Kris has been buying pita chips as his new snack food. He used to munch on a puffed rice chip. Rice Sembei, I think is the name. He switched to Stacy's pita chips a couples weeks ago, so I've been picking up bags when I go to a store I know has them, which, until recently, has been Whole Foods.

Never quite sure what flavors he might be interested in, I purchased at least one of every flavor in the pita chip line last time I bought him chips. He went through most of the bags, but each time I looked in the cabinet, the cinnamon and sugar bag hadn't been open.

When I came home tonight, and needed a snack, I looked for the pita chips, but found only the cinnamon ones left. Until today, I hadn't really eaten many of the chips, that pesky wheat allergy causing me to avoid wheat as a general rule, but I was hungry. Unfortunately, I was also working, and started eating from the bag quite mindlessly.

An hour later, I realized I had eaten the whole bag. My dinner was a bag of Stacy's Cinnamon Pita Chips.

I flipped over the bag to see how many calories I had eaten, my stomach already starting to revolt at the influx of too much wheat.

Six hundred calories.

Six.

HUNDRED.

Calories.

I'll be playing at tonight's practice, even if I'm not on the team.

Even when I try, I just can't win sometimes.

Take tonight, for example. Since I trained in from Velocity Sports this morning, I asked Kris to pick me up from work before we went to dinner with Crystal and Nick. I told him to call before he arrived so that I could be downstairs waiting when he arrived. Last time we tried this, I made Kris wait a few minutes downstairs as I finished up with something I was doing (clearly the most important thing to be doing, ever), and he was annoyed at me when I finally exited the building. He was double parked in the street, and such blatant disregard for fellow drivers pains Kris beyond belief.

I was determined not to cause his such pain. I was ready to close my computer, stand up and leave the moment he called. This time, I would be waiting downstairs, ready to sprint to the car, fling open the door and jump in, all while Kris rolled by at an easy 10 mph. No stopping this time!

Earlier that day, I was at a client meeting with Mike. When we arrived at the client's, I turned off the ringer on my cell phone (actually, off both cell phones), and tucked them back in my bag. When I'm at a client's, I'm at the client's, not on the phone with another one. Twice during the meeting Mike's cell phone rang and he looked to see who the caller was. The second time annoyed me so much I snapped at him, "Why is that ringer on? Turn it off."

Another lesson Kris taught me: the phone is there for my convenience.

Tragically, after the meeting, I forgot to turn either ringer back on.

When Kris called me on his way to the office, when he was close, just as I requested, he called me to let me know he was on his way.

He called again to let me know he was close.

He called again to let me know he was downstairs.

He called again to let me know he was driving around the block.

He called again to let me know he was parking in the lot across the way.

He called again on my other number, because clearly the first one wasn't working.

"Is that your cell phone ringing?" Mike asked me as I was working away, clearly blocking out the world as I worked. "My cell phone? What?" I asked. "Cell phone? OH CRAP!" I jumped up.

Kris was just ringing Doyle to ask "WTF, mate?" as I made the last exclamation. I was out the door before Doyle could say, "She's on her way."

From actual call that reached me to downstairs out the door was less than 10 seconds.

For Kris, that 10 seconds took 20 minutes.

Back when (and I mean waaaaaaay back when) I played on Special K, my teammate David Bailey (that's Mr. David W. Bailey to you) showed me the site of his roommate, Eric. Eric's site Eric Conveys an Emotion had me laughing for a long time, and some of the images still make me laugh. Some time later, David moved out of his place, both of us stopped playing for Special K, and neither of us ever talked about Eric again.

Fast forward five, six, oh crap I'm getting old, seven years, and at the Yahoo Hack Day, I passed Eric standing at the registration table talking to someone I was waiting to talk to. I smiled, became all excited, and asked, wait, wait, are you Emotion Eric? He looked at me sheepishly, almost embarrassed, and said yes, he was. His body language was very clear he wasn't exactly excited about being recognized, so I introduced myself, said I was happy to meet him, and continued on my way.

