#183 - yer as cold as ice.

can you guess which famous infamous politician turned 47 today? if you guessed the woman who's better known as "the seward's folly of politics," sarah palin, you're 100% correct! everyone's favorite batshit newscaster turned mayor turned governor turned VP candidate turned lamestream media pundit crept another year closer to death today. am i excited? you betcha! are you? you better be! go sarah! it's yo birthday! tweet nonsense like it's yo birthday! let's break out the party favors & streamers & floral arrangements & bear pelts & hear it for sarah palin!

let's hear it for the woman who strongly opposes abortion but shoots wildlife on national television in the interest of ratings! let's hear it for  the woman who made politics SEXY again...like actual sexy! none of that "sexy dodd" mumbo jumbo! let's hear it for the woman who coined the word "refudiate!" let's hear it for the woman who condemns the "lamestream media" again & again yet regularly appears on fox news, which, as the highest rated cable news network, is one of the most mainstream media outlets available! let's hear it for that woman's recent attempt to trademark the name "sarah palin®!" that's TOTALLY AWESOMETASTIC©!

she's had a plethora of banner moments ever since she vaulted onto the national stage during the 2008 presidential campaign. remember during that campaign, when she did an interview on cbs evening news & was tripped up repeatedly by katie couric? KATIE COURIC? i felt TOTALLY BAD for sarah but thanked jebus that she wasn't sitting down with a hard-hitting, gotcha journalist like bryant gumbel. what about that time around thanksgiving of '08 when she appeared on TV to pardon a turkey & then gave an interview as a farmer slaughtered turkeys directly behind her? that was crazy! she was all "campaign trail, alaskan economy, hard-working americans blah blah blah" & the farmer dude was all "killing turkeys la la la." wait...could that be considered blood libel? i'll have to send sarah an email & ask her to clarify that for me. so yeah...keep the good times rolling, sarah!

just think, we're just over twenty months away from sassy sister sarah being elected president of this great nation! when that happens, you'd better believe that she's going to bring the hopey-changey. like a maverick, i tellz ya! it's going to be awesome. she'll start funneling funds to a mysterious military package called "the messiah project." there'll be a moose on every table & slick, viscous, alaskan oil in every car. at the white house, you won't be able to walk 25 feet without coming across a copy of the holy bible® or a revolver. global warming? that shit's now a myth & president palin will go on TV to announce this FACT as part of her first state of the union address, which will be broadcast from the oval office instead of in front of congress, a setting infected with washington insiders. it's going to be unlike any other presidential term you've ever seen before. i for one can NOT wait! palin 2012! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

anyway, happy bday sister sarah! i hope you have the best 47th bday ever, one where you get to kill all the wildlife & make up all the words that your lil' heart desires. this touching 80's ballad goes out to you!

snack: breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream
drink: DRY vanilla bean soda

since it's a scientific FACT that sarah palin's heart is surrounded by a thick forcefield of ice, i'm celebrating her birthday with a cold cold bowl of breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream. breyer's has been making ice cream since way back in 1866, when william breyer introduced his ice cream to philadelphians just back from the civil war. for the most part, breyer's claim to fame has been that their ice creams are made with all-natural ingredients. back in the day, they even had a commercial where a kid tries to read the ingredients on a carton of non-breyers ice cream but can't pronounce the ingredients. with breyer's he has no such problem, as it's only made with milk, cream, sugar & whey, ingredients that are all easy to pronounce. since then, they've added tara gum, which is easy to pronounce & technically "natural" because it comes from a plant.

in general, mint chocolate chip is my favorite flavor of ice cream & breyer's makes my favorite supermarket-available version of it. unfortunately, even though it's probably worth it, i'm usually not willing to pay the $6 or so that a 1.5 quart carton usually goes for. it's only during those times when it's on sale that i treat myself to some. the ice cream itself is smooth & creamy & minty, but not in an artificially green way. it's tasty enough that i could probably eat it without the chips, but why would i want to do that? as the carton notes, it's now made with "20% more chips," meaning that you're pretty much guaranteed to get a couple of chips with every spoonful. i'm cool with a bunch of chips in every spoonful, cause those chips are like crack. the only downfall to the mint chocolate chip ice cream is that, like with crack, i love it so much that i finish it way too fast. unlike with crack, i'll probably wait until it goes on sale again to buy some more though.

in honor of ms palin's dry, vanilla bean i picked up a bottle of DRY vanilla bean soda, a beverage made by a seattle-based company that started in the kitchen of sharelle klaus, the company founder. since 2005, DRY soda has been making sodas that are "better tasting and better for you," sodas that are low calorie & low sugar & only use four natural ingredients--purified carbonated water, cane sugar, natural extracts & phosphoric acid. that's good & all, but their flavors are kind of odd. along with the vanilla bean, there's cucumber, juniper berry, lavender, lemongrass, blood orange & rhubarb. other than the blood orange one, i can't imagine any of those other ones being appealing. maybe as body lotion scents. soda flavors is a whole other story.

while it is low in both calories & sugar, it's also low in taste. the vanilla bean flavor's just too subtle for my refined soda palette. if you're someone who enjoys a soda that has some flavor but isn't overly sweet, DRY sodas might be just what you've been searching for. for me, although this vanilla bean one complemented the mint chocolate chip ice cream quite nicely, the flavor's closer to soda water than i prefer. while i applaud DRY soda's efforts to create a unique, somewhat-healthy soda, i probably won't be getting another bottle any time soon.