Fun Bar

Today I brought my lunch to work. A turkey sandwich, some baby carrots, a banana and some yogurt. Pretty healthy stuff.


But in the morning I remembered that I didn't have a spoon to eat my yogurt, so I went down to the cafeteria in my building to get one. I passed through the food stations to see what was cooking (literally). Roasted chicken, some fish, nice smelling soups... the usual. Then I saw this unique dessert.














It was labelled "Fun Bar," and it did, in fact , look very fun. It was a piece of chocolate cake, covered with marshmallows, a few chopped peanuts, and colorfully topped off with some dark chocolate M&M's. (I took the photograph after my first bite - it did not have a missing bite when I bought it.)


I was so excited, I nearly forgot to get a spoon before going back to my desk to wait. I was raised to eat my dessert after my meal, but it wasn't quite lunchtime yet. Despite not being hungry, all I could think about was food. My lunch was going to be so exciting now that I had a Fun Bar! So at 11:30, a full hour before my usual lunch break, I retrieved my lunch from the office fridge and devoured it, setting my sights on the Fun Bar.


But tragedy struck. A phone call. From my boss. With the chocolate and marshmallows just inches from my face, I was forced to have a real conversation about "important business"- seemingly miles away from everything a Fun Bar represents. After several agonizing minutes, I was finally able to hang up and take my first bite -


Meh.


It was really just OK. The cake was good, the marshmallows were good, but you know, I think I just prefer them seperate. I kept thinking the cake should've had a more sugary topping (like a usual frosting), and the marshmallows' soft texture was diminished by the spongey cake. But despite my less-than-ecstatic taste buds, the Fun Bar WAS very fun. It was a child's dream food and it made me feel silly for a while.


PS. The song in my head today is "Taxman Mr Thief" off of Cheap Trick's first album.

Songs in My Head

"Falling Slowly," the duet by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the film Once. I still have not seen the film, although I've heard only great things about it. I first heard this song performed live on the David Letterman show, and it intrigued me. Last night it won the Oscar for best original song in a film (beating out THREE song nominations from the film Enchanted). Since watching them perform it again on the Academy Awards broadcast, I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

Oh, Sports.

A strange thing happened last night in my personal wide world of sports. I watched a Drake University men's basketball game for the first time since I graduated from there 10 years ago. They were on TV last night playing conference rival Bradley.

I never paid much attention to college sports when I was IN college, and really only started getting into the men's NCAA hoops tournaments a few years ago. But this year Drake is actually good. They are ranked 16th in the nation and are poised for their first tournament bid in over 20 years. So when I saw that they were on TV, I decided to watch.

They lost. Just their 3rd loss all season. But I'm still hopeful they will secure a seed in the tournament and maybe even win a few games.

Songs In My Head

Today, I'm internally rocking to "Love is Like Oxygen" by Sweet. I don't have much to say about the song, except that it's kinda cheesy yet kinda irresistable, like most Sweet songs. What an insightful chorus lyric:

Love is like oxygen
You get too much, you get too high
Not enough and you're gonna die
Love gets you high

Running with the DLR

You guys have probably heard this already, it seems to be all over the internets right now. But in case you haven't, check out David Lee Roth's isolated vocal track from the Van Halen tune "Runnin' with the Devil." Turn it up loud and enjoy!

Songs in my Head

"Here Comes My Girl" by Tom Petty is stuck in my head today. I've never considered myself a Tom Petty fan (so whiney!), but I do find myself liking some of his older hits. I could understand really not liking Tom Petty if the only material you knew was from Full Moon Fever to the present. (When Petty performed at the Superbowl this weekend, my friend claimed he'd never heard "American Girl" before. My friend is 31 years old. How can you have never heard that song?) A partial reason why I've grown to like some of these songs is due to a Tom Petty tribute CD called "You Got Lucky" that came out in the mid-90's. It features mostly indie-rocks bands doing some interesting deconstruction of older Petty tunes. They are not all great, of course, but I like the mix, with the highlight being Fig Dish's cover of "Don't Come Around Here No More."

February

Feb.1 - What's up, people? Anyone else snowed in today? I shoveled a few inches last night, falsely believeing the snow had stopped for good. This morning there was another 6 inches or so. My dog could barely force himself through it.

I think he's grumpy today - normally he would dive in and roll all around in it, but today he barely had the motivation to pee and come back inside. I think he already went back to sleep.

So, today begins February. What a crap month. At least I'm in a good mood today. Maybe it'll carry through.

What have you got going on this month? Anything fun?