Real quick

I just picked up a few episodes of the USA drama White Collar.  The main character/gimmick is a former conman turned FBI agent who, in the first episode, falls into the care of a elderly widow whose late husband apparently has a collection of vintage slim cut suits and skinny ties, which he then becomes the patron of, for what seems like the rest of the show, for no reason.  It is ham-fisted and more than a slight attempt at capturing some of that Mad Men aesthetic.  I’m not buying it.

Toodle oo

~HLC

It has been a year

My esteemed colleagues:

My progress report:

Since I began this weblog a year ago, as of the day before last, I believe I have sought only the best words to place in it.  Thank you for reading my meanderings.  Today’s adventure in poultry defense, I believe, helps keep up that illustrious goal of bringing light to the darkness of the internet.

I feel our young one is still a rebel child.  There are still people here doing things that I would not have.  But this last year has taught me to be strong in the face of utter contempt.  We can bring discipline to our little angel, and before it is all over, make a woman out of her yet.

to the little girl who knows not the world into which… she… steps?

I issued something of a challenge, and so as a man of my honor, I’ll put this upstart in her place.  The gauntlet was laid down last night for Thanksgiving turkey.  For those of you lost in the mix, it is my task to evaluate the sophistication of the applied dish.  Enough theatrics, Let’s get down to brass tacks.

I’ve been revisiting my old friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as of late, so we are going to, if I may, Holmes this shit out.  For ‘when we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’

see you thought.... but I meant....

Turkey.  Simple enough, and holiday appropo for the Shermans I’ll certainly be around soon enough.  Roast turkey.  Let us assume that there is stuffing.  Placing complete dishes inside other complete dishes is a slippery slope, and is quite obviously unsophisticated.  Let this be an axiom from here on.  Example C (inside of B (inside of A))) included here.  I’ll not really entertain any argument you have contrary to this assertion.

But the turkey (sans the stuffing) is another issue.  The roast bird is the chosen dish of holiday feasting since, well, at least the western renaissance, and in many cultures since ancient times.  But more than that it carries a certain idealistic connotation.  It brings us all back to Bob Cratchet and Tiny Tim.  If a food item is longed for by commoners, I believe it can be regarded as a relatively exclusive food, at least of those times.  And even today, if I wanted a roast turkey, on say June 1, where would I go?  No, the roast bird is a being of festivity and festivity alone.  It reserves itself for the times of family and jubilation.  It knows where it belongs, and is therefore always welcome.  I submit that these reasons qualify it for sophistication.

Going against the turkey’s sophistication is primarily, its utter simplicity.  Any dolt with a heat source can finish a roast turkey to a satisfactory degree.  Tres facile.  On the other hand, this also belies a certain elegance.  Nothing is taken from the turkey, nothing is given, save some butter to help retain its own humours and oils.

I’ll not tarry about, 350 words is more than enough on this subject.  The turkey passes!

~M. Canard

cyberous troubles

It would appear these technological wonders are finally starting to turn against me.  Firefox refuses to load, and I am left to wander the internet helpless and without bookmarks, picture tabs, or embedded itunes controls.  This has upset more than I should let it.  I’m blinded and hobbled in a land where I have no friends.  My only guide has been tragically lost, and I feel like Safari is akin to asking local townsfolk for help.  I mean it gets the job done, albeit inconsistently, and certainly not the intrepid assistant with whom I began my journey.

I’m in a sort of purgatory at the moment, with all my belongings elsewhere and myself living out of suitcases, like a door-to-door salesman or low class business official.  This very morning, I fortunately do have any engagements until lunch because it turns out I have sent every single pair of trousers in my current possession away to be laundered.  So I will sit this day around the parlour, pantsless and unable to do anything about it for several hours.  How obscene of me.  What’s more obscene is how pleased I am with myself for having done so.

Anyway my point is that with the internet fouled up and no other recourse, I’ve had to find new things to entertain myself.  In this case it is some old things, I suppose.

I sincerely hope you have as strange and wonderful a Sunday as I plan to have,

~HLC

TV Spotlight: It’s Halfway Through Fall Already?

I found this season of Mad Men overwhelmingly satisfying, especially after all the active work I put into getting there.

New shows to tolerate:

Community – Best new comedy of the season?  I dunno, pickings are slim.  But it’s pretty good.  That guy with the white hair is pretty funny.

V – My desire: enthrall me where Battlestar Galactica failed to do so.  My prediction:  it will not.  But the first episode was pretty good, although it seemed more like “They Live” than the original series.

Glee – I gave it another shot, and it is not terrible.  The music is, it is mostly 90’s and 00’s pop songs with that dreadful ‘musical theater bravado’ spun onto them.  But there is some decent dark comedy in there occasionally.  Upgrade from ‘triple sell’ to a ‘don’t buy.’

Apparently people are watching Cougar Town?  I’ll weigh in on that sometime.

