Guaranteed fantasy baseball sleeper.

I am a fantasy baseball junkie. I spend a staggering amount of time adjusting and fawning over my team. I am fluent in sabermetric-speak, I can tell you who's second in line for the closer gig on each AL West team, and I generally know who's leading the PCL in home runs at any given time.

With this wealth of information at my disposal, I have it in my power to provide insightful tips to my fellow fantasy addicts. Today, I will grace you with one such juicy bit of information: a surefire can't-miss sleeper.

Drumroll, please.

This sleeper is Adam Jones, center fielder for the lowly Baltimore Orioles. He has been quiet thus far, but I guarantee he'll wake up in short order. And then - look out.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

Wrestling the Blob

A couple of days ago I had an interesting experience with a ball of protein.

More specifically, this was a culinary experience, and the protein was wheat gluten. You're probably salivating already, no?

The form of wheat gluten that's used as a meat substitute is known as seitan. I've had seitan several times, and my experiences can be summarized thusly: when it tries too hard to simulate meat, it's gross. Seriously, if you want and expect a piece of chicken or pork, seitan might actually make you gag. But if you can get away from any meat pretensions, it's fine. Unobjectionable.

I read that the stuff isn't terribly challenging to make, so I decided to give it a go. The first recipe I found called for a cup of regular flour mixed with a cup of bread flour (the latter has a higher gluten content). These are combined with just enough water to form a ball of dough. This mass is then washed and kneaded constantly under running water for 20-30 minutes. This rinses away starch, leaving just the gluten behind. The comments that accompanied the instructions made the procedure sound a bit like wrestling the Blob for half an hour. I expected that this would be fun for approximately three of the prescribed thirty minutes.

The second recipe I came across offered a considerably more direct approach: buy gluten, mix with water. Done and done. Adding water formed an elastic dough more or less on contact with the gluten. This was kind of cool. Mixing cement probably works basically the same way. I was hopeful that the end products would prove to be vastly different.

After mixing the dough, I halfheartedly kneaded it for a few minutes. This step, while not absolutely necessary, apparently will yield a better texture. Next, I cut the dough into small chunks, and put these in a pot of boiling vegetable broth.

Hungry yet?

An hour later, I removed the faintly gefilte fish-esque nuggets from the hot broth. At this point, based solely on appearance, I was about 75% certain that there was no way this crap was going to be any good. At all. But I soldiered on. Now, the seitan was ready to be used in a recipe. I chose a basic piccata from a popular NYC vegan joint's cookbook. It included all of the classic ingredients you might expect: lemon, wine, capers...soy margarine. I followed the directions to the letter.

The end product was surprisingly decent. The seitan would absolutely never, ever be confused for meat. However, it had a pleasantly chewy texture to it, and it didn't taste like shit - allowing the unequivocally excellent sauce to be the star of the show. My simple yardstick for judging any food item is whether or not I'd choose to eat it again, and the answer here was yes.

So I'll give this another shot in the future. Maybe I'll even try the full-on shortcut-less version. I could probably use the exercise.

Golden Garrison?

Man craves secure shelter. This is a basic instinct we share with creatures of all shapes and sizes. The grizzly bear seeks a cozy den, the chipmunk a comfortable burrow, Superman his Fortress of Solitude, the louse a warm thicket of hair. To satisfy this instinct, I seek such a sanctuary at my office.

My desk is a traditional L-shaped cubicle. The two walls are approximately nipple-high, and I sit fully exposed in the other two directions. This affords me little protection from the elements.
I define "the elements" as people who want me to do shit for them. My goal is to avoid such individuals at all costs. Other examples of "the elements" include persons uncomfortable with viewing a man sit pantless at his desk. I have no time for them.

I'm better off than many of my coworkers, in that I sit at the window end of a row of cubes; it's unlikely (though not, theoretically, impossible) that the elements will intrude upon me from outside the building (let's face it, if something actually comes at me through the window, shelter will be the least of my problems). A network printer does sit a few feet away from me, however, and those folks who output to this device regularly file past me.

I should probably attempt to detonate that printer.

