Saturday, March 31, 2018

Many Easters Ago...

...we used to attend Easter Sunrise service on top of this nearby monadnock - in fact, that mountain, such as it is, was the view out of the picture window of our house.


Afterward we would go to a nearby firehouse for breakfast - eggs, bacon, home made sticky rolls then top that off with the candy and hard boiled eggs from the Easter basket - those were the days - could eat all that and never grow large.

Norm Macdonald

Interviewed on "What's So Funny" This is a nineteen minute segment of an hour and 30 minute interview that begins with the smallness and limiting of self-identifying and develops to a discussion about intuition, God and atheism, in which we learn, distressingly, that Norm Macdonald hates sunsets.

Following the closed captions is another layer of amusement.



Hates sunsets. The man's not right.

What about sunrises, then?  

Sunsets are fascinating as sunrises because they're a transition period in which change appears so abrupt that you can actually intuit your place on a sphere and if you are watching then you're also sufficiently contemplative to imagine the place of your sphere among celestial spheres, and that's exceedingly trippy. Come on, Norm. I urge you to reconsider. The beauty of both sunsets and sunrises is incidental to them marking off the time available to you wonder about all this, to contemplate your time allowed to you on this Earth, to ponder the stages of your garden and to ruminate your various gardens, their coming and going, your family and your family's place among families.  Watching the sun setting and observing the stars come into view unites you with all humanity since the beginning of mankind on Earth and with all those who are yet unborn who come after you. It's awesome. It's humbling. Contemplating the connections blows your mind.

You would not believe, maybe you would, the number of people who get up very early in the morning every single day of the week, full tours of people on buses, to drive up to the top of Haleakala on Maui just to bundle up in blankets and watch a sunrise.  


3-Billion-year-old Klerksdorp spheres of Ottosdal

Amusing Planet explains they are an natural phenomena even though they look manufactured and they're too old for human technology so that means aliens made them.
These spheres are actually concretion formed by the precipitation of volcanic sediments, ash, or both, after they accumulated 3 billion years ago.

The most striking are nearly spherical while there are other oval shapes. The latitudinal ridges and grooves are also natural and are shown on other types found elsewhere.

More examples at the link.

More photos on Duckduckgo. [spherical calcareous concretions]

Duckduckgo [Moqui marbles, Moeraki Boulders]

Oatmeal

Mute.



Homey don't dat multiple bowls thing.  In the bowl that you use to eat it:

* water
* oatmeal
* butter
* brown sugar
* pinch of salt
* pecans

microwave to boiling, boom, done.

* milk
* berries

One time I made chocolate oatmeal with pecans and used too much couverture chocolate and that was a fail. 

Fort Sill Air Defense Artillery soldier attacked

By a goose.



On YouTube the video that queues after this we hear people laughing their butts off while recording people being chased by geese. Apparently that's really funny when you're there. 

Then the video that queues after that one is various animals being jerks


A large group of illegal migrants is marching its way through Mexico to USA

Buzzfeed has a reporter embedded with the group. The post on Citizens Free Press is titled Invasion, Army of illegal migrants...

Organized by a group of volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, the caravan is intended to help migrants safely reach the United States, bypassing not only authorities who would seek to deport them, but gangs and cartels who are known to assault vulnerable migrants.
Commenters at Citizens Free Press say this is a direct challenge to Trump and he must stop them or he is finished. They think this presents a good opportunity to put the army at the border. I wonder if they expect the army to shoot them. Because that's what armies do responding to invasion.

Schwarzenegger's first words after emergency heart surgery

"I'm Back."

John Sexton writes on Hot Air:
That sounds like the sort of thing a Hollywood publicist might make up. Then again, Schwarzenegger really is fond of quoting his famous lines. He does it all the time in interviews. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he really did say this.
Except that's not one his lines. That's a Jack Nicholson line in the Shining.

Schwarzenegger's line is "I'll be back." Which would be kind of funny on a tombstone.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Whose that television show

I turned on the television this afternoon, tired from working and stuff, and this is what I heard:

I'm Dr Sumner Sloane, Professor of World Literature at the U.
He has an article in Harper's.
Diane's been my teaching assistant for two years.
Today, I was sitting in my office with Diane.
I looked up from my Proust, she had her nose in her Yeats.
I said to myself, "I would be crazy to let this girl get out of my life.
" So, right there on the spot, I said, "Let's get married.
" What he actually said was, "Come with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove.
" - That's Donne.
- I certainly hope so.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=cheers&episode=s01e01
I'm Dr Sumner Sloane, Professor of World Literature at the U.
He has an article in Harper's.
Diane's been my teaching assistant for two years.
Today, I was sitting in my office with Diane.
I looked up from my Proust, she had her nose in her Yeats.
I said to myself, "I would be crazy to let this girl get out of my life.
" So, right there on the spot, I said, "Let's get married.
" What he actually said was, "Come with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove.
" - That's Donne.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=cheers&episode=s01e01
I'm Dr Sumner Sloane, Professor of World Literature at the U.
He has an article in Harper's.
Diane's been my teaching assistant for two years.
Today, I was sitting in my office with Diane.
I looked up from my Proust, she had her nose in her Yeats.
I said to myself, "I would be crazy to let this girl get out of my life.
" So, right there on the spot, I said, "Let's get married.
" What he actually said was, "Come with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove.
" - That's Donne.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=cheers&episode=s01e01
I'm Dr Sumner Sloane, Professor of World Literature at the U.
He has an article in Harper's.
Diane's been my teaching assistant for two years.
Today, I was sitting in my office with Diane.
I looked up from my Proust, she had her nose in her Yeats.
I said to myself, "I would be crazy to let this girl get out of my life.
" So, right there on the spot, I said, "Let's get married.
" What he actually said was, "Come with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove.
" - That's Donne.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=cheers&episode=s01e01
"I am Dr. Sumner Sloane, professor of World Literature at the U.
Today I was sitting in my office with Diane. I looked up from my Proust, she had her nose in her Yeats. I said to myself 'I would be crazy to let this girl get out of my life'.
So right there on the spot I said 'Let's get married'."

