Wizard People, Dear Readers
or
A Love Letter To Mr. Neely

Dear Brad Neely,

We've known each other for a few years now. I remember when I first saw your commercial on Adult Swim for SuperDeluxe.com. Little did I know that when I visited that website I would fall in love.

Yes, Mr. Neely. I am in love with your work.

I'm not afraid to say it.

From the moment I first laid eyes on Babycakes, your bewildered, curious Man-child, I became obsessed. As I watched him try to make sense of his world, I reveled in each episode's insight and imagination. Not only did I see my Dungeons and Dragons obsessed friends in him, I saw myself. I wanted more.

Next, I met Professors Frank and Steve Smith, the first a whiny social misfit, the second a career dickhead. Together, The Professor Brothers made me laugh with abandon and gave me enough humorous quotes to last a decade.

You could have stopped there. You would have had me for life. But being the bright star that you are, you came up with this: a rapping Leprechaun.

I was so happy when I discovered your personal website and found your comics and drawings.

Little did I know that your masterpiece was yet to come.

One day, I stumbled across the "Illegal Art" website, and on it, your unauthorized work "Wizard People, Dear Reader." As the page instructed, I acquired a copy of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone on DVD, and synced up your audio tracks a la "The Dark Side of OZ." The results were astonishing. I was in stitches for hours, almost unable to breathe for laughing so hard. I was afraid to stop the tracks to catch my breath, for fear the jokes would lose their flawless timing.

"Wizard People, Dear Reader" is, without a doubt, the funniest movie spoof I have ever seen. You should know, Mr. Neely, that I am a devoted Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan as well, and take such material seriously.

Keep up the fantastic work.

Love,
Crazed Fan.

Garbage To Gold

or

Mush to Mush

The latest installment in my broke-ass cuisine series (and NO this isn't turning into a food blog. I've just been doing a lot of cooking. Don't look at me like that.) involves two apples waaaayyyy past their prime. We're talking 90 or 95 in apple years. Half-rotten would be more accurate than half-fresh.

They looked kinda like this:

Mmmmmmm. Yummy.

I felt sorry for them, to tell you the truth. I bought them in the peak of their flavor and freshness and then proceeded to neglect them on the counter. For an entire month. Reprehensible.

If I waited one more day, I knew that they would fester before my very eyes. Perhaps I could cook them into something useful, so their counter-top vigil would not have been in vain.

Then it came to me. Applesauce. Hell, they were already mushy. It wouldn't be a far stretch.

So I hacked 'em up, peeled off their wizened skin, and threw the chunks in a pot with a little water. To breathe life back into the decrepit fruits, I performed an Aztec ritual, sacrificing the body and blood of a supple virgin pear into the pot as well. Two sprays of butter flavored Pam. A pinch of salt. A 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Liberal cinnamon. Dashes of allspice and cloves. A tablespoon of vanilla. Then on went the lid.

I simmered the fruit for about 45 minutes, until the pieces mashed effortlessly with a flimsy plastic whisk. I left a few big chunks of fruit for texture.

We ate it while it was still hot, pouring a little milk over it to cool it off.

It was the best damned applesauce Greg and I had ever tasted.

Dem Bones

or

Broke Stocker

I'm broke, Gentle Readers. But that doesn't mean I can't eat well. If anything, I'm eating better than ever, thanks to cooking so often. One of my favorite foods is soup. It doesn't matter what kind. I just like food that doesn't overtax my misaligned jaw. I like to drink my meals, so to speak (like the blood sucking mosquito woman I am). When I have oodles of cash, I buy it prepared. Usually I go for the specialty stuff in the deli cold-case, but I do cans, too.

Well, that shit is expensive. Rather than give it up, I've gotten savvy. Now I make my own chicken stock out of veritable scraps.

I know there are tons of blogs all over the internet that describe this process, but screw it. I want to do it, too. I want you, Gentle Readers to picture me shuffling around the kitchen with a bottle of wine, ham-handedly pitching chicken parts at a stockpot. Here we go:

1) Buy a rotisserie chicken at Sam's Club for 5 bucks. Get the meatiest, largest bastard you can find. Greg and I did some weight comparison once, and there's a pound difference between the biggest and smallest ones. Observe:

2) Carve that bitch. You want dem bones for the stock, as well as the back meat, wings, and any gristle and skin. Reserve the breast meat for scrammitches or pasta or whatever. Eat the leg meats if you're hungry for chicken right away, but save the bones and skin. Or just strip the leg meat too. Cut off the wings and save them. Leave the meat on the back of the carcass. Except for the oysters. Because they are, as they say, les sot-l'y-laisse. Eat them while the chicken is still warm from the store.

