01/31/12 Smile

I'm not really smiling of course. But mentally I can see a circle with what appears to be a smile. And really that's about the best you'll get out of me at the time being. No I'm not being depressed and what not.

Instead I've shut out the darkness and instead I'm living again. Well negative thinking never got anyone anywhere.

Which is good thinking considering the simple fact that if I thought otherwise I wouldn't be so happy. It's things like this that make me enjoy the world around me. Positive thinking sir. Contemplate it enough and you'll stockholm syndrome yourself into accepting it.

01/30/12 More Optimism

Because the last few weeks have been a drag. Optimism as my definition dictates is the process of looking into the positive as opposed to the negative. Which is to say caring about something rather than knowing that it'll probably not go well.

Which in my case is why I'm in the process of reapplying to half the places that didn't message me back. This time with a revised resume and cover letter. It's only after so many months that I'm able to think that certain wordings may seem pretentious and though not-rude it's something less than stellar. And so with the advent of the use of big words and the increase in such I am able to reword things to sound better than they are.

But being too positive is also a sign of stupidity so I must watch my intake of both.

01/29/12 Of Destiny

What is this thing that people call Destiny?

Is it the same thing as fate or are the interchangeability of the two words a fallacy that doesn't make much sense of the matter?

The main thing to think about though is the fact that for one to truly get the meaning of either of these two words, one must first realize that one of them must be able to exist.

For practical purposes, my definition equates to:

Fate (n.) - Actions, sequences of events, passings that will occur even if pre-knowledge interferes with.

Destiny (n.) Actions, sequences of events, passings that may be modified based on pre-knowledge, experience or chance.

As such it is in my belief that Fate does exist. I don't know what my Fate is of course. Nor do I truly care to. Because even if I did know it I wouldn't be in a position to change anything. Instead I would rather believe that Fate isn't out to get me.

And so as I contemplate that which is and the greater beyond I can't help but wonder if I'm meant for some greater purpose than to be repeatedly verbally abused. It's become common place in this family to do so.

So maybe one day like tomorrow I'll vanish. Because I can.

01/28/12 More Efforts

Focusing on the Bay Area for a spell. I wonder how many of these skills that are required have been taught to myself. Wait that last sentence didn't make sense. Uhm... I wonder how many of these skills can be or have been learned by me. Still not good? You get the point right?

Oh well besides that after talking to Adri, I've come to realize that as compared to some of my European equivalents, I'm much more adventurous. At least in the job sense. As I'm willing to apply domestically for jobs instead of limiting myself to the immediate area.

But that's a given. I want to leave here as soon as possible. As I've mentioned previously the psychological and emotional abuse I receive here is very quickly approaching the point where a floor to sleep on and food aren't a worthy balance. Well to be honest I would never have come here if it weren't for the fact that there was food. At least E's place the couch was comfortable. Here I wake up to pains in my back on a daily basis :/

And that'll be the whole of me bitching for the day. Instead I must think of the positives.

I'm not afraid of traveling correct? Yes. Travel agencies apply go!

Well more like I'm sending job applications for EVERY applicable job for the top 5 airlines in the US as well as just about anything that will hire me in the Bay Area. Also putting out feelers in Medina, Philly and interestingly enough Orlando.

Here's to being positive :)

01/27/12 Sleep for the weary

It's not yet 9 P.M. Eastern Time and I'm really really tired :(

I"m really not all that surprised that I'm tired though. Slept kinda late last night and woke up mighty fierce. Which is to say my cat woke me up to the sound of him munching on my bacon bits. This of course is quite unusual for my cat as he gets more than enough to eat. I can only suspect that upon waltzing around my room the surprising and tantalizing smell of meat must have attracted him to perch on my desk.

It's at this time that thinking back on the matter I suspect that my cat was just exploring. He did that cute smacking of his lips and swallowing motion again later in the day. I suspect that while he dreams he is thinking of something tasty and as an autonomous response, his body functions out a few of these tasks.

Asside from this nothing of amazement has happened on my end.

01/26/12 Galeyn's Wrath

The morning air really was getting on the Imperial's nerves. It smelled of dank water, human sewage and the persistent stench of salmon left to rot.

