Thursday, May 28, 2009 :::
I've done Marconi proud in the past month, I believe, with a piss-poor posting schedule that's created a kind of modern telegraph. Thought. Stop. Thought. Stop. Thought. And if I settle down, listen carefully, I can hear him tapping from beyond the grave in Morse code: Yo. Stop. Pony up. Stop. Get your act together. To this advice I fully subscribe, pledging to embrace consistency in the coming month, or as much consistency as you can expect twice a week.
About once a year, a deep ennui seizes me, rendering everything the most boring shade of gray. It's not that I'm particularly unhappy, nor would I describe it as burnout, because that usually can be narrowed down to a specific reason. No, it's pervasive. Seeps into all corners. It's a steady flatline a notch or two below zero.
Certainly the goal is to escape the funk, but I've yet to find an instant remedy. Ideally I would be able to curl up under a table, really Rip Van Winkle this shit, and wake up to a completely different era. That's not going to happen, obviously, so my next inclination is to turn inward. Seek out solitude. Reboot myself, in a way. Refresh. Renew.
Posted by Ben at 11:46 PM
Thursday, May 21, 2009 :::
Secondhand Rants will return on Thursday, May 28.
Posted by Ben at 12:06 AM
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 :::
You'll be pleased to know I haven't eaten any other orphaned PBJs since last we spoke, nor have I embraced the freegan lifestyle and taken to gathering my edibles from forgotten drawers and alleyways at odd hours of the day. Nothing's changed, really. I haven't cooked anything worthwhile. The cupboard remains bare, and the pan I find myself using most--deadpan--continues to be my most valued kitchen implement. I did eat shit at the golf course on Sunday, lots of it, but that's another conversation.
I want to put golf aside and talk instead about my recent media consumption. First of all, the Kindle DX tempted me briefly today, posing itself as the premier way to experience books, and I eagerly clicked on the product demo. Three minutes into the video, which was basically a montage of people lovingly cradling the device in all sorts of contrived situations, it dawned on me: I don't even like books! Why would funneling them through cutting-edge Whispernet technology--oooooooo--make them any more appealing? At one point in the clip, incidentally the same point I pushed "stop," some douchebag wandered across campus with the DX tucked under his arm. I vowed right then and there that, should I ever find myself doing the same thing, I'd mug myself immediately.
Television shows and video games continue to engross, of course. I've found that Hulu has become the first stop of the day, a kind of de facto launch pad to serialized delights. Sure, an episode of The Office may have a few commercial breaks, but even then I find myself interacting, eagerly voting spots up and down in some vain hope that I might dictate the flow of advertisements. Streaming media, however, still takes a back seat to physical media.
And on that front, I've got two titles for you: Dead Space and Deadwood. Morbid, perhaps, but also alliterative. The first is a piece of sci-fi gaming that's heavy on dismemberment and freakish creatures. I usually don't enjoy horror. This was riveting, though. Deadwood, like most of HBO's offerings, is demanding, but unlike Carnivale, which ended up feeling like a marathon church service, this series comes fully equipped. Compelling pacing. Lyrical vulgarity. Interesting villains. I'm hooked, and having this content on tangible media simply seals the deal. The same show could be on Hulu, but it just seems more real when delivered via traditional channels. Call me old-fashioned, but I still can't wrap my mind around a bunch of ones and zeroes whizzing through the Internets. Drop those ones and zeroes on a plastic platter, however, and I'm sold.
Posted by Ben at 11:53 PM
Thursday, May 14, 2009 :::
The state of my culinary ability, in broad strokes--dismal and dreary, nuked at medium-high for 5 minutes, then allowed to cool indefinitely. When I rolled into the office yesterday after a long weekend, well after lunch time, I found myself without food and, more importantly, standing at a crossroads: venture out to collect some grub, as is customary for normal people, or unearth a PBJ sandwich I had forgotten in my desk the Thursday prior. Which path did I choose? Let's just say my standards may have been compromised.
Technically the sandwich was nonperishable, but since I hadn't closed the plastic properly, evaporation took hold and left what could be best described as desiccated. We're talking the kind of shit you'd find in, like, an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, clutched in the hand of a mummy. Down the hatch it went, of course, followed closely by no small amount of shame. This sandwich wasn't an isolated incident, understand, so much as a capstone to a recent rash of reprehensible dining decisions. I've been eating cold cereal regularly, to wit. For dinner.
What's maddening is I can see the trajectory to becoming a capable cook. I can follow a recipe, you know? And if I got a few under my cap, learned to negotiate all the common pitfalls in the kitchen, I'd arrive at the good part: the ability to improvise on known recipes, improve upon them, invent something new. Create, in a word. Currently I do nothing of the sort. I assemble occasionally, cobbling together a sandwich or combining pasta with jarred sauce. This isn't cooking, in my mind.
More often than not I activate food, whether by microwave or oven, and this also doesn't qualify as cooking. I no longer believe I'll find my answers in formal instruction. At $65 a pop, I start to wonder how much more enjoyment I'd get out of ten burritos--cooked before my very eyes by others--or why I wouldn't just spend that same money on groceries. Much as with golf, I'd rather do it myself than take a class. That's the plan. Turn to the Internet for recipes, then prepare them, one after the other, until I'm able to look at the local turkey vulture in the eye and say, "Perhaps we are different, you and I." I'll start with a recipe for PBJ.
Posted by Ben at 11:55 PM
Thursday, May 07, 2009 :::
Secondhand Rants will return on Thursday, May 14.
Posted by Ben at 12:03 AM
Tuesday, May 05, 2009 :::
For the first time in golf history, across the state line in a secluded course on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I knew what it felt like to be a competent player. You wouldn't have gathered this from my score, which at 126 was 16 shy of my personal goal and 26 away from mediocrity, but it was the mojo poured into those swings that mattered. Something clicked on the back nine, caused my disdain for the sport to subside, and brought me hope that, with enough sweat equity, I would have the capacity to be proficient.
There was just something in the backswing that suddenly made sense. I've noticed decent players are able to jump right back into the game, even if they haven't touched a club in months. This seems to suggest some kind of muscle memory at work here, kind of like riding a bike, except the proverbial bike in this case has square wheels and a handlebar fashioned from the bones of children. But that's neither here nor there. The moment of clarity wasn't an epiphany or anything having to do with thinking. It was a feeling, explicit instructions coded in my gut for how my arms should function in concert with my torso to get that stupid ball off the ground.
Now it's time to work on the short game. This isn't to say I've got my long game in the bag. Far from it, in fact, and I'm certain I'll regress in short order. That's just how the normal trajectory of learning new things resolves itself, you know? Be it written, though, that I have climbed to the top of the mountain and I have seen the face of golf, terrible and true, and I am changed! Actually, what really happened was I clambered onto a small hill, upon which I witnessed a wild turkey scurrying across the green.
Posted by Ben at 10:56 PM