3) Get your hands on some onions of any color you like. Yellow tends to be cheapest. If you're as broke as me, you can just use the brown, papery skins and chopped-off ends of each onion, and put the edible parts in a ziplock in the fridge. Get about 4 onions' worth of rubbish.

4) Get some celery. It doesn't matter if it's brownish or ugly. As long as it hasn't liquefied, you can use it. As with the onions, if you're broke, cut all the leafy bits and bottoms off of your nice edible ribs, and put the pretty bits in the fridge. What a great use for rubbish. Oh yeah, and those tiny baby ribs in the very center that are too small to eat - those go in the pot, too.

5) Carrot time. I used some bulk baby carrots that had seen better days, but you could use any. Even the "normal" carrots you see on sale in the grocery store. Tops, tips, wilted, whatever. You get it.

6) Raid your fridge. Eww, slimy scallions. A few salvageable sprigs of Italian parsley. A bell pepper on the verge of collapse. Mushroom stems. Why-the-fuck-do-we-have chives. You name it, it will probably work, and will probably kick ass. Me, I had some leeks I had bought on sale at the Asian market 3 weeks prior. Pulled off the outer layer, and they were good to go.

7) Time to bust things up. Rough chop your veggies (you'll be straining them out later). Pry apart your chicken carcass with your hands, and try to break a few of the bones. Separate rib-cage from spine. Rend the fragile wing bones and howl at the moon.

8) You must have cloves of garlic, chopped in half. This is non-negotiable. You must have many. Like, 7 of them

9) Throw all your goodies in whatever big pot you have available. Fill the rest of the pot with water, plus a goodly slosh of whatever wine you're drinking at the moment. Add peppercorns if you have them. And if you want to be as cool as me, throw in 2 or 3 bay leaves. BUT DON'T ADD SALT. You can salt the stock when you turn it into soup.

10) Put the disgusting-looking swill on the stove. Bring it to a simmer, then turn it down just a touch, and throw a lid on it. After 1 hour, your house should smell fantastic. Simmer for 3-4 hours. Uncover. Skim off any white foam that comes to the top. Allow the liquid to reduce a little for another 30 to 60 minutes. Eyeball it. Give it a taste. Too weak? Let more liquid die off. Too strong? No such animal.

11) Allow the swill to cool. Strain out all the solids. You are now the proud owner of a pot of chicken stock.

12) If you put your stock in the fridge overnight, you can skim off all the fat that rises to the surface. It doesn't taste any different, and it's healthier that way.

13) You can freeze stock.

14) Make some SOUP. Or something. I mean, you could use it to cook rice or veggies, I guess, but then you wouldn't have SOUP. Maybe next time I'll give you a soup recipe.

You wouldn't believe the awesome stuff that Greg and I have made with our stocks. Soups, of course. And Greg reduced some of his so much, it became a syrupy chicken demi glace. We've been adding spoonfuls of the demi to our sauteed veggies, and nearly weeping at the glory.

Happy carcass boiling!

Edit: 10/9/2010 A vegetarian friend of mine reminded me that you can do the same thing with just the veggie peels and tops and whatnot to create veggie stock. Thanks, dude. I should have mentioned that! But yes, it works equally well that way. (Though, if I were going to do that, I'd use a few whole onions as well, instead of just tops. Maybe reduce it a little more than usual. Still delicious!)

Recovery
or
"The Otorrhea" Is Not The Title of An Italian Opera

For those of you who didn't know, I've been very sick lately.

The illness struck Greg first, who developed ear pressure and pain on first one, then both sides. That was about two weeks ago.

I left for Vegas on the 16th, feeling shaky and nauseous. I slept almost constantly once I arrived. I chalked it up to nerves. After all, I had no appetite. I began to have feverish dreams, waking every hour or two to wander the house disoriented, before dropping onto the bed again.

Somehow I scraped myself off the carpet long enough to make it to The Pirate's Ball across the street from my house - in costume, no less. Nerves, just nerves, I told myself. A few drinks into the night, my senses were dulled enough to dance and frolic with the other pirates. See, I was going to be fine!

