November 11, 2013

This, That And The Other Thing

Welcome back my friends to the best blog that you haven't read yet.

For today's topic du jour I thought I would entertain everyone with three random thoughts that have been bubbling beneath the surface since I discovered last week that I have to suffer through the bye week as my fave football team the New England Patriots is taking a well deserved timeout (7-2 high atop the AFC East).

Although this is not part and parcel of today's post, the Patriots are the only sports team that I follow who are consistent winners year in and year out (I am a very long time suffering NY Mets fan).

With that being said, let's move on to this, that and the other thing.

This: Contrary to popular opinion and more importantly, what I wrote about breakfast, lunch and dinner, I actually know how to cook. Unlike most guys my age who probably only know how to BBQ meat on the grill and maybe, just maybe, can actually make a sandwich/grinder to feed themselves, I actually paid attention in home-ec classes that I was forced to take in middle school and high school. So if the need should ever arise, I can become the 21st century version of Felix Unger.

The reason why I bring this up is that over the weekend, I decided to treat the family to homemade pizza. Well, semi-homemade, since I bought the crust (thin) pre-made and it came with pizza sauce. Beyond that, I basically cooked everything else.

Pizza #1 was not sausage & mushrooms (long running joke is that as a kid, whenever we went to a pizza place, before we even had a chance to look at the menu, the second the waitress asked if she could take our order, my dad would immediately order sausage and mushrooms, thus promptly pissing off the rest of the family), but one specially created for daughter and mother: one half green peppers/black olives/bacon/sausage/onions and the other half pepperoni.

Pizza #2 was filled with schtuff that I like: pepperoni, sausage. bacon, diced ham, sweet onions and garlic.

Both pizzas were a hit with the masses and I actually got compliments about my cooking skills.

'Nuff said.

That: I finally got all my necessary crap migrated to my new computer, which is an HP EliteBook 6930p loaded with Windows 7 which has at the moment 89.3 gigs of space (out of 111 gigs) and 4 gigs of memory. I'm still using the trusty old ASUS loaded with Windows XP for writing and printing. The amazing thing about the XP is that the computer is roughly 6 1/2 years old and still going strong. The other amazing thing is that I can still access at least one component of Blogger with my way out of date/non-supported browser, which is really necessary because Chrome, while a decent browser, sucks major moose testicles when it comes to printing.

With my new one, I do plan on doing some writing oriented things (i.e. loading manuscripts to Smashwords and Createspace) but in order to do that, I need to get Office 2013. In order to get that, we will ask for our usual Christmas present of gift cards, this time we will specify Staples. Our Staples card, while getting an upgrade for rewards membership, has taken a beating for the year with purchasing new computer and school supplies.

Until then, we will continue to simply e-mail periodic updated copies of manuscripts to ourselves so that we can store them on the new computer's flash drive.

The Other Thing: After reading various writer's blogs on how they go about not really finishing their TBR pile (ya know, read one book, add twenty-five more, read one and a half books, add twenty more), I thought I would attempt the same thing, except I would call it my B(ooks) A(ctually) R(ead) pile.

Doing this though, will require a lot of digging through the memory banks for 2013, since the library doesn't keep "permanent" records of what a patron reads. So within the coming weeks, I will be spending a fun filled afternoon/evening armed with a notepad and a pen, wandering through the various sections of the library trying to find the multitude of books that I've read for the year.

At the moment, I do have a short list of 13, most of which were culled from what I wrote for Amazon reviews this year plus a few that I remembered reading a few months ago.

I know I've written from time to time what I like to read for genres, and I though this would be a good way to give everyone another peek into what makes me tick as a reader and perhaps as writer as well.

12 comments:

  1. Oh man - homemade pizza! I'll bet that WAS good.

    I'll be interested in reading about your BAR list.

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  2. Lynn: It was sensational. I was even able to save a few pieces for leftover supper on Sunday.

    It should definitely be an interesting BAR list to say the least.

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  3. No one in my HS was forced to take Home Ec. You chose between that and shop.

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  4. Bearman: Home-ec was an involuntary class in middle school, while in high school, it was definitely voluntary.

    In my school, home-ec was the equivalent of Basket Weaving 101 in college, as we always had an abnormal amount of jocks there. An easy class was an easy class and back in the early 80's, you did what you needed to do to get out of school with your classmates.

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  5. Yeah, a TBR list can grow out of control pretty quickly. I have one that I stopped adding to a couple of years ago because it was out of control, and it never gets any shorter because I can't resist browsing in libraries and bookstores.

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  6. S.R.: My TBR pile is either one or zero, which based directly on how many books I take out of the library.

    I do have a NTBR pile, which consists of five at the moment. If I'm super desperate, I may crack one of them open.

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  7. Oh please! All those boys took home-ec because that's where the girls were!

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  8. Ellen: Perhaps in high school, yes. Middle school, I don't think meeting girls was at the top of their list. Certainly wasn't at the top mine when I was in middle school.

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  9. I have a homemade crust recipe I can send if you want to go the full Felix ;)

    BAR is a great idea!

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  10. M: That may be a bit too extreme. :D

    Thanks. I'm glad I thought of it. :D

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