Drinking whiskey clear!
It’s time for another round of “Guess Who?”, where I dig up an old picture of a famous person and you guess who it is!
Although today’s celebrity is known these days for her skills around the house, she was also an aspiring model in the 60s and 70s:
Answer after the jump!
I’ve watched The Simpsons for over twenty years now. True, I’ve really scaled back on watching new episodes for the past couple of seasons, and I’ve also managed to almost completely stop using Simpsons references in everyday conversation.
But I still think Simpsons references. Whenever someone says they love something, I mentally add “… like I love Fresca!” Whenever someone talks about an odd food combo, I’m thinking “Nuts and Gum: Together at Last!” Whenever someone spazzes out, I wonder if they need to be put on Repressitol. Whenever someone mentions a bad movie, I think “Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such films as Twilight and Bad Teacher.” Any time I have to enter my name into a video game, I have to fight, truly fight, the childlike urge to enter “THRILLHO”. And dammit… when am I gonna be able to buy a sixer of Skittlebräu?
Which is why I found it strange the other day when I realized that I rarely mention the show on this site. So let’s fix that! Without further Apu [groan!] here are my top 10 Simpsons episodes, in no particular order:
Plot: Lisa complains to Marge that Homer never spends time with her, so Marge suggests that she take an interest in something her Dad likes. Homer, who has lost scads of money on betting hotlines, asks Lisa to pick his games for him. Using her hippy-dippy logic, she picks winners almost constantly. Homer decides that every Sunday is “Daddy-Daughter Day”, and the two of them bond during football season. However, as the Super Bowl approaches, Lisa figures out that Homer’s only spending time with her for her picks. As soon as football’s over, Homer realizes the error of his ways and cancels plans to bowl with Barney so he can take Lisa hiking. Meanwhile, Marge dresses Bart up like a nerd, and he gets beaten up by the local bullies.
My Take: It seems odd, leading off with a “Lisa episode”. After all, Lisa episodes are known (and generally reviled by Simpsons fans) for being schmaltzy and preachy. But this is one of the good ones – the football bits had me in stitches, and the ending was sweet without being saccharine. In fact, this is the way all heartfelt episodes of The Simpsons should end.
Yes, I still use Microsoft Outlook. It provides me with one app for my email, contacts, calendar, RSS feeds and tweets. So there. But there’s one well-known (and years old) bug that sometimes drives me insane: when you click a hyperlink in an email, RSS post or tweet in Outlook, you get one of the following error messages:
General failure. The URL was: "http://www.domain.com" The system cannot find the file specified.
or
General failure. The URL was: "http://www.domain.com" An error occurred in sending the command to the application.
This happens because the Registry key that tells Firefox that it’s the default browser becomes corrupted or changed by some other program. I don’t know how to fix this in Windows XP, but the solution for Windows Vista and Windows 7 is pretty easy:
1) Close Firefox and Outlook, and then open Regedit.
2) Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\shell\open\ddeexec
3) Look for the “Default” entry in the right pane. The value will probably be an odd string of letters, numbers and symbols (such as “%1”,,0,0,,,,). Remove whatever text you see in this entry, then click OK and exit Regedit.
4) Restart Firefox and Outlook.
I get this problem on my computer once every six months or so, and this has always fixed it.
