A well needed rest

I always disliked snow, but now I truly hate it. There are lots of people that love the snow, but those people are idiots. They enjoy snow because to them, it's a distraction...an opportunity for play. Those people probably live in an apartment and someone else shovels the snow for them. If you own a house, you are your own peon.

The blizzard that hit DC was the worst in recent memory. Almost 2 feet of snow. I have been in DC for almost a decade and whenever the weather man says 4-6 inches of snow, it usually means an inch of snow, so when they said 18-24 inches of snow were expected, I didn't believe it.
After shoveling snow for six hours, I was finally able to get my car back into the driveway. My back was killing me from being bent over for six hours ("that's what SHE said!!!"). So it's good to be in florida for a little bit to recharge my batteries.

I almost didn't get here since my original flight was cancelled and Delta (worst airline ever) re-booked me without consulting me (or using common sense). I don't know if you know about geography, but if you draw a line from DC to Miami, the shortest route does not involve going through New York City. And to top that off, they booked me a flight that would involve me flying into NY via JFK airport (in Queens) and flying out of Newark airport (about 1.5. hours away, if you don't hit traffic). I have no idea how I was supposed to get from one airport to other...maybe Delta has some kind of teleportation machine?

I spent the next 48 hours trying to call Delta and the line was always busy. Busy at 10 am, busy at 1opm, busy at 4 am. I got through 4 times and three of those times I was hung up on. I repeat DELTA IS THE WORST AIRLINE EVER!. When I finally spoke to a person (in Mumbai, of course), he assured me that there were no flights available to Florida before Christmas. Since this wasn't an acceptable option, I spoke to a supervisor who got me on a flight which magically appeared.

Florida has been relaxing so far, except for the family drama which changes every year, but never ends. It's like being in an episode of Lost except that the crazy people with hidden agendas are your family.

I did have a fun time yesterday though. I went to an alligator park in the everglades and learned the proper way to wrestle an alligator, and also how to survive in the swamp if you are stuck there without an airboat. If civilization collapses in 2012, these may be surprisingly useful skills to have.

I'll be back home on Tuesday, then I have to get my place ready for a new year's eve party. I am hoping all the snow is melted by then since I don't plan on doing any shovelling. Party because my back doesn't like shoveling snow and party because someone stole my snow shovel. Welcome to Columbia Heights!!!

Staph!

Blech! So the lab results came back and it turns out that I had a staph infection in my knee. Although it was really painful (and gross when they cut it open to get the nasty stuff out), I guess I should be happy because I've heard some horror stories about staph infections (including death).

Plus, in an odd way, I feel like this makes me a real jiu jitsu player. I don't think I would consider someone a real boxer if they've never had their nose broken, and in a strange way I don't think you've spent enough time on the mats to consider yourself serious about jits until you've caught some kind of nasty skin deasease (or torn an ACL). It's been about 3 weeks now, so I think I will try to go back next week and start to ease my way back into it.

In other news, I think next year I will test out my heating system BEFORE the first really cold day. As one of my summer projects, I changed the regular thermostat for a programmable one and never bothered to test it. When it wouldn't turn on yesterday I assumed the problem lay there ("that's what she said!"), but it turned out to be something completely unrelated. After a trip to home depot to find a voltage tester and a few hours of opening up walls, switchboxes and outlets, I found the problem. The switch for the emergency shut off was bad. So I was able to fix it pretty easily by installing a new switch. It was good that I found it in time, because I was freezing my butt off and I was about an hour away from rigging up a ghetto contraption straight to the furnace using an extension cord and some pliers if I couldn't get it going. There's 4 hours of my life that I won't get back. Grrrrr....which is better than Brrrrrrr...

Infection...

