I may never be hungry again… that might not be a good thing.

Food has always been the limiting factor for me with gaining weight. I was blessed with a metabolism akin to a nuclear reactor, genetics were kind to me. But I do struggle to put on weight because of it. While that may seem like a wonderful problem to have, to most people, it is similarly frustrating to not being able to lose weight. Being skinny is not ideal for guys. As far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s not any better than being overweight. It seems that many girls would rather have a heavy guy than a skinny guy.

Though that part isn’t really a concern for me anymore, I still want to put on weight (muscle, specifically) and that means food. When I was running track in college I ate upward of 6,000 calories a day and used protein and creatine. That was the heaviest I’ve ever been and it was still about 15 pounds shy of where I would like to be. These days I’m not doing nearly the amount of cardio I did then so I don’t need quite as much as I had then, but it’s still going to take a fair amount.

Now I’m not too fanatic about this eating schedule. I will happily replace one of these meals with something else and not really bother to count the calories or protein; but this is roughly the schedule that I intend to follow. It’s six meals a day at three hour intervals with a nine hour break in there for sleeping.

2 cups (cooked) of great northern beans in chicken broth and 1 pint of whole milk
890 calories, 54g of protein

5 oz. can of tuna and 1 cup (cooked) of brown rice
356 calories, 27g of protein

2 tbsp of peanut butter on a slice of whole wheat bread x4 and 1 pint of whole milk
1,320 calories, 64g of protein

Workout around 1 hour after peanut butter meal.

Weight gainer protein supplement and 1 pint of whole milk
352 calories, 44g of protein

3 large eggs, 4 oz. of sausage, and some cheddar cheese in a scramble or burrito.
596 calories, 38g of protein

2 cups (cooked) of great northern beans in chicken broth and 1 pint of whole milk, again
890 calories, 54g of protein

Total for the day
4,404 calories, 281g of protein

These aren’t the only things I eat, of course. I throw things in with them for flavor and variety. But this is the foundation of my diet and eating schedule. I also take a multivitamin. It’s a one-a-day but I break it in half and take it after breakfast and after dinner so I get more out of it.  And I’m probably going to add a creatine cycle in again to speed things along.

I’ve seen the science that says a body can’t absorb more than 30g of protein in a two-hour period, but that either has to be untrue (or at least not universally true) or I’m going to be wasting some protein because 120g a day is doing nothing for me; I’ve actually lost some weight. So I’ll try this for a while and see what happens. I expect it will take a few days for my body to get used to using this much food, but the demand is there so I’m hoping it catches up quick. I’m also hoping this grocery bill doesn’t drive me into poverty. They’re all pretty cheap foods though and I chose them specifically for that reason.

So here’s to building muscle and to becoming so sick of eating that I never want to go to a restaurant again!

In case you were wondering, I’m hungry right now.

Today our two bedroom apartment became a four person apartment.  I have not yet been so motivated to get myself back to South Dakota as I was today.  What’s worse, it happened at about 9 a.m.  For those of you keeping score, you might observe that 9 a.m. for me is right around the time I’m nailing down my 4^th hour of sleep so it’s not my favorite time to have banging about and loud conversation happening on the other side of a shockingly hear-through wall.

On the other hand the gas guy came today which means hot water can now be had by all.  And most importantly by me.  I don’t fancy risking hypothermia every time I shower.  You may laugh and shake your head along with the others, but you don’t have to sit around and shake uncontrollably for twenty minutes after a cold shower or get frighteningly sleepy the second you start to warm up.  You don’t get to criticize me for being skinny and then ignore the perils of skinniness in the same conversation.

Dehydration and vulnerability to heat stroke are on the list as well.  Less body-fat means less insulation and less storage for water and fat-soluble vitamins and minerals.  I live with these conditions and I don’t even expect sympathy; just don’t treat me like they aren’t real because skinniness is idolized.  I wake up with a hangover when I don’t drink enough water through the night and I get sleepy and cranky if I don’t eat regularly because I don’t have any backup energy to burn.

