Comic for Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

Posted: 7:35 am, Thursday, February 2nd

I suppose this means Pete has a job. Could just be a temporary thing, though, we'll see.

I'm kind of hungry, so I'm going to talk about food right off the bat. I've been meaning to share this for a week or so now - I was looking for something really simple to throw on some tortellini for a lazy dinner and found a recipe for brown butter sauce in that Giada cookbook that 2.0 bought. MNP guessed the recipe for it in one fell swoop, making me feel stupid (you put butter in a pan until it browns). But! Her throws some sage in it, too, and I really think that helped the flavor. It's rich enough to kill you if you eat it too much (I know, melted butter isn't that good for you, who knew?). Anyway, for two, it's half a stick of butter with a quarter teaspoon of salt and pepper each and three or four shredded sage leaves in there. Don't let it burn, it only takes about four minutes. Friggin' fantastic stuff, too.

Further along in food, Simply Recipes had this cinammon bun recipe (evidently originally from Oprah's magazine) that looks like it, also, would kill you if you ate it too often. I don't indulge in cinammon rolls too often, but I sure do love 'em. I still remember getting Ann Sather's in Chitown with Mikey, Fair JJ and Mikey's friend from high school senior year in Chicago. I don't pretend to have sampled cinammon rolls far and wide, but those things were heavenly. Oof.

In investigating food blogs around the interweb, I've noticed an inordinate amount of them originating out of San Francisco. Since I've got a few Bay Area readers that I know of, I figured I'd link to a quick few. Becks & Posh doesn't have much to do with football or the Spice Girls from what I can see, the Hungry Hedonist seems to go to fancier places than I do to grub, and this one's getting listed just because it's called Confessions of a Restaurant Whore, and I find the word whore kind of funny.

Another shoutout to KT and her auditory assistance, I was listening to the webstream of Minnesota Public Radio at the office all day today. One of their channels, the Current, is a huge hodgepodge of rock and soul. I only probbaly know about a third of the music they play on it, but that's part of the charm. I mean, check out this playlist, it's ridiculous. Give it a shot if you don't have a must-spin CD right now.

Other music, Gothamist's band of the week is an unsigned group called R.U.O.K. You can download their latest album for free off their site, and since the Gothamist article lists the Pumpkins, NIN and Radiohead as some of their influences, I'm giving it a shot. I'm midway through the first song so far, and I'm enjoying it. So give that a shot also if you feel like it. Power chords are fun!

We're in the final days of the second term of Watch Me Turn 30. I don't know if it's being handed off again or not, but, y'know. Whatever.

Random sightings while (sigh) fetching coffee for a coworker yesterday (it’s OK, he bought me one) – this woman that’s screamed at me on three prior occasions about Jesus, and this homeless dude that I really think shuffles all the way around my office block holding up his pants all day.  I kind of just want to give him a belt. Also, what sort of modern office building loses its hot water and most of its water pressure for two days? Mine does!

Every week, 2.0 and I look at the cartoon caption contest in the back of the New Yorker and wonder who the hell can come up with good captions for those things. Well, this guy came up with one caption for each and every one, and it almost always works, and well, at that.

You ever notice I go from about zero to one links to about fifteen from day to day? It ain't easy being me.

I saw Dog Sees God with Crownover and Di last Friday. It's a play set about ten years after the events of Peanuts, meaning that all the gang is in high school. And they're all quite fucked-up - Pig-pen is a cokehead sex addict, Schroeder's been molested by his father, Lucy's in the asylum for torching things, Marcie and Peppermint Patty are exploring with each other, and Charlie Brown just lost Snoopy. It's actually a pretty good play, but I, revering the Peanuts, was exactly the wrong person to see it. The cast was excellent, though - Boone from Lost is Pig-Pen, Finch from American Pie is Charlie Brown, and Eliza Dushku is Lucy. There are some excellent moments - a party scene in which they all bust out the dance moves from Charlie Brown Christmas was probably the best - and some that don't work so well - Marcie raps for some reason right before that scene - and overall, it's quite funny. I'm just exactly the sort of person that shouldn't've seen it.

