Daily Paragraph -- thinkThin High Protein Bar Taste Test

I like Clif Bars. I especially like them as a post-lunch dessert to my salad at lunch. But, my supply has run out, and I haven't had the wherewithal to drive over to Costco to restock. So, today I wandered across the street to 7-11 to satisfy my dessert urges. Clif Bars are available there, but I decided that if I was going to spend two bucks on an energy bar, I might as well try something new and different. Enter the thinkThin High Energy Protein Bar -- chunky peanut butter flavor (chocolate dipped).

From the packaging, you can tell right away the target demographic: people who lie to themselves to feel better about eating candy. The good people at thinkThin take this approach from multiple angles. First, the wrapper has the simplicity and the dull monochromatic color palate of an organic product, though nowhere does it actually claim to be organic.

The wrapper goes to some pain to inform of what horrible nasties you will not be consuming in your energy bar -- no sugar and no gluten (heaven for fend!). Personally, I'm completely ambivalent to the gluten-free claims. I suspect a lot of candy bars have no gluten (unless they sneak a cookie there like those clever bastards at Twix), so it's not like gluten-free is some kind of indicator of healthfulness. As for the lack of sugar, I missed that when I picked the bar. I might have chosen something else, had I noticed. Fortunately, the lack of sugar didn't prove to be an issue. They used maltitol for sweetness, and I generally don't mind the reduced sugars as an alternative to sucrose. It's the zero-calorie artificial sweeteners I find to be pretty gross (aspartame, I'm looking at you!).

Once you open the wrapper to peak at the product inside, it becomes pretty evident that you are about to eat a candy bar. It's dipped in chocolate. Dip something in chocolate and it becomes candy. I think Julia Child said that. Or maybe it was Dan Quayle.

And how does it taste? It's okay, but not amazing. Texturally, it falls somewhere between a Powerbar and the concoction Reese's crams into it's peanut butter cups. The chocolate coating is a little muted in it's chocolatey-ness, and the peanut butter bar inside is similarly muted in it's peanut-buttertude. I blame both these issues on the lack of real sugar. Next time, I'll just get a peanut butter chocolate chunk Clif Bar, which has actual chocolate chips and actual sugar in it. At 250, the two products have the same number of calories, too.

An interesting side note on the calorie count: at dinner tonight, I took a peek at the calorie content of the kim chee we were enjoying with our Korean beef short ribs and kung pao Brussels sprouts.The kim chee came from a jar (the ribs and sprouts were prepared by my loving wife), and according the label, one serving of the kim chee provides 15 calories  with seven serving to the container. That means I could have eaten two and a half jars of that of that tangy, spicy, garlicky goodness and received the same amount of energy as the energy bar I had eaten early in the day. Of course, it would have cost at least $10 more...

The Daily Paragraph -- Could We All Please Agree to Use Our Turn Signals?

At times of heavy traffic, I actively dislike driving north on Diamond Street across its intersection with Bosworth. The Glen Park BART station sits on the southeast corner of the crossing leading to an effectively endless stream of idlers and slow pokes, including pedestrians, commuter buses, taxis, Ubers, Lyfts, and various other vehicles that clog up the crosswalks and curbs.  A general absence of city planning resulted in two de facto lanes of traffic leading into the intersection in that direction. Neither lane has a legally-assigned role, but as you might expect, the cars planning to turn one way or the other onto Bosworth tend to favor the lane corresponding to the direction of their turn. Unfortunately, there is always enough oncoming traffic to slow down the left-turners and enough pedestrian traffic to slow down the right-turners. I almost always want to go straight. Picking a lane is invariably a coin-flip for me. It's frustrating enough to endure the delays imposed by poor lane selection, the least my fellow drivers can do is give me a heads-up about their plans. We will all get where we want to go a lot faster if we work together, damn it! Today, the driver in front of me decided to play a game with me. We were stopped at the light, both of us in the left lane. Numbers one and two in line to enter the intersection, neither of us giving any indication of plans to turn. I thought I would get a pleasantly unimpeded trip across Bosworth once the light changed. Nope! The green light lit up, and so on blinked the left turn signal on the car in front of me. Aggh! Why? I would have preferred that the little turd turn left without signalling at all. People who do that are at least committed narcissists or assholes. If you wait until the green light to turn on your signal, you suggest that you really just don't understand what it's there for, but you think you do. That makes you an idiot, and idiots are dangerous. You can predict what an asshole will do, but not an idiot. So here's my request...don't be an idiot. Use your turn signal, and do it in time to be helpful. Thanks.

