Balls and Walnuts
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Thanksgiving day postmortem
Three people, two of whom have the appetites of eight-year-olds. Small eight-year-olds.
Three dishes: prime rib, focaccia, and sweet potato fritters.
Three hours of preparation and clean-up.
At least we won’t be eating turkey for the next three weeks.
D.
The Thanksgiving Thirteen
My sis suggested I do a Thanksgiving-themed Thirteen: Thirteen Ways to Mitigate the Suckitude of Thanksgiving. (My spin. I love the combination of ‘mitigate’ and ‘suckitude’ in one sentence.) I like the idea, but I’m going to up the ante.
Thirteen Paths to a Memorable Thanksgiving: a feast which will have your family and guests talking for decades to come.
Yes, it’s not quite Thursday, but some of these suggestions require a modicum of preparation. Get shopping, people.
In the spirit of Graham Greene’s Dr. Fischer of Geneva, follow me below the fold . . .
The SF meme
I’m up at 1:43 AM, can’t sleep, which tells you a lot. Tells me a lot, anyway.
From Jon Hansen’s blog:
“Behold, the SF Book Club’s list of The 50 Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books, 1953-2002. And no list like that can go without someone somewhere turning it into a meme. Shocking, this internet.
So, the rules: Bold the ones you have read, strike through the ones you read and hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put a star next to the ones you love.”
Follow me below the cut . . .
High school English
You don’t frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!
Suisan’s reminiscences about her schooling in English made me think about my high school English teachers. I owe them a lot, those gals. I credit them with teaching me to write, a skill which paid off big time in college. It’s frightening how few college students know how to write a coherent paragraph (let alone a coherent essay), particularly during timed final exams. I’m sure many of my As had more to do with the quality of my grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence variety, rhythm, and clarity, than with the quality of my ideas.
I don’t remember much about my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Baca. At the time, I thought she looked like Liz Taylor. I think she made us do one of those idiotic assignments where you write up your dreams for the future at the beginning of the year, do it again at the end of the year, then compare the two to see how far you’ve come. I doubt I came very far*.
We read The Old Man and the Sea that year. I hated it. I still hate it. I’m going to make Jake read it this year so that he can hate it, too. (See, Suisan? I didn’t learn anything from your post.) Seriously, though, what am I supposed to do about exposing Jake to Hemingway? I’m tempted to have him read The Best of Bad Hemingway and call that his Hemingway experience**.
But I digress.
Kazakhstan must hate this guy
I spent the last ten minutes busting a gut while reading The Wave’s Borat interview to my office manager. I know Sasha Baron Cohen is not universally loved; after all, when your shtick is to be as obnoxious as possible, you’re bound to step on a few toes. But, what’s not to like about this guy? (He has an uncanny resemblance to my brother, by the way — doesn’t he, Sis?)
The Wave: For those readers who don’t know you, tell us about yourself.
Borat: My name is Borat Sagdiyev. I a son of Asimbalat Sagdiyev and Boltolk the rapist. I am former husband of Osana Sagdiyev, who was daughter of Mary Anne Pulakby and Boltolk the rapist. My hobbies is disco dance, table tennis, and also taking photographs of ladies doing toilet without their knowledge. Why not? They do not know. I have previous work as icemaker and gypsy catcher. And I was also work in computer maintenanc e. I was the one who paints the outside and then remove the dead bird from its pipes. You like the birds? I move on. I have three children. Bilalk, Bilam, and Huey Lewis, who is 12 years old. He has a two children. Bilalk, who is 13, has American pen friend called Mr. Foley. He say meet in hotel room. Is nice. My sister make my family very proud by being No. 4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan. She recently received award from Kazakh minister of industry for best sex in mouth. I also have a brother named Bilo. He is a retard with small head, but very strong arms. He has 204 teeth, 201 in mouth and three in nose. My first wife is dead. High five! She was shoot by a hunter who mistake her for a bear because she has much arm on her arms and back. No problem. I have a new wife. But, I like cheat. Yes, I looking at you.TW: What is your opinion of our president?
B: We in Kazakhstan very much admire your mighty warlord, George Walter Bush. He is a very wise man and also a strong man. But, perhaps not as strong as his father, Barbara. Next question.
But if you despise Borat, never fear: The Wave has an interview with Hugh Jackman, too.
So: has anyone seen Borat’s movie yet?
D.
Chimparilla, anyone?
By now, you’ve heard of catdog.
No, not that catdog. This one:
Owner Cassia Aparecida de Souza says her moggie Mimi got pregnant after mating with a neighbour’s dog.
Cassia, 18, says Mimi had a litter of six babies — three cat-like and the rest looking like dogs.
The cat creatures died after the birth in Passo Fundo, Brazil, but the doggies survived. Geneticists are testing blood samples. Unlikely hybrids have happened before but always between closely related species.
Yes, like horses (chromosome number 64) and donkeys (chromosome number 62), or lions (38) and tigers (38). Hybrids are possible between closely related species — here is a cool list of documented hybrids at Wikipedia. My favorite: the wolphin, a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale. Here’s a top ten hybrid list, with cool pictures.
