Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

It seems only fitting that at 11:30 on a Friday night while my few best friends (they being a youthful lot with time, energy and money to spend) are at Galloping Ghost, I should be at home, digesting a few thousand calories of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, wearing sweat pants, drinking a couple fingers of Evan Williams, listening to Philip Glass. In other words…I am ready to give you my thoughts of Ernest Cline’s first novel, Ready Player One.

Why not?

Why not revive this blog that I, apparently, started in 2007, and have been neglecting ever since?

Seems as though my last post was in summer of aught-nine, which is over two years ago. Both a lot and a whole lot of nothing has happened in that time, and rather than hurt myself trying to recall anything of interest that has occurred in that time, I’ll just skip straight forward to the contemporary banality I am calling life these days, and then maybe touch upon the things you can possibly expect on here if I ever actually start posting here again on a semi-consistent basis.

Chorizo stuffed jalapeno and poblano peppers

This originated as a throw-together meal with leftover ingredients from my last batch of chili. It came out, ok, but with definite room for improvement.* Today I made take two and it came out substancially better.

INGREDIENTS

2 large cans of whole tomatoes in puree
1 can of tomato puree
1 lb. chorizo
1/2 lb. chihuahua cheese
1-2 medium onions
1-2 bunches cilantro
4 poblano peppers
7 jalapeno peppers

This all probably cost about $15.

UPDATE

I am still alive. This blog, not so much. Quick recap: After a year of living with my mother in-law and brother in-law, the wife, baby, cat and myself have moved. We are now fully ensconced in our new place and absolutely loving every second of it. The one major downfall to our new living situation, though, is that our computer access is shit now. We are using an old Frankenstein’s Monster of a desktop I threw together, complete with a power supply that does not fit in the case properly so the cord has to come out of the side of the case which means the case has to remain with the side panel off. Normally not a big deal. Heck, it’s better for cooling, except the power supply is touchy and if the cord gets jostled the computer shuts down…so that means steady, stable internet is limited to my iPod touch, which is a miraculous device, btw.

My iPod does have the WordPress app and now that I have “hacked” my way onto my work’s wireless network, I may start posting during my break.

Actually, I am kinda sorta trying to maybe work on dipping my toe into the podcast pool. Unfortunately, the mic I have (old Plantoronics headset) is not compatible with my recording device (iPod), so once I get a mic, perhaps expect me to start posting podcasts instead of trying to type this silly horseshit out.

Summation of Billy Corgan live in studio on Q101

Radio host: “Billy, tell me how great you are.”

Billy Corgan: “I am pretty great and I am responsible for ever good piece of music ever written.”

Radio host: “I completely agree with you.”

Billy Corgan: “Of course you do.”

This Is The Thing You Should Do To Some London Broil

We went shopping yesterday and found an immaculate deal on two gigantic slabs of beef.

EXTREME BEEF VALUE

Typical London Broil wisdom says marinate it in carbolic acid for a few weeks, grill it, cut it excruciatingly thin against the grain of the connective tissue and there is your meal.

Not me, though.

I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel. A tough cut of meat is a war, and braising is my weapon…not acidic marinades. Here I will describe – with visual aids, my favorite method for cooking large blocks of cheap red meat.

Blackhawks fire Denis Savard – Joel Quenneville takes over.

After a 1-2-1 start this season, the Chicago Blackhawks have made a coaching change, ousting Denis Savard and inserting Joel Quenneville as head coach.

I am ok with this move. Savard has never impressed me as a coach and Quenneville has his name on the Cup and has taken 2 teams to the playoffs, including 7 straight appearances by the St. Louis Blues.

Breaking news on Blog Internetz is brought to you by the fact that my daughter is preoccupied watching Finding Nemo and I had 10 minutes to hear about this and write about it.

EXCITING

4 days ago was the 3rd anniversary of me getting married. To celebrate, the wife and I are spending our first night alone together away from our lovely little baby who, at 19 months, I guess is not really a little baby anymore…but still…it has been 19 months since we both spent a night without a baby monitor at our side.

So off we go in 15 hours or so to a lovely resort where we stayed the night of our wedding. We get champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and spa amenities and crackers and cheese and a couple free drinks at the bar and a 30 minute couples massage. We are also going to go a fancy seafood restaurant and eat over priced seafood and drink overpirced alcohol.

I am really kinda dreading being away from my little girl for a night, but given the shit that we have gone through recently, I am really looking forward to a day alone with the wifey to blow all types of money we shouldn’t be blowing on things we shouldn’t be blowing it on.

ECONOMY!

Big Nothing (2006)

So sometimes you just happen upon something on a cable movie channel that piques your interest. For me, anything with Simon Pegg piques my interest. Typically, it is Hot Fuzz in HD. I try to watch it at least once a week, and STARS usually obliges. Last night, though, we were getting ready to watch They Live on Showtime and prior to it, there was a commercial for this movie with Simon Pegg and David Schwimmer called Big Nothing. We set ourselves a recording and just got done watching it.

This movie is fun as hell. I won’t try to paint you a picture of what happens because this caper/heist/mystery film is somewhat convoluted. Not in a The Big Sleep (original) kinda way where you can watch it a million times and never be sure of who is doing what and why…more of an Oceans 11 (remake) kinda way…where they tell you what is going to happen the whole time and it is never believable, but you believe it and enjoy it anyway.

It surprised me quite a bit. Watch for this on cable or go rent it. Well worth your time.

IMDb

The X Files – I Want To Believe

Anyone who was hitherto unaware of my nerdom can now be informed of that fact when I admit to having been (and being) a huge fan of the X Files. While I could easily write on for hours about why I loved the show so much, I will try to keep it in my pants and paint a brief thumbnail sketch of the show for anyone who is, unfortunately, unfamiliar.

The show follows two FBI agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who are assigned to the “X Files” of the FBI which are cases that have gone unsolved or have otherwise defied logical, scientific explanation. Fox Mulder, who joined the FBI as a top notch psychological profiler, has earned a bad reputation among his peers for his belief and investigation of the paranormal. While his methods are frowned upon, his results are most certainly not, as Fox more often than not is able to solve the previously unsolved cases. So the Bureau assigns Dana Scully to the X Files to “work with” Mulder. Her real assignment is to apply her sound scientific background and medical training to Mulder’s work…in essence, she is there to debunk his theories and provide tangible, hard evidence to support their findings. From there, the two went on to investigate and solve myriad bizarre phenomenon, many of which could be traced back to the growing mythology of the series that involved a US government conspiracy and cover-up about the existence of extra terrestrial life.

The show branches off into so many wonderful directions over the course of it’s 9 seasons, but the underlying theme of the show was always faith. Faith in the government, in the church, in science and in one’s self. It was my faith in the creators and writers of the show that had me giddy with anticipation about the franchise’s second full length feature film, I Want To Believe, which premiered for American moviegoers on July 25th.