The blind can see, the crippled can walk...

I worked a 12 hour day today and I'm pretty damn tired.
Around 8 tonight five teenagers from the projects right behind the store I work at come in. They were in a nice, neat, straight line. The 3 girls (and I say girls, they were all probably about 18) distracted the cashier by asking her a bunch of stupid questions about where to find everyday items. I was in the office counting money with the door locked, periodically looking at the security camera feed to make sure everything is ok out in the store until I'm done.

I thought they would come in to shoplift. Just another day.
The fucking stupid teenager grabs two cases of beer and bolts out the door. I literally said out loud "What the fuck!!"
And I go to the front, where a customer says the 2 boys ran out the store to the left. Toward  the projects. So I go around the side of the building and I see them carrying the beer. They are already a good distance away. I yell after them
"HEY DUMBASSES, WE HAVE YOU ON CAMERA STEALING THAT!!"
They turn and look, and then break into a run that would make Kenyan track stars proud, dropping one of the cases of beer (Bud Light, btw) in the process, which busted everywhere in a fury of exploding beer foam.
I was pissed, so I said "THAT'S RIGHT BITCHES, RUN! RUN LIKE BITCHES!!"
At least I was able to scare them a little and make them look like bitches. Oh well. I've noticed something.
These guys, that like to make themselves out to be tough, and talk tough, and act hard, and like to talk about how they do illegal things, etc.
They always run.
They run, as previously stated, like bitches.
If they had been real men they would've come back and beat my ass. Or at least taunted me in some way with a "what are you gonna do about it?" or similar.
I guess that's really all I have to say. I'm going to bed now.

From the creators of My Little Pony

When your pony just seems too little.

By the way...

Please check your expiration dates when you buy stuff. This cereal looked perfectly fine until I saw this today. Ugh.

Reflections on Working at a Store in the Hood

I've been working some extra shifts at another Dollar General here in town that is kinda considered the "ghetto store." My boss from the store I usually work at said that the reason they need someone to fill in is because no one wants to work there. The reasons? Well...

• They've been robbed a few times this year... and it's June. This reason I'll give some merit, because who wants to be working at a store when it's being robbed? I've been in that situation once, and once is more than enough.
• The store manager is an alright lady but she's always pissed off cause things don't go well at that store. That could mean a lot of things.
• The customers suck. Hmmm...
• There's a ton of theft.

Well, being ready to make some extra money I agreed to help out anyway and give it a shot. I can't help but have a "what did I just step in?" feeling.
The store manager does seem alright on a personal level. I think she's just so used to things being messed up and not running right that she's always pissed off about something.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that all the customers suck, but there's a lot of them that do... meaning that they have no idea how to act in a public place. Here's a conversation that I had with a fine young lady today:

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you only have $17 on your food stamp card."
"AWWW NUH UH! I KNOW I GOT MO DAN DAT! THIS SOME RACIST SHIT UP IN HEAH, WHITE BOY."
"Umm, ma'am, I don't have any control over whether it approves or declines your card."
"WELL I KNOW I GOT DA MONEY ON DAT CARD SO IMMA JUST TAKE THE STUFF AND GO."
"No, ma'am. Can you pay for it some other way?"
"HAIL NAW I AIN'T GOT NO MONEY."
"Then if you try to take stuff you haven't paid for I'll have to call the police."
"GO AHEAD AND CALL EM WHITE BOY I DON'T GIVE A FUCK!!"
"That's obvious." At this point I picked up the phone and started to dial the non emergency number for the police.
"MAAANNN FUCK DIS SHIT. JUST TAKE SOME STUFF OFF."
By this time, there's a backed up line of about eight or so other customers.
"Ma'am, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. You clearly don't know how to act in a public place or talk to people."
"DA FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?"
Ignoring her, I ask the next customer to come up and check out and she does so. Ghetto bitch remains complaining and yelling for another five minutes or so before finally leaving in an angry huff.
On the plus side some of the other customers got a good laugh out of her being that way and I got congratulated for keeping my cool. To me a lot of things just aren't worth getting upset about. I thought it was funny more than anything.

