Down wit da clown

No, not George W. Bush. I'm just givin' props to my man Mickey D., a.k.a. the Funkmaster of Fries, the Raging Redhead, the Clown Prince of Burgers, Ronald McDonald. I've recently had a chance to watch a good deal of the documentary Super Size Me. It's good, stomach-turning fun, and it makes two points: 1) You should not eat McDonald's - or any fast food - for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, or you will die; and 2) You can't count on judges to follow their own written statements. (You'll have to watch it yourself to see what I'm talking about.)

McDonald's shouldn't be too afraid, though. I've had two meals from there in the two weeks since I first saw bits of the movie. One was a traditional supersized Extra Value Meal (the Fillet-o-Fish or Whaler or whatever the hell their "fish" sandwich is called), mainly ordered to see if the contention that McDonald's has discontinued the Supersize option was true. (It isn't. And a supersized chocolate shake, mmm...good thing that meal was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for that day, all at once.)

The second meal was a Go Active! Cobb Salad with Chicken and without dressing. I don't know if them not including the dressing was accidental or intentional, but it was just as well. I really wanted the meal for the free toy, a pedometer (or "Stepometer", as they call it, probably out of fear of confusion by slack-jawed yokels - you know who you are - who think that all words that start with "ped" are evil. Seriously. I know of someone who objected to the word "audiophile" for the same reason. People are stupid. Very stupid. But where was I? Uh-oh, I've still got the parentheses turned on.)

Anyhoo, I had this delightfully overpriced salad on Saturday and I've tried out the ped- er, Stepometer for the last two dogwalks. Yesterday's walk was my "standard" walk, a circuit of about half of this fair city, and that came in at 6,083 steps. Today was a modified version of the straight-out-and-back walk I did last Friday - modified to avoid any feuding clock-radio carrying couples. (If you didn't read last Friday's epic Getting involved, you don't know what I'm talking about. Even if you did, you might be fuzzy on the details. I recommend that you print it out - all seven pages, so make sure there's paper and ink in your printer - and set it aside for your next trip to the Reading Room.) Anyway, this modified-out-and-back came in at 6,495 steps.

So who knows what tomorrow will bring? It might even rain hard enough to keep us indoors, for the first time in over two weeks. (Weekdays only.)

So, yo, lissen up. You want a funky fresh Stepometer like Master B. - I mean, Master D.B.? You wanna be the hippest hijo in the hizzy? Then get yo' fat punk ass down to Mickey D's and order yourself one of them bitchin' cool Go Active! meals. And throw away the dressing. You might want to skip the supersized chocolate milkshake, too.