When I'm Down

When something's wrong, I want to bake. When something's right I want to bake. When there's a celebration, I want to bake. When I don't feel well, I want to bake.

This means I bake a lot.

Yesterday I had the unreasonable urge to make cream puffs. It was suggested to me by a friend when I expressed the desire to bake something complicated. OK, she suggested croque en bouche, but I didn't get past the cream puff stage. Still, that's a pretty good stage!

I pre-heated my oven to 425F, then boiled 6 Tablespoons butter, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt in 1c of water. I turned off the heat and added about 3/4 cups flour. I say about because I start with 1/2, and then add teensy bits until it's right. That's how I deal with humidity differences and baking. I incorporated the flour and put the pot back on the heat until I had a beautiful shiny dough ball. I dumped the pretty dough in the mixer bowl and let it cool off for a few minutes. I cracked 4 large eggs into a cup measure and discovered that they were a whole liquid cup. What were the odds? I added the eggs about 1 egg at a time while the mixer mixed on low. I scraped down the sides and gave it a good shot of speed until the dough looked very beautiful to me. I plopped it into a ziploc bag, clipped off the corner, and piped golf-ball-sized lumps onto my silicone mat.

Don't do that, this sticks to silicone. No, I don't know how that's possible. Use parchment.

I put the lumps on a cookie sheet into the hot oven. I set the timer to 10 minutes. I got out the ingredients for chocolate pudding, plus some kirsch. I'm too lazy to tell you how to make pudding right now, that's for another post. I'll just tell you that I use skim milk instead of whole milk or cream or half and half. I made chocolate pudding. I added kirsch. It's yummy. I put it in the fridge to chill up.

When the 10 minutes were up, I turned the oven down to 350 and turned on the light so I could check for golden brown-ness. Oddly, this occurred at about 9 minutes, 50 seconds, so I let it go the full time. I removed my new puffy pastry shells, and poked them with a knife to let out the steam. They were lovely! Look!


Anyway, after everything had cooled and chilled, I plopped a bunch of pudding into yet another ziploc bag, pumped some pudding into the shells, and made a pretty pile.



Cream puffs. Hooray! I ate one, I fed one to my room mate's boyfriend, I fed one to her aunt, I fed one to her mother, I wrapped up the rest and put them in the fridge.

My room mate doesn't like cream puffs.

Anyway, the ending of this story is that there are cream puffs in my fridge, and that while baking is a science, if you don't know how things are supposed to look, you really can't make them correctly. I feel really bad about not taking a picture of the dough stages, now.

Anyway - cream puffs!

Jazz Fixes Nothing

Jazz here. (As the title might have already led you to believe.) I was on the phone last week with The One True Tami (blessed be Her name) talking for a very long time about really not very much at all, but it led me to some realizations. You shall now be burdened with this information.

First of all, I obsess over things. I'm also paranoid. (And I mean that in the medical sense, not in the Comedy Central, did that guy dip his chip in the nacho cheese twice sense. I once began testing various beverages in my house to find out if somebody - narrowed down to my wife or two of my best friends - was slowly trying to poison me.) The major problem with paranoids with a tendency toward obsession is that you eventually begin to obsess over being paranoid. But enough of that. I'll start boring you before too long if I stick with that line of thought. (OH MY GOD! Are they getting bored????)

Anyway... the point is that I've come to realize that I've spent a great deal of my half century on Earth veering off in different directions, all in the name of "refitting my priorities" or "sorting out what's important" or "dropping what doesn't work." All of those sound like fine and noble pursuits. The problem is that they don't translate very well into practice... at least not for me. I'm currently in the middle of a two week hiatus from pretty much "everything that doesn't directly pay me cash."

This break was allegedly to allow me to dive into and wrap up a couple of very important projects and reevaluate the various activities which have been clogging up my days to the point where I was getting stressed out. Many of those activities were not doing anything for my family life or my career. I enjoyed them for the most part, but only in small doses. Too much on my plate, even if it's all absolutely optional, was driving me to distraction.

So what did I wind up doing with all of this free time? I'm up to a level two farm in the 1990's vintage PlayStation One game, Monster Rancher. I've decided that I like the series "Scrubs" so much that I've ordered them all on Netflix and am watching the first season front to back. In short... I dropped the other things which were cluttering up my life and eating my time, and immediately found new, equally useless things to fill in the free hours.

What does a hiatus fix? At least for me... nothing. Not a damned thing. So, rather than dropping everything and spending days at a time in fruitless navel gazing, I really need to just do the things I need to do, then do some of the things I want to do, and if the latter builds up to the point where it becomes stressful, I need to say no to some of them.

Ok.. maybe I did fix something after all. I would explain this further, but I need to stop writing now before I become even more paranoid about something else. I have corn on the cob cooking on my grill right now. For all I know, one more paragraph and the whole freaking house will be engulfed in a deadly inferno.

Open Sea, Myself

I'm just here to wish Jazz good luck in his quitting smoking endeavor. It's a noble pursuit.

Day 18: No Land In Sight

Jazz here.

Here's a news flash which will elicit virtually no sympathy with the assembled masses. For those of you who weren't aware (and why would you care?) unlike the One True Tami, I have remained one of those disgusting people who smoke cigarettes for almost my entire adult life. I stopped 18 days ago. I was under the impression that if you made it through three and seven days, those were the big barriers. Today my willpower is starting to crack. It's would be hugely disappointing to have a setback after getting more than two weeks under my belt.

I'm white knuckling it here, so cross your fingers and grit your teeth for me.

Technology I Don't Get

OK, so I'm reading an article on how in Windows, when you hide known file type extensions, people can name their viruses virus.txt.exe and change the icon so that unwary people are fooled into clicking on it.

Why did they hide the file extensions? If I'm looking at a file name, I want to know what kind of file it is, don't I? I never got what that was *for*, you know?

Does anyone know why you'd want to do that?

More Amusing Spam

And mine is funnier.

Amusing Spam

Beyond emails that assure me that they can increase the size of my manhood, I found a real gem today. It was an ad for religious schools. Whomever sent the email asserted that they could help me find a college that supported my faith.

Poor bastards never stood a chance in my faithless world.

Maybe that's not as funny as I thought.

In Restless Dreams

Jazz here... once again awakened like a shot in the dark by the same damned dream I've been having for three straight nights.

We're in the past. Georg and I are not married yet, but the day is drawing close fast. There are problems with the arrangements... nothing serious, like place settings or something, but it's one of the few things that I'm responsible for and I've not worked it out yet. But instead of the rental where we were actually residing, we're living on the third floor of the middle school I attended while growing up. It's an old, fifties era, blockish red brick affair. But the third floor has been converted to apartments in an almost college dorm style, with sets of three apartments opening up onto one joint lounge / entry area. Oh, and in real life, one end of the school wasn't jutting out into this dark, oily body of water (think of the tarn in Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" for imagery) coated with a slight greenish scum on the surface.

So we're in the lounge area in front of our apartment - me, Georg, her friend Sheri, and some black guy I don't recognize. He's a real sleazeball, with the too baggy pants, hat on wrong, bling chains... the works. I don't know who he is, but I know he's a criminal. Unfortunately, he's also a friend of Sheri's, apparently, so I've been informed that I have to tolerate him. We're talking about some detail of the wedding plans, but there's this pay phone ringing in the lounge and NOBODY is making any move to answer it. (For you younger, cell phone generation kids, there used to be phones in public places with the handset attached to the main body of the phone by a wire. You'd put a quarter into a slot on top of the phone and you could make calls.) It just keeps ringing and ringing and ringing.

Finally I'm exasperated and I storm over to answer it. Nobody there. In fact, nothing at all - no sound of somebody breathing, no clicks, not even a dial tone. I realize that the phone is, in fact, dead. For some reason it doesn't strike me as odd that it was ringing. But that's also when I realize that I need to make a phone call to work very badly. There's something important going on and I can't afford to lose my job now, particularly just when I'm about to get married. The slick looking black guy informs me that I should probably use the phone on the roof at the far end of the building over the water. Amazingly, this also fails to strike me as odd.

Now I'm on the roof, but the building isn't exactly square in shape any longer. It's got those rounded, tower like attachments at the corners such as you see on medieval castles. This has the effect of allowing you to look down from the roof and see the corner of the main building below you at a sharp angle. There, on the outside of the third floor, next to some painted over windows, is another pay phone attached to the wall of the building. And it's ringing. The same ringing I heard in the lounge. Now I have got to answer the damn thing. And I still need to call my office, too.