The last bullet point is the theft. Man, there's a lot. We keep a lot of items behind the counter such as headphones, condoms, batteries, pregnancy tests, cell phone chargers, etc. Items that are easy to steal and are frequently stolen. I actually had someone arrested once for shoplifting and I felt very bad about it... 17 year old kid was stealing some headphones and a couple other things... probably wasn't more than $15 total. The other day I walked up on a kid who was probably about 10 stealing candy. His eyes got huge when he realized I saw him do it... I couldn't bring myself to call the cops on him, which according to company policy is what I'm supposed to do. Instead, I took him to his mom that he came in with.
"Ma'am is this your son?"
"Yeah?"
"I caught him stealing some candy."
"WHAT????"
She then proceeds to slap him in the face! Oh snap! And I heard her say as they were leaving "Wait til your daddy hears about this!!" Oh double snap! I think that may have been worse than calling the cops.

In case you couldn't tell, I just wanted to vent about work. I really don't like my job at all and am constantly searching for something else. There's just not a lot of opportunity where I live. I've had 3 job interviews in the past couple months and that's from applying at literally hundreds of jobs.
Thank God for alcohol.

"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called Everyone, and they meet at the bar."
Thanks, George. Your cynical rhetoric has gotten me through some rough times.

Malt Liquor Throwdown!!!

I'm already undecided about this idea, because I'm a little bit drunk as I'm writing this from drinking a lot of malt liquor. You might be thinking to yourself right now "I've lived a very sheltered existence and so has everyone else I know. How is malt liquor different from beer?" Well technically, it's the way the beer is brewed. REAL malt liquor is brewed with less hops and more corn and other stuff so that it has a higher alcohol content and tastes less like what people think of when they think of beer. For purposes of this blog, and from what I gather most people's definitions, a malt liquor is a "high gravity" beer, which is just a nice way of saying "high alcohol." Personally I couldn't consider anything under 5% ABV to be a malt liquor and I believe that's a pretty generous standard. Here's my qualifications for the malt liquor throwdown:

• Must be easily obtainable, which sadly knocks a lot of quality beverages out of the running since I live in Alabama. I wanted to get forties, but the biggest containers we can legally have here are 24oz and the people had to fight to get the lawmakers here to up that from 16oz. No kidding, it just became law last year. Sad, right? Why does Alabama always have to be ignorant and the last to adopt change (well, except for Mississippi, but at least you can buy forties there)? Wait, no... this is another topic for another blog. Maybe one day...
• Must have an ABV over 5%. I don't think that will be difficult.
• Must be relatively cheap. I want the good ol' stuff here, not some fancy craft beer.
• Maybe I should try to sober up a little before I write the rest of this.

I'm going to consider taste, ABV, can art and image when I rank all the entries. What are the entries, you ask?

I had to include Colt 45 and Olde English. I was lucky enough to find Mickey's which I drink on a fairly regular basis and Steel Reserve which is everywhere. It's one of the four or five beers we sell at the store I work at. I had never drank Schlitz Malt Liquor or Icehouse Edge before this throwdown, just putting that out there.
On a side note, malt liquor generally has a pretty strong taste so I had to find something to cleanse my pallet between taste testings.

 

Oh woe unto thee, thou who hast never eaten a Golden Flake Sweet Heat potato chip.

These are crazy delicious and are absolutely my favorite chips ever. Lay's has even imitated them.

Yeah. The Golden Flake chips came out way before the Lay's. The Golden Flake chips also taste a lot better. By the way am I the only one who thinks a company called Lay's should make condoms?

But I digress.

\

So first of all I like to try new beers that I've never had before to give them more of a fair shot. I may like them, I may not. I was confident before I drank anything today that I would like all of these better than Bud Ice. 

Another side note. Do I have something against Budweiser? Yep. They actually paid lobbyists to go to the state capitol to try to convince legislators to not pass the new beer laws that our state was about to adopt last year including a decreased restriction in container size along with an increase in the legal ABV from 6% to 14.9%. Both bills thankfully passed, making Alabama appear slightly less ignorant than it did before. However, as a result of finding out about this lobbying, many bars that specialize in high gravity and local beers in Alabama stopped serving Budweiser products. Anything made by Anheuser-Busch. Good for them.

So there's that grudge explained. This is already turning into a long post.

So the first one of these I tried was Icehouse Edge, which appeared on shelves here shortly after the 24oz. law was passed.