But then again. This is Riften. What more could he have suspected. The mead had flown nicely the night before at the Bee and Barb and now positively hungover from his experience, the young adventurer set out once again in hopes of figuring out the mysteries of being named a Dovahkiin. What was it that the guard had said? Something about visiting the grey-beards? So some old men on the peak of the highest mountain in this frozen wasteland could seriously offer any help for him?

Well it's not like there was any real rush. He'd only survived 2 hit squads a random assassin and stabbed his way through slews of draughr and what must have been a quarter of the population of this province in bandits. But they never seemed to end. And that's not even beginning on the wildlife. Which made him wonder that much more as he began to notice the sheer size of what the locals had called "wolves."

Unlike the roaming individuals found in his native Cyrodill, the wolves of Skyrim were literally huge. Monstrous beasts that grew to the size of small cattle, these creatures hunted in packs. Their size being no worse than their speed and ability to coordinate tagged assaults. But the strangest and most interesting part to Galeyn though was their keen sense of detection and sheer relentlessness. What was it about their physique that made them stay to the frozen tundra lands when areas such as the Rift offered considerably easier prey selections with a fraction of the effort necessary?

Questions like this frequented the young warriors heart. And so he took his vorpral axe in hand and stood a while in thought. There really was no point in staying here much longer. His business with the Guild had thusly past as a success he could only look forward at new prospects in adventures ahead. It wouldn't be a bad idea to visit Whiterun again. His husband Scouts-Many-Marshes would undoubtedly have a delicious homecooked meal ready when he arove.

_bend

Also apparently "arove" isn't a real word. At least this spell check didn't find one. I'm applying for jobs in the San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Cleveland areas. I forsee one of them giving me a hit :)

01/25/12 Skyrim Redux

So yes if you're Steam friends with me, you'd have realized within the last few that I'm on Skyrim again. Why?

Easiest answer. Why not :P

But no on a more serious note, I deleted the local files, my saves and settings and did a full sweep of my laptop. Then I fiddled with the controls a bit and redownloaded a clean version from the steam cloud. To my great happiness the game came out sexily :) And so Galeyn Windcrest is born into the land of the Nords. A rugid Imperial adventurer, he has a liking of 2 handed maces and more than willing slams the might of his Orcish weapons into the unsuspecting skulls of his enemies.

A stealth component of course exists here even if it doesn't make sense to. Rather it would seem he's become quite adept in the shadow arts. Having taken the sign of the thief as his guardian, he creepily moves under the cover of darkness and in doing so becomes an element of the unseen.

I guess there is something to be said that I'm attempting to powerlevel alchemy. I will admit that having the gold my skillups are producing is doing my wallet a most favorable service. Especially if I attempt to acquire more along such lines.

So yes. I'm a crazy gamer.

01/24/12 Feeling Better

Indeed, after a good night's sleep I am indeed feeling much much better. Now just to find a cure for this ache in my back. And be productive.

On another interesting note, a friend opened an opportunity that I had not previously seen. As it would stand Square is presently hiring productive young individuals to do buisness related things for their company. To this I feel that I'm quite capable of being a productive member of their society.

Here's to me then, eh?

01/23/12 Walking

Is generally good for your health. As is all exercise really. I enjoyed a leisurely 45 minute stroll this evening around the neighborhood and made a link on 4square for a location that I will make as my "residence."

It's a lie of course I don't really live in that particular cul-de-sac or however it's spelled. I presently reside in a home that I do not own in conditions that are very pleasant but non-conducive to a positive emotional health stability rating.

I don't have many friends still in the area and oh... totes should mention that my feet are burning at the moment. I normally wear socks and these heavy boots when I walk around but it was a nice evening and my socks were in the washer so I didn't wear them. I was soooo foolish to do such a thing :( So yeah I walked 2.5 ish miles in flipflops. And as you may know, walking in flip flops is bad for people without calluses on their feet. Well I made that up just now but yeah I seemed to have rubbed away a layer of skin from the front of my feet.

It's not hurting badly or anything like that but walking along these hard wood floors is causing this light burning sensation on my feet that aren't very pleasant. I'll live and by morning the pain will have subsided and another layer or 20 of epethlial tissue will have moved outward and replaced what I've lost.

But that's for tomorrow.

Today I was productive enough to my own rights. I don't know whats wrong with my phone sadly and as such I'm still having issues getting it to obey me and send the photos of the food I had in San Jose. Which of course means my food blog keeps getting delayed :/ I WILL FIGURE OUT THIS PHONE!