"What he actually said was 'Come with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove.'
That's Donne."

"I certainly hope so!"

Once again proving that what goes around at Lem's stays around at Lem's.


This evening's sunset.


Into the cornfield


"You better listen. You need to take away the guns from these people. Who do they think they are. The NRA are murderers. Macro Rubio and the governor are Murderers. Trump is a murderer.

NOT THE KID WE BULLIED EVERY DAY!

NOT THE COPS AND THE FBI THAT DIDN"T ARREST HIM AFTER MANY WARNINGS!

OFF INTO THE CORNFIELDS WITH ALL OF YOU!"

"The children are our future."

Whose that muffin?

Which of these tasty English Muffins would you want to munch on?





Bonus points if you can name whose that girl?

Tiny red crabs



There is a lot more to this if you care to see it.

Little kids are the best.

At the Butterfly Pavilion there is a room with unusual insects. One of the displays contains horrible large hairy spiders. The guide takes one out to show it is harmless. I ask, "Can one of us hold it?" I didn't care to hold it but I could tell the little boys did want to. The guide, a teenager himself, said, "Sure." I took a bunch of photos of butterflies, but this is my favorite shot of the whole place. The boy was thrilled to be able to touch the spider. The guide hovered nervously, his own hand right there, as if the boy would crush it.


English muffins

They always make it look and sound more difficult than it is. I should find a video that zips through it in one minute with no talking.

I never proof my yeast. Not ever. There's nothing to prove. It's in the freezer and it's always alive until it is gone. Although I do let it get started with sugar and flour, that way there's ten billion more yeast cells to deal with the salt and it's already well on its way.

Although I've experimented with brewer's yeast that I bought downstairs, and there really is a huge difference. One type of brewer's yeast the package says "super fast" and it's a lot slower than grocery store bread yeast. An expensive failed experiment. They've got this all figured out scientifically. 

You don't need to make six muffins. You can go through the simple effort for one. And not have all those stupid English muffins sitting around. And you can allow them to rise right in the pan that you eventually fry them in. Just remove the pan from the burner and crank up the heat so when you place the pan on the burner then the pan absorbs the high heat quickly, then turn it down to a reasonable level. And room temperature is fine for rising. And stirring the wet dough is exactly the same thing as kneading. Both develop the gluten molecules. You can see the gluten developing. The whole thing becomes more stringy right there as you do it. You can form a ball in your hand by pushing in its pretend bellybutton repeatedly. That pulls in the dough from all sides and forms a taught skin, like making a living balloon.

I didn't watch this all the way through. I'm too easily annoyed. 



I've done this quite a lot. Seeing the photos again I see that I'm partial to eggs Benedict and eggs Florentine, and combinations of those, and bacon sandwiches, ham sandwiches, and copies of Egg McMuffins. Oh man. Now I want one of those right now. 

There's a rule. You must cut these things with a fork. Or else the Celtic gods of yore suddenly appear and strike you dead with an oak branch.


25 images follow.

Jeff Sessions reveals John Huber to lead prosecution of Inspector General Michael Horowitz's findings.

Horowitz and Huber have impressively large staffs of attorneys working for them that number in the hundreds. Finally, the rubber has hit the fan.

Care to have some fun? Have a look at the headlines all over the place. Some are ridiculous. (Not all are current) Duckduckgo [prosecutor john huber] They're telling their readers he's an attorney hired to investigate claims. No. Horowitz did that. Huber is there to investigate further and prosecute findings.  And he's been doing that quietly and behind the scenes since the emails between Strzok and Page were revealed in order to wall them off from Democrat leakers. Now it's all coming out.

Here is Sessions' letter to Grassley, Goodlatte and Gowdy, with copies to Feinstein, Nadler and Cummings.

More edifying information at Conservative Treehouse.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Whose that author?




When I got there, Joe Durkin was already holding down a corner table and working on a drink -- vodka on the rocks, from the looks of it. I took in the room and listened to the hum of conversation at the bar, and I guess some of what I was feeling must have found its way to my face, because the first thing Joe asked me was if I was all right. I said I was fine, and why?

"Because you look like you saw a ghost," he said.

"Be funny if I didn't," I said. "The room is full of them."

"A little new for ghosts, isn't it? How long have they been open, two years?"

"Closer to three."

"Time flies," he said, "whether you're having fun or not. Jake's Place, whoever Jake is. You got a history with him?"

"I don't know who he is. I had a history with the place before it was his."

"Jimmy Armstrong's."

"That's right."

