C'mon Baby, Light My Fire
This is a phenomenon that I haven't commented on, but do have strong feelings about. Why do people insist on telling people what they can and can't read? Especially when they haven't
READ THE BOOK! Let's discourage kids from reading even more than they already are by the cool kids and the short attention-span media bombardments. Parents, you have your hands full enough with your own kids, stop trying to parent other children. If you want your child to grow up ignorant of some of the better works of fiction, then so be it, but stop insisting redfaced and sweaty that NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO READ THIS OR THAT BOOK! If you don't want your tenderminded and impressionable youth to be exposed to the horrors of the world such as slavery and bad language, then homeschool them. If you don't want your child to attempt to warp from world to world, or to become a wizard, if your child is too stupid (probably your fault, too) to realize that witchcraft
isn't real and that Hippogriffs, while cool, don't exist, then make sure the school librarian doesn't allow them to check out the works of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, or J.K. Rowling. If you can't monitor your child enough to be aware of what they read, watch, or download, then amp up your parenting skills and stop trying to obliterate the existence of these materials from Earth. What happened to do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Do you want us to try to ban everything you like or hold dear? I doubt it. So stop trying to ban the books we love.
Thus endth my rant.
Check Please
I've been watching
Top Chef marathons a lot lately and it's taking its toll on me. I must CREATE! I must layer flavors and tastes. I must mix culinary themes! I must CREATE!
I made bison burgers last night. Bison is lean and delicious. No fancy creations there, unless you count the seasonings I used (a secret mix of salt, pepper, and Emeril's Bayou Seasoning) and the feta cheese I melted on top.
We had two burgers left over and I ate one for lunch, but I got all Top Chef on its ass.
I heated the burger and feta, cut it into eight small triangles, and put the triangles on pita chips from
FoodWorks. I then topped that off with some Salsa Di Parma from Foodworks and added some
Cholula hotsauce to three of the sections. It was very good and I'll be opening a restaurant soon, I'm sure. Come visit "That's Gastronomical" on the Eastside in about five years!
I've also decided to take pictures of random things, like the lunch I made today, which is the inspiration of this post. You should expect some random things in the near future. I have no idea where this might lead.
For now, though,
here are some
additional pictures of my
lunch. Jealous?!
Pests
We recently had a fence installed? put in? constructed? whatever. We paid some dude to put a chain link fence in our backyard. Bly and I were walking around back there today with the WonderPug when I saw them. I was standing beneath my deck and I looked up and there they were. They must die. Two of them, but I'm sure Mommy was not too far away. Scary beasts that we must find a trap, a poison, a way to rid our lives of them. I'm not big on killing things usually, but I can't figure out a way to make sure they don't come back without bloodshed. If anyone has another solution, let me know in the comments. Here's a
picture of what must die.
Pug's Top Fives
Napoleon the WonderPug wants me to share his top fives.
Top Five TV Shows:5. The Office -- he snort-laughs at Dwight's antics.
4. The Ultimate Fighter -- the pug is the biggest ass kicker around; the little toughy learns all his skillz from the Ultimate Fighters.
3. Real Housewives of Orange County -- he loves drama, people.
2. The Dog Whisperer -- he loves to watch Caesar be dominant, not aggressive; Pssht!
1. Wheel Of Fortune -- he loves the sound of the wheel, the yelling of letters, and the chimes of the board lighting up.
Top Five Song Lyrics:5. "My milkshake brings all the pugs to the yard..." -- Kelis
4. "Callin me a dog, well leave a pug alone / Cause nothin can stop me from buryin my bones" -- Ol' Dirty Bastard
3. "Pressure wash the quiver bone / In the bitch wrinkle" -- Bloodhound Gang
2. "Bow wow wow yippy yo yippy yay / The sounds of a pug bring me to another day" -- Snoop Dogg
1. "Pug had dumps like a truck truck truck / Thighs like what what what / Puggy move your butt butt butt" -- Sisqo
Top Five Words (other than swear-words -- the pug is a potty mouth!):5. "Toy"
4. "Walk"
3. "Bath"
2. "Treat"
1. "Ride"
Top Five Relaxation Techniques:5. Lazy Sundays
4. Snuggles
3. Butt Scratches
2. Under the covers
1. Bath Time
Top Five Swear Words:5. "B*tches"
4. "F**kers">
3. "Sons of B*tches"
2. "Motherf**kers"
1. I can't mention the number one swear word it's so bad!
This Little Piggy
This is too weird not to pass along. It seems loosely based on an actual psychological test that no empirically driven psychologist would ever use, the "Draw a House, Tree, Person" test. In any case, it was fun to draw a pig and see what that drawing said about my personality.
Here's my drawing:
PigTry one for yourself! And then, after you're done with your own piggy,
read my results!
Cognitive Mixology
If you try to get into the linked article from the previous post or this post, use
Bug Me Not to get the free userid and password. Now, on with the post...
I really want
one of these drinks:
The pair are currently perfecting two new drinks, a "dirty" martini and a carbonated mojito "espherication." For the martini, they blend olive juice, vermouth and gin with xanthan gum and calcium chloride and drop it into a sodium alginate and water solution to form stable olive-shaped blobs. It is served as a lone olive in an empty glass; it reverts to a liquid state when popped into the mouth. The mojito is made with rum, lime and mint and shaped into a sphere through the same process, then carbonated in a pressurized container filled with carbon dioxide to mimic the bubbly mouth-feel of a real mojito.
I've heard of Chef Dufresne before and the creations he makes in the kitchen are astounding (like the fried mayo!). I guess I still have some deep down aspiring chemist in me from my days as a chemical engineering major. Had I known that I could use that knowledge to help create things like the ones mentioned in the article, maybe I would have stuck it out and added a culinary degree to the ChemE degree. But psychology is dang fun, too.
Genius
The methodology to
this study is genius. Especially the part where participants ostensibly mix hotsauce drinks for the next participant.
Aqua-man
So, I'm watching David Blane stand in a giant spherical aquarium on ABC. This is definitely a feat of endurance -- his skin is pretty much wrinkling off his body. The guy that holds the record for staying underwater the longest had to get skin grafts.
That is not the point of this post, though. He is finishing his seven days and nights underwater with an attempt at "breaking the world record" for holding one's breath. But this isn't at all what he's doing.
To break the Static Apnea (holding your breath while staying still) record he has to beat 8 minutes and 58 seconds. He's attempting nine minutes.
BUT no matter how long he holds his breath he can't officially break the record held by
Tom Sietas. You see, he's breathing via an oxygen tank while underwater and to break the record for static apnea you have to refrain from pure oxygen for at least two hours prior to the attempt. Since he isn't getting out of the tank before his attempt, he can't break the record.
The record for apnea after breathing oxygen is closer to 15 minutes. It sort of pisses me off to continually hear ABC talk about "the world record" and how Blaine will try to break it.Bullcrap.
And of course, he's suffering from "significant" medical problems right now. Liver failure, body weight down, fluid loss, thicker blood, etc.
He could do this without the hype and without the outright lies (world record breaking) and it would still be amazing. He could also stop acting like he's the first person to do these things -- Randi was buried in ice before Blaine, but Blaine didn't mention that at all.
Oh well.
