Bacon

I am about to say something that will irk some of my readers, but:  I just realized that I think I like the smell of bacon a lot more than actually eating it.

If I had to defend this claim, I would argue that bacon ALWAYS smells amazing, however it is often not prepared well when you actually eat it.

Discuss.

I'm about to head off to Napa for the holiday with my roommates.  Looking forward to seeing California's famed wine country.  Unlike Miles Raymond, I am fully open to drinking Merlot.

Cyberchondria

Very pleased with this article about "cyberchondria."  It's basically the tendency to jump to the absolute worst possible conclusion when trying to find health information related to your symptoms.  

On a personal note, I thought I had tetanus the other day when my jaw was hurting a little bit.  I do not have tetanus.

The Pony Exxxpressss

Speaking of things that happened in March (this time in '07), I'm really glad Joe made this video public again.  It makes me very happy.  Especially Kevin Thomas Sparks at 1:07.  

Look for yours truly in a tri-corner hat to the left.

Really Happened

I realize I risk alienating certain of my readers with this, but I completely forgot to blog about this event from earlier this year (March, to be exact).  It made me realize that you never truly leave high school.  And I think the best way for me to relate it is through my chat transcript with Michelle from that day:

8:10 AM me: EW SOMEONE POOPED ONT HE FLOOR IN OUR BATHROOM

  IT'S EVERYWHERE

 Michelle: WHAT

 me: SMEARED POOP

 Michelle: ARE YOU JOKING

  THAT'S SO HORRIBLE

8:11 AM me: NOT JOKING

  WE'RE TAKING CAMERA PHONE PICTURES OF IT

8:12 AM Michelle: EW EW EW EWE WE EW EWEWE

  WHO COULD IT BE

8:13 AM me: someone in another office ont eh floor

 Michelle: OH MY GOD

  OH MY GOD

  HOW HORRIBLE

  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Cheers

My blogging colleague Ol' Mucky sent me a link to this New Yorker article on "extreme beers," which focuses pretty heavily on one of my all-time favorite breweries, Dogfish Head.  Like many other folks, my first exposure to them was a sip of their 60 minute IPA.  I was impressed with how powerful, fruity, but pleasantly bitter it was.  I made it a personal goal to try every variety they offered.  At the time, I obviously didn't understand the infeasability of that goal.  But it did expose me to a bunch of their offerings [see this vintage post], and eventually led me to try other great beers and breweries.

Since moving to San Francisco, I've had a surprisingly small number of beers; probably because of the area's proximity to Napa and the number of great cheap wines you can get.  My routine has been picking a cheap pinot noir with an amusing label.  I feel entirely justified judging wines by their label because I suspect that I will like pretty much everything I try here.

But, reading that article made me really want to return to beers and try some of the Dogfish brews it mentions.  So I sought out a good beer store nearby and went and bought two of the highlighted varieties, Midas Touch (which I've had before) and Palo Santo Marron.  Really looking forward to kicking back with these brews tonight.

Shaq Diesel

This Shaq Twitter thing smacks of viral marketing by Vitamin Water to me.  Similar to the videos of cell phones popping popcorn, and the ballgirl catching a foul ball.

The power of these things is that you just can't help thinking "what if it's real???"  Shaq's "tweets" are kind of hilariously plausible.

Audience Poll

For my 100th post, I wanted to raise something topical, important, and urgent.

Sunflower Seeds: Cool in the workplace?

Pros: Fox Mulder ate them. They are tasty. They remind me of little league baseball.

Cons: I just realized it might be kind of gross.

:)

Congratulations to Barack Obama.  I hope this does indeed mark the beginning of a new era in American politics.  In foreign diplomacy.  In listening to reason.  In understanding all sides of an issue.  In staying true to the principles of our Founders.  In trusting our leadership.  In embodying something we can all be proud of.

This one man has immense expectations on his shoulders, but I think he'll do just fine.

Congratulations on inspiring so many of my peers to love their country.

His speech almost made me cry and then I walked through San Francisco with a joyous chorus of honking horns and dancing people filling the air.  I think I'll remember this for a long time.

So much pressure

Re-blogged from we must say so (which quoted it from the valve):

We make our own way into the conversation about the world, and into the vast literary and philosophical library to which we are heir, and none of it is ours until we cease timidly surveying it, and choose, rashly, somewhere to begin.

Probably best to just read the whole article though.  As with anything, quoting out of context robs the line of all the momentum the article had built up going into it..

But that quote pretty much sums up what I've come to realize about a lot of things.  You spend so much of your life coming to grips with how much information and culture and thought and writing and music have been made before you, and how it all is preserved and passed on, and how that is what keeps humanity pressing forward.  We all have to just stop thinking so much and jump in, whatever it is that we're doing.

Halloween

I am notoriously bad at Halloween.  I was the same skeleton for probably 6 years in a row growing up.  I don't think I ever dressed up in college - though the cover band show was sort of like a costume..

Anyways, this year I actually made some effort.  I went to the costume store with my friend Brett.  We found the following costume:

Unexpected Man?  Really?

Brett ended up going as Alice in Wonderland, so I obviously went as Unexpected Man.  Needless to say, my night was filled with references to the amibiguous, totally unexplainable name.

I kind of want to be Unexpected Man every year.  But, that would probably be a little too expected.