I won't post a picture of my knee because you might be eating, but I've been having a knee...issue. It was bothering me during jiu jitsu class, but it was no worse than any of the other bangs and bruises that I've suffered at the hands of that cruel samurai art. It got progressively worse though and by midnight I could no longer walk up the stairs. I thought I'd rest it a couple of days, but the pain got really bad and my knee started to swell. It looked like someone put a small shot glass under my knee. The GF was kinda grossed out by it so I started to suspect it might be worse than I thought. I tried to find out what it was on the internet, and it looked like "bursitis" so I made an appointment with an orthopedic doctor the following day (the same place that I went to when I broke my finger doing jits). The doctor took one look at it said it wasn't bursitis.

Dr: No...that's not bursitis. That's an infection...a really, really bad infection. Do you know how it started?

[I wanted to say that it hurt during class, so I did what I normally do when I am injured: ignore it and keep practicing, but I thought that would sound ridiculous]

Me: who knows how these things happen? I blame the republicans...

He wanted to cut my knee open right then and there, but since I'm squeemish about blood and needles, he put me on a strong antibiotic and said to come back in a couple of days. After a couple of days the thing didn't look any better (he thought it looked worse, and it still hurt like a mofo) so he cut it open and drained out the fluid.

Normally I would be happy to get some vicodin around the holidays, but I was in so much pain that I couldn't even enjoy it. After a day or two though, I feel a LOT better. My knee still looks like a weasel took a bite out it, but now I can walk almost normally. I hope it will be better by next week. There's a tournament I wanted to attend when I get back in town, but right now I'm in the wrong weight class (no, I'm not fat, I'm just either a little too short for my weight or I need to start doing a lot steroids).

ANYWAY. Flying out tomorrow, so Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Getting there

The Brazilian consulate in DC is like a metaphor for third world. It's hot, crowded, incompetent and unfair. There is a bulletproof glass partition separating the great unwashed from the bureaucrats and surly people giving you confusing and sometimes contradictory information. When I went, it was the middle of summer and there was no air conditioning. Well...no air conditioning for the tourists. The people behind the glass were apparently nice and cool, but the rest of us were not so lucky. I don't know if you've ever been in DC in the summer, but this town was built on a swamp and it gets hot and humid in here. Many people don't know this, but ball sweat was invented in DC right before the civil war. Although back then it was known as "testicular perspiration" or "Lincoln's laundry".

Brazil require a lot of things to get your visa, not the least of which is a cashier's check for the exact amount you owe them. I had to make an extra trip there because my visa was $130, but the GF's visa was extra $10 because I was dropping it off for her. Would they take cash or a credit card for the difference? HAHAHAHAHA!!! No, just take another half day off work and wait in line again and you'll be fine.

After eventually getting the Brazilian visas, I high-tailed it over to the Paraguayan embassy for one of theirs. Paraguay's embassy is the size of a decent rowhouse in Dupont. The security guard was somebody's grandfather and the people behind the glass were somebody's cousins from that side of the family that you don't talk about in public.

We dropped the passports off and swung by on the morning of our flight because they apparently couldn't stamp two passports without at least a week of lead time. When we got there, they lost the passport...panic ensued. Even if we couldn't the paraguayan visa's, we couldn't go anywhere without our passports and our tickets were already paid for and non-refundable. I contemplated each of us losing $1000 on plane tickets and wondered if the grandpa guard would be able to stop me from strangling the strange woman who didn't seem to be too concerned about my lost passport....TO BE CONTINUED.

Some cultural differences between Brazilians and Gringos.

I have a backlog of Brazil posts to do, but I'll start off with a small one ("that's what SHE said!"). One of the most glaring differences between Brazilians and Americans (besides the language and weight) is the cultural attitudes, especially about sex. In the US, it's very common for people in a bar or club to drunkenly make out, then never see each other again. In Brazil, drunken anonymous hook ups are just as common, but they usually result in a different kind of exchange of bodily fluids. In the US, "slut" is an insult, whereas the Brazilian equivalent "Devassa" has no negative connotations. Sweeet!

What's most shocking/funny is the attitude towards sex in advertising. If you think ads in the US can be racy, you've seen NOTHING. One of the funniest things I ran accross in Brazil is the warning labels on cigarette packs. Here, we have the Surgeon General's cancer warning, which no one reads, but in Brazil, the entire back of the pack is a vivid warning about some possible side effects: "Cancer", "Emphysema", "heart attack", "suffering" etc. But by far the most interest side effect warned about on cigarrettes is:



IMPOTENCE!!!

