IKEA Monkey

Last year I fell deeply in love with the cemitas sold from the taco trucks on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, New York. Then I traveled to Puebla, Mexico, their source, and discovered that the sandwich I loved was an imposter. This is the story of how I learned to love both (recipes included). Read More

It's strange how a fast food menu that's inspired parody videos about endlessly recursive foodstuffs and redrawn mealtime taxonomies has never ventured into serving something as simple as a torta. But we deserve some Taco Bell sandwiches to call our own. Fortunately, with a quick supply run to the grocery store, you can make that happen with the chain's very own menu. Read More

Welcome Katie Anderson, guest blogger who is reporting on her Cooking Light Diet journey. Follow more from Katie on her blog, YellowDaisyChickChat.com, or check back here for more updates.

The main reason I have found success with The Cooking Light Diet is the food. So far, the food has been delicious, filling, pretty to look at, and easy to prepare. I have discovered a renewed energy in the kitchen when it comes to cooking for my family, and I would never have guessed being on a diet would make cooking fun again. I thought it would be fun to highlight a few of my family’s favorite recipes.

First, the meal that started it all: Linguine with Garlicky Kale and White Beans. Our very first diet dinner has turned into one of our favorites. I was surprised that my kids (ages 10 and 14) ate it, but they loved it. The garlic is the star here, and besides that, the recipe has very few ingredients and is easy to prepare.

Another dinner that was a hit was Seared Steaks with Red Wine-Cherry Sauce. I could not believe I made this dish; it looked so fancy! It was Sunday dinner for us, and we lapped it up. Again, very few ingredients, and who knew I could make a restaurant-y sauce? Who knew I could sear? This home cook felt quite accomplished afterwards.

Our favorite Sunday brunch dish was Banana-Almond Butter French Toast Sandwiches. I could not believe this meal was “diet food.” It was fun to cook and came out looking deceivingly decadent. The kids loved it, too! It was satisfying and a definite do-over.

My best Meatless Monday meal is the Balsamic Bow Tie Pasta Salad. The kids asked, “Why are you putting grapes in pasta salad?” I said, “Be open-minded,” although I had my doubts as well. But lo and behold, it was fantastic! They had seconds and took it for lunch the next day. The white balsamic vinegar was new to me, and I must say I discovered the Perfect Bite was a forkful of pasta, tomato, grape, and feta. Yum!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the little foods that keep me going from meal to meal: the snacks! I have gotten to where I crave these healthy snacks instead of junk and keep them on hand when I am out and about. Here are a few favorites:

The cool thing on this diet is that on the website, you can click on the picture to make it a “favorite.” Then, whenever you want to pull that recipe up, you just look at your favorites. Also, all of your meals are saved under the “My Meals” tab, so if you want to look back at what you’ve cooked, the recipes are there. There is a calendar button on the recipes where you can schedule a previous meal for the current week. The diet will help you stay organized, as well as healthy and full.

As I look ahead to one more month on this diet, I am looking forward to cooking our favorite dishes and finding some new ones. I hope to lose 9 more pounds and reach my 20-pound weight-loss goal*, but I am honestly happy with how I feel right now. I’m learning how to cook better, how to eat well, and how to eat right at the same time. That concept for me is the secret to diet success.

*Members following The Cooking Light Diet, on average, lose more than half a pound per week. 

Brynn Duncan might as well live in a bubble. She suffers from mast cell activation syndrome, a rare disease that makes her allergic to almost everything.

An international rights group is pressing Paraguay to allow an abortion for a 10-year-old girl, who allegedly was raped by her stepfather. CNN's Rafael Romo reports.

Burger King's Extra Long Cheeseburger features two beef patties, onions, lettuce, two slices of American cheese, ketchup, mayo on the same sesame seed hoagie bun.

I bought two for $5 (it's priced at $3.59 for one).

If the components seem a little familiar, it's because the Extra Long Cheeseburger is essentially two Whopper Jr.'s with cheese (but without tomato) on a long bun (from the Original Chicken Sandwich) rather than two separate buns.

For the most part, I got the classic Whopper taste with the tangy ketchup-mayo combo and the sharp bite of fresh onions.

Unfortunately, the beef patties get lost in the shuffle. They're pretty small and the hoagie bun felt thicker than Burger King's regular burger bun. Throw in a regular slice of American cheese on each patty and there's very little in the way of beefiness going on. It felt a little like eating a cheese sandwich with Whopper-style condiments.

