sazime

The other day at work we had one of our business tours. What they do is order a big lunch for the group coming through, which usually means the staff gets a shot at some catered eats as well. This was one of those days (oh joy of joys!) and we had a plethora of sandwiched meats to choose from.

The problem? The crazy condiments. Dijon mustard, stone ground mustard, some mayo mix and other things that I'm not even sure have names. No yellow mustard. Not one smidgen of a regular, good 'ol condiments. Just these seemingly random mixes of sweet and sour devices.

I'm not one to say that flavor configurations of the culinary curious should be frowned upon, far from it. But sometimes, sourdough and an odd remoulade is not what you need for a sandwich. White bread, mustard, a hunk of meat and nothing more complicated than a medium cheddar is what you really want.

I think people get caught up in the fantastic a bit too easily. When I was a kid, I loved to have nothing more than meat, cheese and bread. No topping, nothing else. Just the basics. As I got older, I grew a taste for more daedal delights, but one cannot live off the most complex alone. Every once in a while you just need a piece of ham, some white bread and a little yellow mustard.

I love reading. I love watching old show and other random video. I love learning about things I never knew about before. But that, coupled with talking to people about their problems and trying to figure out my own gets, well, kinda overwhelming.

After enough time of going at these things for days on end, I forget how to just relax and let off all that. It's weird. I know I can just stop reading, watching, etc etc, but for some reason I can't relax for days afterwords. It seem like I need a good 72 hours of absolutely nothing to get me back to normal.

Now, is this what I should expect? When I spend ALL my free time doing things I like, should I expect that my brain will go numb from information overload, even when it's information I enjoy? Or do I need to find the thing that I enjoy and requires no thought? Arg, I don't know.

Maybe I'll try this. Next time I get to the point that my brain is soft, maybe I'll just pop in the Marx Brother's movies and stay away from Bertrand Russell. Or maybe I read Russell, but imagine that he's talking like Shemp.

You know how it goes. Just sitting around, minding your own business, then a song gets stuck in your head and you need to listen to it. Unfortunately for you, you do not actually own the track and your futile You Tube searches cannot find it either. So you sit there, trying to remember all the lyrics so you can at least find out who sang it. Unfortunately, every freak'n pop band and R&B singer has a song with a similar name so all you find are emo groups talking about their worn out shoes.

So you keep on runn'n in circles, keep on runn'n, uh, so high, touch the sky.... shit. I can't remember.

Funny thing, me. For a long time I would occasionally smoke. Djarum Black cloves cigarettes. It was a college, post pot, thing. You'd smoke a bowl, then a clove. For a long time I didn't even fully inhale (the clove) I would just taste the smoke and take my time.

Over a period of 3 years or so, I bought, maybe 20 packs of these. I would occasionally smoke, not much or often. Just from time to time for the hell of it. I liked them. Shit, they smelled like cloves!

Of course, over time, nicotine does its thing. You want more, so you smoke more. First it was a pack a week, and over the last year about 2 packs in a week. I used to take a whole month without smoking, now I was rarely without. By no means was I a "regular" smoker, going through a pack or two a day, I was "casual," aside from the days where I'd get anxious over something, or I wanted a reason to go outside at work.

Today is day 3 of me stopping. I'm not a quitter, I just want to take a break for a week to see what happens. I'll tell you this: it sucks. Even at 5 cig a day habit, I'm jonesing, bad. Oh man I want something to smoke. This is what nicotine does kids. It's all kinds of addictive, and for the first time in my life I'm feeling an urge like I never have for the stuff. It's amazing.

I'm going back to my coffee and diet soda right now, my other habit. Wish me luck...

From an email I sent today regarding a friend's hatred of Jack Johnson playing in our bathrooms at work.

I wanted to mention I just used the bathroom for the first time since the music was turned back on. I wasn't really thinking too much about it, but then I heard this young crooner coming over the speakers, accompanied by a mellow guitar melody. So as I stood there, emptying my bladder into the third floor urinal, I came to the realization that it was young Jack Johnson I was listening to. I immediately thought of you.

Thought you should know.

-Sam

I've cooked some crazy things. Here's a small teaser of what I have made.

Coq ah Vin
Raspberry-Chocolate Souflee
Chocolate Souflee (Much easier to make)
Sweet Potato Souflee (Not Really Souflee
Pudding (various types)
Caramel
Peanut Brittle
Pork Roast
Steak (Good steak)

But yeah, there we go, so far. Man, now I'm getting hungry. Time for lunch!

