Fatty Foods and Comfortable Shoes

Today I had to explain to a grown man difference between:

After you fill out all forms...

and

After you fill out "all" forms...

Seriously.

The actual conversation is just too painful to remember (and too long to fucking type out), so here is the conversation that happened in my head:

amazon: You need to take the quotes off "all"
man: But it adds emphasis!
amazon: Only if you want that emphasis to be irony.

English, it cries.

I'm working from home today, which is great because it is way quieter and I'm able to do my thinking work more efficiently, but.

But.

My Rock Band guitar is sitting there, calling to me. Just a little bit... no one will know... come on..

Must resist

So I just sold a couple pieces from my closet, and it turns out the buyer is in the program that I graduated from.

SMALL WORLD.

I am totes drunk and posting to the ol' el-jay.

I have nothing but chores and new phone shopping (online, natch) to do tomorrow, so I figured WHAT THE HELL.

The other day I was going through my lj user info; making sure I'd taken off some people from my friend list, thinking about updating my tags, doing a little check up on the real people on my list.

This last activity stopped me in my tracks. I'd come across chinchillathehun's last public post. It's from 2006, which is close enough to seem not all that distant, but far enough for some significant changes to have gone on. And gone on they have. I read that one little sentence, and all I could think was holy shit, we are completely different people than we were then.

I mean, that's probably true for most of us. Myself, I've changed addresses three times, ended two significant relationships, made new friends, lost some old ones, changed jobs, lost a lot of weight, and became financially secure (knock on wood) for the first time in my life. But the most important change, for me anyway, is my temperament.

Yeah, I don't want to use something as new age-y as "emotional wellbeing", but that might be closer.

Don't get me wrong, I still get deeply conflicted over some aspects of my life, I still tend to over think a lot of situations, and I'm still very quick (oh gods, very quick) to anger. But I'm better at accepting now, I think.

Maybe it's more accurate to say I have a better-defined process for analysing a situation. What's the problem? What would need to happen for the problem to be fixed? Is the solution realistically achievable? Am I willing to make the attempt? What's the worst that could happen if I fail, and am I willing to accept the consequences if I do?

Four years ago, I would never have gotten past step one. I would dwell on how miserable whatever problem was making me, and think why why why does X keep doing X?? I think, actually, I know a lot of people do this. We need the offender to understand our position, and then expect them to just magically change their behaviour for our benefit.

Well, that doesn't happen. Not professionally, not personally. No matter how passive-aggressive one tries to be about it.

I know that putting it all out like that makes it seem like I'm being all holier-than-thou; I'm not entirely comfortable with others thinking that of me... but if I'm really honest, I'm not entirely uncomfortable either. I'm, if not at peace, at least more balanced than I've ever been.

And frankly, that's worth a whole lot more to me than making sure no one thinks I'm a stuck-up snob.

I'm staring at a list of chores. All things I should and technically could achieve tonight.

Shopping, ironing, dinner, dishes, more shopping.

Naturally, I don't want to do any of these. But I have to start somewhere.

And that somewhere is in front of the internet, with a beer.

How fortuitous. I was just thinking about my resolutions.

Well, first off, last year. My resolution was to cook a new recipe every month. I think I ended up with 8/12. Considering my clusterfuck of a year, I'm calling that a win.

My 2010 resolution I actually decided a couple of days ago, but I was holding out on disclosing it on etiquette recommendations. But here we go.

In 2010, I will try a new beer each month.
It will be a beer I've never had before, and beers cannot be carried over from one month to the next. I'll give a go at formal tasting notes, but I make no fucking promises.

One of the funniest videos I have ever seen:

If Rock Band amazon_ww had drinks on stage with her, she'd be nearly identical (aside from outfits) to real life amazon_ww.

Okokokok.
I know that in my own little universe, it's been the shittiest year ever, but I know that I've had it better than some. I didn't have any major health of financial woes, and that alone is something to be grateful for.

I'll be going into 2010 a different person than I was going into 2009. I don't mean that in some light-hearted wishy-washy way, either. I feel more tempered, self-confident, even comfortable, than I have at any other point in my life.

So 2009, in no particular order, I thank you for:

True Friends
This says about half of it. I've been a real test on my friends this year, both online and in real life, and I thank you all for sticking by me.

Career
I'm in a pretty good place, and I think I have the opportunity to grow.

New Friends
For the first time in my life, I've gone out of my way to be social.

Hobbies
I have actual hobbies! I don't rely on anyone else to ensure my participation.

Emotionally Sound
This last quarter-year, I've been able to tell people that I love my life, and I've meant it.

Guys, 2009 has been a really shitty year. Seriously, I have so many middle fingers for you, 2009.

Two raised middle fingers for each remaining day in 2009, in no particular order.


Car Breaking Down
I'm pretty sure I had to have my car towed to the dealership twice.

Not going to Khandahar
Seriously FTAG, fuck you.

Computer Monitor Dead
Whyyyyyyyyyy?

The Beaters to my Blender
I know, I promised I wouldn't mention it again. But seriously.

World Series of Poker
I didn't fucking go.

New Family Members
Honestly siblings, you are fucking retarded.

