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“No this is not a drill” warns Wall Street Journal columnist Brett Arends as he lays out his reasons why he believes Americans need to start stockpiling food. Thankfully, hunkering down in the face on an impending apocalypse is not the reason, rather, Arends says stockpiling food will make a shrewd investment:

If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you’ll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.

Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year. And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They’re all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.

Sounds pretty fucking stupid to me, but of course I’m one of those people who keeps food to actually EAT, not as an investment.

In this world where everyone’s on the go, you may be wondering, “How will I find the time to put cream cheese on my morning bagel?” Kraft’s got your back. Meet the Bagel-ful.

Quite simply, it’s a bagel stick that comes pre-stuffed with a cream cheese filling. Marketing for the product started today, and can be found in your local supermarket’s frozen breakfast aisle. The Bagel-ful Web site claims that this tasty treat can be made ready to eat in under two minutes, and it will come in five flavors:

1. Original (plain bagel and cream cheese)
2. Cinnamon (cinnamon bagel with cinnamon and sugar cream cheese)
3. Whole Grain (whole grain bagel with plain cream cheese)
4. Strawberry ( plain bagel with strawberry cream cheese)
5. Chive (plain bagel with chive cream cheese)

These things will last in your refrigerator for a week, but you can store them in your freezer for up to a year. To prepare, nuke that shit in the microwave or just pop in a toaster oven (remember those?). While you may be excited about the news, you’re not as excited as Kraft. They think they’ve stuck gold with this one.

After successful tests at select convenience stores, Kraft was so jazzed about Bagel-fuls prospects that Rick Searer, evp and president of Kraft, told analysts last month that the product would surpass the $100 million mark in sales “within the next few years.”

I wouldn’t be surprised. As sketchy as prepackaged microwave sandwich things may seem, they’re pretty fucking tasty. I got through my first year of grad school with the help of Hot Pockets, and if you haven’t had a peanut butter & jelly Uncrustable, you just don’t know what you’re missing.

Unlike the rest of my SXSW traveling brethren, I’ve actually been eating sometimes. Usually while running from one place to the next. Austin’s on-the-go dinner options are pretty varied, but there’s a certain comfort in partaking in the familiar while staying in an unfamiliar place. Hot dogs and pizza are street side standbys in cities all over the country, and Austin is no exception, the most prominent stops on the 6th Street corridor being the Best Wurst and Roppolo’s Pizzeria

I don’t know if their boastful title is true or not, but the Best Wurst beats Roppolo’s Pizzeria hands down. Both are readily available and in easy stumbling distance from whatever bar you just fell out of. Roppolo’s is kind enough to stay open ’til 3 AM and serve you a gigantic, alcohol sopping slice of pizza, but sponging up all those free vodka drinks seems to be the only thing it’s good for. Well, that and it’s a cheap alternative for a high colonic.

The Best Wurst is pretty much the same deal. It’s good, hot and cheap, but, as far as I can tell, sans the intestinal distress. For now at least. Wish me luck.

I know we’ve been going on and on about awesome BBQ and all, but really, the real shit is actually not eating. In an environment like SXSW one can sustain one’s self on merely music and alcohol, and if your love of the song is strong enough, and your liver determined and faithful, you can really make a hell of a week out not really eating.

Sure, free food during the day isn’t hard to come by. To entice you into seeing some random-ass going-nowhere-fast bands (and good ones as well), companies put on BBQs, spreads, and hell even give away shoes and other swag. But by not eating, you can make the most out of those free beverages that are there as well. It’s much like drunkarexia, (as discussed previously in this blog). Actually, it’s exactly drunkarexia.

There’s also a shit ton of things to do, elbows to rub, egos to stroke, and sometimes in the rush of bouncing from venue to venue like a manic pinball, you just plain forget to eat something. Like I did. Running around Austin on nothing but my morning’s bagel, some snacks from Canadian Blast’s show, and most of a pack of Parliament Lights is A VERY GOOD IDEA. You can pretty much carve tat on my tomb stone. At this rate that will probably occur sooner than later. I know, not nearly as epic as “Don’t Try,” but Charles Bukowski I am not, and dong nothing but drinking and watching bands all day and then writing about it does not necessarily make you a writer.

But it doesn’t hoit.

If this happens to you, like it did to me last night, don’t worry. Hang in there. And by all means, write a fucking blog.

Also, I just saw Michael Stipe sitting in the lobby by the elevator. I didn’t want to bother him, but I changed my mind once I got back to my room. By the time I had returned he was gone. I was totally going to give him my band’s album in case he needed a coaster.