It's Wednesday, which means it's another edition of Actual Great Moments in De-Evolution. And we've also sorta kinda covered this topic before with home-made snacks, but FancyFastFood.com takes it to the next level. Anyone can make a cheap bean burrito like Taco Bell, but can you make a gourmet meal out of only Taco Bell bean burritos?

The folks over at Fancy Fast Food definitely can, as you can see by their recipes for quiche, sushi, and more--all made out of fast food meals (aside from the occasional garnish).

I like the way they think, because they're not trying to push the culinary arts into the next big "green" thing with local, organic and sustainable ingredients that somehow save the Earth. These people know how to work with what's ALREADY BEEN MADE!

I can't wait to see their curly fries amuse-bouche, burger confits and McCafe tiramisu desserts.

You could argue that the automobile is one of humanity's greatest invention. Sure, it pollutes the air and makes us do some pretty dumb things while driving in rush hour traffic, but if cars didn't exist, then I'd have to walk for over 2 hours to get to work.

Today's Great Moments in De-Evolution covers this trend of designing new cars in retro styles: the engine may be one step forward in technology, but style wise, why are we taking three steps back? BECAUSE IT LOOKS GOOD.

Take the Dodge Challenger or Charger, for example: two cars that have helped define the American muscle car from the 1970's. Maybe their engines don't meet today's Smog Check standards, but dang, they looked good to ride. Luckily, Dodge brought them back up to the 21st century, just like BMW did with the Mini Cooper with its adorable size, round headlights and old-school racecar motifs.

And how about the new generation of the Ford Thunderbird, whose new retro-futuristic style evoked the fun memories of the original cars from the late 1950's.

But there's one new retro car that I won't endorse: the horrible Chrysler PT Cruiser. This car totally misses the point of retro styles--unless retro to you doesn't mean something from the 50's but some pre-WWII clunker that needs to be pushed off a hill to get a running start. 

There were so many opportunities to design a cool looking retro wagon! Chrystler could have been inspired from the famous London Black Cabs or even a Ford Model T with awesome carriage wheels. Okay, I take that last idea back...but please, let's forget that this car ever even existed (though I won't be able to get the wood paneling out of my mind).

Can you think of any other cars where the retro design did or didn't work?

Today's Break Moments in De-Evolution highlights the crazy shenagins that take place when you add water to humans, but don't think that's just limited to our species. so of course you can blame our species for attempting to put other non-water-belonging animals in the same situation.

Meet Gene Alba, whose overweight and appropriately named cat, Hawkeye, loved the pool so much that he built a custom scuba diving suit for his feline friend. Sure, I can understand when you give your beloved pets a humanistic personality, but sometimes we take things a little too far. So your cat enjoys the occasional paddling around a chlorine-filled pool. Does that really mean Hawkeye loves to swim? And is it really necessary to spend the money to force him to scuba-dive? I don't see Hawkeye putting his face underwater or jumping off the diving board.

I don't know too much about biology, but I'm pretty sure that if cats were meant to scuba dive, Nature would have developed some sort of webbed fin or oxygen-generating mask for these animals.

Can't Gene see how apathetic (or pissed) Hawkeye looks in his scuba gear? Plus, if it takes that long to shove him into a scuba diving helmet, maybe he doesn't belong there in the first place.

Thanks, Mr. Alba, for helping humans (and cats) take one small step backwards.

PS. Are you related to Jessica?

Is there any better example of how humanity is making giant steps in de-evolution with this whole "Lolita" phenomenon? It's 2009 and women have made great (if not complete) strides in gender equality, from the Suffrage Movement in the 1800's to Roe vs. Wade. No longer are we expected to stifle our voices and bodies in restricting corsets, petticoats and bonnets. We can wear what we want, we earn equal wages and hey, we can also act our age!

Apparently a small population of the female sex disagrees and prefer to spend their days squeezing their bodies into petite lacey dresses, elaborate headpieces and white face powder, all in efforts to look like adorable porcelain dolls (or dead children) from the Victorian era.

Listen, girls. I get it. But reality check: you're not children anymore. You also live in the 21st century. We don't have time to cover ourselves in unwieldy skirts and cotton bloomers and frilly parasols. We've got sweatpants, grandma undies and sunscreen for that.

Let's help push womankind forward and rid ourselves of these creepy fashions, shall we?
 

If evolution is the "gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form," then why do we keep insisting on getting rid of our body hair? Sure, it makes our body less aerodynamic but it also provides warmth, protection and lots of material for insulting jokes. And admit it: it's a lot better than having our entire bodies covered in fur.

Today's Actual Great Moments in De-evolution reflects on our society's preference of unnecessarily shaving our body hair. Check out Gillette's official video tutorial on how to shave your junk, which is pretty ridiculous. Did they really have to pixelate an animation? 

We love food and we especially love food with a high concentration of sugar or salt in it. Though in today’s eco-friendly times, we’re all supposed to stay green, organic and HFCS-free. This usually means you stay AWAY from highly processed snacks, but can you really live without your Doritos and Pop Tarts?