Tick tock

I’ve, as typical, not given this personal and public online diary enough food recently, so I hope this isn’t too saccharine.  I’ve had some busy weeks.  Most of you know about my new living arrangements by now, so I will simply say the relocation is nearly complete and I shall be home in my new home soon.  I have given notice at my current employment and will bear out into the dark unknown of unemployment, let us hope briefly, near the end of this month.  Ah, November.  The month of changing leaves and revolution.  Alteration is the flavour in my mouth now.  I will bid acquaintances and old friends alike goodbye, and I shall pack my things in my rucksack and stride out.  Again.  The first time didn’t take so well.  But I suppose that is why we live so long, to have enough time to give it another go.

I’m thinking, albeit discreetly, about career changes.  A lifetime in one discipline is, to be frank, a low trait.  I’m a proud man of science, but I strive to be the everyman, who has, let us say broader horizons.  Flexibility is the truth behind a youthful vigor.  So I’ve been thinking for a long time  about it, pondering the choices I’ve made and have yet to make.  We’ll see.

I believe a time ago a friend made a request.  Mine are almost entirely silly videos because I am, due to circumstances out of my control, unable to read.  And as such EIT is probably the top site for absurdism.  Watch this if you don’t believe me.

The next few weeks and months might be -ahem- trying.  So if I have an extended leave of absence from this blog, please check the gutters and ditches around your immediate area to ensure my life and health.  I’m glad I can count on all of you.

~HLC

Quarantine part 2

Well with day 1 in the books, I drifted off to a semi-sleep state at about 4 in the afternoon and remained there about 12 hours.  Fever dreams returned, and I imagined that there was a bubbling liquid all around me, that sort of transformed into my bed-sheet at times (you can imagine my hallucinations all seem to coincide with me tangling with my bed linens).  It was pretty bizarre, and filled with the same squirmy, hot/cold, non-sleep I had most of the day.  Until a certain point.  At some time during the night, all the weird dreams and discomfort just faded.  I was sleeping soundly, and I knew it.  It was great.  So great, in fact, that I woke up to find I had not only fallen off the bed, but was completely turned around.  And, of course, my fever had broken and I was already on the mend.

That last part stands a bit to the contrary of my earlier insistence on H1N1.  Well, technically speaking H1N1 is just a flu designation that swineflu inhabits as novel, but I’m not here to split hairs.  Swineflu is normally a full weeklong malaise.  Mine lasted 1 day, or three if you count mild symptoms.  So either a) I have a supernatural immune system and they should bottle my blood as a cure-all, or b) The thing that I had was seasonal flu and not swineflu.

By today, a full 3 days after all that nonsense, I am right as rain again.  Well, maybe a slight cough, but no worse for wear, other than an overstocked medecine cabinet and chicken soup supply.

Quarantine!!

I was feeling slightly under the weather yesterday, and went to sleep early.  And so, at 4am this morning, I began my adventure into the magnificent experience that is H1N1.  Perhaps I should start from the beginning.

Early this week, I had a relatively minor incident in which I was exposed to a lungfull of methylene chloride vapours, a chemical with which I have had run-ins with in the past.  It set me back a bit, and I was breathing strangely for about a day.  However, I suspect this foreign entity probably occupied my typically iron-strong immune system enough to allow the virus to gain a foothold on my precious vital organs, because by the next day, I believe tuesday, I was already feeling symptomatic, albeit functional.  I apologise in advance for my overuse of the tired ‘pathogenic illness can be thought of as a war between your body and the pathogen’ metaphor.

As I was saying, I bedded for the night with the intention of gaining a few extra hours of sleep, giving my body time to combat the forces of disease and pestilence.  It would seem some landmark battles were fought and lost from my side, because I awoke at about 3:45am with a case of the old “voiding from both ends” nonsense.  Those of you with shared experiences surely know of what I speak.  From there, I attempted some sort of half awake half asleep resting period until about midday.  This is where the fever dreams started.

The way I experienced it, fever dreams are not actually dreams.  More like… well how can I put it?  A series of feelings and mild hallucinations that serve to discomfort.  Mine had the unfortunate aspect of being themed in the most recent television show I have been watching (don’t act surprised) Flash Forward.  As it already has a overabundance of interweaving storylines, it might have actually ruined the show for me.  Time will tell.  Also I became convinced that there was a second bedsheet that was trying to consume me.  But I seem to have prevailed against it before I woke up.

The worst thing about the flu, I think, is the combination of muscle aches and the inability to control my perceived body temperature.  My eyes are swimming in my head right now, and it hurts to even do anything but stare straight forward, but also I’m burning up.  5 minutes from now, I will be chilly.

Well there is nothing to do in my self enforced quarantine except watch hulu and play my game boy.  And I guess write blog posts.  Symptoms last up to a week, but as I’ve said before, my body is a rock and I hope to pull out of it by the weekend.

To your health!

~HLC

P.S.  If you have had contact with me in the last week or so, you either gave this to me or risked getting it from me.  I give you warning now.  You can probably go to a hospital and get your shot or whatever, or man through it like me.

Octobre

Il ya des choses intéressantes qui se passent, mais il n’est pas nécessaire d’en débattre ici.

Those who read other facets know that I was captivated by certain food item, and I would like to show my appreciation for it here.  The Floridian Gypsy Toast at First Watch was a truly transcendental experience.  Strawberries, Bananas, and Kiwi all on top of the toast, with a fresh blueberry syrup?  My goodness, are any of those things actually from Florida?  I think Florida is just trying to steal the idea of fruit from everyone.

