So long EDT

Last night we switched back to Eastern Standard Time, unless you live in some backwards place like Iowa or New Mexico where they use Goofy Time. Daylight Saving Time is pretty ridiculous, when you think about it. The best thing about the whole ordeal is right now, when you get the hour back. Is it really worth all this hassle to borrow an hour from April and pay it back in November? I think I'd rather have the hour in April, since the weather is way better.



Also, there is only one "S" in saving. Many people erroneously call it Daylight Savings Time, and this practice simply has to stop. As crazy as it sounds, I think Indiana had the right idea, and recently fell into the practice of the rest of us sheep. During my stay in the Hoosier State, that part was pretty nice -- never having to switch the clocks. I do miss that. We're back on EST now, so things are right with the world, timewise, until the spring.

That figures

Oh man, guys, I need to apologize to you folks. I had this really great story about how I found this pen at work that had this really hilarious note on it -- it was waterproof. What kind of pen is waterproof? In what context would that possibly be useful? Is it like an astronaut pen for scuba divers? I could only imagine someone in a sinking submarine trying to write a note warning the people who discover the wreckage of the giant squid that swallowed the propeller, realizing he had a Bic, and then swearing (sailors swear a lot), wishing he had my pen.

I found myself outside with the pen and your run of the mill Post-It pad, trying to write something down. I don't remember why I was outside writing things down, but that's not the point; the point is, it was raining. What a glorious coincidence! I was oddly outside writing things down in the rain with a waterproof pen! It seemed to work ok, but afterwards it started to crap out. I threw the pen away today. So who would make an outlandish claim about having a waterproof pen, and then have it not be true? That'd be like a pot manufacturer saying that you can use their saucepan upside-down on the burner and get the same results when you boil your spaghetti. Why would you even bother making such a statement?

The problem, though, is that I can't find a link to this pen. It's a Vivo Microfine, one of those wacky ballpointers that looks almost like it's a felt tip. It's black (I refuse to use any pen that is not black [unless it's red, and then only in certain cases; the point is that blue ink was invented by terrorists]), has a nice grip, and nice balance. I like the pen. But it isn't waterproof! I haven't felt this cheated since that time I read a Shakira interview where she said that she wanted to sound like Led Zeppelin.

It's not quite a love poem, but they are tubers, after all

Sometimes when I perform an activity that I had not done for a long time, I am reminded at how wonderful that experience was and get angry with myself for not doing it more often. Watching Wayne's World is one of them. I love Wayne's World; both the movies and the SNL sketch. But I can't remember the last time I watched any of them.

I made mashed potatoes with dinner tonight. They were glorious. I don't know why I don't eat them multiple times a day. I don't know why this was the first time I've done it since I moved to Augusta. I hate myself a little for not eating them more. You know how sometimes you eat an entire five pound bag of fun size Snickers bars and then, bloated and hurting inside, wonder why you did that? It's like that, except the complete opposite. I want to invite them to my wedding. (For food, although making mashed potatoes a groomsman is not completely out of the question.)

I am now going to make short list of Chuck Norris style quotations expressing my opinions of mashed potatoes.

• They should give heroin addicts mashed potatoes instead of methadone, that would eliminate drug addictions everywhere.
• If Blowpop made a mashed potato flavored lollipop, we'd still be hearing about them.
• At football games, they should sell mashed potato hats like they sell beer hats. I would buy two.
• In Soviet Russia, potatoes mash you!
  
• I am going to start dipping instant mashed potatoes, when the real thing is unattainable.
• When I die, I hope it's a mob hit where I am fitted with cement shoes and thrown into a vat of butter mashed potatoes to sleep with the chives.
• The Egyptians should have built the pyramids out of mashed potatoes.
• In the future, instead of butter I will top my mashed potatoes with mashed potatoes.

Let me know if you have any others to add.

I only have so many shrimps

I can't remember if I wrote this already. I hope I didn't. I've been thinking about it a while and with all the drama of starting work and finishing with school I can't remember and I am far too lazy to go too far back and check. If it is a repeat, yell at me and I'll get you another post, lickety-split. Or in two shakes of a lammy's tail, whichever is faster.

