The Digital Domino

   Prehistoric man ate his food raw or cooked it over an big open flame as is.  And that was delicious.  Perhaps he even had the good sense to avoid grilled broccoli, because it's a strange food that looks a lot more like an alien's baby than a cruciferous vegetable.  That's the same group as cabbage, and nobody grills cabbage.      It's been a long while since I've been grilling, so my meat has primarily come in two forms: possibly still alive and under cooked enough to escape and extra blackened charcoal briquette.  Furthermore, when I attempted to use cedar chips to 'smoke' my grilled meats, I was at first excited by the concept - at least I'd have hickory smoked charcoal briquettes. This suddenly recalls to me the first martian probe launch, when they did the landing calculations in feet and programmed the lander in meters and that sucker buried. While possibly not as expensive, the mistake was of the same magnitude.  I now had 'Wo...

There will be no donuts this day, not for lack of trying, but I have simply run into a rather practical issue - I can't hold any. Saying I am at capacity wouldn't quite be accurate.  Based on the discomfort and the trouble I've been having disconnecting my butt from various sitting surfaces, I'd say that I have exceeded capacity. Food levels are at around 326%.  You'd think that number would slowly fall.  But no. This is a holiday. That number continues to rise.  Breakfast cinnamon roles and leftovers.  Sandwiches made from leftovers.  Leftovers cannibalized from some else's leftover leftovers.  When you're resorting to the cannibalisms, it may be time to admit to yourself that you have a problem.   Meanwhile, I need to drop a few pounds, and by a few, I mean roughly twenty pounds, seven of which is solid potato, plus an additional, say, four pounds gained yesterday (and clearly not burned off during my brief attempt to shop, whic...

    Alas, today the Twinkie company died.  Hostess is now gone.   Sadly, the grieving company's best cushion was the Twinkies they so lovingly made. This makes me unendingly sad.  My children will probably never know what a Twinkie was or what it means to the world.     Today is the 16th of November. We've all spent a lot of time seeking new jobs after our own company fell, and we've all been watching the news as everything we worked for is being sliced up into little pieces for sale. I'm not happy about this. The Article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-hostess-brands-seeks-court-permission-to-liquidate-20121116,0,3175964.story    I'm not sure what Twinkies were filled with.  I'm not sure what the cake was made from, but I implore you, do not let Twinkie die a slow death.  Let Twinkie live on, I say!  May it's foodstuffs ever be remembered in the songs of Legend!  Heavenly cream made from the v...

Another week of staring at my email. Another week waffling between 'yea, I could totally be captain of a tall ship for a living' and 'I'm not qualified to be a janitor in an abandoned sewer pipe. I don't know what to do!'  That's all been fun. But, there's still the poor man's donut.  Little Debbie, bless her ageless face and stupid hat, she sits on the box of a hundred different snacks that will be here long after mankind has nuked itself into oblivion and cockroaches have started to set up crude democratic republics across our sprawling land.  Little Debbie has the aptly named donut stick.  They come in a plastic package, a window into another world - a world where donuts are FOREVER. Look at that box.  Doesn't that look delicious? A perfect cup of coffee in a perfect mug, next to a pair of donuts.  I imagine kids, in their infinite wisdom, complained about the missing bit in the middle - they wanted a whole donut.  So the company wise...

     As the days pass by, one after the other, it becomes increasingly difficult to do basic things like wake up, shower, dress, pay bills, and maintain consciousness for more than sixty minutes at a time.   After a while, your log begins to look something like this: "Day 51 - The beer supply is dwindling and we've run out of twinkies.  Beard length has reached dangerous proportions.  Sandwiches and morale have both reached critically low levels. We may have to eat the dog."    Many of us have been there, distraught, seemingly without hope, wondering if, as time went by, you could easily determine which of your pets would be the least tough and stringy.  But lets not discuss pets. Lets talk about YOU.  What have you been doing to stay on track?  You're learning how to work in adverse environments right now.  Especially if you've EVER, even ONCE attempted to navigate the abysmal unemployment website. It truly is terr...

Sure it sounds healthy, but it isn't. It is currently about 8 o'clock in the morning and I've already eaten more candy than in the previous year combined.  A handful of Fun Size Snickers, a handful of Three Musketeers, some Milky Ways, pretty much anything I could stuff down into my ever expanding stomach. But DAMN that candy is good.  There are multiple tiers of Halloween candy, and name candy is at the top.  Whoever invented the Snicker's bar is brilliant and deserves the bazillion dollars he or she is probably earning.  It has chocolate that's sweet mixed with salty peanuts. It's chewy, but the peanuts also make it crunchy, and it has a savory nougat in the middle. It is by far the Swiss Army Candy.  You can put it on a stick and bake it, you can throw em' in ice cream, in cookies, you can bread and deep fry em' and they never get worse.  Too use a Halloween-type metaphor, it's like took a peanut shotgun and blasted the hell out of your best,...