I jump lightly, almost cat-like, and land on a narrow, decorative brick ledge which encircles the building below the third floor windows. Using the word "ledge" is being generous. There's barely room for my toes and the balls of my feet. I make the jump easily and am momentarily proud of my athletic prowess. I grab hold of the pay phone to catch my balance and lift up the receiver. A recorded woman's voice, pleasant and helpful, says, "The IRS has detected recent work performed in another area code..." (Here the recording breaks for a moment and is replaced by the voice of a different woman who obviously recorded herself saying all of the individual numbers) "Two. One. Two." (it switches back to the original recording) "We have now added this area code to your cell phone for your convenience." Holy crap! I've got a cell phone! What the hell am I doing using a pay phone stuck the outside of a three story building???

(In waking life I just returned from a two day business trip to Manhattan, so I guess that's where that came from.)

I'm reaching for some change in my pocket to call my office when the unstable nature of my current position finally hits me. It's a long way down to the water... much farther than it should have been. The mortar between the bricks of the tiny ledge I'm perched on is crumbly and old. The rusty bolts holding the pay phone to the wall (which I've only just now noticed) look very insecure and the body of the phone is rocking back and forth a bit. A slight breeze has come up, rippling the oily waters of the tarn below. I'm in trouble.

I turn and look back where I came from... the edge of the roof above. It's a fair gap, but I can probably make the jump. I look down. If the water is deep, I'd probably survive the fall into it. But I have no idea how deep or shallow it might be. Visions of ancient masonry fallen from the building and lurking a foot or so under the surface come to mind. This won't do at all.

I turn my attention back to the ledge. Behind me, the bolts on the pay phone are creaking. They're going to give way in a moment. I have no choice. I jump for the edge of the roof. It's a lot further than it looked. I'm clearly not going to catch the edge.

And I wake up.

So, are any of you expert dream analysts? It's taken a few runs of this for me to remember all of the details upon awakening, but tonight I got up to set them all in my mind and logged on here to jot them all down. What does it mean?

Free Giving - What?

Today I got an email from Crate and Barrel saying that they were giving me 25 dollars to give away to DonorsChoose.org. I didn't get the money of I didn't immediately give it away to the charity that they named. Unbreakable strings attached.

Donor's Choice seems like an interesting place. I logged on, read about some projects that were requesting funding, and tossed Crate & Barrel's 25 bucks at a program to help kids learn to read.

So it's publicity, really. I might not have known that Crate & Barrel was donating to this group if they hadn't made me look around the website. Kind of slick. I feel as if I've been tricked into helping someone by an adorable bunny or something.

It's weird.

April Fools Has Come and Gone

Nothing got me the way that flying penguins video did, though.

Link of the Day

Believe it or not, the title's a pun.

http://www.mcphee.com/a09/118943.html

You have to see it for yourself.

Springtime is Food Blogging Time

Just thought I'd let you all know that last night I put together a meatloaf.

I took about 2 pounds of ground beef, and hand-mushed in 1/2 cup of shredded asiago, a good splash of Worcestershire sauce, salt and coarse ground black pepper (not a lot of salt, there's plenty other salty going on here), and one egg. Mush, mush, check to make sure that the shredded cheese is distributed throughout, wash my hands, because, ew, and done.

I then took this mixture and placed it on to some plastic wrap laid out on my counter. I flattened the mixture into a reasonable rectangle, nothing too precise, and then I laid down pieces of prosciutto on top of it. It took 4 slices to cover.

Next, using the method I call "the jelly roll method", and maybe other people do, too, I pushed the meat up a bit with the plastic wrap to start rolling it up, moved the plastic wrap out of the way, and continued until I had a nice meat roll. I then sealed this up in the plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Not because it needs to chill before cooking, but because it was after 9 by that point, and I was tired.

Tonight this meaty delight shall be placed into a loaf pan and cooked in a 350 oven for an hour or so. About halfway through the hour, I'll pour a little tomato sauce over the top, just enough to cover it. I'm partial to sauces that are heavy on the basil.

This recipe varies from the original that I got from a Food Network show. That one had parmesan, and not asiago, and it also included chopped red pepper. I didn't have those things in the house. I'm also thinking that the original didn't have Worcestershire in it, but what the heck, it was next to the pepper in the cabinet.

I am going to have great lunches for a few days.

The Tami Underwear Conundrum

Tami just posted today about one of the pressing issues of what is, frankly, wrong with women. And I'm sure you'll all agree. It all comes down to the underwear. Women seem to be fixated on whether or not their underwear "matches" or not. Speaking as a guy (and yes, whether you believe it or not, I am) I can tell you that in a half century of living, I have never needed to worry about whether or not my "foundation matches" on any given day.

Why? Simple. Most of the time I only wear one piece of underwear, so there is no question of matching. During the winter, if I put on a suit, I will wear an undershirt in addition to my "tighty whities" They are both white. They match. I can put them on without thinking and move on to allowing my wife to decide if my shirt matches my pants and if the tie goes with the rest of the ensemble.

Why does this matter? It's obvious. This is why you women earn, on average, less money than men for the same work performed in the same period to time as men. It's why women only account for less than 5% of the CEOs in Fortune 500 companies. It's why so few of you are represented in Congress and why Hillary isn't the president today.

You spend too much time worrying about your damned underwear. If you would just stop wearing bras, you could slap on any old damned pair of panties each morning and there would be no questions asked. Men INVENTED THE BRA, ladies! Hello? It was a plot to keep you occupied so you wouldn't take over the world. It's worked perfectly and we still have that glass ceiling pinned firmly over your heads. Same thing with high heels! How in the hell did we EVER talk you into wearing those?

SUCKERS! As long as you keep falling for this crap, men will keep on running the world. Wake up, women!

Thursday Tami Update

I don't actually have a topic in mind, but I've been posting every Thursday, so I figured I'd just go stream of consciousness or something.

This morning someone said that I looked nice. My reply was, "Thanks. I'm wearing matching underwear today. Once you've got a good foundation, everything else just falls in to place".

I said that, even though I know it's not at all true. Your outer layers can crash horribly down about your head, even with a good foundation. Without one, though, you don't stand a chance.

Let's see, what else... Oh. Right. I don't care at all about Basketball.

Why Newspapers are Sucking Air

You don't have to look very far to see that newspapers in the United States are failing. Today is the last day that the Seattle Post Intelligencer will publish a hard copy, paper edition. Other papers are failing or restructuring their corporate model to stay in business. The day may well come when giants such as the N.Y. Times (already dodging bankruptcy) and the Washington Post may go under. Some of my friends, primarily on the Right wing, feel that this may actually be a good thing. The main stream media is too liberal, they cry! People recognize the bias and they are mad as hell and they won't take it anymore!

An exciting line of thought, but sadly it is pure horsehockey. Newspapers are indeed swirling near the bottom of the toilet, but it's hardly anything to do with partisan political opinions or journalistic slant. The answer, as usual, will be found by following the money. Newspapers put all of their content on line and they never figured out a way to monetize that channel. Advertisers don't want to pay big bucks for online banner ads because they don't generate any sales for the advertiser. It's really as simple as that.

If you're old enough to remember some of those classic black and white movies, you've seen the newsboy out on the street shouting, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" Do you know what "extra" means in that context? Newspapers, once upon a time, put out one edition per day in the morning or the evening. If there was a really BIG story breaking, they would actually put out an extra edition and send kids out on the street to sell it. This, of course, doubled their overhead costs for the day and cut into profits massively.

In the modern era, nobody else has to do that. The 24 hour television news beast can update their broadcast schedule on a moment's notice. Web sites change as fast as you can refresh them. The newspaper is running out of ways to make money at the same time that its news delivery capability is looking like three toed sloth in a world of velociraptors. It simply isn't profitable to compete with the beast.

So what can papers do? They can go back to a local model that subscribers will actually pay for and deliver things that you still can't get on the web or from the big national outlets. You deliver coupons for shoppers. You deliver the local sports news for high school teams that parents still want to save and show off. You deliver obituaries! Families will still want them for their scrap books and memories of family members since departed. This is the market you hit and your readers will pay the fifty cents to buy it and advertisers will spend their money to support it.