I think this one is fairly new, as I couldn't find anything funny or sexy to post about it. It packs a punch with its 8% ABV, one of the highest in the selection. So how does it taste? To tell you the truth I thought this was going to taste like ass, but it's actually pretty good, especially when you consider the alcohol content. For an 8% beer that cost $1.50 for a 24oz can this is definitely a winner. It doesn't taste anything like the original Icehouse, but it's smooth enough and strong enough to win me over. Since I couldn't find much about it on the vast reaches of the internet, all I can say about its image is that it does come in a cool can. Definitely a good choice. 

Next up is Schlitz Malt Liquor, which I also had for the first time during this whole ordeal. One Google search is all it takes to know that this is how you market malt liquor. I mean, first off you have the badass logo with its bull mascot:

 Buying a 40? Why not get another one?
Then, you have the actual advertising.

Yep. No one does it like the Bull. With a girl in a small bikini.
But enough about that. How does it taste? Umm... not great. The first thing I notice when I open the can is this weird smell almost like it's stale. However my beer is dated 090213. It's got a mild taste and very strong aftertaste, like the actual taste hits you after you drink it. That taste, my friends, is not a good one. At first I don't taste much at all, but then that aftertaste... ugh. Like some other beers I've had it gets better after the first few sips but I don't think anyone tastes this stuff because of the taste and the 5.9% ABV just doesn't do it for me. There's better tasting brews out there with higher ABV. Sorry, Schlitz, I wanted to like you. At least you have cool advertising.

Let's quickly move on to something else. How about Colt 45?

 

Speaking of advertising, Colt 45's is classic. Who else better to endorse your malt liquor than Lando Calrissian? It has, however, been updated for our generation:

Still a pretty good ad. I guess if you can get Snoop to endorse your malt liquor you should probably do that.
Colt 45 is a classic malt liquor. To make it even more badass it has the same name as a gun!.. which is denied by Pabst Brewing, who makes Colt 45. The horse on the can says "Nay! (like that?) This fine beverage is not a reference to a firearm, but to Jerry Hill, who was number 45 on the 1963 Baltimore Colts NFL team." And I, horsey, have got a bridge to sell you.
Badassery aside, how's the brew? I'm willing to give this one a solid "not bad." Tastes better than Schlitz with a slightly higher 6.1% ABV.

So let's move on yet again to another fine beverage that I have had the pleasure of consuming many times before, Steel Reserve. 211, motherfucker.

 

Not sure who drew that or if it's even a real ad, but I like it. Me and 211 go back a ways. For a good while it was my go to cheap beer. What else can you get 4 tall cans of for $2.50 that tastes decent and has the 8.1% wallop to get you wasted with maybe not even all 4? Steel Reserve is the strongest of these beers, but doesn't necessarily taste like it. It has a very malty taste, like you can almost taste the barley in a way. Here in Bama we used to have the 6% ABV version which tasted a little bit smoother, but for the purposes of a malt liquor or "high gravity lager" I'd prefer the extra alcohol. The first 40oz I ever drank was a Steel Reserve. Ah, memories. Seriously though, 211 is a good cheap beer and one of the easiest to drink with this much ABV involved. I think of it as kind of an acquired taste, like drinking Guinness or similar. The first time I tried it I didn't really like it and even thought "People drink this??" Then when I tried it again I liked it. My only complaints are trivial, such as the can saying that it's made by the Steel Brewing Company when it's really just made by Miller. I guess that's just marketing magic. That aside, this is a great malt liquor all things considered. Again, when I look at these I look for taste, ABV, and image. This one definitely has two out of three covered.

Two left to cover. This is a long post! Let's go ahead and hit up Mickey's.

 

 Ah, Mickey's. It tends to kind of market itself as the white person's 40, or to appeal to college kids, which it does. Maybe this will encourage them to do their laundry once in a while. It's got nifty marketing like the ad above, cool green grenade shaped bottles, and even nifty puzzles under the caps!

  See what I mean about targeting college students. Still I admit that I enjoy opening my green bottle to find a little puzzle to give me something to think about for anywhere from five seconds to fifteen minutes depending on how drunk I am. So Mickey's definitely has the image. What about the beer?