When I awoke from nightmares on the 19th, my lymph nodes in my neck were enormous. I could barely turn my head. I had pain inside my left ear, and couldn't walk around without bumping into walls. I had body chills. I had visual and auditory hallucinations. I'd never had a bug quite like it before.

Naturally I went to the doctor. My good friend Sam took me, as I was broke, and in no condition to drive. I had the equilibrium of a drunk. (Bless you, Sam. You saved my biscuits.)

The doctor was unsure which microbes were ailing me. After looking into all of my cranial orifices, I believe her exact words were: "I have no idea what it is, but let's give you some kickass antibiotics to knock it out of you." We began with an injection of Rocephin. She then prescribed me Doxycycline - 100 mg capsules, 2 of them a day. No kiddie stuff, here.

Rocephin is the antibiotic of choice for preventing infection after major surgery. It's also effective against meningitis, septicemia (blood poisoning), Necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria), bone infections, as well as typhoid fever. Among many other things. They administer it by injection or IV. I got mine shoved into my flank, which hurt like a bitch, but I didn't care too much. Injections work swiftly. I wanted to feel better as soon as possible.

Doxycycline will take just about any bacteria (and some parasites) out of commission. It's often used to prevent resistant strains of malaria. It'll help you if you've been exposed to aerosolized anthrax. If the Europeans of the Middle Ages had access to doxycycline, they wouldn't have known the scourges of black plague or cholera.

Either one of the two will take out every bacterial STI known to man.

I felt somewhat better the next day. Enough to go to the firing range with Sam. He's the one who took that freaking wonderful photo of me with the m249 SAW.

Don't tell the range master, but (guns + girl) = SEX^r , where r is how many rounds I shot on full-auto.

We also had a lovely luncheon at the Red Velvet Cafe. I recommend it for all vegetarian, vegan, and cake-loving types. They make the world's best desserts. All of them VEGAN. (Are the tears of angels vegan? I suppose they must be.)

By the next day, I had devolved into a bed-ridden amoeba. I was so weak and woozy, I could not stand of my own volition. I lay limp under the sheets, sticky and wan like a poorly made waxwork.

Arturo moved the spare bed into the living room, so I could watch movies with him and use the computer while I rested. I stayed in the same spot for nearly a week.

I'm unsure whether it was the illness or the medication, but while I lay that week, I endured strange symptoms, even as my throat and ears began to heal. Great purple contusions appeared mysteriously on my body. (Editor's note: as of 10/07/2010, the original bruises are still green shadows, and later ones are yet purple.) Nausea and vomiting kept me from eating or drinking for hours at a time. And the fatigue was smothering. Never in my life have I been so tired. Yet when I closed my eyes, demonic technicolor faces leered at me in the darkness, mutating into hideous crustaceans that smushed and garbled into one another until I begged Arturo to turn on the lamp and we slept in the light.

I recovered slowly. By the time I finished my antibiotics, I felt no more physical symptoms, and my appetite has returned, but the fatigue remains. How long it will be until it fully lifts? I don't know.

All I know is that Greg never had the bulk of my symptoms. Instead, his illness concentrated in his ears, dampening his hearing and causing him pain in both sides of his head. He also experienced the nightmares and feverish thoughts that made my illness so hellish. He also has otorrhea. Which in layman's terms means:

Kermit green goo coming out of your earhole.

Don't let the photo deceive you, kids. This stuff is Kermit the frog frickin' green.

Would someone like to tell us what on earth we had?

UPDATE 10/7/2010: We've both been given the clean bill of health. I'm still really tired, pale, and shakey. Greg is too strong to admit it, but he looks kinda sick still, too. Ears still leaking green fluid. Doctor says this is not worrisome. Whatever.

But it's not Lupus. It's NEVER Lupus.

P.S. Here's some articles on my antibiotics in case you guys think I'm making everything up. Copy and paste, you lazy bastards.


http://www.drugs.com/pro/doxycycline-hyclate.html

http://www.rxlist.com/doryx-drug.htm

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drug-7012-Rocephin+Inj.aspx?drugid=7012&drugname=Rocephin+Inj&source=0&pagenumber=4


http://antibiotics.emedtv.com/rocephin/what-is-rocephin-used-for.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000848

Oh did you, now?

