#wizardry!

It took me years as a vegetarian to figure it out, but, hands down, the best "meat alternative" I've found, if your recipe calls for ground beast of some sort, is plain old lentils. They taste the best, they're easiest to work with, they're dirt cheap, they're really good for you, and they last forever. The only reason everybody doesn't eat lentils every day is because they haven't tried them. 

I've decided that, to entertain myself this winter, I'm going to do a trading game. In the later Zelda games there were always a bunch of side quests where you find something that you can't do anything with, and you trade it for something else that you can't use, and you keep trading until you have something good. Some guy did the same thing and went from an old cellphone to a relatively new car. The game needs rules, though:

I have to start with something that I didn't pay for, or at least didn't buy for this purpose.

I can't sell anything. Trading for cash is cheating, unless I find myself with something of value and need some cash, but then the game is over and I have to turn in my ocarina.

Likewise, I'm willing to spend a little to make a trade, but I'm not going crazy. And any spending can't be part of the trade. I'm willing to drive somewhere or pay to mail something, but I'm going to Corsica and I'm not including cash in the trade itself.

Trading is for material goods. I might make an exception if someone offers a service that I could really use, but it's an end point. I wouldn't feel right about trading a voucher for roof work, or a backrub. It just seems weird.

Okay, I will definitely go to Corsica to trade something. I'm looking forward to explaining this to a customs officer. I hate looking border personnel in the face and confirming that, yes, I do know that what I'm doing sounds insane. I survived the last one, though. I think tranxio helped.

I might come up with more rules, but who cares? I'm trying to have fun for free. Right now I'm trying to think of what I've got to trade. There are a couple of sets of golf clubs in my garage that I'm never going to use.