monday marked the octennial anniversary of a grand day in our great nation's history, that historic day back in 2001 when the crucial USA PATRIOT act was signed into federal law by the best 43rd president we ever had, GWB. since that stupendous day, this terrorist-preventing bill has remained strong. i mean, has there been a horrific terrorist attack in the good ol u.s.a. since 9/11? not that i can recall, so today, we're going to celebrate the two day-old anniversary of that momentous bill signing with a grandiloquent display of out of sight adjectives. it's going to be scrumtrulescent!

...so the amazingly heroic USA PATRIOT act. thank almighty god that our gracious government came up with it. it's always working hard to keep us hard-working u.s. citizens safe with a solid, balanced diet of law enforcement enhancements, terrorist-thwarting legislation & unprecedented data collection, with some occasional messy fingerprinting mixed in. a little-known fact about the glorious PATRIOT act: there's a special section in there where if you make tasteless light of the infallible bill on your radical left-wing blog, you'll be whisked off to the southeastern edge of a tropical communist island within twenty-four hours. true story.

hold on a cotton-pickin' second. i just remembered something. in michael moore's award-winning documentary farenheit 9/11, there's an eye-opening scene where the crafty filmmaker is in washington d.c. & he catches a couple of u.s. senators basically saying "we don't actually read the bills. that would take too long." i sort of wish they would have at least read the freedom-altering bill instead of rushing it through in a knee-jerk bluster, especially since it gives our curious government & inquisitive law enforcement officials some pretty awesome powers.

you know what? now that michael moore has made a totally bold statement & in the process, made me think about it, the controversial USA PATRIOT ACT is pretty much the most injudicious piece of governmental legislation that the unrepentant bush administration gave us. a whole bunch of orwellian provisions in this satanic bill are set to expire on december 31st of this quickly-fading year, but i have scant faith in anything changing. i mean, we can't get rid of the PATRIOT ACT, right? if we did, crafty terrorists, determined to undermine our precious freedoms, would instantly begin flooding our preeminent cities with muslim bombs. if we were to let the shining sun set on those wide-sweeping provisions, well that'd just be plain unpatriotic. it'd be a downright flag-hating act.

#135 - abstruse adjectives.
snack: zesty tomato terra chips
drink: arizona mucho mango



when searching for an ambrosial snack worthy of PATRIOT act day, i was looking for something with a tantalizing name, something that made me want to go on an intrusive "sneek & peek" or tap into an innocent person's mobile phone. i found that pined-for snack in zesty tomato terra chips. these tasty treats aren't your everyday chips. they're exotic vegetable chips made from taro, ruby taro, sweet potato, yuca, batata & parsnip. it's a very healthy, chromatic mix of chipified veggies seasoned with tomato, worcestershire & celery. basically, you could toss some vinegary horseradish & a few hefty shots of top-shelf vodka in with the zestily-spiced chips, swirl everything around & you'd have yourself a fernand petoit-approved bloody mary.

my absolute favorite of the vivid vegetables is the ruby taro. it's mellifluous & flavorful & the chip version of the festive ruby taro drove my middle-aged mouth wild with repressed excitement. for a while, i singled a privileged bunch of them out from the sorry rest of the plebian chips because they were clearly too good to be in the lowly company of those other inferior vegetables. that's not to say that i didn't enjoy the other ones. since i got 15% MORE CHIPS FREE in the bag & they have NO TRANS FAT, i eventually went to the proverbial town on all the chips equally...just because i could. i'm loco like that.

i felt that it was muy importante that i found a refreshing beverage that reminded me of the refreshing USA PATRIOT act. the arizona mucho mango definitely fits that bill. it's named for the state where both aging senators love the PATRIOT act & it's MUCHO & made with 5% juice. wait. that doesn't sound like MUCHO mango. hmm. if you visit the arizona beverage website, you'll come across a totally hip music player featuring rocking, cutting-edge musical acts like this blue holiday, laser blade & a rag-tag bunch of other no-name bands. while you're there, you should head over to the smoove AZ lounge. it's like a graffiti wonderland! you should check it out if you want to be boss.

