That thing

Wherein looks like another 4


1. Taco Bell
2. New Guinea
3. Dinah Shore
4. dk
5. Groundhog Day
6. Wicked Witch of the West
7. dk

Fine, Robin Williams movies I really, really enjoy

Wherein these would be my favorite movies of his and don't include those where I think he's fine or the movie is fine but not good enough for the list or those movies where his role wasn't big enough to make it his movie (Dead Again)


Popeye
The Best of Times
Fisher King

The Robin Williams wing of movies I hate, viscerally

Wherein there are many of his movies I haven't seen, otherwise this list would probably be longer


Patch Adams
Mrs. Doubtfire
Hook
Dead Poets Society

Ciabatta with cherries, cranberries, and toasted pecans

Wherein rockin' out on a Friday night


Dividing


One more proof



Baked

A list of movies I hate, viscerally

Wherein listed from newest to oldest


Howl's Moving Castle (2005)
Philadelphia (1993)
Peter's Friends (1992)
City Slickers (1991)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Gremlins (1984)
The Natural (1984)
That Star Wars movie with the teddy bears (1983)
Porky's (1982)
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

note: The movies of Robin Williams will be in a separate post

Four

Wherein did you know that yellow tomatoes are less acidic than red tomatoes Otherwise they cook the same


1. Houdini
2. Tobacco
3. Hey, didn't I do this one a few weeks ago? Ok, a few months ago, but, yes: asked and answered.
4. Australia. Incorrect. However, for the correct answer one researcher said "While the importance of this park is not being questioned, it contributes little to coverage of global species diversity."
5. Charles. Nope. According to this list of Kings and Queens of Scotland, England, and France, the answer is from the year 1547.
6. Sounds Japanese...said field not sport...I'm going with the diaper-wearing shoving thing. I'll remember the name later, but y'all know what I'm talking about.
7. I've only seen "Slumdog Millionaire," so................a child in blue body paint. Or someone hiding/dropped in an outhouse/vat of human waste.

Short quotes: indignation

Wherein steaks


Bull fighting scandal:

José Tomás, lauded as the most exciting bullfighter in decades, returned his own Fine Arts prize in disgust.

“The prize was an absolute scandal — an insult to the history of bullfighting,” said Vicente Zabala de la Serna, a bullfighting critic for the newspaper ABC, in a telephone interview.

“Rivera’s faced a lot of bulls, and for that he deserves credit. But he’s boring to watch; he has no aesthetic merit.”

Also enjoyed "the elaborately named María Eugenia Brianda Timotea Cecilia Martínez de Irujo y Fitz-James Stuart, daughter of the Duchess of Alba,"

Also the moon smacking a loved one upside the rods and cones

Wherein it's a pterodactyl


This blog is like a New York-style pizza -- insubstantial and lacking taste.

• Email is like pizza What? Email = Pizza? Well, yes. I think the more ingredients there are, the harder it is to digest
  
  
• Linux is like pizza. Pizza is a known product with a widely available recipe that's subject to modifications by everyone who makes it. Everyone has access to the tools to make or customize their own, yet most folks choose to have their pizza made for them.
  
  
• Good design is like pizza because you can throw just about anything on it, but that doesn’t make it good.
  
  
• Live chat is like pizza.
  
  
• T1 is like pizza -- you order it, you get it
  
  
• Why life is like pizza
  
  
• Gay marriage is like pizza
  
  
• Tom Petty is like Pizza Hut
  
  
• Software services - such as on demand sermons - is like pizza delivery, it’s all about WHAT the customer receives and less about HOW the product was made
  
  
• A news story without an angle is like pizza without cheese
  
  
• weather is like pizza- when it’s good, it’s GREAT
  
  
• directly mapping 2D stick controls to a 2D action game is like pizza and beer.
  
  
• this CD is like pizza; it does an excellent job in combining old world Italian customs with new world American ideas
  
  
• why coffee is like pizza
  
  
• The Office is like pizza: even when it's just OK, it's awfully good.
  
  
• Softball is like pizza

Movies and oscars

Wherein where's my remake of Gentle Ben
 

1. What do the following 2008 movies have in common -- Changeling, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Iron Man, Revolutionary Road, Wanted, The Wrestler?
    
