Fine Food

As I have stated before, I like to eat. One of my favorite past-times is discovering a great new place to eat with the Brain, and then sharing our discovery with our gaggle of friends. I love to cook, too, and I often try to cook dinner for friends as well. Just last Sunday, for example, I made up a batch of tomato and pea risotto for a small dinner party. Risotto is one of those "foot intensive" dishes - the cook (or some unlucky helper) must stand at the stove, stirring and slowly adding liquid to the rice continuously for about 30 minutes. However, the ingredients are almost always simple. Arborio rice, butter, onion, garlic, broth, and parmesan form the foundation, while the cook's improvisation floats above it. The adjuncts rarely involve more than a handful of additional ingredients -- you could add saffron and wild mushrooms or truffles, or just some lemon zest and lemon juice, or, as I did, some tomatoes and peas.

It's the ingredients, of course, that matter. Take my butter for example. Central Market has recently started carrying Reggiano butter. This is butter made with the same milk, from the same cows, as Parmesan Reggiano. It is absolutely fantastic, with a delicate parmesan aroma and tang. I've been serving it at room temperature, sprinkled with smoked Spanish sea salt and a hunk of bread. And I've been using it in my risottos.

Between the dining and feeding my friends, I derive some of the most intense happiness in my life. There is something so very primally pleasing about ensuring that a person gets not only nourishment of the body, but an experience that nourishes the mind and spirit as well.

Anyway...

Let's talk about the Chinese. I have always maintained - in fact, I've been told by Chinese friends - that the Chinese do not often eat something because it is good, but because it is expensive. I've been to two Chinese weddings, massive affairs of eating these, and this "fact" was borne out. The most awful things served - the things even the Chinese guests only nibbled politely at before turning to tastier stuffs - were, yes, the most expensive.

Of course, Europeans and their descendents spend inordinate amounts of money and time consuming rotted milk. Who am I to judge?

Well...for your enjoyment, I present the following AP wire snippet:

Chinese Eatery Sold Donkey in Tiger Urine

September 08,2005 | SHANGHAI, China -- A restaurant in northeastern China that advertised illegal tiger meat dishes was found instead to be selling donkey flesh -- marinated in tiger urine, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Hufulou restaurant, located beside the Heidaohezi tiger reserve near the city of Hailin, had advertised stir-fried tiger meat with chilies for $98 as well as liquor flavored with tiger bone for $74 a bottle, the China Daily reported.

Isn't that delightful?

Ride: The Jacksboro Loop

On Saturday, I did a solo ride from Dallas to Fort Worth to Jacksboro. This was one of those "I'm bored" rides. I had originally only intended to go over to Lake Worth to discover if Vance Godbey's still existed (it does). Then I found myself on Jacksboro highway and I just sort of decided to see where it went. Well, Jacksboro, d'uh.

Here's the first leg (Dallas-Love Field to Downtown Ft. Worth). This is pretty boring flat-top.

At downtown Ft. Worth, at the Courthouse, I turned up Jacksboro Highway to find Vance Godbey's.

Once I found Vance Godbey's, I just sort of kept going, all the way to Jacksboro, where I stopped at Herd's Burgers (see this and this). Nummy!

After stopping at Herd's Burgers for a burger and a coke, I headed back to Dallas via Bridgeport and then Bridgeport to 114 back to Love Field.

All in all, a pretty nice ride. About 200 miles, just shy. The area around Jacksboro is lovely, I'll have to take ECG and TLB out there, maybe next week? And a trip to Vance Godbey's is certainly in order...

Hog? No, Rat!

I got rid of the Harley this weekend, happily trading it for a Triumph Rocket III. I am quite content with the switch. To quote what I said to ECG Saturday, I didn't realize how bad off I was until I rode the Rocket.

You can compare the two bikes here at PowerSports Network.

I had always intended to get a Rocket, but my timetable was accelerated by events last week. The Lord Bastard, who owned a first-model-year V-Rod, had decided to trade his bike in for a BMW K1200LT, a bike that both he and the missus could ride comfortably together. I'd like to point out that up to this point in his life, the thoughts Triumph and Rocket had never crossed his mind. However, after his visit to the BMW dealer on Thursday, which also happens to be our local Triumph dealer, he sends me an email on the order of:

Blu! I went to look at the BLW K1200LT today and I saw this amazing bike, the Triumph Rocket III. I am going to get me one!

My response was, having basically controlled my desire for almost a year with regard to the Rocket was, and I quote:

If you get a Rocket before me, I will kill you.

Not that I ever thought I would be playing keeping up with the Joneses with anybody. But, it became a matter of honor to me. TLB only had 700 miles on his three-year-old V-Rod and was now about to poach the bike I had been coveting, but denying myself, for months while I "did my ass time" on a Harley.

So on Friday, I took the Harley down to the dealer and made a deal for the graphite Rocket they had in stock. Then I made plans with TLB to show up on Saturday and look at the bikes with him, as he contemplated his purchase. I made no mention that I had, already, closed the deal on my own Rocket.

On Saturday, at the appointed hour, I rode into the dealership on my new Rocket. As it so happens, the Lord and Lady Bastard were standing in the parking lot, having just finished their own test ride of the beemer. The Lady Bastard saw me coming. The conversation was reported to me as follows:

Lady: Here comes somebody on a Rocket.

Lord (glancing up): Yup, that's a Rocket.

(pause)

Lady: That sort of looks like Blu on that Rocket.

Lord: Nonsense. Blu has a Harley.

(pause)

Lady: I think that's Blu on that Rocket.

Lord (paying attention now): Yeah, looks like it. I guess he test-rode it.

(TLB waves at Blu as Blu pulls up)

Lord: So, what do you think?

Blu: I like it. In fact, I think I'll keep it.

(Blu puts keys to Rocket in his pocket and smiles. The truth dawns on TLB.)

Lord: Why you gaddam-son-of-a-bitch!

(TLB proceeds to punch Blu, lovingly of course.)

Of course, the above scene, so carefully planned and explained to even the staff at the dealership, paled in comparison to what transpired when ECG showed up at the dealership, fully expecting TLB to have a new Rocket, but not expecting your humble narrator to also have one.

I believe, had I a video camera, I would have had documentary proof of what exactly a conniption is. This video, had I been able to make it, would have replaced all previous definitions, printed or otherwise, and then been enshrined in the Library of Congress for posterity. All future references to the word would have simply read:

Conniption, see El Cigarro Grande Learns the Truth, Saturday, July 30th, 2005, 3:03 PM, Library of Congress, Video by Blubrik

I work with boobs every day

"Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is defending his cameo appearance in 'Wedding Crashers,' the sexy comedy the Drudge Report called a 'boob raunch fest.'

'In Washington, I work with boobs every day,' joked McCain during an appearance on NBC's 'Tonight Show with Jay Leno.'

McCain was responding to Leno, who noted Matt Drudge ran a headline last week screaming that the Republican was starring in a 'boob raunch fest."

-- WorldNetDaily: McCain on sexy film: 'I work with boobs every day'

Now the sycophantic, blow-hard gadflies like those at the Drudge Report are projecting their morals onto what films a Republican senator, veteran and prisoner of war should and shouldn't appear in? The man spent seven years in the Hanoi Hilton. He's earned all the boobs he can get.

I'd not lift a finger to save a single Republican currently in office except John McCain.

Big Mother

"The irony is that, although news reports paint a bleak picture, independent statistics show that life has become less dangerous for kids in recent years -- with violent crime in particular dropping by 38 percent since 1975. The short spin cycle of cable TV may anoint a new child victim every week, but the actual numbers are far less grim: of the 800,000 kids that go missing each year in America, only 150 cases involve what the Justice Department calls 'stereotypical kidnappings,' in which a child is taken by a stranger and either held for ransom, abused or killed. Scores more 'missing children' are teenage runaways or 'throwaways,' abandoned by their parents. 'Truly, the real news story of the last 10 years has been the astonishing decline in crime,' says Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, a New York City child psychologist. 'But we are assaulted by a media that is more interested in scaring people, so it is almost impossible for parents to assess the real level of risk. And of course, there is no shortage of people willing to sell products based on those fears.'"

-- Salon.com Life | Big Mother is watching

It has been my contention for years, without any proof other than simple reason, that crimes against children have not grown in past years. There are not necessarily more murderers and pedophiles stalking our children than there were, oh, 25 years ago. What we do have more of, however, is the 24-hour cable news cycle, which didn't exist before. With nothing to report, CNN and its ilk will report whatever tragedy last occured, no matter how long ago, to fill airtime. Look at Fox News and its dubious fixation on the disappearance of this teenager in Aruba, what, eight weeks ago now? While tragic, it's not news anymore, and yet Fox is still dedicating plenty of airtime of talking, smirking heads to it.

