Currently Reading: Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami
Well, seeing as how I didn't have a dog in last night's fight, the Super Bowl went as well as I hoped. It was a good game, plenty of action, not too much scoring and, best of all, not a complete waste of my time :-)
Even better, I actually enjoyed the halftime show. I think they made good choice. I've never really been a big fan of taking pop music groups and giving them the halftime show. Too often their music doesn't have a broad appeal and the group breaks up a few years down the road. Better that they go with the older, more appreciated musicians. Don't get me wrong though, I enjoyed the pre-game concert as well but I'd rather they take that risk for the early concert instead of the halftime one.
I also enjoyed watching Fox all day. One of the big problems with the Super Bowl now that it's played later at night is filling the rest of the day. When the game is on ABC or CBS they tend to fill the day with really lame chatter from their "experts." Fox had a more broad-based approach I would say. Oh yes, they started pre-game earlier than EVER before but they were good shows for the most part. I liked the whole "top ten Super Bowl moments" even if Dallas came away as the loser in the number one spot. And I got a chuckle out of The Best DARN Sports Show Period. Talk about being paranoid, did you see the moment, early in the show when the stage hand comes in and warns the guy not to say DAMN? I guess Fox was REALLY making sure they didn't have any controversy.
And so, another football season is done. Time to start getting ready for the next sport I suppose. Normally at this time I'd start watching hockey but since they're still not playing due to their lockout, I may just end up taking a break from sports until baseball season. I used to watch basketball but the games have been so boring lately, they just don't hold my interst. There aren't many TEAMS left out there these days and the few that are still around don't get much national coverage. So it's either bad basketball or nothing. I think I'll just take a break :-)
Monday, February 07, 2005
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Chillin' With Chili
Currently Reading: Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami
I don't think they'll ever settle the debate about what nature's perfect food is but when it comes to man-made food, I've got to put chili right up there near the top. Ok, sure it's not as fancy as a lot of your other foods, but pound for pound, not much else is as satisfying.
One of the big benefits, of course, is the fact that you can customize it to suit your audience. For example, if you've got a bunch of west coast, wine drinking, non-meat eaters, well hell that's not a problem, just leave out the meat :-) You can even throw in some of that tofu stuff if you want to or some fake soy meat-like substance. That's all part of the beauty of chili.
It's also pretty damn simple to make. If you want to go really old school with your chili and break out the big pots and figure out what the hell "simmer" means, you can do that. But to make a great chili you don't have to slave over a pot all day. Here's what you need:
1 crock pot (they're electric, you plug it in, it cooks stuff)
1 frying pan
1 pound lean hamburger
1 large can tomato sauce
1 medium can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 can sliced/diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions
1 can pinto beans
1 can great northern beans
3 cans kidney beans (mix it up though, dark with light)
You'll want some spices too. Get some onion powder, some garlic powder, maybe some greek seasoning, celerty flakes and parsley flakes. I can't give you any proper measurments with these things. Season to taste :-)
Alright, now here's the tricky part. Brown the hamburger in the pan. And when I say brown, I mean brown. If it's still flopping around in the pan bleeding, it ain't done. Cook it til it's done or your chili will send everyone to the bathroom for all the wrong reasons.
Once the meat is done, so is most of your cooking. Drain the beans. Canned beans always have this stuff in there which is . . . I dunno, bean juice I guess. Drain that stuff out. It'll make your chili thin. Then all you have to do is put everything into the crock pot. Be smart though, don't just dump it in. Put it in one can at a time and stir it up now and then so it's not a big mess.
That's pretty much all there is to it. You'll be wondering how long to cook it. The answer is simply as long as you can. The longer the better. One of the great things about a crock pot is that it doesn't burn anything. It cooks at a low temperature so you don't have to worry about it. Me, I like to throw my chili together around 10 or 11 in the morning for that night's dinner. Of course, you can eat it any time you want. Everything you threw into the pot was already cooked so you're just heating it up but the longer you let it cook the better it's going to taste.
Ok, now the finer points. 1. don't put too much hot sauce in the chili. Some people actually like to taste their food. Have some bottles of tobasco sauce around and if they want a hotter meal, they can spice it themselves. 2. keep bread, crackers, extra onions and cheese around. People like to add this to their chili. 3. Your wine rules still apply here. Red meat, red wine, white meat, white wine. 4. Aren't hanging out with a wine crowd? Beer, of course. And 5. Use napkins for crying out loud! You're not a barbarian :-)
It's Super Bowl Sunday so get cooking and impress your friends!
Enjoy!
I don't think they'll ever settle the debate about what nature's perfect food is but when it comes to man-made food, I've got to put chili right up there near the top. Ok, sure it's not as fancy as a lot of your other foods, but pound for pound, not much else is as satisfying.
