Listomania! You call this food? Pt 2

Time for part 2 of my list of 5 least favorite foods. In today's installment I give you the remainder of my list:

#3: Raisins - Aside from the fact that it looks like a dead bug and probably has a very similar consistency (I assume this fact having never intentionally eaten a bug), raisins are basically rotten fruit. Take a grape, leave it out in the sun for a few days and VOILA! you have raisins. Why would I want that?

I feel very similarily toward "sun-dried" tomoatoes. I'm fairly certain they only call them "sun-dried" because calling them what they are, "fell off the vine and were left in the dirt only to be picked up a few days later" tomatoes, is very hard to market to people, let alone fit on a package.

#2: Beef Liver - I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you will be with me on this one. I don't think I have to explain much here. It's organ meat. Not only is it organ meat but it's an organ that filters toxins. Not only is it an organ that filters toxins but it's an organ from an animal that has a disease named after an angry version of itself. All that being said, I will devour a porterhouse steak so I guess a cow can't be all bad. I just won't eat their organs or drink their...
 

Listomania! You Call This Food?

For a long time I’ve been toying with the idea of posting lists to this blog. Yep I’m one of those people. You know, the person who spends arguably too much time putting lists together before starting any actual work. In my defense though I pose this question: how can you get anything done if you don’t know what you need to do? If you expect me to simply remember it you’re living in a dream world!

I admit though, my list-love goes a bit further than a simple “to-do this weekend” type of list. One year I maintained a list of every album I purchased. It ended up being over 60. I also started a list of my top 100 songs of all time. I never finished that one because it was constantly changing. I’ve also maintained a list over the past several years detailing every book I’ve read and, I hesitate to admit, I’ve also given each book a letter grade. My wife and I recently put together a list of all the projects we would like to get done around the house. Yep, she’s a “lister” too. It’s probably why we ended up getting married. Though she's not as list crazy as I am. That's why we're still married! (among many other reasons)

As I recall she had her own list when we met 8 years ago. Her's was a list of attributes that, in a perfect world, she was looking for in a husband and I’m pretty sure I nailed most of them. Accept for the only child part and S’s in the

A Bone To Pick

As the title of this post suggests, I have a bone to pick and it's with the month of February. I have issues with this month. It's nothing personal per se, I mean the month has never done anything to me directly and honestly one day I may find some redeeming qualities in February, more on that later, but right now I have some problems. It's not a long list, it's just two things, but they're enough to provoke me to finally sit down and get it off my chest with the hopes of being able to move forward with the month.

My first beef is the smaller of the two beefs. It's like a cow-sized complaint vs, oh I don't know, a bull-sized complaint if we want to keep with the whole beef metaphor. Anyway the first issue I have is with the weird length of the month. If we have all these months with 31 days why not just take a couple of the extra days from those months, give them to

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out Kid!

It's officially Christmas in our house now. At least in my book. Technically speaking our house has had decorations up since the first week of November when we hosted our annual "First Christmas Party" for our closest friends but tonight we brought home our Christmas tree. I'm not talking about one of those fake plastic trees that Radiohead sang about but a for-realsy tree.

For me that's when Christmas really starts. Nothing says Christmas like letting a fir tree slowly die in your front room. Really a weird tradition when you think about it but I love it. I grew up with live, I mean dying, trees at Christmas and if at all possible it's a tradition that I want to pass on to my son. That smell when you walk in the house after a long day...that's the best.

Obviously Christmas is much more than a tree, there are a lot of other wonderful traditions that make this time of year the best. Everybody thinks of Church pageants, houses festooned with lights (yep, I just used the word festooned), and of course the biggie, Christmas music! I've been listening to Christmas music since the day after Halloween. It's a necessity

Injury Report Status - Questionable

Injuries are inevitable. Everybody gets injured at some point. Most people can't go a week without some sort of injury. Some are just minor annoyances. Something like a paper cut. It's rare that a paper cut turns out to be life threatening but they are definitely annoying. I once got a paper cut when licking an envelope...that was seriously annoying. Along with those are the ones that are simply really infuriating. Like when you smack your head on something or bite your tongue. Biting the tongue ranks up there with one of the most irritating injuries you can inflict upon yourself. Think about it, your tongue never leaves your mouth, it's always in the same spot, you know exactly how it and the rest of your mouth functions yet you can still manage to get it between your teeth right when you bite down on that potato chip. Then you just feel like an idiot. I mean what can you say, "Gee I didn't realize my tongue was in my mouth while I was eating, darn!" No you can't, all you can do is feel dumb...and irritated.

