I May Have To Blogroll This One
The Fail blog. If you don't get the idea from the name, visit the site and you'll twig to it immediately. I rather think my good friend the Enigmatic Misanthrope would get a larf and a harf out of it.
And I guarantee my friend Gradual Dazzle will get two larfs out of this post!

Tasty Linkage
By one of those perverse strings of link following, which are well nigh impossible to remember how you got from, say, The Unofficial Apple Weblog to where you ended up, I found Steamy Kitchen. Sounds saucy, dunnit? Actually it's "Modern Asian Cooking: fast, fresh, simple enough for tonight's supper." From my first impression, that looks pretty accurate.
I may have to spend some time there and whomp up some tasty oriental eats the like of which I've never before made.

Too Late To Matter
I think that from now on I'm going to call Ewoks "Wookie Mcnuggets."

Maybe Not Who You Think
Birds attacked my father.
What famous director does this make you think of?
Answer in comments and I'll post the correct answer tomorrow.

Worst. Star Trek. Pun. Evar.
Uniforms Officer: Captain, this serger is broken but I think I can fix it.
Picard: Make it sew.

Early Music Embed
Since the whole world (or so we're led to believe) is going to be watching the New England Patriots attempt at history on Sunday night, I thought I might steal a march and put up the music embed a day early. So, for your delectation is Yael Naim's "New Soul" which is featured in Apple's ads for the new MacBook Air. Naim has a quirky voice and I don't know that I would want to listen to her for extended periods but this song is delightful and the video is just charming. I hope you agree.
Next week - a non-Apple related viddy, I promise.

Twenty Seconds Of Ad Hate
Dear no cost credit report people, I've heard your (expletive) songs about selling seafood and driving a crappy car too many (expletive) times. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut the expletive up!
And note - I will never, never ever use your service since you have worn down my LAST nerve with those gotdam ads!

New On The Blogroll
M.J. Perry's "Carpe Diem" blog. Excellent economics. The site comes to me courtesy of Lycurgus whose recommendations seem to pan out pretty well. Read. Learn. I would be an autodidact if I worked a little harder at it.
A particular case in point, with all the yammering about the subprime lending "crisis" (it's not a crisis - it's a problem certainly but given it's fractional percentage of the market, it is not a crisis), and all the massive writedowns that financial institutions have taken, would you imagine that every major U.S. bank was profitable last year. The press is lying to you. That's the beauty of the blogosphere.

Vote For My Lolcat
OK. It's not a cat. It's a frog. Show me the love - go vote it up. Tell your friends. Force them to vote it up. I don't ask for much. Pretend I'm Dr. Evil and throw me a frickin' bone here.

Sunday Music With Added Snark
I love Apple, I love the iPod, I really like Feist's song "1234" which apple used in the iPod Nano campaign. But that doesn't mean I don't like the bit Mad TV did with the lovely Nicole Parker in place of Feist. I hope you get a snicker out of it as well.

Hiatus
No posts until the Sunday music embed. I've got a lot on my slate and dealing with it is taking the gumption I would otherwise put into the biting wit and deep thoughts of blog posting. And the sarcasm. Did I mention the sarcasm?
A couple of notes until I return: I talked with a (and I'm not being sarcastic here) very nice customer service rep at Verizon to inquire about their FIOS service which is available in my 'hood. As it turns out, I can actually save a few (not many but a few) dollars with the special offers and bundled service that they offer in FIOS. That would be faster internet, better television signal and all the same phone features. 15 days to cancel should I decide I don't like it. A two-year price lock in. Free installation and one extra special discount which is what brings my cost down to just below what I'm paying now. Deal. (ptew! shake)
Newspaper. I'm going to try the Washington Times electronic version instead of home delivery of the paper. It's cheaper. I don't have to toddle out in the cold or heat to collect it. I won't have to deal with the read paper (bundling and recycling that is). As long as I can print out the X-word puzzle (and sometimes the sudoku), I think it'll work much better for me. I'm just so ecologically conscious! Oh look - sarcasm's back.

Remember
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you lay the blame.

Fred's Out
Damn. Just Damn. There's not a real conservative left in the race. This is the first time someone I've wanted to vote for was not the candidate and it leaves me pissed off at the GOP. Well, I can support Mitt Romney even if he's not my first choice.
The GOP really, I mean really needs a new Reaganite revolution.

Incoming Netflixery
I've had "Ratatouille" at the top of my queue since it was released. That must be one hella popular flick because it's only today that the Great Computer of Netflix has deigned to send it out to me. I'm looking forward to it.

Resolutions Continuing
I now weigh on both the counterbalance scale and the flat scale every three days. They diverge by roughly (today exactly) five pounds with the flat scale being five to the good. I started charting the lighter weight even though I was recording both the weights in my Day-Timer™. This is not exactly being self honest so I added new columns and am charting both.
My guess is that as I back down from the tropospheric weights the two measures will converge to a point where the flat scale will register within a pound, roughly, of the counterbalance scale. At that point, I may sell the counterbalance scale and just keep the smaller, more easily stored scale. But that day's a long way away.
The good news is that on the counterbalance I am half a pound away from my monthly goal already. If I could knock off half again as much by month's end, I'd be pleased. It could be considered a jump on next (short) month but I'm going to try for my monthly goal whatever the loss in the prior month was.

One Make That Two Random Thoughts Captured
I was thinking about the allegations that famous baseball players had performance-enhancing drugs injected into their gluteal muscles. Wouldn't that make what was injected asteroids?
UPDATE: Wouldn't breast reduction surgery be an ex-pec-tation?

Just Linkage
Here is a page of pics that scream for lolcatting. There are cats and pugs and hedgehogs and birds and cows and monkeys and .... I think there's even a pangolin. Take a look and tell me that you don't have at least two dozen captions running through your mind. There's a big load of cute over there.

Sunday Music Embed
Brought to you from those halcyon days of 1981, Aussie Two-Hit Wonder Billy Field with one of those two: "Bad Habits." I heard this on NHK radio when I was teaching in Japan and have loved the unusual singing voice, the horn charts and the wonderful lyrics. Strangely, I always thought of Bobby Short when I heard that voice. To see that the singer is a geeky white guy is a little disconcerting. But the song's still great. Enjoy.

OK, This Made Me Laugh
After Mr. and Mrs. Fenton retired, Mrs. Fenton insisted her husband accompany her on her trips to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Mr. Fenton was like most men - he found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunately, Mrs. Fenton was like most women, and loved to browse. One day Mrs. Fenton received the following letter from her local Wal-Mart.

Dear Mrs. Fenton,
Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and may be forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against Mr. Fenton are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.
1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking.
2 . July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.
4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, "Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away."
5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&M's on layaway.
6. September 14: Moved a "CAUTION - WET FLOOR" sign to a carpeted area.
7. September 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he'd invite them
in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department.
8. September 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, "Why can't you people just leave me alone?"
9. October 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.
10. November 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.
11. December 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the " Mission Impossible" theme.
12. December 6: In the auto department, he practiced his "Madonna look" by using different sizes of funnels.
13. December 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled "PICK ME! PICK ME!"
14. December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed "OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN !"