Overall, I didn't care much for Burger King's Extra Long Cheeseburger due to a decided lack of burger patties. Yes, it cheaper than buying a Whopper with cheese or two Whopper Jr.'s with cheese but I'd still choose both options over it. The name's also a little weird as it makes one think that the sandwich will have the same ingredients as Burger King's Cheeseburger rather than what comes on a Whopper.

Nutritional Info - Burger King Extra Long Cheeseburger (214g)
Calories - 590 (from Fat - 300)
Fat - 33g (Saturated Fat - 12g)
Sodium - 1040mg
Carbs - 50g (Sugar - 11g)
Protein - 22g

The quest to separate sex from baby-making is an ancient one. From drinking small amounts of poison to shoving dung, rock salt, or oil up the hoo-ha, ladies and gentlemen have been trying to get it on without the responsibility of bearing children for millennia. It’s only been in the last century or so that we’ve really gotten it right, developing modern drugs and implantable devices that can stop sperm from fertilizing an egg with precision and reliability. But the path to making it easy to choose when exactly to have a child (or not to have one at all) hasn’t always been a smooth one. Here are just a few surprising, disturbing, and downright bizarre facts from the history of human research into non-reproductive sex.

1. The Pill wasn’t the first oral contraceptive.

Long before hormonal pills were readily available to women of childbearing age, eating and drinking certain substances served as a rudimentary form of birth control (along with various other fascinating methods). The residents of Cyrene, a North African city-state in the Greek and Roman Empires, ate a plant called silphion (and harvested it to extinction). Some ancient women ate pomegranate seeds to prevent unwanted pregnancies—inspired by the legend of Persephone—or ingested pennyroyal, which is toxic in higher doses. Recent research has shown these techniques to be at least somewhat effective, though other ancient methods, like the Chinese practice of drinking mercury, were downright dangerous.

2. The Talmud OKs the use of contraceptive sponges.

The ancient Jewish text recommends using a sponge soaked in vinegar to block semen in a few select cases: if a girl is too young to bear children, or if a woman is already pregnant or nursing.

3. The idea for the IUD may have come from a camel.

Ancient Arab camel owners reportedly placed small stones in the uteruses of their animals to prevent pregnancy, though this is likely just a legend. However, animals have played a vital role in the development of intrauterine devices. In 1909, a Polish doctor named Richard Richter published the first paper on the successful use of an IUD created from the guts of a silkworm.

4. No IUD has been designed by a woman.

Though ancient reproductive medicine was generally a woman’s domain, practiced by midwives, gynecology eventually became a standardized medical practice under the domain of the medical establishment (largely dominated by men). Activists like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger were instrumental in the fight for easily available birth control, but most of the people involved in developing modern birth control have been men. The IUD, which sits inside the uterus, has been designed by people without uteruses (which may be how some of the devices ended up looking like implantable shark teeth).

As an IUD designer told reporters Lucy Vernasco and Arikia Millikan in their excellent history of the IUD over on Vice:

"When I was in school, [women] were discriminated against. They weren’t accepted," said Dr. Jack Lippes, designer of the Lippes Loop, a once-prominent player in the progression of better, safer IUDs. He listed off all the men who’ve historically made the IUDs. "They’re all males, right."

5. Diaphragms were once known as “womb veils.”

In the late 1800s, American women had some access to early versions of the female condom. These diaphragms and cervical caps were sometimes called “womb veils” or even a “mechanical shield for ladies,” as historian Janet Farrell Brodie writes in her book Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth Century America.

6. Birth control wasn’t legal for everyone until 1972.

While contraceptives like the Pill were available to married couples looking to plan their families, laws against distributing contraceptives to single people were still on the books until the 1970s. The U.S. Supreme Court finally brought birth control to the masses in Eisenstadt v. Baird, arguing that treating married and unmarried people differently violated the Equal Protection Clause. In the case, William Baird had been charged with a felony for giving Emko Vaginal Foam to a woman after a Boston University lecture on birth control.

7. An IUD can rip a sperm’s head off.

IUDs work in a variety of different ways, mainly by making the uterus a terrible place for sperm. Copper can act as a spermicide, and non-hormonal copper IUDs have been known to rip sperm heads from tails. 

8. We’re still arguing about how an IUD works. 

While the IUD is one of the most effective contraceptives on the market, with an efficacy rate of 99 percent, scientists still aren’t precisely sure of the method through which it prevents pregnancy in some cases. The IUD largely hinders sperm mobility and function (see: ripping heads off), keeping the sperm from ever reaching the egg. However, if by chance a sperm does make it to the egg, the IUD thins the cervical mucus to keep the embryo from implanting in the uterus—which is why some lawmakers and craft stores argue (contrary to scientific research) that IUDs are a method of abortion.

