Saturday: The Infinite Sadness of Zero Pastrami

I had planned on going to Whole Ox today, since they just opened this week.  However, my usual Saturday strategy of "wake up late, then go get food at places just before they close" backfired on me this time.  By the time I arrived (2:30ish), they were sold out of everything except burgers and falafel.  I'll try again next week, and hopefully get there sooner.  I did get a chance to look at their menu, which isn't as complete as I would have hoped (basically, no knishes).  It's still the first week, so I suspect that'll change.

As my backup plan (since I know that the Saturday Strategy isn't a very safe bet), I decided to go to Teddy's to get a more Hawaiian style burger.  My choice this week was Kailua style, which has grilled onions and mushrooms with swiss on a teriyaki burger:

Also cheese fries.

I think this was the best burger I've had there so far.  The teriyaki sauce adds a nice sweet flavor.  It was extra messy, but they had somebody coming around with wetnaps.

Since I'm way out in the Pacific, everyone else gets April Fool's day before me.  That's usually super annoying, as it means that the internet gets stupid and useless.  Cartoon Network has been pretty good about this, with the Screwy Squirrel thing, the mustaches, and other things that were actually funny.  This year, they apparently are replacing Adult Swim with Toonami.  This certainly takes me back to undergrad, where Saturday nights were largely the only night of the week that didn't involve piles of homework.  So let's go over what they've chosen to show so far:

• Bleach. No one likes Bleach. It's dumb.
• DragonBall Z.  The dub is really bad.  I'd forgotten just how painful that was.
• Gundam Wing.  The best of the Gundams that I've seen, and holy crap, how is a used copy of this worth $200?  I wonder how much some of the other DVDs I haven't watched in a decade are worth.
• Tenchi Muyo. From the recent third series.  Meh.  I had hoped they'd show the final episode from the first series, but they went with this one.  I've not seen it, but all the voices are wrong, and the story isn't that great.  Disappointing.

This is where I posted to get a timestamp for the day I wanted without cheating.

• Outlaw Star.  I was actually just listening to music from this show this afternoon.  That's an odd bit of synchronicity.  This is another final episode, but OS was always a bit complicated, so without seeing everything else, this one is a bit jumbled.  I also had the opinion that OS was just a not-as-good version of Cowboy Bebop.  That's true, but since CB is nearly perfect, being not-as-good as it still leaves a lot of room to be good.
• The Big O. Episode one.  It's a shame it wasn't popular enough for more than two seasons to be made.   Although some people claim it was needlessly confusing, I always thought that the style clearly made up for the difficult story.  I also liked the final episode, so you know, I'm the one.  
• Yu-Yu Hakoshu.  Bleach is basically just this show remade, both of which are just DBZ remade.  Random people fight, a stronger enemy shows up, some of the previous enemies become good guys (if they're cool enough), and they team up to fight the stronger enemy. Rinse and repeat.
• Blue Sub #6.  Probably one of the best soundtracks ever, with excellent animation.  It's an OAV, though, so that makes sense.  This also has one of my most memorable scenes, where the little girl they have running the sonar has to tell the bridge that they're surrounded (or something, it's been a decade since I've seen it, even though I also have this on DVD).  She peaks her teddy bear around the corner first, and then comes out herself.

I might go to sleep here.  I have Mythtv recording the whole thing, so I could catch up tomorrow.

• Trigun.  It's Wolfwood's finale episode, which is a bit of a shame.  I never really thought as much of him as everyone else seemed to.  This is another choice that doesn't really make any sense if you haven't already seen the rest of the series.  The train episode or the shooting contest episode would have been my thoughts, as they have a lot more of the humor that really made the series work. 
• Astro Boy.  I never really watched this old version.  I do remember catching an episode of the newer one once...
• Gigantor. I never watched this either.  I do remember the theme song, as it was always the sign that I'd fallen asleep with the TV on during grad school.  For some reason it would always wake me up.  Maybe it's the bongos in the background.

They finished things without doing any kind of extra comments, which seems like a missed opportunity.  Of course, then they decided to show Screwy Squirrel as the very next thing on the daytime schedule.  Well played, you magnificent bastards.

Today's links.  I'm glad this Toonami thing happened, because I didn't really have anything that great.

• Pasty-gate, or, how the Tories are only slightly less tone-deaf than Mitt Romney.
• This made me laugh, but I make no assurances that it'll make anyone else do so.
• Now you're just fucking with me, Amazon's used market.  I love that CD, but really?  

