Opinion
 

Don't try the habanero sauce

Jim McCormick
Opinion Columnist

Can you believe it? Summer's almost over. I've got two weeks to pack everything back up in an order that resembles something mobile, and get it back to my room. On a better note, I'll be taking pictures again, and football season is just around the corner, so it will probably be a good thing.

We tried to get in contact with SBC Yahoo! to try to get a digital subscriber line installed at our house. But there was one small hitch: we're too far from a station to have DSL at home.

At least I'm going to be at school most of the year, so I'm going to have high-speed anyway. Getting a second phone line installed is way too expensive for what it is, and we're not too fond of having Road Runner come in and install cable-based high-speed internet access, as we know people who have had problems with the installation process in the past. The good news is that it will be easier to use the line here at home when I'm gone, as I'm the most abusive when it comes to the Internet.

This weekend, my mother, my sister and I went to the National Fiery Foods & BBQ Show at the Reliant Center. It was quite fun. Normally, I don't do hot foods, but I seriously went through 15 stands, trying the hottest thing each one had before I made a mistake.

It was a prank sauce that had to be pure vinegar and habanero juice, because it had me in serious pain for about 10 minutes. Not all the sauces were so sadistic, though. I picked up a five-ounce bottle of a dessert hot sauce made from key limes and a bit of habanero pepper. It isn't extremely hot, but it is spicier than a typical bottle of Tabasco sauce. It goes really well on ice cream, which helps take care of the punch a bit, considering that dairy does help cool the tongue from the burn. I'm taking the bottle to Honors Retreat, if anyone there wants to try some.

I also went and paid for my LiveJournal account. I had been considering this for some time, but I finally put down the cash so I could make it look good. I'm having a few online friends do some image work for me, as they're a bit better at manipulating pictures in Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. I only use those programs for touch-ups and toning, but they're good at actual image manipulation. That, and they have a bigger stock of pictures appropriate to the theme of my journal than I do.

Monday was my parents' 26th wedding anniversary. So, being the kind, considerate son that I am, I took them out to eat at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse over on Southwest Freeway. The meal was huge, and so was the price tag. My sister still owes me $75 for it, as we are splitting the cost between the two of us. I felt like a fish out of water when I walked into the restaurant, as it had an extremely classy feel to it, but I think that's just from being a middle class college student. Honestly, I think I should have been dressed a little nicer than my usual shirt and khakis. The service didn't say anything about our attire, though.

Now, I'm off to see the pending heart attack that is my tuition bill.

McCormick, a sophomore biology major, 
can be reached at rantman_2000@sbcglobal.net.