Georgia Pok Guy

If you had asked me yesterday if I would pay about $13 for two cans of tea, I would have unequivocally said no.  Apparently, I can be persuaded differently…

There were a lot of people standing in front of me in line.  But there were also a hell of a lot more standing behind me, which gave me a feeling of being ahead, if just by an iota.  I waited with my Tamil friend for the bewitching hour of 6 PM to roll around, playing my Nintendo DS to while away the time (proud drop out of the Boy Scouts - always prepared).  Then the doors were opened, and a roar of clapping and hooting and hollering erupted from the front of the line.  The new Macintosh OS, Leopard, was officially for sale.

If you are like one of the many passerbys who asked, in much politer terms, why the hell everyone was lined up, you’ll probably wonder why I bothered to stand in line for an hour just for an OS.  Um… the free T-shirt?  Really, I suppose, for no other reason than I appreciate OSs at a profound level.  I did take that OS class in college…  Or maybe it is this whole “cult of the Mac” thing.  His Steveiness has done a wonderful job of expanding this cult in recent years.  There were a number of obvious geek-a-nerds in line today, ’tis true.  But there were also a good number of more normal looking folk.  All eager to get their hands on the next release of the Mac OS, which, by the way, beats the pants off of 10.4.  It is amazing, but Apple has found a means to get people to shell out $120 every year and not feel ripped off.  Apple might have a cult following, but at least their products have the substance to back it up.

As I contentedly type this up in Safari, I feel it was time well spent in that line, even just to have Leopard one night sooner… 

Today, after lunch, I decided to head over to a used book fair that work was hosting.  I’m usually weary of used items, but I figured that since they were selling paperback books for $1 and hardcovers for $2, I could afford to give it a look.  There were ten or so tables piled with books, which had been conveniently organized by subject matter, making my job easier.  I did manage to snag six books I found interesting, including a history of China… in Japanese.  There were a number of older books at the fair, which got me pretty excited.  As in, I paid $1 for a book originally priced 95¢.  There is something about the musty smell of old books that is appealing.  Smells like… victory!  I mean, knowledge…

Also, there were about a million copies of I’m OK, You’re OK.  Must have been a popular book at some point…

The haul:

• The Theban Plays by Sophocles
• Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
• Howl by Allen Ginsberg
• Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society by Max Gluckman (never heard of it, by the title intrigued me; yes, I did judge a book by its cover)
• 中国 (the Chinese history book in Japanese)
• Beyond Einstein by Michio Kaku (my brother loved another book of his, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong for $1)

One of my guilty pleasures are Hostess Cupcakes.  I don’t know why I like them.  Honestly, there are much better snacks out there.  But for some reason I am immediately drawn to them when I find them.  I try to limit my consumption to when I’m on road trips (you can find them in every gas station), but some times I waiver.  Today was such an exception.  I was purchasing a beverage (soda/pop/coke/fill in the blank) from a vending machine at work when I spied, not Cupcakes, but Scary Cakes in the adjacent machine.  Yes, in celebration of every child’s favorite holiday at the end of the month of October, Hostess had rebranded their Cupcakes into Scary Cakes.  My curious nature got the better of me, and I decided to buy some just to see what made them so scary.  Turns out, not much.  The chocolate icing has been dyed orange, and instead of the iconic white icing braid we have chocolate sprinkles.  And while the packaging may claim that it has S’cream filling, I denoted no change in taste or consistency from the Cupcake filling.  Apparently, it tastes the same, but looks different…  Still, the packaging is kinda cool…

A few days ago I was looking at Arjun’s IM status message, which was imploring everyone to get a twitter account, and shaking my head, wondering what he was obsessed with now.  Fast forward to the present, not only do I have my own account now, but I have integrated it into this blog, so that my tweets show up in the sidebar.  Twitter allows me to record my wheelings and dealings in even smaller increments of time, inundating you, the reader, with the trivial minutia of my vanilla life.  I swear, something as simple as this can be very addicting.  Especially since you can update it over your mobile phone, so you have no excuse to not update your twitter account.  Curse you, Arjun!

As a preface to this post, I would just like to say that I am highly biased toward pulled pork BBQ from west Tennessee.  I mean, I love BBQ of all origins and creeds.  Carolina or Georgia, I’ll eat it all.  But if I have a hankering for BBQ, my first inclination is to drive the 838 miles to west Tennessee.  Then I remember that there is this thing called “reality” (which really is over hyped), and drive the 2 miles down the street to a more local BBQ place.  Which is exactly what I did for lunch today.  I saddled up for Shane’s Rib Shack, which is based out of Decatur, GA.  I ordered a BBQ sandwich combo (with a side of baked beans.  Mmmm…) and headed over to the assortment of sauces they had, deciding to sample their hot BBQ sauce.  Needless to say, it was anything but.  I dumped a good deal of this stuff on the sandwich and nary had the impulse to cool my tongue with my drink.  Compare this to the hot sauce one gets in west Tennessee, where a tiny teaspoon is more than enough for a sandwich, and the idea of pouring it on is grounds for notifying your next of kin.  This isn’t to discount the sandwich, which was quite tasty.  But when I get hot BBQ sauce, I’m expecting something that will burn off a couple taste buds.  Shane’s Rib Shack, you’re on watch.

Is it wrong to immensely enjoy “singing” a Bollywood song on one’s way home from work, and then subsequently desire to learn to speak Hindi so as to launch a career as a Bollywood star?  Because I totally want to do it…  When you see me in the remake of that one movie with the song where they’re singing “guri guri!” you’ll know I’ve made it…

Still, I really like how Hindi sounds (at least, when it’s sung).  Curse my lack of a gift for languages!  I guess I’ll just have to study hard like everyone else…

You can call me a genius.  You know you want to…

Apparently, the zodiac signs were not part of the vocabulary taught in my Japanese classes.  I ran across this today: 牡牛座.  Reaching for my trusty kanji dictionary, I could only find the meanings for each character separately, which is “male cow seat.”  Not being satisfied with this, I decided to do a little sleuthing on google, where I got 301,000 results.  Turns out, it is the Japanese for Taurus.  I suppose a kanji dictionary will only take you so far…

When I was in Borders yesterday, I happened to notice the latest issue of Time.  I don’t make a point to read Time, and this really is no exception.  However, the cover article asked a poignant question: does the Supreme Court still matter?  To which I would add, does any branch of the federal government, save the Executive branch, still matter?  With the congress hellbent on passing a resolution chastising an act of the Ottoman Empire, I’m wondering if anyone other than the president matters anymore.  Maybe I need to stop reading/watching things about the death of the Roman Republic…

Having said all this, I still have hope.  The Republican sweep of the House in 1994 acted as a strong check to the Democrat administration.  So there are examples of checks and balances in recent memory.  And, since I’m assuming discontent over Iraq will lead to a Democrat victory of the White House, we might just get to see how much the Supreme Court matters in due time…