Downside here, and the reason why Mickey's isn't going to win this throwdown... it's got the lowest ABV of all of these with a mediocre 5.6%. That's just barely enough to call it a malt liquor in my book. The upshot of the somewhat lower alcohol content is that Mickey's tastes more like a beer than a malt liquor. It actually tastes pretty damn good to me, and I will and have drunk it on a regular basis. It's easily obtainable around here for about $1.50 for a 24oz can. To me this is the best tasting of all these beers, but the ABV keeps it from its full potential as a stone cold malt liquor.

Last, but certainly never least is Olde English 800. OE. Furniture polish. The malt liquor by which all other malt liquors are judged.

So here's the deal about OE. It's iconic. If you go in a convenience store that sells forties they are just about guaranteed to have Olde English if nothing else. Is it a good malt liquor? Hell yes. It's got a very tolerable flavor, somewhat similar to the 6% version of Steel Reserve, which makes sense since OE's ABV is 5.9%. If you want to experience a solid, drinkable, malt liquor then this is the one to try. Oh man, how am I ever gonna rank these?? Maybe I should sober up a little first.

KING OF THE MALTS: I'm tying Steel Reserve and Olde English for the top spot. I can't choose between them. To me Olde English tastes better but Steel Reserve has the higher ABV so they balance out. You can't go wrong with either one.

BEST TASTE AWARD: Mickey's. It's the best tasting one of these beers and is the easiest to drink. Plus cool bottles.

ABV AWARD: I'm gonna give Icehouse Edge the prize on this one, just for being such a pleasant surprise. Tastes very smooth and non offensive with an 8% ABV.

BEST IMAGE/ADVERTISING: Colt 45. The classic ads with Billy Dee Williams and the new ads with Snoop Dogg are hard to beat. Also, it's a classic name associated with malt liquor.

Sorry Schlitz Malt Liquor, I gots no love for you at all. Any of the other brews are at least drinkable, while this one tasted like brackish water that someone just got done peeing in.

So there you have it. There are pros and cons to each one of these. The biggest surprise was definitely Icehouse Edge, which I would definitely drink again and would recommend that my readers at least try. I'm still feeling somewhat wasted from drinking all those so I'm gonna go take a nap.
Also, I think there's more than enough malt liquor out there to have a second throwdown.... thanks for reading!

Just a couple quick things...

First, a PSA. Look at this flat of delicious Pepsi products.

Now, why have I brought this large amount of soda products to your attention? These sodas all have one thing in common. They're out of date.
Now you may be saying, "WTF! Soda doesn't have an expiration date!" Ah, but good sir waving your arms and shouting at me it does. The soda companies put that date on there for a reason. Soda goes flat after a while, even if it remains in perfect climate control in an unopened bottle. We have not yet perfected the perfect soda bottle.
I pulled these sodas out of the two front coolers at the store I work at, some were out of date only a few days and were probably still fine to drink, while some had expired in October of last year. Eight months ago.
I say all this to say that I don't want to sell you a flat soda, but if they do happen to slip past my expiration date radar I don't want you to drink a flat soda either. That's like drinking a beer that's been left on my dashboard for six hours on a hot summer day. Okay, maybe not quite that bad but you get the idea.
Don't procrastinate! Check that soda date!

The other thing is...

a free pork & beans talker. While I have no idea what that actually is, free pork & beans. Huzzah!!

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I've been a big Vonnegut fan ever since I read Slaughterhouse Five when I was about 16. I love his cynicism, and his sometimes downright hilarity. I've read most of his books and I plan on reading the rest of them at some point. I recently picked up Player Piano at a used book store. I knew it was Vonnegut's first novel thanks to Wikipedia but I didn't know anything else about it. I've had more time for reading recently so I decided to give it a shot.
It's a hell of a first novel.
Kurt tells us the story of a near-future America where almost everything in life is automated and almost all work is done by machines. The protagonist Dr. Paul Proteus is an engineer who works in the public works in Illium, New York as an engineer. In this society the engineers are the richest and most well thought of people since their work has given way to the new easy way of life.
There are those that would disagree, however, as Paul realizes every time he has to cross to "that side" of the bridge to the town where all the regular people live, many of which are out of a job thanks to the new mechanized way of life. Regular people are very looked down upon because the machines have determined with a test that children take upon exiting high school that they are not smart enough to become scientists or engineers, but instead are destined for life in the military (though there hasn't been a war for a very long time) or the public works corps, doing jobs such as road work and building projects.
The title of the book comes from one of Paul's visits to the poor side of town when he stops into a bar to pick up a bottle of whiskey for a friend. One of the bar patrons looks at the player piano playing away in the bar and drunkenly bemuses that even the player piano at one time put someone out of a job. Paul begins to have different feelings about the convenient, machine-led life he has helped create and gradually questions more and more aspects of the system and the way things are. He eventually is given the opportunity to become the poster child for the anti machine movement.
I'm not going to give away any more of the story, and there is a lot more to this book. The way it is written, packed with Vonnegut's signature style of dark humor, I would not have thought that this was his first novel.
All in all this book is definitely worth a read and would be enjoyed by a wide audience. I can't help but be excited to read the rest of Vonnegut's books and also can't help but be sad to know there will come a time when there are no more of his books that I haven't read. 

Now available at your local Dollar General

I think I should get one of these to go with my TV dinner trays. Sorry about the glare, it's a phone pic.

Cheap Beer Throwdown!!!

I effing love beer. It loves me too, in its own way. There are times when we beer drinkers may not have the coin to splurge on that sixer of Sam Adams or similar delicious beer, and that's when we reach for the 99 cent tallboy. It's not really what you want, per se, but it gets you through the next day or so and it's usually better than no beer at all. Or is it? I've rounded up six different cheap beers to try and give my thoughts on each one. Here's my list of qualifications:

• No malt liquor.
• Must be able to purchase a 16oz can for $1 or less.
• No light beer.
• I'm not including fucking Budweiser. Deal with it.

So I went around to a couple of convenience stores and here's what I came up with:

Ah, they even look cheap! In a New Jersey hooker kind of way. I couldn't find a Natural Ice, only Natty Light, and since no light beers are allowed in this competition, I grabbed the Bud Ice instead. I've never drank Bud Ice or Busch before but there's a first time for everything. Maybe I'll even *gasp* like them.

First, a word about PBR. I've drank PBR since I was old enough to drink and a little bit before. I drank it because it was a cheap beer that was palatable and would often be on sale for cheaper than Miller High Life or similar. Recently as I'm sure you are aware, hipsters have taken PBR and turned it into "their thing."
Like this:

 

Asshole.

Why did you have to take my beloved cheap beer and turn it into something it's not? Why couldn't you destroy Budweiser or some other crappy beer? Leave my crappy beer alone. Just look at this man:

Does he look like a hipster to you? No. This was done a good few years before the bullshit hipster movement. This man loved his beer so much he wants to be buried in it. And in the meantime he's got a badass cooler to use. Rock on, sir.
Ok, now that that's out of the way, PBR is a good what I like to call "basic beer." It's a little bit bitter, but it really is an acquired taste that can add up to a good cheap beer. Like most beers it tastes better on tap or in a bottle than in the can, but the cans are readily available anywhere. It gets my thumbs up.

Another beer that has fond memories for me is Miller High Life. As you can see in the picture I got some kind of special edition Harley Davidson can, which is better than their special Justin Bieber edition they came out with last month. Just kidding, I like High Life as much as the next guy. It's an easy to drink, light and tasty beer. It's also ridiculously cheap. I clocked it recently for $3.97 for a sixpack at Walmart. They've also had some great advertising over the years.

Drink High Life, and you too can be an elderly perverted fisherman. BTW, tastes much much better out of a bottle than a can to me. Is that just me? But if the champagne of beers doesn't do it for you, then there's Icehouse.

Hey, they know their audience and they know the beer isn't the best thing in the world so why not sex it up a little? She looks good holding the can.
In all seriousness, I actually find Icehouse to be a decent beer considering how very cheap it is and the somewhat higher 5.5% ABV, compared with Miller High Life's and PBR's 4.7%. I'd say it's at least as good as the other two.
Perhaps the best tasting beer in my opinion on this list is Yuengling. I've been drinking Yuengling a long time since someone turned me on to it years ago and I've loved it ever since.

The Yuengling brewery is America's oldest continuously operated brewery and has been churning out their delicious lager since 1829. The have a variety of other flavors, including black & tan, a porter, and a seasonal bock which is very very good (why is it not available all year???). They started canning their beer a couple years ago making it more readily available and small bit cheaper to buy. To me, you can't go wrong with this one.
Now, for the ones I just flat out didn't like at all.

Not light, but I tried the regular variety of Busch. It tasted like malty water and backwash. Yum. No seriously, I thought this one was terrible. I remember years ago a coworker and I were talking about beer and he said he drinks Busch because other beers made his head hurt. I'd have to drink a whole case for my head not to hurt once I got started. No thanks.

Then we have Bud Ice. Remember those commercials they had back in the 90s with the creepy penguin?

Yeah, that one. The one that looks like it's going to kill you in your sleep. This was easily one of the worst tasting beers I've ever tried. Ever. At first it was like drinking bilge water, and I thought maybe that was because I had tried the Busch right before. So I ate some food and tried it again. Just gross. I poured it out. If the guys at the Plank Road Brewery can make Icehouse have 5.5% ABV and still taste decent, why can't Budweiser? Maybe cause Budweiser sucks. So here's my final ranking of these six beers:

THE WIENER: Yuengling, simply for the best taste of any of these.
THE FIRST LOSER: PBR, despite having an intolerable image nowadays. I still love ya baby.
THE BRONZE MEDAL: Miller High Life. We go back a long ways.
THE PAPER MACHE CAT: Icehouse. A solid cheap beer, with a higher than average alcohol content.
THE BOWLING TROPHY I GOT AT A THRIFT STORE: Busch. Please, just stop.
THE FLAMING BAG OF SHIT ON YOUR DOORSTEP: Bud Ice. I really did try, I promise. It's just that bad.

So there you have it. Feel free to comment. What's that you say? Why didn't I include this beer or this beer? There will be more throwdowns. Don't cry.

On the topic of snacks...

Something I'll be discussing on here quite often is food. There comes that time most days when it's after lunch but before dinner time, or maybe a little before bed, when it's time to have a snack. One of my favorite snack foods is, in all it's glory:

the Big Mama pickled sausage. I've eaten so many of these things I'm sure I'll have a heart attack any minute. But they're just so damn good. So my question is, is this a southern thing? On the few occasions that I've been out of the south I haven't thought to look for them, and it seems unhealthy enough to be a southern snack. It's a flurry of vinegary goodness, with enough snap to make it feel like you're eating actual food. I'll eat one of these over a Slim Jim anytime. But while this yellow vision of deliciousness is fairly easy to find, be sure and watch out for:

I love hot and spicy food, but holy shit these things are like eating a vinegar firebomb. They should come with a warning label on the package that says:

 Yes, it's very true. Who knew a sausage could give you an Oregon Trail style death? Speaking of cholera...

This impostor with a sexy pig on the package tastes like straight up dog food. And before you say anything, yes I have tried it. I needed the money. So in short, beware of possible death and impostors, and snack on!!

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

My girlfriend suggested we watch this movie because she knows I like sushi, though I haven't had any in a while and thanks to this film am now struck with an undeniable craving for it. It's about Jiro Ono, arguably the best sushi chef in the world and his restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo. I can honestly say I've never seen anything like this movie before. Well technically it's a documentary, but I digress.
Jiro wanted to become a sushi chef from the time he was nineteen. He takes perfectionist to a whole new level, using only the best of the best ingredients and everything has to be done the right way or no way. He sacrificed his family life and personal life to develop his mastery of making perfect sushi. Did it pay off? I think so. Jiro definitely seems happy with his life being now 85 and still going to work every day. He has trained countless apprentices including his two sons, one of which has opened his own sushi restaurant in a different part of the city. I won't give away any more of the film, but if you are a foodie, a sushi fan, or even a documentary fan I would wholeheartedly encourage you to check this one out. I fall into all three of those categories and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Are there any sushi restaurants in Dothan?

Here's the movie's official website.

