Identity food

I often have my cell phone, in my pocket, set to vibrate. I miss a lot of calls that way, I don't always notice the vibration. Also, I now have phantom cell phone vibrations--my thigh will feel an oscillatory twitch, but no one has called.

Last fall, I was sick a lot, I had a cold that made me very tired and gave me a lot of headaches and a sore throat. It was the sort of sore throat that feels painful but doesn't make me sound any different. I didn't sneeze or cough or anything. I got no sympathy.

I love how liquor stores sell breath mints next to the flu shots. Why is cranberry juice the juice of choice for people who want to not drink alcohol, but be at a bar anyway?

I had had a cold all during a long trip, and I was very tired, but when I got home, the only place open was 7-Eleven. I got Gatorade and cough drops, a frozen pizza, and a Klondike bar. When I got home, I couldn't find the Klondike. Months later, when it appeared between the passenger seat and door, none of the melted ice cream had leaked out.

Why is there meat-lovers' pizza or veggie-lovers' pizza, instead of pizza-with-a-lot-of-meat, or pizza-with-a-passel-of-vegetables-that-do-not-necessarily-go-together? What other identity foods have you spotted?

Peculiarities and Irritations

I am irritated when people try to schedule phone calls with me, or tell me "leave your phone open". If I can take the call, I will, if I can't, I won't, and it's as simple as that. I can't stand it when someone calls me five times trying to get through to me, without leaving a voicemail.

I like it when postal workers wear pith helmets while walking their routes because it makes them look like they're on a mail safari.

I do not have the mental capacity to understand why people fill the kitchen sink with dirty dishes to "clean up." The worst case of this that I've seen is a pile of dishes that goes above the faucet. This means that the dirty dishes get wet and fester. To actually clean them, the dishes have to get pulled back out of the sink, so that there's room to use the faucet, and now the counter has fetid dirty dishwater on it.

When I am driving somewhere that I have never been before, and I have a navigator (riding shotgun) reading directions to me, I request that the navigator read two steps ahead, at least, so that I know if I have to watch for any quick turns. Some navigators are obstinate, and only give the next immediate step, and refuse to provide any further information. If I have a navigator like this in the future, I will pull over and have them swap seats with someone in the backseat as punishment.

In the house I grew up in, we had an oak tree that was four hundred years old. There was a deer stand in it, or what had been a deer stand--all that was left was four rotting planks. We couldn't get them down easily, and this bothered me a lot.

Dad wouldn't let us build a tree fort. Instead, Dad made a little fort for me. It was barely a fort, it was three pieces of plywood, maybe a yard wide, total, held together with bungee cord. It wasn't as good as a tree house, but it was okay for watergun fights.

One time, I was at the gym, and someone hopped onto the elliptical machine next to mine, and exercised vigorously; ten minutes later, she got off, wheezing. Now, this person was reasonably fit. What was peculiar was the machine was off the whole time, so it provided no resistance. Is it proper to say, "Excuse me, Miss, but are you aware that you frittered away your last ten minutes on a non-functional piece of equipment?"

I started lifting weights this summer. I still haven't figured out the etiquette for that, either. Everyone's listening to their iPod. Someone will walk up to me as I'm doing lat presses, and ask me a question, but I can't hear them, and so an awkward, "What did you say?" and pointing and gesturing.

Also, we only have one rope thing in the gym. I don't know what its proper name is, but it's the only suitable handle for the ab press. People are always snatching it from the ab press, though, and taking it to another machine to do T-Rexes. Well, Mike, Tim, and I call them "T-Rexes", because when doing them, you only move your forearms. T-Rexes can be done with other handles just as well, so I think that it ought to be considered proper to request the rope thing back from someone doing T-Rexes if I want to work my abs, but I'm afraid to ask.

I was walking across the quad last Thursday, when I saw a man with a perfectly uniform halo of hair and beard, making him look like a lion.

When I go to a pub, it's typically because I want to drink beer and talk with my friends. Why do pubs often have the music so loud that conversation is impossible? Also, why do pubs often have muted TV's without captions?

