Tuesday: And now I want BBQ.

Because I had it four years ago.

Sorry, you didn't get to have any, Kimchi.

• "Mulled fartweed."
• Bears stack.
• Congratulations!
• Link to last time I linked to this Evangelion meme.
• This would be the best CaH hand.

Monday: Memorial Day -or- Operation Steak is go.

This was kind of a response to yesterday's disappointing lunch, so I decided that steak is pretty tasty, and that I should drive out to the east end.  I almost kept going to get Greek, but I just had that a couple of weeks ago.

I finally got a good table that looks directly out onto the ocean.  Also onto a bunch of cars, but when I tried to mask the cars out, it left two holes and didn't look as good.

French onion soup.

And yeah, they kind of super overcooked the asparagus.  

• Kitty.
• Whoops.
• That is a pretty impressive smash, Pat Parker, War Nurse.
• Plague.
• The important bit of information is that Bill Kristol gets paid telling people things that are wrong, and that business would be hurt if Trump is elected.  It's in his own best interest to have some else elected.
• Iceland.

Sunday: Operation Fuck That Place and Their Shitty Food is unfortunately go.

Last week, I went to that Pancakes and Waffles place and was disappointed in their chicken and waffles.  I decided to try them again today to try the monte cristo.

It was awful.

A MC is supposed to be lightly breaded and deep fried to make a crispy outer crust with hot cheesy insides.  This was covered in horrible thick breading and then fried until everything was completely soggy with grease.  I couldn't finish even half of it.  I had their fries, which were also limp and soggy with grease, and had never had any salt added.

Tomorrow I'm going to get something good for lunch.  I don't know what that is yet, but today was such a disappointment that I need something to make up for it.

I then stopped at Target, but forgot to take a picture of the murder cave they've converted their parking garage into.  I think they've switched their old lights to LED, but something isn't working right, because pretty much all of them were off.  It was also rainy today, which didn't help.

Super rainy.

Rainy to the point where part of H-1 was flooded.

• Trickery.
• Wet bear.
• Wet animals are funny.
• Mary Anning.
• Hatsune Miku.

Saturday: Operation Peanut Butter is go.

Last week, I talked about peanut butter on burgers, and how it was something that had never occurred to me before.  So I went to HBC today to give it a try, since they do good burgers there.

"We're not going to have fries for fifteen minutes."

"Um, ok?  I'll go get groceries and come back then," since I was going to get groceries afterwards.  In any case:

It turns out that putting peanut butter on a burger makes it super messy.

Like crazy messy.  But it works far better than I would have thought.  I think a bit less would be easier, both in terms of mess and balance.  The bites with lots of bacon work best, and the grilled onions worked well.  The burger really needs to be seasoned more, as well, to get the salty/sweet combo.

Also, HBC now has one of the magic infinite flavor Coke machines which is nice.  And I did get fries, they just weren't out when I started on the burger.

• What?
• John Dowland is underrated.
• See?
• Diana.

Friday: At least it's a long weekend.

I said I was going to steal this photo, and I did.

As I was leaving work later than expected, I couldn't figure out what to do for dinner.  Then some asshole decided that "if I turn on my turn signal, you have to let me go straight instead of turning, despite being in the left turn only lane."  This fuckface then decided that it's best to drive seventeen fucking miles an hour.  That was when I decided that what I really wanted for dinner was a burrito, and that I should just do that, even though it meant a lot of driving.

So I did.

But this is also the point where I'm going to mention three useful driving skills that too many people don't seem to grasp.

1. Turn your turn signal on before you plan on turning.  I have nearly been hit so many times because some asshole decided that if you turn the signal on after you start turning, it magically makes you immune to crashes.
2. Hazard lights do not mean, "I know I'm illegally parked, so it's ok."  No it's not, and you're a fucking moron.  That's a goddamn street you're blocking.  Good job, asshole.
3. If there are two lanes to use, do not drive the exact same speed as the person next to you.  Create spaces so people can get around your stupid ass, since you've both fucking decided to drive seventeen fucking miles an hour.

