The Microwave Room, Carpeting Memory, and Garlic Skins

I still have some left over french fries from Friday night, I was thinking I could make decent hash browns from them. I'm not a big french fry person. Ketchup is key with hash browns, and my kethcup situation is a little odd.

It looks like I may be heading to San Genaro today, via automobile, perhaps with the dog. But things are still fairly unsettled as the dog is not well, and I won't know til later if she'll be able to make it. I imagine parking won't be too much of a problem as it is Sunday. Hope I'm right. I may take 42nd street across town, as it seems that the lights on 57th are more geared for heading east. Maybe 42nd is the opposite? I try to avoid driving through times square, but maybe it's not so bad.

I wonder if I'm suffering from hypoxia. It would be nice if there were still some oxygen bars around to see how that would make me feel. It seems that that trend has passed, maybe for 10 years now. I never did try one out.

I was noticing yesterday that my carpet shows the history of my paths across it in a rather strong way, even if the sun shining on it isn't strong. The pattern is as I would have expected. The marks from the crutches I had to use a couple years back have disappeared though, so there is some lack of memory in the carpet. Probably has something to do with vacuuming and walking over those marks repeatedly. There are a few too many onion and garlic skins on the floor in the room with the microwave and in the kitchen, which is adjacent. I use a lot of garlic and onion. I let them accumulate as I don't think they're much of a sanitary issue in the scheme of things, and I'm amazingly lazy. I'm also rather fond of paper towelling, and there's typically a collection of partially used towelling scattered around the areas that I frequent. I used to give my grandmother a hard time about her paper towel usage, but now I see the error of my ways. Maybe such a trait is inherited.

I haven't thrown out any of my beer bottle caps for a good part of a year. I periodically collect them from the coffee table and put them in a plastic bag. The plastic bag is getting some heft. There must be quite a few hundred by now, maybe even appraoching 1000. There are still a few lying around that have somehow found there way to other parts of the apartment. For example, there's one approximately 2 inches from the upper left corner of the keyboard I'm typing on. Whoever keeps track of where these bottle caps should be while I'm not thinking about them does an excellent job because I don't even doubt that there's a good reason for it being there even though I don't recall putting it there. It looks to be from a Magic Hat #9, certainly a type of beer I've drank in the recent past.

I used to call the room I'm in the computer room, but from now on I think I'll call it the microwave room.

Breakfast Topics

I put my 6 bags of gym clothes in the trunk of my car just so that nobody gets any ideas. They were in the back seat, except for one pair which was in the passenger seat. I just heard an interesting story about cats falling on the radio. They do okay falling from, say less than 5 stories, and they do okay say above 9 stories, but they have problems in between. Apparently, they do okay less than 5 stories because they're not moving that fast, and they do okay above 9 stories because they've reached terminal velocity and start to relax since they're not accelerating anymore. They can then orient themselves, and tend to survive the fall. I couldn't help but be reminded of the praying mantis I had on my windshield a couple weeks ago, and how it had problems around 40 mph, but did okay at 60 mph, and less than 30-40 mph. Although in this case the bad region had nothing to do with terminal velocity. There do seem to be some parallels though.

I find it ironic that the analogy used to describe curvature of space time in general relativity, that of a mass lying on a elastic membrane which curves the membrane, relies on gravity to pull the mass downward and thereby distort the membrane.

I just had leftovers from last night for breakfast. 3 chicken wings (2 BBQ and 1 buffalo), a tortilla that once contained the contents of a fish taco, and fixins for said taco (salsa, guacamole, chopped jalapenos, and sour cream). There were also crushed red peppers involved. The best bite was when I opened the remaining part of the tortilla, cut some of the chicken meat off both types of chicken wings and put it on the tortilla, and then also filled it with the fixins. I had heated the tortilla and wings in a pan and then put the pan in the oven with a bit of oil. That bite was pretty delicious. It seemed fairly ridiculous to pack the tortilla, which was not in good shape, in with the rest of it last night, but it really worked out.

I read two headlines on a website, "Tiger that attacked man did nothing wrong" and "How are American muslims reacting to the anti-Islamic film?". They followed each other in a scroll, I first thought it said something like, "Was tiger that attacked man reacting to the anti-Islamic film?".

Vanilla Sky

My home internet continues to sort of work. I watched a good part of a documentary on Absinthe on Hulu last night just before I went to bed. I finished off the Chinese liquor during it. I think I was started to get used to its flavor a bit. At 52% alcohol it was a suitable substitute for Absinthe after finishing a six pack. This time it was Bluepoint Oktoberfest, purchased at the Gulf station on the westbound service road of Sunrise just past the exit for Southern state. Their prices are pretty reasonable. Parking wasn't great last night. I wasted a good 10 minutes.

Starbucks this morning. Today I decided to cross Austin at the light which brings me onto restaurant row. There is a new Yogurt shop Vanilla Sky to be opening where Europan used to be. I'm not too thrilled about that. What they need here is a good pub that serves food late into the night. I'm talking 3 AM on Monday late, not midnight. I enjoyed Vanilla sky (the movie), though its main character was pretty vain. I guess everything is relative.

