that's not my name

you have easter dinner with your family. you all meet at the olive garden because it's the only place you can all agree on, which is surprising because your brother-in-law doesn't like cheese. (Who doesn't like cheese?) If you imagined each of our food peculiarities as a Venn diagram (those overlapping circle thingies), then the singular point where all the circles meet up is Olive garden. It's much more painless this way.

We talked at length about pirates and how my stepdad is friends with retired U.S. General Abizaid. Who knew? I'm two degrees away from the guy who had the misfortune of being the successor to Gen. Tommy Franks in Iraq. To add to the non-sequitors in this, my dad wanted to name me General when I was born. He thought it was clever or something.

So, all family oddness over with, back home to wrestle with nonlinear programming and Hessian matrices, the situation calls for two things, both of them beverages. First, an after-dinner anis najar with an ice cube so it gets all weird cloudy and white (I guess it's called louching, which sounds dirty). Second, a cup of lapsang souchon tea, which is like drinking a bit of piney campfire. It sounds awful, yet if you're drinking caffeine in the evening it's a nice way to go.

And the Ting Tings on the headphones. Just for that added nasty dance pop flavor. Bring on the Hessians!