Yes!

This Gawker post is fantastic. Read it now. There's nothing I hate more than people who think that making their overly comfortable lives slightly less comfortable is any kind of sacrifice of note.

This coincides slightly with my response to "Anonymous" that my posts of late are "lame." That may be true. They are also more sparse. I chalk it up to the fact that I am reasonably content. The U.S. did not fail on Election Day, which is a relief. I've been at my new job about two months and I like it quite a bit (and I get to knock off early today). I've been reading a ton. I will soon start to prep a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner. The economic situation isn't ideal, but it has in no way come close to having a major impact on my life, for which I'm very thankful and consider myself lucky.

I've really no complaints at this time, which leads to less drama to blog about. I mean really, the only thing I've been aggravated about lately is this stupidity around the fact that The Obamas haven't been to church since the election.

1 - This is not even remotely close to news. Who cares? If you do care, and think this is some sort of problem, I pity you.

2 - Frankly, I'm happy that we have elected a man who doesn't feel the need to make some big, fake, showy to-do about going to church. It's bad enough that our politicians feel they have to confess to Christianity (something that has absolutely nothing to do with common sense governing) to have any hope of being elected. In a dream world, the President-Elect would address this briefly, with a "Yeah, we haven't been to church...what of it? It's really none of your damn business, and it says nothing about my ability to lead our country. If my family wants to go to church, we will, and if we don't, we won't." I would add a "suck it" to that, but I'm not very presidential.

3 - With a hat tip to one of the blogs I lurk, this cartoon which puts things in perspective nicely.


Credit for this image goes here.

Myth Bustaz...

Interesting article on vampire mythology, and its varying interpretation in pop culture.

Of course, the impetus behind the article is Twilight, but the vampire series you should be reading is Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt books. Now!

Recent trends...

We have "Digital Cable with ON DEMAND" from Comcast, and whenever I choose programming via the On Demand feature, I refer to it as "demanding -insert name of programing-" and am really becoming a fan of using this phraseology.

Example - an email I just sent a colleague:

"I hear that the authentic Japanese version of Pulse (apparently there is some bastardized American version) is on Fear Net On Demand right now. Perhaps I'll demand it."

or this common lament:

"I have to demand The Office from this week because the wife insists on polluting our DVR with Grey's Anatomy -insert sound of me projectile vomiting-."

Please excuse the oddly formatted insertions. Blogger misidentifies carrots (<> - carats, karats???) as HTML...

Stars align...

If I had to choose one person's identity and livelihood to assume, it would be Chuck Klosterman's...

If I had to choose one Web site as the only Web-based material I could read, I would choose The A.V. Club...

If I had to choose the most mystifying happenstance in music over the last chunk of years, it would be Axl and the ongoing Chinese Democracy weirdness...

These things are all combined here. Fascinating...

Game Day, the Morning After...

So, Manifest Density is obviously ecstatic that the Hawkeyes (6-4) knocked off #3 Penn State yesterday, glad we were in a bar in Chicago with other fans rather than screaming like loons in the living room, but as with everything, there is a subtle give-and-take to the victory. Observe:

Plus: A huge win for the Hawkeyes, at home, and the first top ten team they've knocked off since 1990 (despite being a top 10 team at times since then).
Minus: Penn State will not have the opportunity to redeem the Big Ten in the national title game after the Ohio State embarrassments from the past couple seasons.

Plus: Not only do the Hawkeyes become bowl eligible, they do so in dramatic fashion.
Minus: Their four losses this year are by a combined 12 points. Aside from the loss to Illinois, which I didn't see, I can point to one, two, or three things in each of the other losses that would have turned the games in Iowa's favor, and they all go back to coaching miscalculations, primarily the way the staff dicked around with the QB situation early in the year. Iowa is basically a handful of plays, a few minutes of football away from being 10-0, and by all reason should be, which is a little frustrating.

Plus: Shonn Greene proved once again that he is a stud, the best RB in the Big 10.
Minus: He'd be stupid to stay for his senior season, a season in which this young team will be better.

By the way, I've developed an ideal solution to fix the broken BCS system. I'm sure someone, somewhere has articulated this before, but I'm going to indulge anyway.

An 8 team playoff. Six of the spots go to the champions of each of the six BCS conferences. The remaining two spots go to the two non-BCS conference teams (mid-majors or at large) with the highest BCS rating at the end of the year. Seeding is done via the current BCS ranking system. Use the current BCS bowl games as playoff games (rotating yearly) and add a couple other high profile bowls (I'm thinking Peach, Capital One) to fill out the needs.

The main complaints, and my answers:

Complaint: This is unfair to teams in tough conferences (Big 12 and SEC this year), who will whine that their second and third place teams are better than the champs of other leagues (the Big 10).
Answer: I don't care. If you can't win your conference, you shouldn't be able to play for the national title, plain and simple. Also, this puts added value on winning the conference title, which is good for all the leagues.

Complaint: What if there aren't any good non-BCS teams to fill out those last two spots?
Answer: 1) There is at least one, sometimes more "BCS Busters" in the mix every year, plus Notre Dame. (2) This provides a recruiting tool for teams in those conferences, who can now tout a legitimate path to a national title shot rather than a slim chance, thus making these teams more competitive. (3) It also gives these teams reason to play one another in non-conference games.

Complaint: The players miss too much class/this conflicts with finals.
Answer: Has anyone making these decisions paid attention to most colleges' winter schedules lately. Finals are over by 12/15 at the latest, meaning class hasn't been in session for at least a week before that. And winter break is something like 5 weeks long. I don't remember ever being back in class much before Martin Luther King day, if at all. You only need three rounds of playoffs; this year start them on 12/20, have round 2 on 12/27, and play the title game on Saturday 1/3. It's not always going to lay out this perfectly, but it will be close enough.

Interesting...

I may not agree with Sarah Palin's politics, and I don't think she was qualified to be our VP, but the way the McCain campaign is throwing her under the bus is pretty shady. She's responded, as captured in this video, and what immediately stands out is the tone and character of her voice. My Better Half, sitting across the living room while I played the video, didn't even recognize her voice. Granted, I only heard her speak at the RNC and debate (so I have a limited sample from which to draw), but it seems pretty clear the "folksy" tone and bumpkin euphemisms were part of playing a "larger than life" character. In our world we can rarely say "I guess we'll never know" about anything, so we're bound to learn just went into the creating and selling of Palin The Candidate.

In other Web video news, The Wife is watching Celebrity Rehab, which spurred me to go to You Tube and watch the Rodney King beating video for the first time in many years. Wow. I never really appreciated how bad those filthy swine fracked him up. Being the total dumbass I was in 9th grade, I used to write "LA 92" on my notebooks. I also thought it was cool that I was acquainted (via sports) to some of my school's prominent gang members (Whadup West Side Rock Island). 15 year-olds are colossally stupid.

Better late than never...

I just now, finally watched the season finale of Mad Men, which led me to the A.V. Club TV Club blog, which turned me on to the sketch below, which I didn't catch because I couldn't stay awake long enough...

Amusing myself...

This morning, I was thinking about the contradiction that we can elect an African-American president in the same election that states pass discriminatory laws to ban gay marriage. Naturally, this led me to wonder about the prospects of ever electing a gay man as President. And this led me to think that if this did happen, I would insist upon calling his partner/husband the First Mate. Aside from the obvious naval connection, I just like the way it sounds.