Other times you might be afflicted by a more serious injury but hopefully it happens when you are doing something really cool or, I don't know, saving a baby from a burning building. Sports injuries fall into this category. They can be seriously painful but you have a really cool back story that you can share.

"Dan, why are you on crutches?"

"Well," says Dan, "I sprained my ankle last night in my hockey game."

"No way!" says the interested friend. "What happened?"

"I was on a two on one breakaway with my line mate and he passed the puck behind me so I twisted and reached backwards to try to slide the puck in the net. When I did that both feet went out from under me and I ended up going horizontal in the air and slammed feet first into the boards behind the net. Hence, severely twisted ankle."

That's actually a true story and one of my better ones. At least from the

You've Got Handwritten Mail

I heard on the news tonight that, on average, a person receives a handwritten letter in the mail once every 7 weeks. I can attest to the fact that I certainly don't meet that average. A handwritten letter is incredibly rare around here. Take away some cards I recently received in the mail for my birthday and I can't remember the last letter or card I received.

I remember shortly after high school I had a number of friends move away for various reasons and we used to write letters and send postcards to one another. Granted, we were all guys so it wasn't like we did it a lot but it was at least consistent. Then email happened and the pencil and paper collected dust.

It's kind of a shame really. There's just something about a handwritten letter. I kind of miss it.  Even something as simple as the sound of a pen or pencil scratching away on a piece of paper is much more interesting and authentic than the click-clacking of a keyboard. And if you really get in to it, there's an endless array of stationery and writing utensils to choose from. Heck you could go old school and get yourself a fountain pen and take handwritten letters to a whole different level. Find yourself some parchment and you're really hardcore.

Autumn? I've heard others talk of such a thing.

Last Friday (9/23) was apparently the first day of Fall. Some people called it the beginning of "Autumn". Here in Phoenix we called it... Friday. When it's 100+ degrees outside the last thing you think about is "fall".

If you live in the Valley of the Sun long enough though you get accustomed to our seasons. We don't have 4 like most of the country, I mean why would you need four of them? That's really twice as many as is necessary. In Phoenix we have two. The first season is known as "Extreme Summer" and it lasts from May until September, sometimes longer. It's a fascinating season. You can do things during that time of year that you can do at no other time. Like what you ask? Well, let me just tell you. If you would like you can bake cookies in your car. You can fry an egg on your hood. You can make sun tea in 3 minutes. If you want to test your inner strength you can get the mail barefoot. It's the same as one of those coal walks without the pesky need for chopping wood and waiting hooooours for it to burn down to coals. And while you're doing the "grab the mail" coal walk you can kill another bird by getting an instant tan at the same time. The great thing about all these is that they are all huge money savers! It's like extreme couponing without the paper cuts! Win-win really.

The description or name of the other season is a little more ambiguous. It just sort of creeps up on you without any fanfare. You realize that last Thursday it was hot and this Thursday, well it's not quite as hot. And before you know it it's 71 and you're looking for a long sleeve hoody because it's "freezing" outside. At least that's what I do.

The other main difference between Extreme Summer and the rest of the year, other than the less hotness of it, is the light. The light is different in the non-extreme part of the year. During the summer the sun beats down mercilessly directly overhead and then all of a sudden one day it's still 108 but the sun is shinning in through your side window in your car and your left thigh feels like it's melting. That's when you know it's fall. Not when the temperature changes. No that's not a good test at all. The real difference comes down to the light and shadows. The fact that you actually have a shadow is the real key.

Maybe instead of Groundhog Day we need another holiday around the end of September. Something with a coyote or a snake or something. We'll take the coyote (or the snake) and shove it out a door into the sun. If the unsuspecting creature sees his shadow then we know the season has changed. If he instantly bursts into flames then it's still Extreme Summer.

I guess that's what it boils down to when it comes to seasons here. Either it's coyotes-burst-into-flames-in-the-sun season or it's not.

I'm glad we're moving into the non creature burning season. It's my favorite.