01/22/12 Pain.

Not the unbearable kind. Only the ones that make me wonder if I'm doing the wrong things at the right times.

Amongst other injuries for today, I gashed my hand for the first time cleaning my beloved santoku. The small cut on my left thumb has long since stopped bleeding, but it's in such an in opportune place that I wonder if it was to be a sign that today would be less than pleasant. It's not even so much a big cut as one that is ever so likely to have the salt and other irritating liquids find seepage into. The other injury to note is that I have a burn on my right pinky finger. I was refilling the tea pot with hot water when the lid from the kettle inopportunely fell upon my hand causing very minor burning.

And though it is most unpleasant, I have already ignored the pain and have moved on to other more pressing concerns but that isn't to much of an issue at the present. Like the fact that I need to get out of here. Like seriously. This place isn't good for my health.

Every day I stay here realize that I'm hurting more and more. It's not a physical pain. It's a mental one. I sit here with my hands next to bandaged. I'm spinning at the moment.

Oh yeah parents invited some people over. Nice enough people.

And yes I had to put up a facade. and my head hurts from downing 3 glasses of wine in quick succession. Considering it's not that much alcohol, I should be fine BUT I'm not ;P I'm rather floating at the moment and I'm not feeling all that great. A side effect of all of the booze undoubtedly. Oh god I'm looping again aren't I?

No I'm not drunk. Far from it. I'm still consciously typing up this blog post aren't I?

01/21/12 Oh god my sinuses

G'day sirs and madams.

I am ill.

With some type of seasonal-varient infection of the nasal passages. I.e. I just made up some words to say that I have a cold at the moment. One that is fucking with my way of life. And one that is making me quite irate over things. I can't breathe. And more importantly my nose is stuffed to high heaven. Which when added to the fact that I sleep on the floor means I suffer from a really bad case of nasal drip caused by the lack of elevation between my nose and the my throat. This also explains why when I wake up from resting, I experience a most unsettling sensation in my nasal passages which I can only safely assume to be caused by the previous.

This is also of course to say that though I have all of this herbal medicine knowledge at my disposal, I am confounded because I've misplaced BOTH of my bottles of Eucalyptus oil. If I had just one of those bottles I could magically make a Steam Inhalation and if not cure my sinus woes, at least I would be in a much less compromising position. Compromising in the sense of general discomfort anyway.

So tomorrow is this big Chinese New Year's celebration that's going to happen. And while the actual day is the 23rd, it's a Monday for us in the states, and I was roped into cooking for it because I'm here. No I don't want to be here. No I really don't. I want to be independent enough to have a place of my own. A job that pays at least slightly higher than a living wage and to be close enough to friends and family to enjoy time with them once in a while.

Oh that's right my throat's been retarded up to late as well. As in it's really really not feeling that well :(

But that's enough of randomness about me being ill. I'll always be like this huh? ANYWAY!

I live. For now.

01/20/12 Pocket Full of Sunshine

And at first I was wondering if it was pocketful or pocket full. And then I realized that I could use either and it wouldn't matter. And so while I'm pretty sure it's "pocketful," I'll say fuck it and go with pocket full. Well the fact remains that I was listening to this song at a time during the start of my typing this blog entry.

I will have to say that I'm talking to several people on the pipe right now. And as such I do appologize if I end up posting this blog post last minute-ish (as in minutes before midnight). Which I don't think I will end up doing but still.

My nose is sniffling at the moment. I'm having a hard time breathing. And worse of all... I think I've come down with what I suppose is a cold. Suspect... Well I have a feeling I caught it on the flight over from San Jose as I wasn't ill in the slightest before I left. Or possibly the culprit is something in this house.

On a different note completely, I'm sleepy. For some reason or another. Like totally super sleepy. :/

01/19/12 Rewind

I want an hourglass. One that will let me rewind time. You see I could care less about undoing past mistakes. Damaging the flow of time would be bad. Very Very bad. Instead yours truly simply wishes to live past experiences again.

Like this time last week, it'd only be 4 o'clock still. I'd be probably wandering around San Jose. It wouldn't be cold just yet and I'd still probably be wearing my Hawaiian attire. *le sigh*

Yeah I need to stop living in the past. The present after all is so much more interesting. Well maybe.

