Ramen Noodle Spoodle

For lunch I eat a lot of things, but recently I have been eating a lot of Ramen Noodles. To be more specific, I am eating more "Smack Cup Ramen". You know, the ramen noodles in a styrofoam cup that you can add boiling water. I found them at Wal-Mart for around $0.35.
I'm glad to have found a cheap lunch, and I'm pretty particular about the flavors. I'm allergic to shrimp, so that eliminates a few flavors. I don't care for the Wal-Mart off brand, either. Too much salt. The Smack ramen, the Union Foods brand, is my favorite.



Here's my list of flavors and my ratings:

http://www.unionfoods.com/

Beef: Bland. Not fun eating.
Chicken: Ok. Needs some extra flavor. Not enough meat.
Shrimp: Allergic, never had -- not really want to either. Probably would die.
Hot & Spicy: Okay. Not spicy enough, though.
Vegetable Beef: How is this different than the Beef, other than an extra teaspoon of carrots?
Cajun Chicken: See note below.
Chili with Beans: Had once. Never again. Bad gas and heartburn.
Picante Shrimp: See Shrimp.
Creamy Chicken: Nope. Bad aftertaste on creamy stuff. Not worth the 33 cents I paid.
Spicy Chicken: See note below.

The Spicy Chicken and Cajun Chicken are so close in my rankings I couldn't separate the two. While the Cajun Chicken is a tad spicier, the tastes are very similar. I mean, if I had a blindfolded test, I probably couldn't tell the difference other than the spicy factor.

I would give anyone these following tips when eating these:

1. Use very HOT water. It will make the dry goods hydrate faster and be ready faster. Sip as it cools.
2. When opening, don't pull the lid all the way off. Instead, pull it halfway, put in the water, then push it back onto the top.
3. Put something on top of the lid (CD case, wallet, stapler) heavy enough to hold the steam and heat in. This will make the food 'cook' faster.
4. Lastly, if you are using a microwave to heat your water, use a coffee cup full of water. This is a good measuring cup. Just be careful in pouring in the water.

Enough about Ramen. Just be warned that if you eat the Cup variety, you'll never want that other kind. This variety isn't as salty, oily and has both meat and veggies to nibble.

That's my lunch. I sometimes eat crackers with it, maybe even some chips. This isn't enough to make you full.

Missionary Memory Mnemonics

Certian people occupy certian places in my memory. Friends, relatives, schoolteachers. Each have a particular place in my psyche. While I don't claim to have a perfect memory, I can remember some people and places better than some.
Missionary companions have an interesting place in my fabric of a memory as well. Mostly fond memories, some strange, others weird and even some not so fun.
But all in all, I tend to have a good recall of that 2 years I spent knocking on doors in Sweden. And of the people I met and taught.
And, of course, the people I did it with. Missionary companions are a strange lot. You live with a new roomate/companion 24/7 and learn all there is, just about, to that person.
What caused my memory to throw a monkey wrench into the works today was when I was contacting a few friends. I am so used to using their last names while talking to them. Cano. Anderson. Hawkes. Mann. Ashworth. Shepherd. They will always be known as this, or by their once title, Elder --- Äldste or Syster.
But using their first names?
Albert Cano. No way. Brian Anderson. Nope. Matt Hawkes. Can't do it. Kelly Mann. No thanks. Julia Ashworth? Yowch! Ryan Shepherd? No way, Jose.
Maybe in the next life we'll spend the eternities getting used to each other's first names. But as for me, when talk to them it's hard asking for "Al Cano, please" on the phone. Am I alone in this? I hope not. Maybe it's just a side effect of being on a mission and adhering to a mission rule to only address your companion thusly. Maybe it's normal. I sure hope it isn't just a symptom of me not getting to know my companions as well as I should.

Pottermania has me in its grip

Hi. My name is Dale and I’m a Harry Potter addict.
I’m 31 years old. I have a college education. I’m married and have two-and-a-half kids. I read several books a month, sometimes ranging from a dozen to topping 20 or so. Reading is my favorite hobby and vocation, and I enjoy it.
But even with all that, I’ve read the Harry Potter series (which now stands at five novels) ... seven times.
Seven times. That’s over 2400 pages times six. That’s over 16,000 pages.
That’s a lot of Quiddich, Hogwarts, Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, house elves, Nimbus 2000 and Firebolt broomsticks, Professors Snape and McGonagall, Headmaster Dumbledore, Hagrid, Hermoine, Ron and my favorite wizard of all, Harry Potter.
I own all five books. I’ve signed up on Amazon.com to let me know the very nanosecond Book Six comes out. I own the two “textbooks” that have been published, “Quiddich Through the Ages” and “Care of Magical Creatures.” (I’ve read the Quiddich one five times.)
I saw the first movie on opening weekend. My wife (a Harry addict in her own right) and I were the only adults in the theater without any children. Our six month-old son was being baby-sat by his Grandma — arrangements for his care on the movie’s opening weekend were made before he was born. The second and third movies were seen on opening weekends too -- this time with babysitters for both our kids again. We own the DVDs. We've seen em' a lot of times.
I fought with my wife over who gets to read Book Four as soon as we bought it. She got first crack — I had to drive home from the store so she was already a chapter or two into it — so I re-read the first three books while she read the fourth.
When Book Five came out, I drove to the store by myself at 5:30 a.m. to get it. I was in line for only a minute and was the first to get it. I sat in the car for 20 minutes and read 3 chapters before taking it home to my wife.
I think Quiddich should be made an Olympic sport as soon as the Department of Magical Games and Sports can work out the details with the International Olympic Committee.
I think hippogriffs, blast-ended skrewts, unicorns and three-headed dogs should be at every local zoo.
I think that we should all have enchanted, flying cars despite what the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office wants.
I think we should all receive the newspaper by Owl Post. That would save on costs.
You might think I’m crazy as a loon. And I might respond with waving my pencil in your direction muttering a Patronus Charm. Am I crazy? Hm...
Of course. I think anything in this charming, magical and brilliant collection of stories that teaches that good always triumphs evil, friendship is all-important and the fact that excitement can be found in a good book — is crazily good.
I think any story that gets American audiences to plunk down $100 million in one week to see the first movie on is a great thing. And continue to do so each movie is even greater.
It’s basically choosing fantasy. Real life can be scarier, more boring and weirder. Harry’s world — and yes, I know it’s all make-believe — is at times a much more fun world to escape into. It certainly stimulates the imagination. And isn’t developing an imagination healthier than reading about war, terrorism, taxes, budget cuts and politics?
I certainly think so. I say we need more Quiddich. We need more Hogwarts. I think we need more stories that get millions of children (and adults) reading 800+ page books for the sheer pleasure of reading. I say we need champions of right, people (both real and imagined in books) that stick up for their friends, no matter what.
So there, you Muggle-loving, Anti-Harry, Right-Wing Conservatives that think that everything Potter is evil, anti-Christian and demonic. Pointing fingers at this bastion of good beating evil and calling the whole schebang a “tool of the devil” is about as ludicrous as saying that Pikachu is the Beast of Revelation in league with the Anti-Christ. (This is a Pokemon reference. For more information, ask a human under 11 years old.)
Harry is cool. Harry is ‘da bomb.’
If you want me, I’ll be finishing off Book Five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the eighth time. And you can bet your broomstick I’ll be one of the first to buy Book Six.
Maybe this time I’ll let my wife drive home.

An Insipidous, Criminal Idea

I have an idea.
I have such a whopper of an idea that I’m sure it will get me in trouble, one way or another.
This idea is so great, so diabolical, so ingenious, I’m surprised no one has thought of it before.
It’s simple. It’s crazy. It’s outrageous. It’s destined to make you laugh, others mad and some confused.
This idea is so laden with insanity and rebelliousness that I’m sure to be labeled a zealot, a wacko, a nutcase. And after you hear my stupendous idea, I’d bet you would agree with my looney brain and actually think it would be fun.
Are you frustrated with fees? Tired of small charges? Sick of additions and small percentage interest charges? Tired of seeing a small bill inflate because of $1.23 here and $0.56 there?
Phone, utility, insurance, car and credit card bills — they all do it to us. They put surcharges and fees up our collective wahzoos.
I say it’s time to strike back. I say it’s time for a revolution. I say it’s time to get our minds off anthrax and terrorism and strike back on our own against fees, surcharges and the like. I say it is time to take a stand. Time to make our voices known. Time to let “The Man” know he’s trampled on our rights. It’s time to let our grievances be known to the world.
OK. Everyone listening?
Here’s the plan. Next time you get one of those bills ... overpay.
You heard me. Overpay those puppies.
Confused? Don’t be. Here’s the insidious, scandalous plan: If you get a phone bill for $46.72, write your check for $47.00. If you get an electric bill for $53.41, write your check for $54.00.
And if you really want to be outrageous — when you get a bill from your water company for $39.27, write your check for only $39.30.
You got it. If these companies decide they can make up fees and charges, then we can decide to fight back. Pay ’em 12 cents more. Pay ’em 29 cents more.
What would this accomplish? Not much, but it gave me such satisfaction last month during my overly painful bill-writing session that I cackled like a manic.
I giggled like a cuckoo. I guffawed like a hyena.
And it made me feel so good this month — when I opened all my bills — to see that the phone, water, insurance, gas, and electric companies all owed me!
Well, at least they credited me the 12 cents or 67 cents that I overpaid them. But it felt great that the gas and electric companies owed me for a change. And I giggled like a maniac when I saw the phone company’s “Credit” line on my bill, with a 49-cent credit to my account.
Will this accomplish anything? Will this let our plight be known?
Probably not. It will probably just cause some computer an extra 1/10000th of a milligram of toner to print our bill with an extra “Credit” line.
But the satisfaction of knowing that you control your bill — even if it is for a fleeting moment — makes even the most stalwart of us break down and gigglesnort as we mail our bills.

Waiting in Line

It doesn’t take long to make someone mad.
I’ve noticed that if you really want to make someone lose their temper, you can do a number of nasty things. You can pull them onto a TV talk show and reveal that your great uncle Rupert was really a cross-dressing extrovert that really fathered your brother.
Or you can make them wait in line for something.
Those ever-stuffy Brits like to call it queing. But what ever you call it, people hate it. And I couldn’t hate it more than my last trip to the local water company.
Don’t get me wrong — I think my service with them has been pretty good — no brown water, no water shortages and the like. And despite an overly large connection fee, I think we have a pretty good water department here in this part of Arkansas.
What my last trip did to tarnish my view of the company was the overly large lines at their main office just last week when I went to pay my bill. I did notice several signs telling customers that we could pay our bills at other locations here in Pine Bluff. Cool. But what I didn’t understand is why they had just one cashier lane open.
One.
Uno.
I kept my temper and was patient for about 15 minutes, longer than the others in the line that had been waiting longer than I. But the pressure finally got to me and I asked for another cashier or a supervisor to come help.
That’s when my line-mates all thanked me. I felt great.
And when the supervisor showed up, he made the mistake of coming out into the line to talk to us all to resolve our concerns.
Big mistake.
After voicing my frustrations, all 15 of us started yelling at once, especially after he said there were no more cashiers to help us.
I felt sorry for him ... for about two seconds. He was jumped by an angry mob on a Thursday afternoon without any warning, and it probably wasn’t his fault.
Whose was it? Why do we have to wait in lines anyway?
When I go to my local grocery or department store I see something that was woefully lacking at the water department and other assorted line-waiting-places. If I stand in line at Wal-Mart or Brookshires and there are several customers in line, store managers jump to their intercoms and call in chashiers or checkers and open more lanes.
If I walk into a fast food restaurant and stand in their little rat maze — you know the zig-zag corridor thingy that they make you walk through to make you feel like you’re moving but are really just taking the longest possible course from Point A to Point B? — most of the time the managers open another cashier for us to pay our money and get services or products.
There is a whole culture to waiting in lines. We’ve all been there. We’ve all stood in the “12 Items Or Less” line at the store and watched some hapless person who can’t count try and buy 14 items with a check.
That kind of stuff can get someone the “Evil-Eye.”
The “Evil-Eye” is the blatant, “I’m-disgusted-with-you” stare that we’ve all seen and/or given at one time. It usually means “Hurry up or I’ll pull out your kidneys through your toenails.”
To give credit where credit is due, cashiers/checkers have to deal with a lot of different people, whether they be in a restaurant, grocery store or water department. They are working as fast as they can (most of them) and are working with either little or no training. I bet airline ticket agents have the record for keeping their tempers with surly, tired passengers in a crowded airport. And I sympathize with those waiters that have to deal with rude, crude or obnoxious customers.
That said, a little perspective is in place. As a customer, I don’t want to wait in line for more than 5 minutes. And if I have to, I will get up and leave — voting with my feet.
But in a place where I have to wait, such as a water department line, the DMV, hospital or other needed service, I feel as though the customer suffers most. I’m there to get something, and not necessarily because it’s the most fun thing in the world.
It’s because I have to. And that’s more frustrating than waiting in line.