Married life is the best kind of life there is. Trading freedom for security has always been the way we roll here in the U.S. of A! So many rough areas of a man’s life can be smoothed out bythe delicate touch of a feminine hand.

Decision-making is a prime example. Making decisions is a lot of work. Where to live, what job to take, what to wear? Who has time to figure out the proper choice in all of these important areas? Most single men learn to make decisions quickly, weighing options and coming to decisions so fast that the process seems almost primitive in its simplicity.

The married man can still quickly reach a simple decision, but it is never the end result. Instead, it’s just one stop on the interminable amusement park ride central to any marriage: the discussion. By looping around and around the many possible choices, a man with a skilled spouse eventually comes to see the ignorance of his original choice, and the unparalleled superiority of the course his wife has already selected. Eventually these “discussions” can strip a man of his desire to make an initial choice, streamlining the entire process!

Marriage also lets a man grow beyond the boundaries he places on his social life. Many single men prefer the company of a particular group of friends, spending the majority of social time with them, coming to know them well. Once a man is married, these constraints are taken from him, and he can come to full social fruition. New friends he would not have chosen! New activities he does not enjoy! An entire new family with whom to spend holidays, reunions, excruciatingly boring conversations, and arguments!

And chores! Once a man has a wife, he has a partner with whom to split the domestic tasks central to any household. A single man has no assistance in performing these chores, and no helper to decide when they should be done. It’s true that marriage brings a man a tidier house, but with a spouse helping, the net decrease in work will be offset by the extra discussions that will fill the saved time, in lieu of radio, television, or blessed quiet.

It’s true that some freedom is lost. If I were married, I couldn’t keep the random and flexible work schedule I enjoy. I wouldn’t be able to spend my leisure time any way I like, I wouldn’t have as much time for quiet reading, I might not amuse myself so much with the Internet dot com. I certainly wouldn’t be able to drop everything and take a trip, change my plans at the last minute, or do any of the other things that make me the man I am.

No, I would become a different man, a better man, with a thousand chips of my very nature shaved away by the delicate chisel in my wife’s knowledgeable hand.

I only hope that man will think of the old me fondly from time to time, as he lives his life to the beat of his life’s new drummerette.

If he can find the time between discussions.

You know, when you’ve been married as long as I have (almost three weeks!), you almost forget what it was like on the other side…

Being single has its advantages. Gas mileage, for example. With only one person in the car, you’ll use less gas, you know, when you drive places… alone. And you’ll never have to worry about another person changing your radio stations. In fact, you never have to be exposed to any tastes other than your own! Gosh, that does sound pretty good… cruising down the highway of life — alone — listening to the same old songs on the radio…

And there are benefits outside your motor vehicle as well. Like at work! Now that I’m married, Karen calls me at work once or twice a day. But if I were single, think about how great it would be: eight uninterrupted hours without hearing a friendly voice on the other end of the telephone line. Even better — eight uninterrupted hours without hearing the person I care about more than any other say, “I love you.”

Yep, being single sure has advantages. I mean, at home you’ll never have to worry about someone messing up your stuff, the kitchen, unmaking the bed, or leaving the toilet seat in your least favorite position… because there’s never anyone there. In fact, when you’re single, you have the immense joy of doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and chores yourself. All by yourself. Sure, you can daydream all you want that the next time you’re at the laundromat, there’ll be a pretty, single girl there who shares your joy of separating whites from darks for a bleach load, or your cultivated taste in fabric softener… but probably not.

And who does this ‘God’ fellow think He is? “It is not good for man to be alone.” What’s that all about? Certainly people weren’t designed with a helper in mind, a divinely inspired counterpart, like that “Bible” of yours says in Genesis 2:18.

When you’re single, you’ll experience neither the joy nor the pain that having a spouse brings. You don’t understand what Solomon means when he writes, “you have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes.” Just the numb comfort of loneliness and hope deferred.

Man, those were the days!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a loving wife to attend to. Cheers.

The Flyers started their postseason with a loss this year, but it was this game, and the game that followed, that convinced me they had a legitimate shot at winning Lord Stanley\’s Cup this year.

In the opening game they lost 5-4 at Washington, before a sellout crowd that could only be called “manic.” They were so pumped! Alex Ovechkin had almost singlehandedly led them through a streak of 11 games without a loss to win the Southeast Division. He had also pretty much clinched the season MVP award, by scoring 65 goals and lifting his team into the playoffs. Winning game one was inevitable for the Caps.

