The recent press release announcing that Subway has signed a new 10-year agreement with PepsiCo reads

"Under the new agreement, Subway restaurants will offer a consumer-driven assortment of beverages from the diverse PepsiCo beverages portfolio... ."

What the fuck is a "consumer-driven assortment of beverages"?

I don't eat at Subway when I can avoid it (which is most of the time), so I am not in any position to confirm or deny that regular Subway customers often lament their inability to wash down their fish-free tuna sandwiches with such name brands as MTN DEW®, Starry®, and Gatorade®. I mean, sure, maybe. Americans once chose a reality television star to be president, so I guess anything is possible.

As I said, I don't eat there, so it's no skln off my back that Subway has chosen to offer their guests an inferior liquid product to accompany their inferior solid products. If that's what they want, more power to them. I just have doubts that this change was "driven" by "consumers," unless the drivers and consumers in question are Subway and PepsiCo accountants.

Sales data indicates that Pepsi continues to fail its own Pepsi Challenge against Coke (which annually outsells Pepsi 4-to-3 by volume). But PepsiCo is the richer company in large part because it backs up its weaker soda sales with Yum! Brands restaurants and Frito-Lay, which have been the exclusive snack product line of Subway for at least 17 years running... and thanks to a recent agreement promoted in the same press release, will continue to be until at least 2030.

So if there was any such thing as truth in advertising, the press release should probably have read

"If you want our delightful potato chips, you have to take our lousy soda, too."

Whatever. You do you, Subway. Meanwhile, I'll be eating someplace that serves Coca-Cola.

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In news shocking to all Baby Boomers and younger, it has been widely reported that current manufacturer Ferrara Candy has decided to discontinue Fruit Stripe Gum, thereby once-and-for-all answering the question: no, we will not still feed you when we are 64.

Sixty-four years is a long time, but Ferrara Candy has only been selling Fruit Stripe for a small fraction of that time. Prior to 2012, Ferrara Candy was known as Farley & Sathers Candy, which itself was only founded in 2002 and bought the pre-existing Fruit Stripe brand from Hershey Foods in 2003. Hershey only had Fruit Stripe for about a year; they bought it in 2001 from Nabisco, which had acquired it in a 1981 merger with E.R. Squibb Company, which got their hands on it in a 1968 merger with Beech-Nut Life Savers who had introduced it in 1960.

(For more fun information on American corporation brand hi-jinks through history, I encourage you to visit the online archive of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which retired their old TESS [Trademark Electronic Search System] last year for a more modern and easier to use but less acronymically friendly "cloud-based trademark search system" [CBTSS? Blech.] )

As has been the trend in recent beloved-but-unprofitable food brands being killed off by one corporate parent only to spring back to life under another (see: Hostess Twinkies and Necco Wafters), I expect that this media brouhaha will lead to continued life for Fruit Stripe. In fact, as of January 10, there is already a pending request at the US Patent Office for a new trademark just registered by Iconic Candies, a company dedicated to continuing discontinued "classic brands" like Bar None (discontinued by Hershey in 1997) and Creme Savers (discontinued by M&M/Mars in 2011).

Anyway, while we await zombie Fruit Stripe's inevitable return, in tribute to its nostalgic greatness, I offer a page from my personal comic book collection in which I demonstrated my 4-year-old's love of brightly artificial-colored, briefly artificially-flavored chewing gum by helping brand mascot Yipes the zebra navigate a maze of marketing Q&As.

from The Friendly Ghost, Casper, July 1980, No. 211

(Disclaimer: I might have cheated.)

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123/2289. Night on Earth (1991)
I very much enjoyed writer/director Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train, and although this uses a similar anthology approach to short, character-driven stories, it didn't connect with me nearly as well, at least in part because of my own innate distaste for interacting with strangers in claustrophobic circumstances, which is the central conceit of each vignette featuring a cab driver and passenger at the same time in different places around the globe. Good idea, but not for me.

