Author: Buffet o' Blog

Laughing is good for you. So this blog is a buffet of randomness and humor. Most of the content here is original and thus exclusive to this site. I encourage everyone to participate in the comments section -- it makes it more fun for everyone.

fun-sized candy bars

In a recent post about trying to be a responsible adult with a bowl of chocolate, I ended it with the idea of eating “a reasonably-sized piece of chocolate”. That made me think of “fun size” candy bars. That’s a weird bit of marketing. Does anyone think those bite-sized candy bars are actually more fun?

Plenty keeps me up at night. Global warming. The world my kids will inherit. The logic behind calling the smallest candy bars “fun size” when the real fun comes from eating a mass of chocolate the size of a brick. ~ Jon Wertheim

Can’t argue with that. 🙂 If there were truth-in-advertising laws that applied here, those “fun size” candy bars might be called “small enough to make you mad” or “it’s tiny so we can say it’s not many calories” or “try to eat just one”. 🙂 Some of those are so small that you have to make a concerted effort to make it more than one bite.

One time I saw a 5-pound Hershey’s chocolate bar. I think it was at the Hershey’s store in Times Square in New York City. Attempting to eat that would be a lot more fun than one bite of chocolate. It would be so unhealthy and unreasonable, too, but we’re talking about fun. Healthy and reasonable might be eating a salad instead, and where’s the fun in that? (I will admit that it is possible to make a great tasting salad, but healthiness decreases at an inverse rate as tastiness increases, which is a discussion for another day.)

Also, think about how great a gift it would be to give someone a 5-pound chocolate bar. Young kids would not be able to contain their excitement and astonishment. They might even start dancing spontaneously. Some adults may also not be able to hide their excitement, either. 🙂 The recipient might be excited at having so much chocolate to themselves, or they could share it and be the life of the party. Giving away chocolate makes any party better!

improving Trump’s NFT digital trading cards

Before the randomness, here’s the backstory in case you hadn’t heard about it (which is somewhat random on its own).

Recently former President Donald Trump teased a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” coming up, so some people wondered if he was creating his own political party or announcing his Vice-President. Well, apparently “MAJOR” has different meanings for some people. His big news was that he’s selling digital trading cards (NFTs) of himself in Photoshopped images for $99 each.

What’s funny about it is how the video commercial was done, and how crazy the cards are (in that they don’t represent his actual life at all). See for yourself: Collect Trump Cards. He tries to make a couple of self-deprecating comments, but you know it’s not sincere because he immediately says he’s better than Lincoln and Washington. You can win a chance for dinner with him. It might be eating hamburgers at McDonald’s. 🙂 Watching the video, I wonder if Trump refused to do any reshoots of his presentation or if all the other takes were somehow worse. 🙂

He says in the video that these make “a great Christmas gift”. What follows is just my advice, so do whatever you want with it, but I’d recommend to NOT give one of these to anybody even if they’re a big Trump fan. They are NFTs, which mean they exist in the “cloud” (or, rather, blockchain). Basically, you’re getting a picture that is stored on someone else’s computer. And despite the hype around NFTs, I do not think they are a good investment. (Although standard disclaimers apply with any investing advice. I’m not a professional investing agent, but I will not be buying these. However, while I don’t recommend buying NFTs for investment, I wouldn’t be against selling them if someone wants to give me $99 for a picture I made on my computer. It’s a good deal for the person selling them, but not for most people buying them.) Instead of a Christmas gift, this is a Christmas grift. He’s just after your money.

Supposedly there were 45,000 copies generated, and they are now sold out. That’s sad, that that many people gave him money for not much in return. Also, regarding “value”, each time you sell one, “there will be a 10% royalty on the sale price that will be paid back to the creator”.

Okay, let’s get back on track here (meaning randomness). The reality is sad, and while it was supposed to be “MAJOR”, it was lame. So let’s take it up a notch! Someone needs to create some real trading cards (and not NFTs) that depict the more hilarious parts of Trump’s lifestyle. (Remember that these cards were supposed to be showing “really incredible artwork pertaining to my life and my career”, but, none of them do, except maybe the golf one.) So here’s some ideas:

  • Trump with the buffet of cheeseburgers at a White House dinner
  • Trump flushing documents down the toilet
  • Rudy Giuliani’s press conference at The Four Seasons Total Landscaping
  • Trump saluting a North Korean general
  • Covfefe
  • Trump redrawing a hurricane’s path with a Sharpie
  • Trump saying his tax returns are big and beautiful, and they will be released in two weeks
  • Trump saying he exchanged “beautiful letters” with North Korea’s leader and they “fell in love”
  • Trump saying he will release the “irrefutable evidence” of voter fraud in two days (which he never did)
  • Trump losing the 2020 election by over 7 million votes
  • Trump selling NFT cards

I glanced on eBay and there are a number of Trump parody cards for sale, including several Garbage Pail Kids variations. A search, if you want to see for yourself: Donald Trump parody cards.