On tonight's menu I got bored and made a soup with a can of beer. No I don't drink beer. I poured a can into the tomato soup I was cooking. I doubt it'll even be notable as a flavor. But that's a different story. It's inclusion as I thought of it during my brilliant planning phase would cause the cellwalls in the canned tomatoes to denature further. Thus as it cooks the consistency of my soup will achieve a sweeter and likely more soft quality that was not present before such.

Of course this could just be me being spewing bullshit as I'm neither gastronomist nor chemist. Instead that which I come up with off the top of my head is likely to be most truthful still.

_intermission over

Back from dinner. I hate organic. These tomatoes were sour as fuck. The beer gave a smoother taste to the soup but the flavor of the tomatoes is still in my mouth :/

01/18/12 Clarify

Clarify

One word that acts as my binding flagstone in these most unfortunate times. Well ok, nothing's really "unfortunate" in my situation. I'm doing quite well if I do say so myself and at the present I'm in a situation that is most deemed appropriate. 

Instead I'm home from my trip to California and though I'm still not over the jetlag, I'm considerably better than before. Which is to say I'm doing perfectly fine.

And if my logic seems mildly or quite circular, it's likely because I need something stronger than this ibuprofen for my back. And though I'm not at the stage where I'd consider shelving out money for a chiropracter, I really am worried that taking more than 2 of these pills at a time will be detrimental to my general health. Ya know all the stories of people who end up getting heart conditions from having taken too many pills? Yeah I'd rather not be one of those people.

Anyway this weekend will be one that I'll ALWAYS remember :) Fondly. Happy memories, friendships forged and renewed. People who've earned a place in my fond wishes.

Yeppers. Love all of those damn bastards I met this past weekend. :)

01/17/12 An End to Travels

An End to Travels

At the time of typing this I’m sitting in Atlanta’s Heartfield-Jackson International airport. And as I sit here, I’m happy to be surrounded by travelers. Others like myself. But I’m happy to be here.

I just got off of a 5ish hour flight from San Jose. I feel a bit icky and my mouth would probably have long dried out if it wasn’t for the fact that I had pre-planned and lazily chewing on some gum. And as I think about it, I probably should have showered at least once during my delay in San Jose. Hot tubbing for a while doesn’t really fix my cleanliness needs but I must admit that the ability to have a lovely soak really is nice. 

I will admit that this airport has been getting shittier and shittier every time I visit it. One year ago when I had come back from San Jose for my first time, I had gotten off what I will argue as my MOST uncomfortable flight ever. That is to say I have yet to be on a flight that is more uncomfortable. (Did I just jinx this flight? Please say I didn’t) But yeah, no free wi-fi. And I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere. I hate that. I guess it’s true that I could easily get off my ass and explore a little. There MUST be something interesting in this area. Well that’s a lie. With Internet I’m at home just about anywhere. And that is why I need my phone to work.

But back to me in the now. I’m sitting here typing my life away again. I’ve just arrived home to an airport that if nothing else, I feel at ease with. A year ago this would have been the first airport I had ever gone back to. And I guess it’s because of that small fact that I’ve traveled to this place as much that I feel so at ease here. I sit here and type away thinking that nothing’s changed. But no one recognizes me. No one looks twice or thinks of anything and I know for a fact that these people could care less for my present status. But then again as a people watcher, it’s my job to be invisible right?

As for my previous several days of entries. I do apologize for the quality of my messages. I realize that many of them are quite short and irregular in nature. This is due to my inability to find free wifi. Well supposedly there was free wifi at the Marriot but having preferred to earn Hilton Honors points I foolishly  persuaded Neil into booking a stay at the San Jose Hilton.

___ rant begin

The San Jose Hilton needs to be closed down. If nothing else the staff needs to be re-educated in customer service. No seriously. How the hell do you REFUSE TO HELP A BLIND PERSON WITH HIS BAGS? Yes I’m serious. This happened. My blind friend Mike was part of my party and during checkout at the San Jose Hilton, the front staff seriously refused to help us get a baggage cart OR help with our bags. We ended up finding some polite convention go-ers to aid us in moving our bags. 

I ended up openly tweeting about the situation to little effect. From an outsider’s point of view, I might seem like a heartless individual who’s attempting to milk a situation for some value. But that’s not really the case is it? In the end, the hotel failed to provide a basic service that I expected when I paid for the room.  I am well aware that during a major checkout at the end of a convention the situation is often hectic and that baggage carts and personnel may be scarce, if not non-existent.

