I am somehow convinced that eating Chinese makes you stupider. If I am working in the morning, doing some programming and figuring things out, and I go out for Chinese for lunch and come back, my brain goes dead. All the blood flows out of my brain to help my stomach combat General Tso. I, an unwitting victim of the battle, end up a slack jaw slow wit.
Speaking of slackjaw slow wits, you have to be a slackjaw slow wit to live in Metrowest. Whenever I read the local news and see some violent crime that happened, it almost always took place in Metrowest. That's what happens when you decide to build a bunch of cheap condo's and strip malls smack dab in the middle of the ghetto. I don't even like driving through Metrowest. Rank after Rank of huge apartment complexes with towering gates around them in a feeble attempt to make the people seem safer. If you get robbed or stabbed or raped in metrowest, unless the attacker was particularly stupid, the cops are never going to catch them. They just don't care.
I gave my scow a final dab of paint in preparation for my trip tomorrow. I noticed a little crack in the fiberglass of one corner of the scow. Not sure where it came from, or even if its leaking, so to be on the safe side I patched it up with some Marine Goop. I love goop, its great stuff. I used to buy it all the time to fix my sneakers. Goop can fix anything.
Since it's going down to freezing, I decided I am going to shell out for a decent sleeping bag. Normally when I camp I just haul along a couple of blankets, but I decided its time to buy a good sleeping bag. Something I can be all snug in. I also need to pick up a bottle of apple brandy to keep me warm. Aaah. Now that's communing with nature.
So Tomorrow morning I head up to Ocala, and spend a little time visiting my friend K'nen first, (who is going to bake me brownies!) and do a little food shopping. I'll probably just pick up a couple of sandwiches; I do not want to haul a lot of food and trash out in my scow. Then I'll head out to the end of the lake. I have all the locations programmed into my GPS, so I doubt I'll get lost. I'll be sure to take many amusing pictures.
The place I am camping is right next to the bombing range. I wish I were camping there when they are testing out some really big bombs, like a MOAB. That would be great, being in a field with a bunch of hippies when a huge mushroom cloud erupts in the distance. Talk about a Kodak moment.
2026 Update
Nineteen years ago, Ed was blaming Chinese food for his dead brain and plotting a bombing-range camping trip.
Ah, 2007. A simpler time, when a man could blame General Tso for his cognitive decline and then paint a scow with marine goop while planning to camp next to a bombing range. Nineteen years on, the whole thing feels like a museum diorama of lost American rituals. Your handheld GPS unit is now an app that also delivers the Chinese food to your door, so you can get stupider without ever leaving the couch. The sleeping bag you were about to buy? It's now a “system” with zippers rated in degrees and fabrics with names like Ghost Whisperer. And the local news crime report that once gave you Metrowest material has been replaced by neighborhood apps and doorbell cameras; nobody needs the cops to not care when every porch has its own little snitch. The bombs, alas, still go off on schedule, but the hippies have moved to podcasts and the Kodak moment is a selfie. Goop, however, remains eternal. It fixed sneakers then; it will fix your soul now.
“2007 Ed, were you hoping the brownies would counteract the General Tso's brain fog, or just that the apple brandy would make the bombing-range camping seem like a good idea?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Ahh, now there's a question with layers, like a good mead. The brownies were never meant to fight the General Tso's fog, no, they were more like a delicious apology from K'nen to my poor, abused brain cells. I figure if I'm going to go slack-jawed and slow-witted, I might as well do it with chocolate in my mouth. As for the apple brandy, well, that's not for making the bombing range seem like a good idea, that's for making the cold seem like a minor inconvenience. Bombs going off in the distance, a warm bottle in my hand, and a snug sleeping bag, that's about as close to peaceful as my world gets. The brandy just helps me appreciate the absurdity of it all. So, yes, both. They work together. One for the brain, one for the nerves. Take that, freezing temperatures.
