l3rucewayne, I’m sorry that you lost.

Likely, many of you have seen this already…in fact, I may have shared this on my old blog (which I gave up trying to retrieve a few months ago–there were only a few truly memorable posts, anyway). [The Mascot says: It's not like there've been any memorable posts on this site, either. Well, except the ones I'm in.]

Anyway, it’s the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny! Right up your alley if you’re interested in seeing whether Abraham Lincoln can knock off Batman. Just watch it. It’s weird and wonderful.

Over my first week or so of living in Houston, I’ve lived off a limited variety of foodstuffs procured from Hong Kong Food Market. But now was time to do some serious stocking up on food, and I decided to visit a Fiesta (it’s a Texas thang; you wouldn’t understand. Unless you’ve lived in Texas–specifically Houston, Austin, or Dallas. So maybe that should have been “It’s a Houston, Austin, or Dallas thang…”).

It was a mostly uneventful trip, but after I’d covered the entire store, I realized I’d forgotten to buy some sort of cheese, located at the opposite end. Evading shopping carts, dodging small children, and sidling past store employees, I finally reached the end where a blonde lady who looked to be in her 50’s was looking at the cheeses.

When I got there, she told me to make sure to buy foods only if it was OK with God. As an example, she pointed out the Borden brand of cheese: “Borden” spelled backwards spells “Ned rob”, which I guess meant that Borden mentioned people stealing so I wasn’t supposed to buy it. She pointed to some products in her own cart, like some “Grin and Giggle” bath wash which she was supposed to get because she giggled too much. And there was some VO5 or something she was supposed to buy as a punishment from God. I really don’t remember the details.

As she turned to go, she mentioned I was “very nice and very handsome”, a bit of flattery which will certainly improve my evaluation of her (more than likely, I was one of the few people willing to listen to her). Then she noted my Red Cross T-shirt, and I explained to her about my blood donorship. She warned me that when giving blood, they could inject me with AIDS or something.

I figured I was dealing with someone either paranoid or kinda nutty. Then she asked if I knew that the FBI could install an implant that could make you stop talking if they didn’t want you to. I said I didn’t know about it. She laughed and said she was kidding. So now I’m wondering whether she was just messing with me the entire time. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience which I feel the richer for.

Oh, yeah, she wished me a Happy Thanksgiving, too. Very well, then. Happy Thanksgiving, ma’am. I hope our paths cross again.

Today, I finally did significant food shopping, and randomly, I noticed prepackaged Indian meals by some company called Ashoka (that’s original). Just boil or microwave, and presto, it’s done. Being slightly wary of such products, I bought one of the Palak Paneer variety just to see if the meal would end up tasting non-awful. Well, two actually; it was buy one get one free.

Needless to say, how it looked on my plate was a modicum different than how it looked on the package. And I didn’t get any cute Indian chicks dropping by my place, either. Nonetheless, the quality was adequate enough to keep a couple in reserve for those nights I don’t want to do any real cooking.