However this is not a roach infested motel in a seedy party of town. This is a downtown convention center hotel. It’s supposed to be able to handle the influx of people. Hell I wish I could have gotten the names of the hotel staff. But we were busy attempting to get our bags out before we were charged for a late checkout. 

In this day and age, can we really not expect our fellow human beings to help us with helping a disabled individual with his bags? 

In the end I am just glad that I was able to persuade some of the convention individuals to aid us. 

I’m still quite irked over the whole matter. What could have been a very nice stay melted into this. This is a farce to the honor of the trust that travelers share with the services that they deserve.

___ Rant over

I’m still here at the airport. I feel useful. And less so every few days. But more so than I would be willing to admit. I burned off my reserve of points in 2 different outlets for this trip. The first being my skymiles, the latter my HH points. My friend Neil was able to get a next to free stay out of all of this and I’m glad for that matter. I hope his stay at the Doubletree is pleasurable if nothing else. Our soak in the hot tub was nice if nothing else. But from his twitter feed, I’ve come to learn that his shower head was sealed shut and that he ended up in a different room. I hope his stay is better. I actually think I’ll complain about it some more. Service with my Hilton group hotels these last few days is just borderline offensive. Well no, not offensive, this is just plain rude.

My plane begins boarding soon. And I should probably pack up while I still have the time. I’ll sit here typing away until the last few minutes.

Boarding now. Type more when I do have internet.

01/16/12 Juan

I met an am amazing story teller today. his name is Juan and he's a bar tender at the 20/50. He's seen and experienced.traveers an dv he's hapoy with his job.

01/15/12 Ruff

Tis my last day in California. And it saddens me some that I must leave this place as I have found happiness with these strangers. Happiness is me with these strangers. Ugh I love to travel too much.

01/14/12 Communist Party

Party hard comrade. I.e I'm going to be dancing so much tonight.

01/13/12 Jaeger

Jaeger is disgusting :( On the otherside, lunch with food today was really good. we had a lovely meal at the Indian place. tandoori Oven as I recall. Tasty place :)

01/12/12 Lemonade

Just something that happens. Enjoying spiked lemonade with my friends. Met some pretty cool people at the time. I love the happiness of being with the memory of all the walking that I've done today.

01/11/12 Food Damn It

I'm hungry :( but safe in San Jose

01/10/12 Travel Jitters.

You ever get one of those feelings? The ones in your legs that keeps you tapping to music that's looping in your head? The kind that drives you crazy but you don't know how to sate it? I have one of those right now. A struggling kind of music that's bouncing in my head and driving my legs to crazy rhythms. I'm feeling one of those right now.

Well that and generalized anger. I hate being here.

I just got another 2 hours of my life wasted away. "Your life sucks." "You're not good for anything." "Look at what you've done with your life: nothing." "Are you even human? You're not worthy of being called a human."

Yep it's shit like this. If the internet could see what I've lived through. If I had the will to just put it all on paper. But what would that garner for me? Sympathy? What is sympathy going to do for me? Nothing that I could use. Sympathy will allow the world to lend an ear. One that I would enjoy. Maybe?

But no this isn't a time for wishing for sympathy. I want results.

Being in this hellhole (it emotionally drains me of life, I survive if only through hatred, which is less living and more existing. What point is there to only exist?). I hate it. I hate it all. I want to leave. And when I realize the resources to. I'm gone. I promise myself that I'll never come back. And that's the final-ness of it all.

We all have those moments don't we?

I want one for good. One where I'll take my journals with me. All the hardships and pains I've lived take them back from the world and take them far far away from here.

I rashly told my father that he didn't know me at all, that I wasn't what he thought or expected or knew. How did he respond? "I don't want to know you at all."

This is my family. In their civilness. In all their miafounded glory. This is my life.

01/09/12 Statements.

I'm sad now. Been waiting a month and a half. And in all of that I was hopeful that I would make a good show of my abilities and capabilities. Sadly it seems it wasn't good enough. Well maybe it's just me who wasn't good enough.

One way or another, I had always left this as a possibility in the back of my mind. That yes I wouldn't get hired. Well it's reasonable to believe isn't it? I wasn't amazing by any standard. That my capabilities as a writer weren't advanced enough to truly garner the worth of things. It would seem that I really don't have much choice but join the military now.

