For reasons I still haven’t been able to figure out, WordPress gave up the ghost a few months ago, and my blog (sparse as it is) has been inaccessible. Obviously, it’s back. After none of the troubleshooting steps I took managed to work, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a server disk space issue, because migrating to a new server managed to fix everything. I’ve got a folder full of drafts that I’m planning on finishing and trickling out, so stay tuned.
I have too many projects going, and I have too little time on my hands. Here’s a snapshot of my word count for the last fortnight:
As you can see, my minimum required per diem word count is going up steadily. It’s also going up exponentially, but that’s not really apparent from the small snapshot here, since we’re so far away from December 31. I have a ton of stuff to edit, a ton of stuff to write. But if I wanted to get any of it done in a timely manner, I’d have to quit my day job and devote those 40+ hours to writing. But there’s no possible way I would be able to pay my bills writing 200,000 word Star Wars fanfics and rewriting trunk novels (they have good bones; don’t judge me).
If I were working in a field that energized me, I think I would have more energy to devote to my numerous hobbies. Writing is just one of them, as are music, 3D printing—a new one for this month—and video games (check out my tiny, currently-on-hiatus channel, 42Embers Gaming. So I need to recareer myself to a job where I can work with my hands or do design work or something, rather than pounding on a keyboard all day combining duplicate medical records. I can easily spend 8 hours working on designs in Fusion 360 or working on a DIY project. So shouldn’t I regear and put that creativity to work? Makes sense, except for the fact that I’d have to go back to school.
The recurring theme in every career interest test I’ve taken is Landscape Architecture. I’d need a new degree for that, and the schools that offer it aren’t cheap. But I can also make potentially more money than I am now by fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a heavy equipment operator.
I would suffer a guess that anything that you obsess over as a child, continue to obsess over as an adolescent, and still obsess over as an adult is something that you should seriously consider as an occupation. The biggest roadblocks I can think of are the virtually required joining of a union (ew), and forcing myself to retrain myself to be familiar with the SAE/CAT control pattern (also ew). But I’d rather learn CAT controls and join the Local 3 than sit behind a computer clawing my eyes out because all the patient info is running together at the end of the day.
Once I’ve spent a few years digging in the dirt and paying off my previous student loans, I could go back to school to become a landscape architect, which would potentially increase my salary by a factor of 1.5 or so. Then I’d be much, much happier, and I could potentially afford to get more loans (triple ew) to pay for the new Bachelor’s degree.
But with any luck, I’ll have more energy at the end of the day to write. We’ll see what happens, I guess.
I don’t drink, and for various reasons, I won’t ever start. This raises a problem when your main character has a scene where she drinks ale and doesn’t like the flavor. I don’t know what the frick a medieval ale tastes like. The members of the group came to the rescue with several descriptions of flavors from modern ales to medieval ones, and some good sources to boot, complete with recipes, should I ever change my mind (which is unlikely). But there’s a second problem: these sources didn’t give me much more than descriptive words that would make perfect sense to somebody who’s had experience with alcoholic beverages but none to somebody like me, who’s never had a drop. Notable among these was how the ale was described as “yeasty,” a word that I used in the scene. But I didn’t know what the frick “yeasty” meant, either.
Until now.
From the first time I tried them, I wasn’t a fan of the Bundaberg soda line out of Australia. The first time was on a Saturday night, when my family generally has some sort of pizza. This particular Saturday, either my dad or my sister saw a 4-pack of Bundaberg root beer and thought it looked good. It was not. I looked at the ingredients as I wrinkled my nose, and my eyes gravitated to molasses. I’ve never liked molasses, so I figured that was the strange flavor I was tasting. Now that I think about it, molasses was probably a part of what made the root beer taste so strange. But it wasn’t everything. That much became evident the next time a Bundaberg drink came home. This one was ginger beer. It was better than the root beer, but I don’t like ginger drinks. And it still had that strange taste that made the root beer truly unique.
Then yesterday I saw that Bundaberg made fruit flavored sodas while picking up a pizza to cook for supper. I decided to give their Blood Orange a try, and with the first sip, I was blown away. This was the best soft drink I had ever tasted, and I mean that. It’s better than every flavor of Mountain Dew, edging out Black Label by a very narrow margin. But here’s the thing: that strange flavor was still there, this time a major compliment to the tangy blood orange flavor. So I looked at the label, and I found the ingredient that must have contributed to it: yeast! I took more time with the second bottle of the night, trying to savor that yeastiness, to pick up on the subtleties thereof. And I can safely say it’s pretty much impossible to describe, unless I use the word “yeasty.”
Bundaberg has other fruit flavored soft drinks that I want to try, the first on the list being peach. That way I can compare and see if that yeastiness is still recognizable. And even with the fermentation of the yeast, these sodas are non-alcoholic, which means I’ll drink them happily. They also don’t have any high fructose corn syrup, only cane sugar (but a heck of a lot of it). I wrote them off too soon because I tried the wrong flavors. But now they have my thumbs-up. And I think I owe it to the humble fungus that makes bread so much better.
(Check out http://www.bundaberg.com!)
