Con season is almost upon us and I’ve begun vigorous training in order to prepare myself both physically and mentally.
You see, cons are not just a large gathering of like-minded people interested in the buying, selling, and conversing about and in relation to paraphernalia related to their hobby or pastime.
Well, actually, yes. They are exactly that, but metaphorically speaking, they’re a battle. The sellers are drawn up formation, their books polished and gleaming in the fluorescent light, their pens held at the ready, their cash boxes unlocked and ready to receive the booty earned from the rampaging hordes who are about to descend upon them and . . . okay, forget I said that.
Ummm, what I really meant was that cons are like circuses. There are bright lights, strange and unusual animals, noxious odors, over-priced food, and people dressed in bizarre, often frightening costumes. The sellers are like caged beasts, roaming their ten foot tables, ready to pounce on any . . . . and crap.
So, let’s just agree that my analogies suck and move on.
Anyway, you can’t just ‘do’ a con. This could result in broken pencils and/or limbs. You have to work up to them. As a seller, you have to haul boxes of goods, get your cash ready, buy donuts, and do all sorts of things. Have you ever been to a con and seen a seemingly empty table, only to discover a disheveled man in a stained Green Lantern shirt lying in a fetal position on the floor behind it?
This is a man who did not properly prepare.
NOTE: Yes, I’ve actually seen this. I also once saw a Technically Not Topless Woman. Seriously. Ask me about it.
Now, the physical preparation is quite easy. You simply need to eat as badly as possible for about a month. You see, con food is one of the most destructive things in the known universe. Do you remember how the Aliens bled acid? That’s because they ate con food. In essence: your stomach is Helm’s Deep and the chili-dog you just had is an Uruk-Hai army, intent on your destruction. So, you have to toughen your innards up to handle the pseudo-food your about to eat for the next couple of days.
This doesn’t sound too bad, I’m sure. However, the mental training is even more difficult. You have to prepare yourself to talk not only with the happy, well-adjusted comic-book fans, but also the legally insane. And yes, these are two different groups.
Next Week: Part 2
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Murder Most Delicious
My mother came for a visit last weekend. As my longtime readers will know, my mother is a woman of impeccable charm, style, and wit, who also tends to forget who I am, generally when she’s holding a shotgun.
Now, my mother didn’t actually tell me she was coming. I just got an email with her flight details and a note to pick her up ‘or else.’ Obviously, I did. I may not fear ninjas or Cat-Men from Pluto, but yeah, I don’t mess with my mom.
I took the day off from work and spent the morning furiously cleaning my apartment. I even cleaned the fridge. Yes, I actually took the shelves out of the fridge (not hard, as there was nothing in there), and went at its innards with a sponge. I didn’t just dust things, I picked them up and dusted underneath them. If it was fuzzy, I vacuumed it. If it wasn’t fuzzy I wiped it with a sponge. If it moved, I caught it, buffed it to a mirror shine, and then let it go, which resulted in a couple very confused spiders. And then, when I was done, I cleaned the sponge and the vacuum. My place was so clean it hurt to look at it.
Later that day, I picked my mother up.
I knew something was up when she hugged me and called me ‘honey.’ We chatted amiably the whole way home and then went out and had teriyaki. Afterwards, we got ice-cream, and then picked up some snacks for later. The next morning, we went out for breakfast, then lunch, had a snack of hot pretzels, then went to dinner, and had more ice-cream afterwards. This continued throughout her whole visit. It was a gastronomical Mt. Everest and we were all out of Sherpas.
NOTE: Yeah, that didn’t make much sense. I was originally going to do a Sherpa/Sherbert joke, but that one was even less coherent.
It was around lunch on the first day that I figured it out. My mother’s a devious one: she was trying to murder me with food. Yes, be it through cholesterol, high-blood pressure, or gall stones, she was trying to do me in. It all fit.
Granted, it’s an improbably long, convoluted, labyrinthine (took three tries to spell that one right) way to go about killing someone, but who would suspect? Even if she was questioned, all she had to do was say ‘but I’m his mother! I just wanted him to make sure he was eating!’ Who would argue with that?