WKRLEM: Rave On John Donne




Go and catch a falling star,
    Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
    Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
            And find
            What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

aglio e olio

This was my best go-to cop-out meal for decades. It's easier than all of the videos make it look. I searched for a straightforward video but one does not exist. 

It takes as long as it takes to boil water and cook angel hair pasta. That's like three minutes. 

It can also be done in one pan if you really feel like slumming it. 

You start the spaghetti, then in a separate pan heat garlic in oil. Dump the pasta into the garlic-flavored oil and boom, your'e done. 

Most recipes insist on big pile of fresh Italian parsley. But you can use anything, cilantro, basil, whatever. Fresh tarragon is interesting.

Most recipes insist you do NOT add cheese, that is blasphemous, but I like it with cheese, especially very good cheese, along with pasta water carried over to thin it. I also like additional vegetables like broccoli cut thinly or asparagus, or snow peas or whatever I happen to have on hand.

This is the perfect late-night meal. And I man perfect.

If not late-night, then I really really like to roll out my own egg-pasta for a heavier version.



Here are a few of my own. A traditionalist will insist this is not proper aglio y olio. Fine. We saw that Italian guy put a Thai chile pepper in his. Call it something else then. It's the same basic idea. And it is extremely satisfying.








Urban dictionary trending

Trending March 28, 2018

As you know, these are opinions of definitions offered mostly by young people. Readers vote the definitions up or down.  Some have more downvotes than upvotes. They're often hilarious.

1) Berkeley goggles: Similar to the beer goggles effect, a person which one would not find typically attractive is seen as attractive. This effect is a cause of the UC Berkeley bubble, where a lesser amount of typically attractive people exist.

2) Like a rat up a drain pipe: a) Australian for faster than you can imagine b) To copulate with a female shortly after meeting her.

3) Carlos: a) The best male stripper in the world b) A man who is quite but very funny once you get to know him. The most loving person and kindest person you'll meet. Usually very good at soccer. Most the time tall and skinny but very handsome. He knows how to treat a woman and his smile can light up a whole room. A Carlos has the most prettiest eyes and usually sensitive but good when it comes to sex and usually has a big dick. His personality is above amazing they are usually loving and caring of others and super cute. Good to bring home to the family and is super smart. c) a crazy guy who likes to get wild whether it be on the dance floor or in bed. d) A sexy latin stallion who treats his woman like a princess. He is a man driven by passion, and love. He is a strong, compassionate romantic. A jack of all trades. Skillful and thought provoking. The man of any woman's dreams... e) The funnest, most outgoing guy in the world. Defined as a sexy latino with the cutest smile. A Carlos always has his hair in his eyes. f) something once u fall for......cant get away from no matter how stupid it may get.

4) Big licks: Starting hand of 6 and a 9 in hold em poker.

5) a) touch the rim: The seemingly main goal of short, unathletic white dudes when they play basketball. For some reason, they believe the ability to touch the rim will somehow turn them into better players and/or add some credibility to their weak ass game.
b) The sure signal, when having sex, that the woman’s anus is about to get penetrated by finger, penis or foreign object.

6) chromies: a)  The caps that keep the air from coming out of your tires. b) A chromy is a person that seems to have an extra or one less chromosome , whether they actually have this or if they just look like it.

7) democrat: political party. Long hilarious definition here.

8) skinfint: An unreasonably thrifty person. (Flint is a semiprecious mineral a relative of quartz, and the notion that the greediest person would keep flint shavings for economy).

9) National Blunt Day: A national holiday on March 27th for blunt lovers nation wide to celebrate the beloved blunt and blunt culture.

10) fancy a bum: When a guy asks another guy "do you fancy a bum?" he wants to know if he's into some man on man action.

11) bobbitise: to cut off a man's genetalia. From John Wayne Bobbit, maimed by his wife in 1993.

12) thiccy: Someone who Is thicc

13) lil tay: A bratty ass bitch who flexes on everyone with her parents stuff and thinks she's hot shit

14) Triton Eye: The Triton Eye is a disease caused by being around ugly girls at UCSD too long and your standards for what is attractive is lowered extremely.

15) mondaze: A daze you find yourself in due to it being Monday

16) The Philly dump truck: When you make love to a woman's breasts with your penis, and then poop onto her belly. [9 upvotes, 7 downvotes]

17) Quickchange: A form of the Short Con in which the Hustler confuses a cashier into giving more change than they should. The most lucrative quick change technique is the "progressive", in which smaller denomination bills are thrust back at the cashier for consolidation into a higher denomination. "Here, give me a five for these ones." (then, while holding the five and the ones...) "Oh, wait. Go ahead and give me a 10. Let me see... one, two, three, four and five is .. yeah, a 10. Thanks."


18) taint: a) The area of skin on a woman between her vagina and anus.
It taint your pussy and it taint your ass.

19) blunt day: march 27th. the day where you chainsmoke blunts to celebrate national blunt day.
blunt day is everyday, but lets smoke 420 of them right now on this fine march 27th.

20) Perch: A protruding chin on a female where you can rest your testicles while she is performing fellatio

21) Jake Paulers: A group of particularly young children mentally ill beyond belief. They tend to support egotistic Jake Paul. The older they are the more mentally disturbed they are. Proceed with caution, and remember they are too retarded to change. (Jake Paul is the YouTuber who shot the suicide on Mt. Fuji.)

22) honeymoon handshake: When you're too tired for sex after all the wedding/ honeymoon activities you and your lover get each other off with your hands.

