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.

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.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Secondhand Rants will return on Thursday, May 14.