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“… and then Phil Collins retired. Not that it mattered, mind you, but it was oddly fitting. The song still reminded him of her and those ten or so good years, but it wasn’t the sort of reminding you’d think it would be. It was the feeling you get when you think about a particularly wonderful summer holiday or a specially magical Christmas many years ago. There’s some sadness that it’s over but, all in all, you’re happy that you were there.”

I’ve been trying to come up with a good list of songs to play at the wedding reception and I’m struggling with the songs that will really give the evening Character and Personality.   I don’t mean anything that could be branded as “Our Song”, Traditional Wedding Standards (Chicken Dance), Romantic Songs (F Tha Police), Annoying Drunk Chick Rock (Journey), or Songs to Get Everyone Dancing (Jump Around).

What I had in mind were along the lines of musical non sequiturs.  Not songs that would be inappropriate at weddings (Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen), If You Want to be Happy (Jimmy Soul), The Bitch is Back (John Elton)) but songs that will leave the guests wondering what just happened.

So far, this is what I have:

• Yes, We Have No Bananas (Spike Jones and his City Slickers)
• I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts (Danny Kaye)
• The Battle of New Orleans (Johnny Horton)
• Anything by John Philip Sousa
• Sixteen Tons (Tennessee Ernie Ford)
• Convoy (C.W. McCall)
• Fish Heads (Barnes & Barnes)
• Almost anything by Tom Lehrer
• The Green Door* (Jim Lowe)
• Theme from Bonanza — with lyrics (M. S. Nelson)
• Ballad of the Green Berets (SSgt. Barry Sadler)

I’m still trying to think of some more good ones.  Suggestions are welcome.   The leading candidate is The Battle of New Orleans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsRK3DNoa_Q

I get it.  You’re upset because I gave you the finger after you almost drove into my car.
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Long day at the office, chum?  Home from work late, and no-one’s there to put food on the table?  Looks like another trip to the local pizzeria… or does it?

If you’re tired of take-out food, or going to bed with tears in your eyes but nothing in your stomach, look no further.  Dining for One: A Lonely Working Man’s Guide to Food is your new best, or only, friend!

Contained between its spill-proof, burn-proof, and punch-resistant covers are some amazing meals that you can whip up in seconds when it’s 9:00PM and you’re walking through the door with a stress headache, a handful of mail for the previous tenant, and a powerful hunger.  You’ve got to eat something; tears don’t cry themselves.

Take a look at some excerpts from Dining for One:

Pan Meat

Ingredients:

• One freezer bag full of food-grade meat
• Nonstick pan (may substitute aluminum foil bent into a pan shape)

Directions:

1. Thaw meat in microwave.  Either defrost using the preset controls or just forget about it in there while you watch Law & Order reruns.
2. Heat pan until hot enough to cook meat.
3. Cook meat.
4. Let pan cool while watching final minutes of Law & Order rerun.
5. Eat out of pan with a spoon, unless you have clean forks.
6. Frown uncomfortably at the color of the liquid remaining in the pan.  Recognize foreshadowing when you see it.
7. Drink a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and call it a night.

Beef a la Yenerall 

Ingredients:

• Beef

Directions:

1. Place frozen beef in Crock Pot just before going to work.  Water to taste.
2. Upon return, remove beef.  If it’s gray, it’s okay.
3. Shred with fork, fingers, or serving spoon.
4. Eat standing over sink.  It’s okay to feel sad a little.  We all do
5. Dump any remaining liquid (not to be confused with gravy, which contains actual flavor) in the Crock Pot,  now known as “Passive-Aggressive Sauce”, off of your balcony onto your obnoxious downstairs neighbor’s plants.
6. Watch stray cats root through the potting soil, chuckling mirthlessly while thinking about all the long, loud, and obviously very exclusive parties the neighbor has.
7. Weep and sleep rhyme.  Just saying.

Ramen and Friends

Ingredients:

• Ramen
• Friends (optional)

Directions:

1. Follow directions on ramen packet.  Read well, pretending they’re much more involved than they are.  Empty evenings have been filled with worse.
2. Consider adding leftover vegetables to add color and texture to your ramen, only to realize that baby carrots soaked in ramen juice are the same baby carrots you didn’t want to eat last night, just saltier.
3. Eat ramen with a fork.  Since this is nearly impossible, the noodles will splash back into the bowl, spraying ramen juice ( a.k.a. Japanese ink ) on the shirt you were planning to re-wear on Friday.
4. Finish ramen shirtless, cold, and vaguely self-conscious. 

Cooked Eggs

Ingredients:

• Two eggs
• Bread
• Cheese  ( self-pity may be substituted )

Directions:

1. Call everyone you know to see if they have leftovers.  Make blatant, patently unbelievable excuses to get off the phone once you find out they don’t, e.g., “Gotta go,  someone’s at the door”, “Ah, I have another call”, or “Oh, I can’t hear you over everyone talking”.
2. Break eggs into bowl, coffee mug, or Ziploc bag.
3. Stir, beat, or — if using bag — smoosh eggs until they are homogenous.
4. Pour into microwave-safe container, and microwave until more solid than not.
5. Season.  Note that crying into eggs does add sodium, so be judicious with both the misery and the salt.
6. Sprinkle cheese on top, eat with bread off of a kitchen chair in front of the couch serving as the coffee table you’d get if anyone else cared.  TV covers the noise of silence pretty well, so check out reality shows.  Vicarious living is like the real thing, only without genuine emotions or fulfillment.

These and many other recipes can be yours.  Also included are “Food Chowder” and “Cream of Salt Soup”!  Stop by any bookstore and pick up your copy of Dining for One: A Lonely Working Man’s Guide to Food today!  Available whereever fine books are sold.

I have a blog?  Holy Moses, Margaret, draw the blinds and put out the cat, we’re in for a long night. Really, though, it’s shameful how much I neglect this poor little thing.  I bet nobody has EVER ignored their blog, then posted about how bad they feel about it.  Ever. Let’s see.  Updates, updates, updates.  Work is going well.  I now know more about PHP than I ever thought I would.  I also discovered how much I love MySQL.  And I’m not even kidding.  I’m going to be messing with PostgreSQL soon, so we’ll see how that goes. Moving soon, into an apartment in Allison Park, PA.  I’d post more details about it but there are INNERNETS STOCKERS out there who might come kill me.  Dateline be damned. I’ve got some good tech stuff to post soon.  I kind of want to make this a legitimate blog again.  Hah!  See what I did?  I just pretended it ever was.   

Hello, Istanbul?  Cemetary 13, please.  Turkey has elected John “Gomez Addams” as its president. Observe…

So.  I have a new job, and in two weeks, will be done with the old one.  I believe I shall like the new job.  I am going to be a contract developer at Liberated Syndication, a company that.. well, go look at the link yourself.

As many of you don’t know, Monty, our older Golden Retriever, was put down a few weeks back.  He was riddled with tumors and, though only 8 years old, was pretty well gone.  Just yesterday, however, my parents returned from a vacation in South Carolina with an addition to our family.  He is a year-old Labrador Retriever/beagle mixture who has the personality –and backbone– of a wet towel.   To that end, Your Humble Correspondent, who is the Abel family’s Namer of Dogs, bestowed upon the latest canine member of our happy house the moniker of “Magnus”.As soon as I get pictures, they will be posted. That’s all for now.  I have work to do.  On my computer.

Yeah, yeah, all I do is site updates lately. Yes, new blog system. Yes, new look. Yes, new host. Still neglecting the blog. Hopefully that will change along with the rest of it.