Mild Amusement

Even though I've dialed it down a notch , I still eat a lot. Heck, I still have nicknames that basically mean, "you eat a lot." It is what it is, and since I'm not morbidly obese, I figure it's fine to continue eating a lot. Also, I'm not a huge guy. As you can imagine, this leads to all manner of funny anecdotes. The latest one involved deep dish pizza and some coworkers from overseas. We wanted to let them sample various other things that they wouldn't get back home, so one of the items on the list was Zachary's . I've always liked the food there, since it's a hearty meal. In fact, we had to warn our visitors that this was the case, so that they knew what to expect. We also didn't want them to try to order four of the things and find ourselves with too much food. Regardless, we put in our orders, and got down to work. Not thinking anything of it, I had my usual couple of slices of pizza. I didn't really pay too much attention to ...

I've been writing this blog for a little over 5 years now ( though seemingly in secret ), and I'm amazed that I've managed to keep it up this long. Heck, at one point, I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to be able to keep to a schedule of a post per week . So far, so good, though. And if nothing else, it's sometimes fun to go back and look up old stories. I actually end up doing this quite a bit, as I sometimes have to refer to older posts. The first paragraph above is a perfect example of this. I knew I'd mentioned both the poor job of marketing and the schedule I keep in past posts, so I figured I'd point to them if anyone wanted the back story. So at least once per week, I will search through older posts to find relevant references. However, it turns out that I've written 300+ posts. That's definitely a large enough volume of posts that I don't remember all of them. Heck, I'm not sure I'd remember them all even if there were ...

Over time, I have realized that I like teaching. I've had a lot of practice helping my siblings and friends with homework over the years, and I picked up a trick or two. In fact, that's actually what made the idea of volunteering to teach seem like a good idea a while back. In that time, though, I've noticed that I have a very distinct style. Needless to say, it almost always leads to laughter. First off, I have a rule when I get in front of a room of people. It's very simple: if you have jokes, so do I. I pretty much just figure that everyone's an adult, so I'll give as good as I get. It also keeps things more lively, so people are much more likely to pay attention. Besides, everyone has a good time as a result. The funniest reaction I've ever seen to this was on the first day of a class. One of my students walked in on the very first day of a math class, and announced that she was "protesting" having to be in this class. I immediately announ...

I figure most of you know that I have a mixed cultural background. More often than not, it leads to hilarity when the two cultures mix . People just have different expectations when they come from different cultures, and watching the two collide has unintended consequences. Since these are generally my friends and family, no one is trying to be malicious. As a result, we all laugh about these things. (Side note: I don't much care for the "proper" terms that denote having a Hispanic, Latino, or chicano heritage. People get really worked up about this stuff, and I frankly think it's silly. So, I made a conscious decision a long time ago to side step the whole thing by calling myself "brown." If you see the term below, that's what I'm referring to.) Now, while I may be equally brown and Asian by blood (both my mother and my father are 100%, full-blooded members of their respective cultures), I probably identify more with the brown side. That's n...

Lately, I have stumbled across a few more drinks that I like. It's no accident that I just finished writing about how I'm giving gin another chance . I like to try different things, and I am the type of person who will go out of my way to order something I haven't had before at a restaurant. Now, this occasionally means that I have something nasty, but it also means that I stumble across interesting food and drink. In the last few months, that happens to have resulted in new libations I like. The first one was a red blend that I had while out at dinner with the Mild Ex and another friend. The waitress recommended it, and everyone at the table was agreeable to that option. As it turned out, I ended up really liking it. It was the first time where I tasted a very noticeable difference after letting the wine aerate . Unsurprisingly, this novel discovery made the whole thing even more agreeable to me. I like science , remember? The second, more interesting one, was a drink ...

It seems to me that most people have one liquor with whom they just don’t get along. Sometimes it’s because they simply don’t like the taste. Sometimes it’s because they had one really bad experience with it, and that memory has stuck with them. Either way, most people seem to avoid a particular type of liquor. For me, that liquor is gin. Now, I generally don’t like the taste of the gin I’ve had. It tastes very much like licorice to me, and I don’t particularly like licorice. The words that come to mind are “sweet” and “herby.” Neither one is necessarily a good thing. Worse yet, I had one night many years ago in Vegas that did not end all that well. It just so happened to end with gin. So yeah, two strikes against gin. Still, it’s yet to earn itself a third strike. And I’m generally willing to give things a try, so every now and again, I will see if my tastes have changed. More often than not, the answer is a resounding "no." I simply haven't found a drink that ma...

Normally, these nickname posts contain a bunch of nicknames for various people. Each one is like a one-liner, so I figure in order for there to be enough meat in the post, I should put several of them together. This post, however, is different. It contains a single nickname, for yours truly. That's because there are a couple of fun stories. First, let's start with the fact that I am of the age where friends of mine are starting to have babies. Sure, everyone knows the girl who got knocked up in high school, but that was the exception, not the rule. These days, however, people are older, married and more established. It really isn't uncommon for people I know to have kids wandering around their households. It's actually kind of fun for me, because I like playing with munchkins. Regardless, it means that conversations often involve all of us, both the adults and the children. And when that happens, the fact that I am a generation older than said kid kicks in. It...