Fasting Frustrations: A Top 5 List

I walk into work today at around 8am, grab myself some coffee and a piece of fruit. I walk to my desk, settle down, eat my fruit, and drink my coffee. Then I get an email from a friend, "so how's your fast?"

Fast?? Oh, [insert expletive here]! I am a moron.

Because, you see, today is a fast day on the Jewish calendar - the 17th of Tammuz. And I usually try to observe all of the fasts throughout the year to the best of my fasting abilities.

Today, I just plain forgot.

I instant messaged my Jewish coworker today, A-Pizzle, to see if she remembered to fast. She didn't either, therefore, to make ourselves feel better, we came up with a list of excuses why it's okay for one to not fast. I will give full credit to Miss A-Pizzle, since she masterminded this whole meshuge list.

And here it is... the top 5 reasons why it's okay to forget to fast:

5) We are Jewish, haven't we suffered enough?

4) Because you won't have any awkward encounters with other Jewish coworkers in the kitchen, like on normal, non-fast days.

3) Because fasting doesn't give you any energy to mourn.

2) Because sometimes overeating is more painful than undereating.

1) Because we'd rather sing "Eat It" instead of "Beat It", in honor of Michael Jackson.

Will Mel and A-Pizzle continue their day eating and adding items to the list? Or will they start fasting from scratch? Stay tuned!

Israeli Kugel

I came across an interesting news story today about a "kosher" search engine that was created for the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, specifically in Israel. And guess what it's called? No, not Jewgle or Joogle... but Koogle! Like Kosher Google! Except that I'd rather it stood for Kugel, a traditional Jewish dish because, let's face it, kugel (or "koogle") would be cooler and kugel is awesome.

Side note: The New York Times article that I read spoke about how Koogle was created for safer-browsing, to eliminate the temptation that the vast world of the internet has to offer (i.e. scantily clad women, inappropriate surfing - read: porn, and making purchases on the Sabbath - forbidden by Jewish law). I found it totally ironic that there was a racy (well, sorta) Canon ad along the right side of the article.