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went to walmart yesterday and i almost pulled a gun from the sporting goods section and shot myself. i’m sure this kind of thing about walmart has been ranted about constantly, but this store is SO STRESSFUL for the average human. next time i go i feel i’m going to have to knock out four teeth, wear some awesome sweatpants with the t-shirt advertising the local tavern tucked in, and bring along 12 screaming kids with ice cream stains on their faces just to fit in.

the most ridiculous, annoying part is navigation. it’s like trying to navigate the boston marathon in an escalade: you’re not going anywhere, everyone’s screaming, and there’s a high probability that someone next to you just defecated their pants. why an escalade? because that’s how i roll.

also, i’d say about 90% of all items in the store are in use by customers at any given moment, which is disturbing - i mean what if want to buy that 4ft diameter beachball? not after junior just barfed on it from eating too much candy corn from aisle 3 while his attentive mom was at the checkout. which leads to another interesting point: the ratio of toddlers to adults is just a little too high - it’s suspicious, really. people can’t have that many kids on average - i think that “parents” are convinced that walmart doubles as a babysitter just drop your kids off at 9am, pick ‘em up at 5pm.

but walmart is pretty damn cheap. cheap towells, paper plates, toothpaste, and best of all, cheap nerf weapons. but when i have kids, we’re going to target.

so i guess i’m talking about two “underappreciated” items in a row, here - but i need the following to set up an award that i forgot to give out from the weekend.

let’s get one thing straight about the BIG GULP - it’s is freaking huge. there is NO reason that someone would require that much soda in a container designed to be consumed at one sitting. as such, i feel people drink BIG GULPS for the experience, the challenge, and shit, it sure is a good way to kill some time (and your bladder). downing a BIG GULP is like eating a sextuple cheeseburger, smoking a pack of cigarettes at once, pounding a bottle of aspirin, eating a pan of rice krispy treats (check), or watching the movie agent cody banks and its sequel back-to-back, and then shooting yourself.

and the name is awesome: BIG GULP. totally implying that you are indeed required to slam ALL of it by means of a calculated, efficient, and voluminous drinking maneuver - the “gulp.”

as such, i think i find the BIG GULP so fascinating in the same way i find eating contests so entertaining. essentially we are taking a mundane activity required for keeping our bodies functioning from day to day and making it so ridiculous and extreme that we could nearly die…in this case, taking the concept of a casual soft drink to the next level. sure, people carry around water all day to stay hydrated, but not coca-cola. and 7-11 asks “well why the hell not” - and they are so right.

so, everytime i see someone with a big gulp i cheer to myself. clearly, they do not need 64 ounces of root beer, just like that little japanese kid doesn’t need 53.5 hot dogs in 12min. but it’s fun to see them try. and, when you have a BIG GULP in your hands, you’ll have a story to tell, because you’re in for an epic journey.

which now leads me to the award for most-likely-to-share-a-64oz-BIG-
GULP-with-a-notorious-B.I.G.-look-a-like-taxi-driver-while-cabbing-back-
from-san-francisco(.com) - this goes to my boy litch, who did just that.

ok i’ve had just about enough of the ncaa basketball crap. foolish of me to expect a big ten team to score over 50pts in a game. as such, i’m reproducing my actual shitty bracket below (left), and the coin flip one (right) for comparison so i can turn my attention to more important things…

like PIRATES. i read that the us navy has apprehended some “somali pirates” - ironically, off the coast of somalia. this is very fascinating to me, since it seems that the art of being a pirate was lost with the turn of the 19th century or so. apparently these pirates were firing on us navy ships. while there are “conflicting reports” of how the “gunbattle” began, i’m hoping it was over some “booty” or a treasure map. this resurgence of pirate lifestyle leads me to make the following statement: WE NEED MORE PIRATES. we need more pirate movies, we need more pirate stories, we need pirate reality tv shows, pirate cereals. pirate themed parties, bars, everything.

now, there has been a slight pirate revival over the past few decades to ensure their longevity and solidify their enigmatic lifestyle (minus “the swiss family robinson” - those pirates were pansies.) we have the ride at disneyworld (awesome), the pirate themed legos (arguably the best subcategory of legos, or any toy for that matter), more recently johnny depp/in pirates of the carribean. and of course we have captain morgan rum, and i’m pretty sure cap’n crunch was a pirate at some point. this is NOT enough.

i want more. when i saw “pirates of the carribean” i wanted that movie to last like 6 hours, and i really don’t know why, but i am willing to make a few conjectures:

1. pirates drinking and partying
2. really bad tavern lighting
3. deserted islands
4. STEALING SHIPS - this has to be the most hardcore thing about a pirate. stealing something so HUGE and so SLOW, that wherever you go with it, there is NO WAY to cover up the fact that it was STOLEN. but like pirates care.

so, if you do not agree with me, ask yourself this:

when was the last time you rooted against a pirate?
when was the last time you saw a pirate get his ass kicked?
when was the last time you saw a pirate get tricked?
when was the last time you did not cheer when you saw someone dressed up like a pirate?

the pirate embodies all that is immoral - raping, pillaging, plundering - yet we still cheer them on. additionally, the pirate embodies so many random concepts and physical attributes that make absolutely no sense that it comes off as pure concocted fantasy - so we cannot take their bad deeds seriously. peg legs, gold, talking parrots, eyepatches, “arrrr.” why should any of these ridiculous items be associated with someone that sails around in a ship and steals stuff? is a pirate more likely to lose an eyeball than a blacksmith? is there a communicative advantage on the high seas to the phrase “arrrr!!”? i don’t know, but i don’t care.

but what’s too bad is that real life examples of pirates are rare. so when i read a story like this it makes me smile and wonder if there really are small islands full of pirates - lost in time, drinking and enjoying themselves, looking for treasure, watching sportscenter. if so, i’d like to take a year off and hang.