Consume or Taste

Some of you may know that this year I have started on a diet to loose a lot of weight. So far it seems to be working (TK pounds and counting). Essentially it’s simply limiting my calories but I have also changed what I eat and even how. That started mostly out of necessity; I needed meals with fewer calories if I didn’t want to just cut my regular meals into a fraction of what I used to consume. So I stared eating more things I hadn’t before as well as developed a taste for things I used not to like. Examples? At home I eat spinach on nearly a daily basis and zucchini is now one of my top foods. For people that have known me a long time that is probably moderately shocking.

But I’ve also started to regard food differently. Quick lunches are no longer hefty sandwiches picked up at Wawa, or tempura called ahead for. Often it will be yogurt and a small bag of baked crisps. When I do plan ahead I can make myself something tasty like a thought out sandwich or a hummus plate, maybe some sort of chicken dish. But often lunch is just fuel.

And I’ve recently noticed that this has made me think about food differently. I recently returned from New Orleans where I would have gorged myself off my diet had I not also walked 4-6 hours each day. But eating down there made me realize that I no longer regard food with the idea of “eat”. Depending on the food I think of it in one of two ways: consume or taste.

When I have a quick lunch I just consume it. It’s mainly fuel to keep me going. If I need a quick snack like a cereal bar I consume that too. But when I get something like anything I had in New Orleans or when I make myself something really nice I taste it. And splitting up my meals into two mental categories has been the trick that has made my diet sustainable. If I went to lunch each day wanting something that was a pleasure to taste then I would soon grow disappointed on most days and probably would have dropped my diet by now. But I don’t have that as a goal. I just want to consume it and then enjoy the rest of my lunch break reading and talking to people. I’m much more likely to want to taste my dinner, when I can spend some time preparing it or mulling over a menu. Having one tasting meal a day keeps the joy in food, because I love food, but also lets me stay on my diet without feeling daily dissatisfaction.

There has been a good amount of compromise in my diet since I am now watching my calories. But like with writing I find that I work better when under some sort of pressure. I’ve experimented more in what I can put in my tasting meals. I find that some salads I consume (generic table salads) but some I have incorporated into tasting meals (arugula, spinach, sun dried tomatoes). Vinegar sauces have become much more common in my dinners. I have also deepened my romance with Sriracha sauces, both the more common pepper sauce as well as the garlic pepper relish. They add spice, flavor and essentially no calories. This is truly the food of the gods.

Maybe I’ll start posting some recipes if people want to know what I’ve been working on. I also welcome any healthful suggestions. But this post is really just for me to get the idea of taste vs. consumption out of me head and onto non-literal paper. It’s a concept I only just discovered I had been using and it’s been amazingly helpful. Maybe someone else will find benefit in it as well.

E-Reading, or Nooky

With the terrible move and everything it would be safe to say that life's been rough this past couple of months. So to cheer me up my parents bought me an e-reader. It's a black and white Nook which is just the reader I wanted. Natively handles more (and more common) formats than the Kindle, has the long life and daylight reading screen that I so desired and the page turns are quite fast with the most recent OS update. I'd say I've been enjoying it thoroughly for the past week or so.

And then I plugged it into Calibre. And now I'm in love. And now I shall count the ways.

First of all, there are the Calibre plugins. Floating out there are a set of plugins for Calibre that will remove the DRM from the following formats: epub, pdb, pdf, kindle. That means with Calibre I can buy books from damn near any book vendor and free it. I have finished a book that I originally bought from Amazon on my Nook and that is a beautiful thing. It means my e-books are as versatile as my paper ones. But I knew about that going in.

My pleasant surprise is that Calibre is damn good at converting a standard digital comic book (cbr/cbz) to a perfectly formatted epub. I can transfer my comics from my computer to my Nook in just a few clicks and the pages are sized down and converted to black and white. The pages are a bit small but the display is so sharp I can read the text fine on the comics I've tried so far.

And then there's just the simplicity of it all. It's like what iTunes should be doing for music (but doesn't); it easily takes my books and lets me do two way transfers between my laptop, desktop, phone and Nook.

This isn't a post pushing the Nook over other e-readers. Like all tech, each device has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. The Kindle is better for certain things, the iPad for others and an Android phone for other things. What is amazing is how some free software can make the e-book environment as convenient and open as it should be, despite the best attempts by book sellers at locking libraries to branded tools. Now, rather than lending a Barnes and Noble book to someone once for a week I can lend anyone an ebook until they finish it. That moves my ebooks from being a crippled digital gimmick into the realm of being a real alternative to a paper and glue edition. And it's great.

