Balls and Walnuts
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On a lighter note . . .
From the Facebook group, Can this poodle wearing a tinfoil hat get more fans than Glenn Beck?
I'll bet they are. I'll bet they are.
I thought it was only Republican congressmen who lived in closets, but I’m beginning to wonder about Eric Massa.
D.
What I wish I could say
I worry about my son. A lot. Such is the prerogative of the parent. I worry that his world is so small: a room with a computer (albeit a computer that is a window to the world), the inside of a car, a school. We don’t travel much anymore. We never did travel much, but we travel even less than we used to. I don’t get to expose Jake to so many things I was exposed to: places, people. Different kinds of entertainment. I worry that with such a small world, he won’t dream big. And I wonder if that’s such a bad thing. We cone down our dreams as we get older, not without a measure of frustration and sadness. Perhaps he’ll be spared the angst. But is it right for him to have such a restricted view as a 14-year-old?
He’s brilliant, my son, but sometimes I worry that he lacks passion. He just never seems to get excited about much. And then I wonder, is that such a bad thing? Great passions make for great sorrows. If he were an unhappy teenager, perhaps my anxieties about his equanimity would be more justifiable. It could be taken as a sign of depression, for example. But he’s not unhappy. His mother and I often wonder how two such as us could have such a happy kid.
You’re probably thinking, Sounds like he’s doing just fine. Or if you’re having problems with your own teenagers, perhaps you’re getting pissed off at me for wringing my hands over such petty issues. We’re not searching his clothing for drugs. We’re not bailing him out of jail. We’re not paying huge bills for psychological counseling. He’s a good kid.
I’m perplexed, is what it is. Confused and not a little dismayed that someone so close to us, so similar to us in so many ways, can at the same time be so unfamiliar.
And I guess I share with so many parents the fruitless desire of wanting to know the future.
D.
The seven worst best pictures ever
Inspired by Huffington Post’s “Nine Worst Movies Ever Made,” I thought it would be fun to shine a spotlight on the worst films that have won an Academy Award for Best Picture.
I thought it would be easy to find nine, but I was wrong. Turns out I just haven’t seen that many films. (As much as I wanted to include Forrest Gump on this list, I figured it wouldn’t be fair, since I haven’t actually seen the movie.)
If you say so.
 |
I am:
Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field. |
Funny thing is, I don’t care much for Le Guin’s writing . . . but I suppose they’re trying to match personalities on this quiz.
D.
I love this guy
Huston makes me wish I were writing again. He’s that good. In his words I can sense the joy of creation, the satisfaction of craft well executed. I wish I were at it again.
Sleepless tells the story of undercover cop Parker Haas. It’s 2010, and the world is afflicted with a communicable prion disease (you know — like scrapie, CJD, mad cow . . .) that makes its victims sleepless, while slowly turning their brains into Swiss cheese. It’s invariably fatal, but takes its sweet time in killing; patients become confused and agitated, lose track of the past versus the present, and eventually descend into a terminal mode known as “the suffering.” The only thing that gives relief is DR33M3R, a drug that is in short supply. Haas has been tasked with uncovering the black market in DR33M3R.
The sleepless plague has warped the world, which is now descending into anarchic hell as a result. The Los Angeles of Sleepless is a minutely detailed war zone populated with gangs and militias, Blackwater-style hired guns, neo-Christian suicide bombers, the desperate and the rich and the desperate rich. Not too far from the real thing, in other words.
Haas’s wife is sleepless, and his infant daughter might be as well. And Haas — has he gone without sleep because he takes amphetamines to keep moving, or is he, like many sleepless victims, taking amphetamines to stave off the illness’s hallmark confusion?
Multiple murders at an MMORPG gold farm guide Haas towards the top of the DR33M3R food chain, but he’s not alone in his pursuit. He’s on a collision course with Jasper (no last name), one of the most cleverly drawn hit man characters I’ve read or seen in many years. Think of Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson’s hit man from The Mechanic) with even more sophistication and cynicism. Like Haas, Jasper is terribly likable, even if you might not want him anywhere near your family. A great deal of the novel’s appeal comes from the suspense of not knowing what will happen when the two finally meet.
There’s very little not to like here: the depth of Huston’s world-building and character development are impressive, the plotting is tight, the action sequences are well choreographed and compelling. Huston’s good guy isn’t squeaky-clean good, and his bad guys are anything but cartoonishly evil. In fact, they’re likable folks, and their self justifications seem oh-so reasonable. Huston delights in gray areas.
