Key and Peele

I've been reading Judd Apatow's anthology of interviews with various comedians over the years.
The interview with Key and Peele, which I read on the plane, is about what you expect. Peele points out specfically that he got bullied because he was a black guy who sounded white. They say that a lot of their material and unique perspective on culture and class comes from being biracial, from identifying from across a wide band of the spectrum of race and culture in America.

As I was reading, a flight attendant pushed the drink cart down the aisle, pausing on each row with a saccharine "would you like anything to drink?" One guy behind me asked if she could help with the wifi. She turned and summoned over her fellow flight attendant, also black, and gave her a brusque "hey, go flip the wifi switch and, um, wait a minute before you check on it," completely changing her tone of voice.

It reminded me of this BlackPeopleTwitter meme:

To her credit, the drinks flight attendant proceeded to help the man in what I assume was her real voice, somewhere in between her work cant with her coworker and her fake service voice.

first day after Ramengdan

For lunch, I had a banh mi and some pork on rice noodles. And 2 Skittles.
I also had Coke Zero for the first time in... 34 days? It honestly tasted different from what I remembered. Less sweet, more chemically. Not to say that the Ramengdan food was all natural, but it was bland for the most part.

For dinner, I went over to Whole Foods, planning on getting a ton of beets.
I didn't even know what to do with myself when I saw that the salad bar had no beets. How is that possible?

I got some kale with raw garlic, orzo, 2 perfunctory falafels, and a bit of ratatouille. I also shopped and got some chips and salsa, yogurt, cherries, and blueberries.

I have no idea how many calories it all was. I'd guess between 2000 and 2500. I wouldn't say it distresses me not knowing, but it did throw me off. Several things at Whole Foods didn't have nutrition labeling on them cuz they were store-made. In the past, I've asked about some such items and nobody could tell me what the nutritional info was. I don't care that much, but seems a little weak for a chain trading on a healthy image.

I've gotten one too many compliments at the gym to not keep up the body work. I'm sure I've lost some muscle mass, but I assume most of the 20lbs I've lost is fat. I think I'll target 2000 cals a day and see where that gets me.

Ramengdan 7/20

8.

Last day. Holding up. Not sure what happens tomorrow.

Lunch: chicken, corn

Dinner: oatmeal. That's all I have left at the apartment from the initial supply.

the sin bin

In the course of shopping for other things, I picked up a few things that seemed really delicious. I never ate it during Ramengdan, but still, it was tempting.

- 2 bags of jerky
- bread sticks
- a box of matzos

Lessons learned

• my mental arithmetic is not good as it used to be. I realized that part of it is that I'm trying to take shortcuts, like breaking 190 * 3.5 into 3*200-3*10 + 0.5*200-0.5*10. I'd be easier for me to the think through the multiplication flat out
• in general, it would be a hassle to eat exactly the same number of calories per day. But given food's importance in such a scenario, I'm sure it would become second nature to continously track available calories and consumption rate. It certainly wouldn't be as handy as having a spreadsheet
• my tolerance for the taste of canned foods is generally pretty high
• my tolerance for sodium, not so much. I would feel weird after eating some of the salt-heavy stuff. If the Apocalypse really did go down, I would never get spam or any kind of prepared meat for protein. Even the straight beans had added salt
• the variety I had was pretty good. I can't say exactly how it would extrapolate to the long-term, having the same 10 or so options ad infinitum
• I really missed not knowing what I was going to eat on weekends and popping into random shops to get a snack
• I noticed I would stop on food commercials when trying to skip through ads on TV
• I really missed planning meals in minute detail, working out every dish I wanted. If it was takeout, I'd work out when I wanted to be home, when to place the order, and when to bike over to get it
• Limiting your calories definitely makes you lose weight. That was not my main goal here, but I liked it nonetheless. I view the healthiness of this endeavor as on the same level as those two profs who dieted on McDonald's
• The exposure to food all around me made the whole experience feel more like observing the Sabbath than being in the wastelands. There's an abundance of things that you choose to forego for your own reasons. There is no real psychological break from the availability of food. One Saturday, I saw an Orthodox or stricter couple walking down the sidewalk. The man would check out cars parked on the street occasionally. I guess he was a car guy. He just wouldn't let himself be in one on the Sabbath.