I like to eat things that have other things in them. Like pastas with chicken or seafood, cereals with marshmallows or shrimp and garlic sauce, that staple of Chinese restaurants that have pictures for menus. It's a pretty convenient menu system, when you think about it, and I still think it's a little bit funny that they always have pictures of spareribs on them. Spareribs just aren't the sort of thing that I think of as Chinese food. Even though I'm told that there is not that much that is "Chinese" about it. Funny how Americans can remake the food culture of a country with a billion people into their own. We are such an awesome people, I wish I were something else so I could choose to become American.

When I eat those things, though, I like to have a relatively even distribution of the things that are in the thing. I try to spread out the things throughout the meal because I hate having the
the last bite of any meal not have a bite of the special ingredient. The Chicken Alfredo is called that because of the chicken, the shrimp and garlic sauce has the same deal, and where do you think all the luck in the Lucky Charms come from? If I wanted bites of Alfredo, I would have ordered it without the chicken. If I wanted to eat Lucky Charms without the marshmallows, I would crumble pieces of my cork bulletin board off into a bowl of milk. And I don't want that.

Also, eating two shrimp in one bite is completely unacceptable. That would be a completely irresponsible decision. Occasionally a bite with no shrimp or chicken may be required, but so long as there are pieces left for later bites. Mostly, I think people who want to eat all their shrimp right away are sociopaths. Those are the kinds of people who, like the foolish grasshopper, eat all of their food in the spring. I, like the wise ant, store a little bit for the winter so I can enjoy shrimp throughout the entire meal. And it was delicious.

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening

I am mostly writing right now to record the events I have seen this evening so that tomorrow when I read them I can be sure they actually happened. You see, tonight is a bit of a surreal time for me. I am in the laboratory running a computer program I wrote for a class on three computers because they take way too long (I think I wrote them poorly, but that's not the point. They work, and because they work, I am going to be done with grad school). I will likely be here for a few more hours, and I am starting to have those bleary visions when you've had your contacts in too long and it looks foggy indoors. Also, I have had a mug of tea and a bottle of Vault, which I think is bad news GI-tractwise. I think perhaps 20 oz. of that stuff is too much for mortal men to consume in one sitting.

Anyway, I've been sitting here a while, playing a lot of Zuma as I keep an eye on my computers. I am going to save that Aztec frog if it's the last thing I do as a Clemson student. I have also made a few trips to the restroom (tea and Vault will go through you) and I feel the need to mention one of my neuroses that I don't think has come up: when I enter a stall, I don't like to see or be seen by anyone. I don't really know why, but I feel the need to be undercover when I'm behind closed doors. It's like Clark Kent's glasses, except more convincing.

You might think that this goal would be easy to achieve at 12:30 at night on a college campus during the summer on a Wednesday (Thursday?). It was not. Foreign graduate students tend not to buy (split infinitive narrowly averted) internet access at their apartments, because it is expensive. So at this time of night, you can find a lot of folks who have eaten way more rice than you probably ever will. While I have been waiting, one of my lab mates got into a shouting match in Chinese (I only know two words in Chinese, and I didn't hear either of them) and while in the bathroom, my cover was blown. I'm less concerned now about the fact that my cover was blown, but more along the lines of how I was detected in the men's room.

As I exited to wash my hands, there stood a Chinese graduate student over the sink with his head bent down. I caught it with corner of my eye (failure number one) and figured he was just washing his hair or face. If you spend a lot of time in the lab, a quick whore's bath isn't such a bad idea. Especially with this heat, I could probably use one by now. When I exited to wash my hands, though, I saw in more detail (and he saw me -- failures two and three) and he wasn't doing either of those things. He was shaving his head with what looked like a Gillette Mach 3. I have never watched anyone shave their head before, so I didn't really think about the role that shaving cream would play. But this soon to be bald Asian man was covered in it.

If this were an actual dream, I would have no idea what it would mean. Perhaps a preoccupation with the Chinese, since there was a lot of yelling in Chinese (which, interestingly, due to the intonation system makes many sentences sound like they are not really over when they stop talking) and a Happy Gilmore dream sequence surreal image. Hopefully, this insanity won't continue for too long.

