The first book that I’m currently reading is a book called Eleven Minutes by a guy named Paulo Coelho. He wrote The Alchemist if you’ve ever heard of that one. Anyways, it’s a really intense book just cause of the subject matter. It’s about a prostitute and the tagline would probably be something along the lines of “A gripping exploration of the potentially sacred nature of sex within the context of love.” (I stole that line from the back cover of the book) Anyways, this guy is one of my favorite authors because he’s very universalistic in all of his writing. I kind of like having to sift through and decide which parts of his philosophical and religious arguments I believe and which parts that I do not believe. And he makes all of his arguments through the use of brilliant stories that really get into what is going on inside of people’s heads. In a nutshell, he loves to explore the nature of man. The thing I find most interesting in his books is that, in the end, when he has made his discovery about a particular piece of human nature, I am always left with this feeling that he has gotten so close but has just completely missed the real point. He reaches these conclusions about what man really desires in his life but then misses the point that Jesus is the fulfillment of those desires. It is just really interesting.
The next book that I am currently reading is Catcher in the Rye. As for this one, I’m not really going to go into how I feel about the actual book other than to just say that I’m really liking it and that I love the way that JD Salinger writes. Good style. The interesting thing about my reading this book is that I’m actually co-reading it with THE Warren Shamburger. By that I mean that we sit around in my room and switch off chapters reading it out loud while the other person listens. Warren uses these great voices for each character and then I try to mimic them whenever I read but I generally fail miserably. The point though is that it is a BLAST to read the classics out loud with a buddy. You should look into it. I think we’re going for Treasure Island or Pride & Prejudice after Catcher in the Rye. One of those is a joke.
The third book that I am reading is a book called The Gift of Prophecy by a dude named Rick Joyner. I’m still assembling my thoughts on all the things he’s saying though at this point. Plus, they’re kind of more serious things that he’s been stirring up inside me and they deal a lot more with what I’ve really been searching God about lately. And though I would probably be down to share my thoughts about it with you in person, that isn’t really the kind of thing that I like to write about on here. This blog is for me to therapeutically release all my ridiculous thoughts. Not my unridiculous ones. Anyways, I guess I should be perfectly honest on this one and say that I’m not actually “reading” it in the traditional sense. I purchased my first audiobook!! No but I got this on audiobook so that I could listen through it while I work out. Whatever, I’m still reading it..just not really…
If you put your car in reverse twice, you really end up putting it in neutral. However, if you put your car in reverse thrice, you end up in drive. Then you can go wherever you want. Think about that.
The other night I went to dinner with a few wonderful people. We were definitely looking for some food, but even more than that, I feel like we were all looking for a good margarita as well. Our first choice (due to prior good experiences) was El Jalisco’s. Unfortunately, once we arrived, we very quickly learned that El Jalisco’s had lost their liquor license. We can only assume that this is because they were serving alcohol to minors considering that they were well known around town as the place that doesn’t ID. Anyways, we all sat there for a minute, not being the one to first admit that we really wanted to go somewhere else just because there were no margs…Eventually though, somebody stepped up and we quickly all agreed to move on over to El Tapatia down the street.
We went in there, got our table and all and began looking at the menus. They had 4 sizes of margaritas. There was the “Regular”, the “Jumbo”, the “Regular Pitcher” and the “Jumbo Pitcher”. The waiter finally came over to take our orders and as we went around the table, two things became apparent very quickly. A of all, this nice little Mexican dude definitely did not speak much English at this point. B of all, the margarita sizes were not actually anything like what the menu stated. Most people asked for a regular marg, medium marg, or large marg. However, in the end, they all received the exact same size. I however asked for a jumbo margarita (what I believed to be the correct term from the menu for the bigger sized margarita glass). Unfortunately, when my drink came out, it was as you see here:
So anyways, it was going to be much too much trouble to send it back. Thus, I just drank as much of it as I could and gave a bit here and there to the other people with me. It WAS a good margarita at least so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean my check ended up being a little steep but whatever.