Lack of Sex
I spent half the year having it withheld as some sort of put-me-in-my-place punishment, and the other half without a reliable supplier. (Technically, I guess I went the whole year without a reliable supplier). Also, it's been since, like, September. Christ.

Paying for Parking
This is bullshit.

Coffee Mugs
Both of my good travel mugs broke this year. AHHH I FUCKING HATE MUGS.

Building New Shelves
I still don't have shelves for my books and DVDs. Moving sucks a thousand balls.

It's a good thing I drink so much, otherwise I wouldn't have anything to use as a rolling pin.

Making salsa is a lot like giving a blow job.



It's a bunch of fucking work.

There is so little payout.

There's a bunch of cleanup afterward.

The problem with being mostly a guy (or one of the problems, rather) is that when you have a girly moment and you are all gushy about something, your firends don't want to fucking hear it. Because, you know, they're guys.

Thank gods for the internet!

So I went on a date today. A real one. Planned through the internet. I know, I know, internet dating. It was a brunch date, and it went really well. Hooray!

Lots of talk about zombie survival plans, Star Trek, and Poker After Dark. Yeeeah, how am I not bangin' this guy right now? That's one of the reasons I picked a bunch date people.

Because this was an internet date, I'm inclined to rate this like an eBay transaction.

A+ WOULD DATE AGAIN


I think it's pretty funny that this is me gushing.

Have you ever wanted to throw your monitor out the window?

I mean when your computer acts up, it's your monitor you envision hucking through that glass, right?

You know why that is?

BECAUSE YOUR COMPUTER IS FUCKING USELESS WITHOUT A FUCKING MONITOR


FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK





Alright. So my monitor completely died on my this evening. I was left with a few choices:
1) Go to an electronics store and buy the prettiest monitor there
2) Call every friend I have to search on the internet for the right monitor and tell me which one I should buy
3) Walk over to the chain store that is right next to me and buy the most reasonable monitor they have in stock
4) Wait one fucking night, do a butt-tonne of reasearch at work, order a monitor from the internet.

I should mention: it was about 8:00pm when the fucking monitor decided it wasn't going to be my friend anymore. I really didn't want to drive anywhere and as if I could go a whole night without my computer. So I humped my ass over to the store and bought the biggest/cheapest monitor they had in stock.

Before swiping my VISA I made sure I could return the damn thing, even if I used it.

So!

I have 14 days to get this POS back to the store. I'm going to get either a 24" HP something or other, or a 24" Samsung something or other. (I have the models, but I closed the windows). Neither are available on amazon.ca. Any arguments for/against either?

Ah, here we go:

Samsung SyncMaster T240HD

HP w2408h

Any ideas where to buy them (with minimal shipping to Canada)?

I mean, I'll be looking tomorrow, but getting steered in the right direction never hurt.


But seriously: FUCK!!!!!!!!

Does anyone know what is going on between qcjeph and shortpacked?

I clicked the links in the posts... but I still don't get it.

Alright, I know I haven't kept up with my New Years Resolution. Yes, I missed four whole months, but I'm giving myself a pass anyway. It was a rough fucking summer, and I'm still finding things that were stolen. Which I suppose doesn't count as "finding" them, but you know what I mean. THANKS FOR TAKING MY VANILLA YOU FUCKING SOCIOPATH.

Anyway.

Two of my friends are getting married this weekend, to each other, and I decided to make them a food basket of sorts instead of a more traditional present. They've been together for something like eight years, so there isn't anything they really need, I hate getting people things that just take up space and/or won't be appreciated, I didn't want to get a gift card as a wedding gift to some of the closest friends I have, and finally, I wanted to get them something that is memorable or at least has my kind of personal stamp on it.

So yeah, a food basket.

My base item was salsa. I figure nearly everyone likes salsa, it keeps pretty well, and bonus that it isn't too hard to make.

I've made this before, so it's not the recipe that counts.



Obviously chips are in order, so at first I decided I'd try my hand at making some from scratch. Then I discovered pretty much every recipe for tortilla chips involves buying pre-made tortillas, cutting them up, and frying them in oil. I did find one real recipe, but it involves some sort of special flour and seriously I had a lot of shit to buy. I'll be trying my hand at frying some tortillas tomorrow night, if it doesn't work out I am totally going to buy some regular ones from the store and just put them in the fancy bag I bought.

As I type, I have some corn meal biscotti in the oven. No picture, but it looks pretty good so far. If I were cheating, I'd count this as one of the missed months' recipes, but I'm not a douche like that.

The last food item is Jalapeño Cheese Balls.



They are so close to a shortbread cookie, ingredients-wise, it's not even funny. Nevertheless, they're very good. Of course I ate one, I wouldn't pack food in a gift for friends if the damn things hadn't turned out. They're really spicy... so I hope my friends don't mind too much.

The final food-like thing I'm adding is a few limes and some Cointreau. I know they have a bottle of tequila (and neither of them drinks tequila), so it's not like I am going to double them up on something like that. I bought some margerita glasses, and some fancy-pants salt for rimming them.

Yeah, I decided pretty early on I was going for a Mexican food-type theme.

Oh yeah, to round it all off, I got a set of little serving dishes and a nice basket to put it all in.

Well, that certainly is a long fucking story for a dozen cheese puffs, but it's MY corner of the internet and that is just how these things are going to go.