Who do I still think I am??

This one's about calorie countin' and game night.

30DBC PROMPT: "What if calories cost money? That is, what if one calorie costs one cent, adding up to your entire meal? For example, a large Big Mac meal at McDonald's would cost $13.20. Do you think charging per calorie would change people's eating habits? Why or why not?", courtesy of Noyoki .

Hey folks...a better day overall than the last two (although let's not get too excited about that yet, as the night is young). Thanks for not rippin' my head off or holding me in contempt of my opinions the last few entries...may someday your restraint be rewarded.

I know this prompt technically isn't a "Funny Friday" offering that you see in non-unofficial months of the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" , but that's ok...a lot of fun can still be had with this, I believe. I also think that the idea of one being charged for the calories they're about to consume, in theory, is a pretty decent idea...but it'd never work in practice. In fact, let's even ignore the idea that only those wealthy can afford to get fat off of fast food and poor choices.

It's certainly a great deterrent, especially for "the working poor" and others on a budget, to be a little more conscious of what they're putting into their bodies. But how often to people really take the time to read what're in the ingredients of whatever they can buy in a grocery store? It seems like the only labels that matter the most to shoppers are the ones with the prices on them, and "cheaper" rarely implies "healthier"...oftentimes, it's more the opposite. And not only is the information on the packaging sometimes misleading, but it's also unrealistic. For example, I'm looking at a package of Nutter Butters I bought at the store last week. It's the 16oz size, and I probably paid $3.99 for it (depending on if it was on sale or not). According to the Nutrition Facts on the bottom of the package, a "serving" is two cookies, which means there's about 16 serving per container. About? It's a cookie. I think if you're taking a bite of a cookie like this and saving the rest for later, you've got bigger problems than the frequency with which you're putting cookies in your mouth.

Anyway, two cookies (one serving) is 130 Calories. But you know you can't have just two cookies, so let's start with four. That's 260 Calories now, or well over half the price of what you'd be paying according to Noyoki 's new caloric guide. In fact, this package would cost $20.80. That's quite the sin tax! Conversely, today I purchased a very large bottle of water (don't get me started on bottled water either...normally I wouldn't because I'm fine with tap water, but I was thirsty and I'm trying to lay off sugary drinks)...a 64oz bottle of Evamor (no joke; I can't even make that name up) was $1.50, and it has 0 Calories Per 8oz Serving. So then, since there is no caloric value, I shouldn't have to have had to pay for it under Noyoki's system, right?

And what do we do about foods that aren't packaged with nutritional info? Sure, I guess we could legislate something that says "Everything sold with the intent of consumption must have a label on it that clearly states what the ingredients are and what the calorie count of the entire package is." That's all well and good, until you figure out it costs money to hire people to construct how much of "this" is in "that" and then have a machine programmed to print off a compliancy-ensuring label. The same grocery store I visited today was selling antipasto at their deli for $5.99/lb, scooped by the deli person into a plastic tub and then weighed for price accuracy...because not all tubs are gonna equal exactly one pound, or 1/2 or 1/4 of a pound. Not only that, but I specifically asked if she'd pick out as many of the olives as she could, thus changing the overall makeup of the antipasto and altering the meat calories-to-cheese calories-to-veggies ratio and upsetting the calories-to-price conversion charts.

So what does this all mean? I have no freaking idea. People won't change their eating habits because they're being forced to pay by the calorie. Humans are creatures of habit, and they panic as soon as the price of their crap goes up even a few cents...then they buy the cheaper brand, and if they decide they don't like the taste it, then they can justify paying more in the long run for it. I hated paying $.39 thirty years ago for a candy bar that was roughly four times the size of something that goes for a whole dollar more nowadays...yet if I were willing to part with the price difference in order to have a similarly-satisfying size while paying by the calorie, I'd have to adjust somehow, and I don't think a lot of people would change their eating habits dramatically. Look at cigarettes and tobacco usage, for example. A pack of smokes was less than $2 in New York in 1997, when the state decided to start taxing the shit out of them. People swore after the first big price spike "I'll quit when they go up to $5/pack!" Sure, some did...but not really enough to make a difference. And then those same people said again "I swear I'll quit when they go up to $10/pack!"...and they probably still haven't quit. I think you see where I'm goin' with this...habits, whether food or anything else, aren't always sacrificed because they've become expensive.

BCF PROMPT: "Favorite board game. Tell us about it."

Geez, I probably haven't thought about this since I was a kid and still regularly played board games. And how many of the classics (outside of simple graphic updates) have actually changed much over the years (besides Monopoly  )? "Deluxe Editions" and thematic renditions don't count.

And speaking of Monopoly, you can probably cross that off of my list of faves because everyone knows after three or four hours it's absolutely not fun  .

Scrabble? Nope. I'm legendarily bad at it for some unknown reason. And I will likely win a Pulitzer for "Who do I still think I am??"  before I start playing its younger, hotter, dumber sister, Words With Friends, again. I can write a blog entry seventy-seven different ways of telling you how much I hate the same thing, but ask me to spell words out of seven letters (give or take) in a manner that's better than you, and I fail miserably. There are no words to describe my ineptitude (and the first person who comes up with one is getting thunderpunched in the triple-word score).

Welp, I think we've covered the only board games worth playing by anyone over the age of...The Six Year Old Me.

Welcome back, buddy.

I'm decent with card games, and by "decent" I mean they're tolerable for a few minutes. Except Poker. Poker got too crazy and weird for my liking with all that "Texas Hold 'Em" hocus pocus. Once something fairly simple turns into options and flops and rivers and variations for in-game shenanigans, and the basic rules go from being printed on the back of one standard-sized playing card to 500-page tomes taking up entire sections of Barnes & Noble, I'm out. Can't/don't wanna do it. I revolted against hockey and football video games when they got too complex for my taste, so I'm not afraid of sayin' "I'd rather not".

But Rummy...when I was a kid we could play that for hours. And we didn't play until someone hit a predetermined score. We played until we were done playin', and kept a notebook going of scores so we could pick up right where we left off a day, a week, or months later. Simple rules and game play, a legit scoring system, and nobody has to get knifed afterwards: The three hallmarks of a satisfying evening spent among family and friends.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

This. This happened. Somebody thought this was a good idea , and someone else signed off on it. And this is what you get when I'm strugglin' to come up with a halfway decent song (because nothing off of this Get Up Kids album   seemed fitting enough.

If I can't unsee this, you're not allowed to either.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

So I guess my interview yesterday regarding the Cortaca Jug Rioting never made it to local television. That's ok, because this story   was way more important.

Speaking of serving sizes, this kinda blows my mind: the many inconsistencies of Mountain Dew. Go to any grocery store and grab a couple different-sized vessels of the sweet nectar of the gods the Pepsi Cola Company. Line them up by the labels, and you'll notice how the serving size varies between plastic and aluminum cans and single-serve versus multiple-serve containers, and the calorie counts don't seem to jive between various amounts as well. Conspiracy? Probably.

And that's all I've got for today. I've rambled on long enough while barely making sense, and the moodiness I've had the last two days is slowly creeping back into my life the longer whomever in the lot next to my building continues to use power tools at an ear-splitting volume even though I'm on the second floor with my window slammed shut to block out as much of the noise as possible. Time to grab a sizable handful of Nutter Butters and wait a little to see if this new sleeping med is any good. Peace, there are rules, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!