Finally!

That is, my favorite Italian side, AS Roma, finally gets a win under the belt this season, against the hated Inter Milan. The appropriate announcer jubilation follows...

We're No. 1, We're No. 1!!

In terms of our country's (ever-increasing) girth, that is:

The United States is the fattest nation among 33 countries with advanced economies, according to a report out today from an international think tank.

 

Two-thirds of people in this country are overweight or obese; about a third of adults — more than 72 million — are obese, which is roughly 30 pounds over a healthy weight.

If, like me, you're spatially-relations challenged, this may take a few seconds to wrap your head around, but it illustrates the alarming obesity trend/epidemic nicely.

An (Actual) Short Story

I've been working on this -- in bits and pieces -- for months. Not the best way to write a short story, but you do what you can when you can, you know? I'm not a fiction writer. Some might argue I'm not much of a nonfiction writer!

It's sort of a spoof of myself, at least my habits in the kitchen, and it borrows a good bit -- tiny details here and there -- from my own life. It's got some bad words in it, which are also not, uh, uncommon in my real life.

It definitely could use the wisdom of a good editor. But I don't think it's too bad. Honest comments and criticisms are welcome.

UPDATE: Thanks to some wisdom-laced edits and suggestions from a friend, the story was updated on October 14.

Dinner for Six

Daniel dashed down his favorite glass, tarnished, bordering on foggy, the remnants of an “L” floating in the middle of an engraved diamond along one side. Slightly less than half filled at this point, the glass—given to him by his grandmother not long after his grandfather had died—contained equal parts Campari and gin, with a welcome dose of sweet vermouth. The ice, at this point, resembled tic-tacs, and the squished lime wedge— his lone divergence from a traditional Negroni, which typically calls for an orange slice—lay comfortably at the bottom.

Despite its resemblance to a fruity beach drink, he would protest without any prompting, it was still an honest pour.

At the moment, though, it was not the integrity of his alcoholic beverage that occupied his thoughts. Rather, it was that the blood rolling from his left index finger had an eerily similar shade of orange/red as his drink. Despite the considerable pain pumping from his finger, in strange synchronicity with the old school Public Enemy droning from the stereo,

I judge everyone, one by the one, Look! Here come the judge. Watch it here he come now…

Daniel was taking extreme caution not to let on that anything other than dicing and stirring (and head bopping and crooked-hand gyrating) was going on in the kitchen. 

He was not in the mental state to tolerate one of Julianna’s “how many times…” speeches.

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Stay AWAY from my Honey Crisps

Maybe this explains why, recently, my wife and I were awoken at the typically silent hour of 1:00 a.m. by a freakishly loud buzzing noise trailing this way and that across our bedroom.

Last year, the insects called brown marmorated stink bugs were a nuisance. This year, they are a serious threat to fruit orchards, and experts are not sure how destructive they might become.

The ubiquitous brown bugs with a citrusy or piney scent are making their way into Pennsylvania homes, previewing the hordes likely to appear late this month and next as the weather cools.

Fruit orchards are apparently starting to lose significant amount of product to stink bugs. Who knew these somewhat cute little critters could be so potentially destructive?

Stink bugs can eat almost anything and so far have no natural predators in the U.S. No one knows if their damage is going to spread to other crops. ...

The bugs do their damage by sticking their mouth parts under the skin of the fruit, injecting saliva and sucking out the juice, Mr. Krawczyk said. The fruit dries out from the inside and becomes brownish and distorted in a characteristic fashion called "cat facing."

This apparently caught a lot of people by surprise. I'm serious, though. If an overabundance of these shield-shelled bugs mean there are going to be less Honey Crisps -- the first batch of which are already in the grocery stores, freakin' yum! -- this fall, there's no limit on how much useless complaining I'll do. And nobody, I mean nobody, wants that!