Friday: I need to start doing something worthy of taking a picture

Like this crazy thing:

• Now I want to play Settlers just to make building crabs.
• This is part of the reason that the conservative side of the Supreme Court is full of soulless fucktards.
• Psyduck!
• That's good. At least I'll know that all the fish at WF is at least a minimum level of sustainable.
• Yan yan is basically just a way to eat frosting without just buying a tub of frosting and getting out a spoon.  Also: hilarious to read.
• R2-D2!
• When I think vegetables, I think frozen.  When I think of frozen vegetables, I think of machines and industrial lubricants.  Well, no, not really, but that's my best theory to explain this ad.  The alternate theory states that Shell wanted people to know that you could get really high off of industrial lubricants, to the point where your eyes won't close and you imagine vegetables growing from the countertops.

Thursday: I don't have any witty remark for today

Not much to comment on either.  How about a math joke?

It's actually more of a pun, though.

Dog video?

• Seriously, Hollywood? Why do you have to remake movies that are already basically perfect?  Besides, I don't see how this joke would ever work on modern audiences, and that's a shame because it's brilliant.
• OMG it's open?  I know what I'm doing on Saturday for lunch. OM NOM NOM.
• That's a shame, New Thundercats was one of the best new shows of the past year.

why am I not snoozing away in bed?

Conservatives' Trust In Science Has Fallen Dramatically Since Mid-1970s

Wednesday: I'm wondering if that fish last night wasn't good

Because I've felt sick all day, something that wasn't fixed by the magic food: pizza.  It's not really convenient, as feeling like crap isn't really helpful at getting work done.  It also means that I wasn't really up for cooking anything for dinner.  Instead have this picture:

• I'm kind of surprised that no one at the Daily Texan saw this comic before it went to print and thought, "Huh. Maybe that's not in the best taste."
• Exactly. Crunchy peanut butter is peanut butter. Creamy is a lie.
• I'm kind of glad I'm largely done with video games.
• Pikachu.
• Death star boston terrier.
• Conservatives hate you.
• Even if you gave them money.
• No loco moco and only one burger with teriyaki sauce?  Doesn't really seem "island inspired."  I think I'll have to go back to Teddy's soon.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday

Then again, I also had taco Sunday, so it's not like Tuesday is special or anything.  I took better pictures today:

Just the fish.

With a better amount of toppings.

I was happier with these tacos, as I think I got the ratio of toppings to fish correct.  Tomorrow will be a bit trickier, since I'm planning on trying a breakfast taco idea.  It's the eggs that I'm least sure of, as I've never really made them before.  Maybe I should just go with a "breakfast for dinner" plan and skip the taco aspect entirely.

• Blah blah, liars lie all the time about everything.
• Katharine Shilcutt is wrong.  The Monte Cristo is the most perfect sandwich, able to bridge the gap between savory and sweet like nothing else.  You know how tasty sausage is when it picks up the syrup from your pancakes?  That's what the MC brings.  It's a tasty sandwich that you then French-toast-ify, and then eat with jelly.  I want one now.
• These also look good, and seem like they'd make a good party food, if you made small meatballs and made them in those mini muffin tins.
• Huh. Daria is almost my age.  I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.
• Remember when everyone was outraged at the HHS secretary after she went against the FDA findings because she didn't think 16 year olds could make their own decisions?  Turns out that it doesn't matter, because pharmacists are just going to lie to them anyway.
• I'm not the biggest baseball fan, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be more descriptive than this.

Monday: Apparently Kuhio day means sleep to me

I woke up late, went to Target to pick up random things I've needed from Target for weeks (like kleenex, which I've successfully forgotten to pick up while grocery shopping the last dozen or so times I've been grocery shopping).  I decided since it was a day off to drive way out to the one in Kapolei, partially so I could eat at the Wendy's there.  This happened late enough that it means I'll be finishing my fish tomorrow (not a big deal, really).  However, upon getting home, I sat down on the couch, fell asleep, and now it's two hours later.  Woo, I win at being productive today.  I'm not sure what the problem is, but I really just feel like going back to sleep, which is weird, since I've been getting a reasonable amount of sleep the past few days.

