My voice is still pretty much gone. I can talk in scratchy little croaks. If anyone has any fast cures for a blown voice box, that does not involve gargling salt water, I would like to hear it.
Starting tomorrow is what is known as 'Hell Week' for people who work at Halloween horror nights. Five straight days of peak nights. (Meaning I get out at 2:30 in the morning). It is also the time that has the largest crowds, the longest lines, and the nastiest drunks. Once again, I am glad I have my cage.
I was pissed off last night because there were bugs in my rice. I have no idea how they got in there. It was a brand new bag of rice, sealed and unopened. However after I poured the rice into the rice cooker and then opened a couple of (wasted) cans of chicken broth to pour in, the bugs floated to the surface. They looked like little versions of those ceti eels that Khan stuck in Chekov's ear. I was really pissed off. More so than I should have been, but when I get tired I get pissed off easily. I mean, it's not like I got the rice from big lots or Wal-Mart, this shit came from Publix. You would think Publix would have some god damn vermin-free rice.
I dumped the whole mess in the garbage can and then baked myself a potato.
Geeze, just thinking about that made me pissed off all over again.
I then got into my bottle of RedRum and watched 'Silent Hill' on PPV. I have yet to see a movie made from a video game that was really good. I mean, there was some vague storyline, the special effects were of course eye candy, and the spooks were good, but it still felt like I was watching a video game. Then again, I have to admit I did fall asleep before the end came.
Alas, I have nothing else fun to report. Work, eat, shit, sleep. That's all this month has been composed of so far. Luckily it is only for one month. Otherwise I would go batshit. I would become one of those bums with a big beard pushing around a shopping cart full of cast off shit. And I would probably have a great big smile on my face because I was not busting my ass working two jobs.
Setting the dial for October 2006, where Ed's bigger horror than any haunted house is a bag of rice with stowaways.
Twenty years ago, Ed's biggest entertainment crisis was paying for Silent Hill on PPV and not staying awake to see if it was bad. Now the horror is that the movie is one of ten thousand streaming options and the only way to know if it's bad is to watch five minutes of it before the algorithm suggests something worse. His Hell Week schedule—work until 2:30 a.m., face drunk tourists, retreat to a cage—is basically the modern gig economy, except back then the cage was literal and no one was filming him for content. And the rice? Ah, the rice. A sealed bag from Publix, Ceti larvae floating up in chicken broth. Today we'd post the photo, tag the store, and expect a refund in branded emojis. But let's be honest, 2006 Ed: the bugs were in the bag. The broth was innocent. The real question is why anyone was pouring chicken broth into rice and expecting a simple dinner. The potato was the only rational decision.
“2006 Ed, was falling asleep before Silent Hill ended your subconscious verdict on video-game movies, or were you just so enraged by the Ceti-eel rice that RedRum and a baked potato were the only sane options left?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Ahh, Beelzebubba, you ask the deep questions. Probably a bit of both, honestly. I was still so steamed about those ceti eel larvae in my Publix rice that I couldn't focus on anything but my baked potato. And yes, RedRum helps with that. But I also think my subconscious was telling me what I already knew: video-game movies are like a haunted house where you can see the fog machine. Silent Hill was pretty to look at, but it still felt like watching somebody else play a game, all atmosphere and no damn payoff. So I checked out. Could've been the 2:30am Hell Week talking too. Five straight nights of drunks and fog juice starts tomorrow, so my body is storing sleep like a squirrel. The rice was the last straw. That movie never stood a chance.
