If women like to be beautiful and men like women to be beautiful, then  why in the world is vanity so expensive?  If everyone wants to appear elegant, good-looking and lets not forget… fashionable, why do we as a culture have to dish out so much of our hard earned cash, effort and time? 

Do we do it for a lack of entertainment?  That can’t be it since we live in a world of cable television, high-speed internet access and Macintosh computers.

Just a few days ago I was in store especially devoted to vanity with my lady friend and the total at the register came to over $100.00.  For Pete’s sake, there are starving children worldwide. Why in the heck does it cost so much to have mud and plants to cover yourself in?

We may never know, but at least I will stand against this price gouging. I vow personally not to wear any makeup, not buy a pair of pants that cost over $30.00, nor purchase a cell phone, which costs over $40.00 with the service plan. 

Now if I just do this and walk into a crowd of people, they may look at me and think “he’s freakin’ crazy.”  If two people do this and walk into a crowd of people they may think “they’re damn dirty hippies.”  But if three people, three people do it, then they’ll know it’s a movement. 

That’s what it is friends: the Zacque-a-roo Anti-Vanity Movement.  One more time, yah know, there’s over a hundred thousand of you out there.  I mean you gotta sing loud if you wanna stop war and stuff… 

     Okay, I’m not much for memes, viral nature and all.  I mean, crap, I skipped out on the last one Tish tagged me with because, well, I know what Web 2.0 is, and the meme author apparently had a very limited view of it.  All I could’ve put was “my blog,” so I was kinda like … well … Stuck.

     This one, though, has a pretty good purpose: finding some great places to eat locally, or when we’re travelling around.  And so, I’m pretty happy to answer this one from LissaKay, because … well … I’m a big fan of food.  I try and eat some a few times a day.  (And I’m fortunate enough to have a highly trained metabolism that allows me to eat like it’s my last my meal.)

     This one’s originally by Chronicles of Nicole, and comes to us all the way from Sydney, Australia.

1. Add a direct link to your post below the name of the person who tagged you. Include the city/state and country you’re in.

Nicole (Sydney, Australia)
velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Olivia (London, England)
ML (Utah, USA)
Lotus (Toronto, Canada)
tanabata (Saitama, Japan)
Andi (Dallas [ish], Texas, United States)
Todd (Louisville, Kentucky, United States)
miss kendra (los angeles, california, u.s.a)
Jiggs Casey (Berkeley, CA, USA! USA! USA!)
Tits McGee (New England, USA)
Joe (NE Tennessee, USA)
10K Monkeys (Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA)
Big Stupid Tommy (Athens, Tennessee, USA)
Newscoma (Weakley County, Tennessee, USA)
Russ McBee (Knoxville, Tennessee, USA)
Atomictumor Mrs Eaves (Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA)
Oh Really? LissaKay (Oak Ridge, TN, USA)
Mark Steel blogitude.com (Knoxville, TN, USA)

2. List out your top 5 favorite places to eat at your location.

My Place - Yes, I can cook.  And I’m pretty damn good at it, too, as long as you like spicy food.  I specialize in Southern Asian (Indian/Thai/Malay), Italian (like the 20-pound lasagne or Sicilian-style meat-sauce) and TexMex (it burns most Mexicans).

Ali Baba’s TimeOut Deli (Kingston Pike) - I’ve known those guys for the better part of twenty years.  Absolutely the best humos in the world, and I’ve certainly traveled it enough to know… And you can never go wrong with the “special,” King Solomon’s Chicken — a slow-roasted hen in a tasty lemon-seed marinade, with a couple of vegetable sides over basmati rice.

Tomo (Kingston Pike) - The Sushi/Sashimi connoisseur can never go wrong here.  Everything there is perfectly fresh and delicious, and the dinner service is most excellent.  Perfect … but certainly not inexpensive.  I can’t get out of there without spending at least $50 on myself.  But I certainly leave happy…

Chesapeake’s Seafood (Henley Street) - Dinner dining includes a full course of a Mussel Appetizer, choice of Salad, Maine Lobster with two sides, and some impressive Cheesecake all for less than what it costs at the nasty chain restaurant that everyone goes to (the one with Lobster in the title)… and impeccable service that rivals many of the 5-Stars I’ve dined in.  Daily fresh fish of the Sushi-grade variety … I really enjoy the Yellow Tail (No, Benny, I’m not talking about the Chinese girl).