• I guess you can't call yourself an astronaut when your running for office if it makes the other side pretty sure they're going to lose.  Especially if you actually were an astronaut.
• I've found more information about the gifs I posted on Saturday.  I guess the puppy thing is just something that puppies do.  The jerk of a panda is from a series of advertisements for cheese in the middle east. 
• I looked up fish in the big list of fish, and apparently ono isn't more sustainable than mahi.  Plus, it has a mercury warning.  Crap.

Tacos!

I always forget that I put too much stuff in my tacos.  You can just barely see a bit of the fish peaking out at the bottom of the right taco, between the avocado and the lettuce.

This was a pretty simple prep: Slice tomato, avocado, lettuce. Shred cheese. Open tub of WF salsa (which has a bit too much cilantro).  Slice ono in half (for tomorrow) and then in half again (for two tacos).  Cover with taco seasoning, and then pan fry until done.  Pile everything in two overstuffed tortillas, and add some more salsa and chips for fun.

I'm tempted to just do this as a salad or something.  It's just too messy to eat all together like this.  Maybe shred the fish after cooking, and cut everything finely, and scoop it up with the tortilla Ethiopian style?  I'm not sure what to do.

The other main problem with all these veggies is that the flavor of the fish kind of gets lost.  The bites that were mostly fish were really good, with a firm texture, and a mild fishy taste.  I think this might be my new go to fish, replacing mahi.  There's just more flavor with this one, and I noticed that it's "green" rated instead of "yellow," so it's more sustainable and all that.  I'm not sure on the price, I think they both run around $18/lb.

Sunday: Bowling?

Yes, bowling:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	0 2 2	1 0 3	8 / 20	7 0 27	9 0 36	X 55	5 4 64	0 7 71	6 / 88	7 0   95
Game 2	7 0 7	9 0 16	0 7 23	6 2 31	1 7 39	8 0 47	3 5 55	9 0 64	1 6 71	6 1   78
Game 3	1 7 8	X 37	X 57	9 / 77	X 96	9 0 105	1 2 108	7 / 123	5 0 128	9 / X  148
Game 4	3 5 8	1 5 14	9 / 27	3 5 35	0 7 42	3 2 47	3 0 50	8 0 58	1 4 63	6 0   69

Clearly, I should have stopped after the third game.  I kind of sucked the rest of the time, mostly because I had trouble getting the ball to go at the angle I wanted.  I'm thinking that means that that muscle needs more work, suggesting I should probably bowl more.

Plus I got to wear my snazzy shoes again.

I also got sushi over there at another Ninja Sushi.  This one was not as good as the airport one, but still had fairly decent food.  Because of the late lunch, I still haven't made dinner, but I think that's going to change soon.  I thought I had more links today, but I guess I don't.  Bunny sandwich, then:

• Bunnies in bumper cars!
• I don't understand the current push to basically say, "look, that guy makes more than you and doesn't do any real work.  Why don't you get angry at him and take that money away?"  Especially since "that guy" always seems to not be making an excessive amount of money, but works in a union job, or for the government, or as a teacher.  Isn't suggesting that everyone should be equally poor, while the super rich continue to be super rich a very cynical viewpoint? Why aren't people seeing this fact?  Besides, if state governments hadn't gutted college level funding, tuition wouldn't have increased.  So, let's go through this slowly: First, stop funding colleges due to "budget cuts." Second, watch tuition rise and begin to price college out of people's means.  Third, blame the people (this is today's actual link) who work at the college for not working hard enough, and if they only made less (or did more), tuition wouldn't rise.  Is the fourth step to then not pay people as much, and when that doesn't help, dismantle the entire thing?  Seriously, if I could light people on fire with my mind...
• Bunny ears!

Saturday: Taco week

Lazy starts to three day weekends are good.  I did the menu planning and grocery shopping, so that sounds like I accomplished something.  The plan for this week is largely taco based:

• Sunday: Fish tacos.  The Fish Guy at WF suggested that Ono was the fish to get for tacos, so that's what I have.  We'll see how they taste (I'm guessing "ono").
• Monday: Fish taco reruns.  I can't come up with anything else to do for Kuhio day, so I'll just treat it as a second Sunday.
• Tuesday: I'm thinking breakfast tacos for dinner.  The alternate plan is to do a breakfast for dinner idea.  That might work better if I make pancakes on Monday.
• Wednesday/Thursday: More breakfast tacos/for dinner.
• Friday: I never plan Friday.

