Dear plastic users,
One of my favorite things to do in life is eat. It shows, unfortunately--my metabolism and exercise habit (or lack thereof) haven't kept pace with my increasing tendency to try out new places. Thankfully, my food choices in the early morning (after getting off work) is limited to IHOP/Denny's/Jack-in-the-Box/Whataburger type fare, and I've gotten plenty tired and instead chow down on whole wheat turkey sandwiches (sans mayo), and plenty of fruit. Healthy food is bleh--Lipitor will be generic when I get older, and Viagra will be too (did you know CV diseases increase risk for a malfunctioning jimmy?)
So after getting disgusted of the turkey & cardboard, I googled for some good breakfast places a few days ago and found one I really wanted to try. However, it was only open Wed-Sat, 5:30a-1p. What? So I had to wait :(.
El Pico de Gallo, 609 E Rio Grande, Victoria, TX, 77901
Of 31 folks on Urban Spoon, 90% like it. The 31 responses is a pretty good indicator of the popularity, since I've found that people don't review restaurants much in smaller cities/towns.
I totally missed it the first time I tried to look for it, and it was closed the second time I passed by (after Sunday mass). But I'm not one of those crazy people who wait night and day to see Eclipse (how is pasty Robert Pattinson attractive, or are the girls just envious of how he gets his hair to stay that way?) or get the new iPhone 4 (my Asian card should be revoked!).
I waited until I had that itch in the stomach which can only be scratched with something greasy and/or spicy, preferably both.
The place was tiny, and I nearly missed it again even when I knew exactly where it was. The 10-car parking lot was packed, and the 4 tables in the place were all occupied. I ordered the 'Pico Special' because I'm one of those who like to order the signature dish of the place, and not insist on ordering the same damn thing at every place (like people always getting the barbecued pork banh mi at every Viet sandwich shop). And since I'm not a terribly picky eater, I've never gone wrong with the signature dish and today was no different.
The Pico Special was a 'taquito' (there was nothing small about it!*) with an amalgam of chorizo, chili, potato, and deliciousness wrapped in a thick, warm flour tortilla that melts when you bite into it. The provided 'pico cup' added a freshness of tomato, onion, and lime to the tasty filling.
It was great, and I'll definitely go there again.
--
When I was there, I noticed a sign saying 'No Credit or Debit Cards', which got me to thinking about the indications of a good hole-in-the-wall place:
1) Cash only. Vendors pay a few percentage points for each transaction, and it can really cut into profits. Plus, cash is always easier to deal with, except if you're an airline. And it's nice to help Mom & Pop stick it to the IRS.
One time in New Orleans, I was about to make a grand gesture by taking care of my group's meal at Cafe Du Monde, but it was a cash-only place and I had spent all of mine on strippers**. Fail.
2) Handwritten signs. The people care about food, not graphic design.
3) Lack of waitstaff. Less people to pay, less overhead, cheaper prices, more focus on a solid menu.
4) Diverse clientele. When you have people in work boots with paint stains along with folks in suits, then you know the food is good. Douchey college know-it-alls and 5-0 are also good signs.
5) Tiny, pot-holed, un-lined parking lots. Don't bring your dropped S5 on dubs.
My favorite hole-in-the-wall is most definitely Thiem Hung Sandwich shop in downtown/midtown Houston, across the street from the Kim Son. You can read the other reviewers' recommendations, all of which are spot on. My favorite is the large banh mi thap cam, which is a combination of all the ingredients. I'm addicted to the greasy, juicy pate (chopped liver); the influx of French cuisine almost makes up for their major rape-age of Indochina.
--
*Please excuse the double entendre
**And 80-proof booze, which I bought at a pharmacy (Nawlins is amazing!)
Thursday, July 22
Wednesday, July 21
Dream Walking
Dear Inception-lovers,
Wasn’t that a terribly great movie? DiCaprio turned out to be an amazing actor after that brief stint of his being a teenage heartthrob in Titanic. And I didn’t know Ellen Page or Marion Cotillard were so attractive (oh that accent!). And did you notice they kept on flashing to the scene where the sleeping Arthur character (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the van had that stupid grin on his face--I bet the movie guys had a kick each time they inserted it into the flick. Go see it in IMAX; it’s the only way to go.