I don't get toothpicks in sandwiches at restaurants. I know that the theory is that the toothpick holds the sandwich layers together, but I've not seen this play out so well in practice. I've had oodles of problems with sandwiches falling apart as I eat them, but this is after I've taken the toothpick out to avoid splinters in my nose. I've never had a sandwich fall apart from the kitchen to the table as a result of not having a toothpick.

Some churches are not satisfied with merely having a name, they have to have a tagline, too. Two come to mind:
Where the nations gather to worship
The Amazing Grace Church

The Amazing Grace Church tagline bothers me, because I hope that it's not the only Church in which Grace is Amazingly present. My big problem here is the definite article.

Another definite article problem I have is the Old Bay-flavored Utz potato chips, with the tagline, "The Crab Chip." I'm always disappointed, because when I open the bag, I hope for only one crab potato chip that just fits the bag. Also, although crabs are often seasoned with Old Bay here in Maryland, they do not naturally taste anything like Old Bay. They should change the packaging to read, "A Passel of Chips Evoking Memories of Eating Crabs."

Going out of Business

I was driving around Columbia one day, and saw a sign for a CompUSA going out of business sale. On my way to the CompUSA, I saw another sign for a Hollywood Video going out of business sale. I got great deals at each place, however, the countenance of the workers was unusual, because they were losing jobs they weren't excited about in the first place, but they know that the faster they sold stuff, the sooner they'd stop getting paid.

Something just occurred to me about Curious George. Curious George's friend is The Man with the Yellow Hat, but The Man is wearing yellow pants and a yellow shirt, too.

It turned out that the Hollywood Video was five miles from where I saw the sign indicating the going out of business sale. I stopped in at the library to look it up on Google maps. While there, I got a cup of coffee from the vending machine. I don't like paying for coffee when I'm out, because I can make it for so much cheaper at home, but I always get coffee from a vending machine, even if I don't need the caffeine. I like watching a robot make coffee for me.

At Hollywood Video, as I was browsing the racks, I heard a middle-aged woman gasp with excitement: I looked to see her pick up a copy of "Holiday".

I prepared a pizza bagel at home in the toaster oven, and melted cheese dripped through the annulus of the bagel. There needs to be a word for this annulus cheese.

I hate washing my hands while wearing a jacket, because of what I call the wet-hand-loose-sleeve problem. If I angle my hands down, my sleeves slip down, and get wet from my hands. If I angle my hands up, the water drips down my elbows, inside the jacket. I lament my inability to remember to pull up my sleeves before going to the bathroom.

I don't get the American drive to combine things. At a discount store, I saw an Easter-themed travel checkers set, in which the checkers were pegs shaped like carrots. I also don't get strawberry-kiwi juice or four cheese pizza--one cheese is enough.

Some people are mostly vegetarian, but they eat fish. I want to be the sort of person who's mostly vegetarian, but also eats whales.

Why did I buy Gattaca? It was only $5 in the Wal*Mart Bargain Bin. I haven't watched it, and I've owned the DVD for two years now.

I think there ought to be a dentist clinic funded primarily by the loose change that falls out of people's pockets when tilted back at an odd angle in the dentist's chair.

I think it would be great if there were car racks for bikes, so you can take your car with you on the bike trail.

Slinkies are great for people like me who can't juggle.

Snow

[I wrote most of this on a snow day, a Thursday in February, and on the day after that.]

I clipped my fingernails just now, and so I have trouble picking stuff up.

I was in a bad mood, so I made postmodern food. Here is my recipe:
1 lb. tempeh
2 jars spaghetti sauce, nothing weird, maybe the kind with a little garlic and basil in it
3 Bell peppers, cut into 1/4" strips
1 Onion, diced
Some Blueberries (frozen is fine)
Olive oil, I guess
Blanch the tempeh, then chop it into triangles, and set it aside. Fry the onions in a little olive oil. Throw everything in the pot, including the tempeh. Bring it to a boil. Top with the bell peppers. This is awesome food, because the blueberries suck up the spaghetti sauce and they burst in your mouth with sweetness and acidity at the same time. I didn't have enough spaghetti sauce, so I had to go to the grocery store.