Parents can lower their anxiety not by monitoring their children more, but by controlling their own consumption of the 24/7 news cycle. If you really want peace of mind, turn the TV off, or at least off of Fox and CNN.

Crappy Happy Face

I've begun a new obsessive-compulsive behavior at work. As I walk around people's cubes and offices, if they have a white board with any space on it, I draw a crappy happy face.



I have no idea why I feel like doing it (utter boredom?) or what it means. But, there's definitely something going on inside.

Loving Weird and Weirder

It scares me that I actually live near people like this.

In Fort Worth, Texas, an intoxicated woman involved in a collision got out of her car to investigate and was killed when a beer truck accidentally rammed one of the cars into her (and the truck driver, too, was found to be intoxicated) (January).

-- NEWS of the WEIRD - Current News

Still, gotta love NotW.

I'm still on my Scientology kick. Today, while waiting for my computer to finish some work, I decided to read Wikipedia's entry on L. Ron Hubbard. Fascinating. I was particularily impressed with his ignoble career in the navy during World War II. Still, he pulled down, according to Forbes, $40 million a year; not bad for a hack with a navy fetish.

Contegrity

Chuck the Eater is a member, or at least participant, in Contegrity. He sends me little daily quotes like this one...

I think that some major human relational alterations are going to be due before too long. There is a need for fundamental, strategic alterations in our relationships from I'll get mine to We all need to get ours. And if that alteration doesn't happen, things will get worse and worse until it does.

If we're going to have a base for resolving pollution, disease, war, poverty, crime, and so on, we need to give up the base for exploitation, cheating, dominating, protection, and avoidance. Otherwise, we cannot resolve these issues.

Ken Anbender from Belonging To Life
(Special Program, January 2002)

...every now and then. My respect for Chuck is pretty high, so there must be something to these guys. Check it out: Contegrity.

Of course, my fear is that Contegrity is a Scientologist front organzation for recruiting Xenu worshippers...but that's just crazy-thought...

Wonkamaniac

An op-ed just appeared on Salon.com which I really empathize with. You can read the full text at Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Me & the chocolate factory.

I am in almost complete agreement. Although I don't have a candy fetish like the author, I did wish, when I was 10, that I was Charlie Bucket. I felt like Charlie Bucket, after all. I saw in him what I wanted to see in myself, and how I wanted to be. When my classmates were into the Wizard of Oz, I was into Wonka and Oompah-Loompahs. And the movie has remained fresh and true for me ever since.

Just a week ago, over the July 4th weekend, I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for the upteenth time with some friends in a beachhouse filled with adults and children. I still felt my chest tighten with hope when Grandpa Joe uses his tobacco money to buy Charlie a Wonkabar, then deflate with terrible sadness when they don't find a golden ticket and Charlie resigns with "The ticket probably makes the chocolate taste funny, anyway." I still smiled when "crippled" Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) stumbles and then gracefully tumbles when he first appears. I still chuckled everytime Wonka confuses a parent with his twisted logic or warns one of the awful children that their choices are about to cause their doom (his quiet, bored pleading with Veruca, "Please...Don't...Stop...", which can be read two distinctly different ways, as she throws a tantrum and falls to her demise, causes me to burst out laughing). And I still fought back sobs when Charlie gives back the Everlasting Gobstopper saying nothing but "Mr. Wonka...?" and laying the candy on the table next to him.

Charlie Bucket is my model on how a person should act, with fecund decency and deep kindness, even when faced with his own mistakes and errors. My fantasies are fulfilled, just like Charlie's, when he wins what he most wanted in the world.

Sniff.

Bad Review

Sometimes, you find gems in some of the most amazing places. Take this well-written diatribe from an Audible subscriber regarding L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield: Earth bloat-a-thon:

Believe it or not, John Travolta's career-wrecking bomb of a movie is actually better than this book. What makes the movie better is that they cut out most of the dumber plot elements (90% of the book's 1000 pages). I kept reading this book thinking that there must be something in it worth reading, because it has sold millions of copies. Turns out there isn't. Most of the story is just plain stupid. It insults the intelligence of anyone who reads it. It is honestly very difficult to explain just how terrible this book is to anyone who hasn't read it. There are just too many long rambling chapters that expect you to accept ludicrous and poorly written events and characters. For example: bad guys who are made up of colonies of intelligent bacteria, who are lead by a royal caste of former circus performers and who explode in the presence of radiation. After their defeat we are introduced to a shark-headed banker alien who likes to chew mint, which he picks from an old lady's garden in England somewhere. Anyways, you're expected to believe a primitive human from Colorado acquires all the knowledge of the bacteria-people (with their help no less), teams up with a group of Scotsmen and leads a massive and very boring rebellion against a race that has conquered dozens of galaxies. Then the humans of course win and acquire the bacteria-people's assets and become really really wealthy. Wondering why this wasn't in the movie? Because it's stupid that's why, but it really is the plot. Don't believe me? Really bored? Try reading this and be thankful it's the abridged version, the full one is worse.

-- "Aaron", Reviewing Battlefield: Earth

I've never read B:E, nor will I ever. I did go see the movie, dragging friends along for what I knew was going to be a really awful experience. But then, I actually like bad movies -- it's so bad it's good kind of movies. While some of my friends merely groaned and squirmed, wishing for the pain to end, I laughed mirthfully at the ridiculous plot, characters, costumes, events, and special effects. It was awful. It was wonderful.





Speaking of Mr. Hubbard, Salon has been running some interesting articles on him, Tom Cruise, and Scientology:

Stranger than fiction -- A Review of Dianetics

Missionary Man -- Tom Cruise and Scientology

The Press vs. Scientology -- A look at the relationship between CoS and the Press

Scientology's War on Psychiatry -- self-explanatory

More Cool This American Life - Godless America

A fascinating episode discussing whether or not this country is founded on an idealogy of the seperation of church and state.

Most fascinating is the discussion of the history of Christian activists' attempts, for over a hundred-fifty years, to amend the Constitution to include various "Christian" amendments (five times since the Civil War such an amendment has come up to Congress, and five times these failed, voted down by Congress).

And Julia Sweeney's monologue at the end, about her attempts to explore her spirituality by attending church and reading the Bible, pretty much sums up my feelings entirely. And it's really funny, too.

This American Life - Godless America

Just Cool - The Sanctity of Marriage

I subscribe to This American Life podloads from Audible. Last night, as I couldn't sleep for coughing and choking on snot, I decided to catch up on my backlog in my iPod. As the hours crept into the early morning, I listened to the Sanctity of Marriage episode. It was absolutely fascinating. If you have any interest in marriage (I think anyone human does), go take a listen.

You'll need RealAudio (or get an Audible subscription) and an hour of earspace.

And, while you're there, listen to anything else. This is one of the best programs in American media today. My absolute all-time favorite is Fiasco!, which I think I've mentioned before.

Big Bird Saved -- But...

Big Bird and National Public Radio won a reprieve Thursday as the House restored $100 million that had been proposed as a budget cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The 284-140 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting, whose supporters rallied behind popular programs such as 'Sesame Street,' 'Postcards From Buster' and 'The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.'

The Public Broadcasting Service undertook a high-profile campaign to rescind the proposed cut. Lawmakers were flooded with letters and phone calls.

The vote came as the House worked on a $142.5 billion spending bill for health, education and labor programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

-- Salon.com News | House won't cut public broadcasting funds

Woot, but at the same time, the CPB is still under attack by right-wing apparatchiks:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose chairman is under fire for complaining about what he considered liberal bias at PBS, chose a former Republican Party co-chairman Thursday as its president and chief executive.

Patricia S. Harrison, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, was selected after three days of closed meetings by the corporation's board of directors. She was co-chair of the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2001.

-- Salon.com News | Public broadcasting names new president

So we still have to remain wary and protective of one of the few remaning truly unbiased sources of public news and information left in this country.

Broken Beak

I was recovering from a losing bout of the flu. I'd been cooped up in the house, alone with an ancient diabetic cat in more dire straights than myself and a crippled dog, limping from an old injury she sustained to her leg as a puppy. Enough of this, I thought to myself, I'm bored and hungry. I showered, dressed shabbily in a bright blue hawaiian shirt, and, already woozy from the effort, shambled out of the house and made my slow way to the nearest cafe for a late, light lunch al fresco. The sunshine and modest exercise would do me good, as would a helping of food of reasonably decent quality. I'm no doctor, but I do know there's nothing healthy about sitting in a dreary house all alone with nothing eat, even if you are still tinging at the corners with influenza.

