Foot Long and Fancy-Free

Today after lunch with a fellow office-knight, I returned to my duties only to be apprehended again by the same, who pointed out that we both smelled like a mixture of baked goods and Subway sandwiches (of which our noonday repast was primarily composed). This is definitely a source of shame for me: I’ve been taken in by the rhetoric of Doctor’s Associates, Inc. (the holding-company of Subway brand restaurants): the promise of fresh bread and “Five Dollar Foot Longs” has been too much for this knight’s calorie-addled senses. Why does consuming twelve inches of bread smothered in cheese, farm-raised chicken, and cheap veggies seem like a good idea? [On the subject of food quality standards, Subway encouragingly notes on their website that “the SUBWAY® chain has initiated a number of "Gold Standard" policies regarding prepared food and produce manufacturing and inspection specifications.” It’s true, gold standards are very encouraging. My helmet, in fact, has a gold standard in the shape of a giant **** emblazoned on it. Whoops, I mean, a foot long sandwich. Makes you feel safe, don’t it?]

In a word, it is the illusion of choice. It is the idea that I can have anything I want on my sandwich (which today happened to be 3 different kinds of peppers, most importantly) to make it taste however I want. This is a falsehood. As my fellow office-knight noted, we smelled like Subway. Try it. Go into one of these fine establishments for a while, and see if you don’t have a distinctive odor about you when you come out – this is also the way your sandwich will taste, but the illusion of choice makes you think you’re getting exactly what you want. I do not approve of this sorcery, but its siren song calls me every day, “Sans Loy, oooooooooo, you can get so much more food for five dollars at Subway than at the abysmal Plum Café in the office. OoooOOooooooO”

And so I return, my tail between my legs, lamenting that I forgot to pack a lunch in the saddlebags today.

Bad form in LEGOland

Your vote will NOT be tabulated

This is a poll that will prepare you for any future elections in this kingdom. In order to be ready, you must put aside all questions of capability, integrity, policy or ethics. Just pick the picture you like best. (Poll is in the sidebar)

Your training is complete, squyere. You may now resume watching “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” and eating your microwaveable, low-fat, chicken cordon-bleu. And when it does come time to select that special someone – making extra sure your chad is dangling seductively from your ballot – you may be secure in the knowledge that the person you have selected to ravage the economy for the next few years, much like when the Vikings ravaged East Anglia a while back, looks funny in press pictures sometimes.
UPDATE, 5/2/08: One vote, for Billy boy. Figures.

Realizing that he is certainly not the only one to have noticed, ridiculed, and complained about the trio of commercial knaves behind Baron Barack Obama (or is he a Viscount? I can never remember), this knight is unimpressed by the “models” employed by the Ambercrombie & Fitch company. All of them had bad haircuts, one of them seemed a bit slack-jawed, and the others were alternately smirking and awkwardly trying to keep their “Change” signs from covering up their brand logos. If Obama had wanted to turn a good speech into a great speech (with this scenario, it would have been better than Clinton’s speech, which was reportedly the better of the two delivered last night), he should have had those shameless corporate shills ejected right as he was talking about his campaign’s refusal to take money from lobbyists and corporate interests. Whether or not it was intentional on the part of the Obama campaign, the presence of those giant white letters, “F-i-t-c-h,” burning into everyone’s retinas is not to be underestimated, and effectively distracted from a rather cunning response to losing a state primary election.

And as if the A & F boys weren’t enough, we were further diverted by the giant shiny pate of a man who looks almost exactly like Larry David bobbing up and down behind the contender for the throne.

Anyway, the whole thing gives me indigestion. Sans Loy is off to find some alka-seltzer, if the horse hasn’t eaten it all already. As my good friend Chaucer likes to say of alka-seltzer, “That is a fruyt ful wel to lyke, Namely to folk whan they ben syke.”

Nothing Better to Do?

You may have noticed reports with headlines like this over the weekend, if you live in the kingdom of Chicago, like I do: “6 dead, more than 20 hurt in shootings over weekend.” One of these shootings took place a mere 100 feet from my castle,

“The first shooting occurred about 10:30 p.m. in the 2800 block of West 21st Street in the Southwest Side’s Little Village neighborhood, according to a report from the police First Deputy Superintendent’s office.

Killed was 26-year-old Angel Ramirez, of 2714 W. 23rd St., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, which said Ramirez was shot at 2854 W. 21st St.

The three men were standing on a corner, leaning on a car when the backseat passenger of a gray 4-door Chevrolet with three men inside opened fire with a handgun striking the men, according to Ogden District police Sgt. Juan Ortiz.

Ramirez was shot in the neck and reportedly dead on the scene. Another 26-year-old man was listed in "stable" condition at Mount Sinai Hospital with a gunshot wound to the left arm. A third male, 23, suffered a graze wound to the left thigh and was also in "stable" condition at Mount Sinai, according to the deputy’s report.

After the shooting, the gray Chevrolet fled westbound and then went north on Marshall Boulevard, Ortiz said.