I’ll have to admit that I can quibble with Huston’s understanding of protein chemistry, but hard SF geeks drive me nuts, so I had better not become one of them.
Ultimately, my measure of a good book is whether I cared about the characters and whether I enjoyed the experience. Moreso the latter, of course (I mean, think of a Piers Anthony Xanth book: it’s hard to feel anything for his characters, but that’s not the point. He still provides a fun ride). Sleepless scores on both points.
So how many times do I have to keep hawking Huston to get you guys to try his stuff? This guy is good, people. He needs to be read.
And so I’m about to start another one of his books.
D.
Better fried chicken
Start with this:
You don’t have to use this mix, but it was mighty tasty. Below, I’ll make a few suggestions for alternative spices mixes in case you can’t find the Shan mix (or don’t want to get it mail order).
It also helps to have one of these,
one of these,
and of course a bunch of these.
I used six thighs, but leg-thigh combos, a whole cut-up fryer, or even a whole (small) chicken would work. For that matter, there’s no reason you couldn’t use this approach with a whole fish. You would have to play with cooking times, but the results would be spectacular.
So what’s the trick? Marinate, steam, and fry. Simple, really.
Again with the dreams
It’s our wedding day, only it’s a special wedding day. Not only am I marrying Karen, but I’m also marrying the gal who married my college roommate, Roger. Which would never happen in real life, since that woman (from what I could tell after a few minutes’ exposure to her and her family) was prudish and cold. And tall and blonde. Not my type. But hey, we’re talking dreams, right?
So, yes, it’s a double marriage, meaning I’m getting a two-fer here. My most pressing concern is, with whom will I spend the wedding night? Because no way no how is the Ice Queen gonna go for a threesome.
After the ceremony, they both manage to get me alone and both are flashing their nubile li’l boobs at me. Oh, the conflict. Whatever will I do? (And why can’t my problems in real life be so angst-provoking?) But I don’t have to worry for long, since in the midst of an embrace the Ice Queen discovers I’ve been dying my hair, and that I’m much older than she thought I was.
Seems the dream machine put me back in time with a 20-something Karen and a 20-something Ice Queen, but failed to put me into an age-appropriate Doug-body. Or something like that. And now the Ice Queen is screaming bloody murder about getting tricked into marriage, and I’m wondering: if we’ve only been married a matter of hours, will she still get half my property in the divorce settlement?
Or would it be a third?
And wouldn’t you know it, I wake up before I even get the chance to consummate the marriage with Karen. Typical.
D.
News to me.
At our local Italian deli, they’re selling black garlic.
From blackgarlic.com,
Imagine garlic without all of the annoying stuff. Bad breath? Nope. Pungent odor? Nope. Acrid bite? No sir. You know how a great wine gets better with age? That’s what we’re dealing with here.
Well, as Karen points out, cooking garlic accomplishes much the same thing. The Wikipedia entry provides a better explanation of the appeal: “It is made by fermenting whole bulbs of garlic at high temperature, a process that results in black cloves. The taste is sweet and syrupy with hints of balsamic or even tamarind.” The Wiki further explains that
black garlic entered the mainstream in 2008 when Le Sanctuaire in San Francisco began selling its own black garlic. It was written up in the Spring 2008 “Design and Living” special section of the New York Times as a “new staple” of modern cuisine (and incorporated into a recipe, “Black Garlic Roast Chicken”); the NYT author, Merrill Stubbs, noted it was being used by chef Bruce Hill of Bix Restaurant, San Francisco. Hill soon found his way to the entrepreneur Scott Kim, who in 2005 had started to import garlic from Jeju Island, Korea, to process in the United States. He ferments them for a month, at high temperature, and sells them online. Black garlic’s fame grew from there. Soon, Matthias Merges, executive chef at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, listed black garlic as one of his top five food finds in Restaurant News, December 2008. The rise of black garlic in the US was called “sensational,” and other trade publications besides Restaurant News have noticed the trend.
It garnered television attention when it was used in battle redfish on Iron Chef America, episode 11 of season 7 (on Food Network), and in an episode of Top Chef New York (on Bravo), where it was added to a sauce accompanying monkfish.
Sounds intriguing, especially the part about black garlic conferring immortality (or at least longevity) upon its consumer.
There can be only one!
D.