halleyscomet

This morning I saw the same woman nearly run over by two different BMWs. An event like that puts the morning annoyances into perspective.

That Can't be Good for the Paint job

There's a lot of crap circulating today. I need something to cheer me up.

How about an example of human ingenuity and compassion coming to the aid of a disabled child? The kid with the huge smile as he uses his new prosthetic? He's 5, the same age as my own son.

Oh, and the guys doing this? they've run out of funding to give away hands for free, so they have a fund raiser.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robohand

And they've released their design as Open Source.

whuffle recently sent me an article about the Giant 'head' found floating in Hudson River

I was reminded of an incident back in the mid to late 1990's when I was in a mall with my mother. She wanted to get my sister R___ a copy of the Monkees movie "Head" and she kept talking about how she wondered if she should "Just give R___ Head for her birthday," or if she "would need more or she'd feel cheated." During the conversation, the topic of which I was desperately trying to change, she kept enthusiastically talking about how she was "definitely giving R___ Head," how "she's been pestering me for it forever," and and how "She deserved it."

I could tell from the looks we were getting that not many people suspected my mother was discussing a movie.

To this day, oversize, detached heads remind me of that very uncomfortable conversation. One does not appreciate how often oversize, detached heads factor into life until one has reason to be embarrassed by them.

Right, so...

It turns out that according to they physics of the respective cartoon franchises, Rainbow Dash is significantly more maneuverable and durable than Starscream. When you take the respective capabilities of the two characters, as described in their own cartoons, into account, a battle of Starscream vs Rainbow Dash would probably go like this:

VeggieTales - An Easter Carol 1/10

A shoddy effort to graft the "Christmas Carol" plot onto Easter, the result is beyond believability even for a movie about computer animated, proselytizing, talking vegetables. The gulf between this and the average Veggie Tales outing is comparable to the gulf between the Kirk Cameron "Left Behind" movie and "The Omen." This is even more disturbing once you consider how bad Veggie Tales outings tend to be. "VeggieTales - An Easter Carol" is the Veggie Tales flick you would send to someone if you want to turn them off Veggie Tales for all time.

My five year old son watched, very confused, as to what was supposed to be going on. The plot wasn't convoluted, it was quite simple, but the premise was so absurdly stupid that someone from an age bracket that enjoys a fish in a rocket propelled spacesuit found it implausible. There were also continuity issues. For example, the young cumber is shown selling plastic Easter eggs in church, even though the factory didn't start making them until he was elderly and his grandmother had passed away. My five year old noticed this.

The ONLY redeemable scene was the elderly Scrooge Cucumber conning the inventor into building mechanical chickens. It was a decent homage to "The Music Man." I have a suspicion that sequence was the bulk of the pitch, and the flick was built around justifying it. That scene added a whole star to my rating.

Finally, the DVD has numerous issues with sound levels. The dialog was particularly problematic, necessitating multiple volume adjustments.

In short, if you know someone whose children you dislike and you have a grudge against the Veggie Tales franchise, this is the perfect passive-aggressive Easter present to send. The only down sides to using this abysmal sludge as a hostile gift is the children in the house are unlikely to watch it more than once and the DVD is too light to use as an effective Frisbee or skeet target.

This morning my five year old son stopped on the stairs down to the train, looked up, waved and said "Hello!"

I followed his gaze and realized he was greeting a pidgin on a light fixture.

"Daddy! Say 'Hello' to the blue jay!"

"That's not a blue jay, that's a pidgin."

"Oh! Thank you Daddy." He then turned and bellowed "HELLOOOOO Pidgin!"

When we reached the bottom of the stairs a woman stopped me and said "That was SOOO cute!"

He was like that all morning.

My lovely wife whuffle has referred to my latest batch of beef jerky as "meat candy." Inspired by The Oatmeal's recent mention of Sriracha beef jerky I decided to make some of my own. I used my regular beef jerky recipe, but added about a tablespoon of Sriracha to the overnight marinade, and then squirted another couple tablespoons on the meat just before drying it in the oven.

Then I made an error. I was going largely by memory, and I started the jerky at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, instead of 170. I noticed my mistake when the fat on the meat melted and started smoking when it hit the bottom of the stove. There was so much smoke I ended up opening the back door and the windows to avoid setting off the smoke detector. I turned the heat down and finished drying the jerky.

The end result is mildly spicy with some Sriracha flavor, crispy and smoked.

I have accidentally fused bacon and beef jerky.

I may have to make another batch in the near future, as whuffle keeps gobbling it up, usually with a "kid in the candy shop" grin on her face. The original plan was to send some of this to aoife, but that will have to wait a while as this is not the best time to send her crunchy, chewy meat products. It'll just give me time to replicate the experiment.

Happy Birthday Caleb!