Remy of FoodOddities.com is my ideal child

Now, all of my friends and even a few of people I vaguely associate with know at least these two things about me: 1) I remember where I've gone by what I've eaten and 2)  I will eat pretty much anything put in front of me.  If I could get a gig as the younger, female version of Anthony Bourdain I'd be the happiest girl in the world. Much like Tony, and his fellow traveling chef Andrew Zimmern,  I believe that food is the best way to experience and get closer to other cultures - not to mention a wonderful bonding experience. 

Another thing you need to know about me - my #1 fear about having a child is that they will be a picky eater. I'm pretty sure I've even had nightmares about it. I have never been a picky eater. Ever. I've been ordering sea snails and chicken feet in black bean sauce at chinese restaurants since I was 5 and using chopsticks on sushi since I was 3.  Waiters freaking love me; I make their day.  Going out to eat with my picky eater friends (you know who you are) and my friends' picky children (fortunately its only a few of them) is like slow torture.  I hate when people close themselves off to new flavors and experiences (don't even get me started on people who cover their food in salt without even tasting it first. What - what - what are you doing?) I imagine that having my own child be a picky eater would be as close to a living hell as I could have. 

So, imagine my joy today when I found 10 year old Remy here on Youtube.  To quote from his bio on his website:

"Remy is a regular 10 year old boy from the Midwest United States who discovered at an early age that he liked a lot foods that regular kids just wouldn't touch.  Like spinach. And asparagus. And Brussels sprouts, and sushi, and practically everything else he could get his hands on.

So he decided to test his limits online, trying food unfamiliar to most Americans and giving his honest opinion."

Here he is, younger, eating one of my favorites - raw oysters - at The Maine Avenue Fish Market is Washington, D.C.

And here he cooking himself some fried pig brains

AND another favorite, as previously mentioned, Chicken Feet

Oh my god, I love this kid!  Seriously! He's he's well spoken, willing to try anything and ADORABLE! I'd like to imagine that if I'd had the resources and Youtube as a child, I would have been motivated enough to do what he's doing. Go over to his channel on Youtube and subscribe, or go to his website. Right now.  DO IT. Seriously, it was hard to narrow it down to just those three videos. 

Bionic Eye is almost a real thing. Blind Mag, Anyone?

So I read this story, last night.  Some German company has designed a camera that can be implanted to help the blind see.


 "The device is designed in such a way so that it  fits under the retina and works like a digital film camera.

Here we have a 3mm sq array of 1,500 light sensors that sends pulsed electrical signals to adjoining nerve cells, which relay the messages to the brain."

Apparently, patients in Germany who have already had the implant are "now able to recognize tables and chairs and have developed the practice of walking." What an oddly depressing way to say the (formerly?) blind people can now walk into a strange room without bumping into something. 

But cameras implanted into eyes? Does that remind anyone of, I don't know, a couple different movies?  My first thought? Repo! The Genetic Opera

Yes, Repo! The Genetic Opera. The only movie I can think of to have Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton in the same frame AT THE SAME TIME. And also the only "human puppet" scenes I can think of in a musical.

"Want me to do this bit while drinking a glass of water?"

Halloween (spoiler) Nights

On Friday night, my friend Juliane and I got in the car and drove down a packed I-4 to get to Universal Studios to meet up with an old friend of mine - Dori- from summer camp and some of her friends. Meeting up with Dori was an awesome bonus and a great way of solidifying a date to actually go to Halloween Horror Nights. We had actually been wanting to go for a while, but picking a day was proving a problem. We had gone to Howl-O-Scream a couple weekends before and been decidedly un-frightened (don't get me wrong, I was entertained but not freaked out in the slightest) so our main reason for wanting to go to Halloween Horror Nights was to make sure our "fear switches" weren't broken. I'd been told that "Disney does Christmas and Universal does Halloween" and that when they do it, they do it large - so I was excited.