9. The Pill’s active ingredient comes from a yam.

In the 1950s, a Mexico City-based company called Syntex synthesized progestin, the main hormone in birth control pills, from a wild Mexican yam called barbasco. Carl Djerassi, the chemist responsible for the breakthrough, is now heralded as one of the fathers of the Pill.

10. Condoms and tires have more in common than you thought.

Modern condoms wouldn’t be possible without Charles Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized rubber. Ancient incarnations were made with linen and animal intestines, and were typically aimed at reducing the risk of disease, rather than preventing pregnancy. Goodyear patented his method of shaping and strengthening rubber in 1844, and the first rubber condom was produced a decade later. Latex versions, however, weren't invented until 1920.

11. The Pill has a four-week cycle because of the Catholic Church.

Most birth control pills feature a three-week cycle of active pills followed by one week of placebo pills made of sugar. There’s no biological underpinning that dictates this cycle. Rather, it is the design of John Rock, a devout Catholic doctor who conducted the first human trials of the birth control pill, and biologist Gregory Pincus. Rock argued that the Pill was a “natural” form of contraception, using hormones that occur naturally in the female body almost like a pharmacological extension of the Catholic-endorsed rhythm method—and thus should be accepted by the Catholic Church. (Needless to say, his argument was unsuccessful.) In an era when birth control was still quite controversial—the Pill wouldn’t be legal for unmarried couples in all states until more than a decade after its 1960 approval by the FDA—the researchers speculated that making it seem like birth control wasn’t interfering with the natural menstrual cycle would make it more palatable to the public.

However, the period that women get during the placebo week isn’t even a real period—it’s a withdrawal response from discontinuing the hormones. It’s perfectly healthy to skip your period by continuing to take the active pills.

12. The first trials of the Pill in humans involved test subjects who couldn’t technically consent.

Starting in 1954, gynecologist John Rock and biologist Gregory Pincus began tests of synthetic oral progesterone, or birth control pills. While 50 of Rock’s infertility patients volunteered, the drug was also tested on 28 psychiatric patients at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts. At the time, anti-obscenity laws in Massachusetts prevented the researchers from putting out a public call for volunteers.

There is no question we never fail to answer in this Internet age, and it’s, “What’s gonna happen next?” We have to know. We were born needing to know. And so of course, we must click a button and find out what could possibly occur when some guy pours molten aluminum into a watermelon and films it.

Because something must happen, if the video is posted on the Internet in the first place, especially when it pairs two things that don’t normally interact, right?

Probably, but it’s not always what you’d expect: In the case of watermelon-plus-melty-metal, even The Backyard Science guy behind the clip admits that he had a pretty buzzworthy result in mind.

Did he achieve instant virality? Is Gallagher going to be very jealous? We’re not in the habit of spoiling the end of stories, so you’ll just have to watch and findout for yourself. I will say it’s pretty cool, regardless of your expectations when it comes to molten metals and fruit.

Cost is a key factor when considering a pet, and this chart from the ASPCA breaks down costs you should expect for the first year after adopting a new animal companion.

Read more...

The state's attorney of Baltimore on Friday said she had probable cause to pursue criminal charges against six cops over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.

Gray, who died in police custody on April 19 after being arrested a week earlier, was yelling for help before he was loaded into a police van. When he arrived at the station, he was unconscious. His subsequent death has sparked protests around the nation and a riot in Baltimore on Monday. As the state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby, announced her plans in a news conference, people cheered, the New York Times reports.

What's more, Mosby argued the officers didn't have probable cause to arrest Gray in the first place. Technically, when a person in a high-crime area takes off upon spotting police, the cops have the legal justification to pursue them. However, according to a charging document, he was arrested for carrying a spring-assisted knife. "The knife was not a switchblade, and it is lawful," Mosby said at the press conference. She added that by the time he was removed from the police van, "Mr. Gray was no longer breathing at all."

Warrants have been issued for officers Caesar R. Goodson Jr., William G. Porter, Lieutenant Brian W. Rice, Edward M. Nero, Garrett E. Miller, and Sergeant Alicia D. White. Goodson, the driver of the van, is charged with "depraved-heart murder," a legal term for second-degree murder that stems from the callous disregard for human life. It can be punished with up to 30 years in prison. All the officers have been charged with assault and misconduct.

On Thursday, Baltimore police completed an investigation into Gray's death. They also appeared to have leaked a document to the Washington Post suggesting Gray had—improbably—been trying to injure himself. His spinal cord was 80 percent severed, according to his attorney.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

It's time, once again, to marvel at some idiots who don't know how to handle the world:

Cry-Baby #1: An unnamed woman in Brentwood, England

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Screencap via Google Maps.

