The Mexican Lion....

A mechanic in New Mexico got fed up with criminals breaking into his garage and stealing his tools, so he put the word out that he'd acquired a new sort of watchdog: A Mexican lion. Apparently it worked. Crooks who tried to break in saw his lion from a distance and quickly abandoned their plans.Whether the story's true, I don't know...But it's still hilarious.

Happy Birthday!
My boon companion UnkaMika has flipped the personal calendar today. And it's a date I can never remember so it's a good thing he sent an e-mail! Hope you have fun, fun, fun until the sun goes down and then have some more.
UnkaRic

Git Yo Grub On (Free Food Edition)
Whatchu doin on Labor Day? Thas right - this Monday? Whyn't you git you bad se'f over to the Chik-Fil-A an git you a free yardbird sammich? Alls you got to do is (an I quote from the flier they handed me) "wear your sports team logo to Chik-fil-A from 10:30 to close, and get a FREE Chick-fil-A Orginal Chicken Sandwich."
Now, I don't think you have to be there at 10:30 and stay all day. I'm betting that you just go over there with the logo of your team of choice (I think I have a Duke logo cap somewhere) and they should cough up (ew! sorry for the choice of words) some of their signature grub. Bun, hunka hunka fried chickie and some pickles. Deal.

I Wonder...
With new brands of skwerls popping up, I wonder if the frog I found in the backyard this morning might be the harbinger of something.

A Measure Of Our Friendship
Sort of a parenthetical note to a phone conversation between the Enigmatic Misanthrope and me tonight: Our call dissolved into laughter after I repeatedly stopped him from speaking by shouting louder and louder into the receiver, "Shut up bitch!"

Ya kinda had to be there but believe me, it was plenty funny.

New species of squirrel spotted in attic.
We’re going to need a bigger Havahart trap.
Animalia-Chordata-Mammalia-Carnivora-Felidae-Panthera-pardus-sciurus carolinensis

It's September Fools Day!
Ha ha! You've been punk'd! there's no such thing as September Fools Day!

Actually, it's a good, good day - Joe Sherlock is back in the blogging chair and the weather in the NoVa is lovely, lovely, lovely. Cool overnight, into the low 60s and a high projected at about 80º. Three weeks away but autumn, my favorite time of the year, is making its way here.

Though it's not particularly a September thing, I'd like to take note of my friend Linda's acquisition of a new-to-her 2009 Mustang in place of her aging RAV-4. I turned out to be the by-phone confidant and consultant on the purchase so I look forward to seeing the beast in real life. I sure hope she continues to like it as much as she does now since she's a long-term vehicle type. The RAV was about a 9 year car and her prior (a Corolla if I remember correctly) was a 14 year ride. I'm that way about the automobile too - I figure my Y2K Outback is going another 8 years at least.

Y'all have a good day, OK?

Do You Eat Out?
Watch it! I mean do you patronize restaurants? If so, you might want to look at Restaurant.com for some deals on meals. The gig is that you buy "gift certificates" which come with some restrictions - notably that you can only use (I'll take as an example a sushi restaurant in my neighborhood - Aoba Sushi) say, a $25 certificate when you spend $35. And the certificate itself costs $10. So you would be getting a discount of $15 which is still a good deal.
Here's the reason for the post today - if you buy yourself some certificates today (the last day of the offer) and enter the code "TASTE" in the coupon code box, you get an 80% discount on the certificates. Thus a $25 certificate (priced at $10) would cost you $2 making the projected $35 meal cost you a total of $12. Deal. I ordered a few for a local place to which I have not been yet so I get to try it out for not a helluva a lot of money.
You can sort restaurants by zip code and I'd like to point out to my co-blogger the Enigmatic misanthrope that his favorite hangout, the Backdoor Bar and Grill offers certificates. Enh? Enh?

This Is The Day The Lord Made
God bless us, each and every one. I am praying for more people than I ever have in my life and my prayer is always for grace.

I deserve approbation though for not acknowledging the natal anniversary of Lycurgus, AKA Phillymon. Happy belated birthday brother! I have been turning over a suitable gift for you since finding that what I wanted to give you was sold out. And I'll make it public prior to my assembling and shipping - a big box of Japanese foods that will take you back to your childhood. Dried squid, dried bonito for katsuobushui, yokan (if it ships and I think it does), furikake, fukujinzuke. I hope you'll like what I cobble together.

And in other news, the phormer Philly Boys, now the Yumans are coming back, back I say! to the East Coast. It looks as though Wilmington, DE (just a snip off Philly all told) will be the new site of the Boys. So it looks like I'll be having more houseguests in September. And thank goodness I don't have to deal with 3000 miles and desert heat to visit them. Oy. I don't care it's a dry heat. What am I a scorpion I should live in the desert?

I just bought a boat. I can't wait to have sex on "The Angry Clam". That's what I named it.

Sectual Deviates
Snake handlers: A cult of poisonality.

"The work will begin anew, the hope will rise again, and the dream lives on."

Kennedy Death Day
The celebrations will commence shortly. Idiots can celebrate his life. Thinking people can celebrate his death. The runt of the litter outlived all the others. Highly unusual.
As the old, old saying goes: Good riddance to bad rubbish.
UPDATE: I was turning over in my mind my line above about the runt of the litter when I had the revelation. This was the Kennedy that was not worth killing. Of course the people of Massachusetts hold him in awe which says more about them than about him. It's really time for the Kennedy mythos to die.

Ow! Ow! Bloody Buggering Ow!
Gouty right great toe today. Not the worst I've had but it makes walking painful and I'm peeved as I'm not eating a gout inducing diet right now. Unless metabolizing my own fat would be gout-inducing. Now that would suck like a black hole: lose weight and hurt like a smashed Smurf while doing so.
Oh bother.

More Adventures In The Kitchen
OK folks - this one's dead easy. Chocolate syrup. I made it with Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder which is all I had to hand. Heh heh heh! "All" I had to hand was Hershey's Special Dark. I used it to make some chocolate milk this evening and all I can say is "Oh my. This is quite tasty." Consider it a more adult version of chocolate milk, made so I daresay by the use of that particular cocoa powder. I'd like to take this opportunity to suggest that you take about ten minutes out of your busy day and make some of this.
Now, the rule is that if you start with something, it must be altered before it is left behind. It is a basic rule of cooking: I've effed with the basic recipe so it's mine! Damn your eyes! What to do, then, with chocolate syrup? let me toss out a few softballs for y'all to bat back at me. Trade the sugar for Splenda and find something to give it the body that would then be lacking. Gelatin? Cornstarch? I'm inclined toward gelatin as the amount of cornstarch needed to thicken a batch of syrup would not be enough to provide enough mass, whereas the gelatin might.
I might have to get some vanilla ice cream to try the old "pour it over" trick. Kind of a classic, doncha think?

A Snip On Footy
I appear to have been prescient in warning the cat fancying Enigmatic Misanthrope that the Geelong Cats, despite their sterling record, were not the best bet for the AFL Premiership. To wit, a quote from Rohan Connolly in Oz's The Age:

Just a few weeks ago, the AFL premiership seemed a race in two between St Kilda and Geelong. Now, a week out from the finals, the flag could be anyone's.

When the Saints and Cats clashed in round 14, both were undefeated. But Geelong has lost four of its past eight games. Yesterday, St Kilda, after having strung 19 consecutive wins together, lost its second in a row, this time by five points to North Melbourne.

