Catching up is hard to do

The problem with getting behind on the blog is that I don't usually like making posts that are just big long lists of the last twenty things I did. But let's see.

Two weeks ago I went to Alma's sister's wedding, where Alma was the maid of honor. The ceremony was fine (it went by without being too draggy, which is mostly what I require), and the reception was pretty fun. I got to meet a lot of Alma's relatives, we did some dancing, and I did some drinking (first time I've been able to do that at a wedding since usually I have to drive somewhere afterwards). I guess I don't have that much to say about it, except that it sort of gave me "wedding envy," if that makes any sense. In related news, Alma and I are closing in on three years together.

I haven't been doing that much lately outside of work, which is unfortunate. I've accrued about three vacation days, though we're coming up on "a bad time to take vacation days," i.e. the holiday shopping season. Although I feel like I'm not allowed to accrue any more than 24 vacation hours at one time, so I should probably take some soon so that I don't waste them. The only problem is that I have to spend a day showing someone else how to do my job first.

The other problem is that I would probably just sleep through most of the vacation day anyway.

I've been hungry and tired a lot lately. I should probably go for a physical, since I don't think I've had one in over six years at this point.

I grew the beard back in. I don't know if this will last, though it's never a bad thing to have facial hair during a Chicago winter. Part of this will depend on how much Alma likes it. (Okay, all of it will, who am I kidding.)

We went for sushi again last night. I like sushi reasonably well but it never fails to leave me hungry later. I got a little adventurous and got the spider roll, plus two more exotic pieces from the nigiri menu. Masago was listed as "flying fish," but it turned out to be flying fish roe. It was fine though. The unagi (eel) was also surprisingly un-crazy; it really just tastes like any other piece of fish, and it was even cooked and doused in teriyaki sauce. I had tried to get the anago (sea eel, because it's always smart to order something by how fun you think the name sounds), but they were out.

After that we went to a party at Alma's gym, where they had karaoke. The selection was decent - the one at the redneck dive in Austin was better, but that crowd was significantly shadier. I did "Addicted to Love," during which a surely-drunk woman from the audience came up on stage to play inflatable guitar like one of the women in the video, and "Your Song," and Alma and I did a duet on "Hey Jude." I usually don't really like getting up in front of people, but at least with karaoke it's basically impossible to make an ass out of yourself (certainly not compared to the drunk older guy who stumbled his way through "Rock Around the Clock"), and at least I was never off key. Alma did two solo songs as well, with "Killing Me Softly" and "We've Only Just Begun," and was, as usual, congratulated heavily after each song, because she is awesome. Though I was told I had a good voice after "Your Song," which I can't say I was expecting, and the guy saying it wasn't even drunk. I was happy with how I sounded, but that was surprising.

Anything else? I think this will do for now.

Oh. Quick question: most of you, like me, were probably watching TV aimed at kids/teens in the late 80s and early 90s. Do you remember the Corn Pops and Apple Jacks ad campaigns? These were, even at the time, two of my least favorite things ever. The Corn Pops ones, clearly metaphors for drug addiction, feature kids going through sweaty withdrawal symptoms as Jaws-like music plays when they can't find any Corn Pops. Here's one example. The Apple Jacks ones were also horrible, for various reasons. Here's one, which is by far not the worst of the genre. Maybe the most annoying thing about those was that Kellogg's had spent the past 30 years suggesting that Apple Jacks did, in fact, taste like apples. And now they were throwing that under the bus just to make eating Apple Jacks seem non-conformist somehow. At any rate, the ads would have been much more honest if "they just do!" had been replaced with "they're full of sugar!"

So, if you remember both those ads, which did you hate more? I originally thought I hated the Apple Jacks ones more, but after reacquainting myself with the Corn Pops ads, I'm no longer sure.