The cafe was nothing special, although it had an excellent patio shaded by an enormous wisteria trained to a lattice above head. I turned in my order for some pasta and salad, then went outside with a glass of tea and a few breadsticks to find a table in the warm shade. The breadsticks I took for the local grackle and sparrow population.

After seating myself, I began breaking the breadsticks into tiny morsels. A young grackle, canny to what was going on, hopped up on the edge of my table directly across from me, eyeing me with his left, then his right eye expectantly. I carefully tossed a crumb at his feet, which he snatched up immediately and swallowed, looking back at me, asking for more. I obliged him with a larger piece that he had to fly away with to break into smaller pieces. I tossed some handfuls of crumbs to the ground, and the other birds came flocking out of their hiding places in the shrubbery, chittering and chirping excitedly at the prospect of a meal.

My pasta and salad arrived, and the young grackle came back to the table. He perched on the edge and watched me just out of arms reach. I ate the salad, but left four small cherry tomatoes, which I don't care for much anyway. I popped these open with my knife, then slid the bowl over to the bird. He danced back, then moved forward to the bowl as my hand withdrew. He inspected the tomatoes carefully with both eyes, then prodded them. Grabbing one of the pieces, he cackled with what I could only assume was complete delight and flew away. I turned my attention to my pasta, glancing up to watch the other birds still nervously attacking the numerous crumbs on the ground. Every minute or so, the young grackle would return -- I could recognize his scrawny body and green-black head now -- to steal another piece of tomato, cackle merrily, and fly away. I paid him no more attention.

My prescription for curing the flu wasn't that efficacious, although it did feel good to get outside in the warm air and sun. I walked home, feeling both better (warmer) and worse (more tired) than before. I put myself to sleep early, hoping that upon waking the next day I'd find myself rid of the obnoxious virus once and for all. Sadly, I woke the next morning more stuffed than before and looked forward to another dull day locked away in my house sick and alone once more.

As the late afternoon approached and the pangs of hunger with it, I again decided to stroll down to the cafe and get some more sun on the patio beneath the wisteria. I showered, dressed in the same loud blue shirt since I had hardly worn it at all the day before, and once again dizzily walked down to my little cafe. Too sick or lazy to change, I repeated my order for a simple bowl of pasta and a salad, grabbed a glass of tea and a few breadsticks, and settled myself outside in the warm shade of that lovely wisteria vine.

My food came quickly, really before I'd had a chance to begin feeding the birds. No sooner had my plates arrived, than that certain young grackle landed on my table. His beak was wide open, as if he was panting. Fearlessly, he stepped right up to the edge of my salad bowl and looked in. I greeted the young bird politely with a tip of my tea glass, welcoming him to lunch once again but firmly demanding that he refrain from poking at my salad until I had finished with it. I moved the bowl away from him, yet he did not dance away in avian wariness as expected. He simply stood there, open-beaked and silent, looking at me.

I looked back, and wondered about his wide-open beak. I examined him closely. I could have reached out and scooped him up in my hand as easily as I could grab my glass of tea, he was so close. I frowned, drawn in by sadness, when I realized his beak was open because the lower half was snapped and broken, dangling down from the bird's face at a slight angle. Blood crusted the base of the beak where it had become detached from his skull. He couldn't move it, broken as it was. I supposed he'd flown into plate glass window and broken it.

The bird moved closer to me. I reached into the salad bowl and offered him a morsel of lettuce. He nudged it with his broken beak, but having lost the ability to pinch anything between the two halves, tossed his head right and left in pain and frustration. I removed the cherry tomatoes from the salad and smashed them open with my fingers, setting the exploded orbs at the bird's feet. The grackle poked at them, wiggling his exposed tongue in the juices, but he couldn't lift anything up to swallow.

I grimaced and tried to ignore his struggling while I ate my pasta. I glanced up at him once or twice, considering what I could or should do. I could easily grab the bird, as he stood less than a foot away from me on the table and showed no fear of my hand when I offered him food. I imagined that if I did grab him, he'd panic and injure the beak further, perhaps ripping it off entirely. And if I did manage to grab him safely, I wondered if I could repair the beak at all. I'd saved small birds -- blue jays specifically -- before, long ago as a child. I had nursed them back to health with eyedroppers of milk, cornmeal, and powdered multi-vitamins. So, though I could certainly feed the young grackle with an eyedropper of mush, I couldn't imagine how I could reattach the dangling bloody beak.

The grackle serenely closed his eyes while I ate in contemplation. He must have realized he couldn't eat the food I offered him. Perhaps he was reflecting on his dire situation for the first time. So I marveled at him, skinny, green-black, and dangling beak. I wondered what he was trying to communicate, if anything at all. He had no fear of me. He stood there, next to my plate making no move to steal food, with an air of patient calm. He recognized my bright blue hawaiian print, I decided. I looked like some brilliant blue grackle god to him. I posed no threat to him, perhaps even could offer him succor. After all, I'd fed him the day before. He was so calm standing next to my plate, eyes closed, so resigned, so sad.

I reached out towards the bird. He opened his eyes, a little nervous as my hand approached, then he shuddered and closed his eyes again. He stood stock still while I closed my hand across his back and looped my fingers around his neck and under, ever so carefully, his broken beak. His tail feathers spread in anticipation. I held my hand and fingers loosely about his warm, soft, fragile body. He squinted one eye, glancing at me again, then closed it. His tail feathers relaxed like a sigh. I gave him a name then, whispering low so only he would hear it -- Sebastian.

I answered Sebastian's silent prayer with the smallest amount of pressure and an unflinching moment of humanity.

No Brainer

In the first study to map brain function during orgasm, scientists from the Netherlands also found that as a woman climaxes, an area of the brain governing emotional control is largely deactivated.

'The fact that there is no deactivation in faked orgasms means a basic part of a real orgasm is letting go. Women can imitate orgasm quite well, as we know, but there is nothing really happening in the brain,' said neuroscientist Gert Holstege, presenting his findings Monday to the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

In the study, Holstege and his colleagues at Groningen University recruited 11 men, 13 women and their partners.

Holstege said he had trouble getting reliable results from the study on men because the scanner needs activities lasting at least two minutes and the men's climaxes didn't last that long. However, the scans did show activation of reward centers in the brain for men, but not for women.

-- Salon.com Life | Brain areas shut off during female orgasm

A Helpful Hint

Salon.com News | Goss claims he has idea where Bin Laden is: "Asked whether that meant he knew where bin Laden is, [director of the CIA] Porter Goss responded: 'I have an excellent idea where he is. What's the next question?'"

Destroying PBS

"The Bush administration is introducing a political agenda to public broadcasting. They are using the lame pretext that PBS is somehow liberal to justify it into a propaganda organ for the government. That is precisely what the board of CPB was set up to prevent 40 years ago; it is there to be a firewall between public broadcasting and political pressure. Ken Tomlinson is a disgrace to the purpose of that board, he has a political agenda and is engaging in a raw display of ideological bullying. The right-wingers in the House of Representatives are backing his power play with a threat to cut off funding for PBS entirely."

-- Molly Ivins, Destroying PBS (AlterNet)

Help save PBS from the Radicals in Washington. There is nothing biased about PBS. This is just one more grope for absolute power by the Right.

Write your congressperson and tell them you support PBS as it is.

Anecdote #2531-B

Today at lunch, the Brain demanded that he get a new phone. He is traveling to Las Vegas next week and, having lost his phone on his last business trip, needed a new one. Chuck the Eater was driving, since my truck was in the shop getting a tow-hitch installed.

Trying to be practical and responsible (to work), I suggested that we eat near the Cingular Wireless store to save time. This left us with pitiful and pitiable choices for lunch.

We narrowed our poor choices down to the Corporate Burito Palace (aka Chipotle) and the Dreary Salad Bar (aka Souper Salad). We deferred the choice to the Brain, who despises both. He selected the Dreary Salad Bar.

Lunch was predictably dull, consisting of lettuce. Sigh. We chowed down quickly and almost silently, all three of us not really enjoying the food and in no mood to talk about it.

After eating, we skipped next door to the Cingular store to get the Brain a brand-new Motorola Razr. As we entered the store, a handsome young man behind the counter called out to us, "Welcome to Cingular über Alles!"

