It’s Sunday afternoon, and I have all of my other chores basically finished for the day. For the next hour or so, I’m going to keep working on The Psychic Out of Time. As a warm up, I thought I’d write a quick update.
I’ve really been enjoying Chuck Wendig‘s apple reviews. He started doing them on Twitter a long time ago. They’re funny, informative, and a reasonable introduction to his voice and writing style. Reasonable, because Chuck has a pretty broad range, and these reviews tend to highlight his humor more than his horror.
Melissa and I have been enjoying Cosmic Crisps, but because of Chuck’s reviews, I picked up some other apples yesterday while we were at the store. We have more Cosmic Crisps, some Galas, some Envies, some Asian Pears, and a couple of Opals.
It’s the Opal I’m trying today. Here it is untouched.
When Chuck does his apple reviews, he records himself eating them and gives some brief analysis in a video, posted to Instagram.
When I consume apples, I make it easy on myself. I take the corer/slicer and split my apple in one clean CHUNK. It comes out looking like this:
This would be a good time to note that Chuck is also a photographer, and I’m just snapping these in my kitchen, with my phone.
One of the reasons I picked the Opal is because Chuck recently did a review of one.
How does my Opal compare?
It’s good. The flesh was a little bit softer than I expected when I cut it, but it’s firm enough with each bite that I don’t feel like I’m eating a sponge. I’m finding this apple to be more tart than anything. There is juice, but my mouth feels a little dry after eating a few pieces.
There is a note in mine that I can’t identify. When I try to find the words, I come away with “yellow,” “lemon,” and “flower petals,” though none of those descriptions are quite right. It’s not lemony or sour, though there might be a hint of that underneath the tart. The fruit is obviously yellow, but “yellow” as a flavor descriptor is right, in the same way “purple” is the right word to describe certain flavors of Kool-aid.
It’s a very pleasant apple. I think I like the Cosmic Crisp more, but this is good, and I’m glad we picked up more than one.
On an unrelated note, I made some great progress on the woefully late WXR 2025 keyboard. I’ve got a print for the base that accepts the chip perfectly. I have some tiny screws for affixing the ESP32 to the case, but it fits so snug that it doesn’t really need them. I had to iterate several times on this, but I think I finally have it.
I’m still uncommitted on an official Novel Month thing, but I’m two days in a row showing up to write, and that’s good enough for now. We’ll see what Monday is like when I have to get back to the regular daily grind.