From the home office in London, here’s the Top 10 song chart for the week ending February 12, 2012:
1) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
2) Saint Etienne – “Tonight”
3) Marsheaux – “Summer”
4) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
5) Marsheaux – “Destroy Me”
6) Parralox – “Supermagic”
7) Psychedelic Furs – “Into You Like a Train”
8) Freezepop – “Pop Music is Not a Crime”
9) Cloetta Paris – “Secret Eyes”
10) Foretaste – “The Prototype of Love”
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“Rory? Yeah I know Rory. He’s not to be underestimated, you’ve got to look past the hair and the cute, cuddly thing – it’s all a deceptive facade. A few nights ago Rory’s Roger iron’s rusted, so he’s gone to the local battle-cruiser to catch the end of his footer. Nobody is watching the custard so he turns the channel over. A fat man’s north opens and he wanders over and turns the Liza over. ‘Now fuck off and watch it somewhere else.’ Rory knows claret is imminent, but he doesn’t want to miss the end of the game; so, calm as a coma, he stands and picks up a fire extinguisher and he walks straight past the jam rolls who are ready for action, then he plonks it outside the entrance. He then orders an Aristotle of the most ping pong tiddly in the nuclear sub and switches back to his footer. ‘That’s fucking it,’ says the guy. ‘That’s fucking what’ says Rory. Rory gobs out a mouthful of booze covering fatty; he then flicks a flaming match into his bird’s nest and the man’s lit up like a leaky gas pipe. Rory, unfazed, turned back to his game. His team’s won too: four-nil. ”
– Danny John-Jules as Barfly Jack in
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Sorry for the downtime earlier today folks. My web host disabled my site again this morning. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what happened, but from the looks of it, my WordPress backup plug-in – BACKWPUP – once again went crazy on the server. It’s been disabled, and I’m doing manual backups until I can find a plug-in that doesn’t randomly eat gobs of CPU and memory space. Suggestions?
Beef Rendang is a delicious dish from Malaysia. It’s kind of a thick stew, like a curry. But it doesn’t contain any curry powder. If you’re one of those strange people who likes the look and mouthfeel of curry but hates the taste of curry powder, this dish is for you! Beef Rendang also doesn’t require a lot of expensive, hard-to-find ingredients or complicated cooking steps. You should be able to find everything for this dish at any grocery store with a good “international” section!
HARDWARE
1 knife
1 cutting board
1 food processor
1 peeler (optional)
1 tall pot (see below)
SOFTWARE:
2 lbs. stew beef
2 tbsp of vegetable oil
2 cinnamon sticks
12 cloves
2 bay leaves
One large (19oz.) can coconut milk (600ml is the goal)
Paste:
6 shallots, peeled and chopped into quarters
2 lemon grass stalks, roughly chopped
2 medium red chilies (see below)
6 garlic cloves peeled
1 two-inch piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp ground coriander
2 tbsp water
1) Put all the “paste” ingredients into a food processor or blender and process until it becomes a paste. I used four of the small Thai chilies available at my local Asian market, however you’ll probably want to use 2-3 (or more, depending on your taste) red jalapeno peppers. They’re for their red color as much as their taste. If it’s not very “paste like” add water a couple of tablespoons at a time until it comes together (but don’t make it too wet).
2) Heat the oil in a pot, pan or wok until it’s smoking hot (you’re gonna stir-fry, so keep that in mind). You’re probably also going to want to use a tall pot for this, as the dish cooks faster uncovered, but tends to splatter while cooking.
3) Add the cinnamon sticks and cloves and stir fry for 1 minute, or until it becomes aromatic.
4) Add the bay leaves and paste and stir fry for 3 minutes.
5) Add the coconut milk and stir well.
6) Add the meat and stir thoroughly.
7) Bring to a strong simmer and cook for 2½ hours, stirring occasionally.
Serve with rice!
This is actually a neat dish to make – the sauce starts off as a pale milk color, but slowly changes to a nice warm brown color. And you can tell it’s getting done when the sauce really starts to thicken up and the meat starts falling apart.
From the home office in London, here’s the Top 10 song chart for the week ending February 5, 2012:
1) Saint Etienne – “Tonight”
2) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
3) Freezepop – “Pop Music is Not a Crime”
4) Two Door Cinema Club – “Something Good Can Work”
5) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
6) Ambra Red – “It’s Just A Dream’
7) Rolla Scape – “Heaven is Real (feat. Marsheaux)”
8) Ladyhawke – “Black, White and Blue”
9) David Sylvian – “Waterfront”
10) The Jody Grind – “Eight-Ball”
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