Season of intensity

Abby just flung the Overton Window wide open by pouring seltzer on my head in retaliation to some wisecrack. It was Polar blueberry lemonade flavor, to answer your first question. I can't remember my joke, to answer the second question. I only know that this household has now become a high-intensity prank battleground. BURN IT DOWN.

Speaking of intense, last week we saw Twisters in 4DX, which means your chair shakes around and you get lightly misted and it felt like someone was blowing into my ear (just like a real twister, probs). The dude next to us looked at his phone THE ENTIRE TIME which is not normal behavior. Thirty bucks to enjoy the internet in a moving chair.

Also intense (but not fun) was the guy threatening to jump off a five-story building near our house last week. He kept making runs for the edge, then yelling down, "Tell me why I shouldn't!" I was with a crowd of maybe 15 people - security guards, a young couple making out on the Citibike stands, and some wiseguys hanging out in front of the barbershop. One guy kept yelling "You won't even die from that height!" which is a New Yorker being helpful. The man eventually came down.

We've been eating intensely too. A couple weeks ago it was the Minnesota State Fair, with things like deep-fried olives and alligator sausage and lobster eclairs. Then yesterday we went to something called Pig Island, a BBQ competition in NYC's most terrible borough. After arriving at noon and washing down 38 kinds of pork with hard cider and key lime martinis, I bought a picnic blanket and we laid down for a snooze. Look how cute:

I love fall, man.

xo,

Jesse

A colorfully dressed woman, late 50s or early 60s, struck up a conversation with the door guy recently:

"I was right outside your store, smoking a joint, when the pastor from my church came by. I ran in the store so he wouldn't see me!"

I've noticed one of the door guys, the friendlier one, has a large cohort of female admirers. He's not even actively flirting, just pleasant surface chatter, and suddenly women start making ribald double entendres. I saw a 10-minute conversation turn into an immediate date the other day; this lady asked him to meet her at a nearby restaurant, THEN she asked his name! Lol.

I teased that he seems to "make a lot of friends" on the job, and he laughed so hard that I decided I'm funnier than it seems. Now it's our theme joke.

Why are the sandwiches like, cinched together with a wet belt? The one-dollar price tag feels alarming.

Clever branding! I would never buy the slop in a can, but they capitalized on the familiar name and gave it a slick logo update. Abby called me a sucker, which I am, but the meatballs were not bad. Also I learned a lot about the immigrant chef behind the brand. His actual name was Boairdi, a name Americans are too stupid to pronounce.

(I cropped my feet out of this photo, which my friend Miranda made me promise to always do.) This Amazon shrimp is perhaps the most cursed item we've ever purchased at the surplus grocer — after defrosting it smelled absolutely rank and was coated in a thick layer of goo. I exchanged it for another package, which was also rancid, so I told the manager. They have a 100% no refunds rule, but I didn't want anyone to get sick!

Not all shrimp! This tandoori-spiced item was perfectly serviceable, if a bit salty. I cooked it at my mom's house in Massachusetts.

I hate hate hate the name of these snacks. Guessing it's a throwback to when people used to say "Oh Item X is so good it's like crack!" which fell out of vogue when people realized it's tacky and unfunny. That said, they are so addictive! Lol. I probably ate 30 bags of these over the summer, in jalapeno, honey mustard/onion, wasabi, sweet corn, sriracha, and the pictured flavor. The latter one was mildly suspect; it tasted way too much like actual meat. (The website for these snacks has a security warning.)

Frozen spinach is almost always chopped, so this was a fun departure. Also that mascot is a stone fox.