My Favourite Things (As Inspired By Oprah)

It’s like no one expected Oprah to end her weekly talk show, either that or no one believed the one hour emotional circus ride would end. Clearly, no one had a clear picture of what the world would look like, kind of a post-Oprah apocalyptic phase. Business owners couldn’t see a future without Oprah’s touch (Midas touch still sounds better), authors lost all will to write, after all what’s the point of writing a book if Oprah won’t endorse it in her magical book club. Heck, Oprahfication is now a word. Glad my auto-correct thinks it’s a load of bull. Due to the increased number of Oprahcondriacs (another word that is coming soon, you wait and see) I decided to do what any normal capitalistic cynic bastard would do: take advantage.

In an attempt to keep with the mood, since Oprah had a ‘My Favorite Things’ list which she shared with people and often went the extra mile by giving her audience whatever was on her list, I will give you my version of Ras Mengesha’s Favorite Things but, as one comic put it, due to the shortcomings of HTML you won’t be able to go home with a gift basket of probably rubbish things. Here goes:

Nestea Iced Tea

ignore the fact that the first time I drank this I felt like I was giving birth to my kidneys. It probably wasn’t a good idea to substitute water for flavored chemicals on that rock climbing trip, but if you’ve ever drank the 90’s equivalent, Super Dip, a more concentrated chemical mix that am sure was not supposed to be drank by expectant women for obvious reasons, then you will appreciate the lighter, less-likely-to-send-you-into-a-coma taste of Nestea iced tea. One sachet of Nestea goes for 20 shillings and will make a liter of fruit flavored death punch.

Aahh, the refreshing taste of death

Super Dip was 10 shillings and made 2 liters of extra lethal fruity death punch. I don’t usually subscribe to that less is expensive load of croak, but I’ll go with it on this one. Hospital bills are not cheap, not in this economy.

NOKIA

A few weeks ago some idiots were having fun on Twitter with the idea of Nokia manufacturing condoms instead of phones. I told you they were idiots. Of course there was the minor issue of Nokia slogans not making it hard for people with nothing to do, to make fan of them and so we had gems like: Nokia Condoms, Connecting People and Nokia Condoms, Play It Loud.

Still, Nokia remains to be one of my favorite brands. The Nokia 3310 my first ‘cool’ phone had voice tag technology that was way ahead of its time. You could even compose your own ring tone. Right now I own a Nokia 5530 XpressMusic.

What we would all be using if Steve Jobs was not from Planet Ukuloid in the 16th galaxy

Decent gadget, I can call, text, tweet, send emails, watch movies, listen to music, and my baby Neema (yap that’s what I call her) sounds really good. There is only one thing that would make me cheat on my baby:

iANYTHING

This includes the iPhone, MacBookPro, iPad and basically anything that runs on iOS including my iDEAS (don’t even act like that’s not funny). Okay, I know a few of you are waiting for me to say something about the Black Berry. BB is Wesley Snipes in Blade 2 and iAnything is Priest in The Priest. While these two are badass and would probably kick each other’s butts while kicking major vampire ass, The Priest is way cooler, and even rides a badass-er bike.

Pictured: Buffy the vampire slayer

 iAnything, I am convinced, runs on alien technology. If iOS was a dancer, she would be those hot black chicks who rock Adidas and do some wicked Hip Hop B-Boy moves while BB would be those dudes who mix Hip Hop and ballet and end up pulling moves like Cabo Snoop in his Windek video. Okay, that’s enough.

NALGENE

Thank global warming for having extra hot summers and warm winters and just generally screwed up weather. While you are at it, thank peculiar Kenyans for making water bottles a fashion accessory. I have no problem with chicks wanting to match everything from their nail polish to their hair bands to their water bottle. I actually have no problem with you buying a cheap, I mean, affordable water bottle for those hot July days, but dudes, I will not let you off easy on this one. If you do not have a Nalgene bottle, then you have a sissy juice bottle. If Nalgene was a sport, it would be extreme rock climbing, the kind they do without ropes. Your normal Seefar bottle would be under 17 girls’ gymnastics, and that’s because I can’t think of a girlier sport off the top of my head.

Drink me now...FOOL!

I once stabbed a friend’s glossy supermarket water bottle with a trekking pole on Mount Kenya. I didn’t care if he would have died of dehydration or whatever you die from for abrupt withdrawal from sissy juice bottles, but I felt like I had done him a favor.

MOTOR BIKES

I know writers have this habit of occasionally saying things that are, well, not true. As I write this, the most awesome thing has happened. My boy left the house, back pack, jacket, helmet and his daily dose of I-cut-the-hell-though-traffic swag. Moments later as I typed the last sentence of the previous paragraph, he walked in, stood at the door for some seconds, I wasn’t paying attention. I turned to look at him and his clothes had a red coat of dust on his right side and his hands, all covered in dust, were bleeding. Just as I was thinking of telling you how awesome motor bikes are, my boy was having his butt scraped in a minor motor bike accident. I kid you not.

Ouch

I am not a superstitious guy so, tough luck, heck, I promise to be more careful. He, he, he. But I need to add this, if you are going to buy a motor bike, buy a real motor bike, not a glorified lawn mower. It just might mow the lawn with your ass.

Pictured: Not a motor bike

TROPICAL HEAT CHEESE AND ONION FLAVORED POTATO CRISPS

I didn’t arrange this list in any order, but if I did, crisps would be at the top, or bottom depending on where number one is. Basically, crisps are my favorite thing on this list. Don’t get smart asking if I was given a choice between a MacBookPro and a pack of crisps…it’s situational!

Potato crisps are the Mitsubishi Evolution X of the snack world. I had to throw in that car somewhere in this list because it is awesome and deserves to be in the oh-my-lord-what-was-this-genius-on-when-he-came-up-with-this-car list.

If snacks were mythical creatures, pop corn would be Leprechauns or Gnomes while crisps would be the god of war.

Crisps about to excite your taste buds

Cheese puffs would be Pegasus the flying horse.

Cheese Puffs

There you have it, that’s my list. You know what dear Oprahcondriac (yes, I love you so much I even came up with a special name for you), Oprah abandoned you, but I am here for you. Do you have a book, brand, a sappy story about your childhood? Come on, make me a billionaire, I mean, let’s share it with the world, your world.

 Am sure the guys at Super Dip won’t be so thrilled when they read this, but then again, they all probably work for Nestea, so win-win.