Slow down, you move too fast.

I took a leisurely stroll today with my pulled groin. I’m not exactly sure if it’s a pulled groin, but I’m going to keep calling it that for entertainment purposes. I’ve never had a pulled groin and the pain is in the right spot, I believe, so I don’t feel that this should be characterized as lying. It could perhaps be exaggeration, as I do not know the degree of pain required for a pulled groin, and therefore, this is similar to the time when I had a hematoma after landing on my elbow while attempting to sweep while curling.

Anyway, during my leisurely stroll I did some window shopping and looked at many things that I do not need, such as LPs. I don’t have a record player and I am not currently in possession of any records, but they sure are nicer than CDs, as in they are bigger and prettier, more like art. You could hang them on your wall as decorations. HMV was selling some promotional LPs that were clearly marked “Not For Sale. Promotional Use Only.” I brought this to the attention of a nearby clerk and I was promptly escorted out of the store and told never to come back. Luckily, I was wearing my Sidney Bristow wig, hat and sunglasses, so they’ll never be able to identify me on any return visits. The last two sentences are lies or perhaps merely extreme exaggeration. Those events could have happened if I had pursued the matter and visited the Wig Shop prior to my Sunday jaunt.

This is turning into a James Frey post. Heh. I saw his second ‘book’ at The World’s Biggest Bookstore today, in the Bargains section. It was $5.99, overpriced in my opinion. However my opinion is not worth much since I didn’t actually read the book, but I did flip through it briefly when it first came out and was totally annoyed with the lack of paragraphs and punctuation and general order. I thought to myself “Who the hell would want to read this? It looks like crap. Drivel. Ugh.’ And then I put it back on the shelf. The two sentences I read were also not very interesting. So given the fact that I didn’t actually read the book, it’s irresponsible of me to pan it. But I can have an uneducated opinion, as is the case with many of my opinions.

I have not read any novels recently from new authors. I might try to read some short stories. I’m not sure I currently have the patience to start reading novels that I’m not certain I’ll like. It’s nice to go in knowing that you’ve already read this person’s work and enjoyed it. At least with short stories you don’t have to invest as much time. Though in the past I’ve usually preferred novels over shorts. I’ve been perusing a lot of cookbooks and reading some non-fiction about cooking and chefs, which has been pretty interesting. It also doesn’t totally require that you read things in chronological order, you can skip around and see where things are going. Sometimes I do that with novels I’m not too sure about; usually by that time I’m ready to pitch it, but I still want to see what happens since I’ve already started it. I like to know how things end. Anyway, in terms of cooking/chefs books, Michael Ruhlman is quite good- I’ve read “The Making of a Chef” and I’m 2/3 into “The Soul of a Chef” and I would recommend them both. He was also the writer for Thomas Keller’s books, “The French Laundry” and “Bouchon”, and he’s got a blog, which looks to be informative. I haven’t actually read anything on his blog yet, but I do enjoy his writing style. Those two books are ‘what it’s like to be a chef/learning to be a chef’ books rather than a straight cook book, but he’s also got some good cooking tips interspersed.