Links.

• I briefly read the original paper, but after realizing it was going to be like a hundred pages of shitty writing, I assumed this was likely the case.  Hundred page single author papers tend to either be a thesis or a crackpot.
• Probably a good idea.
• Republicans are dumb.
• I didn't think of the climate issue, but the equator trench seemed like a bad idea to me.  Maybe tomorrow I'll try to math at that.
• Mark Evanier on Captain America.

Thursday: I saw a cat today.

It had a kitten with it.  I did not take a picture because I was in my car.  I also discovered that my proposed fix to a bug does in fact fix it, and that the alternate fix does not.

• Puns.
• Poor name choices.
• I do this too.

Wednesday: I have a big pile of movie ticket stubs.

See?

And all the links are about comic books, because I didn't want to discuss psychopaths so I closed those tabs.

• This is incredibly stupid, DC.  At least some of the themes are better than they have been in more than a decade.  But the Watchmen stuff, and having three Jokers?  Buy a plan.
• Stunningly, though, DC does not win "dumbest comic book thing of the day."  Marvel does that with a "Captain America has secretly been a bad guy for ever."  No he isn't, Marvel, and you should fire the person who came up with that idea.  This is just a stupid gimmick, and I would have thought "had a giant fucking movie blockbuster" would minimize the need for gimmicks.
• And can we talk about the "secret meeting" flyer?  That's stupid, too.
• But, then again, Marvel did publish this today, so they do bring their average back up.

Tuesday: Decade old bunny.

No, sign, that's a baby bunny, not a baby blanket.

• Just keep this story in mind.
• Seth Abramson is a bad journalist, and should not be employed.
• Peter Thiel is a fascist bag of shit, and is exactly the reason we should not have billionaires.
• This is good news.  This merger never made any sense.
• I will probably get this book.
• The Seal of the United States.
• Japanese mascots vs. doors.
• Yeah, Luke probably isn't super happy about that.

Monday: Draw a panda day.

Here's last year's DaPD, and one from four years ago.  Also, in checking, I discovered that I missed yesterday's anniversary.

I realized that there's no constraint saying it has to be an Ailuropoda melanoleuca, so I went with the Ailurus fulgens, which is totally one of my favorite animals.  This was my reference, and I'm not super happy with the face and butt.  "It's close enough!"  Thanks, red panda.

• Squirrel.
• Badger.
• Mr. Cat.
• Alice Roosevelt.
• Two questions from this news:
• Does this mean they're introducing Mephisto, who was a big part of the Infinity Gauntlet comic?  I thought everyone assumed they'd just use Loki for that, since it'd be easier.
• Wouldn't you change your name if your name was "ERIK KILLMONGER"?

How have I never heard of this before?

Tonight's first Bob's Burgers episode started with a customer commenting how much he liked Bob's burger, even though it had peanut butter on it.

You can put peanut butter on a burger.

I mean, sure, I've put it on bagels with bacon, and made a macadamia butter for mahi-mahi, but this is just something I've never thought of.

This was the first result when I googled it, and that sounds very good.  Burger + cheddar + bacon + peanut butter should work just fine.  Further searching led me to see that Teddy's will put pb on a burger, and that it's actually just on the menu at HBC.

I should try one sometime.

Sunday: I'm reasonably sure my talk for tomorrow is finished.

I have the benefit that it's not me presenting finished work, but work in progress.  So there's the magic wand of "no clue why this is wrong, but I plan to find out."

Also, yesterday twitter was all atwitter about Mars being at opposition last night.  I got up about 1am to take pictures.  I had planned on using my camera, but its battery was dead, so I ended up doing the bulk with my phone.

This was the best looking shot I got with my camera after letting it charge for a few minutes.  It clearly makes a difference in what you can see with larger pixels.  There's a bit of wobble in this one, which means I should really look into getting a small tripod.