And last, but not least

15. December 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, "Hey! There's no toilet paper in here!"

Regards,
Wal-Mart

Update On The Netflixery
I had the distinct displeasure of wacthing "Evan Almighty" last night. Oh my aching deity. What a horrible, horrible movie. It is the biggest steaming pile of beef by-product I have seen in years. I am simultaneously drawn toward deconstructing just how vilely awful it is and repulsed by even thinking about it. And I have to come down on the side of the latter. But please, please for the love of God Montresor! do not watch this crapfest.

Manned Cloud
Actually an airship. And just insanely beautiful.

A Whole Slew Of New From PRS
It's NAMM Guitar show time and the brilliant luthiers at Paul Reed Smith have brought forth a good dozen new models. Of course a lot of the "new" is working up existing models in new configurations and woods. F'rinstance, there is the SE Custom SemiHollow with "soapbar" pickups (please don't ask me to explain the nuances of different pickups - I have an idea of what's behind a pickup but can't tell you what effect the differences make). If I were adding to the collection, I'd probably get an SE Custom SH - the SE line is less expensive and as a light guitar to carry around, the Custom SH is a fine looking gitbox. I find the arc-shaped sound hole to be way cool.
On the other hand, I've never been much of a fan of the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece - big, clunky, heavy and not very pretty. But the PRS style trem will only work on a solid piece of wood making his hollowbodied guitars, up to now, trem-less. The new model is the SCJ Thinline which has a Bigsby. The name. I'm sure, comes from the Single Cut configuration with the J probably as a "jazz" designation - I could compeltely see George Benson playing one of these. And it has the Bigsby which, given that a PRS trem couldn't be mounted on it, is OK by me. In fact, I'd buy one of these were I pooping cash (only 300 are in production which will put a price premium on these like nobody's business!)
I won't go into agonizing detail on all of these beauties since my rhapsodizing would grow more than a little boring. Yet a couple of things are worth noting. First, there's a new style of birds fret-board inlay. Click on one of the PRS links above and select the Santana MD ("Multi Dimensional") from the list. It's a bit hard to see but the birds are outlines in gold. Looks gorgeous. Oh, and this represents the return of a Santana-named model to the non-SE lineup (note the rounded "belly" of the guitar's body, the midline inlay, the fairly symmetrical "horns" and the non-standard shape of the headstock).
Secondly (well, thirdly I guess), a korina wood model of the McCarty line. Damn fine looking in natural methinks. My understanding is that korina is a superior tonewood and is reasonably light as well. I'll be reading the "Birds and Moons" forum for tone reports on that one.
If you have a few minutes and appreciate guitarfleisch, click on one of the links above and look over the additions to the lineup. A thing of beauty is a yadda, yadda. Take a look, eh?

Recent Netflixery
(singing) One of these is not like the other...
Evan Almighty and Resident Evil: Extinction.
Yet there is a bit of a common thread. Go figure.

Yup
Log it. 10:30am Chez BlogDog there is snow.
A grateful nation weeps in joy at the demise of glowball warmening.

I Need A New Doormat
And Target sells it.

Wallace Stevens Never Wrote About A Green Guitar
And he never knew anything about a Paul Reed Smith. Trolling eBay i came upon this lovely piece of work: a 2007 513 in "Midori Green." That's in quotes because "midori" mean green so the color is called "green green." There are a couple of things about this beauty that stand out. First, I think the color is fantastic even though I've tended to favor figured maple tops over opaque finishes. Secondly, the 513 (five single-coil pickup grouped into a humbucking configurations at the neck and bridge locations and a single in between which yields 13 distinct tonal variations) is just an insanely versatile guitar. The lead guitarist on the "American Idol" band plays a 513 if you've watched and seen it. In fact, the particular version he plays is exactly the same as mine: Matteo blue flame maple finish with a Brazilian rosewood (AKA "crackwood") neck.
The listing I link to is one of the new models which has a mahogany neck which does change the sound somewhat - I'm told by my friend the Guitar Nazi who has an ear vastly superior to mine. But the mahogany-necked 513s are not quite as spendy as the crackwood versions so there's something to say for that. And some have even said they prefer the sound of the newer models.
I look at that Midori and get all gooey in the guitar love centers of my brain. And the BIN of $2,900 is really not bad. Also, there's a link embedded in the eBay listing to a uToob demonstration of the 513. It's worth following.
UPDATE: BY way of comparison, a Brazzy 513 is on the 'Bay for a bit shy of $5K. Since PRS is now only putting Brazilian rosewood necks on its Private Stock (i.e. custom-built) models, the price premium for crackwood is going to do nothing but go up. I'm glad I got mine fer sher, fer sher.

My Favorite Ad Lately
The IKEA 20% off sale ad where the woman shopper looks at her receipt, hurries out and yells to her husband to "Start the car! Start the car!" And the graphic "It's not a mistake." Very well played.

Aw Nuts
Having enthusiastically said I was going to get a ticket to see Mike Cross, I now have to re-think that. To go to the show would require about an hour and a half of driving and the forecast is for crappy weather - early snow followed by rain, sleet and freezing "west and north" of DC. Needless to say, my entire trip would be west and north of DC.
I'd just rather not tempt fate.

A Bit More Of Music
One of my favorite artists and, I'm proud to say, a friend, Mike Cross plays a song called "And the Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'" by Australian folk artist Eric Bogle. Unfortunately Mike has never recorded it. It is a pretty strong anti-war statement based around the horror that the Aussie troops went through at Battle of Gallipoli. I'm not particularly enamored of the message but the song is superb. It has enough emotional power to bring tears to my eyes. Unfortunately I don't think Eric Bogle's version (link goes to an mp3) is as good as Mike's. Yet Mike told me that he feels it's been recorded enough that he had no interest in doing so. Which is a pity.
I was casting about to add it to my iTunes but I don't care for the spare roughness of Bogle's voice. The Wikipedia page says that a version by The Pogues is well-known but my listening to a sample on Amazon is enough to tell me that Bogle's is better. All in all, Mike has a better voice, just dead-on perfect phrasing and superb guitar-playing. I do wish he'd reconsider recording it.
UPDATE: I figured I'd check Mike show calendar and he's playing in Sykeville, MD this Thursday! As close as he gets to my abode. I'll be calling for a ticket tomorrow.

The Great Donald Fagen
Today's Sunday night music embed is the very weird viddy done for the song "Snowbound" from the unutterably fantastic "Kamakiriad."

Resolutions, Part The Next
I bought myself a new scale. I have a very good counterbalance scale (like this, but without the height measure) but having more incentive is part of the trying to make things work. The one I bought at least in part due to the discount coupon but I was impressed that its capacity was sufficient for my needs which is unusual for a floor scale. And, quite frankly, it is one of the best looking scales I've seen in ... well, ever. It's a thick glass plate atop a strain gauge. It has a nice big LCD display which runs off three AAA batteries.
I'll be measuring myself on both scales as I work on reducing my bulk. I'll post a pic of it shortly.

