Startling Realization

So I had a startling realization today...it was crazy. I was feeling around my dome (you may also call it a "pate" or "scalp") and my fingers gently caressed something they hadn't caressed before. A good chunk of head, minus that healthy hair coating that people have. "Nonsense," I muttered to myself in an impeccable, highly-trained English dialect. I grabbed by camera and looked for visual evidence. Now, this may shock some, so if you're weak-stomached, turn away now:



I looked at my little LCD screen and gasped audibly. What the hell happened? I mean...I was doing so well "not thinking" about it...and during all that wishful ignorant time, things seem to have gotten worse.

Well, I am nothing if not a "man of action." Quickly, I started drinking heavily (this is my response to most of life's problems). After the 3rd or 4th glass or orange juice, I was pretty well sauced (and not thirsty any more). I knew what I needed to do: see what Amazon.com recommends.

Oddly enough, Amazon took me by the hand, calmed me down, gave me some Tums for my acid indigestion problems (that was a lot of orange juice in a very short period of time), and whispered in my ear: "Minoxidil." I said "Did you mean Minotaur?" "No, Minoxidil." "Minnick v Mississippi?" "Minoxidil. Here, let me show you."

And Amazon took me on a lovely little trip over to Rogaine.com. "Oh! Rogaine? Amazon, why didn't you just say Rogaine?" "Because there's copyright issues, and stuff. I don't know." "That's fine, Amazon...how much for some sweet, sweet Rogaine?" "Only fifty dollars for a 3 month supply." There was an awkward silence. "Um...how much for the cheap generic brand?" "Thirty dollars for a four month supply...on sale." "SOLD!"

So I'm off to the not at all embarassing world of hair regrowth formula (it's somewhere between "buying condoms at a grocery store" and "boner pills" on the embarassing scale). I've done a little scientific research using the best applications available to me (Microsoft Paint), and here's a projection of the full, lustrous, sexy head of hair I'm 'bout to have:



Oh, and my cat will become a pirate...and I will replace the "QWER" on my keyboard with "POOP." Because the word poop is, I believe, fairly funny.

I'll check back with updates. Full, sexy, unnatural head of hair? Here I come...

A Lean Cuisine Review: Orange Peel Chicken

That's right, now that I don't "work" during the day (or, really, at all) I've found that I have an abundance of two things: time & frozen foods. So I've decided to try my hand at something: food reviewer. See, I eats me a ton of, what I like to call Lean Cuisines (because that's what they're called). Today, I will be trying the Orange Peel Chicken dinnertime selects, because this week at Safeway, the "dinners" were cheaper than the smaller-portion lunches (though, note to the good people at Lean Cuisine, could you lay off the goddamn broccoli just a little bit? I mean, no one actually likes broccoli. No one. I've checked).

Anyhow, on with this review.

The first thing I look at on a Lean Cuisine is the cooking times. I was amazed at the Orange Peel Chicken cooking time: 4:00 to 5:30 minutes, and you don't slit the plastic wrap! Holy Toledo, I've never seen this before, in all my 27 years of eating frozen dinners! No prep, just throw the bitch in the microwave! Wow!

The next thing I look at is the picture on the box. This one looks pretty damn tasty, nasty broccoli business aside. Now, here's what actually came out of the microwave:

I thought, maybe that's not fair, so I decided to put on my food dressing hat, and place the little bastard on a white plate, arranged like it was on the box. I think I did a pretty damn fine job.

Now, step two, after cooking the meal, is to throw away all of the crappy parts of the meal. In this case, sayonara, broccoli.

Step three, get what you need to really enjoy the meal. Here, it's a fork, and a Sprite.

Finally, eat the damn thing. I'll spare you those messy pictures, needless to say, when it was finished, my beautiful white plate (that I'm going to have to wash now) looked a little something like this:

First off, I must say this: I believe "orange" and "meat" go very well together. It's a very happy marriage 90% of the time. And this meal was no exception. The sauce tasted (incredibly) like orange. However, I must admit, it was a bit spicier than I would have liked. Don't get me wrong -- spicy has its place. Unfortunately, that place is in a Mexican Restaurant, not a typically mundane frozen dinner.

Now, you notice that I ate this with a fork? Big mistake; this is a spoon-eatin' affair. This is because the rice has all the "flavor" of "unflavored white rice." It's up to you to get some of that spicy orange sauce onto the somewhat chalky white rice. Once this is done, the rice becomes palatable (even better if you can mix a chunk of chicken or two with the rice -- something very difficult to pull off armed solely with a fork).

But it's not fair to compare a Lean Cuisine to an ordinary dinner, of course. And I would never be so petty. However, we do need a little perspective. It looks like Lean Cuisine has already posted reviews for their Orange Peel Chicken here, but those blurbs are obviously either ghost-written by staff memebers, or stammered out by total morons.

For instance: "Wow, this meal was delicicious! The chicken was tender and the breading didn't get soggy in the microwave. I adored the fabulous sauce, the zesty flavor of orange added an incredible zing to the veggies and chicken. Its destined to be a favorite dinner for me on a summer night. Melissa H. Saint Peters, MO"

A) The chicken was soggy. B) The sauce was too spicy. C) The veggies you speak of were crappy broccoli and (I think) pepper slivers already mixed in with the rice.

