today's rant: food

i'm disappointed that every time i say "like a good neighbor, state farm is there", nothing happens.  why the hell do i even bother paying my premiums?

someone from stony brook just emailed me about some career fair back at my old college.  i've responded by taking his email address and signing him up for a bunch of internet newsletters.  i'm signing him up for recipes, government recalls, and religious content.  hope he enjoyed having his school email.  i wish spamming spammers was always this easy.

my biggest restaurant pet peeve is undercooked chicken.  there is no excuse for that.  it is akin to the cook telling you "go fuck yourself."  it makes me wish that most restaurants would adopt taco bell's quality policy of "like it or we'll eat it."  i would freakin love to see that.  i may even pay to see some guy choke down 130 degree pink chicken meat because of his neglect.

coming in at a close second is undercooked eggs.  to be fair, i sort of ask for it when i order eggs over easy.  but then again, that means that the eggs are supposed to have a runny yolk.  that does not mean that the egg whites are running clear.  that is not breakfast.  that is food poisoning and two days of puking and shitting my pants because of food-borne pathogens.

cooking for a baby is a way different food experience that just cooking for my wife, or even cooking for myself.  the only way i can gauge if my daughter likes my food or not is whether or not she takes the food out of her mouth and drops it off the side of her high chair.  the best part of that is that it makes more food for me.

watching her eat something new is amazing.  she has such an inquisitive look on her face.  at first, she doesn't know how to handle it.  if i feed her something on a spoon or fork, she'll stare at it for 4 seconds, then attempt to take it off with her fingers, especially yogurt.  then she'll put halfway through her mouth.  this is the point where she is first tasting it.  the weird thing that she doesn't follow through.  she'll take the food back out of her mouth and stare at it again.  either her attention span is still developing or she is thinking "my dad made it taste like this?!" which can either be a good thing or a bad thing.  then, she'll put it back in her mouth completely and take two bites.  then she stares off into nothingness as if contemplating the meaning of life.  in those two bites, fates are decided.  either this food is going to be something to keep in our baby-feeding repertoire or this food will justify my wife buying a tablecloth that doubles as a drop cloth underneath the highchair when my daughter takes the food back out of her mouth and discards it off the side of her highchair. 

today's rant: driving through atlanta

lately for my job, i have to drive from my new home in south carolina to my job in alabama until the south carolina facility opens.  my drive takes me from columbia through augusta through atlanta to montgomery.  depending on traffic and stops for gas and food, it takes me anywhere between 5 hours 15 minutes to 6 and a half hours when going 70 mph.  now, i have not had the opportunity to spend a good amount of time in atlanta.  i would like to at some point.  i might even be adventurous or drunk enough to go a braves game when the mets play there.

unfortunately for me, my route only takes me south of the main part of atlanta, so i do not get to see much of the city.  the interstate i ride takes me though the airport.  notice that i did not say "passed the airport."  i said "through the airport" and i mean "through the airport."   the interstate goes through the airport.  look on a map.  one miscalculation, a plane is landing on your ass or you are driving through the nathan's hot dogs booth.

you know what would be awesome?  strawberry m&m's.  by the way, i don't want to hear any grammar nazis coming at me.  "oh, there isn't supposed to be an apostrophe there since it's plural and not possessive!"  fuck you!  i'm staring at the bag right now.  there's an apostrophe.

you know what the hardest thing about being on weight watchers is?  post-holiday clearance candy.  $1 for a five pound bag of pastel m&m's simply because it isn't easter anymore?  god bless america.

i am still reveling in the fact that being a father gives me a legitimate excuse to watch cartoons.  lately, i was elated to hear that there will be a sequel to finding nemo called finding dory.  now i can play finding nemo for my daughter in two years and we can go see finding dory immediately after in the theaters.  fuckin' a! (singing in my head "just keep swimming, just keep swimming...")

i might as well say this now while it is early in the season and i still feel happy:  let's go mets!