The incident: A guy hung a painting with the word fuck on it in his gallery window.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: An outraged passerby called the police.

Art dealer John Brandler owns a gallery/store called Brandler Galleries in Brentwood, England.

Last month, he hung a painting in the gallery's window. The painting, which is pictured above, is by some artists called the Connor Brothers and, as a pun on Much Ado About Nothing, has the words "A LOAD OF FUSS ABOUT FUCK ALL" written across the top of it. It has a sale price of £7,500 ($11,500).

According to a report in John's local paper, the Brentwood Gazette, John got a visit from a police officer a couple of weeks ago. The officer told him that he'd received a complaint from a member of the public about the painting, and told John that he would have to cover up the "fuck."

"There are 60,000 people in Brentwood and one person can object to something and by law it has to be removed," John told the paper. "I think it is fucking bonkers."

John put a piece of paper on the painting, covering up the offending word. Which satisfied the officer.

"He had to photograph that we had covered it so he could show that he had done his job. Is that what we pay the police for?" John fumed.

John says that, due to the UK's data protection laws, the officer was unable to tell him who had made the complaint. All he was able to reveal, John said, is that she had been a woman, and had contacted the police by phone. "Why not just come in and say 'I found that offensive' or phone me?" he said.

Cry-Baby #2: Cheryl Lynn (not the one who sang "Got to be Real")

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Screencap via Google Maps.

The incident: A woman was refused a refund for a haircut she didn't like.

The appropriate response: A VERY strongly worded Yelp review.

The actual response: She stabbed the stylist multiple times.

Last week, 20-year-old Cheryl Lynn (pictured above) of Utica, New York, was at a house party when she saw a stylist who had previously given her a haircut she was not happy with.

According to a report on WKTV, Cheryl "approached her, accusing her of styling her hair poorly and saying she wanted her money back."

No further details of this exchange are given in any of the news reports on this story, but, according to police, Cheryl left the party without getting a refund from the unnamed woman.

Some time later that night, police say, Cheryl ran into the hair stylist in the street. The two women then allegedly began fighting and Cheryl stabbed the victim three times in her neck, shoulder, and chest. The victim was able to flee the scene and called the police.

Cheryl was arrested later that night and charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon, both of which are felonies.

Who here is the bigger cry-baby? Let us know in this poll right here:

Previously: A school that expelled a girl who missed too many days due to cancer vs. a woman who stabbed a man with a pen because he was snoring on a plane.

Winner: The cancer school!!!

Follow Jamie Lee Curtis Taete on Twitter.

FOUND by Kate Gorman; Fort Worth, TX
I found this letter while I was walking my dog in a residential neighborhood. I am baffled by its pristine condition as well as it’s content. Who is the chairman and what did his employees do to cast a “pervasive pall of perversion” and who talks like that? Wonder how the meeting went..

Having trouble getting pregnant? On Mothershould, Grace Manning-Devlin shares this helpful tip for starting a family: constantly tell your friends and acquaintances that you’re having sex.

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The notorious Jade Helm 15 map. Credit: US Army Special Operations Command

The US Army is up to something. It's teaming up with all branches of the armed forces for a plan called Jade Helm 15 that, for secret military reasons, will happen this summer all over the Southwest United States.

The fact that the military keeps secrets is not, in and of itself, a secret. But as VICE News pointed out last month, this particular exercise triggered a wildfire of paranoia after part of the plan for Jade Helm 15 leaked online. The scary-looking map (above) marks Texas, Utah, and a sliver of Southern California as "hostile," and some of the media's more unconventional thinkers have taken that to mean there's some kind of plan to impose martial law.

Paranoid questions about Jade Helm 15 finally reached the White House Wednesday, forcing Obama's press secretary Josh Earnest to come up with something to say that would allay fears that the Southwest United States is about to be plunged into martial law.

Related: Watch our documentary about David Icke, Lizard People and the New World Order.

The fragments of the plan that have been declassified have—understandably—left questions unanswered: "What are the troops doing?" "Why?" "What are the military's specific goals for this exercise?" "Is the military really being trained, or is the population being exposed to a military presence in order to prepare us for the onset of totalitarianism by Obama's liberal government, which has been driven mad with power thanks to the efforts of those of us who have seen behind the curtain, and aren't willing to be cowed into complicity?"

