Getting Lost all over again...

Oh, sweet mercy, the long wait is almost over. Lost premieres tomorrow night. It'll only be eight episodes due to the writers' strike (don't get me started), but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. Here's a bullet list of some of the things that make Lost great. If you don't watch the show, I suspect most of these won't make any sense. If you do watch it, then you'll know exactly why each of these items is so cool.

• Flashbacks
• Flashforwards
• Hatches
• Hurley
• 4-8-15-16-23-42
• Ben's buggy eyes
• Fish biscuits
• Submarines
• Polar bears
• Box companies
• Eko

Most disgusting things I've ever eaten

So, in a slightly different vein, I thought I'd post about some of the more disgusting things I've eaten during my many travels. I pride myself on my ability to eat just about anything you put in front of me. I may not like it, I may not want to take a second bite, but I'll certainly try anything once. This is a trait that I inherited from my dad, who taught me that no matter how disgusting something looks, it's nothing compared to some of the stuff they eat in the Philippines.

So without further ado:

• Chinchulines: grilled cow intestines. My dad and I ate these quite frequently in Argentina. If they're thoroughly cleaned and grilled to the point of crunchiness, they're really quite good.
• Molleja: grilled cow gland. I know that's kind of vague - I'm not actually sure which gland it was. But they were tender and very flavorful.
• Seso. This was something I only had once when Ann went with me to Argentina. The waiter brought it out and, not recognizing it, I asked him what it was. He told me it was seso. Ann looked at me questioningly, so I told her it was cow brain. I tried it and didn't really like it. To her immense credit, Ann tried it too.
• Uni: sea urchin gonads, served as sushi. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with this taste extravaganza from a post back in October. This is one of the most personally nasty things I've every tried. Anyone who tells you texture in food doesn't bother them has never tried this stuff.
• Broiled ray fin, also from my recent trip to Japan. Not bad. Very salty, and the texture starts to get to you after a while.
• Blutwurst: blood sausage. I refer to the German version here, not the Argentine morcilla, although I've tried both. I found the German quite good, but never really liked it when I was in Argentina, although my dad loved the stuff. Any meat that's served by spreading it on bread is highly questionable in my mind.
• Steak tartar. I ordered this accidentally in Germany. It looks and tastes like raw hamburger meat because that's precisely what it is.
• Chocolate-covered cricket. This was mostly done to gross out my kid sister.
• Sardines. This is the only thing that's ever made me almost throw up. I ate one in Argentina once and literally thought I was gonna chunder all over the table.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure some more will occur to me, so I might have to post a follow-up. So what's the nastiest thing you've ever tried?

Sorry for my lack of updates

I do apologize for the lack of posts. It's been a little crazy at work for the last few weeks. My crew has been in town for their final training trip, which means a lot of busy-newss at work. Things have been a little busy at home as well: the Monkey's had a cold, we're preparing for his birthday party tomorrow, Ann has had a rough week at work, the nanny's been sick, and so on.

The good news is that PSC may be drawing to a close. After meeting almost weekly for about nine months now, the end may truly be in sight. With any luck, it'll all be over by the end of February.

Not much on the gaming front lately. I made some good progress on Node 42 over the weekend, and I'll probably be able to post final pictures in the next week or so. I've been playing a little Mario Kart on the Wii, but there's not much I've got going on there. In TV news, I've been watching the new Terminator TV series, which is AWESOME. And I've started a new book called Collapse, about the factors that cause some societies to fail while others succeed. Interesting stuff.

A Tale from the Monkey

I bring to you tonight a story made up entirely by the Monkey himself. He often likes to make up stories during bedtime, usually starring himself as the main protagonist. I have to repeat them back to him in their entirety, which can often be difficult given their elaborateness.

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The Monkey and his mommy decided to go to the boat show, which was for guys only. So at the boat show, Mommy had to go to the potty, but she couldn't find anywhere to potty because there were only guy bathrooms. She had to potty in her underwear, and so she had to go home to change and left the Monkey at the boat show.

The Monkey wandered over to the sewer and fell in. Then a clock came by and saw the little boy in the sewer. The clock could walk and talk and tick and tock [I swear he made up this rhyme on his own]. The clock had a claw with a button and a controller. So a hand inside the clock pushed the button and moved the controller and the claw came out of a hole in the clock and reached down into the sewer to pick up the Monkey, then put him inside the clock and carried him over to his mommy. The end.

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That's the story he made up. This gives us a few insights into the mind of the four-year old Monkey.

• He and I are going to do a Guy's Day at the boat show this weekend, and he's pretty excited about it.
• He loves his mommy. A lot.
• He is obsessed with sewers, claws, and clocks.
• He thinks people pottying in their underwear is the funniest thing, which I assume is fairly typical of four-year olds.
• The stories he makes up don't necessarily make a lot of sense from a narrative perspective, but they definitely have visual appeal. I'm going to choose Spielberg to direct the big-screen version of this one.