Month: January 2004

I got all ambitious and decided to buy some tortillas at the grocery store tonight (why yes, I did get my Superbowl shopping done tonight so I wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of humanity this weekend, on, let’s face it, the first of the month when all the government checks get direct deposited. Having survived on unemployment for most of 2002 and half of 2003, I certainly do not look down my nose at those who rely on those checks. However, I don’t like to share the aisles and cash registers with not only the Superbowl shoppers but the folks doing a month’s worth of grocery shopping.

Anyway, I got the tortillas because they were on sale, and I picked up some shredded Mexican cheese (some blend, I don’t know if it’s as good as just plain old Monterey jack), picante sauce and sour cream. The picante (“New York City!”) sauce and sour cream were needed for the frozen Taquitos I bought for our Superbowl snacking pleasure. But I decided to use some of the leftover cooked chicken I had at home to make some quesadillas. Cause they make them at lunch sometimes and the chicken and sweet onion quesadillas are my new favorite food in the cafeteria.

I was doing well until I opened the jar of picante sauce we had left in the fridge and SLICED MY THUMB OPEN WITH A HUNK OF DRIED SALSA-STUFF ON THE EDGE OF THE JAR. Oh ya, that is EXACTLY what I was hoping would happen. See? I try to actually cook dinner, and cook something I’ve never cooked before, and I end up on injured reserve.

Granted, the quesadilla was top notch, but was it worth the Arthur Band-Aid I’m now sporting?

Um, ya.

Thanks for the heads-up, but I didn’t send anyone at your organization an email with a virus. There is nobody named “Jack” or “Dan” at my domain. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but these things spoof headers, sort of like spam.

Do me a favor and turn off the “autoreply” function until this is all over, would you? I’m getting as many of the stupid bounce messages (real ones, not the faked virus containing ones) as I am getting the virus. Don’t complain about the amount of bandwidth this is taking up until you realize that you are contributing to it in a 1:1 ratio.

This goes to my ISP as well. Do you REALLY think I don’t have virus protection software and I sent myself a copy of the virus? Someone somewhere had my email address on their system, and that person was goofy enough to open an infected attachment. Suddenly my domain is free to be used by the stupid virus. Thanks loads. I enjoy clearing out my inbox every 20 minutes.

Just turn off the autoresponder, nobody out there really believes “Jim from Amazon.com” sent them a copy of the virus. And if they think it, they probably think it’s okay to click on random attachments in emails.

In an effort to cheer me up (because I read web sites as if the owner was writing to me and only me), James Lileks posted this gem today:

“I should note that I rarely buy books – I work at a newspaper, which is a cornucopia of free reading material. You cannot imagine the heaps of stuff shoveled from the book room every day. I always want to take young writers to the book room and show them the mountains of books – unread, to say nothing of unreviewed. This is what you’re up against. And this doesn’t included the sixty billion paperbacks printed every year, half of which are pulped and set to Japan to make toilet paper. That’s right: the end result of most American author’s labors ends up hanging on a roll in a karaoke bar in a Tokyo suburb.”

Oh, hey, thanks! That’s what I needed to inspire me! I should point out that his own books (save the Regrettable Food one) are out of print which stinks because it’s been a pain in the arse for me to track them down to buy them. And I have, at least two of them.

So combine the toilet paper thing with him confirming that store clerks judge me based on things I buy. Great. The day I swung into Shaws to ONLY purchase items for Junior to take to Kindergarten AND daycare for his birthday treats…oh fantastic. Two trays of mini cupcakes and a couple of boxes of donut holes? Would you like anything in a salt to go with that sugar and fat? I hope I didn’t throw a National Enquirer on the belt with those items, but I might have. “Yes, cashier-person, I do have quite the evening planned!”

I had a great idea for a book that I was going to have to self-publish (which is an entirely different beast these days, very little outlay for the author) because nobody in their right mind would want to publish it, but I decided I didn’t want to write that book. Too close to home. Too much potential to get all serious and stuff. I have to come up with something else – my goal is to write it and then do the self-publish thing because then I can say “Yes, I wrote a book” and it takes the pressure off for the second one. Right?

I approached myself carefully…I didn’t want to startled any of my cells. I thought I had the upper hand but my skin had the last laugh. No matter how much lotion I applied, my skin remained itchy and dry, with a big ugly smirk on its face.

Eucerin, you are no match for MY winter skin! With weeks of subzero temps and what felt like negative humidity, I think we’re all lucky to not become spontanious combustion victims.

“What happened to Jim?”

“He scooted his butt over on the couch to let Diane sit down and burst into flames. He was so dry he just went up in seconds.”

If I were rich I would designate one bathtub in my mansion to be kept full of lotion, and twice a day I’d just jump in for a quick pick-me-up.

I have a theory. You see, a few days ago we had warnings from the National Weather Goons that there was a big storm coming. Over a foot in some areas – maybe pushing 2 feet. Ooooh, a storm! A storm! We’d better go stock up at the grocery store, it’s a french toast emergency!

Except it didn’t snow. Well, it snowed…is snowing…but when I got up today expecting my damned foot of snow, there was what we like to call “a dusting”. About the amount of powdered sugar you put on gingerbread. You could remove it from the car with one deep breath.

So here’s my theory…the local grocery stores are in cahoots with the National Weather Cartel.

Shaws: Hello, Weather People?

WP: Yes, it’s us, the weather people.

Shaws: Ya, we’ve got an aisle full of bread that expires on Thursday. What can you give us?

WP: Well, would a foot of snow work for you?

Shaws: Perfect. Can you start the predictions early so we get an extra day of panic in?

WP: Sure! You want wind or ice to go with that?

Shaws: No, snow is enough. If you predict ice some folks will be too afraid to leave the house for fear of getting caught in it.

WP: Gotcha. So we’ll predict 12-20 inches of snow, and over the next few days we’ll reduce the predicted amounts to 2-4 inches.

Shaws: Great! I’ll have Hood drop off extra cases of milk too.

Some of us go to the grocery store because we have to…because we’re out of bananas or cheese or those little cups of peaches that Junior likes to take in his lunch. I do not need to deal with you people who need 17 bags of groceries to “get through” a day of snow.