The Army tried to answer these questions. It issued a statement back in March, explaining that this is about maintaining readiness, that the exercises were happening in the Southwest because that's the kind of terrain troops might encounter abroad, and that since it would all be carried out on private property the Army is being permitted to use, no one's Third Amendment rights are being violated. They also tried to spin it as a good thing:

The most noticeable effect the exercise may have on the local communities is an increase in vehicle and military air traffic and its associated noise. There will also be economic gain: an increase in the local economy, in fuel and food purchases and hotel lodging.

But prominent alarmists like Alex Jones's Info Wars and TeaParty.org, continued to allude to the ominous nature of the exercise. The entertaining Austrian economics blog ZeroHedge included accounts of beefed-up military presences around the areas marked in red on the map, and also embedded videos by citizen journalists, including a scary-looking clip of troops marching down a residential street in Southern California, ostensibly to give the viewer a sense of just what Obama's martial law is going to look like. However, the timing of the video doesn't seem to line up with Jade Helm 15, since it's timestamped November. November of 2073!

[youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Hj7efDgGRH0' width='640' height='360']

But things started to get out of hand earlier this week when Army Lieutenant Colonel Mark Lastoria stood for questions at a meeting in Bastrop County, Texas, in the hopes of extinguishing fears by explaining the exercise to attendees. It backfired, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Lastoria had to endure a two hour bombardment of questions from frightened Texans about whether Obama was bringing ISIS fighters to Texas, and planning to confiscate their guns. Apparently, he wasn't able to reassure them that these ideas were off base.

So now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has taken matters into his own hands, indicating in a letter that members of the Texas State Guard will be ordered to monitor the United States military as they carry out the Jade Helm 15, scheduled to run from July through September.

That was weird news for the Obama administration. In a news conference, Obama's press secretary Josh Earnest had to address Abbot's decision. "I have no idea what he's thinking," Earnest told reporters. "[I]n no way will the constitutional rights or civil liberties of any American citizen be infringed upon while this exercise is being conducted," he added.

So, if you're in the American Southwest from July 15 through September 15, the army's official position is that you might notice an "increased military presence," and that might include some noise. They say if you see any soldiers, they might just be toting guns loaded with blanks.

At this time, only Texas can expect the additional beefed-up presence of State Guard troops, making sure the citizenry's "safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed." It remains unclear what the Texas State Guard plans to do if the US military really does start pushing people around. We talked to some Texas secessionists last month who probably have a few ideas, though.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Pouncey is from the mountains of Western North Carolina. He loves chewing sticks, chasing balls, and pouncing at his big brothers, Nacho and Eli. When he's not pouncing, he enjoys sleeping on dog beds and feet. He eats like a pony and is a real sweetheart!

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Artwork by Nick Scott

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It's when people ask why that you feel most impotent. Guilty even. Why are you depressed? What's happened to make you feel so down? As if you don't feel bad enough in the first place, now you have to rationalize, or explain away, your depression.

It's no wonder that one of the symptoms of depression is self-loathing. Of course you're going to hate yourself when there's no bloody reason for feeling so bad. And yes, it only makes it worse when you know that there are people starving and homeless who have real cause to be miserable. You lacerate yourself for your self-indulgence.

And yet there's nothing self-indulgent about depression. It's an imbalance in the brain that makes you feel desperately bleak and/or terrified of everything around you. You don't need to have existential nausea, an intricately woven theory about the purposelessness of life. You don't need events to conspire against you. You don't need to lose your job. Though all these can help. You simply, sometimes, need the blip in the brain. And when you have the blip life loses all objectivity and stops making sense.

So, for example, you can't face getting up in the morning, and you wrap yourself like a sausage roll in your duvet and lie in the dark forever. Or you do get up and find yourself weeping uncontrollably in a supermarket for no obvious reason. (I spent years weeping every time my partner and I went to Sainsbury's on Saturday morning. I don't know why—I actually quite liked the place, but eventually she decided it was easiest doing the shopping by herself.) Or you find yourself playing dare in the road, recklessly weaving in and out of cars hoping for the worst. Or you don't dare go on the tube for fear of throwing yourself under—and yes, I know the terrible impact it would have on all who witness it.

For all my adult life my ambition has been to feel something that reflects the real world; happy because something good has happened, sad because something bad.

Or you're scared of looking people in the eyes because you constantly think you're going to be exposed, even if you're not quite sure what form that exposure will take—for being thick, a smart-ass, insensitive, oversensitive, liking someone, not liking someone, having nothing to say, you name it. Or you're so paralyzed by fear, or locked into your own world, that you stop being able to comprehend the basics—somebody might ask you the time, and you're incapable of answering because all you can hear in your head is the metronome clicking from side to side and it's suffocating all other thought.