I was a bit shocked, not expecting to run into any national socialists in my daily grind, but I let it pass. The Brain and I began chatting with one of the drones, when another customer walked in the door and the cheery young man called out again, "Welcome to Cingular über Alles!"

This must stop!

"Excuse me," I said, addressing the young man. "What did you just say?"

He looked a bit surprised, but he answered, "Um...welcome to Cingular Wireless?"

Chuck looked at me similarly confused (Why are you accosting this harmless young man, Blu?), but had a good laugh -- being german-light himself -- when I told him what I thought the fellow had said. The young man, of course, didn't understand at all.

If you are more like the young man than Chuck, you may edumacate yourself here.

Swallow Hard

I had posted a scathing indictment of the Christian Right's obscene use of Terri Schiavo (and the lies they told about her condition in order to further their agenda). I removed the post after I read it in a calmer state and I realized that I had fallen into the same trap -- using a suffering woman's condition and death to score political points. Needless to say, however, I was completely disgusted by the Right during the whole affair and by the schoolyard-bully-excuses Right idealogues are scrambling to now that the autopsy report is available. I strongly urge anyone who paid even passing attention to this circus to read the entire report. Now on to something lighter...

Yesterday afternoon, the unthinkable happened: my linux workstation locked up. Not only did it lock up, but my graphics card came crashing down in ruins. I must admit that I should take some blame for this myself, as I had tried to patch the kernel to install graphics drivers for my nVidia card a day earlier, and something tells me the two were related. As having a working workstation at work (how poetic!) is extremely important, I knew that I needed to replace my video card toot-sweet, as Truly Scrumptious would say.

Fry's, the huge (and rather crappy) electronics super-store is about 1 minute away from my workplace. So, I grabbed Chuck the Eater by the collar and told him were going to Fry's for a meeting, a video card, and a cup of joe -- all, frankly, quite true.

Once at Fry's we found the video card section and I started combing for something appropriate for a linux box. I selected an ATI Radeon 9200 for $79. It even had "linux" as a supported operating system listed on the box. Box in hand, we went to the coffee shop in the center of the store to have our meeting and get some coffee. There were two employees there -- an older woman in a green smock behind the counter and a younger woman near the cash register in the middle of the shop. Neither of them were within 10 feet of the gigantic "Order Here" sign with an arrow pointing at an empty counter. Minion-like, I stood were I was silently commanded to and waited for one of them to take my order.

The girl at the cash register blinked and smiled doe-like at me. The woman behind the counter fiddled with the espresso machine. After a minute or so, the older woman croaked at me, "She [the younger woman] can take your order."

I nodded and approached the younger woman at the cash register.

"I'd like an espresso and a poppyseed muffin, please."

She blinked. "A poppy...seed...um...muffin...ok..." Fumbling, she rang up a muffin. "What else did you want?"

"And an espresso."

"Um, ok." The young girl looked at her cash register, then back at me. She picked up a laminated piece of paper covered with barcodes, flips it over once or twice, scanning for espresso, I presumed.

"What did you want again?" she asked, putting the sheet down.

"I'd like an espresso and a poppyseed muffin." I repeated.

Pain crossed the pretty doe-eyed girl's face. A slightly older man, also a Fry's employee, came over and started chatting with her going to see Batman Begins. She turned away from me to acknowledge him. After a few moments of chit-chat, she seemed to remember that I was a customer and turned back to me.

"I'm sorry, what did you want?"

"An espresso and a poppyseed muffin, please." I repeated. Again.

The pained look returned. She glanced at the beau. He shrugged and looked at me, trying to force a polite smile.

Finally, she said, "What's that?"

Had my eyes had legs they would have jumped from their orbits. I was standing in a coffee shop. Behind me, a woman was cleaning an espresso machine. Above her, a gigantic, clearly legible menu began with the word espresso, just above cappucino and latte.

"It's an espresso." I said tersely, reveling in the tautology.

The young doe-eyed girl called across the shop to the older woman. "Can you help me, please" The older woman sighed heavily, as she must now stop adjusting the espresso machine and come help this girl who I surmized was the village idiot of Fry's Electronics. The woman stomped over, a flabby cigarette dangling from her lips even though she had no cigarette dangling from her lips.

"Yeah? What?" she growled at me.

"I'd like an espresso and a poppyseed muffin." I repeated. Again.

The older woman pressed a button and the register rang up an espresso. She marched back behind the counter and began to pull one while I paid the girl. I turned, walked over the counter, and the older woman presented me with a large styrofoam cup containing a thimble of hot black sludge.

"Anything else?" she croaked.

"And a poppyseed muffin."

"You want that heated?"

"Please."

She plodded over to the muffin case, selected a muffin, flung it into the microwave for a few seconds, and then gave it to me. Muffin and espresso in hand, I sat down with Chuck to try to enjoy them.

I lifted the cup to my lips and took a sip. My face contorted in pain.

"Too hot?" inquired Chuck kindly.

"No! It's awful!" I sputtered. "That's the worse espresso I've ever had in my life. It's like she just scraped up some tar off the blacktop outside and mixed in some stagnant water." I hand ed the cup to Chuck. "Here. Try it."

That -- offering some foodstuff just stated as terrible to a dining companion -- is an interesting phenomenon. It is obviously instinctual. It must be something like Great Thundering Monkey God! This thing I have just tasted is really bad! It must be poisonous. Yet, I have survived and can help my tribe with this hard-won knowledge. Here, member of my tribe, taste it, too, so that you will know it is bad and not eat of it again, if you do not die tasting it.

Chuck, having evolved slightly further than myself, sniffed it and refused. I took a few more sips to confirm that this was indeed the worst espresso on the planet, then turned my attention to sharing the muffin and talking shop with Chuck. We solved the problem (a work-related problem involving how to script around bad software), left the shop, paid for the video card, and returned to work.

The espresso hung around though, having tarred my tastebuds thoroughly, and hours later at dinner it required the better part of a liter of San Pelligrino to finally wash it away.

More Fun at Fry's can by found at the following sites:

• Fry's Tales of Horror
  
• Your Worst Buys are at Fry's
  
  

Dreamy Banality

I actually drafted this some weeks ago. It's been sitting in my box, thought I might as well post it.

In the middle of the night, I shot awake from a nightmare. It was one of those falling down the tunnel Vertigo moments, and I'm glad I escaped it. As I lay there listening to the pre-dawn birds chirp and the stream below my window gurgle, I reflected on what had just scared me so much.

It would be almost impossible to describe the dream in cogent detail, but here is the executive summary:

The Brain had become a Republican.

Was the dream itself scary? No. Nothing awful happened. No monsters appeared. I was not chased down and eaten. In fact, everyone in the dream, which consisted primarily of documentary footage of a Republican senate campaign in Wisconsin, seemed nice and polite.

Apparently, my dream-self was some kind of reporter, or perhaps the forementioned documentary's maker. I followed the candidate, your typical grey-suit-slick-hair politico with a huge grin, through his daily paces on the campaign trail. At campaign headquarters, while the candidate and his campaign workers (all white, all over thirty) shared mint tea and sugar cookies, I would try to ask a few questions to nail them down on their positions and opinions -- Are you a fiscal or social conservative? Are you a federalist? Are you a neo-conservative? -- only to be offered empty platitudes -- Why, son, I'm a man who loves America! Don't you? -- or tea and cookies.

The Brain was mixed in with the campaign workers, laughing and chatting with them. Every now and then, he would come over and offer me the mint tea and cookies with the utmost sincerity. I'd refuse them -- I just didn't want them. The third time I refused them though, he frowned and asked me "Why don't you love America?"

I woke up in a cold sweat, panting "Oh, god! Oh, god!", so relieved I was that it was only a dream.

With nothing much happening in the dream to warrant being a nightmare, I wondered why it had shaken me so. Then it occured to me that my subconscious was attempting to show me, in exacting detail, the banality of evil.

This State is Straights-Only

Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a resolution last week to amend the Texas constitution by banning same-sex marriage. As the amendment must be approved by voters in November, the resolution was only ceremonial, but it represents Governor Perry's disregard for the rights and needs of GLBT Texans.

Upon signing the bill, he responded to a question about how he would tell gay and lesbian war veterans returning home from Iraq that they could not marry. He responded that "Texans made a decision about marriage and if there's a state that has more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that's a better place for them to live."

If you are gay and live in Texas, pretty soon you'll have to drink from the gays-only water fountain, it seems.