Masterful Command of the Obvious (MCotO): My Microwave Oven

Sometimes when you start to heat up your hot pockets in the microwave, you can notice the LCD screen will give you information about what it's doing. It's usually something like "HIGH" to tell you what power level your little appliance is shooting radiation at your snack. Sometimes it's helpful; I'm sure that I have accidentally started regular power when I needed defrost. Really, those are the only two distinctions that are terribly necessary on this particular device. Are you going to freak out if you accidentally set your leftover pizza to "MED" instead of "HIGH"? Not really, because you can just cook it a little longer, unless you have a Monk-level case of OCD.

There are some other cases where it may be a little more serious. Popcorn, for example. Some people have a very specific time and setting at which their popcorn must be cooked. Understandable. This is not a problem with me, though; I worked at a movie theater in high school and now the smell of popcorn popping makes me coil into the fetal position while weeping and breaking out into hives. Although, if I ever am able to beat that, I would prefer my popcorn to be underpopped rather than overcooked.

The thing that caught my eye as I was reheating my delicious leftover stuffed shells (at the default setting, by the way) was that while the microwave was running, there is a little indicator that says "ON". Now, it's possible that I have a good deal more experience using microwave ovens than the rest of the population, but I happen to know that when the machine is running, it makes a sound and frequently activates a light that all serve as indicators that something is actually happening inside. I want to meet the guy whose idea it was to included that feature, and what explanation he gave as to its being necessary. Did they get letters asking, "When I put the food in, how do I know when the microwave is on?" I hope somebody stuck their head inside while it was running and prompted this.

I think that anyone who starts watching a television show or movie in the middle and has no problem in doing so is a sociopath. That's really the biggest weakness with the guide programs that come with cable and satellite these days: when you see something good that's already started, you can't just jump into it. At least I can't, because I'm not a sociopath. This does not extend to sporting events.

This is a neurosis that I think is a lot more rational than some of the others. Interrupting a story or a movie or a tv show is simply unacceptable. The entire picture must be taken as a whole. I know what you're thinking right now. "Where do you draw the line? Do you need to see it from the absolute beginning? What id you tune into a show that starts at 8 at 8:03? Do you simply watch nothing for half an hour?" And that's a good question. Let me explain.

Most shows begin with a cold opening, then show their introductory titles. Saturday Night Live is the most famous show that follows this format. When Darrell Hammond comes up as Chris Matthews interviewing Hillary Clinton pretending to be one of the Sopranos and concludes with deadpanning of "LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!", that's the cold opening. The introductory titles are the cast credits with the sax music, then it goes to commercials. You have until the show comes back from commercials to start, or else the show is wasted. You can extend it until the start of the next commercials if it's an hour show. That's it, unless you've seen the episode before. Otherwise, you can't watch the show anymore. Or you're a sociopath. Your choice.

Stick 'em up

I don't like the feeling of sticky things on my skin. I never have. I can't explain it, but it's one of those things like when people say, "I don't like mayonnaise," and if you ask, "Have you tried it?" and they say, "No. I just don't." I'm not going to interrogate you any further about your mayonnaise (even though it really makes sandwiches scrumptious), don't try to get me to explain about sticky things. Because I can't. Even though I will concede that mayonnaise doesn't make a lot of sense as to why it is good; it's whipped oil and egg yolk. It doesn't seem like it should be good, but it is. I was trying to think of a funny analogy to follow this up with, but the first thing I could think of was a computational model that we talked about in class the other day that works but has no theoretical basis. Good Lord I need to get out more.

You know when you pour Coke into a glass with ice in it, and the bubbles fly up like a foot above the glass? If you hold your arm over the glass in the path of the bubbles, they get the syrupy sugar on them. That feeling happens with a variety of food/drink spillages, and I will practically take a bath in the kitchen sink if it happens to me. The worst is when you have a small spill on the counter top and you have to clean up with a rag or paper towels or something; I end up washing my hands like three times between each stage because I don't want to accidentally get sticky on something in the kitchen, lest I touch it later. I need to put the sticky under quarantine. I do admit, though, that I feel a little like a psychopath when this happens.