Considering Obama
OK, so I vote for "change." It won't be but a couple of hours before the diaper's full again. And then what are you going to do?

This Is What I Use On My Morning Oatmeal
And it is goo-ood! (Get yours from the Ginger People.)

Boomer Devolution
My frickin' generation has gone from the "hippy hippy shake" to the shaky, shaky hips.

Political Nomenclature
I'm going to start calling those who plan to vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman "she-ites."

Resolutions
It's awfully early but so far I'm doing all right. At least twice I've started to think about fast food and managed to resist the late night temptation. And I just set up an Excel spreadsheet to track weight loss. It's still finger's crossed but the trend is in ther right direction. It's also a good opportunity to muck around with Excel and teach myself some charting. Life is a learning experience.

Stunning
Some time ago I bought Donald Fagen's "Morph The Cat" which is no surprise. I will buy anything Fagen records. But since buying it, I had listened to it only out of iTunes either on my computer or on my iPod. Today I had a major Fagen jones so I queued up the playlist and chewed through "The Nightfly" then "Kamakiriad" and onto "Morph." Wow oh wow! What I have been missing without the sub-woofer! I'm listening to "What I Do" and the rumble of the bass deep down under Fagen's voice and the chick chorus is just amazing. Damn! This is even better than I thought.

Blame Me For This
An environmental organization was looking into the diminishing habitat of a curious mammal called the "sand porpoise." After a long period of research, they found that a sub-species which was of a reduced size but of a fierce-feeding nature was actually adaptable to more habitats than previously thought possible. In fact, a shore habitat in which the porpoises had never lived turned out to be very well-suited for them. As the report said, "This habitat is not good for all of them but for small, intense sand porpoises, it's perfect."

A Fix To The Blogroll
I realized, after getting an e-mail from the delectable Stevie Rave On that I had neglected to update her Caught in the Xfire link on my blogroll. Whap! Consider me chastened.

Said Bogie to Ingrid
Here's looking at you, kid.

Wondering
Since it appears that the members of the Screen Actors Guild are going to honor a fellow union's action with actors not appearing at the Golden Globes ceremony, does that make the picket line a writers' block?

This Just Makes Me Laugh
Has since I first saw it.

I think I may make a Sunday night music embed a continuing feature this year.

Celebrity Politics
Has Heather Mills McCartney come out in favor of any candidates? I know she's a Brit but I'd like to know who she's stumping for.

New On The Blogroll: Amy Alkon
Amy "The Advice Goddess" Alkon is newest on the blogroll. Insty has thrown up a couple of links to her recently and I find her writing to be actually laugh out loud funny, smart, sane and to the point. I don't imagine she suffers fools gladly so it's great to see her eviscerate them (wittily no less!) in print.
She's a syndicated columnist as well ... let me change that "as well" to "as is well deserved." I wish my WashTimes would carry her column but having online access to her output is a fair substitute. On top of all this, check out the photo she has on her blog. Rowr! That shot just rumbles with sophistication and sexiness. It doesn't hurt that she's a glorious redhead.
There's more: I've sent her a couple of e-mails (one saying how great her photo was and another calling her line "a Ph.D. in bombastic flatulence" Guinness-scientist brilliant) and she was gracious enough to respond to each. Which she absolutely didn't have to do. Not that she needs any PR from me but what a great lady. Couldn't be happier to have her on the blogroll.

First Half-arsed Success Of The New Year
When it comes to telephones, I'm a headset wearer. Dyed-in-the-wool, any-other-hyphenated-phrase dedicated headset guy. I no longer want to hold a phone to my face than spit on the sidewalk. By which I mean that I will do it but I don't like it. This presents no problems when it comes to my cell phone - it has speaker function though I much prefer to use the Bluetooth headset (gad I love Bluetooth!) Even with my computer when I'm Skypeing, I use a Bluetooth headset.
But my desk phone has been a thorn in my side for months. I started by using a good-old cordless phone. But that meant plugging a wired headset into the phone and then leaving the handset lying on the desk as I yakked. Not a bad solution but when the headset flaked out on me, I thought it time to cut the cord. So I got a cordless headset. One of these. It was on sale from the bargain-wranglers at Woot.com. But that meant I had to figure out a phone to run the headset base unit. I wanted Caller ID and a phone that wouldn't take a slot on my desk UPS with a power brick. So I found an inexpensive GE phone at Circuit City and set it all up only to find that the headset didn't work with it. (sigh) So I've been talking, at my desk, on a simple, traditional handset for months. It's a new year and i got fed up with not rocking my desk set the way I wanted it to be. So I used Amazon to get myself a nice, new Panasonic, battery-powered (rechargeable of course!), cheap but good phone. It is now nearly completely set up and I'm happy to say that the headset puts foot to booty in a serious way. Cordless, comfy. I can be on the phone and answer nature's call at the same time. Talk about your call waiting!
Tomorrow I figure out how to set up the automatic handset lifter so I can answer the phone remotely from the headset itself. Technology is wonderful and liberating. These are great times in which to live. Seriously.
On the other hand.... In ordering the phone from Amazon, I figured I'd get a few more of the excellent Sony rechargeable AA batteries to fill out the order for free shipping. D'oh! So how did I get AAA batteries? By not paying sufficient attention. Not only that, the AA recharger doesn't fit the AAA batteries. Unh, I mean, vice versa. But I have a few things that use AAA batteries so I'm going to get a charger for the AAAs and a deck of the AAs from my local Staples using my credit card point dollars. Ha.

Alert! Alert! Alert!
Bill Whittle of Eject! Eject! Eject! has a new essay posted. You are thus required to go there now and read it. Not reading what Bill Whittle writes is not acceptable.
That is all.

Recent Netflixery
I watched "The Simpsons Movie" a couple of days ago. I used to like "The Simpsons." Not any more. I just can't believe it took them a movie to jump the shark. Oh well. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Why? Remarkably boring. Please don't ask me to watch it again so that I can deconstruct it properly! It doesn't deserve it.
Also watch the final pirates movie. Many swashes were buckled and they did a good job of making Kiera Knightly attractive even the girl needs to make face love to a few sandwiches. This one I'll watch again.

