Jowls: The Revenge
"Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down to the pond and chasing bluegills and tommycocks. This shark, swallow you whole. No shakin', no tenderizin', down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing. "

-Enigmatic Misanthrope

A Prize In Hand
Is worth ... something. Possibly something in the bush, possibly something on the hoof. But it surely worth posting. Herewith a picture of my prize for providing Rachl Lukis with her blog's new tagline. Sunny looks so cute in her humiliation. You, who have not been declared a "damn genius" by the exalted Rachl, can purchase one fo these from her Zazzle store. Yes. You can. Do it now.

Good Stuff The Second
My love for all things ginger is about as through-going as my love for all things PRS (see the Bonni Pink post below). This pic is of a jar of Laxmi Brand ginger paste. This was also a gift from the friends who gave me the lemon pickles. This is great ginger paste - creamy smooth with plenty of gingery heat. I've used it in making lychee sorbet and I just used it straight up, no straining out of bits. Good stuff. If you like ginger and can find this variety, get it. You'll be pleased.

Good Stuff
Have you ever had lemon pickles? Yes, I know it sounds strange. But you slice 'em thin, put 'em in a salad and you've got something. Something good. And I'm going to use these in my next dumpling project. Lemon pork dumplings with hoisin. I'm not sure how they'll be but if I can get the ratio of lemony brightness to hoisin sweetness right (with blanched bok choy to ease things around), it could be a winner.
Friends gave me these (pictured) for my birthday. They say that these are better than the other brands they've tried. I'm taking their word on that.

Final First Deck Farm™ Pic
Can't say much more than that. The Zavory peppers on the left were in a previous pic. And though the lower leaves of the Supersteak tomato on the right look a little sere, the plant is doing well. In fact, all are doing well. There is real growth on all sides.

Linky Linky
If this doesn't make you laugh somewhere, there's something wrong with you.

The Name Of The Color is Bonni Pink
My love for Paul Reed Smith Guitars has been much bruited about, here on PoW. But I am stealing a pic from the "Birds and Moons" forum dedicated to all things PRS and ancillary considerations ("do 10s work better on a Swampy or should I use 9s?"). One of the big guns on the forum is a collector of the first water. He seems to have the resources and the inclination to vacuum up some of the truly amazing product that comes out of the Kent Island Magic Kingdom. I envy him his ability to get some guitars that are beyond belief. But he recently posted pictures (one of which I've stolen) of a new guitar that leaves me gap-jawed with amazement.

That is a Bonni Pink Hollowbody with quilt maple top, stoptail bridge, cream pickup rings, clear knobs (which manage to pick up the pink), red coral bird inlays and the piezo pickup option (which replicates the sound of an acoustic guitar though played through an amp), cream binding and, since the headstock (unshown) sports the eagle inlay of the "Modern Eagle" option, this should have a Brazilian rosewood (AKA "crackwood") neck.

This is simply one of the most beautiful guitars I have ever inclined a retina toward. I have always liked the color (named after Bonni Lloyd who was Paul's secretary) and this quilt takes it up insanely. The bound "f" holes are gorgeous and if it's in the same weight class as my Hollowbody, as light an electric guitar as you could find.

This guitar, or one as close to it as possible, would be a prime item in my "if I won the lottery" list. Tell me that's not gorgeous. Go on - I dare ya.

Here is a page of Bonni Pinks with a bit explanation of the genesis of the color. You can see that it's prone to fade over time and the fade is not particularly to my taste. But the original color is just killer.

More From The Deck Farm™
Today, a picture to the southmost side of the DF. The bell peppers and some of the hot peppers. One of the Zavory plants suffered in getting planted (the one closest to the camera) but it appears to have come though albeit shorter than the others. I'm so eager to see if the "cool" habanero works as I hope it does. The Biker Billy Jalapeno plants are just off-camera to the right. I will post another pic that will show the hot pepper Earthbox and the Supersteak tomato Erfbox.

Sidebar Changes
One addition and one alteration. I changed the link to Gates of Vienna to one for Gateway Pundit. I found that I was really no longer visiting Gates of Vienna and making Gateway Pundit a regular stop. I think I even did a post not too long ago saying that readers should click on over. Well, that holds true universally. A lot of good stuff is there everyday. It's how blogging should be done.
And I've added "The Smallest Minority" to which I went following a link from Billy Beck. TSM is one of those uncompromising, suffer-no-fools blogs that I'm glad Al Gore's Magic Tubes was invented to bring us. For example, it was there I saw that Bill Whittle has posted again. That alone is worth the price of admission. Whittle's posting has become rare and is just that much more precious for its rarity. Just go. Go to both. Read. You will be better informed and better citizens for it. Thank me later.

Just Damn
I have a very good friend, excuse me, very good friends - a nuclear family. Husband, wife, young daughter. Both parents have a myriad of health issues but I've always thought how nice that they have a daughter who can help them with the problems life always seems to throw at the infirm.
Recently my friend told me that his daughter was having her own problems - pain, discomfort, sleeping problems. I was sorry to hear it but thought it might be some expression of a troubled genetic heritage and that it might be something that she could work her way through. Then the other shoe drops. I get a call yesterday that the child was examine and has been found to have a tumor on her spine at the base of her skull. It's not known yet whether it's operable and she's going in for a CAT scan today (or very shortly) to see how it lies.
I am praying that it is not malignant and has not metastasized. She's a good kid. I love that family dearly. I sit here with my bad joints and think of her and wish I could take her pain on myself. But those trades are only made in "Twilight Zone" episodes. I'll trust in God to do his will. As much as it pains me to think of her.

OK. Let's Try The Tomatoes Pic Now
Hmm. I think I figured out the problem. It was my mistake after all. So let's see if i can make this little splootch of magic work ...

