Month: July 2018

From here.

1. When were you recently SOL?
   I took Friday off from work because Bruce Cockburn played two shows here for the first time in his 50+ year career.  I had a few errands to run in the morning and took the opportunity to have lunch downtown.  Now that I work in Manoa, I’m almost never downtown on a weekday for lunch anymore and I miss it.  As I passed through this one sandwich spot off Fort Street Mall, I was lured by the digital sign saying the sandwich of the week was a roasted chicken and goat cheese sandwich  with curry mayo.  Sold!  But not really.  It had been last week’s sandwich of the week, and they hadn’t changed the sign yet.  Great.  I ordered instead a half turkey-bacon-avo sandwich on sourdough that would have been decent but it was so messy I had to eat it with a knife and fork.
2. What was a recent SNAFU?
   Friday I discovered that I didn’t have seven tickets for the Saturday show; I had eight.  Woo.  Sent a few texts to friends who’d probably be interested, but they had family plans.  When I invited the third person on my list, she seemed interested but then I didn’t hear back from her all day Friday, despite my text every few hours.  Ugh.  Now I had this extra ticket, an invitation just hanging out there, and time running out to find a new plan if this person declined.  When I finally heard back Saturday afternoon, my friend said she was bringing her dad.  It was kind of messed up but I refused to worry about it, and it mostly worked out fine.
3. From what social gathering were you most recently AWOL?
   I planned to get lunch on a work day with a couple of former coworkers at the engineering firm.  But I was working against a deadline so I had to bail.  The friends decided not to meet anyway once I was out.
4. When has someone reminded you to MYOB?
   I make a huge effort to stay out of other people’s stuff unless it looks like people need help and I might be able to offer it.  When I was in Walmart several months ago to get a micro SD card, the woman in front of me asked the cashier something about USB ports on a wireless keyboard she was holding up.  You should never ask a Walmart cashier a technical question, no matter how easy the question.  I thought I was being helpful when I said the keyboard she had in her hand was wireless and didn’t need a USB, which I now realize was egregious mansplaining, or possibly geeksplaining.  She was an older woman, and I think I assumed she was therefore clueless (I mean, who asks a Walmart cashier a tech questions if she’s not clueless?).  It turns out she was asking for auxiliary USB ports so some things could run off the keyboard.  I apologized but probably not sincerely enough.  She didn’t tell me to MYOB but that’s what she was saying.  It was the message I received anyway.
5. What might get in your way this weekend as you TCB?
   I’m typing this Sunday morning, so there’s not much weekend left, and the important stuff happened Friday and Saturday.  Most of what I have left is the usual Sunday stuff, so missed buses could foul things up, but probably not much else.  I’m a little behind on my Camp NaNo project, but I’m ahead on my side work, so I may have some time this evening to focus on getting those flash fictions drafted.

More about Bruce later.  Still kind of processing.

From here.

1. What are some titles in your to-read stack?
   My stack is huge and keeps getting huger.  Some books I’m really looking forward to are David Mitchell’s Slade House, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe, Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword, and a whole bunch of cozy mysteries I recently took a break from.
2. What are the highlights of this weekend’s to-do list?
   A bit of work for the side gigs, for sure.  Some housecleaning.  A trip to the swap meet for black t-shirts.  Maybe the World Cup final.  I’d like to squeeze in a DVD or two as well.
3. Which current or upcoming movies are you looking forward to?
   Still haven’t seen The Incredibles 2, and there’s this Ben Foster film called Leave No Trace that interests me even though it’s only playing at Kahala, a theater that’s a bit out of the way for me.  Crazy Rich Asians in August.  A modernization of Little Women at the end of September with Lea Thompson as Marmee.
4. What’s something you meant to do this past week that will have to wait until next week?
   Really wanted to make a bunch of cucumber kimchi but with Camp NaNoWriMo taking up almost every evening, it’s been tough to make time.  Plus I’ve really tried to put a high priority on getting enough sleep on work nights.  It’s tough to find time for that.  I also have a boatload of films to write reviews for and some website-related maintenance I’ve putting off.
5. What’s an unfinished project (unrelated to media consumption) you haven’t touched in at least a year?
   Ah shoot.  I started my first cross-stitching project a couple of years ago and it was going really well, but I haven’t had time to finish it up.  It’s sitting in a very visible, prominent space in my living room to remind me that I want to do this.

Camp NaNoWriMo July has consumed me these past couple of weeks and it will continue to do so until the end of the month.  More about this later.

From here.

It’s about trail mix, you see?  ASLIRT.  Trail mix.  Or trails mix I guess.

