Mushroom Hash?

     I made a variation of  "breakfast hash" this morning with a little bacon, a diced potato, a nearly equal volume of diced white mushrooms, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, scrambled eggs and some seasoning, mostly smoked paprika, onion powder and a little truffle flavoring.

     It occurred to me that I have not made a version replacing all of the potato with mushrooms.  It would be simple and possibly quicker to make, since mushrooms need little to no fat to cook up.  The trick would be adding one or more exotic varieties to the mix for best flavor, since standard white or brown mushrooms (the same species!) can be mild.

Catching Up

      No post yesterday.  I chaired the fiction writer's critique group, and that really takes it out of me.  Not because they're a particularly difficult bunch, especially as writers go -- in fact, they're remarkably pleasant -- but because of me.  The isolation during the pandemic, following on the heels of marked political division during Mr. Trump's Presidency, has left me far less able to cope with social interaction.  I didn't exercise that set of skills and they have atrophied.

     Idly browsing social media afterward, I happened on a factiod that sounds made up but isn't:  SF writer Gene Wolfe, a prolific writer of complex, interestingly-told tales, a prose stylist of considerable merit (according to the fans and critics, and I agree), worked for many years as an industrial engineer, designing the things that make things, and he's the father of (according to the company) or a considerable contributor to the machine that make Pringles®.  Seriously -- click on "Who invented Pringles®" or check his Wikipedia entry.

     "We invented the future" is an often-hyped claim made for SF writers, and it isn't always true.  Jules Verne was an "If This Goes On..." writer, who kept extensive files of clippings and usually described perfected (or over-hyped) versions of things that already existed, from big guns and propellants to submarines to airships to the use of compressed air for energy transport and storage.  H. G. Wells made up impossible technologies from whole cloth -- with one terrifying exception.  On the other hand, a young Arthur C. Clarke was an electronics technician for the group that developed ground-controlled approach radar, and George O. Smith helped develop the radio proximity fuse during WW II -- a vacuum-tube radar system small enough to fit an artillery shell! -- but such specific examples are rare.  More often, there are things like James H. Schmitz showing how to use text-to-speech in the 1960s/70s* and Robert A. Heinlein roughly describing -- and as a result, naming -- the waldo, or writing about online search engines and how to construct a search string in Friday (1982), long before Google or even Archie.  But just as I was about to write that Gene Wolfe was surely the only SF writer to have been involved with snack foods, I remembered E. E. "Doc" Smith.

     You see, Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., was a chemical engineer.  He worked in explosives during World War II, but the majority of his career was spent in food engineering.  Specifically, food mixes.  He developed doughnut-batter mixes, among others, and did so long before the first cleverly-shaped chip ever slid neatly into a metallized-cardboard tube. The next powdered-sugar doughnut you enjoy may well be a Child of the Lens!
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* Young Telzy Amberdon adds punctuation on the go when using her voicewriter, comma, period, paragraph, open and close quotes.  You will find your phone or other device works very smoothly with those inputs, with a single exception: I have yet to find one that will start a new paragraph on command.

Hurricanophoon

     By the time the remnants of tropical storm Helene get to Indiana - and we're getting the fringes already -- it will be high winds and lots of rain.  A mess for us, but nothing compared to the trouble the people in Florida where the thing hit with as a hurricane with Category 4 winds.

     I'm not looking forward to it, but if we avoid heavy downpours and the winds don't get too crazy, it should help out my tomato crop in the back yard.

Hey, Remember The Taliban?

     A socially-conservative religious movement that started small and gained influence over a modern country, using war and instability to establish themselves as the loudest minority among factions with only the loosest of common goals?  Destroyers of cultural artifacts, oppressors of women and foes to modernity in all its forms -- except, perhaps, weaponry.

     Their methods are not without admirers on what used to be the far and crazy Right -- and it keeps trying to "sanewash" itself.  They're still nutjobs, out of touch with the wide center of American culture and always looking for ways to ooze in.

     These kinds of movements often get a sort of "piety exception" from people in the culture around them: "I don't agree with everything they say, but they sure are sincere in their faith!"  Don't be fooled.  They reject the notion of tolerance and freedom of conscience.  They want to run your life by their rules, down to the smallest of details.  Our homegrown version is hostile to the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights.

Kaos?

     Netflix released a series in August that I happened on last night.  Kaos retells Greco-Roman myth, apparently (and very loosely) the story of Eurydice and Orpheus (and perhaps others), starting with Jeff Goldblum as an insecure Zeus.

     The world of the series is modern times with a twist: the gods are real and the cities and nations are those of myth.

     This makes for a Pratchettesque environment, including absolutely unrestrained party-boy Dionysus and a grocery store breakfast cereal aisle stocked with Spartan Crunch, Gaea's Granola and Achilles' Heels.  The casting has the potential to go very weird -- in much the same way as Greco-Roman mythology itself: the deities and heroes of Classic myth were a bunch of stone freaks.  (Yes, yes, Medusa, sit back down.  You'll have your turn.)

     I've seen not quite half of the first episode and along with the story, there's some suspense wondering if the showrunners can continue to juggle ancient and modern elements.  It's a delicate trick and it can go badly wrong.  But so far, so good, and if you ever wondered about Zeus and Hera's home life or just how scary Cassanda was in person, here's your answer.

