McDonald’s is the official restaurant of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics!

And they’ve been the official food provider for the previous 7 consecutive games! What an honor for our athletes!

I’m not sure why I didn’t discover the association between McDonald’s and the Olympics earlier. It makes perfect sense.

I’ll break it down for you. There are four main reasons why McDonald’s is the obvious choice to be the official restaurant of the Olympics from now until the end of time…

1 – Of course, it’s the food of choice for elite athletes around the world!

Just take a look at this official press release from US Olympic team. But just in case you’re rushing out the door for that healthy McNugget and don’t have time to read the whole thing, I’ll give you an excerpt:

“Athletes continue to tell us they love our quality food when training or celebrating wins at the Games, and it’s one of the reasons we’re proud to be the only brand serving them as the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games,” McDonald’s chief marketing officer Mary Dillon said.

See… They actually eat the food while simultaneously training! AWESOME!

2 – McDonald’s has tons of money to spend at the Olympics.

Thanks to the brains in the McDonald’s corporate headquarters, they expertly save money by underpaying their employees. See here! Or just read the quote below – that Big Mac is waiting for you and it won’t eat itself!

“British Columbia has the lowest minimum wage in Canada at $8 an hour. It has been frozen for eight years. However, McDonald’s in the Lower Mainland use the so-called training wage to lower starting salaries to as little as $6.35 an hour.”

“Training wage.” I wouldn’t have thought of that. It’s pure OLYMPIC GENIUS AWESOME!

3 -The food has secret ingredients that give you super-human strength.

Yeah, you heard me. You eat at McDonald’s and you become super-freakin’-human!
If you don’t have to rush off to accept your gold medal on an Olympic podium, you can read the full ingredients list for McDonald’s food.

But just in case they’re waiting to play your anthem, here’s a sampling:

Chicken McNugget

Chicken, water, salt, modified corn starch, sodium phosphates, chicken broth powder (chicken broth, salt, and natural flavoring (chicken source)), seasoning (vegetable oil, extracts of rosemary, mono, di- and triglycerides, lecithin). Battered and breaded with water, enriched bleached wheat flour (niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, bleached wheat flour, modified corn starch, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, dried whey, corn starch. Batter set in vegetable shortening. Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). TBHQ and citric acid added to help preserve freshness. Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an anti-foaming agent.

Umm… did you catch the last 2 ingredients?!

The first preserves your “freshness!” Now we know the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s secret.

And the other keeps you from “foaming,” I presume, at the mouth when you become a super-human-incredible-hulk-attack-dog!

That is AWESOMENESS SQUARED!!

And get this… In 2002, someone actually tried to sue the fantastic restaurant chain and the judge came to McDonald’s defense when he said:

Chicken McNuggets are a “McFrankenstein” creation of various elements…”

He obviously recognized the pure animalistic effects those golden poppers can have on the human body.

4 – Last but not least, McDonald’s is GREEN!

Yup. They reduce, reuse and recycle whenever possible. Just look at this picture…

Those toothpicks are whittled from the same club that was used to force the “unusually large breasted” chickens into the “grinder and mechanical separator” that turns them into the delicious food of champions. That’s FOOD-OF-THE-GODS AWWWWWWWESOME!!!

In conclusion…

You suck McDonald’s!

You suck the sadness from the world and your golden arches light the way for the human race to be the best it can be.

Just kidding. You suck.

But I’ve decided to move this post to the head of the line.

I’ve shed some tears lately and I don’t cry easily or often. The last time I can recall this rare occurrence was on January 27th, 2007. Over the month leading up to that date, as a birthday gift to myself, I broke up with my girlfriend which was a year overdo, I packed a duffle bag, sold everything else and let everyone know I decided to move to LA. On Janaury 26th I threw myself an awesome going-away party at Orchid Lounge in New York City and still drunk the next morning, I boarded the 9:00 am Jetblue flight from JFK to Burbank. I was a free man, on a new adventure, setting out to do what I love and do best, act and write.

On the flight, they showed my favorite movie, Rudy.

What a perfect movie to see on this trip into the next stage of my life. And this is when I cried. I pulled my maroon MIT hat down to hide my face and I watched Sean Astin being carried from the Notre Dame field. He achieved such greatness against all odds. I could relate and I cried full of a thousand emotions.

The next time I truly cried was on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2010. Just a couple of days ago. And I cried twice.

The first cry you may think was because I am so in love, which I am, and because I got to spend a beautiful day with Anna, which I did.

But it was for a different reason.

My dad’s sick and my mother is having a very hard time with it. The whole family is, really, but my mom gets it the worst because she is with him every day. It’s hard to see someone you’ve loved for so long slowly turn into a different man. And when I called to wish them a Happy Valentine’s Day, it turned out to be a particularly bad day.

What made me cry, though, was when my dad took the phone and he explained to me how he felt in his own words, as best he could. He took his time, finding the best words he could think of, and he talked. And I could hear how hard he was trying. And through his pained speech, I also heard how hard he ALWAYS tried to do his best and be his best for the family.

Throughout everything, his two-time battle with cancer and now the dimensia, my dad has never lost one thing – his sense of humor. As you can see in this recent picture with Anna where he’s trying to bite her! Although he does not speak up as much as he used to for fear of saying something incorrectly, you can tell that when he does talk he still has his awareness and extremely witty sense of humor. Even at my dad’s worst, he is an example of what I aspire to be.

The second time I cried that day was while watching the Olympic men’s mogul competition. Skiing, Seth, Really? Damn right.

Of course I was already on the emotional edge because of my family, but add to that my being in Canada, watching the Canadian Olympic games, engaged to a Canadian and, the cherry on the cake, hearing the inspirational story of Canadian, Alexandre Bilodeau.

Alexandre’s greatest inspiration is his older brother, who has cerebral palsy. The doctors did not expect his brother to walk past the age of 10 and he is still walking at age 28! With a role model like that, Alexandre refused to ever quit and pushed himself to the limit. The result? Alexandre nailed his mogul run and took home the first gold medal Canada has every received while hosting the Olympic games.

And I cried. I cried for Alex’s story, I cried for my dad, and I cried for myself.

And that cleansed the system, which I really needed. It’s time to start writing again.

I’ve got Olympic curling on in the background, too. Something tells me nothing in this sport is going to inspire me nor make me cry. But these days, you never know.