There are days, and then there are days. I'm beginning to think of those "days like this" 'ol momma talked about are days where there's so much you think you need to do, but haven't done it yet. When you're busy, you complete something, you generally feel better about having it done. Procrastinators aren't just lazy, they're passive aggressive lazy. And no one has ever been happy being passive aggressive, lazy or a procrastinator. Really, it's not conducive to feeling complete.

I have a ton of shit to do. I want to go home, now, and do it.

Eek! About tor record an episode of Johnny Gigawatt, and there's almost no news on the comics! Well, some, but not a lot.

It's weeks (and well, months) like these where every event possible seems to be happening, so there's no event to look forward to or get excited about. Same thing happens in video games. Just before E3 there's nothing going on any where because everyone is waiting for the "event" where they'll tell us everything to happen in the next 3 years. Kinda sucks for us newsies, but man, you know that by October comic news will be flowing, games will be coming out left and right, and I'll decide to sit down and figure it all out. Maybe.

Until then, it's time to talk comics, news or not! I got some news for ya, I have opinions on comics and I'm going to tell you about them, right now! Ha!

I remember when I was a young lad, all of 10 years ago, and didn't have a car of my own. I had to try and catch rides with friends, family or just plain walk or ride my bike somewhere. Fact was, I was not in complete control of my own direction. I had to rely on others to do what I wanted to do. Sure, I didn't have to take car of the car, but if I wanted to utilize one I had to count on someone else to allow me that privilege.

As soon as I got a job, and showed some responsibility for myself, I was given keys to a family vehicle. It was massive, it had power, but most importantly it was my ticket to freedom, to an extent. Like anything shared, the keys aren't just yours, they are someone else's as well. Whether the car is filled with gas, the oil's been changed, it's been washed and vacuumed, it comes down to the group taking care of things. You count on them, and they count on you. In the end though, the car really isn't yours, you have just been given permission to use it, and it could disappear at any time. It was a pain in the ass knowing that there was a party going on across town, but mom took the car to a antique auction so you were stuck back at your first option.

Later on in life, I purchased a car of my own. The ball was in my court. I got to drive where I wanted to, when I wanted to, even if I did have to pay for gas, insurance, oil changes and the like. It allowed me to drive across town at a moments notice when a friend wanted to hang out. I could drive anywhere I wanted to when it was lunch time at school. Most importantly, no one else was going to stop me or waste my time with waiting for "my turn" any more.

There's a similar thing with my time on the internet. My first experience with public posting and shouting out news to folks was in a web forum at Evil Avatar. I could post anything I really liked, but if I wanted someone to post news on the front page, the mainstay of the site. If I wanted anything pointed towards on the web, I had to ask to borrow the keys, and hope that the people that had them let me us their "vehicle."

Later on, I helped start a couple of podcasts, Johnny Gigawatt and Invasion of the Pudcasters which was essentially like getting my own car. The keys were mine, the editorial content of the sties is under my control [insert mad scientist laugh] as well as knowing that I was in part responsible for making sure the site worked, there was something there for potential readers/listeners enjoy and that day in and out they could come back to see what my friends and I were up to.

Now, I'm sharing a car again. Not too long ago the fine folks at Evil Avatar, spurred no doubt by a suggestion by my friend Phil, gave me a set of keys to the site. Now if there's something I want to say, I can quietly bring it up in the back end of a forum or shout it from the rooftops on the front page. It's not mine, but right now I love sharing it. It's a place where thousands of people come to find out what's going on in the gaming industry every day. Now, there's some people that would never want to share the keys to anything if they could help it, but there's something to be said about not having to buy the gas yourself all the time. And it's especially nice if you've wanted to just drive the car ever since you laid eyes on it.

I have vivid dreams. Really really really vivid dreams. To the point where I remember everything about them, down to the smallest "demon trying to kill me all the time" detail.

Odd thing is lately I've been dreaming about people I've hardly seen or talked to in years. And they look different. It's like my brain is trying to compensate for time, so they look different than they did way back when, and even look older. Then they turn into demons that try and kill me.

Except that one, he tried to love me. Love me a little too much. Dreams are weird.

From time to time I like to post in forums with something fairly ridiculous and fun, at least to me. This is now the repository for those random posts. It's what I do when work grates on me. Read if you dare.

[asshattery]Not a month, not a week. Three weeks. Mark my words! Because people gave me crap when I said "Still Alive" could be done in Rock Band, and who was right then? Exactly. You know who your daddy is, and if you don't watch out, he'll be spank'n your mommy.[/asshattery]

See, I used to have one of these journal things. I swear I did. Where did it go? Did the internet eat it up? I go to post a comment to Eric Trautmann's blog and I can't log in! At least my name is still there. Take that internet! Eat me up and I'll come rocketing right back out! Boo-ya!