Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
GallimauFriday II: Lost in Translation
This store-bought apple pie I’m eating? Sucks ass. And not in the pleasurable ass-sucking sense, but in the high school bully forcing you to lick his hairy cheeks sense. Not that I would know anything about that.
I have to learn how to make a decent apple pie.
***
It was bound to happen: a wingnut found my 9/11 post:
Good to see which of my fellow American citizens, and I do use the words losely are eager to surrender to Islamic terror.
In the meantime I shall continue to enjoy all the rights under our Constitution, particularly those of the first and second amendments.
You can go under you much loved Sharia.
Where do I start?
Aw, fuck it. Res ipsa loquitur.
***
Maybe “Cappy” is right. If liberals like me get our way, America won’t Stay Strong in Her War on Terra, and then Islamic Fundamentalism will conquer the world. And when that happens, I’ll likely get my tongue cut out for suggesting to my office staff that Amateur Night at the Medford gentleman’s club is a GREAT idea, and if they decide to participate, I’ll be there to offer my wholehearted support.
***
Karen and I were wondering: what was the last really good movie we had seen?
We had the same answer: V for Vendetta.
How about you?
***
I’m still bummed over this thingy that Lyvvie wrote about. Punch in your personal data and it’ll tell you how long you have to live. In an ingenious twist, you input your information one datum at a time, and with each entry, you get to see your life expectancy rise or fall. The bastards.
I decline to believe anyone who tells me my life is more than half over.
***
Funny dream last night. Not ha-ha funny like this one or this one. Strange funny.
I’m back in San Antonio, assistant professoring or some such, and I’ve committed some sin against the University. Something requiring punishment.
The Dean has sentenced me to an interval of torture, type unspecified. I’m only a little fearful when I arrive at the torturer’s lab, not nearly as fearful as I would be in real life. Besides, the torturer is another assistant prof, like me. Torturing isn’t his main shtick; it’s just something his Chairman makes him do, like serving on the Human Subjects Committee or interviewing med school applicants.
He advises me to get comfortable. I empty my pockets and wonder about my pager. Should I turn it off? It doesn’t seem fair that I should be tortured and be on call. How could I respond to an emergency? But I’m not eager to incur some other infraction, something that will earn me a second torture session, so I leave it on.
The torturer chats me up whilst sharpening his knives. Nice guy, actually. We ask each other, How’s your research going? (Mine sucks.) How are the kids? Still bloody hot, eh? When are we gonna get some winter, already?
He changes his mind about the knives. Instead, he pulls out a small aquarium containing an aquatic centipede. “This bugger has the most painful bite of any invertebrate,” he says. “I think it’ll do, don’t you?”
And I’m relieved, even a bit curious. I’ve heard about these little bastards. I’ll have a story to tell afterwards.
I look away when he applies the centipede to my hand. Part of me is curious how he manages to do this without getting bitten himself, but most of me would rather not see it happen. Nevertheless, I can feel him coaxing the head down; I can sense that he’s pressing on the centipede’s head, no doubt to piss off the critter and get a rippingly good envenomation.
After that, we go back to our conversation. The bite hurt less than a bee sting, so while we talk, I’m wondering when the pain will begin. Nothing. Think Dr. So-and-So has a chance at that R01 grant? Naw, me neither. Still nothing, only a spreading, sleepy numbness.
I woke up with a tingly right arm. I had been sleeping on that side. What a disappointment!
Proof that I’m trainable.
D.
Ooh, I’ve just hit my teens! Someone should probably warn Dean to watch out for periods of angst and rebellion.
Nice photoshoppery, BTW.
Fuck ’em. This liberal has every intention of enjoying both his 1st and 2nd Amendment rights, such as they are, while they last. Oh, and I’d like to partake of THE OTHER FRICKIN’ EIGHT AS WELL, F**K YOU VERY MUCH!
Geez. WTF is it about these smegheads that they forget that it’s, you know, a package deal. ‘Lose’ this, buttface. I gotcher sharia law right here.
thnx, sxK 😉
ps, tell us how you really feel. And why are wingnuts so damned illiterate, anyway? Excuse me — illiddreut.
Heh. Now I know why I look so young–I’m actually only 28.4 years old. Carl should be pleased to hear that. 😉
I was all set to argue about the wingnut, too, then I realized you were right.
I’m strangely gleeful that you think you can’t make pie. I usually feel inferior when I read your culinary posts–my cooking has deteriorated with this @*@#($# micro-kitchen, so it’s nice to know you’re not perfect either. But at least I can still make a damn good pie.
I’m thinking I want to go to the Board of SQL Regents and revoke that dimwitted prick’s licence to practice.
Yes, failing to bomb Iran = eager adoption of sharia law.
Idiot. Res ipsa loquitur indeed.
Darla: you’re all talk. Post a recipe!
Dean: classic straw man, ain’t it?
Eh. I get my pie crust recipe from the Crisco can, and the rest from other cookbooks. The secret, passed down to me from my dad, for whom no dinner is complete without pie, is not to work the crust too much.
Could be that I don’t use a pastry blender–I think they tend to make the crumbs too fine. This is what I use instead. Bigger crumbs = flakier crust. (it took me forever to find that, since I had no idea what it was called)
Biggest thing, though–only roll the crust out once.
Re: dream, it sounds like you fell asleep while watching “Brazil.”
Darla: thanks. Email on the way.
MEL, funny, that hadn’t occurred to me! But it should have. One odd thing: when I searched “aquatic centipede,” I found several pages on Naked Lunch, one of my favorite movies. Which I guess should not surprise me . . .
Hey kids, don’t drink and blog…
Re: pie crusts – my grandmother appears constitutionally incapable of making the same damn crust recipe twice. She’s on some kind of Quixotic quest for the perfect crust, with the end result being years of pie roulette: we never knew if it was going to be delicious, horrific, or merely edible. The only exception to this is the crust for her Christmas pork pies (a French Canadian thing); I suspect that this is because she usually makes them with a friend of hers who rides herd on the actual crust…
*HUFF* I e-mailed you the perfect apple pie recipe in…let me check my mail folder…December! Yes, remember: Springform pan? Ah-huh. Well. Never did try it did you. Can’t moan about not enjoying perfect pie if you aren’t willing to put in the effort…what are you giggling about?!
OH, forgot to say, last good movie I saw was Kung-Fu Hustle It’s just awesome. As is Shaolin Soccer by the same troop, but Hustle is better.
I love it when weird dreams are created in a split second over some real life occurance, like a dead arm or a noise. Seagulls make a noise like crying babies and always wake me up in a “Mother’s Panic”, I’m no seagull fan, shame I live seaside.
Pork pie has always sounded so good to me, but I’ve never had one. Time to google!
Lyvvie, email on the way . . .
This one looks pretty close to our Christmas standard, though I honestly can’t remember if she uses potato or not… Evidently there are regional differences.
I’ll have to ask my mom if she can get the recipe. I just saw an episode of Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives that featured a diner in NH that served pork pie. Mmmm… Pork pie.
Thanks! I needed a recipe for tonight.
I have a recipe for tortiere on my blog somewhere. There are about 10,000 different ones, but the basic tortiere involves pork and mashed potatoes in a pie crust, and it is delicious. The potato starch soaks up the spiced porkfat and binds it…
I made it with buffalo meat. The healthy tortiere! Only with a Crisco-based pie crust, oh well. It was still yummy.
Ha! That age test shows my “real age” as 20.9.
No surprise that I regularly don’t feel my chronological age. 😀
Women seem to do very well on that test. I think being female must cut your chronologic age in half right from the start.