This was originally an essay I wrote for my Creative Nonfiction class last semester. I thought it was blog-worthy. Enjoy!

It had just started getting cold in the mornings. My windshields weren’t quite icing over yet, but the weather was definitely calling for more than just the navy blue shorts I was wearing. I put on Melissa’s black hoodie, which barely fit me, walked out to the front door and unlocked it. Peering outside, I saw that the grass was frosted at the tips.

Shit, I thought, I hope he’s ok.

Closing the front door, I walked back into the center of the house as Melissa came out of the bedroom, “Frank’s not out there.” My voice had a noticeable touch of concern in it. “Where is he?” was her reply, matching my worry. “I don’t know, I’ll go look around.”

Last night, when we returned from grocery shopping, Frank bolted outside. Our arms were full of groceries, so neither Melissa nor I were able to catch him in time; His lithe body took off right past us. “Frank! Frank!! Meeeeeeeoww?” I didn’t really think he could actually understand what I was saying, but it was always fun to entertain the notion that I could speak his language. He briefly glanced back at me for a moment, paused mid-step. Several feet from him, under Melissa’s car, I saw another cat – an alley cat. A cat from “the bad crowds.” Frank looked at me, then at the other cat, then at me again, then ran off, chasing the mystery cat.

I closed and locked the door, turning the porch light on. “Frank just ran off with another cat!” I exclaimed, somewhat exasperated. I explained to Melissa what I just saw. Her reply was something like “What an ass-cat!”

“Ass-cat” is an appellation he acquired months ago, after we had only had him for a couple weeks. I think it was Melissa that coined the term, although I don’t recall exactly what kind of Ass-cattery Frank had done to deserve it.

This wasn’t the first time Frank had run out of the house. The past two months Frank had been pretty regularly running around outside on his own, usually skulking around underneath the mangy hedges in our front yard. Sometimes he would run out at night, for who-knows-why, but after an hour or two we would hear the gentle pounding of Frank’s paws against the glass of our paned storm door. What was different about this time was that Frank didn’t come home at night. This was the first time that Frank had been out all night by himself, and it was pretty cold.

I put on my blue winter jacket and tied on my ratty old white Adidas’s, and went out the front door. Is this what it’s going to be like when our child is in its teen years? I thought, feeling a mixture of both fear and pre-emptive exhaustion. Melissa was due in late March, and we were both apprehensive, as most new parents are, about our abilities to parent properly. This whole ordeal was beginning to remind me of what it must have been like for my parents on those few occasions when I ran away from home, pissed off about something or other.

I couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for Frank running away. Maybe it’s because he’s been having a tough time adjusting to Bowie, our dog, who recently re-joined us. Maybe it’s because I only feed Frank three times a day, even though he meows for food all day long. Maybe it’s because I don’t pay enough attention to him. These thoughts raced through my head as I walked down the porch stairs.

I crouched down several feet from the stairs and peered back at the house, focusing my view under the mangy green hedges. It wasn’t too difficult to see under them since the foliage was so sparse. I hoped to see him huddled up under some leaves, or against the wall. No sign of him.

Did he run away? I wish he would understand! My mom had just told me over the phone last month that our childhood cat, Chip, was just recently hit by a car on the road at the end of their rural driveway. I got a little scared and my pace quickened.

As I rounded the corner of the house, heading towards the back, I began to think that maybe he was just in the backyard somewhere. I still saw the same vision, his huddled little tiger-cat body desperately pressed against something, and how grateful he would be that I found him and could take him back indoors. Man, it was cold out.

Looking into the backyard with a cursory glance, I didn’t see any sign of him but I did notice that the side door to the garage was open. The other day we had moved some things out of the house into the garage, and I remembered that I had forgotten to lock the regular door. Frank knew how doors work, and he has this bizarre curiosity about closed doors. If a door is wide open he will likely just pass it by, but if the door is closed, he’ll paw at the door until it opens on its own, or someone lets him in.

I pushed open the door and called out “Fraaaaaank?” It was more of a question really. “Fraaaaa-aaaaaaaank…” I didn’t see him, but it was dark in there. I glanced over at the garage door, and saw a pile of boxes and rubbish near it. I called out one more time, moving towards the heap. I half expected a homeless person to attack me at this point; Someone had opened the door last night, I was just hoping it was my cat.

I heard rustle near my feet, and then a jingle. Frank’s collar! I saw him sleepily saunter out from underneath some cardboard. He had been in here all night long. I felt relief wash the worry away. I squatted down and beckoned him to come towards me. There was no huddling, no shivering. He looked like he had just spent the night in a broom closet at the Hilton. I scooped him up and cradled him in my arms the way people do with cats. I couldn’t help but feel like I was picking up our future teenager from a holding cell at the police station after he got picked up for some kind of petty crime.

We walked back towards the house. As we got about halfway back to the front door, Frank started to fight me. Claws out and all. He didn’t want to go back inside! Come on, Frank. It’s really best for you to come back inside. I held onto him tightly, and continued to the front door. He got a couple scratches in on my chest, but we made it inside. Once indoors, I set him down on the floor and quickly shut the door. He paced away, as if nothing had happened, and even took a swipe at Bowie and gave him a dirty look.

What an ass-cat.

