The term is thrown around all too much but refers to a distinct style of culinary practice. Different people have their own takes, but one thing’s for sure: when it shows up at my law firm’s catered holiday party at tomorrow 11:30, no work will get done between the hours of 11:30 and 5:00 pm. It’s not that we’ll be eating until 5, but soul food tends to convert any potential energy contained within the body into, well, nothing. The laws of thermodynamics break down. Energy will be completely lost, never to be found again.

Also, your pores will ooze gravy.

Addendum: i know you're thinking. i must have eaten so much that i was stuffed for the rest of the day. yes, i did eat so much that i was stuffed for the rest of the day, until 9 o'clock rolled around and i ate an entire pizza. where does it all go? my legs, people. i store brisket and cornbread in my legs.

Hi, my name is Mr Pinch Blogger and I will be “helping” our friend P-man here for a while whilst he is mired in the throes of law school finals. You can call me “MPB” if you’re into the whole brevity thing.

P-man and I have much in common. While P-man chains himself to his desk for hours at a time to study, I am also chained to my desk for hours at a time by the man, with the proverbial chains being monetary reward, or more specifically, the ability to pay my mortgage. Deep stuff I know. I worked on that for hours. And its just a taste of the deep intellectual content you can expect (or dread or ignore) during what is sure to be my brief tenure as MPB.

But before delving into P-man and my similarities from a philosophical realm, I’ll ease into things with the more superficial topics. I like bikes, as does P-man. And, also like him, I have amassed a large collection that I somewhat rarely ride, and when riding, usually get smoked by everyone from casual riders to geriatric old men on cruisers. My overall lack of physical prowess on the bike doesn’t stop me, however, from practicing bike snobbery and praising the virtues of steel frames, singlespeeds, and the like. Of which I own none, of course.

Similarly, I have been accused of music snobbery as well. Unlike P-man, however, I have no musical talent whatsoever, and have never performed either, save the occasional drunken wailing of “Sweet Caroline” or “To All the Girls I’ve loved Before” (the Willie Nelson / Julio Iglesias version thank you). I leave that up to the professionals, and in this case, I am looking forward to a show next week in Denver featuring Gogol Bordello and Valient Thorr. I haven’t seen Gogol Bordello and am only mildly familiar with them, but hear they’re good live. I have seen Valient Thorr, and look forward to seeing them, as they hail from Venus (it’s a long tour) and feature a lead singer who resembles a balding, overweight early 80’s era David Lee Roth (complete with spandex). All that spandex can’t contain the rock though, and they rock hard.

Ok, so going back to work for the man beckons. Till next time, nice to meet y’all.

Mr. Pinch Blogger

Last night was my first foray into the world of gypsy punk rock, and I’ve emerged a completely changed man. Ok, maybe not completely changed, but at the very least recently entertained and to some degree hard of hearing.

The venue for last night’s show was the Gothic Theatre, one of many old Denver theatres (technically the Gothic is in Englewood {which you may recall is always up to no good}) renovated to be a live music venue. I’m a big fan of these types of venues. There’s a good sized area in front of the stage for group gyrations and a balcony where my vertically challenged wife can watch the proceedings: everybody wins.

J and G from the last post were scheduled to be in attendance as well, but J bowed out due to a claim of oncoming sickness. Something having to do with weakening his immune system over the weekend. Pretty lame excuse if you ask me. G was on board though, which was a nice surprise because she’s not much into the punk (or folk punk, or Ukranian folk punk for that matter) scene, but still very open-minded. Her previous experiences at the Gothic had consisted of filming for some death metal acts (also not her scene but you gotta pay the bills), so I applaud her for even returning after that.

We went to Genarro’s Lounge for pre-show activities. This place is awesome: great cheap Italian food, even cheaper beer, and a bunch of sociable regulars playing sad country songs on the jukebox. I can’t figure out why its not packed all the time.

We showed up for the show around 8:45 expecting to catch the two opening acts (advertisement said doors at 7 and show at 8:30). The place was already packed and I had no problem selling J’s extra ticket at a hefty profit of $0.75. I think I have a future as a scalper. To our surprise, the second act, Valiant Thor, was already winding down their set. As I had already seen them once it was no big deal (they really aren’t very good minus the schtick), but this had to be the first time in history that a punk act was actually going on early. Gogol Bordello showed up on stage around 9:30.

So… I can’t provide a set list since I am completely unfamiliar with any of their material. As such, the fact that I was totally blown away by them is all the more impressive. The lead singer exuded energy from the very beginning. After the first chord the floor exploded into an energetic (but surprisingly conscientious) pit. Immediately, I was pushed into the crowd and flailing to the beat with everyone else. Good times, great times in fact. The lead singer kept egging the crowd on and they kept responding with more energy. Overall, the band’s stage presence was impressive.