   
2. Clint Howard, brother of Opie Cunningham, has 183 acting credits, going back to 1963 (according to IMDB). In fact, there are only two years without a Clint Howard credit. One is 1972, name the other. This is the "pick a number out of a hat" question
    
   
3. In 1998, Clint Howard received a Lifetime Achievement Award at this cable channel's annual awards show.
    
   
4. Not counting "The Silence of the Lambs," the number of Oscar Best Picture winners with an item of food in their title.
    
   
5. What do these movies have in common -- The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Tom Jones (1963), Annie Hall (1977), Forrest Gump (1994).
    
   
6. While Meryl Streep has 15 Oscar nominations, only three of those 15 movies were themselves nominated for Best Picture. Name at least two.
    
   
7. Meryl Streep starred in, but didn't receive a nomination of any sort for this Best Picture nominated film.

A list of things I believe

Wherein part one
 

1. The children are our future.
   
2. For every drop of rain that falls A flower grows.
   
3. Two is the loneliest number since the number one.
   
4. Opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve.
   
5. That the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap.
   
6. Jamie Lee Curtis is genetically a female.
   
7. Marilyn Monroe was a man but this tends to get over looked by our mother-fixated, overweight, sexist media.
   
8. That somewhere in the darkest night A candle glows.
   
9. Crazy little thing called love.
   
10. Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead.
    
11. Bacon can only come from pork belly. Turkey "bacon" is an abomination.
    
12. Chai tea is redundant.
    
13. Saturday night is all right for fighting.
    
14. In you.
    
15. Above the storm The smallest prayer will still be heard.
    
16. I would mind if six turned out to be nine.
    
17. Leibniz should get more credit for calculus than Newton.
    
18. One space after a period, never two.
    
19. Ain't lost yet, so I gotta be a winner.
    
20. No, you're the man.
    
21. There's a little yellow man in my head.
    
22. My story is sad, but true.
    
23. I know you'll get to like if you just give it a chance, now.
    
24. Stick is better than automatic.
    
25. We are the people our parents warned us about.
    
26. It's alright when people say that those foolish kids can't be ready for the love that comes their way.
    
27. This is genius, this is genuine, this is bullshit.
    
28. A dream deferred is not always a dream denied.
    
29. Deserve ain't got nothing to do with it.
    
30. He is owed back his money and his black t-shirt; the dinner is on him, though.
    
31. Titicaca and Uranus are never not funny.
    
32. The Devil will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important.
    
33. Do a commerical, you're off the artistic roll-call forever. And that goes for everyone...except Willie Nelson.
    
34. Muddy Waters invented electricity.
    
35. She's not a bad girl because she made me see how love could be. But she's a bad girl because she wants to be free.
    
36. Rainbows have nothing to hide.
    
37. If you want to know exactly where the American culture is, at that point in time, at that year, you watch the Superbowl at halftime.
    
38. There ain't no cure for the summertime blues.
    
39. A^2 + B^2 = C^2
    
40. Wearing socks with sandles is stupid and embarrassing.
    
41. Magicians aren't really magic. I believe they use trickery and deception to fool the audience.
    
42. April showers bring May flowers.
    
43. A single sheep should be called a shep.
    
44. That right now I could hold my breath for 60 seconds. Nope, 43 seconds. Man, I'm out of shape.
    
45. I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.
    
46. What a piece of work is man!
    
47. The only decent Star Trek movie is Wrath of Khan.
    
48. Never go with a hippie to a second location.
    
49. How about now? 70 seconds!
    
50. Life is for the living. I believe in taking risks and biting off more than you can chew.
    
51. Live every week like it's Shark Week.
    
52. Can't one human being not like another human being? Can't we all just not get along?
    
53. That vampires are the world's greatest golfers but their curse is they never get a chance to prove it. I believe that there are 31 letters in the white alphabet. 
    
54. That a just God could allow someone to destroy a gold mine of prehistoric knowledge for a year's worth of Salisbury steak.
    