St Kilda and Geelong will still finish the home-and-away season next week in the top two spots on the AFL ladder. But coming hard are Collingwood, which yesterday against Sydney won the 12th of its past 13 matches, and the Western Bulldogs, who beat the Cats on Friday night.

Go Magpies!

"Hi, Enigmatic Misanthrope Here”.
Just when you thought everything that could be invented, has been, we can still surprise you! Here’s an ass paper that would make Madame Curie’s “onion ring” burn.

“That’s the Power of 9-ply Glow in the Dark Toilet Roll!”

That’s right folks, 9-ply!!

Imagine never having a messy breakthrough in the dark ever again!

Now you’ll always be able to find the toilet paper, even in the dark, with this new Glow in the Dark Toilet Paper! Perfect for power cuts, this groovy glowing stool scraper means that if you don’t want to wake anyone up in your household by turning on the light, it’ll cast its green glow over your bathroom, so you can find your way around.

"Order right now and we'll double the value and include a free case of cute SpongeBob SquarePants colostomy bags"; "Here's how to order" ...

**EM Note**
Luminescence is accomplished with radium-infused cotton fibers. 12 micrograms radium per 9 ply sheet. Results of long term use may include: Hypertrophic-megacolon prolapse, Godzilla-hemorrhoiditis, Yam bag rot, asshole fallout-itis, blindness, coma and death.

I Can See Clearly Now
I was planning on doing a little posting yesterday but after being toasted on Sunday, I was flying blind yesterday. My eyes were just a mess all day long - it's as if they were simultaneously too dry and producing gunk at the same time. I was needing lots of light to read and it was just so much more comfortable to keep the orbs closed. (shrugs) Today is all right. I might actually get something done for a change.
And my lesbian girlfriend is in town so we'll probably get together for lunch or something like that. And if you don't get the phrase: she is on the other team but she's a sweetheart and we have been incredible friends almost from the moment we met. She's a Floridian so our chances to share time are limited.
UPDATE: Quite a lovely time, really. We wound up having diner at the Sweetwater Tavern, one of my favorite local haunts. I had "Tex-Mex Eggrolls" for starters (two words: yuh um!) and though I was tempted for a moment by the prime rib, I knew I couldn't do any more than a burger. I opted for sweet potato fries for the first time and I must say they are a vastly preferable choice to the regular fries or even the delicious mashed version Sweetwater serves - more fully flavored, crisp exterior fry on a substantial starchy core. Nice. My companion chose a salmon dish which had flash fried yucca strips. To be honest, on looking at them, I thought it was a pita chip of some kind but the skin down the side showed that it wasn't. Even after tasting a bite I didn't identify it as yucca. Which is not entirely a bad thing.
But the best part of the whole evening was the catching up. I believe that is the way it should be with friends.

Whew!
Sunday is a day of rest. Thank God for that because Saturday was a day of huge party on the green with dear friends and people I've never met in Sharpsburg Maryland. I didn't get home til 3:00 am and I've been toasted all day. But it was a wonderful time.
By the way, the feeling you get when you find out you weren't invited to someone's party is called "shindignation."

Blogging should ramp up starting tomorrow. "Should," I said.

Woodstock 40th Aniversary

Here is arguably one of the top 5 performances at Woodstock.




The video proves that John Belushi wasn't making it up when he parodied Joe Cocker on Saturday Night Live.

The other 4 top performances, according to Pete Fornatale, author of "Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock" were Richie Havens, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and Sly and the Family Stone.




http://www.amazon.com/Back-Garden-Woodstock-Pete-Fornatale/dp/1416591192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250199214&sr=1-1

Is It Just Me?
Or does the pronunciation of the name "Albert Pujols" make anyone else want to laugh?

Dogged Days of Summer
It's turned nasty hot in the last couple of days and I'm delightfully tired after hosting for several days. Lois is the kind of house guest anyone would want - my guest room is cleaner then when she arrived. (goalloprah) Girl, if you're that good a guest, you can stay at my crib any ol' time!(/goalloprah)
Also the week looks busy with a ship load (you thought I was going say something different, didn't you? yeah, I knew ya did) of quotidian things to do and my adopted family in Western Maryland is having one of their massive field parties this Saturday. Fun, fun, fun and there's no T-bird for daddy to take away.
So expect more blogging next week from me. Maybe the EM and Paul can pick up a few more days of fun 'n' games and viddies.

This is for my friends Bob Cooney and Glenn Eliot.






The harmonies remain spot-on after 30 years, and their lyrics reflect upon themselves. In sum, they are artists. Please forgive the rusty musicianship. Their story is too sweet and too long to transcribe via blogger.

Here are the best lyrics:

"I got everything I want
I can't help it if I don't

Baby, don't you worry about me.

I've been hiding out on the highway,
riding down the road

Baby, don't you worry about me."


Hope you enjoy!

Just Too Cool


The promised picture of the title page. Again, this was made possible by Amy Alkon whose time and attention I had no claim on in any way. So I'll remain in devotion to her for any amount of time I can imagine. As I mentioned previously, she has a book coming out which available for pre-order from Amazon, "I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society" (link goes to Amy's Amazon Mall - why not get it through her portal and let her reap a few more pence from the deal, eh?) I can definitely say that it'll be worth the read. I read her blog just about every day and her columns when I can stomach the idiocy of the world as it's spinning now. But what remains is Amy's good, common sense. I'm not saying I don't differ with her on somethings (I keep my belief in God, she's not going to go along with that) but in the living of daily life, the girl's got it goin' on - smart and sharp which I'm sure will inform the book's writing. Plus she gets to hang with Dr. Helen. I'm jealous. Jealous but not bitter, look at the nice thing she did for me!

A Day Late
Dang it! I've been busy enough to be offline for a good portion of the last couple of days which led me to miss Joe Sherlock's birthday. Yesterday the esteemed Joe turned 66 - it's a Route, it's birthday, it's two, two things in one! Joe notes his genetic heritage argues in favor of his mortality but I, for one, am damned grateful that he's managed to skirt the boneyard and become a real online friend. Joe, you have a belated birthday tipple or, for that matter, a birthday dinner, waiting for you in Northern Virginia should you be coming this way. Happy Birthday and may there be many, many more.
And, should there be any doubt about my tagging this post with "mitzvah," I consider Joe a blessing. So there.

EM's Hobby Corner
Making Dioramas is a wonderful hobby that can exhibit an extraordinary wide range of creativity. You can make a diorama of almost any scene your mind can imagine.

Workin' Here Boss
This is one of those parenthetical posts - stuff that I dig that probably matters not a whit to anyone else. But I post anyway. Pbbblllttt!
A friend of mine has/had an external hard drive that went south. Opening it up seems the thing to do but the case was remarkably monolithic. At least in appearance. I did a little online research which seemed to indicate that there were clips that could be loosened with a long blade slipped down inside the case. I passed that info on. I was wrong. I really needed to see the darn thing, hold it in my moist and delicate hands. Well, I got the thing delivered to me.
I've got to say, there was some kinda main force applied to the back cover of the drive - it was all bent outta shape. But still attached. What caught my eye, though, was a little sticker on the bottom that said something on the order of "removing this sticker voids warranty." Why would that be? I mused. Followed immediately by the realization that the warranty wasn't really the problem.
So I scraped the sticker off to reveal a pair of little screw heads. Aha! indeed. Unscrewing them allowed the guts of the drive to slide right out, easy peasy. Whereupon I proceeded to take down the internals to component parts which importantly consisted of two 500GB Seagate drives.
I then ordered a couple of external drive enclosures and have tried one drive in one new enclosure but it booted neither on my iMac, nor on my friend's PC. The idea was, of course, to rescue the data on the drive/s and then set them up as a couple of external drives as needed. But my enthusiasm for the project obscured my gathering basic background info. To wit: the original problem was actually that the power supply would not plug in properly. The drive had a four-pin socket and I saw that the problem (which I could have solved before removing anything) was that one of the pins had been pushed out of position and stopped the plug from seating. I gingerly tried to move the pin to its full upright and seat back position but it had been wiggled enough that it just broke off at that point.
Sigh.
What do I do, what do I do? Go to the maker's website of course and after spending an inordinate amount of time peering at the power supplies they offer, finding what I truly believe is the right one. So, harking back to the post title, what have I been doing this afternoon? Reassembling a naked hard drive so that when I get the power supply, I can boot this sucker up and get at all the good bits. And bytes. Workin' here boss. Makin' more work for myself than I really should but, hey. Workin' here, boss.

I Give Thanks In This World Too
Shortly I'll be posting a picture of the title page of my copy of Elmore Leonard's new book "Road Dogs" which I'm currently reading. Actually "devouring" would be a better term. The book has been reviewed by better critics than I and raved over, not to mention having a full four stars of Amazon reader reviews so I won't go into all the details though I will say everything you've ever heard about Leonard's writing is absolutely spot on: the story rockets off the pad on page one and the dialogue is crackling.
But the excellence of the book is not the point of the post. The point is to give a huge shout out to Advice Goddess Amy Alkon who was instrumental in my getting the book autographed. In fact the book link above goes to Amy's Amazon mall which is a very good way to order not just the book but other Amazonia as she gets a spiff in the process. I don't think it's quite right to go into all the process of how I ended up getting the signed book but it was through Amy and her man Gregg's good graces that I now have this wonderful thing (I am stupid crazy for autographed books as long as they're autographed to me). So I hereby publicly say that Amy is more than an Advice Goddess, she is a Manolo-esque Superfantastic Person. And I'll say the same about Gregg despite my direct interactions being solely with Amy. Thank you, thank you, thank you both.
Plus this also gives me a moment to say what a wonderful thing the internet is. It's through the blog and blogrolling that I first e-mailed Amy and she, despite her pressing schedule (she does way cool things - way cooler than the stuff I dither around with), has always been great about returning e-mails. It's fascinating. I got to know Jake Armerding by first hearing his music on a steaming online radio station. This wide whirl of a web has brought all sorts of wonderful things into my life and my gratitude for them, the music, the people, the friendships, the caring that I've experienced can not be properly expressed.
Keep an eye peeled in the next couple of days for the picture (yes, it will show my real first name) and one more deep bow in Amy's direction when that post is thumbtacked to the blogosphere. And hey! Amy has a book coming out in October. Buy it dang ye!

I Was Going To Post-Mortem TdF
But Rich Karlgaard beat me to it. He calls it "leadership lessons" but it's a very astute take on what happened and what's going to happen. I have no doubt that Alberto Contador is the best cyclist in the world today but he's kind of a dick. No question he was screwed out of the previous year's win but he's not going to win as many as Lance if he treats his team like dirt. Oh well. Read Karlgaard's piece and next year will certainly be interesting.

Sorry For Light Posting
But don't say I didn't warn you. There were a couple of great things that happened today.
I may as well start with the "this might have sucked big time but it turned out all right after all" thing. After a morning of running around, I wanted to take some friends to a dim sum restaurant in the Alexandria area, which was a bit of hike from where we were. So it's nearing 2:00pm on a day we didn't start out with breakfast (apart from coffee.) We were all notably peckish yet when we arrived at the restaurant, it was closed. Not for the day, not for a while, I mean, shut down, rent this space closed. Arrgh! However, by luck or the residue of Providence, the closed restaurant is about a block from my favorite Chinese restaurant so we were able to sit down to a delicious lunch only a few minutes after being DEnied. Our hunger may have seasoned the meal.

And I have to tip my hat to my blogging partner the Enigmatic Misanthrope who gave me a call this evening and it was a pure delight to talk with him after not having done so for a while. Good info, good laughs, good connection. You're my bud, bud.

Otherwise Lois and Lana are still here and they are the world's most perfect house guests. If I were a less moral man, I would try to steal these ladies away from their lives and start a cult with a compound and a community built all around us. But my cult would be small beer compared to their lives. Pity.

Grace And Gratitude
I turn out to have the shank of the afternoon to sit at the desk and ponder a bit on life and the infinitude we face in every day, the universe in a grain of sand as it has been put. My post below about Dave Shifflett's Karma Farmers' CD would strikes me as a jumping off point.
I have never met Dave but we've carried on a sporadic e-mail acquaintanceship since I called his attention to Glenn Reynolds' mention of the "Floor Creak" (see link in sidebar) CD on InstaPundit. Dave was nice enough to send me a copy of the disc and I have spent many entirely pleasurable hours listening to it since. Some time later I sent him a copy of Jake Armerding's self-titled CD as I am an evangelist for Jake's music and will be always unless he does something like publicly insult me (which he's too good a person to ever do, of course). I afterward touched base with Dave to see if he liked Jake's work (he did) whereupon he offered to send me, gratis, a copy of "Songs for Aging Cynics." I demurred saying I'd buy one from him (at a good price - I'm reasonably frugal). Which is how I came into the possession of the disc.

But what sticks in my mind is something I wrote to Dave in my note with the money for the music. I consider myself the recipient of undeserving grace for what happened to resolve, not for ever but certainly in a big way, many of the problems that were so deeply troubling to me in the last year. I blogged then about the depth of my depression and won't dive back into the deep end again. Part of what I feel about such a gift of grace is the obligation to do right by way of support music and musicians. It may not make entire sense but music matters to me. I can't (yet) make it but I feel the strong compulsion to not pirate it and to not take advantage of it when it comes my way. Not taking advantage includes putting at least a few bucks into the pot when I could take the music at no cost to me.
This, to me, is a kind of down payment on the grace I received. It is something I can do that is like unto what I got. I can tangibly express gratitude for the music that feeds my soul as I try to hold the gratitude to God in my soul. It is not a rational thing, I fully understand. But as much as the compulsion to maintain my gratefulness for the grace, I am compelled to maintain my gratefulness to those who make the music I love. I'd like to be the source of some unbidden grace as much as I'm the recipient of it.

Blogging Lite
It has reached the dog days of summer and I will be picking up my house guests, Lois and Lana later today. I may be blogging a bit but you can expect a week or so of little posting. There is much other fun stuff to do - the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport for example. Planes! Rockets! Wheeeee!

Pssst!
Hey! You like ginger? You ever order from The Ginger People? Sure you do. Maybe just for the first one. But you know you do. Here's a little bug in your ear from your ginziber-loving pal BlogDog: until Sunday (Aug. 2) you can get free shipping if you enter the coupon code "SHIPNGINGER" at checkout.
You can get ginger spread. Oh, yes you can.

New Stuff
The latest trip to the mailbox was Woot! time indeed. I got the new CD from Dave Shifflett's Karma Farmers (gotta love that name) "Songs For Aging Cynics" and it's good. His previous project was "Floor Creak" to which I maintain a CDBaby link so that should someone stumble upon it, he or she could buy it. I still regularly listen to "Floor Creak" and I've been remiss in not getting "Songs For Aging Cynics" sooner.
The songs are melodic, have intelligent lyrics and Mr. Shifflet has this incredible ability to find female vocalists who will knock your socks off, launder them, fold them neatly and put them in your sock drawer. The link above goes to a page that has a couple of videos. Listen to "My Beautiful Friend" and tell me you couldn't swim in the cool stream of Jeanine Guidry's voice. Gorgeous. And the mandolin playing is a wonderful silver thread that winds through the songs, some times just playing along and then rising to a sparkling shimmer over the song. If you listen to "The Old Sailor," you'll get all that from the violin and the guitar as well.
Moreover, at Dave's site there are several songs available for streaming and downloading. I encourage downloading as long as it leads to actual support of the artist. I came to my love of Carbon Leaf by downloading a CD's worth of songs (honestly - from Amazon) and listening sufficiently that I knew I had to have the physical media. The Karma Farmers are somewhat country, somewhat bluegrass I guess. It's the kind of music that the neighbors who should have been recording stars gather on the front porch to play and sing. I love this CD. I'd hope you would too. At the very least, give it a try. If you're disappointed, I say the problem is yours. 'Cause the music is that good.

Discovered On The Fly
I just learned through good ol' 'sperience that a Firefox tab can be dragged below the tab bar and what was formerly a tabbed window, becomes a new window atop the window the page had been in. I don't know how useful this is but since I happened upon it, I thought I'd share. 'Cause I'm that kinda guy.
By the way, this only works if there's more than one tab in the original window. Seems obvious but I thought I'd say.

A Lesson For "Skip" Gates
Not everyone can get the President of the United States to call the police "stupid." Some of us need to know how to behave. Chris Rock provides valuable guidance. And people, it's Chris Rock, so the language is not "family friendly."


D'oh! The Grouchy Old Cripple beat me to the punch on this one.

(sigh)
Wand'ring round the intertubes shows me that Gidget, the "Yo quiero Taco Bell" chihuahua has passed away at the ripe old age of 15. Little dogs don't last long, sadly. And I hear that another icon of intertube dogdom has met her maker but it's not official yet so I'm keeping the specifics under wraps.
Expect another Tour post tomorrow as some of the news is getting interesting. Not in any way related to the fact that Contador is going to win, he will. He pretty much locked it down today. But his racing was fairly pissy toward the rest of his team and it's a dead crab certainty that he'll be on a different team next year. In fact, I don't expect him to be in Astana livery after he steps off the podium in Paris. But I'll get into that tomorrow.
Otherwise, I'm seriously busy doing a scrub down of the patches that are missed in everyday life (OK, I'll admit it - I'm not very good at getting the vacuuming done on a properly regular basis and the kitchen needs some attention) so as to be ready for house guests next week. Lois and Lana are coming here to Arx Solitudinis from Smallville and Smallerville. Amusingly, Lana lives in smallville and Lois lives in Smallerville. They are the bestest house guests a host could hope to have.

From Heavy to (de)Light


Perpetuum Jazzile is Slovenian, by the way.

On A Heavier Note
It's not serendipity to discover some things. Serendipity means that something good has come out of the chance combination of circumstance. While the necessary destruction of my desktop (actual, not virtual) in order to remove a fixture which had previously been clamped to said surface may provided me the chance to clean some things up, it also revealed a small sheet of paper which had been resting behind a drawer for a very long time. It is the first page of a hand-written letter from my mother to friends with a date in late November of 1992. I don't know how this was never sent but perhaps my finding as I did means that it got caught in a drawer and slid away from her all those years ago.
Some things just make you sad. This brings back every moment of the time I spent with her in her last days. I've had my tears and now feel compelled to reproduce some of what she wrote. I wish I could say exactly why I feel thus compelled. If there's any catharsis to be had from a tear shed in the marketplace, perhaps I can temper my sorrow with this:

"Dear (friends),
So good to have your Christmas card early so I can write a note. Sorry about the illness in your family. I pray almost every day to go out like a light. Essentially my parents did so I am optimistic."

What wrenches at me more? The idea that she "prays every day" for a swift end? That she's "optimistic" that the swift end she prays for will be what she has? Both of those ideas tear the hell out of me. But to then remember her diagnosis with cancer and her surgery which came too late, her last few weeks spent abed and being taken care of by her children. That's not what she wanted. While it may have been something like a month from the diagnosis to her spirit shedding itself of the weight of this world, it was more time, I know, than she wanted to be dependent.
I would have done anything to make her comfortable except speed the plow. Had she asked me to do that, I wouldn't have been able to live from the grief. Nevertheless, I was there as she dealt with her last days. So to come upon this hand-written note today has left me distraught and sad. I hope you, reader, will accept my having to write this and let the tears dry in the open air.

Cyclist inspired mailbox...oooooooohh...I've ordered mine!!

!!CYCLELICIOUS!!

Can't ... Resist .... Blogging ... Tour
Today's stage saw an almost textbook performance by the Astana team to put Alberto Contador in the yellow jersey. That Lance follows him is not surprising either. I am very saddened that Levi Leipheimer is home in California after breaking a wrist bone in a crash a couple of stages ago. It's conceivable that Astana could have taken all three podium finishes. And, while it's still possible with Andres Klöden, it's not quite as likely.
I'm amazed that Armstrong is just second off the lead but was rather expecting Contador to be in yellow. He is the man I would have bet on prior to this Tour, were I a betting man. He is a superb climber in a race that's decided in the climbing stages of the latter third of the whole race.
Beautiful, beautiful race today. If you get the Versus Network, watch the wrap-up tonight.

It's official..the letter came today.

The Food Network has turned down my latest programming idea..

The Next Yakuza Celebrity Chef.

Creepy
Does anyone have the visceral negative reaction I have to those "human landscape" Toyota Prius ads? Humans as fungus or quivering slime molds. Yeah, that'll make me want a Prius. And they introduce a pretty cool feature in solar powered cooling. But still, ugh.
Almost as creepy are the ads for Microsoft's Bing. People spouting off random nonsense at the provocation of some random word. Good god people. You're frickin' Microsoft! And that's the best you can do? Pretty soon I'll be turning away from those and staying on gotdam freek reddit report dot kom ads (no one will ever find THAT in a Google search!)

Aussie Rules Footy

AFL Round 16

Friday July 17, 2009
Essendon vs. Western Bulldogs

Saturday July 18, 2009
Carlton vs. Sydney – Neil is for C
Geelong vs. Melbourne – Kug is for G
Collingwood vs. Hawthorn – Jefe vs MC2,Nic&DR
Fremantle vs. Brisbane

Sunday July 19, 2009
Port Adelaide vs. West Coast – Fiz is for PA
Richmond vs. North Melbourne – P is for NM
St. Kilda vs. Adelaide

Sorry Hawkers, I'll be rootin' for P's 'roos.

Go Cats!