But I digress. Here's my final scores, from 1-10:

Prep: No cutting! Fast cook times! AWESOME! 9

Appearance: Chicken too small, rice too big, and BAH! BROCCOLI! 5

Taste: Not the worst in the world, but too damn spicy. 7

Filling: Well, it got the job done. I guess I'm not hungry any more...still, I would have expected more food on a dinner item. 6

Cool Factor: Sounds like a fancy restaurant meal, but really just spicy sauce over breaded chicken and carrots next to crappy rice and broccoli. Plus, I didn't see a single orange peel in the entire meal. 5

Final Score: 6.4

Famous By Association

So hey, I know someone who was on TV (other than myself). Not just TV, but American Idol. Anyhow, just if you were curious, I went to high school with this guy:

I changed the dimensions of that picture a little bit...just to blow your collective minds, and to make his faux-hawk look even faux-ier.

Anyhow, his name is Blake Lewis. I can't remember the context in which I knew him (you'd probably remember him as the "beat-box guy" if you saw the episode), but it probably had something to do with acting...or choir...or something. He was far too "hip" for me to know in any other context.

But it got me thinking about those crazy days I like to call "1995-1998." (which most people would call "high school"). Those were some wacky times; not close enough to the year 2000 to be memorable, but not tacky enough to be in the early 90's.

Now, I didn't consider myself a social pariah in high school (because I didn't know what the word "pariah" meant...hell, I still don't), but I remember being incorrigibly arrogant. I don't know if it was just me -- I think all high school kids are arrogant -- I don't think there's anything wrong with that...it's a phase we all go through...but I digress...

The point is, I found that, in high school, I was always more comfortable in the company of the "less-than-poopular" kids (I said "poop"). Whilst the "in" crowd was out-'n'-about being dumb teenagers, I was sitting on my couch slogging through the latest installment of Final Fantasy.

I didn't go to a single "party" that didn't revolve around board games or video games of some kind. At the time I considered myself to be fairly mobile in the social strata of high school...but always ending up near the "Magic The Gathering" crowd (never actually playing the game, mind you...just near them).

So now, being the incredibly cool, hip, happening, balding, late-20-something that I am, I look back and think, "Was I 'not cool' in high school?" It's a sobering thought. I look at the evidence: my two main activities were "theater" and "band." Of the 161 members of my class on MySpace, 5 of them are on my "friends" list. Pretty grim...

But I don't know, really. I guess it doesn't make that much of a difference now -- my fiancee is a former high school cheerleader, so my revenge is completely realized at this point. However, should I ever get the chance to see a 16 year old Tyler in action...about the town...I wonder if, looking back through the prizm of experience, I'd be dismayed at my socially oblivious nature.

Now this post seems to be verging on the cusp of a pity party, thrown for myself in my apartment, that no one shows up to, and I end up spending half of the night cradling my phone while looking hopefully out the window at the passing cars, and the rest of the night weeping quietly on my couch, eating a bowl of burnt microwave popcorn and watching "Gilmore Girls." No, I beg of you to "holster" your pity, in case you were considering drawing.

In fact, I think this whole post is bordering on solipsism, and I think it's best to wrap things up before I get too self-indulgent. I didn't enter blithely into the "blog" business just to bare my soul for all to see. I came to use big words, and write about bears mauling monkeys. Time to get this bad boy back on track...

Success

Well, I did it. I win. Guess who knows 100 damn people who might in some way consider themselves to be my "friend." Me, baby. Me. Props to Ophelia, friend #100, for sending out the historic request (though, I must admit, the default photo did make me a little suspicious. But you are blessedly, and literally real. God Bless you for that.

What's next? Well, my "blog views" are hovering dangerously near 1,500, but that's nothing to shout about (besides, I only shout curse words, and Laverne and Shirley quotes).

Though, surely with amazing blog entries like this one, I'm sure to skyrocket past that distant 1,500 goal. Well, it's late (for normal human beings), and I'm cold, and tired...so this is what you get. Sorry. They can't all be winners. In fact, far as I can tell, only a few of them are winners. Especially not this one.

Friend Drive, 2007

There are a couple of remarkable milestones that one reaches on this "Space" of "My." 1,000 page veiws. 50 blog posts. 100 comments. 10+ picture comments. And I am perched; ready to go screaming past my next milestone. 100 friends. Booyah.

How did I get 97 friends you ask? I'll tell you -- but you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not even your sister. All right? Good. Here goes:

» Friend Tactic #1: Everyone I knew that had a cool name got tacked onto my burgeoning friend list.

» Friend Tactic #2: Family members. But, since Meaghan is the only member of my family that is my Myspace friend, this tactic wasn't too successful. Still, invaluable, really...for the cousin that seems to be constantly knocking on death's door.

» Friend Tactic #3: Anyone I can remember who asked me to be their friend I approved. This does not include people like Diana here, who is in all probability a dude in an office somewhere who is just praying that you click on the "Want to see my PICTURES" link on his/her profile (don't click on the link -- it's probably a virus of some kind, and I don't want to be blamed for breaking your computer). God bless the persistant pornographers out there -- without them, ladies would never take off their clothes for money.

» Friend Tactic #4: Veiled threats. And I think it'd be in your best interest to never bring up that tactic again, all right?

» Friend Tactic #5: The fake accounts I created, using pictures of hot women, and adding them to my friends list. Like this little hottie. I mean, c'mon, do you think someone that hot would ever even give me the time of day?

And that's about it. I'm assuming I'll breach 100 any day now, and I'm looking forward to that. Heck, I hope my 100th friend is a really super friend, not one of those guys who comes over to my house, clubs me over the back with a tire iron, and steals all of my Playstation 2 games. Who the hell are those guys, anyway? Friends? Sure...but they have a funny way of showing it.

Well, wish me luck. And to all the 97 currently on the list I say: "HI! If any of you drop me as your friend, I find you and steal your FRONT DOOR!" Hmm...that wasn't very veiled, was it...?