The curry bowl is crashing onto my poor stomach

Right now I am sitting at my laptop nearly doubled over in agony.

Two-and-a-half hours ago I made curry rice for the first time in my life. It is a dish that I grew up eating, and in fact is one that I often requested for my birthday dinner. I like it a lot. That being said, there are limits to how much I can like it.

Tonight I made two go of rice, or two uncooked cups. This amounts to about five cups once cooked. In addition to that I made a large frying pan full of curry, filled with two chicken breasts, a cut-up potato, and a large chopped carrot. This resulted in a good amount of truly delicious food, which I subsequently ate while watching two episodes of House, MD. Each episode takes forty-five minutes to watch, which tells you about how long I was eating. I also had a large glass of milk.

I am now suffering the consequences of my actions. I can’t even take a deep breath.

To say I have a stomachache would be a gross understatement. Indeed, I can only describe the state of discomfort I am in by defaulting to the Japanese phrase for stomachache - onakawo kowashita (おなか壊した). Translated literally, this means “I broke my stomach”. The word “broke” here, though, is not just describing any breaking. This is different from a car breaking down or a relationship breaking apart. It is accidental, though not analogous to breaking a drinking glass. The closest description I can think of for it is the accidental toppling of a Jenga tower by pulling out the wrong block. You broke the tower. There is a very distinct difference in state from before you pulled the block as opposed to after. There is a tipping point. I passed that Jenga point in my bowl of curry with 6 spoonfuls yet to go.

I am going to bed. If I can walk that far...

Elvis Presley Really Dead At 73

Elvis Presley, known to many as the hip-gyrating rock and roller of their parents’ generation and also that guy in Forrest Gump, passed away in his sleep on Thursday at the Deep Lakes Nursing Home in Hugoton, Kansas. He was 73.

The rock music legend and idol of impersonators everywhere had dropped out of the public eye in the late seventies due to his doctors advice regarding a malignant tumor they found in his left lung. Mr. Presley received treatment at eh University of Minnesota Medical Center for four years, eventually kicking the cancer. By this time, however, Van Halen and other heavy metal groups had taken over the commercial music scene and Elvis decided to let his legacy live on rather then be like Michael Jordan and keep coming back into the unforgiving public eye. He was reported to have watched his own funeral in amusement, glad that so many people cared about his movies and musical performances, and often cited that his disappearance would likely go down in history as” the greatest act of show-business since Jimi Hendrix played the Star-Spangled Banner live with that bitchin’ white Mexican Fender copy.”

Presley was perhaps best known for stealing black music such as soul and R&B and turning it into something a white guy could jig to. His hip-wiggling performances, it is said, “reddened many a mother’s face and captured many a teenage girl’s heart.” While Elvis was certainly a heart-throb at the time, he did have trouble with alcoholism and in his later performing years gave concerts that were, according to Elvis historian Adrianne Gentling, “basically indecipherable gobblygook. He would do weird stuff like call down aliens from the stars and promote various baby formulas. It got pretty crazy when he was drunk on stage.”

Elvis’ music touched lives worldwide and can still be purchased at many music retailers such as Wal-Mart, iTunes, and your local used record store. Says music critic Damien Stoll of www.cheaptunereviews.com, “You listen to the music of Elvis and you get taken to a whole other world. For a rock musician, a lot of things considered ‘staples’ of the rock genre are absent. There’s no electric guitars, no double-bass work, no dazzling two-hand-tapping solos - none of that. It’s just a guy playing a mediocre acoustic guitar and making us picture him moving his hips. But despite all this, his influence is no doubt very evident in the work of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Buddy Holly, and Black Sabbath. Well, maybe not Sabbath.”

The famous entertainer moved into Deep Lakes Homes in 1990, after years of drug and alcohol use started taking their toll and dementia set it. He seemed to enjoy the retirement home a great deal, and most of the other old folks at the home agreed that Elvis was “a bit forgetful, but generally very pleasant and cracking jokes.” “He also really like to play Scrabble on Mondays, “ says long-time resident Elma Ponzani. The funeral will take place at First Memorial Funeral Home at 145 Marshall Ave. at 5:30 pm on Tuesday.


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