Sitar (Kingston Pike) - Sometimes, I find it’s too much of a chore to cook Indian Food, so I hit this place for the Sunday afternoon buffet.  Although they don’t have a Vindaloo on it (aww!) they have several other incredibly tasty dishes which change weekly.  One of the best things about the place, tho, as compared to most other Indian restaurants in the area, is that everything’s nice and spicy, and they have a distinct lack of clarified butter (ghee).  That’s what causes the kerosene-like aftertaste at some Indian restaurants — and I hate it.  Since a lot of Indians use ghee at home, it comes as no big surprise that India leads the world in cases of throat cancer…

Country Table (N. Cherry Street) - Southern, home cooking all the way… Turnip greens, pinto beans, mashed potatos and gravy, country fried steak (and it’s awesome), T-bone steaks (however you want it!), pork tenderloins (which I can’t eat, dammit! Pork makes me really sick), buttermilk biscuits, good southern cornbread (not that sweet shit they serve up north), and all the coffee and iced tea you can drink.  I do lunch there every now again if I’m working in East Knoxville, and totally love the place.  A lot of people simply won’t check it out because of the location … but I never did care about that.

3. Tag 5 Others

Swanky - This guy like to eat as much as I do, and has intimate knowlege of some of the Knoxville metro’s best dives — and will undoubtedly list more of my favorites.

ChattieKat - She grew up here in Knoxville, and should be able to drop in a few that Swanky and I miss.

Anton - Anton showed me a couple of really kickass places in Houston a few weeks ago.

Fracas - I like to research my food choices ahead of time.  And on the odd chance that I’m ever in Saskatoon, I’d like to find some place else better to eat than that craphole truck stop diner on the highway…

Zacque - Fellow blogitude.com writer who recently buggered off to Nashville, and it’s about time he took a break from ravaging his girlfriend and wrote a blog for a change. 

     So that’s that… Meanwhile, I’m gonna go to Ali Baba’s for a Special…

This stuff kills me. The guy got a stupid tattoo on a whim, and so, he decides to fix it by getting an even bigger, stupider tattoo on top of it! Yeah, that looks better. I had a girlfriend who got a yin-yang symbol on her hip. She hated it. So she fixed it by getting a dragon tattooed, holding the yin-yang symbol. Hated it.

Eventually these people’s entire bodies will be covered by one enormous tattoo on top of another on top of another…

Hey doofus, this will be on you forever. Think a long time before you do it. For your entire existense, will you want to be seen with a “tribal” arm band? Me, I change outfits daily. I change my hairstyle every so often. I have more than one mood. And what I strongly believed even just a short time ago, I now question. Why the hell would I want anything on my body forever?

And the old tired cliche of getting a dead friend or a child tattoed on you… please. I love my family and friends and if I need a tattoo to show I love my daughter, I have a serious problem. I show my love by, like, actually loving.

A tattooed friend said that it’s addictive. Once you get one, you want more and more. He doesn’t really like most of his tattoos either, like most people I meet. I think it’s more like when you get a new car and it gets that first ding. After that, you really don’t care how many more dings it gets. It’s hosed.

On the road this weekend I found another great vacation spot:

Gnaw Bone, Indiana. Near French Lick.

While this guy isn’t specifically saying that God Hates, this is the sort of asshat the pisses me off. This guy and the others that infest public events, spouting that God Hates Fags, liberals, republicans, muslims, all pique my ire.

Assuming for a moment that God is real and not some made up fiction used to perpetuate wars and get rich, how can anyone with bad penmanship and poor social skills claim to know the mind of God? Are they really so enlightened to understand their god so well that they can vouch for his complete and utter hatred of a given group of people?

So for all you people who think god hates people, GOD HATES YOU TOO!

     May 21st through May 25th is Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week in Australia.  Classified as a neurological disorder, Tourette Syndrome is a serious problem for many people.  Sufferers of Tourette’s often acquire serious — and some cases, dehabilitating —  facial “tics” which which can affect their speech, eyes and even breathing.  Others may make strange, or even obscene, utterances at random intervals which others may find rude, vulgar or in bad taste.
     Unfortunately, people who suffer from Tourette’s are often shown disdain by others for a condition which they clearly cannot help.  They are often stigmatized by their affliction, and may, in turn, develop additional mental issues such as anxiety, depression or antisocial behavior.

