Friday Flickr Babes: What else? Hot.

Home } Flickr follies } Friday Flickr Babes: What else? Hot.

Hot, originally uploaded by grantthai.

You know those false color maps where the hottest areas of the country are in red, middlin’ hot in yellow, and so forth? We’re well into the cooler colors, but we’re still toastier than we would like to be. Perhaps we’d be happier in Fairbanks.

79F? WTF? No wonder the glaciers are all melting.

Downstairs, I’m baking a ham. Not a smart move — I should have made gazpacho. But I can imagine Jake’s horror.

COLD SOUP?

Walnut, August 17, 2007. Category: Flickr follies.

Thirteen comedy duos

Home } Humor } Thirteen comedy duos

Hope you’re ready to burn up the next two hours of your life with YouTube videos (each one personally screened by yours truly).

Edited to add . . .

I guess I’ll finish this later tonight, but I thought I’d give you something to chew on in the meantime. Here we go.

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Walnut, August 16, 2007. Category: Humor, Thirteen Candles.

Shamelessly thieving from Donahue

Home } Stardust } Shamelessly thieving from Donahue

This Donahue.

I have a new Major League Crush (sorry, Cintra — but check Nina out. You’ll love her, too):

Nina Conti, ventriloquist and BRILLIANT stand-up comic. Here’s a YouTube sample from her website.

Maybe some of you are familiar with her work, but she was news to me. In Jim’s post, he emphasizes her naturalness, the way she responds to Monk as if he were an independent entity. I agree; she does this better than any ventriloquist I’ve seen. But I’m impressed with her ability to turn ventriloquism on its head, reversing conventions left and right. While ventriloquism is traditionally family entertainment (think Shari Lewis), Nina Conti can be filthy; and while most ventriloquists do their best to sustain the illusion of the dummy’s reality, Nina Conti revels in trashing that illusion.

Yes, she’s a sort of meta-ventriloquist. That YouTube clip demonstrates this well: she toggles between convincing actress and renegade deconstructionist. Wow. You try walking a tightrope like that.

That’s it for tonight . . . I’d like to get started on my Thirteen, and it ain’t writing itself!

Walnut, August 15, 2007. Category: Stardust.

Klondike

Home } Memoirist BS } Klondike

Yesterday, Dean wrote about his dad splitting wood, and I was sorely tempted to hijack his comment thread. Because it’s a funny thing, the actions we associate with our parents. Memory’s a fickle beast.

Right now, my dad is likely doing the same thing he’s doing in this photo from forty years ago: playing Klondike. I can hear him shuffle, spread, and turn cards as clearly as I can hear myself tapping the keyboard keys. When I think of my dad, he’s shuffling, spreading, turning cards. Dean thinks of his dad chopping wood; I think of mine playing solitaire.

Back then, my father could have chopped wood. He’s short, like me (though not as short as me), and used to be muscular, powerfully built. I don’t know how he kept in shape — he shunned exercise. But when I was a kid, those biceps scared the crap out of me.

I’d rather remember him chopping wood, but there he is, shuffling again. “You pay fifty-two dollars for the deck,” he says. “Aces go up, and you build upward in suit. For every card up here, you get five dollars back.” He keeps score on the back of an envelope, and he never finishes in the red.

If you asked me to give you a second memory, a second common association, it would be of the man sitting in his chair, reading a paperback or working a crossword puzzle. Yup, real dynamic. He taught high school math for many years, and by all accounts was a superb teacher. I’m sure he’d prefer to be thought of that way, but I never saw him teach. He came home tired, like all us fathers do, and to unwind, he read books, worked a crossword puzzle, or played Klondike.

I wonder what memory Jake will associate with me? I’d prefer if he remembered me scrambling around in the kitchen, fixing dinner, but he doesn’t often watch me. Maybe he’ll remember me climbing rocks with him at the beach — that would be nice, maybe even as nice as splitting wood. You know, I might even like being remembered as a doctor.

But I have a bad feeling he’ll remember me as I am right now, sitting in this chair, my legs tucked under me, futzing at my blog.

