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I Haz One. Are they leaving a squirt-booster launch, or is that just the 8:15 to Tahoma or Bodoni?

Brunch: Icebox Eggs

There wasn't much in the icebox -- okay, fridge (in fact, a British-sized unit with the freezer on the bottom, not one of those massive monsters things get lost in) -- so I improvised: Inspired by vague memories of some TV show in which a celeb cooked up a treat from his youth, eggs scrambled with scraps of day-old tortillas or flatbread or something of the sort.

Got out the Prime Cooking Implement (you may know it as a large, non-stick wok).

I found two strips of bacon, fried 'em.

Diced, I don't know, a quarter of an onion and a handful of baby carrots, sprinkled them with a little cumin and curry powder and let them be while the bacon finished.

Sliced and diced a couple for black olives, a big green olive and a strip of hot pepper, all from a batch of garlicky-pickled goodies.

Ditto a couple of radishes.

Once the bacon was done, I set it aside and dropped in the onion and carrot, plus about half the radishes and olives and sauteed it. The onion turns bright yellow from the curry.

While sauteing, I crunched up about a cup and a half (volume before crunching!) of corn chips -- 50/50 blue/yellow, just whatever we had.

With the onions-plus about done, I dumped in the corn chips and three eggs, turned up the the heat to HI (why, hello) and scrambled for all I was worth. (You use a disposable bamboo chopstick or skewer for this, it's the best way to scramble). Shredded in the bacon as the eggs firmed up, killed the heat when it looked done and added a generous sprinkle of dried chives and cilantro as it was still steaming.

The aroma is enticing -- warm corn, a hint of bacon-smokiness, the chili-scent of onion and cumin atop the delicate curry fragrance, underpinned by the homey scrambled egg.

Served topped with shredded cheese and the remaining radish and olive, salsa added to individual taste. Tam wished I'd made twice as much!

On This Date In 1933, Prohibition Almost Ended

Why, I'll just nip out, buy a fifth at the liquor store and celebra- No? Can't? Okay, I'll pick up a nice bottle of wine at the grocer's* instead- Can't? Fine, I'll visit my neighborhood bar, then; it's too small for a kitchen, so I'll just have a quick cocktail and- What? Closed?

Yeah. But you can still purchase drink on the (Christian) Sabbath in Indiana. In restaurants and wineries, where you've got to drink it where you stand. Breweries can even sell you an actual growler of beer, which you can now, oh wonder of wonders, actually take home to consume. Or just gaze into, while you wonder what other dregs and vestiges of the smaller Grand Experiment plague citizens of other states.

What'd the nannies leave your state with? State-run liquor stores? Bizarre requirements about selling from different registers or even buildings, as though the stuff was radioactive? Did you ever try to get a drink when visiting Kansas? Didja end up with "Local Option?" (Not the only one but the best description I found). Does your state, like many with otherwise almost-sane liquor laws, ban the sale of alcohol on Christmas?

On this date in 1933, Prohibition "ended" in the United States. Kind of. It's enough to drive even me to drink -- but I durst not. Even one drink could put me over the BAC limit.
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* They can -- and do -- sell the hard stuff at supermarkets here, too.

Iron Sky Starts Shooting!

The long-awaited "Nazis on the Moon" film is now in principal photography -- and reveals a bit more about the characters. D. W. Drang has the lowdown.

(Of course I really like this -- though you know it's "hang a lantern on it" disinfortainment about the Hidden Frontier!)

There, I Fixed It For You!

Seen linked at Sebastian's, a bedwetting editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer Infringer:

"If the General Assembly returns next year with a similar proposal to expand the so-called 'castle doctrine,' the new governor will be faced with endorsing what Rendell calls a 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality that fails to 'protect the sanctity of human criminal life.'"

Lookie here, Eddie, you ignorant and/or evil beast, telling J. Random Law-Abiding Citizen he can't defend himself or his family and friends when a malefactor threatens them with bodily harm to fails to "protect human life;" conversely, a law that, among other things, shields the legally armed individual from frivolous lawsuits when he has been found to have used a gun in self-defense does "protect the sanctity of human life."

(And when was human life actually sacred and why would protecting that sacredness be better than protecting the actual life itself, anyhow? Something wrong in that man's thinking process).

Why is it guys like the departing PA Governor fret over risks to the life of a hoodlum who points a revolver at you in the alley and demands, "Give it up," while demanding his prospective victims surrender meekly to whatever he might do? His life is sacred, but the life of a law-abiding citizen isn't even worth defending?

Gov. Rendell, baby, this is why you're losing: criminals don't vote. And even their kith and kin are getting tired of being required to knuckle under.

Transcendence

George-from-Canada sent along this link, 'cos he's kewl like that:

A fascinating cross between score and histogram and a bit easier to follow than a 3-D spectrum display (though you should see one sometime. The three axii are time, frequency and amplitude: it's hypnotic).

Best comment I noticed was near the top: "Bach was an alien!" Intriguing but not possible -- any species that would fail to keep him nearby isn't clever enough for even sublight-speed space travel.