That's right, you can't get it up, smokers. Think about that next time you think you can't quit. It's a very common site in Brazil for some young man to ask for a pack of cigarrettes, turn the pack over, and say to the vendor "No, I don't want impotence...give me cancer or emphysema or suffering, but I don't want you to give me impotence!". Superstition? Or just good sense?

Another interesting thing in Brazil is the lack of political correctness. I don't think you could open a chain of resaurants in the US if you used a racist cartoon as your mascot.

Despite the cartoon, I did eat here...and everywhere else in Brazil. I ate everything that wasn't nailed down (and some things that were). But more on that in future posts...

Art Show For Charity

Hey All...a few of my artist friends are doing an art show for charity at Busyboys and Poets on November 11th. Object will also be playing there for free. Please check it out, buy some art and support a worthwhile charity.

Free money?

I saw this at the place I do meditation sometimes in Bethesda. Apparently, someone dropped some money and the person who found it (rather than keeping it) put it on the bulletin board announcing where they found it so the owner could presumably reclaim it.

Since money naturally draws people's attention, I saw dozens of people look at the board and read the sign as they walked by. Anyone could have claimed the money and no one would have known it wasn't theirs, but no one did.

I am sure that buddhists have jobs and mortgages, just like everyone else, but none of them took the money for the simple reason that it belonged to someone else (or possibly they were born catholic and would feel guilty about it till the day they died and would burn in hell forever for doing it...Hi Father Caputo!). I remember once I was at a bar and a bartender gave me change for a twenty, even though I paid with a ten. When I returned it to her, another patron (in a douchebag shirt) said to me "if that was me, I would've kept it". I took one look at that ridiculous affliction t shirt and I knew that he would've. But even if noone else would know, I would. And I guess that makes a difference. It starts little by little and if you act like a low life in small things, then you'll do it with bigger things, and eventually you have a wardrobe full of skull tees, a faux hawk with a head full of blonde highlights, a drawer full of steroids and you're on Tool Academy and you wonder how you got there...

blad blogger

I've been posting so infrequently that I actually forgot my password. Oh well. I'm having a blast down in Rio and I should have some pics and stories for when I get back. I haven't been in a bloggy mood lately, but I'm not willing to let this thing die of neglect. When it's time to go, I will strangle it with my bare hands or turn it over to someone from the Bush white house so they can kill it the same way they killed our freedom.

Reality TV

On my day off when I was doing some last minute embassy/visa stuff for my upcoming trip to Rio (don't hate the playa, hate the game , bitchez), I was in a local coffee shop and I saw a TV crew filiming an HGTV show (Real Estate Intervention).


I chatted briefly with the host (GF should stop reading this now) who is even hotter in person than she is on TV. She was very nice and gave me the contact info for someone at casting for the show, so I think I will call her when I come back from vacation.

Here is a secret shot I took of the filming. You can see the GF in the foreground eyeing a vegan muffin sandwhich.

Besides the 3 people in the shot, there were an additional 4 people out of my camera range with various pieces of equipment.

So the next time I hear someone from the Hills or the Real World MTV claim that it's "real" because eventually you forget that the cameras are even there, I call bullsh1t. If this many people are needed for a one-camera show, how many do you need for the 3-4 camera setups on MTV's The "Real" World DC?

Stop with the Michael Jackson Stories already

Alright, alright already. The guy is dead and he hasn't had a hit record in 20 years, why do we need to keep talking about him when we are fighting two wars and a recession? His music sucked back then, and it hasn't gotten any better, so why is it impossible to turn on the radio and hear anything besides that crappy pop from the 80s? My iPod is working overtime since I'm avoiding the radio for the next few days.

sometimes the mountain comes to mohammed

Well, I finally got rid of that huge pile of debris in my driveway. After dealing with the junk removal guy who flaked on me, and the one who left a flier, but wouldn't return my phonecall (which sorta defeats the purpose of putting a flier on my door, but I digress), I was sitting home on monday, which I happened to have off. I heard a knock on the door, and an old, wiry, black man was there when I answered it. He offerred to take the junk out of my driveway with his pickup truck. I didn't think it would all fit in his pickup, which had been modified to have higher sides, but he said it would, and offerred to do it for $180.

