I think we know who gets mauled.

This doesn’t deal with food, philosophy, or mead…well I was drinking mead when I watched it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b–rTXDyWWk

Wonderful Chinese Express

Wow. How am I to understand the name of this restaurant? Is it supposed to describe a Chinese train that is also wonderful or a place where I can purchase Chinese people and receive them quickly? Unfortunately, it is neither.

Wonderful Chinese Express is my latest attempt at palatable quick eats in the Orlando area. It is located here, in Altamonte Springs, Florida. It was another case where my sense of adventure trumped my common sense. I went there around dinner time and there were no other customers. The interior is that of a normal fast eats Chinese restaurant. The customer orders from the counter and waits for his food. The only thing that I noticed that deviated from this standard formula was the apparent disdain they had for their built-in, backlit signs…they were blank. Instead, and what, in hind sight, suited the experience, were cardboard and plywood signs, lettered by hand, in Sharpie. Class. As my sense of foreboding grew, I looked at their paper menus.

It looked, again, like a standard quick Chinese restaurant menu. There only appeared to be 4 of these menus in the whole restaurant, but I was somewhat comforted by seeing their catch phrase along the bottom:

You never tasted Chinese food this good!

Once Tried, Always Loved!!

It looked as if they added some sort of agent to the food that when eating and chanting the above mantra, cause a compulsion to return. Whew, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about not liking it.  Too bad for me, that wasn’t the case.

I ordered General Tso’s Chicken with fried rice and awaited my fate. The menu claimed that the General Tso’s Chicken was made with white meat and was “Chunks of boneless chicken sauteed with minces scallions and hot peppers”.

This was the variety of Generals Tso’s Chicken that was made with green peppers and carrots instead of broccoli. What, you haven’t had that type yet? Well, I’ll save you the effort of a quest…don’t bother. The chicken appeared to be cuts of white meat, but there no scallions and definitely no hot peppers. The taste was less exciting than a long term metronome accuracy contest. In fact, a man with no tongue would not be envious of me. To be fair, I did not ask for the dish to be spicy. I made the common error of assuming that because hot peppers were listed in the ingredient list and that there was a little stylized hot pepper printed next to the dish’s description in the menu, that I would not have to verify that the dish was, in reality, spicy.

The fried rice was a non-event. Now, by non-event, I do not mean that there was an event, but it was not exciting. I mean it was as if there was a negative event that was sucking all the interesting parts out of surrounding events and feeding them to the insatiable Void. When one thinks of Chinese style fried rice, one usually thinks of white rice, fried up until brown (or colored yellow) and with small chunks of vegetables, usually onion, scallion, and possibly carrots, and usually, but not always, some sort of meat. Also accompanying the stereotypical fried rice is a flavor reminiscent of fried food…it being fried rice and all. Not this rice. This rice had no other discernible particle of food that was not rice. Nor was the color of the rice brown. It was some sort of graying yellow…similar to what would happen if King Tutankhamun’s mummy got a mustard stain on his brand new wrappings and archaeologists are just now finding said stain.  The fried rice was so bland, it was as if it were sucking flavors from my tongue of past meals and also feeding them to aforementioned Void.

All this, for only $10 with a drink.

Needless to say, I won’t be going back there.

Notes on William James’ “The Dilemma of Determinism”

Two suppositions:
-    we make / discuss theories to give us and idea of thing which give us “subjective satisfaction”
-    if there are two ideas and one seems more rational than the other, the more rational one is truer

He believes that all of the achievements of mathematics and science are because of man’s indomitable desire make the world a more rational place.

The principal of causality is a postulate…so are uniformity and necessity.

Two words “encumber” past arguments about determinism, freedom and chance, because they are loaded words.

Hard determinism:  everything is preordained…all seemingly possible are illusions
Soft determinism:  hard determinism with a little free will
Indeterminism:  multiple possible realities

Chance means the probable, not the impossible

He says that if the world is deterministic, how can there be regret?  If something “bad” happens in a deterministic universe, how can we say that that thing is bad?  Because the thing was predetermined, isn’t then the whole universe bad?  I we then get rid of the idea of good and bad, why do we still regret?

As a result of the deterministic dilemma, he, James, is an indeterminist.

Po’ Boys

Today I went to Po’ Boys for lunch. It is a creole theme restaurant chain in Florida…yeah I don’t know why either. I went to the Orlando Kirkman Road location.

The restaurant’s catch phrase is “Who’s your daddy…” as their mascot is a crawdad named “Crawdaddy”. OK, the simple, straight forward approach. I can handle that.  Everything was clean and the waitstaff was friendly.
I was seated immediately and ordered an iced tea. They offer both sweet and unsweet tea, which is very important to me as I like my sweet tea pre mixed. The special of the day was a roast beef po’ boy sandwich…a roast beef sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, and in this case a special spicy sauce.

The sandwich was tasty, but nothing special. The pickle spear, however, was nice and crispy. Since the sandwich came with no side, I ordered the Cajun fries, to the potential detriment of all mankind. They were regular fries with a little Cajun seasoning sprinkled on them.
Everything was good, but not outstanding, and for a price of less than $10 for the whole meal, I will definitely go back. On my next trip I will probably try either the fried grouper po’ boy or the muffaletta.

