Sentimentality

I was never really into keepsakes, mementos, or scrap-booking. Still not. Other folks post Christmas cards on their door or over the mantle; I just keep them in a pile until February when it's socially acceptable to dispose of them, like receipts you don't need to keep anymore. Pictures? I'm not really a shutterbug. I'll take a few pictures now and then, but most of the content on my flickr account is from the first year or two after I had just gotten a new camera.

Sometimes I'll save a ticket stub or program from some memorable event, but a year or two later, when I go into a de-cluttering frenzy, they get tossed without a second thought. (By the way, heavenly bodies have to line up in rare ways for me to go into de-clutter mode.)

But there is some things I keep, and will still keep in a box in a drawer somewhere: Letters from my Grandfather. Granddaddy was a traveling minister for years, eventually going into prison ministry. An old Brittish gentleman, he always had a way with words. Dry wit. Brisk sarcasm, but without the acidic snark that typically comes bundled with it nowadays. While doing a recent purge of photos, paperwork, and other documents that I don't want kept around, I came across them again, and read some of the last ones he wrote to me before he died in 2008. Loved the guy.

If you sent me a picture or letter more than two years ago, It probably isn't with me anymore. Please don't take it personally, but if don't look at it or read it for that period of time it's probably not a lot of use to me. But I still have correspondence from Granddaddy from when I was about twelve. That's not going anywhere.

I was going to end this with a video of a sentimental song, something like "Cats in the Cradle" or some nonsense, but those of you who know me well, knows that I have to reverse the touchy-feely vibe that I've been building up. So instead, here's the Raul's Wild Kingdom segment from UHF. Enjoy!

Scattershot Post: This time, it's personal!

• About a month ago, my Director was asking the locals if they had an old anvil that they weren't using. Like, 18th century blacksmithing tool, drop-on-a-road-runner-for-hilarity type anvil. No kidding. The man who had one declined politely; he didn't want to give it up. I love this state.
• Happiness is a local bar that has Fat Tire on tap.
• Looks like I have made back my initial investment on the Karaoke System. Next stop: Profitville!
• For Christmas, my folks gave me a sweet gift: Three independently controlled 2.5 qt crocks in a single unit:

Its first appearance was at a coworker's Super Bowl party. It performed admirably!

• And now, I leave you with Miss Murder by AFI. Before you comment that this is the wrong song, wait until the long-assed emo-intro is over at about 1:46. If emo-ballads transitioning to punk rock isn't your thing, maybe this will persuade you to watch: It has bunnies!!

IT Dept Chili Showdown, Year 2

And this time it's personal!

No, really, for the organizer, it is. You see, last year he asked us not to turn up the heat too much to spare our co-worker the brunt of a Capsaicin Assault. Our coworkers in turn complained that the chili was too weak, thereby painting the IT Department as a bunch of pansies who like wussy chili.

This lit a fire under our even tempered organizer, so he in turn, asked us to light a fire inside them, all but demanding we make people cry.

So the night before I've been humming the Canyonero song from The Simpsons, replacing the word "Canyonero" with "Habrenero". Like the two I chopped up and put in the Chili. I chopped a third one and bagged it up, in case the fire cooks out too much from the first two.

What's shriveled, orange, and makes people cry, eat more than one and you'll wish you would die? HabanerooooOOOOOOoooo... Habaneroooo...

Also, I used stew beef and a chopped pork roast for meat in the hopes that whole cuts would improve the texture. Added one or two hours before serving was a few chipotles and one more chopped Habanero to drive the heat home. Also the cumin and chili powder weren't added until here, as well.

So, how'd it go?

We'll our mission to add the heat back into the competition was a successes. The tough guys enjoyed it, and the more heat adverse people flocked to two or three entries that weren't punishing on the tongue.

We had nine entries this year instead of six. All of them were about evenly matched, unlike the year before where the quality between the top half and the bottom half was a wide as a trench (recap of last year's bottom three: Watery, Tomato Sauce with Beans, and Mediocre Town).

