End of the "Naughties"

Aaah, the close of another decade.
Soon, we'll all be enjoying that "new decade smell" or whatever you want to call it.

Some places in the world are already enjoying the new decade, I hope they're being careful with it, don't spill champagne all over it now. It's brand new, for cryin' out loud! Some people... sheesh.

I don't know who originally coined the phrase "The Naughties" for this past decade, but whomever they are, I tip my hat to them. Well, my proverbial hat anyway. That was just brilliant. I can't come up with one for the 10's... let's hope someone is already on that because "the tens" kind of sucks.

I know you probably came here expecting me to throw out some soul-searching remembrances of the past year, but meh. I'm not in that mood today. No, I'm looking forward to the future. Bring on the new year and a new start. A fresh decade for a new beginning. You know, after that month of writing the wrong year on everything. Came close to writing 20010 yesterday... yeah, I shouldn't be looking THAT far into the future.

So, today's post is short but sweet. Whoever you are and wherever you live, here's hoping for a wonderful new year. Celebrate safe, and I'll see you in "the tens."

Tennies?
The Aught Tens?
Yeah, I suck at that. Come on "Naughties" Genius! We need you!

My Christmas Gift to My Twitter Friends

Since I just got finished making a batch (it's cooling on the table now) I thought I'd share a favorite recipe with you. Merry Christmas. Don't blame me if you can't stop eating it. I can't.

Caramel Puffcorn

Preheat oven to 250 degrees (121c)
1 deep saucepan
wire whisk
1 aluminum roasting pan
Wax paper

Ingredients:
1 16 oz (large) bag of your favorite Puffcorn snack. Butter flavored works best.

Carmel sauce:
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter or margarine
1 C. Brown Sugar
1/2 C. Light Corn Syrup
1 tsp Baking Soda

In saucepan, melt butter, then add brown sugar and corn syrup. Cook over medium/high heat for 2 minutes until uniformly mixed. Add baking soda. It will foam up as you mix, at this point I use a whisk to stir it up. Mix for about 1 minute.

Dump bag of puffcorn in to roasting pan, pour sauce over corn and mix well.

Place in oven for 45 minutes, mixing every 10 minutes or so.

Spread out wax paper and spread mixture on paper to cool and harden. Once set, after about 30 minutes or so, break up any large clumps.

Recipe can be doubled safely, after that there's not much mixing room in a standard roasting pan.

Enjoy.

I think mine's ready. :-)

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

Hello again,

So today turned out to be a pretty interesting day after all. I was sick of working in the HellRoom, (HellRoom, "Collector of THINGS") I was tired, hungry and ready to start dinner. One problem though, I had to go to the store to get stuff to make dinner. Dinner does not magically appear unless you order it first and pay ridiculous delivery fees.

Fine.

I put on my shoes and coat and left the house. On my way to the car, I noticed an old man, probably in his early 60's, maybe younger, he didn't look like the type to have had an easy life. Anyway, he was staggering his way through the snow and wasn't breaking any speed records on the way. He was coming from the store and had 2 grocery bags. He was wearing sneakers, blue jeans and a silver, springtime windbreaker. It was padded, but not nearly enough considering it's 10 degrees.

I got in the car and pulled out of the driveway and was attempting to navigate around him when I noticed he was flagging me down. First thought? Great... the rummy wants some cash. I couldn't just blow by him, so I pulled over and rolled down the window. "What's up?" I asked, in a kind of annoyed voice.

"I just had a stroke 2 weeks ago and I'm having a real hard time, can I please get a ride home? Its not far."

So not what I expected.

I thought for a second, decided I could take him in a fight if it turned out to be bullshit, then I opened the door and let him in.

I pulled the car around in the intersection and headed towards his house. We talked on the way there. His speech was slightly slurred but he spoke clearly, albeit quietly. I caught myself asking him to repeat himself a few times, and felt badly about it because it was my deaf ass having problems, not him. He told me that his brother couldn't or wouldn't take him to the store and that he was really hurting as a result of his trek. He thanked me several several times for picking him up and was practically in tears when, about a mile and a half down the road, we pulled into his driveway. He apologized for not having a couple of dollars to offer me for the ride, I told him not to worry about it and wished him well, told him to take care of himself. He shook my hand and said "God bless you, man. I really appreciate your help."

I offered to give him a hand with his bags but he climbed out saying that he had it. He got out of the car and made his way up the driveway. I waited until he got up on his porch before I backed out.

This was a truly nice guy who needed a hand and I was glad that I put my initial impressions aside and was able to help him out. I never got his name, but I hope he will be ok.

Oh and I went to the store, came home and made tacos. Just in case you were wondering.

Of course they were awesome.

Bad Wiring

Hello again.

So I'm sitting here, typing this out on my Apple MacBook that I've had for several years now and am now officially in love with again. My MacBook was suffering for quite a long time with a horrible case of narcolepsy. It was suffering, I, on the other hand, was livid. Completely random failures are infuriating to begin with, but this thing threw in a serious case of "bad timing" with it.