--
So the last dream that really stuck in my memory was one where I was on a cruise ship. Nothing particularly special, just one of those big eyesore ones you see in the commercials on TV trawling the now oily waters in the Gulf of Mexico for some fantastic location with turquoise waters and snow-white sand which singe the toes a bit at first but then immerse the entire body in comforting warmth while you’re drinking some fruity adult beverage served up by a nice islander.
As a sidenote, I lived in the Caribbean (St Lucia) when I was younger, and the people were extremely nice, and it wasn’t just because my folks were tourists.
Anyway, on this particular ‘day’ in the dream, the weather was downright dreadful in hindsight. There were bunches of clouds, not a spot of sunshine, and it was unclear whether the water hitting my face was from the surf or from the pregnant cotton balls in the air. But I was cheerfully nervous. Because I was going to jump off the cruise ship into the ocean. And this other guy was going to do it too. And it was all perfectly normal--there were lines of people jumping into the sea.
While we were walking to get to the multiple diving platforms on the wet sundeck, the guy psyched himself up with false bravado and though I tried to do the same, I grew more terrified with each impending step.
We got to the area and my vision became jittery because I couldn’t keep my knocking knees still. The signpost delineated the levels of bravery like the yardage markers at the tee box at a golf course: the lowest level was for the ladies and kids, the second for the teens and seniors, third for guys, and fourth for the truly macho. But even the lowest level looked terrifyingly high. The girls had one-piece swimsuits with hair caps from the 80s like the pool scene in Caddyshack. They were giggling and tittering and were not in the least bit attractive. At least not at that point because I was deathly and deftly afraid.
Then I thought about how I had never dived into a pool, let alone from any significant height. And after some deliberation, I told the guy I wasn’t going to dive which he was okay with. It seemed like he didn’t give me grief because he was scared too, but he wasn’t going to admit it. No one seemed to notice my cowardice, and as I walked away, I woke up.
And the funny thing was that I felt I made a conscious, half-awake decision not to jump. Psychoanalysis aside, I’ve been trying to consciously affect my dream states by learning to recognize what is a dream and how to purposefully explore my unconscious. To talk to the projections of my friends to get a sense of what I think about them (and why I would dream about them in the first place). To get a sense of my true reality in suspended reality. To figure out what my goals in life are, to find one’s dreams within one’s dreams as it were. To find happiness perhaps, to see if I can’t re-dream that one with the girl in the white dress at the church, where I’m unconventionally walking to meet her at the altar. All I could tell is that she’s a brunette (maybe that’s why I prefer blondes?).
And unlike the movie Inception where if you die during the dream state (under light sedation apparently), you just wake up, I have a feeling that it’s very unlucky (for lack of a better word) to die in your dreams or come close to dying like jumping off a cruise ship.
Though we can experience things in our dreams we wouldn't dare to do in real life, I’ve actually come closer to death in real life through my seemingly reckless driving (oh those Asians… what will we do with them?) and my bacon cheeseburger habit. I'm so glad Catholicism doesn't prohibit delicious, tasty pork!
Wasn’t that a terribly great movie? DiCaprio turned out to be an amazing actor after that brief stint of his being a teenage heartthrob in Titanic. And I didn’t know Ellen Page or Marion Cotillard were so attractive (oh that accent!). And did you notice they kept on flashing to the scene where the sleeping Arthur character (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the van had that stupid grin on his face--I bet the movie guys had a kick each time they inserted it into the flick. Go see it in IMAX; it’s the only way to go.
--
So the last dream that really stuck in my memory was one where I was on a cruise ship. Nothing particularly special, just one of those big eyesore ones you see in the commercials on TV trawling the now oily waters in the Gulf of Mexico for some fantastic location with turquoise waters and snow-white sand which singe the toes a bit at first but then immerse the entire body in comforting warmth while you’re drinking some fruity adult beverage served up by a nice islander.
As a sidenote, I lived in the Caribbean (St Lucia) when I was younger, and the people were extremely nice, and it wasn’t just because my folks were tourists.
Anyway, on this particular ‘day’ in the dream, the weather was downright dreadful in hindsight. There were bunches of clouds, not a spot of sunshine, and it was unclear whether the water hitting my face was from the surf or from the pregnant cotton balls in the air. But I was cheerfully nervous. Because I was going to jump off the cruise ship into the ocean. And this other guy was going to do it too. And it was all perfectly normal--there were lines of people jumping into the sea.
While we were walking to get to the multiple diving platforms on the wet sundeck, the guy psyched himself up with false bravado and though I tried to do the same, I grew more terrified with each impending step.