I said yes, if for no other reason than to see someone try to fit all that stuff into one pickup. Turns out, I was right, it was 3 full pickups. He, and his helper (who I think was his son, because he was calling him dad), got rid of it pretty quickly even though I was worried that the bulging back tire would explode from the weight, or that the loose wood fall off the back and kill someone--hopefully it would be someone else because as long as my parachute opens, I'm fine.

Even though we agreed on a price, I gave the guy an extra $50 because 1) that's what I thought he should've charged me in the first place; and 2) I'd like him to come back next time I have stuff I need to get rid of (and by that I mean construction debris, not dead hookers).

So all in all...things are improving little by little.

In other news...my finger is still broken, but I did manage to take a couple of muay thai kickboxing classes. I did the kicks and punched with my left hand. I'd like to get back to "the jistu" (as my girlfriend calls it), but it was a good workout and I think it will help me from getting fat while I recuperate, plus it's probably better than sitting around trying to watch Lost re-runs to get caught up.

I am fine...and so am I

Why do people keep asking me if I'm okay? I was not on the metro train that crashed yesterday. 1) I wasn't even at work yesterday; 2) even if was on the train, what would I be doing in Takoma Park(what would anyone be doing in Takoma, besides buying patchoulli or recycling?); and 3) there's millions of people in the DC area...calling to see if I was one of the two people who died is like calling in to see if I won the Lottery because you heard it was someone in DC.

I am kind of flattered by the concern, but I also get off the phone quickly because I secretly wonder if people are using the train crash as an excuse to call me and when I say that I am fine, using that as an excuse to borrow money.

Doctor Shmoctor!

Well, after another doctor visit and X-ray, it turns out that my finger is still broken. This guy was an orthopedic doctor with signed thank you jerseys from Mia Hamm and some other athletes, so he supposedly knows what he's doing. Well, he'll be getting no signed gi from me. Partly because those things are expensive, but also because I don't like what he told me. Four more weeks of no training? I'm already starting to get fat from lack of jiu jitsu. Not fat-kid-who-cries-during-kickball fat, but definitely not my normal self. I got the 5-months pregnant-mellon-belly thing going on. I've been getting antsy and actually went to a muay thai class yesterday and did the kicks and (left) punches, but apparently Dr McFraidypants doesn't even want me doing that.

Me: Well...what am I supposed to do for exercise then?

Dr: you could run...

Me: no, I hate running...I'd rather be fat

Dr: how about yoga? or pilates? it's great for core strength.

Me: Yeah, I heard with practice it can really strengthen your uterus.

What's more, is that after 4 more weeks I will have "functional strength" in my finger, but it won't be as strong as before for several months, so I have to take it easy or it might break again...but worse. So basically, I took half a day off work, paid for more x-rays and co-pays just for him to tell me bad news? That sucks. If I'm paying you, you should tell me good things! Tell me that it's healing faster than usual; that you validate parking; will give me more vicodin; and that a magic unicorn will take me back to my car. You suck!

I don't get it..

I'm not a huge fan of unions. It doesn't look like they did GM, Ford or Chrylser a whole lot of good. However, I can understand how it's human nature to want to be paid more for doing the same thing you would normally be doing.

I also get the concept of picket lines. The goal is to annoy people and whine and stomp your feet like a child until someone gets frustrated enough to just give in to your immature demands and give you what you want so that you will shut the hell up. But...I don't get the giant rat...WTF???

Okay, it's annoying when you're banging those drums loudly and I can't concentrate. And it's even more annoying when I read in the newspaper about how you hire homeless people to walk the picket line because the unions are too lazy to even stand in their own line. But a giant rat? Seriously? I was going to stop and ask what it's about, but, like conceptual art, I think it means whatever you want it to mean, and it's not supposed to make sense.