New Year's Resolutions
It's not too early to start work on that list. And it is so beyond cliché to ask what you are resolving that I am emphatically not going to do so. But I will ask you about your process. When do you start thinking about what to resolve? New Year's Day itself? The week after Christmas? Do you write them down? If so, where do you keep them? Someplace where they stand as a stark reminder or some dark place that rarely sees the light of day?
I'm also not going to bother you with all that I'm resolved to but there are a couple I'll post. First - no more wasting time with web-based games. I had an entire folder of "Games" in my bookmarks and it has been dumped already. I played my last games of the "Asteroid"-style game "Belter" today as well as my last round of online "Bejeweled."
PoW will given more attention in '08 as well. It has lacked focus and posting has been sparse. I'd like to have at least something for you every day though such a thing is not always do-able. Instead, I will steal a page from the estimable Joe Sherlock's book and post on certain days on a weekly schedule. Call that a 'to-be-determined' schedule for the nonce. I also hope (not resolve) that I can make some upgrades to the blog. Adding blogads might make a couple of bucks here and there. That can't be too bad. And the template is in dire need of a new look. Call that TK (in magazine-speak a "to kum" - something to be filled in later).
I resolve to be an early riser. I don't get going these days until mid morning. I'm going to start getting up at 6am so I can have the paper read and breakfast finished by 9am in nought eight.
And no more fast food. I will be cooking more from the basic ingredients. This will allow me to do even more food blogging as well so we all win (he says tongue in cheek).
Happy New Year to ye. I hope it's your Best. Year. Evar.

Tasty
One last recipe post for '07. I haven't tried any variation on this so I can in no way claim it as my own so I have to pass along the credit to "the folks at Butterball" as the the source (from a Scripps Howard piece in my local paper).

New England Cran-Maple Chutney
1 bag (12 oz) of cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup (2.5 oz) chopped crystallized ginger
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 table spoon honey Dijon-style mustard
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
Combine all ingredients in a heavy medium saucepan. Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring frequently.
Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 1o to 15 minutes or until cranberries begin to pop and mixture thickens. Cover and refrigerate at least two hours to chill and allow flavors to blend.

This may have come from the turkey pimps at Butterball but I think this would work just exceedingly well with big slabs of ham, lamb chops or roast lamb. I don't quite see eating it with roast beef since that takes nothing more than a good Dijon-style mustard to be perfect. But I suppose you could, if you wanted to.
I think the recipe might be improved if you used a Vidalia type (sweeter) onion and chopped it a bit larger. It would give a nice snap to the texture.

A Little Late
But quite enjoyable nonetheless.

There's Got To Be A Morning After
December 26 and I start with a call-out to a disaster movie. Ignore that. I haven't had any coffee yet. Christmas proper is over even if "the season" lasts through new year's day. And should I capitalize New Year's Day? Just a little window on things that trouble me.
In any event, I hope Christmas for you was great. Of course I hope you got the gifties you sought but more than that I hope you had moments of joy in the midst of all the hubbub and brouhaha. I had a pleasant lunch with a friend and his parents at a retirement community no too far away. The food was not bad. Not exactly overwhelming but good for institutionally produced grub. And then we sat and talked. We ended up talking about cloning and abortion. Not exclusively of course but those topics seemed to lead. The talk will probably lead to a blog post before long.
My wish for you today is for calmness, relaxation and rest. Nothing about an upside-down cruise ship.

So This Is Christmas
I have neglected, to this point, to wish you all a very merry Christmas but that does not mean the wish has not been in my heart for you. I have worked toward the outward expressions of Christmas this year perhaps hoping to make Pascal's wager to hold on a smaller level. I'm not sure it has fully worked.
I am enjoying this Christmas a bit more than last but not as much as I know I can. I will work in the new year to bring myself to a higher level of health which will allow me to better enjoy the season - decorate more, do something new like bake Christmas cookies. How sad is that? I don't recall the last time I made Christmas cookies. Somewhere I have a recipe for hermits (I have no idea how that name attaches to cookies) which are devastatingly good. Next year, baby, next year!
Today I made a batch of "New England Maple-Cran Chutney" which is rather good. Much more chutney than cranberry sauce despite having more sweet in it than in my cranberry sauce. I'll post the recipe after I've done another couple of batches. It has crystallized ginger in it. And I like it. Are you surprised?

So this is Christmas. May your day be filled with fun, family, gifts and grub. My wish for you is joy and enjoyment, blessings, cheer, full bellies and long, warm naps.

And I hope yule log onto Pugs of War in the new year.

A Brief Meditation On The Use Of Knives
Kitchen knives that is. If you want advice on edged-weapon combat, you'll have to go elsewhere. This is occasioned by my latest batch of dumplings last night when I was chopping kim chi. Previously I had used my santoku knife to do the chopping and it was unsatisfactory. My santoku (from the Cuisinart set I have blogged long ago about buying from Amazon) is a very light knife. A large blade but not a heavy blade. The nappa cabbage kim chi is a pretty fibrous sort of vegetable and it took a lot of pressing to chop it with the santoku.
But I have a really lovely large-bladed stainless steel vegetable cleaver which I have tended not to use. Mistake that. I got it out for last night chopping and it was a wizard at reducing the veg to the size I wanted. The sharp heavy blade took no pressing to cut through a good pile of cabbage. And the width of the blade made taking the chopped product off the cutting board simple.
So once again the wisdom of using the right tool for the job is rammed home. Of course it helps to have the right tool. Not that you're going to find me getting a Tomato Shark any time soon.

Sa-weet!
I've been meaning to post my congrats to Joe Sherlock on his acquisition of new automotivity - a Lexus LS460. Just. Gorgeous. Looks like molded raspberry syrup. As we say in the Serenity 'verse: Shiny. I hope it turns out to be everything the good gentleman from the opposite cost (and his lovely missus) expect in a vehicle. I look forward to reading its adventures on the blog in the coming months.

Another Sure Sign Of The Apocalypse
The Hello Kitty AK-47.
Hmm. A title longer than the post.
Until I made that comment. Oh well.
Another perfectly reasonable observation shot to hell.

Latest Netflixing
Watched "Shrek the Third." Not bad. Technologically superior to the first two but the story was lacking. However, the ogre and dragon-donkey babies were just adorable. Overall, very cute. Definitely worth a rental if you haven't seen it. Not worth owning though.

Wherein I Force A Collective Regurgitation
A woman was advertising one size of battery that she was selling after buying an imported lot that was taken by customs. In other words:
She shills C cells by the seizure.
UPDATE: I have been one-upped by a logophile friend who suggests the following (superior) wording:
She shills C cells. Buy the seizure!

Go Visit
IML8 over at the "And Another Thing...." blog has a great story up today. Go, read, clap your hand to your forehead, wish her well.

Listening To Christmas
Once again, I have had trouble getting myself in the Christmas mood. I do believe it's better this year than last what with the smell of the tree in the house and the noble intention to get cards out the door today.
And my ECB has sent me a wonderful gift: La Répertoire de La Cuisine by Louis Saulnier. I will be digging into this petite treasure in the new year. Thanks Paul!
Of course I have to gripe before I get to the reason for the post. A couple of years ago, (maybe a few, does anyone really care?) I bought a set of battery-powered LED lights which I considered to be for the wreath. This year, I put the batteries in and powered it up and only four of the bulbs burned at a decent level of brightness. I thought LEDs were marked by their ability to last for donkey's years.Wazzup wid dis? So now I have to find a new set which may or may not be easy. On the other hand, the technology of small LED light strings has probably improved so that they're running off AA batteries instead of C cells. Oh well...
So we get to the point of my post, the nub of my gist, the (crunch!) chocolaty center of my Tootsie Pop. If there's any one thing I did to make this season seem more festive, more Christmas-y, it is to have made an iTunes mix of all my Christmas music and set it to shuffle. I have nearly seven hours of music in the mix and I can listen for a couple of hours to songs I love (the new Trans-Siberian Orchestra disc is really good) and let the spirit creep into me even if my tattered soul wants to resist. I hope y'all have something similar. It's a good thing.

