UPDATE: Steve thinks that changing his site (which was wonderful, by the way) is going to deter this post. Not true. I’ve updated the links to more/better ways to acquaint yourself with him. If he changes those, I’ll just start taking pictures and hosting them myself

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O Glorious competition! I would like to take this opportunity to thank my great friend and roommate, STEVEY G for his seventh-place victory in the HPTi PROBLEM SOLVING COMPETITION. Steve and I had competed, and he bested me in the ranking by three places.

Our apartment is known for many things. One such thing is that every weekend, there must be a baked-good. One of the three roommates will bake something for the weekend, and we go in a rotation. Last night, as per our previous agreement, I baked brownies in place of Steve “I’M A RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL” G. having to bake something, because he placed higher than me in the HPTi PROBLEM SOLVING COMPETITION.

The competition, geared towards students of information science & technology (IST), computer science, and computer engineering majors, was held yesterday. It was designed by HPTi, High Performance Technologies Inc. YET it actually had no high-performance-technological requirements whatsoever. It was about emergency management, and let me tell you, nobody manages better than Steve, which is why his team placed 7th out of the 15. Regrettably my (extremely skilled) team of a project manager, a security expert, and a systems developer simply did not have the skills that FRIEND STEVE has, and I simply have to accept the fact that he is, overall, a better person.

Ah yes, but there’s more! Steve “NINETEEN-SIXTY-FIVE, WHO CAN SAY THAT?!” G., is a compassionate individual. Steve took time out of his busy schedule of stealing inflatable dolphins from student centers to decorate my room. Below are the photos.

I tip my hat to you, Steve.

This has been floating around the net for awhile, I take no credit in writing it, but it made me chuckle. I’ve been catching Alton’s shows on Youtube for awhile now, the man’s brilliant and his show is actually really educational/GQ (yes I use that as an adjective, sue me).

Based on Alton’s recommendations, this past weekend I made a soy-marinated, sesame-encrusted tuna steak, still nice and pink in the middle, with wasabi and soy, and jasmine rice. Probably one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked for myself and now I know what to shop for when it comes to Tuna (my favorite). So, thanks Alton, until proven otherwise, I think all these facts are true:

1. Alton Brown grinds his own peppercorns. With his teeth.
2. Alton Brown’s chili cheese fries are healthier than raw carrots. Even after he adds the bacon and lard.
3. Alton Brown brushes his teeth with wasabi and gargles with pickle brine. But still his breath smells like lemon merengue.
4. Alton Brown can boil a three-minute egg in thirty-seven seconds.
5. When Alton Brown was born, he collected the hospital slop they’d left for his mother and made it into an zesty, appetizing goulash. The dish fed the entire maternity ward for a week.
6. In the first, as-yet-unaired episode of Iron Chef America, Alton Brown single-handedly defeated an all-star team of Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, and Hiroyuki Sakai. The secret ingredient was ‘whimsy’.
7. Alton Brown doesn’t reduce sauces. He demoralizes sauces.
8. Alton Brown prepares his fugu blindfolded, with one chopstick and a plastic spork. Alton Brown ain’t afraid of no chump neurotoxin.
9. Alton Brown’s blender has four speeds: ’stir’, ‘mix’, ‘frappe’, and ‘plasmify’.
10. Alton Brown can split a pineapple in half using only his pinkies. For coconuts, though, he has to use his thumbs.
11. Alton Brown knows where capers come from. And he grows his own, on a Chia pet in the pantry.
12. On Rachel Ray’s show, she shows people where to eat for less than forty dollars a day. When Alton Brown eats, people pay him.
13. Alton Brown slices ham so thin, it can only be seen using an electron microscope.
14. Some knives can slice through a tin can and still cut a tomato. Alton Brown’s knives can slice through a Pontiac, and still cut a tin can.
15. Grown men have been known to weep for joy in the mere presence of Alton Brown’s vinagrette. His hollandaise sauce can kill a man from sheer ecstacy at forty paces.
16. Alton Brown can eat just one Lay’s potato chip. If he ever bothered to eat food he didn’t make himself, that is.
17. Alton Brown once got carried away slicing carrots, and julienned his cutting board. Undaunted, he sauteed the splinters in olive oil and spices — and they were delicious.
18. Every Burger King Alton Brown has walked into has immediately closed forever — try as they might, they simply can’t ‘do it his way’.
19. Alton Brown can pair a wine with any food — including hot dogs, ice cream, raw eggs, Alpo, sawdust, and soylent green. It’s people!
20. Alton Brown’s cakes don’t rise. They ascend.
21. Some meats are so tender, they seem to melt in your mouth. Alton Brown’s meats are so tender, he’s had entire turkeys vanish into thin air.
22. Alton Brown’s no saint. But if his chicken Kiev cures one more kid’s leprosy, the church will reconsider the evidence.
23. Alton Brown doesn’t whip potatoes. Alton Brown’s potatoes whip themselves, if they know what’s good for them.
24. Alton Brown’s other car is the Wienermobile.
25. Alton Brown’s show is called ‘Good Eats’, because ‘Multiple Shuddering Mouthgasms’ didn’t play with the network’s target demographic.
26. Alton Brown’s freezer operates at minus-twenty-seven degrees. Kelvin.
27. Alton Brown once prepared shrimp gumbo for a cooking competition, using only salt, water, canned Spam, and a packet of Arby’s ‘Horsey Sauce’. He took second place. He would have won, but one of the judges was allergic to shellfish.
28. Alton Brown can fit three hundred and forty-two cookies on a standard-sized baking sheet. Without any touching.
29. When Alton Brown slices onions, the onions cry.
30. Alton Brown was once asked to participate in a blind orange juice taste test. He was the only person able to successfully identify the brand, style, vintage, temperature, pH level, distance to the orchard, age of the grove trees, and the names of the workers picking the fruit. Including the one who needs to start washing after bathroom breaks.

