 On Sunday, while naked people streaked down the streets of San Francisco for the annual running of the Bay to Breakers, Andrea spent the day inside a refrigerated room learning to disassemble a cow. This was her third butchering class with Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats. She started with Poultry and then moved on to Hog Butchery. She has now graduated from Whole Beef. At this point, she can reduce pretty much any farm animal into small, edible portions.
 This morning a friend sent us an article from the Los Angeles Times with the alarming headline “All red meat is bad for you, new study says”. The article is based on a recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine which tracked the eating habits and health status of 121,342 adults for over 20 years. The Times summarizes the study as, “Eating red meat—any amount and any type—appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death.” And, as if that’s not frightening enough, the LA Times paired their article with photographs of industrial meat processing and a fake-blood soaked PETA protestor outside of a Farmer John sausage plant.
We’re not scientists. Steven has two degrees in the Liberal Arts field in nothing particularly useful. Andrea has an undergraduate degree with a minor in biology, but that was a long time ago. We’ve described our current scientific expertise as falling somewhere between that of a TV Weatherman and fans of primetime medical dramas. But even with our limited scientific proficiency, it took less than two minutes reviewing the original study to see that the LA Times article is grossly overstepping. Or, to put our sentiments into the terms of an LA Times headline: “LA Times twists scientific literature into pro-vegetarian diatribe.”  We were recently accused by a website called TheFix.com of promoting drunkorexia. We’ll be honest. Until the charge was leveled, we’d never heard the term. It turns out that drunkorexia is a recently coined amalgamation of drunkenness and anorexia. It refers to an eating disorder wherein people abstain from eating in favor of drinking alcohol. We have no idea how many people suffer from drunkorexia. The term has yet to make Wikipedia, so obviously it falls short of epidemic. But even one sufferer is too many. Anorexia is straight up dangerous. Adding binge drinking to the mix is train wreck in process. Our guess is that The Fix never actually visited Drink Your Carbs. Rather, they read our name somewhere and imagined us emaciated and sipping at mid-morning cocktails like Patsy from the British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous. Patsy: (Rubbing her stomach in discomfort.) We want to make this absolutely clear: telling people not to eat Pop Tarts is not the same as telling people not to eat.
 According to Time Magazine, the McRib sandwich contains an additive commonly used as a foaming agent in the manufacture of gym mats and the soles of athletic shoes. This additive is banned in Europe and Australia. For all we know, it's considered a delicacy in some parts of Eastern Europe.
 The end of the world is not upon us. We are shocked by how many people we know expect an apocalyptic event in 2012. The predictions range from solar flares frying half the earth’s population to the non-existent planet Nibiru smashing into the earth and reducing it to a smoldering lump. It’s true that the Mayan calendar ends December of 2012, but so what? Every calendar we’ve ever owned ended at the close of the year. For example, the very first calendar Steven owned was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders calendar that he got from his Texan grandfather in 1978. It ended abruptly on December 31st, 1978 with the calendar’s only brunette. Yet 1979 came along just like every year before it.
When we first heard the names SOPA and PIPA, we assumed they were the protagonists in a series of children’s books. We couldn’t understand why so many techies we admire would be up in arms against SOPA And PIPA Go To The Circus. Although we could understand why Tim Cook would be troubled by SOPA And PIPA Visit A Rural Chinese iPhone Sweatshop. As with so many things in life, it turned out we were entirely wrong.
SOPA and PIPA are schemes devised by the same geniuses that once described the Internet as a “series of tubes” to turn the Internet into a gladiatorial battle between corporate legal departments. If you lack a corporate legal department, you are, for all practical purposes, the guy in the gimp suit from the basement scene in Pulp Fiction. Best of luck proving your innocence when Disney comes after you under the guise of a copyright violation, even though their real reason for silencing you is your tweet: “Mickey Mouse spreads hantavirus.” 
If you haven’t signed up for the email newsletter, you just missed your chance to scoop up the first edition. We’re sorry you missed it. The first edition of anything is always the most collectible.
Action Comics #1, which features the first appearance of Superman, sold at auction for $317,000. The first Flash Gordon comic—and let’s face it, without the backing of a Queen soundtrack Flash Gordon sucks—will set you back around $289,000. We are convinced that our DYC Newsletter #1 will produce similar results for people smart enough to leave it in their inbox and read it only while wearing gloves.  We know how unsatisfying it is to compose a witty comment and struggle through the distorted nonsense in the captcha box only to find out that your comment will not go live until some idiot working for the blog has time to approve it. The idea that the Internet might provide delayed gratification is an anathema to everything the Web should be.
Unfortunately, Spammers have found us and made all attempts at witty repartee impossible. It is the equivalent of getting together with friends at a bar only to find that you are unable to converse over the screaming at the next table, “Laser pointer! Get your Laser pointers! If you don’t like laser pointers, we also carry dog brushes and Viagra!” Please understand that we are not censoring. We will approve comments as quickly as we can. If you are looking for a great deal on Viagra, you’ll just have to go elsewhere. |
