Blown Fuse

blech!

Last night I had the unfortunate experience of tasting my first beer after almost of year of teetotaling. I don't know what to say other than to state the fact that I feel like yuck right now. I've apparently become a "cheap date." After about half a beer I could feel the alcohol dancing about my body, avoiding my liver at all costs. After finishing the entire bottle I reckoned that half a bottle more and I would have been sitting with my heads between my knees. Back in college I could consume something like four beers/hour and still be able to fend off would-be date solicitors. I guess in my old age I won't be doing that anymore.

So, more about the beer. Horniblow's Tavern is a offering of Big Boss (the former Edenton Brewing Company). I don't know what availability will be like for people who live out-of-state. As I'm actually from Edenton (and the place ain't that big), I figured I'd taste it just in case I ever needed to speak intelligently on it.

Horniblow's tavern is a pale English-style beer (amber-colored and bitter). It had been so long since I had a beer that I couldn't figure out if I'd lost my taste for the stuff or if it simply really was that bitter. The more I think about it, I'm sure it was the beer. Horniblow's tavern certainly isn't a beer for dilettantes - it wasn't smooth going down like my old Shiner standby. I started out sipping it like a potent red wine and eventually was able to take swigs.

It was, however, pretty tasty when accompanied with a DiGiorno's garlic bread pizza. I think the tomato sauce cut the bitterness a bit.

I'll give it a week and try it again. There are an additional three varieties of Big Boss beer in the fridge I haven't tasted yet. I hope that at least one of them will be good as a dinner beer.

That is soooooo funny.

Okay, I'm the kind of gal that likes to know everything possible about side a and side b and then choose which side I want to be on after deliberating about it for myself - that is, if I want to choose a side at all.

I got a few books on birthing from the library today and am really pissed off that I wasted my time with The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. I'm so revolted by this book that I'm not even going to bother to include an Amazon link here.

I picked up the book because I didn't take a childbirth class and I wanted some information. You would think from reading the title that you'd be presented with unbiased (or at least balanced) information, right? Nope. What I got was a diatribe on why you should distrust the medical establishment.

Look, here's the deal. I do not plan for my birthing experience to be textbook. These situations are a la carte, and I plan to pick and choose which conveniences/procedures/tests/yada yada I want when I get to the hospital. If I don't want an I.V. because they make me itch, I'll say so.

I do NOT need some holier-than-thou woman trying to make me feel guilty for the fact that I'm going to be having this kid in a hospital and not in a birthing center.

Because I feel so strongly about this book, I went to Amazon to post my review, and guess what I noticed? Everyone with the same opinion as mine (that the book is NOT for the "thinking woman"), has their reviews rated as "not helpful." Then I also noticed that the people who praised the book as being "the only book you need to read!" (what a crock!) had very high "helpful" ratings. They also posted under the same log-in names again and again to rate the book highly (dumbasses). OF COURSE it's going to rate more highly and the people who read reviews like mine think I don't know what I'm talking about, or that I'm a "sheep." Feminists get epidurals, too.

I just love it when things like this become a frickin' political issue. It's like the pro-naturalists were told by someone (hmm, I wonder who?) to go through the reviews and mark down anything that was against the book. Almost every negative review is marked as not being helpful, even though the writers are eloquent and clearly state in non-accusatory terms why the book wasn't helpful for them.

Go check it out - it's a great laugh.

Rabbit food

Um...McDonald's is one of my dearest friends. The smell of a Big Mac awaiting consumption in a brown paper bag is one of those scents that can knock me out of a work-induced stupor. Don't even get me started on the zen of a hot, crispy french fry.

Today, I wanted a salad. When I was going through that few weeks of food aversions, one thing that I really, really did not want is a salad. I don't know why that is.

Yesterday, I was feeling well enough to go out and for lunch we went to Subway. I had one of their Veggie Delite salads (which is nothing but a bowl of sandwich filling, but anyway). Today I didn't feel my salad craving had been satisfied.

I was looking forward to lunch and going to McDonald's and getting one of those nice fresh garden salads with maybe some cold hard-boiled eggs and French dressing like they used to have on display on top of the counter back in the day when everything was simple.