Today’s Actual Moments in De-Evolution celebrates the ongoing trend of making popular American snacks right in your own kitchen and without the huge processing food plant located somewhere in Idaho or Ohio or wherever they make Dunk-a-Roos. They may not have that super delicious plastic-y taste but at least your body will be able to digest these recipes.

Home Baked Pop Tarts
I know. It’s shocking. Pop-Tarts are really just flat, rectangular jam-filled pies. So why not make your own from scratch with this Pop-Tart recipe, which includes both pie crust, filling and glaze! I do enjoy the concise neatness of real Pop-Tarts (they’re so rectangular! 90 degree angles!) made from a factory, but at least you can decorate your tart with your favorite sprinkles!

What would you say if I told you you'd never have to file a tax return again? No money comes out of your paycheck for taxes and if you win a million dollars on a game show, you get a million dollars. What if we could complete dissolve the IRS? You'd probably say yes to all these things unless you work for the IRS or as a Turbo Tax programmer. Today's actual moment in de-evolution is about changing the funky tax system. We've got a few ideas, the Fair Tax, the Flat Tax, and the Wacky Tax. One of them is ours, the best ones are not.

The best idea: The Fair Tax
Most recently and widely known to be touted by Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee in the 2008 election, the fair tax was first formally proposed in Congress in January of this year and the basic gist is that income tax would not be taken out of your paycheck, the IRS would be dissolved (or to put it more bluntly as they do in the description, ABOLISHED) and the job of collecting tax would fall to the states, who would increase their sales tax percentages to make up for the loss of revenue.
Here's why I love this idea: Everyone buys things. Regardless of your income, your citizenship status, or the number of kids you have, you will be buying goods and services year round. This goes for everyone. If your hamburger is $1 and a 25% sales tax was tacked on, your burger is now $1.25. But you know what else, it's also $1.25 for the illegal alien who just got paid under the table and would have never paid any tax on his income. It's also $1.25 for the drug dealer who lives off his illegal trafficking.
The trouble is, it's also $1.25 for the AIG CEO who makes $23 million a year. It breaks down here because you don't want to charge the bum who just scrounged together 100% of his income to buy a hamburger, while Bernie Madoff isn't paying anything close to a fair percentage of his income for the same burger. But economists and mathematicians a billion times smarter than us can figure out how to make this work and I hope that someday soon it becomes a reality.

Read the proposed House bill here sponsored by John Linder of Georgia

The next best idea: The Flat Tax

It's hard coming up with original, compelling characters in video games. In the quest for larger rosters, some developers have used slight alterations and color swapping to make it seem like their titles had a multitude of unique fighters. The following are some examples of actual de-evolution in fighting games. 

Dan is de-evolved from Ken and Ryu from Street Fighter II - Dan first appeared in Street Fighter Alpha, wearing a pink gi and hurling autographed pictures of himself. Clearly, he's a comical version of Ken and Ryu, only with weak special moves and a little fart-cloud Hadouken.

The Ninjas are de-evolved from Scorpion and Subzero from Mortal Kombat - By the time Ultimate Mortal Kombat III had become the obvious favorite among arcade rats across the country, the game had amassed an army of ninja characters (some instantly selectable, others unlockable), one for almost every color of the rainbow. Reptile, Noob Saibot, Ermac, Rain and Smoke all fought either for or against the Forces of Shao Kahn and they were all mere doubles of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, except with different color costumes. Flawless Mockery! 
 

And I quote:

"The adaptive significance of the scrotum and the evolution of the descent of the testicles and epididymis have been a focus of interest among biologists for a long time. In this paper we use three anatomical character states of the scrotum and descensus: (1) testicles descended and scrotal; (2) testicles descended but ascrotal; (3) testicles not descended (testicondy). These states are then mapped on an up to date phylogeny of the Mammalia. Three main points arise out of this mapping procedure: (1) the presence of a scrotum is either primitive in extant Mammalia or primitive within eutherian mammals except Insectivora; (2) evolution has generally proceeded from a scrotal condition to progressively more ascrotal; (3) loss of testicular descensus is less common in mammalian evolution than is loss of the scrotum. In the light of these findings we discuss some current hypotheses regarding the origin and evolution of the scrotum. We find that these are all incomplete in so far as it is not the presence of the scrotum in various mammal groups that requires explaining. Instead, it is the reverse process, why the scrotum has been lost in so many groups, that should be explained. We suggest that the scrotum may have evolved before the origin of mammals, in concert with the evolution of endothermy in the mammalian lineage, and that the scrotum has been lost in many groups because descensus in many respects is a costly process that will be lost in mammal lineages as soon as an alternative solution to the problem of the temperature sensitivity of spermatogenesis is available."
-- Lars Werdelin, Paleozoologist and Asa Nilsonne, Clinical Neuroscientist

In other words, if you were to read the paper to which this abstract is referring (which we did not and will not,) you would find that mammals have evolved into having testicles, or balls, that descend from the body into a scrotal sac (nutbag) in order to facilitate the proper temperature maintenance that sperm, or squozins, requires and that in some cases the descension of the testicles, or nuts, has been reversed over time because having them dangle about is hazardous to the point of inhibiting procreation (baby havin'.) And also, it really hurts when you hit your balls on stuff.