In order to protect myself from the elements, I'm considering constructing a physical shelter on or under my desk. The shelter must meet the following four criteria:

• It must be relatively discreet, and cannot draw attention to itself. A solid gold bunker would attract onlookers, so even though I would be safe inside, I would be in great danger upon egress.
• It must be relatively inexpensive. This is another strike against the solid gold bunker.
• I must somehow complete the construction without anyone noticing. At this point the golden bunker idea is basically dead.
• The shelter cannot get me fired.

I have a basic ten-step project plan in my mind, which goes as follows:

1. Measure the open area underneath my desk.
2. Purchase a sheet of plywood, along with wood glue and a set of hinges.
3. Using my radial arm saw, cut the plywood into a series of short planks. Also cut one wider plank that will serve as a door (approximately the width of my torso). Measure and pre-drill the door (and the plank that it will be attached to) for the hinges.
4. Using my router, create a groove on one side of each plank, and a tongue on the other.
5. Over a period of a week or two, discreetly smuggle the planks into the office and hide them in a desk drawer. Perhaps each day I will insert one plank into each shoe (running up my lower legs) and one into the back of my pants. If anybody asks about my unusual posture and stiff gait, I will mention constipation, or perhaps mumble something about accidentally sitting on a bottle. This should dissuade any further interrogation.
6. One evening after everyone has left for the day, assemble the planks with the glue. Screw hinges into place. Screw the end planks into the desk.
7. Squirt glue all over the exterior of the shelter. Create office camouflage by haphazardly throwing files, pens, staplers, etcetera against shelter. Keep adding glue and detritus until wood surface is no longer visible.
8. Run extension cord and network cable behind desk so they are accessible from beneath. Decorate interior with the finest silks and linens.
9. Gaze contentedly at my creation.
10. Hide from the world.

Though this all sounds pretty damn good, I do see a few problems with this plan. Upon first blush:

• This sort of construction may not provide the level of security I require. For example, it is neither fireproof nor bulletproof.
• I have absolutely no idea how to cut tongues and grooves with my router. I'm likely to lose a finger.
• I have absolutely no idea how to use my radial arm saw. I'm likely to amputate something important. (This last statement is probably redundant.)
• A man-sized plank will not fit into the back of my pants.
• I may have used the sitting-on-a-bottle thing too many times already.

None of these is a dealbreaker. It's just a matter of hammering out the details. A little aluminum spaceframe here, some kevlar there, perhaps a dash of asbestos insulation - and I'll be good to go. Hopefully my next post will be made from the intimate confines of my impregnable underdesk fortress.

Abstract Dew Art and Ventilated Panettones

This week my company moved to a new office building. This is important to me for one major reason: I now have a brand new cubicle to fill with my own special brand of crapola. One way or another, I will make it mine. I view my cube as an extension of my personality. Unfortunately, in the vast vanilla homegeneity of corporate America, there are obviously limits to what I can get away with. But that hasn't stopped me from pushing the proverbial envelope.

During my time as a contributing member of the workforce, I have occupied a total of five different cubicles - and I have tried my very best to put the indelible stamp of Craig on each and every one. I refer to one of my more memorable efforts as the "Dewscape". There was a period in my life when I suffered from an inexplicable addiction to Mountain Dew. This is probably fodder for a whole other post, but suffice it to say I drank a ton of that shit. For example, there was a two-year period during which every workday afternoon was punctuated by a Dew Break, held in the company cafeteria and attended by myself and a small cadre of colleagues. It was like a smoke break, except instead of sucking on cigarettes, we'd chug unnaturally-colored, super-caffeinated carbonated beverages. That amounted to five 20-ounce Dewskis per week (or 12-ounce cans when the bottle vending machines ran dry)...plus the gallon-sized buckets I'd fill every Thursday at Taco Bell...sheesh, it's a wonder I'm still alive.