This isn't just limited to food. I also hate (though I can tolerate) sticky name tags. I generally try to avoid them if I can. I don't always want people knowing who I am anyway -- in case later I decide I want to be a superhero. Band-aids are also to be avoided, but sometimes they just can't be. I really have to struggle with that, though, if the cut is really worth it. It's really an agonizing time when I accidentally miss the onion and hit my thumb for a variety of reasons.

Every once in a while, I'll step on something, and the bottom of my foot will inexplicably be sticky. I think this can happen with other appendages as well, but the feet get into places that others don't. Who knows what's on floors! I sure don't. But right now, there is something on my right foot that sticks a little bit to the carpet, and I hate it. When I run my hands over my foot (not the best solution, because I might be spreading this horrible symptom, but sacrifices have to be made), I feel nothing. It's like this particular stickiness knows I'm coming. I'll get the last laugh, though, when I shower. That's like the atomic bomb in this situation, and I'm not afraid to use it.

Ironies of the Holidays

I got a pretty healthy injection to my wardrobe over the past two weeks. Good thing, too, because I was starting to look like a hobo. I think the clothes all look better than what I was wearing before, but I still don't trust myself to select things by myself in the future. It's like being in the cockpit of an airplane; a layperson can identify someone who is a good or bad pilot pretty easily, but making those decisions yourself it's a little intimidating so it's nice to have someone in there with you.

I think that the reason people always talk about getting into shape as their New Year's resolutions is so that they can fit into all those new clothes they just got. Every time I go home, I feel like I gain 15 pounds because my mom is a very good cook, but her sense of proportion is a little off. For example, the amount of food she makes for a meal would be appropriate if my family were the defensive line for the Miami Dolphins. We usually don't go hungry. Now, though, I need to discipline myself into resuming exercise or exchange all my pants.

I guess I should've been more active while I was at home, but I was really looking forward to the bowl season. That's really an unusual source of regret, don't you think? For like a month and a half, I was looking forward to watching all of the college football games (I pretty much achieved it, except for the odd one that even I couldn't muster any interest in or were airing simultaneously), but now I wish I had, maybe, played a game of basketball or something. The weather was nice, and I don't think I took sufficient advantage of it because I slavishly obeyed my plan. Maybe next year.

There's also a lot of family that explodes over Christmas. I find it amusing how easily it is to get worn out and run out of things to say to the more tangential relatives. It's also tiring to tell the same stories over and over again to different people, which I think is a big part of the problem. I should write out a pamphlet with the essentials and just hand them out when I meet people I haven't seen for six months. "Oh, how's school going?" Look at bullet point #4. "How long do you get to stay?" Intro paragraph. If they have interesting questions, you know, the sort that I'd expect someone who has known me for my whole life to ask, then that's one thing. Maybe I'm just being picky. I should probably do some exercise anyway.

What are we talking about again

Do you ever wish something that was socially acceptable that isn’t because you popped something in an odd place or dug something out of somewhere that came out in a funny shape? I sometimes do. I’m not going to tell you about what happened to me, because I don’t want your vision of my awesome to be tarnished by something socially unacceptable.

I do remember a story where my aunt was (proudly [not really]) telling a story about my uncle where he dug a hunk of wax out of his ear that was a perfect sphere. He, apparently, wondered this very same question, because she then proceeded to explain how he showed this artistic achievement to her.

I know there are people who compare farts, but that is actually pretty disgusting. I think it’d be a whole different ballgame, though, if farts didn’t stink. Do you really think they’d be all that objectionable if they were as inoffensively smelling as sneezes?

I’ve also come across people who are revolted by feet, which is sort of the opposite of what I’m thinking of here, but still weird enough to be mentioned, I think. I don’t feel any sort of animosity towards any particular body part. There are some that I like more than others (and I think you probably agree) but none that really offend me.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about something, but it’s not appropriate here, so I won’t go into it. Maybe we’ll talk more about potentially vile bodily functions, but not really.