124/2290. 20th Century Women (2016)
Something about this bildungsroman, were a young man searches for himself with the help of several variations of feminists in late 70s California, struck me as very honest and relatable. But then, you already know I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories.

125/2291. I'm No Angel (1933)
The plot in this is a mess, but no one watches Mae West films for their plots. Kind of like a Marx Brothers movie, the attraction here isn't the structure or characters but West's persona and her ability to insert a double entendre into every conversation, appropriate or not.

126/2292. Fast Food Nation (2006)
Ostensibly a criticism of the American fast food industry, it would seem that writer/director Richard Linklater really has an axe to grind with just about every aspect of American life, from career-driven corporate rats to angsty teenagers and everything in between. It's all too depressing to be funny and so unfocused as to be overwhelming. I'm sure there's plenty of truth in here, but fuck it all and let the world burn.

127/2293. Blue Beetle (2023)
Why is America burnt out on superhero films? Because we've seen them all before. This borrows too many parts from several well-worn Marvel movies to be anything more than mildly amusing, but at least it focuses on a Latino family for a refreshing change.

128/2294. Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)
A documentary about a 1980s Canadian metal band that didn't hasn't yet is determine to make it big. An unblinking look at the sacrifices it takes to make dreams come true... even when they don't. Pretty good.

More to come.

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Once upon a time, they called it the Blockbuster Bowl. However, corporate America being fickle and football bowl committees being greedy, it has since been sponsored by Carquest, MicronPC, Mazda, Champs Sports, Russell Athletic, Camping World, and Cheez-It (which had previously sponsored a different bowl now sponsored by the mortgage lender Guaranteed Rate). In 2023, the new tenant is Pop-Tarts. What makes the Pop-Tarts Bowl significant isn't the string of consumer product sponsor changes but its weird connection to America's real favorite pastime: eating.

A few years ago, Duke's Mayonnaise bought the rights to turn the annual Continental Tire / Meineke Car Care / Belk Bowl into the Duke's Mayo Bowl. Duke's big, attention-getting decision was to replace the bucket of Gatorade traditionally dumped on the head of the winning coach with a giant jar of mayonnaise. It's exactly as gross as it sounds. When I see it, all I can think is, "Oh, those poor eggs!" (For the record, I never think, "Oh, those poor gators!" Gators got it coming.)

Pop Tarts saw Duke's made-for-TikTok moment and raised. Their mascot this year is a Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart which emerged at midfield in a giant toaster. Throughout the game, the Pop-Tart posed for photos with children, danced with cheerleaders, and made finger guns at the officials. Then, when the game was over, he climbed back in his toaster only to slide out of a slot in the side... where the winning team ate him.

[To be clear, the players ate a giant Pop-Tart decorated to look identical to the mascot. At least I really, really hope that's what happened. I'd link here to a video of the event in question, but that's exactly what Kellogg's wants me to do.]

I'll be the first to admit that I like both football and Pop-Tarts as much as the next red-blooded American. (My favorite is Brown Sugar and Cinnamon, but the box in my pantry is Frosted Cherry because they are very marginally less malnutritious.) And I regularly eat barbecue at restaurants with smiling pig mascots on their napkins. But if you spend four quarters giving your mascot a personality, I'm not okay with putting it in the oven and eating it, even if you claim "it wants it" — that's a mental illness, Kellogg's! I'm a red-blooded American, not a fairy tale witch in a gingerbread house.

Eat up kids. And clean your plate. Ethiopia is full of starving cannibals.

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Happy 7th birthday, Audrey!

Sorry, I don't have an "after" photo. You'll just have to imagine a white plate licked clean.

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Sometime in the past decade, before the Pandemic, I'm sure, I badly cut my left thumb near down to the bone on a piece of sheet metal while installing a new stove. I say "sometime" because I'm not sure exactly when, and I didn't seem to document it here on my online diary. Maybe it was something I didn't want to remember. It took a month to heal.