I also discovered that WF is selling roast lamb in the deli case.  I thought about getting some, but I thought that Easter was next Sunday, so I didn't want to buy lamb the week before making lamb. It looks like I'm off by a week, so that gives me a bit of time to plan Easter dinner for this year.  Lamb obviously.  Sides.  Something sweet for dessert.

To complete the pasta theme from yesterday.

Careful! 

Why do you have to be a jerk like that, panda?

• Justice Clarence Thomas is a blight on this nation, and wouldn't know justice if it came up and gave him gangrene forcing his arm to be amputated.
• Fuck you, douchebag.
• Damn it, I don't even like Starbucks.  Their coffee always tastes like burnt crap.  I guess I can order something else.  They don't do Vietnamese coffee, do they?
• Squirrels!
• I assume they took it from a little orphan boy (non-video version).
• Someone in the audience wants to die in large amounts of debt, unable to afford some life saving treatment.  (Because Paul Ryan is a charlatan asshole who really only wants to be paid by rich people to make them even richer.)

Cool videos to watch to waste a long weekend

Or at least some small part thereof.

This Felix the Cat cartoon is from 1924.  It's pretty standard for the time, and lots of other cartoons were made with the same style and animation styles.

This cartoon is also from 1924.  It is completely different, and has a wonderful mechanical style with some scenes that make me think of Rothko.

Baby squirrel.  Nothing more is needed.

"How the KKK got beat by 1 black guy"

I hate LAX, but this video of a landing there is cool.

Friday: headaches suck

What also sucks is discovering that for some reason, the bit of code you're running seems to want to grab 20-30 gigabytes of memory.  It does seem to be working, but it's kind of being a resource hog.

Random pasta:

• Yesterday there was an Adventure Time game, and today Cartoon Planet comes back from the dead? WTF is up with this week, and why is it so wonderful?
• I don't really like Sandra Lee, but I'm pretty sure I'd at least not walk up to her and call her a horrible talentless leech in person.  This interviewer does not seem to have that problem.
• Squirrels!  I was kind of annoyed when they ate my sunflowers, but I understood that it's just what they do.
• These look tasty.
• Republicans scare babies.
• This also looks good, and makes me want to do a foie gras dish again.
• My concern would be how easy this bottle would be to clean.  I know that my current bottle works just fine in the dishwasher.
• Draw something is pretty fun, but I've not gotten words like this one.

Thursday: generally feeling sick

Hopefully this will be done by tomorrow, so I can get everything I need done before the long weekend.

That's pretty impressive.

• I guess this means I need to go buy a new Nintendo DS.  My old one doesn't work right anymore and it crashes when I try to play a game.  I suspect leaving it on the charger with Super Mario suspended for eight months wasn't really the best strategy.
• Baby bunny!
• Baby squirrel!
• This is a nice Mystery Machine, but I think Van Partible's is better.
• So you can cheat at Where's Waldo with Mathematica now.
• I want pokemon nori.
• On a similar subject, other than the broccoli, this is a really tasty looking bento.

Wednesday: Naps

I came home, ate dinner, and then fell asleep on my couch for two hours.  Go me.

Something like this.

• Squirrels!
• Puppy vs. Mirror!
• Red panda will totally steal your apple!
• Republicans can't run their own caucuses!
• Southern Miss stands up to the terror that is their band.
• I think I've done the "Romney blunder/facepalm" joke before. It's like they're afraid people will run out of jokes to make.
• The new Republican budget wants to give tax cuts to the rich and pay for it by cutting all the other services of government, especially those that help the poor.  And they did this during an election year.  Putting this together with the previous stories makes it look like not only are they horrible people, they're clueless horrible people.
• All in all, he's taking the accusations of being a drug smuggler pretty well.  I guess having tenure helps, even if your nemesis The Provost revokes your pay checks.
• How dumb do you have to be to claim that a boycott is terrorism?  People aren't allowed to have any sort of collective action, especially not against people they disagree with?

I also discovered today that deleting all nytimes.com cookies, and then setting a block preventing nytimes.com from setting any new cookies completely disables the nytimes firewall without any further effort.  I'm certainly glad that they spent so much money on it.

Tuesday: wait, it's still only Tuesday?

It really felt like a Wednesday today.  More boringness today.

Scooby would be a bit shorter this way.