So why was I so sure Philly would win the series and have a shot at winning it all? Because, while weathering the first game storm, they still scored four times — and each goal was effortless. Washington scored five goals in a frantic pace they could never sustain, but the Flyers sat back, played patient hockey, and netted four effortless goals.

It takes three things to win the Stanley Cup — solid defense, opportunistic offense and hot goaltending. The Flyers show all three.

Solid defense — The Flyers have a deep defensive core with a good mix of young guys and hardy veterans. Hatcher, Modry and Timonen are three solid veterans, while Coburn, Jones and Kukkonen are three young guys with size and speed. And the entire team is playing with a patience that dictates defense first, then offense.

Opportunistic offense: Solid defense produces turnovers, and a turnover in the hands of a sniper winds up in the back of the net. The Devils made a living, and won a couple Cups, with a lineup that featured no superstars but snipers on every line. The Flyers’ top seven forwards averaged nearly 28 goals each this year. That’s the kind of depth a team needs to take advantage of every opportunity to score, and the Flyers have it. So far, in this series, they have scored 16 goals from 8 different players, and they have done it effortlessly. It’s sustainable.

Hot goaltending: Marty Biron gave up five goals in game one, so you might question calling that hot goaltending — but let me explain. That loss was, as I said, inevitable. If the Flyers put ten men on the ice, it would not have kept the Capitals from doing whatever it took to win. Strike it from the record.

But Biron ended the season by shutting out Pittsburgh and New Jersey, the two best teams in the Atlantic Division. He came back in game 2 in Washington and pitched another shutout. His last six games, including that five-goal game, give him a GAA of 1.83 and a .933 save percentage with three shutouts. I call that hot goaltending!

Hello Lord Stanley!

As an amateur Chaotician and part-time Historian, I bring good tidings of great joy. The curse of William Penn will be lifted this spring, and the Broad Street Bullies shall win the Stanley Cup.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, William Penn founded the original British colony of Pennsylvania, or “Penn’s Woods.” Residing atop Philadelphia’s City Hall is a statue of Mr. Penn, complete with goofy colonial hat and shoe buckles. For years and years, the city maintained a gentlemen’s agreement (strictly enforced by the city planner) that no building in the City of Philadelphia would exceed the statue’s prominence of 548 feet.

The ’70s and ’80s saw a veritable hotbed of sporting-related successes in Philadelphia. Championships were won by the Flyers in ’74 and ’75 (with Stanley Cup Finals appearances in ’76, ’80, and ’85); the Phillies won the World Series in ’80 and the NL pennant in ’83; the Eagles won the ’81 NFC championship; and even the 76ers won the NBA Championship in ’83, making the finals in ’77, ’80, and ’82. Things were looking good in the City of Brotherly Love.

But then, disaster struck. Developers broke ground on One Liberty Place, the first skyscraper slated to supersede the statue in height. Since construction of the 945-foot behemoth began in 1985, Philadelphia has not seen a championship in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, college basketball — or (worst of all) even horse racing’s Triple Crown.

But today, things are changing. Eclipsing even the shadow of One Liberty Place is the new Comcast Center, the tallest building in all of Pennsylvania. How will this change the sporting atmosphere of Philadelphia?

Two reasons:
1. Comcast owns the Flyers and the 76ers.
2. Attached to the tallest beam on the skyscraper is a statue of William Penn.

From his new perch, high atop the Comcast Center, ol’ Billy Penn can finally stand at ease as the tallest man in his woods, lifting his curse with him.

Go Flyers and God bless America!

There comes a time in every superpower’s life when it looks at the steaming, writhing squalor that once could have been greatness and think: “Enough is enough.” There are as many reasons for the US to remain in the UN as there are for a battered husband to remain married — two. Ridiculously stubborn masculine pride and oh-so-foolish feminine hope.

After rescuing the world from its second global conflict in as many decades, the United States scooped up what was left of her allies, dumped the equivalent of trillions of dollars into their stagnant, welfare-state supporting economies, and created the United Nations. As with all wars to end all wars, most folks were pretty eager to make peace. So 51 nations signed on, creating a group dedicated to end war, safeguard human rights, promote social and economic progress, improve living conditions, and achieve other worthwhile, lofty goals.