Print media isn't dead, but it MUST evolve for a new, more compact generation. Otherwise, it goes the way of the dinosaur. Adapt or die. It's the same for every other business life form on the planet.

Substance Abuse, of a Sorts

OK, Twitter turns out to be really fun. Who knew? I can't tweet from work, but I can put up little things with my phone when I get a minute here or there.

This morning, I left my phone in the car. I work in a big office building, and going out to the car is actually more trouble than it's worth. This means that I will not be checking Facebook or Twitter at all during the day, and the concept makes me a little twitchy.

Time to make myself not use it for a day or two, huh? Addicted to social networking like I'm addicted to caffeine. So sad.

21st Century Gal

OK, I've signed up for Twitter. At first, it was just to stalk Steven Page, you know, like you do, but then I found out that I could follow w00t and The Onion, as well. Awesome.

Now it's actually useful. Who would have guessed that?

And This Is Your Life

They were the best of times. I just wish somebody had taken a moment out of their busy day to tell me before they were gone. I looked into her eyes and this time I saw it, hiding there like a cat ready to finally hit the canary’s cage on one last leap. I’m ready to tell her about the best of times – how good it was and how nobody today could possibly understand. The long nights of youth when you were so close to having it all right, but the tiny, key bits you had wrong turned it all into a tragedy. And now, decades later, you’ve figured out the missing pieces but the original body was dead, never to be reclaimed. I was ready to tell her all that. Again.

But staring into her eyes I saw the moment when the canvas was ready to paint you instead of you taking the brush to it. She’d heard it all before. I’d tried to tell her, so many times, each one a failure on some small level. I never managed to get it across. Always coming close, but missing by those small key bits, just like the ones we missed in the Good Old Days. They were the important ones, almost within reach. But there was something stopping us from seeing them.

So close. Blood on the Tracks was playing in the background and we were certain… so gods damned certain, that Dylan had figured the whole thing out. He’d managed the puzzle and if we listened and applied the words it would all come clear. But it didn’t. It never did. Maybe Dylan was full of shit after all.

But I clung to it. Not “it” as such… not a real thing, but the memory of what I thought I had and somehow lost. The trouble with time is that it flows through your mind in the same way that a stream cuts away a river bank and adds to the other side in sedimentary deposits. It takes the bits you can’t stomach and replaces them with things not yours. Things you borrow from Dylan and Springsteen and Jane’s Addiction and When Harry Met Sally and Trainspotting. You let the bad pieces float away down the river until they were Somebody Else’s Problem and you replaced them with the debris of people who seem wiser but are probably just as fucked up as you are.

And then you find yourself in that room. You’re looking at her. The words well up in your throat. You’re going to find a way to make it all right.. to turn back the clock. You’re going to explain exactly what that little, key item was that you missed and, in doing so, you’ll make the world of the future a better place, even if you – like a latter day Moses – will never live to see the Promised Land.

Then I look in her eyes. She doesn’t see Moses looking back at her. She sees a sad old man who missed his chance and now wants to pin his sorrows on the breast of the next world like a funeral corsage for the Prom of the Dead. She sees through the mask. She’s heard all of your music, but she has new music of her own. She has her own answers. And the one reason she’s sure that she’s right is that she knows.. KNOWS in the most certain terms possible.. that you were wrong. You messed it up totally, but she’s seen through the feeble warts of the aged and found the right answer at last.

She doesn’t need you. She’s learned what she needs from you and discarded the refuse while keeping the golden bits. She’s ready to take on the world. She’s the new mirror looking into the old mirror.

And I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a b-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free

Keep telling yourself that, sister. Enjoy the freedom. It comes at an awful price, but thankfully you won’t have to pay it for a while yet. The final price you pony up is to the ferryman, and the fare is two pennies. I wish I could take them from your eyes before you board, but that’s a task beyond any mortal.

Ride captain, ride, on your mystery ship. What the cartographers didn’t tell you was that there really is an edge out there, and someday you’re going to sail over it. Beyond that? Dragons. And they’re really not as romantic as the poets make them out to be.

The Tower

Anybody know tarot cards?

My favorite band is no longer the same. I was at their final concert, even though I didn't know it at the time. I'm sad about it.

I wonder what I'll find to fill in the hole.

Personal Space

Not sure why I feel the need to do this, but I'm posting about my mom.

It would have been my mom's 66th birthday, today, had she not passed away in 1987.

My mom was a great lady. She was friends with every kind of person; she broke all type barriers. She was a good teacher, kids actually liked having her most of the time. Yes, of course there are exceptions, she was a teacher. She could cook and bake reasonably well, some dishes, like her spinach lasagna, were really excellent. She wasn't a fastidious housekeeper, but we grew up in a decent environment that we weren't afraid to live in. She loved soap operas, yet was nervous around the VCR. That's a really sad combination. She was tall. I've always wished I was as tall as my mom.

When my mom knew her days were numbered, she never told my sister and I. She did that so that we could live every day with her without worrying that it would be our last. It worked pretty well for 4 years out of the 5 that she was sick.

So that was my mom.

Ernie and Bert

Anyone ever notice that down the right hand column I've got a Sesame Street "Current Terror Level Alert" button? It's been at Ernie/Bert for so long that today I wondered if my widget was no longer working.

Well, I checked with Homeland Security, and yup, it's working. We're still at orange (Ernie) for all air travel and yellow (Bert) for everything else. Good to know.

I traveled by air a couple of weeks ago. I get the xrays, and the metal detectors, but the shoe thing kills me. I never remember to wear slip-ons.

Speaking of Animals

The New York Post is running a shameful cartoon. Shameful. I don't even want to show it, here, but I've linked it in a new window so you'll know why I'm sad.

I wrote Sean Delonas an email.

OK, the cartoon with the dead chimp and the policeman saying that someone else would have to write the stimulus bill is shameful.
If you're saying the President is a chimp, because people compared Bush to a chimp, you're not figuring in the race card, which always counts. I don't want it to count, but it does.
If you're being that racist, you should hang your head in sadness over your own ignorance.
If you're saying that other people are racist, then you're missing your mark, because my first thought was that *you* should be ashamed for putting this out there.

Please think long and hard about how this insults so many people, at so many levels.

T. Yaches

Anybody think I'm over reacting? I don't.

The Day the Miracle Whip Died

Today we take a sad look back at the dark day in 2006 when Kraft Foods made the horrible decision to change the recipe for Miracle Whip. In one fell swoop they destroyed a classic American tradition and pushed civilization one step closer to the abyss. We've never fully recovered.

They took the soy oil out of the product and replaced it with a larger volume of water. This not only killed some of the flavor and thinned the consistency but also shortened its shelf life. At the time of the change, the Elementary Chef bemoaned the loss.

This is problematic, because like a lot of other people, I like to make the potato salad or coleslaw the day before, to let the flavors mingle. Only now I can’t, because it turns into a watery mess and tastes like I forgot the dressing!

I first noticed this change over a year ago, and have been scrambling to find a replacement ever since. I’ve tried lots of store brands, and found they vary widely by store. Some have an unpleasant aftertaste because of the kind of oil they use. I’ve also tried half a dozen different recipes, because my usual response when a product becomes unavailable or changes is to make my own. Yet none of the substitutes quite come up to snuff. The closest I’ve come is to add sugar and vinegar to Kraft mayonnaise, but haven’t quite achieved the magic formula.

They claim to have tinkered with the recipe in response to public demand, but it's still not the same as the product I grew up with. And you won't get any sort of admission of guilt from those bastards at Kraft. Their history page lists all sorts of wonderful things but no mention is made of this nefarious plot.

At the time, even the vaunted Instapundit weighed in on the subject and provided a letter from a Kraft employee who explained the atrocity. Some of us thought that it was another of those nanny state plots to force people to eat healthier, but it turns out that the culprit was the same old suspect. It was all about the money.

I work at one of only a few places that make the stuff. Every year, the cost of the raw material goes up, and every year the price that Wal*Mart and others want to buy it from us for goes down.

So there's compromise; and even those of us who make the stuff miss the old Gold Standard. But the decision is out of our hands, out of R&D's hands probably out of Corporate or even Wal*Mart corporate's hands. The consumers don't want seem to want to pay a premium for the good stuff.

I normally don't approve of the use of soy for anything except sauce, but in this case I will make an exception. Clearly the oil was a large part of what gave Miracle Whip its flavor and texture. There just isn't a good substitute. I was making a sandwich today and realized that I just can't enjoy them as much as I used to.

