Sandwich Control

Happy Halloween!

And a Happy 200th Post as well. That’s right this is number 200. It seems like only yesterday that I was still not on the internet. Man those were good times. Well, it’s too late now. Now you’re stuck with me. And me with you. Uh, oh…. song entered into head….can’t get it out.

Many years ago my brother, Prince Jazzbo, gave me a bumper sticker that read : Honk if you are Jesus. It was funnier before the influx of Latinos into the city. Now I would get honked at all the time.

For some reason, I feel a day of puns coming on. This should be fun. For me. And torturous for everyone else. Mwhhahahahaha….

In celebration of this 200th post and the fact that it happened on Halloween, I am going to Google image scary 200 and see what we get. That was lame. I’ll find an image, gimme a second.

I think that is Vincent Price, but I am too afraid to be sure.

Hey, today is the end of the month, which means that there will be a Daily Photograph wrap up for October and a new gallery for November.

In honor of the 200th post, I want to announce the opening of the Rogue’s Gallery. This is sort of a fun thing where I would like all of the people that I mention in my posting to take a photograph of them self as their pseudonym. I.e. Pancake Land will take a photo of herself as her own imagining of what Pancake Land looks like. She will then send it to me and I will add her into the Rogue’s Gallery. This way, people who are readers of the site that wonder what the hell all of these weird people look like, will have a reference. The rules are that you must photograph yourself. I know very well that all of you out there on the Facebook can shoot a photo of yourself. We are working on the honor system here, so I will have to trust that you photographed yourself, but Jesus will know. He’s my neighbor. Jesus Alvarez. I hired him to watch you take photographs of yourself. He’s right outside your window right now. He watches you sleep, too. But, I don’t pay him to do that. He does it for free.

Well, get to work. More soon. ~SC

Behold! The Sandwich Control!

Check out what I got yesterday from Bobby Redmug. Pretty cool, huh? This is obviously the new logo for the future redone website. Whenever that happens.

Have you ever thought of how ironic it is that a restaurant called Popeye’s serves nothing with spinach in it. I think that is weird.

Well, once again we made it to Friday. This weekend I have a Psych paper to knock out and a brand new Prob/Stats assignment that I just received in my inbox. Hooray! A weekend of Minitab. Goodie.

Well, the good news is that Powerball starts tomorrow. And if I weren’t broke then I… probably wouldn’t buy one yet anyway. Not until the jackpot is like $48 million.

I finished writing my “essay” for the City Wire last night and I am waiting for one last round of proof readings before I submit it. Wish me luck.

After rereading today’s post, I have realized that it is short and all over the place. There are like five sentences not pertaining to each other. Oh, and my new logo. Don’t forget that. I am so out of it. This whole doing stuff everyday thing is ridiculously exhausting.

Well, speaking of doing stuff, I have got to go to work now. More soon. ~SC

For those of you who missed it, Natalie Portman wanted vegetarian food. She has recently turned vegan, but I guess at the time of the taping of the show she was still just a vegetarian. I have to say that all of the chefs struggled with it. More so on this one, than on a pastry challenge. I guess they all know that they cannot do pastry so not being able to perform well is understandable, but on this one they were all sort of shocked that they choked. No one hit it out of the park.

Moving on.

Today I must work on my Psychology paper! Just as soon as I finish my City Wire essay. It will be a good day for it. Today’s forecast? You guessed it. More rain. This time we get thunderstorms, though. Yeah!

I don’t want to go to Prob/Stats today. Why can’t I go back to bed like everybody else.

The other day I talked Le Duke into making hummus. It is something he got into making for a while and hasn’t made it in a couple of months. And I got the hummus jones and needed some something awful. So we made hummus. It is incredibly easy to make. You just dump chick peas into a food processor, add lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, maybe a little Tabasco, and pulverize. Sadly, though, I had no flatbread. What I would not have given for fresh naan. I had to be a savage and eat with corn tortilla chips. I guess in this case it is called bean dip rather than hummus. Either way, it was delicious.