So back off.  Different body type, different issues.  Not perfect, just different.  If you’re going to insist that I eat more, then buy me food.  It isn’t cheap and I eat more than you think.  If you doubt that, pay to feed me for a week some time.  I eat moderate amounts about twice as often as you do when I really have my way, which I rarely do.  I like meat and dairy and eggs and alcohol and soda and I take a multivitamin because getting the proper amount of vitamins and minerals is a hassle and nearly impossible anyway.

Vegans don’t really have the time of day for me.  Atkins proponents, if any have survived, would be utterly horrified by my wanton disregard for carbohydrate regulation.  Though I do prefer complex carbs, so that’s something.

When I was running track in college I was eating  about 8,000 calories a day including creatine and protein supplements.  I managed to gain about five pounds over nine months, most of which was spent intensively lifting weights because my shins utterly failed me after the first semester.  Or perhaps I failed my shins by spending so much time out of shape and then diving into it so hard again.

I don’t feel bad about trying hard.  I do feel bad about putting it off and being so foolish about getting back into it.  I love track.  It is one of my greatest passions and I miss it terribly.  If I could get a job coaching track, even one with crappy pay, it would be a dream come true.  I’ll post some old notes about that in the coming days.

I’m tired and it’s a busy day tomorrow so I’ll give you the CotD and we can part ways.  Today was awesome.  I recommend checking out pretty much all my webcomic links because it was hard to choose.  I went with Penny Arcade because the joke reminds me ever so slightly of the dynamic between me and my roommate of old and possibly again.  And because the facial expressions crack me right up.

Sleep well.  Don’t get into too much trouble.  If you do, share the details so we can all laugh.

Alabama wants their song back, Kentucky Fried Ninnies!

The moving process continues and continually winds down.  Soon there will be nothing left to do but move somewhere else.  Ha.  Haha.  Ha.

One day of heavy lifting remains, but there has been talk of recruiting someone else to help me do it and that will probably take a little time.  Between the help and the rest it should be no big deal.  And if I get horribly maimed in the process I’ll have more time to work on being clever. After all, I’ll have to get there some day.

As I mentioned yesterday I was fiercely hungry all day while we were doing the majority of the moving.  When I get that kind of hungry I find myself craving very specific things, and needing to avoid certain things or my old acid reflux damage will punish me.  The flavor of the day, during lunch anyway, was chicken.

Normally I’m not a tremendous fan of chicken.  I can cook it and do when other people want it; but for myself I’ll usually go with red meat or turkey.  Chicken is always a safe choice when my stomach is being delicate, though.  So we went to KFC.  Not nearly as safe a choice.

Luckily there is a grilled option along with the original and extra crispy, so I got to avoid the  pools of grease trapped inside the nutritionally useless—albeit tasty—breaded and fried skins.  The grilled chicken (ingeniously dubbed “KGC”) was lackluster, dry and marginally well seasoned.  But I was starving so it was at that moment the sweetest nectar ever squeezed from the finest fruit of Demeter’s orchards.

Even so, the mashed potatoes and gravy, though surely not made from potatoes and probably having only the slightest relation to true food-based gravy, were the real star.  I love KFC’s mashed potatoes and gravy.  I probably could have just gotten two pounds of mashed potatoes and gravy and called it lunch.

I also love their biscuits.  With a fiery passion I love their biscuits.  I try to make buttermilk biscuits on my own sometimes, but it’s just never the same.  There’s some synthetic, mass-market, carcinogenic, cholesterol multiplying agent that goes into KFC biscuits that makes them only slightly less addictive and slightly more legal than crack.

Unfortunately these biscuits lacked that.  Had I not been four or five calories above comatose I might have been upset.  Instead I was vaguely disappointed and vowed never again to eat at that KFC.

The “buttery spread” they gave us (only when asked specifically), quite clearly identified as “artificially flavored”, refused to melt even when placed on the hot biscuit.  Instead the mysterious paste sucked all the heat out of the biscuit and was quite possibly responsible for its cardboard-esque flavor and texture.

It was no small wonder that the place had a whopping six customers at 12:30 in the afternoon on a Friday.  Though most businesses here are like there.  There are too many businesses for the population.  You’d think that would be a good thing.  Yay jobs, right?  Except none of those businesses make enough money to pay employees.  Especially with the minimum wage so high the unions have to go straight to six figure salaries for unskilled positions just to maintain their economy-crushingly absurd demands.  So no jobs.