Musically, they reminded me of a Ukranian version of Flogging Molly, which isn’t a bad thing. The fact that folk tunes have had people dancing for hundreds of years is no coincidence, and the addition of a few electric guitars and an insane front man can only help things. The lead singer was really animated and involved in the show, even when he wasn’t playing or singing, and his dialogues with the crowd were funny. The Bordello girls weren’t really all that impressive. Personally, I still prefer Satan’s cheerleaders. And there were no Elijah Wood sightings. For a minute there I thought maybe a little rapper dude that came out was him, but no such luck.

The radio DJ who introduced them said all the new people at the show should prepare to have their “minds warped” during the show. I think they should avoid his introductions in the future. That’s just a tough billing to live up to. If Bordello girls dancing around in funny costumes and a lead singer banging a bucket on top of a microphone is mind-warping, then perhaps he was right. But I just didn’t see it. But I still had an awesome time and left mind fully intact.

Besides me, both G and my wife, neither of whom are into punk, also had a great time by all accounts. I can highly recommend Gogol Bordello should they be in your town. They definitely bring a lot of energy and in Denver they had a big group of loyal fans, which I think always helps the atmosphere. No mind warpage needed.

MPB

I saw Borat last night. It was a well-deserved study break. I will not give anything away or ruin anything for you, but I wanted to point something out that may actually increase the humor level for you, or at least it will put things in a new perspective after you see the movie and have time to reflect on it. Most of the time when Borat and his producer are not speaking in English, the producer is speaking what I’m assuming is Kazakh or some form of it. Borat, on the other hand, is not speaking that language. He is in fact speaking Hebrew.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled pinch-blogger.

Since finals have taken over my life and I’ll be traveling around the state after they end, I’ve enlisted the help of yet another pinch-blogger. This gentleman has had the misfortune of knowing me since our freshman year in college, so he knows things about me many others don’t. He might even know things about me that I don’t remember happening.

With that, I hand over the reins.

Hey particlefans. I’m back. Didja miss me? I hope you enjoyed the ravings of MPB. He’s quite the kidder, he is.

After partying till the wee hours of the morning last night (4 am by my recollection), I was on my bike six hours later cranking out the miles in the beautiful December air. It was a brisk 70 degrees, and windy as hell. I might as well have been riding up hill most of the time. I started getting this weird pain on either side of my lower back and I think it was my kidneys screaming at me. My liver probably put a few words in there too.

Where was I riding? No, not in Houston. I’m in Dallas. I got a phone call from my boss last Saturday and she said, "Hey, wanna come up to Dallas for three weeks?" I said Yes, of course, and relayed the news to one of my Dallas friends who I had previously told I would only be in town for a few days. He was planning on going to Europe for three weeks so he said, "Wanna house-sit?"

So here I am. Apartment-sitting in Dallas. Oh, and this friend? He has a 2000 BMW 540i with a V8. Watch out, Dallas. I like fast cars and I’m not very good at driving manual transmission.

it's been a wild year. lots happened but i;m too drunk to talk about it. so instead:

album of the year: arctic monkeys
song of the year: way out by yeah yeah yeahs. if that link does not work, go here.
movie of the year: the departed

Did I mention that I did 110 miles per hour on the highway in my friend’s BMW? Shiiiit, and I didn’t even get to 6th gear. Yes, it’s a six-speed. Ninety in that car felt like forty in my Honda. I’m not so good at first gear though. I stalled at more stop signs than I’d like to admit. I’m still working on that whole clutch thing.

I think my brain is still hemorrhaging from Friday night. Holy crap. It went something like this:

As some of you may or may not (and probably don’t) know, I am an engineer. I mainly work on drinking water plants, but sometimes also work on wastewater (read: poop) plants. P-man calls me a poop engineer. I almost never refer to myself as such. When I meet people I call myself an “environmental engineer” or perhaps “environmental consultant”, but almost never do I say “I get the poop out of the water” or “I can explain in detail what happens to your poo”. Its just not appropriate intro material.

That said, the end of my work week conspired to send me into drunken oblivion this weekend. After two full days of writing an operations and maintenance manual (it IS as fun as it sounds!), I was ready to blow off some steam. My wife’s best friend (G) happened to be finishing her last day of school. In celebration, we undertook the time-honored tradition of getting her so intoxicated she couldn’t even remember what day it was.