In any case, this is the mosaic I was able to produce from the phone pictures.  You can click through to see the details, or look at the next few blowups.

Way over on the right side (West) is Jupiter setting.

Here's Saturn (on the left, just below the diffraction spike from the moon), the Moon (duh), Antares (that faint smudge about a fifth of the way up from the bottom), and Mars.

Then sleep, then waking up, then checking my phone and seeing google telling me how long it would take to drive and get ramen.

I mean, it's not like I had a real plan for the day, so hey, why not?

Obligatory best shot of Diamond Head from the Safeway stairs.

I also checked my mail, and my Federal tax refund was there.  Yay extra money.  Double yay having phone app depositing, so I don't even need to go to a bank to cash it.

• Two years ago when I saw "The Wind Rises," I mentioned that people did all the sound effects.  I seem to have been mistaken, because I guess it's just this one guy.
• Now I want cake.
• I don't think I can describe this without ruining the joke, so click the link, because it's literally shorter than this sentence I'm using to not describe it.
• All with the power of ball bearings!  Also, given modern overfishing, that "Complete Angler 1958" is horrifying.
• "Cherry Blossoms & Birds".
• Post-apocalyptic bees.
• Just because everything is horrible everywhere, Europe has its own fascism problem.

Saturday: Somewhat disappointing.

I woke up today super early, which was then followed by an unexpected phone call, one of the main detail of which was Julie talking about how good corned beef hash is, and how I had like six hours in which I could totally go to the Pancake House to get it.

I then went back to sleep, because fuck being up at 8am.

When I woke back up again, I did a search pancakes on yelp, and discovered a new pancake place, helpfully named "Pancakes and Waffles".  The important thing that this led me to discover is that they do chicken and waffles.  That pretty clearly settled the point that I was going to be driving to Waimalu, even though that's halfway across the island.

I went with a new face covering technique today, but it turned out a bit creepier than I expected.

Here are the two main problems with the chicken and waffles:  the waffle is too squishy, and the chicken is too hard.  Flavor wise, it's also a bit muted.  It's not bad at all, just not quite perfect.  The waffle probably needed another 15-30 seconds or so to fully set the insides.  The chicken is thighs, but it's a bit overcooked and dry, which kind of kills the flavor.  The other main problem is that tabasco isn't the best hot sauce for C&W.  Cholula was my choice at 24 Diner (as seen here, and here, and here).

There's something else on the menu that makes me think I'll be driving to Waimalu again fairly soon. 

You can almost read it on the menu there.

Or I can copy from the online menu:

That looks like a 100% proper Monte Cristo, complete with jam.

It has been nearly a decade I think since I last had one.  I suspect that's probably about the correct healthy frequency.

• It's like a "how can we fuck up the DC comic universe any more?"
• "There are three Jokers."
• "Doctor Manhattan created the New 52 universe."
• I mean JFC.  That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, and I read the concepts behind the last shitbrained reboot.
• Here's the right way to do confusing retcons.
• Kitties.
• Birb thief.
• Sam Wilson, The Falcon.
• Steven Universe.

Friday: At least I got that taken care of.

It turns out that the end result of last week is that I had to have a filling replaced.  Plus x-rays and a cleaning.  The one good thing is that my love of those plastic flossers means I don't really have bad teeth.

That bird was back, wandering around like it owns the place.

Yesterday I heard that people have been in contact with animal control people, and it sounds like they're working to find it a real home.  Today I heard that it's apparently the survivor of a pair that lived in the area, after the other was hit by a car.  I'm sad for you, giant bird. :(

But you still can't live at work.  Even if you've decided you totally can just live at work.

And I didn't have anything to eat today because of when my dentist appointment was scheduled, and the time it took for the anesthetic to wear off.  The only thing the dentist mentioned was that I should try to stick to soft food for the next day while the filling reaction completes.  This led to the problem at the end of the day of deciding what I wanted to eat for dinner.

What's the most delicious and softest food around?  Lasagna!