the mucho mango is mucho sweet, basically because the second ingredient after filtered water is high fructose corn syrup. i guess there wasn't enough mango puree or pear juice to make it taste sweet, so the inventive folks at arizona decided to go all the way. on a serious note, i had to take a brief break part way through drinking it. i felt like my train-wreck teeth were buzzing from the herculean amount of HFCS. it could just be a microscopic listening device implanted in my unsuspecting incisor by the nefarious government while i slept, but i want to be an unwaveringly-true patriot, so i'm just going to grin & bear it, like i did with the sacchariferous arizona mucho mango.

wow. what a week (or so) it's been! it's like stevie wonder sang to us in "we are the world"--there are people dying. stevie may be blind, but he can see the truth. every day, all over the world, people are dying, some young, some old, some expected, some not, some peaceful, some violent, some messy, some not. last week was no exception. people were up & dying pretty much round the clock BUT the shocking thing about it...a handful of these people were of the celebrity variety. starting on the 23rd, the four most talked about ones were ed mcmahon, farrah, mj & billy mays, but there were some other notable deaths:

- on the 24th, in iowa, high school football coach ed thomas was shot & killed by a former player who's alleged to have a meth problem.
- on the same day, former canadian governor general romeo leblanc, a man who apparently avoided the media to the point of being unknown, passed after living with alzheimer's.
- on the 25th, sky saxon--of the seeds, a 60's l.a. garage rock band--died at age whatever...he believed age was irrelevant.
- this tuesday, in iraq, we made some seriously symbolic history, as we pulled all american troops from its cities...& then four soldiers were killed & thirty-three iraqis were killed in a bombing.

so here's the thing about all the celebrity deaths & by "all the celebrity deaths," i mean michael jackson's death...shit, man. i work in the music industry & tend to be on facebook a bunch as part of the job, so in this web 2.0 universe, here's who broke the michael jackson story to me...former co-worker & indaba music superstar nate lew...on my facebook wall no less. twenty years from now, i'll be able to have this exact conversation with my TBD teenage shawn spawn:

spawn: dad, do you remember where you were when you heard michael jackson died?
me: yes, son...and i was on facebook at the time.
spawn: facebook? what's that? some kind of drug?
me: yes, son. yes it was.

in the past ten years (or so), the last week in june has been an unfortunate week for celebrities, both known & unknown. in '07, that ol' "in threes" thing happened as in one week, we lost the amazingly-mustachioed relief pitcher rod beck, designer liz claiborne & film critic joel seigel. in '03 the same thing happened, as buddy hackett, katherine hepburn & (barf) strom thurmond died during the last week in june. back in '99, at the end of the month, the non-webster george papadopoulos--the former greek dictator who took over in a '67 military coup--died. he's the guy whose takeover of the government eventually led to a student uprising that eventually led to twenty-four deaths & a bloody end to that uprising on november 17th, eventually leading to the creation of a greek terrorist group named after that day & eventually, one year later to the day, i was born.

#107 - celebrity wheel of death.
snack: terra exotic harvest sea salt chips
drink: tropicana pure premium calcium + vitamin d orange juice



during the week, my snacking constant was a bag of terra exotic harvest sea salt chips i'd picked up at my fave neighborhood bodega. i spied them on the fancy chip rack & was all "these things look crazy! they have kabocha chips! i don't even know what a kabocha is!" now i know...it's a japanese pumpkin, which, to answer your question, can be made into a jack-o-lantern. anyway, i was blinded by the sheer craziness of these chips & not paying attention when i brought the bag to the counter. the dude looked at the bag & asked one of the other guys working there, "these are really $5.99?" i was all "wiggidy wah?!!" the mofos cost six bones! regardless, i had no choice but to get them. i had already fallen in love.

lucky for me, they were definitely worth it.  we're looking at chips made up of a combo of carrots, blue potatoes & the aforementioned kabochas.  the carrot chips are very similar in both texture & taste to a sweet potato chip, which contrasts nicely with the crunchiness & saltiness of the blue potato chips. as for the kabocha, it's definitely interesting. some of them are smooth & good but on the brink of rubbery, but some of them had ridges, which made them a bit more appealing...& when it comes down to it, each individual chip was like eating a nickel!

since i'm trying to phase out soda and/or HFCS, i picked up a two quart thing of tropicana pure premium calcium + vitamin d orange juice as well & that thing lasted me til around the day the billy died. me buying it is sort of like a coincidental tribute to billy, as both he & tropicana are from the sunshine state & both whole-heartedly embrace the orange.  by almost always drinking the OJ instead of soda all week, i got all sorts of vitamins & fortified calcium & whatnot instead of government-subsidized, lab-manufactured ingredients acutely focused into a beverage. tropicana is a pepsi co. though, so i'm not entirely guilt free when it comes to the OJ.  speaking of OJ, the murders happened in june, but that was early in the month & entirely guilt free.