The Daily Paragraph -- Baseball is Ruined

So the A's have officially ruined another baseball season for me. They felt like an unlucky, underperforming mediocre team going into their current road trip, but seven losses later they are definitely a bad/hopeless baseball team with little to cheer for this season and little chance of recovering from fecklessness next season. I've been following the A's since 1998, and their worst record through that period has been 74-88; they did that twice. Right now, the A's have to win 23 of their remaining 42 games to reach that pathetic record. That's right, the team that just got swept twice on the road needs to win more than lose just to tie for their worst record over the last 17 years. In 1997 they only won 65 games, and I think they can beat that. My official prediction for their final record is 70-92. The next thing the team has to look forward to is the draft next Spring. This stinks.

The Daily Paragraph -- The Human Canvas Jury

I've mentioned the past that I'm a fan of the reality tattoo competition showe Ink Master. It's overwrought and ridiculous, but the competitors do appear to be genuinely talented artists, and the judges clearly take their roles seriously -- a little too seriously. One element of the show is clearly there just to create tension: the Human Canvas Jury. This is the panel of tattooees who received free permanent art work on their bodies during the challenge (probably after signing a pretty impressive legal waiver relinquishing any right to sue for dissatisfaction with the final product). They gather in an isolated room after all the needlework is done to decide who received the worst tattoo of the day. The responsible competitor becomes eligible for elimination in front of the judges shortly thereafter. This season, the Ink Master production team added a nice little wrinkle to the process. This time around, the "canvas" with the worst tattoo gets to come to the judges' discussion to confront their artist before the final elimination. It's a nice little touch of drama, which always makes for good TV, but here's the thing -- it's totally pointless. The judges don't really care what the Human Canvas Jury thinks. If they disagree with the jury, the selected artist is definitely safe. If the jury truly selects the artist most deserving of elimination, you can bet the judges would have booted him or her anyway. Here's my suggestion of how to tweak the system a little to make the Human Canvas Jury a little more relevant, and I think it would make for good TV, too. Instead of having the judges make the final decision, have them nominate the bottom artists and let the jury decide who packs up shop and leaves. It only makes sense, right? They are a JURY, after all. I think this approach would be great. The judges could make the case for why each bottomfeeder deserves to go home in front of the jury before they're all sequestered for deliberation. What do you think, Dave Navarro? It's a great idea, right? If you use it, I don't even need any money, but some kind of producer credit would be nice.

The Daily Paragraph -- Rock Band Name Scoring

I'm an advocate for aesthetically pleasing band names, but it's hard to define exactly what the criteria are that define that. So here's an attempt at a scoring system that might make the rules a little clearer. Let's see how it goes.

1. Part of speech: 5 points for noun (1 bonus point for being plural), 3 points for adjective, 2 points for verb, 1 point for anything else. 
2. Number of syllables: 5 points for 3 or fewer syllables, 3 points 4 or 5 syllables, 1 point for 6 to 8 syllables, 0 points for 9 or more syllables (a "the" at the beginning of the band name doesn't count in the total)
3. Originality: 5 points if there is no other well-known band name similar to it, 3 points if there are one or two other bands with names somewhat similar, 0 points for unoriginal band names
4. Additional points:
1. Add 1 point for using one of the colors red, black, or white (using two colors does not add more points)
2. Add 2 points for alliteration or assonance
3. Add 3 points good use of rare consonants (q, k, z, v, j)
4. Add 5 points for coolness
5. Deductions:
1. Subtract 3 points for each of the following: pretentiousness, cutesiness (unless properly balanced edginess), and self-importance
2. Subtract three points for obnoxious/incorrect use of rare consonants
3. Subtract one point for puns and nonsense words (sorry Beatles, this means you)

Okay, let's see how this works out with some examples:

The Rolling Stones get a 21 (plural noun, 6 points; 3 syllables not including "the", 5 points; originality is hard to judge here, let's give them 3 points; 2 points for assonance; and 5 points for coolness; no deductions). Pretty good! Seems appropriate.

