Birthday BBQ and Rye: 42, Starting Off Good.

Sorry this is late. Late? Yeah, I try to post these by 2:00 PM at the latest. I know, no one cares. But I read somewhere that you get more followers if you post at a consistent time. I also read that its okay to not write every day. Well, I already skipped Monday and Tuesday so I’m going to suck it up and pound this post out if it kills me.

Work has been super busy today, as there’s lots going on. A new version of the game, Achievements, testing, write-ups, all manner of this, that, and the other. Thank god tomorrow is beer day.

Last night, though, was my birthday, and the wife took me to Bitterroot, which is what I want to talk about. Call this a review, if you like.

5/5 stars. Excellent BBQ. Excellent prices. Excellent ryes. Excellent service. Not hard to find, not too crowded on a Wednesday night, and the location is such that as terrible as parking is in Ballard, at least for this place parking was only mostly terrible.

What I REALLY want to talk about was the rye flight I had. I don’t remember what the first one was, but if I had not known it was a rye, I might have guessed it was just whiskey. It was very powerful. I would drink it again, though, as it was still better than your average rotgut.

The second one, though, was amazing. George Dickel its called, and I will be buying a bottle to share. So smooth. So sweet. None of that pressure-in-the-forehead you get from a slam of alcohol in your nose. Just so damn good.

The third one was nearly as good as the Dickel. Lock Stock and Barrel, super complicated, nuanced, but neither playful nor provocative. If Templeton is my best gal, and Dickel’s the sweet neighbor girl, then LS&B’s the sophisticated older lady down the block who’s still a knock-out.

So, in one night, I imbibed my second and third favorite ryes of all time. Templeton’s still my number one, of course. It’s as much loyalty as it is just how damn good that rye treats a body. Yum.

So, if you’re in Ballard, go to Bitterroot, get pretty much anything on the menu, order a rye flight, and tip your server well.

What We Didn’t Do on our Not-a-Vacation

In order to pursue the betterment of person kind and to assure our place in the annals of history, the wife and I went to Denver for a few days. This is why there was no blog post on Monday and Tuesday. If you’re an avid reader of “...Other” then I do apologize for the lapse. Hopefully you found other entertainment. Your sock drawer, for example-- surely it is now well arranged?

I can’t tell you what we were doing in Mile High City, but I will say this: the Seahawks are 10 and 1, while the Broncos are 9 and 1 so far… and they won’t be playing each other unless they both go to the Superbowl. That’s all I’m saying. I mean, those facts have nothing to do with why we were there, but, well… that’s all I’m saying.

While we were there, in addition to not writing blog posts, I struggled to even get my daily NaNoWriMo words done. I managed by smashing a keyboard for a few hours on the two plane rides. I was using a little iPad mini and Zagg bluetooth keyboard. Monday morning I just typed into an email and sent it to myself. Tuesday evening I wrote 16 100-word paragraphs. It was grueling.

In between I noticed something that I’ve been doing for a while-- talking out loud to myself. Little innocuous things, like “should I get this shirt or this one?” Not deep philosophical questions, to say the least.

But then I saw this article about our inner voices. Its mostly about inner voices, but it starts off with a little description of Virginia Woolf talking out loud to herself. And of course, I started thinking (without saying it out loud because I’m in a small office with a coworker) “Hey, she’s a writer, and I’m a writer, so… like maybe writing a lot makes people talk out loud to themselves more!”

That’s not what the article’s about and there’s no evidence of this anyway. But I want to think it. I want to think that in the last month, since my daily word output has sky-rocketed, my brain must be changing. For the better, I hope.

Or not. This might just be the latest foster parent in my brain’s visitation schedule. From March to about June this year I was playing a lot of WoW. Then from June to September I was reading a novel almost every day. And now it’s a writing jag. Maybe in December I’ll be into collecting Lego minifigures.

This is Jam

I am very very very far behind on my NaNoWriMo words. So instead of writing a blog post I will post something I've been working on to catch up.

Blog posts, dry toast, hipster d-bags coast to coast bragging about flagging their intellectual victuals roasted over the slow broasted flames of inebriated inflection, reflecting on the directions social media's going, lowing like cattle and rattling neck-bearded sabers at cable-television wagers.

Dangerous conclusions, colluding over slow-roasted macchiatos, the new dime bags, tagging their posts with allusions to the cages we’re all defined by, and data-mining every meme for the unseemly we deem appropriate when we scheme to skim some of the cream off this fat-ass latte dream.

Magazines flogging molly and clogging up hallways with picture-postcard advertisements advising us to retire outside the confinements of dignity, dinner at Denny’s on Wednesdays something to calendar in last year’s technology, colanders holding more water than the biology we requiem sitting in front of TV screen, little black and white man boys slaving over a hot grid iron and their sweat ejecting desperation for identity in masculinity, our prostates full to bursting, urging us to cursing as we thirst for another nacho cheese potato chip and our IVs drip with Schlitz and Lebatz.

Facts forgotten, moments fomented on memories of epistles penned three fingers at a time, rhyme nor reason in season as we hunt and peck through the dreck of explaining the chain of events that lead us from these five-hundred word rants through chanting, panting in post-connubial bliss (we insist) because writing is better than plucking.

A euphemism, a eulogy for euthanasia, mercy killing words too fierce for flinging, singing neither electric physiology nor spirit-tested psychology but soul fettered ignominy, frets bursting fingertip capillaries so that capsicum laced coffees can be chased through places equally spaced to accommodate the greatest rate of return on waiting for that delicious libation.

No apologies. None.

Too Much Writing, Not Enough Writing

Add this to the moan n’ groan department. I can’t keep up with all my (self-imposed) writing assignments. Not to mention everything else I have to do.

Woe is me, I know. At least I get to eat (well, not today, I’m on a juice cleanse. Apparently that means I drink things with lots of cayenne pepper in them. Got it at Costco, on a whim, but I might be shooting myself in the foot because that Costco Mac n Cheese we had last weekend blocked me up good. Sorry for being graphic, but hey, you’re not even supposed to be reading this, you’re supposed to be reading those other darn blogs and earn me some darn AdSense money, darn it).

At least I have a roof over my head (except today when I was walking to the bus stop in the rain. It wasn’t a down pour, but I’d decided to leave my coat at home because it’s too heavy for the weather we’ve been having lately, and I’m tired of sweating up and down all those darn stairs. I should take the elevator, but who has time to wait for elevators? And I need to burn the calories! Yes, I’m walking contradiction, sue me).

At least I have a loving, caring wife (except in the mornings when she’s on her feet and walking to the shower but somehow still has her head on the pillow. I don’t know how she does it. But I have learned my lesson—being bright and chirpy in the morning will get me a deep bite mark on my arm, which I’d better appreciate for the way it distracts me from being throttled by angry, sleepy hands. Just kidding. I love you honey. Why are YOU reading this stupid blog).

Still, whatever my privileges, I feel like it is my duty as a middle aged middle class white hetero married man with a Kia and two mortgages to complain, so I’m going to complain. Woe is me. Too much writing to do, way behind on NaNoWriMo. Struggling to find content for this blog AND the brain one AND the zombie one. Have to write a weekly blog for work. Have to write emails to people. And did I mention: laundry, dishes, cleaning the garage, cleaning the gutters, getting the house ready for an 18th-month-old, the new World of Warcraft expansion, Desktop Dungeons, Grand Theft Auto V, PvZ2, keeping up with Facebook, keeping up with Tumblr, keeping up with Reddit, and my notes! I have SOOOOO many daily notes to process.

I tell you what, it’s this job, it’s having a job, its going to a job every day and working. I shouldn’t complain, I know, I should be grateful. And I am. I love this job, I will gladly sacrifice any of those other things to keep this job. Especially cleaning the gutters. But I am being stretched thin, here.

All my own fault of course. But at least moaning about it got me five-hundred or so words to put on this darn blog.

Parum-Pa- Shut the Damn Hell Up.

On Tuesdays I go to a bar and hang out friends. (Did I tell you this before in another post? Sorry. If so, or if you know this already, skip to the next paragraph). We used to meet over coffee, but out favorite coffee place started closing early (“What, no caffeine after 7 PM? But this is SEATTLE!”) so we switched to a bar. Then that place changed owners so we switched to another bar. We still call it our weekly “coffee” meeting, though. It’s like AA but inverted.

Last night one of us brought up this Sci-Fi podcast he was listening to, about a store filled with scanners. As a person shops, a smart computer watches them, figures them out based on their patterns, and then starts reshaping the store, and products and packaging, to suit their needs and play into their desires.

I want this to be real. I want to go into a store and I want the computer to scan me, and realize that I have bought many car stereos over the years. And that it always seems to take me the same amount of time to buy each stereo. I want the computer to look at the radio stations I listen to, figure out the time differential between what was playing on the radio and the purchase, and realize that the radio breaks right around the time “The Little Drummer Boy” comes on.

And then, the store would be smart enough to bend sound waves around me such that when I am shopping between, say, September 30th and January 2nd, there’s no way I am able to hear that god damn song. As I shop, a cone of comfortable, blissful silence is always around me.

