Month: March 2005

Aarrrrgggghhhhhhh!!! I gotta get my taxes done… but I wanna read more of this stuff!! (OK, one ‘lover’ is abusive… )

OK, now he’s done it. Just what I need: a way to waste some time that yields more laughs. Dan’s blogroll at Riehl World View has some of the most off-the-wall possibilities I’ve seen since Dave Barry (said) he hung up his hat on column-writing. For example, at Topic Drift, this gem:

kheuh urhgi 4rgibflkur ???

When people say “Physician, heal thyself,” I always start weeping uncontrollably, because what if the physician is walking around, minding his own business, when both of his arms fall off? He won’t be able to pick up his arms, much less heal himself. Someone is going to have to pick up his arms for him – and this helper won’t be able to hand the physician his arms, because the physician will have no arms to hold his arms in his arms. That’s what I’m talking about.

Check out Topic Drift (courtesy of Dan’s blogroll @ Riehl World View Yeh, just do it. You have time to burn. Rub my nose in it. Go ahead. *sigh*

Woody beats up on the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army

In “Think On This (And hate Our Biased News Culture)”, over at Woody’s News & Views, is a good example of a measured, thoughtful response to the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army’s response to the lies, damned lies and stupid damned lying inconsistent tales from the mouth of a commie terrorist c sympathizer (and co-conspirator?), Giuliana Sgrena and its effect upon troop morale and safety.

Did I say, “measured” and “thoughtful”? Add “righteous.”

“… I can honestly tell you that I hate (yes, hate) the prevailing media culture in this country. CNN, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and especially morning shows like Today and Good Morning America that are trying to get the soccer moms weeping on a daily basis can all go to hell. Wake up people! This hand wringing and second guessing is making us a weaker nation. We can’t afford this during wartime, especially just for the sake of TV ratings.”

Count me in, Woody.

Read the whole thing (and the article he references).

Pamibe’s Carnival of the Recipes #30

Check out all the good stuff. I’ve already saved several recipes for future reference… and not all that far in the future at that! Indian Tacos, for example–how did I ever forget those! Well, folks don’t know how to make ’em here in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ so I’ve missed the Indian Taco Dinners of old for the past ten years or so. Gotta have some, soon.

so to speak (off to the salt mines, more like 🙂

Here’s a parting shot. Think for a sec what changes you can make along the lines of “How can I live my day with LESS impact?”

Less spending.

Less hassle, etc.

“Can I buy/do Xxxx for less $$/effort?”

“Can I get a better quality (stuff/experience, whatever) for less $$/effort?”

etc.

It’s the essense of true tightwaddery: can I do better with/for less?

Heck, even simple things like washing the dishes. Do I need a dishwasher for two people? Can I clean the dishes for a two person meal faster and better by hand? Can it be a better experience than that muted rumble in the background from the dishwasher, that almost sub-sonic hum? I found the answer to that to be “Yes”—IF I make it so.

There are probably a myriad of things in our lives that we think are convenient and frugal but are not. Just try today looking at what you do and asking

“Can I do/have this better for less $$/effort? Can I have a better quality life for… less?”

Might be a surprise or two waiting.

Update: *sheesh!* Some folks are entirely too preoccupied with sex. After some offline queries, “Xxxx” above does NOT refer to

1.) Porn
2.) Getting some X-chromosome-laden “stuff,” as in “Four xes? Must mean two
women… ” *shee-e-esh* (slaps forehead… not my own, dope-slap on backswing)
2a.) No, the size of the xes has nothing to do with anything either.
3.) Anything but some unspecified “unknown”

OK? Golly, folks, get some algebra, would you?

Faster than a speeding bullet?

Quick snack pizza. Thin crust. No, really thin.

C’mon, tell me you haven’t been in this situation. No time to make a meal. Have a hankering for pizza. Ain’t gonna use some frozen sewer cover pizza. Uh-uh. Not gonna do it.

Whadda ya gonna do?

Well, if you were in my house, no problemo. Always have cheeses and some sort of leftover Italian-seasoned tomato sauce. Flour, oil, etc. (or just some leftover flour tortillas–store bought are really usually OK). Some sort of toppings (veggies, meats–usually leftovers or some bacon pieces or crumbs in the fridge, whatever).

(Addendum: here’s a decent flour tortilla recipe. It’s easy, and it just works.)

Easy: just slap some tomato sauce–appropriately seasoned–on a flour tortilla, add cheese and toppings, more cheese. Set oven at about 350-375 (oven temps vary). Use a convection oven if you have one to get the cheeses nice & melted quickly, etc. Depending on your toppings, about 20 minutes oughta do it.

Yeh, the tortilla crust makes a nicely crisp THIN crust. And while I prefer a thick yeast crust, this’ll do in a pinch.

Serves one. Make your own. This one is mine (Three cheeses, thin-sliced dried pepper-beef, bacon, onion and jalapeno peppers—yum!)