In any event, I'm honestly not sure how it started, but I found myself saving all those cans and bottles. I believe I was initially toying with a Kramer-inspired run to Michigan to recoup some of my contributions to PepsiCo...but that idea fizzled. Instead, I began lining the bottles up along the windowsill behind my desk. When I ran out of room there, I looked for more real estate to Dew-ify. Bottles found homes on any spare square inch of my desk. I used paperclips and tacks to attach cans to my cubicle walls. I purchased a hot glue gun and cemented a couple dozen bottles together to form a sort of abstract sculpture, and then hung it from the ceiling with a paperclip cord - like a chandelier. It was beautiful, in a way. This went on for several months, until some asshole complained to HR (I have my suspicions as to the identity of the culprit). I mean, sure, it was totally unprofessional and certainly bizarre, but it surely wasn't hurting anyone. The Dewscape was perfectly sanitary (I took pains to rinse out the vessels before positioning them). Still, HR told me I needed to dismantle my creation. The guy was nice about it, but firm. I remember he e-mailed me offering to send over some large moving boxes in case I wanted to take the bottles and cans home. The fact that he even made that suggestion told me he thought I was completely bonkers.

While the Dewscape hurt no one, another cubical creation threatened to cause actual bodily injury. The team I worked with at the time was cordoned off into a six-desk area - a wall, then five cubes in a row, and parallel to that a long desk space which I shared with a couple of printers. It was actually a pretty crappy setup. However, one day I realized that I sat approximately regulation dartboard distance away from the wall. I scrawled a few misshapen concentric circles on a patch of cardboard, glued said cardboard to the aforementioned wall, and purchased a set of darts at a nearby Sports Authority (real darts, not the stupid soft-tips - when it comes to darts, I mean business).

Voila - instant entertainment.

Coworkers would regularly stop by for a quick game, which rapidly evolved from traditional cricket-style scoring to "hit whatever weird shit we stuck to the board". Later, the goal became to punish that shit by throwing as hard as possible. Items included business cards of our least agreeable customers, pictures of the Taco Bell chihuahua and Chevy Chase, and ketchup packets. The bullseye was a stale, rock-hard, year-old muffin-sized panettone (a traditional Italian cake, given to us as a component of a holiday gift basket), which was remarkably satisfying to nail with a dart. One of the guys I worked with pitched in college. It was hilarious watching him wind up and hurl one of those little metal missiles with fastball velocity completely through the panettone.

Good times. Generally speaking.

Upon release, the dart flew past five open cubes. At any time, it was theoretically possible (or likely) that one of those cube denizens would poke his or her head out into the field of play, and thus interrupt the projectile's flight path with his or her face. This added an element of excitement to the game. However, in order to ensure that no one was killed, we instituted some loose safety regulations. Throws were prefaced with warnings such as "Fire in the hole!", "Torpedoes away!", or simply "INCOMING!" Upon reflection, it's actually pretty incredible that no one was ever wounded. The office wall, unfortunately, was not quite so lucky. With all the forceful dart-launching, inevitably, it was peppered with holes. When we eventually moved out of that area of the office, I took a poster off of a nearby wall and hung it over the damage - no one was ever the wiser. Or at least, no one ever asked me about it. I'm sure at some point the poster was moved and the pock-marked sheetrock was discovered. Those folks probably assumed somebody went nuts with a .22.

I have some ideas for my new cube, which I'll work on and detail in the next post. As I've grown older and (ostensibly) wiser, I think I'll make an effort to err on the side of safety and good taste. Perhaps I'll go with Moet instead of Mountain Dew. And maybe I'll go for the stupid soft-tipped darts this time around.

Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?