We all met at the house, and in the absence of any beer, started making drinks. We were taxiing on the proverbial runway at this point (this is sort of a theme I’ll be running with for the rest of the story). Before we left though, the lock on my front door broke. My wife wasn’t leaving without the door locked. If you want to see high comedy, watch four half drunk people try to replace the lock on a front door in a frantic hurry to go get full drunk. This was a portent of things to come (I’m not sure how exactly, but it was).

Finally, we left for the Denver Nuggets game. Of course, we didn’t go straight there. We had to get “off the runway” first. Getting off the runway consisted of two mixed drinks, two shots of Jager, and a shot of Patron within the brief 30-minute window before the game started. Mission accomplished, we were flying.

As it turned out, G was able to score some free tickets for the game. Not only that, but they were also on the floor behind the baskets. The poor bastards around us paid probably $100 a ticket only to have to put up with our drunk asses the entire game. If any of you were there: I apologize. FYI: The beer cups at the Pepsi center are those annoying plastic where if you grip them too tight, they POP back into place sending a tiny fountain spray of beer flying out of the cup. Just ask the row in front of us.

The good thing about sitting in expensive seats is that apparently you can get away with a lot before you get kicked out. We never got kicked out, and got away with a lot. Someone started throwing popcorn, and then someone retaliated, and then someone spilled beer all over the guy in front of us. We were those people.

Post game, we stumbled over to downtown to continue the madness. We were at cruising altitude, everything was going well, J the doer of Stupid Human Tricks had just been reprimanded for climbing the walls in the bar. If you had met J, you’d realize I mean that he was literally climbing the walls. Its sort of his thing. He was on his second time making it all the way up to the ceiling when he got yelled at by the boucer. At this point, things started to unravel. G had some serious stomach pyrotechnics all over herself, my wife, and the bar table. The plane had crashed into the mountain.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty. There was puke in my car and several unsuccessful attempts at getting breakfast burritos Saturday morning. After realizing that we had all been sitting around for 4 hours, my wife, J, and G all went and saw Borat. It was good times. Then I went to Vail on Sunday, also good times. Life returned to normal. My hangover is finally gone.

MPB

I wore a yellow shirt to work today. At 6:30 I pulled my jacket off of the back of my chair, put it on, and walked out to the train station. I sat in front of a young couple seated together. When my stop came, I got up and walked out. I got home, took off my jacket, and hung it on the back of a chair. Stuck to the back of my jacket was a Post-It note that read:

BIG BIRD

Lately, I’ve been trying to reduce my consumption of tv (which has been tough, damn you network executives and your cheesy yet addictive programming!), and in turn have been doing some reading. I find reading provides two main rewards for me:

1. Sometimes I learn stuff.

2. Even if I don’t learn stuff I can at least take on an air of intellectual superiority since “I read a lot”.

The latter is probably the biggest reward. I think this is mainly because I delude myself into thinking that someday I’ll be able to walk away from this engineering gig and be able to write for a living. And for now, if I can’t write for a living, at least I can be on the other end of the literary world. Problem is, I’m not that creative (hence the engineering gig), so I’ve been reading a lot of memoirs, because memoirs seem like the most feasible genre for me. The problem with that is, I’m not sure my existence thus far has really provided a whole lot worth reading (as you are all painfully becoming aware of). Therefore, I’ll have to lie a lot, which goes back to the creativity thing. It’s a vicious circle indeed.

So, as far as literary works by actual authors go, I have recently read and enjoyed: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (I know this is a “family” site, but hey, it’s the title of the book), Me Talk Pretty One Day, Running with Scissors, and just to mix it up a little The Genius and the Goddess.

Of the memoirs, I liked Me Talk Pretty One Day the most. David Sedaris is a funny guy, and has a way of making somewhat every day occurrences seem hillarious. Also, he’s quite the wordsmith without being pretentious with his vocabulary. I like that. On the other hand, I liked Running with Scissors the least. It had its moments, but for some reason I never really connected with the book. I think I just didn’t like Burrough’s wording as much. The Genius and the Goddess reminded me a lot of books by Herman Hesse. It had a sortof philosophical nature to it and a focus on internal human struggles, which I find interesting. I’ve read a lot of Hesse’s books as well, because “I read a lot”. See, I feel better already.

MPB

It seems I forgot to post the requisite and obligatory well-wishes holiday post. Oops. Consider this your retroactive happy/merry whatever you feel like celebrating post. I forget what I was doing at the time I should have made these posts. I may have been finishing up finals. I may have been contending with the tantrums of a three- and one-year old. I may have been (ahem) hungover. Who knows. Either way, I hope you had a good time.