Weekend 'Fun'

They say bad things come in threes. Anyone who doubts this should count the number of terms a Bush has been in the White House, or the number of exes I have name Catherine.

Well, this weekend I lost my GF among the 50,000+ people at the Race for the Cure, at the national mall. Then, I got a flat tire, and as I was leaving the tire repair place...I got into a car accident. I took the rest of the weekend off...just in case.

Finishing touches.

Well, after two years of awkwardly opening and closing the doors on my kitchen cabinets, I decided on the right handle and put them on. It didn't really take me two years to decide on the handles, I just had more important things going on in my life and kitchen door handles were pretty low on the queue. These were installed when my Dad visited recently. They look great because we used a "jig", not because either of us is obsessive compulsive.



Here is a "jig" that you use to make sure all the holes for the handles are drilled in the same place. You can make one pretty easilly, putting the holes where you need them. We made this out of scrap wood.













This is how you use it...perfect every time.














And here is the finished product.

Ouch!

I broke my middle finger. The Xray says it's not a small break either. I have a splint on it, so I can give the middle finger to everyone with impunity, which is good, but it hurts like hell, which is bad. They gave me vicodin, which is VERY good (especially with beer), but I only take it at home because it makes me very loopy and that's not so good at work or when I'm driving.

I broke it in jiu jitsu. I actually heard the snap, and instead of doing the smart thing (stopping) I taped it to my other finger and kept going. There were some people visiting our school who were training for the mundials so I was eager to test my skillz against that level, but I guess my ego got in the way...lesson learned. Oh well, at least now I have a cool anecdote and my girlfriend thinks I'm a badass (or a dumbass, take your pick).

Free Plug

A friend of mine recently temporarilly gave up the rat race to live for a while in Brazil. You can read about his exploits (including getting items stolen from him on the beach, and accidentally crashing a party of strippers and hookers) on his blog HERE.

No Good Deed...

I donated a bunch of stuff to Community Forklift, a non-profit that takes home building stuff and sells it, using the money for charity. Sort of like the Home Depot meets the Salvation Army. I figured, (1)I could probably use the tax deduction next year, (2) I could definitely use the space, and (3) it's a lot less stressful than trying to sell it on Craigslist and dealing with the flakes there.

Among the stuff I donated were a huge antique buffet thing, a refrigerator, and the vanity that I replaced with a smaller one.

I guess the move didn't go so well, apparently when they came to pick up the stuff (I wasn't there, but my Dad told me what happened), they broke the bottom of the vanity and left what's left of the cabinet in front of my house. They broke the drawer on the buffet/bar thing and were going to leave the drawer there also until my Dad convinced them to take it because no one would buy it without it (they left the skeleton key, so that's not great either), broke the door on the fridge trying to get it out, and took the utility sink, but forgot the legs.

I'm putting pics below in case I lose my camera and need the pics for the IRS, so that I'll be able to find it. Anyway, It really bugs me when someone is so haphazard and incompetent at their jobs. If you suck at moving furniture, maybe you should take some night classes and learn how to make coffee and become a barista. Or run for congress, you don't need to do heavy lifting or thinking for that.

More Pics

I wish I had a pic of the old sliding door with iron security bars that was in the kitchen before, but I forgot to take a picture of the craptasticness before it was taken out. This door was REALLY difficult to install because when the door was taken out, we found out that the wood on the bottom was rotted and the previous door (like the window in the kitchen) had no header installed. After the rotted wood was replaced, and a header was installed, this went it, but it ended up being an all (long) day project instead of a 2-3 hour project.







But it was worth it.









If you thought the stairs upstairs looked silence of the lambsy, you should see what the basement stairs looked like. (more pics to follow).











Any ideas what to do with my front "yard"?

I thought we were in a recession?

So the guy who was supposed to come on monday to clean out the debris/trash in my driveway flaked on me. I called and left a message, but no reply. I feel like the ugly chick with mono who gets stood up for the prom and has to stay home and watch American Idol with her mom and annoying little brother. Okay, maybe not like that, but you get the picture.