Deal breakers

This might be a recurring post, where I discuss the qualities in a significant other that are so outrageous that I simply cannot abide them. There are a lot of things that irritate me, I mean, most of you know me so you know that already. Those of you who don't, well, you're reading my blog. People who aren't bothered by trivial things don't write these.

1. I'll start easy - smoking. Smoking is not attractive. Also, it makes you smell bad. Women are supposed to smell delightful, like flowers or cinnamon or whiskey. Why would you want to ruin that with smoke? It's completely an aesthetic thing, though, so I don't have any opinion about someone who used to smoke, so long as they never do it again; secretly smoking is still unacceptable.

2. Tattoos are not high on my list either. Mostly, it's a declaration of a person's poor decision making ability. I don't want to be in a position where a person who decided it would be a good idea to permanently place an image of a dolphin on her hip can be involved in doing things like having a say in my financial future or driving my car.

3. Baby talk. Self-explanatory. I'll give them a warning, but this isn't baseball; one warning and that's it.

4. Riding with an animal in the car. The only exception for this is a trip to the vet. I am especially enraged when I see people ride with dogs in their laps. I want to go yell at people I don't know when I see this happen. It's dangerous, since you might kill me or dent a cool car like a Porsche or something if Bruiser makes in your lap, and it shows that you are so co-dependent you can't run to the bank without your pet. This should probably even result in a revocation of your license.

I'm also not fond of pets wearing clothes, but there are exceptions where this is ok. Mostly if it's funny enough. For example, a good friend of mine said that she was buying a Halloween costume for her dog, and I proceeded to explain how I hate people who do that and that I didn't really want to hate her, since we'd been friends for like 10 years, but then she said the costume was a hot dog. I was relieved, because a dog dressed as a hot dog is definitely funny enough, so I didn't have to hate my best friend.


Surprisingly, that's all I can think of right now. There'll probably be more someday.

The answer, of course, is onions

I'm a little surprised that I went 64 posts without mentioning honey mustard sooner. (This is 65.) Finding a good honey mustard is a tricky endeavor, because there are varying amounts of the two ingredients (let alone spiciness!) that interferes with the inherent goodness of this wondrous condiment. Honey mustard is to condiments what holy water is to water.

I was thinking about it because today I went to the grocery store and realized I needed more honey mustard, especially considering I purchased cheddarwursts. Those two make a stellar combination. I decided on French's, it's not the best honey mustard I've ever had, but for the price it's definitely serviceable. I was thinking of doing a review of good one and bad ones, but really, who cares. The important thing is that honey mustards are like most other gourmet product, and you get what you pay for.

Another interesting variety of mustard I think you all should be aware of is whiskey mustard. It's funny to say those two words in order, because they don't even sound right together. But surprisingly, whiskey mustard is delicious. I learned about its existence from my Irish cookbook (leave it to the Irish to put whiskey in everything) and tried its recipe - mustard chicken. It was great, even though it was Jack Daniels whiskey mustard. Jack Daniels, in my experience, is a rather low ranking whiskey, particularly for the price. There's a reason why you don't see Wild Turkey or Maker's Mark mustard or coffee -- because the liquor is better consumed in liquor form rather than mustard or coffee form.

I sometimes get in arguments with friends over honey vs. spicy; I pretty much have to go with honey on this one. Don't get me wrong, I like the picante as much as the next guy, but I'm really particular about where the spice is applied. For example, I don't like hot Italian sausage in spaghetti, because that's just not a combinations of flavors to which I look forward, even though hot Italian sausage you get at the grocery store isn't really all that hot. In salsa or Chinese food, I want it to burn my esophagus on the way down. I want to have to suck on a fire extinguisher for relief. Just not on a bratwurst.

I have so many opinions my opinions have opinions

There are things about the internet that bother me. Well, I guess that's a little misleading. There are things about browsers that bother me, but they only do those things while browsing the internet. It isn't the internet's fault; that's like saying "There are things about stupid people I don't like" because I don't like listening to stupid people bitch. It's not so much the stupid person's fault, I just don't like want to hear it. Wait, that's a terrible example. Stupid people are annoying all the time.