23) lilf: Lesbian I'd like to fuck

24)  Günter: a) A guy who makes lots of animal-like noises while he fucks. b ) That fat German Kid who looks like Augustus Gloop from charlie and the choclate Factory. Günter can be quite mean and loves to insult people with their mum. However he is terrible at insulting people. He is also a big Hypocrite. c) The last Zombie remaining prior to the way ending in the game type Nazi Zombies from the game Call of Duty: World At War. He typically is held at a window as you repair it or he slowly follows around a bait person so others can get weapons and rebuild the damaged windows. d) Hebrew in orgin. Refers to women with copious amounts of facial hair, also commonly referred to as a Bearded Lady. e) A fat girl who has a gut so large that it hangs over her genital area. f) That slim, blonde, German guy on holiday wearing speedos. May sometime have a blonde beard. g) German slang term for weed. Comes from the famous author Günter Grass.

25) Mansplainer: A term used to attack and denigrate a man who tries to explain anything - even his own emotions or feelings - to a woman who feels that men are not worthy of having equal rights to speak and be heard.

26) Effed: Nice way of saying fucked.

27) Uncuffing season: Usually during the spring and summer months when people who were previously in relationships during the winter break up with their girlfriend/boyfriend to be free for the summer and warm months so you can play the field and not be tied down during the best times of your life.

28) glomping: a)  Glomp is a way of hugging someone hard sometimes nearly crushing them. The act of hugging violently/ pouncing on a unsuspecting victim. This turn is often used in anime and manga becuase most people don't actually attack people when giving hugs....most people. b) The act of jumping on someone in an excited and slightly pervy manner. For example if your friend is happy or slightly horny, be aware for nearby flying objects. c) Embracing someone for a long period of time. d)  Running/walking around in such away that it may appear that one is leaping, while making an unnecessarily wild show of doing so. particular down stairwells. there may also be obnoxious sound effects involved. it is a particularly good method for giving the major muscle groups in your legs and buttocks a good workout. watching somebody glomp around will probably look like a combination of that person trying to take the largest steps possible, as well as trying to raise his legs as high up as possible while stepping, and finally trying to slam his feet down with as much force as possible.

29) adam: a) The first Man to ever get laid. b) Adam, someone who is amazing without knowing it, someone who is easy to love, someone who is truely caring. Adam is the type of person who is so forgiving and loving...Someone who is so trustworthy and reliable. You would be lucky to have him in your life, and if you ever lost him, it would break your heart. He is the best friend you could ever have and you can't help to be in love with him. He is one of the most handsome guys you will ever see in your life, no matter what he says. He is someone you can make such happy and amazing memories with, memories you will never forget. He is someone that can leave you speachless with his words.. He is someone you know you aren't good enough for, but you can't help but love him with all of your heart anyways. He has such a big heart..and great soul. He is the kind of person that deserves the best in his life, and deserves to be loved and cherished. c) A loveable sweet guy who will make any girl feel special. He has dark hair and sexy dark brown eyes. He's a good kisser and is a nerd when it comes to video games. He's funny and romantic and stupid but that's why people love him. I'm glad I have an Adam d) At first glance at their facade, they seem to be quite distanced, cold, boring and sometimes 'weird' but under this, there is a person who is willing to help you with every one of his ability, a person who can talk and be talked to, understand your needs and wants as well as being able to describe his own in order to meet a compromise and most importantly, being dependable at times when you need help.

The one I know of currently, has a great smile that would even make you smile at one of your days, a good listening ability, deep and emotive eyes that express more than his face which he constantly hides (besides his smile) and a great sense of humour that many would assume he didnt have.

He's definitely one of the people whom many people would like once they enter an Adams' sphere where they would understand why he is the way he is. e) Adam is a ruggedly handsome man, tall as a tree but soft as a marshmallow. He'll try and trick you into thinking that he's tough and manly but you can see straight through this as much as a glass wall. Great kisser though, with a great sense of humour. Charming and intelligent, Adam is so clever his first name's already got two A's. Be careful, ladies: once you love an Adam, you'll never go back! f) A sketchy anti-social individual with pussy repelling tendencies. An untamed Adams will generally have a very skinny physique followed up with a pair of glasses and a pair of shorts, even when its snowing . A real life case study is featured in the movie Superbad using the alias McLovin. It will stalk its pray until early hours of the morning on social media, until it builds up enough courage to be friend zoned. Caution is advised as this creature has a very short temper and could lead to your penis being groped whilst in a PE session. g) Adam is the everything guy. Adam is smart, funny, a handy man, that looks hot washing the car to crawling under a deck to fix something.
Adam is the guy every lady wants. He makes you laugh when you're having a bad day instantly.
Adam is a strong man that can handle anything that life deals him. His concious approves his conduct and grows brave by reflection.
Wish I had an Adam.


30) Spacedicks: a) 4chan's dirty little demon sibling. Home of everything obscene, awesome, and putrid. Also, fagets. b) Fagets, mutilated genitalia, murder, rape, and the worst of all, Alfonso Ribeiro c) A site crafted by god himself. I personally get off to it about 4 times a day, and that's about average. /r/spacedicks is a subreddit of Reddit, and will turn all flaccid penis's into hard erected bull penis in approximately 1.4 seconds. d) v. To hack someone's Facebook and post a status stating that the person loves to munch on space dick. n. That object to which many Facebook statuses allude when one leaves his/her Facebook open for hacking. f) dicks that get longer due to being in space.