About last night...

Both speeches were great. I particularly liked the thinly veiled discomfort on McCain's face when trying to calm the spoil sports who booed the mention of Obama. He conceded with dignity.

I'm happy with the result, but we are far from "out of the woods" and the celebration should be short.

Most amusing post-election development: Seeing pro-McCain Facebookers update their statuses to some mildly over the top comment about how much taxes will increase (example: Bill Smith doesn't want to give 50% of his income in taxes). I'm responding by asking them if they are moving to Denmark.

Early tallies...

CNN has called several states already, and Obama is out to a sizable lead, according to CNN that is.

For some reason I will really feel sorry for John McCain if he loses. Maybe it's because I feel that the crappy way his campaign was handled, the worst parts of the Republican party (many of which I've railed against here), and his unfortunate political connection to the GWB fueled national implosion, all that stuff, just isn't his fault. Well, I guess the responsibility for how the McCain campaign was handled ultimately falls on the man's shoulders. But still, I've a soft spot for the guy. Sorry Johnny, I could've voted for you in 2000, and definitely would have in 2004. Add your career to the list of Bush-instigated trainwrecks. It's amazing how much one man can ruin . C'est la vie.

I suppose he could still win at this point (8:18 CST). It's still early. Shite, just turned off the DVR - Fox News (Fox News!) is calling Ohio for Obama. What? That makes OH and PA....

Don't neglect to...

...Vote! I say "neglect" rather than "forget" because there is no excuse for forgetting this year, as completely blasted as we have been with information during this long haul of an election.

There is a definite, palpable buzz in the air today, particularly here in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, where we are in such close proximity (30 miles in my case) to the site of this evening's Obama rally. Polling places are already completely crowded despite record turnouts for early voting, and newscasters are assuring people who can't get out of work until after 6:00 that as long as they are in line before the polling places close at 7:00, they will get to cast a ballot no matter how late.

There was definitely not this much energy in the air four years ago, despite how much we needed to oust GWB from the Oval Office (Fail!). I blame the Dems (Fail!) for nominating someone that gave America almost no reason to be excited.

People are jacked to vote this year, and lots of people are jacked because they get to vote for Obama. Should he lose, there will be many, many disappointed people, but I think that hypothetical reaction pales in comparison to the hypothetical frothy, blood-boiling rage that will come from the opposite side should he win. Should McCain win, we can only hope that he's the man who should have won the Republican nomination in 2000, and not the man who sold out to the name whackjobs and tactics that thrust GWB past him that year. I've not lost complete hope for that version of McCain - perhaps he can restore his legacy in victory or defeat. We shall see.

A Great big Marv Albert "Yes!"

From today's Bill Simmons column, and I couldn't agree more (about the woman stuff):

"If the 2008-09 NBA season were a TV character, it would definitely be Joan Holloway from "Mad Men." You know her as the saucy, bosomy redhead who can't even be called "curvy" because that would be like calling Amy Winehouse "troubled" or Isiah Thomas "embattled." It's too big of an understatement. See, Joan Holloway is built like an "S." Top-heavy and bottom-heavy at the same time.

Joan's figure became obsolete for Hollywood characters in the age of healthy eating, chain-smoking, overexercising, plastic surgery and a few nefarious weight-watching tricks I'm not allowed to mention. In 1962, you could take Joan on a date to a diner, and she would order a patty melt, onion rings and a vanilla malt and finish off everything with a smile on her face. In 2008, if you took her to that same diner, she would order a Diet Coke and a garden salad with the dressing on the side, leave three times to smoke Marlboro Lights, stare at your onion rings for 20 minutes before eating two of them, disappear into the bathroom for another 20 minutes, then ask you to pay the check because she couldn't be late for her Pilates appointment. Also, there's a decent chance one of her ribs would break when she put on her seat belt on the way home.

Call me crazy, but I liked the old days a little more. I have a friend who went to the 2008 Emmys and reported that the actress who plays Joan (Christina Hendricks) nearly caused a riot every time she walked across the room, left her seat for a bathroom trip or whatever. People were gaping at her the same way everyone would stare at a UFO if it just randomly landed on the stage. What's wrong with curves? What's wrong with a few female celebs defying the unwritten rule that it's much more appealing to men if they whittle themselves down to an unnatural weight like they're training to fight Brian Chute? Nothing against Courteney Cox, but I walked by her in Hollywood last year, and she was built like a manhole cover. It was genuinely depressing. I miss "Dancing in the Dark" Courteney Cox. You could have ordered her a milkshake or a Guinness without worrying about having it thrown back in your face. And while we're here, if I ever see Lindsay Lohan in person, I just might sob Nancy Kerrigan-style and start screaming, "Why????? Why???????" "

Damn straight..

Today is my Friday. I am off to bucolic Buffalo, NY, tomorrow for the weekend to attend a friend's wedding. Due to the intricacies of my previous employment (contract work in E-learning design - lucrative but you only get paid for the time you work) I would have to plan ahead (financially) for any time off; not only would I incur the cost of travel and whatever I was doing with the time off, but I also had to plan for missing money in my next paycheck. Because I could flex my hours, work from home when needed/wanted, and generally valued making money rather than spending it, I didn't take much time off since leaving teaching in summer of 2006. Now that I have a new job, I have returned to the joyous world of getting paid vacation. It feels pretty good.

Point of Clarification...

Please note: the frothy spew that issued for yesterday against the insurance industry is reserved solely for health insurance providers. Other segments of the insurance industry, like auto, crop, etc. provide a necessary service, usually well, and aren't tied into all the dangerous gray areas that arise when your profits are tied directly to peoples' health.

That is all.

And I felt compelled to post this why?

Lone Punman

Sweet

My anonymous commenter is back! I like this issue because there is no solution that doesn't require either side to compromise something, if there is any solution to be had.

New comment:
Your nature vs nurture argument is rich and compelling but skirts the issue. As it is now the "leeches" can walk into any emergency room in the US and receive the kind of medical care that only two or three other countries in the world can provide....for FREE. The system is already a drain on society expanding services would not only raises taxes to extreme amounts but soon rob other social services of their funding. This is not even scratching the surface on the issue that countries that now offer socialized health care often become stagnate in medical research and don't provide the care and personal attention you've come to take for granted.

Response:
I'd like to see some information around the lag in research in said countries. I understand the idea - there's only so much in the federal coffers to go around no matter how high taxes are - but would also reason that countries with socialized care are also less likely to let archaic morals and religious lobbying get in the way of research progress as we do here. Also, in countries with socialized care is all research and development conducted by the state? I find it difficult to believe that private labs, universities, and pharmaceutical companies are not driving this like they do everywhere else. These entities compete globally for resources, and this competition is key to research and innovation regardless if the state is picking up the tab or not. I suppose these entities may price a little more recklessly when selling to governments rather than directly and indirectly to consumers, but I would imagine that their portfolios encompass a range of business that includes both public and private clients. I admit that I don't know enough on how this part of it works.

I like the point about the ER - I thought of that before but couldn't (and still can't) figure out how we address that. I mean, it comes out of taxpayers' pockets either way and the only way to avoid that cost is to deny people care completely, which hopefully no one thinks is a good idea.

