Ordered from Fatburger (that’s right, we have one up here, I was surpised too) via SkipTheDishes.ca tonight, and so far everything is delicious.

I did something I haven’t done much and paid for my order online. Usually I pay cash for everything because cash is accepted everywhere, my wallet doesn’t ding me with a service charge every time I open it, and cash still works even if the “betwork” is down.

But I got bribed into putting on the card tonight by Skip The Dishes’ “skip credits” program.  The credits are deducted from your tab, if you want them to be,  when you order food online through Skip.

The catch, though, is that you can’t apply those credits to a cash order. Which makes sense,. I am sure, I just don’t feel like figuring out how.

So I ordered online, with my credit card, and got the $5 in discount that Skip gave me for signing up. And I have to admit, it was awfully convenient.

And now Skip has my credit card on file, so the next time I order from them it will be even easier. Just a few clicks, and food will be on my way.

I’m thinking this may be the thin edge of the wedge that will eventually lead me to putting all my money on the card and using it everywhere, like everyone else.

Or at least putting my Saturday Night Ordering In money there.

I am loving Fatburger’s cuisine. My bacon cheddar burger is top notch, with both the savoury components (meat, cheese) and the veggie components (lettice, tomato) adding strongly to the flavour.

And that’s how I like it. To me, the veggies on a burger are not an afterthought. They are an important part of what makes a good burrger taste good.

And Fatburger know that.

And then there’s the fries. Oh, the fries. The fries are very good – best fries I have ever gotten from a fast food chain. They are so good, in fact, that not only do they not need ketchup, ketchup actually ruins the flavour.

And holy CRAP, that’s a lot of fries. As in, covers 2/3 of a dinner plate in a pile two inches thick. I had an inkling that it would be a lot of fries when the

The drink that came with the meal was listed as “diet cola” on the website. I was immediately suspicious. Did that mean Diet Coke, or Diet Pepsi, or…

It meant “generic cola”, which is fine by me. Not only do I also have my handy Diet Coke (giver of life) at hand, but on my leaner weeks I drink generic cola and it’s fine. Not as good as Diet Coke, but fine.

Especially when it’s very cold.

I also ordered 5 mini-donuts, which I have yet to sample. Getting them was extra super naughty because not only is this the kind of sugary treat that is bad for my diabeetus, I have perfectly lovely slices of sugar-free marble cake slices in the cupboard.

But what the hell. Sometimes you have to do what you want to do instead of what is the “smart” thing to do, otherwise your spirit becomes dull and listless and so do you.

Impulses are reinforced by being acted upon and when they are reinforced, your will grows in strength and power, as does your self-confidence.

It’s a lesson I am in the process of learning, and so I thought I should make sure to put it into words to aid me in that process.

It’s much easier for me to act on something when the words for it are out of my head and therefore out of the way.

I know I need to feed my starving soul. It has been starving for a very long time but I have only been conscious of it in the last six months. One of the vital inputs I have been missing is life experience. Life lived in realtime, directly, with no five second delay.

Just had a mini-donut. YUM. Skipping the chocolate dip it comes with tho. That would be way too much.

The inobvious (and for some of us, downright counterintuitive) truth is that life experiences are worth far, far more than possessions or wealth. With every experience, you strengthen your self-worth because you add to the list of things you have been through and come out of it fine.

And that gives you the concrete evidence you need to fight the voice of fear that always makes things seem like they will be far, far worse than they actually are.

I have beenj thinking a lot about that lately. About how the predictions made by our emotions are so often completely wrong. Things do not turn out how it feels like they will turn out, at least if you’re a big bulging bag of neuroses like me, and that means those predictions are absolutely worthless.

But they are all we have to go on. And the human mind would rather act on wrong information than do nothing until more information comes in.

After all, no matter how shitty the information is, a decision still has to be made.

But say I rejected these neurotic inputs due to their unreliability. What then? I suppose I would have to make decisions based on previous experience and reasoned prediction.

In such a decision matrix, the statement “I enjoyed this the last time I did it” would hold more weight than a strong but undefined feeling of fear and panic, as would the statement “my friends will be there and so it won’t be too scary”.

Part of me still rebels against the idea, though. Ironically, it’s the same part of me that makes all those bad predictions. It now predicts that going against its predictions will only lead to terrible (but undefined) consequences.

Well knock it off, o unfaithful Prognosticator. The jig is up, mate, and everybody knows that you make terrible predictions and then actively punish any attempt to verify whether those predictions come true.

After all, if I never go out, I will never find out whether it will be as horrible as you make it out to be, will I?

Well I am done with that. From now on, I will remember that my emotional predictions ain’t worth shit and do my best to make those kinds of decisions based on sensible thinking and true reflection on my emotions, and tell that hysterical ninny in the Data Projections department that he is fired as of NOW.

Don’t make me call security on you, dickhead!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.