Mourning In America
He was a giant. King of his medium. A man whose reach extended into the very fabric of daily life. And now that he's been gone for a while, I realize that I don't really miss Paul Harvey. Good DAY!

Nuts!
I delayed a day too long with the white peaches and the amount I ended up with was not worth processing. Add in that they were not the best white peaches, not perfumed with the peculiar sent and flavor of the pale peche. So I've eaten them as is. But I may be able to make the sorbet with the yellow peaches which went into the fridge almost immediately.
If I pull that together, it's definitely getting the ginger treatment.

ADDENDUM:That yogurt thing, it's called yogurt cheese. I didn't know it had a name. And, naturally, there's a specific kitchen gadget to make it, the (you see this coming, don't you?) yogurt cheese maker. Only $18 at Amazon! Tcha! I can do that with a bowl, a strainer and a coffee filter. What surprised me is that it's said to make one cup of 'cheese' out of 3 cups of yogurt. I'm going to have to get another full container of the yohg to test this. And the cheese is pretty great stuff. I'm going to try it as a mayo substitute.

Absolutely Can Not Stop Listening
Ben Lierhouse has produced five CDs of Wagner-inspired "world music" called, not surprisingly, the Lierhouse Project. I have "Parsifal's Trip to Brazil" which, despite my utter lack of understanding Brazilian Portuguese, I have had looping all night tonight and now, as I plan my trip to Nod, I figure I'd better channel my enthusiasm into a least a taste for you who stop by. Thus, a viddy of "the making of." Specifically, "Wagner's Mas Que Nada."
UPDATE: Yes, the song is a variation on the Jorge Ben song "Mas Que Nada" which became the signature song of Sergio Mendes back when his group was "Brazil 66." And which, sadly, he covered with the marginally talented pop group The Black Eyd peas.

Busy, Busy, Busy
Some kitchen time has been warranted this weekend. First, peaches from my favoritest local orchard are back on tap which means this evening I will be making white peach sorbet. I have in the past made ginger white peach sorbet and if I have enough to make two batches (possible - I cleaned out all the "seconds" on the white peaches at the stand), I'll definitely make one with ginger. In fact, I'll try using my freeze-dried ginger to see if I can finesse that ingredient.
And in lesser kitchen time of note, I have a container of plain yogurt sitting in a strainer lined with a coffee filter to get a nice, thick version of the usually soupy stuff. I also have a box of blueberries in the fridge. This may combine to be made into blueberry frozen yogurt. But I need to do a little research first.
Finally, I made sweet ginger butter which consists of one stick of butter mashed together with t Tbsp of ginger spread, one Tbsp of honey 9tupelo in my case) and a generous dash of salt. I may have been a leetle heavy handed with the salt. But it shouldn't do much harm to the final product. I envision using it on steaks on the grill. Ginger, butter and sweetness - really could that do a steak any harm at all?

UPDATE: The yogurt experiment was interesting. From probably about three quarters of one of those 32 oz. containers of yogurt, I strained out over a full cup of whey. And I totally dig the sour-creamy texture of the resultant yogurt. I ended up having the blueberries stirred into the thickened yogurt with a sprink of Splenda for breakfast. The frozen yogurt will have to wait.

OK. Fine.
I won't blog the Tour de France anymore. Philistines.

Light On The TdF
OK I haven't been bugging you with Tour de France blogging but I want, at the end of Stage 6, to point out that the amazing Lance Armstrong, aged legs and all is 22/100 (edit note - I had an extra 0 in there, hundredths, not thousandths, my apologies) of a second off the lead of Fabian Cancellara who rode an absolutely blazing individual time trial in Stage 1 to capture yellow. There are probably at least a dozen riders who have the talent to win but only about half that number have the team support to actually win.
Which brings us back around to Lance and team Astana. As it stands today, Astana holds four of the top five positions in the tour. Lance at 2, Spain's Alberto Contador (winner of the '07 Tour) at 3, Germany's Andreas Klöden at 4 and American Levi Leipheimer (3rd in the 2007 Tour) at 5. Astana could possibly set a new team record for highest finish of the most team members. I have already mentioned that Astana is run by Johan Bruyneel who will be recognized, when he retires, as the greatest team director in Tour history. A brilliant tactician and a master of the psychology of sport.
What may be the only problem with Astana is that Contador and Armstrong are both serious contenders for the win. At some point, one of the two has to support the other and therein may lie some friction. We'll see who comes out of the climbing stages ahead of the other and the tale will be told. Lance has been a brilliant climber and a brilliant time trialist. Contador is possibly the best climber riding the tour today. He should have won last year but Astana as a team was barred because of the blood doping of former team leader Alexander Vinokourov.
OK, I meant to be brief. But this is a great, great Tour this year. If you get the Versus network, please watch a stage or two. The commentary team is superb and the saturation coverage: helicopter and motorcycle cameras let almost the entire peloton get wall-to-wall coverage. Beautiful. Brilliant.
Also, for you chicks out there who dig the bums of fit men, the pictures should have you in a stage of constant arousal.

I'm Just Sayin' Is All
I bought some applewood smoked bacon at Trader Joe's the other day. My house is now perfumed with bacon aroma. The Airwick people are missing a bet here.

And I have a plan for the rendered bacon fat: I'm going to get some steaks at Costco, grind them into burger form and add bacon fat to the grinding. My friend the Enigmatic Misanthrope suggested adding lardons to the grinding for additional flavor and I admit that I hadn't thought of that. And I may be mis-remembering our conversation - he may have already done that rather than just suggested it to me. In any event, I think the idea of getting "bacon burger" flavor into the very meat itself has got to be a good thing. A better thing that anything Martha Stewart has ever called a 'good thing.'

What's With Teh Intarwebz Today?
I've been fighting non-loading pages all day today. Anyone else having this problem? Of course that I got through to Blogger to post may mean the problem is easing up. Is the warming heat of the day thinning out the molasses that's being being pumped through the series of tubes?

So In The Mood
I'm listening to the Gin Blossoms, remembering who it was who introduced me to their music. Great stuff. Even if we are talking early 90's music. Aged like fine wine. Same source put me onto Dreams So Real too. "Rough Night in Jericho." That was brilliant.
Just got Elmore Leonard's new novel "Road Dogs" from Amazon. Read a flat-out rave review in a recent noisepaper and am going to try to get it autographed. Via an internet connection. How cool is that? Answer: pretty frickin.
Tour de France blogging will probably begin tomorrow after the team time trial in stage 4. Yeah! Return of the TTT! Astana might just blow some people away. Columbia HTC might make a show of it too.

Good Riddance
Robert Strange McNamara, the man who took his success in producing the Ford Falcon all the way to the grotesque fiasco that was the Johnson Administration's pursuit of the Vietnam war has died. He lived far too long. I recall that some years ago, this sad, bitter man published a book about how he had been misled by those around him which caused the debacle that cost over 50,000 lives of good, young American men. My late father was still alive when this pathetic attempt at blame laying was made. My father who went to Vietnam as a civilian and ended up spending five years in captivity in the north. My father the career foreign service officer who went a war to direct pacification programs. I talked with my dad, perhaps too briefly, when McNamara came out with his self-serving revisionism. My father was there, in the room as it were, when those people McNamara was accusing of lying to him were telling him the truth about what was actually going on. And my father watched McNamara destroy their careers.
That's right. The son of a bitch was told precisely what was happening but it didn't fit with what he wanted to happen, with his bean-counting measures of success like "body counts." So he ruined the careers, possibly the lives as well (though good men can usually overcome such career destruction), of those he would later accuse of making him look bad.
I'm glad you're dead you bastard. A lot of better men than you never made it back.

