Aside for this blog, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually sat down and written fiction. Well, that is, anything longer than a paragraph, anything that might turn out to be The Next Great American Novel.

I just wrote a whole page. New Times, size 12, single spaced.

It’s a little bit fiction, and a little bit not.

I’m going back to writing. Since it is night and I abhor coffee, I’m going to pour myself a tall glass of milk and get all bohemian.

Someone using Google to answer the question “what is malnurtured” stumbled to the number one site on the internets about the topic: that’s right, this one. The short answer is that “malnurtured” is a made-up word. It doesn’t exist. It’s a FAKE!!!!!

So, anyway, to the individual looking up my blog from Brooklyn, New York with a City School ISP, now you know. And knowing is half of the knowledge. Or something.

Hogwarts is built on an IKEA coffeetable, and the entire assembly is currently located between two bookshelves along my living room/dining room wall. To pretty up the coffeetable, I draped a black tablecloth over it.

It is currently Tippy’s favorite “curl up and try to sleep until dickhead sticks a camera with a flash in my face” cubbyhole.

Awwww. Isn’t she adorable?

Every pizza shop I’ve worked at, regardless of coporate or franchise or mom and pop shop or computer based ordering systems or hand-written ticket system has had one thing very closely related, and that is the abbreviation menu for pizza toppings. Imagine if someone orders a large hand-tossed pie with anchovies, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, pepperonni and pineapple. What’d ya think the ticket would look like?

LARGE HAND TOSSED PIZZA -> Anchovies, Green Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms, Pepperonni, Pineapple.

Hell no. Can you imagine trying to write and or type that shit out? I’m proud to say I’ve worked in pizza shops for more years than should be legal and have absolutely zero idea how to spell ‘pepperonni’ correct (Dictionary.com? Fool, please).

Each topping has a one letter “code” which abbreviates it. Some of them are fairly obvious — A for anchovies, G for green peppers, M for mushrooms. Of course, when you get down to multiple toppings all starting with the same letter, you run into problems. C is a common code for cheese (or extra cheese, depending on the business), but at the Franchise, where we also offer cheddar cheese (in addition to mozzarella), the letter Y is used to signify cheddar cheese.

(Of course, at the Indy, Y is used to indicate pinneapple.)

For restaraunts with computers, when the order is “finalized” and put through to the makeline monitor, the computer organizes the letters in the order the toppings may be found on the makeline. In most companies, makeline toppings are organized by “flat” or “not flat.” Flat toppings — including peperonni, ham, mushrooms and onions — are toppings which lie flat on the pie. Most “pizza making theory” holds that “flat toppings” should be lowest on the pizza. Non-flat toppings are thus located further down on the makeline, and higher up on the pizza. Pineapple, sausage, beef — anything that isn’t a slice falls here. In keeping with this theory, a customer who orders a mushroom, sausage, peperonni pizza will have their order entered as “MSP”, however when sent to the makeline monitor, their “MSP” pie will become a “PMS” pie. Certain combinations of letters will never fail to make employees on the makeline crack up — PMS pies, HO pies, and at one of the few places to sell anchovies, an ASS pizza (I only saw it once).

Many restaraunts use the letter K to signify bacon. As you might imagine, one must be cautious when some random customer orders a triple bacon pizza. To indicate multiple of the same toppings, the topping code is entered more than once. So, a double sausage would be an SS, a triple anchovy would be an AAA, and a triple bacon is, you guessed it, a Klu Klux Klan pizza. As mortified as I’ve been at the possibility that a KKK pizza would get out the door without the tag being altered, I’m about a hundred and fifty million times as mortified that a.) the pizza would be going to a black family, and b.) that whoever was in the store taking the order wouldn’t understand the signifigance of those initials (yes, that’s occured).

There are also abbreviations for the size and crust of the pizza. This isn’t an issue at the Indy as we only have the handtossed, but at the Franchise, where there are handtossed, thin crust, and deep dish pizzas, the size of the pizza is indicated by a simple letter — M for Medium, L for Large, and X for Extra Large. If the crust is other than handtossed, the size abbreviation is preceeded by a crust code — T for “thin” and D for “deep.”

So, if from the example waaay above, someone ordered that pie thin crust large? It would look like this on the makeline monitor:

TL - POGMAN

(Of course, neither the Franchise or the Indy offers anchovies, so a POGMAN pie could never exist there. Example, people, example).

Mini Capitol Building

Okay, this completely sucks. Apparently, due to rising production costs at NBC/Universal, the suits decided to cut the budget to some of their cable programming — Battlestar Galactica has, unfortunatly, taken a big hit of that budget slashing, to the point where the producers are trying to figure out whether they should “reimagine” doing a live-action show, or stick with a really-tiny six episode live-action season. That’s not even a “mini-season”, that’s a “why bother?” season.

(Oh, and if you’re wondering, this apparently means “Caprica”, the spin-off series, is likely dead as well, although apparently there’s a possibility of it being a sci-fi “Movie of the Week” which dooms is to craptacularness).

I don’t get this, at all. Battlestar Galactica, I read somewhere, is the number one show on the sci-fi channel, and is far and away the best hour-long series on that channel and, frankly, is a lot better than anything on NBC these days — Medium? Las Vegas? Please. I can’t fathom why NBC would cut money to the one hour long drama that’s being done well for them, but apparently the bottom line is that with television episodes often available for download the day after they first air, the advertising income from selling commercial space is begining to dry up, which is the lifeblood of the network. So NBC has decided to strangle some of their cable operations to keep the network alive — a big fuckin’ mistake, in my very humble opinion.

In any case, Ron Moore is quoted as saying that they’re trying to find a new network to buy the show from NBC/Universal. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if NBC owns Universal, or if NBC just buys BSG from Universal, which produces the show. Ron Moore says he’d like to keep the show on cable, and is hoping for a spot on either the Fox owned FX channel (a channel with a reputation for quality original programming), or the Spike Network.

Apparently NBC is possibly very reticent about letting the show go, so if the “take it to another network” doesn’t materialize as a realistic option, they’re considering doing the series animated from the start of season four (which would’ve begun airing in October ‘07, but if they’re doing it animated, will be delayed six months to a year). Apparently they can get a lot of the cast to sign on for voice-only work for cheaper, plus they’ll save money on the various production issues with renting the stages the sets are on and the lighting crews, etcetra etcetra. One thing I’m really worried about is that apparently Universal is in discussions with a certain FOX animation house to produce the show if they go this route (I’ll say this much, at least they’re running full steam ASAP to figure out what’s going to happen). To that end, some of the concept art for Battlestar Galactica: The Animated Series has been posted online.

If you’re curious, here’s character art for Bill Adama and Laura Roslin; Starbuck; and Baltar & No. Six. Further images may be seen here.

ps - if you haven’t figured this out, this post is a joke. I’m a dick.