Comfort Food and Short Work Days

As it turned out I only had to do a half day at work today. I’m about 75% thrilled, 25% annoyed by that. I am generally always happy to get out of work early, especially on a Friday - by all means let my weekend get started Friday afternoon instead of Friday evening. However there is a small part of me that cannot quite stop thinking, “I couldn’t go home and see my family for this, a stinking 4 hour day at work!” It’s not like I didn’t think there was a halfway decent chance some people would get to go home early, of course there was no guarantee I was going to be one of them, so I couldn’t really make any plans around it. If I had known for sure, I could have had my laundry done, been packed, had my car’s oil changed, and been ready to leave the cities straight from work. I had a few fleeting thoughts about quick tossing some clothes in a bag and hopping in my car for the seven hour trek back home anyway, but in the end I decided I really probably should make sure I have something to wear to work next week, and I suspect my roommate would appreciate having the dishes be washed when he gets back to the apartment on Sunday. So instead of a road trip, I’m blogging.

I realize looking over yesterday’s post I perhaps came out sounding just a bit more pathetic than I’m actually feeling. I didn’t spend the day sitting in the dark, drinking alcohol, and weeping over missed turkey dinners or any similar activities. I had a perfectly enjoyable time playing a few video games, and listening to the Theft of the Dial marathon on The Current. I also implemented the first step of my “Make This Weekend be About Comfort Food Plan” I had come up with earlier this week. I started things off pretty simply, I went with tomato soup and grilled cheese for supper. I have not had either for years, and I’ve been craving tomato soup for the last month so all in all it was an excellent substitute for the nonexistent turkey dinner leftovers.

I was about halfway to my car after getting off from work when a new step two dawned on me. I very quickly placed a to go order for some fettuccine alfredo, and a bowl of chicken and gnocchi soup from the Olive Garden down the street from my office. I’m probably going to have to rethink my supper plans however; I had planned on deciding between Annie’s Shells & Real Aged Cheddar, and Annie’s Shells & White Cheddar. Again something I haven’t eaten in years (I used to pick them up at the food co-op back in Morris), but I don’t think I’ll eat two pasta dishes on the same day. I may go with cooking up a half cup of rice (probably with some chicken or vegetable broth added for flavor), and one of those individual servings of chicken cordon bleu you can get out of a store’s frozen food section (strangely enough one of the few times I’ll willing eat ham). Alternatively I may have to go with a baked potato, the point is I have plenty of options.

Enough about food, and enough blogging, it is time for me to decide between (or probably more accurately choose an order for) anime, manga, movies, and video games. Surprisingly I have to report as a dark horse possibility I find myself actually tempted to go out shopping. This would be pretty unusual behavior for me as a basic rule-of-thumb I try and avoid retail on Black Friday (and really for as much of the Christmas shopping season as I possibly can), but for some reason I keep thinking that a trip to Best Buy, and Barnes and Noble could be rather fun.

Regardless of what I end up doing today, I bid you all a good Black Friday however you choose to spend it - be it sane or otherwise.

Another Bachelor Thanksgiving

For the second Thanksgiving in a row, I’m hanging out alone at my apartment. In many ways it is just as depressing as it sounds. I would prefer to have made the seven hour car trip to South Dakota to have Thanksgiving with my family, but as I have to work tomorrow that was impractical.

Like last year I went to my local Perkins to eat. Their turkey dinner is passable, certainly not in the same league as a proper Thanksgiving spread with friends and family, but nothing really to complain about. It certainly made me feel thankful for the Thanksgiving meals of my youth (probably not the feeling Perkins would like to invoke). Mostly it was seeing all the children there that made me feel that way. While you can spend an enjoyable time with family in most any setting, I was still quite glad I never had to settle as a child for a trip to a restaurant instead of getting an oven roasted turkey with all the accompaniments.

The alternative to my trip to Perkins, and this weekend I may still end up doing this, would be preparing the bachelor Thanksgiving meal. I did this once while I was still living in Morris. The main ingredient is picking up a broasted turkey breast from a grocery store. Everything else is just selecting what sides to go with it. When I did it in Morris, I went with carrots, potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. I boiled the potatoes and carrots until they were just shy of being done, and then arranged them around the turkey breast in a baking pan, I added some turkey broth to supply a little moisture, and finished cooking them while I was reheating the turkey in the oven. The stuffing and gravy were sad compromises as the gravy came from a jar (I shuddered while typing that) while the stuffing was made on the stove. All in all a tastier, if more expensive option then a meal at a restaurant, but it does have the benefit of leaving leftovers.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

ZOMG E-mail Fraud

I received a Nigerian Letter via e-mail today. This amused me a bit, and got me to thinking, "have I ever received one of these before?" After some thought I have to say to my best recollection, I have not. Or at least I haven't received one that didn't get caught by a spam filter and get deleted without me ever knowing of its existence.