So I was determined to outfox her. Whenever her back was turned, I would exercise. At home, I took some weights into my bedroom and did a couple dozen reps every hour. I did wind sprints in my hall. When we ate out, I would excuse myself, go to the restroom, and do a bunch of sit-ups and push-ups. Trust me, you don’t want to touch the floor in a men’s room, but I did. My very survival depended on it.
And after three days, my mom left and I could claim victory. Despite all the eating, I’d actually lost three pounds.
Unless, it was all some sort of weird scheme to get me to exercise more. In which case, I lost, but I’m not sure how. She could be trying to get me in shape to harvest my organs. Or maybe she’s planning on moving and wants me in top shape so I don’t drop her credenza. I’ll definitely have to think about this one more.
Then again, she might have just wanted to see me and make sure I was eating right.
Nah.
Cheers,
-Jason
Now, my mother didn’t actually tell me she was coming. I just got an email with her flight details and a note to pick her up ‘or else.’ Obviously, I did. I may not fear ninjas or Cat-Men from Pluto, but yeah, I don’t mess with my mom.
I took the day off from work and spent the morning furiously cleaning my apartment. I even cleaned the fridge. Yes, I actually took the shelves out of the fridge (not hard, as there was nothing in there), and went at its innards with a sponge. I didn’t just dust things, I picked them up and dusted underneath them. If it was fuzzy, I vacuumed it. If it wasn’t fuzzy I wiped it with a sponge. If it moved, I caught it, buffed it to a mirror shine, and then let it go, which resulted in a couple very confused spiders. And then, when I was done, I cleaned the sponge and the vacuum. My place was so clean it hurt to look at it.
Later that day, I picked my mother up.
I knew something was up when she hugged me and called me ‘honey.’ We chatted amiably the whole way home and then went out and had teriyaki. Afterwards, we got ice-cream, and then picked up some snacks for later. The next morning, we went out for breakfast, then lunch, had a snack of hot pretzels, then went to dinner, and had more ice-cream afterwards. This continued throughout her whole visit. It was a gastronomical Mt. Everest and we were all out of Sherpas.
NOTE: Yeah, that didn’t make much sense. I was originally going to do a Sherpa/Sherbert joke, but that one was even less coherent.
It was around lunch on the first day that I figured it out. My mother’s a devious one: she was trying to murder me with food. Yes, be it through cholesterol, high-blood pressure, or gall stones, she was trying to do me in. It all fit.
Granted, it’s an improbably long, convoluted, labyrinthine (took three tries to spell that one right) way to go about killing someone, but who would suspect? Even if she was questioned, all she had to do was say ‘but I’m his mother! I just wanted him to make sure he was eating!’ Who would argue with that?
So I was determined to outfox her. Whenever her back was turned, I would exercise. At home, I took some weights into my bedroom and did a couple dozen reps every hour. I did wind sprints in my hall. When we ate out, I would excuse myself, go to the restroom, and do a bunch of sit-ups and push-ups. Trust me, you don’t want to touch the floor in a men’s room, but I did. My very survival depended on it.
And after three days, my mom left and I could claim victory. Despite all the eating, I’d actually lost three pounds.
Unless, it was all some sort of weird scheme to get me to exercise more. In which case, I lost, but I’m not sure how. She could be trying to get me in shape to harvest my organs. Or maybe she’s planning on moving and wants me in top shape so I don’t drop her credenza. I’ll definitely have to think about this one more.
Then again, she might have just wanted to see me and make sure I was eating right.
Nah.
Cheers,
-Jason
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Who Am I Kidding?
A female friend of mine came over the other day and happened to look in my refrigerator. Please note that I specifically warned her not to. “Hi,” I said as she walked in the door. “Make yourself at home, but whatever you do, don’t look in the fridge.”
Of course, she did.
I remember it like it was yesterday, as it was in fact, yesterday. I was at my computer, downloading something that would shock my mother if she knew I was looking at it (it was an old clip of the Muppet Show – jeez, get your minds out of the gutter) when I heard a shriek. It wasn’t the kind of high warbling shriek that occurs when one of the ninjas steps on one of my patented ‘Crotch Killer’ booby traps, but the shriek of a woman who has been confronted with a terror beyond the ken of mortal men.