• Does the nytimes really think this is going to work?  It turns out they've found a solution to the "press escape" trick, but this still works.  I'd like to work it into an extension for chrome to make it easier, but it's just a matter of time.  Besides, the entire story is right there in the html.  They're basically just being a dick about it, and not really trying that hard.
• Speaking of not trying that hard, do they really think that terrorists have suddenly discovered that they can talk via a video game?  It's not like there aren't a thousand other ways to communicate, right?  You can even do it securely by choosing a one time pad of some sort.  Just choose a book, and communicate via page/paragraph/word numbers.  Boom.  I just invented an uncrackable code that I could use to talk to my sleeper agents.
• Enamel cast iron dutch oven, cast iron pan, stainless pan, sauce pan, cookie sheet, ladle, turner, tongs, spatula, wisk, box grater, paring knife, chef's knife, bread knife, chopsticks.
• Next time someone talks about the gold standard, print this out, and use it to choke them to death, because you're unlikely to be able to use reality and facts against them.

Monday: inarticulate grumblings

Banger. Mash. Asparagus. Cotswold. Tomorrow is the last day of it, and then I'll have to sort out a menu plan.  I have some bacon, so maybe BLTs?  Or maybe just bacon. Om nom nom.

Whatever I make, it's certainly not going to be acid-dipped pikachu cookies.

I mean, those things are just ghastly.  I suspect those dead soulless eyes will be haunting my dreams tonight.

• "Please stop talking about the economy, because I can't make you hate anyone then."
• I wonder if the LibDems are having second thoughts about selling their souls to form a coalition with the Tories. I mean, after shit like this, it's not like they're ever going to win anything ever again.  I guess it's good for Labor, though. "Vote for us: We're not evil, and we're also not fucking spineless morons."
• Mars is full of jerks.
• This is a bad idea.  It's like they don't want people to get an education at all.
• This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.  Even if you don't care about Mass Effect (I sure don't), it's still funny.   

Sunday: laziness is good

Although tomorrow is another work day.  I guess one nice thing is that next weekend is a long weekend, due to Prince Kuhio Day.  I didn't take any pictures today, because I made the same thing as yesterday for dinner.  I did steam the asparagus today, which did a better job of consistently cooking all the stalks.

So since I don't have pictures, let's play the most disturbing version of Chutes and Ladders ever.

• Emo Ash.
• Not a pokemon.
• Squirrel!
• Too bad Kodak is pretty much gone now.

Saturday: Errandventure!

Last night, I turned on the bathroom light, and was greeted with the standard flash-pop of a lightbulb dying.  This time it was the main overhead light, which apparently was contributing the majority of the illumination in the bathroom, given that I've had two (out of four) burnt out bulbs above the sink for months now.  This prompted me to take a trip to Target to get various things (including light bulbs) that are cheaper there (like laundry soap).

However, first, I wanted to have some lunch.  Since Target really doesn't have much nearby that sounded good and was open, I had to expand my search to include the airport area.  That led me to Ninja Sushi, which had decent reviews, and would fit with my running theme of Saturday Sushi-day.  They have this nice cartoon:

Similar to how pizza places have meat lover's and pepperoni lover's, this place has ahi lover's:

Plus unagi.

which has five decent ahi nigiri, and four spicy ahi.  I would have preferred the spicy ahi to have a bit less giant chunk of onion, but it was still very tasty.  Their sushi rice is better than the place near work, and similar in style to the Kuru Kuru rice.

On the trip to lunch and Target, I noticed that the highway was a parking lot, and so after buying lightbulbs and laundry soap, I took the long way to WF.  Groceries were easy this week, as I mostly just needed some veggies.  This also covered the ingredients I needed for dinner:

Seriously, camera? Why do you hate the correct orientation?

Bangers and mash with onion gravy, asparagus, wedge of Cotswold cheese.  The WF bangers are good, with a nice fine grain.  They're a bit bland, but adding the onion gravy helped a lot.  I forgot to salt my potatoes, which was a major mistake.  I also know that Cotswold isn't an Irish cheese, so this isn't an authentic St. Patrick's Day meal, but I like Cotswold a lot, and it matches well.  I did come up with a good cooking tactic for the bangers that I think I'll be using for bratwurst and things like that in the future. My cast iron pan lives in the oven.  I preheated the oven, and when it hit 350, I turned it off, and put the sausages in the pan and let them cook quietly while I made the gravy.  Once everything else was finished, I turned on the broiler, and moved the pan up to the top rack.  The carry-over heat from the pan seared the bottom of the sausages, and the warm oven largely baked them.  Broiling finished it off, and kept the pan hot so I could quickly cook the asparagus.  This is going to basically be the dinner plan for the next few days.  I'll need to come up with something else for the end of the week, but I'm kind of thinking fish again for then, so I'll want to get fresh anyway.