They came about a year or two ago and removed a lot more stuff than I have now in my driveway, so I thought it was lucky of me that I still had the business card. I figured with the recession and lack of homebuiliding now that it someone would want to paid actual US Dollars to do actual work. Oh well. I guess I'll have to go on Craigslist and try to find someone else to do it.

I hate looking at that pile of debris in my driveway, but at least the feral cats will keep the mice away, and the pieces of lumber will be like a ghetto scratch post for them.

New Stairs!

So the hardwood floors upstairs and downstairs looked nice, but the stairs that connected them looked like crap. I thought about refinishing the stairs, but decided on having them done over, which cost a lot more money, but ended up looking nicer, I think.






Before Pic Number 1: this is the transition from upstairs to the stairs.







Here's what the stairs looked liked from downstairs. There's a fine line between "shabby chic" and "silence of the lambs" and these stairs were on the wrong side of the line.









Here's a pic of the stairs in progress. It's missing the part you step on, which makes it not yet a staircase.











Here's what it looked like when the stairs were in, but before it was stained and painted.











I went to a paintstore so they could get the stain to make the pine stairs look like the oak floors downstairs. Preety good match, I think.







Stained, painted and drying













FINISHED!

What Progress Looks Like

There's been a lot of progress going on at my place over the last few weeks. I'll post some pics of the finished projects soon, but in the meantime, I'll show you the debris that was created in the process.

This is what the driveway in the back of the ninja fortress looks like (for now). Someone will be coming on Monday to get rid of it all, but in the meantime the feral cats in my alley will keep the mice from taking hold there and the protuding nails will hopefully keep the burglars away.

NERD ALERT!

I love Sci-Fi as much as Britney Spears loves dysfunctional relationships. This is no secret. The Girlfriend scored some free tickets to the premier of the new Star Trek Movie. Free tickets to a movie that I would wait in a looooong line for and pay lots of money to see. My inner-geek has an erection right now.

The best part is that she got the tix for me, because she's not a huge sci-fi fan herself. When asked, she said it was about Han Solo, and I'm not entirely sure she was kidding.

I suggested changing my Netflix queue so that we can have a Star Wars marathon this weekend and next to prepare for it, but after some rigorous debate on the issue we compromised and are instead going to Yoga and baking and talking about feelings and sh1t. As you can see, I am not a great negotiator...

How misunderstandings happen

So, somehow I ended up in Massachusetts and was running some errands, when I had a little misunderstanding with the dry cleaners and convenience store. What? Like you would run your errands without your katana in a state with such a high concentration of pirates? We all know about the pirate/ninja rivalry. 'Nuff said.

La Plus Ca Change, La plus la meme chose.

I was wondering why I had more money in my checking account than usual, and I realized it's because I haven't been to Home Depot in a couple of months. I stopped by a couple of days ago, and after buying nothing more than a few feet of crown moulding and baseboard, I was $400 poorer.

I would've been a lot poorer if their staff had been less incompetent. I wanted to buy a couple of windows and a french door, maybe, but I couldn't find anyone in that department. The only person there was someone from another department who was hiding behind the doors so that he could use his cell phone (not making this up).

I found the door I wanted (which didn't have a pricetag, so I tore off the UPC tag and brought it up to someone who gave me a dirty look and said that he was going to have to put that back on after I left. Well...maybe if you had marked it in the first place, or been around to help customers in the second place, that wouldn't happen. Boo hoo, jerkface. Also, they didn't have the windows I wanted unless I wanted to order it and wait two weeks. I assumed that with the recession and all, they would now be able to keep stuff in stock at this, THE WORLD'S WORST HOME DEPOT. But, even though the ecomony has changed, the people who work at the Rhode Island Avenue Home Depot remain the same.

In other news...I'm glad easter is over. Easter candy is 50% off at CVS. Woo hoo!

Are things looking up?