Do we subsidize insurance and do everything short of forcing people to enroll? That will cost too, plus it would require stiff regulation of the insurance industry - what good is providing people a path to coverage if they can't get good, affordable coverage? Insurance companies are not going to be happy if the government tells them who they have to cover, and makes stipulations around the breadth and cost of this coverage. Of course, I'm biased because I find insurance the slimiest of all slimy industries, cloaking themselves in the farce that they are actually interested in helping people.

And what about costs of treatment and medicine? How do we control these costs, which are already out of control? There is too much going on here to include in the simplicity of a post.

The bottom line is this:

• Everyone has a right to medical care, but many cannot afford to realize this right in our current system.
• Ideally, those who cannot afford this need some "path" towards being able to participate, and while this path may need to start with the gov. picking up a good portion of the tab for these people, it should require progress towards independence from this program to remain enrolled. Of course, this requirement is almost impossible to enforce.
• Someone has to pay for all this, directly through taxes or indirectly through rising costs, or some nasty combination of both. This sucks, but it's the price of civilization.

ha!

Sarah Palin's War on Science

Say what you want about Hitchens, but this quote is fantastic:

"Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

I keep trying to tell myself, "I am not a Democrat, I am not a Democrat. Remember, you have voted Republican many, many times. You even almost voted for Bob fracking Dole. Your old Yahoo login had 'ronreagan' in it. You've never registered with either party and never will" but, damn, this election. It's so hard to keep from fully aligning yourself with one side when the other is so ridiculous and backward. There are a lot of positive aspects of the Conservative outlook, particularly around economics, and normally I believe that economics is really the only thing that matters. This year, however, we're so economically screwed that whoever we elect is also royally screwed, and America is not going to have the patience to give either one's plan a chance to actually work before we start rallying for the next quick fix.

It's not going to make a difference either way, so vote for the party that is less scary. And by that I mean not scary in the imagined, propagandized sort of way, but legitimately scary in the "I can't believe that peoples' brains work in this manner" sort of way.

I got a good comment...

...to my little rant on health care, and I figured I'd reply in a new post rather than bury it in the comments. Because I like it when people leave good comments and want to discuss.

Here is the comment:
"Socialized" education doesn't work why do you think health care will be any different? The wealthy will pay for top notch care, the educated will make the the choice to tax themselves to cover the funding gaps that will arise, and the uneducated masses who depend of the government to provide for them (with the tax dollars of productive citizens) will get poorly funded health care centers, much like most urban schools in most large cities.

And here is my reply:
Valid points there. Frankly, moving towards a more equitable health care system is as daunting a task as improving struggling urban schools. I don't have a magic bullet, I just find the Canadian/European model intriguing and don't trust businesses to care about anything but profits at the expense of those they serve. Obviously what we are doing now doesn't work, and privatizing everything is not the answer. Like I said, capitalist competition works for most things and is ideal as long as literal lives are not at stake.

I suppose my main response is that everyone that needs government services is not part of the "uneducated masses" and many are in their respective situations through no action or fault of their own (just like everyone in the 'educated masses' you mention is not productive or has reached that station in life by anything but blind, dumb luck. I mean, I'm "productive" and have worked and studied hard to get to where I am, but I'm not naive enough to ignore the fact that I'm also very, very lucky to have been born a white middle-class male with wealthy grandparents, and this played a contributing role to the comfortable station I now enjoy).

Part of me would like to say screw it, it's natural selection, just like in the animal kingdom, but that line of rationalization makes the human being part of me a little queasy.

There has to be something in place to provide essential rights (health care and education) to the people in that first group, and we're going to have to deal with the fact that some people will leach off the system just like many leach off the wealth and hard work of their parents and grandparents.

There is likely some common sense way to address this that combines both ends in some middle, but I'm not optimistic that I will ever see it. I suppose if I had any advice to give, it would be do what you need to do to "get yours," hoping that random chance does not undo that hard work and leave you in a position of peril that all the productivity and education can't dig you out of.

After...

...reading this spot-on commentary, the question begs: When will someone remake Hercules in New York???????????

To counteract...

...all the other blather and wind-baggery I've been doing today...

I realize...

...that earlier today I promised something on health care, but I don't feel much like going into it. I've lost my fervor, but I'll make a quick point based on my impressions:

The big argument over socialized medicine is that it eliminates competition, and in our economy competition is what keeps prices reasonable and quality of products/services high. I don't have any issue with that idea, in fact, I think it works in most cases and embrace it when it comes to business. People's ability to receive essential medical treatment is a different matter - why is that left to the whims of the market? Related example, health insurance:

When it comes to the aforementioned idea of competition, the object of that competition (contrary to popular opinion) is not to make the best product or offer the lowest price, it's to make the most money, plain and simple. Quality and price are simply in place to gain competitive edge, a means to an end. In the insurance industry, the biggest source of revenue is premium paid by the insured, and the most damaging losses "to the books" are claims paid to those insureds. To put it simply, it's in the best interest of an insurance company to charge you as much as possible for coverage and pay as little as possible out in claims (for doctors visits, medicine, etc.). Am I the only one who sees a conflict of interest here? This is great when you're buying a TV or a pair of jeans - if you have to settle for a product that lacks quality because that's all you can afford, you won't die and you'll still get what you want/need. Literally. Uscrupulous jeans and TV makers will be damned and go out of business as the market corrects their actions, and no one will die. Literally.

For the record, health care and schools are about the only places I lean left when it comes to the economy, so you can put away out your torches and toss out those directions to my house...

Reading Rainbow...

Hmmm, last time I posted about reading, I had quite a bit to tackle and was still slogging through Updike's Rabbit novels. I read about three and a half of the four (approx. 1400 pages) before losing interest in the name of other stuff. Let's see if I can remember what I read...

I finished all the books listed in the first link above.

• Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle was sufficiently creepy and pretty good, but it took me a long time to get through it, and I never felt any kind of momentum, which could speak to my state of mind at the time as much as to the actual text.


• The Road floored me, like it did most everyone else. That's all I'm going to say. If you haven't read it, do so, preferably before you see the movie, which I hope will do it justice. I am now reading Blood Meridian (which, in the wake of the success of The Road and No Country for Old Men is apparently also being adapted for the big screen) and finding it exceptional. One thing I am rather enjoying is the language of the characters, which often times requires contextual translation. This may even get me to start reading classic westerns, a genre I normally go out of my way to avoid on both screen and page.


• Both Huston books were great and took mere days to finish, per usual. The Joe Pitt installment wasn't quite up to the same level as the others in the series, feeling a bit rushed, but I attribute this to the need for this part (three) to serve as a transition between the first two and the last two. Part four just came out, and I need to go pick it up.


• Back in September, I read A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans. Explore the link, there is some cool stuff there. A creepy slow burner of literary horror, this book builds momentum as you progress through it's combination of contemporary thriller and southern Gothic elements. Evans does an excellent job of spinning the plot to lend plausible evidence for both supernatural and realistic interpretation.


• Finally, I just finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. The upcoming film adaptation revealed this book to me, and my utter obsession with Mad Men inspired me to read it. It did not disappoint. Expertly drawn characters who inspire and repulse you simultaneously. I've yet to find anything that portrays the personal give and take required of suburban living so nicely.

That is all. Go read - it's FUN-damental!

Of having cake and eating it too...

