more adventures in the kitchen.

so i decided to make chicken fried rice for dinner tonight because he was having a bad day (allerigies + calculus test). and i end up taking a detour and cleaning out my produce drawer where i discovered some truly revolting green beans that i had forgotten about a couple weeks ago. i also discovered some red peppers my mom had given me which were still in edible condition.

now, the thing you have to understand here is that my parents are sort of ex-hippies, and my dad has turned a large portion of their backyard into an organic garden. he also likes to experiment with this garden, and in the past couple years has started growing several different kinds of peppers.

i had no idea if these peppers were hot or sweet.

so i washed one anyway and started cutting it up. as i'm scraping the seeds out, i think to myself, "oh, my hands aren't burning. this is probably a sweet pepper."

yes, one year, he grew peppers so hot, they had to be picked while wearing rubber gloves.

this is only one of the many, many reasons my kitchen is not entirely safe.

i haven't cut myself in a while, however.

unintended significance.

as we all know, a sign has a signified. on my commute to work, i occasionally see signs that don't quite communicate what they mean.

i don't, unfortunately, have pictures.

seen in front of a bar:

Lunch Specials
Sat - Indecision

and in front of a car dealership:

GIANT ENT SALE

5768.

l'shanah tovah.

i'm home from work today because it's rosh hashona, and i'm going to NYC tomorrow to see underworld at central park because i worked all last weekend. i know i was just on vacation, but as predicted, i returned to an office in chaos, and i need a break again.

on rosh hashona, it is a tradition to eat apples with honey to signify a wish for a sweet year. i'm not sure i would call this past year a sweet one. not that it was bad, exactly, it was just... crazy.

i wonder what will happen in this new year?

current reading.

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

by Bill Bryson

yes, i am reading linguistics for fun. although this probably doesn't surprise anyone who knows me, and anyone who knows bill bryson knows that if anyone can make linguistics fun, he can. the fact that i think it's fun to begin with should probably not be admitted as valid evidence.

it's also reassuring to me as someone who jumped wholeheartedly into sociolinguistics that bryson doesn't restrict himself to chomsky (who is mentioned a few times), but also puts great stock in the work of william labov from upenn and often quotes the very book that my sociolinguistics prof used as our textbook, even if bryson was writing about 10 years before i would take that course.

the one downside to the book is that while bryson is aware of personal computers, his book does pre-date the explosion of the internet into mainstream global culture, and so some of his predictions about the english language have already been disproven.

it's still a fun book to read. i recommend it to anyone who likes words and wordplay, and even more so if you've seen the word prosperipromenon before.

accident.

i didn't actually notice that i had scheduled my vacation so that it buts up against the labor day weekend, but hey, i'll take the extra day off from work.

vacation is so weird. it's like a week out of time. a very relaxing week.

not really looking forward to heading back to the office tomorrow. oh well.