Humor Blog News, Brain Dissection, and Mom Turns Japanese Chef

Happy Friday, Friends o' Cabbages!-- (or Happy Whenever You're Reading This; let's not be Day Discriminatory)--

To start today's bloggy humorificness, I first have a happy bit of business I want to share.

It appears for the last two years, my brain has been partitioned into many sections. There is:

• The Cabbagulum Obligata-- The part of the brain that plans Of Cabbages and Kings humor posts. It keeps track of, and writes up, blogly humor three times a week on a fairly rigid, entirely self-dictated schedule
  

• The Thriftus Packratocio-- The section that controls me picking up weird crap from thrift stores and writing about that two times a week for my other blog on an equally rigid, self-imposed schedule because, apparently, I am my own personal fascist dictator
  

• The Instantaneous Deadlinula NowNowNowus- The area which handles all the last-minute work writing panics and customer service tasks that inevitably crop-up, drawing energy away from sections one and two

• The Novelium Guilticanus- The part of the brain that pushes me to finish the humor space adventure novel I've been writing, knowing full-well it's a pretty fun tale and will, at least, be better in someone's hands than in a drawer. It's the part of the noggin that says once you have a back-breaking 363 manuscript pages and a complete outline, you are a stupid, lazy bugger if you don't finish the rest of the tale. Then it chains you to your computer desk and serves you bread and water until you crack.
  

• The Novelium Procrastinatorius- The part of the brain that assesses the other parts of the brain and determines that, yes, I can actually put off finishing my novel for another year, even though I enjoy the project, don't have much more to write, and know I need to get my posterior in gearior.

• Steve- The part of the brain that has no idea what all the hustle-bustle is about in the other Brain Locales, and really would prefer to just turn off, chill out and watch some Netflix with a beer. Steve lives in a jar on my endtable.
  

So, with all of these brain parts vying for attention, it occurred to me that I could eliminate the Novelium Procrastinatorius once and for all-- and truly concentrate on the frigging novel using an attention span slightly longer than your average fruit fly-- if only I had a few less blog posts to write a week.

That said, Cabbages will now be published once a week-- I'm thinking Tuesdays, but am open to suggestions taking into account Readers' personal convenience-- until I get this novel wrapped up. I imagine, it'll be the summer.

The good news here is, having freed up this bit of space in the brain (which is dusty and still full of clutter and probably needs Clean House to stop by), I have already written up about 20 new pages of novel content, and am pleased with the progress so far.

In some ways, I feel like I'm copping out in not being able to balance it all in quantity. But that's probably just the Cabbagulum Obligata speaking.

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In other completely different news-- like the actual press-- I just read that a Japanese restaurant in Australia-- called Wafu-- has ruled that all guests must finish everything on their plates under threat of a penalty fee. Those that waste food will be asked to never darken the restaurant's door again.

Future restaurant policies under evaluation include making patrons sit in the corner for not putting their napkins in their lap, and having them write, "I will use my salad fork for salad only" 100 times as punishment for rampant utensil misuse.

Okay, so I made those last two up. But I did have to double-check that my mother wasn't actually still alive and just hiding these past twelve years as a Japanese chef in Australia.

I recall vividly having a Battle of Good Versus Evil with Mom about mashed potato consumption, as a child.

Our War of Wills led me to sit at the kitchen table until bedtime, with a plate of potatoes before me reminiscent of a particularly memorable scene in Close Encounters.

We also enjoyed a sequel the next evening, featuring the very same all-spud cast.

Mom would totally have been on board with the idea of a wasted food fine. Docking, I dunno, ten cents out of my 50 cent per week allowance for doing the dishes for each potato glob left behind would have definitely had an appeal to her.

Food for thought for you parents with fussy eaters out there! :)

Anyway, that about wraps up Cabbages for today. Hope all the parts of your brains are currently hanging out, having a blast and ready to party for the weekend.

If so, can I send Steve along? His schedule's free and he'll bring beer.