I was walking along, across the boulevard and all, with a traffic cop not far from me for a decent part of my trek. He had his radio on, and I could hear some of the babble. I heard the word summons at least once. I started to worry that I had parked on the wrong side of the street, even though I was pretty sure that I hadn't. I find that I mix up the Thursday/Friday streets, I've made the mistake a few times. When I got to my car it was fine. It was parked a good 3-4 minutes walk further than usual. No big deal though.

Once I parked in front of a driveway, and didn't get to my car the next day until noon or so. This was probably 6 years ago and it still bothers me. I actually checked when I parked if I was in front of a driveway, and yet still I missed it. When I got there the next day there was no ticket but someone had sprayed paint across the side of it. I felt terrible. The paint came off easily, I don't blame them. I was going to go up to the door and apologize, and maybe give them some money, but I never did.

Quiet Morning on the North Side

The sign is still there. Apparently they have no intention of taking it down. The excavation has been filled, maybe they were digging to put the electrical wiring in. There were some nice low cumulus on the way to work today. There was even a sprinkle or two, but not enough to turn the wipers on, even once. I might have cleaned the windshield once if I didn't have to turn the lights on, and if my wipers were new.

I got the $1.85 coffee at 7-11, which comes out to $2 even with tax. No wax paper buttered rolls. I parked in an area where it's not clear to me whether to go to Starbucks or 7-11. Maybe the roundness of the price was a factor in my decision. No one was in the way of the coffee, the woman that works there was sort of close to where I get the cup reading a paper, she shifted a little to the right when I went for the cup. Worked out pretty well. I only gave 5 series of alternating stirs since I put my sugar in before pouring the coffee. May not even need that many, I do 6 at Starbucks.

The crowd on the boulevard is different than on Austin, where Starbucks lies. Certainly more subdued, but different also, and less medical workers out on their breaks and what not. I got the first crosswalk when the walking man signal was still up, but didn't quite get to the other side before the light became green. No biggie, probably lost about 10 seconds.

The car started well, and got on the parkway pretty smoothly. Traffic heading east at the Kew Gardens interchange was moving well, so I didn't bypass it. I still prefer the right lane, with my car shifted right of center to avoid the bumpy stretch that the right tire would fall on. I'm toying with the idea of getting over to the left lane after the low point so I don't encounter the incoming traffic coming from the on ramp that shortly follows. It's also nice to stay in the right lane so that I get some shade in the submerged portion of the parkway. It was cloudy at that time today though, so that really didn't matter this time.

Heat Conduction

Did you know that if you were ejected into interstellar space without a spacesuit you would not explode? Aside from not having any Oxygen your body would radiate about 10,000 calories a day from Blackbody radiation. If you were somehow able to eat, say prime rib, I think this rate of energy loss would be surmountable.

When they say that the temperature on the Moon during the day is 180F and at night is -200F, what exactly do they mean? As there is no air. Do they mean the surface temperature varies by that amount? Well, that's certainly a different matter than the air temperature. If they mean that the 10 molecules in the moon's atmosphere have that temperature, that doesn't matter either. I guess it's just a way to be sensational by appealing to the senses.

Actually Sunday

With the Jewish holidays approaching alternate side of the street parking will be suspended on Monday and Tuesday. This makes the option of using my car today easier, as I hate coming back on a Sunday night and trying to find a place to park.

I guess going to Roxy's is an option. So would supper at my house. I had somewhat stale and then microwaved Doritos with srirach for breakfast around 1400 hrs. I'm still a little hungry. I put half n half in my Chai tea today and I'm running low on sugar. I think I have only one bag of Chai left. After that I may have to resort to herbal teas.

My internet has mysteriously started working, for two days now. Someone must have inadvertantly fixed it.

The weather in Timbuktu is temporarily unavailable.

I may get a piece of toast. Correction, I did get a piece of toast. The A1 bottle full of Ketchup that I received for Christmas isn't the best for pouring, I microwave it for a few seconds as I keep it in the fridge. 

The Wheels are Turning!

Last night I parked on the street where 7-11 is on the corner, so I got my 6-pack of Magic hats there. I also got 2 Japanese noodle soups, and a Haagen Daz dark chocolate chocolate pop. They have good noodle soups there, though there collection was rather sparse by previous standards, there were still some that looked acceptable, though I don't think I've had them. I forget the brand, Sapporo maybe? The pop was the only one remaining, and it was in a box at the bottom of the freezer with some assorted ice cream products. It was a little beat up. It cost 3 dolluhs. I had it last night, it was a little crystallized, but definitely edibible. I thought about the idea of asking for a discount, because the box was all beat up, as I was eating it. It's sometimes a dubious venture buying ice cream during the summer from convenience stores in this neck of the woods, but this 7-11 is pretty good.

Having parked on that street, I knew where I was gonna get my coffee this morning. This time they weren't out of it. I'm often a little annoyed at how people hang out where the coffee is. Don't they know I have to get stirrers, and half n half, and so forth? I typically have no justification for this feeling though, but I can't stop it from happening. I don't think they had any buttered rolls in the wax paper today, though I hardly even looked.

The coolant leak is definitely getting worse. I intend to have them take a look when I get my next oil change in about 3000 mi (~5 weeks). I hope it holds up til then and it isn't anything serious.

As I drove by the sign on the GCP (heading east, the sign is on the west side), I saw a crew that was excavating around it. So, they're taking it out, I wondered? Pretty crazy. Finally some action!