Today's installment of Actual Great Moments In De-Evolution is dedicated to musicians, more specifically the one man band. This evolutionary dead end takes the individual elements which drive your favorite bands and combines them into an unwelcome, displeasing amalgam, which mocks the legendary artists and groups you love so much. By trying to do all things, the one man band ruins everything. The best musicians ever don't do many things poorly, they do one thing very, very well. Let's take a look at how the bastard spawn of rock compares to the leading musicians of today and eras gone by.

Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin - Possessing arguably the greatest voice in rock history, the Led Zeppelin vocalist has failed to embrace the knee symbols and back mounted kick drum of the subject in question. He's rocked audiences from the UK to China, all without the need for cumbersome, wearable hardware.

Steven Tyler - Perhaps the least evolved of the lot, the bluesy frontman for Aerosmith has developed the pipes to both sonically weaken his prey (groupies) and defend himself against his natural predator, the ravenous fan, but also uses his developed physical attributes to rail on the harmonica. Tyler is also well known for playing drums in the wild (the studio). His works are well documented in Bronislaw Malinowski's The Scientific Theory of Culture and the Aerosmith album, Honkin' on Bobo.

Last week, I was sitting in the movie theater watching Watchmen, and there was a lengthy scene featuring Dr. Manhattan telling his story, when I was struck with the following thought. "Gee, I love Phillip Glass." See, there was a long selection of music in that scene called "Pruit Igoe & Prophecies," which you might also remember from the "The Journey" radio station in Grand Theft Auto IV, that accompanied that piece of the movie, and I remembered how beautiful de-evolution can be sometimes, when applied to classical music.

Phillip Glass, if you don't know, introduced the concept of "art music" to the world in the 60's, by practicing minimalism, which, in Glass's case, usually meant long phrases of music repeated over and over again, changing slowly over the course of a good deal of time.

We're Americans here at G4, which means that we spend our lives thinking about two things...kicking ass and automobiles. And nothing reminds us of the best of De-Evolution like the great stripping back of cars to their essence, The Pinewood Derby.

For those who might have never been a Cub Scout, which I personally find difficult to believe, The Pinewood Derby is a race that involves taking a block of pine wood (get it?) and four small tires, and making a car to race against other Webelos down a wooden ramp. It's simple, it's fun, and it fulfills the need for speed without any engine mechanics or real danger involved.

Sure, you can have your fancy cell phones that tell you where your friends are at any moment of the day, and allow you to say "That's what she said" over and over again, but if you really distill the essence of the phone experience into a perfectly de-evolved unit, what you're looking at is Jitterbug.

For those who don't know, Jitterbug is a phone that keeps it simple for the elderly, the weak-minded, and for those of us who just can't be bothered learning how to use today's cell phones.  Big buttons, simple text, and a button that dials directly to your physician (I kid you not) means that they have the whole market on the "I'm being dragged into the 21st Century, but my hearing aid makes it difficult for me" market sewn up.

Math. Say the word out loud, and it seems almost like a disease. No one likes math, not even mathematicians, who, I'm convinced, are working to secure the release of their families from some sort of Gitmo-style torture chamber in the Himalayas. However, for one brief moment in the 70's, a solution to doing math came, which was so simple and elegant, that it had to have been developed in the Far East...Chisanbop.

This fad of my childhood is a Korean method of calculation, which encourages the user to do complex mathematical equations using only the rapid tapping of their fingers on a flat surface. Eschewing the calculator and the abacus, kids who looked as if they were tapping silent telegraph messages to nowhere were everywhere and in every classroom for a brief period of time.

Because we try to give you an example of de-evolution in the real world as a companion to Wednesday's Break Moments in De-Evolution from Attack of the Show, I give you now a trick of the brain in the form of a theatrical movement that is both devolving and evolving as we speak.

I lived in Chicago for a brief time and just around the corner from my palatial basement apartment with 2 windows and no stove was The Neo-Futurarium, a small theatre that housed a repertory company known as The Neo-Futurists. In my time in Chicago, I was happily able to see their long-running late night show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, an ever-changing slate of short plays where the players attempt to perform 30 original plays in just 60 minutes.

This is not your typical theatre experience. The actors, an eclectic mix of multi-talented performers are dressed in street clothes save the occasional costume piece typically haphazardly tossed on in the interest of saving time. Most of the plays have minimal set-up and they are always done in random order according to what the audience calls out. It's an incredible reaction to the stuffy, boring work of most theatre companies. It grabs you by the balls and makes you like art again.