FUF #5

It's time for some PK FUFinstuff. No, let's try that again. I'm Peter, and I'm here to FUF (clap) you up! Hmmm, not quite. I hope you brought your laundry, because it's time for the FUF and fold. I give up.

Good morning, everyone. It is Follow Up Friday, and I'm ready to get right to it. First off, it's Vehicle Watch 2007:

My wife and I were driving home from dinner, and the truck in front of us had a bumper sticker that read "I (HEART) VAGINA." There was some small lettering underneath, and I really wanted to see what else that could say. The truck started to turn left, and even though it wasn't the way home, I quickly got over to follow it (turning on a very yellow light in the process). Just as I was almost caught up to it, it turned into a gas station and was gone forever. I can't for the life of me think of what else that might have said. Any ideas? Have any of you seen this sticker elsewhere? Some others from the past week:

• License plate report: DO UKARE. Not especially, no. Why would I?


• My friend Rockabye sent in a plate that read YY2BDUI. He told me to text him back when I figured it out, but it didn't take more than a second to realize it was plate-speak for "Too wise to be driving under the influence." Nicely done.


• Rockabye spends too much time driving, so he also sent me a Bumper Sticker Report: "Don't Panic, It's Organic." First of all, I wasn't panicking. Second, what's organic? Your car? I don't think so, unless it's sod cleverly disguised as metal.


• I saw a license plate frame that read, "The Worlds Best Mom." She must be if she put that on her car with the glaring apostrophe omission. Maybe her other car says, "I still love you, even though you suck at grammar."

Sacky Christi sent me a very, very intriguing question. When a sports team is winning a lot, we say they're "on fire." What about an ice hockey team though? As she put it, "Fire and ice are like, well, fire and ice." She wanted my suggestions for what it could be called without needing too much explanation. I suggested "They're really chilling right now" and "they've got their freeze on." Then I came up with the winner: "They're un-fuego." I know my readership is full of die-hard ice hockey fans, so feel free to start using that term. Contact me via email for where to send royalties.

I was talking to my brother yesterday, and he said that he had some fantastic Spam subject lines that he could send me. Now cover your eyes if you're easily offended, but these two made me laugh so I must share:
1. "tiiny sorortiy sults geet fucekd by loacl fraat booys." At least "by" is spelled correctly.
2. "Asian teen loves extreme uhh anal sex." This one just made me laugh out loud again. The "uhh" really gets me (or at least the 14 year-old boy living inside me). Thanks, Kev!

When writing about the male enhancement supplements, I was thinking about how I've heard things like that called "nutraceuticals" recently. Every time I hear that, I think of my friend Jon telling me about fake testicles marketed to fixed dogs. I guess it's so they look intact, but it could be just for canine self-confidence. I think it's completely ridiculous, but I think of them because he said they're called "Neuticles." I couldn't remember what they were called once, and said, "What were they again? Faux-nads?" My friends and I all agreed that that's way better than the actual name.

Lastly, I know this sounds crazy, but I have a story/observation that combines this week's unintentional themes of ingesting and penises. I was listening to the radio, and I heard a commercial for Wendy's and their square patty insanity. The song in the background was none other than "Blister in the Sun" by Violent Femmes. For those of you who don't know the song, it's a fun and catchy song...about masturbation. It's 100% about that, and anyone who knows the song knows that. Here are two parts of the lyrics: "Big hands I know you're the one," and "Body and beats, I stain my sheets, I don't even know why/my girlfriend she's at the end, she is starting to cry." So let's go eat hamburgers! What the hell were they thinking? Is some ad exec trying to sabotage them subliminally? I think that song choice is even worse than Wienerschnitzel's new campaign of "Pushing the boundaries of taste," and that's really saying something.

Have a hell of a weekend, gentle readers. I hope you survived the most potty-mouthed week yet of UOPTA. Enjoy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, and I encourage you to take the high road and not pinch people who aren't wearing green. Nowadays you'll probably end up in Pinching Rehab for that. As always, please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with all your thoughts, observations, and questions.

Fast (and furious) food

Longtime UOPTA reader Laynie posted a comment yesterday that took the words right out of my mouth. She mentioned her hatred for Carl's Jr.'s advertisements. The thing is, I almost added an entire Carl's Jr. section to yesterday's post but decided to split it into two and save that part for today. Smart lady, that Laynie. (Please note, she also hates Paris Hilton, so the picture to the left is of the hotel heiress/dirty whore in a Carl's Jr. commercial.)

