Personal

My dear friend Kit is biking for clean air, which benefits the American Lung Association. I gotta recommend sponsoring her, even if she’s pretending to be some kind of a wacky Alaskan hobbit in the first chunk of that entry. Um, wacky Alaskan mutant hobbit pursued by Sentinels, I think. Don’t ask me. And now that I’ve highlighted a good cause, I’ll highlight a selfish one: I’m gonna go ahead and get that Stratfor subscription cause hey, why not? I have six bucks in the donation fund right now (someone else sent me five bucks), and I am not in any way dependent on donations to get the subscription, but if you wanna kick in some cash then go right ahead.

I got another bit of spam today, entitled “bryant, mountain view lender with 4.5% low interest rates”. The body of the spam was this: Envy, spit thy gall; Plot, work, contrive; create new fallacies, Teem from thy Womb each minute a black Traitor, Whose blood and thoughts have twins conception: Study to act deeds yet unchronicled, Cast native Monsters in the molds of Men, This is an excerpt from A most pleasant comedy of Mucedorus the King’s son of Valentia, and Amadine, the King’s daughter or Arragon, Act V Scene II. It is attributed to Shakespeare, but this is apocryphal. I must say, my spammers choose interesting texts. ...

I’m in Harvard Square, near the Pit, listening to a not bad band pound out the Rolling Stones at full electrified volume. I walked through the Yard just now, and looked up at the third floor of Weld, and realized I wanted to record it. It’s odd; I remember Weld so distinctly, but that was onlu Harvard Summer School, and freshman year in the Yard has faded. I blame Jeanie and Fern. How else? ...

The other day, I was debating the legality of entering my apartment without prior notice with my landlord when my neighbor got home. My neighbor is French; I don’t know the first thing about him other than that. He’s quiet. My landlord gave up on our conversation, and started haranguing my neighbor about speaking French. “Don’t go speaking French around here! I don’t like what France has been doing!” I wimped out; I didn’t tell him that my neighbor had every right to speak French if he wanted. ...

Despite it all, I took some time this weekend to have a nice quiet breakfast and so forth, and since I broke away from my Neighborhood Diner obsession I thought I’d take note of it. Also, I wanted to write about something peaceful. I went down to the Rosebud Diner in Davis Square, since I needed to pick up comics anyhow. I hadn’t been so impressed by it last time I went there, but this time I got the steak omelette and man that was the right choice. Fairly tender steak and lots of cheese, and I’m sure it says something about me that meat and cheese together make up most of my ideal meals. The coffee, well… the great thing about the Rosebud is that you don’t so much have to worry about the coffee, cause when you’re done with the meal you can saunter on down to the Someday and veg out for hours on comfy chairs drinking quality black manna. Very nice. ...

I’m not normally much on the wishlist thing but if anyone out there is overcome with the desire to blow a few thousand bucks on me? Get me this (original). I can’t even begin to express how much I want this object. Wait, that’s a lie. I can easily express how much I want this object: less than five thousand dollars worth of want. I gotta say, this whole “money” concept is a very clever invention.

This is the obligatory “wow, look at all that darned snow” entry. You’ve been warned. My driveway is snowed in so I can’t go anywhere so I have nothing better to do than to take pictures of the white stuff on the ground. I am comforted in the knowledge that various and sundry back in California will go “Wow, it must really suck to live out there.” Ha! I have a fireplace and a roaring fire going. Shows what they know. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Thumbnails follow, they link to bigger pictures, you know the drill.

Well, crap. US Airways lost my reservation. No Dundracon for me. Damn it. I’m really pissed off but I don’t feel like ranting.

I’m sort of having trouble wrapping my mind around this one. I just got my birthday gifts from my Mom. Among them was something I was actually given thirty-three years ago: a pair of gold diaper pins from Tiffany & Co. with my initials monogrammed on them. Inside the little Tiffany box is a note: “For Bryant, with love from Uncle Alex.” That’s apparently Alex Haley; yeah, the one who wrote Roots. (Not actually my uncle.) ...

Warning: this may be disturbing to real cooks. Or not. I really have no idea. My aunt, blessed be her name, gave me a rice cooker for Christmas. It has a no-stick pot so it’s super easy to wash. You don’t have to pay attention to it while you’re cooking something. It rocks. I made rice and put some beans in and it was great. So then I decided to try something else. There’s a rumor floating around out there that you can cook meat in it. Mmm, steamed chicken! So I cut up some chicken and some sausage, and put some olive oil into the bottom of the pot, and turned it on. When the oil heated up, I threw in the chicken and sausage and stir fried it a little till I got bored. Then I dumped in a bunch of rice and some water and a can of black beans and a few random spices that were probably past their expiration date, and closed the lid, and made myself go into the living room to read comics. ...