In short, KFC’s sketchy “buttery spread” and disappointing biscuits are ruining the economy.

I almost did a CotD today.  But then I realized it’s technically a Monday post so you’ll just have to wait for tomorrow to see what it is.  I did post the studio comic so you can go check that out instead, if you haven’t already.  Good night, world.

Fortune cookies: Keeping Celiac’s sufferers from knowing the future since 1918.

Today has been a day of opportunities.  Tomorrow will be a day of finding out about those opportunities.  I have to admit that tomorrow sounds more interesting.  But I’ll throw some teasers out for now.

I have an interview tomorrow at a company that offers academic aid and writing services.  The interview is at 10:30 in the morning which those of you who know me know is a solid two hours before I normally begin to form coherent sentences.

I will probably have to walk the 2.5 miles to that interview as well, so cross your fingers for sub-brain-boiling temperatures and non-vehicular-manslaughtering drivers.  Apparently you get shot in this town for taking babies on walks or something so if anyone is concerned for my well-being, feel from to donate some walking about armor.

The other opportunity is phone call away, and I figure that normal business hours would be a better timeframe for that than… now.  I don’t want to jinx that one, but it would be more or less a dream job for me and those who know me would appreciate its proximity to my favorite TV show.  (You’ll still get the details first, Ferret.)

I’m putting a lot of eggs in the “those who know me” basket tonight.  I apologize to everyone else.  Tomorrow I’ll say more about it as I’ll know much more one way or the other.

We ate at China Ginger tonight and I have to say it is some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever had.  Ever.  It was amazing.  Service was prompt and polite, the food came quickly and was fresh and delicious.  The beef in my Mongolian beef was cooked perfectly and that seems so unlikely at an affordable Chinese restaurant that I have never before considered hoping for it.  There was even an extremely optimistic fortune that suggested I would soon have success in the entertainment industry.  We’ve all been down that road before.  Everyone who ignored the “An investment in fruity tech stocks will serve you well” fortunes from 1985 is feeling pretty foolish right now so I say jump in when the tiny slip of paper in the stale, flavorless cookie gives you a green light.

Today’s CotD came through big with flashy language used in silly ways to poke fun at the common theme of modern day gaming and entertainment in general.  Penny Arcade usually delivers good stuff, but today they stood tall among a few other good options and I am rewarding them for it.

I’m tired and I’m supposed to be sleeping, or something, to prepare for my interview.  Catch ya on the flip side.

You know what I’m talking about. You always know.

I have embarked into the untamed wilds of freelance internet writing.  I have dipped a toe in the inky void, stolen a glance into the shadowy labyrinth, and other semi-connected metaphors that suggest menace and mystery.  I have sipped from the cup… and found it lame.  The term “sellout” is far too gracious, but it is applicable.  Not only is it so boring I may resort to selling my bone marrow just for a change of pace, it pays a rate that I don’t know enough derogatory to fully explain.

Basically it sucks.  But it’s writing so it’s still better than anything else I could be doing.  Except possibly coaching track.  All the other good stuff I’d choose is most definitely writing related.  Hopefully this is just a stopgap until I can find a better writer job.  Though if I sat on a street corner scrawling signs on cardboard for homeless people in exchange for the less moldy half of the unfinished sandwich they just found it would run a very real risk of being better than this.

I complain because it amuses me and most likely Ferret and quite possibly other people.  I am genuinely fortunate to have found anything like this and I will squeeze every drop of water possible from this stone to avoid slipping back down the slope.  And I think I’ve used up my entire metaphor quota for the week in mostly non-continuous strings of ideas so I will move on now.

Cheez-Its and strawberries are, at this moment, the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.  Except that one thing that one time.  Since I gave up metaphors I have use hyperbole now.

Instead of music today I’m going to do movie trailers.  Because there are some amazing movies that I want everyone else to hate waiting for with me.

This one is extremely imminent and if it is half as awesome as the trailers make it look, it will blow your mind straight out the back of your head.  So see it with stadium seating or the minds of the people in front of you will get all up in your popcorn and that’s just no good.  Behold, Rocky and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots all rolled in to one, plus Wolverine:

Real Steel October 7, 2011

Here’s another not too far off.  If you didn’t like 300 or Clash of the Titans, you probably won’t like this one.  If you liked either you should check this out.  If you liked them both and thought they both could have done with little more of the other, then you may send your gifts of gratitude directly to me for showing you this:

Immortals November 11, 2011

This franchise has had its ups and downs, and then down a little more.  But I’ve loved it ever since I wandered into the first movie and saw everything I’ve ever wanted from a vampire action movie.  Given it’s a pretty narrow genre, but you put Kate Beckinsale in that outfit and it could be a three hour documentary about a Welsh hermit who makes sculptures out of stale baguettes and I’d still watch it.  Given I’d be paying far more attention to whatever highly contrive component allowed for Kate to be a part of the feature, but I wouldn’t ask too many questions:

Underworld: Awakening January 20, 2012

And last but about six parsecs away from least, we have what is for me the most anticipated franchise reboot since Batman Begins.  There isn’t really much to say about it.  Just watch the trailer and feel the love:

The Amazing Spider-Man July 3, 2012

In case you don’t follow College Humor sketches or don’t understand why the Spider-Man reboot is both essential and hilarious, check this out.

As is the case with most Mondays, choosing a Comic of the Day was tough.  Questionable Content made a fierce bid and since this is the first time they’ve done so since I started being all competitive about it, I put up the link anyway.  But Least I Could Do is the genuine winner because QC’s joke is based on knowing the comic and LICD is just standalone hilarious.  It’s also quite dirty and a touch blasphemous, so beware.

I’m off to rest my poor brain so another day of writing, hopefully with even more writing in it, can begin tomorrow.  Toodles.

We’re going to drop Corki off at Challe’s and end this madness.

I am currently gorging myself on two-bite chocolate brownies from Private Selection.  I thought it said Pirate Collection when I started and I didn’t realize how much of my interest was linked to that misperception because now I’m bored of them.  Lord knows why my brain was okay with any kind of brownie from a Pirate Collection—except perhaps one soaked in rum—but dagnabit I was committed.

There are cheese curds also which I’m told are supposed to squeak but honestly I’m fine that they don’t.  While I am a fan of red meat, I don’t generally look for food so rare it gives me any kind of impression that its begging for its life as I chew.  I’m sure the squeak in question isn’t quite like that; but it amuses me to think so and I have no proof to the contrary on hand.

NaNoWriMo is looming ever nearer (November) which means breakneck, first-draft writing until my eyes bleed is imminent.  Time to get in shape.  I’ve been conditioning my fingers, brain, and keyboard for a few days now in the hopes that I’ll be fully prepared this year for the 1,667 words required each day to hit the 50,000 word mark in a mere 30 days.  I made it last year after a rockin’ start, a woeful slump, and a desperate last ditch effort and I’m hoping to make a repeat with less drama and more useable content.

National Novel Writing Month is really only an event to writers.  But it’s possible that it may interest others to know of its existence.  As mentioned, the single, simple goal is to write 50,000 words between November 1^st and November 30^th.  There are no real rules, it’s an honor system; though you do upload your word count at your leisure to make use of their handy dandy tracking system.  Maybe that sounds easy and maybe you realize how ridiculous a work load that is for all but the most ambitious of full-time writers.  And possibly for the most brilliant savants who pour prose from their pen like money from the wallet of an Apple enthusiast.

I’ve only participated in it once, but it is not easy.  I promise you.  Show up on November 25thish and ask me to edit a paper for you and see how far the shrapnel flies from my exploding brain.  Maintaining a single story line for that long without any outlining or editing is painful, counter-intuitive, and at times heartbreaking.

Unless your entire month is devoted solely to the project, there just isn’t time to let your brain rest and recharge between sessions.  And whether you write it all in one block or broken up throughout the day, you still find yourself spending every waking minute preparing yourself for the next time you face that keyboard.  I lost an “H” key last year.  Here you can see the peg fashioned from toothpicks that’s been faithfully serving the function and confusing people who borrow my computer ever since:

Hopefully no more bits or pieces will fall off the good Baron this year—Baron Catastrophe is my computer’s name—because I’ve got this blog and probably a real job to keep up with as well.  There’s a difference between ruggedly weathered and downright rickety.  Let’s not cross that line, little buddy.  His battery kicked the bucket a while ago so he’s less of a mobile PC and more of a leashed-but-still-semi-mobile PC.

