Update #19

The Kitchen Dairies

Let me take you back to around, let's say, 3000 BC. We see Umkap, an ingenious but not too bright guy who, lacking in any type of formal education, is trying to make a living. He's messing around with a shekal and trying to figure out how to make more shekals.

He starts by placing the shekal in various parts of his hand and as he experiments he begins to patter, "uggha mrts htrto, PAH!". He gets a nice little cadence going and after a few days he figures out that if he puts the coin in just the right spot in his hand and times his patter, it looks like the coin has vanished! Voila (a term that Umkap would never hear, or anyone else, as a matter of fact, for another 4000 years) the first magician is born!

Umkap, in between hunting, gathering and running away from wild beasts, manages to eat a few morsels of food and continues to practice. After launching a few experimental shows for his close family & friends (who were suitably impressed) he's ready for the big time!

By this time he has his patter down to a science (whichever level of science existed at the time) and has expanded his routine to include the reappearance of the shekal. Unfortunately, since shekals are hard to come by, he has to fund his show with his own coin. Borrowing a coin from the audience would only come into the magician's arsenal much much later.

He climbs on a nearby flattish shaped boulder he had scouted out previously and begins screaming for attention. During this period of history, this action was mostly unprecedented, since doing so would greatly increase your visibility to various wild beasts that you are actually trying to avoid. Other than that, since the internet & television have yet to be invented, there's not much to do during the refractory period and as far as people can recall, people standing on a rock yelling out incomprehensible platitudes usually heralded the creation of a new religion, which was immediately followed by 'something new to do', people began to gather around.

Umkap waits for a large crowd to gather. Umkap, being not to bright, has a hard time figuring out what 'large' exactly is. He's not good with numbers, his mathematical education basically consists of 1 and more than 1. So when a crowd of more than 1 gathers, he prepares...

shekal is shown (thieves take notice of shekal & Umkap's slight physical constitution)
Umkap: "uggha mrts htrto, PAH!"
shekal disappears!
More than 1 people: screams and panic! "Umkap PAH! PAH! PAH!"
Umkap laughs like a Neaderthal
Neanderthals nearby take offense at the stereotypical laugh.
Umkap screams some more, "UGH YUR TAY"
Umkap: "uggha mrts htrto, PAH!"
shekal appears!

Umkap does this 2 more times and is a hit! Everyone pays homage to the powerful magi and bring him more food than he could ever need.

A week passes(which Umkap didn't know had passed, since it would not be invented until a later date) and Umkap was on top of the world! People are fawning over him!

However, a very very bright Neanderthal (for his species) asks Umkap to do more magic. Not the disappearing shekal bit but something more practical, like killing an elephant, or making jock itch go away. Umkap is unable to do anything of the sort and he is summarily killed and his shekal is taken by the previously mentioned thieves.

Moral: Always have a backup trick.

Fast forward several millenia and place yourself in my kitchen. Remove the backward sloping forehead, the Neandethals, the shekals and yup, I am now Umkap. I do know a few magic tricks but my patter needs some serious work. However, I find myself stuck with the same trick lately, steak & eggs. I actually used TWO pans tonight to simultaneously make the steak & egg (I only had one egg). Unfortunately, I decided to use both the rear left & front left burners. Bad idea, I should've used the front right & front left. Using the ones I did makes getting burned very very easy.

Well, the dish is quick and easy to make. So greasy & good! Yeah, I can see that it's not the healthiest thing in the world, but I'm working on a backup trick. I'm thinking tuna.

Next Update
The next updates will be very interesting! Jeanne & I will be leaving to Las Vegas on Sunday. You will be my virtual partners in transit as I update my blog from my cellphone! There should be lots of interesting things going on over there...