Holy Guacamole!

When life serves you up lemons, you make lemonade.

When life serves you up beer, chips and tan lines, you make guacamole.

Thus sayeth the almighty Party-Hound known as a blast from the past known as Stromburglar.

Yesterday was a good day -- no work to worry about, a houseful of foodstuffs to conjur, and an empty sink. Seemed like a good time to make guacamole.

So I sliced up a rockin' avocado, twisted out the seed, carved out the green gold and lopped it into a big mixing bowl. Wasn't enough for a good amount, so I repeated the process. Thereafter, I tossed in some bruschetta mix -- dried down and nearly devoid of liquid -- then mixed in some more gaaaahlic, some red onion, a lil' bit o' lime and lemon juice, and some cilantro. On top I cracked some pepper and a few crystals of sea salt and I was good to go. But not trusting my own taste buds, I packaged it up and brought it to my sister's, and she thought it was awesome, so I now have a new recipe to add to the reper-twory. And in the spirit of being a good brother, I bought-n-brought a bag of tortilla chips too. Incidentally, I had originally planned on seeing her because we got a Staples certificate (basically a coupon) and we needed another multi-pack of blank DVD's for office/server back-ups, so I grabbed the coupon after dropping the guac and headed over to a nearby Staples.

They had the right discs for the office burner. Now before anyone gets inquisitive, keep in mind that buying blank DVD's isn't nearly as easy as is buying blank CD's. Blank CD's have, essentially, two formats: Computers & Music. If you have one o' them stereo thingies that records CD's (called a "CD Recorder" -- ooh, complicated) then you buy CD's for "music" use. If you have a PC/Mac-based CD-burner/recorder, then you buy blank CD's for computer use. Not complicated a'tall.

However, with DVD's, it's a mindfuck...first you need to worry if the drive writes to "plus" or "minus" format (as in DVD-R or DVD+R). Sometimes the drive will do both, so it's up to you to decide, which opens yet another door of introspection, doubt and worry, namely: "Which one is better? Which one is faster? Do these shoes go with this shirt?" Essentially, once you've moved past the +/- issue, then you need to determine which speed you need to procure. For example, some discs can be used with a double-speed (aka 2x) burner. Some are workable with a quadruple-speed burner (4x). And some with only work with an 8-speed burner (known in the sex trade as the flying octopus...just kidding, just checking to see if you're really reading or skimming, you bastage).

In short, there's enough confusion and worry in the second floor of Staples to melt one's ego to a pile of sea urchin-like poo. And it ain't pretty.

And for those geek-esque wise-asses who think they can solve the world's problems with three clicks and a quickie answer, the problem is that DVD's rated for an 8x drive don't work on a 4x drive, and vice-versa. In fact, the first time I attempted to make backups of a movie I'd tried to copy (for personal, home use only -- seriously), it failed. Tried again, failed again. So I bought a pile of discs that, one by one, wound up as coasters (discs which failed during the recording process) until I wised up and talked to a kid in Eastern Europe (via some forum) and he hooked me up with the answer: the discs I was using weren't compatible-ish with my drive. According to the packaging, I could have used the discs with my drive, but he hit me with a link that clarified which types of discs (speed, brand, etc.) I should use as opposed to those which I shouldn't.

So I've been burning like a maniac since, both at home and at the office, the former copying stuff I've already got on DVD, the latter being semi-daily back-ups of our office server. It's not pretty but, dammit, someone's got to do it.

I spent the remainder of the day/evening on the phone with my other half, discussing our plans/appointments while she's in town. We're working on apartment viewings as well as our plans for a mini-barbecue, and so far, we've got two of the former and half a menu for the latter. The BBQ menu will definitely include guacamole (duh) and salsa and some herb-garlic dip; then we'll go into a big london broil, some skinless, boneless chicken breasts, and either swordfish, monkfish or jumbo tiger shrimp. And we'll also do a few veggies: corn on the cob, my famous (or infamous) sesame snow peas with garlic and ginger, and mebbe a lil' mushroom-onion sautee. And for dessert -- well, I haven't figured if it will be tiramisu or a carvel ice-cream cake. 'Sides, it only needs to a) look good and b) have a lot of chocolate therein. Most of us will be too full to even consider eating dessert.

In either case, I'm still -- in the back of my mind -- celebrating another Yankee win (8 in a row). Tino Martinez, the guy who everyone said was washed up, hit another two home runs yesterday, which means he's now hit 9 home runs in 33 at-bats. To give some perspective on this accomplishment, Alex Rodriguez -- who is among the best offensive players in baseball, leads the league in home runs and he's been a full-time player since the first day of the season. Tino, in contrast, wasn't playing regularly until about three weeks ago, and he's caught and tied A-Rod for the league lead. In other words, Tino is suddenly -- and incredibly -- resurging and recalling his former abilities prior to being cut by the Yankees in 2003.

Everything, as per usual, is getting better each day...and having my father's health improving is -- as I have said before -- the icing on the cake.