...so that's one of my goals for the summer--to drink more juice & less soda, more natural stuff & less junkity junk. i figure it'll aid in slowing down my own inevitable demise.  anyway, we'll see how well that plan's worked out come the end of the summer...btw, contrary to what you may have read on your favorite social networking platform, jeff goldblum, natalie portman, the san diego chicken & tony danza are still alive. o death!

why are chinatowns always so friggin full of way too many people & way too many weird smells & general batshit insanity? you might have a chinatown in your city, but i can't see how it could possibly hold a candle to the craziness of nyc's. of course, this assumes that i have no readers in shanghai & that the chinese government would block my blog anyhow.

for those of you who have never been to nyc's version, let me attempt to break down how chinatown works here:

the main street through chinatown is canal st, which runs from the holland tunnel on the west side to the manhattan bridge on the east side. back in the day, it actually was a canal, built to drain a disease-ridden pond into the hudson river. the area near the pond eventually became five points (the area made famous in gangs of new york).

nowadays, canal st is a major commercial way & the sidewalks are filled with tons of chinese people & tables with jewelry & blankets with bootleg dvds & copious bags of trash & slack-jawed tourists walking through it all in a daze, oblivious to the fact that their slack-jawedness inconveniences the other 300 people within the 10 foot radius around them, as those other people are usually trying to walk to other places.

the platforms at the canal st subway station are often scary places packed with so many people that you get the feeling that you (or a slack-jawed tourist) could very easily get bumped onto the tracks & into the path of an incoming train. boarding a rush hour q train here is often as close as you can get to a japan subway-style crush.

throughout chinatown, there's a lot of the same. TOO MANY DAMN PEOPLE! AND BOOTLEGS! AND BINS WITH WEIRD FLOPPING FISH! AND SKINNED CHICKENS IN THE WINDOWS OF PLACES! i don't mind the last three things as much the first.

#77 - chinatown.
snack: walky walky chocolate creme covered pretzel bits
drink: foco dragon fruit juice drink


on saturday, i met up with my brother at hong kong supermarket (in chinatown) & picked up a bunch of stuff, including but not limited to prawn crackers, rock candy that comes in pieces so big a hammer is required & a tag team of dumplings and dumpling sauce.

today, i dug into my chinatown booty. for a snack, i'm having walky walky chocolate creme covered pretzel bits. they're a japanese product & as you can see from the photo above, the packaging is awesome & coffee cup shaped. the bits look a bit like rabbit turds, but they have a nice dark chocolatey smell & the lid of the package flips open like a portable coffee cup, allowing you to drink them as if they were willy wonka's loveable nerds...sort of like a bunch of pieces of chocolate pocky. definitely tasty.

i'm having a foco dragon fruit juice drink, made in thailand, along with the rabbit turds. when i first poured it into a glass, i was definitely a bit frightened, as white chunks & pulp & black seeds of dragonfruit fell into my glass & floated around for a while before settling on the bottom. i'm glad the chunkiness has settled, because that means i don't have it sliming its way into my mouth as i try to enjoy the fruity dragonfruit taste.

in conclusion, the chinese grocery store has lots of weird, scary-looking junk, but some of it actually tastes good...i gotta be honest though...i can't finish this dragonfruit drink. those chunks have officially skeeved me out. sorry, thailand. i don't prefer feeling like somebody forgot to strain my drink.

so i'm staying in nh at the parents' house for a few days for the thanksgiving holiday. when i visit them, i usually stay upstairs in the bedroom that i shared with my younger brother for 13 years or so. these days, the room is now painted greenish-blue, is much cleaner than i ever remember it & is now referred to by my parents as "the guest room"...& i am now a guest.