Yeah I guess I'll have to. I have less than a month for another decision to jump out at me. Anything at all. I'd love for there to be some glimmer of hope out there for me.

Of course the navy wasn't my first option. Nor the second, nor the third. But at this time I have little option else.

I have to be positive though. I've lived this long on my own initiative. I've survived this much hardship. I'm not going to let a single email bring me so far down. Yes, it's a setback. Yes, it goes against my plans and makes my day that much less. But I can learn from it. And that's something special.

I can learn from it and from that I can be stronger.

Hell I've been told I might die. I've been told to kill myself because I wasn't worth anything.

It's almost strange. My mind is telling me that I should feel angry/sad/depressed/isolated/alone. Yet I'm strangely numb to all of that.

Maybe it's because I always did know that I wouldn't get it. That such a lucky streak was too good to be true. Too good for me. Like I was meant to wallow in depression for a bit longer before I reach my lowest of lows. One can only move up after such a time right?

And so yes I guess I'm down over the matter. I've had this setback in a long line of setbacks. I've gazed into the maw of the beast and seen my own reflection. But I didn't give a shit. I gripped life and moved forward with everything. I'm stronger for having seen these hardships. And while yes I'm in a chaotic state of debt and my depression really isn't helping matters at all. I live. And that's the most important thing of all.

That I keep living. So I can bitchslap life for hurting me this much. So that I know everything I've lived for this long wasn't wasted. And while no, I didn't make the best decisions. I could have made tons of better choices with my life. Hell I could have been someone else if I changed it all. And/or maybe I would have seen the light and earned something out of it. But that's the past and one doesn't change the past. One changes what will be. No. I hate what has been written thus far about my existence. It's endless word upon words of stuff that hurt when I browse over them. Lines of text stating my faults, my fallicies and most of all my crushed dreams.

But I can learn from it. I have to learn from it all. I need to trust myself. Trust every word I've ever spoken. Stand behind them. That's all that I have right now.

01/08/12 Seething Hate

Trust is a construct of the mind that is earned. You take 1 part practical purpose, 2 parts necessity, and another part experience. When you add them together with a generous helping of time. Well the results are quite nice when they're working. My case being the polar of the norm doesn't fit well.

Also I might be conking out shortly. For I took a few Tylenol PMs for my back. I would have preferred the regular kind, but sadly this house was lacking in those. And as such instead of taking the regular kind I have to risk these that may knock me out at any given moment.

well well well 6 hours later, the PMs are kicking in. all 4 of them are going to town on my sobriety and this one is gonna go pass out.

Good NIght.

01/07/12 Thinking things over

Hi there, My name is Whatever you know me as. I am a compulsive planner. I make ideas and branch said ideas in many tangents. On lines that make no god damn sense at time. But at the same most of what I plan does come to pass and by my own planning, it turns out better than it would otherwise have.

But you see I need to be able to plan. It's one of those things that keeps me sane. Or sane enough for my measure.

I need to be able to find people I depend on. Individuals whom I can talk to and be like: "Yeah I'd feel safe with you around."

As such when I do have to say no to a potential/perspective individual who'd like to room with me. It does hurt me a bit. Because I'm potentially turning away a good friend. But at the same time. Shit's likely to go down if I did let them stay.

01/06/12 And More Pain + Duck

Yes I'm suffering even more pain than before. Like seriously. I was moving my laptop a few hours ago and I was just about to cry from the pain shooting out of my back. I'm still in pain right now, just to give you a perspective. I seriously think I pulled something.

But meh that's just one part of my day. I proceeded to have a scorching hot shower (would have soaked but ran out of hot water about 5 minutes in). I'd like to think that the heat had a beneficial effect on my back. I'm still in pain at the present but that's a different issue. Well not something that I was originally thinking of.

Anyway back to the second part of what I was talking about. I made a really tasty duck. I must say that duck in itself is amazingly fatty for such a small animal. I'm almost scared to think of what would happen should I have wanted to try my hand at cooking goose or swan. Hell the amount of oil from those birds would probably drown anything else I wanted to make.

But yeah. I made a duck tonight. A delicious roast duck. I started with 4 long sprigs of home grown rosemary, and then followed a recipe I saw online. Scored the skin, salted and peppered and stuffed the cavity with half an onion soaked in Pinot Grigio.

