FFEJWORLD:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN! FFEJWORLD”S very own Ben Stoltz is todays birthday boy, Ben is the fellow sitting on the floor, standing is his cousen Bob Castle. Ben is more then the techno wiz who maintains our server, more then the amazing patron of the arts who’s kept us fed this past month (the MRE’s came from him,) and more then just our best friend and all around nice guy. He’s got a real sense of humor, and isn’t afraid of being upstaged (check out Castle’s expression!) That and he’s my best friend, and expression i don’t use lightly, unless Dean is drunk…and yes, i know that i suck at birthday card writing, so don’t bother posting me about it…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN! AND MANY MORE!

Big image located here:ben1

FFEJWORLD, that boring intermittant weblog about a middle aged lawyer’s multiple personality dissorder, will probably be down all week, untill we can get a handle on the demolition order, and or drop dead of adrenaline overdose. While we’re being made homeless, we’d like to thank Kenneth Morrison, Jerry Boyle, Katherine Chronis and Damian Barda for their part in the chinese firedrill. Should this turn out to be just another false alarm on the long downhill slide, oh well. I have a dozer to stand in front of, and i hear it starting up again.

UPDATE: outside of the fact all the message passing occured friday, and i talked withmost if not all parties after the passing happened, i had a great call in to callahan this morning. Ric asked me if i was at home, and i said i had just walked in the door. Ric took this to mean i wasn’t in pilsen for somereason, and told me they were in fact worling on the lot, despite the holiday. which i thouroughly believed, since someone had in fact pulled down the adjunct scaffold to the porch. Ric also ensures me that Drew kept them from tearing down the building on friday. then i recieve lovely messages and phone calls which entirely conflict with this info. i can’t see pickets other lot from my window, but i can see half of pilsen, including guys in construction outfits emptying “my” backyard (i hope you brought that whellbarrow back, Katherine…) So i walk around the block, to the other Pickett yard, where their supposed to be hard at work. I took the long way rather then stop the row of ants hauling off shit in my back yard. and i find nothing but ants and one guy from a construiction crew down the street, who was told by some woman he could haul off what he wanted, because they were demoing the place manana. so i go home relieved. and then they start in on theshit in that yard with chainsaws. they did knock off by three though….damn, i’m down to the sliced pork MRE. yuck. time to go back to foetal position…

FINAL UPDATE: they were done by three. the hauled off half of pickets yard, removed a fence, and cut downa tree on the lot next to his. they put up a a police barricade over part of the lot. the ants quit by three as well. so much for no workon a national holiday. i plan on going down with the ship, not much sense in staying awake for the bull dozers, and i really don’t have the adrenaline to try and figure out who’s lieing and whos not. hopefully the dozers won’t wake ,me.

this is anon techy post for the web log.

PPPPFFFFFFFFFFFT!

Ok already, to forestall anymore questions, i’ll report on the MRE’s. That’s meals, ready to eat, an 8×10 inch polpolypropelyne bag filled with more little bags, most of them metalized mylar, one of them usually a ziploc with condiments and a SPORC. some of the things you’ve eaten already, or might have seen for sale, like the maxwell house coffee packets, sugar packets, chiclets, squezable cheeze spread, crackers, premoistened towelettes, etc. the mre pack also includes a commercial consumer cookie or brownie like entity, our neighborhood bodega used to sell them. there’s also a packet of bug juice (tang like stuff.) then there’s the main course and the appetizer, also in their own little metalized mylar bags. this can range from under cooked beef stew to overcooked mac and cheeze, and from buttered noodles to rice pilaf. heated, it tastes like indiana cafeteria food, or better grade airline food (made by some of the same companies.) unheated it tastes like my mothers cooking or dog food. or whatever chef boy ardi sells. so for me, eating an MRE brings back memories. some good, some bad. the major difference from canned consumer food is it’s lower in salt and the same or higher in fat, has fewer calories, and is slightly higher in protein, (well a lot higher, i just compared the beef stew info to a can of pasta gluck, and the can has more calories then the whole MRE pack, and less then half the protein and fiber. weighs more too…) all the nutritional info is on the boxes the bags reside in. unlike army MRE’s, there ain’t no toilet (scratch) paper in the pack. damn. there is a book of matches though. this stuff is no where near as gross as c or k rations, both of which i’ve eaten, or the “relief” foods i grew up on, or the shit i served when serving as the assistant vegi chef in the camp in ny (despite the same supplier for one of the appetizers.) it’s institutional food, but it’s much fresher then a can, and strangely more appetizing. think of it as the comfort food you feel guilty about. because the portions are all premeasured, you can’t gorge yourself, because the army literally runs on it, it’s not that bad for you, and because it’s all reassembled, and premeasured, you can’t get sick on it. i just nailed a beef stew and i’m stuffed, and i haven’t eaten the coffee, chiclets, chocolate drink or bug juice.

these are assembled by a company for consumers, out of army suppliers actual rations, as well as out of specially contracted rations. i first ate MRE’s in the 70’s, when they first hit the surplus market, as camp/hiking food. back then you were instructed to not drink the water you heated the bags in, because the dye would give you the runs. they really sucked back then, and several congressional investigations have lead to more palatable cuisine for our soldiers and relief workers all over the world (eating them cold is known as missionary style.) while i’m not my dad or brother with their horded pile of rotting c-ration cans in the basement (CREAMED CHIPPED BEEF ON TOAST=SHIT ON A SHINGLE,) i can rip one open and remember when the world was younger, i was younger, and my waist size was about what my thigh size is now, and i used to think nothing of taking off for a 20 mile walk down the appalachian trail (well, i used to think nothing of it, until i hit mile 15, and then i used to think i was a real moron for not spending the day in the library or the hobby store.) (shit, they were SO much better then the c and k rations we were fed on YMCA Indian Guides overnighters and camping trips, that shit was so foul, and such a con: they told us we would get a chocolate bar for lunch, and it was a k ration, special high temperature chocolate that wouldn’t melt in the jungle or desert–you had to heat it under your armpit or you’d break a tooth.) for those of you who miss the famed indiana chain of cafeterias (hot shoppes,) lunch lines, airline food or my mother’s cooking, dig right in. ok, it’s really no where near as bad as all that, but it’s really not all that interesting, it’s an MRE for shit’s sake, it’s just human fuel, purina human chow in a bag. and they blow kraft mac and sleaze OUT of the water. and i love playing with the cracker wrappers afterwards. and no you can’t have any of mine, now go away…

lest we forget the importent things in life, many thanks for the MRE’s to Stoltz Food Relief Services, a division of One Hell of a Guy llc. and happy birthday to neville and andrew, whenever the hell it really is. Hell, Happy Birthday to Ben as well, since i’ll get it wrong like i always do anyway…and happy birthday to my Grandmother, who is now 197, and my nephew Noam Chomski Terror, who is now 1, and to Dean, who can never be found, and to anyone else i missed. maybe this time i’ll get the repeating events thing to work in my PDA…

I couldn’t get in to my own aparttment because f blow driven snow the other day.

i’m wondering if anyone reads this on the weekends.

thanks to staci, for the good news!

Jeff Econmy film projects onthe 15th and 22nd, details to follow.

Nora’s party manana.

possible tutoring deal.

thanks to Ben for dinner!