Now, I don't really care about gay marriage that much -- hardly at all, I think it's a non-starter -- but I do care about blatant discrimination and laws intended to make one targeted segment of the population so inequal and so uncomfortable that sum effect (and, in fact, stated intention) is to ride them out of town on a rail.

I take cold comfort in knowing that I didn't vote for these backward-thinking Taliban. But it pains me daily when I consider that people I work with, know, and love voted for them simply because they were Republicans.

Chuck's Immoral Breakfast

I lean back and look out the window. Chuck the Eater apologizes, as he always does, for the ancient sour milk smell of his car. He's calling it that fairgrounds smell now. But we both know the truth. It's the smell of children puking up and spilling milk in the backseat. It's the smell of parents who've gotten used to the smell of puked up milk in the backseat.

"We had a great breakfast Sunday." I open. "Went to Breadwinners. The Observer kept saying it was a great place for breakfast and brunch for so many years, so we just decided to go."

"How was it?" Chuck asks.

"Good. Pretty good. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich. The Brain got a French Eggs Benedict. That's Eggs Benedict served on croissant with Medrange, rather than English muffin with Canadian bacon. It was huge. He only ate half of it, because he wanted chocolate cream pie for desert. And he brought home cookies. So, I guess he liked it."

"I guess so."

"It's much better than Cafe Brazil. An order of magnitude better. Same kind of stuff - eggs, skillet potatos - but better. Nicer. The Brain was surprised at how nice it was."

"What did you have, again?" Chuck wants to know.

"Chicken salad sandwich. I was thinking hard about getting biscuits and gravy. But, if I ordered them, I'd feel like I had a rock in my stomach the rest of the day. I love biscuits and gravy, but...you know...chicken salad for the win." I sigh, wagging a finger in the air. I hadn't realized how much I regreted passing over the biscuits and gravy.

"I'll have to go there for Father's Day."

"It'll be crowded. You'll need a reservation."

Chuck thinks about this for a second.

"Have you ever eaten at Ham and Eggs?" he asks.

"Nope."

"Well, it's like the opposite end of the spectrum. We went there breakfast Saturday before last. The owner is from New York. Everyone calls her Jackie-O. She's disabled. She rides scooter through the restaurant and has a parking space reserved out front that says For Jackie-O Only."

Where is he going with this?

Finally, Chuck zeroes in on the target. "I had biscuits and gravy."

I wince. "Wow. Great." Bastard can eat whatever he wants. "Were they good?" Duh!

"Well," he smiles, "the biscuit was the size of a loaf a bread and they served my gravy in a gravy boat. The portion sizes are immoral."

I sputter a laugh. "Immoral?! Can I have that?"

"Sure." he says, pleased with himself on all fronts.

The Starbelly Mystery

And you thought the Onion was joking when it headlined Starbucks to Begin Sinister 'Phase Two' of Operation...

Recently in Dallas, a new chain of sandwich shops, Potbelly, began to open. The first store was obviously too slick and too corporate to be anything but a chain. The second merely confirmed my suspiscion that we were under assault by yet-another-corporation.

Not that I dislike Potbelly. In fact, the one I eat lunch at (about once every two weeks) is just fine. The sandwiches are good and the people in the store seem genuinely, if unctuously, friendly. The chili is good, though somewhat over-beany and sweet to actually be called chili in Texas (see below). One should avoid the vegetable soup, which is gruelly, sweet, and devoid of vegetables.

Being generally suspiscious of corporate food marketing, I had wondered who was bank-rolling Potbelly. Obviously, there are some deep pockets here. McDonalds? Could be, after all, they steam-rolled Chipotle into affluent neighborhoods recently.

So, I looked at the Potbelly website. Very cute. Just a small-time sandwich shop making it big. But the aw-shucks small-time background seems a little contrived.

Hmmm...going national with sandwiches...hmmm...

Then, I ran across an interesting building at the corner of I-75 and Campbell in Richardson (North Dallas). The half-finished building looked familiar, but different, something like a mutant fetus. My first instinct was it's another Potbelly. My second instinct was no, it's something else, something familiar...

Then I recognized that certain architectural cue...it was a Starbucks. And it was a Potbelly. Together.

A Starbelly.

Phase Two has begun.

And now...Chili, Chili, Chili...

For reference, here is the recipe for chili. Note: Beans are served as an optional accompaniment on the side.

Serves 6

• 3 tablespoons ancho chili powder or 3 medium pods (about 1/2 ounce), toasted and ground
• 3 tablespoons New Mexico chili powder or 3 medium pods (about 3/4 ounce), toasted and ground
• 2 tablespoons cumin seeds toasted in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 4 minutes, and ground
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano preferably Mexican
• 7 1/2 cups water
• 1 beef chuck roast (4-pounds), trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 teaspoons table salt plus extra for seasoning
• 8 ounces bacon (7 or 8 slices), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 1 medium onion minced (about 1 cup)
• 5 medium cloves of garlic minced
• 4 - 5 small jalape o chiles cored, seeded, and minced
• 1 cup crushed tomatoes or plain tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons lime juice from 1 medium lime
• 5 tablespoons masa harina or 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• ground black pepper

1. Mix chili powders, cumin, and oregano in small bowl and stir in 1/2 cup water to form thick paste; set aside. Toss beef cubes with salt; set aside.

2. Fry bacon in large, heavy soup kettle or Dutch oven over medium-low heat until fat renders and bacon crisps, about 10 minutes. Remove bacon with slotted spoon to paper towel-lined plate; pour all but 2 teaspoons fat from pot into small bowl; set aside. Increase heat to medium-high; saut� meat in four batches until well-browned on all sides, about 5 minutes per batch, adding additional 2 teaspoons bacon fat to pot as necessary. Reduce heat to medium, add 3 tablespoons bacon fat to now-empty pan. Add onion; saut� until softened, 5 to 6 minutes. Add garlic and jalape�o; saut� until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add chili paste; saut� until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Add reserved bacon and browned beef, crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce, lime juice, and 7 cups water; bring to simmer. Continue to cook at a steady simmer until meat is tender and juices are dark, rich, and starting to thicken, about 2 hours.

3. Mix masa harina with 2/3 cup water (or cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water) in a small bowl to form smooth paste. Increase heat to medium; stir in paste and simmer until thickened, 5 to 10 minutes. Adjust seasoning generously with salt and ground black pepper. Serve immediately, or preferably, cool slightly, cover, and refrigerate overnight or for up to 5 days. Reheat before serving.

Dog Food

The Straight Dope: Is coprophagia dangerous?: "Dogs are also notorious coprophages, doing it mainly to gross out their owners."

Man, ain't it the truth? I have an adorable and sweet-natured dog, Coda, an Italian Greyhound who has lately become a very picky eater. I also have an ancient diabetic cat on his last legs. The cat has become so old and frail that he is not very likely to use his litter box unless he is sleeping in it.

Meanwhile, I am trying my best to find a food that the dog will eat. Once she was easy-to-please with Science Diet and Iams bones for snacks. Now, she turns her nose up at everything. Lately, I've tried feeding her Dick Van Patten -- which I'll microwave slightly to improve its aroma (Note: This dog food looks, feels, and smells a great deal like summer sausage. Nice for squeamish owners, bad for vision-impaired drunk frat boys). She snorts at and refuses the food publically, but sneaks off during the night to eat it.

That is, unless she finds an errant glucose-laced cat dropping lying around. Since I find precious few such droppings in the cat's litter box or about the house myself, I think I may have finally deciphered what my dog is telling me. I present a super-mini movie script of the encounter:


INT. BLUBRIK'S KITCHEN - MORNING

Blubrik sleepily goes to the refrigerator and removes a sausage-like log of Dick Van Patten dog food. He slices off a half-inch piece, uses his fingers to break the meat into pieces into a bowl, then puts the bowl in a microwave.

BLUBRIK
(sleepily)

Coda! Are you hungry?

INT. BLUBRIK'S BEDROOM - CONT.

Coda the dog bounces out from under the covers and charges out of the bedroom.

INT. BLUBRIK'S KITCHEN - CONT.

Coda charges into the kitchen and sits down at Blubrik's feet, wagging her tail. The microwave rings. Blubrik removes the food from the microwave. Coda stands up with excitement and expectation. Blubrik sets the food down in front of her.

BLUBRIK

There you go, some nice Dick Van Patten all heated up and in nice bite-size pieces for you.

Coda sniffs the food.