No, really: shoot!

Over at Riehl World View, Dan has broken the *worldwide exclusive!!!* story clearing the military in the shooting of the commie Italian “journalist” who had spent a few days shacking up with her buds in Iraq. Read “Military Cleared in Sgrena Shooting.”

Reading is believing.

(BTW: Her buddies now say they turned down the Italian government’s offer to “chip in on the rent” for her visit with them. “Nah, we’d already paid the rent and utilities for the month. One more ??????? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ???? (filthy whore) in the crib didn’t cost us anything extra. She didn’t eat much, and, being Italian, didn’t even bathe.”)

Nah, hate’s too mild a word…

I hate doing my taxes. I also hate paying someone else to do them (a function of my Tightwad Philosphy of Lifeâ„¢). My compromise, for the last 12 years, has been to use relatively inexpensive computer software to make a compromise between these two in-tension feelings.

When Parsons sold out to Intuit, it wasn’t too bad. I could still import my Parsons material from th previous year into Turbotax.

Even when Intuit decided one year to install some really malicious spyware (crippled, totally crippled my CD burner on the machine I had Turbotax on. had to scrub the machine and re-install Windows to get my full-functionality back on the burner), I managed to grit my teeth and bear it, because at least doing my taxes was pretty darned easy.

but this year… Familiar with Kim du Toit’s “RCOB” (red curtain of blood) expression? THIS year, Turbotax found and imported by previous year’s Turbotax file all right.

And recognized absolutely NO usable data!

Scrub that. Try a backup file (of which I had four, on different hard drives and CDs).

Same thing.

RCOB.

Oh. You have NO IDEA how enraged I am with Intuit. No. Earthy. Idea. Were I still in my 2003 clinically obese body, I probably would have stroked out… seriously. You have no idea how much I now HATE Intuit. With. A. Passion. One that I dare not give vent to, because

I HAVE TO DO MY STINKING TAXES!!!!!!

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………….

I don’t know… but it’s an intriguing thought

OK, this post is as wild a departure as can be from anything that can be considered normal for this blog (whatever normal for this blog is?I still don’t really have that pegged down).

I thought I had an explanation for my transformation a year ago from clinically obese to well within normal range. Then I started reading some USDA-referenced info about drops in food nutrition—vitamin and mineral content—and began to wonder about something. I have noticed a change in my appetite. I feel “fuller” faster and have fewer cravings for just… stuff. Could my altered appetite be due in part to a substantive change in my nutrition?

Yeh, maybe. When my wife switched brands of vitamin supplementation (something we’d researched as a part of her cardio/PPS health regimen), I began taking a subset of the same brand of super-duper “patented formulation” (well, they are) vitamins, as well. Yeh, I also ate the “fat conversion activity bar” that was developed for use in the Arctic, and I’m sure it had some impact. But my exercise levels have, um, leveled off and even declined over the winter months and no gain in weight, inches, whatever.

And no increase in appetite or junk food cravings as in past years when my idiosyncratic form of cabin fever set in.

Could it be that the cravings for more stuff to stuff in me were in part because the food I was stuffing myself with was deficient in nutrients my body needed?

Maybe. I just don’t know. I do know that after years of failed diet and exercise programs, now in my *cough cough something* 50s I have been able to not only lose a good 50+ pounds of excess weight (and BUNCHES of inches in chest, waist, etc.), but I have been able to keep it off for the past year.

Could one (surely of many) factor in the obesity problem here in the U.S. be that folks’ bodies are craving vitamins and minerals not available in the “healthy” (note: I abhor that construction/use when used in place of the term “healthful”—but that’s a different rant entirely) fresh fruits and vegetables we’ve been encouraged to consume, let alone in all the crap we stuff ourselves with?

Maybe. I just don’t know.

But it is an intriguing idea.

Back to regularly scheduled ranting.

Check that. I notice I can’t lay my figurative hands (via mouse/keyboard) on the pdf I downloaded from the USDA with the data that has been brewing in the back of my mind concerning this thought. Well, the same data seems to have been used in this article. Maybe that’s enough for now.

Back to the salt mines.

[bump] Who needs the pressure whenthere’s so much good stuff to choose from?

But really, now, when presented something like this comment to a post on Jackson’s Junction
about Dan Blather’s signoff as C–B.S. “News” anchor, I’m tempted to label it “quote of the day”—

“O’l Dan Looked tighter than a long-necked wombat wearing a hat full of cranberries.”–’Ken’

It’s great art like that that convinced me to stop attempting poetry. That sentence just begs to be set to music… Where, oh where, is a Marty Robbins when you need one?

Ahh! Found Marty Robbins’ backup guys…

[Not!] Apparently they’re underwater or something, but maybe it’ll give Dan Blather’s Last Standâ„¢ a lil background music… (see below)