End of the week wrap-up and pointless rambling

Well the end of my weekend is upon me, and once again my mind is boggled by my ability to waste time.
I did very little that was productive this week beyond a couple of so-so drawings, and several abortive attempts at creating some other so-so drawings
Sometimes I wonder how I can spend so much time alone in my apartment doing absolutely nothing without cracking up.
Then I realize that I’m laboring under a misapprehension, and that the terms of my speculation are inherently flawed, as I’ve already cracked up.
If I were right in the head I probably wouldn’t spend so much time in my apartment doing absolutely nothing.
Later on today there’s a training session at work, which I’ll be attending.
On the one hand, I hate it when they have these things on Thursdays, but on the other hand, it is overtime.
Still, I wish they’d have it on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursdays are too short as it is without having to spend almost an hour driving to and from work, to say nothing of the hour and a half I’ll be spending at work.
Mostly for the overtime, but also for the knowledge, I guess, I go to pretty much every training session we have (they typically aren’t mandatory). The only time I miss a training session is if I’m out of town, which, at most, happens maybe twice a year.
So, among my co-workers, my consistent attendance of all available training sessions is sort of my specialty.
Imagine. My “specialty” consists almost entirely of simply showing up.
Admittedly, I do pass along whatever knowledge I pick up, but basically showing up is all there is to what I do.
But damn it, I show up better than just about anyone, and I can occupy space like nobody’s business…
I still haven’t heard anything from “Weird Tales.” Since I’ve never submitted a story to them before, though, I have no idea how long it takes them to reject one.
It seems to me that I used to receive my rejections pretty quickly back in the day, but, as it’s been more than nine years since I last submitted anything for consideration for inclusion in the basket underneath the paper shredder, my recollection may be a bit hazy.
I haven’t done any work on the second story I started on featuring the characters in the story I submitted to “Weird Tales,” though when I was walking the other day I was thinking about it and came up with a few good lines for it. I mostly have the whole thing plotted out, I’m just too lazy to work on it.
I don’t really understand the laziness, either, since it really would basically require doing exactly what I’m doing right now.
I don’t understand why I do some of the things I do. I mean, rather than working on the story, I’m writing an entry for my blog. Hel-LO!
I do that all the time, though. I’ll sit down to work on a story, and instead, for example, I’ll end up writing a lengthy e-mail to someone.
It reminds me of that episode of “The Simpsons” when Bart is supposed to be working on a research paper. He’s sitting at his desk in his room, avoiding looking at the paper. He scans the room looking for a distraction, settling finally, on, of all things, an Algebra book.
“Oooh, Algebra! I’ll just do a few equations...”
In any case, the story is pretty straightforward, and really wouldn’t take that much work, but I guess the fact that, ideally, at least, it IS work (which is to say, it’s something I could get paid for), it ends up feeling like work, so anything, even a similar, or more demanding, activity that is not work in the same sense, becomes preferable.
So Algebraic equations are more fun than a research paper when you don’t HAVE to work on Algebraic equations, just as writing up a long, rambling, and pointless blog entry which has no potential for a financial pay-off is less work than writing a short, tightly-woven story that could potentially bring in some money somewhere along the line.
I suppose there are other psychological elements at play as well, such as a fear of rejection. I mean, barring any technical difficulties, my blog isn’t likely to reject this post.
The basic plot of the story, in part, at least, revolves around the online dating experience. Much of the story will be in the form of Instant Messages and e-mails, and, like the first story (which I’m perfectly well aware that most of you haven’t read), will take place in a sort of quick back-and-forth between the two principal characters.
But the fact remains that writing it = work, and I’m already putting in overtime today…
When I conceived of this post I had intended to use the reference to online dating as a jumping point for relating some of my own experiences in that regard, but now that I’m here I find that I don’t have it in me, so I guess we’ll save that particular painful stroll down memory lane for another day.
The topic of e-mail, though, does provide something of a jumping off point for a pointless tangent.
I’m probably one of maybe three people outside the comic book industry who remembers the character of “E-Man,” and this stems largely from the time years and years ago when my mom picked up this stack of Charlton comics from…somewhere. I’m not clear on the details of where she bought them, but there were a bunch of them.
As a result, I was exposed to titles such as “Blue Beetle,” “Captain Atom,” “Judomaster,” “Doomsday + 1,” and, of course, “E-Man.”
I won’t get into the details of who E-Man was, or what his stories were like (though I will mention that the back-up feature, “ROG2000,” was illustrated by John Byrne, who was still on the cusp of making it big in the industry.).