A long time ago, I did a fast just to see what that felt like. I had a diet Gatorade in the morning, a caffeine-free diet Coke in the afternoon, and water the rest of the time. I lasted 72 hours. By the end, I was either imagining food smells everywhere or actually being acutely sensitive to food aroma. I would be sitting at my gym trying to work out while being bombarded with real/imaginary Wendy's #6 wafting down the stairs from the street. The Wendy's was really there, but who knows if I could actually smell that food? 

In this month, I've never gotten to that level of intense hunger. Normal food was all around me. I even ate it a couple of times. Why did I set these rules on myself? I guess just to see if  I could make myself do it. I wouldn't say it was about discipline. It was just about accepting.
I think back to what my mom's college classmate told me about growing up in the Cultural Revolution, in those most destitute times. She said it was never that hard to get through it, because there was no other choice. That's a really remarkable attitude to have. 

Ramengdan 7/19

11.

Tomorrow's the last day. Still not sure how I'll proceed after it's over.

Lunch: Chicken, babybel cheese, vites

Dinner: decided, what the hell, let's eat the gefilte fish. Or it'd sit around forever.
The flavor isn't that bad. I've only had it a couple times before, and I've been avoiding it since. It was fine. I'm sure it would be delicious in a real apocalypse.
Finished with a lot of oatmeal and fishoil gummies.

Ramengdan 7/18

9.

Had to do a video shoot with work today, so brought along granola bars for lunch.

Dinner was chicken and oatmeal.

Ramengdan 7/17

8.

Today is the first day of the last 4. I had thought I had 4 cans of chicken left, but it was only 3.
Lunch: soylent, oatmeal, crackers.
Dinner: tanka bites, crackers.

To have the traditional sweet for Eid, I ate some gummy vites.

Things I have craved

1. french fries
2. Korean fried chicken
3. burgers
4. fish tacos
• just the fish from fish tacos
• just the pickled cabbage from fish tacos
5. spaghetti and meatballs
6. steak
7. pad see yew
8. chow fun, which is really similar in texture
9. hot dogs
10. any sub with a ton of mayo on it. Something from Quizno's, maybe
11. lobster rolls (also with a ton of mayo) http://www.yelp.com/biz/paulis-boston
12. ribs
13. biscuits
14. Thai golden triangles heavily dipped in that sweet sauce
15. spicy nacho doritos
16. stuft nacho from Taco Bell. I hope this is still around when I get out.
17. curry (any curry) on naan
18. fried cauliflower with cumin
19. bowtie pasta with marinara and salami
20. Humpty Dumpty All Dressed chips. I think I might have to find these online and order them. 
21. really ordinary store pizza. The kind that's two pizzas stacked, shrink-wrapped together.
22. a Whopper
23. super thick cut BLTs
24. 100 samosas with a shaker full of cumin
25. the really juicy tomato paste in mini pizzas
26. arancinis smothered in marinara
27. piping hot tamales
28. tomato and cheese sandwich
29. that kind of luncheon meat with peppercorns in it
30. Rami's falafel and hummus
31. hot relish or sweet hots
32. Sichuan shrimp from Zoe's, though of all the things here, it's the one I've thought the most about making myself.

Eid al-Fitr

The day that ends Ramadan is Eid al-Fitr.
Read all about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/dining/eid-al-fitr-recipes.html

I'm not sure I have any sweets in my supply for Eid. I guess I have the fishoil gummies.

Ramengdan 7/16

11.

Big lunch today. A 1100cal can of baked beans and a small stack of saltines.

