They say the most important meal of the day is breakfast. And yet, I usually run out of the house with little more than a cup of coffee. If I'm lucky, I might also have a muffin or prepackaged cereal cup. If I'm unlucky, I might have plans to buy a candy bar from a vending machine, and if I'm really unlucky, I might be stopping at Starbucks. (I'll probably feel especially unlucky over the next few weeks, seeing as how a change in scheduling has been decreed.)

I wish I had time to eat (not to mention prepare) a scrumptious, hearty breakfast every morning. I know a guy who used to have a TV dinner every morning. Maybe he was on to something. After all, what do you do after breakfast? Go about your day, right? And what do you do after dinner? Sleep, mostly. So why do most of us do the most after eating the least and the least after eating the most?

On the other hand, a microwaved Salisbury steak doesn't really sound that appealing to me first thing in the morning, not that it will sound any more enticing later in the day. Call me weird, but I think I'd be happier with the efficiency of a compressed food bar or a vitamin-enriched nutrition drink, even if they really don't taste that much better.

So, the day went about as I expected, though the parade lasted quite a bit longer than I thought it would. While I was spectating, I saw somebody I thought I recognized walk past, but I wasn't quite sure about that, so I didn't say anything. A little while later, I saw a group that I definitely recognized from my Flickr contacts, but I didn't want to stop them all and be Some Crazy Internet Guy, so I again didn't say anything. Then, much later, I ran across a former co-worker. In retrospect, I suspect he may have been trying to hide from me, but if I'm already prodding you with a big red circus balloon, it's probably too late for that, bucko.

When the parade finally ended, I went to the festival and had a fairly good lemonade, saw an art exhibit, visited the beer gardens, wandered around for a bit, bought a sandwich (which was pretty good), visited the beer gardens again, listened to some music, then wandered around some more. There were some very interesting vendors, as you might imagine. As it was starting to get dark, I thought it was a good time to leave.

When I got home, I realized that I'd put on enough sunscreen everywhere but my forearms, which were salmon red and stinging badly. A little Googling suggested that vinegar, applied to the sunburn, might help with the stinging. And in fact, it does seem to have a soothing effect (for a few minutes) if one doesn't mind smelling like a plate of fish and chips.

So, what's on the agenda for tomorrow? How about something with no walking and no sunshine? I think Batman may be in my future!

Let's talk about sandwiches again. I'd like to discuss two things that certain sandwich shops and other eateries do completely wrong.

One Big Lump Of Filling

Why is it that some sandwich makers pile all of the meat, cheese, veggies, etc. into one giant heap in the center of the sandwich? Yes, I can easily remove one slice of bread and redistribute the fillings more evenly, but I shouldn't have to. There should be a little of everything in every bite. There should not be a gargantuan, horse-choking wad of stuff in the first bite, and there should not be bread alone in all the remaining bites.

While I'm on the subject of uneven filling distribution, why is it that burrito makers almost always put the fillings down in zones, so that you have only rice at one end of the burrito, and only guacamole at the other end of the burrito, with a segregated spectrum of other ingredients in between? Again, I could unroll my burrito and reintegrate the ingredients myself, but again, I shouldn't have to. There should be a little bit of everything in each bite. If you've got to put down your fillings in stripes for portion control reasons, fine, but at least make them run in parallel.

Crispy Brand Bacon

Advertisements for many different eateries always insist that they serve crispy bacon, but in reality, the bacon is always floppy, stringy and/or chewy. I've come to the conclusion that in this context, the word crispy is not an adjective, but is in fact a brand name, e.g. "Enjoy our new Crispy® bacon cheese burger with Crispy BRAND Bacon! It's the crispiest!™"

Now, there are some places that do get bacon (and filling distribution) right. For example, there's a little deli near my beloved place of employment that puts the best bacon on their sandwiches. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so oddly, all the places that I can think of that serve really good bacon aren't chains. Now, why is that?

Today, I consumed: 1 cup of coffee, with sugar and milk; a pair of peanut butter wafer bars; one peach; a Fudgesickle; a plate of chow mein, black pepper chicken and "beijing beef"; two colas; two corn dogs; 1/4 of a "Freezee" with M&M's ; and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I eat pretty badly, don't I? Or don't I?

There's no easter egg at the end of Hellboy II, so you don't need to stay through the credits. Just go, so the theater staff can clean up all your litter and let in the next audience on time, rather than making the audience mill around in the lobby for twenty minutes. Better yet, take your greasy popcorn tub, your vat of melted ice, and your candy wrappers back out with you so the staff doesn't have to spend twenty minutes cleaning up.

I'll probably never get beyond the Easy setting on Rock Band's guitar mode. I can't seem to muster the dexterity in my little finger to hit the blue notes, let alone the brown notes. But, you may ask, you type, don't you? Isn't that basically the same motion? Well, yes and no. Despite my grandmother's wishes, I never really subscribed to the Right And Proper School Of Touch Typing. I'm also no one-fingered hunter-and-pecker. Instead, I practice what I call the Tyrannosaurus Style of typing. That is, I use primarily the thumb, index, and middle fingers, although the ring finger is used for keys around the periphery of the keyboard, such as a and z. I really only use the pinky in conjunction with the ring finger to hit keys like Shift, Ctrl, Enter, Backspace, etc. I may not reach professional typists' blazing speeds with this technique, but I type fast enough for coding, typesetting, etc. I've also been able to avoid any (noticeable) RSI, although I attrribute this more to the fact that I prefer a trackball to an ordinary mouse.

Last night, I dreamed I was back at a pizza place I worked at a long time ago. The restaurant had two pizza ovens stacked atop each other, with a conveyor running through each. At one end of the oven, a raw pizza would be deposited on the conveyor, and at the other end, a tasty, fully cooked pizza would emerge. One of the more challenging jobs in the place was to scoop each pizza from the conveyor, then slice it into the correct number of individual pieces, then transfer it to a box or platter for serving. As you might imagine, a high volume of orders could make this position quite challenging. However, it was rare that a pizza would fall from the oven, or worse, be sucked back under the conveyor for a second trip around.

In my dream, however, the conveyor was set to run too fast, and uncooked pizzas were virtually flying from the oven. The manager pushed me out of the way and gave me a look that said, "Fine, I'll do it myself."

This was the same manager that, in real life, sat me down and asked me why I was going to a job that I hated. At the time, I didn't have an answer, because I could sense that he was trying to manipulate me into saying something, and so we both left the table frustrated. The fact was that I liked having a job, and even though I didn't like the job, I liked the idea of looking for another even less.

I had a very similar conversation yesterday, so maybe my good old subconscious is telling me that I'm back in the same situation, only with different sets and props.

Engineering, more power to the forward toaster array!