For my own particular letter the "bank" in question is located in South Africa and not Nigeria, but a scam is a scam is a scam regardless of where the con men claim the fictitious money is located. Were I to actually contact the sender of this e-mail, all I'd get for my foolish greed is somebody trying to get me to give up my bank account information and/or wire him money. In honor of me getting my first Nigerian Letter scam (at least the first one I've actually noticed) I'm posting a copy of the actual letter (I did blur out the e-mail address just in case someone takes this seriously despite the fact I've done nothing but talk about how it's a fraud).

Procrastination defeated? (plus less Wednesday annoyance)

I have this bad habit. Well truthfully I have several bad habits, but the one I'm thinking of is I tend to borrow anime and manga from my friend Dan, and then ignore it. This is a pretty silly thing to do, because I only borrow the things I'm interested in either watching or reading, yet I still do it. I don't believe it has anything specific to do with Dan, quite honestly I behaved in much the same way when I last had Netflix. My latest movie would arrive in the mail, and I wouldn't watch it. I think what happens is I start thinking of the borrowed item as something I need to watch (or read) and then return ASAP, so I subconsciously equate the borrowed media with a chore, and not as something fun I'd like to do. Procrastinating chores is as natural as breathing to me (perhaps a small bit of hyperbole there).

I bring this up because seemingly out of the blue the other day I started reading Monster again. When I first borrowed Monster from Dan (probably almost a year ago at this point) I read and really liked the first volume right away. Over the next month I very slowly read volumes two and three. Then I stalled out on four. Two nights ago, I picked volume four up again, and finished it off. Volumes five and six quickly followed, and last night I devoured seven. I have every intention of reading eight tonight, and keeping up with my pace of one or two volumes a day until I finish this off, and return it to Dan. It is among the best manga I've ever read, so beyond my little theory outlined above, I have no clue why I haven't finished this off months ago.

I have a few general observations about Monster. Finding redemption for past mistakes and/or wrongs seems to be a poor survival tactic in the universe of Monster. I'm quickly losing count of the number of characters who while trying to make up for their past sins are killed either by Johan or somebody connected to him. Only slightly less deadly would be choosing to either directly or indirectly help Tenma on his quest to stop Johan. Of course the absolutely most deadly job in the world of Monster is being Johan's foster parents, chances are quite high that any character introduced as being such, was already dead when introduced to the story.

As per my usual Wednesday ritual I watched the newest Kimi ni Todoke this morning before work. Since this was the end of a story-arc I did go to work much happier today then I did the last two Wednesdays. Granted I'm still impatient for more episodes, and I strongly suspect that future Wednesdays will leave me in much the same state as I described last week, for now I'm satisfied (well mostly, did I mention I'm impatiently waiting for more episodes).

One of the nice things about living in the cities as opposed to being back in Morris, is I'm once again able to watch anime with my friend Dan. This last weekend we finished off Ghost Hunt (third time through that series for me, first time for Dan). I've mentioned Ghost Hunt here in this very blog after I'd finished watching it the first time. I like it, I wouldn't have suggested Dan watch it if I didn't think it was quite fun. It is however not perfect. I have a few minor quibbles here and there, and one fairly large complaint with one story-arc right in the middle of the series. That arc features both a really bad case of plot induced stupidity (well technically I guess TV Tropes would call it Contrived Stupidity, but I've always liked the sound of the former better), and a troubling blow to ones suspension of disbelief (we are supposed to believe a body left basically in the open at a church remained unnoticed for 30 some odd years). That little two-episode arc aside, it remains an enjoyable series that is well worth watching.

Returning to an old blog tradition I return to the Monster theme and leave you with the following amusing picture.

Oh Patience, how you vex me

It's not that I'm incapable of restraint, I'm just not, in general, built for patience. I tend towards being impulsive. I prefer my gratification to be of the instant variety as opposed to the delayed kind. I admit this as a preface to the snapshot of my last two Wednesdays.

On both days I woke up earlier then usual, and checked the Internet to find that, huzzah, a fansub of the newest episode of Kimi ni Todoke had been released. I happily started the download, and went off to do my usual shower, and get dressed and ready for work routine, just like every other weekday morning. Upon completion I settled down and started watching the newest episode. And both times it was joyous, and both times I loved watching it, and both times when it was over I started swearing to myself because I now had to wait an entire week to watch the next episode. I have gone to work the last two Wednesdays very annoyed at that fact.