Wherein I Watch Television I Normally Don't
I had the misfortune to watch about ten minutes of the ABC home-makeover-cum-queen-for-a -day show that's broadcast on Sunday night. What a wretched excrescence on the face of humanity. First the faux concern for the wounded people who seek the prize of a quickly (and we hope not shoddily) constructed home. Hollywood is never more false than when people whose reason for being is screen time pretend to care for those among us who have suffered tragedy. Awful, awful people.
And then the "design" of rooms. I don't recall seeing any more narcissistic exercise on television since watching Bob Villa on "This Old House."
Horrible, awful people. The only reason I can fathom for this show to stay on the air is that people who have suffered the slings and arrows are getting new homes. And that I don't disparage.

Mixed Emotions
The old joke about the definition of mixed emotions is watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your new Mercedes. Here is an update on that. My tears for the loss of such magnificent autofleisch are lost in my you-rich-sonuvabitch laughter.

In Light Of The Ice Storms
It's an old joke fable but its' worth repeating:
Late one autumn a songbird decided it was tired of migrating and thought it would just hang around over the winter to see what it had been missing. Well, it soon found out that what it had been missing was intense cold and lack of tasty insects. So, as an ice storm began to blow in, the songbird figured better late than never and flew off toward the south. But the storm was just too much and in no time at all, the songbird's wings began to get coated with ice and he fell out of the sky, a itty bitty ball of ice as the storm abated.
But as it turned out, the songbird fell into a cow pasture and a cold, cold cow ambled over and dropped a massive pattie right onto the bird. Greatly relieved at not being frozen anymore, the songbird began trilling a song of relief. At which point, the local cat heard him, stalked over, pulled him out of the cowpat and, wiping carefully, consumed him with undisguised pleasure.
This is, of course, a fable so it has to have a moral. Actually it has two. First, just because somebody poos on you doesn't mean he's your enemy. And secondly, just because somebody pulls you out of the poo doesn't mean he's your friend.

Fuzzy And Muzzy
Expect no blogging here today folks. I had one of those night where I just could nt reach sleep. Out of the whole night I probably got three, perhaps fours in a couple of fits and starts. It was so bad that I watched some of the Affleck's movie "Paycheck" which is one of the few things I can think of that is worse than not sleeping.
I hope you have a good today. I'll be lucky to make it through the day's sudoku with brain cells still sparking. Bugger.

Unfortunate
My attention was just called to, and I so wish I'd realized this myself, that Brangelina's child Shiloh Pitt's name is subject to a really, really bad spoonerism. Don't make me write it out!

Differentiation
I was thinking about the Democratic front runners and realized that were one to win, it would be an Obama-nation. If the other were to win it would be an abomination.

Since I Mentioned It...

A Christmas Gift From Jake
The superbly talented Jake Armerding has a section of his website called "Bootlegs." Freely downloadable mp3 files of several songs, mostly his own. But he has put up an instrumental version of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" that is quite lovely. A great addition to your seasonal music collection. And at the right price.
Thanks, man. May you get whatsoever you want for Christmas especially since you serve up a gift to us.

Why Does This Make Me Think Of Michael Vick?
If you have a battle dog, or a dog that's really, really into Ren Faires, I think you need to invest in dog armor. And please no one tell Gradual Dazzle that they're making skwerl armor too! Evil needs no help.

Christmas Dog
I'm working on a new dog breed for Christmas. It's a cross between a setter and a pointer and it'll be called a "pointsetta."

The Christmas Thing Starts Again
Yesterday I acquired my little table-top tree and a wreath. Today, as the snow falls, I will lay the wreath out on the table and add the big red bow and the clever battery-powered LED lights. The table for the tree will be cleared and the leaves and scruff which the tree accumulated out in nature will be picked out. Then, after going out into the snow (snow! in December!), I'll do a couple rounds of cranberry sauce tests and gather the Christmas cards out of their hidey hole.
I have been quite slack in the card sending of late but I have a stack of delightfully retro cards which I'll be chewing through this year even if I do nought but sign my name and say "God bless." Really, more is not required. I hope your proto-Christmas is developing well.

Again With The Finarglin' Cranberry Sauce?
Yep. More experimentation. Having killed my orange-flavored brandy-ish stuff on my last batch, I went to the alky store today to purchase Grand Mariner, Cointreau and Triple Sec. A batch will be made with each to see if there is any appreciable difference. I'm hoping there won't be since Triple Sec costs about an eighth of the 'spensive stuff. I'll not be posting results however as I'm making batches of the stuff to give at Christmas and I want everyone to assume that they got the good stuff. But join me later for a snifter of Cointreau, or Grand Mariner....

"Tin Man" Again
I was planning to get more into the ideas animating the story this time around but I find I'm growing against the show as it goes on. In point of fact, last night as I watched part the second, I was so tired that I fell asleep while watching. I'm definitely going to watch it tonight when part two is broadcast again though. I want to like it. It's just getting more difficult.
sigh

A Very Brief List Of Some Things I Love
The last minute of Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick"
The jalapeno corn chips at Trader Joe's
Brown-eyed blondes and green-eyed brunettes
The delicious bite of gingerroot
Apple computers
Paul Reed Smith guitars
The curious synergy and differences between Japanese and Chinese aesthetics
Caller ID
There will be more. Please feel free to add things you love in the comments.

Info Bleg
I came upon this indoor/outdoor smoker on the 'Zon today and am highly intrigued. But I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with it or something similar. Smoking things is a very good thing in the Martha Stewart place of my foodie-ness but does this thing actually work? The price and free shipping is not bad.
Drop me a comment, please.

