John Zeitler

I often say that I’ve had a busy day, but today was among the most productive I’ve had in weeks. This is mostly because I managed to find a cheap, squat portable grill and fired it up for some outdoors culinary experiments. They went remarkably well, as I made dinner for the night and lunches for most of the rest of the week. I dare say it was even fun, in its own way, and I was looking forward to doing it again, probably with the veggie hot dogs I picked up while I was out.

And then it started raining… and it’s scheduled to rain pretty much the whole week through. So yeah.

I’ve often referred to the force, whatever it may be, that created this universe as “The Great Engineer”. It’s no accident. The definition of engineering is bringing order forth from chaos; where once there stood naught but rubble and ruin, a great work has been made, eternal and enduring. Composed equally of rules and rods, structure and structures, functions and forms, the universe in which we live is the pinnacle of development– the culmination of an infinitely long development cycle, which itself is still ongoing. Creation is not finished– it’s still in the alpha phases.

I envy The Great Engineer. I can’t handle changes to my plans nearly as well, even if it’s just something as simple as “the bus driver didn’t change his route designation number”. Forget about having to deal with the free will of an infinite number of sentient beings, all it takes is one idiot to wreck my night.

On Tuesday, I discovered that there’s a small hot-dog shop near my bus stop on the way home. Given that they’re specifically a hot-dog restaurant, I figured it was highly likely they’d have veggie dogs, and the scent of hot dogs from street vendors near PNC Park was starting to really overwhelm me. Naturally I didn’t have any cash on me at the time, and no time to stop and get some. So I made an effort to be prepared this evening.

As can be expected, events conspired such that, after missing my early bus to downtown, I arrived at the shop minutes after they closed.

Pittsburgh may be the most livable city in the United States, but I personally suspect the people who made that assessment visited around lunchtime and didn’t stick around.

In reverse order, no less. I’m an hour into Final Fantasy XIII– not even through the first chapter. So far I like what I’ve played.

And last night, I tried making up a home version of the kind of breadbowl-pasta meal you could get for far cheaper at a pizza place. I’ll just say it was a valiant effort and move on for the time being.

More tomorrow, folks.

Frangible Time Update: 9350 words, and I’m about halfway through Episode 1 (of 8). Fleshed out Kyle a bit more, set up a couple more arcplot elements, and progressed the episode plot to a turning point. Probably won’t get any writing done tonight– it’s my last week of Japanese class for this semester– but I may, if I find a quiet spot on campus.

Besides the writing last night, I took it upon myself to try my hand at making yakisoba, or fried noodles. I had some frozen noodles, I stopped at the store to get shrimp and vegetables, and I was pretty sure I had a monstrously large frying pan or wok-like cooking implement. Obviously, I didn’t… I don’t know where that big pan went, but it would have been perfect for this. Still, even though it wasn’t a terribly tidy affair (note for future self, you can less of a mess if you do it in smaller portions per frying session) the meal turned out fairly well.

I learned that the frozen noodles I’d picked up were not quite the right kind; they were more like angel-hair pasta, but a little thicker. They fell apart when I was doing the frying, because they were too thin compared to what I normally see used for yakisoba. I didn’t want to use the super-thick udon noodles, because I think those would have wound up a little too starchy. I had even managed to find some authentic buckwheat soba at the grocery store, but I didn’t get it because I thought that was what I had (and boiling it would have taken too long, or so I thought). I also went a little overboard on the sauces; I had found some Iron Chef sesame garlic sauce, which I felt the need to add minced garlic to when I was doing the initial vegetable frying. I also think I left the veggies in the oil for too long, or added too much oil and not enough heat at that time, though they turned out good when I fried them with the noodles and shrimp.

Overall, I definitely want to try this again once I’ve got everything properly prepared. Still, I have portions for the next couple days’ lunches, and it’s a fun and fast meal, so I’m more or less pleased with the first attempt. If this plays out anything like how I learned how to make udon and curry, my next attempt is going to be an unmitigated disaster, and the third time will be when it comes together (and I’ll have learned how to make small enough portions that it’s not a huge investment of time and resources).

I apologize for missing yesterday’s post. I could lie to you and say I had a good excuse, but the truth is, I was out drinking.

No, really.

Stop laughing, I’m serious. That is precisely where I was. I had exactly one beer, just like I always do when I go out with friends. Beyond that, though, I have no excuse. Sorry.

If it makes you feel any better, it was some very good beer. It was called “breakfast beer” or something. I wasn’t overly concerned with the details as long as it was dark and strong, and that beer was both. I don’t drink often, but when I do, I get good stuff.

Anyway, Kurokiiro Festival is this weekend, and I shall be there. Not sure if this means you’re going to see posts from me or not, but you’ve been warned if I don’t post.

Finally, Poketoberfest has started again, but it’s not organized at all. In fact it took me twenty minutes this morning to find my copy of Platinum, so really I’m a day behind. Ah well, even if it’s just me, then at least it’ll continue the streak.

Catch you folks… soon, I guess. Probably tomorrow.

Clerk: Wow, Vernors. Good stuff.
Me: Yeah. I was at five different grocery stores looking for this.
Clerk: Really? Wow. I didn’t think we had it.
Me: You don’t anymore.

Today was… blissful. I saw a movie, I played some arcade games at Dave & Buster’s, and I had a very good meal at the Hokkaido buffet. And, to top it all off, I accomplished something I’d been meaning to try out– I replaced my pillows, which should hopefully cure the worst of the sleeping troubles I’ve been having (my old ones were flat and causing my spine to flex painfully).

Tomorrow is set to be just as relaxing– I’ll be watching and listening to some football, in between marathonning through the rest of The World of Narue. I’d watch more of that tonight, but once it got self-referential by having the anime characters watch anime, my brain kinda went into revolt. So, yeah… peace. At long last, a little bit of peace.

Really, it’s been another very quiet set of days, folks. Despite my best efforts, I haven’t even been able to sit down long enough to do any gaming… which is a shame, as I really wanted to keep going with SRT: OG2 before I forgot where I was in it. Ah well, tomorrow’s a busy night– I have to sit down and finalize the D&D campaign for Saturday after incorporating some of the feedback I got from Pez and Adam last weekend, preferably before the hockey game starts… and then Sunday will be filled with laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking up a batch of seafood curry. That last bit I’m very excited about, as quite frankly it never occurred to me that combining two things I love that way would work, so it’s an interesting experiment.

Anyway. Later, folks.