Well, tonight, as fate would have it, our paths would cross again.

I left the plane in Las Vegas, and found myself strangely overcome with incredible joy at seeing not only the one food I was craving on the flight from Austin (that would be yogurt), but also a row of Odwalla juices, which I had been craving the entire time I was in Austin. I thought about walking to the nearest Whole Foods (which was a mere 1.2 miles away from the hotel), but hadn't found the time. To think, here in Vegas-baby-Vegas, I would find both items available not forty feet from the exit ramp and 20 feet closer than the nearest restroom. Clearly Vegas-baby-Vegas is a haven for, well, I can't finish that sentence.

A few moments later, I was happily downing my yogurt, Starbucks Chocolate Creme Frappacino in hand (not the double chocolate one with the annoying chocolate chips in it that taste like little rocks, and not the coffee-chocolate one that makes me want to vomit, no, the chocolate one, and this one was chocolate), an indulgence I partake on each and every trip I take (and very rarely at other times, it seems), watching something bad on television, might have been American Idol. During some Diana Ross commentary about some large dude completely bastardizing her music, I turned to see Emotion Eric sitting four seats over from me.

I couldn't resist.

I reached into my bag, pulled out my camera, turned off the flash (must not startle the celebrities now, even Intarweb™ ones), and, doing my best to suppress the gales of laugher trying to escape my lips, snapped a picture of Eric.

Just before the click, he looked over at me. In the same expression he had done months before, he looked embarrassed. By the time I caught the look, however, I was laughing too hard. I introduced myself again, and we talked for a while about his site, the Yahoo Hack day (and the buttons I made, which he remembered), David Bailey and his Intraweb™ celebrity status. On the plane, we sat in the same row (there being only about 25 people on the plane, we were the only two not to have three seats each) and continued talking. The flight was entertaining, with a mad dash to finish the intermediate level sudoku before the plane landed.

Happily we finished.

I wonder if Eric will recognize me the next time I giggle and pull out my camera. Or if next time, he'll run away in terror of the crazy stalking lady...

I cannot believe how much of a consumer I am at this moment. I'm a consumer of the style I detest, and it's frustrating.

I was heading home, flying out of Austin in about ninety minutes, and was hungry. Since the adventure to Salt Lick was so entertaining, I sought out the Salt Lick at the airport. Sure, the experience wasn't going to be quite the same, but, well I was still in Texas, and when in Texas, the only food worth eating is the barbecue, even if it's airport food.

The meal was handed to me oversized. The portions were gigantic. The meal included the bread I requested not to receive (since I wasn't going to eat it), cold potatoes (which were tasty when hot at the original Salt Lick, but not cold at the airport), more cole slaw than a starving rabbit could eat in a weekend, enough extra sauce to drown said rabbit and a pile of incredibly tasty sausage.

When I was done eating, I think I ended up throwing away more trash from that one meal than I'll normally throw away in a week at home. First to go was the large styrofoam container that I used for all of 15 minutes, which seemed like such a waste. Also went out the bread (see, I didn't eat it, just like I wasn't planning on doing so when I ordered "no bread"). The potatoes went out, sadly not as tasty as the ones two nights ago. The plastic fork, knife and spoon went, too. I'm still at a loss for why I even received a spoon. Four napkins went out. The cup went out. The bag the whole thing came it went out, too. The whole pile felt like six pounds of trash.

Six pounds of consumer trash, multiplied by the hundreds of people who go through there a day?

That's a lot of consumer waste. A lot that I'm embarrassed I contributed to.

On this last day of SxSW for me, it's interesting to see the transition from Interactive to Music attendees.

Walking back and forth between the convention center and the hotel, I've seen many people with a green neckband, rifling around in the bags for all the advertisement and conference goodies.

At least they didn't have to wait in the lines we did for the interactive registration: