Meal in a Box
"I'll come around for dinner" he says, and I'm taken a little by surprise, I seldom entertain other than the children. I think quickly of some excuse...
"I have to paint" I say, which is true, "And run some errands this afternoon..."
"That's OK. I'll be there around 5:00. I'll bring this meal I got, it's real good..." but I'm not listening, I'm wondering how this happened and if it means I should clean, but only briefly. The cleaning instinct is one I can resist. I never entertain. Never, Ever. I'm the guy people have over to their place in a moment of weak compassion and then swear never to have back again; me, entertaining?
"I'll pick up some beer...maybe you could pick up some..." and he stops, he can see here from my expression that I'm picking up nothing - "Forget it, you're busy, I'll get it all...."
He shows up at 5:00 sharp, he's got this meal in a box, it's a small box, about 4 inches square, he bought it off a lady at some farmers market, "Completely Organic" he assures me, but I don't really care. "It's really good....cost me $16.00".
It's a small box for $16.00 and I'm a little skeptical that it will feed us both and watch while he assembles the meal.
He turns on the light above the stove. This annoys me, I hate it when people know how to use my kitchen better than I do. He opens the box. There's a small bag of rice, and assorted spices in a separate bag.
"Add 1 1/2 cup of water to the rice in a pot..." he begins.
And the meal progresses. It's a basic Thai coconut curry, the seasonings are in tiny presealed pouches, for $16.00 he's bought himself roughly a dollars worth of groceries, I have all of the ingredients myself, enough for a hundred curries, in my cupboard, but I watch as he proceeds to pull forth meat from hi bag (sold separately) and chop it, slice vegetables (sold separately), add coconut milk (sold separately) ...
It's inspiring, this, the fact that you can sell people a half cup of rice and tablespoons worth of "spices" for $16.00 and call it a meal and they'll happily cough forth the rest of the ingredients, the meat, vegetables, broth, and not even include these in the final price of the meal....
And for some reason I have this sense of dejavu, I know this game and I puzzle and puzzle and finally it comes to me: It's Stone Soup.
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- Category: Miscellany
Facebook Friend Swap
Now this is just an idea, but take a look at the "average" facebook user and you'll see that they have 100, 200, 300 or more friends.
More friends than one could ever possibly keep in touch with on anything approaching a meaningful basis. But there's a sort of prestige to this social networking thing, defined by your number of friends, so people keep on collecting them despite the fact they never chat, see each other or in anyways meaningfully communicate. I'll ignore this though as it's irrelevant to the purpose I'll describe.
This is it: Once a year - We'll call it "Facebook Friend Swap Day" (or "FFSD" as the internet loves acronyms). On that day facebook will automatically send you a list of friends (and a simlar list to your friends, and all users) that you/they haven't communicated with for, say, 6 months.
6 months is arbitrary, depending on how the idea takes hold we can adjust this. It's 6 months for the sake of argument.
Now with this list is a letter suggesting that they or you perhaps recommend to them friends more to your/their tastes. And so you drop them and take on a new friend request - someone with whom you'll doubtless have a little more in common with. It doesn't even have to be a "drop", which by implication is negative (and who likes to drop or be dropped?), it could simply be recommendation to a new friend, the acceptance of which constitutes a "swap".
Single people (Note the bare-chested profile photos of "Men interested in Women") will certainly benefit, as obviously they weren't doing so well if they're still single and they'll have a whole new cadre of unsuspecting suckers friends to try their charms upon. Those not single will benefit by having new friends possibly a little more to their tastes. And everyone will have a chance to make new friends and to exchange (without seeming rude) those friends they've very little in common with.
Facebook Friend Swap Day. I should start a group.
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- Category: Ideas & Questions
Under Siege
I'm in a tower - medieval, inside the tower there's a queen sized bed, around the bed there's a deep moat and all around both the moat and the bed there's the walls of the tower.
We've stashed all the furniture in the moat, all my possessions, and we're under siege. Missiles are coming in through the top of the tower, landing on the heaps of furniture in the moat, so far, at least, they're missing the bed.
It's George Bush and his son, George Bush, I don't know what I've done to offend them but the missiles still keep falling, still missing the bed. They're mostly squibs, small explosions on the furniture, and they seem to be getting more intermittent, they're running out of ammunition. I'm glad, I don't want all my furniture to be wrecked.
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- Category: Dreams
The Introduction
Like almost all the books I read, I haven't read this one and so start at the beginning.
I'm funny that way, I start at one cover, then read straight through until I reach the other. The only exception is when the footnotes and annotations are compiled in an index in the back of the book, then I sometimes flip back and forth, but generally reading for me is a linear experience.
But there's often the introduction to consider.
The Introduction, as you might guess, introduces the book, it puts the book, the author, the characters, in context with the time and culture in which it was written.
I have no problem with this, in fact in can be helpful.
However I do have a problem with the tendency of the plot to go a little "too" in depth on the plot, with the revealing of crucial plot points and character developments all so that whatever hack was commissioned to write the introduction can further his academic credentials. This is unacceptable. If anything is to be given away - plot, events, characterwise - then let the introduction follow instead as an epilogue, where it will spoil nothing. I'll still read it, I mean, if the book is so ominous that it requires an introduction or epilogue then of course I'll read it, if only to compare interpretations, but my reading of the authors text will be fresh and new as the author intended.
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- Category: Miscellany
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