The voting was fairly evenly distributed, and I secured 2nd place for my name again: "Chili for Smart and Good Looking Folk", the 1st place winner in the name category was "Meat Your Maker."[sic] This year the prizes were thematic, and I won a bottle of Blair's After Death Sauce. Mmm Mmm! In the future, I think I'll be using more habaneros for my chili. That turned out pretty well.

Shipping and Receiving - The Follow Up

Ok, so, the previously mentioned package was sent out for delivery Friday, was returned to the UPS facility due to an unknown address, they checked with the post office, and sent it back out for delivery on Monday, returned it again demanding a signature, dropped it off on Tuesday after they picked up the slip with the signature on the back. So it's all good.

Other packages that have arrived since then: My new Computer. Yay! Sadly, the monitor that I purchased from another vendor is taking its sweet time. Woot takes longer than usual to ship their stuff.

SuperFreakonomics: The follow up to the best book I've ever bought at an airport has arrived. A few pages into the introduction and I learned (seriously) that Indian mens' penises are smaller than average so they have a condom failure rate of 15%, partially explaining the high population in that part of the world. Can't wait to see what's next!

Last week I ordered a case of the Boss Monster Wine from wine.woot.com, Mostly for the novelty of buying wine via the Internet, a convienience that the Liquor Control Gestapo would not allow back in Pennsylvania. Viva, Wyoming, land of True Men, and Strong Women! Oh, and yeah, the label was a selling point for me, too.

A package from my Parents containing...? Dunno yet. I'm going to have to send them my new physical address, because apparently I gave them the wrong one last month.

And now, because the'll never be a better segue into this clip, I present the Music Man!

Wow. I thought *I* lived in a podunk town. If someone in Mountain View burst into song when the Fed Ex guy showed up, I reckon he'd be shot.

It's a Wicked World that We Live In...

In 2002, a band called The Transplants wrote a song called "Diamonds and Guns". It's a surprisingly catchy song for the subject matter. From what I can interpret, it's about a drug deal or a black market diamond deal gone bad, and the consequences that comes from the life choices that led to said deal.

Some of you know which song I'm talking about, some of you may not. But all of you have probably heard it before when Garnier licenced it to sell their shampoo. Any of you who may have not heard the song in it's entirety, will recognize it by the first 5 seconds.

And now, may you think of gritty thug life when you buy hair care products, which is only fair because now when I hear this song, I can't help but think about healthy lustrous hair with shine and bounce.

Woo Woo!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Beatings from the World of Tomorrow!

In Terminator, Skynet sent an android back in time to kill the mother of the Human resistance faction. Did you ever wonder what would happen, if the Humans had been able to send a squadron of guys to destroy the time travel device before Mecha-Schwarzenegger went through the portal?

I've recently read through Rant by Chuck Palanhiuk, which also explores questions of the Grandfather Paradox. It provides a different theory altogether, rather than the usual destroy the universe or cause a second parallel universe to come into existence.

I mention this all because I've just discovered Achron, a yet to be released Real Time Strategy game that allows you to send units back into time, or even forward in time at certain intervals. Want to prevent an nasty attack on your base of operations? go back 60 seconds and shore up your defenses. While it's not the first game to feature manipulation of time, I think it's the first one to allow you to to make sweeping and dramatic changes. Check out the video below, and go to Achron's own website to see more. I'm not sure how it's all going to work, and I can't even wrap my head around all the combat possibilities, but it's nice to see someone trying something new.

Gonna run all night, Gonna run all day...

That promise I made about having the results from the Barroom Banter post will most likely be broken, as the person in question has had a slight medical emergency, and I wasn't able to get that list to him until today.

So in the meantime, here's My Top 10 in no particular order:

Offspring
Squirrel Nut Zippers
Franz Ferdinand
Reel Big Fish
Green Day
Spin Doctors
Five Iron Frenzy
"Weird" Al Yankovic
Gin Blossoms
Evanescence

And as an added bonus, here's my cadindate for best song EVAR:

Enjoy!

Why Don't the States Have Something This Sweet?

So, after bouncing around YouTube after watching that Haddaway video from a previous post, I ran into, and rediscovered this Techno-Euro-Pop band: Aqua.

