terrible Hawaiian lager

had redhook for beer friday again this week. my choices are redhook, some ipa and blue moon. its always free so there is no bitching allowed but redhook is the only one I'd buy on my own. which means: it gets enjoyed every time.

gwen stefani: bubble pop electric: hahahahaha, oh god. this song is so good and terrible and wonderful and awful. pop rock, bad sexual innuendo, accurate description of teenage romance and strange possibly racist backup singers. I need more of this.

I probably need to say goodbye to my comfy chair soon. I haven't sat in it for several months now as its been in storage. I was fine with packing it up because I'd see it again. But letting it go forever? Oddly nostalgic and somewhat crippling fear. Its a wonderful chair and I have the the original documentation from 25 years ago when my grandpa bought it, but I think a few pictures and a fond farewell will do it proud.

I have now personified my chair. I didn't have a meaningful relationship with my grandpa. I love him, but I don't know him. He died when I was 10. He got me interested in coin collecting but I flipped out the one time I was supposed to crash at his house with him and my grandma and had to go home. I suppose I'm holding onto the chair as a way to try and get to know him. Have a meaningful relationship with him in some way.

Its quite clearly impossible, the man is dead. And even if he is an angel or something he's not gonna sit down with me and have a conversation about his army days. I can imagine whatever I'd like, but its not going to happen. When I look at my stuff, my furniture, things that I bought, I don't much care. I take care of it and I enjoy it and when its time to move on, I move on with no problems. But when its a gift or a hand-me-down I find it almost impossible to let the object go. Its all I have of that person right now and I don't want to let it go.

This is part of why I dislike receiving gifts. I know I have a finite capacity to hold on to things, to hold on to people and I quite like the things and people in me life right now. I don't care if there's an upgrade available. I have a different rating scale of things and what I have right now is best in the way I care about.

This isn't unique, really. Studies have been done that show if you have to price an object you price it much higher if its in your hands then if its on a shelf. I assume the above is an offshoot of this behavior. This behavior has been exploited for years by marketers and salesmen to, 'have a taste! see if you like it!' And because it is an exploited behavior I view it as weak and something to be avoided.

I can apply this security patch to things going forward so new items and new things don't have the same hold on me. But stuff that got through when the barn doors were open? Locked in. But they won't last forever and I need to get rid of them sometime. I'll probably want a La-z-boy again in the future, but for now I'll be happy with a desk chair and a pug. It'll be beautiful, we'll all see.

weekending with WoW and sushi

We have failed our lettuce experiment. We acquired gorgeous, delicious lettuce. It was tasty in my taco salad. It was wonderful as a cookie deployment system and it held up with great taste for some other meal I can't remember. Or maybe it wasn't that great then? Maybe its wilting and wasting away in our fridge was earned? That two-timing, flavor lacking red lettuce!

Oh, who am I kidding. I have a terrible memory. The lettuce was tasty and we failed it. We failed to eat it while it was in the flush of youth. The flush of 'not being wilted and gross and dude, this is supposed to be crunchy.' Those were glorious days now gone.

If we had our juicer, we could still give it a proper burial by blade. Scattering its pulp from its juice and then savoring its final gift to us. Alas, we're still in the mold haus which means: no juicer. Or toaster oven. I never knew what I was missing before I had one. Its like, 'I want to bake something small very quickly.' Bam. Efficiency in a countertop.

The future is coming and it brings juicers, toaster ovens and honorable deaths for our almost expired produce. The world works in mysterious ways and I intend to make a snack out of it.

orange peels and coffee cups

Having an orange with a cup of coffee is delicious and natural. The citrus tang melds with the bad coffee's bitterness. And the touch of sweetness in an orange lingers for just a second to trick you a little bit into thinking you're not drinking free office coffee but a crafted americano from an espresso machine.

mmmm.... coffee hijinks.

I should be getting my own grinder back soon. I may dump it immediately though and get a burr grinder. For science purposes only, of course. I need to make sure its a good buy before I get one for my dad. My dad, a man who I've been meaning to but a coffee pot and grinder for over a year now. I'll get it done eventually, probably.

But then, for science, I can see if it is a better brew. After that I'll start experimenting with water types and see if that matters. I've been told you get the biggest jumps by using a burr grinder and home roasting. I'm hesitant to try the roasting though as I'm terrifyingly poor handling fire. I'm casual with it which means I light things on fire I don't mean to. Like foam couches.

Daily JunkBotting

Starting playing WoW again for real last night. Fired up my lvl 70 char, got back into my old guild and started to relearn the game. I haven't played in a solid 6 months. Huh, that time frame aligns nicely with when I started applying for jobs.

Its almost as if I have my life back. Almost. I need a desk that doesn't cause massive amounts of trauma first. I'll get that after I get a new apartment which I have hopefully been approved for as of today, checks willing. The desk that came with my current apartment has a magical ability to turn my shoulder into fire within 30 minutes. Sad fact of the day: I have to rest my casting arm while playing for now. It gets tired and hurty. Saaaaaad.

Even better, got to hang out with hyde! Thats the draw for me for playing and sticking with WoW: hanging out with friends. We talk about the game and who we should light on fire next but we're also shooting the breeze about jobs and beer while we hit things in their respective face-like objects. For the horde!

Back in the Saddle

I need to start writing again. Twitter and perl golf emails aren't cutting it. Mostly because only two people are actually golfing now. Sad, I've ruined one of the few things I built.

I suppose its better me then someone else though. It was my responsibility and I was responsible for killing it. I win.

I'm in Seattle now. I moved here from Chicago in a riveting tale of whining dogs, doughnuts and comically large bottles of Japanese beer. Kirin Ichiban: making me feel like its okay to have 'one beer' when that 'one beer' is a novelty bottle. Yay!

Next: keep evaluating what is so far a shitty, shitty product. If only they had a manual