I was talking with my good friend Corey the other day, and here is what he said about his job (he clears out government-managed housing apartments).

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Corey: just picture every episode of the show cops, picture those red neck ppl running around yelling at other ppl w/ no shirts on, beating their kids, never working, and complaining about everything
Corey: and u’ll get a glimpse of where i work
Corey: we had to evict a drug dealer last week who has federal charges for drug trafficing
Corey: woo hoo
Corey: best job ever!!!
Corey: lol
Corey: we found a dog’s skull in this guys closet that was full of water damaged, 6 yr old clothes and furniture
Corey: it was just sitting there
Me: ewww
Corey: mmm make u wanna eat lunch
Me: That honestly sounds like the worst job.
Me: You should go on dirty jobs
Me: Mike Rowe’d get shot
Corey: i was thinking that or we should make a tv show that follows us around each week
Corey: i actually saw a dad, who was wearing no shirt and had a “the green hulk” boxing glove on chase after this little kid who threw a nerf football at him, he first fell on the wet asphault he was probably wasted then he eventually caught the little girl and start hitting her over the head w/ the hulk boxing glove
Me: wow man
Me: you should write a whole book
Corey: its terrific at least once a day the police stop by for domestic disputes or evictions
Me: Has anybody ever like threatened/attacked you?
Corey: yeah but words couldn’t describe the madness
Me: hahahahah
Me: did you get to fight them back?
Corey: no they yell at us to do their work for them, for instance they can’t weed their own garden, they live in an apartment thats given to them by the government, they don’t work or do anything productive, but they can’t weed their garden, i have to
Me: I’d have quit the first day
Me: even 8$/hr isn’t worth that kind of abuse
Corey: they also complain about the noise one time we were moving freezers and oven up and down the stairs and this lady is like ” i work at night i need my sleep during the day” and i was thinking first off u don’t work and secnod off its 2:30 pm wake up u lazy ****
Me: hahaha
Corey: its $9
Corey: plus gas
Corey: but i get screwed over cause we don’t get paid for the 10 hrs of drive time a week

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Haha, not much commentary to this. The conversation does well enough.

I hope everybody’s been doing OK.

Being that I’m in college, as well as a lot of the people who read this, this post goes to us. The poor. The wretched. The abused. Actually, it goes to anyone who’s feeling a little tight on cash and would like to utilize their money to it’s maximum potential at any number of all-you-can-eat style resteraunts. Some of the stuff you read here is shocking, humorous, or illegal. With that in mind, I am not responsible for anything you do with this information.

The “Pre-Eat”: This is one inspired by my brother, who in his own respect should be revered as a master of college life. This is the man who had us eat using utensils taken in a fury from local resteraunts, someone who taught me the wonders and majesty of Krystal’s “Gut-Bomb Challenge”, Johnny prepared me for college in a way. His is by far the most legitimate (and legal) of all of the solutions in this post. It’s called the Pre-Eat. The concept is simple, and works more than you’d think. Simply eat something small before going to the resteraunt, so when you get there, your metabolism is in full gear and ready to process food as soon as it gets hold of it. It’ll take longer to get full since some of the food will digest while you’re shoveling more in.

“The Linger”: This is one of mine, and it only works at really laid-back places (or places where you can tip the server to leave you alone about it). Once again, totally simple: Just don’t leave. Go for breakfast, leave after dinner. When asked why you’ve been there for so long without getting more food, just say that you came to conduct some business at their fine establishment. If the words “fine establishment” don’t make the manager swell with pride, also explain that you couldn’t afford to get barbecue-sauce on your finest suit. Your companions are also suggested to explain that it is casual-Friday/Tuesday/whichever day you’re there in their workplaces. Finally, if all else fails, say that it is part of a religious fasting that just happened to start in the middle of your meal, and that your god is a mighty and vengeful god who will smite everyone in the resteraunt if you were to resume eating.

Making Room: This one has been employed by my friend Max several times. It is one of the oldest buffet-conservation tactics known to man: The Bathroom. This can be very handy when coupled with the Linger.

Cuppin’: This is a personal favorite of mine, but it requires a degree of luck and shadyness to pull off. If the cups in the resteraunt are paper cups with lids, you are golden. Once Max and I ordered some pasta from Hi-Way’s all-you-can-eat pasta dinner, and once full, we requested another order, which was prompty put into our recently-emptied cups, covered with a lid/straw, and smuggled outside into our fridges for snacks later. This can work in almost any place, especially college places. Shady? yes. Delicious? Moreso.

We actually did something similar to this at a QuakerSteak wing-nite. I had everyone in our group order the same flavor, and smuggled them out in a take-home container that I convinced the waitress to let me have. We ended up getting like 30some wings, which turned out to be a pretty good present to give to someone

In this fast-paced world, we have to squeeze every penny. Money’s tight, we’re all poor, inflation is rampant, and the eternally-celebrated all-you-can-eat buffet is the only thing that we can have to look forward to in our pitiful lives. So I urge all of you, young and old, fat and thin, to go out, and utilize these great pastures crafted by God to their full extent.

Well, I’m having a rough time cutting 6 months down into a readable entry, but in the meantime, I’ve devised this list of stuff that sort of explains me to the new readers here.

One last thing — if you want to add something about me, or affirm/argue anything that I’ve put up, slam it in the comments section!