55. The future is now.
    
56. I am the walrus.
    
57. That turkeys could fly.
    
58. Speed kills, Del.
    
59. No self-respecting woman will ever let a naked man in socks do the squelchy with her.
    
60. If you're gay, masturbation is practice.
    
61. When Man invented fire, he didn't say "Hey, let's cook!" He said: "Great! Now we can see naked bottoms in the dark!"
    
62. Cushions are sofa parasites.
    
63. It's a scientific fact that if you say "naked" three or more times, to any man, he has to cross his legs.
    
64. Love is here to stay.
    
65. Less is more.
    
66. It's a wicked world and faith comes and goes.
    
67. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.
    
68. People who need people are the laziest people in the world.
    
69. People who need people are attention whores.
    
70. A play with audience participation just means the actors are lazy.
    
71. Yes it is [generic description of temperature] enough for me.
    
72. A chair that comes with an instruction manual is a poorly designed chair.
    
73. Functionality does not equal usability.
    
74. Making love like molasses on a hot summer day.
    
75. When pride has it in for someone, none of us can check the fall.
    
76. People love to watch you die.
    
77. I'm wrong about everything.
    
78. I've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
    
79. Upon further reflection, the ending of Pretty in Pink is not necessarily evil. It's still wrong, but ending up with Duckie also would have been wrong.
    
80. I am an old woman named after my mother.
    
81. If dreams were lightening, thunder were desire, this old house would have burned down a long time ago.
    
82. There's something going wrong around here.
    
83. Tonight's the night I go to all the parties down my street.
    
84. Tonight's the night.
    
85. This could be the day I've waited for all my life.
    
86. The economic recovery bill is 93 percent spending and 7 percent stimulation, which, coincidentally, is the exact same formula used to bring Nancy Pelosi to orgasm.
    
87. God spelled backwards does spell dog, but this signifies nothing.
    
88. If those are my only two choices I will pick "working hard."
    
89. I am in love and no longer open for persuasion. Thank you.
    
90. The best things in life are free.
    
91. Real men don't eat quiche.
    
92. Real men do eat quiche.
    
93. Real men eat whatever they want.
    
94. I have a mind like a playground.
    
95. Reading is fundamental.
    
96. The bones in the ground never make a sound.
    
97. The bones in the air well they haven't got a care.
    
98. YOu can't roller skate in a buffalo herd.
    
99. You can't a shower in a parakeet cage.
    
100. Leave a door open and a fly comes in.
     
101. There is no "I" in team, but there is a "me." And also: at, am, ma, tea, met, mat, mate, meat, tame.
     
102. Turns out Rufus wasn't a tit man.
     
103. That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.
     
104. You're goin drive me to drinkin' if you don't stop driving that hot rod Lincoln.
     
105. In this. And this belief has completely altered my former estimate of what is good and bad, noble or base.
     
106. That all men are created equal.
     
107. Mary Ann is a better choice than Ginger.
     
108. I once made a Barney the dinosaur likeness using an eggplant. That's a statement of fact not a belief, so feel free to ignore.
     
109. It would behoove Sting to offer some legitimate opportunities instead of just haranguing Roxanne.
     
110. Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning.
     
111. Florida looks like a penis.
     
112. T is for Texas.
     
113. T for Tennessee.
     
114. T is for Thelma.
     
115. It isn't being green.
     
116. These are a few of my favorite things.
     
117. Objects are closer than they appear.
     
118. This list is not meant to be used as a toy.
     
119. Life is fair, get used to it.
     
120. Life is like a box of chocolates.
     
121. Life is like riding a bicycle.
     
122. Life is like high school.
     
123. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.
     
124. Life is the distance between dreams and reality.
     
125. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
     
126. Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.
     
127. Life is like the sea.
     
128. Life isn't what you want it to be, it's what you make it become.
     
129. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
     
130. Life comes with lousy odds. You wouldn't want to bet on it.
     
131. Life is like a butterfly: it doesn't last long.
     
132. The meaning of life is that it ends.
     
133. Live by the gun, Die by the gun.
     
134. Either get busy living, or get busy dying.
     
135. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
     
136. To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
     
137. A man is like a spark. Some will start a fire, but most will burn out quickly.
     
138. Every day is my best day; this is my life. I'm not going to have this moment again.
     
139. Life is like pizza, When it's good, It's really good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.
     
140. Sex is like pizza, When it's good, It's really good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.
     
141. If man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
     
142. Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
     
143. The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there isn't any.
     
144. Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.
     
145. Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
     
146. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
     
147. That cock and bull story about his having been stowed away on board ship.
     
148. That much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone.
     
149. These are the times that try mens souls.
     
150. A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
     
151. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight.
     
152. The chief business of the American people is business.
     
153. The secret of being a bore ... is to tell everything.
     
154. All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
     
155. Whatever you do, stamp out superstition, and love those who love you.
     
156. Men use thought only to justify their injustices, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.
     
157. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
     
158. The English plays are like their English puddings: nobody has any taste for them but themselves.
     
159. Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate!
     
160. Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.
     
161. What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing
     
162. Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all
     
163. Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.
     
164. There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
     
165. Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.
     
166. New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
     
167. Crooked things may be as stiff and unflexible as straight: and men may be as positive in error as in truth.
     
168. To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.
     
169. Written laws are like spider's webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
     
170. You can't step twice into the same river.
     
171. In not meddling in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
     
172. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
     
173. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
     
174. Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.
     
175. Gardens are best appreciated from the shade.
     
176. Every Journey starts with one step.
     
177. Every Journey starts with Steve Perry.
     
178. Every Journey ends with Arnel Pineda.
     
179. Wal-Mart spelled backwards is tram law.
     
180. On some preference esteem is based; To esteem everything is to esteem nothing.
     
181. All that is not prose is verse; and all that is not verse is prose.
     
182. A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.
     
183. Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us.
     
184. A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.
     
185. The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.
     
186. A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
     
187. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
     
188. In an era when everything can be surveiled, all we have left is politeness.
     
189. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—-and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.
     
190. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
     
191. There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode (software), high-speed pizza delivery.
     
192. When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.
     
193. We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep on humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.
     
194. The simpler the molecule, the better the drug. So the best drug is oxygen. Only two atoms. The second-best, nitrous oxide—a mere three atoms. The third-best, ethanol—nine. Past that, you're talking lots of atoms.
     
195. Atoms are like people. Get lots of them together, never know what they'll do.
     
196. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee.
     
197. The only reason for being a bee is making honey."
     
198. For the people watching television, the millions and millions of the One Eye: they're not hurting anyone.
     
199. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm.
     
200. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen; all you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking...let things happen...and be...the ball.
     
201. Never say 'no' to adventures. Always say 'yes,' otherwise you'll lead a very dull life.
     
202. What we've got here is failure to communicate.
     
203. If the rich could hire others to die for them, we, the poor, would all make a nice living.
     
204. I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whoever I'm with.
     
205. You're gonna need a bigger boat.
     
206. Only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.
     
207. Clothes make the man.
     
208. The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
     
209. Life as a repo man is always intense.
     
210. Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.
     
211. We cross our bridges when we come to them, and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
     
212. Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent.
     
213. Dramatic irony: it'll fuck you every time.
     
214. When you argue correctly, you're never wrong.
     
215. It's hard for many people to believe that there are extraordinary things inside themselves, as well as others.
     
216. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight.
     
217. Scooby Doo was an indoctrination show created by the DEA -- they were all undercover agents. Roll into town, arrest the bad guys, take off; it all makes sense now.
     
218. He who runs with haste, walks without dignity.
     
219. That's some tough talk coming from a man who wears a basket on his head!
     
220. If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. And if you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.
     
221. Once you've driven a drunk father to mom's parole hearing, what else is there?
     
222. All anybody wants is a normal life and a cool car. Most people settle for the car.
     
223. Normal people can live with happiness. Screwed up people will try to destroy it.
     
224. The most powerful person in your life is the one that knows all your secrets and all your lies, and has the power to lift you up or rip out your guts. It's even scarier if she knows your truths.
     
225. Taco night is a tasty corn shell full of lies!!
     
226. Be normal, and the crowd will accept you. Be deranged, and they will make you their leader.
     
227. Beautiful people end up together. Show me the exception, and I will show you a relationship based on something even more shallow. Wealth, power, rock stardom and a .315 batting average.
     
228. I was born a poor black man.

Leprechaun trivia

Wherein I never wear green on St. Patrick's Day


1. Hiding the Lucky Charms and making shoes.
2. Booyah. I think every fire department in Minnesota holds a booyah potluck fundraiser.
3. gall bladder
4. Clash
5. Florida
6. Tom Landry
7. They all jumped from an airboat onto the back of a running deer.