The reason I mention that is because I have now badly cut my right thumb, this time on a food processor blade... while I was trying to put it away on a shelf. I should have been paying more attention. It was just last week I was blogging about how clumsy I am. But since nothing can ever be my fault, I'm blaming Mom for leaving a food processor blade sitting face-up on the shelf where the food processor goes. Curse her!

Even though this cut is much shallower and less painful than the last one, I'd say it's in some ways worse because just last week I bought a new trackball mouse with a left-click button designed to be used by my right thumb! D'oh.

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I go out of my way to be kind of a dick to people in the hope that they'll leave me alone. I do this even to my own family, especially my Mother's sister, Kelley.

My aunt has a very soft spot in her heart for dumb animals, which is why she has a house full of cats and tolerates a handyman who is literally too stupid to use a shovel effectively. Because I'm so much trouble, Kelley had this handman bury her most recently deceased cat. But the location he selected turned out to be full of tree roots, so he dug only a shallow hole and covered the shoebox coffin with a thin layer of dirt and a paving stone.

Can you guess where this is going?

In the night, another animal detected the decaying corpse's scent and dug it up. But not fully. The excavator didn't have the strength to remove the whole cat from the box. Kelley later discovered the dead cat's head emerging from the ground, like something from Pet Semetery. (And yes, there were maggots involved.)

Desperate for help, she bit the bullet and called me. So my strategy of being a dick ultimately resulted in my having to dig up a dead cat and re-bury it properly. In the rain.

As a reward for my hard work, my aunt gave me this:

Please click for sound.

Lesson learned. From now on, I'll be twice the asshole!

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Happy 2nd Birthday, Henry!

Henry's great-aunt Kelley (that's her hand) brought hats, and Henry, Louis, Audrey, and Kelley's newest dog, Topper, were all treated to Waffle House leftovers.

Audrey likes her hash browns scattered and covered — and she tolerated the hat only long enough to get some.

Henry, on the other hand, was happy to wear his hat the whole time. He's always happy just to be included.

Good dogs! Here's to many more birthdays to come.

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Despite their utter refusal to take responsibility for all flying insects — for shame! — I still recommend Sunday brunch at Bistro Hilary in Senoia, Georgia.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

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Let's finally tie-off 2022 movies.

150/2159. A Nous la Liberte (1931)
Another French film comedy. This one I liked immensely, in large part because the friendship demonstrated between the two leads who worked together to escape from prison. Funny and heartening is a good combination.

151/2160. The Automat (2021)
I've been fascinated by Automat restaurants since I first learned of their existence in the 90s, by which time they were all but completely gone from the world. Automated cafeteria food delivery still sounds like heaven to me (especially since this documentary fills in the hows and whys behind my imagination), yet somehow McDonald's touchscreen cashiers don't quite replicate the dream.

152/2161. Thoroughbreds (2017)
This is the equivalent of Heathers for modern teenaged audiences, and I liked it about as much. Which, for the record, means I'll probably never watch it again. I'm uncomfortable enough with people as it is that I don't want to spend any more time than I have to with fictional sociopaths.

154/2163. Barely Legal (2003)
You'll often hear film critics deride voiceover narration, and this film is a perfect example of the worst faults of the device: flowery bullshit compensating for a weak script and missing scenes. The only bits actually worth watching feature SNL alumni, presumably all improvising their funny lines.

155/2164. Idiot's Delight (1939)
Reportedly contains Clark Gable's only song-and-dance performance — "Putting on the Ritz," just like Frankenstein! — and's he fine. The real problem is that the entirely unnecessary (and too long) prologue in the first act steals most of the romantic tension from the rest of the film. A good example that less is often more in stoytelling.

156/2165. The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973)
The script gives poor Jacqueline Bisset nothing to do other than be arm candy for too-pretty cat burglar Ryan O'Neal, who is also criminally underwritten. (He steals because... his job is boring? His wife left him? Because the plot demands it?) Frankly, the highlight of the film is the setting: early 1970s Houston. It has more character than the people.

More to come.

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