Now 60 years, countless wars, at least a dozen genocides, and epidemic after epidemic later, the UN is still cautiously optimistic about the possibility of forming a subsidiary body of a specialized agency’s functional commission (under the direct control of no fewer than two regional commissions), with oversight from the secretariat, charged with maybe getting around to fixing that world peace thing some day. But for now, they’re all pretty focused on hating America.

The crux of UN stupidity is giving two-bit, third-world dictatorships equal footing with the United States, United Kingdom, and other reasonable, civilized, developed countries. For Heaven’s sake! The UN still can’t decide whether the crisis in Darfur is regional unrest, civil unrest, or just plain, old, run-of-the-mill GENOCIDE! Oh, sorry, the UN-sanctioned term is “gross violation.” So, sorry, 200,000-400,000 dead Sudanese, you haven’t been genocided, you’ve been “grossly violated.”

What I propose is simple: relegate the UN to the minor leagues and start our own global organization devoted to awesomeness and peace through strength. Let the socialists and dictatorships have the UN. Until countries grow up, institute democracy and capitalism, and reach a certain level of development, the UN is all they get. I say that the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Israel, and Taiwan all leave the UN (and leave the French there as well) and form our own permanent multi-national coalition.

Just like the EU won’t let just anybody in until they’re sufficiently developed, neither will we. It’ll be like a members-only club that demonstrates to the world that you’ve made it.

And while the UN is busy mailing letters requesting the cessation of hostilities against civilians in Sudan, we’ll send our letter too. Taped to the front of a cruise missile.

The political side of the UN won’t win a whole lot of points with me or any thinking person. It’s slow, bloated, and controlled by either a handful of elites who can singlehandedly stop it from taking any meaningful action (i.e., the Security Council) or a large number of countries from the developing world with no particular qualms about abusing their citizens (i.e., the General Assembly).

That said, though, the UN has had a positive humanitarian influence on the world. The greatest example is probably smallpox; with cooperation from many of the world’s governments, the World Health Organization took on one of the greatest killers in history, successfully making the world a whole lot safer for those born in developing countries.

The World Bank (chartered separately, but technically under UN jurisdiction) offers inexpensive loans to not only help countries escape poverty (their weaker suit), but also to reconstruct after major crises (their stronger suit). They provided some of the funding that helped Germany and Japan become the economic powerhouses and strong Western allies that they are today. Finally, other arms of the ECOSOC have made significant strides in providing vaccines, education, and food to children in impoverished countries.

Of course, most arguments about the United Nations aren’t about what it has done; instead, they are about what it could do differently, or how much better everyone would be if these crises had been handled by the free market and private donations. There is obviously no factual data on a hypothetical UN-less world, but given the intransigence of the private sector and individual governments to today’s humanitarian crises (even with UN help), it’s very difficult to believe that we could have defeated smallpox or rebuilt Western Europe so quickly, without UN resources and organizational tools.

It’s true that the UN will probably never give the United States as much as it asks us to give to them. This is the case with governments at any level; the ones who need their services are never those who are able to pay for them, so someone else has to pick up the bill. The UN was created partially to fill a perceived need for world government, but it is not particularly effective politically. As a result, it instead finds its strength in coordinating and administering humanitarian responses, and it has performed these types of missions very successfully.

Whether or not the UN could be 1000 times better than it is, its existence has helped the world.

Fire as a survival tool? Yeah, whatever. Fire? You’re dead to me…

I understand that when man first left the Garden, fire may have played a very important role in the survival and perpetuation of our species. Whether it was used for cooking bacteria out of meat or as an agent of warmth, I’m sure fire proved priceless to our ancestors.

But I believe we need to ask ourselves, “Fire, what have you done for me lately?”

If my little single-engine plane crashed in Alaska, leaving my bush pilot dead and me miraculously alive, you best believe I ain’t wastin’ none of my precious time or energy runnin’ around like JoJo the Idiot Circus Clown, trying to make fire. What’s it gonna do, really? Warm my extremities? Cook the snow rabbit I’ll never catch? I’m sure that’s how most search and rescue people find their targets — hunched over some feeble kindling and moss, the face of their watch frozen in their hand, telling the tale of their futile and desperate efforts to refract sunshine into flame.