That actually reminds me of something else. I never used to be a huge “Sonic Happy Hour” kind of guy but then my roommate Adam started making me go with him in the afternoons to grab a Sonic drink and I quickly realized that it’s just insane to NOT go get Sonic drinks every day! This brings about it’s own whole new set of issues though. A of all, you start formulating opinions about which Sonic makes the best drinks. Inevitably, the best Sonic will be the one that is the furthest away from you. That’s just how it always is. Then B of all, you will find yourself complaining about having to tip Sonic people almost every time you go. Either that or you will be the person going with the person who complains. You’ll be the one who is always talking about how you “feel bad” for not tipping the person and you’ll talk about how much their tips must have decreased since the credit card machines came in. I am not that guy though. I’m the guy that almost never tips the Sonic people. And I even like tipping too. I love tipping people at a restaurant. But for some reason it bugs me that they think they deserve a dollar for walking my food out to my car for me. I’d rather do it myself and keep my dollar. Or I’d rather them do it for me and still keep my dollar. The point though is that if you are going to Sonic every day and getting a drink that is only 1 dollar, you just don’t feel like you should have to tip the delivery person above that dollar. Thus, you’ll inevitably talk about it in your car…usually immediately after the person leaves. And you’ll probably start off the conversation with “I feel so bad for not tipping them BUT…” That’s bulsh. The only reason you say that is so you don’t look like a jerk.
OK, paragraph break to lead us into the C of all. C of all, you’ll begin to be a Sonic drink connoisseur. Whereas you used to be happy with whatever drink they brought out to you as long as it at least slightly resembled what you ordered, now you’re not truly happy with the drink you receive unless it is the “perfect consistency” or unless they put “just the right amount of Vanilla” in it or the “perfect amount of fruit” and such. That’s just the nature of the beast though. The more we love something, the more we expect perfection out of it.
And lastly, which I guess would be D of all, you will find yourself discussing all of these things with other Sonic lovers. You’ll be sitting around at night with some people and all of a sudden, you’ll realize that you guys are all talking about which Sonic is the best and about how much of whatever you love that they put in your Sonic drink and whether it was perfect. This is when you know you’re a real, true Hedgehog. (Hedgehog is a lame term that I just decided on for Sonic lovers. It is indubitably a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog from the Sega Genesis game.)
If I had to be stuck in a coffin forever (but still alive) I would hate it a lot. But I feel like I would hate it waaaaaay more if I was stuck in a coffin alive forever and I was a Dolphin. That would make it WAAAY worse. And how awesome is this picture?
Why is it so awesome to do weird stuff to food? I mean almost everybody loves to take a fork and smash food sitting on their plate so that it squeezes up through the prongs. And if you gave almost any person the chance, he or she would LOVE to take a watermelon in his or her hands and just smash it down on the ground. It’s just straight-up fun. I had my very own experience with it today. I was cleaning out my refrigerator. I had some chocolate milk that I had purchased a couple weeks ago on a “wow chocolate milk sounds so good right now! I bet I could drink the whole half-gallon” whim. Long story short, I didn’t drink it all. (actually, that story would have been hard to make long. It was just a short story kept short.) Anyways, I could totally have just taken it in the kitchen and dumped it out in the sink. But instead, I wanted to see it splatter all over the ground. So I took it out front and dumped it all over the dirt in front of my house. I don’t know why I did it other than just that it was fun.
Another thing that I found in my refrigerator was a carton of eggs that still had like 4 in it. This time they weren’t even expired. The desire that came up in me though to take them outside and break them was so unbearable and undeniable that I just had to do it. I smashed some perfectly good eggs. Worth it again. It was fun.
Ok I feel like this is getting to the point where it is so long that you aren’t even going to do that thing where you start reading it but then skim most parts of it just so I doesn’t take forever. Instead, you’re just going to take one look at it and be like “yeah, uh no.” So I’m going to stop.
Peace.
