Sunday, January 29, 2012

Thought


We know less than nothing about nothing,,
and seemingly everything about everything.
We have a concept of nothing as the absence of everything.
but science says that ain't ever gonna happen.
Nothing is a mathematical concept
and does not describe the physical world
where nothing is impossible.
The rarest vacuum of the intergalactic void
Is rambunctiously alive with particles  
With the internet, information of every sort
Is literally at our fingertips.
To enlighten, teach, amuse.
Ignorance may be bliss,,,
but Knowledge rules the world

Monday, January 23, 2012

The Year of the Dragon


     Today marks the Chinese New Year, its the Year of the Dragon, and Dragons are my favorite fantasy animal. Well Hoop snakes are up there too.  But Dragons seem sad to me,,,they were the dinosaurs who ruled our world and were snuffed out in a cosmic instant, to be replaced by the rodents beneath their feet.  Now we are the dragons and one hopes we fair better than the dragons.

someecards.com - I wish there was a holiday for people who don't do shit all day


If God had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn't have given us grandmothers.
Linda Hedly


     I wasn't fortunate in having a grandmother to learn from, but I did have Ada McNeil.  And she taught me much about food and cooking and caring and about life.  I honor her spirit in this year of the Dragon.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

I gotta have it

     Okay, I have to admit it.  Didn't want to have to do this what with all my other foibles, but yesterday I was forced to look myself in the mirror and admit that I was addicted. Yes addicted to the internet.  Frontier's service had an eight to ten hour outage and I about went apeshit.  Couldn't get anything done, kept looking at the router hoping that the unblinking red light would turn green and things could be nice and rosy again.  No Facebook, or Twitter, or News.  No blogs to read, or youtube videos to browse through. No Netflix to watch or Golf tournaments to play Wii golf in.  Come to think of it I actually got some work done around the house for a change.  Well not really work..I got a library book about the British Empire in America before the "Revolution" read all the way through.  It's two weeks overdue.  Oh and I started two other books that look really interesting.  One a cook's book "Ad Hoc at Home" by renowned chef Thomas Kellar  and the other an overview of quantum theory entitled " The Infinity Puzzle". I don't believe infinities exist in the real world, but they seem to work in the mind of Mathematicians, though Physicists abhor them.  They go through all sorts of strange contortions to rid them in their equations. It's easier to deal with nothing than everything, although I'm not too sure that "nothing" exist's.  It's a philosophical quandary for sure, and that makes for good reading when the internet is on the blink and the nights are long and cold.


Stay Hungry my friends

Monday, January 9, 2012

The Wry smile of a Septagenerian

     Stephen Hawking is 70, has had motor neuron disease since he was 21, when he was told he only had 4 or 5 years to live.  More life in the old feller that in most of the people I see in my day to day world.  Happy Birthday Stephen.
     Yesterday, Sunday, at Best Buy when I was buying my new computer I couldn't help notice all the eReaders/Kindles laying around in prominent positions throughout the store.  How anyone could be think that reading a book on a small flat piece of silicon and call it a book is way beyond my ken.  A book  is a treasure, it has your skin cells embedded in each and every page as you leaf through, your coughs spatter the pages with your dna, and your  unique brand of   bucal flora and fauna.  You write notes, underline passages, make doodles, saying this book is mine, there are many copies, but this one is mine.  I may never read it again, I may loan it out, give it away, it may be stolen, but where ever it's life path leads it, it will always be mine.
     Pork tenderloin marinated in mustard topped with bacon, roasted over caraway scented sauerkraut. Mashed potatoes and parsnips  boiled in beef broth with half a head of garlic.  The Potatoes will soak up plenty of butter and will have absorbed much salt from the broth.  No I will admit to a little cheating.  I have really cheap packaged pork gravy that I'll doctor up, but the drippings from the roast will be absorbed by the kraut and I won't have any fond to make regular gravy.  Mea culpa, mea culpa.  One thing for sure, I be eating pork and kraut for the rest of the week.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Drunken thought

We know less than nothing about nothing,,
and seemingly everything about everything.
We have a concept of nothing as the absence of everything.
but science says that ain't ever gonna happen.
Nothing is a mathematical concept
and does not describe the physical world
where nothing is impossible.
The rarest vacuum of the intergalactic void
Is rambunctiously alive with particles
With the internet, information of every sort
Is literally at our fingertips.
To enlighten, teach, amuse.
Ignorance may be bliss,,,
but Knowledge rules the world

Thursday, January 5, 2012

The Hills are alive with the Sound of...

"Let's Go Mountaineers"  Burn a couch, burn a couch.

"Let's Go Mountaineers"  Burn a couch, burn a couch

January 4th, 2912, a date which will live in Mountaineer Memory for all eternity.

