food

How I Conquered Heartburn

I know a lot of people who are permanently on some kind of acid reflux medication. What is it about today’s people – or today’s diet – that is so much worse for us than back in say, the 70s? Were people riddled with perpetual daily heartburn back then the way they are today? I would guess they were, but no one has ever confirmed this. My real question, obviously, is what did they do before Omeprazole?

Well I’ve been on it for at least twelve years. I think closer to fifteen. I know they took Propulsid off the shelves back in April of 2000. And I was on that. Apparently it caused heart attacks and all other kinds of bad schlit. But I know I was on permanent daily medication already at the point when I started taking this deadly medication. And I don’t remember how long I’d been on it. So at least twelve, possibly as much as fifteen years of my life, I’ve dealt with GERD. And I’m son-of-a-bitching tired of it.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diaryscience
  • Reading time:5 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Windup Girl

The Windup Girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi

I have a lot to say about this book. It was a big book, so it needs a big review. And by big, I mean twenty hours. I listened to it on audiobook, you see. I think Jonathan Davis was a great narrator, but he reads very slowly. He’s very precise with his words, and his pauses between sentences are often pregnant with wait. This probably added several hours throughout the entire book. But it’s also big because Bacigalupi was very liberal with his words. If words cost money, he spared no expense.

It was good. Well written. Mr. Bacigalupi has a way of romanticizing famine and plague, terrible conditions and even rape with such smooth words. They feel like warm honey running over your skin. It’s very easy to latch onto the world, and feel like you’re part of it. His world is a post-apocalyptic version of ours, a couple of hundred years in the future. Not that he ever actually comes out and tells you that, mind you.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Public Transit: A Gloryhole for People-Watching

I ride the train to and from work on most days. Well, I should say public transit. Because part of my trip sometimes involves a bus. In the past I would have thought that only poor and homeless people used the DART buses around here. Boy was I wrong. A couple of guys from my work ride with me, and this one really classy, foxy woman rides our bus too. She’s always reading on her phone. These aren’t the only non-homeless people on the bus. Just the ones I care about. But it has nothing to do with being poor. It’s actually to do with being smart, and wanting to free up your hands to use your time the way you want. I get to ride and read instead of drive and cuss. Anyhow, I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen a homeless person on the bus. Now the train, on the other hand…

But I do ride the bus for part of the trip because it gets me closer to my building. I have a nice little walk up the hill when I get off the bus. But taking the bus (and the train for that matter) every day makes for some interesting encounters with humanity. And since I’ve now been riding for about seven months, I’ve seen some very interesting people. Let me tell you about some of the most interesting encounters:

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:8 mins read

Saturday Night Star Party

Here we are, Two-Step and a couple of friends and I moseyed out to Alpine, Texas to see the stars. They say Alpine is the best place in the continental United States to see the stars. And boy, they’re right. Zero light pollution. No street lights, no bright signage, just perfect darkness and a hundred billion stars in the sky.

Our first night we stayed in Brownswood at a budget inn type place, just to knock a few hours off the nine-hour trek to Alpine. That was a good experience in itself though, as we all sat outside around a wire-mesh table and had some drinks while we talked to some other travelers who had just arrived on their motorcycle. It seems that everyone you meet at a hotel is always so friendly. It almost restores your faith in humanity a little bit. Everyone we’ve met so far has been great.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:travel diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Congratulations, America! You win!

Way to go, the United States of America. On Independence Day – the day in which you celebrate your nation’s birth – the most important day in this country’s history – you host a hot-dog-eating contest. Let’s all celebrate our nation’s freedom and make ourselves look even more gluttonous and stupid and self-serving and arrogant by stuffing our obese faces with tubes of processed pig intestines and giraffe anus. I can think of no greater glory!

This hot-dog-eating contest has become a staple in American entertainment. These skinny little dudes eat fifty-plus hot dogs in a matter of minutes. They dunk them in bowls of water so they’ll go down more quickly and easily. Do you know how bad hot dog buns (or any bread, for that matter) taste when they’re soaked with water? Yeah, me neither. You know why? Because it’s gross!