Here's Jiro's restaurant's official website (in English). If you want to make reservations you have to do so a month in advance.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

North Korea has been somewhat fascinating to me for a while, if only because it's so ludicrous that such a place can exist in today's world. This book is a collection of stories from various North Korean defectors from different walks of life gathered from interviews done by the author. In case there is any doubt, this book is very depressing.
It's hard to believe people live this way and accept it, being so brainwashed and told that the rest of the world is the same way. Many people do, even when their families starve to death or are shot because someone told the Party they were talking badly about them. Some also defect, risking life and limb to get to China or South Korea. Those that do are riddled with survivor's guilt for their families that have either died or were left behind.
I'm not going to go into any more detail about the stories in this book. I'm just going to say that even if only some of the stories are true, then North Korea is quite possibly the worst possible place in the world to live. Ever.
The author also writes for the Los Angeles Times. This book was nominated for the National Book Award and won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction in 2010. If there's one good thing I can say about the stories in this book, they make you very grateful to live in the civilized world and to have the life you have.

So Long, See you Tomorrow by William Maxwell

This book has received a lot of praise. After reading it I'm not sure all that praise is justified, or maybe I'm just not the intended audience. The 135 page novella starts off with a bang, literally, as a son on a farm in 1921 rural Illinois runs into the house to tell his Ma that Pa's been shot. The author had definitely gotten my attention, and I thought to myself ooohhh I bet this is gonna be good.
Then things go back in time a little bit to the narrator being a kid in school in a well to do family being raised by his father as his mother died when he was very young, and since Dad didn't really like to have a lot to do with the narrator, he finds ways to keep himself entertained. While playing at the construction site for their new house he befriends Cletus, a poor farmer's son his own age. The two hang out together and their difference in background doesn't seem to matter much. Some affairs happen. Some lies are told. Cletus's father loses his wife to another man and decides to get even. Some other stuff happens, too, but I'm not going to give away the whole book. Suffice to say that I thought it was alright and it held my interest, but the author's bad feelings portrayed in this semi-autobriographical piece seem overblown to me. Again, maybe I'm just not the target audience.
This book was a finalist for a Pulitzer prize and won the National Book Award the year it was released, so evidently a lot of people enjoyed it. Maybe you will, too. Personally, I could take it or leave it.

The Spy who came in from the Cold by John LeCarré

I haven't read too many spy novels in my time, but I am a history major so I'm also interested in history stuff. Cold War era espianage sounded pretty interesting also, so I decided to check this book out. It's regarded by many as the best spy novel they've ever read, as said on the cover in the above picture. I haven't finished reading it yet but I'm pretty close and I've enjoyed it pretty well. Basically a British intelligence officer who is close to retirement is pulled into an operation where he makes East German intelligence believe that he wants to defect and give them valuable information. Of course everything doesn't go as planned and there are some hangups that involve the protagonist almost getting killed multiple times. The phrase "out in the cold" is used to describe a spy that is out in the field, to alleviate any confusion about the title. The book also got made into a movie which I intend to watch after I finish reading the book.

The movie came out in 1965 and was nominated for two academy awards. It has a review of 7.6 on IMDB which is pretty good in my understanding. If you are a fan of spy novels or movies, this would be a good one to check out.

So I was thinking...

that maybe I could start a regular non-ramen related blog for all the daily life stuff I deal with and maybe... just a place to vent about things. Nobody may ever read this or take it seriously and that's ok with me. I think of it as more of a mental health exercise where I can flex my literary muscles and just talk about everyday stuff. I guess I'll start with the basics.
I have another blog on blogger, Ramenator which I have had for a few years now. It has been a very fun experience for me and I intend to keep it going despite not having updated it in almost a year.
I'm 27 and I just moved from Birmingham, AL to Dothan, AL which is right on the Alabama/Florida state line. It's a much smaller place and I'm still getting used to it but the whole experience is made better by sharing it with my wonderful girlfriend. I'm currently a sales lead at a Dollar General store and I'm looking to go back to school at Troy University to finish my degree. It's been a dream of mine for a long time to become a teacher and I am about half way there college credit wise. Hopefully I will be able to go back to school for the fall semester!
But enough about me, what the hell is gonna be on this blog? Other than my personal ranting, you can expect posts about:

• Absolutely glorious beer
• Food
• Cats
• Life
• Work Frustrations
• Books
• Movies
• Anything else I feel like writing about and if you don't like it you can suck it

So that's it in a nutshell. This is my space to write whatever I feel like. Feel free to read. Feel free to comment.