Food: things I don't like (and those I do)

Given the last post and its comments, I thought this a fitting continuation. Here are some foods I don't like (and related ones I do):

• Cheese (but I do like to eat nachos with cheese, mac & cheese, and pizza, but not Chicago-style pizza; when I get the Stack Attack at Wendy's, I always order it minus cheese; back when they had a two-cheeseburger meal at McDonald's, I'd order that minus cheese, too, since they didn't have a similar two-hamburger meal - on more than one occasion they actually took two hamburgers, wrapped them in cheeseburger wrappers, and put "special" stickers on them!)
• Tomatoes (but I like salsa, ketchup, catsup (wait, didn't I already mention that? why is it spelled at least two different ways?), and tolerate spaghetti sauce)
• Spaghetti (it's ok, actually; but I do like SpaghettiO's)
• Chocolate ice cream (but I do like hot fudge sundaes - with vanilla ice cream - and vanilla with chocolate syrup and brownie a-la-mode with vanilla)
• Most ice cream flavors other than vanilla (I do like - ok, really like, it's my favorite - the cinnamon at Marble Slab - especially with graham cracker mixed in - as well as their amaretto flavor)
• Pickles (but I like cucumbers)
• Lasagna (but I like Hamburger Helper's lasagna flavor)
• Most Italian food (unless it's a canned variety, like Chef Boyardee, then it's usually OK)
• Most things on the bone (ribs, chicken, etc; I like pork chops, though, even though they're typically served on the bone) - but this is probably my laziness and my lack of wanting to "dig in with my fingers" that bone-food requires (I'd probably not have been much of a caveman, but then again, I don't mind eating ants...)
  

Well, that's a start of a list. Maybe, if I think of more, I'll add it in the comments. Feel free to add your own to the list...

What to put on a hot dog.

I've recently discovered that Heinz 57 sauce is a great topping for a hot dog. An all-beef hot dog, anyway. I also have discovered that it's very difficult to find a decent, public-domain (or copyright-available) image of Heinz 57 sauce (feel free to share if you find one; I found a couple on Flickr, but one is a poor quality picture (with some alcoholic beverage in the background I'd rather not promote), and one is "all rights reserved" so I can't legally post it here; there is an image on the Heinz website, but the Heinz site doesn't allow you to use their images without written approval, and I don't want to wait for that before posting this blog). I also discovered I'm too lazy to grab the digital camera, walk into the kitchen, take a picture of the container, and upload it.

We had hot dogs left over from our recent M & M night at AWANA. That is, Missionary & Movie night. It's a pretty neat event where we have a missionary (this year it was a church member who regularly goes on short-term mission trips overseas; in the past, we've had both active & retired full-time missionaries), lots of great food (like "gourmet" all-beef hot dogs, chips, and tons and tons of both plain and peanut M & Ms, and popcorn for the movie), and a movie (this year we went back to the old faithful "The Prince of Egypt"). We overestimated the attendance and had a lot of hot dogs left over (better to have too much than too little, though), so we all got to take home hot dogs wrapped in aluminum foil.

Put 'em in the fridge, pull 'em out later, swap the foil for a paper towel, pop it in the microwave for a minute ("quick-on, 1" - fast, easy!), allow to cool. Apply Heinz 57 sauce. Really good! Interesting tidbit: the "57 varieties" was merely a moniker - they actually had over 60 varieties at the time they came up with the slogan (see Snopes article). They have over 1000 products now-a-days.

Other great hot dog toppings? Chili, of course (the cheap, 60-cent cans from the grocery store); onions; ketchup (or catsup, depending on your preferred spelling); possibly mustard; but I don't really care for relish or sauerkraut. I've also never put chocolate syrup, ice cream, or candy sprinkles on a hot dog, and probably never will (let me know if you try that), although that reminds me of a pizza I made and ate once (I'll spare you the details, unless you ask, but I'll let you know that it did have cat food on it... and cat food, especially when cooked at 500 degrees for 15 minutes, is really, really hard to bite & chew; there were no ants on the pizza, in case you're wondering, but there were things like chocolate chip cookies, peppermints, the aforementioned cat food, breadsticks, an entire bottle of oregano, other candies, pretty much whatever we could find in the kitchen).

Enough for now... go enjoy yourself a hot dog with Heinz 57 sauce!

Buggy

Do you ever feel like you have bugs crawling on you? I do sometimes. Like now. I'll feel like there's a bug crawling on the back of my neck, but when I go to squish it and wipe it away, nothing. The other night I felt like there were bugs on my lower legs, but again, nothing. Sometimes there really are bugs, and I guess the worst is spiders since you never know whether they're the dangerous kind or not. Once, when I was a little boy, I got bitten by a spider in-between two of my fingers (you know, in the "webbing" area), and it made an itchy bump. (Just felt a "bug" on my temple, but nothing; maybe it was just an itch in disguise.) I also used to be allergic to ant bites (really, really allergic, like my mom used to keep benadryl elixir on hand at all times allergic), but my occasional diet of ants may have reduced my ant allergy (either that or I grew out of it). However, I think I've told you all that story before.

I'm afraid I've not much else to say tonight (which is probably to your benefit). Go check out my new experiment (not-tional geographic) if you haven't already... I plan on adding some new material there soon. If it doesn't rain too much tomorrow I might go geocaching, but then again, I might just sleep. Later...

The nine lives of a Lexus

Well, maybe four for mine. Yes, the Lexus lives again! Woo-hoo! Took two weeks to get the part and about five minutes to install. But we're once again a two-(working-)vehicle family. Life just got easier!

Anyway, I'm a recovering sicko. That is, I was sick earlier this week. Didn't go to work on Monday (did I already mention this?), then for some reason didn't sleep Tuesday night (not that I didn't try, mind you!), but I did sleep last night (but had some weird dreams; I was trying to get these people on this bus, and then get the bus out of town, because something strange was happening, maybe the "end of the world" or someone was taking over the town or something, and I had this bottle of some alcoholic drink, and some guy kept complaining and trying to get us to open it, and I kept telling him we needed to wait, and eventually took the bottle and whacked the guy in the nose with it, and his face was all bloody, but he did shut up... but I don't remember a whole lot past that, other than we were trying to get out of the town for some, urgent reason, and it was difficult).

Anyway, I'm a recovering sicko (did I mention that?). But hopefully I'll be better soon. Thanks for your prayers (if you're praying). I'm sure money would help, too, if you feel like donating (it would take away some stress, and less stress = better health) - just let me know and I'll share my paypal account info so you can donate. I guess I forgot to take my Mt. Dew this time around. Actually, we don't have any Mt. Dew, and the Diet Publix Orange Soda I'm drinking says "0% Juice" so it's probably not a good source of extra Vitamin C to help me get better. It does say "Contents under pressure, handle with care." Yeah, as if I'm unfamiliar with the soda can concept... "What is this thing? How does it work? OW! MY EYE!"

Sorry, must be the illness... I'll quit writing now.