So, the Chicago Tribune endorsed Barack Obama last week, which is pretty cool and pretty unheard of, for the Trib to endorse a democrat, that is. But now the "letters to the editor" are coming in, and I just had to post this even though it's been covered everywhere already, and I'm hardly an expert. Sometimes I just have to Raise the Angry Fist and get it out of my system.

It seems a lot of people are buying into the McCain/Palin uber-transparent spin that Obama wants to turn our nation into a fiscally doomed Socialist regime by "redistributing the wealth" of the citizens. It really frosts my hide that people are falling for this, um, excuse me...malarkey. A redistribution of a portion of the populations economic growth is exactly what taxation is and always has been, for as long as American citizens have been paying taxes - paying your fair share so that you can enjoy the benefits of a top notch society. That's why we have a progressive tax system rather than a regressive tax system. To anyone who can see farther than the end of their own nose it just makes common sense. To all of you tax hawks out there: a fiscally responsible government isn't one that never raises taxes; it's a government that spends wisely using money it has budgeted or can be expected to raise and bring to the budget with an increase in tax revenues, via a raise in taxes or a natural increase of the tax base.

And sometimes we have to pay an increased amount of taxes, children. In a perfect world, all facets of our economy would grow at the same rate, and your income and property values and other taxable wealth would increase in direct proportion to the increased of cost of goods, services, and the "cost of doing business" of our government. But that rarely happens. The fact of the matter is, sometimes sh$t happens - a government funded entity would benefit from a new piece of technology, or a natural disaster happens, or public infrastructure needs updates due to normal wear and tear, or we get ourselves into a huge boondoggle of a war in some remote land, and the government's "cost of doing business" increases to a point higher than the revenue collected under the current tax rates can cover. At this point, we trust our government to make a decision: do we go without or do we collect increased revenue via higher taxes to foot the bill, or do we do the tremendously irresponsible thing and go ahead without a way to cover the costs and run up a historically huge deficit and create the ridiculous premise that we can have everything we want and someone else will pay for it eventually but Jebus help us, we can't raise taxes because that's socialist and EVIL and - huh? I blacked out there for a minute.

So, I hope this was informative. Better yet, I hope it confirmed some basic tenets you already believed. And I hope I got most of the details right. Later today I'll Raise the Angry Fist at a related issue, health care and why the Social Darwinists who believe healthcare is a privilege are idiots. At the risk of giving away the message - I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a right but it sure as hell makes a lot of common sense for us to ensure that our population is cared for.

This needs...

no explanation...

Civil War...

You should check out the stuff Bill Bishop has been writing over at Slate regarding The Big Sort. Very interesting take on the demographics of voting.

Anyway, check out today's post about family formation and child rearing practices (hehheh, he said 'rear'). To over simplify the part of the discussion that most interested me, Republican voters are more likely to employ the "children should be seen and not heard/I'll tan your hide" philosophy of parenting than Democratic voters. Not a big surprise here, as most Republican males go out of their way to enhance the Uber-Macho Mega-Patriarchal violence that they equate with manhood. Fitting also, that as a socially liberal independent, I neither support the ass-whipping of children nor the touchy-feely, everyone's a winner pushover style of parenting. I favor common sense; go figure.

Anyway, what worries me is the impending Holy Civil War we are headed towards. As Team Red is more likely to employ a murderous "if you're not with us, your against us" recruitment strategy, I'll likely end up seeking conscientious objector asylum with Team Blue. This will hardly be secure, though, as few things are as rage-filled as an adult carrying the pent up angst of being hit and screamed at as a child. Picture a camouflage-clad figure unleashing the fury of an automatic weapon as he screams from a tear-stained face "Why daddy?!? Why don't you love me?!?"

Team Blue won't stand a chance...

Get a life, people...

I heard about this last week, and then yesterday, while watching the Bears/Vikings game, I was appalled to see that the ads running for Zack and Miri Make a Porno were edited, referring to the movie as just Zack and Miri. What the hell!?

Long time readers likely remember that I believe that people who choose to be offended by things (like the word 'porno' in an ad) deserve to have whatever offends them rubbed in their faces as much as possible. So, in an effort to bring balance to the universe in the face of this atrocity, and to hopefully make some people uncomfortable as all get out, I offer you this:

PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO
PORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNOPORNO

Torn..

...And not in the good, Natalie Imbruglia kind of way. In the, "I view the video below and am really tormented because I believe our Constitution is in place specifically to protect those things we find most vile but think that the people in the video below and those like them should be rounded up and forced to work in The Acid Mines or shipped to some remote island where they will cannibalize each other a-la Lord of the Flies or whatever so long as they can't come within a thousand light years of anything that holds any type of influence in our nation" kind of way. Ugh.

Notes from the Interweb...

Throughout the past couple workdays, a buddy and I have been exchanging e-mails, reminiscing about pro wresting in the mid/late 1990s, specifically our fan-ship (or fan-hood, if you prefer) of WCW and its two main programs, Monday Nitro and Thursday Night Thunder. Anyway, today the subject of the nWo factions came up, and one memory had us searching all over the Web (with Netscape, maybe using the Webcrawler search engine) to try to find a .wav file of the nWo theme song to save on our dorm computer and then use on the answering machine.

This got me thinking about how difficult this search was. I already had hundreds of .wavs from Pulp Fiction, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc. stored on Zip discs, but this one was alluding me. It was frustrating, but when we did actually hear the theme, it was pretty great due to the "Something you really like but don't have immediate, regular access to"- factor. Now, there are several on YouTube alone, and the search takes literally seconds. No information is elusive anymore, which is wonderful and wonderfully disappointing at the same time.

The same is true for songs heard in passing or on the radio. The first time I heard "Travelling Riverside Blues" by Led Zeppelin in high school, I was instantly enamored but had nothing other than it was unmistakeably Zeppelin and a vague handful of lyrics. In that almost pre-Internet age (1994) the only options I could find were to ask my dad (he didn't recognize it from my description) or find a way to listen to the entire LZ catalog until I came across it, which would have been difficult given it is a single only available (at that time) on a box set well outside my price range and not at the local library. Anyway, finding just the title of the song was a recurring obsession for what seemed like several months, and when I discovered it I was great mix of overjoyed, relieved, and self-satisfied, and I didn't even have the song, I just knew the title!

I don't think that I would have found so much satisfaction in the discovery had the search taken several seconds instead of months, as it would today. Plus, without buying the expensive box set, my only access was periodic airplay on classic rock radio, so every time I heard the song I got excited. Now, I can hear it on YouTube any time I want and can probably download it somewhere.

A few years later in college, when illegal Napster and file sharing blew up, and I had my first high speed cable Internet connection, it was like an orgy of 12 Christmases - I now could get pretty much any song I wanted, for free, and listen to it as much as I wanted. A Yahoo search of a few lyrics would easily give me the names of any songs I didn't know. Paradise...Backlash soon followed. It turns out that some of the songs I had so pined for only induced such pining because of the novelty of hearing them. I didn't need to hear them whenever I wanted. Instant gratification was a bad thing.