After roasting for a few hours, the finished product was quite divine :)

01/05/12 Back

Rather I should note that back in this sense of the word refers to my lumbar region and not simply in reference to returning or something that is behind something else.

As I may have mentioned in a past post some time ago, I have self-diagnosed myself with lumbago. And unlike various other disorders I could have diagnosed myself with. Lumbago is a real disorder that simply is characterized by pain in a specific region, rather than anything more specific as would be found if I had said that I was OCD or possibly some other psychological disorder.

But you see this is simply pain. And while pain is the negative stimulation of nerve endings and what not, mine is characteristically of the chronic varient. Which probably means I either hurt my back doing something or one of my bones is fucked up.

I'd like to think that it's something completely curable. That with a stab in my lower back with a needle or something of the like, I'll scream in pain for a few seconds, breathe and then be ok. But yeah I need something like a miracle to fix my back pain. Well I'd like something to.

Alternatively I could totally just start taking hot baths and see if a strong heat treatment would be suffice to fix my issues.

01/04/12 Meringue

The last 3 days I've been attempting to make the European dessert: Meringue to arguable success.

To be honest I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to taste like. Nor am I completely positive what it's supposed to look like. The first issue is largely because I happened to discover I had an electric beater on hand and really wanted to use it. And while thinking about it noticed several boxes of eggs simply lying about. And TADA! Meringue! As for the second of my issues. I've been following the hundreds if not thousands of pictures of meringues I've discovered online. Which is of course to say that I've been trying to find a recipe that works for me.

:/ And I slant face in general because no I can't find 2 of them that give what I'd consider good advice. I've mastered getting the egg whites to the "soft peak" stage. The stainless steel bowl I'm using has been thoroughly washed, dried and I've added lime juice to help in the binding. There's not a trace of grease anywhere!

I got this amazing foam texture that was soft-peak and then slowly added sugar to it. Baked it at 300 for 10 minutes and it had an amazing color on the outside... And then I cut into it. and... and... it was like soft tofu :(

Yes I'm bitching about that. Because I can bitches.

01/03/12 Dance like you've never danced before.

My title has nothing to do with what I'm thinking of at the moment.

My mind is deeply planning at the moment. Lots of complicated stuff bouncing back and forth and all that jazz.

Sorry for not writing much.

01/02/12 On the second day of the new year

I realized that I'm an ok tank again. I play WoW regularly (well semi-regularly)  and amongst other things I que as a tank because of those satchels of awesome and because tanks are a necessary part of the dynamic of the world of warcraft.


Well the fact that que times are dramatically cut in shreds doesn't hurt. (It's also why I heal with Morgam and in the near future Galeyn).

But that's just random of me. And though I tend to be quite random, random is as random says and random will never make more sense that what randomly randomz.

Today was a bit of a cooking day for me. Dumplings, broiled fish, green tomatoes, tonghao (think the leafy portion of a certain type of chrysanthemum plant). I've been nomming quite a bit because of that and though it's just an equally random thought on the process. Oh and eggplants. So my mom grew a single plant this year. In a pot no less. And as would be expected this plant noted the cold snap and started shitting out eggplants left and right. I ended up with 9 decent sized ones this morning. Sliced in half and steamed for 20 minutes, the finished product was soft and slightly mushy. And the perfect size to be considered a finger food.

When paired with the garlic soy sauce I whipped up, it was quite amazing.


But enough about food. And onto plans. 8ish days? Got planning to do sir. Lots of planning. and then some. Packing too. ARGHITH SO MUCH HAPPENING! SAVE MY SANITY? Oh wait. I don't have to be sane to plan. Nevermind. Carry on good sirs and madams.

01/01/2012 G'day 2012

Ah yes the new day has begun and though it's not like I'm actually sane enough to comprehend it, today is actually the first day of the not so new year of 2012! We haven't only been waiting and contemplating over it for the past what 2->3 years?

And so this is the year that we as mere mortals get the final chance to know if the predictions of a long dead race of peoples are "correct."

I'm not much for the whole 2012 doomsday apocalypse theorem. After all we could in theory be in the matrix or ya know part of some higher being's Sims game. As such since I don't suspect they'll pull the plug for any random reason.


Today was an interesting day. Got 2 hours of highway driving experience under my belt. Happily didn't crash. Had a great bowl of Pho. And was generally quite satisfied with the day.