Which is better than poor Narnia back home, sitting there lifeless with her guts exposed to the harsh environment of my (supposedly) vacant room, mysteriously unable to wake from her videoless sleep.  These problems and more—nearly all of them are authentically significant—can be put on the road to rectification if you will kindly go the travel site and do some ad clicking.  Maybe even buy something.  It’s a great time of year to take a vacation, lots of discounts.

And on to the chores.  Today instead of music I’m posting comedy.  Not people getting hit in the balls or an entire dialogue of fart noises funny, not all humor is quite as advanced as you get today, but still pretty good stuff.  Now these first two are kind of awkward funny because they are audition tapes so there are few to no laughs from the audience.  But it’s fun to see Dana Carvey—definitely not sophisticated either, but we can all get a chuckle out of big humor—when he was just starting out, trying to get a job at Saturday Night Live, and you get to see little glimpses of what would become absurdly famous material in the next decade:

Dana Carvey’s SNL Audition, Part 1 of 2

Dana Carvey’s SNL Audition, Part 2 of 2

These next five are most definitely not high class either.  Kristen Wiig is hilarious, beautiful, and fearless when it comes to comedy.  These sketches flatter nothing but her career and that possibly makes them even funnier.  The tiny hands don’t hurt either.  You can thank Ferret for introducing me to Dooneese:

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Spring

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Spring… more

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Mother’s Day

The Lawrence Welk Show Celebrates Winter

The Lawrence Welk Show Says Good Night

If you don’t laugh at those… well nobody is perfect.

Since it’s Saturday the webcomic pickings are pretty slim.  Least I Could Do was pretty funny today despite being mid-plotline so they get the nod.  I’m sure the good folks at Blind Ferret were on the edge of their collective seat waiting for that one to come down.

Sleep well, world.

Tomorrow: Master Tae Kwon Do in four simple steps!

Have you ever had one of those days when you don’t want to give your brain a chance to catch up with you because you don’t know want to know what it has to say?  Whether or not you know why it’s there, dread is hanging out in the dark alley just off Introspection Way and it might be easier to take the long way through your day.  This was one of those days for me.

It happens frequently.  More frequently than it used to.  I used to trot merrily out the streetlights and into the shadows to see what sort of fascinating damage I might have lurking there.  It made useful material for my writing and still does when I can stand to do it now.  But now I know what sorts of things I can expect to find there.  There’s less wonder and more painful memories playing on loop in a dingy theater that goes Hotel California on your ass when you stumble inside.

So what used to be my most productive days are now my curl-up-in-a-mental-cocoon-of-any-and-all-mind-numbing-distractions-lest-I-go-completely-and-genuinely-berserk days.  It takes longer to say it and nothing gets done so it’s a lose-lose situation.  Luckily it isn’t overwhelming most days so I actually get more done than I did when I was writing on pure I-feel-like-it mojo.

Luckily I was invited to attend a happy hour get-together today and a couple pints of Newcastle—or rather a pint of Newcastle and a pint of some other brown ale that the server mistakenly brought me—and a Jim Beam and Coke helped keep at bay the anxiety that was going to be building all night.  We also had a good laugh at the genuinely horrendous service we got at the Sedona Lounge.  They had great happy hour prices, that’s what attracted the decision makers in the group, but we didn’t get much opportunity to take advantage of that.

Our drink orders were taken right away when we were seated… then again by the server who was apparently taking over our table but didn’t know someone else had already done it.  We’d more or less forgotten what we’d ordered by the time the drinks showed up and the rest of our group had showed up as well.  Since the server was already there delivering things he couldn’t quite manage to ignore the new arrivals and they got to order their drinks as well, but he manage to squirt away before we got a food order in.