CURSE YOU KRAFT FOODS!

If I Could Talk to the Animals

Last night I was flipping through the channels and came upon some old, black and white film where a woman very World War 2 era clothes was doing a swirl turn in front of her friend, saying, "Oh Gawd, no! I don't want to wind up being one of those old women who sits at home and talks to her cats." It's a funny line. In fact, with some level of embarrassment, I suspect I've used the phrase myself. But why is that bad?

Some more deep confessions and introspection. I talk to my pets. All of them. Just this week we lost one of our cats.

I had to start another paragraph because that last sentence was a lie. We didn't lose Fat Cat (as most of us called her) so much as I gave up. She was old, diabetic and no longer had much in the way of any quality of life, but I gave up on the fight. She could have pushed on a bit further, but I bailed out on her. I'm finding it hard to deal with that. But my talking to animals started long ago.

It used to be that I only talked (at least out loud) to my dogs and cats when my wife was out of town. Then I began doing it when I was downstairs and she was still asleep upstairs. Now she frequently comes out to ask me what I just said and I have to admit that I was talking to one of the animals. Have I gone around some bend?

Aside from my spouse I have very little desire to speak face to face with anyone else anymore. I enjoy talking to to my two dogs and (now) three cats. We have fascinating conversations... or at least I do. I suspect they play along with the script because I'm the one that puts the food down every day. If they had opposable thumbs and a credit card, some of them likely wouldn't give me the time of day.

I've also lost interest in politics since our Fat Cat passed away. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but in my other incarnation I am actually paid to watch politics, to read about politics, to talk about and write about politics. Losing interest in it is inherently damaging to my long term prospects. But there you are. What I think about now - when I'm not talking to my pets - is fishing.

I combine the two and imagine situations where I can have both dogs and all three cats on the edge of some river or pond and I fish and explain to them what I'm doing. Then we argue. We always argue. We argue about food and the weather and what the neighbors are doing. We debate whether it's a good time to go for a walk, how the various snacks are going over or why I'm screaming at some horrible program on the television.

I'm going to have dinner, read something, and talk to my pets. If you could talk to the animals, what would you say? Probably something different than you say to the myriad people in your lives. At least I hope so... most of them are idiots.

Apoligies All Around

I'm back. Sorry about Jazz, with his tendencies to write about actual topics and stuff. I should have told him that I stopped doing that years ago and now just blog inane platitudes and cat pictures.

Glad to be home, I'm sure.

Sarah Palin: Where the Right Went Wrong

This weekend I was reading a quote of the day excerpt by Allah Pundit at Hot air, snipped from David Frum's analyis of Sam Tenenhaus' examination of modern conservatism. In it, he takes the useful and interesting tact of abandoning questions of whether or not Palin represented a productive new path for American conservatism, instead choosing to ask if the Alaska Governor embodied a fundamental flaw in current conservative doctrine. In short, has conservative theory become the chapel of fighting against perceived evils in opposition dogma rather than fighting for a preferred approach to governance and social order? Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.

[T]he modern American right defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy--"statist" social programs; "socialized medicine"; "big labor"; "activist" Supreme Court justices, the "media elite"; "tenured radicals" on university faculties; "experts" in and out of government. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.

The Palin story was always less about Palin, and more about the response to Palin. And the continuing inability of even our conservative best and brightest to elevate their concern for the responsibilities of government over their cultural animosities suggests that this story’s most painful chapters remain to be written. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.

Interesting questions all, and Palin is certainly an apt spokesperson for a new model in leadership. Glowing essays of approbation have been penned regarding her "aw shucks" demeanor, her disarming inability to verbally fence with reporters, her rejection of the modern media and disparagement of "nuance" in the analysis of current events.Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.
Tenenhaus dances around some of the questions which modern conservative advocates should be asking while taking a long, hard look in the mirror. When, exactly, did a high level of intelligence become a subject of derision? How did nuance and thoughtful analysis of actions and their possible consequences evolve into displays of weakness. In short, when did the clenched fist become preferable to the open hand by the simple virtue of providing a base, temporary sense of primitive gratification? Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.
If you begin to despise the person who can consistently sink the three pointer with their fade away jump shot, you might ask yourself if that feeling is rooted in your own ability to make one out of five from the foul line. When you find yourself devoting your life to preventing gays from getting married, it may be time to look for ways to improve your own marriage or examine exactly what it is about homosexuality that makes you so uncomfortable. Does the thought of a black man who might welcome pro-choice candidates into the party alarm you? Perhaps it's more than his personal philosophies putting you off your feed. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.
A successful philosophy in any endeavor must always stand for things, not just against perceived evils, failures and shortcomings. You will be unable to sell your agenda to the masses if you can't offer an improved replacement of the current, flawed edition. What Frum may be feeling, but unwilling to say, is that leaders look forward and mark out a trail. Those glowering at the path already taken are unlikely to be followed. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.

For our next intellectual exercise, we shall attempt to determine exactly why this article gets so many darned Google hits. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude. Sarah Palin naked. Sarah Palin nude.

Impeach Obama Now!

We continue to plod on under the lash of a harsh master, but I must ask you... for how much longer? For seventeen long days we have labored under the oppressive Obama administration. Over the entire course of his administration job losses have been at record levels every single week. The economy is crumbling. Partisan hacks fill our television screens, screaming at each other over every perceived slight. The country is divided in a way we've not seen since the second Bush administration.

Can you remember the good old days? Thinking back, I recall a sweeter, kinder and, dare I say, more fun America. It was back in... oh... around the end of December of 2008 and the first few days of 2009. People just seemed to be in a kinder, more charitable mood. Parties were being thrown all over the country. Folks were cutting down pine trees and putting them up in their homes, festooned with all manner of decorations. Drinks were bought for perfect strangers. Handsome young men dared to kiss pretty girls under conspicuously hung clumps of shrubbery. Music played, even if nobody really knew the words to the songs. Ah, good times.

But no more! Those days passed in a hurry, didn't they? Back then, Barack Obama was sworn in as president and then everything went to crap. It's been seventeen long days, people. How much more of this do you plan to take? Contact your representatives! Take to the streets! It's time to give the Republicans a chance!

Sometimes I feel like, Google is watching meeeee

For those of us in the old fogy set who can actually remember black and white televisions hooked to an antenna on the roof that only got three channels for roughly five hours a day, it is a never ending blessing to have lived long enough to enjoy all the amazing benefits of 21st century technology. Yet another of these many blessings has been bestowed upon by by The Google.

A mobile phone tracking service that lets parents keep an eye on their children - and wives keep tabs on their husbands - 24 hours a day has been launched by Google.

The software allows owners of cellphones or BlackBerry hand-held computers to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends anywhere around the world.

Oh, COME ON! How cool is that? You mean you have a free service where my GPS location will be fed into a massive online database, parsed nine ways from Sunday and converted into a map where people will be able to track my every movement 24/7? Holy, cow! That's absolutely.. ummm.. uh....

Now that I come to think of it, that's actually pretty freaking creepy. Of course, in my particular case, viewers would quickly lose sight of the entertainment value, since I'm in the exact same location for 99.999% of the year. But for those of you on the move, particularly the younger, more attractive women, this could really be a life changing technological innovation.

Speaking of women and technology, there's more good news on the horizon. Tell me, ladies. Do you like orgasms? But are you tired of both the annoyance of having other people involved in the process and the hassle of switching the settings on your shower massager if you want to masturbate? Fear not, for science is coming to the rescue. Soon you will be able to have a computer chip implanted in your spine which will resolve all of these pesky issues and deliver orgasms on demand.

Scientists are developing a new electronic 'sex chip,' according to the Daily Mail.The technology, used to treat Parkinson's disease, works by creating tiny shocks to the brain.

The 'sex chip' could work by stimulating the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of your brain associated with pleasures like sex and eating. The chip would increase one's desire for sex or food. Researchers at Oxford University are exploring this possibility.

I know, I know... you're worried about the side effects. It's a big sexual turn-on, but it also makes you want to eat. So? You live in the computer age so you can order food online whenever you want. And if you think the eating thing will impact your dating life... again. So what? You no longer need a partner anyway.

It's truly a brave new world.