The etymology of these two words dates back to the early twentieth century, shortly after the birth of the automobile. This grand invention ushered in a whole new set of problems for our nation's transportation highways and byways. Previously, a 'paved' road meant little more than a narrow strip of crushed stone. This was a fine surface for a horse and carriage to travel upon (neither the horse nor the riders expected much in the way of a smooth ride), but it certainly wouldn't do for the automobile. This horseless carriage provided a much faster and more economical means to get from point A to point B, but the price for this convenience was twofold: the dangers concomitant with high speeds, and the inevitable wear and tear on the roadways. It wasn't long before the leaders of each state's newly formed Departments of Transportation got together with industrial scientists to produce a magical material which today we take for granted - namely, asphalt. This 'Black Carpet' as it was called seemed the perfect answer - it was tough, stable, and would not deform under the pressures of rapid acceleration or braking. There was but one problem - it was expensive to produce. The industrial giants were not yet prepared to turn out asphalt as quickly as was needed - neither the equipment nor the manpower was available. It would be the 1930's before this dilemma was to be solved. In the meantime, the little asphalt that was produced was used not necessarily where it was needed most, but instead where people were willing to pay for it. Thus, three major arenas were blacktopped first. Initially paved were the racetracks, such as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - which previously had resorted to a succession of wooden boards to provide the requisite traction for its speeding racers. Second came the main thoroughfares of our country's wealthiest cities. One of the first public asphalt-paved roads in the country (and one which was archetypal of those that would shortly follow) was the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Before the paving, the parkway had been, as its name suggests, a meandering road separating the outskirts of the city's bustling downtown from bucolic Fairmount Park. Such a city design was common at the turn of the century, having been initiated during Paris' Urban Rennaissance of the late 1800's. Thirdly came the private grounds of some of America's more well-to-do residents. Because driving at high speeds on the nation's chopped-stone highways was so singularly uncomfortable and dangerous, these citizens decided to construct private tracks on their own land. This would allow them to experience truly exhilirating driving. And these thoroughfares were dubbed 'driveways' because that's precisely what they were designed for. In time, the distinction between the public parkway and the private driveway became cemented in our collective consciousness, partly because they were for many years two of the only places one could find asphalt, and partly because they signified the classist divide evident during the Roaring Twenties.*

* This post is at least 85% false.

Wi-fi at the zoo

I would like to say that this blog has been many things to many people. In reality, it has been very few things to pretty much just one person.

I've waited over three years for a horde of infobahn travelers to become obsessed with my thoughts on fast food. I think I can now safely say that this group does not exist. Would that it did...but here we are.

Perhaps my audience does not have computer access. Imagine a Venn diagram where one circle represents the internet community at large, and another (possibly smaller) circle represents the portion of humanity that is desperate to read about the Laws of Fastfoodynamics.

These circles do not intersect.

Perhaps my audience is non-human. Monkeys would find this shit fascinating. But it's just so tough for them to get online.

The reason is neither here nor there. It's high time for a reboot. Rather than completely scrap this blog, I'm going to make an effort to transform it into something with a touch broader appeal. Look for a ten-part series on simian internet surfing, and the challenges they face therein.

Before I start posting new crap, I'm going to dig through my archives of some of my other defunct blogs and throw up some items that amused me for one reason or another. You know, for posterity. Or whatever.

More than thinly-sliced beef McNuggets

Arby's carved itself a unique niche with its unusual menu revolving around "roast beef". I put the term in quotations because the material does not resemble any other roast beef-type substance you're likely to encounter. Because it's chopped and formed, it's kind of like a huge beef McNugget. Now, let me make it clear that I point this out not to knock Arby's - in fact, whatever the stuff is, I think it's tasty, particularly slathered with Horsey Sauce. I just like to call a spade a spade.

Arby's menu has long consisted mostly of various iterations of the "roast beef" sandwich - regular, large, Big Montana (a.k.a. more "roast beef" than any single human should consume at one sitting), beef n' cheddar, etcetera. They've also sold a pretty strong fried chicken tender, plus the famous fries (curly or regular). A couple of years back, the Arby's powers-that-be introduced the Market Fresh line of sandwiches.

Kentucky Nude Chicken

Last week I had the opportunity to partake in KFC's latest creation: Oven Roasted Strips. It's an intriguing concept. Some people don't want all that fried crap with their, errr, fried chicken. They want a healthier, non-fried option. So KFC made the denuded strips an actual menu item. Kind of clever, if you ask me.

In reality, the strips are covered with a thin breading - but it's far less substantial than the thick, crunchy coating on the regular strips. It's more a vehicle for flavorings than anything else. But it's there, and if what you're really jonesing for is some Boston Market-style roasted chicken, these strips likely won't satisfy.

The strips are currently available either in a Twister (KFC-speak for a wrap) or as part of a meal. I went with the latter in an effort to get a better feel for the strips themselves (I figured wrapping them up along with lettuce, tomato, and mayo would make it tougher to get a good read on them). Sayeth KFC: "The new Oven Roasted Strips Meal consists of three freshly prepared boneless chicken filet strips seasoned with a unique blend of herbs and spices, served over a bed of long-grain rice with a side of southern-style green beans." My verdict? They're tasty, but unfortunately they're way oversalted. More on that in a bit. The rice was decent - a little salty, but no other complaints - but sadly the "southern-style" beans were downright awful. Limp, gray, watery, and - yes - salty.