We got to the area and my vision became jittery because I couldn’t keep my knocking knees still. The signpost delineated the levels of bravery like the yardage markers at the tee box at a golf course: the lowest level was for the ladies and kids, the second for the teens and seniors, third for guys, and fourth for the truly macho. But even the lowest level looked terrifyingly high. The girls had one-piece swimsuits with hair caps from the 80s like the pool scene in Caddyshack. They were giggling and tittering and were not in the least bit attractive. At least not at that point because I was deathly and deftly afraid.
Then I thought about how I had never dived into a pool, let alone from any significant height. And after some deliberation, I told the guy I wasn’t going to dive which he was okay with. It seemed like he didn’t give me grief because he was scared too, but he wasn’t going to admit it. No one seemed to notice my cowardice, and as I walked away, I woke up.
And the funny thing was that I felt I made a conscious, half-awake decision not to jump. Psychoanalysis aside, I’ve been trying to consciously affect my dream states by learning to recognize what is a dream and how to purposefully explore my unconscious. To talk to the projections of my friends to get a sense of what I think about them (and why I would dream about them in the first place). To get a sense of my true reality in suspended reality. To figure out what my goals in life are, to find one’s dreams within one’s dreams as it were. To find happiness perhaps, to see if I can’t re-dream that one with the girl in the white dress at the church, where I’m unconventionally walking to meet her at the altar. All I could tell is that she’s a brunette (maybe that’s why I prefer blondes?).
And unlike the movie Inception where if you die during the dream state (under light sedation apparently), you just wake up, I have a feeling that it’s very unlucky (for lack of a better word) to die in your dreams or come close to dying like jumping off a cruise ship.
Though we can experience things in our dreams we wouldn't dare to do in real life, I’ve actually come closer to death in real life through my seemingly reckless driving (oh those Asians… what will we do with them?) and my bacon cheeseburger habit. I'm so glad Catholicism doesn't prohibit delicious, tasty pork!
Tuesday, July 20
The Alliterative P-- Principle
Dear myself,
After all, who else is reading now since I haven’t posted in centuries? When I am killing time, one of my favorite activities is reading up on random blogs about people’s thoughts and such. Some are entertaining, others are sad, others are cleverly stupid and addicting like TMZ. But a common thread is that there sometimes seems to be an awkward silence at the end, as if the person just decided to quit with little explanation. Except the stuff with ads; those always seem to last forever like daytime soap operas! (a foreshadowing perhaps?)
In books we read, we expect a satisfying conclusion to a story: there is a beginning, middle and an end (otherwise, the book wouldn’t be published we should hope). But a blog is an organic, continuous thing written in real-time by people who cannot make their lives into solid beginnings, middles and ends.
For myself, I cannot make some grand statement that I was on sabbatical meditating on the deeper meaning of life. In truth, I was a bit depressed that I couldn’t get a foot into hospital pharmacy because of the experience Catch-22 (we won’t hire you without experience, and since you don’t have experience, you’ll never get any). Because I was raised in a household which had inordinately emphasized money, a big part of my self-worth is linked to the size of my bank accounts, which had been dwindling as of late. And as the dollars and sense [sic] faded, so did my fervor for everything else.
The solution: get a job, any job. As luck (or fate or destiny) would have it, when I found out that even staffing agencies (middlepeople* who get paid tens of thousands of dollars by employers to hire pharmacists) could only get me retail jobs, I began to apply for the dreaded things myself. Dreaded because I knew how bad a situation could be when you don’t have adequate support and are expected to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day, all the while people are yelling at you for something you can’t control. Then people sue you for misfilling (filling a prescription incorrectly) which is the ultimate kicker; it didn’t happen to me, but a friend of mine happened to dispense Nexium 40mg instead of 20mg which in the worst case scenario might have caused the guy to suffer some more severe placebo-like side effects.**
But if that’s the only gainful employment I can get, then so be it. I’m thankful for a college degree which pretty much guarantees a job; maybe not the most rewarding one, but certainly a stable and high paying one.
So I had sent a few interest requests to some of the better prospects. A central fill facility (assembly line work where you sit and verify all day, because they’re required to have warm bodies licensed by the Board of Pharmacy), which ultimately hired another pharmacist. And a 7-on 7-off overnight position, which had been unanswered for 2 weeks. Then I got an email on Sunday right after mass (believe in God much?) seeing if I was still interested. It was followed by a phone call the next day and an interview that same week. When it rains, it pours, as the cliché goes.