We stopped for lunch at Toojays because I decided I needed a large half-sandwich with some matzo ball soup and also that Juliane needed to try a potato knish. . . on a related note, no one seems to be able to explain what a knish is without thinking about it for a minute, saying "um" and then going on to say some things that make them sound entirely unappetizing. And apparently "delicious" isn't enough of a description for my friends.

"What is it? Uh. . . . . well . . ."

I then decided Juliane needed to try my favorite gelato place which was just down the road. When we pulled in I was extremely sad to find that it had closed down. I would have just gone right to the park then, but I was all set to creamy gelato goodness AND Juliane had never had it before (gasp!) and that simply would not do. So I half-unwillingly took her to the gelato counter in Whole Foods. I couldn't stop thinking about how much I miss that other gelato place. . . until I actually ate the gelato, then I was all good.

We got there a good hour before Dori and her posse did, so we decided to hit at least one house before hand. On our way there we passed through one scare zone. . . maybe two . . . I don't really know, that map was hella-vague. First there were commando guys with chain saws - who I loved. My favorite part? Them doing a good minute and a half scene to lull the audience into a

sense of security and draw them in closer, then ending it by playing hokey-pokey with their chainsaws and running at the by then über close audience. Hi-lar-i-ous. Then we walked through some other scene, the theme of which i really wasn't sure of - but there were a lot of sweet,

sweet costumes and a couple people on stilts in sweet costumes.

Then we made it to the first of two houses, Havoc and the Catacombs, and for god-knows-what reason decided to go into The Catacombs. Now, the theme of this house was pretty self

explanatory. I knew I'd be walking through catacombs. What I did NOT know what these these were catacombs filled with victims of the plague. I was only a little nervous until I saw a picture of this:

(after the jump)

Back to. . . normal??

Well, I am finished with the Disney College Program. Of course what always happens when I go go go happened - I got sick. I'm still sick, actually. Head's stuffed, can't hear out of my left ear, all kinds of fun. Plus its like 20 degrees out. This is Florida, right?

The last few weeks as a CP were pretty crazy. After a lot of back and forth, I was finally

approved to be a seasonal cast member - which reminds me that I still need to post my availability. I celebrated my birthday - or didn't really celebrate my birthday - by making "birthday dumplings" with Lily. I only got to mix the filling and try my hand at forming the dumplings (regular and won ton) as I had to go to birthday lunch with my parents at Bahama Breeze. But she brought them to work for me for dinner and they were pretty darn tasty. :-)

I had to work Glow that night, which I was dreading, but it turned out alright. I actually had

a lot of fun and came out with my lowest variance ever - go me! Then, after work, I went with Carmen Maria to Colton's for Christmas cookies and milk. Now, we thought he'd just bought cookies - but no. Apparently its his tradition to bake cookies, so he actually baked cookies. They were damn good cookies too!

They were some kind of amazing peanut butter cookie. To quote Colton: "They're called Jailbreakers. Its an inside joke between me and my sister. . . Actually, I don't really remember why we called

them that. . ." The night actually lasted for quite some while for I don't know what reason - it was a lot of fun but not a lot happened. For the rest of the program I

hung out at Colton's a lot, and I guess we were kind of "seeing"

each other? I don't really know what to call what was going on, to be honest. But I can say that I'm a little sad that whatever it was didn't start happening sooner.

I was terrified for New Years Eve. I'd heard horror stories throughout the whole program about

how terrible it was going to be - how crowded it would get and how messed up the stores would be (I was on a stock shift, so that bit of info was especially scary.) But New Years was honestly fun. Admittedly, I did have a bit of a panic attack when it took me 10 minutes to get back from

the shed to the store before the first set of fireworks (it usually take like 2 minutes.) Other than that it was nice. Don and I went outside to watch the special New Years Eve fireworks at 11:40 and I'm so glad we did, they were amazing! Other than that, the night was pretty uneventful.