Most of you know them from their One Hit that made them Wonderous, Barbie Girl. But they also put out several other videos where they turned the following all the way up: Camp, Cheese, and Color Staturation (on the Video editing equipment), and generally have the apperance of a vomitorium for rainbows*. Come, and view a sample of the painful awesomeness they have to offer!

First, a pirate adventure called My Oh My. Yar, Har Fidddle dee dee!


Next, a tale of love and adventure in the Depths of the Amazon Jungle, as well as a thinly vieled reference to certain intellectual Property of the same last name. Wake up now, Dr. Jones!

(As silly as it is, I think that it's still more Entertaining than Indy 4.)

Now an epic space opera adventure where... um... I really don't know. But it has candy. And aliens. Here's Lollipop.



Hope they bring smiles. Enjoy!

*PS: Vomiting Rainbows are just one more of the wonderous things that the vastness of the Internets have to offer!

Scatter Shot Post - 02/02/2008 - Home Cookin'

• I've been doing a lot of cooking recently, and have a lot of random non-sequential thoughts about the topic. You know what that means: Lock and Load!
• As mentioned before, I'm trying to restrict my diet to mostly things I've cooked myself, or by someone I know, at least casually. So, fried chicken from the Grocery Store Deli is OK,(it's fresh everyday!), any thing that includes a packet(s) of mystery seasoning, says "ready to eat" or only needs cooked in a microwave for 90 second or less is out. My grocery shopping consists of buying ingredients, not self-contained meals.
• Since I've been here, I have opened exactly 6 cans, 4 of which were releated to making tomato sauce or pizza sauce (more on that below) .
• After a little over three months of doing this, here's my summary of it in a single blurb: Cooking is easy; Cooking well, not so much.
• I only condsider a cooking expirament to be a failure if I have to throw food out due to the meal going terribly wrong. When wasting food is preferable to eating that crap, it's time to throw in the towel.
• To date, I've had to throw something away only once, and the meal was perfectly fine the first time around. I made beer cheese soup. pretty good the first time around, but when I tried to reheat a portion of it, it separated into an oily top part, and a chewy bottom part which was like some kind of cheddar flavored chewing gum. after a few bites, I decided it wasn't worth it, and disposed of it. This is what is often refered to as a cullinary abortion.
• Hmmm... I wonder if Wrigley can market cheese flavored gum in Japan? They eat all kinds of oddly flavored stuff, why not a pack of Cheddarmint?
• Today, I had some difficulty in reproducing my father's tomato sauce, so I exchanged ideas with my sister. Her World of Warcraft Character is called Tomatosauce so I figured she'd know something. Eventually, I decided to add in a little more sugar, and that helped. We also exchanged a few meatball ideas. Mine didn't come out so well.
• Even if your too lazy too cook, there are three things you can do before resorting to opening a can of Chef Boyardee: (1) A grilled cheese sandwich. There's the typical 2-3 slices of american version, but latley, I've taken a liking to this: a slice of provolone, sprinkle lightly with basil and oregano, and set a second slice of provolone on top of that. The oils from the cheese bring out the herbs, giving an Italian flavor to the sandwich. (2) You can just make some eggs. Seriously, you can't screw up an egg. Omlette, over easy, scambled, whatever. Toast some bread, and you have a a decent meal in front of you. (3) Last Resort: just have a bowl of cereal or something. The grocery store up here recently had a sale on just about all of theirs, after the markdown and manufactures coupons, I walked away with 10 boxes for $15. I don't think I'll have to buy any more until at least this Fall.
• Cassaroles are great, becuase they can be thrown together from whatever stuff you have on hand. I put some cubed leftover chicken, some brocclli, cheese and rice together, and I ended up with dinner, and lunch for the next 5 days. Same with the Macaroni and Cheese I made.
• One final note about the meatballs I tried to make today: while searching for meatball recipies, i came upon recipes for Sweedish meatballs, which inevitably, let to me rediscovering a Childhood memory of mine.

Bork. Bork. Bork!