11/30/09
11/29/09
Salma Hayek Aspirin
It's phucking rainy. It's phucking cold. The phucking sky is phucking gray. It's been raining all phucking day, and for some unknown phucking reason I've got a headache the size of a phucking Buick. Some Sumatra coffee and two Naproxen tablets might do the trick. And maybe a little Salma Hayek to add some color to this dismal phucking day.
(Glorious pictures from Exclamation Mark, which is described as
"a cross between Leave It to Beaver and Satan's School for Girls.")
Like the song says, "I don't need no doctor."
Ahhhhhhhh!
11/28/09
11/27/09
11/26/09
11/25/09
Parker's Pot Roast (for guys)
This is not a difficult recipe, assuming you already have a stove, crock pot, and some plates. Otherwise, you'll just have to go out and get a job, rent an apartment, pay your gas bill, buy a car, drive to the store, borrow a large frying pan, and so on. You will not, however, need a knife. If you want to use real onions and fresh garlic, be my guest. If you're a vegan, substitute the word "Styrofoam" where it says "beef." If you don't own any plates, we'll wait while you go nextdoor and borrow some. Uh-huh. If you're ready, we'll begin.
Items you will need:
A cut of beef named "Chuck" small enough to fit in your crock pot
A-1 Sauce
Lawry's Seasoning Salt
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Butter
Onion salt
Worchestershire sauce
Olive oil (virgin, extra virgin, or slutty doesn't matter)
Mashed potatoes or noodles or something else
Tiny peas, green beans, broccoli or something
A wall socket to plug the crock pot into
Let's begin:
(You start this in the morning, of course.)
Open a window or unplug your smoke alarm.
(I assume you've thawed the chuck roast already.)
Turn one of the stove burners on medium High.
Put the large frying pan on the burner.
Wait a minute.
Put a squirt of olive oil in the center of the pan.
A squirt is less than an ounce.
Wait another minute.
Place a chunk (2 tablespoons) of butter in the pan.
Put a squirt of Worchestershire sauce on the butter.
Pick up the pan (by the handle, stupid) and
swirl that mixture around.
Put the damn pan down again (yes, on the burner)
and sprinkle the mess with garlic powder.
Your kitchen's starting to smell good already.
Using a giant friggin meat fork gently slam
the chuck roast onto the smoldering pan.
(Grab a fire extinguisher as necessary.)
Sprinkle Lawry's Seasoning Salt on the top side.
Wait a couple minutes.
Stab the roast with the fork, turn it over, add
some more Lawry's, and brown the other side.
Plug in the crock pot, put a half cup of water
in it, and turn it on Low.
Go back to the inferno at the stove.
Pick up the meat (yeah, with the fork) and touch
the pink edges to the greased pan until the
whole slab of meat is browned all around.
Turn off the stove.
You can close the window later.
Take a close look at your meat.
Let me rephrase that.
Look at the slab of chuck roast.
There should be some fat at one end of it somewhere.
Using the meat fork, pick up the roast and
carefully tuck it into the crock pot with
the fat part ON TOP. Got it? Cool.
Sprinkle some onion powder on top of the meat.
Get the A-1 sauce out and shake it up.
Pour about three tablespoons of it on TOP
of the roast in the crock pot. Do not spread
it around or get fancy with it. Just pour.
Close the crock pot tightly.
Clean up the kitchen. Put your stuff away.
Plug the smoke detector back in.
Go to work or something.
Have a nice day.
Do NOT peek inside the crock pot, taste it,
or disturb the lid. Leave it alone!
If it's your day-off, go see a movie.
(Do NOT get drunk or leave town.)
After six or eight or ten hours, come back.
Make some mashed potatoes and vegetables.
Set the table. Use napkins.
Your Mom is not here to do it for you.
You WON'T really need a knife.
When your potatoes and vegetable are about ready,
turn off the crock pot and take out the meat
with a big friggin SPOON, otherwise it will
crumble.
Put the roast in a bowl or deep platter.
Add some of the liquid from the crock pot.
Put your finished potatoes and vegetables on the table.
Put onion salt on the table.
Let me rephrase that.
Put the onion salt CONTAINER on the table
(Have you selected a beverage yet? Chrissakes!)
Put the Parker Pot Roast on the table.
Enjoy.
I TOLD you that you wouldn't need a knife. Ha!
11/24/09
Don't Get Carried Away
America is gearing up for another "Black Friday" of shopping for junk that nobody needs. My daily newspapers are all starting to look like Sunday papers with the extra ads and circulars and sales spectaculars and inserts. And the mail is filled with offers from credit card companies, trying to drive us all even further into debt. Last night I watched the 2006 documentary Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders, a fascinating look at how politicians waste our money, how we waste our money, and how financial institutions thrive on keeping us all in debt and making those minimum monthly payments until we die. Grim but true.
So...Hey!
Let's not get carried away with our credit cards this week.
Remember...
The Greatest Enemy, besides Fear, is Debt.
11/23/09
11/22/09
Distracted By Duke Pearson
Ya know, it's funny how one minute you can be searching YouTube for the tune "Heavy Legs" by jazz pianist Duke Pearson from his 1965 album Honeybuns, and the next minute you find yourself watching a video of a fully dressed woman in a shower stall slowly rubbing vanilla pudding all over herself. I mean, it's just sorta odd, right? I never did find that tune. But here are three other Duke Pearson numbers to make up for it. (And if curiosity gets the best of you, which I realize it probably will, here is the lady in question.)
Chili Peppers
The Moana Surf
Black Coffee
11/21/09
Welcome to the Working Week
I slept most of my Saturday away. There's something about the daily grinding hypnotic monotony of work that so completely wears me out mentally and physically and spiritually and every-other-which-way that, by the weekend, I'm too pooped to do much. On the other hand, I feel lucky that I have a weekend at all. I have co-workers with toddlers, and their weekends are filled with little chores and trips and events and kid nonsense. I have co-workers whose wives are pregnant and hormonal nightmares. I have co-workers who are getting laid off. I have co-workers with cheating husbands and wives. I have co-workers with sick children. I have co-workers who spend their evenings arguing with their all-knowing, always brilliant teenagers. Those folks don't even have a weekend. They're working all week and fighting and worrying and struggling all weekend. Such is their human condition. Me, lazy SOB, I get to laze around, sleeping my Saturday away. All in all, I feel pretty lucky.
(File under COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.)
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