I remember being on holiday one year in Greece with a girlfriend. It didn't help that we had no money, so we spent our waking and sleeping hours on a nudist beach surrounded by narcissistic hedonists who delighted in nothing quite so much as themselves. Every day I wished it would rain. Not because we would have an excuse for leaving the beach, but because I would have reason to feel shit. "We've come all this way to enjoy the fleshy delights of Greece and now it's pissing down. Damn. Life is cruel." And for all my adult life that has been my ambition—to feel something that reflects the real world; happy because something good has happened, sad because something bad.

And it is the curse of the depressive to be denied that seemingly simple ask. Unless, in my experience, they take pills.

I resisted antidepressants as a a teenager and young man. It was probably because my doctor put me on antidepressants when I, in fact, had encephalitis—inflammation of the brain—so I never much trusted the experts' diagnosis. Pills were a sign of failure, of madness, one step away from ECT and not that far removed from the full lobotomy. Anything but pills.

So at ten years old I was sent to see a hospital psychiatrist. She asked me to talk about how I felt, and then decided I had Münchausen by proxy, rather than encephalitis, and it was all my poor mother's fault. Turned out she—the psychiatrist, not my mom—was bonkers and used to run round the hospital naked regularly when the clock struck midnight.

A few years later, in the grip of genuine depression (many encephalitis survivors suffer depression for a variety of reasons—because their brain has been messed with, because they are left with disabilities or because they struggle with life afterwards), I went to another psychiatrist. How he enjoyed making me talk about what made me feel bad, how clever he seemed to think he was when he suggested my depression might have something to do with what I'd gone through. I didn't know what I was doing there, listening to a man absorb my life story and then reach a conclusion I already knew. I didn't want understanding, not even sympathy, I wanted help. Besides that, he was weird—a nice enough fella, but he was overweight, so he had his jaws clamped. That didn't do the trick. So he then had a stomach bypass operation, which eventually killed him. I had to sit in the room with the windows open because his stomach was so wrecked by the op that he trumped his way through every session I had with him.

Not long after I tried pills again. They made me catatonic. Zombie pills. Whereas before I just wanted to sleep through the days, these pills actually made me do so. Of course, you're not going to feel so bad if you're totally out of it, but it ain't much of a life. I came off the pills.

The change was astonishing—I didn't become a shiny happy person, but I did stop crying all the time.

For the next decade or so, I survived without shrinks or pills. I cried my way through life, wrapped myself up in the sausage roll duvet, and just about got through. Everything was good in life—I had my dream job at the Guardian, great partner, kids, friends—and yet I still felt like shit.

Depressives tend to be drawn to one another. You can smell them from a mile off. And that's what probably drew me to my best friend, a colleague at the paper. She was a classic depressive who didn't have anything to be miserable about. She was brilliant, lovely, loved, unique. But none of this helped her cope with life, and she killed herself.

A few months later I cracked up. I knew it was to do with my friend, and was inevitable. I took myself to the doctor and said I was suicidal, and just wanted something to make me feel better as quickly as possible. She sent me to the psychiatric hospital, which didn't detain me but put me on antidepressants. Prozac was still relatively new in the 1990s. REM wrote "Shiny Happy People" about the pills—and that was the common fear, that they were a giddy form of chemical cosh. Doctors promised me I'd feel sick for a few weeks (I did) but I should persist.

The change was astonishing. I didn't become a shiny happy person, but I did stop crying all the time. The metronome stopped clicking, I could tell people the time, and I became something approximating a functioning human being. Diane, my partner, had been against antidepressants because she had seen the effect of the earlier ones on me, but now she became insistent that I remain on them.

I read stuff about how people had become crazy and killed on Prozac, and worried. But I have never felt like killing anybody. I read that it made it more difficult to ejaculate (true, but it's good to have a challenge) and that you lose your emotions (I've still got plenty, but don't cry quite as easily as I did in Sainsbury's). I tried to come off every so often but felt awful when I did. I questioned whether this was my depression or I had become addicted to the Prozac. Perhaps it's both. In the end, I stopped worrying.

If it's made life livable, who cares whether I'm an addict? Eighteen years and counting with the cylindrical green and white godsends. Have I been on them too long? Probably. Am I an addict? Possibly. Will I ever successfully come off them? Probably not. Do I care? No way. Viva la Prozac. Here's to the next 18 years.

If you are concerned about the mental health of you or someone you know, visit the Mental Health America website.

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Emma Stone is Woody Allen’s new favorite actress to pair with older actors, seeming to serve as a proxy for the characters Woody Allen may have at one point played. Last year, it was Magic in the Moonlight, and this year the film following the relatively expected trend is The Irrational Man, whose trailer was just released, and sees Stone forming a close — and eventually romantic — relationship with her philosophy professor who’s undergoing an existential crisis.

