Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I am kind of ridiculous

You know how when you play video games and something absurdly improbably happens and you yell, "Yeah right!" or "That would not happen!" or, my favorite (borrowed from Arrested Development), "Come on!" I find myself doing that mostly when I play football games. I like football a lot, and for some reason, I think that my players would never fumble or throw interceptions, even though I watch enough football to know that everyone fumbles sometimes and throws interceptions sometimes. USC lost to Oregon State, Penn State lost to Iowa and Duke almost made a bowl. In fact, until this season, Duke's last ACC win was Clemson, and to overcome that, they had to hire David Cutcliffe who is kind of a badass.

For those of you who are reading this and snoring by now (who am I kidding? all of my readers are nerds, right?) the point of all this is that while making pork chops recently, I spilled some flour on my kitchen counter. Pork chops are delicious and wildly underrated. I realized that I found myself yelling at real life in very much the same way that I yell at my Xbox. The flour fell, I said, "You're kidding." And then, somehow, my baking soda fell behind it. I legitimately yelled, "Come on!" at nobody. I had valueless white powder all over my counter top and I was doing psychologically worse than yelling an a computer.

I was a little bit comforted, and that's when I knew there was a problem. I would rather my insane yelling at video games be consistent with my normal behavior than an aberration restricted to virtual sports and just yell at nothing than just accept this quirk. At least I had pork chops, right?

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Check out my hook while the DJ revolves it

I made a shocking discovery recently, and I don't know what I should do about it. No, it isn't anything that requires penicillin. I was sitting out on my patio while reading a magazine that if you saw me read it would make me look thoughtful, intelligent and worldly all while not at all appearing pretentious. However, Georgia in June is, to be charitable, kind of warm. But, of course, I was reared in the Sunshine State, so think of Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch. Was that one of the Disney stories that was racist?

However, I still elected to have a tasty glass of ice water with me out there. I was challenged to meet the medical requirements of 2 liters a day, and I am trying to meet it. It also helps to alleviate the sweating. It also helps at work when it's really boring trying to drink really fast and the results of drinking really fast helps to occupy the time.

The thing that I noticed was, that after a little while in the Georgia sun, the ice in the ice water will, of course, melt. I don't know how much you remember from chemistry, but when you add things to water, the water gets less watery and more what you put in it. However, my ice cubes taste bad. It's hard to describe, but it's a sort of stale and terrible. It didn't always taste like this. What went wrong? Is there anything I can do about this, or does that red Georgia clay turn into gross in ice cubes? I'm counting on you, internet!

Sunday, June 07, 2009

A grain of an argument

My girlfriend and I recently had an argument. Naturally, she could not be more wrong, and as far as I know, she has no blog with three readers to dispute my claims. She made the heinous suggestion that wild rice is the worst rice. The only way this could be more wrong would be if the claim at hand were to say that the Temple of Doom is the best Indiana Jones movie. Everyone knows that Raiders is best, followed closely by Last Crusade. We will just ignore that stupid one with that kid with the weird name. (Similarly, Empire > Jedi > New Hope, ignoring that stupid new trilogy.)

Here's the skinny on rice: Yellow is the best. Yellow rice is the America of rice. No one denies this. It is flavored with saffron, of course, which is superexpensive. Every time I eat yellow rice it's like I am eating gold in every bite. That is incredible, and untouchable by anything else that rice has to offer. Next, though, is wild rice. Wild rice is Great Britain. She is implying that it is like Cameroon. No way. That's like white rice that you cook too long and it's like a paste.

White rice and I have had our problems, though. It is kind of bland and I don't have a rice cooker so I would make a poor Asian and when you boil it, the rice water that spills over the pot is really gross. How much superexpensive herb is involved with white rice? None. Step up your game, white rice. At least the Thais put jasmine in theirs to make it taste like something. White rice is the Cameroon of rice. At its best, it is really just a vehicle to put other things on. Lots of upside there. You can make gumbo with yellow rice, I'm sure, and it would be glorious.

Broccoli cheddar rice is Germany. It has no glaring weaknesses, brings a lot to the table, and doesn't try to be something it's not. You're not putting sweet and sour meatballs on it, but if you have it next to roast beef you are having a heck of a meal right there. I haven't had brown rice in like 35 years so I don't really have anything to say about it.

The moral of the story, though, is that wild rice is great and those that disagree need to be convinced. I would suggest you help convince in the comments section, but I don't think she reads the comments. Or the posts.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

That line is there for a reason

I drive home from work pretty much every day that I drive there. Yesterday was an exception, because I worked my first 12 hour shift. It was just as awesome as you think it would be. Part of my commute includes time on an expressway, which, as you are probably aware, involves retard drivers and on ramps. There are retard drivers on every sort of road, but on expressways, they move faster. Which is good news for everyone.

As speed magnifies dumbassery on the road, the on ramps are the portals by which that behavior is applied to the efficient expressways we all know and love from the tangle of back roads and pedestrians. Stupid things, of course, happen in town, too, so do not think I am trying to minimize that. It is just that I do not drive in town every day, so that is not something that irritates me on quite as regular a basis.

Have you ever been entering the highway and not quite reach the driving lane out of the acceleration lane and behind somebody else, when the jerk behinds you departs the acceleration lane early and pulls around you into the driving lane? That guy deserves, at a minimum, to have his tires slashed. There's that wide triangle shaped strip that (while I'm not traffic signage expert) probably means, "Don't do that, jerkface." Not only that, but that guy cuts me off as I try to pass that slowpoke in front of me.

That sucks, too. When you get stuck in a line of people behind a guy holding everyone up; they cannot be sure that it's not you. I feel like I need to hold up a sign saying, "It's not me! Let me out of this prison! I won't slow you down!" Then again, I am occasionally guilty of that practice. There are certain crimes on the road that are more serious than others. Vehicular manslaughter, for instance. I, however, will fly into a rage when the guy behind me departs prematurely out of the acceleration lane. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.