Happy Fourth Of July!
(insert fireworks and sound FX here)
If you don't have at least some fun today, shame on yees. I put out my Murrican flag and I have a 12 pack of Blue Moon Belgian beer ... and I'm not afraid to use it! Go ye and do likewise.

Oh Noes!
I missed the recall. I wonder if it applies to Pugs of War?

What The Hell People?
With all the foofaraw about Gov. Sanford (unmentioned here at PoW as not everything is worth of comment all the time), not a single person has brought up Wilbur Mills and his dunk in the tidal Basin with Fanne Fox, "The Argentine Firecracker" who took down the previously powerful Congressweasel.
I think it necessary to begin referring to Gov. Sanford as "The Argentine Fired Cracker." So from this point on, you will be required to use that phrase. Work it into the conversation at least once a day for the next month.

Today's Woot
"One Day, One Deal" is the slogan and if you're in need of some travelin' gear, it's hard to beat today's Woot: three suitcases for $30 ($35 with shipping). A 25" upright wheelie, a 20" carry-on upright wheelie and a shoulder tote in black, purple or red. I don't know from luggage but at that price if it lasts beyond one trip, you're doing all right. The purple and red are fairly stylish too (says the dog whose taste is all in his mouth).
UPDATE: The deal was sold out (6,724 units) by noon Central Time. Not unusual.
IN ADDITION: This is usually an "update" thing but since this is not an update and is related to the post above simply on the basis that it's internet related, I thought I might add to the post. I got a call from a friend of mine this morning (who shall be nameless to spare his or her delicate feelings). I was asked about a particular song that friend has had for years on a second generation cassette but which is beloved as "drivin' music." I said, "There's a version on YouTube by...."
Which elicited the question, "What's YouTube?"
Yup. "What's YouTube?" Ay Caramba!

Sorry I can't help myself...

Ha Ha!!..No really Jesse!!..Mo'Money, Mo'Money, Mo'Money....

Joe Jackson has announced the plan he has to immortalize Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean Moon Walk. Michael’s lower torso will be separated from his body and shipped to his birth town of Gary Indiana where it will fitted with an electro-mechanical device that will replicate in full motion the infamous Moon Walk. The lower torso will be performing the Moon Walk on the concrete side walk in front of Michael’s birth residence. Admission fee is expected to be between $25.00 and $50.00. All proceeds will be evenly divided between the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Joe Jackson.

A Post With No Title
By which I immediately start with a lie. But only kind of.
Yesterday afternoon I felt like poo. I was tired and eye-fuzzed and at the computer (looking at a few of the passive aggressive signs on that blog if you must know). The afternoon heat and the lack of electrical activity in my cerebral cortex combined to render me inert in front of the computer - you've been there: chin on chest, sleeping sitting up. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But the only problem is that the Mail app was loaded at the same time and as I was deep in that zombified chair sleep, an e-mail came in. Poonngg! Yow!
I'm not in any position to "jump out of my chair" but it may as well have been ES paddles placed directly on my chest. Bzzaapp! I'm awake! I'm awake dammit!
Now let me sleep damn your eyes! Y'all have a great Last Day Of June, OK?

I Wanted To Say Something Today
And then thought better of it. The blogosphere might be better off if reflection led to silence sometimes. I can point you to no examples but as a window into the soul, a quiet time can be the gently waving grass in the wind shadow of a tree in a furious storm.
But what the hell, you don't come here to read nothing (Well... Ed.) Shut UP Ed! Instead of quiet reflection, I offer some randomness that trickles like a stalactite-forming drip through the dark caverns of my mind.
1. Add to the stuff I like sambal oelek. Link goes to a Wikiped page on sambal generically. My father in law introduced me to this spicy delight and it was a home-coming on the hottening up front. I have always liked the hot peppers and other types of chemical warfare like wasabi and horseradish but sambal has that wonderful bloom of heat that acts like a taser on each taste bud. Give it a moment to let the initial edge of heat die down and every little papilla is just firing on all levels. Wonderful.
2. Michael Jackson. I'm glad my blogging partner did the main post on that one. I recognize his talent but I own and will not own any of his music. Billy Beck did a nice job of recognizing the good in the music. I will always be more partial to "Human Nature" and "Smooth Criminal" than the other big hits. It may be a blessing to him that his sad freakish life is now over.
3. Farrah. I hope she did not die in pain as her cancer is of a pretty vicious type. But otherwise, she made no dent in my world. Beautiful? Yes, absolutely. The iconic poster which meant so much to others always impressed me not with the obvious (the pokies) but that incandescent smile! I like good teeth and that picture is just dental perfection. Yeah, I know. Consider it a personal failing of mine.
Besides, I was always a Kate Jackson fan.
4. Have you seen the LED on the new Apple wireless keyboard? It's the most elegant thing I've seen in all LED light-dom. The green LED is not sitting exposed but is actually beneath the aluminum skin of the keyboard. The aluminum is then laser-pierced to let the ight through. Here is a 40X picture on Flickr. Better than I can take for sure.
The elegance of it is that when the light is off (on only when powering up and down), you basically can not even tell where it is unless you get the keyboard at an angle where the slight color change of the metal shows. And the laser drilling is at a slight angle so that the light shines toward the user as the keyboard is on, say, a desktop. Just very cool. If you have a friend with one of these, get a demo of it.
5. Wimbledon. I used to care about tennis. I was a huge Bjorn Borg fan (I was assimilated, ar! ar! ar!) back in the day but now ... I'm sorry where was I? Oh yeah. Just. Don't. Care. Anymore. I am, however, looking forward to the Tour de France and hoping that Lance doesn't embarass himself. Not that he would as he has a very good team around him and he is riding under probably the greatest team director in TdF history, Johan Bruyneel. Versus network's coverage of the race really should be recognized for its excellence in providing video and commentators who know whereof they speak. This year I'm going to try to only watch the evening recaps instead of the early morning live coverage.
OK. I have driveled. You go now. No trouble. Have a wonderful Sunday, please.

Now This Is A Great Joke
(And totally stolen from here.)
So Feynman and Heisenberg decided to take a road trip together, with Feynman driving and Heisenberg in charge of the map. Every so often Feynman checks with Heisenberg for directions
“Where are we?”
“Forty three miles out of Tuscon. Take a left at the next exit.”
This sort of thing continues for a while, everything’s going well, when suddenly Heisenberg points— “Look out! Cop car behind the billboard!”
Feynman glances at the speedometer. “Relax, I’m going 55 miles per hour.”
“Oh, way to go, bonehead,” says Heisenberg. “Now we’re lost.”

My take was "At the Physics Bar:"
Bartender: Is that your drink Dr. Heisenberg?
Heisenberg: I'm not sure.

Trying It
This is just a test to see if I can post to PoW from the iPhone. Feel free to go about your business citizen.
UPDATE: From the desktop, I had to drop the text size here as I couldn't get the iPhone to format the post as I'd prefer. So the bottom line is that while I can post from the iPhone, it's not great way to do so.
And in other update news - the HempShake is delicious! And it has fiber. That is win - win for my aging protoplasmic pouch, by which I mean my body.