1. What are your favorite and least favorite nuts?
   I guess pistachios are my favorite, but I want to shout out two non-nuts that are nutty enough for consideration: cashews and pumpkin seeds.  Although I certainly don’t dislike them, I’m beginning not to be thrilled about either walnuts or pecans, exept in a pecan pie.
2. What are your favorite and least favorite berries?
   My favorite are blackberries, with strawberries a close second.  My least favorite are raspberries, which I will eat if they are placed in front of me but will not place them in front of me myself.  You know those berry mixes in the freezer aisle?  I don’t buy those because a third of those mixes is always raspberries.  I’ll be darned if I’m going to pay for them.  I will make my own blueberry-blackberry-strawberry mix myself, thank you.
3. What are your favorite and least favorite tropical fruits?
   It’s a sad thing that I have lived in the tropics pretty much my whole life and do not love tropical fruit.  I guess I’ll go with lychee as a favorite and mango as a least favorite, although there’s a local tradition of pickling green mango, and that’s pretty good eating, I guess because I just love vinegar so much.  In recent years, I’ve taught myself to like banana.  I am now trying to do the same with papaya.
4. What are your favorite and least favorite varieties of M&Ms?
   My favorite are peanut butter, with rice krispies second.  My least are either those berry-flavored ones the mint ones.  I dig mint with chocolate (those Hershey Cookies & Mint bars are amazing), but the mint in the M&Ms is disgusting.  It tastes like brushing your teeth and eating chocolate at the same time.
5. What are your favorite and least favorite raisin-containing foods?
   My favorite are cinnamon raisin bagels.  My least favorite might be bread pudding.  I eat them when they’re in there, but I can’t help feeling like they’re degrading a perfectly good bread pudding.  You know, it’s also true of rice pudding with raisins.  Let’s just keep raisins out of any pudding.

From here.

I rolled the letter G.  I like it.  Surely not a gimme, but not crazy difficult either.  I always find G words intriguing.  For example, what do you think is the largest American city whose name begins with G?  Galveston?  Grand Rapids?   Can you even think of other cities beginning with G?  I just looked it up, and it’s Greensboro, North Carolina, whose 2010 Census data says it has 269,666 residents, good enough for 68th largest in the country.   Next is Glendale, Arizona, with 226,721, the 87th largest.  Gilbert, Arizona (91st), Garland, Texas (95th), and Glendale, California (112th), all come in ahead of Grand Rapids, Michigan at 119.  Galveston doesn’t make it into the top 311.  Sheldon Cooper was a big fish in a small pond, I guess.

1. 1. What’s a movie you love whose title begins with the letter?
      Librarians say The Greatest Showman begins with G, but maybe that’s cheating.  I mean the title isn’t Greatest Showman.   Movies I’ve seen that legitimately begin with G include Galaxy Quest, Garden State, Gates of Heaven, Gattaca, Get Him to the Greek, Get Low, Get Smart, Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal, Get on the Bus, Ghost, Ghost World, Ghostbusters, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Global Metal, Glory, Gnomeo & Juliet, God Said Ha!, Gods and Monsters, Goin’ Coconuts, Going Ape!, Gone, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Good Hair, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, Goodfellas, Gosford Park, Grand Canyon, Grease, Gremlins, Gross Anatomy, Groundhog Day, Gulliver’s Travels, Gung Ho, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Gangster Squad, Garden of Words, Gimme the Loot, Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, and Gravity.  There are some great movies in that list, but my favorite is easily Groundhog Day.  Top 20 movie of all time for me.
   2. What’s a popular tourist destination whose name begins with the letter?
      The Grand Canyon certainly qualifies, but the Texas Rangers (Texas again?) play in Globe Life Park in Arlington (the “in Arlington” is part of its name), the Cincinnati Reds play in Great American Ball Park, and the Chicago White Sox play in Guaranteed Rate Field.  I would rather visit each of those ballparks a few times each before the Grand Canyon .
   3. What’s something you do, whose name begins with the letter, when you’re very happy?
      I’m neither much of a gloater nor gamboler, so how about just grinning?
   4. What’s a frightening animal whose name begins with the letter?
      Are you supposed to be afraid of gila monsters?  No?  Okay then:  Great.  White.  Shark.
   5. Who’s a person you admire whose name begins with the letter?
      My first answer is Geddy Lee of Rush, but I talk about Rush all the time, so let’s take a moment to appreciate George Thorogood.  George is sort of Geddy’s opposite.  Where just about everything about Rush is precise, considered, exact, almost strangely (and beautifully) mechanical, George’s playing style is loose and messy, dirty and nasty.  It almost seems like he just puts his chording hand wherever it lands on the fretboard, and he does something with whatever sound happens to come out.  Someday I’ll take formal lessons, and I envision myself telling my instructor to teach me how to play like George Thorogood.  This live video of my favorite Thorogood song is super cool because it includes Elvin Bishop.  “One drink ain’t enough, Jack; you better bring three.”