The pseudo-birthday grill special was a prime rib, and it did not disappoint. It probably wasn’t a true prime rib, I think that’s usually cut from the first 1-4 ribs of the steer, this was a second cut and wasn’t prime grade, but it was in the neighborhood. We picked it up at the Stop N Shop while they were on sale. Actually, I’d never seen them for sale at any price there. It’s hard to justify buying a $30 piece of meat for 2 people, but I threw it in for some occasion or maybe a night when M was out and I wanted to go on a beef bender. A few days before Sunday, I took it out to thaw and then age in the refrigerator. Then I made up a paste of salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary and black pepper grapeseed oil. Gave it a good coating, set it on the grill to cook for an hour and a half at 250-300 and we were good to go. We served it with some pepper skewers, sausages from the meat share, grilled onions and a potato salad I made with potatoes I roasted on the grill and tossed with ranch dressing, paprika, pepper sauce and some of the beef drippings. I made a bad joke at the meal about drenching the taters in rendered beef fat. I skimmed the fat off before I tossed in the drippings. That’s not to say I didn’t consider it, but I’m not looking for the gout before I am 50 at least. After 50, I’m open to it, but not before.
Much to M’s dismay and vocal displeasure football season is almost here, which means Fantasy Football (FFL) time. When I started my very first job, I was introduced to the game by a few of the older guys I worked with. They’d come in every day, bragging about how one of their players killed it the night before and there’d be a lot of trash talking for the better part of the morning. At the time, they were talking about baseball, but I’d never done fantasy sports so I didn’t know what was going on. When they invited me to their league, I was a little unsure about the cost - $100 to join? that was a lot of good times right there – so I split the cost with another co-worker and shared a team. Needless to say, we basically donated the money to the league as we were woefully unprepared. By the time the next season came around, I was hooked. Since the company itself was full of slackers and easy jobs, there was ample time to do research, talk trash and generally spend more time on fake sports leagues than actual honest work, but I wasn’t complaining. If all these other people could do it, why not me? This was still in the somewhat early days of the internet as we know it and FFL sites were nonexistent, which meant tons of time analyzing and researching the old fashioned way. It was an incredible time suck but I never had so much fun at work. FFL alone could not keep me at that brutally awful job, so I quit and traded (somewhat) lucrative and satisfying work for FFL glory. I still belong to that league. The draft isn’t until September 2nd and this year I may actually get to attend. I’ve missed the past 2 because of work traveling. I’m a mediocre player at best. Some years I catch a wild train ride to the finals, other times I stink out the place, but it’s always fun to send obscene emails and generally try to be as offensive as possible in the name of a game. Given this spotty history, I decided to double down on the frustration and worry and join a second league, this one made up of coworkers at my current employer. So far I have made it a point not to socialize too much with coworkers. I find that I spend quite enough time with them already. So far it’s been an interesting strategy. My utter lack of interest in work socializing has made my real life seem that much more mysterious to the people around me and I want to keep it that way. In FFL though, there is a good chance the worlds will collide, George Costanza-style. I’m a somewhat different person to my co-workers, a little more reserved, a little more conservative. To the FFL people, I’m a lot freer with my opinions. It’s going to be a hard line to walk. I’ve seen a few email battles already with the new league and I may have to bat the bees’ nest around a little.
So that’s about it, my train is empty, it’s raining and I’m feeling great. Another 1600 words of nonsense, courtesy of B.
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