The Curse of the Black Trash Man

With the One True Tami (blessed be Her name) sailing off on vacation, I shall take this time to annoy you with some distressing news from the home front. My normal, carefully regulated, increasingly agoraphobic home routine has been upset to a distressing level. For those of you who don't know, as the years go by I have become more and more like Nero Wolfe, homebound through a combination of fear and antipathy toward open, public spaces or crowds of the great, unwashed masses. My work as a private marketing consultant and occasional freelance writer allows me to conduct virtually all of my business from my home.

For those of you who have routinely worked away from your residence, you might not imagine or appreciate the strange daily rituals and relationships which develop for the homebound. If you spend your days off at some office, factory or mall, you miss out on all of the activities which occur during your absence. The mail arrives six days per week, (at least for now) usually around the same time. You may know this only because it's waiting for you when you get home. I actually see the mailman - or mail woman, in my case - on an almost daily business and get to chat with her. Retirees often walk their dogs around the block on a regular schedule. I know them by name and occasionally join them with my Basset Hound. Meter readers, delivery vans, surveyors and political campaign workers prowl the suburban landscape and I inevitably run into them all.

One of the most regular events is the weekly pickup of trash and recycling materials by the municipal workers. As the appointed day arrives, I generally fret over whether to put the trash out the night before or wait until early the next morning. (The truck comes by at an obscenely early hour, but get up around 5:30 a.m. and keep my advantage in the battle.) During weeks when there is a government holiday on Monday the pickup is delayed by one day. On these occasions I wallow in a particularly morose pleasure generally available only to the homebound - I chuckle at the stupidity of my neighbors who lug their cans out on the usual evening, dooming them to sit at the curb for 36 hours, while I stand smugly on my porch secure in the knowledge that I'll catch them the next day.

I like the guys who work on the garbage truck. They all look somewhat like myself, except for being more muscular, weatherbeaten and scruffy, clad in overalls and carrying themselves with the bearing of those who get up early to do hard, often dirty work, braving the elements and performing an under appreciated service, without which society quickly grinds to a halt. They also differ from the stereotypical perception some people have of uneducated losers in the game show of life. They have government jobs which actually pay pretty well and carry full benefits. The hours aren't bad and a decent retirement program is provided. As I said, I've come to like these guys. At least until the last few weeks.

One of the scruffy, weather beaten and - most importantly - Caucasian guys who ride the truck has disappeared. I've not managed to work up the nerve to ask where he is or how he's getting on, but he's been replaced... by a black man. This is nothing short of a disaster. In the past I have been completely comfortable stepping out on my front porch with a cup of coffee and waiting for the trash truck to go by. I could give a cheery wave to the workers, ask how things were going, and promptly bring my newly emptied garbage and recycling bins back to the house long before any of my gainfully employed neighbors could manage to do so. No more!

You see, I too am white. (Or should that have read, "I am too white?" Well, white enough to pass muster for most people anyway. I'm certainly not going to be mistaken for any of the boys in the "hood.") Call it a case of deeply set, generational white guilt, latent racist tendencies or stark, glaring stupidity. Frankly, I don't know nor will I pretend to have some brilliant psychoanalytical explanation. What I do know, however, is that my routine is shattered. My coffee cup and I are out on the porch as usual, but at the sound of the approaching truck I turn and flee back inside. I peer through the curtains and wait for the vehicle to disappear around the corner before furtively sneaking out to retrieve the cans.

Why? The answer is both unfortunate and obvious. It seems that I'm perfectly fine with the idea of a white man showing up to haul off my refuse, but when an African-American shows up being paid to perform the same task, I fold up like cardboard boots in a rainstorm. Rather than an average homeowner greeting another hard working member of the community, in my mind's eye I have suddenly become a sneering, plantation era taskmaster, tossing his buggy whip from hand to hand as he oversees the non-voluntary labor. "Say there, boy! Make sure you get all of those shrimp shells from my luxurious dinner last Monday that are scattered by the curb. And don't let me catch you eating any of the scraps or it's the lash for you! Do a good job and there'll be an extra portion of gruel for you on Sunday." It's simply too much to bear.

What's to be done? The solution is clear. I'll give it a few more weeks to see if the regular guy was just off on holiday and returns to work. If not, I'll need to figure out a way to explain to my wife why we're moving.

Adios, Amigos

I'm outta Jersey starting tomorrow morning for a whole week.
This time I'm spending my time on a ship. I like ships.

Sense and Sensibility

Bush's 'War on Terror' Comes to a Sudden End

WASHINGTON - President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on terror," as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.

While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, the notion that a president can circumvent long-standing U.S. laws simply by declaring war was halted by executive order in the Oval Office.

I'm not openly weeping with relief, but it's close.

For years I wrote blog posts saying that the government was committing crimes. For years it didn't matter. All of a sudden we have a President who knows that it does matter. I feel funny writing this, like I'm about to be all sunshine and roses and say that President Obama is perfect. Of course he's not perfect, he's a politician. I'm sure over the coming years he'll do a lot of things I disagree with. This one, though, this one makes me so happy.

Probably Not Important

I just keep thinking that "Miracle on the Hudson" sounds like "Moscow on the Hudson".

Really glad all the passengers got out alive.

...from the plane crash. I don't think that the movie had passengers.

Things That Suck

1 - War

War sucks because it means that people are unwilling to compromise without killing each other. Usually when I have a disagreement that I can't win, I give in, although with a terrible lack of grace, and I'm bitter about it basically forever. Still, no loss of life there. I wish that nation-scale conflicts could be solved without death.

2 - Falling down

I don't have a link for that one, I just tripped this morning on the way to the car, and that sucked. It sucked a lot. I'm not broken, just bruised, but I think I'm going to hold a grudge against the piece of plastic I tripped on forever. Forever! You're dead to me, wedge-shaped dark gray piece of plastic that someone left lying on the ground by the curb!

I'm It

Sharon tagged me with a meme. I don't like to tag people, because I'm shy about strange things, but I hate to miss out on showing you all how bad I am with a camera phone.

Me, right now.

When Selecting a Mate...

... one thing you should always check very early on - pretty much on the first date - is that they don't have a birthday that falls in January or early February. If they do, you can date them, but you shouldn't move in with them or marry them. Because, if you do, the day will eventually come when their birthday party falls on the same day as a playoff game or the Super Bowl.

All of this, of course, is just a nice way to say that my lovely wife, Georg, (who reads and comments here often enough) is celebrating her birthday today. It's one of those "big ones" that ends in a zero, but since I've learned enough by now not to get more specific, I'll just guess that it's twenty.

And a Happy New Year

Haven't heard from me much? Too many family issues going on for me to see beyond the immediate and into the world around me. My dad's recovery is going slowly, and with many many many bumps. Taking care of all the stuff, even with help, takes a lot. I'm sure there are things I could say about politicians and the economy and stuff, but all I'm really worried about right now is fitting in responsibilities and a reasonable amount of down time so that I get to keep my sanity.

I wish all of you a happy new year, in case I don't post again in the next few days. Thanks for coming here to see what I'm on about, or what Jazz is on about. We appreciate you caring what we have to say.

A Voice Known to Nerds Everywhere

RIP, Majel Roddenberry.

By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer Robert Jablon, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 18, 6:15 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Majel Barrett Roddenberry, "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry's widow who nurtured the legacy of the seminal science fiction TV series after his death, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry died of leukemia Thursday morning at her home in Bel-Air, said Sean Rossall, a family spokesman.

I Gots A Crush on Caroline Kennedy

Unlike the One True Tami, (blessed be Her name) I live in New York, not Jersey. As such, I stand to benefit from the pending appointment of Hillary Clinton to the State Department. I don't mean "benefit" so much in terms of what a great job she'll do in convincing Russia to let us put missile silos on their borders, but more the simple fact that we'll finally get to ship her ass out of my state and off to Washington where she and Bill will doubtless be more comfortable.

But what will Governor David Paterson do about a replacement? I had thought he would make a relatively safe, sane choice and put Nydia Velazquez in the office. Of course, what do I know? I appears that he'll probably award this particular pony to none other than Caroline Kennedy. You need only take one look at the woman and you'll doubtless have the same reaction I did.

Oh. My. God. She's sooooooo pretty! She's like a little piece of the sun, wrapped in a rainbow and brought down to Earth for us to enjoy! And she's a real, honest to God Kennedy, straight from the fount of Camelot. In this era of hope and change, could we ask for a more inspirational, transcendent character to lift our Senatorial politics out of the partisan gutter and on to a higher plain? I think not.

