I’ve toyed with the idea of making a State of the Lisa post to explore where I’ve been in 2007 and where I want to go in 2008, but I’ve been putting it off because I really haven’t wanted to drudge around in my 2007 thoughts more than absolutely necessary. Not that it was a particularly bad year, mind you. I got involved with some really great organizations, exciting projects, and have generally learned a whole heck of a lot about myself. But I think now in 2008 I need to focus on taking all this stored up energy and take it to the next level. It’s time to release.
I feel like I’m growing more in this regard every day, but I still need to release myself from the past. I catch myself in moments where I’m either stunned with resentment or reminiscing about the Earth-that-was, but I’m learning to let these moments of emotion flow through to completion rather than dwell or shut them out. Utmost thanks to those who have taught me to fully experience and appreciate the joys and sorrows that compose the human condition. You know who you are.
In the software world, release also has a different connotation…to get a product out the damn door. I have a moleskine that has pages of midnight inspirations covering a surprisingly eclectic spread of verticals, and I just now have a release candidate waiting on my desktop that’s only the tip of Technarium’s iceberg. No offence meant to Dave…he’s a saint for making sense of my visions and putting up with an encroaching managerial thought process ("I don’t know what, I don’t know how, but I want it to work with Facebook."), but I want a more active role in what I see actually implemented. Maybe it means getting Dave a minion, maybe it means developing more myself, (Dave, if you say it means "finding an icon" I swear to your god I will stab you in the face), but I will be a part of some great apps to be released in 2008.
Right now I need to bitch about soup. Well…stew. When I was but a wee child, I used to think Dinty Moore brand beef stew was one of the best things to come in a can. There were big chunks of potatoes and giant yet quite tender chunks of meat swimming in a succulent brown gravy. I haven’t been able to find any Dinty Moore brand beef stew in San Diego until recently, but I do assure you that I would lie awake many nights longing for what I considered to be the perfect stew.
So when I found a can of Dinty Moore brand beef stew in the short but sweet grocery isle of the neighborhood drugstore a few days ago, I was sure I had found a feast worthy of being my Christmas dinner. I took my treasured can home and left it under the Christmas tree until it was time for my holiday feast.
I cranked off the lid to find not a can swimming with luxurious gravy, but a similarly colored yet not entirely appetizing brown gel. I was still greeted with the same carrots and smaller yet appropriately textured potatoes, but no visible meat. Worrying now about the quality of my dinner to be, I dug out a familiar brown chunk and tested it. While not particularly bad flavored, the meat reminded me more of a wad of wet sawdust that someone had briefly explained the role of stew meat to, but had not experienced it first hand.
What real Dinty Moore brand beef stew should look like.
This last atrocity being too much for me to bear, I put the opened can on the floor for the cats and ate a bowl of cereal.
I wish I didn’t have to admit it, but this is not the first time such events have taken place. I used to LOVE macaroni and cheese, but boxes I’ve bought over the past 9 years just don’t have the cheesy tanginess that I’m used to (which has caused more than one poor box of macaroni to be hurled across my kitchen in frustration). I’ve been similarly disappointed with Healthy Choice dinners. I used to think that was pretty damn quality food (for a tv dinner), and now I won’t even buy them on clearance.
Has packaged food quality really taken such a drastic turn for the worse, or am I so acclimated to the typical California Organic Everything ™ movement that now I see these foods for what they really are? This starving hippy geek would love to know.
Unfortunately it cuts off after 3 minutes, but otherwise it sounds pretty good through Grand Central. I don’t even remember what I needed cheering up about (he sent this last week), but it really did make me giggle.