• I really like this idea, and wonder if I could retrofit my suitcase.
• Squirrels are super friendly, and in all the times I went out and fed them, I've only been bitten once.  He didn't even break the skin, and seemed as surprised as I was when he bit down and got a finger instead of a peanut.
• My initial thought was that this was a dumb idea to watch basketball, but after thinking about it, it seems like if you were planning on getting the surgery anyway, you might as well do it when you'll have stuff to watch.
• I heard this claim yesterday on LRC (from David Frum, who of all the horrible right wing commentators, is generally the least horrible), and it seemed suspicious then.  It's nice to see the numbers worked out a bit to show that the ACA is still a good idea economically.
• Interesting description of D&D 5th edition.  A lot of these complaints seem to be "that's stupid because it's not like 4th edition."  However, most of those things they're complaining about take the game back to how it was in 1st and 2nd editions.  I think that's probably a good idea, even if I'll never buy it.
• Nom.
• Texas is probably going to elect a crazy person as senator. :(
• Oh, Tea Party. They way you don't bother vetting your crazy people is kind of horrible.  "Hiatus" is the best you can do? Not "sorry we hired a psychopath to be our spokesman?"

Friday: apparently I only have unhappy links today

• Cops suck.
• Cameramen suck.
• Fucking pep bands suck.
• Pizza cones suck for not being here right now, in my hand.
• Florida sucks, and in addition, lets murders go if they "took a class in criminal justice."

So, let's have a happy squirrel:

And another:

And then some happy puppies:

Thursday: That salmon probably wasn't going to be any good

And so, because of that (and not having anything for lunch tomorrow and not wanting to eat out again), I went to the store to get some groceries.  I stared at the fish for awhile, and was finally convinced to try opah.  I brought it home, and seared it in the cast iron pan, and came up with this:

That sandwich was clearly not going to fit into any human mouth. I looked at it, and tried to come up with various ways to do it, but ended up just eating it with a fork, and enjoying how good this would have been in sandwich form.  Crunchy crusty bread, salt and pepper opah, avocado, lettuce, tomato, more crunchy crusty bread.  After a few bites, I got a bit of sriracha, as I wanted a bit of spice.  Opah is definitely on my list of fish to get again after this.  It has an almost chicken like texture, but with a good fishy flavor.  I bet this would work well in a curry, too, or with some other sort of rich sauce.

• And now I want doughnuts.
• I would like more Dr. Horrible.
• More Baman/Piderman? Yay!

Wednesday: blah

• It's almost like the pope is completely isolated, and has no clue how things look to the outside world.
• According to Dr. 1932, it's impossible to talk to Mars.
• Oops.  That's kind of awkward.  It's even worse when you decide that some topics aren't appropriate for your paper.
• I don't have a problem with the Olive Garden. It's not fancy, but it's a place where you know what you'll get.

Oh, I forgot to post this

It turns out that I was right in assuming a lot of people are violently stupid.  Also: racist.

Tuesday: math and skipping menu plans

But there was math to do, and math was partially done.  It turns out that some math is harder than other math.  Let's do a simple math problem instead: How many credit card applications will Chase and United send me?

A fuckload.

• I caught this show while flipping through the channels.  The people on it are the least sane people ever.  The one lady in Salt Lake City claimed that she knew the government was going to take over everything, because she "did research, and started putting together the clues." 
• Now I want a Boreto.
• History channel.  I guess given link one today, I can group National Geographic channel in here as well.
• Unnecessarily silly setup for this map, but I never knew that the Californian central valley once had a huge lake.

Monday: naps and scallops

I took a nap when I got home instead of making dinner right away.  This prompted a few changes to the plan.  Instead of scallops and salad, I went with a scallop po boy:

This was an incredibly messy sandwich.  I quickly coated the scallops in some corn meal, and pan fried them in some butter.  I toasted the bread in the oven, and dressed the sandwich with tomato, lettuce, and sriracha.  It was tasty, but the bread kind of crumbled, and the scallops didn't really want to cooperate with bites.  I should have sliced them after cooking, but the crust was already falling off.  The solution is probably to slice it before cooking.  Still good, and these garlic sunchips matched well.