I've been a bit absent

Usually I try to keep my blog posts more like essays and less like diary entries but I just wanted to check in online and give an excuse for my absence. It turns out that my place has bugs. Right now we're arguing with the building manager over what kind but they are hard to get rid of and are bitey. That said, it means I really haven't been able to live in my own home for about three weeks now. Huge pain in the ass. Things are progressing but oh so slowly. So I haven't had A) time and B) my computer. It's strange not being so wired. Sure I still have my Android phone (my main device these days) and a slow (slow) laptop but I don't have a dedicated, convenient box set up.

So that's where I'm at right now. I hope to have everything cleaned up and settled soon and then I can go back to my digital habits. For now I've been seeking out more analog forms of recreation. Do I mean hardcore drugs? I just might (I don't). Tonight, for example, I'm going to a friend's school production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. That's rights, my digital cutbacks have driven me completely mad. I have the arrow through my head, the Napoleon coat and everything. I'm a traditionalist at heart.

So I'm off to try to assemble some sort of shelter out of bamboo and then explore into the trees in search of berries. After all, it's only been three weeks. That means I'm still in hunter/gatherer mode. If I'm offline long enough to develop simple agriculture then I'm really in trouble.

Writing about not writing. Because I'm writing.

Just wanted to announce that October was busy and November is National Novel Writing Month. I am doing a lot of writing but none of it is blogging. I apologize for my silence and hope to be back in December.

4th of July - 2010

IMAG0500.jpg
Originally uploaded by trickstertao

Just finished cleaning up and posting all my fireworks shots from the 4th. Have a few more pictures of Coney Island to post but I'll do those in a day or so.

Check out the rest.

Comic strip: Quiet in the library...

Live update

I'm currently on my way to Grease. Worst case they perform it twice. Best case they perform it once. No matter what I have to sit through Grease and that's still losing.

My weekend

Off to AC where I will avoid gambling more than $20 and will see Beowulf in imax 3d. If it's not good at least it will be gigantic.

How I spent my Black Friday.

So yesterday was Black Friday. Oooh, spooky. I actually went out and (between many aggravating errands) shot some pictures. So this post is pretty much a straight photo post. Enjoy.

More photos in a day or two.

My Black Friday was very red.

So yesterday was Black Friday.  Oooh, spooky.  I actually went out and (between many aggravating errands) shot some pictures.  So this post is pretty much a straight photo post.  Enjoy.

 

A night at the theatre

So this past Saturday I had a lovely evening out in the city.  We went in to see a play (12 Night of the Living Dead) and got there a bit early.  So here's how the night went.


Pre Show
Al and I got in earlier than Jill and Jarod so we walked around to the corner to wait for them.  Well, a homeless guy comes over, asking to raise money for a beer.  I didn't have any cash on me but he proceeds to regaile us with the story of his expulsion from the same place we're seeing the play in a bit.  He goes on to tell us how he was put out by "the art cult" and then apologizes to Allison.  Why am I not assumed to be a part of this cult and she is?  He then drifts to new topics when I tell him a I have no cash and am not willing to use my card.  I am told I am lucky to have a red-head.  This I know.  He says that he has a black woman and "I know, I'm fucked up".  Finally, he says he has a place to stay, it's a warm spot near a bridge.  Can we help him find it.  We point behind him a the giant bridge on Delancy and he says he feels like an idiot.  Then Jill and Jarod show up.  What crappy timing!  They missed it.

Next, dinner!  We headed off in search of easy eats.  It's NYC so the pizza places tend to be good.  We see one down a side street and head towards it.  On the way, without warning, we come across a crowded little front with people milling about.  It looked odd and exclusive so we walked in.  What we beheld astounded us.  It appeared to be a sort of gallery opening.  It's called the MF Gallery, on Rivington street.  The event in question was an underground artist toy show.  Here are some pictures.

Show
Then, the play.  12th Night of the Living Dead was great.  It got a pretty bad review in the times, but it was hilarious.  Ok, maybe as an actual Shakespearean interpretation it was lacking.  Like, the main character (Viola) didn't actually have a single line other than grunting.  But what it lacked in coherent plot it made up for in bloody gore.  It wasn't advertised as such, but the first row (and part of the second where we had been sitting) was a splatter zone.  Fingers, intestines, arms, heaving bosoms and, yes of course, brains were all on the menu.