     If we were celebrating Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week in the United States, I would f#!*ing go to our local f#!*ing Health Department and get a f#!*ing stack of those f#!*ing flyers about f#!*ing Tourette’s Awareness Week and f#!*ing pass them out in order to f#!*ing educate some f#!*ing people.

     In f#!*ing honor of this f#!*ing prestigous event, I present, “The Big Lebowski: The F#!*ing Short Version” (language alert):

Tip: Les Jones for the information, which reminded me of the video, and the fact that I’m a smart ass

Seriously, kids, I don’t make this crap up. But I absolutely love that people say such stupid things. I find it amazing that people really come off with such utterly ignorant blurbs. In addition to giving me something to blog about, it usually amuses me greatly. And boy, did this one amuse me…

Part Deux

***Tan fat is so much prettier than white fat***

I literally did a double take at the skank standing next to me as I was checking into the tanning bed this Saturday past. It took everything in me not to fall over in the floor and gut laugh. What?!?! Tan fat?

Hello, sweetheart. I’m here tanning, too. And I’ll be honest. I see nothing pretty about tan fat as opposed to white fat. Seriously, if you are fat, then you have fat rolls, say like a Shar Pei puppy, right?

Let me help you get a visual on this one, sister. Do you really think that having tan parts intermingled with the white fat rolls is pretty?

God bless the stand-up tanning bed, you can put your arms up in the air and alleviate those pesky white spots.

Yup, yup. Chalk another one up to one of the lamest things I’ve ever heard.

     Because it was exactly three months ago …

     And everyone who knew her will know exactly who this is …

     ( I close my eyes, remember her, and die laughing — that’s the way it should be *grin* )

     Cheers, babe.  Miss ya.

     Ever wonder what you’d look like if you were a character on Southpark?

     Yeah, me, either…

     But that is certainly me. ;-)  Click it make your own — you know you wanna!

Tip: Tish at The Kat House

Okay. By now, we all know I am a big mouth girl, with an even bigger personality and a colossus opinion about most everything. So, it seems that lately, I’ve had plenty of time to sit back, watch and listen. And some of the things I have heard recently make me want to say, “Um. What?!?!?! Get a grip, you ditz!” This is merely one of them.

***You don’t like me because I’m fat, huh?***

During a discussion about male/female carrying ons, a male friend of mine, Spike*, told me that some girl had said this one to him because he wasn’t paying her the attention she felt like she deserved or wanted.

Oh, please, honey!

Will somebody please explain to me how women figure that if a man is not paying attention to them, or not “liking” them, or not fawning over them, then it’s surely because of that big ass attached to their backside???

First off, I wonder if she ever stopped to think, if a brother isn’t giving her skins, that maybe it’s not her fat butt… maybe it’s the beautiful personality that she displays constantly… You know, the personality that rivals Peyton Manning’s dripping wet sweat sock midway through the 4th quarter of the Superbowl?

B- What man is going to want you when you are oozing ickee-ness all over the bar, grocery store, or library by hitting on and trying to make out with anything and everything with a penis? Seriously, if I was a dude, and I saw a girl (any girl) hitting on one guy, getting the boot, then hitting on the next guy, getting the boot, then hitting on the next guy, getting the boot… I’m not so sure I’d be into her either. That’s just icky.

Thirdly and lastly (as if I don’t wrap it up here, I may keep going on and on)- Diva isn’t exactly a petite, Barbie doll sized girl of perfection.  Now Diva knows that, although men do dig up on the arm candy, they also love women who will laugh with them, talk to them and have a great time doing whatever it is they are doing. Diva does not, nor has she ever, suffered from lack of attention from the opposite sex. Because regardless of the size of her blue jeans, Diva has no lack of esteem.

Why?

It’s a little thing called self-confidence, sister. You might try looking that one up and studying on it for a minute.

Yup, yup. You don’t dig me because I’m fat…..That’s one of the lamest things I think I’ve ever heard.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent AND the guilty.