whatever happened to Pizza Goldfish?

For a guy who's always tried to hold himself to the highest standards of behavioral rectitude, never allowing himself become dependent upon any substance or practice that might inhibit his higher brain function...I have a lot of secret, stupid addictions.

Take Bleach, for example. I swore to myself that I'd never become a fan of it. Heck, I swore to myself that I'd never become a fan of anime at all. That was for those creepy social misfits in high school who couldn't get enough of Japanese culture, and were always going to Comic-Con, and all that kind of escapist weirdness. Not me—I'm doing just fine in my favorite corner of the library with my dogeared copy of Watership Down, thank you very much.

But then it happened. I was channel-flipping one becalmed afternoon back in college, bored out of my skull, and I ran across Cartoon Network. They were broadcasting an episode of One Piece (which I've mentioned elsewhere), dubbed into English. It struck me as inextricably weird at the time. Huh? What kind of show is this? A 17-year-old boy with a body made of rubber on a quest to become king of the pirates? What's going on? Is this a joke? But the idea—like so many ideas habitually do—grew on me. Hey, I eventually came to think. That sounds pretty cool, actually. Kind of like 'X-Men' meets 'Pirates of the Caribbean.'

So I started watching the anime. I found a site (many of them, actually) where you can peruse anime shows for free, dubbed or subbed. And in the dimly-lit sanctum of my parents' basement in Wyoming, I started down the dark path. And I haven't looked back since. To date, I have watched all 423 aired episodes of the show (and counting) and own 21 of the 22 translated graphic novels currently published. And it's been a blast, let me tell you.

It was inevitable that I should broaden my horizons. Soon I started turning to other anime shows. Not all of them, mind you, but quite a few...The Last Exile, Trigun, Rurouni Kenshin, Samurai 7...whatever sparked my interest. And that led me to Bleach.

Now, ordinarily I'm not too deep into magic, the supernatural, the afterlife, spiritualism, or anything goofy like that. But as I've said before, if the concept of a book/movie/comic strikes me favorably, I'll often overlook the quality of the content (or lack thereof). Fortunately, though Bleach is often slow, repetitive, or overly complex, the idea of the thing (and the lovable cast of characters) are enough for me. I won't go into a hefty description here, because this post is not about anime and I don't want to sound like some kind of fan boy. More than I already have, anyway. But let me just say that I have become addicted to Bleach. Since HughesNet's bloody stupid bandwidth limit prohibits me from watching any video longer than 30 seconds until after 11:00 p.m. at night, I have lately been staying up until ridiculous hours getting my anime jollies out. Yes, I know, I'm a loser. But I make it a point of honor to do at least one useful thing during the day prior to this surreptitious late-night anime-viewing, like studying my pilot's textbooks, or learning Korean, or submitting another article, or editing ten more pages of my novel, or brushing the dog, or taking a long walk. That way I can justify my addiction to my entirely-too-anal conscience.

Next most prominent on my list of stupid addictions are pizza-flavored Goldfish. You know, the little goldfish-shaped snacks made by Pepperidge Farm. I love the darn little things. I could eat a whole bag of them at one sitting. In a world of deplorably bland munchies, the pizza flavoring in Pepperidge Farm Goldfish is right on the money. It's like crack to me. It tickles the pleasure centers in my brain just right.

Goldfish have been my favorite snack since time began. My mother always used to put a little Ziploc bag of Goldfish in with my lunch when I went off to school (those few days I actually attended public school). And she always kept a bag or two of them in the pantry for afternoon snacks. Nothing cheered me up more when I was a kid than the sight of a full plate of fish-shaped pizza goodness (or one of my mother's ham-and-Swiss sandwiches). And now, of course, they seem to have taken that flavor off the market. (I'm not even sure if they have the Flavor-Blasted Xplosive Pizza Goldfish anymore.) Just as the most welcome guests always leave first, the best snacks are always phased out before the others. Why couldn't they have ditched Parmesan-flavor Goldfish, eh? Who the hell buys those? Or what about the pretzel flavor? They could've deep-sixed those, easy. No self-respecting snacker wants to eat bite-sized morsels of pretzel. They'd rather buy one hot from the bakery and sink their teeth into it, obviously. But no. One of those fumb ducks in the marketing division decided that the fourth-quarter sales of Pizza Goldfish weren't up to snuff, and signed a kill order. Blast his pasty hide.

On a related note, I've lately gotten back into Cheez-Its. And when I say "gotten back into" I mean I've taken a running jump into an eight-foot heap of them. I bought a couple of boxes for a cocktail party, remembering vaguely that I liked them at one point. With the first bite, I remembered that no, I didn't like them; I would marry them if they walked upright and had boobs.

