Seven hot dogs in the package... eight buns in the package. Seven things to put inside eight other things. I'd have to buy fifty-six of each in order to have an equal number of hot dogs and buns without unmatched items. I swear it's a conspiracy between Hebrew National and the various bread-producing companies.

I moderate a message board among other things, though it's mostly populated by teens -- kids in their early teens at that. It deals mostly with music-related stuff, but we have a section that's dedicated to off-topic ramblings where they can basically post whatever they want (within reason) and several way-off-topic subjects have been brought up. Among them, pot smoking, drinking and cigarette smoking have been posted about recently.

I found it kind of amusing to see what these kids thought about those topics -- or rather, how staunchly opposed to all of them they were. It kind of reminded me how I was at that young age, where I was thoroughly convinced by my parents and the media that smoking cigarettes (or other substances) was evil and would lead to incredibly bad things. These kids are too. On the flipside, though, every time I read one of those topics in order to make sure that no one's stepping outside the bounds of decency, I get a little angry about all these assumptions these kids are making and I keep wanting to post something along the lines of "until you've tried it yourself, you can't make these statements." And I so want to use that old and trite line -- as much as I hated it then -- about how their views will change as they grow older and more mature. Unfortunately, I can't post in the topic since I am a moderator.

At that age, I was convinced that smoking tobacco or otherwise and drinking to excess was evil. Now, years later after I've been drunk many many times to excess, smoked my fair share of cigarettes and gotten high as a kite, I can say that I don't see anything wrong with it when done once in a while and when it's not done destructively. And I laugh when I see these kids talk about how smoking pot makes you violent and you'll instantly become addicted -- personally, I've seen some pretty belligerent drunks in my time starting fights all over the place, but all getting high made me want to do was sit and watch TV and order some pizza.