The Go-Tart

Estimated reading time: 50 seconds

Today's topic: Kellogg's new version of the Pop-Tart, the Go-Tart.

The two products are made of the same goodness: mysteriously consistent crust, high-fructose laden fruit-like filling and the party-themed candy-coated top.

The only difference between the old and the new is the shape.

The Pop-Tart insists on sticking with its bulky, 3x4-inch rectangular travesty, a shape that hit its peak in the early 80s. The Go-Tart, on the other hand, takes the shape of the sleeker, more hip, and possibly healthier, Butterfinger.

The enhanced, streamlined contour makes the Go-Tart much easier to handle, easier to "grab and go," a joy to consume while operating a car and way more convenient to stuff into a purse, backpack or your giant, fat, salivating child's mouth.

My only take on this: Thank God. Anything they could do to make those clunky, complicated and hard-to-grasp Pop-Tarts easier to eat with a 21^st century, on-the-go, not-enough-time-to-hassle-with-a-POP-TART-anymore lifestyle would be a much welcomed improvement.

Just for the kids out there, here is the Go-Tart ingredient list:

ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN, COTTONSEED AND HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL† WITH TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID FOR FRESHNESS), CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF GLYCERIN, STRAWBERRY PUREE CONCENTRATE, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, CORNSTARCH, PEAR PUREE CONCENTRATE, SALT, APPLE PUREE CONCENTRATE, TAPIOCA STARCH, APPLE POWDER, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE), NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, DEXTROSE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, CELLULOSE GEL, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, MILLED CORN, CORN SYRUP, MALIC ACID, CARAMEL COLOR, PROPYLENE GLYCOL ALGINATE, DATEM, CELLULOSE GUM, WHEY PROTEIN ISOLATE, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OIL†, RED #40, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, CITRIC ACID, COLOR ADDED, NIACINAMIDE, REDUCED IRON, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, TURMERIC COLOR, FOLIC ACID, BLUE #1, SOY LECITHIN.

Why I vacationed in Dallas

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 24 seconds

Last month I asked if I could leave work a little early because I had an early morning flight to catch.

"Oh yeah? Where are you going?"

"Dallas."

He literally laughed. "Seriously?"

I was serious. I can understand why he found my answer humorous. Although a fine city nonetheless, people don't really see Dallas as a vacation hotspot. It's like Boise or Kansas City or Cleveland.

I gave him the short answer. We have friends there. Here's the long answer:

In April, 2001, we lived in Corpus Christi, Texas and had zero friends living within a 1,000-mile radius. New town, new jobs. It was understandable. Within six months, things started to change.

First came along Tapril, a combination of two people named Tate and April. Erin taught with April at Calallen High School. Tate was her husband, a lawyer. They turned out to be our first couple friend.

From my experience, couple friends create an inherently volatile situation where two people who enjoy each other's company decide to sit their spouses across from one another at a restaurant for a round of uninspired and painfully clumsy small talk while they laugh and talk it up like nothing unusual. Luckily, we and Tapril were able to avoid these follies.

Next, the baron landscape of friendship that was my workplace started to transform. It seemed that every few weeks, a new face would arrive and we would become friends. As people arrived, the circle got bigger and within a year, we had at least seven good friends (I define a good friend as someone you could hang out with by yourself, without the social buffer of another person to take the pressure of the awkwardness of dull conversations and the incompatibility you share).

It was the first time I had that many good friends since my fourth birthday party and that was only because my mom invited everyone on our street and the next street down.

Because of the size of our city, nobody lived farther than 15 minutes drive from anyone else. And our similar work schedules made it not uncommon to push two, even three tables together for post-work drinks and/or unnecessary face-stuffing.

If you wanted someone to hang out with, one person and usually more were up for it. This meant brunch at John and Helen's, Chinese lunch buffet with Ryan and John, camping with Karson (or Tapril), beading with Helen and Kari (that was Erin, of course, not me), reality TV with John, hillbilly concerts with Tapril, coffee before work with Karson, volleyball, karaoke, the beach, pool(s), IHOP and so on.

I don’t know if any of us realized how amazingly odd this was at the time.

But people early in their careers, especially anyone who works in newspapers likely will have somewhat of a transient life. You find a newspaper, work there for a year or three than move on, usually to a bigger paper, a bigger city.

Slowly, the same forces that lured everyone to Corpus Christi sent them away. We all began to go our separate ways. Except something funny happened, something odd and unimaginable. For their own unrelated reasons, all of our friends ended up in the same city again. Except us. We moved as far away as you could without applying for a work visa. And then moved again, just as far in another direction.

And that's what brought us to Dallas/Fort Worth. Besides trips to Denver to see family, it was the first trip where experiencing something new – a new city, a new culture, a new landscape – was not on the list.

We came with no plans, no sights to see. We came to do what we used to do on a near daily basis. Talk, laugh, drink, gossip and laugh some more. And we flew a thousand miles to do it.

The highlight of our trip for me was a single moment. Nothing terribly planned. We were all gathered at Karson's and had opened some wine that Ryan brought. Somebody asked whoever to do a toast. It was more for the sappy sentimentality than a group of people taking themselves seriously.

Ryan stepped up and out of nowhere, with glass held high and a gaze toward the ceiling for comedic effect, he said, "There are wood ships, and good ships, and ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships and may they always be."