So, my sister, Teacher Sis, knew I wanted a hard back edition of Shogun by James Clavell, and has been searching for one for over a year in used book stores, yard sales, the usual places that you find hard back copies of Shogun for a couple of bucks. We are both members of a website called Paperback Swap, where you post books that you want to get rid of and someone else says “Hey, I want that.” and you send it to them. You pay the shipping and they pay nothing, but you get a credit for a book. So then you can turn around, find a book you want and someone pays to ship it to you and you don’t pay anything. Cool, huh? Anyways, Sis had wishlisted a hard back Shogun in case anyone listed it. So, last week this chick emailed her saying “I’ve got one, no dust jacket, you still want it?” Sis knowing that I could not care less about a dust cover tells her to send it. It arrives a couple of days ago and is well wrapped and in immaculate shape. Keep in mind that I have still not seen it, and all that I know about it is what my Sister has told me. So, Sis is telling me about it, over the phone, and we start joking about it being a first edition and how crazy and ridiculously lucky that would be and the funny thing is that it might very well be a first edition. Amongst all of the joking about it, curiosity sank in and the innernet got drug into the mix. It has the right ISBN and publishing date and page count and layout. I don’t think it is a true first, because it would have to be published in the U.K., but since I have not seen it, I don’t know. The way to tell if it’s a British first is the spelling. Color is colour and so on. It is spelled according to the Queen’s English not American English. The book itself, if it is a first edition, is not worth much. It is the odds of it, and the fact that I got a hard back copy of Shogun for free ninety-nine, that is what makes this whole scenario so cool.

Well, Prob/Stats awaits. More soon. ~SC

I keep a little notebook in my pocket, most of the time, to write down things that I need to remember. Usually it is homework or shopping lists or things to write about on here. Lately, it seems to me that for every one thing that I check off, I add at least one, usually two, more things. It is kind of discouraging me from writing things down. For example, today’s list reads this way:

dogs to vet

PK1016s from CS

secret dr’s book

psych paper

city wire essay

p&s equinox

make bob’s glazes

take shower

Yeah, that’s right, I have to make a note to take a shower. Otherwise, I would forget. Don’t worry. It doesn’t take Pancake Land long to realize that I have forgotten to bathe, and then she sweetly reminds me. “Oh, you smell very….manly.”

Tonight is an extra special Top Chef because my secret girlfriend is going to the guest judge. That’s right Natalie Portman is going to be sending someone home tonight. The commercials are hinting pretty heavily at a twist in the food preparation. My speculation is that the Chefs will have to prepare a vegan meal. Just a guess. Either that or everything has to be raw. We shall see.

Well, it is time for me to get started on my list. I will leave you with a little something to tide you over until tonight.

See you tonight.

More soon. ~SC

Gotta make sure to take my zinc supplement.

I found this in my Nutrition textbook. That poor dude. Is it not bad enough that they made fun of him for looking like a 7 year old, but then to say that his Bit and Pieces look like that of a 6 year old’s. Man, that’s rough.

Conclusion: People who write Nutrition textbooks are big meanies.

I have decided that I now live in some Rainforest type place because all it does is rain. It has rained more this year than I ever remember it raining in my whole life. It started this most recent bout of raining Sunday night and it is still just chug-a-lugging right along. I would not say that it only rains on the days that I need to ride my trike to school, but it definitely rains on those days as well. It makes me very sleepy. Oh, hello coffee!

I managed to finish my Nutrition assignment last night. All I have left to do is write my Psychology paper, do the layout for the Secret Doctor’s book, and write a 600-900 word essay for the “Be the New Peter” competition at City Wire.

