Archive for September 29th, 2008

bailing doesn’t work when the pail is broken

Monday, September 29th, 2008

Well with this rejection of the bailout by Congress and the resulting 500 point drop in the Dow, I figured it was time to check on how much damage was done to my IRA. I’ve been procrastinating on doing so. Why give myself bad news that I cannot change? I’d rather not know. I live a lot of my life that way. It’s usually a pretty pleasant way of existing.

Come to find out, it only lost about $20,000. I am surprised as I was sure it would be more. That isn’t a whole lot, percentage-wise.

Still, hopefully it will come back up by the time I’m ready for AARP. It’s just paper money, right? It’s not like I was living on it or something. And if I died tomorrow, I’d get no use out of it anyway. If I had never put it in that account, it would be long gone by now. I would have “lost” the $20K a long time ago. So really, I’m making the difference between $20K and the total by having it in the first place? Right?

Feel free to leave inspirational words of wisdom to help make me less sick/disgusted/annoyed about this.

I really could have used a government bailout when I was poor and eating pickle sandwiches, plain, for weeks on end. Pickle sandwiches are actually quite good but not when there is no other choice.

meat tastes good but it kinda smells gross

Monday, September 29th, 2008

I think I have Reverse Body Dysmorphic Disorder. That’s when you look in a mirror and think you look better and thinner than you actually do or are.

Sometimes I come across a real mirror though, and that’s when I know the horrible truth.

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I’m eating chicken salad out of a bag. It’s good but it’s not very convenient. I couldn’t find any containers at home. I get this chicken salad at Costco by the 5 lb. container and it is DELICIOUS. It takes me about a week to eat it all because I tend to have it for every meal.

Also speaking of food, I posted in some other person’s blog recently a comment relating to a hideous picture (deer tendons for sale at varying prices) and this made me compare it to Choice vs. Prime cuts of beef, which made me wish for a ribeye. So once again Costco’s butcher department fills a pressing need. They have really good meat there.

I got a package of ribeyes and cooked a couple and while they are really, really good–my house now reeks of meet and it’s grossing me out. it’s been 2 days and I can still almost see meat molecules in the air. Also I just remembered I had to disconnect every fire detector and I forgot to hook them back up. Whoops.

These Costco ribeyes are about 1.5″ or 2″ thick. They’re the best I’ve had unless you get something *really* expensive. I don’t like meat enough to do that, usually.

This is the best way to cook a steak: it’s backwards from the way you usually read about, but it’s much better. Try it:

Let the meat sit out for a while so it’s not going into the broiler cold. Salt it up with kosher salt. A lot of salt. Broil both sides about 2″ from the heat for a few minutes. Don’t cook it all the way through.

While this is cooking, heat up a cast iron (no other type, must be cast iron) pan on the stove. Get it really hot. Put more salt in the bottom. When the steak has been broiling for a few minutes, take it out and sear it in the pan. Just plop it in and don’t look at the underside. Resist. Let it cook a couple of minutes on each side and then take off the heat.

This part is very important: put it on a plate for at least 10 minutes AND DO NOT CUT IT, STAB IT, OR POKE IT WITH A FORK. Don’t poke it with a fork to get it out of the pan either. Just let it sit.

After 10 minutes or so, eat.

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Head Like A Hole is coming along swimmingly. And for chrissakes, if one more person tells me “That song isn’t actually graphic, it’s about money not sex” I will fucking give someone a hole in the head they’ll really be sorry about. I KNOW it’s not “really” about sex. Thanks for the dissertation on NIN’s lyrics. But I don’t need it, ‘k?

Well enough rambling about nothing. Later on maybe I’ll discuss my new economic theory for developing African nations, for all you intellectual types. No sex or graphic insinuations or double meanings whatsoever.  Just the hot, hard truth about EBITDA.  Ooh baby.