Fast forward a bit: Two weeks ago, I started my new job at the same work schedule, with a better computer system, a newly opened pharmacy, and probably most importantly with an $8/hr pay increase over my last job. Joking aside (though money is apparently dreadfully important to me), I’m just glad to be working again.
--
So the title of this post, the ‘Alliterative P-- Principle'. What is the p--? I’ve taken a liking to how Hemingway’s books were censored with the first letter of the naughty word followed by an indeterminate dash representing the rest of the foulness, so I will flatter his censors with imitation. It’s a 5 letter word that little kids may use to describe their feline friends, and it also happens to be the first name of a Bond villainess.
After a quick Google search, I’m terribly surprised that the P-- Principle is not mentioned anywhere, not even on Urban Dictionary, which has several entries for ‘robocop’ as a perverse [post] coital act but not the p-- principle, a fundamental, unconscious driving force for human males***.
So the P-- Principle as simply defined is this: men choose to do the things which will give them the greatest benefit in the greatest frequency. This is more in depth than the pleasure principle in that it takes into account the probabilities of the ‘benefit’. Most guys would kill for a chance to ‘benefit’ women like Megan Fox, Emmanuelle Vaugier, or that milkaholic Lindsay in her pre-alcohol, pre-druggie days, but it’s simply not going to happen. So instead of stalking impossible marks, most sane men go after (and expend resources on) those of the opposite sex who are more within their league.
In mathematical terms (because I’m a dork), the estimated probability of an event multiplied by the perceived benefit of the event equals the weighted benefit.
%Occurrence x perceived benefit = weighted benefit.
And most men (and women) will usually pursue the action with the greatest weighted benefit. I would argue that the sane always pursue the greatest weighted benefit; the changes in their decisions are due to the changes in their perceived probability of success and/or perceived benefit. Eg, when you fall in love and decide to propose, the perceived benefit of spending the rest of your life (or the next 5 years) with the same person eclipses the benefit of random fornication.
So what’s with all this nonsense? Well the P-- Principle applies to career decisions as well. Though I really like the reading and writing bit and find it terribly fulfilling (high perceived benefit), I don’t have faith that I can be successful or profitable at it in the long term (low probability of occurrence). Making large sums of money now as a pharmacist has a higher weighted benefit since paying off student loans is a b--. And I scratched the casing on my Gucci watch, so I have to get money to get it replaced.
In the three months of unpaid vacation, I never once seriously considered writing to be a viable primary income source because I knew I could make significantly more as a pharmacist and I knew I had a higher probability of finding solid, stable work as a pharmacist. ...though this could change in the future...
In short, the P-- Principle prevailed.
--
*not trying to be PC, just thought ‘middlepeople’ was a funny word
**First off, why the hell would you prescribe the 20mg instead of the 40mg (a practical reason, not an academic theoretical one), when the side effects are minimal at best? As a reference, a majority of the other drugs in the same class only come in a single strength. Secondly, though you aim to not make any mistakes, this is as tame a mistake as it comes.
***And if the p-- were altered to another 5-letter word, then it would also apply for some human females, though the Prada Principle usually applies in more cases
After all, who else is reading now since I haven’t posted in centuries? When I am killing time, one of my favorite activities is reading up on random blogs about people’s thoughts and such. Some are entertaining, others are sad, others are cleverly stupid and addicting like TMZ. But a common thread is that there sometimes seems to be an awkward silence at the end, as if the person just decided to quit with little explanation. Except the stuff with ads; those always seem to last forever like daytime soap operas! (a foreshadowing perhaps?)
In books we read, we expect a satisfying conclusion to a story: there is a beginning, middle and an end (otherwise, the book wouldn’t be published we should hope). But a blog is an organic, continuous thing written in real-time by people who cannot make their lives into solid beginnings, middles and ends.
For myself, I cannot make some grand statement that I was on sabbatical meditating on the deeper meaning of life. In truth, I was a bit depressed that I couldn’t get a foot into hospital pharmacy because of the experience Catch-22 (we won’t hire you without experience, and since you don’t have experience, you’ll never get any). Because I was raised in a household which had inordinately emphasized money, a big part of my self-worth is linked to the size of my bank accounts, which had been dwindling as of late. And as the dollars and sense [sic] faded, so did my fervor for everything else.