Third, and likely the most esoteric of the lot, are World War II-vintage warplanes. If Pizza Goldfish are my drug of choice, then pictures and paintings of warbirds are my porn. I have had a long, sordid love affair with the fighter, bomber, cargo, and reconnaissance aircraft of the Second World War since my freshman year in high school. I don't know exactly how it started. I used to be into model-building, and maybe that was when I gradually began to notice the subtle beauty and inherent coolness of these machines. Maybe my mother bought me a book about aircraft, with a few strategically-placed images of fighters and bombers inside, and that planted the seed. But however it happened, it happened, and how. Soon I was in possession of Enzo Angelucci's Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, 1914-Present ("present" meaning 1986), and was poring through it every chance I got, memorizing the armament, effective range, engine type, service date, and crew number of every airplane in sight. Even now I can remember the manufacturer, numerical designation, and nationality of pretty much any World War II plane you'd care to name.

Come on, try me, I dare you. Post a picture link or something in the comment box and I'll see if I can identify its subject.

This love of airplanes hasn't faded...in fact, I'd say it's what started me off in my pursuit of aviation in the first place. I was always one of those kids that had his face glued to the windows of the airport terminal (and subsequently, the airplane) when my family and I flew anywhere. (My mother recently informed me that, even as a baby, I had never, ever cried on board an airplane, not even once. This sent a chill down my spine.) Later on I got into warbirds, and then gradually I began to notice the beauty in contemporary aircraft, which I had previously scorned. (Even today I'm not too keen on jets, preferring the old-fashioned attraction of propeller-driven airplanes.)

Now, at airshows and air museums, or even just standing out on the flight line during a preflight check, I can barely restrain myself from running from plane to plane and devouring them with my eyes, inside and out, like a kid in a candy store. And here I am learning to be a pilot! I'd say this might be one addiction which proved to be healthy in the long run. But I feel sorry for my future wife. She's probably going to feel put out when I meet her at the airport and she gets off the plane wearing the most beautiful, flowing, radiant dress that was ever created, and I, drooling slightly, have eyes only for the airplane she's getting out of. And you know how most women are said to "lose" their husbands once football season rolls around in fall? Well, my wife's going to lose me a little earlier.

My fourth stupid addiction is science fiction, but whether science fiction is actually stupid or not depends on who you talk to. My dad says "Yes, it's dumb." My mother says, "No, it's not dumb," but that's only because she likes to see young William Shatner with his shirt off. So I won't mention science fiction here. Oh, wait...I just did. Whoops.

Number 5 is beyond contestation. I am addicted, mind, body and soul, to bad puns. I am constantly on the lookout for any turn of phrase which I can pervert into a punny one-liner. Often what I come up with is quite awful. I became infamous for this in high school. Teach was talking about decorum, and he asked us what it was. I raised my hand and said "Isn't that what you do to apples before you eat 'em? You decorum?"

In college, I worked briefly with the campus ITS (Information Technology Services) department as a technical writer. At one staff meeting, during a lecture on safety, the topic of asbestos came up. The department head asked if there were any questions.
"Nope," I chimed in. "We'll watch out for that asbestos we can."

But I don't care how awful 95% of my puns are, because the remaining 5% are pure-D humdingers. None immediately come to mind, however, so we'll move on. Needless to say, as a fan of silly puns, I am a devoted follower of the jokes section in Reader's Digest. Not to mention the Marx Brothers...

Number six: cool breezes. Enough said. There's just no beating the feel of a cool, crisp breeze running through your hair and brushing you gently on the face. It's like the caress of a caring mother rewarding you for a job well done. I can't get enough. Speaking of natural phenomena I can't get enough of, I also like sunny days, fog, stargazing, snow, and the occasional cloudburst.

Jeez, I'm kind of rattling on here, aren't I? Can you believe I started this entry with only Bleach in mind? The rest of it just sort of came to me as I went along (of course, I did write this over the course of several days). I have more than this, many, many more, but they are all in the same vein as those I've listed above.

I suppose everybody has a few secret, unhealthy, or embarrassing likes; I just happen to have more than my share. And I like it that way.

To conclude, I'd like to tell you a little story. There was once a man who went to the dentist. It was the height of the holiday season, and the dentist noticed that the man's teeth were in bad shape. He told the man, "It doesn't look good in there. I'm going to have to put a plate in your mouth. Just what have you been eating, anyway?" The man thought for a moment and then said, "Well, my wife always puts a lot of Hollandaise sauce on whatever she cooks this time of year." The dentist nodded knowingly and said, "I see. Well, then I'll have to put a chrome plate in." The man asked, "Why a chrome plate?"
"Because," the dentist said, "there's no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise."

That's the sort of pun I like.