One of the big benefits, of course, is the fact that you can customize it to suit your audience. For example, if you've got a bunch of west coast, wine drinking, non-meat eaters, well hell that's not a problem, just leave out the meat :-) You can even throw in some of that tofu stuff if you want to or some fake soy meat-like substance. That's all part of the beauty of chili.
It's also pretty damn simple to make. If you want to go really old school with your chili and break out the big pots and figure out what the hell "simmer" means, you can do that. But to make a great chili you don't have to slave over a pot all day. Here's what you need:
1 crock pot (they're electric, you plug it in, it cooks stuff)
1 frying pan
1 pound lean hamburger
1 large can tomato sauce
1 medium can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 can sliced/diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions
1 can pinto beans
1 can great northern beans
3 cans kidney beans (mix it up though, dark with light)
You'll want some spices too. Get some onion powder, some garlic powder, maybe some greek seasoning, celerty flakes and parsley flakes. I can't give you any proper measurments with these things. Season to taste :-)
Alright, now here's the tricky part. Brown the hamburger in the pan. And when I say brown, I mean brown. If it's still flopping around in the pan bleeding, it ain't done. Cook it til it's done or your chili will send everyone to the bathroom for all the wrong reasons.
Once the meat is done, so is most of your cooking. Drain the beans. Canned beans always have this stuff in there which is . . . I dunno, bean juice I guess. Drain that stuff out. It'll make your chili thin. Then all you have to do is put everything into the crock pot. Be smart though, don't just dump it in. Put it in one can at a time and stir it up now and then so it's not a big mess.
That's pretty much all there is to it. You'll be wondering how long to cook it. The answer is simply as long as you can. The longer the better. One of the great things about a crock pot is that it doesn't burn anything. It cooks at a low temperature so you don't have to worry about it. Me, I like to throw my chili together around 10 or 11 in the morning for that night's dinner. Of course, you can eat it any time you want. Everything you threw into the pot was already cooked so you're just heating it up but the longer you let it cook the better it's going to taste.
Ok, now the finer points. 1. don't put too much hot sauce in the chili. Some people actually like to taste their food. Have some bottles of tobasco sauce around and if they want a hotter meal, they can spice it themselves. 2. keep bread, crackers, extra onions and cheese around. People like to add this to their chili. 3. Your wine rules still apply here. Red meat, red wine, white meat, white wine. 4. Aren't hanging out with a wine crowd? Beer, of course. And 5. Use napkins for crying out loud! You're not a barbarian :-)
It's Super Bowl Sunday so get cooking and impress your friends!
Enjoy!
Friday, February 04, 2005
Sideways? Best Picture?
Currently Reading: Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami
Just finished watching Sideways. My brother in law is a regional distributor for a major video chain and he gets the screeners all the time, months before the movies are released on video. So I'm sitting here wondering a few things about this movie.
First off, I'm wondering why in the hell this thing is nominated for best picture, director, adapted screenplay. As stories go, the characters were mostly annoying, prenentious and self-centered. As plots go, there's almost ZERO growth with the characters. And was this supposed to be a comedy? If so it wasn't very funny. If it's a drama, it wasn't very dramatic. In fact, I found the whole thing pretty damn predictable.
I will grant that the supporting women were great, and Thomas Hayden Church was also good, though a bit 2 dimentional. Well maybe two and a half. He had a LITTLE depth but not much.
Maybe it's some California thing. Maybe if I lived in California I'd be able to connect with these people on some level. I certainly can't identify with them, they all seem so damn shallow and weak.
There certainly was a lot of talk about wine, but you know, on the whole, that really made the picture seem even more self-important. Like I'm supposed to be completely enthralled with this film because of all the wine terminology. All that did for me was put up yet another wall between me and the characters. They live in a totally different world and sadly, it's not even a very interesting one.
Perhaps if I'd had a few glasses of wine along the way I'd better appreciate it. No, actually if I'd had a few glasses of wine along the way I probably would have fallen asleep after the first hour.
All I can say is that it's going to be one snoozer of an Oscar ceremony this year.
Just finished watching Sideways. My brother in law is a regional distributor for a major video chain and he gets the screeners all the time, months before the movies are released on video. So I'm sitting here wondering a few things about this movie.
First off, I'm wondering why in the hell this thing is nominated for best picture, director, adapted screenplay. As stories go, the characters were mostly annoying, prenentious and self-centered. As plots go, there's almost ZERO growth with the characters. And was this supposed to be a comedy? If so it wasn't very funny. If it's a drama, it wasn't very dramatic. In fact, I found the whole thing pretty damn predictable.