NCAA basketball trivia question

Wherein this was first written as a what do these have in common question Upon reflection I prefer this formulation


Eleven states have never had a college reach the Final Four of the men's NCAA basketball tournament (Division 1). How many can you name?

I'll list the answers in the comments on Wednesday, or you can look at this cool graphic in the NY Times.

Short quote(s): guilt unacknowledged

Wherein I tried to twitter quote some of the book but the sentences are too damn long

Two from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

Sensual pleasure:

If opium-eating be a sensual pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I have indulged in it to an excess not yet _recorded_ {1} of any other man, it is no less true that I have struggled against this fascinating enthralment with a religious zeal, and have at length accomplished what I never yet heard attributed to any other man--have untwisted, almost to its final links, the accursed chain which fettered me.  Such a self-conquest may reasonably be set off in counterbalance to any kind or degree of self- indulgence.  Not to insist that in my case the self-conquest was unquestionable, the self-indulgence open to doubts of casuistry, according as that name shall be extended to acts aiming at the bare relief of pain, or shall be restricted to such as aim at the excitement of positive pleasure.
 
Guilt, therefore, I do not acknowledge; and if I did, it is possible that I might still resolve on the present act of confession in consideration of the service which I may thereby render to the whole class of opium- eaters.  But who are they?  Reader, I am sorry to say a very numerous class indeed.

Lookng to French literature:

Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that "decent drapery" which time or indulgence to human frailty may have drawn over them; accordingly, the greater part of _our_ confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from demireps, adventurers, or swindlers: and for any such acts of gratuitous self-humiliation from those who can be supposed in sympathy with the decent and self-respecting part of society, we must look to French literature, or to that part of the German which is tainted with the spurious and defective sensibility of the French.  All this I feel so forcibly, and so nervously am I alive to reproach of this tendency, that I have for many months hesitated about the propriety of allowing this or any part of my narrative to come before the public eye until after my death (when, for many reasons, the whole will be published); and it is not without an anxious review of the reasons for and against this step that I have at last concluded on taking it.

Assu

Wherein sing along if you know the words


Assumption Junction, what’s your malfunction?
Hooking up words and phrases and clauses
Assumption Junction, drop your unction
Now if I take this from here and that from there and extrapolate into infinity I can state ipso facto you mean something else.
 
Assumption Junction, what’s your malfunction?
Hooking up thoughts with facts and fiction
When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me…
Unless you use the singular form, assu.
 
Assumption Junction, what’s your malfunction?
Taking a square peg and pounding it into a round hole.
So if say you like cats, you mean you hate dogs
Or wearing a black and white scarf means you support terrorists
 
Assumption Junction, what’s your malfunction?

Short quote: Jubilee!

Wherein nice gloves


A showgirl's story:

“My heart was very full of art and joy, but I was terribly poor,” Preister said. “All my life people said, ‘Go to Vegas—you’re so talented,’ but I don’t party and I didn’t think it was for me. But Vegas is very different than I expected. There are libraries and schools—people who visit the Strip don’t think about those things.”

Occasionally correct answers

Wherein 60 seconds


1. Charlie Brown's father
2. Twitter
3. Iceland
4. sesame seeds
5. Little Big Horn
6. probably something nasty
7. Shows I've never watched.

Short quote: wrasslin

Wherein from Patrick Reusse


Gordon Bierschenk:

Cry? "I wasn't sobbing, but I couldn't do anything against Jake, and he wasn't someone to show any mercy," Bierschenk said. "He manhandled me so badly -- showed me how far I was from being a real wrestler -- that I had tears in my eyes."

Short quote(s): Rooster Cogburn

Wherein from True Grit book version


Just a few...

• "He's a little fella. I don't know what he'll be riding. He'll be doing a lot of talkin'. Just go for the littlest one."
  
  
• "She said 'Goodbye Ruben, a love for decency does not abide in you.' There's your divorced women talking about decency."
  
  
• "I told her 'Goodbye Nola, I hope that little nail selling bastard will make you happy this time.'"
  
  
• "I would give three dollars right now for a pickled buffalo tongue."
  
