What's wrong with a little boredom?

Lack of updates. Life has totally stagnated. I have eaten ham and swiss sandwiches for lunch for the past week or so. Dinner varies by the sauce I put on my tilapia which comes from a giant frozen bag. Yes, I know. My culinary inventiveness is astounding.

I have been..."relaxing" for my vacation. Lets just say most days there is no reason to get out of my pajamas and robe. Hooray microfleece.

So in all my free time I have been watching tv shows that everyone has already seen and whatever movies are on Netflix to watch instantly.
Lost, Star Trek: The Original Series, Where the Wild Things Are, Daybreakers, The Girlfriend Experience, Bart Got A Room.

I suppose I'd recommend all of them depending on your mood and preferences. Star Trek is pretty great. I'd never watched the originals before and I love it. Escapism is nice. I never really noticed before how I have the habit of knowing about things that I've never seen or experienced. It's just odd.

I've watched so much crap on tv, my friend tells me I am losing brain cells. Jersey Shore, Maury, CSI: Miami. Oh god where does it end. So many movies too. It seems like everything has a happy ending.

I've been reading too. Trying to balance out the death of my mind from watching Jersey Shore (yes it is that bad/good). Got another Anthony Bourdain book. This one is just a collection of his articles, which may actually be more entertaining than some of his books. Then again, even those are in an almost episodic format, more collections of stories than progressive novels. Regardless, I love that man. He speaks to me in ways that so few individuals do. Anytime I read his writing it ends up reminding me of my brief time as a dishwasher. It was hard, nasty work that payed little. I think I loved it. I don't know if I would enjoy his writing as much if I didn't know exactly what he was talking about most of the time.

Class starts tomorrow. I didn't do any of the things I told myself I was going to do over break. Which isn't surprising, as I didn't really expect anything to happen. I'm thinking about taking my camera around more though. Bulky bugger that it is, maybe it'll be worth it. I still need to get those skyline photos I've been dreaming about. Even if it does mean trespassing on some millionaires property. Surely they won't mind, right?

What in the name of reverse Porky's is going on here?

Been awhile, I see. I've been busy. I have a life you know.

Not much in the way of new food or drink lately. So unless you'd like a review of the various Totino's pizza bite flavors, I can probably skip a lot. I will however say that the Trader Joe's Indian tv dinners are surprisingly tasty. Nowhere near as good as going to a restaurant or making it myself, but it's very good for a tv dinner. For as many tv dinners as I have eaten my time, I pretty much despise the things. Whether it be rubbery fried chicken, rubbery salisbury steak, or potatoes that taste like nothing at all, I find them to all be pretty nasty, though undoubtedly convenient. The pizza variety of things are not so bad because the only real ingredients are cheese and preserved sauce and meats, which just so happen to be the ingredients in most regular pizzas also.

But anyway, I went to a tea tasting a week or two ago that was pretty interesting. I love food combinations, or pairings or whatever you want to call it. Tea paired with food much the same way wine generally is. The fact that teas were really quite good, and the food was surprisingly good and varied. The concept is very nice and I really want to go for brunch sometime where they pair the whole meal. I have never really thought about the whole complementary foods concept before beyond that some things taste good together, but in depth its pretty interesting. Makes me want to yell science and start experimenting. Cooking all kinds of delicious items, and comparing their effects on the taste buds. All in the name of science.

Lunch today at Sawicki's was super tasty. I haven't had a sandwich that good in a long time, and not just because I make crappy sandwiches. Warm beef, papas frites, and aioli sauce, on a crusty baguette, soo good. The only thing I've had to even compare it with was at Les Halles. I could have done with the beef being a little rarer, but it was delicious all the same. I think I had been craving something like it without really knowing it. Plus, Decatur isn't so crappy during the day, kinda. It was enjoyable to walk around anyway.

They had magazines on the table at Sawicki's. Food magazines. With pictures. It was like food porn. One had a huge article on lamb. I have never wanted to kill a sheep so badly before. Everything just looked so good. I've never cooked lamb before and I'd really like to try it. I'm thinking after finals I will just go buy a ton of lamb and cook every possible thing with it until I'm good at it. I feel like I'm a good cook, but the reality is probably more that I'm just not picky. No one ever compliments me on my food, and that's a pretty obvious sign. I'm deluding myself here, but maybe it also has to do with the fact that I cook a lot of the same things over again for myself, but always try new things when I cook for others. The more realistic option is that I am just a bad cook.

I'm trying to recall anything else remotely worth mentioning. Beer! Oh, how could I forget you beer? I am currently sampling the Trader Joe's 2009 Vintage Ale. And it is...meh. I feel like it is missing some depth of flavor, perhaps to appeal to the more casual (hippy) customers that frequent the place. Not to say its bad. It's a fairly dark ale with a bit of malty flavor but not so much the cocoa, lemon or ginger promised by those little cards they put on the shelf to describe it. 9% though so not all bad, and reasonably priced (I think around $5 for the big pint bottle). I think it's certainly good for a casual drink, or maybe drinking a lot, but I think I'll pass on it next time around, unless its to see if it actually does get better with a year or two of aging (also on the little card).

Out and about with a sad lack of dolphin trainers

Went to Prickly Pear and Ri Ra's last night. Had enchiladas at Prickly Pear, which turned out to actually be pretty good. I got carnitas with their mole sauce. Mole sauce was good but a little heavy on the bbq flavor, though still pretty sweet. Would have again. Mango margaritas also quite tasty. Little sweet though.

Ri Ra's was, well it was Ri-Ra's. Guinness plus Smithwicks plus Newcastle. No dolphin trainers this time though. As it turns out, you can stay at a bar for 3 hours and not talk to anyone you haven't met before. The live music there is pretty enjoyable, however, well most of it anyway. For some strange reason, it seems to sound better the longer we stay. Weird, yeah?

As it turns out, Thursday seems to be the only night I didn't go out, or do something. Monday at Cypress. Tuesday trivia at Twisted Taco. Wednesday Zoey brought wine for South Park. I feel like I never do anything, but the facts seem to indicate otherwise.

And tonight I'm....blogging. Well, possibly still doing something, assuming I'm ever allowed to leave this place. Had dinner at Zolas. Man is that place good. Had some mussels and rigatoni. Oh man those mussels were good. Garlic + Capers + some kinda cream sauce = oh man I can't believe this came off the sea floor.

I ate lightly and now I'm hungry for some tofu. We'll see if that pans out.

The Epic Intro

So...test? I suppose. We'll just see how this nonsense goes. Recently I've decided that writing more would not be such a bad thing for me. Also cooking, art, going out, exercise. Ok, maybe anything would not be such a bad thing for me at this point. Does anyone else enjoy when two lines of text match up almost exactly, on accident? But then when you post it the formatting is always just different enough to mess it up.

So plans.
I'd like to post about my food outings. I'd not go anywhere near as far enough as to call myself a foodie, but I do enjoy food. Ok, maybe I'm just fat. But I like trying new things, love cooking, and a good meal is something to be enjoyed.

I've been taking way more pictures lately, so I suppose I could post that.

Otherwise the happenings in my life? No thats not really interesting enough. One word posts consisting of "Test" "Homework" and "Booze" would probably not be worth posting. The thought also just occurred to me to divide at least a couple of these things up into separate blogs. Then again I have enough problems staying consistent with one thing.

I suppose, it's just a wait and see adventure now.
Aren't you just dying of the anticipation?
Yeah, I didn't think so.