My son and I are fans of Impossible Creatures, a computer game in which you create all manner of funky hybrids and put them into combat with other funky hybrids. The year is 1937 and you play Rex Chance, scientist/adventurer a la Indiana Jones. Rex, along with the beautiful Lucy, face off against eeevil entrepreneur Upton Julius on one island setting after another.
Yes, you can make catdogs in Impossible Creatures, provided your dog is a wolf, your cat, a tiger. Eh. Close enough.
But, back to real life hybrids. If hybrid success depends on a close genetic relationship and similar chromosome number, why not a chimparilla (chimps, N = 48, gorillas, N = 48), or, for that matter, hybrids with humans (N = 46)? Oliver aside, there have been no documented chumans. (Humpanzees?) Nor can I find any humarillas.
If you search the web for the answer to the ape/human breeding question, the most common comment is, “Could never happen, they have different chromosome numbers.” But the horse/donkey hybrid, AKA mule, gives the lie to that argument.
Back to catdog. Cats and dogs aren’t closely related; the lines diverged about 50 million years ago. And their chromosome numbers aren’t remotely similar (cats, N = 38; dogs, N = 78).
Sorry, catdog aficionados; this puppy ain’t gonna fly. Or meow.
D.
Fact checking
I’m finally getting around to checking on Kate’s contention that Rachael Ray’s husband likes to be spat upon. A Google search of “Rachael Ray spit fetish” led me to Tabloid Whore, who writes*,
Oh dear. Rachael Ray is splashed all over the cover of this week’s issue of The National Enquirer, accompanied by a headline blasting, “Rachael Ray’s secret pain–HUSBAND CAUGHT CHEATING.” The Enquirer has an exclusive interview with a woman named Jeaninne Walz who claims Ray’s husband John Cusimano has a stinky sexual fetish involving spitting and feet. You heard me. Walz told The Enquirer she has been involved with Cusimano since meeting him in front of a lesbian bar in 2000 and continued to see him after his marriage to Ray in 2005. She said Cusimano has paid her $20 – $500 to “spit on him and commit other degrading acts on him.” To my shock and surprise, The Enquirer said that these “other degrading acts” are too graphic for them to describe. Okay, when the ballsiest tabloid on the market wont print something, you know it has to be bad.
So, there you have it. If it’s in The Enquirer, you know it’s Word.
You’ll hear more from me later, I hope. In the office today, I had the usual pre-holiday nightmare crunch, and tomorrow looks just as bad. Now, all I want to do is go to the gym and beat the crap out of myself. Because, you know? I deserve it.
D.
*Shaina, don’t have a cow, but the Tabloid Whore spells it fettish.
NaDruBloDa!
You’ve suffered through NaNoWriMo. You’ve dodged PETA’s hurled bricks on the way to CERN. You’ve written encouraging letters to NASA while worrying about the global implications of a weakened NATO.
Ack. I’ve had too much gin and can’t think of enough fun acronyms. Which brings me to the subject of today’s post:
NaDruBloDa!
It’s a contest. To play, you have to blog drunk on December 29, 2006. Any drunken rant will do, but I’m going to chuck all pretense of objectivity and hand the prize to the entry which makes me laugh or cry the most. That’s right, folks, you can go either way on this one, depending upon whether you’re a maudlin or happy drunk.
Prizes. So far, only one, but I may add others.
I’ll post reminders as December 29 approaches.
That’s it. That’s all I have, folks. Drunken blogging. But in the spirit of same, I’ll offer you a few drunken stories:
The first time I got shitfaced drunk, I was with a bunch of other drunk teenagers, and undoubtedly I was driven home by a drunk teenager. I had forgotten my house key, and when I knocked on the door (at about 2 AM), I said to my dad, “Fuller brush!” Amazingly, he didn’t punish me.
The second time I got shitfaced drunk, I was in the dorms drinking shots of Riesling and College Ave. brand vodka. Not a good combo. I became so weepy everyone left the room, leaving me to myself. I think my Floppy nickname entered into the dorm vernacular soon afterwards. My hangover was of epic proportions, such that I cannot, to this day, stomach even the smell of Riesling.
The last time I got shitfaced drunk was in med school, when I had the epiphanal thought, Why am I doing this? I had no answer. Hence my two-drink limit to this day.
D.
Foot and fist
Today, Jake had his first Taekwondo tournament. (Per Wikipedia, Tae Kwon Do and Taekwondo are both correct.) He turned 11 last month, which placed him in the 11-13 age group. Yippee. So he was the shortest and lightest kid in his group; but did that faze him? Naw.
I’d say That’s my boy right about now, except I was a craven coward at his age. Um, at any age. In 7th grade, when I mouthed off about a girl I didn’t even know and it transpired she was standing RIGHT BEHIND ME, I lived in terror for weeks that she would hunt me down and slaughter me. I checked out some martial arts books from the library, took one look, and cringed. Me? Do that?
But this isn’t about me. Here’s Jake working through his form:
Important addendum to Fact or Fiction?
My romance’s Altoids/blow job scene is a bust. I’ll have to rewrite it. My bad for not personally testing out the facts.
So . . . are there any other ways to screw up a blow job? Cuz that scene can’t end well. It just can’t. (I thought about giving Brad a peanut allergy, but that’s no laughing matter.)
D.