Drinking whiskey clear!
God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen.
Sigh. She’s so beautiful! Katy Perry is America, and America is Katy Perry. I mean, can’t you just imagine this beautiful countenance on our currency, the same way Elizabeth II appears on British money? I know I can.
Let the haters hate. They’re just jealous.
History is chock-full of odd and amazing coincidences. It’s not entirely surprising. After all, if you examine the history of millions of people over thousands of years, you’re certainly going to find some coincidences here and there. But that doesn’t make them any less amazing when they actually happen. Here are a few good examples:
– Late one night in 1863, a group of passengers gathered on a platform at a train station in Jersey City, New Jersey. A conductor walked up to sell tickets for the sleeping berths, and since it was late and everyone was tired, the crowd became quite excited. Few noticed a well-dressed young man in his twenties at the edge of the crowd, and even fewer noticed when the crowd accidentally pushed the man into the gap between the train and the platform. The man fell, and just at that moment the train started moving. The young man tried to lift himself back up to the platform, but found his arms pinned to his side. Just as the young man started to panic, he felt hands on either side of his collar. A pair of strong arms lifted the young man out of the gap and gently put him down on the platform. It took the young man a few seconds to recover, but when he did he noticed that the man who saved him was one of the most famous actors in the country (think Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt level famous). The young man was Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln. The famous actor who saved his life was Edwin Booth, older brother of John Wilkes Booth. More incredibly, Booth was traveling to Richmond, Virginia with… John T. Ford, owner of Ford’s Theatre… where Booth’s younger brother would shoot Lincoln’s father a couple of years in the future.
– Speaking of the Civil War, at the start of the conflict, both sides expected the war to be over in a matter of months. The Battle of First Manassas changed everyone’s mind. It was a huge victory for the Confederate Army, in large part due to the military acumen of Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard. At the start of the battle, Beauregard needed a building for his headquarters, and staff members found the house of Wilmer McLean perfect for the job. This, of course, made McLean’s house a giant target for Union gunners, and soon the Federals began shelling the house without mercy. After the battle, McLean decided that living directly between the US capital (Washington DC) and the Confederate capital (Richmond, Virginia) probably wasn’t the smartest place to be, so he decided to move somewhere out of the way. He couldn’t, however, make up his mind where to move, and in the meantime, The Battle of Second Manassas broke out in his back yard. McLean finally decided that enough was enough, so he moved his family to a small town called Clover Hill, Virginia. But guess what the town is known as today? Appomattox Court House. Yep, the place where the Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865. It was the last battle between the armies of Lee and Grant… and Lee signed his surrender in the parlor of the home belonging to… Wilmer McLean. McLean said that “the war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.” And he was right!
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.