I now have 1 can of chicken for each remaining day. I could probably plan my meals out the rest of the way. In fact, I'll do it right now:

Friday: soylent, oatmeal
Sat: granola bars, chicken
Sun: chicken, corn, oatmeal
Mon: soylent, chicken

Thanks to the surplus of calories from Hungry Mother and here and there, I think I can get by without eating the whole canned chicken and the gefilte fish.

Dinner: oatmeal and vites

Ramengdan 7/15

9.

Lunch. 500cal Soylent. Oatmeal. Avoiding taking that last can of corn too early.

I still have one whole can chicken to deal with and one big can of beans.

Dinner. Can of chicken, oatmeal, vitamins.

Ramengdan 7/14

11.

Lunch: 250cal soylent watered down twice my usual amount. Much smoother and lighter this way. Shoulda done it like this from the start. The last can of nice white corn kernels.

Afternoon: I was able to scrounge a half sandwich from a board meeting and a banana. Even the tomato on the sandwich was amazing.

Dinner: 2 cans chicken, some crackers, and oatmeal.

Ramengdan 7/13

6.

Had some gummy vitamins and water for breakfast.

Lunch: 500cal of Soylent mixed with maple syrup oatmeal. This oatmeal is way too sweet. I think I'm gonna water down the Soylent a lot in the coming days. I thought I had 8 servings left, but I only have 4. For the better.
Had a few tanka bites.

Dinner: one more hummus packet, canned chicken, more tanka bites after the softball game, and more gummyvites.

8 days left

Remaining supplies:
9x 500cal servings of Soylent
7(?)x 250cal cans of chicken
2x 200cal cans of veg
1x 1300cal big can of baked beans
36x ~150 packets of instant oatmeal
1x 1350cal (if you eat everything) whole can of chicken
4x 210cal packs of tanka buffalo bites
4x 70cal babybel cheeses
hundreds of cals locked up in gummy vitamins

I can do this. But the variety is slimming down.

Ramengdan 7/12

6.

Went to get my haircut today, then Matt called to hang out with him and his siblings. By the time I get back home, it's already 6! I basically have a whole canned chicken as a monomeal. Still have a few hundred cals left to pad out. Probably oatmeal.

I read this grim story:
http://jezebel.com/woman-forgives-husband-for-making-wrong-turn-prepares-1717341344

"Bedwell survived [two weeks] on rainwater, eight pounds of oranges, and a butter cream pie."
She's really lucky it was the rainy season.

Ramengdan 7/11

7.

Light breakfast of some multivitamins and gummy fishoil.

Got some more hummus packets for lunch, and finished off the corned beef hash. Salty.

After I went back into the spreadsheet to correct the servings in the Soylent bags, it turns out that my remaining daily calorie budget is as high as 1590.

Dinner was tuna and oatmeal.

Ramengdan 7/10

3. close call

So a bag of Soylent powder has 2000 cals, and apparently 8 scoops' worth of powder. I was operating on the assumption that 1 scoop was 500 cals and 2, 1000. But no, it's 2 scoops that's 500. Oops. Today, I made the adjustment and had 500 cals of Soylent and a can of chicken for lunch. Scrounged a small squeeze tube of hummus.

For dinner, well --
we have a tradition at work where the interns have to make Spampersand Sandwiches. Cutting an ampersand out of spam and making a sandwich, basically. As the Minister of Cultural Affairs, it's my duty to oversee the process and eat the end results. And boy did I eat. I got a ton of calories, though the salt spike took a while to get used to.
I didn't have anything further for dinner.

Ramengdan 7/9

5.
Breakfast: poptart

Lunch: half can of corned beef hash, oatmeal. The oatmeal was egregiously stickly sweet.
But then -- someone had left out half of a steak and cheese sub, with a sign that it was up for grabs. Heaven in free calories. Scrounging is gonna be a bit boost.

Dinner: I decided to eat those jars of baby food. There was chicken and vegetables, sweet potato and chicken, and pears and raspberries. All delightfully bland, but still better tasting than Soylent. Also got a bunch of vitamins.

Ramengdan 7/8

6.