Now, well, now it doesn't really matter. I listen to am talk radio or the new-ish breed of "we play anything" radio stations that give a nice sampling of many of these novelty songs. I pretty much ignore any contemporary music that would be on the radio or TV, so I never need to figure out what a "new hit" is. I've acquired any "must have" songs and judged some as not worth the trouble. An era is over because the pleasure of mystery-pursuit-discovery! is either non-existent or so quick and thoughtless that it may as well be non-existent. I don't know which I like better.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

POD CARS!!!!!!!!

Next up, Maglev...EVERYWHERE!!!!

Like Tiny Ninjas...

...adorable, but deadly. Check out this post for cute pictures and humor.

So, if that tiger turns on his pal, will the chimp need to go to MTC: Monkey Trauma Center?

Will the Editor in Chimp decide this is front page news?

Will the Executive branch strike out against tigers everywhere, for failing to Hail to the Chimp?

Recommended Viewing...

Noah's Ark, starring Jon Voight and the woman from the movie Parenthood, Back to the Future III, and Back to the Future The Animated Series, but not the TV series Parenthood. Caught this on the Official Home of Supposed to be Wholesome but just Bad TV - Ion Television. Be sure to click that first link to IMDB and read the message boards; so many people were pissed about the "blasphemy" because the creators "took some liberties" with the story.

Oh my goodness this is sooooo bad. Soooo amusing, but soooooo bad. Where do I begin? The way the creators purposefully ignored Biblical details in the interest of really strange plot twists? The combination of stock nature footage and really awful CGI to depict the animals coming to the ark two-by-two? I prefer Noah's weird leather and fur beanie:

Go Hawks...

It's been a very frustrating season thus far, but damn, I still love game day. Love it.

Whether the Weather Man Matters...

This is one of the better commentaries I have read on this whole Obama + Ayers = BFF annoyance.

I can't really do it justice via summary, so just read it. The two best points:

• If you dig and / or stretch enough, you can attach pretty much anyone to anything unsavory.
• White Christian America has its share of terrorists, past and present too. Martin mentions the KKK, but let's not forget the slime that bomb abortion clinics and other such atrocious criminals.

Makes me wonder, would the Fundies consider sharing their tips and tricks for so successfully extricating their image from that of Christian Terrorists with Muslims who seek to do the same with Mujahideen? They could host a workshop, maybe call it Dirty Laundry: Keeping Your Lunatic Fringe Away from Your Beliefs...which just so happen to inspire them to do very, very bad things...

Roscoe P. Coltrane...

Here is an interesting twist on the financial debacle. I really never thought of this potential outcome. Is there common language in most leases that speaks to the potential of financial dill-holery by landlords? If there is, I'm guessing it favors the landlords rather than the tenants.

It seems like this would be a pretty big problem, given that I'm sure a lot of landlords took advantage of the favorable housing climate to expand their enterprises. And I'm sure even more were homeowners who used a combination of equity and "sub-prime" lending to upgrade to a larger home while keeping the previous one as a rental property, which spread them a bit too thin. Seems there should be some protection for these tenants - at least let them keep living there as the bank takes possession of the property and give them a reasonable amount of time to find another place to live. I guess I'm just a humanitarian. Always looking out for the little guy. A real bleeding heart. And other refinements...

Reason 92 Why I Don't Recognize The South as Part of the United States...

This is pretty disgusting. I mean, c'mon. Even if this guy (he's white, by the way) isn't a backward redneck bigot, and he had some larger point to make (although I have no idea what it could be) how about a little professional common sense?

But wait, that's right. This did happen in The South. I should remember to adjust my expectations accordingly in the future.

Retrospecticus...

Since all I have to do at the new job right now is read about stuff, I started wondering, "what was I doing at this time last year?"

Answers!

On October 7th...

On October 9th...and this....

Average those together to figure out what I did on October 8th. Probably something like 6, or 47....

Choices...

Radio options during one portion of the drive to work today:

1. "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn
2. "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night
3. "Hold on Loosely" by .38 Special

I went with Cohn. Once you've seen Three Dog Night live at a municipal summer festival (Coralville, IA, pop. 17,269) while sitting on the ground drinking tallboys of Bud Heavy, anything else is just a tremendous disappointment.

Godspeed, Trash Can...

Today is the maiden voyage of my new trash can. Long time readers may remember my previous (failed) efforts to fight city hall (I can't find the link, but I swear I posted on this): One day the trash was not picked up, and I received a note that my trash can was too big, despite the fact that it was not, and the trash men had been gladly taking my trash away every week since we moved into the house. I called City Hall and got into quite a "discussion" with a surly woman there that resulted in me contemplating taking my trash can to City Hall and dumping its contents onto the steps.

Those of you who value civil authority and dislike litter will be happy to know that cooler heads prevailed: I went to Home Depot and bought a six-dollar trash can that I knew fit the size requirement. I did not, however, cave in to the city's wishes and buy one of the extravagantly overpriced "official" city trash cans. Until last week.

After two years of loyal service, the cheap old can sprung a leak. I decided to give in to "conformity" and submit to the high-priced trash can lobby; I paid $43 for the smallest model. And, as is the case with most people who stage small pointless rebellions over "principles" that make little sense when you actually think about them, giving in feels great. I love my new trash can. It's sturdy, holds a lot, and is easier to wheel to the curb. Plus, if I had never purchased it, I would have never seen that online shoppers could gauge the size of the cans by comparing them to our chubby little mayor...

So here's one...

I had a weird dream last night, involving some of the cast of Gossip Girl (and no, not that type of dream). It was partially weird because the only teen drama I normally dream about is The OC, but the majority of the weirdness registered due to a comment central to the dream's plot.

The mother of one of the characters brought up the book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, which I am familiar with from my undergrad days of teacher preparation classes. This in itself is not too weird, but in my brain, the title of the book was registering as Queen Bees and Watanabe, as in Gedde Watanabe, aka Long Duck Dong. From a sociological perspective, the actual book is quite good, but I can't help but wonder what interesting turns it would take if Gedde were involved...

Zzzzz...

New job transition note #1: For the past two years or so, Monday has been a "work from home (WFH) day." With very rare exception, my Monday commute was about 20 seconds long - the time it took me to put on a shirt, walk down stairs, and log on to my computer from the couch. How much will I miss this? The jury is still out, but having my own office, where I can keep the lights very low and the door mostly closed, helps a lot. But will this trump having SOAPnet reruns of The OC and One Tree Hill in the background of my workspace?

Last Great Adventure, A Photo Essay...

Since it is my last day of work here, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do but never had the guts to pull the trigger on.

There is a collection of stores, strip malls, restaurants, and other office buildings across the street from our building, all connected by a sprawl of parking lots. Of particular interest to me are the Borders and the Caribou Coffee, and I needed to go to Borders today to pick up a wedding present.

The main dilemma that has plagued me over the two years of work here is the retaining wall and four-and-a-half foot deep ditch directly in front of our parking lot. As you can see here, there is no direct way to get to the appropriate place to cross the street; you have to walk all the way to one end of the parking lot and then all the way back down the sidewalk to cross. Well not today. Here I stand at the edge of the daunting precipice...
























The view from above was imposing. Dare I jump down to such depths?
























The answer: yes. The result: Freedom!
























Added bonus, getting to walk around in between offices and across parking lots of shopping centers. Nobody in Chicago's western suburbs walks anywere except vagrants and people who have run out of gas, so freely walking where others dare not is liberating!

Because...

