Important things for New Years Eve

On Saturday, I shoveled the snow even though it wasn't my responsibility because I felt bad about the people sliding around and could use the exercise. Of course, in my first foray into manual labor in years, I acquired myself a nice wound:


This doesn't bother me, except that on Sunday, for whatever reason, a friend of mine decided that we should do a tequila shot, another thing I haven't done in years. I don't mind this either. But by some outstanding coincidence, I had a wound on my hand and did a tequila shot at the same time, and so I PUT SALT ON MY WOUND. I really should've squirted some lime on it for good measure.

So first thing I am going to remember for New Years Eve (and beyond) is to not put salt on my wounds. Literally! (and figuratively.)

Secondly, in addition to shot glasses, this is a reminder to everyone to get 2009 new year's glasses:


This is important because it will be another 91 years before there will be two consecutive zeros again.. They will probably still make new years glasses, but it won't be nearly as elegant.

Kris' Match.com update

I am unfit to give advice, but I dispense it freely anyway. To my roommate, I said: you have to treat her visit like dates eight through twelve. You don't have time for that beginning stuff, you covered all of that on the telephone conversations. You have to go straight for the heavy stuff and figure out if this is going to be worth 2000 miles of separation. And Kris thinks about it and agrees.

So she comes and they hang out basically for four days straight without any real pause. I observe them when I see them, and they seem to get along, though it did not appear, to me, like there was a lot of crazy laughing and fun. Of course, I don't see them the whole time together. She leaves yesterday amidst the crazy snowstorm, and when Kris returns from the airport, he says that it was weird, but that he really liked her. However, he pointed out that it seemed like the whole thing felt very heavy the entire time, that maybe it was because she was in a new place, but she wasn't quite as chatty or spontaneous as he thought she should be.

And it occurred to me that the problem is that they were on dates eight through twelve. You're already settling in a little bit, becoming more comfortable, but the explosive curiosity is over. It's dates one through five that are fun and exciting! So I think my advice was faulty. I said, what you need to do is go to Duluth Minnesota and have a first date. Good thing I figured this out in case I am ever in such a situation.

The Two.

My roommate is meeting a girl he met on Match.com tomorrow. She "winked" at him a month ago today, and she is flying in to Seattle from Duluth, Minnesota tomorrow. It's all quite fascinating, and my roommate and I have discussed and dissected the whole thing to an irreducible state. None of this really matters because she is coming tomorrow, so the only thing left is for the hypotheses to be proven true or false. The upshot, basically, is that if she is not "the one", then he (and she) will probably be disappointed. There have been a lot of strange coincidences concerning this girl (made up, or fate, who can tell?), and although I am vehemently anti-spiritual, I am very pro-perfect girls. Maybe she is perfect. Maybe she is the one. Someone has to be, after all.

However, I was telling my roommate that if she's merely "the two", he really should keep her even if he's initially disappointed. I mean, being able to find the two is pretty amazing. The chances are pretty slim. In the grand scheme of things, the two is pretty damn good. But we all want the one.

I was thinking I, or someone, should write a cautionary allegorical tale, about a guy who is searching for "the one", and he searches really hard, and he finds the three, then he finds the two, and he finds the one, he really does, but he is so into this all-consuming search, that he rejects the one and finds the zero and is left with nothing.

trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me, trick me thrice, go to jail.

I am intrigued by three strikes laws because we have decided to model our legislative system after the game of baseball. It seems rather arbitrary to me, but I suppose whoever invented baseball had good reason for choosing three.

But what about four balls? I think we should all get something if we do four good deeds. We should be given a free bass.

Pizzeria Practice.

We are having a pizza party on Saturday because it is my roommate Aaron's birthday. We are expecting between 40 and 80 people. I am in charge of the pizzas, or at least the dough, and am pretty excited about the first chance to make a large amount of dough at a time. It is good practice for when I one day will have my own pizzeria and need to make dough in massive quantities.

I am going to document the dough making. Usually I make enough dough for about five pizzas. This time I am making enough for thirty. So I got a large bucket with lid. Also, I still have the big sack of bread flour I got from costco. First I made a sponge:



I am unsure how important this really is because the dough ends up sitting around for a week to develop anyway, but I have my routine so I just made my sponge. I have no idea how much of anything I used. I eyeball everything when I make small amounts, but it is hard to eyeball things inside an unfamiliar large bucket. The sponge got nice and yeasty smelling and bubbly the next day. Then I added more flour, water, salt, and yeast:



As you can see, I like to use a ladle to scoop flour out of the sack.

Usually when I make dough, I make the sponge a day before, then in a new bowl I add flour and water together and let it sit (autolyze) for awhile, then add yeast and salt and put it in the mixer to knead for five minutes, and then I throw the sponge in, knead for a couple minutes, and then add water/flour until the consistency seems right to me (pretty wet). Then I separate the dough into the size I want and throw them in the fridge in individual tupperware.

This time, since I don't have a big commercial Hobart mixer, I decided that I don't really need to knead, and I'll just let the yeast do it for me. Also, I decided to just throw everything into the bucket and hope for the best since I only had one bucket and can't do things separately. So into the bucket I added yeast, salt, flour, and water, and mixed it up with my hand. Here it is:



I put the lid on and put it outside to chill and rise and do its thing. Hopefully nobody steals it. I'll check on it in the coming days and have updates...

I don't know how my pizza dough always comes out pretty good, but it does, even though I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm basically banking on the same thing this time. I used to measure everything out with great precision, but my pizzas sucked. So I don't think measuring is very important anymore. I think you just have to wish hard enough for it to be good.

If this works out, I think I'm going to start having dough in a bucket going on all the time. Then I can go pinch off a piece anytime I want pizza. Or I can make bread with it.

Grape Nuts and Carl Jung

I have started to eat Grape Nuts. Every few years, I decide to give Grape Nuts another shot because I keep thinking I'll like them, but then I really don't because they don't taste that good. They still don't taste that good. Additionally, I am reminded that they are difficult to eat because unlike most cereal, they don't float to the top for easy access, and I am just pushing them around on the floor of the bowl with a spoon.

Despite all this, I am going to persevere and eat Grape Nuts. This is because it is part of my new elaborate plan to attract women. Let me explain: in olden days, Grape Nuts were a real man's cereal. A father's cereal. And there is some girl out there who will see me eating Grape Nuts (in public), and be flooded with memories of her happy youth and gallant father. And according to Carl Jung, who gave us the psychological phenomena of both the Electra Complex and Transference, she will fall hopelessly in love with me. Clearly, my plan is foolproof.

Then again, maybe the more palatable and tasty plan is to connect via shared food interests, and Miley Cyrus doesn't like breakfast cereal at all. She prefers S'mores flavor Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts!