INVASION OF THE SPORKS...
They might Already Be in your Neighborhood...
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I took a bunch of pictures on Memorial Day, and finally got around to posting them in the previous post here. I'd become a dedicated Procrastinator, but I keep putting it off. (Insert Rimshot Here.) Ka-dunk! Anyway, while looking at pictures of the Ocean and Boats and other things Ocean-related, I began wondering about the Basic Premise of the old TV show, "Gilligan's Island". And the question that's been gnawing at me ever since is, if there was a Professor and a Ship's Captain and his first mate...wouldn't those three individuals, who were familiar with Physics and Buoyancy and Boats In General, somehow be able to rebuild the "Minnow" and sail on their merry way? At the beginning of each episode, you would see the Minnow, their little boat that crash-landed on the island, so there was something to Work With, at least a frame. Plus, there were a lot of trees on the island which could be used for building materials somehow. Instead, they were all stuck on that island for at least Several Seasons. We need to look into this. Seriously. But first...
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I've Never Been into a "Taco Del Mar" fast-food restaurant. I hear they serve up some pretty good South-of-the-border-type-food. (I'd refer to it as Mexican Food, but I'm trying to be Politically Correct Here.) Taco Del Mar is a sponsor of Seattle Mariners' Baseball, and in their latest commercial, a burned out, frazzled gray-bearded Surfer Dude tells us all that Taco Del Mar's new big beefy oversized, hot and obviously tasty Mucho Grande Magnifico Burrito is so "awesome" that eating that burrito is like getting Ginger and Mary-Anne at the same time. Whoa, man...awesome! Ginger and Mary-Anne. Mary-Anne and Ginger...awww, please don't make me choose...hmmm...Ginger and Mary-Anne...maybe Gilligan, The Skipper and The Professor didn't want to get off the island. Ah, but the show was Standard Family Fare in the 1960's, so if one wants intricate plot twists, he'll just have to use his imagination.

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I came across a little blurb earlier this week in the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper, in which one of its columnists listed, in no particular order, things he'd always been trying to figure out. Midway through his column, he was wondering why the "spork" never caught on. I'd never thought about that before, but yeah, why didn't it catch on? The poor old Spork is just not very widely used, evidently, although I think it's probably the most practical eating tool forever. And believe me, with my overweightness, I've got lots of experience with Eating Tools. Maybe that's one reason I've got arthritic elbows...I'm always hurling food headlong into the bottomless pit otherwise known as my mouth. Heck, half the time, "forget the utensils, and just give me some FOOD whether I need it or not"...maybe that's the Neanderthal within me that's always bubbled just under the surface; Gimme Food Now...Must Have Meat...

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But back to the Spork...I've always rooted for the underdog, for the little-known cause to emerge victorious from the fray (which is why I root for the Mariners). And I think it's about time the poor relatively-unknown Spork became a household word, firmly entrenched side-by-side with the more common Spoon or Fork. For, you see, the Spork could actually replace those utensils. Ah, now we're getting to the heart of the matter...maybe, the Flatware Lobbies are conspiring for the poor lowly Spork to remain in Eating Utensil Obscurity. But did you know that, if you 'Google' the word "spork", that you'll Actually Find Sporks made of Titanium? Titanium? A spork made from that stuff might cost thousands of dollars. So Forget That Option. And I don't see more conventional metal sporks in fine sets of dining utensils. It's an anti-Spork conspiracy, I tell ya. But it must be said here, that the lowly Spork has its supporters, as is demonstrated below:

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Imagine, if you will, an episode of Star Trek, with the Original TV Cast, in which a tired Captain Kirk admits that the Romulans have confounded him, and at a crew dinner one evening, a flustered Kirk says, "Mr. Spork, will you hand me that Spock?...I mean, Spock, gimme a Spork? And will you get that Spork of food...I mean, SPECK of food off the deck, Spork...I mean, SPOCK!!!" To which Spork, er, Spock would comment, "Captain, that is not logical behavior..."

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I can't believe I actually wrote that. Anyway, what led me to all of this nonsense, is that I actually used a Spork today. It was at Taco Hell...er, Taco Bell, where I had some tacos and a tostado. Their tostado isn't much bigger around than a Compact Disk, and on it they smeared some refried beans and meat, which hopefully wasn't refried too much. And they covered it all up with some Cheese and Lettuce, which means I'm (barely) meeting my Dairy and Vegetable miniscule-daily-requirements. So, blame Taco Bell for this post. They threw in a plastic Spork with their (alleged) Tostado. Their Mexican...er, Latin-American food wasn't quite as awesome as Taco Del Mar's is supposed to be (remember, I wrote about Taco Del Mar above?), but it's safe to say that while the food wasn't worth Ginger or Mary-Anne separately, let alone together, the young lady at the drive-thru window was cordial and courteous, so I guess that's something. And all the while, I'm remembering The Age Of Innocence, where we all believed that everyone on Gilligan's Island were wholesome, G-Rated victims of circumstance who all ended up on the same island together, even when Ginger would gently back Gilligan into a corner and use her charms to weasel some kind of favor from him.

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Finally, to top this off...let's talk about the Fork for a moment. Not the utensil, the Chess move. A 'Fork' is where your opponent's Knight lands in a square that puts two of your Chesspieces in jeopardy. You have to move one piece or the other, and what you don't move, the opponent's Knight takes. Many a time I've said to my opponent, "FORK You!!!" And many times, I've been..."Forked". And I can't believe I wrote that either...am I making sense yet....? And have I yet sunk as low as a blogger can possibly sink? Without a doubt, YES.