"Tin Man"
I watched the first episode of Sci-Fi channel's new mini series "Tin Man" last night. If you're not a Sci-Fi watcher, it's a re-imagining of "The Wizard of Oz" that's more "Zardoz" than Judy Garland. In brief - I liked it. Sci-Fi does a remarkably good job in original production for a basic cable channel. But I want to go into detail on this show if it doesn't bore anyone. And in that regard, I want to consider the casting.
First, Zooey Deschanel as Dorothy, or in a change that's just a bit too precious her character is called "DG." I suppose they had to make a change of some kind but "DG" just doesn't flow. I've known several people who go by 'DJ" and those initials do feel easy on the tongue. "DG" on the other hand, just doesn't work. But that's minor, really. I loved Ms. Deschanel in "Hitchhiker's Guide..." but I am not enamored of her here. She has no presence. She's supposed to be all spunky and whatnot but her character doesn't act consistently. She's shown wading into fights where she'd be at enormous risk with a stick in her hand yet she doesn't fight back when, for example, the flying monkeys come after her.
And yet I don't want to be too negative about her. As I watched the show, I kept trying to think of actresses I'd prefer to see in her place and no one in particular came to mind. So I may just accept the casting decision of the producers and leave it at that. If any reader can suggest alternate casting, please leave a comment. It doesn't help that Kathleen Robertson who plays the evil Azkedellia (the wicked witch character) is a drop-dead gorgeous brunette. And she plays the evil lead just fantastically like a black snake: glossy, beautiful and pure menace. I hope, speaking strictly in my "guy" mode, that we get to see a lot of her work in the future. And she plays her part better than the female lead.
Neal McDonough plays, strangely, the title character. He is discovered in a very steampunk-y (in fact, the production design is very steampunk which is just fine by me) metal "box" where he has been forced to watch a holographic loop on his "arrest" and the torture of his family by Azkedellia's "Longcoats" (the Winkies of the original movie) for many years. He was a policeman (a badge-carrying "tin man") who was part of the resistance against the evil regime and his punishment was the box from which he is rescued by DG and the scarecrow character (called "Glitch" here). McDonough is perfectly cast. He is angry, with a strong dose of capable menace. He is utterly believable in a fantasy which says something about his acting ability. I don't think it was made explicit but I take his "no heart" as having his family, those he loves, torn away from him.
Glitch is played by Alan Cumming who in real life is just too gay for me. I don't care if someone is gay but don't shove it in my face, please (oh, unfortunate metaphor!). He's like Andy Dick without the full-on insane behavior. His character's "lack of a brain" is due to Azkedellia who physically removed a good portion of it and left a zipper in his head. He had been an adviser to the previous queen (and Azkedellia's mother) and his intelligence must have represented a threat so ... no brain. My complaint about the actor aside, he plays his part very well. As he usually does. He may annoy me but he's a very good actor.
And the "cowardly lion" is called "Raw" (a bit clever that) and played by Raoul Trujillo who was last seen as "Zero Wolf" in "Apocalypto." That's a switch. The makeup is excellent and he does as good a job as can be expected swathed in a man/lion suit. I can't fault this casting at all.
Finally, for today, Richard Dreyfuss plays the "Wizard" character who is here called the Mystic Man. No one can doubt his acting chops after having seen him in what seems like a couple of hundred roles since he broke into the biz. And his greying gravitas makes his character come across extremely well. He's not "the great and powerful OZ" in the least. He's a stage magician and has been addicted to a drug by Azkedellia since he had been the source of opposition to her in the past. Shaking that off to help DG and pals is the main action of his role in the first night. I expect that we'll see more of him upcoming which would be good.

It's not perfect but this is another strong entry in Sci-Fi channel's lineup. When they bring back the Battlestar, I'll be happier still.

OMFG!
There are things that I want on my next new car (iPod integration, an automatic rear lift gate would be nice) but never in my life have I wanted anything on a new car more than a disappearing door. Gimme.
Gimme gimme gimme!

Oy Gestalt!
At some point in the past I've made mention of getting begging letters that include return address labels in a futile attempt to guilt me into coughing up some dough. Not gonna happen. In this regard I am 100% guilt-proof. The latest effort was by the US Olympic Committee. In adding the latest sheets to my expanding collection, I wondered how many labels I had. And the idea of counting them was daunting. Plus time consuming. I don't mind wasting time but not this way, surely.
So I figured I'd weigh the sheets. Keep in mind that what I was weighing was exclusive of the Christmas themed labels that some send. 7.8 ounces. Just a whisker shy of half a pound of address labels. I will either die or move before I ever get through that many li'l stickers. Betting on those options opens at even money.

And So It Begins - Again
After posting about Christmas music, I went into my iTunes and re-activated my Christmas playlist which is shut off as of the end of December as a matter of principle. And I've had my first song shuffle up: John Fahey's "Medley: Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly-We Wish You A Merry Christmas" from his "Popular Songs of Christmas and New Year's" disc. It is, in reality a bit early to hear it but it's a gorgeous guitar solo. Wonderful. His loss was a significant one for folk music.
Also, if you've never heard Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas," you're missing something. It's a great contemporary Christmas song. It was used to good effect in the movie "Love Actually." I usually detest Ms. Carey as a waste of considerable talent but the song is wonderful.

Recent Netflixery
Oh how it pains me to admit the depth of my shallowness some times. To wit, the last two movies I rented were "Next," the Nicolas Cage fantasy adventure and the Transformers movie. Let me deal with the former first. Actually better than I expected. Nic Cage is nothing -ever- but Nic Cage but he makes passing fair action adventure movies so I took a chance. If you have an hour and a half to spare and haven't seen it, you could do worse. Skip the extras though. Total waste of synaptic electrons. I have one serious beef. At one point Cage tells the old joke about the Zen Master at the hot dog stand ("make me one with everything"). And he utterly screws the pooch on it: "I'll have one with everything." That ... makes ... no ... sense!
Let me preface my remarks about "Transformers" by saying that I hate Michael Bay. "Armageddon" was the biggest colonic product I have seen in forever. Massive poopage. And I like just about all the actors in that show. As much as I love Kate Beckinsale, I couldn't even bring myself to watch "Pearl Harbor" because of my antipathy to the Bay person. But Lileks posted a brief rave about the robot movie and I am in an action adventure mood so, all right already. Damn. I could not have enjoyed it more. Thank goodness I have the new speakers with the subwoofer! Loud and thumping (a problem in "Armageddon") was just what the non-stop slam-bang of this flick needed. It could easily lose fifteen minutes of Shia LaBeouf's family, Anthony Anderson and his family but once this ramps up, it just doesn't stop. The robot transformations are nothing short of amazing but they're actually too complex. The fights are massive but, again, too complex. There's to much debris flying around to make sense of what's going on. It's the opening space battle from the last and most craptacular of the Star Wars movies all over again. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
But then there are FX shots like two massive robots crashing through a building shown from the outside of the structure with offices full of scurrying people in full view. That was a 'wow' shot no question.
So as much as I hate myself for saying this, I loved "Transformers." And I resent that. I still hate Michael Bay though. I can't let that go.

Pre-Christmas Bleg
As I have noted in the past, every year I add one CD of Christmas music to my collection. Last year I finally got the great Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas disc. But this year I'm out of ideas. I only have one CD each from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Mannheim Steamroller so there are great possibilities there. But perhaps readers could make suggestions in comments that might direct me to something unusual and excellent. Don't worry about suggesting anything Christmas-y from John Fahey. I have all his holiday albums already.
UPDATE: Thanks for the suggestions. I took advantage of the rift in space time to add Tom Waits to my collection. Not the song - Tom Waits himself. I altered history so that slavery was never outlawed and made sure that my family owned his family. If you think slavery is outlawed, please wait for the ripples in the continuum to work their way through the universe.
OK, kidding aside, I bought the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "The Lost Christmas Eve." But I'm keeping my notes of the suggestions for next year. I also added a couple of Jethro Tull CDs to my collection so as to qualify for free shipping. Gotta love free shipping.