Scrounged a nice 200cal granola bar. Had soylent and tanka bikes for lunch.

Dinner was chicken, the last of that sunflower seed bread, more tanka bites, and a poptart.

Ramengdan 7/7

7.

The day of reckoning has come. I didn't want to do this, which is why I have to do this, to make this challenge real -- I'm tacking on some days to the end of Ramengdan. I rolled 1 die and got 3. So a mere 3 extra days. This spreads my calories out some more, but I think it'll be ok.

If this were really the post-Apocalypse, could you ever know when relief was really around the corner? In last Sunday's episode of Falling Skies, the focus was finding food, after rationing and starving for days. In the end, they succeed in finding a big cache of nonperishable food, including a sleeve of Pringles. One guy in camp mused that he wondered if he'd ever taste one again.

So I'm adjusting my calories to last me out the extra 3 days. Glad it wasn't 6 more.

Lunch: chicken, corn, vegall
Dinner: vitamins, oatmeal, fishoil

Ramengdan 7/6

3. I think that's the lowest I've rolled this whole time.

Lunch: big can of pinto beans, peas, and some Tanka buffalo bites that came in the mail. Because these meat bites have a known calorie value, I'm gonna swap them in for the deer jerky.

Dinner: chicken, corn, can of sardines. The sardines were good. They took me back to my childhood, where we'd occasionally get sardines in tomato sauce.

Ramengdan 7/5

11.

Had a monomeal lunch of yams, and a sun-warmed caffeine-free Pepsi, since I was visiting friends and having an event.

For dinner, I polished off the spam with some more crackers. Boy, these saltines are really dense, calorically.

Ramengdan 7/4

7.

Patriotic post-Apocalyptic movies for you to try on Independence Day:
- The Postman
- Red Dawn
- Independence Day (not really post-Apocalyptic, but come on)
- Battle: Los Angeles

Tried to go mountain biking today, but the bike wasn't in good shape. Still rode like 15mi, just not really as hard as I wanted. Ate all sciency nutrition stuff before and during the ride.

Dinner was half a can of spam on crackers. Salty salty salty. The green beans, some gummyvites, and corn.

Ramengdan 7/3

11.

I needed a bit of a cleanser after that whole chicken. Oatmeal for lunch.

I'm catsitting over the 4th holidays, which has enabled me to do a bit of scrounging >:o. Today, I took down some leftover roasted brussel sprouts. Not a lot of cals, but a nice fresh vegetable.
Add to that a can of baked beans, and you got a nice dinner.

For late night, I scrounged some downright sinful homestyle kettle cooked potato chips. I think this mighta been too easy, as far as the hardship ideal was concerned. Calorie count is on the money, but I'm saving by using found cals.

At the halfway point, I feel like I've reached a state where I'm no longer excited by the novelty of eating canned foods, and their taste is just average. Not sure if they'll start getting blander as I go on. As for the calories and hunger, I definitely feel hungry, but in abiding the limits I set for myself, there's nothing I can do. Aditya's wedding was 6/13. When I flew back, I weighed myself at a lofty 216, having gorged for Ramengdan.  Hadn't been that heavy in years, maybe college. Today, I'm 200. I'll probably be in the low 190s when I'm through. 

Ramengdan 7/2

9. Decided to crack open one of the whole chicken tins. It's rated for 1350 cals, but does that include the very fatty broth? I ate all the meat, and then had a "matzo" "ball" soup with the broth and some saltines. It was just over the salty line to be truly delicious, but was still good.

Dinner was just some granola bars and poptarts.

Ramengdan 7/1

5. Lunch was a sedate beans + corn soup.

Dinner... was supposed to be acai freeze-dried powder watered into a paste. You know, I just thought this stuff would be sweetish. Instead, it's horribly horribly sour and bitter. I made the further mistake of trying to cut it with a can of corn. I valiently ate must of the corn but couldn't deal with the powder itself. Is this what I have to look forward to with the gefilte fish?

Rounded things out with poptarts and babybel.