Me? They’ll find me back at base camp, ripping through some MREs, reading the newspaper, and telling them where I left the bush pilot. Wanna know why? I didn’t stay put and waste my time on combustion; I sucked it up and com-busted my way right outta there!

Okay, I can hear you now. “Job, you’re an idiot!” “Job, you’re gonna die.” “No, Job, seriously, you’re an idiot.” But perhaps I’m just forward-thinking. For centuries people thought Earth was flat, and as a result, tethered themselves to familiar ports, afraid to sail off the edge of the world. Similarly, for centuries, people in survival situations have trusted Fire to save their sorry selves, and they’ve stayed tethered to their locations, rubbing sticks together and acting like they actually know what flint is, SOSing themselves crazy.

But me? I’m a latter-day Columbus, willing to thumb my nose at accepted science and Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria-ing myself to new frontiers.

Fire might be a luxury, but when it comes to survival, it is SO overrated.

Of all the survival tips, tools, and tricks, fire is the American Express: don’t leave home without it.

Any storied mercenary, mountaineer, or adventurer such as myself will tell you that when it comes to surviving the chilling cold winter winds of Siberia, the torrential monsoons of Southeast Asia, or a hostile desert crawling with wildlife, without fire, you will die.

You. Will. Die.

The benefits of fire are obvious and threefold.

First, heat. When the sun goes down, Earth loses its heat source. When the planet loses its heat source, so do you. And a survival situation is more than just the discomfort you face while jogging six blocks down the street to Starbucks to get warm, Job. When base camp is hundreds of miles away, when there are no straight lines to gauge direction and distance, when you’re injured and you can’t just follow your nose back to your Froot Loops, what will you do? When hypothermia sets in, there’s only one way to stave off the cold that permeates, debilitates, and suffocates. Fire will save your life.

Second, protection. Most of the predators that will attack a human in the wild are both nocturnal and opportunistic. Wolves, jackals, jihadists, dingos, and ROUSes all attack under the cover of darkness. Light from a fire will reveal your enemy and, in a pinch, make for an effective weapon. Use of tools separates the higher primates from the lower primates; use of fire separates us from the higher primates. Every other creature is instinctively afraid of the very tool some would so callously cast aside — fire will save your life.

Third, morale. The greatest obstacle to survival is not nature, predators, or enemy combatants. It’s human nature. Fear and hopelessness will debilitate you more effectively than any RPG: from the inside out. If your survival depends on others, keeping morale high will increase your chances immensely. In the cold and dark, fear creeps in, and though light and heat may seem like creature comforts, they’ll keep you sane. Fire will save your life.

As a luxury item, fire is overrated. But as a survival tool, it’s next to none.

Fire will save your life.

The true gridiron classic, the crossword puzzle simply outclasses its numerical counterpart.

The crossword puzzle (in its modern form) dates to its 1913 invention by Arthur Wynne, but word squares have been found even under the ruins of Pompeii, a testament to their timeless popularity. Shortly after Wynne’s initial “Word-Cross,” the crossword puzzle again took the world by storm, easily becoming its most popular word game. Crosswords require finesse, creativity, logic, a firm grasp on language, and a sense of humor.

Sudoku, on the other hand (if that’s how it’s spelled), is a newcomer to the puzzle world, invented in 1974 by Howard Garns. Unlike the crossword, which requires creativity, logic, and knowledge, Sideko is solved by logic (or luck) alone.

And speaking of alone, Saduka is usually solved alone, a testament to the poor social and hygiene skills of its practitioners. The crossword is truly a democratic puzzle — the game of the everyman. Think back to the last time you saw someone hunched over a newspaper, pen (or for cowards, pencil) in hand. A crossworder may look up, make eye contact, and speak directly to you. “Hello, friend,” they might ask, “What’s a four letter word for ‘killer whale’?” It’s more than solitaire, it’s an interpersonal event… it’s proper socialization! It’s community!

Replay that scene in your mind, but substitute the lesser puzzle of Suck-doku. Instead of eye contact, your feral co-worker will likely make indiscriminate marks on the page, muttering to himself, never quite acknowledging your presence or humanity. Years later, after failing to complete even one square, he is, frankly, quite likely to snap and firebomb your company warehouse.

