Poor Man’s Pasta

I’m a husband/father that works in customer service, radio and I’m a musician. In other words… I’m poor.

I enjoy spending any money that I do have on my family and so when it comes to myself… let’s just say that I like to get creative.

Today was one of those rare days where I was solo for lunch. Alas, an opportunity to frankstein together a meal for myself. I was able to dig up a tupperware of leftover bowtie pasta. No sauce, you say? Perhaps you aren’t looking hard enough. I am thankful for my days in college, where I discovered my gift of poor man’s delicacies.

I came across a bottle of ranch dressing. It kinda looked like alfredo sauce so I figured I’d give it a shot. After a few bites, I found the ranch dressing to be more tart in nature than the creamy texture to which it was intended.

Was my soon to be room temperature meal ruined? Again, I say nay. To balance the tart, I used katsu sauce. I used this crazy bulldog brand that I have from the Asian market, but feel free to use old Zippys’ packets from your last potluck, or just make your own katsu sauce with a mixture of ketchup and soy sauce, BBQ sauce or anything reddish brown in nature.

I found it to blend well with the ranch dressing and so my pasta was saved! A victory in the poor man’s column.

Adding Up the Small Stuff for a Silver Lining

Yes. A supervisor at work attempted to get me in trouble for NOT working on my break.

Yes. In trying to be funny, I insulted the staff of my local newspaper.

Yes. My dinner plans were thwarted due to being drenched in vomit.

Most would consider this to be a horrible day. For me, not even close. I work in customer service therefore any living thing that can pick up a telephone has the right to crap on me. I’m a comedian (by night), so wisecracks often fall on all-too-serious ears. I’m a father. Poop and vomit is my business. It’s just a lil’ tough when all three worlds collide in one day.

But still… if I balance out the mini “silver linings” in my day, I still end up ahead. I will now share these events with you. Keep in mind… sometimes, you have to look for the small things that make you smile. They really add up.

Lemoyne EP by Fluorescent Biege

I discovered some new tunes. Jeremy Arambulo is the star of a new webseries called “Mythomania.” What many of its viewers may not know is that Arambulo records his own songs under the name “Fluorescent Beige.” His new EP is called “Lemoyne” and acoustic singer/songwriter fans can download it for free at Soundcloud. I’m listening to it as I write this blog post.

I was offered a gig. I am an aspiring stand-up comedian and I was asked to do a show with comedian, David Lee. True, it’s not a shot at instant fame or anything but it was the first comedy show offered to me outside of my usual circle of comedians who usually book me. It’s all about baby steps. If the circle keeps slowly expanding, who knows what other opportunities are on the horizon.

My daughter - Photo by Lisa Hoang of Windwardskies Photography

Speaking of baby steps, my 17-month-old daughter continues to inspire me daily. As she suffers through the diarrhea and vomiting episodes of the stomach flu, she somehow delivers a smile that instantly lights up the room. If my daughter can smile after exploding from both ends, then whining about the tribulations of my life seem silly.

As a bonus, I ended my day with a lowball of whiskey on the couch, watching an episode of Conan. The musical guest was Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. I found his flavor of contemporary jazz to be very soulful and he delivered an amazing performance. As a trombone/singer frontman myself, it motivated me to keep doing what I’m doing.

Dark clouds are temporary. They drain out and pass over. There is always something big and bright right behind it.

Twitter “Trends” Mad Lib

Image via CrunchBase

The following is an improvised short story using US Twitter “Trends” topics at 6:30pm, Hawaii Time. Twitter “Trends” are highlighted in blue.

I was following the #NFLDraft online but I had #thatminiheartattackwhen your internet goes down. The customer service rep for my internet service provider started to flirt with me but I explained that “#urnotmytypeif you have a penis.” The customer service rep tried to change my mind, saying that he owns a #starship and looks like Seth Meyers. I said I’d think about it if he looked like Dana Carvey. He asked if I was into GSP but I was assumed he was referring to some new STD I haven’t heard of yet and so I just hung up.

I decided to just watch TV and luckily, Eagle Eye was on with guest star Jake Shields. I only watched for a few minutes before calling my friend Jonathan Cook, who was ironically “baking.”

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Blogging every week in 2011

Image via Wikipedia

My double-jointed fingers are already trembling at the thought.  Just kidding.  Blogging weekly has been a loose target for me in 2010 but I plan “tighten the reins” sort to speak.  In the past ten years, I took a tiny step up the workforce ladder from retail to customer service.  To be honest, I don’t know which is worse but since I’m making more bucks in customer service, I’m assuming it’s a step up.  Either way, I’ve decided to no longer let the Want Ads control my destiny.  I am choosing my future career and taking steps to achieve my goal.

I want to be a full-time writer.

I currently write for the Honolulu Weekly, Island Scene Magazine and I am a blogger for LocalBigwig.com.  Having weekly writing assignments have established a new rhythm for my writing, which in turn has benefitted my personal blog.

WordPress has recently launched two campaigns to aid bloggers in posting consistently in 2011.  Interested users have the choice of challenging themselves to either PostADay or PostAWeek.  Yours truly is signing up for PostAWeek, as I’m hopeful in continuing to receive writing assignments to keep me busy.

As I have interest in all the pieces I write, whether it be corporate or personally charged, I publicly commit to this 2011 challenge of hopes that you will subscribe to this personal blog of mine.  Nobody wants to read personal diaries, unless you’re a teenage girl.  Therefore I do my best to relate personal events in my life to pop culture.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to writing more for you in the coming year.

Noob writer,
Fernando Pacheco

Manjit to the Rescue!

This is a follow up to my earlier post about when I Scratched Too Hard when trying to redeem my iTunes gift card.  For those of you who future scratchers of bionic strength, I want you to know that all hope is not lost.  It turns out that it’s somewhat of a common occurrence and so the Apple website has created a workflow to help you get your code back.

I basically just sent a message to iTunes Store Customer Support, giving them additional information.  It seems like they can retrieve your redemption code if you give them your iTunes Gift Card Serial Number, which is at the bottom of the card and not as easy to scratch off.

The site indicated that I would receive a reply from support staff within 48 hours.  For me… with my luck… I waited 96 hours.

The e-mail that I finally received was from a representative named Manjit.  He apologized for the late response and successfully retrieved my redemption code.  He probably isn’t Manjit Singh, the 60 year old strongman from India, but to me he was just as heroic.  Thanks Manjit!

Manjit Singh