This is, in fact, a legitimate brand, and not a Photoshop’d picture. You can find proof here.

Punch lines for this picture are left as an exercise for the reader, but points will be taken off for anything utilizing the words “hot” and “toast.”

However, as the weather gets warmer, I’ve found myself able to steer away from the many Starbucks locations, largely because something about a hot beverage in hot weather just seems contradictory to my soul. On rare occasions, I would spring for a “Venti Iced Black & White” (four shots, white chocolate, mocha syrup, milk, and ice in a 22 oz cup), but this is cost prohibitive at $4.65.

Now, Starbucks has thrown a monkey wrench into my plan for reduced spending in their store. They did this by introducing the “Iced Double Shot.”

Do not be fooled by the name. The only version that contains just two shots (which you would expect from the “Double Shot” name) of espresso is the strangely-named Tall size. The Venti (my personal favorite) contains five shots, and though the standard version contains the “classic” syrup (liquid sugar), they will substitute white chocolate at no cost. Adding insult to injury (and calories to the drink), one of my many barista buddies alerted me to the option of topping it with Half & Half instead of milk.

So why am I cursing Starbucks for this glorious, caffeine-laden beverage? I can answer that very simply:

$3.13

After a quick trip to another toilet to deal with the most immediate problem, you locate the plunger. Even in the stupor of less than 5 minutes of consciousness, you’re able to inspect the plunger and see the crack in the rubber that will render it completely useless. This is your second sign.

Not to worry, you have a “backup plunger” (a backup to deal with… uhm… backups). You grab the backup device, return to the scent of the crime, and begin plunging. Unfortunately, the backup device is slightly inferior in design to your primary plunger (which is why the other, now defective plunger, was the primary tool). As such, it turns itself inside-out periodically, and requires a bit of “toilet rim gymnastics” to get the rubber edge flipped right-side-out again.

And so you plunge away, and pause to pull and rotate the handle, flipping the business-end of the plunger back into the correct shape. But the final pull seems too easy, and that’s when you have the third and final sign that it will be a crappy day:

Bringing American Idol to the visually impaired

To be fair, the article is actually about technology for helping people with macular degeneration (a significant form of vision loss, particularly among the elderly) by adjusting the contrast of a television image. There is only the most passing reference to “American Idol,” the thankfully-maligned TV show. Even so, my reaction to the headline was:

Why should the visually impaired have to suffer too?

Here’s the text:

Arrrrr!

My youngest son sat upright on the couch as if he’d been shocked by electricity. Without warning, he shouted out (in a perfect Schwarzenegger voice), “It’s not a Toomer!”*

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

* My son was parodying this scene from “Kindergarten Cop”: