A Fortune Buffet

My good friends, Tim and Dallas, invited me to dinner tonight. We went to New Best Buffet, which lives in an converted Burger King. The food was tasty, with a wide variety to choose from. I had five plates worth (but they were only 8" plates), but I did skip lunch too. My brother-in-law panned the food, but it's not a "meat & potatoes" kind of place so I can understand why. My official review is here.

Anyway, the point of all this was actually the fortune cookies we were given at the end of the meal. Just your standard, vacuum-packed, commercial senbei, but the fortunes left us...well, befuddled.

Tim's was first:

A smile is a curve that can get a lot of things straight.

Now, it sounds like there might be a "lost in translation" kind of thing happening here, but the more you ponder, it almost makes sense. Then again...maybe not.

Dallas' wasn't much clearer:

A mile walked with a friend contains only a hundred steps.

If you've ever been through a 12-step program, that probably sounds fairly daunting, but she felt it meant a trip taken with a friend goes faster.

And then there's mine, which made me smile:

If you want to get a sure crop with a big yield, sow wild oats.

I could go pragmatic here and conclude some clever insights concerning investments in time and energy, but personally, I'm hoping this is a harbinger of some improvements to a certain portion of my life...

...we'll see.

---

P.S.  These are the deluxe fortunes, by the way, with lucky numbers and "Learn Chinese" phrases on the back! Respectively:

Still single (not married) - mae yao jeh huan
19, 10, 33, 22, 45, 17

What time is it now? - Xian jai ge dan
50, 4, 37, 33, 11, 22

...and finally, mine reads:

Don't matter (not related) - mae yao guan xi
12, 23, 4, 25, 26, 16

No, I don't know why the numbers aren't ascending, but I think I'll get a lotto ticket...

S'more Life Experience

I attend a drum circle every Friday night (or so), and I usually have snacks with me, so I can keep up my stength. A friend asked if I take s'mores, specially since there is a bonfire on the beach. Appearantly, a campfire is a prerequisit for s'mores, and being on the beach is a bonus for the whole experience.

I wasn't aware of these things since I had never had s'mores in my life. Yes, I did just say that. Never. After all, I was never a Girl Scout. So, when I went shopping, I grabbed the ingredients: marshmellows, chocolate, and graham crackers.

Graham crackers bring back memeories of a babysitter I had in kindergarten. She always gave us them as snacks, so I got pretty sick of them. That and vanilla wafers. Since then I've always avoided them; but now, I'm on a mission, and if chocolate is involved, I'm sure I can move past this.

[available on a t-shirt at threadless.com]

Anyway, on a break from noise-making, I found a long stick, suitable for roasting the marshmellows. While I tried not to char my marshmellow, my friend pre-assembled the crackers & chocolate. We added my marshmellow and I took my first bite...

"Okay," I thought, "I can like this... even with the graham crackers!" I ended up having two, but with a drum session in between; boy those things are rich!

So, I've now joined the ranks of Americana and had s'mores. Yet one more life experience to check off my list (even though it wasn't on my list). I'm not sure I was really missing anything, but I won't tell my friend that. ;-)

If you're a s'more freak (and they are out there), checkout the history page some scout leader put together.

Official Internet Surfer

Yes, it's official, and I bet you didn't know there was such a thing!

(click image for original)

Now, you too can get a diploma for cruising the information super-highway. Just visit MyInternetDiploma.com, fill-in your name & email address (so you can get a copy in your email), answer a couple questions. Once you click "Submit," you'll get a confirmation page with links to your dimploma (a GIF image with it's own MyInternetDiploma.com URL like mine: myinternetdiploma.com/michael-r-cuadra) and code for embedding your diploma into your email, blog, or whatever.

via MakeUseOf.com

Question of the Day

A friend of mine sent me an email with a cryptic subject of "question":

Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having
a human experience?

Outside of this hitting me out-of-the-blue, I find it to be an interesting question... the answer given could give a large insight into the person answering it. I suggested they post it on wis.dm. My answer?

I believe I'm a spiritual being having a human experience.

There have been enough experiences in my life to make me believe there is
more to [us/life/the universe as we know it] than meets the eye. I think
thoughts have form and substance and could be our ticket/window into other
dimensions.

If you want more than that, I'll have to get back to you after a little
meditation...

...which I may get to at some point and let you all know what I come with.

Clean Slate

Changes in life can permeate throughout your existence. So in an effort to control and shape recent changes in my life, I've started this personal blog.

In the past, I have been seriously remiss in updating my original blog, which I started as an auxiliary blog for my business. I later came to rely on a tumble log instead, as is was a little more convenient. Now, I've all but abandoned these locales on the web in favor of a few new venues.

I invite you to peruse this blog, along with my new tumble log, other blog, and additional places you can find me on the web.