Categories: Writing Pieces, Ziggy aka Sullivan
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This is simultaneously frustrating and hilarious:
Verizon Cant’ Count (Youtube)
Verizon Still Can’t Count (Youtube)
The VerizonMath blog

The issue here is a very simple one of UNITS. Remember in your science classes (probably chemistry?) where you were told to keep your units? Here’s the situation:

1. Verizon quotes a price of 0.002 CENTS per kilobyte
2. Man goes to Canada and uses approximately 33,000 kilobytes.
3. Man receives bill for approximately $70.00

Do you see the problem?

1. 0.002 CENTS = $0.00002
2. 33,000 x 0.002 CENTS = 66 CENTS
or, in dollars: 33,000 x $0.00002 = $0.66

Verizon kept arguing that: 33,000 x 0.002 CENTS = 66.00 DOLLARS.

The issue here is clear: The result came up with the format xx.xx which causes the people to immediately think “oh! dollars!” and forget that the original equation is in CENTS. Verizon’s ACTUAL rate is $0.002, but the operators were quoting it as CENTS. Why would the operators do this? Probably because people subconsciously associate anything after the decimal point as being cents.

Tell your friends. Link to these pages. The more people that link to it the higher it’s google ranking!

Categories: Geekery, Humor, Rants
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Melissa and I have this inside joke about “making fudge.” It can either mean making actual candied fudge (the kind normal people eat), or it can be a euphemism for “making butt” aka “pooping.” I think it’s awesome that I can make poop jokes with my wife and we both giggle.

However, the context here is about the former.

The recipe is simple:

In bowl 1 (set aside):
• 1/2 C Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)
• 1/2 Stick melted butter/margarine
• 1/2 bag PB Chips
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract

In LARGE saucePOT
• 1/2 stick butter
• 4-1/2 C sugar
• 1 can
  evaporated condensed milk (12oz)
• 1 jar marshmallow creme (7oz)

Bring saucePOT to slow boil (low to med-low heat) stirring slowly, when it reaches boiling, boil for 5 minutes still stirring, then remove from heat. Pour half of mixture into Bowl 1, and slowly mix. Add remaining 1/2 bag of PB chips to saucePOT and slowly mix. Pour PB half into greased & foiled 9×13″ pan, then pour Choc half into pan. Even it out with a wooden spoon. Let cool off on countertop, store in refrigerator.

Easy enough.

A few things about the recipe though:

1. The original recipe said “medium saucePAN”. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried microwaving or heating marshmallows…but imagine heating a whole jar of it. Expect the contents in the pan to at LEAST double in size. I used a pasta pot for the second batch.
2. This is really important: because we’re talking candy, which means we’re talking crystallization, it’s really important that you don’t interrupt the heating process! If you must switch pans, do it VERY EARLY on, because if you reach boiling, back down, and go back to boiling again, the fudge won’t turn out right, because the crystals form incorrectly.
3. Cooling: I’m still experimenting with this, but I think you need to let it cool to room temperature on your countertop, and THEN put it in the refrigerator. I think if you put it right in your fridge it (a) heats up your fridge, and (b) causes the crystals to form too quickly. Jury’s still out on this one though, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
4. If you have a ceramic glass cook-top, as many modern stoves do, and your saucePOT mixture starts to spill over, make sure you IMMEDIATELY wipe the stuff off the hot burner onto a cool burner, using a wet warm washcloth. If you let it cook on there, when you go to clean it off, you may cause damage to the cooktop!

Yes, there were indeed some minor catastrophes. This is only the 3rd or fourth time I’ve tried making it on my own. I usually try once or twice every xmas. It’s kind of a family tradition. My mom’s been making it for xmas (along with her other xmas confections) for as long as I can remember. First off, I forgot about the pan-size initially. But I remembered early on and put it into a pan that was slightly larger than the contents. Not good enough. When it hit boiling it was SPILLING over the sides and onto the cooktop. I immediately moved the saucepan over to another burner (indirectly ruining the fudge by interrupting the heating process) while the marshmallow/milk/sugar mixture burnt onto the cooktop. It made SOOOO much smoke. We had to open the window, and you couldn’t see further than 5 or 6 feet away! It smelled like a campfire.

When I went to clean off the cooktop, I had to literally scrape some of that marshmallow mixture off of the burner, and it caused pitting in the cooktop. I asked my mom about it and she said it should be ok to use if the pits aren’t too deep (they aren’t). I felt like an ass though. The fudge cooled off, but didn’t firm up enough. I think the heat change screwed it up.

The second batch went a lot better. We used a pasta pot. There was no spillage at all. The only problem I had was that some of the condensed milk had burnt to the bottom, but I’m pretty sure that’s typical. I may have had the heat up too high (it was only at 3 or 4). When it hit boil, it was a nice soft rolling boil, and I stirred it slowly. It had a good color and everything. This batch is still cooling and I just put it in the fridge, so I won’t know about it until tomorrow! I was a little concerned about the burning, but I sampled it off the spoon after pouring, and it tasted alright.
I can never seem to get the layers to pour right! It’s *supposed* to be a layer of PB with a layer of chocolate on top, pretty even all the way across. Mine always ends up being uneven or mixed layers.

UPDATE: After speaking with a friend of mine, we determined that the likely cause for my fudge failures is due to my usage of EVAPORATED milk rather than CONDENSED milk. They are apparently “night and day,” and that would likely explain the poor texture of my confectionary catastrophe. I must remember this for next year!

Categories: Humor
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