The reason I can say it's good and the Times can't is that I can see how the infection of blood-lust wasn't the only conversion.  As people changed, their target genre did as well.  The cast all starts out in a Shakespearean performance (and they are great while they're human).  As they devolve into zombies they switch over completely into a zombie movie mode.  Lurching, eating, disemboweling.  This is what their method becomes.  As for the cast that remains human?  They keep in Shakespeare mode.  So there is a bit of an aesthetic clash.  But it's all in good fun.  I works because they zombies are good zombies and the actors are good actors.  Sure, they don't really meet on the same ground anymore, but they function on their own and it's that split in the middle where all the humor lays.

Though it doesn't function on every level as a production it was still well worth seeing.  I'm still a little weirded out that it was the second zombie stage play I saw this year (the other was Evil Dead: The Musical, which is actually a near perfect show).

Post Show
On the way home, on the PATH, a girl threw up on my friend Jarod.  She only got his jacket a bit, but it was all over her hair and hands.  She kept her head down because she was embarrassed, but she looked awful young to be so trashed.  As soon as she vomited and started moaning I turned to Allison and whispered "She's one of the infected." 


So as we're talking about how it's ridiculous how bad people get we come across some more girls trashed out of their mind.  The next few shots are of a girl being carried by two guys she doesn't know (don't worry, her good gal friend is supervising).  They are literally carrying her.  Her feet were dragging.  No motor control.  Sexy, right?  They got to the turnstile and had to rotate through it sideways.  It was so funny.  Then they got to the bottom of the stairs.


After a moment of thinking really hard they just grabbed her under the arms and by the ankles and carried her up.  She made it.

You can see, on the right, her chariot awaits.

Fin.

Weddings are over!

Thank Gord!  Not that they weren't all great in their special snowflake way but 3 weddings in, what, 2 or 3Oh,  months is just too much to keep up with.  especially if one is mine and another one I'm in the (sometimes problematic, always interesting) wedding party.  But it's all over now.  I can remove the bachelor party and wedding site numbers from my phone.  I can delete the e-mail groups I've made for Chad's and my groomsmen. Oh, at one point Chad asked me at his wedding, "Great wedding?  Or greatest?"  I honestly told him, "For you, greatest?  For me?  Great."  I'm sorry but your wedding will never be more important to me than my own.  But it was still a wicked good time.

Picks will come up as I manage to put them on my computer, but here are the highlights. Mostly in c

Picks will come up as I manage to put them on my computer, but here are the highlights.  Mostly in chronological order.

• Universal and Islands of Adventure.  Lord, I do loves me some coasters.  We did Hulk twice and The Mummy about 4... maybe 13 times?  A lot.  Jaws is a fun ride.  Jaws at the end of the night during Halloween Horror nights when the boat captains don't care is better.  They Just point at the sharks and they explode.  Or the captain may just "faint" for half the ride and dangle.  Who knows!
• Halloween Horror Nights.  We did every haunted house and nearly all the shows.  Haunted houses were as follows:
• Movies
  
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• Friday the 13th
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Dead Silence
• The Thing
• Other themes
• clowns
• vampire rave
• escaped mental patients at Christmas
  

Plus there were people running around with chainsaws and amazing costumed stilt walkers.  Yay!

• Disney - all parks.  C'mon, it's made of awesomeness and dreams.  Admit it.  The Halloween nights were great.  Some of the best fireworks I've ever seen.  Plus it was more oriented around the villains, who are the best characters anyway.
• Cruise.  Wow.  Walking out 100s of feet and still having the water only be up to your shoulders.  It's like the ocean and a pool had sex and I swam in the baby.  Para-sailing is fun.  It's even better when they drop you in the water.  And then there was the more relaxing aspects, like late dinners to avoid children and adult only beaches and pools... to avoid children.  And the cabana massages...  Ok, I want to leave again.

And that's the outline form of what's blog-appropriate. 

Returned!

I am come home. It's a little strange at how not strange being married is.  Al and I felt that it would sink in as feeling different after we got back.  Still waiting on it.  Which is great.  I mean, we didn't get married to "fix" anything. Anywho, I won't go too in depth into the honeymoon yet.  Just wanted to announce my return. Wow, it's cold up here.

Want something?

As part of someone else's challenge:

If you are one of the first 3 people to respond to this I will send you something.  Most likely through snail mail.

I tried to pull this off before but then, you know, wedding planning and all that jazz.  Odds are I might even have made something for you and never got to send it yet.  So leave a comment if you want something. Oh, and in order to make it valid you need to repost this challenge as well.  As per

akane

's post, I will get it to you within 365 days (and probably much sooner).  It could be a mix, a photo print or maybe even a rare TV show.