Oh, wait, I have not told you about that last one. Okay, so the City Wire is a local online “newspaper”. They are losing their beloved food/arts/entertainment/local culture writer, Peter, to a publication in Austin and are looking for a replacement. In order to find a replacement, they are having an essay contest and subsequently the three finalists will each write two reviews of local events/food/arts/stuff-n-such and the reviews will be published in the City Wire and the staff, Peter, and the readers will vote on a winner. Cool, huh? So, I am writing an essay. What’s the worst that could happen? I get a job as a food critic. Hmmm… doesn’t sound so bad to me. Maybe one day I’ll be the American Toby Young.

Hey, he makes faces like I do!

Well, that is about all for now. I’m off to find out how terribly I did on my Prob/Stats and Psychology tests. More soon. ~SC

After spending the whole day being lazy and eating crap food, I feel kind of gross today. I kind of feel like if I were to make a poop right now it would float, not because of the high fiber content, but because fats and oils are not water soluble and are typically less dense than water. That’s right I would poo the gastrointestinal version of sticks of butter. I feel very greasy right now, even though I took a shower last night. I need some fresh fruits and vegetables, quick.

Well, I got most of my nutrition assignment done and I will finish it up tonight, so all I have left to do this weekend is my psychology paper. Then I can really get cracking on the Secret Doctor’s book. I have to have that finished by Christmas.

I need to make a book cradle. A book cradle is just that, a little V-shaped trough, think Baby Jesus in the manger minus Baby Jesus, for stabbing the signatures of books. After rereading that last sentence, I realize that I am speaking a foreign language to most of you. Suffice it to say that a book cradle will make my life infinitely easier when I make books. Oh, hell, look at this one. Currently, I have a book cradle that is made from black mat board, which does an okay job if you repair it after every use, which I can’t do when I am making 50+ books. Plus, I will need a new one when I start making my little blank notebooks. Remember those?

Well, today is the M day again. Dammit. Why do the weekends go so fast? Probably because I have not had a whole one in two weeks. Good answer. Well, off to work again. More soon. ~SC

One Drachma for each of you loyal readers.

That’s right, we hit the 5,000 views mark yesterday. Awesome. That averages out to like 23 people a day. I could probably get all of the numbers and plot it out and maybe make a little graph or something and you could hang it on your wall in your bedroom right next to your New Kids On the Block poster. Then you could stare at it and think to yourself “I was part of that.”. Or I could just talk about it in a sarcastic manner. Either way you win.

Yesterday was exhausting. I ended up working out at the park for like eleven hours. By the time I got home I was beat, and hungry, and really needed to pee. Luckily Pancake Land had made me fish and chips. So when I got home she fed me and sent me off to bed.

Today is a slow day. By choice. I am going to try not to leave the house. The only thing that I need to do today is work on homework. But, I don’t really have to do that. I need to, but I don’t have to. It is stuff that is due in a few weeks, but if I put it off it will stress me out when it is all due at the same time. My plan is work on it a little bit today and little bit each night until it’s due. Yeah, right.

So, my plan for the day will probably actually involve me playing Twilight Princess and eating a lot. That is the reality of my day. Doesn’t that sound better than working on homework? Yeah, I thought so.

Well, I am going to get to doing nothin’. More soon. Thanks again for loyal viewing. Keep up the good work. More soon. ~SC

White Chocolate convinced Pancake Land to go see Paranormal Activity last night. They were going to go to the 9:30pm show, but it was sold out, so they had to go to the 10:45pm show instead. They had purchased their tickets at 9:00pm and discovered when they got there at 10:30pm that the 10:45pm show had sold out as well. P.L. said that she had never been at a completely full show before. Like every seat was filled and a couple of people were sitting in the aisle. My thought was that she obviously did not go see any of the Lord of the Rings movies on opening night. The theatre was packed. With nerds. In cloaks.

So the movie scared the bejeezus out of her. She also said that it was really funny. And not in a so-bad-that-it’s-funny kind of way, but in an intentionally funny kind of way. I have not received a report from White Chocolate on her opinion of the film, yet. I’ll let you know when I do.

