It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

It took me seemingly forever to get my shit together for my run from Marta to my car. Then my waterproof headphones finally bit the dust, so I had to resort to using my crappy ear-buds. Then the “run” started… Fewer than two miles into my five miles I was spent. I wound up walking some before I began a slow lumber to my car. How did I run 13.3 a month ago? How will I run 13.1 three weeks from now?

Read Along With Me
Today’s passage from Notes To Myself.

The way to resolve this wish to share my marital trouble with someone else and at the same time remain loyal to Gayle is to express them as mine and not caused by her.

To all who have helped me — Thanks.

Scratch ‘N’ Dent Shouldn’t Mean Comes With Someone Else’s Scent
Last weekend I went the REI nearest to Nashville. Unbeknown to me they were having a “scratch and dent” sale that day. Since I was looking for hiking boots, which let’s face it are going to get scratched anyway, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to save a little money.

Imagine my horror when I realized that REI was attempting to sell used hiking boots. The first pair I picked up had visible wear on the soles. The second pair had mud on them! WTF? I’d expect this at Goodwill, not REI.

Even more disturbing to me was the hydration pack that was in another bin. I picked it up and read the sticker which said something to the effect of “customer said flow is not good” and then realized that there was still water in it! Isn’t reselling this against some sort of health code, even if I was in Tennessee?

I was flabbergasted and left the building immediately.

ITP Flickr Pic
I understand the cat’s plight.

I’m trying to escape too.

I Think I Found Something I’ve Been Seeking
What could it be?

• Inner Peace? Nope.
• A cute girlfriend? Nope.
• A program that will allow me to set up keyword tokens and insert text automatically when I type the tokens? Yes!

Hey, it ain’t much but it’ll keep me going another day.

Yesterday I plunked down $30 which never had a chance of staying in my bank account and purchased a license for Smile On My Mac’s “TextExpander”. The price was a little more than I had hoped to pay (and Andrew, I checked out the link you sent too and because they are based in Europe the conversion rate was ridiculous) but I am hoping that the benefits of the program will outweigh its cost.

As a quick aside, I find myself looking for and purchasing more software for my Macs than I ever did in the Windows days.

TextExpander sits resident and watches me type all the time looking for tokens which have been predefined. When it recognizes one of the tokens which is then followed by a predefined delimiter, TextExpander automatically substitutes the associated text (or whatever) for the token.

For instance, if I were to type
hreftc
TextExpander would automatically replace that with
Top Chef

Not bad, eh? This will certainly save me a lot of time when it comes to URLs that I use often…

RealiTV Update: Top Chef
On an “All New” Top Chef we see that we are down to ten contestants.

I got nervous early on because if I’ve learned one thing from RealiTV it’s that if your preselected favorite starts getting a lot of airtime in any given episode things won’t go well for that person. Such was the case for Antonia last night.

For last night’s QuickFire Challenge it was Pastry Time. Pastry chefs are the placekickers of cooking; they serve a specific need and can save the day in some cases, but by and large are a completely different breed. Desserts have left a bitter taste in the mouth of chefs from previous seasons, so it was interesting to see how this lot would handle the challenge.

But first…. a product placement. This week Top Chef is pimping its own cookbook. What’s the word I am seeking? Oh yeah… TACKY!

As an added bonus the winner of this QuickFire Challenge will get his or her recipe into the cookbook! My mom used to put recipes into a VFW cookbook back in the 1970’s, hell I helped Alton Brown with the recipes for his first cookbook, so I guess what I am saying is that it ain’t no big thing. King Richard wins again, this time with his “Banana Impersonating Scallop” dessert. To me it sounds disgusting, but then again what do I know? King Richard now has two of his ideas stolen, this dessert and the one that Rick Bayless stole a few weeks ago.

Next up, the chefs get to go to improv comedy. Give me a feeling — “BORED!” Give me a time — “NOW!” Give me an action — “I’M GETTING UP TO GRAB A BEER!” You should have seen the way I nailed that scene last night. Mensa-candidate Nikki quickly figures out that the improv night is not just for fun (really?) and that the chefs are going to have to cook whatever this low-brow comedy crowd MadLibs for them.

King Richard teams up with Dale and kicks royal ass. That team winds up as one of the top two duos along with, astonishingly, Crackhead Andrew and Funnyman “Spike” — who made a goddamn squash soup! However soup is no match for tofu which perplexingly tastes like beef and Richard and Dale share victory. Take that vegetarians!

My girl Antonia gets “Polish sausage” as her team’s main ingredient, along with the emotion “drunk.” PERFECT! You are in the sausage capital of America, you can cook sausage with beer, and since you all did tailgating last week this should be a snap. But noooooo, Antonia and Lisa think Polish sausage is beneath them and cook fish with chorizo sausage? Well Excuuuuuuuuse Meeeeeeee! (See the way I slipped in a Steve Martin reference when talking about improv comedy-related cooking? Brilliant!) Their high-brow attitude lands them into the bottom pair of teams along with Stephanie and Jen (who has declared she is now going to win for Zoi — hey, why not win for yourself?). The judges decide that there can only be one faux-hawk hairstyle on the show and since Richard had immunity and his food actually tasted good that Jen should be told to pack up her fucking knives and leave.

Next week – children! Oh, fucking, boy (and girl).

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – I have a strange feeling that I will describe tomorrow
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Magnetic Fields — “California Girls”
Website Of The Day – As a kid I loved MadLibs and not just because I liked to sniff the marker either.
Exercise (b)Log – running, 5 miles
Monthly Foot Mileage – 48.5 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work – Marta
Monthly Marta Rides – 3
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 26 (26)

April Goals
1) Run no fewer than 75 miles
2) Ride no fewer than 100 road miles
3) Ride Marta no fewer than ten times (five round-trips)
4) Read at least one book
5) Make my bed every day

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]