since i left home at the end of high school, my parents have been nice enough to store a ton of pack-ratted junk from my childhood. through the years, my mother has got me to whittle down my horde of childhood possessions, but there are still a good amount here & there around the house--some boxes stored in the attic, a few boxes down in the basement & a number of random things in the closet of my childhood bedroom. a quick glimpse into the closet reveals:

bank pseudo-collection - there's a shiny silver piggy bank & a ceramic, hand-painted owl bank, complete with sad owl eyes (that i am amazed never got broke) & a square silver one that pretty much never got used. these banks are where i stashed my occasional scratch & the varied coins from around the world that my dad gave to me throughout the years. this tradition has apparently continued, as this thanksgiving, i watched my 16-year old brother sort through my grandfather's stash of quarters to find alaska quarters for both he & my grandfather's state coin collections.

polaroid camera - during my freshman year at b.u., they had a housing fair, where students would go & visit people at various fold-up tables, checking out the housing options & other campus services. one of my floormates, who was likely tipsy at the time, swiped this polaroid camera (& a porkpie hat that you were supposed to put on & then take polaroids of yourself wearing) off some table...& somehow i ended up with it. the whereabouts of the porkpie hat are unknown at present time.

1984 windham soccer association trophy - i played soccer, baseball & basketball every possible year of my childhood, up until high school, when i became too old for the town recreational leagues. i liked soccer & feel like i was fairly good at it & going into high school, i was planning on trying out for the team...until i discovered that i had to get a physical & for some reason that freaked me out & i didn't go out for the team...end of career...but in 1984, i was still riding high & i (& every other kid in the entire league) got a trophy for my skillz.

hardy boys books - the hardy boys books were the first series of books that i can remember getting excited about. they had intrigue, mystery & titles like the secret panel, the witchmaster's key, the secret of pirate's hill & the tower treasure. reading them eventually led to me writing a short mystery titled "mystery at skeleton's groove," starring all my friends & featuring both a fight scene with our nemeses--the shlack gang--and a concert in the final chapter by our mystery-solving band, the rock-its.

strat-o-matic games - strat-o-matic creates board games based on actual statistics from actual sports pro & college sports teams, with cards for all the actual players, based on how good or bad that player was in the previous sports season, so you could, if you took the time, recreate the 1986 baseball season, for instance. i tried to do this, keeping score of every game & compiling the players' statistics. because of this, i became really comfortable with numbers & learned how to do a good amount of math in my head, as i figured out players' batting averages & stuff like that.

random box containing - roddy roddy piper & the junkyard dog action figures, a new england patriots ticket stub, europe's wings of tomorrow on tape, topps cereal series baseball cards including the much-bearded trio of bruce sutter, greg luzinski & bill madlock, a calculator watch, a view finder reel from jim henson's muppet movie, a valentine from "jenna" (jenna moeckel?) telling me that i'm a great friend & urging me to keep being myself, a third place ribbon from the windham recreation department's family festival, a transformers booklet for evil insecticon shrapnel, a laminated photocopy of jake the snake roberts' autograph, a sketch of a croissant that was supposed to be colored in but wasn't with "33%" written on the sheet in turquoise blue marker...probably the grade i got for not coloring it in.

#42 - trapped in the closet.
snack: mrs smith's boston cream pie
drink: ocean spray cranberry & blueberry juice

a holiday at my parents' house always features a few pies. as far as pies go, i've never ever liked dry-ass pie crusts. eating them reminds my mouth of the feeling i get when i cut my fingernails too short & then pull on a fresh pair of socks, scraping my newly-exposed fingertips against clean cotton. pie crusts are akin to licking a paper towel in my book. you can put all the warm cinnamony apples you please on that pie crust, but it's still fingernails cross a chalkboard, people.

boston cream pie plays by a whole different set of rules though. for starters, it's more cakelike than 95% of pies, which means no dry-ass pie crust getting in the way of dessert time fun & there's just something about the texture of the creamy junk that drives me wild...& how can i not love that chocolate. my mom knows this, so she's always made sure to get a boston cream pie every holiday. tonight, all three present family members asked me if i wanted a piece of mrs smith's boston cream pie. i was all "chill, people. i'll get to my pie." eventually i had one. mmm, obviously.

& there's always some form of cranberry juice in my parents' fridge. i finished off the bottle of ocean spray cranberry & blueberry juice with my boston cream pie. tastewise, i'd have to say it's one of my favorite cranberry blends--not too sweet, not too tart...& it probably helped partially clean out my urinary tract, which is always a beverage bonus.