Best Use Of A Christmas Carol In Advertising
Goes to Garmin for its use of "Carol of the Bells:" give a, give a, give a, give a, give a Garmin. Nicely done.
And the embed that surely condemns me to perdition:

The Foxborough Juggernaut
Earlier on the blog I made a comment on the risible attempt by the Washington Redskins to take on the New England Patriots. After laughing my way through that game, I've been trying to make it a point to watch the Pats play this year since this team will go down in Niffle history as one of the greatest teams ever. Tom Brady will be spoken of with Elway-like reverence when he is finished winning Super Bowls.
Which means I have to say that last night's Eagles-Patriots game rather surprised me. The Pats' mere three-point win was as shocking as the confident, muscular play of the Iggles. I was of the opinion that having gotten past the Colts earlier, New England was ready to roll through the rest of their schedule. But I forget sometimes that there are games that sneak up on a team. The Eagles had every reason to be sky-high for the game having just taken a game flat away from the Redskins (that sound you hear is my distant laughter) and really, nothing to lose in laying every drop of testosterone and every cc of steroids on the line for the game. And they did a helluva job. The Patriots, on the other hand, really had no reason to be jacked up for the game. They have been just crushing opponents and the Eagles haven't shown themselves to be terribly fearsome competition.
The fact that the Pats didn't let a game slip that easily could have been stolen from them shows just what a gutty team they are. I think once Tom Brady realized that the game was at risk, there was no way he was going to let it go.
And, I think, therein lies the story of the New England Patriots this year. Any team that goes up against them had better be prepared to bring it hard. Because the Pats and their almost pathologically truculent coach are setting out to make this team a team that will be talked about with awe in the history of the game. They've won Super Bowls; that's not a goal to energize a championship team, strange to say. But to go undefeated, to set scoring records by multiple dozens of points (possibly even a hundred give or take), to set touchdown records for Brady and possibly for Randy Moss as well - now there's something to make the team leap onto the gridiron and batter their opponents into submission.
They only scored 31 points against the Eagles. Expect scores in the 50s against any team that can't gut it up like Philly did. Let's see if other teams can raise their level to meet the Pats because the Pats are not about to play down their opponents. They may go undefeated into the next season if injuries to key players don't take them down. It's beautiful and almost scary to watch.
And by the way, Red Sox win the World Series, Pats look to run away with the NFL crown and the Celtics have put together the best team they've had in years. Boston should be a happy, happy sports town these days.

Late Thoughts On Cranberry Sauce
Having not made a test batch of maple syrup sweetened cranberry sauce - Hey, I made five different variations on the recipe with one of those being a double batch - I will say first that I am well pleased with my recipe. Secondly, the orange blossom honey variation is better than the sugar-sweetened type. But I don't think it's necessary to use a scant cup as I did. 3/4 of a cup, an equal measure of the sugar in the original, is all that's needed. However, I once again add that the better the quality of orange blossom honey you can find, the better it will work with the sauce.
On Saturday night I had dinner with friends who served a ham and I'm not being modest in telling you that the cranberry sauce works as well with ham as it does with turkey.
My one note on the cranberries themselves is that the Ocean Spray bags that are sold in supermarkets everywhere are great to use. I wash them and pick over the berries as I don't want to use mushy, going-bad berries in the sauce. I only had to toss about 8 berries per bag.
Finally, as Christmas nears, I am going to make a batch with maple syrup and I will post a note on how it turns out. And it's likely that with that batch I'll use up the orange flavored sorta-brandy so next year's change will be the use of Cointreau, as I noted below. As is my wont, I'll post about that when the time rolls around.

The Cranberry Sauce Post
I have always loved cranberry sauce. My late mother made an uncooked cranberry sauce that was, in essence, raw cranberries, honey, orange juice and orange peel all blitzed together in a blender. One of the beauties of her sauce was that you could adjust the ingredients on the fly. Too tart? Add more honey. Soften the cranberry flavor? Add more OJ. I like it a lot. But I like a more jell-ified sauce even better.
Heck, I even like the tradition ridged cylinder of canned cranberry "sauce" but that doesn't mean I'd actually like to have it on my table. But don't let my culinary elitism deter you if you want to slice a disc of that to put beside your slice of turkey.
With all as prelude, this year I decided that I wanted to make "my" cranberry sauce. And, as is my wont these intarwebnet days, I first went to epicurious.com and searched on (you can see it coming, right?) "cranberry sauce." And what came up almost first in line was Cranberry Sauce with Port and Tangerine. Here is the nub of the gist of the recipe:

1 (12-ounce) bag fresh or frozen cranberries
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup ruby Port
3 (3- by 1/2-inch) strips tangerine zest
1/3 cup tangerine juice (from about 2 tangerines)

Bring cranberries, sugar, Port, and zest to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until cranberries burst, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in juice. Cool completely.

Please do click the link though for some more information and to give the good folks at Epicurious another page view.

I made one batch of this recipe as written. And it was good. Very good. Very, very good. Port really (I mean really) works well with cranberries. But as I said, I wanted to make this my own. My first thought was, "wouldn't chopped walnuts be nice in this?" So I added a half cup just as I removed the mix from the heat. I wanted the nuts to be touched by the heat enough to be softened but still with some crunch. And I was right. It worked. worked for me at any rate.
I'm not sure that the amount of zest I use is particularly what the recipe calls for but I zest one entire tangerine. And I keep the zest pieces small as taking a spoonful of cranberry sauce with a five-inch long piece of citrus zest dragging behind is just wrong. And the zest is cooked enough that its easily edible.
For my next batch I added a half cup of an orange-flavored brandy-ish thing I was given too many years ago to count. In my first try, I added it with the tangerine juice which meant the alcohol didn't have a chance to burn off. It was good but I thought the alcohol gave it a bit of an unnecessary edge. So in future batches I added the "brandy" (orange-flavored I jump to point out again - I would not have used plain brandy) at the same time as the port. And with those changes, I have arrived at "my" cranberry sauce.
I have made another batch in which I substituted a scant cup of orange blossom honey for the sugar. It's cooling in the fridge so I can't say that it's a radical improvement but I think a really nice orange-blossom honey is a superior sweetener to cane sugar. And when I finally kill the orange fake brandy, I would probably use Cointreau instead. Cointreau is so wonderfully complex a liqueur that it might be a superior choice.
One other variation that I'll probably try, though I'm not sure it would be a superior change, is to sweeten the sauce with maple syrup instead of the sugar or the honey. It's a change that cries out for empirical testing nonetheless.

PoW Thanks You For Your Patience
Happy belated Thanksgiving to one and all. I will shortly be putting up a post about the cranberry sauce which I will now consider my "signature" cranberry sauce, although there is one variation yet to try. Let's just say that I brought a batch to friends for the turkey dinner and it was snarfed up in short order.
And good luck with your shopping.

Sound Baby! Sound!
For the longest time I've been running off the built-in speakers on my iMac to play iTunes music. They're very good speakers for their size and their built-inedness. But they're not exactly earth-shaking when, say, I've tried to play someone a song while I was on the phone. I have now entered a whole new realm of sonic bliss.
I bought these Altec Lansing speakers which were on sale at good old Amazon for $25 less than they're selling for now (Gold Box deal - some real bargains there). I haven't run the puter masheen with a sub-woofer before. Oh glory! I can feel the music in my diaphragm. And the satellite speakers are compact yet crisp and clean. If they were articulate, they'd be Barack Obama.
Well, actually, you could say that they're articulate. But I'd vote for these speakers.

Wyzit?
I so want a tuna sub today.

If You Want To See What Paul Reed Smith Is All About...

By the way, "GAS" is "Guitar Acquisition Syndrome." All PRS owners suffer from GAS.

Sketch Comedy
File this under "things I'd like to see that no one is ever going to do:" A bit that takes off on the old "Johnny Quest" cartoon with just about everything the old series had in situ but with one significant difference. "Hadji" in the original is Indian and, though it's not made explicit, I say a Sikh inasmuch as his last name is "Singh" and he wears a turban. However in my version, he's some stripe of Middle Easterner and is a committed jihadi. His entire purpose in being withe Quests is to steal technology, information and otherwise promote Jihad against the infidel.
Hilarity ensues. I think my good friend the Enigmatic Misanthrope could write a few chapters of that book....

I Promised To Be Discrete
I read the Consumerist blog regularly and, despite their anti-capitalist inclination (which explains the lack of linkage), one thing that really matters to them is customer service. And it matters to me too, even though I consider myself to be a very even-tempered and moderate customer. So when something extraordinary happens, being a blogger I want to blog it.
Something extraordinary happened but I promised that I would not reveal the specifics. Let me see if I can figure out a way to explain without providing any identifying details....
I have been patronizing a local business for a number of years. Said business has a timing restriction at times due to huge demand. Orders have to be in by a specific date in order to have the service performed in a timely fashion. This year I was blithely going along and not thinking of deadlines and the advancing of the calendar. When I shook off the unconsciousness, I found that I was two days past the deadline for orders. Drat, Hosed myself. But I have great affection for the business and the proprietors so I dropped an e-mail saying, "My mistake- sorry to have missed the timing, hope your busy season doesn't swamp you, best, Me." And much to my delight, I got a return e-mail saying, "We expected you to order and have you down for a few units anyway. How many do you want?"
Wow. I was down for three and asked if I could get five. And I could. There are good, no, great folks in the wider world and finding how great they are can be a real blessing.
And do not ask me for the business because I gave my word that I would not admit that the rules were bent. They can't do that for everyone.

LOLbug #3

Almost Live From The Snack Shack
Oof-ah! I am stuffed (stuffed! I tell you) with steamed dumplings. I made a new batch and must report on a couple of tweaks to the recipe (which I have never posted here mwah-haha!) which worked rather well if I do say so myself. First, I left the shiitake mushrooms out because they have a somewhat delicate flavor that I didn't expect to come through in htis mix. Then, instead of using blanched bok choy, I chopped up about a cup and a half of napa cabbage kim chi. I love kim chi. I've even had tofu and kim chi for breakfast. And loved it.
Finally, I had to address a problem I've had with my dumplings. When they steamed, the meat filling would shrink leaving the cooked dumpling a sort of baggy sack. Tasty but not a nice, plump dumple. The fix turns out to be very simple - egg whites. One egg white per batch. I suppose you could use two egg whites. I may try that next time.
The result: in a word - superb. Best dumplings I've yet made. My dinner was a heaping plate of dumplings dipped in sauce of sesame oil, soy sauce and Chinese black vinegar. I need to resupply my rice wine vinegar and get some mirin too.
Tomorrow there will be ginger custard made. I can hardly wait.

Latest Netflixing
I've just dropped "Spider-Man 3" in the mail to return to the warm bosom of the secret Netflix "processing facility" nearest me. Stick a fork in the franchise. It's done. I have nothing against Tobey Maguire save for the fact that he looks sort of younger and goofier in this flick than in the previous iterations. Not too fond of Topher Grace. But it's Kirsten Dunst who really lights up the screen. Like a flaming bag of poo lights up a door on Halloween night.

Guilty Pleasures
C'mon ... fess up.
I'll start. This is actually about TV guilty pleasures. I am loathe to admit the joy I take in watching "Scrubs." But I sure do. It is unredeemedly stupid and Zach Braff's character acts in such a way that no even approaching normal human being would. But it is still laugh-out-loud funny. Dr. Cox's rants, the occasional instances of decent human behavior, the absurdities, the relationship of Turk and Carla. It's a much better show than i want to admit. And Sarah Chalke can look stunning at times - knockout blonde when they tart her up. So there you have it. My guilty pleasure.
What is it you watch that you're not proud of? C'mon. Use an alias, post a reply. Let the world in on your secret shame. You'll feel better.

Jake Alert! Jake Alert!
The superbly talented Jake Armerding is going to be at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage on Sunday evening. You should be there. You'd better be there! You're really going to miss something if you're not there.
Just go dammit! Listen to me now and hear me later. If you miss his show I'll be mad at you. And you'll regret it.
He'll be in Richmond on Thursday but DC is closer.

Hollywood "Writers" Strike
Wizbang Pop has a pic of the "writers" milling around on a sidewalk in what I suppose is supposed to be one those expressions of the working man that's supposed to make the little Monopoly guy with the top hat howl as he were being violated by a sharpened MontBlanc Starwalker. Tcha! Yeah, right. Look at the signs. What's on the signs? "On Strike." How (sarcasm) original! (/sarcasm)
Yeah, you need writers like that Hollywood. Then again, if the writers really did write their signs, they'd probably be worse than "On Strike."

The Wonder Of The Intarwebnet
Yesterday afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of having lunch with a long-time friend whom I'd never met. We have been in e-mail contact for something like ten years, back to the days when I used to post on a Usenet newsgroup for a local radio show. We both have (I say with great humility and self-effacing modesty) great senses of humor and became, long ago, as fast friends as this electronic age allows.
She is a Murrliner but had reason to swing out to the wider environs of NoVa this weekend and, as luck would have it, was coming pretty much in my direction. So we had lunch at my favorite local place. And I got to meet her son who was a pleasure to have in the (nominally) adult conversation. It's actually rather nice to see the affection between mother and son expressed so easily when teenagers these days can be so sullen and anti-parental. Good kid. Speaks well of the family.
Marisa, darling, I had a great time. Love ya.

If This Doesn't Make you Laugh...

Detail - The Grill
Aluminum foil and craft store crystals. A daub on the upper left of undried Elmers glue. The learning process continues.

Magazines Are So Specialized These Days!
The late Spikerman makes Pug of the Year. Of course it helps to have an "in" with the magazine editorial staff.
If you want to be an editorial staff, make your own magazine.
Hat tip to XMBD and the NMSE for the image.