I’m fat. Much more so than I want to be. And I’ll tell you why: tasty food. I just don’t know when to quit. In fact, tasty food and how I relate to it is the very reason I don’t drink. Based on how I eat, I know for a fact that I would overdo it if I drank, that I would very likely be an alcoholic from the first sip. When I take a bite of that pizza, when I eat half a bag of potato chips, when I eat that entire slab of chocolate, the release of feel-good chemicals into my brain is like a drug. No, it is a drug, for all intents and purposes. So it’s easy to see why tasty food and a lack of self control have led me to be a hundred pounds overweight.
Many times I have threatened to eat better, to eat right, to eat food that was good for me. But the biggest problem with that is that the state of health food is appalling. “Oh, look at this beautiful, healthy salad! It’s got this and that, and some of this…” But it looks like weeds. “But it tastes great!” No, it tastes like weeds. “How about this stuff? It’s called quinoa, and it’s great for you.” It tastes like permanent marker smells. No thanks.
At least I’m not a carnivore cramming my veins with the added cholesterol from all the meats. I’m a vegetarian, mostly because I grew up that way and I like vegemeat better than real meat. But at the same time, it’s nearly impossible to find healthy vegemeat. That crap is just as processed as all the junk foods nutritionists hate so much. To add to the difficulty, I have a soy allergy, which severely restricts my ability to find acceptable sources of protein.
I blame the Japanese for inventing tofu and the Western world for co-opting soy protein for use in freaking everything. Seriously, go to the store and look at the ingredients on every loaf of bread that wasn’t baked fresh in the house bakery or a local one. I will bet you money that 90% of them have either soy flour, soybean oil, or both. So far, I’ve found that Dave’s Killer Bread is safe for me, as well as one brand that I’ve only found at Safeway. Incidentally, I’m find with products containing soy lecithin, as well as Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, which is basically soy sauce. I’m also allergic to peas and lentils, both of which are considered healthy. I do like peas, but I’ve never liked lentils, so that one’s fine with me.
Speaking of bread in the dichotomy of tasty food versus inedible food, I can’t stand most whole wheat bread. It often tastes like dirt or cardboard, and it’s drier than Death Valley, especially when toasted. I do have a bread machine, and I’ve used it a few times to make delicious whole wheat bread. But it always goes bad before I can finish it. Turns out, homemade bread has no preservatives. Which is awesome. But I want to be able to eat my bread, you know?
So this all brings me to the key question: why does good food taste like crap and crap food taste like it was plucked from the Tree of Life? The whole effort of cooking is a turn-off for me, but less so than the sheer dearth of health foods that actually taste good. Every “interesting” salad I see looks like it’s full of weeds. Every healthy breakfast I see has more than one grain and tastes like a silo unless I put in a whole squeeze bear of honey. No, vegans, your “cheese” does not taste “like the real thing.” Don’t lie to me. Same goes for your “ice cream” and your “cheesecake” and your other substitute foods. Is it too much to ask for health food that doesn’t taste fake, weird, or just plain awful? I’m open to recommendations.
Whether or not you like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, you have to acknowledge that it is an important piece of popular culture. Not only is it immensely popular among its target demographic, children of varying ages, but it has gained a sort of cult following from Bronies. Let me give you an unbiased definition of what a Brony is: an adult fan of any My Little Pony series, whether male or female (though some female fans prefer the term “Pegasister”). That’s the simplest definition. Granted, there are weirdos in the fandom, and there are those who take it way too far. But are there not weirdos in every fandom?
Now, I don’t think it should be any closely guarded secret that I enjoy the most recent generation of the franchise, which encompasses the Friendship is Magic TV series, which airs Saturday mornings on Discovery Family, the anthropomorphic Equestria Girls spin-off, and all related comics, books, toys, etc. Because I rather enjoy this series, I thought I’d start up a series of reviews in which I will go through every TV episode and movie and give them a rating/review on a scale of 1-10.
I plan to do the same with the Star Wars movies, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, so if MLP isn’t your thing, be sure to check out my Star Wars series. If Star Wars isn’t your thing, you’re on the wrong site. Seriously, it’s my #1 fandom.
Anyway, I plan on starting the reviews here in a day or two, so stay tuned.
The following is adapted from one of my father’s many story jokes. The man is an artist.
There once was a toothless old logger who had been plying his craft all his life. He was quick with a cross-cut saw, quicker than anybody. But one day he finally decided it was time to get one of them newfangled chainsaws. So he dipped into his savings and grudgingly went into the store.
He walked up to the salesman and asked, “Is these things any good?” pointing to a shiny, new saw.
“Oh, ho, ho,” laughed the salesman, “these things are so good that you’re guaranteed fifty trees a day, or your money back.”
So he bought the chainsaw and took it out into the forest the next morning. He worked as hard as he could, but he cut down only twenty-five trees–less than his usual. He grumbled and groaned and vowed to try harder the next day, but he got only thirty trees. Mad as a hornet, he got up before sunrise the next day and worked until it was too dark to see anymore. He didn’t get past forty trees.
So the next day he took the chainsaw back to the store and complained to the salesman. “You told me this fool thing would get me fifty trees. I gots only forty yesterday, and that was from workin’ harder than I ever have. There’s gotta be somethin’ wrong with it.”
The salesman didn’t want to take the chainsaw back if he didn’t have to, so he took the saw from the logger and set it on the ground. He pulled the cord twice, and the engine roared to life. The logger went white as a sheet, leaped back, and screamed, “WHAT’S THAT THERE NOISE?!”