Luckily someone at the table was hungry enough to shout into the room that she wanted food.  This was met with stunning indifference by both bartenders, the floor manager, and all four servers despite ours being one of five tables actually occupied in the restaurant.  A server we didn’t know and never saw again accidentally walked close enough for us to snag him and demand food.  He found our real server for us and we got to order.

As mentioned, they were packed to the gills with customers so it was totally understandable when our round of appetizers took roughly 30 minutes.  But the food was good when it eventually arrived.  It was about this time that we managed to secure refills for our long empty drinks.  I’m not sure if everyone else got what they ordered, but I did not.  It was still good so no harm done.

For those of you who aren’t involved in foodservice or happy hours in general, it’s a volume business.  They are barely making money, if at all, on the specials and pretty much all they’re selling to their profit is the experience or the possibility that you order something that isn’t discounted.  We all walked out of there stone sober and convinced to not return so the Sedona failed on both counts.  It is the first time I’ve ever received truly awful service and I hardly expected it to come from a place with $30 to $50 entrees on their dinner menu.

For music today I’m going to suggest some stuff that doesn’t tempt the mind to contemplation so much.  Instead we’re going to groovy stuff that makes me sing along and rock out when (I think) nobody can see me.  You’ve heard both of them on the radio, but that doesn’t make them any less good.  This one has a nifty little story in the video that is reminiscent of all kinds of mythology and mostly just fun to watch:

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring

And this one definitely lays on some philosophy, but it’s big idea style philosophy wrapped up in a cuddly package so it doesn’t threaten to shove you headfirst into any of Sorrow by Bad Religion

Today’s CotD winner is Bug.  They definitely deserve some attention this week, it’s not Bug’s fault that everyone else was bringing the thunder.  Today was somewhat thunderless on most fronts and Bug was solid as ever plus some thanks to giggle-worthy art.

Have a good night, team.  I’m off to keep my thoughts at bay until I pass out.

Takin’ care of business…

The move away from useless dog central to fancytown is drawing ever closer.  This is evidenced by the increasingly packed state of the house.  When I move I usually do pretty much all my packing at the last minute.  The reasons for this are two-fold: I don’t own enough crap to be worth the advance preparation and I never know what I’ll want access to in the days leading up to the move.

Today I went down to make some eggs.  Foolish me, I knew all that stuff was packed away and who knows which of the half dozen “kitchen stuff” boxes the frying pans are in.  Some tuna salad would have worked too, but whoops, no mixing bowls (I don’t mess around when I make tuna salad, the whole damn tuna goes in).  At least I have all the stuff for clam chowder, that’s fun and tasty.  Yeah right, there’s no pot, silly head.  So I had toast and almonds.  It wasn’t a bad thing, complex carbs, unsaturated fats, and protein.  Really a pretty decent breakfast.  And my milk hasn’t even gone bad yet.  For some reason that happens about seventeen seconds after you get it home from the store here.

Today is a two-fold attack on Berserker Labs business. I’m going to continue getting back into the drawing groove for the comic.  I’m not terribly talented with a pencil so it’s a rather embarrassing amount of practicing and Creative Suite editing to turn out the artistic marvel I gave you on Sunday.  More in tune with my natural abilities, however, is game design and last night I had a revelation about my science fiction role-playing game “I Dream of Stars.”  That puppy has been balanced precariously on the edge of the stove behind the backburner for quite a while now, too long really.  Watching Firefly last night sparked new inspiration and now it’s time to get it on paper before I forget it all.

Good luck with your endeavors this day, be they fence building or developing the ability to change the fabric of reality.

Mmm mmm good.

I missed the middle of today.  I was awake and up and doing things, but I completely spaced the writing a blog thing.  It’s safe to say that midday posts will probably be hit and miss forever.  But I will be dutiful about the evenings; have no fear.

It’s crazy cat time.  I’m not entirely sure what prompts them to tear around like their little footsies are on fire and there has been plenty of speculation on that very subject.  I believe they are, as a species, victim to sudden and dramatic hallucinations that they either flee or fight, depending on their individual natures.  Other theories are http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/cats-eye/ from one of my favorite comics and http://www.catswhothrowupgrass.com/kill.php.  Both appear to be extremely credible authorities on the subject of feline activity.