Walnut, August 14, 2007. Category: Memoirist BS, Mishpucha (mi familia), Pix.

Grumpy old men

Home } The Barbarous Craft } Grumpy old men

So a new patient storms out of the waiting room before he ever signs his paperwork. In fact, that’s the precipitating factor for his hissy fit — “MY LAWYER TOLD ME TO NEVER SIGN ANYTHING!” After cussing out my office staff (yes, he was verbally abusive), growling, fussing, and fuming for several minutes, he leaves.

And I think: Cool. This problematic, unpleasant dude weeds himself out before he becomes my patient.

And that’s the coolest thing about this situation: he’s not my patient. I have no doctor-patient relationship with him. I can talk about him all I like, and I’m not violating confidentiality rules. Not that there’s much to say; you’ve heard the whole story.

I suppose I should be more compassionate about this situation. Maybe he really does need an ENT. Maybe he’s too senile to understand why his doctor sent him here, or maybe his doctor is an uncommunicative cuss who never told the patient why he (the doc) made the referral. Maybe this old guy will experience untold suffering as a result of missing today’s visit.

Call me a heel, but all I see is one less headache.

***

Here’s a dirty joke for you.

This husband and wife have always had sex with the lights off. Pitch dark, that’s how he likes it, and she has been happy to oblige.

Lately, however, she has begun to wonder — why all the secrecy? What’s he hiding from me? So one night, in the midst of a good rogering, she reaches up and turns on the end table lamp — and finds him holding a dildo!

“A dildo,” she says.

“Ah, yup,” he says.

“Is that why we’ve always had sex with the lights off?”

“Ah, yup.”

“Would you like to tell me why?”

“Sure,” he says, “when you explain how we got three kids.”

Walnut, August 14, 2007. Category: The Barbarous Craft.

I CAN HAS FRUTEFLIZ?

Home } Critter foo } I CAN HAS FRUTEFLIZ?

Just bought some new froggies. I’ll take some pix of my own when they arrive, but for now, here are a few links . . .

Dendrobates tinctorius ‘Cobalt’

Dendrobates auratus “Costa Rican Green & Black”

Mantella laevigata

G’night!

Walnut, August 13, 2007. Category: Critter foo.

Argument clinic

Home } Blogwhoring } Argument clinic

Back when I played biologist, I used to say if you could imagine a situation in nature, nature would (eventually) provide an example. That’s not entirely true — see niches, unfilled — but it sure seemed true at the time.

I suspect it IS true in the blogosphere, though; and today I found an ounce of proof: someone has come up with an argument clinic that does John Cleese proud. (Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.)

Meet BlogWarBot (and take note of several great arguments in their comment section). Here’s my argument (I’m “guest”):

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Walnut, August 13, 2007. Category: Blogwhoring, Humor.

Lemon squares

Home } Food } Lemon squares

I misread my friend’s recipe and added two TABLEspoons of lemon zest — doh! And while Jake declared they were too lemony, Karen and I thought they were perfect.

I need to take a class in digital photography.

Essentially, this is lemon curd baked over a shortbread crust. They kick ass over the store-bought lemon square mixes, so don’t even go there.

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, butter, baking powder, and powdered sugar. (I processed these ingredients in the food processor. Easy.) Press in ungreased square pan, 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inches, building up 1/2 inch edges. Bake 20 minutes. Beat remaining ingredients about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust.

Bake about 25 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly in center; cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired. Cut into 1 1/2 inch squares.

Makes 25 squares, 90 calories per square.

I baked mine for 30 minutes, and I suspect I could have baked it a few minutes longer.

I should mention that I’m not sure where she got this recipe — off the web somewhere, no doubt. She went searching for a recipe reminiscent of the one she used back in high school, and this is what she came up with. In my opinion, yes, these are the real deal, just like I remember.

I’m feeling better today, thanks to an unbroken eight hours of sleep. I’ll try to show up this evening around 7 to 8 for live-blogging. See ya soon!

Walnut, August 12, 2007. Category: Food.