CODA
(snorting derision)

This Dick Van Patten crap ain't the crap I want! I want that cat crap. No, not the crappy cat food -- though admittedly I liked that once, too -- but the cat's crap. The crap. The C-R-A-P!

Oh, well. At least my house is cleaner.

USSR-R-US

Why do authoritarian governments always end up producing the same propaganda, apparently by the same artists, even?

Take these posters from the late Soviet Union, for example...



...and compare them with a MARC (commuter rail service between Baltimore and Washington D.C.) poster...



Welcome to your very own Orwellian Nightmare.

Slice of Life

Is the study and exhibit of human bodies morbid? If you would take your children to see the ubiquitous plastic "Invisible Man" exhibit at your local science museum, why would you have a qualm about showing them the real deal?

Salon recently had an article about the U.S. tour of Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds, wherein real human corpses are plastinated, dissected, posed, and displayed to the public.

Frankly, I think it's cool. Admittedly, the idea induced the willies in me when I first read about Gunther von Hagens and his original museum in one of Rick Steves' travel books. But, having seen some of the examples of the exhibit on the web, I can say that I think it's really fascinating. Of course, Salon pointed out that one of the knock-off Chinese exhibits might be a little creaky, leaky and down-right sneaky (Look, mommy, there's a bullet hole in that man's head!), and you can't help but imagine Vincent Price or Lon Chaney lurking somewhere just out of sight. I mean, Herr von Hagens is slightly creepy himself.

Compare for yourself:

Creepy, but not surprising. It takes a bit of a twist of mind to come up with a process like plastination, after all. (More interesting info on the good doctor can be found at Wikipedia and nndb).

But, all well and good, I say. Many Americans spend most of their lives in dread fear of death. We like to childishly pretend it doesn't happen (We'll live forever in heaven!), we go to funerals and try to pretend we've just stepped into the deceased's bedroom (The mortician did such a good job. Grandpa looks like he's asleep.), we litigate and moralize against risky activity, and we tell our children elaborate lies to cover up truth about death.

Nothing like a flayed dead man holding out his own skin to you to shake your belief structures.

Speaking of flayed skin and creepy men, one of my all-time favorite websites is The HiStory of Michael Jackson's Face. Enjoy.

Weird or What?

June 8, 2005 | Boston

On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.

The following day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Despres' hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton was found on Fulton's kitchen floor. His head was in a pillowcase under a kitchen table. His common-law wife was discovered stabbed to death in a bedroom.

Salon.com News | Man with chain saw, sword is let into U.S.

Grunion!

Just too cool for words. The extremes some animals will go to to mate...

"California grunion spawn at night on the beach, from two to six nights after the full and new moon, beginning a little after high tide and continuing for several hours. As a wave breaks on the beach, the grunion swim as far up the slope as possible. The female arches her body, keeping her head up, and excavates the semi-fluid sand with her tail. As her tail sinks, the female twists her body and digs tail first until she is buried up to her pectoral fins. After the female is in the nest, up to eight males attempt to mate with her by curving around the female and releasing their milt as she deposits her eggs about four inches below the surface. After spawning, the males immediately retreat toward the ocean. The milt flows down the female’s body until it reaches the eggs and fertilizes them. The female twists free and returns to the sea with the next wave. The whole event can happen in 30 seconds, but some fish remain on the beach for several minutes. (The Gulf grunion spawns during the daytime, and has smaller eggs.)"

Grunion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plus, grunion is such a great word, so fun to say. Use it on your friends, or better yet, insert it into your post-coital pillow talk...

Wow, baby, you screw like a grunion.

Man Sues Toilet

Salon.com News | Man sues for $10M in toilet explosion

While trying to ignore the news about Michael Jackson, de-frocked porno-consuming priests, and 7-year-old axe-murderers, I smiled when I read this...

A man who says he was severely burned when a portable toilet exploded after he sat down and lit a cigarette is suing a general contractor and a coal company, accusing them of negligence.

I mean, I am very sorry the man got hurt, but, hell...didn't he remember all those dire warnings from when he was a kid hiding in the neighborhood drain pipes with his friends to smoke daddy's cigs...

Chuck's Right

Chuck the Eater is a big proponent of personal integrity and critical thinking. Our lunch discussions regularly traverse the political and religious landscape, touching on the profound and unprofound questions of the day.

Here's an archtypical Chuck quote:

Your life after your death is probably just like your life before you were born.

Perfect and concise. Today, he sent me the more wordy version today, apparently the "Quote of the Day" from Contegrity.com -- so, I thought I would share:

"The whole conversation about death is a boogeyman, and there's not much real interest in it. If you are in time, then what happens when you run out of time, or what happens when you die? But instead of that being an interesting question or a very great mystery, it is seen as an affront.

It's fascinating that people bother themselves some with what will happen when they die. Nobody bothers themselves about where they were before they were born. It was the same place. Why isn't that a big dilemma? Where were you? How did you get here? Where did you come from? That could be pretty interesting. But that's not as much of an affront."

Ken Anbender from The Fulfillment of Time
(Special Program, January 2004)

xxx000xxx

Nazi is as Nazi Does

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

- Hermann Göring, Reich Marshal, at the Nuremberg Trials

Big Kahuna Burger

I like the fine things.

I don't eat fast food unless forced to by dire circumstances. When I eat at home, if it comes out of a box or bag, it better be a base ingredient like flour or rice. I make my own mayonaise (which is both trivial, inexpensive, and, contrary to popular belief, as safe as any other correctly handled foodstuff).

As my friends can attest, I prefer to dine, when not cooking for myself, at the upper end of the restaurant spectrum. When I go to a new city, my first question is usually something along the line of what is the best, most regionally unique restaurant that I can find here?

Still, I am not immune to the lure of a perfect burger. My own skills at burger making are generally satisfactory, if not above-average, and I have experimented with various ways of preparation (my current favorite is ultra-traditional: an oak charcoal fire, 85% lean grass-fed beef, salt and pepper, medium-rare).

I am constantly on the lookout for the Big Kahuna Burger. Well, the Big Kahuna Burger of Dallas, anyway. I know where the true Big Kahuna Burger resides; that would be at Kincaid's in Fort Worth. Worth the trip, but it requires some planning.

But where in Dallas could I find that elusive, truly great burger?

I've always been generally dismissive of Fuddrucker's and Purdy's. The quality is there, but something indescribable about the burgers at both of these chains keeps them leaden.

For many years, I held Chip's in high esteem. Ball's Burgers, as well, can satisfy the craving well-enough, but still comes shy of being the Big Kahuna.

Phil Romano's Who's Who Burger joint in Highland Park Village (Mr. Romano birthed Fuddrucker's upon the world, as well) somehow managed to capture what I remembered as the essential flavor of a Kincaid's burger, and has held the Big Kahuna trophy for about a year. You could do worse than eating here.

But, as of last night, I found Dallas' very own and true Big Kahuna Burger. What's more, I found it only through a series of unfortunate events.

My power was switched off yesterday. And I have out-of-town visitors. From Boston. Those kind of visitors who claim that 75 degrees is terribly hot and miserable. With children. The hungry kind.

Needless to say, the power company in question has been fired and our power is now being ably handled by another company.

Still, last night, with no power and guests proclaiming heat exhaustion and starvation, I piled the lot of us into the truck and headed off for, I supposed, a Sonic. This qualified as an emergency situation, after all, as my guests had not bathed, either.

Then, inspiration struck. I had seen on my many traversal across the city, an drive-up, sit-in-your-car hamburger joint on the other side of town. Worth a try, I thought, It couldn't be worse than Sonic. I steered us in that direction.

The joint in question is Keller's, on Northwest Highway. You pull up in your car, blink your lights, and a waitperson comes out to take your order. Real basic stuff here - burgers, shakes, fries.

Within a few minutes of ordering, sizzling hot burgers are propped up on our windshield. The smell of grease and meat and onions wafts into the car. A miniature feeding frenzy occurs as people grab for their burgers.

One bite...

...and everyone in the truck exclaims in their best Samuel L. Jackson voice, Mmmmmm! This is one tasty burger!

At long last, a Dallas burger worth popping a cap into some motherfucker for.

Her Highness, Lady Bastard

It's official. As of last Saturday, the Lord and Lady Bastard were married at an exceptional and beautiful ceremony at the Hotel St. Germaine in Dallas. The Brain and I attended as groomsmen, and over dinner at the reception, the subject of the Lady Bastard's proper title came up.