I will grant that the supporting women were great, and Thomas Hayden Church was also good, though a bit 2 dimentional. Well maybe two and a half. He had a LITTLE depth but not much.
Maybe it's some California thing. Maybe if I lived in California I'd be able to connect with these people on some level. I certainly can't identify with them, they all seem so damn shallow and weak.
There certainly was a lot of talk about wine, but you know, on the whole, that really made the picture seem even more self-important. Like I'm supposed to be completely enthralled with this film because of all the wine terminology. All that did for me was put up yet another wall between me and the characters. They live in a totally different world and sadly, it's not even a very interesting one.
Perhaps if I'd had a few glasses of wine along the way I'd better appreciate it. No, actually if I'd had a few glasses of wine along the way I probably would have fallen asleep after the first hour.
All I can say is that it's going to be one snoozer of an Oscar ceremony this year.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Blank Blogging
Currently Reading: Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami
You know, I did a little poetry writing today. I don't do it very often and usually they're to CC but a situation came up that required a little bit of verse. As I was writing it, I was reminded of a discussion I had with a group of "poets" while I was in college (note that one of them actually went on to get a PhD in poetry). The discussion went something like this:
Bear: Man, poetry really sucks these days. All blank verse, free verse, whatever they want to call it. I mean, what the hell is that? There's no rhyme, no meter, no rules, nothing.
Poet: BOO! You suck! You don't know what you're talking about! Modern poetry is great! Long live modern poetry! You're just too stupid not to understand it!
Bear: Really? Then tell me, what exactly is the difference between this free verse stuff and normal, emotive prose chopped off so it looks like a poem?
Poet: (silence) Well if you don't know the difference maybe you should change your major to something else because every English major should know what the difference is!
Bear: Mmhmm, I've avoided poetry classes on purpose. You took all of them. Please enlighten me.
Poet: BOO! You suck! You don't know what you're talking about!
Ok, obviously I'm paraphrasing there and I did do some selective editing. There were profanities involved on both sides. Never did get an answer out of any of the poets about it though. Even more shocking was learning that the PhD poet never really studied much poetry at all and didn't know many of the major, classic poets. And I'm not talking about obscure people here either. I'm talking about Walt Whitman, Blake, Pope, Dunn. Those guys (if you're an English major you know all of em). Ok, in all fairness though she was VERY well versed in the anti-male, feminist poetry of the 80's and she seemed to know quite a bit about the Morbid poets like Sylvia Plath. I assumed then that the degree covered more of the FORMS of poetry, basic styles, different types, but there again I meat with blank expression when I mentioned iambic pentameter. I mean, come ONE you gotta know that one if you have a poetry degree.
Sad to say that now that person is actually teaching a whole new generation of future English majors to hate poetry. The few who actually ENJOY such classes will come away thinking that everything in literature is relative to what the reader thinks (forget what the author MEANT) and that one should not criticize the works of a poet. Poets are genius. If you do not LIKE a poem, it is simply because you're too stupid to understand their work.
I have a two word response to people like that. It comes from Old German and has been a part of the English language for a LONG time. The first word rhymes with duck :-)
You know, I did a little poetry writing today. I don't do it very often and usually they're to CC but a situation came up that required a little bit of verse. As I was writing it, I was reminded of a discussion I had with a group of "poets" while I was in college (note that one of them actually went on to get a PhD in poetry). The discussion went something like this:
Bear: Man, poetry really sucks these days. All blank verse, free verse, whatever they want to call it. I mean, what the hell is that? There's no rhyme, no meter, no rules, nothing.
Poet: BOO! You suck! You don't know what you're talking about! Modern poetry is great! Long live modern poetry! You're just too stupid not to understand it!
Bear: Really? Then tell me, what exactly is the difference between this free verse stuff and normal, emotive prose chopped off so it looks like a poem?
Poet: (silence) Well if you don't know the difference maybe you should change your major to something else because every English major should know what the difference is!
Bear: Mmhmm, I've avoided poetry classes on purpose. You took all of them. Please enlighten me.
Poet: BOO! You suck! You don't know what you're talking about!
Ok, obviously I'm paraphrasing there and I did do some selective editing. There were profanities involved on both sides. Never did get an answer out of any of the poets about it though. Even more shocking was learning that the PhD poet never really studied much poetry at all and didn't know many of the major, classic poets. And I'm not talking about obscure people here either. I'm talking about Walt Whitman, Blake, Pope, Dunn. Those guys (if you're an English major you know all of em). Ok, in all fairness though she was VERY well versed in the anti-male, feminist poetry of the 80's and she seemed to know quite a bit about the Morbid poets like Sylvia Plath. I assumed then that the degree covered more of the FORMS of poetry, basic styles, different types, but there again I meat with blank expression when I mentioned iambic pentameter. I mean, come ONE you gotta know that one if you have a poetry degree.