Walkin' The Midway

      Shakespeare told us all the world's a stage.  I think it's more like a traveling carnival, and politics is definitely the sideshow with the media as barkers out front:

     "Alive, alive, alive!  SEE the Amazing Man Without A Heart!*  How does he live and move?  Nobody knows!  Hurry, hurry to MEET the Universal Dad!  He'll warm the cockles of  your heart and find the right oil filter for your Chevy!†  WATCH as a fifty-nine year old woman only five feet tall‡ attempts to pass THROUGH a glass ceiling!  It's never been done!  THRILL to the most amazing self-promoter of all time, the Mystifying Magician!  He transformed an entire political party!  He multiplies audiences!§  Only one small dollar, just a single U.S. dollar to see them all before your very eyes, walking, talking, doing and saying the most amazing things!"

     Yesiree, the one sure thing you can count on is that you'll never get that dollar back.  Don't miss the snake-woman and the vanishing gubernatorial candidate!
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* This is patently untrue.  The real act retired years ago.
 
† He has to look it up in the greasy cross-reference book at the auto parts store, same as anybody.
 
‡ She's 5' 5".
 
§ Only in his own mind.

A Hopeful Sign

     Radio news this morning had a short piece on politics in the workplace -- how most people avoid it (good!) and how some people reported not asking a co-worker for help because they didn't want to be drawn into a conflict over differing opinions (not so good).

     It's food for thought.  At my work, one of our critical (but minor) suppliers is deeply into partisan politics, in a very over-the-top way.  Were it up to me, I'd look for different places to buy the things we get from them, places that stayed out of such deep and murky waters.  But it's not up to me.  When I'm looking for stuff, they're not on my list; I'm not in charge of anyone else's buying decision.*

     The survey underlying the story had another good sign: for all the rumblings of open conflict, despite rumors and punditry, despite calumny season being in full swing, less than one percent of survey respondents were found likely to commit political violence -- and that number overlapped neatly with the people willing to commit any kind of violence.  The guy who'd punch you out for voting wrong is the same one who'd do so over backing the wrong sports team or drinking the wrong brand of beer.  Most Americans aren't rushing to the apocalypse -- among other things, there aren't any Walmarts or Macys there, and who'd look after the grandkids?
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* One of the best things about McMaster-Carr is that I have no idea of what political opinions the company or its management hold, or even who any of them are.  The closest thing to a slogan on their website is the hyperlink at the top that says "Browse catalog."  But if you need industrial stuff, they have it, and you'll probably get your order the next day.

The Real McCoy?

     You know those old-fashioned drip oilers?  A cylinder of glass, clamped between two brass saucers, a needle-valve at the top and a threaded fitting at the bottom, with a nozzle and a little fiber plug so the oil goes drip, drip, drip at a slow and steady rate?  Found all over antique machinery, especially on moving parts where connection to a central oil supply would be tricky?  Common on steam engines?  Used for one of the folk entomology stories about where the phrase "the real McCoy" comes from, a "McCoy Company" being a supposed manufacturer of them?

     Amazon sells them.  A bunch of different kinds.  McMaster-Carr does, too.

Busy, Busy, Busy

     And yet I didn't do much.  Dishes, laundry, minor cleaning; cleaned out the grill and cooked dinner on it -- a grill pan with Boston Butt, rutabaga, apple, potato, carrots, a few quartered cherry tomatoes, onion, red bell pepper, shishito pepper and oyster mushrooms, with a little chicken-mushroom broth in the bottom of the pan to keep it all moist.

     I also roasted ears of corn on the grill wrapped in foil, with parsley and a little extra-virgin olive oil.  That worked out really well, and I recommend it.  They only need thirty minutes.

Always Late To The Feast

     The thing about having been born at the tail end of the post WW II Baby Boom is that you keep showing up after the main bulk of Boomers have already pillaged, and you keep hearing, "Oh, we used to have that," "Oh, they did a lot of those once," "They wore that thing out and it wasn't worth fixing," "Yeah, that was a big deal ten years ago...."

     It gets tiring.  Now they're wanting to start a civil war as my golden years begin, because they're all set and they're feeling bored with that "taking care of the planet" and "the United States is a multiracial creedal republic that embraces a wide range of cultural expressions" stuff and they want to check out the exciting, bloody awfulness they remember from old movies and the elder relatives of their youth.  The Boomers don't care -- they'll be dead or buzzing on dementia's final high before the rubble stops bouncing.  They'll destroy the village in order to save it and once again, it'll be my in-between generation left with the mess.

     Thanks, loads, really.

Heisenberg's Not Sure

     What if one observer determined the position of a particle while another observer measures its speed, and then they compare notes -- would the Universe cease to exi

Dishwasher Safe, Hand Wash Preferred

     Storage-solutions company Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy.  A group of creditors have proposed a novel approach to resolution, in which the company's assets would be placed under an air-tight seal, burped, and left in the back of a cold-storage warehouse until almost everyone has forgotten about them.

     (Seriously people -- we broke Tupperware?  I went looking for a sealable  32-ounce beverage container last weekend, preferably an unbreakable plastic one with graduations down the side like Tupperware made for decades, and there was nothing of the sort at our nearest big-box retailer, not even an imported clone.  I ended up buying a fancy metal thermal water (etc.) bottle, kin to the Stanley mugs that had their day not too long ago.  The future is awkward.)