...it's my last day at this job (wasn't canned, starting something new next week, possibly more on that later)...we, this. The sound quality is awful, but what the hell...

My dog, the candidate...

So we here at Manifest Density are a little late to the "Sarah Palin doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is" party, but apparently one of my dogs not only understands parts of it better than she does, but also, regrettably, agrees with some of it.

You see, during Rowdy Rover class Tuesday night, we learned our poor fear-aggressive (he was attached by a pit bull at the dog park last spring and has some socialization issues with some, mind you not all, other dogs) pup Abner is a proponent of Preventative War, a policy closely related to said Doctrine. If he thinks a dog nearby poses a threat to his "security" he will snap (not bite) at that dog to try to prevent an attack. With a little hard work and some common sense debate, we think he can be converted. Unfortunately, our country is not in such good hands...

FEAR ME IRAN!

Hot dog, we have a weiner

Will McCain be heading to Philly next, to address this disaster?

Best quote:

"Only after the packages were blown up did authorities realize they'd just exploded some sausages."


My head is spinning with visions of terrible, innuendo-ridden, rim-shot worthy jokes.

And also, this...

And better yet, this...Incidentally, in high school I took a girl on a date to the Scott County (Iowa) Fair specifically because I heard on a radio advertisement that there would be pig races there.

Firsts...

9 to 5 was the first movie I ever attended in a theater. Don't remember it, as I was three years old, but came to like the movie quite a bit when I was old enough to "get it."

Anyway, good to see it in the news and hope the Broadway adaptation does the source material justice.

You know what frosts my hide?

...aside from the idea of you all picturing my frosty hide...

when people miss the point of satire/parody and in doing so actually find humor/glorification in the subject which said satire/parody looks to criticize, and not humor/glorification in said criticism. It's particularly frustrating because these dolts are specifically the audience that needs to be enlightened by that criticism, but this misunderstanding ends up endorsing (in their minds) the ugly behavior/viewpoint that needs correction.

One example that springs to mind is Mad Men. I love this show; it's the best thing to happen to TV since Friends was put out of its misery. Anyway, too many times have I heard "young male professionals" making comments to the effect that it would be great if women were still marginalized in the workplace, that ideally they would be able to smack secretary's asses and make lewd comments, as if this in some way represents the "glory days" of corporate America.

I also get that unsavory feeling when I look at stuff like this. This art is hilarious while delivering an important message, but I would be very hesitant to wear/display it because I know there are a lot of whackjobs out there who actually believe the ridiculous statements this art uses to make it's point. I would be horrified if someone who actually believes that protesting/questioning/speaking your mind about our nation's ills is "wrong" and "unpatriotic" thought I was agreeing with their disgusting viewpoints rather than trying to criticize them.

Dare I say it, but the people who need to understand satire/parody the most are usually just too dumb or stubborn or backwards to understand it, so what's the point?

Singled Out

By far the best thing to come out of NFL Week Three was the Dolphins' use of the single-wing formation on six plays. Check out a nice profile on their game plan and the offense here. Apparently it hasn't been used regularly the NFL since the late 1940s.

I'd like to see San Francisco try this out with backup running back Michael Robinson, who played QB at Penn State. Obviously an NFL team won't be able to run the single-wing as their primary offensive formation, but mixing it in could add a lot of excitement. It will also help transition the impending influx of spread offense quarterbacks with tons of talent but no real place in traditional NFL offenses that will be coming out of college as the spread continues to look less like a gimmicky trend and more like standard operating procedure.

Of course, what would be really interesting would be for a team to draft two dual-threat spread offense QBs and put them in the backfield with a running back. You could balance it with on QB who is more apt to run, like West Virginia's Pat White, and one who is a stronger passer, like Mizzou's Chase Daniel. The snap could go to any of the three on any play, with the two QBs apt to pass, run, or do some sort of combination of the two. The RB could take off on a direct snap play or hand off, or even pass as Ronnie Brown did on one successful play Sunday. That gives you two potential passing threats, three potential running threats, and two receivers out of the backfield on any play, not counting any receivers or tight ends rounding out the formation. Just an idea....

What?

The Emmys are tonight? What? TV is in a new "golden age" yet the affiliated rewards show is almost as irrelevant as the Grammys. At least to me.

Kook's Korner...

I had some steak (a nice looking 16 oz. strip that I divided in two for the wife and me) and a brand new set of All-Clad stainless steel cookware I was itching to use.

(Sidebar: For someone who loves to cook, getting married was like ten Christmas-es wrapped in one. I got so many new kitchen toys I haven't even been able to open them all yet.)

Anyway, Steak Au Poivre seemed like a good way to use both. Here's the breakdown:

Alton Brown's recipe for Steak Au Poivre. It's very good and pretty basic, plus I got to set it on fire. I was in no way prepared for the foot-high flames that shot up from the pan, but it was pretty cool. Note: our steaks were only about 3/4 to 7/8 of an inch thick, so they only required about three minutes and twenty seconds per side for medium rare.

This hashbrown recipe I found in Esquire. Important substitutions that I use and feel make a better brown:

• Sub vidalias for Spanish onions
• Use this Basil spread from Gourmet Garden instead of the herbs called for in the recipe. I find thyme to be too strong for this, and don't care much for rosemary. This spread packs a ton of flavor/aroma, pretty much the same as using fresh cut herbs; I've used some of their other "herb tubes" with great success too. The main advantage is that you don't have to spend two bucks on bunches of herbs and then waste half of it because it goes bad before you get the chance to cook with it.
• Toss in some chives with the herbs.
• Use extra virgin olive oil instead of plain old vegetable oil.

On the side, MDC's Blackened Green Beans:

1. Take as many fresh green beans as you want/need, trim them, and wash them.
2. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon or so of unsalted butter in skillet.
3. Dump in the beans, a couple tablespoons of minced garlic, a quarter cup (or so) of low-sodium soy sauce, and fresh ground pepper to taste.
4. Toss.
5. Cook until the soy sauce has combined with the butter and oil to form a blackened glaze an the beans are done just past al dente.
6. Serve and eat.

Enjoy.

Gameday!

Update: I like to think that Ferentz was trying to sacrifice the game by keeping Jake Christensen in the game to blow it so he has not obligation to play him ever again.

Potential Movie Titles...

The Great Depression, Part Two: This Time it's Personal

Depression 2: Payback's a Bitch

FYI

I am now writing everything down in small notebooks. Someday, I hope to transcribe it all here. Or, the notebooks will be discovered stacked somewhere if/when I die, opened and read, providing many weird and awkward moments amongst my heirs...

Wake up...

Does anyone, anywhere, get up early enough to do anything in the morning other than get ready for work? Is it just me, or is the idea of waking up, sitting around the kitchen or "breakfast bar" with the paper, coffee, and an actual breakfast a completely foreign concept?

I get up at a time that leaves just enough space to eat a modest breakfast of cereal and juice, get clean and dressed, and get the hell to work. Many people I know remove breakfast from that very short equation.

I prefer to sleep a little longer in the morning so I can stay up a little later at night, but I think it would be beneficial, possibly healthy, if people took a little more time easing into the day every morning. To do this, however, people would have to get home from work earlier and back to their lives sooner. Of course, I blame "work" and "corporate America" and the soul-sucking drain they put on the American worker. But I pretty much blame those two things for everything, so that doesn't say much...