All of these issues (Most of which are now lost to the ravages of time and a kid who had a tendency to love comics to death. I wasn’t that great at taking care of my comics, and my tendency to read and re-read them constantly didn’t help matters any.) were from the early 1970s (this was probably in the late 1970s or early 1980s), and many of them were actually reprints of stories that were older than that.
In any case, sometime in the 1980s (’83, I think) First Comics tried to revive E-Man. I don’t really know how well that worked out for them, but it’s worth noting that it’s been a long, long time since First Comics even still existed, so that probably tells you something.
However, not too long ago I saw a copy of First Comics’ E-Man #1, and I noted that the title of the letter page was “E-Mail.”
I can’t recall if that’s what the letter page was originally called in the 1970s, but it did lead me to wonder when the term e-mail, as we currently understand it, entered the vernacular.
I know that the basic technology dates back to the mid-60s, and odds are that techno-geeks at places like Bell Labs or Berkeley were using the term then, but when did we (I’ve only been a computer nerd for around 10 years, so I don’t completely fit into the techno-geek pigeonhole.) start using it?
I actually remember the first time I encountered the term in the popular press, which may have been the first time I encountered it at all.
Given my association with computer nerds at the time, though, I think that’s unlikely, despite my overwhelming lack of interest in computers at the time.
The article was about the preponderance of so-called “Electronic Mail” in business and on college campuses, and was published in something like “Popular Science,” I think, and this would have been around 1988 or 1989, and possibly as late as 1990.
My first actual experience with e-mail was sometime in the early 1990s. As part of an assignment for a computer class in college, each student had to create an e-mail account, and then send a message to the teacher with it. At the time, I saw no use for maintaining the account, and never bothered with it again.
There really wouldn’t have been much use for the account; at the time, the university did not have any kind of connection to the Internet. I would have only been able to send e-mail within the very limited bounds of the campus network.
By 1994, though, I had purchased a computer and began taking my first baby steps onto the Internet via America Online. At that time AOL did NOT offer flat-rate pricing or unlimited usage, so I cancelled the account at the end of the free trial, as money, as it so often has been even in subsequent years, was very tight.
Even then, though, when the WWW had begun to really take shape, and online services such as AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy were commonplace, I can’t recall the term “e-mail” being used in casual conversation or in the dialogue of TV shows.
That didn’t really begin to happen until 1995, I think, though I’m sure that before that time the average person would have been at least somewhat familiar with the concept of “Electronic Mail.”
As advertised, there was no point to this little tangent. I’m sure that I could find out when “e-mail” properly entered the vernacular, but I don’t really care that much. This was all based off of speculation as to the status of the term in 1983 (and possibly earlier), when it was in use as the title for the letter page in a relatively obscure comic book published by a copany that's no longer in business.
And that’s the end of that tangent.
Yesterday I had the singular (which simply means that I viewed it as unique; it says nothing about the quality of it) experience of hearing Lisa Loeb performing a cover of an Ozzy Osbourne song.
It was from an Ozzy tribute album that was released a while back.
The specific song was “Goodbye To Romance,” so it wasn’t entirely outside the range of normal for Lisa Loeb.
Even so, I’m not entirely certain how I feel about it. I may have to hear it a couple of more times before I really render a decision.
On the topic of Lisa Loeb, though, one thing I would like to hear is her once again providing the voice of Mary Jane on MTV’s animated “Spider-Man” series. It’s not really a matter of being especially impressed by her performance as MJ, which, in all honesty, I’m rather ambivalent about, it’s more a matter of just wishing (most likely in vain) that the series would return for another season.
I was really impressed by the first season and enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that it’ll ever return, since it’s not some lame-ass variation on “Real World” or “Road Rules” or “Real World/Road Rules” or “Road World/Real Rules” or whatever the hell they’re stuffing their programming slots with these days.
Maybe if MTV could interrupt the action of the show by frequently cutting in with some jackass giving a shout-out to his homeys while they scroll incoherent messages from MTV Online across the bottom of the screen.
(“OMG! s-man is da bomb! mj ur 2 kewl!!!!!!1 cuz anime is teh s uck.”)
*Sigh*
When I woke up this morning I realized that I had no peanut butter cookies, so I set about resolving that as quickly as possible.
After all, I’m not the only one who’s come to rely on the daily supply of peanut butter cookies during the weekend.
I’ve had a request for the recipe for “Vangie’s Original Brazilian Black Beans & Rice” that I mentioned making the other day, so I thought I’d post it here for anyone else who may be interested. I found the recipe at www.cooks.com. I go there quite frequently.