Today I watched “The Help”.  It’s good.  I recommend it.  It certainly gains nothing from being seen in a theater, you could wait for DVD.  But don’t forget about it.  I imagine the book is good too, probably better since that’s pretty much always how it works.  Emma Stone is in it and I’ll watch pretty much anything if she’s involved.  We don’t need to go into it, but she’s good stuff.  The movie itself is good too.  The supporting cast is all spot on and the story is funny, beautiful, heartbreaking, and triumphant all at once.  There’s very little grit; it’s definitely a warm fuzzy kind of story.  So don’t go into it expecting any gut-punching social commentary.  But plenty of the outrages are authentically outraging and they acknowledge the darker parts of the civil rights era.  It is based on a novel, not actual events; but by it’s nature there’s not way to be sure it isn’t at least representative of reality.  It certainly feels real.  I recommend it highly.

I cooked a roast this evening, feast your eyes on its wonder:

That isn’t blood, it’s the marinade.  There was a looot of red wine in it.  It may also be some blood.  I prefer red meat cooked on the lesser side of done.  It was marinated for 24 hours in two parts water, one part red wine, garlic powder (fresh would have been better, obviously), fresh onion, salt, pepper, ground cloves, basil, and rosemary.  I accidentally put too much clove in… waaay too much.  But I scooped a fair bit of it out and salvaged the flavor.  It still ended up tasting strongly of clove, but it was a good thing and I recommend it.

I stewed the marinade long enough to cook the onions then chilled it and stuck the meat in it overnight.  Before putting it in the oven I seared both sides in butter and used the 45 seconds it spent on each side in the skillet rubbing in another layer of spices.  This time it was more garlic, salt, pepper, and rosemary as well as cinnamon and crushed red pepper.

The baking happened for 30 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and then I turned the oven down to 200 for another 30 minutes.  At this point you’ll want to poke it to see if it’s done or not.

This isn’t a teaching class so I’m not going to tell you exactly how to tell how done it is.  If you like your meat less done like I do its probably done now even if it feels a little soft still.  If you’re terrified of deliciousness you can leave it in for another 15 to 30 minutes.  If you really want to cook all the flavor out of it you can probably get away with another full hour before eating your giant hockey puck.  When you take it out you’ll want to just leave it sitting for about 15 minutes before cutting.  When you do slice it’ll juice like crazy and look less done than it is.  This is normal, have no fear, and enjoy.

Today’s CotD is near and dear to my heart as all of you who have been reading my midday posts will realize.  Sheldon has a lot of good pet humor and this one http://sheldoncomics.com/archive/110909.html is even more in tune with my bemused hatred of pets that are literally too stupid to survive without the irrational adoration of their owners.  So read it and laugh and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Oooh, those stinkers…

I’ve never been a big pet person.  They’ve often been around; I don’t mind that other people have them.  They’re fun sometimes so other people having them gets me about all the pet I can handle.  That delicate balance of exposure and peace has been utterly shattered.  Twice today the little dogs made their way upstairs.  Once there was poo involved.  Both times Tiny Dumb Dog hid under my bed and crawled all the way to the back.  The whole thing very nearly turned into a Hulk smash incident.

I’m beginning to have more precise suspicions about how the barrier is getting knocked down.  When I returned them to the downstairs the first time the barrier was up, meaning someone must have put it up after the little rats went past.  Shortly after I returned them to their proper place, a certain household resident came through and shortly after that they came trucking on up the stairs and Tiny Dumb Dog motored back under the bed and Little Dumb Dog plopped down to stare at me like I owed her some of my toast and eggs.  Judging by the dramatic increase in my irritation at the second occurrence, if they manage it three times in one day I’ll probably buy a gun.

Today my productive attention will be split between the Jump-Jet sequel and an article for the travel site about the Historic Triangle in Virginia.  The Triangle is three of the oldest historical sites in the United States: Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg.  My interest in American history has never been more than idle but these places are so well maintained and presented that I was entirely fascinated when I visited.  So keep an eye out for the article; you might see something you like.

And now I’m off to get some working out in.  The stationary bike with the resistance cranked way up is keeping my legs happy so far; hopefully it will continue working until it either cools down enough to run outside or we get moved to the place with the workout room.