052 – kiss me

it finally happened.  a moment in South Africa that was awkward enough to motivate me to write a blog post about it.  i was in Pick ‘n’ Pay tonight – basically the South African Piggly Wiggly.  we went after dinner to get some candy..because we were deprived of our normal pudding dessert.  i walked to the back of the store in search of my favorite foreign candy: the prized KinderEgg.  i got to the familiar shelf to find it blank.  nothing.  thus began the hunt for some other acceptable source of sweetness.  i landed in the register line looking at chocolate bars.  in south africa there is a candy bar made by Cadbury that has different phrases on it.  these phrases consist of things like ‘you’re fine’ and ‘how ’bout a date?’  … i mean, this is really useful candy.  so i’m looking through all these phrases trying to find something worthy to be my dessert.  some of the phrases were in english, but some were in afrikaans.  so against my better judgement, i picked up a chocolate ps bar, that said “soen my”.  i had no clue what that meant.  so i looked around for the nearest south african, which happened to be this 40 year old white man in front of me in line.  he had a mustache.  i leaned over, showed him the candy bar and asked him what it meant.  in return, i received shifty eyes.  i raised my eyebrows and he replied, ‘kiss me.’  immediately i drew back and said, “woah man, that was not intended to be…”  i just left it hanging there.  i found out last week that there are more gay people in capetown, south africa than anywhere else on the continent of africa.  maybe for that guy, the moment wasn’t really that awkward.

051 – a true mystery

i went to waffle house last night for a midnight treat.  of course, i ordered my waffle house favorite, cheese grits.  but last night, i decided to really reward myself with something extra: a biscuit.  after i ordered and the waffle house woman (?) left my table, i glanced at the menu and noticed that the biscuit i just ordered cost $1.00, but directly under that were the words “Sausage Biscuit – $1.00″.  so that’s free breakfast meat, right?  can’t pass that up.  if you’ve ever been to waffle house you know what a gamble my next move was.  i flagged down the waiter.  or was it waitress?  that’s irrelevant.  kind of.  but i asked her (?) if indeed the sausage biscuit was the same price as a biscuit…and turns out that waffle house does give out free breakfast meat!  so now my ordered had changed…which again is a dangerous action at waffle house.  but sure enough, i received my meal:

but the true mystery is this:  why is that pickle on my plate?

050 – A Thousand Miles

A nice celebration for post #50.

you HAVE to click on it!

A Thousand Miles – The Orange Jumpsuit Guys

CLICK IT!

The Orange Jumpsuit Guys, an AirBand from Auburn University performs their second hit, A Thousand Miles, originally performed by Vanessa Carlton. 

049 – the closet.

so on thursday of last week, my closet broke.  yep.  i heard a crash and ran into my room to find this:

everything fell.  there were bent metal braces and screws ripped out of the wall.  i just closed the door.  later, i did take the time to transport my closet to my kitchen.  i’m now waiting on the apartment maintenance guy to pay me a visit.  my new closet:

048 – the flintstones

i was talking to some friends recently about how good flintstones vitamins taste.  i mean, they’re good!  when i was a little kid, my parents found me hiding under my desk one time eating as many as i could.  …and i had some recently – and it was no childhood fantasy!  they actually taste good!

what a mystery this is though – because as adults we all unfortunately find out that nothing in this world that is good for you taste good.  its all gross.  fact of life: healthy food tastes bad.  EXCEPT for flintstones vitamins!  how did they do that?  i think instead of asking how, we should be asking what.  what can we do with these amazing vitamins?

i think we could change the way that healthy food is perceived.  what if we simply crunched up flintstones vitamins and made spices out of them?  just imagine green beans: with a hint of strawberry flavoring.  they would be amazing – and the greatest thing is that you’re only adding more nutrients!  you could flavor anything, even ice cream could now in a sense be called ‘healthy’.  we could separate them into individual flavors, but also create an ‘allspice’  that was just an entire bottle of flintstones crushed up.  i think this would take the culinary world by storm.  healthy food would be tasty!  we would name the spice after the character we crushed up.  there would be ‘essence of dino’ and a ‘dash of bam-bam’.  think of the fun that Emeril Lagasse would have would that: “and BAM we just add a little BAMBAM! BAM!”

047 – snow eagle

snow eagle

046 – a linear tragedy

i was sitting in linear algebra this morning, with all my energies concentrated on not falling asleep, when the unthinkable happened.  my class doesn’t get out until 9:15, but my professor got confused and started letting us out at 8:50.  he started handing back our tests 20 minutes early!  and to make things better, he felt guilty because, as he thought, we were going to be late to our next class…so he gave us two bonus points on our test!  it was like someone had handed me a shopping spree to that cookie kiosk in the mall.  a bright light can shining out of the boredom darkness…i was getting out of clas 20 minutes early!  but no.  everything took an extreme downturn as that guy on the front row, the one in the green jacket, slowly raised his hand.  cleared his voice.  and into the sweet silence stated, ‘we still have twenty minutes left in class.’  everyone in the room slumped into their desk as our riveting professor picked back up his piece of chalk and drew more numbers on the board…why?  who wants to be that kid?  ugh.

045 – another mexican event

for those of you who know me, you know that i have horrible luck when it comes to have any sort of normal experience once i set foot inside of a mexican restaurant.  i think this happens because i always get nervous because i don’t know what to order.  if there was just a menu item that read, ‘chicken swimming in cheese sauce’  i’d be fine.  seriously people.  but i had mexican food last weekend.  and this time was no exception.

we walked into the restaurant that had an interesting ambiance because of the christmas wreath that still hung over the door.  you have to appreciate the way that these places are decorated.  but things are going fine as our waiter with blond tips in his hair takes our order and listens to me struggle to order one of those lunch combinations that sounds the most like what you can get at taco bell.  everything is going according to plan as i explain to him that i want cheese sauce poured all over the top of whatever it was that i just ordered.  as we’re eating our food and enjoying the environment of our mexican christmas eatery, a little girl leans out of the booth in front of ours.  i watch as she extends her arm and begins to shake her glass at the whole restaurant.  i’m pretty sure that if you’re rich, this is an acceptable way to ask for a refill.  i can’t help it.  confessedly, i stared.  and i watched for at least 2 minutes as waiters and waitresses walked right past her as she shook her empty glass at each one of them.  it was mesmerizing.  no one ever responded to her, and she just kept on shaking it back and forth.  as soon as someone at my table asked me what i was staring at, instead of telling them, i just picked up my empty glass and began to to shake it at the restaurant.  almost immediately, blondie waiter stops and asks me… ‘refill?’  i glanced at the little girl.  she was glaring at me.

i would like to take a moment to thank the gods of irony and fate for my life.  i appreciate it.

044 – my kitchen.

my kitchen was designed by a genius.

043 – i know what’s wrong with our economy!

i think i figured out what’s wrong with our economy:

yes, it’s upside down.

genius.