AKA Abraham Bacoln

The gas station convenience stores are calling me. I have the desire to go out and find the strangest old-school drink that I can. None of this Red Bull / Rockstar energy drink crap. I’m gonna go find something like Jolt Cola or Peach Nehi or Faygo Redpop or something else equally wonderfully nasty. When I find it, I’m gonna drink it, and when I drink it it’s gonna be good.

Edit: found it. Well, not it exactly, but something relatively esoteric.

I realize that you’re dying to know if I’ve gotten enough funds together to buy that new lens I was talking about. Well, after getting rid of a few superfluous possessions, raiding my massive change box (thanks, blackjack), and analyzing my finances the answer is yes. I’m very pleased. The lens is on order and I can’t wait. I’m so happy.

You know what else makes me happy? My good friend Liz Kassera. We are Super Best Gemini Friends Forever because we share the same birthday – to the year, even, not just the day of the month. Our birthday is coming up in just a month and a half. I can’t believe it. I’m just glad that now I have someone who knows exactly how old I feel.

Speaking of feeling, I feel a little bad. I just spent a lot of money on that lens. I may not be able to buy Liz anything nice for our birthday. However, there’s an upside to this. The only physical possession in the world that I want right now is that lens, and … well, I just bought it. What I’m saying is that there’s nothing I need. There’s nothing I even really want.

So I ask of you, my bestest friends and relatives and friends’ relatives and relatively friendly people, please don’t get me anything for my birthday. Instead, I want to ask you to get it for Liz instead. Send my birthday presents to Liz! Thing is, Liz is a good person too, and she spends her time thinking about others more than she does thinking about herself. That’s why she’s doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day – a 60-mile walk to show her dedication to helping make someone else’s life better. That’s more than I’m doing. That’s more than most of us are doing.

I’m being serious here. For my birthday I want nothing more than for you to donate to Liz’s walk. It’ll make me a lot happier than a birthday cake and some books and DVDs and whatever else. It’ll make me happy. It’ll make Liz happy. Best of all, it’ll help change someone’s life.

This is one of the best web sites I have seen in … ever, basically.

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

It is a promo site for a new book. I’m going to quote what someone else wrote, because it is both better worded than what I would come up with, and also I am lazy. Thank you for the words, eddo.

“The really intriguing thing about the site is that it breaks pretty much every rule that contemporary web designers have for effective site design. The site is a linear progression of images, essentially 30 splash pages one right after another. It doesn’t have any navigation except for forward/back buttons; you can’t just jump to whatever page you want. [She] barely mentions anything about the book and only then near the end of the 30 pages. There’s no text…it’s all images, which means that the site will be all but invisible to search engines. No web designer worth her salt would ever recommend building a site like this to a client.

Yet it works because the story pulls you along so well; July’s using the site’s narrative to sell a book that is, presumably, chock full of the same sort of narrative. If you think the site sucks and quickly click away, chances are you’re not going to like the book either…it’s the perfect self-selection mechanism. The No One Belongs Here More Than You site is a lesson for web designers: the point is not to make sites that follow all the rules but to make sites that will best accomplish the primary objectives of the site.”

If eating breakfast at 8:00 PM is wrong …

Originally uploaded by Kevin O’Mara.

So this it. My transformation to snobbery is apparently complete. Wait, no, it’s not snobbery because I don’t care how anyone else does it, just how I do it. That makes me … um … what’s that word? A connoisseur? Afficionado? Those words both sound too snobby. Maybe I am a snob.

Wait, no, I still don’t care how you drink your coffee.

AAAANYWAY so yeah I broke my French press the other day. It was the one that Henry and Heather gave me for Christmas and that totally ruined me on coffee. I thought for sure I could never find time in the mornings to boil water and grind and steep and then drink but after Day One I was hooked. Then I had to go and break the glass and deprive myself of delicious rich hot coffee, so I dug out my old four-cup coffee maker.