I Love Japan
or
Vaganus of The Sea

The Japanese are so friggin WEIRD. I love it. I'm pretty tough to shock, and they manage to get me quite a bit. I just had to share this video with you. I warn you, it's gross and freakish, but it's also incredibly funny. Well, it's funny if you have a sick sense of humor like me.

I will do you all a favor and tell you straight off that the video is fake. It's an SFX puppet. Things like that DO live in the sea, but they don't react to soda the way the puppet does.

Without further ado:





The first time I watched this, I couldn't stop cracking up for about 20 minutes. It just took me so off-guard. Ever so disgusting. Pure insanity. Someone in the comments said it best: "Is it more disturbing that these people prodded a sea-vaganus until it splooged and exploded, or that they FAKED A VIDEO of prodding a sea-vaganus until it splooged and exploded?" That's Japan, for you. God bless you, you crazy bastards! Where would the internet be without you?!

You know what it looks like? It kind of looks like a sea pig.







The ocean is a strange and slimy place.

Heartbreak
or
Way Out In The Water See Her Swimming

It hurts me viscerally that a girl can't be effected (yes, because it had an effect) by a song these days without being picked apart.


If I so much as comment on a song, that labels me "wannabe emo," or worse, "emo."


Human Nature so often disgusts me so much that I am loathe to write. You hear that, dissenters?

No, of course you don't.

Against your wishes I will post this:






I was there for their - for Placebo's - concert in Minnesota. In Minneapolis, to be exact. I thank them so deeply for even coming to the states in the first place. I was lucky to have a friend who was going to college there.

It changed my life.




I think I might have been born 50 years too late.

Burles-que'st que c'est?
or
My Big Debut

Great news, gentle readers! I will be starring in a burlesque show on August 12 at Daddy Mac's! Look, I'm even on the flier! (Albeit, with my old platinum hair. But never mind that.)



I'm soooooo excited. I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get my acts ready. I'm going to fill two numbers. The first will be a classic burlesque dance to "Stray Cat Strut" by the Stray Cats. Bet you can't guess what I'll be dressed as. Meow.

The second act is a bit more modern. I'm going to turn myself into a human ice cream sundae. It's going to be super sexy, and a hell of a mess. I need to buy a tarp for the stage . . . As for music, I shall dance to "Ice Cream" by New Young Pony Club.

What a wonderful opportunity this is! I've wanted to do burlesque for ages, and now I finally have my chance! It's so classic. So retrosexual.

No, it's not nude. It's pasties and full back underwear. Don't look at me like that.

Wish me luck! Anyone with burlesque experience is more than welcome to add some tips in the comments. I would appreciate it.

Deadly Little Lady
or
"HOLY SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"

I stepped into death's parlor for tea today. Luckily, I didn't stay for dinner. Phew.

Otherwise, this blog wouldn't exist any more. Whatever would my gentle readers do to waste time after they had finished with the news?

At any rate, I survived. The poisonous spiders, that is. I feel like a J. R. R. Tolkein character even saying that, but it's absolutely true. Tonight, at my domicile, I encountered two black widows. One of them was absurdly large. The other was somewhat more like what one might find in a zoo or entomological collection - that is to say, of average size.

I have photographic evidence.

Bella Morte of the back porch

I found the first specimen on our back patio while accompanying my friend, Becca, outside while she smoked a cigarette. Thank goodness I had turned on the patio light, because I almost stepped into the little lady's web, while barefoot no less.

Little. BAH! She had to be at least 2.5 inches in diameter. Never in my life have I ever seen or heard of a black widow so large. I spied her twitching amid her chaotic, glistening strands, surrounded by the corpses of her prey:

The Lady at home.



Those are full-sized cockroaches suspended below the spider. Ya know. For scale.

I had to kill her. I had no choice. The apartment is riddled with cracks and seams that lead to the outdoors. What if the little lady bred? We'd be overrun within days. I mean, I might survive if I were bitten, but what about my cats?

What am I saying . . . I didn't kill her. I'm too chickenshit for spiders, thank you very much. I did what comes naturally to every woman: I sent the menfolk after her.

First, Greg went outside with the camera to capture the spider's good side. He took probably 8 or 9 shots at close proximity, trying to get the perfect view of her hourglass. Then we sent out Arturo to get her with the Raid. I'm pleased to note that "Ant and Roach Formula" is equally effective on spiders, at least when it comes to a direct hit.

