Falafel Boy is gonna hunt you down!
“[N]o longer will these smear merchants be allowed to get away with it, as long as I’m in the chair. As long as I’m here, I’m hunting them down. And that means everybody.”
Here’s the question. Has Bill O’Reilly finally lost it, or is this business as usual?
More from Media Matters (the Bugs Bunny to O’Reilly’s Fudd):
“I’m going to go right where they live. Every corrupt media person in this country is on notice, right now. I’m coming after you.” He went on to warn: “You smear somebody and you can’t back it up, you’re gonna get it. … You go after somebody’s family, you go after them and smear them with defamation that you can’t back up, I’m coming to your house. I’m coming to your house. You’ll have a camera up your nose. OK?”
Thirteen Ephemeral Thoughts
For several months, I’ve thought of doing this Thirteen, but it’s a treacherous theme. It’s not as bad as “Thirteen Things I Forgot,” but it’s close.
These are memories which flit into my skull unbidden. They usually have no relationship to the moment; I’m not getting food memories when I’m hungry, nothing that comprehensible. I suspect a mild case of temporal lobe epilepsy.
The only way I can write this is incrementally. Just as I cannot induce these memories, I usually can’t remember them for very long, either — until they come again. And they do. My memory is a vinyl record with more skips than music.
Let’s allow this one to grow over the course of the day. I’ll add to the post when the memories occur, so it may take me a while to reach thirteen. Onward!
Tangent on Sabbatical
Don’t forget the CONTEST!
If you’re not (A) a Tangent Online reviewer, (B) a friend of a Tangent Online reviewer, or (C) a friend of one of the main combatants, then you probably don’t know about the amazing shitstorm of the past 36 hours. You certainly won’t learn anything by checking out the Tangent site, nor has former editor Eugie Foster spilled on her blog. And you won’t get much enlightenment from me, either.
In Eugie’s words, she was “summarily dismissed.” I gather there were irreconcilable differences at the top echelon. Anyway, in the last twenty-four hours . . . wow. LOTS of people using their “REPLY ALL” button when they ought to have used their “REPLY” button, and as a consequence, we’ve all been witnesses to and participants in this mass desertion from Tangent. Turns out lots of other people feel the same way I do — wait. No. There’s a hell of a lot of emotion out there. I think I’m one of the few Vulcans.
***
I had a 2.5 hour general medical staff meeting this evening. Don’t ask. But the dream I had last night strikes me as a premonition.
It’s my mom’s Mustang, only it looks a hell of a lot better than my mom’s Mustang ever looked. And it’s mine now. But for some damned reason, I decide to drive it out of the parking lot while sitting in the passenger seat. Not surprisingly, I can’t control the car. Can’t steer worth beans, and I’m having a hard time getting my foot to hit the brake rather than the accelerator. I need to do a three-point turn to get out of the parking lot, and at each point, I’m bashing one thing or another — industrial garbage can here, some badass’s fancy truck there. I’m in big trouble now.
And my Mustang doesn’t look so hot anymore.
No, no major disasters at the meeting, but I feel like someone’s cleaning my ears with ice picks.
D.
P.S. Know what’s depressing? If it weren’t for this boob photo, the fact that I linked to these nude photos of Heather Graham, or my posting of J. Lo’s big ass, I’d be getting something like twenty hits a day.
Don’t believe me? Post those three photos to your blog (or just link the Heather Graham nude photos, like I did) and watch your hits shoot through the roof. It’ll take some time, but it will surely happen.
PPS: This cheered me up: Itzhak Perlman Plays Klezmer.
The maestro joins four klezmer groups: Brave Old World, The Klezmatics, Andy Statman and the Klezmer Conservatory Band for a joyous get-together with unforgettable Klezmer melodies. As he says of the experience, “I caught the bug!”
. . . maybe now I can get to sleep.
Birthday Cake for Kate
It’s Kate‘s birthday today (and mine). Y’all know I want pie for my birthday. But Kate?
She wants cake.
Challah!
Enter my Challah baloo contest (scroll down a bit, you’ll find it) and you, too might win Baking with Julia, the best baking book ever written. As an example of its awesomeness, I’m going to give you Julia’s challah recipe.
Julia calls challah “Eastern European brioche.” Egg bread, in other words. Few breads have a richer taste, save perhaps a good pumpernickel. Challah isn’t great sandwich bread — it’s a bit too sweet for that — but it’s unsurpassed for bread-and-jam, French toast, bread pudding, or dessert panini. (For my dessert panini recipe, see the comment thread for the contest.) It’s also my bread of choice for just plain eating, no adornments, although I wouldn’t sneeze at a shmear of butter.
In addition to the ingredients below, you’ll need parchment paper, a pizza peel (or a cookie sheet without a raised edge), a food-safe paint brush, an instant read thermometer, and lots of loved ones to share with. This recipe makes TWO big loafs.