Imagine Dragons get a 3 (1 point for being an imperative sentence; 3 points for 5 syllables; I don't feel like the deserve any originality points; 2 points for assonance for the long a sounds; minus 3 points for unbalanced cutesiness). Maybe a little harsh, but I agree, Imagine Dragons is not a good band name.

Here are some more, just for kicks:
The White Stripes  -- 19 points
The Jam -- 21 points
Hootie and the Blowfish -- 7 points
Nickelback -- 10 points
The Red Hot Chili Peppers -- 10 points

Well, I dunno. I wish Nickelback got a lower score because the suck so bad, but maybe the band name itself isn't entirely to blame.

I think the system could use some tweaking, but it's a start.

The Daily Paragraph -- What am I watching?

TV. I like it -- probably too much -- but it can't be helped. It's so much better now than it was in the 1980s, and I watched a lot of TV then, too. I can't imagine myself anxiously anticipating new episodes of Night Court today, and yet I loved that show 30 years ago. Loved, loved , loved it! Or maybe I just had the hots for Markie Post. But since that time, actually funny shows have kicked the tar out Night Court humor-wise. And action dramas? Holy crap! I used to get charged up over Knight Rider. It's embarrassing just thinking about that.

So what am I watching these days?

I try to keep my Reality TV limited, but I do indulge. I favor skills competition shows, and these days I watch would-be special effects make-up artists conjure up cool creatures on Face Off, and I watch testosterone-addled tatooists permanently alter people referred to as "canvases" on Ink Master. When Top Chef rolls around, I watch that, too.

With the finales of Breaking Bad and Mad Men in the past couple years, I'm down to one serial drama -- Better Call Saul. I have to keep these type of shows to a minimum, though. They're too stressful. I literally lose sleep over them. I think watching The Wire may have speed up my male pattern baldness and taken a year off my life. Season four of that show? Torture! Anyway, I've decided I'm not going to get sucked into Game of Thrones or Walking Dead. My heart can't take it any more.

Half-hour comedies are really my bread and butter, and the ends of shows like 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and How I Meet Your Mother have left me looking for replacements. I can't tell if Community is really over, but I would definitely watch more if Dan Harmon decided to make more episodes (or a movie). As far as I know, New Girl is coming back for another season. I like how that show transitioned from quirky cuteness to occasionally raunchy wackballitude. God bless Tina Fey for picking right up where she left off with 30 Rock by creating The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. And Will Forte has definitely earned my attention with The Last Man on Earth (and good for him for hooking up with January Jones in the process).

Apparently, I'm also a sucker for cartoons with title characters voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, too, as I enjoy both Archer and Bob's Burgers tremendously.

The internet age of scripted television has brought out some other good stuff that I'll watch as long as no one tries to charge me too much to see it. Duckie and I are both happy that The Mindy Project has apparently found a post-Fox home on Hulu, and if Mitchell Hurwitz decides to make more Arrested Development for Netflix, I'll certainly watch it. I also really like Catastrophe on Amazon, and I look forward to more of that, too.

Comedy Central always seems to have something worth putting on your DVR, whether it's Key & Peele, Inside Amy Schumer, Broad City, or Drunk History. I'm even thinking of giving Another Period a second look (I like the cast a lot).

See, there's plenty of good stuff to watch, and I'm always hearing about new shows I want to check out. But in the end it doesn't matter. Ultimately, I know that I'll watch whatever is on -- except maybe the reruns of Rules of Engagement that WGN America is always playing. I don't even understand why that show got airplay in the first place.

The Daily Paragraph -- Unwanted Bills

For the second time in about two and a half years, we received a single greasy dollar bill in the mail in an envelope with no return address. Last time I didn't think much about it, but Duckie was pretty freaked out.  My rationale was that a friend sent us the money to compensate us for feeding a parking meter on his behalf.  Receiving the second dollar in the same fashion pretty much put a knife in the heart of that little fantasy. I decided not to take any chances this time. I opened the letter in the backyard wearing a pair of disposable nitrile gloves, and once I confirmed the contents (one dollar, no note) I crumpled everything up and tossed it in the trash. If this whole exercise is a joke to somebody, I don't get it. If it's a game, I don't know the rules, and I don't want to play. If it's a mistake, well, it's weird and I still don't get it. The final option is that we're the beneficiaries of the oddly generous actions of  a nut job. In any case, I'd like it to stop.