News of the Weird...

I had a major double-you-tee-eff moment yesterday morning when I pulled the Parade magazine insert out of my Chicago Tribune and saw a cover and connected article acting as if Benazir Bhutto had not been assassinated. Here is the explanation; couldn't publishers have added an insert or something, acknowledging that the woman was, in fact, dead. Apparently Parade goes to print a whopping 15 days before it comes to my door Sunday mornings. Not that I care. I find most of the content overly schmaltzy, an attempt at sanitizing culture to present some rebirth of a 1950s America that never really existed. I just like to read "Howard Huge"...

Movin' on what?!?...To the East where???

As I may have mentioned a few months back, we've been tossing around the crazy idea of moving, and today I am tired and sore because of this. We spent most of yesterday cleaning and doing things to "get the house ready" to meet with our realtor today so she can tell us what we for sure need to do to the house before we put it on the market this spring, if we decide to put it on the market. It's a tricky decision, on paper and otherwise...

In Favor of Selling

• Unties us from the Western Chicago Suburbs and the high cost of living therein.
• Gives us the freedom to move almost anywhere we please, and the sense of adventure that comes along with such a thing.
• Provides us with a tidy profit while home values in our neighborhood continue to climb, in case the bottom falls out from under everyone in the coming year.
• Allows me to explore job options with a little more flexibility, salary-wise.
• We can look for a bigger place, with a basement, for all of our crap, including the stuff I spend 70 bucks a month to keep in a 10x15 room at the Public Storage down the street.

In Favor of Not Selling

• We love our place and are comfortable here.
• If we sell, we will have to rent for a while until we figure out where we are going, which is tricky when your personal zoo rolls four-deep (two dogs, two cats).
• Despite all complaints of the cost, crowds, rampant materialism, snobby D-Bags, etc. in the 'burbs, it is a nice, clean place to live, and we never want for entertainment, dining, shopping, whatever, and the greatest city in the US is a short car or train ride away; it is tough imagining giving up everything our current locale offers.

We shall see. Regardless, I am still sore from cleaning and getting things ready to take to our storage space...

Holy Crap...

I need to get reading. I have about 300 pages remaining in Rabbit at Rest, meaning my four month, 1400+ page journey through the four novel life of Updike's Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is nearly complete. Being as I have read about 85% of the pages over a few weekends during that span, I am one good weekend reading streak away from finishing this beast. This, coupled with the fact that after Rabbit, my To Read Pile has shrunk to the dangerously low level of two books, caused alarm. I had already planned to submit to Oprah and join the rest of the free world by reading The Road by Cormac McMarthy. After that, I would tackle Charlie Huston's (more on him later) first stand-alone hardcover novel, The Shotgun Rule. But what after that?!?

Luckily, I was able to deal with the situation quickly and efficiently with a short trip to Borders. I nabbed...

Half the Blood of Brooklyn, by the aforementioned Huston. I have read Huston's entire catalog (save for the items mentioned in this post) over the past year, and I can't get enough. If you like hard-edged, violent, noir-inspired crime fiction, and you haven't discovered Charlie, you are in trouble. If, on top of all that, you also like vampires, and you haven't discovered Charlie, you are reeeeealllly in trouble. Please note: Not all of Huston's books are about vampires. But this one is.

We have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. Credit goes to one of the only other blogs I actually read anymore for posting about this the other week and making me aware it existed. The cover art alone on this new Penguin Classics edition was enough to draw me in. Before this I never really explored Jackson's writings. Perhaps it was because I first read "The Lottery" in 12th grade A.P. English and was too mentally checked out to get a lot from it. Or maybe I was turned off after struggling mightily to get the students I taught to even go past the first page without giving up (hint: tell them there is a gruesome twist ending - it ruins some of the suspense but bloodlust will keep them reading). Either way, I am excited for the possibility of classic creepiness with this one.

So, could everyone (family, friends, work) just leave me alone for several days so I can some damned reading done...

Washing ashore like an overdressed corpse...

I'm back at work for the first time since December 21, 2007. I am coming off the longest time away from work (I'm not counting last Friday and Monday, when I "worked" from home) since I left my previous job in June 2006. To ease in to the three day push for another weekend, I have decided to update my "Save for Later" list on my Emusic account with various selections from Pitchfork's Best of 2007 albums list, write this post, and maybe put some short story ideas I've been kicking around to page. I hope to creep thusly until 1:00 pm, the time of today's only commitment, a commitment for which I am unsure whether the other two required participants will show, which would be all right with me.

Also worth noting...

• Go see Juno; once the requisite (although by no means bad) "indie quirkiness" is aside, in the first act or so, it is excellent.
• Christmas finally drug me into the world of iPodding, and I have become addicted to subscribing to podcasts. Mind you, I said subscribing; I haven't actually listened to any of them yet. I'm hoping the experience matches the anticipation. I am imagining something like on-demand talk radio. A whole new world of like minded commentary...
• Working more than 180 days a year is for suckers. What's that? Why yes, readers, when I was teaching I did work during the summer. In fact, I worked full time during my last two summers, in a corporate environment to boot. But it's a little different when you are getting two full paychecks for two and a half months, and you take two weeks off at the beginning of summer, and two more at the end, and know that one of the jobs is finite, and the other provides variety outside of sitting in an office all day. It just is.

Creeping...

Some time ago, I was watching a show on the Bible Codes, or Nostradamus, or some other irresistible pile of semi-scary malarkey, and the people on the show were talking about predictions that the world would end in 2008. I don't remember exactly when this was, probably 2002 or 2003, but I do remember that 2008 seemed to be a long way away.

Well, 2008 is tomorrow. 2010 seems like a huge, flying cars-style leap into the future, but next year at this time, 2010 will be "next year at this time."

There is nothing on this planet more absurd than Reality...

The Important Questions...

Ponder these items as part of your holiday reflection...

Which is better: "Bad Boy" as in the song by Gloria Estefan that serves as the opening track in Three Men and a Baby, or "Bad Boys" as is "Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do..." by Inner Circle, AKA the theme to Cops?

Also, doesn't it seem as if "I Want to Be Rich" by Calloway, "Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car" by Billy Ocean, and "The King of Wishful Thinking" by Go West are all the same song?

Think about it. Now!

Another Risotto...

So this one is less an MDC Creation and more of an adaptation of a recipe.

Start with Giada's basic risotto, as found in her Everyday Italian cookbook, page 128. I like to add a couple/three tablespoons of minced garlic with the onions at the start of the recipe, and for this particular variation I added about an eighth of a tablespoon of Old Bay seasoning with the salt and pepper at the end.

As you are cooking the risotto, toss about a half pound of medium-sized shrimp in salt, pepper, basil, oregano, extra virgin olive oil, and a dash of lemon juice. Right before you add the last pour of chicken stock, start sauteing the shrimp in a skillet with a little more extra virgin olive oil (and a pat of unsalted butter if you like). Cook the shrimp until just done - so it doesn't get tough or too chewy - then, when you remove the risotto from the heat and mix in the parm (closer to a full cup rather than the half cup recommended), butter, and seasonings, dump the shrimp in there too. Toss and serve immediately.

Eat something this rich with some wine, just because. I had the Pinot Noir Wine Cube from Target. And if you think you are too sophisticated to drink wine from a cube sold at Target, get over yourself. Wine can be good without being expensive or hard to get.