Compare

Obama: "This was all because of the courage and effort of a handful of 15 and 16 year olds who took the responsibility that so often adults have failed to take. Yahoo.

Wow: CNN making no secret of its support of Parkland survivor David Hogg. Twitchy.

South Park creators stun Hollywood crowd: "We're Republicans"

Full story on Brietbart, here.

One time I heard them say, "We hate Republicans." The audience approved. "But we really hate Democrats."

And I thought, what a fine way to sum it up.

I kept tuning in until their full season of Trump displaying every known meme wore too thin and I gave up on South Park. This new development is not so surprising. Most likely another stunt.

They were receiving a "Freedom Award" from Norma Lear's left-wing People for the American Way Foundation. Larry Elder introduced them. After receiving the award they said, "We're Republicans" to nervous laughter. They repeated, "No, seriously, we're Republicans."

Breitbart has Elder's tweet.

Breitbart explains the foundation's website has an opening message calling for people to "Defeat Trum and the Right Wing in 2018" and describes itself as a progressive advocacy organization founded to fight right-wing extremism."

More background at the link.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Easter bunny man

He looked exactly like an express delivery person and he knocks on the door loudly and imperatively  like he means business. "Here." Ping. He's gone.

WTH? I didn't order anything. I'm not expecting anything. Now what mistake must I fix?

It turns out a package from my brother's address. A box put together by his boys and his wife. Under his direction, no doubt.

I can't imagine what they have in store for me by way of Easter basket that's actually a box.

Let's open it.


It says banana boat. I'm thinking it holds bananas. Turns out it's a hat. 

Gardening hat, or what? They must know I'm not going to wear this. It must be a joke. Maybe it's a suggestion. Maybe they want me to look ridiculous. Maybe they're trying to protect me. I don't know.

Hi Yo Silver-san Domo!!!!


Chip's post on Travis AFB and his memories of watching television shows in a foreign language, made me remember something from my past.


Back in the early 1970's, I lived, worked, partied and was going to college in San Francisco.  I was young and had stamina to do all of those things at the same time.    Working at The Phone Company...Ma Bell, I was able to get the one of the later evening shifts for a while  5 to 11 or  6 to 12 were my favorites because:

1. You got paid for 8 hours for a 6 hour shift with a half hour lunch
2. Got a shift differential (more money) .
3. Could still get in a decent nights sleep and get up to go to school at 9am  and take a nap before work started.
OR
4. If I felt like it, it was still early enough to go out and party for a while and stagger around the rest of the day.

Most of the time, I would hang with my roommates after work . Have a late night snack, have some drinks (naturally) and watch television for hours.  Back then there wasn't dish or Netflix so the late night fare was pretty awful.

Our very very favorite was the Lone Ranger on the late night Japanese TV channel.  The show from the 50's was completely overdubbed in Japanese and it was funnier than Hell to watch.  Probably the funny came from drinking and possibly using other (ahem) substances.

Japanese always sounds so guttural, harsh and angry.  The Lone Ranger seemed like he was constantly yelling at everyone, including Tonto.  Tonto also sounded a bit teed off, not that we blamed him since the Lone Ranger was kind of  a dick to Tonto.

The best was when the Lone Ranger would rear up on his horse, Silver, and say/yell .... Hi Yo Silver Away.!!!!  Except, it was in Japanese, so it was Hi Yo Silver-san.....Domo!!!!   Domo is a nice way to say thank you. The "san" added to a name is an honorific for someone to show that you have a lot of respect for them

Hi Yo Silver -san  Domo!!!!.   The Japanese Lone Ranger was so very polite and respectful to his horse!!!  Made us laugh like crazy.


Watching foreign films with the words in subtitles is also an interesting thing to do.  We  are currently watching Babylon Berlin on Netflix  It didn't take long to get into the swing of both watching and reading.  In fact........the show is surprisingly good because you are closely watching the actors faces and mannerisms to get even further clues about how they are feeling instead of just listening.    In addition, I am getting to understand some German phrases.

Highly recommend both.  Babylon Berlin and Japanese Lone Ranger. 

Plus....Netflix has a subtitle option.  Did you know?  I'm using it on all of those Scottish and English shows where they have such thick accents that most of the time we are going...."What the heck did he say?!?!?"  even though they are speaking English it is indecipherable.   Subtitles  YAY!!!



What Not to Wear

I'm watching this show on Amazon Prime. This woman has 9 kids. A few of her kids starred on Everybody Loves Raymond and they suggested her for the show. She was a real mess. And her transformation is stunning. The best part of this show is the reveal to the family and friends who break down to tears when they see the result. Her episode was really good.

Some of the people on this show are outrageous. But look how great Stacy is dressed in this key frame. Sometimes I wonder with her, what's with the Morticia hair streak? In some episodes she's colored it out. Clinton told the woman her breasts look like she's carrying two melons with dental floss. They need to get most all the women fitted properly with the right bra.

Oxalis

Oxalis triangularis.

Look, we're talking Latin already.

Last year at City Floral Greenhouse I asked the woman who looks like a tight young military man where can I find triangularis. She looked at me puzzled. Really puzzled. Another young clerk was standing nearby. I said, "Oxalis."

She immediately goes, "OOOOOOooooh."