Stuff! And, Surprisingly, Not From Amazon
OK, I have been shopping at the 'Zon. Coconut oil for popping popcorn, hemp protein shakes ("organic HempShake" in "berry pomegranate" which sounds rather delicious). But I have some friends who live in the wilds of Western Maryland who are afflicted with pests. So I've just ordered myself an air rifle: 1,200 fps, .177 pellets. I e-mailed an internet friend about the appropriateness of said combination to the problem at hand to which he replied "Oh HELL yes. Keep the range down below 25 yards and do your part, and the pellet will do its."
And it can work on skwerls too. Not in my neighborhood of houses cheek by jowl but there are other places to acquire the makin's for a nice Brunswick stew. I may report on the effects of the rig but it may be the better part of valor to just let the subject drop than befoul your imagination with any stories of the pluck required to hunt successfully.

More On The Driving Thing
I mentioned below that I dealt with deer and an opossum on my night drive from Sharpsburg. What I neglected to mention was the insectoid life (and death) on the road. As I was dashing downhill on Route 67 toward the Potomac River crossing near Harper's Ferry, some kind of megabug exploded in a rather revolting mass of goo on my windshield. I don't know what kind of bug it was but it seemed like a ham grenade. No, at a hand grenade, a grenade made of ham - blooshrt! Srsly, Columbian cartels could use whatever type of bug that was for drug mules. Except for the number they would lose to random drive bys. I'd kind of like to know what it was, but then again, I'm kinda glad I don't.
Which reminds me - what do you call the jellied liquid that Spam is packed in? Spamniotic fluid.

I Might Take Up Chess
Every time I see Julia Roberts I want to use her teeth as chess men. 32 teeth, 32 men on a chess board. A coincidence? I think not.

Charismatic Megafauna
After visiting friends in Sharpsburg, MD (link goes to Google maps) I drove home last night through the 11:00 o'clock hour. Before leaving, I was wished well with deer and driving being specifically mentioned. Usually I don't have to slow much in my backroads driving but last night I had four encounters with the damn deer, two of which required actual braking. One deer decided to run alongside the road and seemed to be peeved that it could not run faster than a Subaru Outback. Yeah, well screw you pal. Let's see you outrun this FMJ .30-06!
Just kidding. I don't carry a rifle in the car.
There was also a suicide 'possum that I managed to avoid. Not megafauna there. And, actually, not charismatic either. But I didn't exactly want to have to clean marsupial soup off my fender.

C'mon C'mon C'mon!
Downloading the new iPhone OS reminds me of the impatience of modren life. A 230 MB download that will take about two minutes (somewhat less actually) and I'm sitting here twitching like the bathroom is already occupied.
Damned silly git.
It makes about as much sense as standing by the microwave when some peculiar item of advanced foodishness is cooking via the application of radiation in a minuscule fraction of the time it would otherwise take and I'm standing beside the counter doing the same pee-dance saying, "C'mon! C'mon! Cook already." Patience is a virtue. I should be more virtuous.

Stuff Updates
My grinding attachment to the stand mixer arrived at my door yesterday. I am contemplating making ginger burgers and, what hadn't struck me before, I can grind my own pork for the dumplings! Talk about having control over one's ingredients. Presumably, I can grind all the ingredients together from the get-go. I only have to figure out what's the right pork to grind. ... That sounds vaguely obscene.
Other "stuff:" Amazon had a sale on kitchen things so I have a "French" rolling pin on its way to me. I plan to watch it surrender to various pastry recipes. (I kid! I kid!) And a richness of popcorn is on its way. "Gourmet popping corn" of course. I need to get coconut oil for the popping thereof. I'll not go into the reasons for popcorn specifics but believe me, real popcorn popped in a "Whirley-Pop" popper with high temperature oil makes a product that will make you never want to eat the microwave kind again.
I also ordered up a bunch of food coloring. A couple of reasons there. First, I want to make deviled eggs into hard boiled whites that have been colored through cracked shells as blog friend Gradual Dazzle has already done. Next, I want to make a "stained-glass" jello with coffee gelatin and chocolate gelatin for a "stained-glass" (not as much since the gels will not be translucent) mocha dessert.

Mr. Language Man Regrets
I posted previously on the depredations of language inflicted by the "Washington Times" book reviews and I have another example that I can't let pass unremarked. A "writer living in Boca Raton, Fla." named Katie Wendy had a review of a biography of the late Paul Harvey. First of all, "Katie Wendy" is not a name - it's two first names put together in an amazing simulation of an actual name. And she lives in a city that means "rat's mouth." Nuff said.
The review is most unobjectionable though demonstrable of no greater depth of insight than the average slavish member of the Oprah book club. It only comes a cropper at the penultimate sentence: "Perhaps painting a picture with a few more shades would have made for a richer veneer."
That sentence doesn't even make nonsense. It is vaguely evocative of an idea but it's so poorly phrased that parsing it becomes a waste of time. And by "waste," I mean like the Mafia. Just as I here have managed to assassinate a portion of my day and, by extension, yours. I'm willing to offer you my apologies. Will Ms. "Wendy" do the same?
I doubt it.

In The News
I hear that Cher's daughter Chastity is going to undergo a sex change. Even though I think she's actually just making a vowel change (gay to guy), I wondered what to call her. Then I realized it would have to be "Chas" because with the surgery, she'd have to have the "tity" cut off.

More Fiber In My Online Experience
I wanted to see how my FiOS service was running. (click to embiggen)


I can live with those numbers.

A Saturday Moment Of Zen
The view not exactly from Lycurgus's back porch but darn close. You'll notice the blue Bimini top and the swim ladder (in the upright position) to the left of the engine. If my memory serves, it's a 17' TwinVee. Strikingly quiet and wonderfully smooth riding. It's a great vessel to have along the Gulf Coast.

Today's Question
When bubble wrap is shipped to, say, the Container Store, do they have to pack it in breakable items?

Bleagghh!
Blogging break will be in effect for this dog. I feel like absolute crap - like a lack of caffeine headache that won't go away despite my having sucked down the usual ration of full caff coffee. I now have a pot of decaf from which I'll make iced coffee in the hopes that the placebo effect will kick in. And I suppose a big whack of NSADs tomorrow will be called for as well.
So, I'll be back on the blogging stick anon but not for a couple of days at least.
UPDATE: The placebo effect works. I had a lovely, lovely iced coffee fest last evening as i strolled through the latest batch of catalogs to arrive and I began to feel better even as i was sipping. And a decent, if not great, night's sleep didn't hurt. I may not be on the blogging stick much as I have much to do and must do t, not sit at the keyboard. But if I find something worth posting, I will.
OTOH, I hope the Enigmatic Misanthrope keeps finding those great, inspiring images!

Wherein I Avoid The Base Controversy
The base controversy is that Shell Oil was sued by a bunch of Nigerians (I was tempted to say "gang of Nigerians" but decided against such inflammatory language) because the Nigerian government, sorry, "former Nigerian government," hung six people in 1995. Shell, you see was "complicit" in those deaths. And Shell decided to pay $15.5 million while admitting no wrong-doing but hoping to aid the "process of reconciliation." Yeah, that'll work.
As much as I hope every first world company takes the lesson that investing in crapholes like Africa generally and criminal states like Nigeria specifically will ultimately cause more grief than can be imagined prior to the investment, the real point of all this (here on PoW) is to get the names of those killed by the Nigerian government: Ken Saro-Wiwa, John Kpuinen, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbokoo, Dr. Barinem Kiobel and finally, a name we must add to the collection of great names in human history: Saturday Doobee.
I'm sorry but with a name like "Saturday Doobee," that life is not going to end well no matter what.