People who walk by me in the grocery store or at Target will drift in an out of this wonderland of quietness. Some of them will realize what is going on. Soon they will start following me. They’ll buy what I buy and eat the way I eat and wear the sort of clothes I wear. They’ll time their shopping to coincide with mine. 

Eventually I’ll become a Moses of Xmas shopping, leading my people away from the evil pharaohs of The Little Drummer Boy into 40 years of wandering. We’ll worship something golden, maybe a copy of People with Miley Cyrus on the cover, and then I’ll ascend into the hills (the upstairs café at Nordstroms) and come back with some commandments:

• Thou Shalt Not Decorate Stores for the Holidays before December 11th.
• Thou Shalt Not Force Me to Partake in a $5 Secret Santa Thing Because I Have Enough Wine Charms As It Is.
• Thou Shalt Not Jack Up Airline Ticket Prices to Gouge People Who Are Guilted into Visiting In-Laws.
• Thou Shalt Not Regift Fruitcake More Than Twice.

Et cetera. But this is just a dream. It’s the “fiction” in “science fiction,” isn’t it. I’ll just have to get used to getting a new car stereo once a year or so. I’m not saying I agree that there’s a war on Christmas, I’m just saying, if there is, I want to be in the battalion that attacks The Little Drummer Boy. I’m talking scorched earth.

 

I am Draggin’ Ass

This is what I do every day: alarm goes off at 4:30. I go into my office, down a 5-Hour Energy Drink, then go to the UniQlock website, and turn the screen off. In the dark, I sit and relax, focusing on good posture. When I’m ready, I plank for 60 seconds (the soothing UniQlock music plays at precisely 60 beats per minute, so it’s easy to keep time). Then I do a few more yoga-type poses (I don’t know what they’re called, but in one of them I breath as I bend over until I can put my palms on the floor without bending my knees).

Then I either get dressed and go for a run, or on non-run days, I do some light housework. After my wife gets up and showers, I shower, get dressed, get my things ready for the day, and eat breakfast while I read the paper.

But lately, I don’t know what’s going on. The 4:30 ritual still happens. But running has become a chore, as often as not I end up going back to bed (despite 7 hours of sleep) and during the day I cannot stay awake to save my life. I mean, I am assuming if I was being attacked by marauder with machetes I would have sufficient adrenaline to run away screaming. But if they attacked with fluffy pillows, I don’t know if I’d have the gumption.

Do I gots SAADs? I hope not. I don’t even believe in it! Maybe I got some narcolepsy-inducing carbs from the Costco salmon and mac-n-cheese we had for dinner this weekend. We usually don’t eat like that. Not that we eat in any kind of pristine manner, but still.

The upshot is that it has been SO hard to blog lately. I’m barely getting in the Zombie and Brain blog updates. And the writing/research is not of the best quality. And there was no “…Other” blog yesterday. Just too tired. Not to mention NaNoWriMo. I am behind. 1667 words is a lot to face when you’re rather put your face in one of those marauder's fluffy pillows.

And caffeine is out of the question because I just read about a study that showed how “morning people” will get crappy sleep if they have caffeine too late in the day. Like, later than noon. Damn it.

Ah well. I’ll post this, and go home for the day, and maybe one of those marauders will be on the bus. Finger’s crossed.

Man Up, Richie

Nobody asked me for my opinion, so here’s me offering my two cents to a machine that only takes quarters: I don’t care if Incognito did it or not, I don’t care what the context is, I don’t even care if Martin’s agent selectively edited things or even fabricated the whole thing. You’re out, Incognito. Man up and deal with it.

You’re a tough guy, right? Be tough, be a man. Let me quote some of the people talking about this right now, all of them NFL players: "You're a grown-ass man. You need to stand up for yourself." "Playing football is a man's job." “That's something you have to handle as a man!" “Fight, handle it." “Go down swinging.” Yeah, I took some of those out of context, so what, you gonna sic an MLA expert on me?

So you got kicked out, so what? People lose their jobs all the time for stupid reasons. Do you see their pictures on the covers of websites and magazines? So now you ain’t getting paid millions to feel up other men on a field in front thousands of screaming fans. Boo hoo.

Don’t like what I’m saying? Text me, I’ll give you my address, you can come tell me yourself. But let’s be for real here. For real for real. You won’t. Because I don’t matter. None of this matters. The only people this matters to are the news agencies making billions off what you did or didn’t do. Those of us who are reading these websites and making blog posts, you think we care about you, or Martin? We don’t even know you.

It’s a tough world, Incognito, it’s a bitter, harsh universe out there and it don’t give a damn about you or me or anyone else. Man up. Take your hit. Go get a job tossing couches into vans or something.

Oh, and if you did do it? Shut the fuck up.