Sense a trend?

The meal carries some fascinating nutritional data: 420 calories, 7 grams of fat (2.5 saturated), 6 grams of fiber, 38 grams of protein, plus 25% of the RDA of vitamin A, 10% of calcium, and 20% of iron. Super. Sounds like health food. BUT...it's also got 90 mg of cholesterol, 50 grams of carbs, and a stunning 2410 mg of sodium. That, to me, is absolutely amazing. Keep in mind that the RDA of sodium is 2400 mg. For comparison, in order to match that staggering total, you'd need six regular recipe fried drumsticks, or seven standard beef tacos at TB, or seven orders of large fries at McD's, or two double Whoppers at BK. And none of those combinations are what I'd call health food. Yes, fat is flavor, and meals that are low in fat have to compensate somehow. But pouring on the salt is not a good answer.

The ratings below are for the Strips Meal, not for the chicken itself. The strips alone would have fared slightly better, but overall, I can't say I'm a fan.

Taste - 1.5 nachos - The salty salt was salted with salt, which salted the salty saltification of the salt salt. Salt? You salted it.
Value - 3.0 nachos - The meal is very reasonably priced. Not a lot of food, but not an unreasonably small portion, either.
Innovation - 2.5 nachos - The strips were kind of a clever idea. But poorly executed. Pairing them with boring rice and terrible beans was not a great decision, either.
Overall - 2.0 nachos - KFC needs to rethink this one. I definitely think the concept has potential - but in its current incarnation, I don't see why anyone would come back for seconds.

The Song of Steve

I was going to try to present the story of Steve as a form of epic poetry, hence the title of this post. But all the epic poetry writing I've done (including, but not limited to, a sequel to the Longfellow piece entitled "Hiawatha II: Chief Charlie and the Wicked Wigwam") tells me that the format is too limiting, and wouldn't allow me to fully delve into the details that make the story so intriguing.

Allow me to introduce you to Steve, a coworker of mine. Steve's a good dude. He had been with my company for a few years before I really got to know him. At that point, it slowly began to dawn on me that Steve wasn't a regular guy. He was special. Unique, even. Why?

Steve ate more fast food than I ever thought possible.

Like clockwork, every weekday included a trip to BK for lunch, and then dinner at Wendy's. Every now and then he'd mix it up by forgoing Wendy's - for more BK. The man loved his King.

There's more. Much more. Steve's uniqueness was not limited to the sheer quantity of food he consumed. More impressive was the specific items he ordered.

Lunch (BK): King-sized Double Cheeseburger meal. With a Coke.
Dinner (Wendy's): Spicy chicken meal.

Steve and I worked together for few years, and he rarely - if ever - strayed from this pattern. Every now and then he'd tack a Hershey's pie on to the BK meal. I remember once he tried a triple cheeseburger. And sometimes he'd get his meal regular-sized. But that was about the extent of his intrepidity.

Why the double chee, and never the Whopper? "Too much vegetation." Right, Steve, wouldn't want a piece of lettuce to get in the way of all that beef. Moreover, he'd remove the L & T from the spicy chicken sandwich, again, because he couldn't stomach the greenery.

There was even a very specific ritual associated with the lunch routine. Despite the fact that there are multiple BK franchises within a short radius of our company, Steve would visit the same location every time ("The Coke is better there," he'd say). He'd always use the drive-thru, then take his meal to a parking area adjacent to a river, and eat the meal in his car while listening to the Dan Patrick show on ESPN radio. I wonder how Dan would feel if he knew that he was such an integral part of Steve' life.

He went there so often that the BK drive-thru attendants came to know him. His meal was ready for him before he even placed the order. Sometimes he was given a free Hershey's Pie, sometimes they'd upsize his meal for free. Once, one of the attendants confided that her coworker was attracted to him. Steve responded with, "That's nice, thanks," before speeding away.

As an aside, that's a woman I'd love to have a brief conversation with. Although the relationship went nowhere, perhaps it was a prospective fairy tale romance that was simply never meant to be. Or perhaps she was just desperate. Who falls for a guy who eats cheeseburgers every day, anyway?

Health issues? Highest cholesterol physician had ever seen, etc.