Balls and Walnuts
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Welcome to my Pad
Want a good laugh? Read Alton Brown’s Pad Thai recipe. I’m not sure what upsets me more: the fact that seven of the ingredients are unnecessary (and four of these are hard to find), or the fact that if you followed the recipe to a tee, you would have, I don’t know, Pad Alton maybe, but not Pad Thai. Salted cabbage . . . tofu marinated with five spice powder . . . it’s enough to make a grown man cry.
I’ve been thinking about writing this post ever since my bit on branding. In that post, I forgot to mention one of my favorite brand name products, Annie Chun’s Classic Pad Thai. In this little box, you’ll find one packet of rice noodles and one packet of sauce. You’ll need to supply the cooking oil, tofu, meat-of-choice, eggs, bean sprouts, green onions, lime wedges, peanuts, and cilantro. Why bother buying it, then? Because Annie gets the sauce just right — not only the flavor, but also the volume.
The book of four
From Kris Starr, but ultimately, Kate is to blame, since, um, I don’t know Megan well enough to blame her for an electronically transmitted disease.
This meme is a good thing. If it weren’t for Kris’s meme, I’d be writing an “Alton Brown Ate My Mind!” post right now, since I am soooo pissed at how he mangled pad thai. Okie dokie, we’re saving pad thai for another day.
But . . . but . . . palm sugar? Dried shrimp? Pickled cabbage?
Grrr. On to the meme.
There’s criminal child abuse. And then there’s war ball.
Note before we get rolling: I’m updating my blogroll. If I have been neglectful, drop a note in the comments, and I’ll get you added. I really do like to keep tabs on all the people who visit this place.
Remember this post, where I dropped some names in the hopes my old pals would find me by egomaniacally googling their own names? Great idea, but it didn’t work. My pal Sharon (whom I’ve known since Mrs. Bisetti’s kindergarten class) found me because I dropped a reference to Malice, cuz she had a bit role in the movie. I think you were in scrubs, Sharon, but I knew it was you. No one else in that Hollywood OR knew how to act.
So Sharon dropped me an email, and we shot the shit, and she mentioned that a friend of hers might know something about an old friend of mine, whom I had googled once upon a time and came up with bupkes. He recently entered the blogosphere, though, and with Sharon’s additional information that he’s a freelance writer, I tracked him down. His name is Mike Imlay, and I’ve added him to my blogroll.
Mike, this post is for you.
***
Mike and I had to be the littlest kids in our junior high school class. I haven’t seen Mike since 9th grade, so I’m guessing he had a late growth spurt and now I’m the only little kid left from our junior high. My life is kind of like that.
Because Mike and I made up a weight class all our own, we paired off together for wrestling. This worked out to our advantage since we were both bright kids and the other boys would have murdered us, given the chance. We didn’t do so well at other PE activities, and in particular, our lives were in jeopardy every effin rainy day. That’s because rain meant indoor activities.
Rain meant war ball.
And now, for a limited time only
. . . you, too, can be a gamma reader for my novel, Nest, book #1 of my trilogy.
Before I get to the details — how about Colbert tonight! Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann ripping on Bill O’Reilly. Does television get any better? Olbermann called O’Reilly an idiot several times, and called him a bully who only picks on little people like Janeane Garofalo and Billy Barty. Yee haw!
Anyway.
Here are the details. Nest is an 89,400-word science fiction novel featuring hyperevolved birds with arms and hands instead of wings, an invisible ninja bird with a wicked sense of humor, a scheming giant fly with an addiction to caffeine and doggy porn, big-headed blue aliens with sharp pointy teeth, and a little girl who just wants to keep her daddy safe from harm. Here’s the first scene. (more…)
Snape hearts Michelle Duggar
The phone rang four times before I picked it up. I sat in bed, benumbed and lobotomized, feeling as though I had just had my eyelids pried open Clockwork Orange-fashion, and had been forced to watch The Sound of Music at top volume. It took me a moment to answer the operator.
“Are you there, sir? Sir?”
British accent. At some level, I knew what was coming. The cheap bastard was doing it to me again.