• Squirrel!
• Bunny!
• This is kind of an odd ad.  It fits in the one time where a vacation in the USSR wouldn't be that unusual.
• Oh yeah, pizza!
• This comic presents a humorous joke.
• This article presents the exact same viewpoint as that comic, but the writer is actually serious:

Sunday: I fucking hate daylight savings time

It's annoying, it doesn't actually save any energy, and it's double stupid that it's not synchronized in any way.  I wonder if tomorrow's morning telecon is going to be missing people because the times are confused.  I thought that I wouldn't have to worry about this for the time being by moving to Hawaii, which doesn't observe DST.  However, I discovered today that Verizon is reporting the wrong timezone to phones, so if I use the network time (like I have been), I'm now in the timezone "GMT-10:00, GMT-9:00".  Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but I had planned on getting up this morning and doing stuff, but was still really sleepy when my alarm went off.  Had I known that I had another hour before I was actually supposed to be up, I wouldn't have just turned off the alarm and gone back to sleep.

Anyway, I then went and got sushi:

You can get kalbi in sushi form.

and then groceries, so I could do the menu plan for this week:

• Monday: Scallops and salad.  I think I'll make a quick dressing with wasabi and ginger (note to self: I think you're out of ginger), and then put the pan-seared scallops in with the salad.
• Tuesday: Salmon. Maybe do this the same way, with a salad?
• Wednesday: Leftover salmon.  The filet I got is probably too big to finish in one sitting.
• Thursday: I bought some "Irish Bangers" at WF today, so I think I'll do a bangers and mash with them. Saturday is St. Patrick's day, which would probably be a more fitting day for this meal, but the sausages were on sale today, and I didn't want to wait.
• Friday: No plan.

Today's links:

• This is pretty much terrible.  I would really have expected that someone in Austin would have suggested that this was maybe not the most tactful way to get internet to people.
• So, is it just me, or do points one and two contradict each other in this story about a study (on healthcare/ACA/medicare/etc), and isn't point three basically just saying "the economy took a fast trip to shit-town in 2008"?
• I could really do with some foie gras helper.
• These sandwiches look delicious.

Saturday: Super lazy day

I've done pretty much nothing all day today.  Here's a picture of a cat licking a dog with long fur:

• Squirrel!
• Baby clothes.
• I guess that's all I have today.  Here's a well animated short if you have four minutes to kill.

Ha ha, totally a conflict of interest

I used to like you, Greta van Susteren, once upon a time. Mostly because you went on Space Ghost, back when he had a talk show.  However, you're a scientologist, and, apparently, willing to be noisy when someone makes fun of your husband's boss (ex-boss?).  So, you know, DIAF and all that jazz.

It's not even like I'm a big fan of Louis C.K.  I just hate you, Greta.

Louis C.K. Withdraws as Host of Radio and Television Correspondents’ Dinner

Sarah Palin's Scientology link, and Greta Van Susteren's massive conflict of interest

Friday: Did you know they have pizza on the internets now?

It gives you all the ease of ordering pizza without having to deal with the bother of actually talking to someone to order.  It makes me feel better to know that I'm not the only one who occasionally gets cravings for Pizza Hut.  I didn't get their box deal, largely because the random sales they had online were a better deal.  I didn't take any pictures, but I still have piles of pizza and breadsticks left, so maybe tomorrow.  Instead, have a picture of how long space travel would take in cool retro-style spaceships (you'll probably need to clicky-pop):

Today's links will either be to an animal or in quote form.

• Bunny!
• Squirrel!
• "We must also openly acknowledge that we have no new evidence pointing to another date for the end of the world."
• "[...] unicorn servants will feed you doughnuts off their horns."
• "We are batshit insane, and after a decade of fuckup after fuckup, we hope you'll let us lecture you about how we need to have secret space commandos, because TERRORISTS!"
• "It should be anyone's right to what kind of health insurance they have. Just because I had to use bankruptcy to get rid of my medical bills doesn't mean I shouldn't be the lead plaintiff in the case against healthcare reform, because COMMUNISM!"
• "We object to the release of this report on the grounds that it is horribly damaging to our client."

Ok, some of those may have been paraphrases.

Thursday: I hate headaches

I had planned on going to see this show at the Academy of Art tonight.  However, after having a headache build up all day, and then dealing with the traffic results of people who don't know how to drive in the rain, I didn't feel like it.  I'm now looking for a biography that has decent reviews, but haven't had much luck.  Oh well.  At least I've already seen something that Thutmose III made:

In London, of all places. Turns out you'll never know where you'll be in 3500 years.

