[No. The above photo is not the King out with his buddy on a quest for a fast food fix].

Here comes a fastball, tight and inside, ready to be smacked out of the park (I have no clue what I'm talking about when it comes to baseball references, so humor me). You all know how I love when life serves it up in such a perfect manner that it just can’t be overlooked.

A manager of a Brazilian McDonalds has just been awarded eighteen thousand dollars for gaining weight on the job. Eighteen thousand dollars!! [I put on some poundage carrying the King, where the heck is my eighteen thousand dollars??] The man filed suit claiming that the food he had been eating on his lunch break as well as the food he ingested for quality control, caused him to put on 65 pounds...‘Quality control.’ Yeah, I’ve used that excuse before; “I just have to check that this carton of ice cream doesn’t have frost bite. Actually, it’s hard to tell from just one bite, I fear it’s going to take a few more. Oh, whoops, look at that, I’m scratching the bottom of the carton like the gluttonous piggy that I am.” I’m thinking ‘quality control’ is a euphemism for ‘I have no self control, I think I’ll stuff a few more fries in my mouth when the customers aren’t looking.’

Yes ladies and gentleman, it is official; we are no longer responsible for our own actions. In fact, what we put in our faces is apparently someone else’s fault…do you ever get the feeling that everything is everyone else’s fault in our country at the moment? We overspend, over mortgage, and overeat, but seriously, it’s not our faults. Let’s blame the bankers, the government, and the food chains. Anyone but ourselves.

In this case, as all humans have free will – in most countries anyway – this manager could have opted for the McDonald salads instead of the double cheeseburgers - I’ve seen the commercials, I know they have them, although I find the notion slightly scary. Or, I don’t know, here’s a wild idea, portion control; or bring your own lunch from home and take a jog on your lunch break! But suing your employers for your inability to control how much of their food you eat, you’re getting very little sympathy from me.

Fine, McDonalds – and all fast food really – does not really qualify as food in my book. It’s caloric, bad for us, and aiding in the alarming rise in obesity and disease worldwide. But saying all this, as far as I can tell, the fast food chains do not follow you home, bang on your door and shove the burger in your face as you utter, ‘who is it?’ Let's be honest, Joe Public does not need much help in the department of choosing things that are bad for them. There is a McDonalds near our house. It is now open from 5am, and when I say that place is packed from morning till night, I mean it. I watch parents shovel meals fit for grown men into their children and then I'm sure they wonder why they can’t do up their kid’s trousers. I'll give you a hint - that 'happy' meal you're eating is going to make your arteries anything but happy. 

So instead of suing people for our inability to maintain our weight, how about we focus on basic arithmetic. If you take in more than you burn off, you’re going to have an ass that jiggles like a bucket of special sauce. Appetizing, eh? Even the King knows that much and even he pushes away the bottle when he’s had enough.

Recently there was a new dating site launched for self-proclaimed ‘ugly’ people. The site even has ugly in the web address, as if it is not hard enough to go on dating sites or meet people full stop; this one has to spell it out that you are in an unfortunate niche group. On the positive side, as a result of this site, a couple in England recently announced that they are due to wed after a series of dates. Apparently, they deemed themselves too ugly for the norm – the man even goes as far to say that his face scares children – and never thought they’d find love until this new mecca for the aesthetically challenged. So after four dates and a mutual love of junk food and TV, they’re getting hitched. Ugly or not, I’m thinking they might want to give it a bit longer to see if they share more in common than a love of Mountain Dew and a bag of monster munch. But I suppose we all I have the same odds when it comes to hitching our trains to forever-ville.

I suppose sites like these are inevitable. We seem to love putting ourselves in a variety of little boxes, especially when it comes to packaging ourselves in order to meet people. Although it’s kind of depressing that one would consider themselves so ugly that they would need a special site in which to enroll. I mean, look around you, we’re not a world of Brad Pitts and Angelina Jolies. The majority has scars, imperfections, lumps, bumps and eccentricities that life heaps upon us in great supply. And thank god for that. Besides, when it comes to one's looks, I’ve always thought beauty was subjective and never really subscribed to the ‘normal’ version of beauty. I mean, one man’s diamond is another man’s lump of coal, is it not?  

This couple that is due to wed goes on to call themselves ‘great personalities.’ I suppose that if you thought you were so deficient in the looks department you would work very hard on your personality.  That of course works conversely as well, as there are certainly many 'beautiful' people that get incredibly lazy when it comes to carving out their characters and are walking wankers with nice smiles. Which of course in my book makes them far from attractive. In fact, when I meet someone that is ugly on the inside, it is almost impossible for me to notice his or her looks. In my eyes, they suddenly have this flashing sign above their head that blinks, BIG FAT TOOL in very big letters. 

Trust me, sometimes it’s very amusing being inside my head.

The funny thing is, I suppose there are those out there that consider themselves ‘ugly,’ and perhaps are not society’s beauty ideal, and then those that think they are the next Brad Pitt, but definitely are anything but. And to go further with that ball of ironies, there are also those that are beautiful but so lacking in the confidence department that they think they’re ugly. So you see, I think we need to throw the definitions out the window, they're not helping anyone.

Often I think it has nothing to do with looks, but boils down to how one carries themselves and what they put out there. I love when I meet individuals that transcend looks, they simple are, and you can feel their life force and confidence from about a mile away. It simply oozes from their pores in everything they do, how they carry themselves, dress, talk etc; they are simply utterly self-possessed in the best possible way. Then there are those where looks don’t even come into it, like um…Bill Gates for example. He’s no pin up, by the standards at large, and yet, he’s Bill Gates. You’re not even thinking about his looks as one is usually so at awe by the man’s intellect and unparalleled success. I suppose this is where achievement comes in. It’s just so pretty and alluring. And trust me, you don’t need a dating site if you’re ugly as a pig but heavy in the wallet. Sad but very true.

Actually, I think I just hit upon the next site to be – pig ugly but hideously rich. Sometimes I’m just full of good ideas.