Well, except for that huge group of Brazilians that came passed the store at around 1:30 - they had bongos and noisemakers, best party ever. After work we all met up at IHOP for what was not that good of a meal, but a lot of fun regardless.

In short, I kinda miss my college program experience - living with everyone, seeing people I enjoy being around every day - but I will not miss being treated like a CP. By that I mean I will not miss having a roommate IN my room, I will not miss inspections, I will not miss having to be out of my friend's complex by a certain time at night . . . though I suppose that actually means that I will not miss Price Management. So, I guess what I mean is - I don't miss the program, I miss the people.

Things are looking up

Well I talked to one of my mangers last night and it seems that it is still possible for me to go seasonal. Hopefully this will turn out to be true at the end of the month and I will be able to remain part of the company. Joy :-)
In other news I'm down to a Disney size 4. Double joy.

Last week was crazy. After seeing Paranormal Activity, going costume shopping and to Waffle House, I woke up at 6am - insanely ill. It was probably massive amount of popcorn I ate, but I was in no condition for the gym the next morning - or the morning after that. Basically I missed a whole week of training. This is something my body was not happy about yesterday, my first day of training since.

My friend Jake has joined Bally's now as well. We had a training session this morning where he basically cursed me the whole time. But, he did promise himself he wasn't going to go home in the same shape he left so I told him all the hard work would be worth it.

I applied to 3 (technically 4) Professional Internships. So far I've had an interview for one (two, rather: CP Alumni Only. Guest Relations and Vacation Club Sales Assistant.) and I've been rejected for one (Public Relations). I still haven't heard back from Internship Three - Social Media and Marketing - or Weddings and Youth Marketing. I hope I get contacted for an interview soon.

In family news, my Uncle Larry died last Thursday. My family is in Orlando right now, but I called off for Bereavement Leave so I can go back to Tampa with them to help clean out the apartment. I'm so glad my Managers are so nice and understanding, I love my area. But my parents want to leave around 10am tomorrow. So I'm going with Jake to do a double training session again at 7:30am, then stopping by Walgreens to refill prescriptions, changing super-fast then meeting the parents at the gate.

And now, I have to go shower and get to bed. Hopefully I'm not as light of a sleeper as I was last night.

Not too shabby

At the end of a crazy week (work-wise and family-life-wise) was a pretty good day.

Tonight I worked Glow - which I was dreading. I like Glow while I'm out with the cart, but once I get back something always goes wrong to stress me out and ruin the night. Well, I haven't worked glow in a few weeks and since then they've moved all of the stuff to Norway. No longer are week counting and/or building our carts in a sweltering hot container. Now we're indoors, not only in shade but in the cool air conditioning (or in today's case, the warmth - it was freaking cold today.) So, that was a nice change. I was also Glowing with Ron and Rebeca. Ron is a fun guy and really chill, and I love Rebeca. She is adorable.

After a stress free count of the carts and a delicious dinner break (thanks for sending me that chili recipe, Kelley) I rolled my cart over to Germany. It's the Food and Wine Festival right now in Epcot, so the number of inebriates has multiplied. Those that I encountered tonight were hilarious. Two guys loved wearing the Chomping Skulls so much they came back and bought the two I had attached to my cart so they could wear them on their back, too.

At 9:20 I rolled my cart back without much trouble and after all the counts were done for the evening I had made $980 and was only short $11. Amazing. Best night Glowing, yet.

Tomorrow I have class at eight in the morning, then a personal training session with Ally at noon. I also have to stop by Partners to deposit some money into my Savings and possibly open a checking account, depending on how much time I have. Plus I have to work on my resume and apply for those last two Professional Internships I want. BUT in the evening I'm picking up Brittie and we are going to see Paranormal Activity (mmm movie theatre popcorn. . .) then the two of us and some coworkers are going on a hunt for Halloween costumes. Oh my gosh I just realized I only have a week left to go to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween. Eek!

So much to do, so little time.