Annoyance

I really want to like Ka-Blam Digital Printing: kewl website, useful FAQs and about half the price of, say, Lulu.com. And they'll even take my hand-hewn .TIF image and turn it into a shiny paperback cover!one!

Update: Finally heard back and constructive criticism it is too. Yay! Like I said, I want to like them. My cover art's low-rez, which is what happens when you screencap a PDF to make it into a TIF via, ohgawd, MSPaint. Help? Need me a 300 or 1200 dpi TIF preversion.

...That is, they could if they would. But they won't lift a finger even to say, "Get lost!" This, I find frustrating. Their Message Center is the sole and only way to talk to 'em and even that would be okay -- except they don't reply. Nothin'. Not even dialtone.

Further Updates in blue:

So right now I'm stuck going to have some with a suboptimal stock-Lulu cover design and a price that I'm not happy with. But supposedly I have some real proofs in the Ka-Blam pipeline (with a somewhat blurred cover 'til I gin up better art) and should be seeing them before the heavyset B&E man makes his red-suited rounds. Didja hear the rumor he used to be a bishop?

Yeah, I'm not so sure about even that. I doubt any story they tell me about him after the first big one turned out to be untrue. And I would be happy to be proven wrong when I'm starting to doubt online printers that look too good to be true, too. I wonder if FedEx/Kinkos Office does the smaller sizes? (Yes. Costs run a bit above Lulu)

Seasoned Sounds

Ah, the modern, all-purpose, inoffensive carol:

Dashing through the Stuff
In some kind of open Thing
Oh, what joy we'll know
Oh, what songs we'll sing!

Generictime, Generictime, Generictime is here
Filled with joy
And goodwill
And general Holiday cheer!

To the stores we'll go
Making registers ring
How we'll spend and spend
We'll buy most anything!

[Chorus]

We won't offend a soul
(Should we have used that word?)
A cultural black hole
Come on and join the herd!

[Chorus]

Weaseling The Words

Claire Wolf linked to a Rasmussen survey on reactions to the most recent set of docs yanked into the light of day by Wikileaks, in which we find this interesting example of contrast:

"While 55% of Mainstream voters agree that leaking the documents is treasonous, a plurality (45%) of those in the Political Class disagrees."

Why, yes, I can see how terribly different the two groups are: 55% of the Political Class would also be either thinking the leaks were treason or haven't made up their minds. Gosh, those two groups are sooooo different on this issue!

If you ask me, they're both wrong, too, and kinda right as well. While the earlier military leaks bothered me 'cos it could get working soldiers killed, this batch is, aw, c'mon. Diplomats are supposed to know better; if you wouldn't say it directly to the Ambassador from Armpitistan, don't effing write it down, either. What is this, Junior High School? That kind of stuff is like mold or cockroaches and a nice dose of sunlight might help limit the infestation. On the other hand, if the leaker is still the same soldier boy (as seems to be the case), his actions probably are treason per the letter of the law and he will be paying the price.

As for WikiLeak's principal, he strikes me as a right snot and not at all noble. He's after attention and he's getting it, too, which is a pity. If he's so all-fired selfless, why didn't he just lay low? Especially since he is supposedly living on the run. A cad, a bounder, seems likely. A traitor, he's not: he's not a U. S. citizen.

But encouraging diplomats to act like grown-ups, to mean what they say and say what they mean? Call me simple but it sounds like a good idea that's never been tried. It won't be this time, either -- they'll try to scrape it under like a cat on a tile floor and pretend it goes away.

Local Boy Makes Good

Politically, we were often poles apart and yet there's something in Kurt Vonnegut's authorial voice that speaks to me. Certainly, I agreed with him on one thing: people ought to be nicer to one another.

Indianapolis has decided to be nice to him: the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is up and running downtown. Is there a field trip in my future? Count on it!

And so it goes.

(A tip of the hair to Turk Turon for the tip. Geesh, ya gotta wade through the NYT to learn what's happening in your own back yard).

Arrrghfest

Sorry, nothing new for this evening -- I have been seriously worried about Tam and the tooth; she copes with the discomfort well but hates all the folderol and overhead of dealing with the issue. I don't blame her for that and especially not in light of this being her most major issue along those lines, ever. (Me, I have had lousy teeth all my life and welcome advances in dentistry with glee. They've kept just ahead of most of my teeth, sigh. I tend to nap while they drill and fill). Her dental insurance is what mine was until my current job (opens pocketbook, gnats fly out). So she's checking her options.

Spent a half-hour this morning uploading files for the I Work On A Starship book in the wrong format and some time tonight correcting that. If -- and it is iffy, the text is a PDF and they loathe PDFs because Us Customers struggle with formatting -- I can get it right, I should be able to keep the price under $10.00 per each plus shipping. Autographs are free. Ask real nice and I might be able to get Big Tom, Handsome Dave and/or Conan the Objectivist to autograph them. Maybe even Turk Turon if the timing is right.

On The Funny Pages

Fans of XKCD (and who isn't, at least among the cool kids?) are missing out if they don't take a gander at Abstruse Goose.

(Nods to both Brigid and Jim of Supersonic Reflectoscope).