Ramirez was a construction worker, and had no history of arrests but the other two victims do have arrest records, Ortiz said.

Ortiz said the drive-by attack is considered gang-related because the area where the shooting occurred is particularly known for gang violence.”

This is not the first such incident in my neighborhood since I settled there in June last year. My question is this: What drives a man to shit where he eats in such a manner? Is there so little to do, are there so few books to read, so few friends to see, damsels to woo, and indeed, such dull hope for life that these miscreants, who undoubtedly live nearby (a similar shooting which took place literally in front of the castle-gate was perpetrated by some barbarians who lived not two blocks away), are willing to sully the name of the very hamlet they live in? It is now “particularly known for gang violence.”

And it certainly cannot be for honor, one does not gun down a man in cold blood for honor. If fighting may be honorable, then it must be a fight on even ground, between similarly equipped opponents (this knight prefers the joust).

Nay, the pertinent questions – for we know that the obvious answer to the questions I posed above is “Yes.” – are those that must be posed to our society. Why is there a persistent underclass whose prospects are so lacking that they think little of killing each other, and less of the pall that it casts over their community? What can we do about it? I venture that perhaps it is time for some direct action from the Queen. To increase the peasantry's prospects, we must expand their minds; their education, first and foremost, should be the concern of this kingdom, and the royal coffers should be opened to accommodate this endeavor.

The "war" with the Persians, I fear, is now and has ever been merely a costly matter of political expediency, and the gold allocated to that faraway battle would be ever so much better spent on concrete matters to increase the happiness and productivity of those at home.

In the name of Cultivation and Precision

Dear readers,

You may have noticed that the title of this guide (the word "blog" – if it may be called a word – is an affront to the Queen's English, a barbarism, a portmanteau, nothing if not French and crude) has changed today. This change is made to better reflect both the recent resurrection of this discourse, and a shift in this knight's thinking of late, a mark of my maturation in the service of that greatest Glorious Queene of Faerie lond... what's that you say, this is America? Balderdash, you speak of myths! Regardless, I encourage you to peruse the manifesto posted to the right, and to look for future postings on matters consequential and otherwise.

Your most humble servant,

Sans Loy

Brazen Bananas

Which of us hasn't come in from a long day at work or play and felt that we needed something elemental to give us energy, something that combines the necessary calories with healthy nutrients and electrolytes? At this juncture, the most intelligent – the bravest and canniest among us – reach for a banana. It is the perfect fruit, or so we've been taught. But is it perhaps conceivable that this love for bananas, this potassium propaganda, has invaded the cultural consciousness not through health education and motherly advice, but ultimately derives from a far more vested source?
Chiquita Brands International, Inc. sells almost $5 billion worth of bananas and assorted fruit to the gullible every year. Despite a big financial upheaval in the ‘90s, (not to mention the 1998 scandal story in the Cincinnati Enquirer – later retracted – alleging environmental and human rights abuses by the company at its Latin American plantations) Chiquita (NYSE:CQB) now trades for about $23, up $10 from 9 months ago, and has a market cap of almost $1 billion. Big money, right?

Chiquita doesn't hesitate to exploit its standing in this vast market. In their words,

“more than 90% of the people in countries where our products are sold know the Chiquita name! In the U.S., our awareness level is even higher - 98%. That makes Chiquita one of the world's most recognized brands! We're proud of our reputation. It's something we've been working on for over a hundred years.”

Boy, she looks tasty, doesn't she? “Everyone knows Chiquita for our delicious fresh bananas.” This reputation they seem so proud of, so intent on protecting, the very reputation that they used to brainwash millions of us into eating mind-altering bananas every day, will stand no longer in the face of the evidence I am about to present here. Banana lovers, prepare yourselves for disillusionment.

I give you the true form of Chiquita bananas, with the evil spell of marketing cast off:

As Prime Banana Minister Winston Churchill said in a speech to the House of Commons & Plantains in July, 1941,

“You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate campaign to force-feed us your evil bananas. We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst - and we will do our best.”

Sans Loy returns, his quest incomplete, but his zeal undimm'd.

In June, almost two years ago, I put on my armor, mounted my steed, packed a pouch of salt-pork, a wineskin and my trusty digital camera, and set off for lands unknown, endeavoring to bring shame to the uncouth peoples of the West. Internet access was sparse, and my resolve was sorely tried by an attack of the tropical measles and a pesky horde of gadflies. In my delirium, I wandered the digital underbrush, and forgot entirely to remember my kind sponsors in internet-land: those who laughed with me at other people.

















Later, my travels took me to the far north, where it is the custom for the women to wear small animals stitched together as coats, and where they set their heads aflame, or perhaps paint them to mimic those traffic cones, which they seem to revere as holy totems. This is one such savage.

Gentle reader, I hope you will not take affront at this documentation of the crude practices of barbarians in faraway lands, but rather see by it that I am earnest in my pledge to once again bring shame to the shameful, and mirth to the rest. Sans Loy returns to civilization.