Clever marketing, I suppose (Hello Kitty-branded stuff accounts for nearly half of Sanrio’s $1 billion  annual revenue), and oh-so-cute, but I can’t bring myself to buy one, so I leave with a Vitaminwater instead, because I’m a guy, and guys just don’t buy stuff with Hello Kitty on them (it’s a guy thing), but vitamins are OK, also, water is OK, so I figure it’s cool.   

-

Ah, Calpico.

 (non-Hello Kitty, canned variety)

If you’ve never tried it before, it’s good stuff – sweet, slightly tangy, and milky in appearance, not-so-much in terms of texture. 

It’s refreshing and pleasantly unlike most western, heavily carbonated soft drinks.

In Japan and other non-English-speaking countries, the stuff is still referred to by it’s original name, Calpis (Karupisu in Japanese), which to the untrained ear sounds an awful lot like “cow piss.”

Putting Hello Kitty on the label seems like a pretty smart move to me because when I think of Hello Kitty I don’t think of cow piss which is probably why they chose Hello Kitty instead of, say, a cute cartoon cow like this guy:

It’s a good thing I waited until the Season 1 DVD Boxed Set came out.  I don’t really like having to wait an entire week to find out what happens next. 

On a related side note, I don’t watch TV.  Ever.  I stopped watching in high school.  I’m not entirely sure why.  I guess I just had better things to do with my time. 

In college, I’d watch the occasional episode of the Simpsons.  My roommate at the time, Pat, never missed an episode of the Simpsons and was really into Felicity and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, so I ended up having to sit through quite a few of those as well.

Now with a writer’s strike still in progress and no new episodes of Heroes for the foreseeable future, I think maybe I’ll break down and watch the episodes online.  (The original plan was to wait until all of Season Two comes out on DVD.)  My friends tell me the current story arc concluded with last Monday’s episode, so I can watch the story unfold in its entirety without having to wait unnecessarily. 

I enjoy coming up with ideas for cliffhangers.  Having to wait for the resolution to cliffhangers not of my own devising – torturous.

She smiles.  I smile back.  There’s a sale – 25% off – through Wednesday on cookie dough-flavored protein bars.

She waves my card through the scanner – beep! – everything checks out. 

She looks at me and says, “Enjoy your workout!”

“You too,” I reply (like an idiot) then pass through the turnstile.

-

Someone please tell me I am not the only person who does this.

I love Candy Corn.  I can’t get enough of them.  I bought a one-pound bag the other week and ate the entire thing in one day.  (Like a fool, I left the open bag on my desk.)

Tomorrow is National Candy Corn Day.

Seriously.

You can read all about Candy Corn, and a little about the holiday itself, on the National Confectioners Association site, candyusa.org here.

I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently Candy Corn is available year round, not just before Halloween.  I only ever look for the stuff right around Halloween, which is sort of a good thing given my complete and utter lack of control around those little yellow, orange, and white-tipped kernels of corn syrupy goodness.

Candy Corn.

Any time I want it?

Now THAT’s scary.

My friends have been telling me for quite some time that I should be watching Heroes, not only because I bear a slight  resemblance to one of the show’s principals (if you don’t already know which one of the actors I resemble most, I’ll leave it to you to figure it out; you can view my previous post on this very topic here), but also because it’s exactly the sort of show that would appeal to me, uber-geek that I am.

I grew up reading superhero comic books, I love a good superhero movie, and even to this day, if I could choose any profession in the world, I’d have to pick (you guessed it) superhero.

My friends kept pestering me about the show and how I needed to watch it.

People I had never met before stopped me, on the way to work (the “other” work), waiting for the elevator, in a crappy bar watching my friends’ band perform: “Has anyone ever told you you look just like that guy from Heroes?”

(“Yes, actually.  The lady in the checkout line next to me at Walmart, the guy at the gym, the mailman,” etc., etc., etc.)

I sat through I-don’t-know-how-many conversations about “last week’s episode,” my friends discussing the latest exciting developments in a sort of roundabout, mostly spoiler-free way (which was actually very cool of them, I must admit).

Eventually I agreed to check it out on DVD.  (I don’t watch TV.  Ever.  Odd, yes, but I never seem to have the time and truthfully, the desire.  Until recently, there really wasn’t anything that interested me.  The last TV series I kept up with regularly was Homicide: Life On The Killing Streets, and even that I watched on VHS.)

I’m usually pretty busy with writing, also the “other job,” and the Heroes: Season One DVD sat on my shelf idle for some time.

I finally started watching about a week ago.  Watched the first four episodes in one sitting.  Then a couple more a few nights later, and last night, I finished up with the tenth episode (“Six Months Ago”), and now I can’t wait to see the rest.

I read an article when the show first aired about the somewhat unconventional method the writing team uses to put the show together.  Unlike most other hour-long television series, the writers on Heroes split up and tackle each character’s scenes individually first, then combine them.  Later, as a team, they read over the assembled scenes, and the episode’s head writer uses the team’s notes to craft the final draft of the script.

Personally, I’m a big fan and a huge supporter of this rather unorthodox writing process, as the individual story arcs for each of the series’ characters are all pretty compelling, some more than others, but that’s understandable.  After a couple of minutes hiatus between episodes, (I’m not sure I could wait an entire week) I find myself eager to catch up with even the least interesting characters and their developments.  (I hate to say it, but as handsome as he is, Hiro, along with his sidekick Ando, are just not cutting muster for me lately.  Course, it’s nothing a little more bending of the space-time continuum couldn’t fix.)

One thing I’m not so crazy about: the many subtle and not-so-subtle interconnections between the characters.  It’s all a bit tough to swallow at first, but as I sit through more and more of Season One, I’m slowly beginning to accept that all of these grand coincidences are just further proof that these Heroes are “destined” to save the world.

Eventually.

But first, there’s an indestructible cheerleader in grave, grave peril that needs saving…