NOTE: You know those old cartoons where the boxing glove pops out on a spring? The ‘Crotch Killer’ is like that, but instead of a boxing glove, there’s a 10-pound dumbbell. And instead of a spring, there’s a pneumatic hammer. I leave the rest to your fertile imaginations.
“Are you all right?” I called out.
“What the hell’s in your fridge!” she said.
“Uhhhhh, stuff.” I didn’t actually know, seeing as I hadn’t opened my fridge in about six months. For those of you with decent memories, Fridgey no longer lives in the fridge. He now lives in the bathtub, where he has plenty of room to play.
It was then that I heard the sound of a flame thrower being lit. By the time I got out there, she had torched everything in there. Then she left and came back with groceries. Which she put in the fridge.
So now I have a clean fridge and it contains actual foodstuffs. The problem is that I’m not quite sure what to do with all the food. Well, obviously I’m supposed to eat it, but I only know how to make two kinds of food: there’s the food that comes out of a box and goes into a bowl and the food that comes out of a can and goes into a bowl. Sometimes, I microwave it after it’s in the bowl, but that’s only when I’m feeling energetic.
She put a bunch of stuff that I didn’t recognize, much less know how to prepare. There’s a carton with a picture of some sort of fruit (maybe a vegetable) on it. There’s little round white things. A sealed plastic tray may contain some sort of meat. And then there’s that drawer filled with green leafy stuff. If I remember correctly, sometimes it’s put on a hamburger.
Mayhap I’ll whip up a grand feast and actually eat more than one food group in a sitting. I seem to recall a ‘Food Pyramid’ from my youth that suggested this was a good idea.
Nah, who am I kidding? I’ll eat some of it and then forget it’s there and not open the fridge for another couple months.
Who knows, maybe Fridgey will get a friend?
Cheers,
-Jason
Of course, she did.
I remember it like it was yesterday, as it was in fact, yesterday. I was at my computer, downloading something that would shock my mother if she knew I was looking at it (it was an old clip of the Muppet Show – jeez, get your minds out of the gutter) when I heard a shriek. It wasn’t the kind of high warbling shriek that occurs when one of the ninjas steps on one of my patented ‘Crotch Killer’ booby traps, but the shriek of a woman who has been confronted with a terror beyond the ken of mortal men.
NOTE: You know those old cartoons where the boxing glove pops out on a spring? The ‘Crotch Killer’ is like that, but instead of a boxing glove, there’s a 10-pound dumbbell. And instead of a spring, there’s a pneumatic hammer. I leave the rest to your fertile imaginations.
“Are you all right?” I called out.
“What the hell’s in your fridge!” she said.
“Uhhhhh, stuff.” I didn’t actually know, seeing as I hadn’t opened my fridge in about six months. For those of you with decent memories, Fridgey no longer lives in the fridge. He now lives in the bathtub, where he has plenty of room to play.
It was then that I heard the sound of a flame thrower being lit. By the time I got out there, she had torched everything in there. Then she left and came back with groceries. Which she put in the fridge.
So now I have a clean fridge and it contains actual foodstuffs. The problem is that I’m not quite sure what to do with all the food. Well, obviously I’m supposed to eat it, but I only know how to make two kinds of food: there’s the food that comes out of a box and goes into a bowl and the food that comes out of a can and goes into a bowl. Sometimes, I microwave it after it’s in the bowl, but that’s only when I’m feeling energetic.
She put a bunch of stuff that I didn’t recognize, much less know how to prepare. There’s a carton with a picture of some sort of fruit (maybe a vegetable) on it. There’s little round white things. A sealed plastic tray may contain some sort of meat. And then there’s that drawer filled with green leafy stuff. If I remember correctly, sometimes it’s put on a hamburger.
Mayhap I’ll whip up a grand feast and actually eat more than one food group in a sitting. I seem to recall a ‘Food Pyramid’ from my youth that suggested this was a good idea.
Nah, who am I kidding? I’ll eat some of it and then forget it’s there and not open the fridge for another couple months.
Who knows, maybe Fridgey will get a friend?