I'm BACK!  After several weeks of long, long hours at a fun, but unfortunately short term position, I have returned to my roots! Unfortunately, I can't tell you where I was working, not because of the project I was working on - because the position I had (special kind of Production Assistant based around intellectual property security). I CAN tell you that it was in Miami. And I learned some things there.  Something important and breakfast related.  Churros. Those are delicious. It's like a single donut stick - a Mexican donut-saber.  It's an oddly long and amazingly delicious treat. Churros are served hot - the outside is awesomely crispy, covered in a stardust-type sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar, and the inside is a melty, doughy blend of amazing deliciousness. You should go get one of these right now, for two reasons.  Firstly, because based on their addictive nature, I have to at least guess that somewhere in that cinnamon sugar mix is crystal meth or so...

Friday, August 27th, 2012 We've discussed where donuts come from, and where donuts are from, and how donuts get here, and the many unusual ways donuts arrive here - what we haven't discussed is where all those pieces and parts used to assemble a donut come from - in a way, it is pretty amazing that a bunch of piles of different goo, powder, and grainy bits become a foodstuff.  Let's investigate, shall we? Enriched Wheat Flour (made with malted barley):  This ingredient comes from a pauper flower, who was once poor, but accumulated great wealth, (we should all be so lucky as to be enriched) probably in the form of pollen, but also possibly with Converse High-Tops, a widely excepted currency among flora and fauna in these regions. Like Robin Hood, we at Digital Domain Foodstuffs Group rob from the enriched and give to YOU! In any case, one can surmise that a fine summer ale was poured over the pauper, likely to honor the friends that couldn't be...

Friday, August 17th, 2012 Bagels.  You know what those look like? Today, they look like money.  So let’s talk about that for today.  What is a bagel worth, exactly?  Well, first we have to figure out what the currency of the land here abouts is.  What does one trade bagels for?  I gather  the answer is happy points, as gnome ears and double rainbows are rather difficult to come by, particularly in the treasure coast, mostly due to the lack of dragons and Indian restaurants.  Based on those variables, we can ascertain that a bagel is worth approximately 13.5 happy points, which means you trade bagels for happiness.  Those who hold bagels hold happiness. Due to the fluctuations in the market, this can range between 11.367 and 18.5 when the (S)ugar & (P)astry* 500 is up, the immutable laws of supply and demand, and the current state of the advanced toaster engineering market (which is excellent this year, by the way).   I kno...

Friday, August 10th, 2012 The last time I watched Lord of the Rings, I noticed something:  Those guys all have ridiculous names.  Not one dude in Lord of the Rings is named Steve.  No one is even named the somewhat more fantasy-centric ‘Stevantil.’  No.  Everyone and everything has a crazy surname.  Aargorn isn’t just Aaragorn. He’s Aaragorn, son of Aarathorn, heir to the Throne of Gondor, Last of the Dunedien, Eater of Stew.  Gandalf is Gandalf Graymane, Gandalf the White, and a bunch of other stuff.  But never the less formal ‘G.’  Places have those kind of crazy names,  as do swords. It can’t just be a bit of metal with a pointy end. There’s a Sting, and a Glamdring and probably a Spatula.  Tolkien took the time to write a backstory for every bit of extra name though, so perhaps he was on to something. Let’s try it. The forging of the one [pastry] of Donuduur began long ago in the Fiery Lake of Oilonus.*  Ther...

Friday, August 3rd, 2012 In contemporary pastryology circles, no theory is as hotly contested as Descartes “Ringed Pastry” Postulate which argues that any breakfast pastry is exponentially more enjoyable when shaped like a ring.  Time and time again, this theory has been scrutinized by top names in the pastry business, with inconclusive results.  Ring shaped cakes?  Mostly more awesome.  Ring shaped fruitcakes?  Just too close to tell.   According to the National Association of Dramatic Facts*, more donuts are surpassing technology as the staple by which scientific discoveries are measured.  In fact, they exist more in the realm of science fiction than fact, something I discovered watching ‘Star Wars.’   Think about it.  Luke PieStalker spends all his time worrying about some guy named Darth Tater.  Meanwhile, his mentors, Doughda and some other guy, Doughbi Wan something or other, is constantly reminding him to ‘use the f...