Is vibrador Spanish for vibrator?
I’m working through some edits Lyvvie suggested, and that question came up.
Oh, here, too.
Back to my editing. And you folks, back to your baking. You won’t win my contest by lounging about all day.
D.
Oh, and this was just too funny. No vibrators, only a bad video game, lots of X-Files actors, and one hilarious writer.
Challah baloo: a contest
I wish I could show this to you in Smell-O-Vision.
Nothing smells as wholesome and welcoming as freshly baked egg bread. I use the recipe from Julia Child’s Baking With Julia, which is about as idiot-proof a bread recipe as there is. Julia’s bagel recipe also provides reliably delicious bagels. I keep kicking myself that these are the only two recipes I’ve tried from Baking With Julia; no doubt many of the others excel. I’d like to make the pumpernickel loaf, for example, except I don’t know where to find prune butter.
So here’s the contest:
1. Between now and next Sunday (September 30, at midnight), blog about baked goods and include at least one recipe.
2. In your blog, pimp this contest with a link-back.
3. Let me know in the comments to this post when you have posted. I’ll provide a link-back to your post, too, much as we do for the Thirteens.
4. If you don’t have a blog, write up a post anyway and send it to me. I’ll post it to Balls and Walnuts — and give you credit, of course. This will count as your entry.
5. The prize: need you ask? On Monday, October 1st, I will randomly choose one lucky winner to receive a copy of Baking With Julia. (If you already own it, let me know, and I’ll send you another cookbook of similar value.) You’ll need to provide me with your snail mail address when the time comes.
Per Lyvvie’s question:
6. Yes, multiple recipes/pimpages (on separate days) = multiple entries.
Any questions?
Lyvvie’s Upside Down Apple Pie Cake
microsoar: How Not to Bake Bread
sxKitten’s twofer: Toffee, Pecan, and Mango Crisp; Gingerbread
Tam makes Whatever Crisp
Jess’s Chocolate Cake
D.
GallimauFriday III: the Gonadal Special
Hat tip to Indecision 2008 for tonight’s NEWSFLASH: Hillary Clinton Denies Desire For Sweet Caress of a Woman’s Tongue.
Regulars here know I’m not a big Hillary fan. But asking her to comment on rumors that she’s a lesbian? Why, that’s as irrelevant as asking the Republican Presidential candidates if they troll airport bathrooms for long-shlonged dudes, or tryst with mommified dominatrices who let them poop their Pampers. Ask them if they’ve ever appeared in drag while you’re at it.
***
For those of you who missed yesterday’s story: it’s true. We do think with our nuts. Or at least, the potential is there:
Men have a source of potentially life-saving stem cells between their legs.
A team of American researchers has found a way to easily identify stem cells in the testicles of adult mice that can be coaxed to turn into brain cells, muscle cells, heart cells, blood cells and even blood vessels.
One day, they say, male patients may be able to turn to their own testicles as a source of stem cells to repair an ailing heart or kidney or to fix the brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
Thus explaining the commonplace mid-21st Century catch phrase, “Saved by the balls!”
***
It’s Yom Kippur. Have you asked Stephen Colbert for forgiveness yet? I would, except I haven’t wronged the guy.
I’d call and make shit up, but I suspect that wouldn’t be in keeping with the Yom Kippur spirit.
***
Speaking of balls. From the Department of Testicular Atrophy: Vicente Fox writes that George Bush, “windshield cowboy,” is afraid of horses.
***
And here’s someone that should stimulate a fair share of gonads out there . . .
The Lazy Thirteen
Dig the frog. This fella took a perch right next to my front door.
Sometimes work sucks the life out of me. When that happens on a Wednesday/Thursday, there’s nothing for it but to write a dead easy thirteen.
Coming soon (not)
Fans of Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen have been waiting for the movie version. And waiting. And waiting. According to the official website, the release date is 3/6/09. What’s taking so long?
Moore’s graphic novels have led to other successful movies: V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and From Hell. Seems obvious that Moore’s greatest work should at least have the potential of becoming a successful film adaptation.
According to this story at MTV.com, the production has had trouble — it “has already chewed up and spit out such esteemed directors as Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass.” Now, Zack Snyder, director of 300 (adapted from the Frank Miller graphic novel) and Dawn of the Dead, is at the helm.
Man, that MTV.com story is one long (and from what I can see, empty) article. I WANT MY WATCHMEN. Its message of the dangers of well-intentioned fascism is more important now than ever before; I wish we could see a release date before the ’08 elections.
Here’s the IMDB writeup on Watchmen. Recognize anyone on that cast? I don’t, except maybe Billy Crudup.
Here’s a short and sweet review, and here’s Watching the Detectives, a Watchmen wiki. Enjoy.
D.