“Yes,” I said, shaking off my mental haze. “Yes, I guess I am here after all.”
“I have a Mr. Snape here, sir — excuse me, a Professor Snape. Do you accept the charges?”
I sighed, rolled my eyes for Karen’s benefit, pointed at the phone and mouthed the word Snape.
“Oh, all right, then. Go ahead.” (more…)
What’s in a word?
It’s Smart Bitches Day today. For your SBD, I’d like you to consider the English language’s second-most mercurial word (next to fuck), love. (more…)
New York Times Sunday: the goods
Balls and Walnuts reads the New York Times so you don’t have to. (more…)
Here’s what’s up with the Duggars.
Hmm. My sitemeter stats say folks are busy this weekend digging for Duggars. I even got a hit from someone searching for “Prairie Muffin pornography,” which gave me an idea or three, all of them puerile and scatological.
You remember the Duggars. Ma Duggar popped out baby Prairie Muffin #16 (Johanna Faith Duggar. All Duggar kids have J names. Isn’t that cuuuute?) on October 12, 2005. Not even the prolific Michelle Duggar can produce a #17 this soon, can she? Unless the baby is premature. Damn. I really hope that isn’t the reason for these hits.
Nope. Pheew. I did a Google blog search on the Duggars (thanks for the idea, Blue Gal), and found this post by Work at Home Dad. Guess what: soon, we’ll have another Duggar TV special to snark upon! From Work at Home Dad,
Discovery Health Channel will be running their newest show on the Duggars, “Raising 16 Children.” Here are the air dates (all times Eastern):
March 15, 2006 at 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm
March 19, 2006 at 3:00 pm
March 26, 2006 at 9:00 pm
March 27, 2006 at 12:00 amTLC will be running their newest show on the Duggars, “16 Children and Moving In.” Here are the air dates (all times Eastern):
March 11, 2006 at 9:00 pm
March 12, 2006 at 12:00 am
March 13, 2006 at 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm
March 19, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Get this: Karen knew about this, and she didn’t tell me.
For those of you who need to play catch up, here’s a convenient list of my Duggar & Prairie Muffin posts.
How Many is Too Many? An introduction to the Quiverfull movement in general, and the Duggars in particular, with a focus on the Duggar parenting system.
So you want to be a Prairie Muffin . . . An intensive study of the Muffin Manifesto.
Banned Books Week: the Muffin POV. And you thought book burnings were a bad thing?
I’m wondering what I can do next. Possibilities include,
Not tonight, I’m having your baby: Muffin sexual etiquette.
Cooking for 16+ Cafeteria cooking good enough to eat!
Animals do it outside. Why can’t you? Surviving with 18 family members and 2 1/2 bathrooms.
I’m raising an army of blonde white clones to ensure the primacy of the Aryan Race. And what are you doing to make the world a better place?
Suggestions welcomed.
D.
Talk therapy
Have you hugged your personal demons today?
They’re lonely, you know. And hungry. Oh, so hungry; they would love to creep back to their place of prominence and authority, sit on that throne they shared for many years — shared with each other, of course, but never with you.
Your demons are lonely and hungry, and they are as pissed off as a jilted lover with borderline personality disorder. Things haven’t been the same, ever since you banished them. Ever since talk therapy.
Here’s a Matrix I would have enjoyed.
The Muppet Matrix at YouTube. Excellent casting, with Kermit as Keanu Reeves, and Miss Piggy as Carrie-Anne Moss. Hat tip to YesButNoButYes.
From Best Week Ever, meet Wafah Dufour, Osama Bin Laden’s niece:
Terrorize me, baby.
Important followup: remember my post earlier this week about Tony Blair’s intimate conversations with God? Seems God is way pissed. Python Terry Jones reports. (Hat tip to Kate.)
And because I’m in that kind of mood, I went out in search of the Camel Toe song and discovered: the Camel Toe movie!
Oy. If I don’t get any this weekend, you’ll be reading my obit on Monday.
D.
PS: NEWS FLASH — SMART BITCHES GOOGLE BOMB ON BILL NAPOLI SUCCEEDS, BIG TIME!!! Go give Candy her well deserved congratulations.