Using the recent marriage of Charles and Camilla as a template, we decided that the Lady Bastard's official title is Her Highness, the Lady Bastard Consort. Despite the Lady Bastard's queenly demeanor in her wedding gown (she was the spitting-image of Catherine de Medici), we sadly informed her that she could not style herself Her Royal Highness.

Everyone in House Blubrik wishes the Lord and Lady the very best and our enduring love.

The Haunted Future

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.

John F. Kennedy
Speech before the Houston Ministerial Association
Sept. 12, 1960

The Taste of Fear

Fear is not something I believe many modern Americans taste very often. Oh, certainly, they taste the discomfort of a job interview or review, the uneasiness that accompanies standing up before a group of people to present some information, or the general queasiness of receiving the direct attention of strangers. Some do, of course, possess pathologies and suffer from excruciating forms for fear. But for the vast majority of us, fear is something we've done away with, a primitive, basic emotion that has evolved into a more modern caution and insularity. Americans don't like fear very much at all -- for esthetic reasons. It's a dirty, uncomfortable emotion.

Which is why I find myself quite surprised by the intense level of fear I am experiencing in my daily life. I mean mouth-drying, stomach-churning fear. The fear one feels before leaping off the abyss.

Why? I am seriously contemplating a complete and utter career change. I am considering a blind-charge into a career that I have no formal training for, but which I dream about, have dreamt about since I was a child, and which I may have some talent for. I am contemplating abandoning the cushy paychecks of a job I otherwise find dreary and unfulfilling for a stab at the unknown and unknowable.

And, boy, am I scared.

The Case for Wierdness

As many things in my life begin, this began with a dream. I dreamed I was making a movie.

Rewind - A very long time ago, I made several movies. Five minute silent films with my father's Super8 camera. I made primitve attempts at stop motion photography and other ultra-naive attemps at special effects. I directed my friends in a film about a desperate battle against a child-eating, red-white-and-blue basketball from outer space that shot laser beams at its victims. The laser beams came courtesy of my father's permanent markers and scribbling directly on the film. Believe it or not, the beams came out pretty well. And, I made music videos to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and that awful disco warhorse The Fifth of Beethoven, both well-received during a middle-school era talent contest long before MTV existed. Childhood pleasures, to be sure, but ones that have lingered long after they should have been wiped away by the passions, cares and worries of adulthood.

Fast-forward - What movie I was making in that dream, I don't know. What it was about, I don't know. But, I had fun doing it. I went to work at the Salt Mine that day, thinking about it in a low-key way. As I logged in for business and my Instant Messaging client come up, I got a friendly message from El Grande which sent my life skipping out of its well-worn rut:

Blu, your dreams will set you free.

Synchronicity happens. Within the day I'd spoken with a co-worker who possessed over $10, 000 of professional HD-Digital film making and editing equipment he used to document family and friends, but didn't feel he had the talent to use creatively. I approached him bluntly, asking him to come to the breakroom for a meeting. He thought it was about work.

"Would you like to make a movie?"

He nearly jumped out of his seat. Once he recomposed himself, he smiled hugely, said of course he wanted to make a movie, and asked about the script.

"I'll take care of that." I replied calmly.

I perused eBay for likely bids for equipment. I spoke to another friend with an artisitic bent about storyboarding and pencilled in a meeting with another who is an amateur composer. When I purchased my copy of TurboTax for my taxes that evening, I picked up a copy of Screenwriter Professional as well.

I loaded the script writing software on my computer, fired it up, and immediately found myself confronted by emptiness - the white page. Here now I sat before the very symbol of how far I needed to go. I needed to fill that page up, it and several dozens of pages after it, with a stream of ideas that other people would find interesting.

The cursor winked at me, silently taunting time to put up or shut up. The page demanded filling, and I felt the first pang of what-the-fuck-are-you-doing fear. A wrote a scene. I rewrote it. I rewrote it again. I went to screenwriting websites. I mumbled to myself, Are you such an idiot?

Hand in hand, the urge to make the leap and the fear of doing it have grown larger and stonger. Intellectually, I know exactly what's going on here. Fear is our most basic survival mechanism. It is fear that saves your life from danger. Fear is the prescience of pain. It tastes like salt and metal. It implodes inside your chest, sucking at your guts.

As I was sitting watching TV last night, even the XTerra commericals were mocking me with their backing music:

Stay as you are and you won’t make a difference
stay as you are and you will never mean a thing
stay as you are and you won't make a difference
I hope your full control in your little hole is worth it

Scary thought.

Friday's Quote of Horror

One man, upon getting up in the morning, blew his nose so violently that "to his horror his left eye extruded from the orbit. With the assistance of his wife it was immediately replaced and a bandage placed over it." Afterward the eyelid was swollen but apparently there was no permanent damage.

Fascinating. I have rarely read of something both so horrible and Pythonesquely funny. For more stomach churning facts, walk your eyes, orbits intact, over to Uncle Cecil's Straight Dope.

European Toilet Paper Holder

User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The toilet paper holder has been an important facet of European bathroom design since antiquity. Distinctly European in origin, they have been a part of Western culture since their invention in the mists of pre-history. The symbolism and design of these fixtures has changed over the centuries, but they continue to occupy a central place in bathroom layout as well as in the emergent construction of a specifically European identity.

Read it, enjoy it, and remember!

Quote of the Day

Julian E. Zelizer, a Boston University history professor who specializes in congressional trends, said a conservative Republican movement that "built itself in the 1970s around attacking government has become the party of big government since 2000."

"Starting with the war against terrorism and climaxing with Congress intervening in [the Schiavo] case, we see a GOP that is quite comfortable flexing the muscle of Washington, and a Democratic Party which is increasingly finding itself in favor of limiting government," Zelizer said.

Well...duh.

The Dream Machine

Vivid dreams are part and parcel for my sleeping cycle. Here is last night's...

Part The First

Invited to a yacht party, I meet Harrison Ford. He's nice, and listens to me compare and contrast powered yachts to sailboats. He seems to agree that sailboats are superior, or at least more fun. We retire to a boardroom on the yacht for a more private discussion.

"You know," I say, "the first time I saw you I was twelve years old." I wonder why I say this, but I continue. "No, that's probably not true. I have a vague recollection of seeing American Graffiti before Star Wars."

He laughs politely.

I press. "Do you have a production company?"

"Yes." he replies.

"Well, I'd like to come work for you. I don't know what I'd do, but anything would be better than working for the House of Horrors."

He smiles, "Mid-life crisis?"

I shake my head. "Not exactly. Just mid-life non-crisis. I'd welcome a crisis. A crisis would be exciting."

"What can you do?" he asks.

"Well," I dissemble, "I don't know. I can write, maybe, but I don't have a screenplay or anything." I gently lie. I do have a screenplay, or at least an idea for one. Doesn't everyone? But I decide maybe he'd be more interested in me without a screenplay. The very novelty of the idea...

"Hollywood's pretty terrible. Do you want to be famous? Famous sucks."

I shake my head. "Yah, I understand Hollywood's awful. As for being famous. Not really. Revered by my peers or the chic-geek set, perhaps, but not recognizably famous to Billy Joe Bob and Wilma Sue."

"Famous sucks." He repeats. "Look at me."

"You look great, for, what, a hundred and two." I reply.

"I don't live in Hollywood. But, still, look at me." He opens his jacket and his guts spill out.

"That's famous." he says, looking at his intestines on the floor. "It sucks."

Part The Second

I am sitting with a crowd of expectant people on rusting, metal folding chairs in a parking lot. A white satin drape has been pulled across a open garage in the side of a on old red-brick warehouse. A beat-down drummer sits besides the drape, smoking a cigarette. In front of him stands a lonely snaredrum.

A hand appears from behind the satin drape, making an elaborate "OK" signal. The drummer flicks his cigarette away and begins a bombastic drumroll.

"Ladies and gentlemen, members of the International Julie Andrews Fan Club," he begins to shout, "I present to you, live and in-person, Ms. Julie Andrews!" He lifts a kazoo to his mouth and blows a dum-ta-da-dum-ta-dum and the satin curtain is pulled aside.

A matronly plump Julie Andrews in a red gown steps out into the afternoon glare in front of us. We clap. No one stands up.

"Thank you, all." she begins, "Thank you for coming to see me today."

Someone shouts "I love you, Julie!" I look around to see who shouted, but everyone is sitting in stoney silence.

"For my first song, I'd like to sing I loves ya, Porgy."

The drummer-kazoo player pulls out a pianica and begins to blow Gershwin's tune. She sings.