Everyone celebrated the death of Bella Morte - particularly myself, who had come so close to walking straight into fang-range.

Becca and I decided that she should take her cigarette in the front yard, instead. We'd had enough deadly arachnids for one night. Greg performed the role of chaperon. I'm glad he did. It was his sharp eyes that caught the second Black Widow.

They seem to like hanging upside down in their webs, don't they?

This new spider was about a third of the size of the original find. She much more resembled the black widows I've seen before in captivity. Certainly still deadly.

By some stroke of adrenalin-induced madness, we decided to capture it in a plastic container. Don't ask me how, but Greg did the honors in one fell swoop. No feinting, no whimpering, just POP goes the Tupperwear around our little horror and it was done.

Macro shot through the plastic. Look at those forelegs!

And now what to do with her?

That is the question, isn't it?

Becca wants to take her home. Fine. I told her she can have the damned thing, just don't let it go within a mile radius of me.

Ugh. Greg said her web felt like cloth gauze, it was so strong. It gives me shivers to even think about it. Especially since I imagine these won't be the last black widows we find around this place . . .

Back To My Roots
or
A Sugar By Any Other Name

I had a root beer float today. (Well, not a whole one. I took a few bites of the one Greg made for himself. Bless his heart for always letting Miss Diet Conscious taste his sweets. But that's beside the point.) The point is that it was simply incredible. I'd never had one like it before.

See, I've never been a huge root beer fan. Back when I used to drink a lot of soda, diet cola was my beverage of choice. Yes, diet. Right from Kindergarten. My mother is addicted (in the literal sense of the word) to Diet Pepsi. She drinks about 4 cans per diem. Sometimes more. As a child, I simply got used to what was always around. To this day, normal Pepsi or Coke tastes filthy and cloying to me. I can feel the syrup swimming on my teeth. *shudder*

I loved diet soda for years, until aspartame started giving me mouth sores. It's not the kindest chemical to one's system, I'll tell you that.

And diet root beer tastes like Pepto Bismol.

Nowadays, I have another reason to avoid soda altogether, particularly the sweetened kind. It contains about 10 tsps of the goddamned High Fructose Corn Syrup.

High Fructose corn syrup is just not cool in my book. First off, it'll probably make you fat, even more so than table sugar, which I absolutely cannot forgive. Also, in my opinion, it tastes like crap. I avoid it every chance I get. You can never eat too little refined sugar.

Back to the root beer float.

While we were at Trader Joe's today, Greg snagged something that gave me pause: a can of Hansen's All Natural root beer made with cane sugar. We bought it, took it home, opened it up, and each took a tiny sip of it.


Wow. I couldn't believe what I had been missing.

Sweet, creamy, herbal flavors filled my mouth. It was nothing at all like the insipid, syrupy national brands or sickening, musky generics. I sipped it drop by drop, letting the soda's multitude components spread across my tongue. Vanilla and anise I could make out distinctly. The can also lists wintergreen, birch, and sassafras extracts as flavoring. I never knew those things went into root beer. Usually the ingredient lists for soft drinks state the catch-all NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORINGS, and leave it at that.

Greg decided that the best way to enjoy this root beer was to make a float out of it. I do believe he was right.

Imagine Hansen's cane-sweetened root beer and Breyer's vanilla bean ice cream (also natural with no HFCS), frosting up the sides of a white porcelain bowl. Think about that. Little specks of vanilla pod riding on the bubbles. Root beer freezing on the scoop of ice cream, giving it a glossy tan shell. And fragrant! The smell of the root beer, spicy-sweet and complex, wafted to my on its effervescence. Wow.

Like I said at the start of the post, I only had a few spoonfuls of the float. A few spoonfuls was all I needed. The flavor was so rich and powerful that eating more than a little at a time was a waste of tastebuds. The sweetness was perfect. It was delicious. After about 8 small tastes of ice cream and root beer, I was completely satisfied. I actually felt full.

The whole experience made me wonder if the obesity epidemic isn't due in large part to artificial sweeteners and flavorings. About 1/3 cup of natural ice cream and root beer made a luscious, satisfying desert. I couldn't have eaten more if I wanted to. Yet, I see people downing 32oz portions of the artificial stuff all the time, chasing an experience they can never truly have and a craving they can never truly fulfill.

At any rate, Hansen's All Nature Cane Sugar Root Beer is wonderful. I highly suggest you try it.