We Interrupt Your Previously Scheduled Blog Posting For A Rant About Foodstuffs

You may remember, Internet Chickadoos, that on Thursday I promised you a planned blog-post for both Friday and today. Well...at least I managed to deliver on Friday (what with it being Fiction Friday and all.) But seriously, I really have got a blog post planned based on the events of the weekend - I just need someone (who, in all actuality is most likely not reading this post) to upload the pictures from said event so that I have access to them. You see, from about 6pm Friday until roughly midday yesterday I was at a Bathurst nerd event called 'The Weekender' - this is basically a weekend long LAN party, held by the people who organise the LAN known as The LAN (and once more for good measure: LAN.) I had planned today's blog post as a kind of "wrap-up" of the goings-on there, but I want to wait for pictures.

Don't You Give Me That Error Message Young Man, I Demand Images!

So instead you get what follows...

You will perhaps recall a previous blog post in which I spoke about being afraid to try new things (as far as eating goes anyway) and my efforts to break this cycle, in which I force myself into eating new things by bringing them to lunch with me at work (where, if I don't eat them, I will soon succumb to the pains of hunger and surely whither and die!) Well, this is (I think) going quite well - I have thus far forced myself into eating eggplant, carrot, broccolini, anchovies, chilli (I've been getting hotter and hotter there, too), and various other things that I thought I'd never like. It turns out that I don't really mind any of them (although some of them are a little bitter and I'd rather not mix them with other things because they just don't go well together...)

I Wanted A Picture (Or The Actual Video) From The Dip Commercial Where The Shunned Food Is All: "Fine I'll Have My Own <bleep>ing Party", But I Couldn't Find Anything On The Net About It At All. Instead, A Food Fight.

One thing that I have noticed, however, in my shopping trips is that various pieces of produce are named in ways that exist seemingly to confuse and bewilder the customer into buying things that they otherwise would never consume. Examples of this can be found everywhere - you may have even seen some yourself and wondered "What the figjam is that thing?!" but been too terrified to taste them. Well, I have decided (literally just as I write this) that, each time I go shopping, I shall purchase one of these insane foodstuffs and eat it - just for you. I may even take reactionary stills or video so that you can see just what it is really like. Is that what you want Internet Land - will that finally make you happy?! Well, good, because I love making you happy (especially if you are, as it has been rumoured, some kind of daemon that I have to sacrifice my dignity to on a frequent basis in order to keep you from killing my family and friends using your magic lightning bullets.)

I really think that a mandate needs to be created that ensures that supermarkets and fresh-produce stores have information sheets about their foodstuffs, so as to prevent congestion when the new, tech-savvy generation of shoppers starts whipping out their smart-phones in order to search wikipedia for information about the great purple lump that is clearly not eggplant staring them in the face. These fact sheets should read something along the line of: "[Name] - [Classification]. [Basic Description]. [How To Prepare]. [Recipe Idea]. [If You Like (Other Piece Of Produce) You Will Like This]." This would also stop me from wasting money on fruit, vegetables, berries, and otherwise that I would later discover that I just don't enjoy - I'm looking at you grapefruit!!

Technically This Is The Indian Mulberry, But It Is The Most Visually Disgusting Fruit That I Can Think Of

So far I have a short list of foods that have intrigued me - the impetus of this blog was, in fact, a two-note word that I discovered in my phone which simply stated "Apple Cucumber", which stems from the fact that I was walking through Harris Farm and couldn't figure out how the apple actually factored into it (did it taste like apples, was it a texture thing, or was it simply that it kind of resembled an apple?) Other foods that have caused me similar weird-out scenarios are: lemon bergamot pears, custard apples, and dragonfruit (although I am quite eager to see what dragon tastes like, if the "dragon" is a descriptor of flavour!) To aid my taste adventures, I hope that you will contribute your own foods so that I have a constant stream of things that I'm eating and discussing. Deliciousness ho!

Hi-Ho Taste-Wagon! AWAY!!

The moral of this story is that trying new things is still difficult, but it is getting easier. For one thing, the weekend LAN that I went to was the first time I'd ever done something like that, and it didn't turn out to be half bad at all. As for breaking with my plans, well I'm getting better at doing that as well, and not following through on some rituals is getting to concern me to the point where I now just don't care. I might, however, be making up for this in other weirdness facets, as today's blog came from a two-word note on my phone which just named food.