I watch TV and listen to the news just like everybody else, and like everybody else I know about how bad things are supposed to be right now in the economy. Derivatives are now a dirty word so I've even heard, anecdotally, about how some law firms (huge international ones) are hurting and they are laying off associates.

And yet, this week I got calls from TWO headhunters about positions for someone as awesome as me. When I told my girlfriend about this, she said "but won't you need your head" and went back to reading Cosmo or whatever she was doing. Are things not as bad as they seem, or am I just lucky? or Awesome!!!

I like where I am now. The hours are great, lots of days off, and job security. I won't lie, the idea of going back to a law firm is intriguing for the money. I make decent money here, but I would, literally, make twice as much at a law firm. I'd have secretaries, paralegals, and even young associate attorneys that I could have do all the sucky work while I work on big-picture stuff. It would solve a lot of my problems. But I don't know if I'm ready to give up all my hobbies and free time for some extra cash. And also...if things didn't work out, all that extra money wouldn't do me much good if I was looking for a job in this economy, in an industry that's hurting right now. It's nice to be wanted, but I wonder if its better to be happy with what you have. Just thinking out loud here.

Zombie Walking

Since I've been sick for the past month with something that I can't seem to shake, I finally broke down Monday, suspended my fear of doctors and went to one to find out what's wrong. It's gotten so bad that lately I've been winded when I climb 3 flights of stairs. The verdict? I have "Walking Pneumonia". (or maybe it was regular pneumonia, but my super powerful immune system converted it something more manageable) Wow, that sucks. So now I am on antibiotics, and I have an inhaler like those kids who get picked on in Dodge Ball on the playground. Yes, I have an inhaler and I watch Battlestar Galactica...line up, ladies!!!

At least now I know what I have and that I will soon be rid of this with my antibiotics. So, if you've run into me in the past month and I've breathed or coughed around you, I apologize. On the plus side, I competed recently in a jiu jitsu tournament (I'll post a vid soon) and got two medals before I decided to skip the last event because I was feeling so weak. So my jits are getting better since I can compete in a tournament with walking pneumonia and still represent old skool!

A Tale of Two (Key Lime) Pies.

One of the few things that I can't do (besides my taxes or sitting through and episode of Grey's Anatomy without vomitting) is bake. I cook really well on the burners, but the oven is like a mysterious dragon vagina that frightens and confuses me. Still, I love a challenge (and key lime pie) so I set out to bake one with the girlfriend so that we could relive the wonderful experience we had in Key West, but without the airports and tourists.

Since I'm lazy, I toyed with the idea of just making an instant pie, but I knew it would be better if I made a real one. How much better? Let's find out:



Okay, here is what you start with for the real key lime pie. Notice how small the key limes are? I thought "key lime" was the name of the pie, but it's actually the name of the sucky small limes that grow in key west. So here's the ingredients for the real key lime pie....or the mise en place, if you are a pretentious food snob.








And here's the ingredients for the fakey instant key lime pie.









And here is the mixer that you use. This is the GF's mixer. I don't have a mixer because I don't bake. A few months ago when the GF wanted to make a pizza was the first time since I've owned the fortress that I used the oven feature. The oven had never been cleaned either, so the first time I used it...things did not go so well.






Here is how you get the juice out of the key limes....well this way and a LOT of work.









As you can see, you need a lot of key limes for this.













All that work for this leeeetle bit of lime juice?










Here is the girlfriend mixing up the ingredients with her mixer..









After mixing, my sexy assistant pours the mixture into a pie tin and we throw it into the oven.










Meanwhile... for the "instant" pie...

The weird instant green goop has to be heated on a stovetop, which sort of defeats the purpose of a instant mix. If there is that much work involved, why not take an extra five minutes and make it the fresh way?









And here's a side by side of the finished products.










The real one tasted delicious. The fake one tasted like green slime from that Ghostbusters movie. After tasting the fake one, I literally through the rest of it away. And I followed the directions precisely, so it sucked for reals yo!








Here's a food porn shot of the pies and stuff.










Here I am washing the dishes with my powerful male arms.