I said to the young clerk, "you have to say the magic word."

The masculine woman said, "Yes, you do have to say the magic word."

She turned out to be impressively helpful. She insisted on carrying everything out to the truck and loading it. I said, "you don' have to do this. Besides, I'm parked right in front. That's my truck right there." She said, "That's okay, I want to." She wanted to be with me. Isn't that nice?

They're the purple things.


The little bulbs or rhizomes or corms or whatever they're called, are shaped like bullets. I like to pack them into this rectangular cement pot so they form a tight mass. Apparently they produce new rhizomes in the same growing season but I never managed to save them and replant them. 

This year I bought 60 to stuff into this planter that can hold about 30 with extras put in other planters and 20 to give away to two ladies. The best deal I could find was on eBay. The last time I bought from Amazon some green ones were mixed in with the purple and I didn't like that.

I have the standard Heavenly Blue morning glories covering the railings and crawling up wire trellises for the past few years and I saved a million seeds from last year. And they're cool. But this year I'd like to mix them with white Milky Way ones, another standard variety. 


Tempura



Ha ha ha. His kitchen is a mess.

I made tempura tonight and I didn't do what this guy does.

I mixed 50% flour 50% cornstarch and dusted my shrimp and vegetables so the batter adheres better. Then poured half a beer into the bowl of powders to form a cold thin bubbling batter. Shallow fried. And that's it. 

The only complication was photographing the steps. 

I watched a Japanese cook while he was working doing this same thing of building out the coating by drizzling batter onto the shrimp as they were frying so that the batter splatters in bizarre patterns that extend from the shrimp sort of like legs and antenna. Extra batter all over the place. But I don't want to do that. For me, a thin coating is fine. Thinner than what you might think with, say, fried chicken.




This is fun to do with other people. I did this a lot and the other people always had fun. They got to choose their own things to fry. We had fun experimenting and seeing what happens. We tried everything. All kinds of fish, chicken and pork. We tired every vegetable available with interesting results. Some people favored mushrooms, others favored jalapeño strips, another one's favorite thing turned out to be sweet potato pre-cooked in the microwave for a few minutes. 

This time I used half the beer for the batter and drank the second half. That's the first half a beer that I've had in six months. It's not bad at all. There's one beer left from last summer. I'm going to have to go down and get another 6-pack.

The dipping sauce is excellent.

* 1/2 cup kombu/bonito dashi
* 2 teaspoons mirin
* 1 teaspoon fish sauce
* 1 shallow teaspoon sugar
* 2 teaspoons rice vinegar
* 3 teaspoons soy sauce. 

No toasted sesame seed oil and no sake this time. And no chile flakes this time.





Orange County sheriff makes public the release dates of inmates in response to California sanctuary law.

The Sheriff's Department of Orange County is opposed to the new California sanctuary law that limits cooperation with federal immigration officials so they're going to include the release date of and times of inmates' release to their "Who's in Jail" online database.

That makes it easier for federal agents to nab them. Obviously.

And they're admitting that they're communicating where the law is explicit. So I don't see what's stopping California legislature to press their position and enact another law that forbids this.

I dropped down to comments at the Orange County Register to see if anyone said what I thought but their 1350 + comments go way off the rails.

Designer of deadly waterslide charged along with park owner

The raft that the boy was riding became airborne during the ride and the boy was decapitated by one of the hoops built over the water sluice that holds a net covering. The boy is son of Kansas Republican state Representative Scott Schwab. The family reached a settlement of nearly $20 million with the builders, and various other companies associated with the design. Two women on the same raft were seriously hurt and settled claims of their own.

The indictment said that Schooley admitted, "If we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily, it wouldn't be that spectacular."

More details about this case at Houston Chronicle.

At 17 stories high, the ride is billed as the tallest waterslide in the world.

Let's pretend ride it.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Leopard Lillies Are Up

Astute readers might recall Sixty Grit's post last fall regarding leopard lillies. Well, I bought some seeds and finally got them to germinate. Tough little boogers. The seed package instructions say:
Place seed inside zip-lock bag with small amount moist growing media, refrigerate 7 days. Sow in cell packs or flats, cover with 1/4 inch soil. Darkness aids germination. Kept at 55-65 F, germination is in 21-60 days.
Mine took the full sixty days. I have gotten 2 out of 6 seeds to germinate and I transferred one outdoors:


Baby steps.

Back in July of '16...

...I took my dogs for a walk and noticed that a large portion of a neighbor's red mulberry tree had split off and fallen.

A day or two later I talked to the owner and got permission to saw up that log for things that I make. Yesterday I finished up a natural edge bowl made from that very chunk of wood.


I like the way that one turned out, but that's not what I am here to talk about -- today's subject is driving. I just changed the oil in the vehicle I drive most often - after just under a year I had put 2,983 miles on it. I haven't checked, but I think I only put a couple of hundred miles on my pickup, which means that even with a trip down to the coast last year I was hard pressed to drive even 3,000 miles in 2017. I have no idea what all that means, other than I tend to be a homebody. 


Oh yeah, one more thing - we had snow on Sunday, it barely got above 40 degrees here today, but the forecast is for temperatures in the low 80s by Thursday - what's a body to do?


How soy sauce is made

How it should be made. There's a lot of shortcuts for mass production and like Wonder Bread that version is so pervasive it becomes what we think the real thing is. Then when we taste the real thing our mind and our preference is set to the ersatz version.

