Sunday, August 29, 2010

The party

"If there are kids there, they can touch the wires in my arm for a quarter. That's how I'll make people like me."
"I hope there aren't any kids there. We'll have to smoke pot in another room, like derelicts."
"'No, kids, we're just going off into the other room to have a circle jerk. It's an adult thing, you wouldn't like it.'"
"'That's why we'll all be laughing and there will be a towel under the door.'"
"'No, kids, you can't come with. We're all going into the room to cry.'"
""Yeah, cry over our lost innocence. You wouldn't understand.'"

With honey, obvs!



Wait 'til I tell her that the rule of being a fly hunter is that you have to eat what you catch.

Bike Cookin'; Farmers Market and back!

So, after getting up on my bike last weekend, found out that my rear wheel was bent. OH NO! BIKE FUCKED?

Yesterday, rode it down to the Bike Kitchen, met some volunteer named Matt who was really cool and shepherded me through replacing two spokes, then doing some general maintenance. I I cleaned my chain, fixed my derailleur and my brakes (too loose, I found out, since I couldn't really get a feel for how they reacted without riding), then found similar enough tools at home to fix them again. I gotta figure out how to actually reconnect my saddle cable, but as the quick release hasn't been opened in years, and takes more than my casual weight to move the little lever, I'm not as worried. Still, Amanda did get her seat stolen out here… 

Today, rode the bike down to the farmers' market on Hollywood and Ivar. Three point eight miles each way, but totally doable. Do need to figure out a way to balance my backpack better because it was totally wonky on my back.

Also, word-nerds? Can I get a ruling on punctuatin' the farmer's/farmers/farmers' market? Attorneys general, right? So, if they owned something, attorneys' general? Or attorneys general's? None of it looks right. Don't get high and edit, I guess.

Friday, August 27, 2010

The reason I can't trust Google

It's always good to remind yourself that the internet is fallible.

I'm pretty sure that George Washfington University doesn't exist.

At least, not yet.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

COUGAR SHARKS!

The mix.

So, Brodie's always driving me around, and he's got this New Wave Bowie fixation, though he doesn't know it. He's always got The National on, or some other band that sounds like "Let's Dance." And because I'm a goddamn nerd who can't keep his mouth shut, I'm all like, "You might like the Comsat Angels."

Anyway, I made this mix for him. I enjoy it, it's pretty good. It's a lot of stuff that I like but don't listen to all that often on here, plus Sparks, who I try to work into every conversation. "You also feel pants-Angst? The Sparks happen to have a very lovely tune about that."

It's got the playlist in there, but here it is again (also with the times).

Troubled Son 2:50 Businessmen & Ghosts Working For A Nuclear Free City
Rollercoaster 7:50 Sound Of Confusion Spacemen 3
(Do The) Empty House 3:31 Sleep No More Comsat Angels
Heat-Fire 3:28 Me And You Cherry Red Vampire Hands
07 Never Turn Your Back on Mother … 2:28 Propaganda Sparks
The Affectionate Punch 4:20 The Affectionate Punch The Associates
Swing 6:24 Gentlemen Take Polaroids Japan
Man Who Dies Every Day 4:13 Ha! Ha! Ha! Ultravox
dolly mixture - new look baby 2:05 Baby, It's You Dolly Mixture
4_He's_On_Drugs_Again 4:26 Presents Sardina
mess up your hair 4:49 Workout Holiday White Denim
High Numbers 4:51 Sangre Libre Viva L'American Death Ray Music
zombie love 3:06 the gift of music the jazz butcher
S.P.Q.R. 3:29 Deceit This Heat
If JFA Were Still Together 4:44 Sans Muscles Majesty Crush
Souvlaki Space Station 5:59 Souvlaki Slowdive

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Kidneys, man, kidneys

I made absolutely fantastic kidney beans on Saturday for Annette, Chris, Carson, Amy and myself, and I keep talking about them, in part because they were just bafflingly good, and in part because the dish was mostly improv and with ADD, either you keep it in the front of the mind or you lose it.

I was serving them with a crunchy kale/dandelion greens saute under the idea that collards and beans were pretty tasty and why not? We'd made chard or kale and paired it with boil-in-a-bag Indian before, so that was what I was thinking of. Some panchejeon (sp? Korean pancakes) and pow, crazy world food.

2 big cans Kidney Beans (Trader Joe size, y'all know it. Hold on to the cans).

Two medium yellow onions
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
1/4 tsp. yellow mustard seed ground
1/4 tsp. tumeric
dash brown sugar
one whole dry New Mexico chile, chopped
pinch Korean red pepper flakes
Bay leaf

Saute onions with bay leaf, cumin, mustard, add rinsed beans. Add tumeric, 1/4 can water, let cook off. Add chile, repeat water. Add sugar, Korean pepper flakes, repeat water. Serve moderately wet.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Red, the blood of angry men!



Trichromie uses RGB filters on three B/W images, then runs them through a software overlay to create a composite color image.

Back on the bike!




Got a new helmet and tooled around!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Misogyny? In my comics?



The new Scott Pilgrim movie opened near me, and I was trying to get Amy to see it. Sorry, she says, looks too misogynist. I take a moment to think about the plot—a guy wins his girlfriend by defeating her seven exes—and went, Hmm, yeah, I can see that. I think I heard that the comic book dealt with that well, but her point of not wanting to pay $9.25 to find out whether the movie did was pretty convincing.

I googled around some, and it looks like Amy's right. Probably not gonna see it.

Maybe I should just buy the book. I remember liking the issues I read, and that a pal of mine had a t-shirt with Pilgrim on it, but that's about it (so it's probably time for a reread).

Then again… Debbie Schlussel somehow makes me want to really see not only Scott Pilgrim, but also The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love, though I'm not sure whether the four Marxes EPL gets makes it better or worse than the three Marxes for Scott Pilgrim. (I'm also confused as to why she uses all Karls—I'd love to see a movie rated Groucho, Chico, Harpo or even three and a half Zeppos).

Stolen from MeFi comments again

Do Prop 8 proponents have standing to appeal?

Signs point to no, which is kind of a shame, because an appeal and loss from the chuckleheads behind 8 would be a huge win for same-sex marriage.

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Mmm… Savory

Carson wanted a savory drink the other night, and given the ever-eclectic cabinet I keep, I decided to play off of the Sazerac recipe.

A Savory Carson:

1/4 oz. Absinthe
1 1/2 oz. Gin
Dash Angostura bitters
Splash Cointreau.

Tasty stuff, the citrus and liquorish plays well together.

Ninjas and zombies!



White Ninja's Zombie Town.

Baseline shifting

Baseline shifting: Property and the Statutory Licence is a nice mini-essay on how real property is already intellectual property and the consequences thereof.

Friday, August 06, 2010

I can't hear CSA without thinking Jefferson Davis

We got our first CSA share today. Along with the BEST MELON EVER, we got a buncha hippy produce that we have limited repertoires with.

Fuck I know from golden beets.

We got 'em.

We also got: Collard greens, dandelion greens, yellow beans and rainbow chard.

The greens, usually we saute them, either going with chiles or nutmeg as dominant spice. But I dunno if that'll work for dandelion.

Ideas?

(I should probably cross-post this to a contentious MeTa thread).