Anyway, if I am ever working in two windows at the same time, and I click on a link that takes a while to load, switch over to the other window and start typing something, perhaps into the Google toolbar, and the other one loads I hate how it switches over in mid sentence. I hope there's a way to never have another window interrupt the one I have active. I wouldn't care if it blinked at the bottom or anything, just don't interrupt me while I'm typing. It's like getting between a fat guy and his roast beef. Not a good idea, and my computer knows it: there is a gash in my screen from when I dropped my compass on it. (Not the boy scouts North/South kind of compass, the drawing compass with a lethal javelin one one end.) I particularly dislike it if I'm typing into the toolbar at the top of the page and things are loading, I hate how it sometimes draws the cursor away from the bar at the top into some other text box in the page itself As far as I can tell, IE, Netscape and Mozilla all do this. Consequently, I hate them all.

I also have an intense dislike for tabs. This one I will have a harder time explaining, it's just something that really bothers me, like grapefruit juice, anything that feels sticky (yes, including stickers and bandaids) and Ashton Kutcher. I understand how tabs could be useful. I understand that other people can use them. This is America, go ahead and use them if you want. But I will not. Don't try to convert me on this; just leave me with my irrational feelings towards tabs like you leave your somewhat racist grandmother to hers. Actually, I have no idea why someone would try to convert me in favor of tabs.

I also dislike the memory in the URL dropdown. There's probably a way to fix it, but I'm either too lazy or ignorant to sort it out. I like having some things in there, and I like how IE used to reorder them according to frequency of use. Mozilla just adds them to the top, and sometimes removes them. I don't know how it decides which ones to weed out, but some webpages I would like to save get lost into the depths of the internet aether while typos are remembered for posterity. Some of those typos were caused by drawing my cursor away from the bar by a loading page.

I realized that it might be difficult to explain those problems in written form, and they have been bothering me for a while. I finally decided to man up and try to explain my internet woes, because I just couldn't take it anymore. I think you computer people should never stop in developing better ways to access this series of tubes we call the internet.

Creatures of Habit

Do you ever do things like brush your teeth and then forget, only later to wonder if you brushed your teeth this morning? Actually, that was a bad example because when you brush your teeth you have that lingering fake peppermint taste in your mouth for like an hour. But something really habitual, mindless and reflexive to the point that you don't think about it anymore, like locking the car door or flushing the toilet. If you do your business in the bathroom and leave while drying your hands and step out and think, "Is my waste still lounging in that bowl, or did I send it on its merry way?" I don't think I've ever actually forgotten to do either of those things, but I sometimes forget that I actually did them. Isn't that weird?

I got back from watching a movie at a friend's place tonight, and wondered if I remembered to lock the front door before I left. I had no recollection of inserting my key into the lock to perform this act, much like I have no idea from where two pairs of my pants came. They are really shorts, but pants, to me, is a funnier word. Fortunately, I did not forget to lock the door. It's good, I guess, that I don't ever forget, but it's a little frightening, too, that I am capable of doing something to the point of not remembering if I did it. Could this apply to other things, less mundane and possibly more sinister? Could I have taken baseball bat to a Mercury Sable and simply have forgotten? Or robbed a Pakistani bank at gunpoint? I'd never know, because Pakistani money probably isn't worth that much; I wouldn't expect a huge lifestyle change after holding up one of those.

I hope, for all of your sakes, that I am not some sort of subconscious criminal genius. It would be kind of awesome, though, to be able to just have money appear in my apartment and I have no idea where I got it. I'd really prefer to remember how I got it, though. I'll try to sing a song or something for each of these frequently occurring events in my daily life, so that they'll stick out a little better. Although I've never forgotten to flush the toilet, that's not the sort of risk I'm prepared to take.

Maybe a wig would be easier

I am on the fence about getting my hair cut. I've covered this topic, before, too, but I'll try not to repeat myself. I hate having to do it, because it's just too complicated. I never know what to ask for, I always forget how much it costs so I go in with like $50 (just in case) and it never looks the same the day you get it as it does the next day. I wish there was a construct your own haircut like the car websites have. That way I could choose between the sunfire red and gunmetal without making anybody uncomfortable.

