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Apparently I’ve been under a misconception that microwaves are a bad way to cook: they use microwave radiation to heat food, cooking in the microwave will rob food of its nutrients.  Things like that.  A week or so ago, I was vaguely curious how refrigeration worked, so looked that up and learned about boiling ammonia, compressing the gas and recollecting it to boil again, fascinating stuff.  So this week I was thinking that microwaves would be a good follow up.  Well, I still can’t tell you what goes on to generate the microwaves, all the rest drew me in too thoroughly.  Apparently everything harmful I “knew” about microwaves was myth.  Cooking in the microwave is generally safer (of course there are exceptions) than oven or stove-top cooking.  Food retains far more nutrients (in general) when cooked in the microwave (primarily because of shorter cooking times and lower temperatures).  And some foods such as bacon which become carcinogenic when fried and charred are safer when cooked in the microwave.  And this is just scratching the surface.  It’s amazing how much there still is to learn.  Maybe next week I’ll see if I can understand internal combustion engines.

I wish I had NetFlix when I was a kid.  Heck, at the time, I wished I had TV.  In fact, there are a lot of things that I would have appreciated a lot more when I was a kid.  The reason I hate Steam is because it wasn’t there when I was a kid.

But that’s beside the point.  Thalia has been watching some cartoons on NetFlix.  And it’s great because we’re not totally at the whim of whatever’s on.  We can give her the ones that are vaguely educational like Dora and Diego.  But, over time, she watches these multiple times each.  It’s amazing how quickly you can go through the entirety of a TV series when you can watch more than one episode per week.  So we ran out of the stuff we knew of as educational and started putting on things we remembered…  she’s watched She-Ra and The Littles.  And for some reason, based on the cartoons we’d put on, it recommended Sonic Underground.  Ridiculous little cartoon, but really not terrible when compared to things like Thundercats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (neither of which are on Netflix instant, btw, somebody petition that).  The point I’m really trying to make here is about the theme song.  I had never been particularly aware of the completely “produced” nature of these theme songs.  But this one just obviously strikes me as something that was completely forced from the vague concept of what happened.  I always assumed there was art in music, this is proof that there isn’t.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Katie! You’re like an angel without wings. So, you know… Human. I love you.

I finally did it…  after roughly two years since I first decided to try, I ran a marathon yesterday.  There’s not much else to say about it, really.  It was the worst pain I’ve ever intentionally inflicted upon myself.  And I’m still recovering as of today.  Since I went to bed at 7pm the night before the marathon, it was also the most well-rested I’ve ever felt at 3am when I woke up for the marathon.  Lotta firsts…  lotta firsts.

While running with Katie recently, pursuant to a discussion on a friend’s boyfriend, I told Katie she was “the best I could do.”  I was attempting to prove that this was actually a great complement, contrary to my aforementioned friend’s assessment that it was extremely pejorative.  Of course, she took offense, proving me wrong (in a joking manner).  I then offered her the alternative if she didn’t like being “the best I could do” then what must be true is that “I could have done better, but settled for her.”  That didn’t go over very well either.  It was around this point that she won the conversation…  and I was proven wrong.  I still think it was a complement.  Love you Katie.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

This morning I realized that I’ve had my alarm clock since I was 14, at 32, my alarm clock is now old enough to vote (I probably have some T-Shirts that are in this same position and I’m pretty sure my old Nintendo is married with kids, but that’s a different, and possibly weirder, story). Maybe I should tell that other story since this one clearly isn’t going anywhere… just… nevermind.

11-11-11, a date (just like every other date) that won’t come around again for another century.  We act like that’s special for some reason…  I guess we just need a reason to celebrate.

And I never thought I’d see the day that I would say “I sure am glad Walking Stick mating season is over.”  Really, Florida?

We’re adapting to country life…  trying to be self-sufficient and all that.  You know…  “farming.”  The idea is to save money by not buying the processed stuff that goes through a handful of middle-men with markups at every opportunity.  This weekend we got some sweet potatoes fresh out of the ground.  And I mean fresh, we went to the farm around 10am on Saturday and got the potatoes, and Katie made a pie out of them around 2pm.  We got some other stuff for the pie…  a crust, cream cheese, half and half.  All told, the pie probably cost about $6 in ingredients.  And then some trivial amount (possibly trivial) in electricity to boil the potatoes and then to bake the pie.  The kicker is that a whole pumpkin or sweet potato pie at the grocery store is anywhere from $4 to $7…  so, we might have saved close to a dollar.  How is it possible that it costs more to make food at home (not to mention the labor that went into it, though that’s not really a cost since it’s just fun to do things together as a family) than it does to get some pies made halfway across the country, frozen, shipped, marked up, etc etc etc?  It makes less sense to try to be self-sufficient.  Technically, I guess if we’d grown the potatoes, made the crust, and not fancied it up with cream cheese, it might have cost about $2…  I guess it’s an all or nothing thing when you try to be self-sufficient.

Chicken is another thing…  A couple weeks ago I was going out for lunch, and I could get a footlong sub for $5…  or an entire fried chicken at the Publix deli.  How can it possibly be profitable for chicken raisers to raise chickens when the entire chicken only sells for $5 after it’s been feathered, skinned and cooked.  Sometimes I feel dumb for not understanding how the world works.

This is a story about a whale.  No.  This is a story about a man.

Last night, I was crawling into bed with a particular thought in mind…  I think you all no what it is, so I don’t have to say it, but I will anyway.  I wanted to watch the next episode of Desperate Housewives. So I’m laying down and just getting situated under the sheets when I feel this sharp pain in my hip.  It slowly grows to the point where I realize it’s something external and not just a pinched nerve.  I throw back the covers and, just like in the movies, see the back end of something slinking just out of sight.  I immediately get up and tell Katie to get out of bed and get Bombadil.  Then we pull back the covers until we find it.  A scorpion.  There was a scorpion…  in our bed.  I got stung by a scorpion… in bed.  If we had eaten Chinese last night, my fortune would have read: “You will be stung by a scorpion…  in bed.”

On the bright side, Florida scorpions are fairly harmless.  You grow up thinking that they’re this vile, scary bug that should be taken very seriously…  movies probably contribute to that a great deal.  Turns out there are only four species of scorpion in Florida (out of something like 1200 worldwide) and none of them have more than a mild neuro-toxin.

Still.  It’s disconcerting to find a scorpion in your bed.  What’s next?  A rattlesnake?  President Millard Fillmore?