Thougts on Sartre’s “Existentialism”

I’m reading an excerpt from a translation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay Existentialism and thought it would be interesting to record my thought / notes on it as I read:

What is existentialism?

2 types of existentialist: Christian and atheist — Sartre chose the word Christian specifically…why?

Both believe that existence precedes essence — man’s nature follows after man’s creation / existence…man creates his own nature

Sartre is an atheistic existentialist.

He argues that if God exists, He, as the creator, would define human nature. Man would then be no more special than a “paper-cutter” (again Sartre’s choice of words). Or a different example where Sartre criticises Kant, where a “wild-man” and a bourgeois share the same basic human nature.

Sartre says that atheistic existentialism makes more sense. God does not exist and man’s essence is defined by man. It is the first principle of existentialism and is also called subjectivity. — why do philosophers always choose words that are loaded to name important concepts? I think it is so they can argue with each other forever, intentionally ignoring the different semantics.

Well, he defines “subjectivity” with regards to existentialism: it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity. — Thanks for the circular definition. — This is the essential meaning of existentialism.

He then make the leap to say that since every specific man is responsible for himself, every man is also responsible for all humanity.

This, he says, causes the “anguish” of decision making. Every decision we make affects all of humanity! Wow. The whole “rings or fries” dilemma is put into an entirely new perspective. O! What calamitous catastrophes will occur by the wrong choice of side dishes (let alone condiments)!

His reasoning for this is that by making a decision, I am showing a preference for the ultimate path of mankind toward Idaho and their potatoes or Vadalia and their onions. Such a the two possible fates of man.

He then goes on to talk about “forlornness”. Man is forlorn because God doesn’t exist and therefore there are no a priori standards for us to follow. Man is alone with no crutches, no excuses. — Here I think there is a fallacy of logic. He reasons that if there is no God, there can be no a priori standards. I say, if there is no God, there can be no a priori Holy standards.

Now his example of forlornness. The student story. There was this student of Sartre’s in WWII that had a choice of staying in occupied France with his (the student’s) mother or travelling to England to join the resistance. Which path should the student choose? On one hand, his mother needs him to help her carry on due to recent tragedies in her life, but on the other, he could land a desk job in England (yes, I’m being a little glib).  In Sartre’s mind, there is no way to make the decision using values.  The only thing for it is to trust instinct.  Which of course makes us forlorn.

Despair is his next topic.  He defines it as confining ourselves to only that we can change.  Do not regard things we cannot change. — Of course, since everyone’s decision affects everyone, does this mean submitting to the masses…I think he means yes.

He rants a little against “Quietism”, the idea of basically giving up in life.  One must act in order to fulfill himself (and by extension, to fulfill everyone else).

He then stumbles through ethics declaring that existentialist decisions are not arbitrary, the values of the decision are made up of the values of the decider and the action of deciding.

Ugh.  Reading this essay made my mind feel slimy.  It will take days for me to identify all the contradictions.

Buffet City

Went to a local Chinese Buffet called “Buffet City” for a quick lunch today. This name is definitely South Parkianly appropriate. While the service was very good with prompt seating, beverage service, and used plate removal, the food was not up to the same standards. The restaurant was eerily empty, strange for lunch time in a busy shopping plaza. Unfortunately, I did not heed the warning.

I started out with a spring roll, an egg roll, a couple of fried dumplings, some fried rice, and pepper steak. The pepper steak was done very well with good cuts of meat and very tasty sauce. This made me The fried rice was the normal, flavorless kind the one finds all to often these days…it was not even very fried. The spring roll was passable, dumplings didn’t taste right, and I couldn’t even finish the eggroll because it was disgusting.
My second plate (yes, I had a second plate) consisted of more “fried” rice, some General Tso’s chicken, and some boneless spareribs. The General Tso’s was ok, but the ribs were crap.

At the end of the meal, it was disconcerting that the waitress stood next to me, watching as I filled out my credit card form.

Overall the experience was less that pleasing and while I had I full stomach, I was left wondering if it would soon be violently emptied…so far so good.

Update 20060721: A couple of things I forgot to mention. The bill came out t $8 on the nose and the restaurant is located on Kirkman Road in Orlando. Also, after 24+ hrs, I am fine.

Software being installed

My daytime persona is that of a computer nerd.  I spend my day hurrying up and waiting for Windows PCs.  I am participating in such an activity now.

Wow, 9% done.  I am all a-tingle.

Too much

I have been recently up to my fill line with work and haven’t had much time for leisure.  Specifically I haven’t been down to the fencing club, or the brewing club, or the archery club, or the golf course in ages.

Oh well, enough fun.  Back to work.

My sweet

I recently bottled an excellent sweet mead that I think is my best so far. I think this is the first time that I made a mead that didn’t need to be aged before I could drink it. That’s not to say, however, that this mead will not benefit from some aging.

Didn’t take OG, but I am guessing about 15% abv on this one based on residual sugars (another guess based on taste).
Yum.

Mead

Honey + water + yeast + time = bliss