But... But... But...

After hitting my thumb with a hammer a few times to break the spell, I remember to ask a couple of questions. What sort of legislative and governmental experience does she have? Oh. None. I see. Well, at least she is probably a forceful speaker who will press our case in the upper chamber with aplomb. Oh? She's described by many people as "painfully shy" and tends to avoid confrontational situations, you say? Why are we considering her again?

This is a dynasty appointment. We don't need any more dynasties. We need another Kennedy (just for the sake of having a Kennedy) about as much as we need another Bush or another Clinton. Is it so silly to think that maybe we should just put qualified, competent, experienced people in these offices on the rare occasions when we need an appointment instead of an election? And oh, by the way, whoever takes that seat is going to have to stand for reelection in BOTH 2010 and 2012. So the person is going to need to be a seasoned campaigner who may have to face down Rudy Giuliani in a series of debates.

Enough with the dynasties, please. We don't need the same few families controlling the country like it's some sort of monarchy.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled rants.

Newsflash, December 2008

Water is wet, and the US has been in a recession for a year.

The economy slipped into recession in December 2007, the nation's business cycle arbiter declared on Monday, and the downturn could be the worst since World War Two.

The National Bureau of Economic Research said its business cycle dating committee members met by conference call on Friday and concluded that the economic expansion that started in November 2001 had ended. The previous period of economic expansion, which ended in 2001, lasted 10 years.

Gosh, really? I might not have noticed... idiots.

Gender Identity Disorder?

Gender Analyzer says this about my blog:

We think http://tryaches.blogspot.com is written by a man (68%).

I remain really female, and there is no way Jazz posts often enough to skew the results that much.

I often say that I talk like a truck driver, I guess I mean a *male* truck driver.

Unexpected Revelation

A whole lot of people are on Facebook. So far I've been "friended" by people I haven't spoken to since high school, someone I was in Israel with my first year of college, people I speak with all the time, and relatives whom I wish that I spoke with more often. It's very strange. How did I join the party so late on this one?

The saddest part is that I haven't even had time to log on to my own computer this week. I've been keeping up with my phone, but just barely.

Dad status: back in the hospital since very very very early Friday morning. Nothing major is wrong with him, and I'm wondering why the hell they don't release him. Yes, yes, he has some issues, but they're the sort of issues you can treat at home.

Derelict

Whose job is it to take down all those campaign signs littering the sides of the roads?


*Edited for an update: my dad got to go home from the hospital on Sunday evening. He's doing just fine, but I can't figure out when I'm going to be able to take his garbage out, tomorrow.

And So It Goes

My dad remains in the hospital, but stable. There's some infection going around, and he's reacted poorly to the dye they use in cardiac catheterization, and they want to de-sensitize him to aspirin (he's been allergic), so he's not home, and it's all a giant pain in the ass.

Today, I am wearing a skirt. Thought I'd pretend I'm a girl.

An Open Letter

An Open Letter to the people who voted "yes" on Proposition 8 in California:

The Church of Tami no longer recognizes any marriage that makes us feel icky or threatened. I'm going to go ahead and say that's every marriage, current or future, of every person who voted "yes" on Proposition 8.

You are close-minded, fearful bastards. I wish equal prejudice and unwarranted distaste upon you and your so-called "families".

Fourty Four

Barack Obama.

OK, we're on the new roller coaster, let's see how this ride goes.

Completely Inappropriate

So I know it's completely inappropriate to talk about your father's heart attack on your blog, but holy crap, you have to talk about it somewhere! I figured if I wrote it out once, I wouldn't be talking about it all day to everyone. I'm probably wrong about that.

My dad thought he had indigestion, or an issue with his blood hemolizing, because he has a couple of blood conditions. It turns out he had a mild heart attack. Crap, that's scary, but my god, it's like a heart attack fixing factory in the hospital we went to. People stacked up like cord wood, coming out on stretchers being told that they can go home tomorrow after angioplasty, and no driving for 2 days!

He was coherent and healthy-looking the whole time, what the hell? I was nervous like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and the cardiologist was all like, Oh, here's a copy of the pictures we took of the inside of his heart. Neat, right?

No. Not neat, terrifying. I don't care if it's commonplace for them, it wasn't commonplace for *us*.

And yes, I voted already. Took the opportunity to cancel out the vote of some good New Jersey republican.

Always Left of Center

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36


I was reading Poor Impulse Control today, and she posted about this under the post with the adorable picture of "Panky with Pumpkins". I can't believe how big he is! I can believe that I'm left of center. I really don't have crazy extremist views, I swear.

I'm Sure Liberals Do It, Too

But this is a story about asshole Republicans.

Cops for Bush Arrest 'Liberals,' Say Five

JERSEY CITY (CN) - New Jersey police officers arrested five people who were posting political signs, calling them "a bunch of fucking liberals," say the five in Hudson County Court. The cops added, "It's not your day. We like Bush."
After they were arrested and taken to the Kearny City police station, the plaintiffs say, "several police officers continued to chastise plaintiffs for posting political signs and working for 'liberals.'"
After holding them for hours, the plaintiffs say, the cops said they would let them go because one plaintiff "is in the ROTC. He's gonna join the Army. You guys are lucky."
Plaintiffs say they were posting signs legally. They demand punitive damages for false arrest, harassment, malicious prosecution and civil rights violations. They are represented by Mitchell Stein of Parsippany.

Members of my family, please feel free to chuckle at the in-joke. Everyone else, please remember that voting is really important.

Public Inside Joke

Sometimes rainbows can be pretty.

Mail Bag, October 17th 2008 Edition

I received an email this morning entitled "The effects of the economic downturn in Britain". It contained the following image:

Many a Day Goes By

Made the pomegranate lamb last night, with some risotto on the side. I was going to use shallot in the risotto, but shockingly, I was out, so I just used chopped white onion. I tossed in a couple of cloves of roasted garlic and smooshed them in there, too. Other than that, just some chicken stock, some water, some white wine, & some parmesan cheese. You know, that sounds like a lot when you list it out, but it really wasn't that bad. The secret to good risotto is to get a stove-height stool, so that you're not thinking about sitting down the whole time that you're stirring.

I didn't watch any TV or talk about any politics. Very relaxing. I played a little Rock Band, and found out that I really don't know "Where'd You Go" by the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones well enough to sing it. I'll have to listen to it a couple of times.

My oven was smoking, again. I'll have to clean it this weekend. I so do not want to clean an oven.

Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

Thought One: Everyone thinks that their opinion is correct, especially me.

Thought Two: Brooke Burke may have won the battle of the boobs last night, but Kym Johnson is always a competitor. That's some display she puts on.

Thought Three: Will baking bread really be cheaper than buying it already made? I can't tell. I can tell that I really want to make bread with some extra fiber punch and no white sugar, so I guess it's a-baking I shall go. The first loaf of rye bread I tried didn't rise enough, and was way too dense. My second bread attempt was monkey bread from a mix, and that went much better. I managed to be patient enough for it to actually gain the volume it needed, and shaping dough is a skill that I've already acquired. I tried using my mixing paddle, since I don't have a dough hook.

Maybe I should buy a dough hook.

OK, that was a lot of thoughts wrapped up in to one, there.

My house mate is gone for the week. I just keep inviting people over so I can't tell if that would make me lonely or not.

Oh, and Jazz, if people flicked ashes on my rug I'd slap them so freakin' hard that their children would be born dizzy. People need to have some respect for other people's belongings.

I blew Andy Warhol up

Jazz here. I only point this out lest someone think that The One True Tami (blessed be Her name) performed a morally questionable act on a 60's pop star.

When I was younger, I kept a series of those leather bound books full of blank paper where you penned your private thoughts, poems, prose, random drawings and insanity. I was never entirely sure why I did it. I suppose that I thought I would eventually publish some, if not all of the contents. In my youth I suffered from the illusion that everyone would find me simply fascinating if they were only given enough time and exposure to my peculiar and compelling personality. I later went through phases when I became depressed over the world's abject failure to recognize my brilliance followed by consolation and relief over the realization that pretty much everyone found themselves more fabulous than anyone else ever would or could.

It was in one of these dream journals that I penned the following during the late seventies:

If you're going to use a clamshell for an ashtray, always leave some cigarette butts - or at least some ashes - in it. If it's too clean, people will think it's a decoration and not an ashtray and they'll just flick ashes on your rug.