Because fast food restaurants never advertise the full menu on the drive-through panels, when I pulled up I saw a choice of an Asian salad, a chicken ceasar salad, a bacon ranch salad, and some funky-looking apple & walnut salad. Because I wanted a meal and not garnish, I made the mistake of ordering the Asian salad (with grilled chicken). From the picture, I could see it had mandarin orange slices and it looked pretty refreshing. I figured I could pick out anything I didn't want.

When I got it back to the office and pulled off the lid my heart sank.

It had edamame, toasted almonds, some red pepper, and snow peas on top of tired-looking iceburg lettuce. They didn't even bother to cut up the chicken. They just laid it on top in one big hunk. It really looked like nobody ever ordered that particular salad, so they just opened up the can of edamame and dumped half the damn thing in MY salad to get rid of it. I'd venture to say there was more snow peas and shit in my salad than...well, salad.

I wanted a green salad with cucumber, French dressing, and cheddar cheese. Maybe a couple of bac'n bits and some protein thrown in for flair. As gauche as that sounds, that's what I wanted.

That salad was sooooooooo unappetizing. It just had too much shit in it that wasn't really tasty. I ended up eating half the chicken and threw the rest of it out.

What a waste. I still want a salad.

Book smart.

Last night I finished The Da Vinci Code. Yes, I do realize that I'm more than two years late to catch the hype of this one.

I got sick of hearing everyone (including my mother-in-law) talk about it. I've watched a couple of documentaries inspired by the book and felt hopelessly lost.

Having read the book I've got to confess that I've never been so impressed with a writer's fearlessness in actually presenting a novel that is so intelligent. The amount of reasearch that must have gone into this book is astonishing. I can see why so many people have been so enthralled with the questions the book asks.

I hear through the grapevine that a lot of die-hard fans for the book are unimpressed with the movie of it that is being made. I hope it doesn't turn into a fiasco like those Anne Rice attempts.

All the Black Eyed Peas a girl could want.

I don't get excited about much - it's in my nature as a cynic and skeptic, and it makes it impossible for people to buy me gifts.

That being said, I have to confess that there is a e-gadget that makes me moisten my pants slightly.

One of my friends asked if I used Yahoo! messenger. I typically don't use a messenger at home because it distracts me away from playing with the Sims. Since the phone reception I get in my home is shoddier than average I downloaded the new version so that we could have our usual expletive-laced conversations without worrying about me sitting in the 3' x 3' corner of the house where my phone actually works.

It's not the messenger itself that I'm so hyped up about, but the streaming radio tool that's integrated into it. You get limited features with the free version, such as only five song skips per hour, and after a certain number of hours of play each much they cut you off.

I actually liked the service so much that I upgraded to the paid service.

The really cute thing about it is it's ability to tell your buddylist something about you. You can set it up so that who and what you're listening to displays next to your user name. A friend who knows me very well asked "Why are you listening to Trick Daddy?" It just happened to be on the "Today's Big Hits" list on that day, but either way it was a good laugh.

I don't listen to a whole lot of music radio at home or in the car, so I'm getting familiar with a few new great artists that I may add to my disc collection.

I dig it.

Shut it down.

Why do people always feel the need to let you know when you've missed something "good" by your own choice? I'm referring to the Lunch & Learn mentioned in the previous post.

I told my boss at least six times that I would not go. I'm sorry if it hurt his pride.

So, what's the first thing he does when he comes back into the office? In his loudest voice comments "You missed a really good lunch!"

"Good" by what standards? Free? Fuck that. My hot apple pies and quarter pounder were fabulous, thank you.

Same thing from the very next person to come into the office. I didn't bother to respond.

Should have bought Joss Stone.

I bought this CD because what few songs I'd heard from it were sort of nice, and Gavin DeGraw can sound sort of like Maroon 5's Adam Levine. And if you don't know, Adam Levine's voice is dripping with sex.

Gavin DeGraw? Not so much. While there are some similarities in style, Gavin DeGraw's "Chariot" CD is totally popped over for the WB's primetime demographic. Such a pity, too. After listening to the bonus acoustic CD that came with it, "Stripped," I see that it isn't DeGraw with the pop sound--it's obviously producer Mark Endert's creation. Damn shame too, for a guy with so much gospel in his voice.

If you can get "Stripped" without the "Chariot" albatross, go for it.