On an unrelated note, here's a sleeping Snorlax:

• TSA: still useless, now doesn't want anyone to know.
• Keri Byron from Mythbusters has a Boston Terrier.
• Wait, what? Who replaced the fascist Pat Robertson with the hippy Pat Robertson?

Wednesday: blah blah

I wish we had more monkey serums these days.

• Squirrel!
• Pokemon Snap!
• Panda Wizard!
• Puppies!
• Why some people are lucky I can't set them on fire with my mind!

Tuesday: More rain

I didn't take a picture of dinner tonight, but it was leftover Bolognese with ditalini.  Mostly because I wanted to get rid of the ditalini so I would only have like 9 kinds of pasta instead of 10.  Very tasty, though, and a good thing to have on such a rainy, dreary day.

Instead: internet pictures:

Cast iron pans are the best pans.

• I almost feel like I'm picking on Mitt Romney. Almost.
• I really want this mug.
• I've enjoyed the new thundercats, so this is good news.
• This, however, is just useful information about when and how to decant wines.
• Baby squirrels aren't as cute because they're not fuzzy.
• Regular squirrels are extra cute, though.
• Hieronymus Bosch is another of my favorite arists.
• I thought that this article was ignoring a particular survey.
• "What's interesting, though, is who [Spiderman] goes to for financial advice: A billionaire who's gone bankrupt three times, a Norse God with an infinite supply of magic dwarven gold, and an actual communist."
• This is pretty much bullshit.

Monday: rain

It's been super rainy all weekend.  I suspect that's why this little guy:

decided to come inside and hang out next to the exhaust fan on my work computer.  At least he didn't jump into my glass of water and drown.

• This is a continuing lesson on why I'm done with comics.
• I can't wait for Baman/Piderman to come back.
• This should be a fun point in the inevitable Obama/Romney debates.
• I guess it's St. Patrick's day soon?  I think I like my recipe better (which I don't seem to have online? Here's colcannon instead.)
• Why?  It's been like twenty years since the last movie, and that one kind of stretched the limits of sanity.

Sunday: lazy day

This looked like it was better focused when I took it.

I finally made the bacon/avocado/lettuce/tomato/nothing starts with i/cheese sandwich today.  Other than the tomatoes I bought being a bit sour, it was tasty.  Salty delicious bacon doesn't hurt, either.

• I guess I don't really see how anyone would ever think that a new math book was needed.  I don't think school level math has really changed in the last hundred years.
• It turns out that being the conservative party means that eventually all your supporters die.
• Or, you fight so hard against yourself, that they all get disgusted and stay home.
• Wizardism!

Saturday: mostly naps and menu planning

Today's plan was to get Girl Scout cookies.

I was successful.

I didn't check to see what the current status of palm oil in GSCs is, but it seems like they're still not terribly sustainable.  I also didn't bring this up with the girl who was selling me the cookies, as that seemed like it would be needlessly mean (although I do take issue with her assertion that "thin mints are the best because they're on top!"  You stacked those boxes into that pyramid, Little Girl.  Arbitrary stacks do not make samoas not the best cookie).

I think this weeks menu plan is going to be:

• Sunday: I still have bacon, so those BALTiC sandwiches I never made last week.
• Monday: Leftover bacon sandwiches.
• Tuesday: Probably another day?
• Wednesday: My plan for the rest of the week is to use up some of the stuff I have frozen, so I'm thinking either chili or spaghetti.
• Thursday: I'm thinking I might go to this talk, since History channel can't talk about Egypt anymore unless it involves aliens.  That means it'd probably be a good day to eat out.
• Friday: leftover freezer leftovers.  I really need to work through some of the piles of food I've made and forgotten about.

Random picture time:

Bunny!

What are you doing, puppy? You'd be 147 dog years old if you were old enough to drink!

Big O for President!

• Worst apology ever.  Besides, he doesn't give a damn about personal responsibility, he wants to clearly vilify people who are his enemy, and does it in the harshest way he can think of.
• At least his sponsors are realizing that maybe paying for someone to spout hatred on the radio isn't the best business decision.
• This is a followup on the Cato stuff.  I think it's kind of funny that a group of people who largely spent their time coming up with studies that they had an answer to before they started are now finding that they're being taken over by people who want even more control over that fake research.
• Pallet cleansing hedgehogs!