What's Cooking?

Why yes, I did bike to work again today. Why do you ask?

Actually, it felt easier today than it did on Monday, and I haven't even been sore. I must be in pretty good shape! I ditched the backpack and only brought a change of clothes, my Handspring, and a book with me in my rack bag. Then I stopped at the comic book store on the way home and somehow crammed a bunch of comics in there, too (without damaging them!). It's much nicer to bike without a backpack.

Unfortunately, there are few places near the comic book store where I can lock up my bike. Fortunately, there's a space inside where I was able to stash it while I was there. Handy, that.

It still took me about 40 minutes each way, though. Hopefully that will improve with endurance.

Went up to Debbi's last night, since we're not going to see much of each other this weekend, as I'll be spending most of my time at Worldcon. (Friends have asked how much time I'll be spending there. My response has been, "As long as my endurance keeps me going and there are things I want to see, I'll be there." I think most of my friends out here have not been to SF conventions, so don't know what they're like.)

Debbi cooked dinner for me: Chicken breasts with rice, broccoli and (I think) cream of chicken soup. It was yummy! Debbi commented part-way through that she was feeling self-conscious, even though she'd cooked dinner for me before. She said it might be because I'd been "cooking all these gourmet meals for her". My rather flippant response was something like, "Oh, is that what they were?"

Truthfully, though, I mostly feel like I'm just following recipes. Because, mostly, I am. I guess I've done enough cooking that the skill mostly feels demystified to me - at least at the level I'm cooking. I know I'm not cooking real gourmet meals, and I've cooked plenty of hamburgers and hash browns for the two of us in recent months, besides. Even beyond that, I know how frustrated I get when I follow a recipe and a dish doesn't turn out right for some reason (especially a dish that I've made before!).

The bottom line is that I don't think Debbi (hi, Debbi!) has anything to feel nervous about (especially since the dinner she cooked last Thanksgiving was quite excellent!). And I'm happy to have her cook for me anytime! But it's nice to be complimented, too.

Have I mentioned that I joined a couple of fantasy football leagues this year? Well, only one is a fantasy football league; the other is just a pick-the-winners-of-the-week's-games pool. Both are run by Deb's sister Janine. I've been in a pick 'em pool before, back at Epic (and I did pretty well, too), but I've never done the fantasy football thing. This is a Yahoo fantasy football league, and we're doing an automatic draft, where we can rank players in the order we want them, but the computer then does the draft from our lists automatically. So I've been boning up on players, and making my rankings. (My scheme ranks kickers somewhat higher and tight ends somewhat lower than other rankings I've seen.)

So this should be amusing. If nothing else, I'll probably learn a lot more about football players than I've ever known before.

So Friday is the date the Major League Baseball Players' Association has set as a strike date, if they don't have a new contract. Will a strike happen? There seem to be three plausible scenarios:

1. The owners, spooked by the possibility of lost revenue (many more of them have new debts to service since 1994, such as the Giants and Pacific Bell Park), will take the best available offer and avert a strike.
2. The players will strike, and then the owners will cave after a few days.
3. The players will strike, and there will be no more baseball this year, because the players are strongly motivated not to cave, and the owners might manage to keep their unity together, at least for two months.

So, we'll see.

For me, with my Red Sox fading fast (having just dropped two miserable games to the Hated Yorkies), the biggest motivation I have to see the season continue is that my fantasy team is finally perking up, especially the pitching. Well, that and the possibility that I might be able to see an A's playoff game, maybe.