First, let's go back in time (cue time-travel music). As a teenager, I ate fast food more often than I should have. Since McDonalds and Burger Kings were ubiquitous, those were the ones I frequented more...frequently. (Yeah, I could hit the backspace key and re-do that sentence, but I like to keep moving forward, ya know?) I really enjoyed what Jack in the Box had to offer, especially their $1 menu items. Wendy's was good too, although I never quite got used to the square patties on the burgers. Seriously, what's going on there? Who thought that would be a good idea? Not that hamburger patties are natural-looking to begin with, but the square ones look more like art deco than fast food to me. In any case, my favorite fast food hamburger was the Western Bacon Cheeseburger at Carl's Jr. Oh I know how unhealthy that is, but that burger was what I was looking for when I was looking...for a burger. Damn, did it again.

Still moving forward! Then Carl's built an entire ad campaign around how messy their burgers are to eat. That's not my thing, and I found the commercials actually unappetizing. In addition, one commercial focused on guys spying on a woman through her window and making sexual groaning sounds every time the ketchup dripped off the burger. As if that wasn't enough, they made sure that they had all the sound effects they'd need to accentuate each bite. It was disgusting on several levels.

I guess it worked though, because they didn't stop there. No, gentle readers, they were not content just to gross me out; they also needed to piss me off. They had radio commercials with little songs about other restaurants' "wimpy burgers." They proceeded to tell us what kinds of guys ate wimpy burgers, and that amounted to basically saying, "You're a homo if you eat burgers from anywhere else." They were only slightly more subtle than that. Then, they launched commercials making fun of Chicken McNuggets, pointing out that chickens don't have a part of the body called "the nugget." Valid point, I suppose, but not when it comes from the same company who sold "Chicken Stars." They conveniently avoided that part, as you might expect. My anger was building.

Next, they had a campaign centered on the fact that without the existence of Carl's Jr., men would die of starvation. Because we're idiots. They show men poking raw meat at the market, etc., being completely incapable of anything but eating their food in a messy manner. They couldn't do any worse, right? Oh how I wish that were true. Instead, they assault the viewing public with ads for "The Six Dollar Burger." The rationale behind that burger is that it would cost $6 at other places. At Carl's Jr. though, the one called "The Six Dollar Burger" doesn't cost $6. The value meal costs darn near that, but focus, people. It's what it would cost. Oh wait, then they launched commercials telling us that a burger like that costs $20 at Restaurant X and $10.95 at Cafe Y. To me, that completely invalidates the entire reason behind naming the burger what they did.

Even worse, they then had the audacity to launch another campaign saying that at Carl's, you can get a restaurant-quality burger without all of the annoying things that come with going to an actual restaurant. What examples do they show us? You know, annoying things like...when people clean the counter. How dare they? And my hatred level rose even more.

Fortunately, I was not alone in my hatred. Frequent visitors of this space probably know that it was my friend Dusty who shared this anger with me. And so we did what we could - we boycotted Carl's Jr in the early stages of these campaigns. Remember, they had my favorite burger there, but this was bigger than burgers. This was about insulting my intelligence with commercials that portray all men as stalking, imbecilic slobs, and we weren't going to take that lightly.

Years passed, and we remained true to our vow. Then one day, I was put into a position I never imagined. I was working in Palm Springs for a few days, and I don't know where anything is there. It had been a very busy day, and I had only managed to eat half a sandwich at around 11am. We finished something at 8:45pm, and I had to be somewhere else nearby at 9:15pm. I didn't think there was going to be any food at this next event, and I was understandably starving. So, not knowing where anything was in the city, I drove toward where I had seen a supermarket before in hopes that there would be a fast food place there as well. I pulled in, and sure enough, there were two fast food places: Carl's Jr. and Green Burrito. The problem, though, was that the Green Burrito was in the Carl's Jr. and they shared the same drive thru. "Well, shit," I thought, "would this count as breaking my boycott?" I thought about it for a minute, even though I didn't have much time. Finally, I turned around and left the parking lot. It was a close enough call that I didn't feel like I could risk it. Instead, I drove toward what I thought was a more populated area and scanned the streets for food. Almost ten minutes later, I found a Jack in the Box and wolfed down a Jumbo Jack in my car before heading to the next event (which was fancily catered, by the way).

In recounting this tale to Dusty after returning home, he admired my stance but would've been ok with me eating only Green Burrito food from that drive thru. Other people weren't as understanding and think I was a stubborn fool for not taking the opportunity to eat when I could. I'm a man of principle though, and I'm proud to say that I held true to my convictions even in tough times. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I think I'm just like Job too.

So Laynie, rest assured that I didn't just leave Carl's Jr. commercials out of yesterday's post without a good reason. My hatred runs deep enough for them that they deserved a whole day dedicated to the overall shittiness of their ad campaigns. And mind you, they've incurred all of this wrath without involving Kirstie Alley. That's hard to do. And that concludes The Six Thousand Word Blog Entry, available in only 1,179 words. Bastards.