Update: I wrote the above a while back, and now some guys have made “Honest Trump Cards”, showing him in front of a small piece of border wall that was built, and Trump mocking a disabled man, Trump pouting from losing the 2020 election, Trump behind jail bars, Trump with burgers and fries, etc. You can see them here: Honest Trump Cards NFTs. Some of them are silly, which fits with the theme, but my favorite is him in front of a partial border wall. He made such a big deal of building a wall (which is not a bad idea), how he was the businessman to get it done and make Mexico pay for it, yet it was an epic fail. It fits in with his career resume, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

holiday meals don’t cause obesity

As we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, there will undoubtedly be news journalists and magazine writers telling people to not overeat at holiday feasts. So let me preempt their “breaking news” and tell you to not listen to them! Eating more than normal at the occasional feast doesn’t mean you’ll get fat or that you’re a glutton. There has been actual research done on this which showed that the average weight gain for the entire holiday season is just 0.8 pounds. Look at that number — less than one pound! So don’t worry about a meal here or there. It’s your daily habits that determine if you’re overweight or not. Go ahead and enjoy the family get-togethers during the holidays. Enjoy the food and don’t feel guilty if you occasionally eat more than normal.

I’ve ranted on this before, so I’ll just link to that, which links to the actual news article with the research: holiday eating is not making you fat.

If you typically concern yourself with counting calories and saturated fat grams and such, don’t let that keep you from enjoying your meal. As I wrote above, one meal is not the problem. But if you feel the need to have restraint (like if your doctor told you to avoid sugars), then decide before the meal what you will eat and how much, then eat the meal within those boundaries so you don’t ruin your enjoyment of the meal, like I wrote about recently in my post about a bowl of chocolate versus a responsible adult. It’s a mindset strategy so you can enjoy your situation even when there’s restrictions.

Oh, and if someone wants to argue about it before or after your family get-together, you can tell them about the actual study in the news, but if they’re determined to not enjoy their meal, that’s on them and it may not be worth your time arguing about it. Just go eat another piece of pecan pie… 🙂

bowl of chocolate vs responsible adult

What should be done with this?

We have a big bowl of chocolate candy bars in our dining room. This is not normal, because we try to eat reasonably healthy most of the time. But we just passed Halloween, and for various reasons we had less trick-or-treaters this year. (I’d guess because it was a Monday — a school night — and our closest neighbors decorated less than normal. More people went to the other side of our subdivision, which had more decorations.) Regardless of how and why, the end result is a lot of tempting chocolate in my house.

So what am I supposed to do with all this chocolate? The obvious answer is to EAT IT! But there’s a flaw in the slaw: I’m trying to be a responsible adult here. One of my goals is to lose some weight and be more fit, and chocolate bars don’t exactly fit in fitness. But the counter-argument is that I’m a grown-up, so I can eat whatever I want. And that’s true. Therein lies the dilemma.

Do you remember being a kid and being limited by your parents on things like eating sweets and watching TV and playing video games? You probably dreamed of how one day you’d be a grown-up who can set your own rules and how wonderful that will be. And it is good. But you also (hopefully) learn that there are good reasons to be responsible and it’s better to do those things in moderation. It reminds me of this funny quote:

I don’t think I can talk Jen into installing a deep fat fryer in our kitchen. That’d rock! A short order grill. I can sit home and make grilled cheese sandwiches, hash browns, French fries, and pancakes all day long. Mmm. The fat kid in my brain just got really excited. The adult in my brain has to calm him down. Which really is what “growing up” is all about — telling the kid in your brain to sit down and behave, while the grown-up in our brain says, “You know, it’d be more responsible of us if we did this instead…” Stupid brain. ~ Jeff Schell

That’s the mental battle that we all must endure. But let me caution and encourage you with the word “moderation” in another context. Being an adult — especially when you have children — means being serious and responsible a lot more often than you may want to be. If we go too far on the serious side, it can drain the joy and happiness out of life. We don’t want to become an adult that forgets how to have fun. (I suppose that applies to everyone. But if you don’t want to laugh and be happy, that’s your choice, but I don’t recommend it.) Life is much better when it’s enjoyed. You can still be responsible and serious while enjoying the journey. That’s where moderation applies here — it’s not just about limiting the fun, but it can remind us to be serious in moderation. Allow yourself to have fun, even when life is busy and overwhelming. Actually, being able to enjoy your life makes the serious parts less tedious! So it’s helpful to have fun!

So the next time you’re about to eat a piece of chocolate that you might feel somewhat guilty about, find the balance — set a limit of how much, but within that limit, enjoy it as much as possible. While eating it, don’t think about calories or saturated fat grams or sugar or how much exercise it would take to burn it off — just close your eyes and savor each delicious bite. (You tend to enjoy it more when you eliminate distractions, so closing your eyes actually helps.)

Now go enjoy a reasonably-sized piece of chocolate! 🙂