Sad to say that now that person is actually teaching a whole new generation of future English majors to hate poetry. The few who actually ENJOY such classes will come away thinking that everything in literature is relative to what the reader thinks (forget what the author MEANT) and that one should not criticize the works of a poet. Poets are genius. If you do not LIKE a poem, it is simply because you're too stupid to understand their work.
I have a two word response to people like that. It comes from Old German and has been a part of the English language for a LONG time. The first word rhymes with duck :-)
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Uh . . . damn. LINE!
Currently Reading: Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami
We used to do that a lot in theater in high school. You'd be going along through a scene, the words just flowing out of your voice in perfect harmony with everyone else and then, while in the middle of telling Mary of Scotland why she was a tramp, you hit a snag. The words, they just don't come out and they're not GOING to come out. And so you end up saying something like, "And furthermore lady, you are . . . uh . . . are uh . . . damned and uh . . . damnit, LINE!". Such is the glamorous life in the theater :-)
What brings that to mind today is the fact that I have completely forgotten what I was originally going to blog about in the first place. I couldn't think of anything yesterday and since it was another of those gray days I figured I'd just hold off. But today, after getting the laundry going and changing the bedding I clapped my hands in evil glee like Calvin from Calving and Hobbes and said, "YES! That's what I'll blog about!" But now that I'm sitting here in front of the machine I'm drawing a complete blank.
Blank . . . bedding . . . Oh YEAH!I remember now :-)
I was going to blog about that fabulous invention the electric blanket :-) Whoever thought of this thing needs a shrine somewhere and that shrine should depict at least one person snuggled up in a nice warm bed while everyone else around them is freezing their butts off :-)
We just got our blanket back from repairs. The dog, the little cute one, decided that the plug, the end of the cord that connects to the blanket itself, was a good thing to use as a chew toy. That left us with only two options. We could replace the blanket or send it in for repairs. Simply not replacing it was NOT an option after we encountered the bliss of sliding into a nice, warm bed on a cold, cold night.
Anyway, it's back, it's working, and today it's on the bed again keeping things nice and warm. The dogs love it too in fact. You can always tell when the blanket is actually turned on because that's when the dogs shove each other aside for bed space. They all love to curl up on it, the little one especially (even though she's the one who broke it in the first place).
Naturally those of you in warmer parts of the world really can't appreciate this simple pleasure as well as the rest of us. In order to get the full experience it needs to be REALLY cold outside. Better still if there's snow or ice on the ground and it looks like Antarctica outside. That's when it's the best.
We used to do that a lot in theater in high school. You'd be going along through a scene, the words just flowing out of your voice in perfect harmony with everyone else and then, while in the middle of telling Mary of Scotland why she was a tramp, you hit a snag. The words, they just don't come out and they're not GOING to come out. And so you end up saying something like, "And furthermore lady, you are . . . uh . . . are uh . . . damned and uh . . . damnit, LINE!". Such is the glamorous life in the theater :-)
What brings that to mind today is the fact that I have completely forgotten what I was originally going to blog about in the first place. I couldn't think of anything yesterday and since it was another of those gray days I figured I'd just hold off. But today, after getting the laundry going and changing the bedding I clapped my hands in evil glee like Calvin from Calving and Hobbes and said, "YES! That's what I'll blog about!" But now that I'm sitting here in front of the machine I'm drawing a complete blank.
Blank . . . bedding . . . Oh YEAH!
I was going to blog about that fabulous invention the electric blanket :-) Whoever thought of this thing needs a shrine somewhere and that shrine should depict at least one person snuggled up in a nice warm bed while everyone else around them is freezing their butts off :-)
We just got our blanket back from repairs. The dog, the little cute one, decided that the plug, the end of the cord that connects to the blanket itself, was a good thing to use as a chew toy. That left us with only two options. We could replace the blanket or send it in for repairs. Simply not replacing it was NOT an option after we encountered the bliss of sliding into a nice, warm bed on a cold, cold night.
Anyway, it's back, it's working, and today it's on the bed again keeping things nice and warm. The dogs love it too in fact. You can always tell when the blanket is actually turned on because that's when the dogs shove each other aside for bed space. They all love to curl up on it, the little one especially (even though she's the one who broke it in the first place).
Naturally those of you in warmer parts of the world really can't appreciate this simple pleasure as well as the rest of us. In order to get the full experience it needs to be REALLY cold outside. Better still if there's snow or ice on the ground and it looks like Antarctica outside. That's when it's the best.
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