One would think that since I own the first two volumes of the manga, and already know what is going to happen next, I wouldn't be so impatient to watch the next episode. One would think that seems reasonable. Sadly one would be very much incorrect in that thought process. This is why I like watching anime that is already complete, and I have full access to; I can stop when I want to stop, not when I have to stop. So to reiterate, delayed gratification – not my strongest suite.

Of course now that I've admitted all that, I have to say I've shown what I think is pretty excellent restraint and patience on the Beatles front. I didn't go all crazy and buy all of the remastered CDs in one fell swoop. I have been steadily buying them in reasonable batches, and have only the Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine left to get. I'm probably going to use this as an excuse to pick up Let It Be... Naked as well. Ultimately I opted to get the Wii version of The Beatles Rock Band, buying an Xbox 360 for the sole purpose of playing Rock Band proved to be a bit too excessive. Although as I stated last time, I'm now going to have to buy a Wii at some point in the future when my roommate and I stop being roommates. But since that is some undefined point in the distant future, I can live with that.

For the record, I'm really loving the new CDs, and yes I can hear the improvement in sound quality between the two versions.

Happy Beatles Day

I’ve spent the last half hour or so flipping back and forth between a few different pages on Amazon.com trying to decide if I should buy all the reissued Beatles music separately, or if I should just buy the box set. I’m waffling a bit. Do I really need to buy this music again? I mean I already own it. And do I even have stereo equipment good enough to be able to hear the difference between the original CDs and the remastered ones?

As for the answers to these pressing questions - no I don’t, strictly speaking, need to buy them again, however I really, really want too. Also, technically speaking here, I don’t actually own all of the original versions of the CDs that have been remastered (just most of them). The final point is perhaps the most valid concern. The audio equipment I own, while by no means horrible, is still a far, far cry from anything that would of even moderate interest to a true audiophile. So I am a bit concerned that I wouldn’t actually notice any real improvement in sound quality if I were to buy these again.

The other, perhaps even more ridiculous, purchase I’ve been pondering is The Beatles Rock Band. Now the last time I bought a gaming console it was a PlayStation, so I’d first have to buy either an Xbox 360, a PS3, or a Wii, and then buy the game version that came with the instruments (using the term instruments pretty loosely here - specialized controls might be more correct). I could get by with just buying the Wii version (again the version with the instrument like controls) since my roommate already owns a Wii - a workable and less expensive midterm solution. Sadly it has an obvious flaw, it is unlikely that my roommate and I will continuing living together for the rest of my life (not that we have any immediate plans to stop being roommates, but at some point I imagine one of us will do something like get married or get a job in another state or some such thing). This would create a future source of awkwardness when I’m eventually forced to steal his Wii when he stops being my roommate (admittedly I could at that point just buy my own, but that is less dramatic, and thus less fun to ponder scenario).

Decisions, decisions. I suspect there is about a 50-50 chance I’ll be the part reluctant, part proud owner of an Xbox 360 by the end of the month.

Real Vampires Don't Fricking Sparkle

A quick glance to the left will show that I read a fair number of web comics (although truthfully I should edit that list and remove a few that I no longer really pay much attention too). Most of them have some sort of front page blog/news feed (or some other way of letting readers know what is going on with the creator (or creators)). It is a bit hit or miss as to which ones I pay attention to. However as luck would have it while reading Red String last week, I did come across a link to a delightfully funny comic called Bite Me! Well worth the hour or so it takes to read.

Random Musings from Work

There is something kind of sad about the last two hours of work, mostly in how long they seem to last. Instead of focusing on something constructive, like work, or one of the numerous things I really need to take care of, I find myself concentrating on all the things I'd rather be doing. The top of that list in no particular order would be playing WoW, playing City of Heroes, watching anime, or reading. My top four not withstanding, I've come to the conclusion I have quite the talent for finding things to do that aren't constructive. Actually it is a wonder I ever get anything done.

OMG Stealth Post from work

I think it is an interesting facet of human nature that after just one slow Friday where I got to go home early from work, I find myself actually feeling putout that I don't get to go home early this Friday. I mean really, how dare they keep me at work for the fully scheduled duration to do the job they hired me to do for the agreed upon financial compensation.

Baseball

I went to a baseball game today. It was the first one I've been to in something like 20 years. God it was fun. I'm definitely going to have to go to some more games. It didn't hurt that the Twins won, and Blackburn pitched a complete game - he even got to within one out of a shutout.

Figures it would be baseball that would get me to post something again after almost a year's absence.