In addition to the uncertainty with the process itself, I really have to wonder about the timing. Do I need one? Can I wait a few days? Would anyone notice if I did? Or are they laughing at my (comparatively) longish hair now? I really have gotten the same haircut for most of my days, with the exception of the AFROTC ones. I have very particular hair, not unlike a child who refuses to eat unless there are chicken nuggets in his spaghetti-os. My hair demands the cut I have now, or else I look retarded. As it stands now, I'm only ridiculous, which I think is a step above.

It's getting to the point where it's a little messy right now, though. I don't mind the length, so much as the unrulyness. If I cut a little some of the hairs off, though, that usually settles them down. It makes me feel like Stalin killing off peasants in Siberia. But, like those peasants, the hair always comes back. Maybe this would be easier if I had Stalin's hair.

A proportionate response

I don't feel like I'm exceeding the bounds of modesty when I say I'm a pretty good cook. If you think I am, I'm probably better than you, anyway. Although I'm only a journeyman with his particular recipe, one of the things in my repertoire is a delightful spaghetti sauce which can be placed on a variety of noodles -- whether they be stuffed shells, thin spaghetti or its fatter (but more fun) sister, regular spaghetti. The hotter spaghetti can be a real bitch sometimes.

The problem that always gets me when I decide to make spaghetti (with any noodle), though, is to get the right amount of noodles. They look so different when they are still raw then they do after you boil them, and even then, when you add the sauce it still can be much more food than I really need to eat. The amount leftover is usually some insignificant amount so that placing it in an entire Gladware container is just wasteful. So, I'll try to eat it and be uncomfortable for a while. That is to say nothing about my inability to match the amount of noodles with an appropriate amount of spaghetti sauce. Hey, I make the ingredients come out ok, I said nothing about presentation.

Now that I say that, though, I can't really decide which is more ridiculous: having the inability to judge proportions of noodles to sauce or the laziness to just keep eating rather than put it away. Maybe I should just give up this whole charade with thin spaghetti altogether.

Does anyone really know the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne?

I am returning to South Carolina tomorrow. Actually, I guess, it's really later today. But, in my mind, the day isn't actually over until you go to sleep for the night. No, naps don't count, so my little system won't let you get a few winks at noon on Christmas Eve and wake up an hour later ready to open presents. This is only sleep that takes place after the sun goes down.

It's just one of those things in my head that doesn't really belong there. Midnight is so... absolute. Like right now, the events that are taking place in my life, notably writing this entry, should be cataloged in my memory with the things that happened in the past 14 hours, not the ones that will happen after I wake up, because this is an extension of them, not a precursor to the ones that will happen tomorrow.

New Year's Eve is a weird case, though. Partly because of the ball tradition (that is really kind of stupid, actually) and partly because my birthday is the next day (which is kickass, because whenever I do subtraction from the current year to my birthyear, there is never a time that it's not correct). When you stay up and watch horrible television while drinking things in anticipation of ringing in the new year (which is a retarded expression, not unlike "not for nothing"), that immediately starts a new year, but not the new day. Don't you wish you could rent space in my head?

I'll Take Anal-Retentive for $800, Alex

I watch Jeopardy! when I can. I really think it may be the source of my powers. Right now is the Tournament of Champions, which is the purest, single barrel version of Jeopardy!, unlike the pissant teen and celebrity tournaments where it feels like Jeopardy! is trying to make the retards who watch Deal or No Deal feel educated.

I have been watching the show for a while, so I have seen a lot of things. I have seen Alex go from mustached to not, I have seen the failed attempt at Super Jeopardy!, I have seen the studio redesign and the doubling of the question values. Throughout all of those times, though, it never fails to make me crazy when contestants start in the middle of a category. What purpose is there in choosing the second smallest entry? Start small and build your momentum as you work your way down, or if time is short, grab the biggest dollar amount available. Take the third largest, and you're just cluttering the question board. They should screen for people like that, because I can't be the only one that gets bothered by that.