I'd hit "enter" after typing in my password on my bank website, sleep.  I'm 5 GB into a 5.5 GB file transfer to my network drive, sleep. Sometimes it would go weeks without a hiccup, other times it would be in such a hurry to go back to sleep it wouldn't even finish waking all the way up from me pounding on the keyboard.

There were more than a few times this thing almost wound up being a silicon slick in the middle of the highway.

I suppose I could have taken it in to Apple and had them fix it for about half the cost it would take to buy a new one, but I don't have that kind of money, so I lived with it.

I did some digging though and found what I was 99.9% sure was the problem. A faulty sensor, the one that can tell when you close the lid. I scraped up my pennies and eventually ordered the part from iFixIt.com. I got the part sooner than expected and within 1 hour my MacBook was cured.

Now, if only my brain worked like that. (How's THAT for a segue?)

I've realized just how hard-wired I am when it comes to certain things, and just how crossed some of those wires are. This entry, for example. Every time I type out "Hello" (including that one) I stick a W on the end. Hellow. Why? What is that all about? The first one I can understand, but I knew what I was going to say in this paragraph, and I did it anyway? In my head I guess "Hello" is spelled H-E-L-L-O-W-Backspace.

Another quirk is how I will be watching something on TV and talk back to the voiceover guy.  Let's say I'm watching some medical show and the announcer says something like "He suffered a severe compound fracture of his right leg." to which I will reply "As opposed to a mild compound fracture." Or a show like Cops: "He was found to be illegally in possession of stolen merchandise" as opposed to being legally in possession of stolen merchandise. And so on. Again, it's automatic. Even if I don't say it  I'm thinking it.

 I retain lots of stupid crap too. I can't remember my mom's birthday, but I can sure remember a line from Monty Python or some obscure thing someone said to me once. Here's a lovely example that is just perfect for the holidays:

Many years ago, an old girlfriend of mine used the term "missile tits" to describe the unusually perky parts of another woman's anatomy. I never heard that term before, or I think since, used by anyone. I DON'T EVEN USE IT. I don't even think about using it... until...  I was at the store and they were playing Christmas music on the overhead. The song in particular was "I'll Be Home For Christmas" -

some of you have already figured out where I'm going with this... congratulations, you're on my level.

I'm happily strolling through the store, pushing my cart and quietly singing along...

"please have snow... and missile tits" Wait, WHAT? It was automatic. I was glad I was singing quietly to myself. Why would my brain sabotage one of my favorite holiday songs like that? It doesn't even rhyme. Now every time I hear that song, that's the line I have in my head. Its stuck like glue.

Oh there are more, but I really don't want to make myself look like any more of a whack-job. I think I have a bad sensor too and I doubt iFixIt has any of those in stock. I guess I'll just live with it.

Jobs

So have you ever looked at something, or been taking something apart and wonder about the people who made that thing in the first place? What it must be like? What that job might entail? How happy and/or miserable the people doing the job are? I do that all the time. Especially if the thing I am looking at is made in some far-off land, and is particularly cheap and superfluous,  I wonder what these people must think of us.

Yes, really.

I guess that's why two of my favorite shows on T.V. are "Dirty Jobs" and "How It's Made."

Yesterday, I had the distinct displeasure of de-lighting a pre-lit Christmas tree. We bought this thing 4-5 years ago thinking it was a great idea. No messing with lights, just pull it out and start decorating. The first couple of seasons, it was that easy and I loved it. Then, the inevitable started happening... bulbs started breaking, burning out, etc. It was pretty sad looking. You think finding the bad bulb that kills half your string of lights is hard enough, try it on a tangled mess that is a pre-lit tree.

So there I was, the three sections of my tree laid out in front of me. My original thought was to remove the lights, get them working again and possibly use them elsewhere in the house. Noble idea, right? Recycle, reuse, save the world kind of thinking.

That lasted about 10 minutes. Then the wire cutters came out.

Even with wire cutters, it took me over 2 hours of struggling labor to get those stupid fucking lights off that damn tree. Needless to say, my budding holiday spirit was taking a serious beating by the time I was done. Towards the end, I was snatching mutilated sections of used-to-be Christmas lights from the tree like I was a warrior snatching the beating heart from the chest of his enemy. There can be only one.

Finally, I was finished. Fake pine needles everywhere, a pile of segmented lights at my feet. I was victorious.

But you know? The only thing that kept running through my mind was the worker that did that job so well in the first place, and it probably only took him or her 15 minutes. Let me tell you, that was some serious good work. If I look at a string of lights too long, they get tangled. This person managed to twist the lights around branches and TIE KNOTS with it to keep them in place. ON PURPOSE. I've never in my life tied a knot in a string of lights with the intention of doing so. Oh and did I mention that this wasn't your ordinary, straight string of lights? Oh no, it had funky splits in the wiring so it (I imagine, I'm not going all "forensic files" on Christmas lights)  made a big loop. It was amazing to behold, and I compliment whoever did it on a job well done. I'm sorry I had to forcibly cut the fruits of your labor from my tree and crush it under my boot, but sometimes you get to be the tree, sometimes you get to be the dog.

Or something like that.