (thought it doesn’t trend very high), is mostly about farting, and isn’t as amusing as I had hoped.

Here are a few examples I never had the guts to tweet:

• My vagina is weeping…weeping tears of blood. #TMITuesday (And only 58 characters, not bad — easily retweeted.)
• I dreamt I pooped a 12 foot turd the other night, but I don’t think I’ve ever topped 18 inches IRL. #TMITuesday (Bam. Just like that I’m as funny as Sarah Silverman. Which is not that hard, but still…)
• I don’t know how I will pay for holiday gifts this year and I’m thinking about suicide. This is a cry for help, and also for cash. #TMITueday (See, they don’t all have to be scatological.)
  

I am so very, very disappointed. Please consider this post a cry for help, and also for cash. Just joking. But not really. Fuck, internet. You get worse every day.

This morning I woke up to “Disintegration” by The Cure. When I got dressed, I donned my former teenage uniform: A black t-shirt with a denim skirt and black sneakers. And then I proceeded to put on some crazy eyeliner and bright red, Robert Smith colored lipstick (unsmeared).

Also, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to go home and watch some “Twin Peaks.”

So apparently it’s 1990 today. What the hell? Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like?

I recently saw a commercial for a personal back hoe. (Really.)

At first I thought it was absurd. But I gave it a little thought — the commercial was very convincing — and I was soon persuaded that everyone needs one…even apartment dwellers.

Because how else are you going to discreetly bury the bodies of people you kill in the middle of the night? I mean, you don’t want to borrow a neighbor’s backhoe for that, not at 3:00 a.m.

I forgot my book the other day, so I spent my lunch break flipping through an old “Parade” magazine I found in the break room. It had a little blurb about how Christian Slater was working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on an initiative to reduce the high school drop out rate, because he had been a high school drop out himself and felt very strongly about the whole thing.
All I could think of was this: Do you think a celebrity who dropped out of high school and became famous and successful anyway is really the role model for kids who might drop out of school?

Okay, his “success” is debatable by Hollywood standards, but he looks pretty damned successful compared to unemployed roofers and people working at Taco Bell. I might get behind this thing if he was working on an initiative to encourage adult drop outs to get a G.E.D. (like Slater recently did). That makes sense. But I don’t get just standing up and saying, “Hey, kids, I’m a high school drop out who went on to make such films as ‘Broken Arrow’ and ‘Hollow Man II’ — don’t be like me! Stay in school!”

Wait, maybe that is persuasive. Nobody’s too proud of “Hollow Man II.”

Never mind.

P.S.
I have a G.E.D. I am not dissing that at all, though I should add — in the spirit of full disclosure — that I didn’t drop out. I was homeschooled and went to college early.

I am almost sure I just walked through a random scene from a David Lynch movie:

• Vague sense of melancholy as I stared at passing cars.
• Large white poodle, barking wildly behind a huge picture window.
• Forlorn, discarded goldenrod feather boa lurking in a shrubbery, a mystery never to be solved.

I mean, it wasn’t from a specific film — it simply had the feeling of the Lynchian oeuvre. You know? At least I didn’t find an ear on the way, or get taken to Club Silencio by my (imaginary?) girlfriend…

Never mind. More of a fleeting thing, open to interpretation. As all Lynchian things should be.

Okay, so I spent a good deal of the last week insulting William Shatner because he blocked The Bloggess on Twitter. It seems that pissing off people who love The Bloggess is now officially a Bad Thing To Do ™, as we pulled together in an army and roasted Bill ’til he caved…and unblocked her.

It built gradually, but still happened pretty quickly. One day you’re fine, and the next thing you know you have a code name* and you’re in The Matrix, and then…victory. We didn’t even have to wait four years to achieve our objective (unlike the Wachowski brothers).

And it’ll be a huge BYOH** party in Zion tonight, let me tell you. Success is awesome.

Honestly, I haven’t had this much fun on the internet since 1999 or so. And that is a high compliment to the members of the Bloggess Army. Also, it’s a relief to know that there are so many witty people out on the web. It was beginning to feel like a giant infomercial out there.

So, thanks again to the Bloggess Army — and a special thanks to William Shatner for being a sport about it. Really, Bill — all my best to you, too!

*I am Lt. Ellen Ripley, from the Alien franchise.

**That’d be “Bring Your Own Hooker” — which was kind of how this all started…