And I have it TIVOed,

     It all started calmly the morning of the Orange Bowl when I noticed that I hadn't set the game to record on Tivo. When I tried it wouldn't allow me, and when I looked at the schedule I saw that I had the Basketball game to record too, and after skipping Nova and another program I was all set to go.  Then I remembered that the Ohio Bobcats were playing and checking their site discovered that they had a 7 pm start time, the same as the Huggins Horde.  Decisions, Decisions.
The Time was a quarter past seven when after washing the supper dishes and popping the top of a cheap beer I settled myself in front of the computer and brought up the Bobcats game.  Glancing at the TIVO to be sure it was recording, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that seven or eight minutes into the game Mariah Byard announced as the leading scorer.  I was hooked instantly into the game.  I brought up the Mountaineer game on TV and  would watch it while the Bobcat game was in time-out.  Mariah played one heck of a game, coming off the bench, leading the Bobcats in scoring, and hitting on five of seven three-pointers, ending up with 21 points.
     After the Bobcat game I turn my attention to the Rutgers game and the Scarlet Knights were out ahead early and I'm thinking whoops.  The announcers keep saying that Rutgers had just beaten then No 10 Florida in double overtime and lost a heart-breaker to South Florida, hyping up their lead over WV.  But back roared the Horde  of Huggins,  and we take the  Pre-pubescent Piscataway Pushovers  85 to 64.

     Now  the GAME.  I select the Orange Bowl, it's in commercial, and I select Start Over and the game is on. They score first and easily, and I think Oh Fuck!!  Then we score and I think Kool.  They the phone rings and  it's a friend saying "ain't it awful...."  I cut him off,,Don't tell me, Don't tell me"  I shout into the phone.   I'm TIVOed and I've just started the game.  He tells me he'll call after the game, then hangs up, and I've got that word "awful" echoing in my brain, thinking the worst, but I'm a dedicated fan and win or lose I'm gonna plow through.

     WOW.  There are no words to describe what happened next. Four beers and a glass of wine later, my body tingling with our victory and I'm thinking "what the heck was my friend trying to say to me earlier leaving me with the word "awful" pinging my cranium.   Anyone notice how the stands turned entirely to gold after the half....there weren't half a dozen Clemson fans there at the end.  Mountaineer fans probably had to be told to leave.  and I'm sure there was a spontaneous eruption of "Country Roads".

All in all a good night, it would have been perfect if the Carey Crew hadn't got drubbed by UConn earlier in the evening.

But the best part of the entire evening is ""I've got it on TIVO.  

Monday, January 2, 2012

Home Cooked meals

     Those few of you who read this blog know I have a nasty habit of periodically checking out the dirty laundry on Mannington Topix.  I just read an item about the old stock sale down where the Shop and Slop is now and about the food kiosk that was there.  Here is a quote "and every Saturday they had a meal special...always home cooked."  The other day I read on Facebook's Mannington page about Hero's Cafe and their home cooked meals.  It occurs to me that every small, local restaurant advertises 'home cooked meals'.  I would hope  that you readers might think this is nit picking but unless you live in the restaurant or cook at home and bring it to the restaurant to sell it ain't home cooked.  Now I grant you it might be just like home cooked, you cooked it the same way (which you don't) and you served it the same way (which you don't) as you do at home but  that's just exactly what they should advertise.  I've never been in a restaurant in my entire life that served meals like I was served at home.  My family owned/operated a restaurant as I was growing up and while there were certain occasions where occasionally leftovers were taken home (seldom might be a better word to use), it was never, ever, not once in my ken, the opposite.  My home meals and our restaurant meals were completely different.  I'm not really understanding what's so great about the "home cooking"  that restaurants  believe is a selling point.  If I wanted home cooking why would I go out to a restaurant?  Because I'm lazy and want someone else to cook the same dull boring food that I fix for myself.   Home cooked bah...why pay triple for dull food in a sterile space that smells of old cooking oil with all the charm of a grade school cafeteria, when you can sit watching TV in your pjs, eating the same food at a third the cost,  and that you had the satisfaction of creating in your own kitchen.  
     This isn't to denigrate "Hero's Cafe", not at all.  It's a swell eatery.  They have a surveyor's mark on the outside wall if you would care to notice.  I've eaten there several times and the food has always been great, the service adequate.  Their meat loaf is just as tasty as my home cooked meat loaf, and their turkey and dressing is every bit as good as my home cooked turkey and dressing.  And the price wasn't that hard on the wallet.  For a "just like home cooked meal" they can't be beat.

I've made a mess of this post, and I apologize.  It's a small symantic point, and I've wasted way too many words on it and in recompense I give you this......Home Cooked Meal 

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