Friday, July 27th, 2012 It occurred to me that properly enjoying a fresh bagel is not unlike fishing, except it involves slightly less on the water side and slightly more on the toasting side.  Think about it: Everyone bobs on down to the kitchen, wherein, depending on the time of day, there may or may not be bagels. If it’s early enough, most are content to just cast about, adrift, waiting for a bite.  Once you’ve decided that this is a good spot, and that there are in fact bagels, it’s time to cast your line (hand) into the water (bags).  Each contains a unique species.  Some have scales (the sesame and poppy seed variety) and some an unusual smell (the onion and everything bagels).  These species travel, like fish, in groups.  Jellyfish travel in smacks, fish travel in schools, and bagels travel in bags.*  If you keep fishing in the same spot, you’re likely to get the same fishes over and over again.   Once caught, like a fish, you m...

Friday, July 13th, 2012 You know, last week I was driving into work listening to 'Remix to Ignition' and thinking about how the song, reputedly 'Fresh out the kitchen' was about donuts when the unthinkable happened - my donut delivery vehicle failed - my very own Friday the 13th Nightmare (though thankfully a week early. Who knows what would have happened if this had occurred TODAY!) This of course, got me to thinking about why technology fails.  Why don't big, major technology companies solve problems, like faulty tires, bad lawnmowers, and printers (not anything specific, just printers in general. FIX THEM!)  So we here at the Advanced Research And Development wing, lovingly referred to as 'Massive Doughnamics' have started thinking about a solution. Those awesome lights? The Donut shaped ones scattered around the office?  Donut transporters.  You heard me.  Those ring shaped lights, not unlike the electric car plugins, are forward-thinking areas fo...

Friday, July 6th, 2012 Happy post-fourth of July! I hope you all enjoyed a little red white and blue fun.  Today, we have donuts (or for those of you on the other side of the pond, Donuts).  It amazes me how people have different ways of addressing the same thing. For example, we have cookies, and England has biscuits.  They dip theirs in tea.  We dip ours in nothing, because a soggy biscuit of the American variety is pure insanity. But I digest.  My point is that some things just don't translate well from language to language. I've seen hot water bawl and I've enjoyed a sizzling char-grilled flaming young.  By that standard, donuts and doughnuts seem to be fairly easy to discern.  It's all about the way words are perceived.  For example, if I told you that I had gotten a filling, you'd probably notice a bit of gold in my teeth.  On the other hand, I'm fairly certain donuts don't visit the dentist for chocolate fillings. Or perhaps the...

Friday, June 29th, 2012 Coming up Wednesday next will be the Fourth of July - a day that famously honors the principles upon which our company stands.  Perhaps some things have changed (a chicken in every pot became a bagel in every bag) but the foundations remain the same! In any case, there is a BEAUTIFUL week coming up, now that tropical storm Debbie Downer has headed off on a two week cruise into the Atlantic, we can all enjoy a fantastic day off! What will you do?  I, myself, enjoy golf!  I've even played a couple of times.  I even took a six month class on golf, including the history, the rules, and learned how to play.  From all that, here's what I can tell you: Many years ago somewhere in Scotland, a man decided it would be fun to whack a ball with a bent stick into a bagel hole.  He chose a bagel hole because it was about the same size as the round-ish rock he was using to play with and because in Scotland, there are only about two t...

Friday, June 22nd, 2012 The more I write, the more I realize that the donut can really be the answer to any question you could possibly ask, like one unifying theory that kind of explains everything.  Why are we here? Donuts. What's for dinner? Donuts.  What's the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything? Forty-two. Donuts.  Where's Jimmy Hoffa?  Donuts.  Who's on first?  Donuts.  What's the airspeed velocity of an unlaiden swallow?  Depends on whether African, European, and number and type of coconut-frosted donuts carried.  What was I thinking? Donuts.  What time is it?  Time for a donut.  What aisle is the oregano on?  Same one as the donuts.  What is the capital ofConstantinople?  I donut know. These are all important questions, at least as far as donuts are concerned.  Do we understand all the answers? No, of course not!  Why is today National Eclair Day?  ...

Friday, June 15th, 2012 "Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."   These were the words of Professor Charles Xavier,   a man who rolled on a chair in which two bagel shaped wheels helped him change comic books forever.  But, he's right.  As you're eating movie-chow today, keep in mind that there are new artisan bagels in the mix. I'm not entirely sure what artisan means - I don't think it means the bagels were made a bagel artist. Because that's ridiculous - so ridiculous it probably actually does exist somewhere.  However, I can tell you that, from a simple, single-flavor plain bagel, bagels have evolved.  They include new ingredients, new toppings, and new spreads.  As your tastes evolves, so, too, do they!...