As was seen with Magic, Allen’s prolificness often makes the quality of his films a gamble, but from the Irrational Man trailer, it seems this may be one of Allen’s decent-ish film years. This is mostly due to the fact that the cast alone — apart from Stone — is enough to make anyone giddy. Parker Posey rarely gets to play such a pivotal role in mainstream movies, so the sheer fact that she seems to be getting so much screen time here is exciting; then, of course, the film’s other star (and the titular irrational man) is Joaquin Phoenix, whose emotional complexity could even make the most on-the-nose Allen character compelling and puzzling.

Up until now, details from the film were kept completely hushed (though it looks like such typical, almost-intellectualizing, certainly womanizing material from the director that the secrecy seems futile). Even the actors were only told what they needed to know. Posey told Entertainment Weekly that she’d only seen parts of the script:

I had no idea what the exact mood of the movie was. I had no idea how I fit in or how the other characters thought of me.

Alas, everyone will find out for sure what the movie is really about at its world premiere at Cannes, and then on July 17 when it hits U.S. theaters.

If there’s one thing I love about Canada, it’s its forthrightness—that fresh, earnest ability to put it all on the table without shame, take it or leave it. Like Tisdale, in the Saskatchewan province: a landlocked little town of 3,000 or so people, proudly home to rape and honey.

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While complimentary airline meals are rare these days, international flights will often still serve them. If you have dietary restrictions, you can use the following table to review all your options for major airlines.

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7-Eleven's Sausage Biscuit features a simple breakfast sandwich of a sausage patty inside two biscuit halves.

I bought one for $1.

These are warmed to order, or I suppose you can just grab one from their refrigerated display case and just heat it up when you get to whereever you are going.

The sausage patty was suitably greasy and well-seasoned but wasn't very porky/meaty.

The biscuit had a nice enough flavor but was a curious mix of moist and dry portions, which was at times crumbly and at times spongy.

Overall, 7-Eleven's Sausage Biscuit was okay for the price but is just very ho-hum in general. If you're going for a $1 breakfast sandwich at 7-Eleven, the Spicy Chicken Biscuit offers the same inconsistent biscuit but a superior flavor.

Nutritional Info - 7-Eleven Sausage Biscuit (81g)
Calories - 280 (from Fat - 160)
Fat - 18g (Saturated Fat - 8g)
Sodium - 640mg
Carbs - 26g (Sugar - 7g)
Protein - 7g

Every episode of Inside Amy Schumer deserves to be talked about, but there’s always one segment that rises above the rest and necessitates a little extra conversation. In lieu of recapping full episodes, we’re here to help you with water-cooler conversation by letting you know which sketch was an absolute must-watch.

Two episodes in, it seems like part of season three’s heightened ambition—not to mention production value—is the regular inclusion of music videos. Last week’s premiere opened with “Milk Milk Lemonade,” a spoof of “Anaconda”-style ass anthems featuring Amber Rose and Method Man. But while the tune was undeniably catchy, its sophomoric punchline (“This is where my poop comes out!”) lacked the nuance, and the bite, of Schumer’s best material.

Enter “Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup,” in which a One Direction-style boy band delivers yet another condescending ode to natural beauty…until they actually see Amy sans makeup. Over the next two minutes, the boys backpedal furiously and give Amy increasingly harsh beauty advice, from “I can’t be seen with the ghost from The Ring” to “Think of a clown and then work your way back!” It all adds up to a biting satire of both the social currency men earn for claiming they prefer women without makeup and their frequent ignorance of what no makeup—instead of “no-makeup makeup”—really looks like. The sketch is reminiscent of an excellent bit from Chelsea Peretti’s 2014 Netflix special One of the Greats, with the added bonus of spot-on casting and “generic pop anthem” sound.

 

When the 606 opens on June 6, your four-legged pals will be able to tag along, just as long as they're on a leash. [ more › ]

Ever make a harmless mistake that gets blown out of proportion? British politician Ed Balls has, and that's why the Internet is celebrating "Ed Balls Day" today. On April 28, 2011, the Labour M.P. and Shadow Chancellor sent out this tweet, assumedly in a mix-up while trying to search for his own name:

Ed Balls

— Ed Balls (@edballsmp) April 28, 2011

An honest (and funny) slip-up, surely, but the Internet isn't exactly known for its collective ability to let things slide. As of writing, it has been retweeted over 44,775 times. April 28th is now "Ed Balls Day," an ironic pseudo-holiday where revelers celebrate on Twitter and share their #EdBallsDay memories and well-wishes. “I’ve no idea what to make of it,” Balls says in an interview. “It’s obviously helped by the fact that I have a memorable name." To his credit, Balls is a good sport and has played along on his eponymous day of honor:

Greetings and a Happy Day to you all from the top of the 141 bus, now crossing (where else?) the Balls Pond Road...