I can never seem to forget me making the most excellent bread, tasty, hearty, filling, the real thing, for spaghetti dinner, the whole family assembled, and my sister's whole family preferring what they know so her husband whipped out the standard mass produced foam white-bread on top of the bread that brought. Same deal with soy sauce.



But that video is an American company doing small batches. 

This is Japan ↓. And Japan doesn't use Kentucky whiskey barrels like those guys ↑ do. 

Originally, soy sauce was byproduct of making miso. It is the liquid that formed on the top of vats of miso as it aged. But that original soy sauce, shou, was not called soy sauce or shou, it was called tamari. And you can buy this original tamari from the best authentic miso producer in the U.S., South River miso. They offer tamari on their ordering page. I bought some of that one time. It is very good.



The first video is showing a bottle with blue label and a drawing of a soy plant. That company is named Bluegrass Soy Sauce. Those are larger quart bottles. Guess how much they cost. 

Come on, guess. 

Come on, be a sport. Guess.

Guess, I said!


You see it everywhere in different bottles with different label. Teeny-tiny itty-bitty bottles of 100 ml. That's 3.38 oz, less than half a cup.  From $7.00 -$11.00  a bottle. It's just ridiculous. But reviewers rave about the flavor. Others rave about the flavor also bitch about the cost. They say it's good but not that good. Other reviewers say they prefer the lighter Kikkoman. 

My parents kept a gallon of Kikkoman in the cupboard above their stove. They were soy sauce freaks. But they never went upscale. They didn't care about tradition or aging or differences between types. They wouldn't be able to detect a difference in tastes. They just wanted something salty. A 3.38 oz bottle would be used up in one dinner. 

One night I made fettuccine Alfredo for them and the first thing both of them did was douce their entire plate with Kikkoman soy sauce. All over their parmigiano-Reggiano that is already salty. I go --whap! --that's the last time I ever make that for you. They both look at me like, what's my problem? 

North Korean train arrives in Beijing

We're fortunate to have video of this shocking event. Wow. The imperial palace in the Forbidden City looks a lot like Trump's living room.

I'm seeing an error message. If the video doesn't play here (It did play on another blogger test site) then here's the cued link.



Oops. Wrong video again. You notice that happens a lot in these high tech studios.

Here's the real one. It's just a boring old armored green train with a yellow stripe at an ugly old station with skinny dudes marching and dumb old convoy of armored vehicles. 


WKRLEM. Poor Sinead....she got fooled again


She hangs with shirtless poofters instead of her own kind.

Man was that rough.

Travis AFB

Some guy blew through the front gate of Travis and his vee-hickle exploded. The guy was yelling something about olive snackbar and nobody has any idea what his motive could have been. No shots were fired. How strange.

And the whole time I was reading that I was thinking, oh man, I have a very warm spot in my heart for Travis AFB. How dare any-one do that.

How can you just try to wreck anything so lovely?

I was inside there twice. Both for short periods of time. And I would like to have stayed a lot longer. It was a transfer spot for us. We were there a few days before flying off to Tokyo and there for a about two weeks after returning and it was like heaven to us. So wildly spacious, inviting  and comfortable. It is a very sweet Air Force base. The vibes of the place are modernistic, accommodating, and competent. Simple lines. Simple geometry. It's like a painting. The atmosphere is light, the colors soft green and blue, the air temperature is perfect, the breeze pleasant the smell inviting. The plants are sparsely spaced exotic trees and shrubs. It is spotless. It is effortless.

The place we were put up was larger than needed. A very long low building, one of several identical arranged parallel. The walk to the parking area is long and pleasant. I feel safe in saying we all loved the place.

And this whole time I was imagining the base situated south east of San Francisco, but that's wrong. Fifty years later I realize the base is actually north of Concord and Antioch but very nearby. There is a lake in between them. My brother owned a house in both of those places and I had no idea Travis is so close.

Retirees from the base like to stay close to it. They populate the town of Fairfield immediately west of the base.

It's such a bummer that none of the videos and none of the photographs that I see online match my description.

How can everybody and reality be so wrong?

Why doesn't anything fit?

None of them capture the feeling of that all five of us kids had watching television positively enthralled with Petticoat Junction, Wild Wild West, Green Acres and Mission Impossible all in English!

OMG. Everybody speaks English. We were thrilled.

It's impossible for me to convey how awesome that is.

Skip the first part of this video, the lady is complaining about being tired. I don't care!


We were never tired. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never. It was too fun. Too exciting. Are you kidding me? This is California! This is Travis! This is America.

I recall our place being completely clean. And I mean spotless. No extra anything. A perfect Spartan existence. Transcendental. Pure. Sunlit. I don't even recall a stove or refrigerator or washer and dryer. Just space and simple modern furniture. I'm sure they were there, I just didn't see them.

Airman Stone was one of the guys who foiled a terrorist attack on a French train. This is just one thing that Travis is known for. They do a lot of airlifts. They're famous for that. Travis is Airlift Central.



Back then, airmen wore fatigues but not camouflaged. My dad was always in uniform but rarely fatigues. He was rather imposing. 

Northwest of S.F.

North of and in between Concord and Antioch

It's smaller than I imagined.

I don't know, but one of these looks like the type of building where we were put up.