June 8th, 2012 Well, National Donut Day has passed. Today is just a regular ole' Digital Domain Dunkin Donuts Donut Day -   time to kick back and relax with a video game!  This week in Los Angeles was the Electronics Entertainment Expo, or E3 for short. It's a like a big premiere party for all the latest games and video game hardware.  This inspired me to sit down and play a few games - and I realized something:  Video game characters love pastries. I mean, they really, really love pastries.    As I loaded up the   awesomest  game with the latest graphics, I realized something: Pac-Man is always eating donut holes - the powdered kind.  Sonic the Hedgehog is always running (I mean, really running) to pick up golden rings I'm pretty sure are glazed donuts - and lets be honest, any small animal that ate that many glazed donuts could easily run at 3,257.2 miles per hour.  The girl  from Metroid, Samus Aaran?? Her gun fires shiny ...

Friday, June 1st, 2012 Prometheus brought man the gift of fire A present that warranted the God's greatest ire. And in that tradition of legends so grand  I bring more from Olympus to your open hand: I bring you the doughnut - a perfect glazed cake  A treat for which fir e man would gladly forsake. A round torus treat, an ambrosia from heaven  As filling as manna but donuts are leavened! Made in the fires of Vulcan's great Forge  This heavenly treat upon which we gorge  Has been shared with men great and small  From Digital Domain to Valhalla's hall Some are full of lemon cream Some a fluffy, chocolate dream, Some are sugared, some are plain, On some are rainbow sprinkles lain. Krueller, chocolate, cinnamon twist - But the favorite on the list - The one that leaves us ever amazed Has always been the original glazed! No fancy shapes, no powdery dust, Only ca...

Friday, May 25th, 2012 On our planet, there is a country. A country with a very weird name - Uzbekistan.  In Uzbekistan, there is a city.  Beside that city, there is a park.  Next to the park, there is a building. Outside of the building is car.  Inside the car is a hot, hot dashboard. On that dashboard is a melted chocolate bar. Next to the melted chocolate bar is a big book.  Inside the big book, there is an even smaller book hidden   Shawshank -style.  Inside of that book is a gum wrapper.  Inside that gum wrapper is probably a stick of gum.  But BESIDE the gum wrapper is a paragraph.  In that paragraph is a sentence - a sentence that answers the question: "What is the meaning of life?"  In that sentence, you will find the following word: BAGEL. Anyway, that should clear a few things about existence up for you.   But I'm not here to talk about how things were. I'm here to talk about how they WILL BE. ...

Friday, May 18th, 2012 The Muffin Man will provide!  We here at Muffin Studios pride ourselves in providing top-flight breakfast goods - because that's just how we roll.  And what better way to   roll than with a few   Cinnamon rolls? That's right - I managed to swipe a handful of delicious TEXAS style cinnamon buns.  Texas style, as best I gathered during my brief stay there, means BIG.  For example,   'big news' might be a new niece or nephew.  TEXAS STYLE news probably means you'd better get down to your bunker*, shut the doors, and start up the generator!   I have to ask, though, when a food is supposed to be 'style' I always imagine it to LOOK like some artifact from the given area - shouldn't a TEXAS STYLE cinnamon bun   really be a TEXAS STYLE cinnamon long-horn shaped treat?  That'd make more sense to me.  Louisana style gumbo should look a little more like the bayou.  Perhaps ' à la mode' would be ...

Friday, May 11th, 2012 Yes, to answer your question.  Donuts* were created to honor our saucer flying friends from out of town. The shape should be obvious, resembling both the disk in which they fly (minus the pilot, of course, because that would be ridiculous to eat) AND the portal through which they traveled to our dimension.  That's why this week, we have star shaped donuts with star shaped sprinkles, to remind us of our alien friends' homes among the stars**. They are, in fact, limited edition MEN IN BLACK donuts, which I'm sure you realized as soon as you saw the six black SUV's that surrounded my car, pulled me over, and loaded my car with delicious limited edition   star shaped donuts.  Like what aliens would do, except with SUV's.  I may or may not be an agent of this department's   F.I.E.L.D. department (as you'll recall, this is Food Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division).  You'll notice I don't wear a black suit int...

