Friday, March 12, 2004

Given the recent influx of commentary software, gentle reader, you may wonder why Secondhand Rants has chosen to operate without any. The answer is simple. Just as Saddam enjoyed a 99% majority whenever election time rolled around, so too do I sleep knowing that each and every investor approves of each and every comment I make. The website proper is the commentary board, a marquee for all my thoughts uncontested.

Nevertheless, some of you insist on letting your thoughts be heard, and to that end I am accessible through e-post. Occasionally I find the charred remains of a postman in my lobby, proof positive that neither rain, snow, barbed electric wire, nor sleet can hinder our fine mail system. This is what I found in my mailbox today:

too bad one can’t leave comments on your site, otherwise i would tell you that i had my own culinary highlight this week when i had leftover rice (still with hints of black bean sauce, tofu, and green beans) and old spaghetti sauce for lunch. marvelous.

and my google toolbar would like to express some curiosity in your popup ads. haha! booya!

You will go unnamed out of respect for your privacy, I can promise that much, but I cannot stress how unready we are for ethnic fusion of this magnitude. Notice the ingredients I listed for my own culinary epic: pasta, salsa, broccoli, and various spices. Pasta, as you well know, holds an almost universal appeal, spanning countries such as Italy, Thailand, and China. The same goes for vegetables and spices. Salsa is arguably the only ethnic ingredient I employed, which would make my dish unequivocally Mexican. You don’t see me tossing in Lucky Charms–an Irish delicacy–or Canadian bacon and patting myself on the back. Your dish, then, would be akin to Wolfgang Puck repeatedly clubbing Julia Child over the head with a George Foreman Grill on the set of Iron Chef, and that simply won’t do. Yes, Virginia, there is an objective standard for cooking disasters.

I am also sad to say that the Google Toolbar oppresses all pop-ups indiscriminately. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there’s definitely room for a Communist reading of the Toolbar. Maybe a little borscht got into the old crockpot, eh? A note to all gentle readers: uninstall your Google Toolbars immediately. Set your pop-ups free.