"Feijoada Completa"

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. dried black turtle beans1 lg. bell pepper (or 2 med.), diced4 lg. onions, diced6 cloves of garlic, diced3/4 c. celery, diced1/4 c. parsley, minced2 Tbsp. oregano, minced2 Tbsp. basil, minced2 or 3 bay leavesPinch of ground clove4 bouillon cubes, beef (or chicken)2 tbsp. vinegar (reserve to add last)

Meats:
1 lb. bulk sausage1 lb. pork, such as boneless country style ribs or rolled
roast1 lb. beef, stew beef chunks, chuck steak or leftover roast1/2 to 1 lb. ham, smoked or baked, cubed1/2 to 1 lb. smoked link sausage or Kielbasa cut into bite
size pieces1 lb. of same cut into 2 to 3 inch links to serve on the
sideSalt and pepper to taste

Beans:
Wash and look for gravel then soak overnight in a bowl being sure beans are well covered with water. For cooking use a large crock pot or soup pot, cast iron preferable. First, brown bulk sausage in a skillet and pour off excess grease. I have discovered a lean bulk sausage that is great, much less grease and fat.
Add other meats and stir to brown. Add bell pepper, onion, garlic, celery, parsley, oregano, basil, bay leaf, and clove.
Salt and pepper moderately, taste after cooking several hours and add more if needed.
Add beans and soak water and if necessary add more water to cover entire ingredients by at least two inches. Stir in four bouillon cubes. Cover and cook on crock pot high for three hours then turn to low for at least six hours. If cooking in a stove top soup pot, bring to a LOW boil for two hours then continue cooking on low simmer for six hours, stirring every hour or two to keep from sticking on the bottom of the pot.
I like to use the crock pot and leave it cooking on low overnight. I stir it about twice and sometimes find it necessary to add water. If it gets too watery, take about 1/2 cup of beans and mash with a fork until pasty to add back as a thickener. About an hour before serving stir in vinegar.
Serve beans and meat over rice. I have found brown rice to be quite tasty but white rice is fine too. Serve in a soup bowl and top with fresh chopped onion. The Brazilians top with farina or wheat germ.
Serve the extra sausage, which has been browned separately, on the side for those who want extra meat.
Compliment your main dish with a mixed green salad consisting of everything but the kitchen sink and oil and vinegar or a good Italian type salad dressing, and a basket of garlic bread. Dessert should be light such as sherbet or vanilla ice cream topped with creme de menthe. Invite at least a dozen friends to enjoy the feast. Leftover black beans freeze beautifully for months.
Saldade!

So there’s the recipe. If you follow the advice contained therein, it'll take you even longer to makd than it took me, but I found that it was fine after about 9 hours of cooking during the day.
Anyway, as I finally complete this entry I’m home from my training and preparing for the end of the day.
One good thing about the changing seasons is that it’s almost dark out by the time I go to bed on Thursday nights even though I go to bed very early
Not that I really have a problem sleeping when it’s light out, it just makes things a little easier on me.
In any case, I hope those of you who are out there reading this who don’t have to work weekends enjoy your days off.