It snowed today, and school was closed. Snow is the one natural thing that grown-ups can't keep from interfering with their work. I like snow, because I pretend it's God's way of telling us we need a day off.

When I was in middle school, my friend, Dave, said that snow is like grace, because it covers everything, and you can see what everything was, but it looks completely different, at the same time.

One time, I was talking with my friend, Harold, about snow, and how it's like grace. I mentioned that my friend, Amber, doesn't like thinking of it that way, because she always thinks of the homeless people who are stuck out in the snow. Harold said that it's probably still okay to think of snow as a reminder of grace. He told me about a friend he has who is homeless. The friend would accept food and money as gifts, but, when it was snowy, Harold offered to let his friend into his house, but the homeless friend declined. Harold's mercy was available to his friend, but the friend didn't accept that mercy, so he was stuck, cold and wet in the snow.

So, I was in a bad mood, and I had left my food in a pot on the stove while I went to get more spaghetti sauce. I also needed gummi worms. I've never seen a sad person eating gummi worms. The gummi worms at Giant were unacceptable, they were chalky and very short, so I went to Wal*Mart instead and got gummi worms there. The gummi worms at Wal*Mart were a lot better, they were clear and stretchy. The only problem was that some of the gummi worms were a combination of red and orange, and those two colors don't go together.

When I grow up, I'm going to sell gummi worms with gummi surgical equipment, a scalpel and a needle and that special thread used in dissolving sutures. You can perform segment transplants, so that the gummi worms are only made of colors that go together. It's also fun to tuck a half a dozen gummi worms into my upper lip and let them dangle and pretend to be a monster.

I saw an armored truck parked right in front of the Walmart, with its warning lights on, in the middle of the crosswalk. Do armored trucks ever get towed illegally?

My favorite cocktail is the rusty nail, which is 9 parts Scotch whisky and 5 parts Drambuie, with ice to taste. I like to wait until the ice melts before eating.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the library atrium, avoiding finding useful articles for my research. It's late on Friday afternoon, the place is almost empty.

I notice that there is a table set up near the guard station, where you are supposed to leave your food, before entering the library proper. On the table sits a twelve-inch sub from Sub Connections. There is no guard.

I am tempted to steal the sandwich, and take it into the library, and devour it directly in the middle of the stacks, to see if I can do it without getting noticed. The only thing stopping me is that the sandwich might have meat on it; I'm a vegetarian.

Defibrilator and Spaz are excellent names for energy drinks.

Rainn Wilson/Garrison Keillor/John Locke

Is it just me, or do Rainn Wilson and Garrison Keillor kind of look similar?

Also, I have a theory. Here is my theory. My theory is that Dwight Schrute thinks that he is John Locke.

Several bread-related objects sorted from smallest to largest

Crumb

Slice of bread

Loaf of bread

Breadbox

6' long sub

Grain silo

Wheat field

CAPS LOCK and Crocodiles

Today, I read on the internet webtubes a webpage suggesting that I remap my CAPS LOCK key to ctrl. I never use CAPS LOCK, and I use ctrl all the time, so it seemed like a good idea. There are two problems. One is in retraining myself to use this key that I'm always dancing around. The other problem is that the caps lock key still turns on and off when I tap it.

Also, I was thinking today that I'm not really in a research mood, I didn't really feal like doing science today. I decided that I would rather be a crocodile. I'd be a totally awesome crocodile. I would take a lot of naps, to conserve energy. I'd really only have to eat, like, one goat per month. I could manage that. I would also never eat people, because that would be mean. I would, though, go to crowded beaches, and people would run around and scream. There would be some people who would save the rest from me, and feel like heroes. They wouldn't know that I'm a just a friendly crocodile.

Passel

One of my favorite words is "passel".  I'd probably heard it before, but I first really noticed it when watching the Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds", in which Inara Serra suggests to the grizzled yet charming Captain Malcolm Reynolds that he mights have "hundreds of fat children", to which he replies, "Could you imagine that? Me with a whole passel of critters underfoot?". Mal is the man.

