Since I got up here I've been trying to more regularly. I don't know how to make many things yet, but I'm trying to learn new recipes little by little.

Last week, Bryan and Cat made egg-salad sandwiches, and graciously shared one with me. I'm a big fan of egg salad, so I decided to try making some myself sometime. Tonight I decided to give it a shot. It's not a complicated recipe, of course, but the first time I do anything I'm always timid and certain I'm going to screw something up.

The first step was boiling the eggs. It sounds like an easy enough process, but after I had warmed the eggs up to room temperature I realized I don't have a metal pot. It seemed like re-refrigerating the eggs wouldn't be good for them, so I decided to soldier on. The only thing I had that was deep enough was the glass mixing bowl from my electric mixer. I decided that I'd be able to lift it off of the stove safely despite the lack of handles, but I wasn't sure if the glass was safe to use on the stovetop (If you're reading this soon after I posted it, you may see evidence of my hesitation in my Google searches in the sidebar). Wikipedia has a picture of water being boiled in a glass pot, so I decided it was OK.

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Feeding a dog canned dogfood is something that everyone should be allowed to experience. For the last five or six years Chelsea has eaten only dry dogfood — because of a liver condition, she can't process protein or sodium very well, so she has to eat special, low sodium food. As a result, eating has never been a particular thrill — eating what she's supposed to, that is. She's always been all too eager to snatch up someone's untended burrito, never making the connection between that and her stomach pains later.

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In Ray Romano's book, Everything And A Kite, he says that, when he's trying to stay awake on long drives, he tries to think up sentences that have never ever been uttered before, such as, "Give me back my fudge suitcase, emperor." I think I may have just found another one.

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When Jenn mailed me some rolls of film to develop, she asked if there was anything Japanese I wanted her to include in the package. I said that I missed aloe yogurt and jokingly suggested that she send me some.

Her package arrived the other day and it seems she managed to fulfill my desire, to some extent. She managed to find a similar product by the same company: Aloe flavoring 'sauce'. Jenn rules :)

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I have no idea how Jared could stand to eat at Subway continuously for so long. I've been going there almost daily for the past six months or so, because it's the only place around here that's open past midnight and has anything vegetarian on the menu. Unfortunately, even there, the only thing I can eat is the Veggie Max, so my daily meal there has become a terribly monotonous experience. Every time I consider the prospect of going to Subway to get another damn Veggie Max, my soul dies a little. It's a lot like how Mayor Quimby feels about his wife (1.3 MB WMV video). It's even worse because Subway is so much more expensive here than it was in Clemson. My daily descents into ennui cost me $7.45 apiece. I really need to start bringing my own food to work more often.

While I was waiting for my connection at the Atlanta airport on my way home from Clemson, I tried a veggie burger at Burger King and it was surprisingly good. I got excited, because the Burger King on my way to work is open until 4am, so this could finally offer me an option other than the damned Veggie Max at Subway. Puerto Rico doesn't usually get the transient, temporary menu items at most fast food restaurants, but the veggie burger has been around in the US for quite a while now, so I was hopeful that they'd have it by now. So today on my way into work I stopped by Burger King to see if they had it.

"Can I take your order?"
"Hey, I was wondering if you guys have the veggie burger."
"...The Angus Beef Burger?"
"No, the Veggie Burger. They have it in the States."
"Um... The Jumbo Burger?"
"No. It's a veggie burger. It's made of soy and has no meat."
"Oh! Like a free burger¹?"
"What? No. A veggie burger. I'm guessing you don't have it."
"Um... I don't think so. Do you want an Angus Burger?"
"No, that's OK. Thanks."

Alas. Looks like I'll have to stick to the Veggie Max if I don't feel like bringing something from home.

¹ He said 'gratis', which means free as in no cost, not like 'fat free'. Spanish doesn't have the same 'free as in beer, free as in speech' ambiguity that English does. I'm not sure why he thought I was asking for a free burger, but maybe I should have run with it.

Last weekend I went to Charleston to visit Jessie. She was having a "Periodic Table Of The Elements" party. The idea for the party is genius, and I had an idea for a fun costume (the excitingly historied-Seaborgium", interpreted as a robotic sea monster) but I ended up not having time to put it together. Jessie took me to Party City and we settled on a Noble Gas. The day was saved.

Originally the plan was for Meg and Meej to make the drive from Clemson for the party, but Meej ended up having schoolwork to do, so they couldn't make it.

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I saw a Taco Bell commercial today that said they've got Cheesy Gordita Crunches back. If ever my vegetarianism was at risk, it is now. I must resist...

Speaking of Cheesy Gordita Crunches, I've always wondered whether the 'Cheesy' thing is actually part of the name or just a marketing adjective. I've always referred to them as "Cheesy Gordita Crunches" when ordering them, and I'd hate to think that all this time I've sounded as stupid as someone ordering a taco and asking them to add guacamole and Zesty Pepperjack Sauce™.

Heh, there is panic in PR right now because the truckers are on strike, demanding higher rates and refusing to deliver things, including gasoline to the gas stations and food to the grocers. There are a bunch of containers sitting on the docks with food that is going bad. But foremost in everybody's mind is the fuel thing. Yesterday as word spread about this strike, everyone rushed to the gas stations to fill up their tanks before the gas ran out, like it was a hurricane or something. Lines grew miles long, with hour-long waits, and within a few hours most gas stations were out of gas and closed. Today in the paper I saw that the governor has cut off negotiations with the truckers' union and has called out the National Guard.

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This morning I was eating a pack of Cottage Doubles, and it tasted a little weird. I thought of checking the expiration date, but it didn't really taste that odd — it could have been all in my head — and I knew that if I checked, and it was even a single day past its expiration date, I wouldn't be able to finish it, even though I knew in my head it was perfectly fine. So I kept my eyes fixed straight on the TV until I had finished eating it, and then turned it over to check. It turns out it expired about two weeks ago. Hmm. Curdled Milk 1, Dan 0.

The weekend with Courtney was great. Although I only took two days off (Friday and Monday nights), it felt like a more substantial vacation. The weather was uncooperative though, so I didn't get to show her many of the cool things available here.

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When I make peanut butter and jelly (actually preserves; jelly is gross) sandwiches, I always spread the peanut butter first, even though it would make a little more sense to do it the other way since jelly doesn't stick to the knife as much as peanut butter does, so you get less cross-over when you don't feel like cleaning the knife between applications. I think this is because I consider peanut butter more substantial than jelly. It would seem wrong to spread the jelly first. That'd be sort of like eating dessert before your meal.

Additionally, I always put the peanut butter on the left slice of bread and the jelly on the right. This just makes sense because, being primarily a speaker of western languages, I'm used to thinking right-to-left. However, it's at odds with my usual strategy, where I tend to favor the right-hand choice when making a decision, due to the fact that I'm right-handed.

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