First "rant"...

Popcorn. Buttery, melt in your mouth, golden yellow deliciousness that's quick to make in the nuke box! Can it get much better? Unfortunately, I must beg the question: Is it honestly that hard to make such a scrumptious treat? Perhaps. Maybe your idea of cooking is swiping your debit card at Burger Dude. You can change that. Now is the time!

Let's start out with the way NOT to make popcorn:

1. Preliminary: Remove popcorn from plastic packaging, but only if you are feeling up to it or have scissors on hand.
2. Insert: Place popcorn in the microwave being very careful to ignore the "THIS SIDE UP" warning.
3. Time: Set the timer for a minimum of about 20 minutes. Some of the "hardier" versions of popcorn may take longer, but never longer than 45 minutes.
4. Be productive: Since you have all this free time, make use of it. "Idle hands are the devils little buddies" or some nonsense like that. Call your girlfriend and discuss the meaning of life. E-mail your senator and see if you can single-handedly reduce taxes. Take a jog to burn off all the calories that you are getting ready to eat. If you are really feeling daring, write that paper you've been putting off. I digress.
5. Cooking tip: Smoke is an excellent sign. I'm sure you've heard or smoked salmon - very tasty. Your grill smokes - so should the microwave. If it smokes, get out the duct tape and seal all the flavor in. Oh, and don't stop until every kernal is popped. For every kernal that is left over write the popcorn company and complain.
6. Enjoy: Now that your microwave is beeping and/or the building is being evacuated, enjoy! You didn't go to all that trouble to waste a perfectly good bag of popcorn did you?

Yes, the above is a sure way to piss off everyone. You don't believe me? Ask the fire department that was called because of the smoke alarm. Ask the people taking showers who got to go out in the freezing cold. Ask the people who had a paper due within the hour. Ask any of the 175 people in your dorm for that matter. Ask your hall director, I'm sure he loves the smell of smoke, evacuating the building, and explaining the situation to the fire department. I know I wasn't bothered. The episode of Alias was boring anyway. I love the cold. Grrrrr...

With that in mind, learn how to make popcorn. If you happen to be "1 out of every 7 Americans ... [that] absolutely refuse to cook microwave popcorn...[because it is so hard]," here is the webpage for you: Simple Microwave Popcorn Instructions (link dead - 3/19/07). Memorize this site. If that is too hard, read the pictures on the popcorn bag. Are they too small? I will enlarge and e-mail them to you.

Great, now that we have that all cleared up, make gobs of popcorn!