A Funny Feeling...

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there have a strange desire to go out and experiment with performance enhancing drugs this weekend?

It Works Every Time...

Those of you familiar with the Chicago area will appreciate the, hmmmm, not irony...well, you'll just appreciate the fact that I had just left Midway Airport when I snapped these pics.

Sunday Nite Beer Blog...

There are few things better than riding out the weekend with a good, strong Sunday night buzz. A mild drunkenness, even. Tonight's is compliments of a few different beers, most notably (and strongly, at 9.9% alcohol per volume) Lagunitas Brewing Company's seasonal offering: Brown Shugga Ale.

The pour is a nice amber/brown, as you would expect from any brown ale, with an off-white head. From a pint glass, you first notice the sweet aroma of the brown sugar, followed by a rich combination of hops and malt for the initial taste, almost like a darker IPA. This is followed by more sweet, and a sharp spice. Although there is no strong taste to mark the higher alcohol content, the final blend of aroma, initial taste, and finish leave a mark reminiscent of a Belgian Dubbel.

Lagunitas Brown Shugga is highly recommended, particularly as a match to the spicy pork tenderloin and southwestern roasted potatoes I served to accompany it - official Hat Tip to our guests for bringing this brew, I can't take credit for how suberbly it complemented dinner, only for the food.

Screw you, non-North Central America, and your lack of seasons...

Exempted from that, of courses, is the northeast and the parts of the northwest that get a real winter. Yes, northern Illinois got the first winter storm of the season yesterday, and it was fantastic. We started with a smattering of snow, which then degraded into a "wintery mix" of spitting rain and falling ice. Love it.

I also get a perverse sense of pride from the fact that this didn't slow the "hustle and bustle" of a holiday-season Saturday in the least. Weather that might paralyze other parts of the country was considered a minor inconvenience, nothing to stop the progress of the day. I love winter driving.

To mark the occasion, I snapped some nighttime photos of the results of the storm...


Some berries from the tree in front of my house.

A close up of that same tree.

My neighbor's plant.

A close up of my street.

The tree across the street, partially lit by the street lamp.

The Beard Chronicles: The Final Curtain

I couldn't make it. After 11 days (officially, I shaved Monday night) I got rid of the beard. It itched badly, and the non-beard skin of my face became very irritated, as is bound to happen when one's skin is as soft and smooth as mine. Add to that the shirt collar required at the office, and it was a poor mix. Here are the final results...

Note the razor-like barbs of red and blond glory. Looks great but provides a harsher defense than anything in nature...

And finally, no de-bearding is complete without leaving a cheesy 'stache for a little personal amusement. Note the havoc left upon my skin.

Corporate Ingenuity...

Ah, the first day back to work after a long holiday break. For every ounce of productivity instant messaging adds to the workplace, this conversation snippet takes two ounces back...

Me: the searchers for missing wives Peterson and Stebic have joined forces
i bet neither of them are ever found

Associate: I concur

Me: they are somewhere with Natalie Holloway, drinking Mai Tais and hitting on cabana boys
if they are found, I hope it is in the forest by my house
so I can be a gawker

Associate: you think holloway will be there too?

Me: probably
i mean, why wouldn't she be
they're all missing, and they're all women
put two and two together, man

Dogs and cats, living together...mass hysteria!

I normally don't rant about "rampant consumerism" and our "materialistic society" mostly because, well frankly, I like buying and having cool stuff as much as anyone. But some things are just a little out of hand. Like the scene at Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora, IL, last night.

I had seen the ads for the "Midnight Madness Sale" for a couple of weeks leading up to Black Friday, but nothing prepared me for what I witnessed last night. We were heading back home around 11:00 and passed by the large outlet, perched above the interstate. I knew that lots of people would be tempted to head out at midnight on Thanksgiving for a deal, but I didn't anticipate that the lot would be completely full, with a line of cars backed up for a half mile from the exit on the interstate, an hour before the sale even started. Thousands of people who would rather try to score a deal on outlet mall stuff that, in reality, lacks in quality what it makes up for in price, piling on top of one another in a writhing mass of bargain basement fury. If I had a jetpack and a high powered video camera, I might have considered doing a few fly-bys to document the chaos, but since I don't, I went to bed.

The Beard Chronicles: Volume 3

I had to shave some shape to the beard yesterday - I had to go into the office and needed to look like I was actually growing a beard (albeit at the time, a bad Boy Bandish beard) instead of just neglecting to shave. As you can see, we've got some pretty good growth, coming in nice and red, just in time to get food caught in it at Thanksgiving Dinner.

Update, 30 seconds later: Wow, I didn't realize that clicking on the image displays it at full size.

Changing History...

I have never, ever worked on the day before Thanksgiving...until today. Usually I am prepping to stuff my face and giving thanks for the fact that I am not at work, but not this year. Granted, I am working from home, and I don't plan on doing a whole lot today, but still. What is this world coming to?

Cooks Korner...

Besides the texture and flavor, one of my favorite things about risotto is how versatile a dish it is. It's almost like a stir fry - you can take the basic recipe (like a basic brown stir fry sauce) and stretch it a long way.

Here is the recipe I used last night, perfect for a dark, damp fall night. Before you begin, be sure to set aside about 20-25 minutes to devote entirely to cooking this dish. Once you start cooking the rice, it needs constant attention...but it is well worth it!

MDC's Savory Beef and Broccoli Risotto
Ingredients:

• 3 cups beef broth
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• .5 cup red wine
• 1.5 cups Arborio rice
• .66 cup chopped sweet yellow onion (vidalia if you can get it)
• 2-3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1, 10-12oz. Rib eye steak
• 3 cups chopped broccoli florets
• .5-1 cup freshly shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano
• 3 tablespoons butter
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper

Prep the steak (this is to be done while cooking the risotto, but we'll put this first to simplify the flow of this process).

1. Season the steak with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (and a little Worcestershire sauce, if you like).
2. Grill or broil the steak medium rare and let rest for five minutes.
3. Just before adding to the risotto (see below) cut the steak into bite-sized strips.

Prep the broccoli (again, to be done while cooking the risotto). Please note: I used fresh broccoli; you could use frozen but it may change the cook time.

1. Drop the broccoli into rapidly boiling water and cook for three minutes.
2. Remove the broccoli and drain well, tossing with cold water.

The Risotto

1. Bring the beef and vegetable broth to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, and cover.
2. Melt two of the tablespoons of butter in a separate large sauce pot. Swirl in some olive oil if you like.
3. Add the onion and garlic, cooking a few minutes until tender and translucent.
4. Add the Arborio and toss until coated in butter.
5. Add the red wine, stirring frequently until it is absorbed, probably about two minutes.
6. Add .5 cup of the simmering broth and stir frequently until it is almost completely absorbed, around two minutes.
7. Continue adding the broth, .5 cup at a time, every two minutes, waiting until it is almost completely absorbed before adding the next portion.
8. After you have added the last bit of broth, dump in the steak, juices and all. Let this cook for an additional minute or so. By this time the rice should be tender but not too chewy or soft.
9. Remove the pot from the heat and add the last tablespoon of butter, the cheese, the broccoli, and salt and pepper to taste.
10. Stir well until all the cheese and butter are melted, serve, and enjoy.