— Ed Balls (@edballsmp) April 28, 2014

But, being a politician, Balls can't win. "There’s one group of people who think if I don’t engage somehow on the day, I’m a bad sport. And if I do engage, there’ll be another whole group of people who’ll say, ‘Oh, God, he’s ruined it,’" Balls tells the New Statesmen.

While "Ed Balls" the tweet now has a life of its own, Ed Balls the man has no choice but to find the silver lining in all this insanity. “Who in postwar British politics has had a day named after them?" he says. "You take what you can, really, don’t you?”

Taco Bell is now available in Japan with the opening of a Tokyo location last Tuesday, April 21, 2015.

While the denizens of Japan's capital city can now enjoy Crunchy Tacos, Burritos, and Crunchwrap Supremes, they also get a number of Japanese exclusives:

- Shrimp & Avocado Burrito - Seasoned whole shrimp, avocado guacamole, wasabi mayo, shredded lettuce, and fiesta salsa wrapped in a flour tortilla.

- Fajita Burrito - A choice of grilled chicken or pork, warm fajita vegetables (bell peppers and onions), choice of sauce, and cheese blend wrapped inside of a flour tortilla (a quesadilla version is also available).

- Taco Rice Bowl - Seasoned beef, cheddar cheese, fiesta salsa, and lettuce over Mexican rice.

The launch isn't the brand's first foray into the country as an aborted attempt was made back in the 1980s.

Tastykake's limited-time spring Kandy Kakes include Lemon, Cherry, and Strawberry flavors.

An 8-oz box contains six packs of two snack cakes and retails for about $4.49 but I received these courtesy of Tastykake.

The Lemon ones feature white confectionery-coated vanilla sponge cake with lemon creme filling; Cherry consists of dark chocolate-covered chocolate cake with cherry creme filling; and Strawberry offers white confectionery-coated vanilla sponge cake with strawberry creme filling.

Rather than completely covering of each cake with a layer of creme, they went with a rectangular strip and partial coverage.

I cut the two Strawberry Kandy Cakes differently to show the varying creme coverage.

The white confectionery coating was sweet and creamy. For whatever reason, it was notably thicker on the Lemon Kandy Kakes and blunted the tangy lemony flavor a fair bit. The strawberry creme was creamier and came out a bit better with the coating.

The dark chocolate-flavored coating was my preferred of the two with a pleasant if not rich chocolaty quality and smooth texture. The chocolate cake paired well with it and added a light cocoa flavor. Combined with the cherry creme, it reminded of a cherry cordial.

The snack cakes were a bit on the dry side (which is fairly normal for snack cakes) but otherwise had a nice, spongy texture.

Overall, Tastykake's Spring Kandy Kakes were pretty good. With the high amount of frosting/coating to cake, there's a reason they're called "Kandy." I liked the Strawberry flavor the best; I enjoyed the lemon creme more but there was too much candy coating that came with.

Nutritional Info - Tastykake Lemon Kandy Kakes
Serving Size - 2 cakes (38g)
Calories - 190 (from Fat - 100)
Fat - 11g (Saturated Fat - 7g)
Sodium - 50g
Carbs - 23g (Sugars - 16g)
Protein - less than 1g

Nutritional Info - Tastykake Cherry Kandy Kakes
Serving Size - 2 cakes (38g)
Calories - 190 (from Fat - 80)
Fat - 9g (Saturated Fat - 6g)
Sodium - 70g
Carbs - 24g (Sugars - 18g)
Protein - 1g

Nutritional Info - Tastykake Strawberry Kandy Kakes
Serving Size - 2 cakes (38g)
Calories - 190 (from Fat - 90)
Fat - 10g (Saturated Fat - 6g)
Sodium - 50g
Carbs - 23g (Sugars - 16g)
Protein - less than 1g

It’s easy to become complacent in a long-term relationship. If you need a little help keeping the romance alive, follow this rule to keep regular dates .

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Evening Shade (!) resident Susie Clark was visiting Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas when something caught her eye: a 3.69 carat diamond. Clark discovered the diamond, which is the size of a “pinto bean,” while walking in the park’s search field.

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Chicago Police have issued warnings for women in Logan Square and Wicker Park after a series of violent robberies in the area targeting females. [ more › ]