Why You Should NOT Eat Black Rice

I recently found an article on the newest superfood, “black rice.” Apparently, black rice is supposed to contain those ultra-goodness antioxidants, some chemicals that are supposed to prevent cancer, make your skin healthier, increase longevity, and give you a 22’’ waist. It’s like Acai berry, except it doesn’t come in ridiculously overpriced pill form. Yet.
Unfortunately, I could never eat black rice even if it gave me the awesome ability to shit money and pure happiness. First, it looks like this.

Put a leaf next to it. It'll look less disgusting.

Remember when your Dad used to take you fishing and he used a huge lump of soil- coated, slimy earthworms he shoved into the tackle box as bait? Black rice looks like that. Moreover, I can never get used to the idea of rice being any color besides white or light brown. When I look at that picture, I feel like I’m a lion seeing a zebra for the first time.
Just imagine being a lion that is used to feasting on horses, the occasional donkey, an anteloupe, annoying humans on safari tours. Then you spot this.

A horse dressed like Beetlejuice

Do you know what the lion does? It DOESN’T EAT THE ZEBRA. Because basic logic tells the predator that if it looks different than its normal food, maybe it’s not a good idea to eat it. Humans use this same principle to avoid eating the unfamiliar, probably poisonous berries in the forest.
Unfortunately, our instincts fail us in the modern world. The average supermarket is a plethora of imported gourmet oddities that is unfamiliar to only the most cultured gourmand. Here are some other zebra foods.

"Blue" potatoes are really purple

 Blue potatoes. Remember in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the overachieving blond girl chewed gum that turned her blue? Well, it happened to these potatoes too.

How does this look like a dragon?

Are they seeds? Are they mold? The first time I saw dragonfruit from afar, it reminded me of a dark- haired guy’s five-o-clock shadow. Not appetizing.

A "tree tomato"

This fruit looks pretty pedestrian until you cut it in half. Then, BOOM, you discover it’s sporting some Gaelic art motif popular with tattoo artists.

Where your organic lubricant comes from

Did you ever wish your fruit were slimier and covered in sharp spikes? Well, you’re in luck! Head to your local Whole Foods and discover what it’s like to eat the slime monster from Ghostbusters!

The other kind of Frankenberry

This lab-synthesized abomination is supposed to taste like pineapple. What bothers me most about this fruit is that someone spent years and thousands of dollars developing a fruit that not only looks like an albino strawberry, it also doesn’t boast any remarkable health benefits like black rice.

Why the Kindle is a Godsend

Despite being an avid reader, I rarely set foot in a bookstore. Yesterday was the first time I went to a brick and mortar bookstore in at least six months. After I browsed for a few minutes, I was reminded why I made the transition to e-books.

Based on the cover, what would you assume Bridget Jones’s Diary is about? A beautiful young lady training to be a nun in a 1930’s boarding school? A fourteen-year-old trying to overcome her oppressive Puritan background so she can pursue her love of Ed Hardy- style graphic design?

For anyone who’s read the book, or even just seen the movie trailer, this cover seems radically inappropriate. In case you lived under a rock the past ten years, this is Wikipedia’s summary of the book: “written in the form of a personal diary, the novel chronicles a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something single working woman living in London. She writes (often humorously) about her career, self-image, vices, family, friends, and romantic relationships.” This cover in no way conveys that the main character is “thirty something”, hangs out with a gay, aging popstar and a woman that says fuck a lot. It also does not convey that her vices include heavy drinking. 



Yet this is better than most of the covers I’ve been subjected to as an urban fantasy fan. At least the new Bridget Jones’s Diary cover is creative. That is more than I can say for the average urban fantasy cover, which seem to come in three versions, max. I first noticed the unoriginality when I saw this cover.

 

Then I walked two centimeters along the same shelf and spotted this cover.

Both covers feature presumably the main character with her back turned to the viewer. But it could still be a coincidence, if it weren’t for ten other series’ covers featuring almost the exact same pose.

Of course, sometimes the publisher feels that showing this much of the main character reveals too much. So they just opt for showing the main character’s legs standing near something mystical.

Or maybe if the cover artist has been watching a lot of Matthew McConaughey movies lately, they decide the readers want to see the main character’s well-toned abdomen.

These covers tell me NOTHING about the protagonist. Occasionally, I can figure out if the book is about a werewolf or a witch. But most of the time, all the cover tells me is that the main character probably spends a lot of time at the gym. For books that feature a lot of combat and running, they also seem to wear a lot of inconveniently tight jeans and stiletto heels.

The worst part about these covers is that they are often VERY sexual. I can sort of understand some racy imagery on a paranormal romance cover. However, I cannot comprehend why a cover would be so explicit if the book featured NO SEX and an auxiliary romantic conflict. For example, take a gander at this urban fantasy cover.