A classic Irish toast and now a classic moment. It was hilarious, irreverent, sentimental and poignant all at once.

If Ryan had said the same words, holding the same wine, in front of the same people a few years earlier, I probably would have chuckled. But the meaning would have been lost. Because then, I lived 10 minutes away. And we would see each other tomorrow.

Rooting for nobodys

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 4 seconds

When thinking about professional sports – say, the NBA – you think about sportsade endorsements, night club entourages, all-star games, Sportscenter highlights and theatrically overblown pre-game introductions.

But for all the famously overpaid, pampered, super celebristars, there are a couple guys on every team that sit at the end of the bench wearing their warm-ups throughout the game. They never get introduced before tipoff and rarely even play.

Although it may seem obvious and uninsightful, that guy, the guy who remains anonymous to fans and media plays on an NBA team.

That guy defied serious odds to make it to the most elite point possible.

At every level he played at – junior leagues, high school, college – he was likely the best player on the team, way ahead of the competition.

Right now he could walk in to any gym or crash any pickup game in the world and be the best player on the floor if not outright dominating. He’s a better player than 99.7 percent of people who have ever picked up a basketball.

Despite all of this, to most fans he “sucks.” He sits the bench. Not only is he not the star of his team, he hardly contributes anything. And if he does play, it is only because the score is so lopsided that his presence on the court will not have any effect on the game’s final outcome.

Among his peers, he is paid the least (albeit hundreds of thousands a year) and plays the least.

He has immense talent in some respects and zero talent in others. He suits up in front of thousands of people three times a week yet remains a nobody.

And while the salary probably makes the medicine go down, I can’t help but feel a little for these guys. They’ve made it to the pinnacle of basketball but on some levels are failures.

So the next time I go to an NBA game, I’m not going to cheer for the superstars. They have enough people who know them, love them and cheer them. After all, they’re in the NBA and they’re successful.

Mechanical bulls and me

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 34 seconds

Perhaps it was because my first question was "Do they have a mechanical bull?"

But for whatever reason, when it was confirmed by sight that a mechanical bull was indeed in operation at the Stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas, it was instantly assumed that I would ride it.

No one else in our group of five even hinted at or entertained the slightest thought of they themselves taking a wild albeit unnecessary spin on the mechanical beast. But everyone questioned not if I should ride, but would the ride come immediately or after having given the ¾-lbs. burrito I had just eaten time to hit the bottom of my stomach.

I, of course, wouldn't have it any other way, this being my first encounter with a mechanical bull. And given the amount of thought I have given to the subject of mechanical bulls – talking about them, writing about them, joking about them – to not ride when given the opportunity would be unspeakable.

To me, mechanical bulls are inherently funny. For one, the honky tonk atmosphere of silly, skinny white guys in clownish shirts, funny hats and cowboy boots is a good start. Getting these fellers to ride a bucking machine based on the actions of an erratic and aggressive animal to the point of covering the contraption with the hide of a real bull and you have created something legendarily humorous.

The idea of riding a real bull is absurd enough. Take a powerful, angry, volatile, unpredictable animal and tie an ungodly strap around its private parts, making it more angry, volatile and unpredictable. Then, for the dumb witted, yee-haw fun of it, get on its back and stay on for as long as possible before getting tossed off like you were made of hay and held together by a pair of discarded overalls. Too easy? Well, you can only hold on with one hand. Oh yeah, and to make some sense out of this whole rigamaroll, once you get bucked off the dangerous beast, clowns shall run out to serve as distraction as you pick up your goofy hat and scamper off over some bleachers.

But with a mechanical bull, an absurd and, face it, idiotic event is replicated as entertainment for people who want to ride the bull but don't want the risk of being a) stomped b) disemboweled or c) having their neck snapped as they tumble to an unforgiving dirt surface.

An amusement ride is born. But unlike a normal thrill ride, which undoubtedly buckles you to your seat using straps and belts with the goal of keeping you safely attached to the vessel, a mechanical bull hopes for just the opposite. Its goal is to get you to fall off, and the more violently spectacular you are tossed aside, the better.

For the life of me I can't figure out why the idea of this activity is attractive to people. It is so avoidable, so bizarre, so funny.

To me, a mechanical bull is part absurd, part surreal, part volatile, wholly unnecessary and totally random. Which is almost exactly how I would describe my sense of humor.

And maybe that's the connection I feel with mechanical bulls. Perhaps the mechanical bull is the embodiment of my personality, representing a trait of mine that I value the most.

Perhaps that's why my friends didn't question if I would ride. It all seemed so natural.

So yes I rode. I rode because I would never forgive myself otherwise. Five dollars per ride? I had no choice, you see? Sign a release saying I can't sue regardless of how mangled I become after getting flipped off a mechanical animal? Saying no would be denying the essence of my being.

OK maybe that pushed it too far. But of course I rode.

My ride wasn't as spectacular as how I had planned it in my mind. I didn't cartwheel off the bull in a haphazardly fantastic style. I didn't lie in the mangled, crumpled heap on the ground as I had hoped.

But at least I rode. And at the same time, was able to cross a lifelong goal off my list.

And for the record, moving up on that list of goals were:

1. Learning to yodel
2. Developing a jaw-dropping tap dance routine to bust out at parties and small gatherings.