Deprive myself I did, because now I finally understand what Henry has been going on about regarding cheap coffee makers and how they don’t get the water nearly hot enough. I got out Mr. Coffee. I put in the normal amount of grounds and got back tea. I was incensed to say the least. How dare you decide not to make acceptible brew anymore, Mr. Coffee? What’s up with that? The next morning I put in some extra grounds, maybe one-and-a-half times what I thought I should, and still got tea. Darker tea, but tea nonetheless. I think I might have cried a little bit.

While discussing this over beans last night I was informed by Stacie that over at Find-A-Bear where she works they sell French presses. I left campus on break today and went over to save myself from the tiny kitchen dictator that is Mr. Coffee and ran straight into the arms of a sleek metal and glass beauty.

Tonight I found myself fantasizing about just how good my coffee was going to be in the morning and decided I couldn’t wait. OH YES that’s why I posted a picture of the food, it’s because it didn’t feel right to drink coffee with normal dinner so I had to make some breakfast.

It didn’t really occur to me to write about this until after the picture was taken and the food devoured so you’re left with an image wherein you can’t even really see my new French press. But you know what? That doesn’t matter, you know what they look like anyway.

The point is that I am a changed man. I drank some Folgered-up swill from a commercial Bunn maker in New Orleans, and then I gradually progressed to buying and grinding beans while in Portland, and came back here to witness the sad end of Gridges, graduated to a press (THANKS HENRY FOR RUINING ME) and now tried to take a step back and it was painful. I guess this is it. I’m really a coffee snob now.

All you local folk’ll remember dear old Hidden Hollow. You do remember Hidden Hollow, right? Created by renowned madman Arda Lee it has entertained and creeped out children for many years now. Well, when old Arda died it went to his kids, and they’re getting a bit long in the tooth theyselves, or so I hear, and now the entire property, all 55 acres or so, is up for auction.

So who wants to go with me? Mark it on your calendars – Saturday, May 5th at 10:00 AM. It may be your last chance to say goodbye to an old friend. You know, the kind of old friend that would show up sometimes waaay too late in the evening and sit around your living room and eat pieces of candy all covered in lint and talk unintelligibly so that you weren’t sure if they were drunk and just where in God’s name did they get that candy anyway? Was that from their pocket or something? but they’re a good friend anyway, they’ve been there for you since … forever.

But they won’t be around much longer.

And besides, going to an auction for something you don’t intend to buy isn’t that strange, is it? That’s how I got this picture – how else would I have gained entrance to such a run-down old building? Legally?

Come with me to the auction.

ONE: When I’m carrying both my backpack full of books and my camera bag the camera bag has the place of prominence on my back by virtue of its cross-body strap design, whereas the backpack is just hanging off of one shoulder. It’s like they are, through their design or utility, expressing what my brain feels. I may be going to study in the library but I’d rather be taking pictures.

TWO: Last night while driving to the library with my windows down I passed a lawn that smelled of fresh-cut grass. I guess that means that Spring is upon us. Also, I can tell that Spring is upon us because the dogwoods are blooming. It is rather disconcerting because the dogwoods near my apartment do not smell very good this year – in fact, they smell quite a bit like some automotive product that I can not identify. Brake fluid? Transmission fluid? Something like which a pretty tree should not smell, that’s for sure.

THREE: I was touched by Todd Alcott’s discussion with his five-year-old son Sam, though maybe ‘touched’ isn’t the right word, maybe it should say something about laughter and amazement.

FOUR: My brain is shot, I think. I keep seeing people in my mind’s eye, familiar faces, and I have no idea where they’re from. New Orleans? Portland? Cookeville? Philly Nashville Boston Seattle I DON’T KNOW. They just keep appearing. I see someone in real life and think, “Oh, that girl reminds me of … that … one face … and I can’t remember who it is or how I know her … even though I can see her clear as day.” Or replace girl with guy, whatever, I’ve got quite a few of them up there. DAMN YOU NAMELESS PEOPLE! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

AND FIVE: This morning as I left for work a new-model Volkswagen Beetle painted just like the General Lee drove by. I just looked at it and thought, “… okay, why?”