The solution: get a job, any job. As luck (or fate or destiny) would have it, when I found out that even staffing agencies (middlepeople* who get paid tens of thousands of dollars by employers to hire pharmacists) could only get me retail jobs, I began to apply for the dreaded things myself. Dreaded because I knew how bad a situation could be when you don’t have adequate support and are expected to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day, all the while people are yelling at you for something you can’t control. Then people sue you for misfilling (filling a prescription incorrectly) which is the ultimate kicker; it didn’t happen to me, but a friend of mine happened to dispense Nexium 40mg instead of 20mg which in the worst case scenario might have caused the guy to suffer some more severe placebo-like side effects.**
But if that’s the only gainful employment I can get, then so be it. I’m thankful for a college degree which pretty much guarantees a job; maybe not the most rewarding one, but certainly a stable and high paying one.
So I had sent a few interest requests to some of the better prospects. A central fill facility (assembly line work where you sit and verify all day, because they’re required to have warm bodies licensed by the Board of Pharmacy), which ultimately hired another pharmacist. And a 7-on 7-off overnight position, which had been unanswered for 2 weeks. Then I got an email on Sunday right after mass (believe in God much?) seeing if I was still interested. It was followed by a phone call the next day and an interview that same week. When it rains, it pours, as the cliché goes.
Fast forward a bit: Two weeks ago, I started my new job at the same work schedule, with a better computer system, a newly opened pharmacy, and probably most importantly with an $8/hr pay increase over my last job. Joking aside (though money is apparently dreadfully important to me), I’m just glad to be working again.
--
So the title of this post, the ‘Alliterative P-- Principle'. What is the p--? I’ve taken a liking to how Hemingway’s books were censored with the first letter of the naughty word followed by an indeterminate dash representing the rest of the foulness, so I will flatter his censors with imitation. It’s a 5 letter word that little kids may use to describe their feline friends, and it also happens to be the first name of a Bond villainess.
After a quick Google search, I’m terribly surprised that the P-- Principle is not mentioned anywhere, not even on Urban Dictionary, which has several entries for ‘robocop’ as a perverse [post] coital act but not the p-- principle, a fundamental, unconscious driving force for human males***.
So the P-- Principle as simply defined is this: men choose to do the things which will give them the greatest benefit in the greatest frequency. This is more in depth than the pleasure principle in that it takes into account the probabilities of the ‘benefit’. Most guys would kill for a chance to ‘benefit’ women like Megan Fox, Emmanuelle Vaugier, or that milkaholic Lindsay in her pre-alcohol, pre-druggie days, but it’s simply not going to happen. So instead of stalking impossible marks, most sane men go after (and expend resources on) those of the opposite sex who are more within their league.
In mathematical terms (because I’m a dork), the estimated probability of an event multiplied by the perceived benefit of the event equals the weighted benefit.
%Occurrence x perceived benefit = weighted benefit.
And most men (and women) will usually pursue the action with the greatest weighted benefit. I would argue that the sane always pursue the greatest weighted benefit; the changes in their decisions are due to the changes in their perceived probability of success and/or perceived benefit. Eg, when you fall in love and decide to propose, the perceived benefit of spending the rest of your life (or the next 5 years) with the same person eclipses the benefit of random fornication.
So what’s with all this nonsense? Well the P-- Principle applies to career decisions as well. Though I really like the reading and writing bit and find it terribly fulfilling (high perceived benefit), I don’t have faith that I can be successful or profitable at it in the long term (low probability of occurrence). Making large sums of money now as a pharmacist has a higher weighted benefit since paying off student loans is a b--. And I scratched the casing on my Gucci watch, so I have to get money to get it replaced.
In the three months of unpaid vacation, I never once seriously considered writing to be a viable primary income source because I knew I could make significantly more as a pharmacist and I knew I had a higher probability of finding solid, stable work as a pharmacist. ...though this could change in the future...
In short, the P-- Principle prevailed.
--
*not trying to be PC, just thought ‘middlepeople’ was a funny word
**First off, why the hell would you prescribe the 20mg instead of the 40mg (a practical reason, not an academic theoretical one), when the side effects are minimal at best? As a reference, a majority of the other drugs in the same class only come in a single strength. Secondly, though you aim to not make any mistakes, this is as tame a mistake as it comes.
***And if the p-- were altered to another 5-letter word, then it would also apply for some human females, though the Prada Principle usually applies in more cases
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