Either way, you would be hard pressed to get me to watch it. Ever. I’m not a horror/suspense movie kind of guy. I’m an artsy-indie-foreign film-documentary kind of guy. In fact I’m not a horror/suspense kind of guy at all, films or otherwise.

I cannot say much today, because I have to go get ready to stand out in the friggin’ cold for Art in the Park. A handful of the usual suspects will be there : Shamrock, Ojeda the Curve, Le Duke and Duchess, and the Booch will all be making appearances. You should come by and check it out. It’s out at Creekmore Park. I’ll be there until it is over.

See you there. More soon. ~SC

Risotto a la Milanese.

Yesterday eventually turned out okay. For the most part it sucked. But, I did make a discovery about myself around 8:00pm last night. I’ve been toying with the idea of going to culinary school for a long time. I understand now that if I ever go to culinary school, it will to learn and hone cooking skills rather than to ever get a job as a Chef. Skills such as pastry work or knife skills or flavor pairing. I don’t want to be a Chef. I just want to be a cook.

Last night when I was cooking all of the troubles in the world melted away. There was no psychology paper due, or Art In The Park, or mineral chart, or Secret Doctor’s Book. There were only ingredients and the preparation and combining of those ingredients.

I have always heard, and have actually experienced, that if you do not leave your baggage at the door when you enter your studio to make art, then your art will suffer. I have learned to leave it at the door over the years, though sometimes a little sneaks in with me, and just let the art flow from me freely.

That is precisely what I did last night. I left my bags upstairs and came downstairs to make risotto and asparagus. And it was delicious. But, best of all, it brought me back from the brink. I was calm and composed and cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce.

I cooked with love and we filled our bellies with it. We ate so much that Pancake Land was food drunk and fell into a risotto coma. I couldn’t do much to help her because I ate more than she did. Hopefully there will be enough leftovers to get us through tonight.

Well, I’m off to pack orders and fire kilns. More soon. ~SC

I feel very overwhelmed today. Tests, and papers, and homework, and workwork, and the Secret Doctor’s Book. I need to spend the weekend working on my Psychology paper and the layout for the SDB, but I have volunteered to work at “Art in the Park” all day Saturday, so I can’t.

Sometimes it surprises me how nice I can be. And stupid at the same time. I guess they go hand in hand. Think back to High School, to that girl who was genuinely nice to everyone. Now that you think of it, wasn’t she kind of stupid, too?

My problem is that I cannot tell people “No.”. If someone needs something from me, I try to help them out. Then another person, and another person, and another person. Pretty soon, I’m spread thin. Yes, like butter scraped over too much bread.

That is how I feel today. It probably does not help that I slept for crap, woke up early, and it has been raining for the last ten hours. Coffee isn’t even helping. Missing Monday as thrown my week to Hell.

Ahhhhhh….. enough of this depressing crap!

Season 6.

Now that someone has pointed out that no one likes Padma, it is kind obvious and awkward. Now that I have typed the word awkward, it is awkward as well. She is trying to be a little bit more of a hard-ass though. Like last night when she actually asked for some salt. Ouch. She will never be up to Toby’s level, but I think she is holding her own, even if the rest of the judge’s don’t respect her.

It seems funny to me that the other judges do not respect her because she is not a Chef, but they make her be the executioner. Maybe the producers think that the contestants will take it better if Padma tells them that they have to leave. I think maybe it is the way that she says “Please” first. It makes it seem that she is asking you politely to leave, rather than implying that you just lost the competition and all of your dreams of being Top Chef  just got flushed down the toilet. I keep waiting for the episode where someone just flips out. Everyone always leaves so graciously. One day someone is going to go all berserk and throw stuff and punch a camera man. It will be glorious.

Well, I feel a little better. I need to go get ready for my back to back Prob/Stats and Psych tests. More soon. ~SC