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Bacon Talk: Thanksgiving

Welcome back, SpaceBrewers. We know none of you are reading this on Friday because you’re all out shopping at Best Buy, Kohl’s, Target and The Great American Cookie Company. But you will read this at some point. Thanksgiving has came and went, and we missed a great opportunity with Halloween – so we didn’t want to miss a Bacon Talk for Thanksgiving. So what did we give thanks for? Crrrrrringe… Okay, I thought I could live with the “has came and went” and I think I could have… But ending that sentence with “for”? Nuh uh. Grammar talk should be another weekly special here. So I can beat the hell out of you with sentences like “For what did you give thanks?” and the like.
Anyway, Haycomet, we traditionally mention our thanksgivings on this one day every year. And while that’s a good thing, don’t you think we should be thankful every day of the year – not just on that one day? I do. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll just go ahead and ask you: who were you rooting for in the football game yesterday?
(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:bacon talk
  • Reading time:7 mins read

Judge Not Thy Chili

I guess I have entirely missed the point of a chili cook-off. You see, growing up, I – wait. No, never mind. This has nothing to do with growing up. But I’ve always sort of been of the opinion that when you had a food contest, the goal for each contestant would be to cook the best tasting food. Chili included. Should not the goal for each contestant to be to produce the absolute best chili anyone has ever had? Well apparently not. Now the point is to see who can set someone’s mouth on fire the fastest. And there’s your opening paragraph.

Seriously though, did I miss some sort of memo? Here at work the other day, there was a small, unannounced chili cook-off hosted by the ladies in marketing. And of course, out of the seven or so women there, only like two of them made the chili. The rest of the entries were actually cooked and prepared by the husbands. I need not finish this paragraph, but I will anyway – if for no other reason than to hit my word quota. But yeah, you guessed it: women cannot cook chili. My red-haired wife not included.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Bacon Talk: Dream Houses

Good morning, and happy Friday to you all, oh seekers of the bacon! Welcome to another edition of Bacon Talk, the weekly SpaceBrew feature John Goodman mentioned in his recent interview with Conan O’Brien! This week, we’re sitting inside the cozy confines of our office living room, by a crackling fire. It’s cold out there! And after last week’s episode, the new balcony collapsed, killing several birds and a nest of baby kittens. I assure you, this was not Butch’s or Bruno’s fault, though they are on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation. We’re just thankful no one was out on the balcony when it collapsed. Well, the window cleaning guy was, but no one will even miss him.
So how do you feel today, Hay Hay? Word around the campfire is that you’ve got your cake site all set up now. Is that so?

Why yes, Space, that is so… thanks to you. I just need to start adding pictures of the crazy cakes I’ve made in the last eight years. I’ve made everything from guitar and drum cakes to a teddy bear pirate cake. Maybe the site will launch my career as a cakist and then I can quit my day job.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:bacon talk
  • Reading time:9 mins read

Old People Like Applebee’s

There’s an old man who lives in my neighborhood, right across the street. He and his wife are probably in their late 70s, early 80s, possibly late 80s. I’m not very good at judging ages on old people. But yeah, they’re old. He’s a cool old dude. He was a sailor back in his day, so I know he’s got some guns in that house. I’m trying to get on his good side so maybe he’ll put me in his will, because I like guns too.

Anyway, he has this tree in front of his house that is notorious for losing branches. I mean, they’re easily found – it’s like it loses one, we look for a brief period, and say, “Oh, there it is, right beneath the tree from where it fell. How about that.” So it’s not really losing them as such… maybe not even really misplacing them. We’ll just say that branches have a tendency to fall off that damn tree quite often. More than the rest of the trees in the neighborhood.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Bacon Talk: Nicknames

Hi Space!  How’s it it going?  And hello out there in blogland!  This is yours truly, Haycomet, and I hope all of you have a big plate of meat candy and a cup o’ Joe in hand, because today we are talking about nicknames.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:bacon talk
  • Reading time:6 mins read