Oh yeah, and size does matter, baby. From the standard 15×15 grids of your weekday puzzle all the way up to the Weekly World News’s 35×35 Bigfoot puzzles, crosswords trounce Sakodu’s petty 9×9 grids. Aesthetically pleasing, the crossword contains radial symmetry, contrasting white and black squares in interesting designs. Suducu’s only claim to fame is that every puzzle is as boringly plain as the last.

What’s it going to be? The logic, beauty, and cruciverbial wonder of the crossword, or the irritatingly confining multiplication table that is Sydyky?

P.S. If anyone could help me with 26-Across — “Wish to a traveler,” eight letters? Yeah, thanks.

Crosswords and Sudoku are very similar, really.

Both combine the excitement of painstakingly filling out small grids in a strictly regimented way with the fun of sitting quietly. Both are presumed by many reliable sources as activities that build the intellect. And both are best enjoyed responsibly.

However, if one of the two had to be sacrificed from our nation’s coffee shops, subway trains, and lecture halls, the choice would be simple:

We would have to ditch the crossword.

Sudoku is, by its very nature, inclusive. Speaking the universal language of numbers, a Sudoku puzzle spreads its grid wide enough to encompass people from any culture, any walk of life.

Crosswords trend toward the opposite extreme of exclusion, taking on themes so obscure as to alienate the vast majority of those initially drawn to their checkerboard good-looks and witty tete-a-clue-tete. Glamour without warmth is not what I look for in a woman, and absolutely not what I want in a pastime.

Sudoku’s simple, yet elegant rules can be learned in minutes. Place each digit, 1-9, one time in each row, in each column, and in each 3-by-3 square.

Compare that to the nuances of a typical crossword puzzle. If there’s an abbreviation in the clue, does that mean the answer is abbreviated as well? In what tense do they want this word?

And what’s with all the Latin?

I’ll admit — Sudoku is a relatively new addition to the flashy world of the comic-page. But even considering the Jumble, word-search, and the behemoth that is the New York Times crossword, Sudoku remains one enigmatic David who can take up nine smooth digits and get the amusement done.

It’s good to be the king.

The Tyrant King of the Lizards, that is.

T. rex is the epitome of dinosaur. Weighing four to six tons, 40 feet long, 20 feet tall, and with a four-foot jaw filled with razor-sharp teeth upwards of 12 inches, T. rex was not built for play dates. He was a killing machine that ate meat.

The image of dinosaur conjured up in every mind is of an enormous Tyrannosaurus, standing over the body of a lame dinosaur like a Triceratops, Stegosaurus, or an Apatosaurus, roaring in delight. Oh, I’m sorry, did I say Apatosaurus? Perhaps I meant Brontosaurus.

While the incorrectly named Brontosaurus would passively graze, staring around with its vacant, cow-like eyes and walnut-sized brain, Tyrannosaurus stalked the primordial jungles of Laurasia, with a brain over twice the size of herbivorous dinos. That’s right, Laurasia, or present-day America. If America were a dinosaur, it would totally be T. rex.

Broadly speaking, the only lame thing about the T. rex is the disproportionate size of its teeny forearms. But recent discoveries show that the arms, while small, were incredibly muscular, designed to hold its prey in place while it was devoured.

So who’s it going to be? The Tyrant Lizard King, with his gigantic brain, or the dim-witted, hopelessly lame, salad-eating “thunder lizard”?

Today is “July 4th Eve,” the day before we celebrate the birth of our wonderful nation. The story involves a small group of poorly-armed militiamen successfully fighting off the forces of a terrible king and rising to become a mighty colossus. It would be nigh on sacrilegious if, on today of all days, the readers of Bweinh! selected a tyrant as their favorite dinosaur.

Once you get past the hype surrounding the T-Rex, what is it? For what does it use its kingship over the other dinosaurs? According to Calvin and Hobbes (a reliable source if there ever was one), T-Rex was either a fearsome predator or a loathsome scavenger. Regardless of Calvin’s answer, we should be unwilling, as Americans or Christians, to accept a dinosaur fitting either description as our favorite. There are better paths than predator or scavenger.

Enter the brontosaurus. Simple- minded and simple-living? Probably. Defenseless? Hardly. Strength has always been a prerequisite to peace and the brontosaurus is built to last. No teeth or claws to speak of: just pure size and a willingness to group together with others when necessary. Its name means “thunder lizard,” and it is indeed mighty, a force of nature — at least 23 metric tons to the T-Rex’s 6.8.