So I haven’t had any good posts this month, I know.  I don’t apologise.  That is of low class.  Who is in charge of this thing, you or I?  And besides I doubt you would up and leave our little project together after just one month of inactivity.  After all we’ve been through?  Anyway I hope you don’t leave, it means the world to me that you stick around.

Some of you know about Lemon Guy, and my interactions with him, but here is the untold story.  His Story.

Lemon Guy stumbled a bit as he pulled himself around the bar.  He had been working double shifts every day for half the week. The gig at Harry’s Bar and Tables wasn’t exactly easy on the constitution, but until his photography took off, he would continue to plug away at it.  The place is lit like a movie theatre, he’ll probably need to get his eyes checked every year, until his coke-bottle glasses are no longer an ironic accoutrement.  The space is cramped and dingy, and he is forced to constantly serve hipsters who undertip, if they tip at all.  At least the P&L bars have a dress code, you know?

L.G. wishes he was working indoors tonight, for several reasons.  The clientele on the patio are generally about 30% louder and rambunctious, shouting toward the passersby on the street.  Also, he has his little spot inside, where he can stand in the nook between the bar and the divider into the tabled window room.  It’s a great vantage because you can see the entire clientele and more or less doze while on the job.  Third, and probably the chief reason is that Sonja is helping out the keep tonight.  She makes this place worth it.  A light in the darkness, that one.

L.G. obviously has never expressed this to her, but it’s generally been hidden away in every joke he’s made to her, every sarcastic comment about a customer, holding his tray up over his face to hide it from any potential clientele that have both the ability and desire to read lips in a bar at 10:30 at night.  It would be impolite to do otherwise.

Alas, L.G. has to cart his drink orders into the less-than-crisp, mid-September evening where everyone knows that the humidity is finally at an end and just before fall brings the jacket-and-scarf wearers out of the woodwork.  L.G. delivers a round of Stella Artois to what appears to be a first date (Harry’s sees a lot of misfired first dates, as it is more of a gentlemen’s cigar and scotch locale than a martini bar.  The result is generally awkward), and a bevy of Bud Lites to the polo shirted young men who seem to be there solely to flirt with drunken bachelorette party stragglers (who typically drink the expensive martinis and are tolerated for that reason).

And then, this little prick at table 32 gives him the business.  L.G. inquires about a third or fourth or fifth round for this small little group of semi-regulars, and this guy tells him that ‘he’ll get his drink at the bar.’  L.G. can’t just fire off at this cretin, so he plays hurt, and makes his friends feel the shame for him.

The night wore on, and the cretin sheepishly dipped extra for the tip as a way to make amends for the faux pas, and L.G. got out of the patio just in time to bid Sonja goodbye as she went off to wherever she goes.  L.G. found himself thinking more and more that maybe the life of the bar server wasn’t as bad as it seems.  If he just has to deal with the occasional drunken customer with no sense of propriety, and if he gets to see his dream girl every night, then everything else will probably work itself out.

Good night my friends,

HLC

Hooooooo boy

So summer has come to a close.  Celebrities died.  Other celebrities interrupted other other celebrities as the heat bore down on them from an unrelenting sun.  I’ve seen the last stragglers in my small circle of friends escape their youths and begin the long slow march of a life worth living.  Old wars were fought.  I heard some new music.  I discovered some old music I was unaware I would enjoy.  I traveled to a far away land or two, whether advertant or accidental.  I saw old friends, met new ones, and fell asleep a couple of times.  It was hot, but it never got unbearable.  I traveled.  I stayed home.  I celebrated.  I commiserated.  I felt lonely.  I felt included.  I felt kind.  I felt condescending.  I felt condescended to.  The human experience, all in one microcosm of a season.

I shall strive to make this a better weblog.  The goings-on of my family and personal life have been neither appropriate, nor interesting to include in their own specific entries.  My mother, bless her soul, purchased a large screen television.  I made an attempt to get her to watch Mad Men, only to be thwarted by various external forces, forces that may or may not include a possible reference to a certain non-standard coitive practice that shall remain nameless out of respect for the reader.  Also, I had the chance to visit the house of my youth (Castle Point, Essex.  Remember?).  The carpet and walls have both been removed, for a more modern appearance.  I can’t say I like it.  I’m planning a big move in the vicinity of soon, and that is all I will say about that.

Spotlight Stuff:  Tried to watch Glee and Modern Family.  Couldn’t finish an episode of either.  I’m watching Royal Pains right now, mostly out of boredom.  It is basically Burn Notice, only with doctor stuff instead of spy stuff, and with a sort of Entourage-like mentality that absolutely nothing bad will ever happen to the protagonists.  Emmys were pretty standard fair, everything was doled out pretty evenly between 30 Rock and Mad Men.  Bryan Cranston is great.  Heroes, you finally re-lost me.  Fuller, I gave you a full 6 episodes to win me back.  It just never materialized.  sorry.  Better luck next time.

Later y’all,

~HLC