This looks like softcore porn about that woman Jesse James cheated on his wife with. The main character, besides being celebate through most of the series, has only one tatoo.

So now I buy ebooks so I can read my urban fantasy books in public. Even if I stick to the adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, I still can’t buy any more books with needlessly sexual, ambiguously nude people on their covers. Because even if I don’t judge a book by its cover, someone will judge ME if they see me reading THIS.

How Lovely To Be A Woman

Today my mother went to the OB/GYN for the fifth time in one month (and we were out of the country for half the month). Frequent visits would be normal, if, say my mother was pregnant. But no, my mother has sandwiched herself between farting, bloated, waddling masses of fertility because she can no longer have children. And now that she may finally be free of the biannual gyno visit, her doctor is determined to diagnose her with something and snare an insured patient for life.

It all began with the abnormal papsmear. If you are unfamiliar with a papsmear, take your sharpest fingernail and stick it up your nose. Now drag your fingernail inside your nostril until you almost draw blood, then remove your nail. Look at what disgusting bodily fluid you have mined. A papsmear is like that except twice as much disgusting, humiliating, and painful because instead of your finger, there's a scary metal instrument. And instead of your nose someone is probing your VAGINA.

After suffering through this indignity, she moved onto her first ultrasound. Having an ultrasound when the oven is bunlessness is less pleasant because patients have to drink half a lake at least an hour before their appointment and not pee until the ultrasound is finished. This may seem only mildly uncomfortable if the patient has to actually endure only one hour, and the office is not behind schedule, which is never the case. The gyno's office, like the DMV, is the ironic ninth circle of hell reserved for incredibly impatient people. Here's a breakdown of my average ultrasound:

10:30: Arrive at waiting room for 11:00 appointment after dutifully drinking two liters of water. Settle down in ridiculously uncomfortable seat and drown out sound of proverbial wailing infant with iPod.

10:45: Cross legs and begin biting lip in discomfort. Look down at iPod and assure self that will only have to tolerate distended bladder for fifteen more minutes.

10:52: What? Only seven minutes have gone by? It felt like eternity. Ok, must distract myself even more. Watch the television.

10:53: Bad idea. It seems like 90% of adverts involve showers or large bodies of water. And toilets. Toilets being scrubbed, toilets flushing, toilet paper. Oh god, that dancing cartoon bear is taunting me. Charmin is the devil.

11:01: What? It's past eleven. I should be back getting my ultrasound, and several steps closer to being able to pee. Someone must pay for this grave injustice.

11:08: The person next to me is drinking a bottle of water. Very slowly. I can hear her gulping. I want to move, but I'm scared that if I do, the floodgates will open.

11:12: I'm not sure, but I think this is what my nerdy guyfriend from the seventh grade meant when he mentioned Chinese water torture.

11:15: I'm praying now. I'm praying that the next time the lady with the clipboard comes through that door she will call out my name, and I will not pee in front of a bunch of strangers.

11:17: I envy the child across from me that wear a diaper. No one cares if SHE pees herself, damnit!

11:21: How have I offended you, my Lord? Why have you brought this agony upon me? This must be how Job felt.

11:30: I'm going to do it. I'm going to pee my pants. I'm probably never going to see these people again. And the people who work here are used to dealing with WAY grosser fluids than pee. I bet a woman's water breaks once a week here.

11:32: I CAN'T DO IT. It's like my urinary tract went into lockdown mode.

11:40: YES! She called my name! I'm going to the examining room and taking off my clothes and putting a suit on. There's even a bathroom right across the hall.

11:44: Where'd the tech go?

11:50: Why'd she lead me back here only to make me wait, half naked and alone, for ten minutes.

12:01: Finally. She's back. And she's taking out her wand and- oh God, don't put that thing on top of my bladder. Stop pressing down. Stop pressing down! ::Ultrasound tech comments on how full my bladder is. I begin to cry.::

12:22: Ordeal is finished. I race to the bathroom, and make orgasmic sounds of joy as I finally relieve myself.

I think I go through all the stages of grieving there. Anger, denial, acceptance that I may pee yourself in a public place.

Anyway, so my mother just got her second ultrasound to top off many other degrading procedures. And now one of her ovaries have "disappeared." Now, I have heard of guys occasionally having a testicle recede, or lose one to cancer. But losing an ovary is especially disconcerting because there's NOWHERE for it to go. It's already inside of you.

So while I'm imagining scenarios involving weird ovary eating viruses and abduction by organ- stealing aliens, my mother explained that when a woman gets to menopause, their ovaries "change."

"How do they change?" I ask

Then Mom averts her gaze and changes the subject. So I went to Google and typed in post-menopausal ovaries. Now I wish Google would have an option to disable image search, because I'm now determined to die before I hit menopause. I will not describe the images that assaulted my eyes and shattered my innocence.

I'll never eat beef jerky again.