Friday, May 4th, 2012 Ah, Friday mornings!  I'm pleased to report that as of this week, it's been a year since the first donut email rattled about in my brain (breaking off a few corners) and poured out of my ear in a jumbled mess onto the computer screen before you!  I thought it was time to explain where the donut emails come from!  It is not, as many have claimed, done after having recently enjoyed the smoking kernels of ancient Indian herbs while meditating at the bottom of hidden lake.  Honestly I can't hold my breath that long. No, no. Donut emails come from a much more practical place, indeed.  Outer space.   It is of course, no coincidence that today is May 4th - national Star Wars day.     I suspect some of you may not know why today is national Star Wars day.  Don't worry about that - we'll get around to it at the end!    In any case, in creating donut emails, my ally is the force - and a powerful ally it...

Friday, April 27th, 2012 A week ago at this time, I was in Texas* - far, far from the comforting   breakfast foods I've become so comfortably associated with   (an unfair characterization, as I also have a keen interest in the brewing of ales and the baking of   cakes).  While there, I attempted to discover quite a few interesting   breakfast-things and gained a better understanding of the laws of physics. Allow me to explain.  I visited a lovely shop called   'Baker's Ribs' (also a shop called the Beef Jerky Outlet - yes it's real, but that's a story for another email).  This was a lovely shop that sold what I imagine is the   quintessential Texan breakfast food: The Fried Pie.  A fried pie is essentially an 'elephant ear' or funnel cake filled with one or more of the following: Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, chocolate, vanilla,   fairy dust, magic beans, pecans, various meats (not jerky).  To the eye, the...

Friday, April 13th, 2012 You know, I stumbled across an interesting question while enjoying a midnight snack of oatmeal and chocolate cake the other day: Does Robocop enjoy donuts?  His helmet clearly permits donut ingestion, but his body - can it process the goodness that is a donut?  And his emotions are murky - would he enjoy said donut?  Would it trigger memories of bygone days? Maybe Robocop can eat special robo-donuts.  Perhaps the   key ingredients   of his diet are sprinkles of screws and bolts where blueberries once laid.  Perhaps those are actually his motivating force - donuts have to be one of the greatest actual perks of being a police officer!  I'm pretty sure that on the police officer's shield it says something like, "To protect AND SERVE DONUTS."  Or something reasonably close to that. In any case,  I believe Robocop should be allowed to enjoy donuts just like the rest of us!    Especially after finding ...

Friday, March 30th, 2012 If you're like me, you woke up at 3:47 AM on Tuesday wondering "Where do donut holes come from?"  You make have heard them   referred to as munchkins, a word derived from the   Pacific islands meaning " small awesomes."   What you may not know is their tale!      Donuts grow into Glazed Giants,* floating in deep space, blasting streams of chocolate, glaze, and other delicious frostings out into   the cosmos.  Their gravity is so great that they pull matter into them, which causes them to expand.  However, once a donut becomes TOO massive, it collapses on itself, forming what's known as a Powdered Dwarf.  The very largest of those eventually explode in a brilliant display known as a superdoughva.  These explosions leave our skies dotted with the sugars and glazes you see   every night.  That's right - glazes make the stars twinkle!    In any case, all that collected mat...

Friday, March 23rd, 2011 Some days, I wish the bagels would write their own emails.  I oven wonder would say.  The well bread bagels might write about the current political climate for immigrant bagels in Estonia.  But many, I'd imagine, would write about their dreams - where they'd like to go, perhaps who might have them for lunch some day.  Perhaps some would discuss inner changes, like blueberries, vs. outer changes, like sesame seeds or poppy seeds.  Maybe they'd discuss bagel astrology* - which two types of bagels would work best together (but I suppose it would all return to 'it's what's inside that counts.') That's the thing about bagels, though.  Once they're through the Dunkin' door, they never call, they never write - who knows where they go or what they do!  Some bagels might join an expedition to scale mount Everest! Some might become part of a food eating competition!  Some might   be for the birds - and some might be ...

Friday, March 16th, 2012 So thinking on a job title, I decided that I could never really be at the very top - primarily because I'm not omnipotent.    Small doughballs grow up to be something fancy, much like a Lord of All Bageldom might have done.  However, none reach so high or go so far as the near-omnipotent everything bagel.    The everything bagel is, by its very nature, all knowing.  It has all knowledge and wisdom.  It knows what's going to happen before it happens and is aware of events so far in the past they came long before the beginnings of   what we call the universe*.    Thinking more on it, does it not resemble a galaxy, dotted with sesame stars and   onion asteroids!  They swirl across their superstructure!  How grand is that?  Given these facts, is it really so hard to believe that the everything bagel knows who's going to win next year's Oscar, what you had for breakfast, the atomic w...