I don't recall what combination of drugs and alcohol were in charge of my synaptic connections when I wrote that, but we were, apparently, making gods out of trash in those days. There's actually some truth in what I wrote there, but in terms of depth or profound meaning, it was somewhat lacking. (And that's being charitable.) Truth there is, but it's a truth only truly useful if you are either so impoverished or fashion challenged that you would actually use clamshells for ashtrays. Even then it only applied to smokers or friends of smokers.

I had a good dozen of them scattered around my apartment.

I was enthralled with Andy Warhol in those days. Of course, I was late to the party as usual. I had only discovered how amazing and enthralling Warhol was long after everyone else. By the time I was on board, the Cool Kids had already moved on to the Next Great Thing and I was left worshiping at the alter of somebody who had long since been proclaimed Yesterday's News. Story of my life, I suppose. I was always the last to discover anything wonderful. The only possible exception might have been Jane's Addiction. I heard them, quite by accident, when they showed up at a bar outside of Chula Vista, got hold of a tape of their early material, and was briefly one of the Cool Kids when "Jane Says" became all the rage for five minutes.

But other than that, I only seemed to catch on to things after they had peaked and then begun to wither. And when I finally caught on, they would seem to disappear. The same thing happened with Warhol. In the end, I'm convinced I blew him up.

Just for the record, though, I never provided him with any oral favors.

Nourishing My Soul

You may have noticed that lately I'm not talking about politics, much. I'm still interested, I just can't figure out what I could say, exactly, that could help anyone. Not right now. Muffins, on the other hand, are damn useful.

Saturday morning before the gym I popped in to Starbucks for a cup of coffee, seeing as how I was too lazy to make some myself before it was time to leave the house. While there, I saw that they had pumpkin cream cheese muffins in their case. Oh, man, did they look good, but I couldn't justify 5 bucks and almost 500 calories for something pretty to eat. Hell, I was already paying 2 bucks for coffee - regular coffee.

When I got home, I went online, and found a recipe at recipezaar.com. It looked pretty good, so I gave it a shot. I changed it up a little, here's exactly how I did it:

SERVES 24 , 24 muffins (I actually made 30 small ones)

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
* 2 teaspoons cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1 teaspoon ground cloves
* 3 teaspoons allspice
* 1 pinch ginger
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 4 eggs
* 2 cups sugar
* 2 cups pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
* 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
* 8 ounces cream cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Put the entire brick of cream cheese on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper and shape it into a long log.
3. Put it in the freezer while you mix and fill the pans, up to an hour (this means that if you take an hour to make up the batter, take the cream cheese out of the freezer, already!).
4. Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix to combine (except cream cheese).
6. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full.
7. Unwrap the cream cheese and cut into disks with a sharp knife so that each cream cheese disk equals 1-2 teaspoons. If the cream cheese disks are too big around, cut thick slices and then cut them in half. This lets you push it down into the batter easier. Put cream cheese disc in the middle, pressing down.
8. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!).
9. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Do not touch the cream cheese until it cools.

Recipezaar claims that these are 241 calories each. That's way better than what I would have ingested at Starbucks. Also, I had everything but the cream cheese already in the house, so I wound up spending something like $2.50 out of pocket to make 30 muffins. They're really good, too.

Pun Intended

Because sometimes, you just have to.

I smell a scientific breakthrough coming.

My Kind of Saturday Night

Saturday night I had friends over and made fondue - the Murray's Cheese version, the recipe for which I can only find on the Rachael Ray magazine site.

Ingredients

3/4 pound Gruyère cheese, grated
1/2 pound Swiss Emmentaler cheese, grated
3/4 pound Appenzeller cheese, grated
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 garlic clove, halved

1 to 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground white pepper
Crusty bread, cubed and skewered


1. In a large bowl, toss the cheeses with the cornstarch. Rub the inside of a 3-quart fondue pot with the garlic; discard.edit: discard the garlic, not the pot. yeesh.
2. In the fondue pot, heat 1 cup wine with the lemon juice over medium-low heat until steaming but not yet simmering. Stir in the cheese mixture, 1 handful at a time, and cook until melted. If the fondue is too thick, gradually stir in up to 1/2 cup more wine. Season to taste with white pepper. Serve with the bread cubes.

I didn't have any white pepper*, and I used a bottle of cherry wheat beer instead of white wine. Also, I tossed a splash of kirsch in with the lemon juice, before the beer. When these guys say large bowl, by the way, they mean LARGE bowl. I grated the cheese in the food processor, and it had to be done in 2 batches.

I used baguette for the crusty bread, and I also provided raw veggies and apple chunks for varied dipping. My housemate kindly chunked up the apples and the veggies into skewerable sizes. There was easily enough to feed 6 hungry people, because 4 hungry people had quite a bit left over.

That is one delicious fondue.

We also played a board game. It sounds very mild mannered, but somehow the last guest (at some point we acquired a 5th) left after 3 in the morning. That's one crazy fondue party, right there.

Bonus tip: don't try and do shots of kirsch, that stuff is harsh.

*I've just remembered that I do have white pepper in the house, and I didn't even look for it, just assuming I didn't. Oh, well.

Personal Leanings

Look, I don't like Sarah Palin, and it bothers me. I say things that aren't so politically correct when expressing this opinion. Rather than continue on my bad trend, I thought I'd share something that I read today that sounds a lot more reasonable than I often do.

An article by Jill at The Moderate Voice

It's reasonable. You may not like me any better after reading it, but hey, maybe you'll see what I'm talking about.

And I admit, I haven't been looking at her shoes. I might really like her shoes.

In Case Ye Fergot, Arrrrr

International Talk Like a Pirate Day, matey!

Palin Quotes

Actually quotes about Palin.

A friend sent me this link: The 20 Most Obnoxious Anti-Palin Quotes So Far from Right Wing News. Some of them I find amusing, some distressing in their truth, and one or two I think are over the line. Still, I was inspired to write some quotes of my own.

Not, in my opinion, offensive:

Sarah Palin has been quoted as stating that her pregnant teenage daughter has made the right choice in marrying her baby's father and having the baby. I put forth that perhaps having unprotected sex as an unmarried teenager was actually the wrong choice.

Probably offensive:

Sarah Palin named a child with Down's Syndrome "Trig". Do you think that's because he'll never get to the developmental stage where he'll be able to resent it?


Edit: I have decided, upon further reflection, that both my comments are offensive, because they're addressing Palin's family instead of her politics. I stand by my opinion that unprotected teen sex is a bad choice, but I acknowledge that the fact that young Ms. Palin indulged in it is none of my business, at all.

I Appreciate

I appreciate people who can mock themselves.

So many levels of funny. Loved this one.

Listening In Is Rude

Overheard at work: "When has anyone ever cared so much about the Vice President? Usually they're just a couple of jokers sitting around talking about education reform or whatever - nobody cares. This is one of the most fun elections, ever."

Nobody cares? Did no one care when Geraldine Ferraro was chosen as a running mate? Hmmm, maybe not. I wonder why that might be - oh, wait, I know; it was because she was actually qualified for the job,. Got it.

Sure is Pretty

OK, Sarah Palin is attractive, and a good speaker.

My mom always said that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Do not worry, friends and family, I'm not a McCain supporter - you don't have to send me scary emails about how she advocated that victims of rape pay for their own forensic testing, or how choosing Palin as a running mate is a direct affront to the Jewish community.

I'm already sure that I'm not voting republican, and stories like this just make me sad, and a little scared. So scared that I thought I'd share them with the 10 people who read my blog... two of whom sent me these stories. Hmmmm.

OK, seriously - crime victims pay for their own investigations? That's so wrong that my head is spinning around over and over and over. The police force and the funding thereof is specifically for that. God, I'm incensed.

Wednesday Cupcake Blogging

Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Down Home Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake" batter + whipped vanilla buttercream frosting + sprinkles = Happy

I think the sprinkles are the secret.

What I Want

I want a government that aligns with my opinions. I want a government that cares about taking care of the needy, without eliminating the ability to earn more than the average as an individual. I want a government that makes laws to ensure people's freedoms, rather than ensure that some people's religious convictions are forced on all people in a terrified attempt to not offend.

