My family doesn’t eat crab that often. It’s expensive and fancy and before you know it you haven’t eaten any in years.

My parents remembered an all you can eat Snow Crab feast with another couple at Red Lobster some years ago, but all they were able to recall was that it was either when they were dating or soon after they were married. At the very least it was before I was born, so make that 32+ years ago. They focused on the fact that the staff would not take away the shells as to shame you into eating less, which did not work. Apparently they filled the table, looked obnoxious, and happily ate lbs of crab.

I think as a teenager we had a 1/2lb of King Crab as an appetizer somewhere, which isn’t much more than a taste between 3 people. Not a major event, but I do remember the taste.

All the more reason for my freezer’s liberation of its 20lbs of crab to be mentioned. For Christmas Eve 3 of us ate about 4.5 lbs of crab, which was impressive. I think being non-fancy Chicago Polacks helped. It was such a delicious treat that we just devoured it like savages. I should have photographed the pile of shells as a testament. The other 15 lbs is at my folks and they can do whatever they want with it, which will probably be to slowly eat it over the course of a year or more to best enjoy it and not get used to the taste too much, lest they develop and fancy tendencies. I hope to eat crab for a third time someday before another 15 years passes.

A pretty dull post I know, but all I can think about this week is how tasty it was.

Best Production Support Request Ever.

The headers accessed for all of our web pages when the print style sheet is used had an incorrect phone number for the company. Turns out it was a phone sex number. Modifying 20+ jsp pages has never been so fun.

A weekend always feels like an accomplishment when I take things to the thrift store and half price books to get rid of, and nothing new comes to take their place. That is an endless goal of mine: more going out than coming in. It is a losing battle though, but a good goal to have in mind. Exceptions are made, namely for small stacks of comic books each Wednesday and bikes that are endlessly, absolutely needed.

Anyone ever run across any Thomas Ligotti books? I recently read a graphic novel interpretation of some of his work and I have been duly impressed. People often refer to him as one of the best kept secrets in the last 20 years of horror. I really dug what I read and want to get the original prose, but his stuff seems to be strangely out of print, yet Dean Koontz is readily available. Blah.

A decent attempt

Didn't come up with 12 pictures, but I think it came out ok, and I did obey the 12 hour rule. It was certainly fun.

12:00pm, moving my cousin within Madison. It turns out that when it is 3 degrees out and you allow the lid of a grill to swing towards the ground (while carrying it on its back) the hinges will snap off like plastic. This was not my doing, but the grill and all its new individual pieces were moved in my truck nonetheless. Welding will be attempted, but a new grill is more likely.

1pm. Madison, west side. Notice the superior snow removal here. It was about 10 degrees by this time! Felt very comfortable.

3:30pm, within the move yet again. A very boring picture, but a memory of the hour long process to connect the dvd player to the tv. The tv is a huge first generation HD CRT, and is probably 150lbs at least. It barely fits in the entertainment center so there were many strained attempts to slide it out while someone furiously fiddled with the cables. The true problem was that the plugs on the rear of the tv kept coming loose so every time it gave us dvd audio and video it would cease doing so after we slid the behemoth back in. Boring picture, maddening memory.

6:30 pm and off the 70's and 80's themed party. I opted for tightrolled jeans. Sadly it was very easy to quickly produce a tightroll from memory.

9pm at the party. Homemade Bailey's(left) and Brandy Slush(right). Very Wisconsin.

11pm. The white elephant gift I received was a vintage, unused, mint boy scout canteen. Very nice.

12:45 am and time to head home from the party. Cold and snowy.

More than just some egotistical assertion that I feel the world would be better off knowing, I’m stating my intention to give the 12 hour photo project a shot this weekend in the simple hopes that I will be guilted into the responsibility of finishing it knowing that I had made that intention known out loud (so to speak). My weekend isn’t the busiest or most fascinating, but I will be bumming around town more than usual so it is as good a time as any to give the project a shot. The snow and ice here are quite charming so if nothing else the pictures will feel like December.

The always prolific Up In Alaska is on it.

The fair amount of snow and ice we had dumped on us Saturday forced me to linger around my apartment and get all kinds of little things done. Sadly no cycling occurred, but I did catch up on things here and there. I was forced again to confront how much stuff/crap I own. I wish I could get rid of piles and piles of it but that would be very difficult and it probably won’t happen anytime soon. Collecting comics and older AD&D stuff is by its very nature a practice in hoarding, which I ideally try to avoid. Aside from the collectable aspect of it, I have an extremely difficult time getting rid of something that can be read that I know I have enjoyed in the past and very well may enjoy in the future. Dumping comics and the like for meager dollars on ebay just cannot replace the possibility that I may find someone whom really would love to plow through runs and runs of DC titles. Eh, my kids can throw all that out after my funeral someday. I have no trouble jettisoning items here and there, but I have the toughest time getting rid of things that can be read. Makes sense to me, while the piles of long boxes tower higher and higher (as do the Lite boxes filled with fiction).

The main thing that happened Saturday was finishing my Lost season 2 dvds. I fell into that all too easy trap of just “starting” another episode with the theoretical plan of only watching 10 minutes, just to figure out which person’s back story we’ll be getting. That approach is a lie. I zipped through the last 6 episodes in no time and now eagerly await season 3. I have so many theories about what is what, what is being critiqued, which ideas are on trial (psychology), etc. I’m sure I’m very wrong about most of these things, but the ride is certainly enjoyable. A few years ago Wayne constantly pitched Lost to me with exciting and salivating gestures. I probably said something well intentioned about not wanting to take on a new show, that I felt that if I wasn’t on it from the beginning it was a futile move, and that the idea of a kooky desert island didn’t sound that interesting. Seeing that the show was successful enough to sustain a few seasons, along with the announcement that the creators do have a well defined goal and that the network has renewed the show to ensure its completion, was enough for me to spend the time to jump in. I feel gun shy about jumping on a new show without knowing it will be canned 2 months down the road, so more often than not I don’t jump. I end up watching much less tv this way and instead watch more dvds, which seems better for me. I much more appreciate being deliberate with my time rather than surfing into something. 108 minutes.

Not everything fits in a Chrome bag