Cheers,
-Jason
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Eat This: Part 2
I mean, take acorns. If my memories of 5th Grade Biology serve me correctly, acorns are pretty toxic. Yet Native Americans figured out how to leach the toxins out, a long and involved process that went like this:
1. Gather acorns
2. Tie acorns up in a sack and then beat the sack with a stick
3. When tired or the stick breaks, get another stick
4. Scratch between your shoulder blades with the second stick and then discard it
5. Put the smashed acorns in a pot
6. Give the pot to a mime and have him pretend to stir it over a fire for an hour
7. Kill the mime
8. Bury the pot for seventeen days
9. Unearth the pot and then set it at the top of the tallest tree you can find
10. Wait for lightning to strike the pot
11. Retrieve the pot
12. Remove the acorn pulp from the pot and then put it into a different pot
13. Bury the first pot with full military honors
14. Cook the acorns overnight
15. Serve with crackers and a hearty Zinfandel
Actually, in all honesty, the Native Americans just rinsed the acorns repeatedly until the water didn’t turn brown. This is because they actually wanted to eat the acorns, as opposed to writing a humor blog about the process.
Another question: why would anyone take the time to figure out which bits were edible and which weren’t? Well, I imagine it’s because they were starving and ‘potential death’ versus ‘inescapable death’ seemed like a pretty good bet. If survival shows have taught me anything, it’s that your definition of ‘edible’ changes radically when you haven’t eaten in a couple days.
So, back to the fugu. In all probability, some Japanese fishermen were having a bad season and decided to give the funny looking fish a try. A couple of them died, but the rest were okay. Some judicious trial and error, also probably during a slow season, probably taught them which bits were good and which should be reserved for your mother-in-law. All the weird stuff we eat probably springs from that sort of situation.
I mean, beer is water and yeast that gets heated the right way (yes, that’s a massive oversimplification), but to my knowledge, every civilization we know came up with it at one time or another.
Ancient Egyptian Woman: Thutmos, what happened to that mix of grain and water I left on the window sill?
Thutmos: I was really thirsty, so I drank it!
Ancient Egyptian Woman: But, I was going to use that to clean out the privy!
Thutmos: Y’know, you’re gorgeous when you’re angry! C’mere.
Ancient Egyptian Woman: Hmmmm, I seem to have stumbled onto a magic formula that makes men stupid! And pliable! I’ll rule the world! (maniacal laughter).
Or something like that.
Cheers,
-Jason
1. Gather acorns
2. Tie acorns up in a sack and then beat the sack with a stick
3. When tired or the stick breaks, get another stick
4. Scratch between your shoulder blades with the second stick and then discard it
5. Put the smashed acorns in a pot
6. Give the pot to a mime and have him pretend to stir it over a fire for an hour
7. Kill the mime
8. Bury the pot for seventeen days
9. Unearth the pot and then set it at the top of the tallest tree you can find
10. Wait for lightning to strike the pot
11. Retrieve the pot
12. Remove the acorn pulp from the pot and then put it into a different pot
13. Bury the first pot with full military honors
14. Cook the acorns overnight
15. Serve with crackers and a hearty Zinfandel
Actually, in all honesty, the Native Americans just rinsed the acorns repeatedly until the water didn’t turn brown. This is because they actually wanted to eat the acorns, as opposed to writing a humor blog about the process.
Another question: why would anyone take the time to figure out which bits were edible and which weren’t? Well, I imagine it’s because they were starving and ‘potential death’ versus ‘inescapable death’ seemed like a pretty good bet. If survival shows have taught me anything, it’s that your definition of ‘edible’ changes radically when you haven’t eaten in a couple days.
So, back to the fugu. In all probability, some Japanese fishermen were having a bad season and decided to give the funny looking fish a try. A couple of them died, but the rest were okay. Some judicious trial and error, also probably during a slow season, probably taught them which bits were good and which should be reserved for your mother-in-law. All the weird stuff we eat probably springs from that sort of situation.
I mean, beer is water and yeast that gets heated the right way (yes, that’s a massive oversimplification), but to my knowledge, every civilization we know came up with it at one time or another.
Ancient Egyptian Woman: Thutmos, what happened to that mix of grain and water I left on the window sill?
Thutmos: I was really thirsty, so I drank it!
Ancient Egyptian Woman: But, I was going to use that to clean out the privy!
Thutmos: Y’know, you’re gorgeous when you’re angry!