I want a government who follows a basic humanistic outlook, that won't try to govern my own choices about my body, that won't continue to pander to the oil companies for personal gain, that has experience helping to make decisions for large groups of people, keeping the good of the many in mind, rather than the good of the few.

I want to be able to vote for candidates that I actually feel represent me, and how I think we should run our country.

I want what I cannot have. I will have to settle.

Sarah Palin

OK, so a black President, or a female Vice President. A year of first-first-seconds.

Geraldine Ferraro, we hardly knew ya.

I wonder what all the men who hate the idea of women in political office will do, come election time. I wonder if there are really that many out there. I wouldn't be surprised if they cut their own noses off to spite their faces, though, not after hearing a surprising number of women admit that they supported Hillary based on gender alone.

People make me sad. So sad that I can't even be happy about something that should feel like progress.

It really is progress, though, right?

I Haven't Written Anything in a While

I'm wondering if the bankruptcy bill ultimately helped the economy when the credit card companies weren't left holding the *whole* bag when the housing bubble burst. Does that make any sense? Am I just trying desperately to find a reason to like Joe Biden again? Am I fooling myself, and the bankruptcy bill really did screw a lot of people who really needed the help?

I don't know, but that's what I've been thinking about.

I Should Have Realized

Of course I should have realized that McCain was good-looking when he was younger, but I was still surprised at the banner ad I saw on Slashdot:



Doesn't he seem taller? I have no idea how that works.

If I Were a Conspiracy Theorist...

... I'd say that high gas prices were put in place by a coalition of environmentalists who want people to start walking more and using public transportation. Forcing us was, it seems, the only way to succeed.

That would be my conspiracy theory. If, you know, I did that kind of thing.

My actual theory is that it's caused by people generally being idiots.

Awesome News on the Tech Front

I can't tell you how many times I've lost an alternator on a car, which, of course means that I've lost the battery, too. This is why I am very happy to have read this:

Team Doubles Efficiency of Thermoelectric Material: Good News for Car Electrics

Scientists at Ohio State University have taken a thermoelectric material that's been used for decades to power deep-space probes, and worked out how to double its efficiency. That's good news: thermoelectrics convert heat directly into electrical energy. By catching exhaust heat, the new material may allow car alternators to be replaced... and that'll push up the efficiency of car engines. The team doped lead telluride with tiny amounts of thallium, which adjusts the crystal structure and increases its heat-electricity conversion efficiency from around 6% to over 10%. Even better, since engineers have years of experience of working with lead telluride, it should be easy to commercialize the product. Environmentalists will have to be pleased, and relax about the high toxicity of thallium, though.

I don't know how long it will take, but I'm pleased as punch that it's coming.

In Case You Want to Buy Me a Present

I want this:

Trap Door Toaster

The Trapdoor Toaster.
This is the toaster that automatically releases perfectly browned toast through an under-mounted trapdoor, eliminating the need to pry bread from hot, clenched guide racks.

Awesome, right?

A Meme I Saw at Girlyshoes

Seen at Girlyshoes, and liked enough to steal:

Here are the rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

My flickr name came up with nothing,
so I used my last name, instead:

Screw South America!

Lots of people talk about wanting free trade with various countries in South America. I have news for you... I not only don't want free trade with South America, I don't even want free travel to South America. Why? Because if you go there, you'll probably die!

A Canadian woman died last year after stepping barefoot on several caterpillars, doctors reported in a teaching case published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The 22-year old woman from Alberta died 10 days after stepping on five caterpillars while on a trip to northeastern Peru.

The woman felt immediate pain in her right foot, which spread to her thigh, and later developed a headache. The pain in her leg was worse when she walked on it.

Arrangements were made to get a South American antivenin treatment to Canada, but it took 48 hours to do so and by that time it was too late for the young woman who died from multi-organ failure three days after being admitted to the hospital.

There you have it. If you travel to South America, venemous caterpillars will bit you and kill you. Go to another country? Hell's Bells, I rarely leave the two block radius where I walk my bassett hound. Trust me, I've lived, at least briefly, on every continent except Antarctica in my time on this planet, and I've never found a better place than planting my fat arse on my couch right here and pecking away at my laptop. I've got 198 channels of cable TV and a very nice BBQ grill out on my deck! Butcherboy delivers steaks to my house!

South America... pfffffft. You can keep it.

Just patting Myself on the Back

OK, when I bought my home, I wondered if it was smart to stay in Franklin Township. Sure, I already knew the commuting distance, and how far away each of my friends were. I knew about the convenient shopping, and the nice park areas. Apparently, Money magazine knows, too:

America's Best Places to Live 2008 (numbers 4 and 5)

When you hear the phrase “primeval old-growth forest,” chances are New Jersey doesn’t spring immediately to mind. But the state known for jokes about its mammoth turnpike does in fact boast such a pristine wilderness: a 65-acre one. In Franklin Township. This surprising 46-square-mile municipality, home to several different villages, also contains a towpath along a 19th-century canal beloved by bikers and runners, and bucolic back roads dotted with colonial houses and working farms.

Damn, my town sounds positively pastoral!

True is True

I say a lot of things, some of them right, some of them wrong. A lot of the things I say, I say because I believe that they're true. I read a line like that from my good friend and sometimes co-blogger Jazz, over on The Moderate Voice, today.

The Loyal Opposition: Over at Hot Air, my friend Ed Morrissey has a completely different take on it and, as usual, we disagree on virtually every point. He makes a fuss over Obama's 16 month estimate, stating that it will take longer just to get all of the equipment out. (And, apparently, if he can't do it in the exact time span of 16 months then the plan is fruitless and Obama should not be trusted with it.) My response to this argument is the same as to people who claim we shouldn't start drilling for more domestic oil resources because it will take seven years before we see any return. If you don't start, you will never finish. Timetables don't have to be written in stone. If it takes longer than sixteen months - be it 24 or 32 or whatever - just get started. The journey of a thousand steps, etc. etc. The goal is what counts, and the way to get out of Iraq is to get out of Iraq.

OK, if he's talking about drilling in Alaska, I can't say that I agree 100% with that, but not for the late-returns reason. I do agree, though, 100% with the truism that if you don't start, you will never finish. I'm on a project right now that I expect to take 3-5 years. "Such a long time!", people exclaim, but that doesn't bother me. In 5 years or so, I will be 5 years older, and I will have finished this project. My alternative choice was to be 5 years older without having finished it. Get it?

Good.

I'm Doing Science and I'm Still Alive

OK, things are going on all around me with a speed that is dizzying. I haven't had time to pay attention, because work kind of sucks right now. I hear that Obama is considering a stupid insult of blending religion and state. I hear that Israel and Hamas have a truce going on. I hear that the government is getting stupider about air travel.

They should all just behave like El Al - to everyone - and prejudice wouldn't be an issue. Sure, it's a giant pain in the ass, but El Al never made me take of my shoes.

The one thing I can do while working is listen to music. Jonathan Coulton's song "Still Alive" (the credits song for the video game Portal) is amusing the hell out of me while I'm working, and Bruce Springsteen's "Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ" is on constant loop in my car. Some of my favorite lyrics in the world are from that album.

Targeted Advertising

I cannot imagine what made this pop up at the top of my Google Mail inbox. Last email I read was my friend Joanne telling me she was going to take her dad on a "duck tour" when he comes to visit her in Seattle. Does that go with bed-wetting?

I Need To...

I need to register to vote, I've changed districts with the move. I am now represented by the dreamy and well-spoken Rush Holt. I'm particularly glad about this because I've never forgiven Pallone for the time that his staff sent a form letter in reply to one of my missives. That's to be expected, sure, but despite the fact that I signed my letter pretty clearly, they sent the response to my parents. One of my parents is dead, but she got an answer from Pallone's office. That still pisses me off.

I know, I know, get a hobby.

George Carlin

What can I say, I loved him as much as everyone else did.
Should I even link to something about him. Yeah, I guess I should.

Football and baseball were never the same for me after I heard his bit comparing them.

Headline Re-write

They say:

Israel appears to rehearse Iran attack: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials say Israel carried out a large military exercise this month that appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, The New York Times reported on Friday.

Citing unidentified American officials, the newspaper said more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters took part in the maneuvers over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece in the first week of June.

It said the exercise appeared to be an effort to focus on long-range strikes and illustrates the seriousness with which Israel views Iran's nuclear program.

Know how I would have titled that article? "Israel Develops Problematic Security Leak".