Kid Tetris

Stuff about food first: Putting fingers in bread dough is great fun. It's also great fun to cook something that is living and breathing, like yeast-based dough, but not really living and breathing like lobsters. That can make me sad. Food Network, of all places, said that the guy making pizza put the uncooked pizza dough on corn meal "for added flavor." That might be part of it (esp. for pan cooked pizza) but if you didn't put it down, you'd find it hard to get the dough off of the work or cooking surface (esp. thin crust). I always associate heavy corn meal pizza with Pietro's, which went bankrupt years ago, but I think there's still one in Portland.

There's no such thing as a chocolate martini. Wild Cherry Pepsi is wonderful in the strangest of ways. My favorite names of sausage: chorizo and andoullie. Just fun to say.

I was thinking about sexy food/ingredients today. To me, chocolate covered strawberries aren't sexy. That's trying too hard (I don't even think they taste that good - just put sugar on sliced strawberries and eat 'em with a fork). And not saffron. That's too expensive. It's like a $10,000 hooker. I don't like truffles either. No fungi. Fungi are sick. I can't explain what makes food or ingredients sexy, but it's not cost or historical notions of "romance" attached to them.

Some ingredients that I think are sexy: butter, prepared chili sauce, Old Bay seasoning, kosher salt, Anaheim peppers.

Now other stuff: Listen up, ladies: I video bowled a 258. Does a man so committed to the pursuit of greatness get your motor running?

My problem with video games: playing them in my head. I had to stop playing Tetris because I'd play games of it in my head while I was driving or trying to get to sleep. I do it with bowling now and it's really driving me nuts. I'm going to have to find a new game.

I've been playing around with bond yield data lately and while I was doing this I realized that, to other people who are not bond traders, this might be the most dry, uninteresting thing I've ever done. And then I remembered the investment horizon thing I did about a year ago, and that might be less interesting. The statistics were a little better, but the topic was shallow and crappy. It had no Monte Carlo simulation either, but I think this one will since I don't have to explain what I'm doing to a half-dozen of my confused peers.

I don't like to answer the phone or IM unless I'm wearing pants and a shirt. Weird? Possibly. But as I write this, I am wearing mutilated flannel boxers and a magically ratty T-shirt. If I go to the store, I'll have a heated internal debate about covering this shirt up with a normal grey one. I haven't worn socks in a week and a half. I could be the laziest dresser in the world.