  
• "You go for a man hard enough and fast enough and he don't have time to think about how many is with him. He thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him."
  
  
• "Nothing I like to do pays well."

I have partied at the following colleges in Minnesota

Wherein some more than others


University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota Duluth
St. Cloud State
St Thomas
The Seminary next to St. Thomas
St. Kates
Macalester
Hamline -- lamest toga party ever


...I think that's it.

And we're a VERY good school

Wherein the big red marker will be deployed and the form returned

Pot stickers

Wherein inspired by greg at beggingtodiffer


I picked up the ground pork and grabbed the other stuff out of the pantry. Not a lot of measuring going on. Best bet is to under season it, then pinch off a bite and fry it up in the pan. After that, adjust the rest according to taste.

1 pound ground pork
minced onion (maybe half a cup)
touch of soy sauce
touch of sesame oil
couple globs of hoisin sauce
Vigorous shakes of five-spice powder
salt

Mix well. Spoon a teaspoon onto a wonton wrapper. Some of my spoonings were a little big and I got 58 pot stickers out of it. Frozen them, then lightly vacu-packed them 10 to a bag.

Took a few of them (still frozen) and covered them in a pan with a couple tablespoons of hot peanut oil. Cooked for 5 minutes, flipping them to brown both sides. Tossed in half cup water, still covered for 2 more minutes. Then cooked uncovered until the water was evaporated.

I have a few leftover wrappers and I'm thinking mixing peanut butter and jelly, and steaming them.

Update on the 3 book challenge

Wherein previously
 

Didn't do as well as I'd hoped, so...
 
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver. Spent three weeks on this and only got about a quarter of the way through before returning it to the library. Partly because I was in a reading doldrum at the time and couldn't much focus on anything and partly because I hated the book. Couldn't stand the author or her writing...her sanctimonious, nailed to the cross suffering attitude. There is much that is wrong and what isn't wrong also isn't original. [deleted] Maybe further on in the book she realizes what an asshat she is; however, I doubt I will pick up the book again to find out. If interested in the whole global food chain, a much more intelligent read would be anything by Michael Pollan. Eating local is a nice idea (though often impractical. There's a local farmer's market only seven miles away, but I pass four grocery stores to get to it. And it only runs four months of the year.), eating seasonally is a great idea if you live somewhere with a 12 month growing cycle, and while organic is more expensive, the benefits are debatable (besides the fact the definition of organic is constantly being dumbed down to the point of being meaningless -- For example, how can aerosol pancake batter be organic?). Keep it simple: Reduce the amount of processed foods you consume -- as much as possible, stay away from anything that comes in a can, box, or freezer section. Buy from the outside of the grocery store -- fresh vegetables and fresh meats. Not that hard and much easier than trying to be a martyr.
 
The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Picked up a condensed version and I'm slowly working my way through it. If I'd read this when I was younger it might have outraged me. While thoroughly depressing, I am no longer shocked at how easily (or quickly) humans can mistreat each other.

His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik. It was an OK popcorn book. The author is a decent enough writer, though nothing really grabbed me and me into the world of the story. I might read another one some day, but I make no promises. Unless the series is leading up to the day the dragons realize they're smarter than humans and we get a moment like, "Take your stinking claws off me, you damned dirty dragon!" Then I'm in.

February reading

Wherein January

1. Tale of Despereaux, Kate Dicamillo
   
   
2. Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
   
   
3. The Calculus Wars, Jason Bardi
   
   
4. 1491, Charles C. Mann
   
   
5. The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, Peter Reinhart. In April I will have a second class with Reinhart's Charlotte colleague, Chef Harry Peemoeller.
   
   
6. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
   
   
7. Stalky & Co., Rudyard Kipling
   
   
8. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey
   
   
9. Sissy Nation: How America Became a Culture of Wimps & Stoopit, John Strausbaugh
   
   
10. Coraline , Neil Gaiman

And audio books:

• True Grit, Charles Portis (read by Donna Tartt)
  
• Sisters Grimm, the Fairytale Detectives, Michael Buckley
  
• Paradise Lost, John Milton
  

Short quote: no sh*it

Wherein dumbass
 

The Briefcase:

Bullshit Lawsuit of the Week