Author: jbenton

Want to be depressed? Read my story in tomorrow’s paper. A sad, sad tale.

I have just noticed that Katie is today wearing a dress emblazoned in images of Mao himself.
Perhaps she does know about the yak vomit. Perhaps she knows much more than I had been led to believe.
I don’t know who to trust anymore.

More news from the M&M vote fraud front.
(First-time readers may not know that I’ve been carrying out a lonely campaign for candy-coated justice for some time now; you may wish to read this, this, and this before going further. In particular, I’ve uncovered the great tan M&M fraud of 1995, the lies Mars Inc. tells about its colored past, and the mysterious aqua chad scandal.)
Today’s new investigative direction comes courtesty of Katie, who pointed out to me that M&Ms aren’t the only candy going through a color change. Packages of Skittles currently feature a white candy (Klan influence at work?) that they’re terming the Mystery Flavor. Could this fit into the M&M conspiracy?
Point one: Skittles and M&Ms, although viewed as traditional rivals, are in fact owned by the same company, Mars. A quick check of the Mars web site uncovers a weird, Rand-ian conflation of robber-baron capitalism and self-actualization, just the kind of mix that can lead to tyranny. (The fifth “corporate principal” of Mars is “freedom”: “We need freedom to shape our future; we need profit to remain free.” Tell me that doesn’t sound like George Orwell meets Michael Milken.)
Point two: Skittles has already shown a desire to infiltrate young minds and make them consider the contemplation of candy colors higher-order thought. The school-based Skittles Challenge 2002 may simply look like brilliant marketing to many, but to a perceptive eye, it’s a naked grab of hearts and minds.
Point three: Could the Skittles mystery color be a mere “holding place” for whatever color gets summarily dumped from the M&M pack once purple, pink, or aqua gets railroaded in? Mars could have lots of brown, green, or red dye to get rid of once the coup is completed.
Point four: Could the mystery Skittle be, in fact, a delivery system for psychotropic drugs designed to make the M&M color transition smooth? Its “flavor,” if indeed it has one, is difficult to ascertain; Katie describes it as “reminiscent of licorice and yak vomit.” I’m not sure Katie knows this, but yak vomit is known throughout the Chinese interior as a powerful mind-control drug, often used by Maoist rebels in the 1940s and later during both the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
We have many more questions than we have answers. But answers will come, friends. Oh, they will come.

Is CNN.com becoming more tabloidy? Here are four of the 10 most important stories in the world right now, according to their editors:
Mysterious black blob floating near Florida
Britney: Why I snubbed fans
Mom gives birth to four identical girls
Supermodel Campbell wins privacy case

Greetings to the thousands of you suddenly checking out my humble weblog, all because of MSN’s misguided decision to make the CD Mix of the Month club its “Daily Diversion.” Of course, I now fully expect the RIAA to come shut me down.
For lost newcomers, you’re reading the web site of a 26-year-old Dallas newspaper reporter. Marginally more information is available on the “about” page, and feel free to meander through the archives.

The best attempt at a criminal defense ever:
“During what was to be a routine proceeding to set future court dates, [accused eBay hacker Jerome] Heckenkamp challenged the indictment against him on the grounds that it spells his name, Jerome T. Heckenkamp, in all capital letters, while he spells it with the first letter capitalized, and subsequent letters in lower case.”

What a day. First, my ugly mug gets looped all night on TXCN. Then I’m at the top of the front page of today’s paper.
But those pale in comparison to getting profiled in the pages of today’s Yale Daily News.
Remember all those nice things I said about Molly a few days back? I take them all back. She is a one-woman web of deceit. To point out only a few of the scurrilous lies in her article:
– To write, as Molly does, that “Josh subsists entirely on burritos prepared by a greasy fast-food joint five blocks away” is both inaccurate and disrespectful to the fine folks at Chipotle. I would like to point out that (a) Molly had no complaints about the three meals we ate there during her 10-day stay, at one point requesting it as a dinner location, and (b) when we ate there, she showed a nasty tendency to spill guac on herself. The resultant pants stains are clearly at least partially behind her burrito animus.
Also, I occasionally eat at Wendy’s.
– Quote: “Consequently, his fridge contains only a case of Samuel Adams and a carton of yogurt that expired sometime around Halloween. I assume he bought the yogurt to impress girls.” If Molly would have taken the time to report accurately, she would have known that the case is actually of year-old homebrew straight from Toledo, Ohio. And the yogurt expired only days before her arrival. As for the impressing girls part, well, we all know nothing impresses the ladies like old yogurt.
– Quote: “Of course, there were a few things about Josh and his apartment that I found alien to Yale life. His shower was completely free of tumbleweed-sized hairballs and breast self-examination placards. [This much is true. -ed.] There was not one unexplained stain on his entire couch. [Luckily, she didn’t flip the cushions.] His copies of Maxim were stacked neatly on the coffee table, rather than lying dog-eared on the floor with the “Girls of Cosmo Surrender!” centerfold ripped out. [She fails to point out I recently let my subscription lapse. Purposefully.]”
I’ve learned a lot from the experience of being written about. I’ve learned to never trust a reporter again. Wait a minute.

I swear, I age 20 years every time I do live TV. I had no problem debating in front of big crowds in high school, but geez, the six or seven theoretical viewers of TXCN intimidate the hell out of me. It went okay, though.

If it’s the day after the Oscars, you know Fametracker‘ll be in fine form.
“Hi, I’m Sidney Poitier. People, don’t you realize that by having Faith Hill sing a love song by Diane Warren, you created a sucking vortex of whiteness so powerful that you’ve endangered everything I’ve worked so hard for? Really — I’ve seen more soul at a Cub Scout Jamboree. I’ve seen more soul at the Betty Crocker Marshmallow-based-Desserts Bake-Off in Billings, Montana. I’ve seen more soul in a very special episode of Full House, guest starring Marie Osmond, Lisa Whelchel, and G. Gordon Liddy.”
I’ve just been informed my TV appearance will be broadcast live, not taped as all my previous TXCN appearances. Shoot me now.

Of course, I picked a wonderful night to stay up waaaay too late. Watch TXCN for any random hour tonight and you’ll see my hangdog face talking about that most magical of topics, school lockers. I’ll be the guy with circles under my micron-wide-open eyes.