I need someone to help me understand how the hell I know about Groundhog Day, and no, the answer isn’t the movie, because that came out when I was 17 and, trust me, everybody knew what Groundhog Day was before the movie came out. It is absolutely unreal to me that this weird little holiday, which by rights ought to be confined to one or two tiny ethnic conclaves in no more than one or two states, is practically a national holiday. It makes no goddamn sense, and what’s weirder is that I live in America, a country where “racism” is the answer to any question starting with the word “why” 90% of the time, and I can’t figure out any way how racism might contribute to me knowing about the day that the terrified river rat lets everyone know what the weather is going to be.
I mean, have you heard of Casimir Pulaski day? The weirdest unexpected day off of my life was due to Casimir Pulaski day. Have you heard of Dyngus Day? Having heard of it for the first time just now, are you at all surprised that Polish people are involved? People talking about Groundhog Day and taking it seriously should be viewed with only slightly less frightened condescension than snake handling, and once the phrase Gobbler’s Knob enters the conversation … Christ.
Anyway, every single other thing I might choose to talk about today is horrible, so I’m leaving you with that.
I’ve talked about this a couple of times— hell, I’ve been blogging on this site since 2013, I’ve talked about everything a couple of times— but I very badly want for there to be something that I am a snob about. Specifically, something food or drink related. The problem is, most of the snobbish foods and drinks are things I don’t actually like. I don’t drink alcohol, which means I can’t be a wine snob(*) or a whiskey snob. I don’t smoke, which rules out cigars. And, man, I have tried to be a snob about coffee. I bought a burr grinder and a French press and everything. My palate, frustratingly, is shit. I cannot tell the difference between fresh-ground beans and preground; I was prepared to let the French press take over my entire personality and I stopped using it after a week or two. It tasted the exact same except with more steps, and the process of making the coffee didn’t feel special enough for the extra steps to be anything other than a waste of time. I’ve tried fancier coffees to no avail. I drink my coffee black and that’s pretty much all I’ve got. I understand what people mean when they say Starbucks tastes burned, but I don’t go to Starbucks anyway so that little rebellion isn’t worth much. I am sad to report it, but I will never be a coffee snob. I can’t even properly look down my nose at people who don’t drink it black. Hazelnut coffee creamer is delicious.
A few weeks ago it occurred to me that I was an adult with a job, and as such I could purchase an electric kettle if I so desired. I initially bought it thinking it might make the French press easier, but I quickly realized that it also meant I could finally start drinking hot tea.
I should back up a bit. I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was around 40, when I decided I was going to get over my weird lifetime paranoia about pouring hot liquids into my mouth and forced myself to drink coffee until I liked it. Despite having been a fan of iced tea for literally my entire life, my newfound affection for coffee never generalized to tea. Why? I have no damn clue. It genuinely didn’t occur to me that I could start drinking hot tea until after I bought the electric kettle.
And …
guys.
Do you know what a tea sachet is? They’re little pyramid-shaped bags of tea. They look like this:
They generally contain a higher grade of tea than teabags do; having looked into it, my impression is that teabags are full of the tea equivalent of seeds and stems and that sachets contain, y’know, bits of actual leaves in them. They’re a bit more expensive but not tremendously so, and they steep exactly the same way you might steep a teabag. I’m pretty sure the word is pronounced sashay, but I’ve been calling them satchets because while I want to be snobbish that doesn’t mean I’m about to lower myself to pronouncing French correctly.
Anyway, I can actually taste the difference between tea brewed from a sachet and tea brewed from regular teabags. I can’t do a perfectly controlled experiment, but I have some Earl Grey teabags and some Earl Grey sachets and the sachets are definitely stronger and more flavorful than the teabags are.(**) And yes, every single time I make myself Earl Grey tea, I hear this in my head:
Anyway. This is a long post just to say that once I run through the supply of teabags I’ve purchased (Bonus fact: “sachet” isn’t a euphemism for sexual assault! Also good.) I plan to stop buying teabags altogether. I’m waiting to run out of something before I move on to, to continue the Star Trek references, the final frontier, and start experimenting with actual loose tea.
That’ll really make me fancy.
(*) One of the least fun nights of my entire life was the night my friends dragged me to a wine bar in Wrigleyville. I’m completely used to being the sober guy at the bar. Being surrounded by people daintily sniffing and swishing glasses of wine nearly ended me, especially since I’d been forced to dress up for the occasion. I damn near left and went to a movie by myself.
(**) I am currently drinking some of this, which tastes good and smells absolutely divine. Also, and randomly, I’ve discovered I don’t like chai, or at least the kind of chai I bought, which contains black pepper, a spice that should never be in a drink.
I do not think that losing school again tomorrow is likely, but if it does happen, I will lose my shit.
I will then go hunting, and rob many other people of their shit.
Which I will then also lose.
I require some normalcy, and I require it right now.
(Wow. Do not use DuckDuckGo.com to search for “fuck snow” if you have the explicit image filter turned off. Jesus.)
Anyway.
Today was, honestly, a pretty decent day– the kids were a little wild after a surprise week off, but not mean wild, just talky and silly– and there’s a new Iron Man #1 out (I didn’t make it to the comic shop yesterday), and I got three books delivered that I’ve been looking forward to, and there’s a new demo out for Nioh 3. So I’ve got a whole lot of media consumin’ heading my way.
Anyway. Everybody cross your fingers and, against all sense, hope for no snow tonight, so that we can keep the Western Hemisphere.
On the plus side, it looks like I get to go back to work tomorrow, but on the minus, I’m stressed out and have been eating nonstop all day. I think I’m going to bed early tonight. As soon as I finish this book.
I will die on this hill: that’s Battle Cat. I was not aware that I had strong, nay, immutable opinions about something as ridiculous as He-Man until the other day, when I said something about Battle Cat being in the trailer and my wife, who, for the record, was not a boy in the 1980s, tried to tell me that was Cringer.
Her argument? Battle Cat wears armor. Cringer does not. That cat is not wearing armor, therefore it is not Battle Cat. Quod erat motherfuckin’ demonstrandum.
The intellectual in me wants to make this post about ontology and how we construct identity and how we construct our categories and definitions. The ‘80s kid in me started screaming bullshit right away, and now that I’ve seen other people spreading this nonsense it’s time to fight about it.
It is true that that cat is not wearing armor. It is also true that that cat is holding his head high and his tail straight, and while he is standing behind the people in the image, I’d argue that that’s an issue of shot composition and not hiding. His bearing and stature conveys nobility. That is not Cringer.
A similar shot, from just a couple of moments later. Again, look at his eyes. This cat isn’t afraid of Goddamned anything. Also worth pointing out— he’s huge. Cringer grows during his transformation. That cat is absolutely big enough to ride, saddle or not.
And the coup de grâce:
Cringer ain’t never had that look on his face not once in his whole life. I don’t care about a helmet. That is Battle Cat, and if you think otherwise you are wrong and he’s going to bite your face off if you try and tell him otherwise.