Some time after hearing the word, Mom sent me an email, saying that I had a passel of mail at home for me to pick up the next time I came to visit. I was having a particularly stressful week, so I mumbled compulsively, "passel of mail passel of mail passel of mail...". It's got an excellent rhythm, the phrase "passel of mail".

"Passel" is an excellent word. It is a corruption of the word parcel, but doesn't quite mean parcel, it more refers to a collection of an undetermined number of people or things. It means what it sounds like, so you can freely pepper your conversations with the word "passel", and people will respond not with confusion, but with intrigue. Most experts agree that using the word "passel" brings more mirth than speaking obscenities.

Here are some webpages which use the word "passel":
Passel O' Possums
Peachpit: Apple announces a passel of new products
A passel of reasons to be glad you're a Tucsonian
Bad Astronomy: Another Passel of Creationist Lies (Note: Dr. Phil Plait does not like Creationists AT ALL. Poor Dr. Plait.)
Star Wars Databank: Argente Passel
Michael Bay Promises a Passel of New and Unique 'Bots for Transformers 2
c|net: Adobe Hires a Passel of Brainiacs
Passel.net: Web Design and Development

How to Win the War on Christmas

In the yuletide season, I wish everyone I meet a jolly "Happy Christmas!" Some do not take kindly to this greeting, and protest, "I don't observe Christmas!" If you do not observe Christmas, that is your choice, but these people act as if I'm trying to offend them. I wouldn't be offended if a Muslim wished me a happy Eid al-Adha, for example, I know they're just trying to be friendly.

So, to those who go beyond simply not observing Christmas, to being anti-Christmas, I respond to them saying, "Do you want to have an un-merry Christmas? May you be devoured by a horde of wild boars on December 25!" This shuts them up quickly, when I wave my totemic staff and they discover that I am the High Shaman of the UMBC Wild Boar Cult.

Pork rinds, also, the dentist.

There should be vegetarian "pork" rinds. I only ever had pork rinds once, but, right now, I have a hankering for them.

I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago, and he told me that my wisdom teeth are impacted and need to be taken out, and that I grind my teeth. I hadn't really noticed either, or if I had, had just gotten used to them, but ever since then, they've been driving me crazy.

For the Grinch: How to Steal Christmas

If I were the Grinch, and I were to want to bring Christmas to a screeching halt, this is what I would do. Rather than sneaking down each chimney in Whoville to steal all of the presents and the Christmas tree and the roast beast, I would sneak down each chimney and deliver one puppy. Whovillian parents would wind up taking care of the puppy after a couple of weeks, and they would resent whoever gave their child a puppy. Then they would not have Christmas again, to prevent receiving any more puppies. (Alternatively, they would wind up liking puppies, which is okay, but, I would keep delivering more and more puppies each year. One can only handle so many puppies.)

Also, I intend to mail my parents a box with airholes this year for Christmas. (Now I'm talking about real life, not what would happen if I was the Grinch.) Have you ever gotten a package with airholes? If you get an unexpected package with airholes, you think, "Hey, I have a surprise animal that might be venomous, and I might not want to take care of it. Who would send me an animal as a present?" I'm not sure what I should put in the package, though. Any suggestions? Snacks are always good, but something that needs airholes might be even better.

Some things should not be combined

1 If, hyphothetically, one is up until 8AM doing a numerical analysis homework on polynomial interpolation, one ought not listen to the "Philosophy Bites" podcast on the drive home "to stay awake". The risk here is not that one will fall asleep at the wheel, but that when one gets home, and hops in the sack, one will have dreams in which Thomas Hobbes' political philosophy involves finding Hermitian splines. Also, there was a fox in my dream.

Also, if there were all-you-can-eat buffets, where you would pay a little extra so that the waitstaff will fetch your food for you, that might be nice. "Excuse me, miss? Would you be so kind as to fetch me some terrible pizza? AND SUCCOTASH?"