Up for the challenge?

A short break

Just to let you know, I probably won't be posting again till the end of the month.  Yeah, you know why. See ya.

Um....

A kid just asked if there's anything he can do now because he's bored.

"Like, take out your garbage."

Please don't be Rule 34.

This week in Jews

Yom Kippur was a complete success.  Though my fast was difficult I heard from God directly that all was forgiven and I'm promised all sorts of good things in the book of life for this coming year.  Fingers crossed for a lifetime supply of gummy bears!

Sunday:  Knoebles.  It was awesome.  Quilty and I got the Hamster Wheel (Looper) spinning before the ride stared and almost didn't stop the whole time.  Next time I want to break the record, now at 225.  Hardcore

Phoenix was as good as I remember.  Love that park.

Monday:  Went to the courthouse with Al and Witness (dad) and am now sitting in the 72 hour waiting period for my marriage license.  Nice.

It's that time of the year again!

Yom Kippur! And with the advent of this whole "internet" thing I've also seen people (Barenaked Ladies) ask for forgiveness by blog. I want to do one better. If I have wronged you in the past year I want to know about it before I ask forgiveness. What's the point in repenting if you don't actually learn what you did wrong? I have set this post to screen all comments from anyone. It can be logged in or anonymous, but if you feel I have done something wrong to you this past year please leave a comment. I want to know what I did. I want to know how not to do it again next year. And then I will ask forgiveness. All comments for this post will be screened. Whatever you reply back with will not be posted. Please, let me know how I've been to you this year.

Birthday Bash part 2

This is the entry you've been waiting for, I know. Star War: Backstroke of the West. All I'll say is that it's painfully funny (literally) and I will not watch this with Chad. Ever. I fear. I'd seen a lot of this as I was encoding and showing it off in clips but as a whole it's far more hilarious than I imagined. Here's a short list of common terms and then an assload of screen caps. Sith lord - Big Padme - The plum of Anakin - Golden Allah/Allah Gold Obiwan - Ratio tile/Section ratio Jedi - hopeless situation Jedi Council - Presbiterian church/hopeless situation parliment Empire - west Young Skywalker - young a line General Greivous - space general Darth Cader - Reaching the west of reaches/South host And now the caps.

I've been to that galaxy. It's nice there. C'mon guys. It's on the damn screen spelled out for you. Already they're getting political. That they do... In space, everyone speaks in LOLCat. Let's hit it! Obiwan, always with the riddles. That's some hot clone butt-sex. Yes. Ew. Wait, is that a Jabba reference? And the student learns. Seriously, enough with the sex jokes. This is the first of a good many uses of "fuck". Interesting translation of "Shoot him in the middle eye". But you still get the idea. The prequels tend to have that effect. Cheeky Jedi. Hot. Apparently this is how Obiwan announces his entry into battle. He'll say it again later. I has leveled up! Um... The characters were narrating? "It's Emo-Grunge and I just happen to like it, Obiwan!" As the film enters its Keanu/Surfer tone. Obiwan responds with... Fer sure. Whoa, political commentary out of nowhere! Here's a touching little scene. Only Lucas can write dialogue like this. Here's the strange thing. Many times Yoda actually gets translated with proper English. Yes. The elephant. Secret head of power in the new empire. God, I'm so stoned right now. But, like, really know him. Like what makes him cry... "Hold me like that time on Naboo." Well, judging by their name I don't think they have much of a chance. That it can. Surely not the original dint!? They made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Oh, he's good. He's very good. "Obiwan, may the force be with you." Wish power to you too. So please, enough with the fuck jokes. Worst. Battle. Cry. Ever. Uncool. I know some Presbyterians. And that is why you are constantly stopped by security when trying to board a plane. Can anyone top that smooth, cool POWNage? Yeah, I thinks so. "Limitless power!" I don't think anyone can guarantee that. "Darth Vader." You're keeping the neighbors up. of Snickers. What does that make the Wookies? Here comes another awesome conversation. Still sounds better than "younglings". Yeah... wait. Huh? This dude has major issues. WHAT THE FUCK? Anakin, don't let her. Who can, the plum of? Who among us can? That's OK. Neither does the script in English. This next shot has been co-opted into net culture but few people know where the phrase came from. Now you do. That's right, Jimmy. Keep your eye on the prize. He actually says "mind wipe" but you know what? I'm cool with the robot love.

And that concludes my presentation of Backstroke. It's so much funnier when played out in the movie. If anyone wants to come over and watch it again I would be happy to. Just let me recover from the first time.