With this in mind, the brontosaurus now seems more like the mighty United States (its fossils have also been found here). And the T-Rex is placed squarely with the North Koreas and Irans of the world: noisy and fussed over for weaponry, but in the end unable to match the sheer size and power of its mighty adversary in a fair fight.

Do not reject America’s proud heritage of reluctant heroism and unmatched power in exchange for tyranny and a set of shiny teeth.

While tea lovers revel in tea’s health benefits, naysayers worry that anything as deliciously stimulating as java must be unhealthful. Most recently, coffee has shed its dangerous reputation, as researchers uncover evidence showing that coffee is safe in moderate amounts and might have some surprising benefits!

For instance, drinking more than four daily cups of coffee lowers the risk of diabetes. Tea has no similar effect. Coffee protects seniors against Parkinson’s disease, and is linked to lower rates of liver and colon cancer, while the FDA says more research is needed to support tea’s anti-cancer claims. Coffee is also chock-full of disease-busting antioxidants, the number one source of such chemicals in the American diet.

Butsowhat? We don’t really drink it because it has health benefits — that’s just a bonus. We suck it down at a rate of 400,000,000,000 (yes that’s 4 HUNDRED BILLION) cups a year because it tastes so good!

Lines at the local Starbucks any weekday morning are far longer than the voting lines in November. To say that coffee is a habit, bordering on a national obsession, would not understate the case. Coffee has become such a staple in the West that no event, public gathering or meal for large masses can be held without taking the “coffee factor” into account.

Quick Facts:
–Coffee is the number two beverage in the world, second only to water in total volume consumed.
–Coffee is nearly four times as popular as tea, the third most consumed beverage, and five times as popular as soda, which ranks fourth.
–In 2006 alone, the specialty coffee market racked up an estimated $12.2 billion in sales, up from $8.3 billion in 2001 (according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America).
–The number of coffee retailers has risen from only 1,650 in 1991 to 23,900 in 2006.
–Worldwide coffee consumption in 2003 was estimated at over 1.4 billion cups every single day — with more than 400 million of them consumed in the US!
–The average American consumes about 10.5 pounds of coffee per year, about half of what they consume in Scandinavia.

But what’s the true source of coffee’s momentum? Perhaps it’s the blanket of aromas (ahhhhhhh), the taste (love it!), the hot nutty-sweet bite of flavor teasing our tongue (Vanilla Biscotti from Folgers is hea-venly), or the lush, familiar warmth of our kitchen hearth and bouquet of mother’s cooking. It takes us home again and starts new traditions with our own families. Coffee is a win/win/win.

Coffee or tea?

It’s a question that’s haunted mankind for the ages. It will be answered here, today.

From time immemorial, mankind has been drinking medicinal teas for just about every ailment under the sun. Can’t sleep? Have some tea. Nausea? Have some tea. Heartburn? Indigestion? Upset stomach?

Diarrhea?

For most gastrointestinal ailments, there’s an appropriate herbal tea that, let’s face it, tastes better than the pink stuff. Coffee, on the other hand, can cause insomnia, heartburn, constipation, upset stomach, and the like.

Coffee 0, Tea 1.

Coffee is one of those foods. You know, the ones that always smell better than they taste? It’s true and you know it. The aroma of coffee is strong and inviting. But the taste just lets you down time and time and time again. One sip and you remember why people have to add flavor, sugar, cream or milk to make coffee bearable.

Tea, on the other hand, is as versatile as it is delicious. Feeling Christmassy? Have a nice peppermint tea. Feeling groggy first thing in the morning? Perhaps a nice English Breakfast Tea is in order. Feeling like commanding a starship? “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” is right up your alley. Equally aromatic, quintessentially delicious… tea is the way to go.

Coffee 0, Tea 2.

Ever since Ahmed Al-Starbucki first opened up shop, pushing his harmful wares on Christendom, the price has been ridiculous for coffee, and it’s just getting worse. The only way I’ll touch the stuff is with a healthy dose of milk, chocolate, and sugar, but six bucks for a stupid drink that’s just going to bind me up? Heck no! Tea’s a commodity. You can buy boxes of the stuff for cheap, and all you need is hot water.

Coffee 0, Tea 3.

From tummyaches to mistletoe to Jean-Luc, tea’s just the better choice. And so many choices! Hot or iced, tea has it all!