I loves ya Porgy
Don't let him take me
Don't let him handle me
And drive me mad
If you can keep me
Porgy I wanna stay here
With you forever
I got my man

She moves close enough that I can see her liverspots on her arms clearly. I study her matronly arms. They are fleshy, but betray strong muscles underneath. She lifts heavy objects with those arms. I can count the freckles and trace her sinews.

Someday I know
He's comin' back to call me
He's going to handle me and hold me
It's gonna be like dyin' Porgy
But when he calls me
I'll have to go

She's crying now. She comes right up to me and presses her face to mine, transferring her tears to my cheeks. I sit there, frozen. How does one respond to a singing, weeping Julie Andrews when she touches you? I elect to pretend I am dead.

I loves ya Porgy
Don't let him handle me
With his hot hands
If you can keep me
I wanna stay here
With you forever
And ever ever and ever
Ever and ever
Porgy I got my man

She finishes the song, the pianica whimpers off the coda. With the back of her hand, Julie Andrews wipes the snot dribbling out of her nose and snorts.

"That was written by George and Ira Gershwin." she informs us. But now it's just me, Julie Andrews, and the drummer-kazoo-pianica player. It's getting dark.

She sighs and sits down on a rusty chair beside me. Reaching up behind her head, she pulls off her auburn wig, letting her naturally grey hair tumble out. Her mascara is smeared, and that and her wild grey hair make her look very much like a Japanese ghost. The drummer lights another cigarette.

"Did you like it? The song?" she asks.

"I loves ya, Porgy? Yah, I liked it."

"Makes me cry."

"Me, too."

She begins to dismantle herself. The earrings come off and her earlobes fall down and touch her shoulders. She pops the blue contacts out of her eyes, revealing cataracts beneath. With a sharp click, she removes her sparkling white teeth, revealing yellow-grey stumps.

"Did you like the yacht?" shes asks.

"I prefer sailboats."

She turns her back to me and motions for me to help her unzip the dress. I give it a yank, and she steps out, not naked but wearing a flabby grey fleece jogging suit.

"Sailboats are slower." she says, sitting back down and turning her melted face back to me.

I agree. "Yes, but they make you part of themselves. Like riding a horse or playing guitar."

She nods. "Very poetic. Did Harry give you that job?"

"I don't think so. Maybe we're still talking about it."

"Well, did you take a good look at me?" she glances at me. Her cataract-dimmed eyes widen. She smiles, crooked, yellow, black. "I'm famous."

Millipede!

Could IBM's Millipede mean the end of dedicated PDAs and MP3 players for good? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Years and years ago, I read an article in some engineering magazine about a scientist who was predicting that by 2010, we'd have low-power or no-power terrabyte memory the size of a credit card.

Well, it looks like he was fairly accurate, especially with the dates involved. But, he got the size all wrong. Our terrabytes will come on silicon significantly smaller than a credit card (more like a postage stamp).

Think of what this implies. A terrabyte of flashable memory on your computer means no more disk drives (why have them?). It means things like being able to instantly turn your computer on and off, even in the middle of applications. Why? Since there is no longer any latency (in fact any difference) between long-term, large-storage but slow memory (the disk drive) and short-term, high-speed memory (RAM), the concept of "safely shutting down" the computer (which really just means "write everything in memory out to disk") goes out the window.

It's just cool.

Jacket of Bugs

As some of you may know, I just returned from a 4-day excursion into the state of Arkansas on motorbike with El Grande. My badge of honor from this trip (around 1200 miles, I think) is not the mild case of hypothermia I endured (for it was breathtakingly cold on the last day coming home), but the hundreds of dead bugs that seem to have embedded themselves in my recently purchased leather jacket.

Which begs the question, do I break out the saddle soap?

Your Duck is Number 1, 203, 763

France. It's in Europe, you know, and somewhat unpopular with a segment of the American hoi polloi. Still, I found myself there with six friends last fall. Rive and Data finally got married, a Chateau marriage in France, and we met up with them in Paris to celebrate. Wanting to splurge, I selected La Tour D'Argent for dinner, on the advice of my hair-stylist who is French.

La Tour D'Argent (which translates to The Silver Tower, and more loosey-goosey to the Tower of Money) has been serving food in Paris since 1582. It is over-the-top elegant, with a ground-floor entrance and parlor which leads to a tiny elevator operated by a tuxedoed attendant, who lifts you up to the grand room of the restaurant, a giant window view of the Ile de Louis, the Seine, and Notre Dame.

It was our first night in Paris, and our French was not quite up to snuff yet, creaky and musty from resting unused too long in Texas. The staff moved about our large party with professional efficiency. While my companions looked at the menu, I asked for the carte des vins, which proved to be an encyclopedic volume of wine. Biting my lip, I asked the sommelier where I would find the côtés du Rhône and chateauneufs. He flipped to page 375 and sniffed as he pointed out the wines I was interested in. I scanned them quickly, noticed a good year bottle of Vieux Telegraphe and ordered it with my belaboured French: juh voodray uhn...uhn...oohn bootayeh deh veeuh telegraf, sihvooplay.

I must point out at this time that La Tour D'Argent is a palace of meat - duck meat, to be precise. Pressed, boiled, roasted, rolled - if you can do it to a duck, La Tour has probably done it. The restaurant invented canard a l'orange, after all. To this palace of ducky death, I had brought two vegetarians, the Cheese and his Missus. As I scanned the menu (no prices printed on it, by the way) for something - anything - not made of duck, my brow began to sweat.

Our waiter returned to take our orders, and I tried in my own way to explain that mes amis la were les vegetarians. The waiter cast a doubtful glance at them, as if perhaps they might explode any moment, but nodded and replied it would not be a problem. While the vegetarians fought their way to some veggie comestibles, Rive and Data ordered the canard a l'orange, and the Brain and myself decided to split le canard tour d'argent. Our waiter glanced at us and advised that the canard tour d'argent was a bit strong tasting, perhaps we'd like the a l'orange.

"Why say you strong?" the Brain inquired.

"Because, sir, it is cooked in its own blood, which becomes the sauce." the waiter replied.

The Brain smiled and says, "That's formidible!" The waiter nods and writes the order down.

We also ordered the fois gras for an appetizer.

It dawned on me that the proper drink to have with fois gras was sauterne, so I summoned the sommelier back to the table. The conversation went like this:

Me: Sir, we would like some sauterne with our fois gras, if it pleases you.

Him: Of course. How much?

Me: We would like a little...a little...a...well...a small half-cup each.

Him: (sniffing derisively) Sir, we do not serve wine in cups.

Me: (quivering) A glass. A glass, I say. If it pleases you. Thank you.

The sauterne - in glasses - arrived with the fois gras. The meal proceeded apace. The whole, uncooked ducks were brought to the table for viewing, Voici vos canards, mesdames et messieurs, then whisked away to the kitchen for pressing and cooking. When the ducks reappeared, they were cooked and sauced. Our blood-cooked duck basked in a shallow grey-black pool of cooked blood.

It was good. A little scary, but quite tasty.

While I was eating and talking to my friends, the owner of the restaurant, who must be ninety, came over to my side and asked me a question beginning with "How..." and ending with "...you?". My brain freezes. I barely even heard him. "How...blah blah blah....you?" What did he just ask me?

Two options spring to mind. Microseconds tick by. He's waiting for an answer.

"I call myself Blubrik."

I knew it was the wrong answer the moment the words left my mouth. I didn't need the Brain's cackling, choking sputter to tell me I'd just put a big sign around my neck - Hello! I'm an Idiot!

To his credit, the owner only smiles and shakes his head slowly.

"No, sir," he repeats slowly, "I asked, how does it go with you?"

"Oh!" I recover, "It goes very, very well! Very well! Thank you!"

The Brain wastes no time in telling the rest of the table.

As the cheese course approaches, I once again brace for the sommelier. For you pleasure, the conversation:

Me: Sir, with the cheese we would like some red wine, something a little rustic.

Him: Of course. What kind?

Me: I do not know, really. Something like a countryside wine.

Him: (sniffing derisively) Sir, we do not serve countryside wine.

Me: (quivering) A côté du Rhône would be perfect.

Him: (nose pointing to ceiling) Very well, sir.

By now, it's getting late and the restaurant crowd has diminshed to our table and one other. We sate ourselves on cheese and wine, stairing out across Paris at night. It's a lovely site, and no better city exists on Earth.

As we prepare to leave, our waiter brings us two postcards. On one side, a painting of the original canardier. On the back, an odd, freshly printed sentence:

Your Duck is Number 1, 203, 763.