The Travis welcoming video does not show the outside of the base, only the surrounding area and rooms inside buildings. None of the videos do the base justice.  None of them capture the atmosphere that makes the base so lovely in recollection. None of the photographs show what I recall. None of the colors are right. None of the simple scenery is right. None capture the breezy atmosphere. None convey the attractive vibes of the place. None of them capture how fantastic it feels to an American in America. To me, Travis means America.

The Herdsman's Tale part 2

This is second scrap of The Herdsman's Tale, the herdsman's advice. He's telling them to get the cattle onto boats and get them to another pasture.

In the modern book this is from, Middle Egyptian Literature, James Allen is interested in sorting the grammar. The ancient Egyptian author is speaking like Yoda except worse. He explains the herdsman is addressing his fellow herders as "bulls."

Allan teaches, the "m3c" middle of 10th column [sickle above Egyptian eagle and twisted rope] the word is unattested and may be related to 3ḥt field.

smḥ. n 3 k3w "Our skiff for sailing back, Bulls!" is an adverbial sentence used as a command. An imperative.

The grouping, m ‘ qbw rdi.(w) the signs before the stative may represent either a noun miqbw or the compound preposition m ‘ followed by a noun qbw, neither of the nouns is known elsewhere. "With the cattle put at its stern and the knowledgeable of the herdsmen"  Here, m ‘ governs an unmarked noun clause with subject-stative. (bottom of 3rd to last and top of 2nd to last column) m is the owl, b is the foot. In grammar, stative means verbs that express a state of being.

Finally, at the end the three lines of water is determinative for water meaning it's a water-song sung in the boat. Like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, while rowing a boat. In all other instances a single water zig-zag means "n" or any of a range of prepositions.


All that for just that.

Michelle Obama admits her White House garden was a sham

The Gateway Pundit approaches the story from the angle of BET booting out Washington Post's Robin Givhan for admitting something Michelle Obama told her off the record. BET requires the truth varnished.

Monica Showalter at American Thinker gets straight to the point. She says the lede was buried in the NYPost story. She quotes:
"The garden was a subversive act," she said. "You can't go in with guns blazing until people trust you." 
And there could be no reprimanding.  No finger-wagging.  Because she knew that her finger-wagging, a black woman's finger-wagging, would be both amplified and resented. 
So she gave herself a bit of advice: Put down your finger and pick up the garden hoe.  "What's more innocent than a garden?" Mrs. Obama said.
Good self-advice. Drop the finger wagging. That's what makes the kids imitating Trump's hand motions so hilarious. It's charmingly devoid of typical  classical Democrat finger jabbing or Barack Obama's invisible baton pedantically tapping off points.

Nice little garden lady. Yeah. Garden. That's the ticket.

But even that couldn't  be "look what we've done," it had to be "you must eat this and you must not eat that, and government needs to fix food deserts." The haranguing and demands and intrusion is endless.

All of us observed with tremendous interest. We followed closely. We had to. She intruded into all of our Obama-free zones where we go to escape Obama intrusion. All the talk shows. There they are. On the Food Network! Iron Chef. Bogus switch out vegetables purchased at the grocery and purported to have come from the White House. She can't even tell the truth about vegetables.

We saw the garden plowed over (by Parks) when National Parks were dragged into government shutdown to blame on Republicans. That was the extent of Michelle's commitment to that garden. It was always a political garden and never an example of clean simple living. You didn't have to be a gardener yourself to see a politician as gardener. It was a photo op garden, its gardener in chief with her own staff to do the actual gardening. And plow it over the instant another superseding point needed to be driven. Those nasty Republicans ruined her garden.

Korean trade deal

All of this comes from the Last Refuge, a must-read, in my view for anything Trump-related.

Their perspective is that Trump threatened broad tariffs across the board to equal things out, to stop having America be the whipping boy for global trade to the advantage of everyone else. Absolutely everyone has their hooks in us. This caused a major freakout from the globalists who worked so hard to have this distorted system in place. Then, one-by-one, Trump is re-negotiating trade agreements with nations individually. A major disruption to agreements between nations (sometimes working in concert against the best interests of the U.S.) with Trump at the controls of realignment. The climate agreement, for example. Without the U.S. to gang rape the whole agreement dissolves.

Korea is case in point. Trump agrees to drop tariffs on steel from Korea when Korea allows double its import of American-made vehicles. The trade war was already on. Trump only threatened to actually fight that war and got concessions closer to actual free trade.

Globalists say "free trade" a lot in their arguments, when they mean "highly controlled trade ... by us."  Trump is taking that away from them, and they're mad as hell.

Sundance goes further, and this really is clarifying.
The world is taking notice, and China is now beginning to signal their understanding of President Trump leading the international discussion of reciprocal trade. 
The unspoken background is that all nations, who have acquiesced to the overwhelming demands of China’s trade position, are now beginning to reassess the value of President Trump confronting the equation head-on.  Ultimately it is beginning to sink-in that all nations can benefit from correcting a trade imbalance within their own position.  In essence, U.S. President Trump is moving the entire global trade dynamic.
But don't expect them to credit Trump for that.

More at the link. And even more after that. (closer to the top at the conservative treehouse)

I must say this is a fine education. Better than all those endless graphs and models we studied at CU and Regis. Precious little theories that attempted to explain one tiny portion of a much larger picture. This is global economics acted out right before our eyes, that affects everything. Everything! And watching the responses from the powers that be is remarkable.