A ha! It was my fault. And I'm not going to say what it was. Because a damn genius can figure out how to fix his mistakes. Dagnabbit.

The Intertubes Are Testing My Patience
Which is as sore as a gouty toe at the moment. Slow, slow, slow. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? My FiOs is running at about 1 Megabit instead of the 5 it should. Pages load with an error message though load actually when I click the "try again" button. Even Verizon's main page is grinding into what I hope is a load and that's taking donkey's years. Argh!
Is it just mine? Is anyone else having slowness issues? Is the heat making the Innerweb all lackadaisical and overcome with lassitude?
Me no likee.
But I'll upload a couple of pics from the Deck Farm™ just to pass the time. First, a "making of" the Erfbox.

And then a shot of the tomatoes, well, four of the six. The other two SuperSteak are to the left of the Erfbox. ... OK, Blogger is ignoring my request to post another picture. So I'll cut my losses and post this with the tomatoes pic (taken today) to follow. Argh and argh again.
UPDATE: Something was screwy in my computer. It hung on me and I re-booted. A hugely rare circumstance for the iMac I assure you. Thereupon things busted loose and now my 5Mb speeds are back in form. Yah-hah!

A Long-delayed Embed
Well, after going two weeks without giving sufficient brain power to the idea of an embed, I've settled back on one of my all-time favorites (and a guy I consider a friend) Jake Armerding. He has several uToob viddies up but the one I'm posting is one of my absolute favorites of his songs: "Little Boy Blue (North of North Dakota)." The venue is the Boston Folk Festival. And the introduction shows Jake at his best. He talks with the audience, makes that connection on perhaps not the personal level but certainly on a human level. You may not feel you've had the chance to talk to him on stage (and thank heaven for that! say other audience members) but you will have the feeling that he's talked honestly to you.
Another of my favorite performers, Mike Cross, does this perhaps better than any artist I've ever had the pleasure to experience. Mike and Jake not only write and perform fantastic music but they introduce songs with stories and give explanations of the genesis of songs. It makes for a vastly more pleasant listener experience.
In any event, this song displays much of what makes Jake such a master songwriter: intelligent lyrics, humor a great hook and a great story. I love it. I hope you do too:

I'm A Damn Genius
It must be true because Rachel Lucas said so. And thereby my tale of prize winning is completed. Yes, I did come up with the new banner line on blog-goddess Rachel Lucas's site. And my prize is praise and a coffee mug. Which will do nicely, thank you very much. Should any Rachel readers click over here, thank you for the squint in my direction. I have been off my feed (ha! it's an RSS joke!) lately but hope that the return to blogging actual will spin up this week. And look at that. Two obscure "Battlestar Galactica" references in one sentence!
And I caught the bottom slot in the Wizbang caption contest. A good week for me.

Details To Follow
I recently had the good fortune to win a prize. The actual prize is not exactly life-changing (I opted for a coffee mug) but given the context, I'm quite proud of my effort. I can't say what it is yet but once some changes have been made on another blog, I'll be explicit. And when I get my prize, I will be taking pictures which you will see here on PoW.

Briefly Mentioned
Paul Reed Smith Guitars has opened registration for the Experience 2008. I'm registered and this year I'm going to take the factory tour. Click the link and see a little viddy from PRSH (Paul Reed Smith Himself - yes, he is called that by the fan base). It was a great time even though I only saw Johnny Hiland play. This year, I'm going to see a lot more.

Still Hurtin' For Certain & Many Apologies
My apologies for the lack of blogging lately but my musculo-skeletal system has just been running on the "outraged" setting for the last week or so. It's possible it may have something to do with the weather as I talked very recently with a diabetic friend (whose diabetes was only diagnosed in this year and who has such a multitude of health issues that I should really just STFU about my health in comparison) who told me that he, his fibromyalgic wife and their daughter (who is coming early into her genetic heritage, sadly) all had a horribly painful week last week. At least I think I'm coming out of it. I am typing and my left shoulder is not screaming at me. My "terror wrist" is not plaguing me and I've actually been able to get a couple of things done of late.
I'll follow my apologies for the lack of posting with apologies for the health whining. It just not ... attractive. I know. But it is explanatory. So I'll try to dial down the whine level and pump up the explanatory quotient. ... Try. I said "try."
You'll have noticed a lack of the weekend music embed. I was thinking of putting up Peter Gabriel's seminal stop-motion animated viddy for "Sledgehammer" from the superb "So" disc. But I am reluctant to do so since it's almost moved beyond "seminal" into "cliché." But unless I can dig up something more interesting, I may post it tomorrow anyway. And I'll apologize for an uninspired choice too.
On the asset side of the general ledger, I have the Deck Farm™ actually planted with only one of the "Zavory" peppers looking like it might not make it through. But I think it will. Pictures have not been taken - yet. This evening when I change the hummingbird feeder, I'll go all snap happy and post some results.
I watched, with friends, one of the audition episodes of "Last Comic Standing" and was somewhat nonplussed. Just not that funny. If these people are making a living from their "comedy," then the Enigmatic Misanthrope and I are in the wrong line of work. Put the two of us together, add a six pack and we could blow about 90% of the "comics" off the stage. And that's just working off the cuff. If we prepared some material, we'd have our own sitcom offer. Rather encouraging actually. I've pulled my scriptwriting and comedy writing books off the shelf and started on a nice long legal pad. I've posted the random joke to the blog but I'm going to try to make it pay for a change. Wish me luck.
All that said, I thank you who are patient enough to check back at PoW even in the hiatus of posting. I'll try to give you more reason to visit even as I sit and bitch to myself about myself.