I Am Conflicted
Shopping at Costco today I saw a set of cedar planks for grilling. I've heard good things about planked fish but I have no direct experience with it. Does anyone know anything about planking? Any good stories? I'm not inclining toward buying these but it did leave me wondering.

Barack Obama's Plan 9
"Created or saved" ... what's the current number of jobs now? Barry's Perfectly Unfalsifiable Plan 9 for Employment is explained by Secretary of The Future Criswell:

"Can you prove that it didn't happen?" Indeed.
"God help us in the future."
Damn skippy.

Stuff Update
Today I peeled stickers off the new sheet pans and washed them. Does not one always wash kitchen apparatus when it comes into the house for the first time? It's not like there was a tag that said "Loving hand crafted for you by the lepers of the Molokai colony," but it seems common sensical to me. Now washing a pan is really not noteworthy save that I mentioned them earlier and now, having actively handled them I now have to say, these things even feel good. Smooth, beautifully machined, not heavy but substantial in one's hand. They exude the feel of sturdy. When Lycurgus inherits my worldly goods, I hope he keeps the sheet pans. They're good.
Also, took advantage of an Amazon "Gold Box" deal to get a battery-powered string trimmer. I have a really nice Black & Decker electric string trimmer but dealing with the cord is a real pain. Now, I'll be able to grab a non-bound-to-the-wall device and whack down the growth at a moment's notice. The fargin' homeowner's association should be pleased. Oh, the new one is another B&D device. They make good tools.

More Catblogging?
Yes. I did a LOLcat here. Click the link, vote me up. I can haz a plaice on mane paige plz?

Is It Really A Trend?
Is it? IS IT!?
(Cat blogging on PoW? So it seems.)

New Stuff
My continuing quest to drain Amazon.com of all its goods continues apace. This week's edition: kitchen stuff. To wit: two half sheet pans. One sold by ReStockIt for about half the cost of the other from Next Day Gourmet. They are nominally not the same size which may be a plus as they nest together perfectly. They are also not nominally the same gauge but I recall that the shipping invoices (which I don't have in front of me) actually have them both as 13 gauge. The significant difference on first inspection is that the more expensive pan has its edge completely rolled over on itself. I can see that this will make a stronger pan. But I felt compelled to follow the dictum of my dear, departed father who said more than once, "If one is good, two are better." He wasn't a cook but he liked gadgets. Very much a guy that way.
All that being said, and I add at this point that up to this point I have had no cookie sheets on which to .... I was going to say "bake cookies" but it seemed too easy.
If anyone wonders why I opt for sheet pans instead of cookie sheets per se, I point the finger in the direction of the great Cook's Illustrated magazine which has determined that sheet pans are superior in performance to thin, warping cookie sheets. When the weather starts to chill down and I'm not running the AC, I'll start baking cookies of many kinds and really put that to the test. I remember my mother making an oatmeal raisin cookie which was mixed together in a Tupperware cake holder (upside down) as the mix had to absorb the oil that was used before the cookies could be made. I'd love to find that recipe in the mass of kitchen papers. And in later years we got a recipe for hermit cookies from a family friend. The link goes to recipes but I don't vouch for them; they're by way of illustration. I do believe that the hermits took first place in my cookie pantheon. I'm sure that recipe is in the stack. Definitely going to make those.
Oh, I also got a wire rack insert for the half sheet pan. It seems just so like something I've seen Alton Brown use on "Good Eats." How could I resist?
UPDATE: Please don't miss the potato chip cookie recipe in the comments. I realize my mistake in assaying anything about baking in the ken of the XMBD NMSE who, along with her mother are two of the world's finest non-professional bakers. But I am not such an old dog that I can't learn some new tricks.

Shhh! Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet
I'm twacking penguins. Blue Crab Boulevard, a regular read even if I don't steal posting ideas therefrom too often, takes note of the British researchers who are using "satellites to discover the whereabouts of Antarctica’s emperor penguins. By tracking their poop stains."
No shite. OK, actually lots and lots of shite. But it did leave me wondering, considering how much of the "March of the Pengies" is done by sliding along on their bellies, could the researchers track them by their skidmarks instead? I mean, those slides could mark the white under where the penguins are moving. Doncha think?

The Occasional Foodie Post
A few tids of bit that have been clogging the storm drains of the cerebellum and need to be posted so that the waste liquids can be swept out of the street and the next brainstorm doesn't drown me.
First, as every good foodie knows, flavor is essential. Not merely crucial or desirable or a good idea: essential. Even busted-ass Gordon Ramsay (love ya Gordo but remember not to over-reach) knows that to make good food you only need a few good, flavorful, fresh elements prepared with proper attention. But some things need the punch of more than the flavors they bring to the saucepot. That's why there are such things as chicken stock and demi-glace. And I have a source for you. What's source for the goose....
Soupbase.com. This is your source for Minor's concentrated bases of ... I was about to list some but it's not really possible to do the range of availables justice here. Just go and poke around. I'll only say one thing. A friend has the low-sodium chicken base as he is concerned with his salt intake. He mixed up a taste of base and I was amazed. The problem with low-sodium is, well, it doesn't have enough salt! So it comes across as less flavorful. But not the Minor's. Rather full flavored actually. I would recommend it without hesitation.
But that's just one product. The range of flavors offered there is astounding. If you don't find something you like there, there's not much you like. I'm working on my order even as I type this. I'd also like to point out that the tubs of concentrate sit nicely in your fridge and last a decent amount of time. Keeping cans or brick-paks of chicken stock in your pantry takes up significantly more space. And I'm not much a fan of the chicken stock I've bought lately for flavor. Is there a code I'm unaware of that means "free-range chicken broth" means "almost chicken-flavored water?"
And a couple of links from Amazon's "Al Dente" blog. First, Nancy Silverton’s Awesome Butterscotch Budino. Love butterscotch. Not that I need to eat this but I'd love to try it. And a recipe from "The Purple Foodie" blog for making paneer (Indian cheese). Paneer is great (again, not just good - great) with spinach in many ways. A samosa filled with spinach, paneer and some appropriate spices (I'm thinking a little cardamom or garam masala if I had any) would be most delicious. I think I may make paneer with basil from my AeroGarden this evening. I'll try to take pictures.
Also, look through The Purple Foodie generally. It is a garden of eatly delights.

Give Blood
And you will find that blood is not enough. There is so much going on and so many people are commenting on it that I haven't felt like adding my own coppers to the conversation. The Deck Farm™ is hanging fire and pressing on my increasingly feeble attention as I'm in the process of making the new ErfBoxes and getting the last couple of things I need to make this happen.
My self-purchased birthday present LP arrived yesterday which means digging out the USB turntable and having a "digital day." Which may be tomorrow. There is ripping to do, dammit!
But unless I have a flash of inspiration, it's unlikely that I'll post here for the next couple of days. Go, read the chewy richness of the blogosphere and check back here later. I'll be here. Just stretching and yawning.