Ancient Egyptian Woman: Hmmmm, I seem to have stumbled onto a magic formula that makes men stupid! And pliable! I’ll rule the world! (maniacal laughter).
Or something like that.
Cheers,
-Jason
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Eat This: Part 1
Some of my coworkers were talking about going out to sushi the other day. I don’t care much for sushi, seeing as I don’t like fish. This pretty much leaves me with maybe three options at the sushi place and one of them involves eyeballs.
NOTE: Yes, I know there are more than three non-fish options. Also, to my knowledge, there are no eyeballs involved in sushi. Granted, there may very well be some sort of eyeball sushi, but I probably wouldn’t eat that either. Well, maybe I would. It would depend. I have eaten escargot. It would probably come down to whether or not there were attractive women present who might be impressed if I ate an eyeball (a definite ‘maybe’).
Anyway, one coworker, whom I’ll call Viknar the Ravager (because it’s more interesting than ‘Phil’), mentioned a desire to try fugu fish. This prompted a lively debate between Viknar, Martok, and Wortan as to whether or not this was a good idea (and yes, I changed the other names too).
This got me thinking.
How, exactly, did they figure out which parts of the fugu were safe to eat? And to broaden the scope of the article, how did anyone ever figure out which parts of the plant/animal/fish/rock/alien were safe to eat?
Tomorrow: Part 2
NOTE: Yes, I know there are more than three non-fish options. Also, to my knowledge, there are no eyeballs involved in sushi. Granted, there may very well be some sort of eyeball sushi, but I probably wouldn’t eat that either. Well, maybe I would. It would depend. I have eaten escargot. It would probably come down to whether or not there were attractive women present who might be impressed if I ate an eyeball (a definite ‘maybe’).
Anyway, one coworker, whom I’ll call Viknar the Ravager (because it’s more interesting than ‘Phil’), mentioned a desire to try fugu fish. This prompted a lively debate between Viknar, Martok, and Wortan as to whether or not this was a good idea (and yes, I changed the other names too).
This got me thinking.
How, exactly, did they figure out which parts of the fugu were safe to eat? And to broaden the scope of the article, how did anyone ever figure out which parts of the plant/animal/fish/rock/alien were safe to eat?
Tomorrow: Part 2
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Things Were Eaten
I have just returned from California, where I spent a very pleasant week visiting family and eating far more than any human should. I do normally watch what I eat very closely, just in case it decides to attack en route to my mouth, but I threw caution to the wind and ate whatever happened to appear in front of me.
I had at least 3 burritos, some fajitas, turkey, stuffing, enough mashed potatoes to feed the French Foreign Legion for a day, a metric ton of chicken, some jalapeno and pepperoni pizza (sounds gross, but it's really good), and about ten-pounds of assorted snacks, which included chocolate, cheese, various dips, and what I think was an insect.
I also played some tennis, if you define 'play' as occasionally putting the ball over the net and in the court. I did better once it was explained to me that a) you didn't have to hit the ball as hard as possible and b) you weren't actually trying to hit the other player with the ball. I had fun, though, and that's what counts.
Note: If you happened to be one of the people I played with, I apologize for serving directly at you.
In other news, we are back to regular updates, so stay tuned for more Wayfarer's Moon goodness every Tuesday and Thursday and my usual semi-coherent ramblings most every day.
Cheers,
-Jason
I had at least 3 burritos, some fajitas, turkey, stuffing, enough mashed potatoes to feed the French Foreign Legion for a day, a metric ton of chicken, some jalapeno and pepperoni pizza (sounds gross, but it's really good), and about ten-pounds of assorted snacks, which included chocolate, cheese, various dips, and what I think was an insect.
I also played some tennis, if you define 'play' as occasionally putting the ball over the net and in the court. I did better once it was explained to me that a) you didn't have to hit the ball as hard as possible and b) you weren't actually trying to hit the other player with the ball. I had fun, though, and that's what counts.
Note: If you happened to be one of the people I played with, I apologize for serving directly at you.
In other news, we are back to regular updates, so stay tuned for more Wayfarer's Moon goodness every Tuesday and Thursday and my usual semi-coherent ramblings most every day.
Cheers,
-Jason
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