Two quick Super Bowl things, then I'm out. The Ex-Burgher busts out his Tecmo Super Bowl preview, and these guys present a pretty good Super Bowl drinking game. Which reminds me of the drinking game my buddy Daaaaaaaan busted out senior year. It was more or less a modified game of quarters with yardage markers taped off the table. He had various shotglasses lined up around the table, signifying different amounts of yards gained. So the nearby, big ones were like five-yard gains, further ones were ten, fifteen, you get the idea. You had a beer bottle that you moved back and forth and tried to drive down the field. I forget what the actual rules for making each other drink were... We were seniors, so it was probably something to the nature of "drink constantly while playing this game." I have no idea where Dan got this game from, or if he made it up himself. If he made it up himself, it's his greatest invention outside of stealth technology.

The WB11 Morning News just had a live feed of the groundhog out in Pennsylvania - that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Star's Hollow wouldn't have a civic event that strange. Everyone started booing when the little rodent saw his shadow - oh, yeah, this winter's been freaking murder. Not six more weeks of fifty-degree temperature, nooooo!

Alright, I think that's quite enough out of me. I'm sure I'll follow today up with about two sentences, but, whatever. Live for today, man.

bullfrog

Reggie's favorite part of the Super Bowl drinking game...

Take a shot: - The announcers mistakenly refer to your QB as "Matt Hasselhof."

Bringing Hasselhof into the Super Bowl equation really makes this the "Extra Large" Super Bowl it is hyped up to be. Perhaps he will even perform with the Stones at halftime.

I will take any excuse to post the Hoff's Hooked on a Feeling video.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2433520?htv=1 2

Oh Ann Sather... now I miss Chicago. Remember when you were running the Chicago Marathon? Stacy and I were at Ann Sather... er, I mean cheering for you.

When was this? I forget.

By the way, MNP - holy shit.

There is some hope...

"Alito sided with five other liberal and moderate justices in rejecting a second request to allow the state of Missouri to execute Taylor."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/01/alito/i ndex.html

Bullfrog, I assume you are referring to the fact that ND managed to lose another game by ONE POINT.

Because I'm old and a parent, I don't make it out of the 'burbs too often, but my latest Chicago eats place is "Wishbone" about a block from Harpo Studios. Soul food for all three meals: grits, cornbread, muffins, okra, pecans, jambalaya, bbq, cajun spices.

I'm probably totally mis-using the term "soul food", but whatever. I like it there.

I think the south is growing on me...I've recently developed a strange periodic craving for cheese grits...yummmm....

I read MNP's post with great relief. Boy are they yummy. I was afraid that the cheese was sort of a midwestern gimmic, thus tainting the purity of the dish. *whew* I can now order w/ abandon.

I'm sure that was really holding you back, man.

Please ask my lovely daughter to e-mail me her guacamole recipe.

Might be a while - she's at the office right now and I'm not sure what the deal with the interweb at the apartment is. But I'll mention it to her.

I know this will shock - and perhaps awe - everyone, but there may have been an inaccuracy in Shitwit's speech the other night regarding decreasing our dependency on oil.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/ national/13768901.htm

I just noticed... I have no idea where Ron's magazine went.

My fav southern food: fried dill pickels. dipped in ranch dressing. Yet somehow haven't been able to stomach grits...

Darn you, Licia! Now I want Grits AND fried pickles. darn darn darn.

Those hush puppies we had in the Outer Banks have my vote. Ho-lee geez.

By the way, everyone coming here by Googling "Drink Like a Champion," if you want to buy one of the shirts, I recommend going to nd.edu, finding the e-mail directory, and just e-mailing random students seeing if anyone's got the hook-up. That would be for the more official type of shirt, based on the Play Like a Champion Today sign that the team hits on the way out of the tunnel.

If you want the Big Ben model, here's someone selling them on eBay (XL, but they have all sizes):

http://cgi.ebay.com/Drink-Like-a-Champion-XLar ge-Navy-Blue-T-Shirt-funny_W0QQitemZ8380281035QQcategoryZ280 22QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ron put the magazine down on the couch to his left. Then Pete sat on it.

we may be getting closer to a real sp reunion: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1523078/20060 202/smashing_pumpkins.jhtml?headlines=true

Wow, that was a really in-depth article. All the links back to the past - especially Pumpkins Can Drummer. Man, I had tickets to the show the night Chamberlin and Melvoin ODed. That's always bugged the hell out of me. Never *have* seen Garbage because of it...