• Well that's depressing.
• It's old news, but it's still worth taking time to recognize someone who achieved something great.
• I think the translation is that we're going to cause a robot revolution by making robots do something and then commanding them to undo that work.  Whatever the point, I just like how nervous the red robot looks in the last panel.
• Kaiten yakiniku.  It's probably a good thing that this likely doesn't exist in the US.
• Black Panther.
• Team Cap.
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

Which reminds me of something that I realized this morning, based on yesterday's Vandal Savage discussion.  Vandal Savage is immortal.  Stab him, he just laughs at you.  He can't be killed (they do in that TV show I was watching, but that's because they're done with the story, plus he was fighting time travelers, and that kind of ruins the point I'm about to make).  Hive, over on Agents of Shield is also immortal, although he doesn't have the ability to withstand nuclear bombs, as we saw on Tuesday.

Anyway, the point:  if you're immortal, and are fighting somebody who's not immortal, just stop it.  Go away.  Hide in your castle, send a letter saying, "sorry about the trouble, let's just call it all off.  Have a good life!", go on game shows and win both showcases.  Because you can.  Your enemy is going to die, because they're not immortal.  You don't have to get your evil scheme done today.  Again, VS had the issue that he was fighting time travelers, and had immortal opponents as well.  But Hive could have returned to Earth, told Gideon Malick to play it cool, and sent the Shield people a "sorry you killed me, let's be friends anyway" note.  Wait for them to all die, or for the government to stop funding them, or whatever.  Convert a few Inhumans slowly, build up a good team with a good cover story.  Stop excessively murdering everyone in your own organization.  You know, sane things.

This is largely what the vampires in the VHD world did.  They outlived most people, genetically engineered humans to be less of a threat, and the outlived everybody some more.  Then they fought a war against invading aliens, and continued their strategy of "outlive the fuck out of everyone."  Eventually the majority got bored with outliving everything and being awesome, and either left the planet (to go outlive somebody someplace else), died from boredom, or went someplace quiet to avoid running into D.

Because doing something loud inevitably means you kill someone, that person has a friend that runs into D, and D comes in to listen to your taunts before killing you (and like 80% of the time, the friend too, because everyone dies in VHD).  D then leaves to go outlive everyone else.

Um. Ok?

I'm sitting at home, eating dinner.  A drug commercial comes on, and I'm thoroughly confused.  This isn't the exact same commercial as the one I saw (my old guy had two granddaughters, not the single grandson in this one), but it's sufficiently close for me to take screen shots of the animated side story.

The Big Bad Wolf is harassing the three pigs again.

But he's old now.

And can't get up enough breath to blow their house down, presumably so he can murder and eat them, as-you-do.

Nope.  Not working.

Guess it's time to go home instead.

"Yay!  No destruction of property and murder for us today!  Thank you, COPD!"

"Yeah, Doc, I don't know.  I just can't blow houses down anymore.  That's like 70% of my job!"

"That's because you have COPD, an obstructive lung disease that makes it difficult for your lungs to function properly."

"Symbicort can help!"

And it does help.

Those candles didn't stand a chance.

And then everyone has cake, because the wolves have a vibrant modern society in which they can purchase cakes and celebrate both birthdays and the wonders of pharmaceuticals.

What happens the next day?

An idea!

"Look at those smug motherfucking pigs."

"I think it's time for some ham sandwiches!"

I'm not saying that AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical corporation, is really suggesting that the strong should pillage and murder the weak, but that's kind of the vibe I get from this commercial.  Or, I guess we can go with the youtube uploader's comment:

That's an option.

Thursday: Oh, ok.

I had to do the history picture thing again for today.

Today is the day that seven years ago I flew home to Michigan from my first visit to Hawaii, where I flew a week before moving to attend a conference.

It's also the day that four years ago I made this post about pinhole cameras.  It still gets hits when there are eclipses.

• Comic book stuff.
• I finally watched an episode of Legends of Tomorrow, mostly to check that I do get a CW so I'll be able to watch Supergirl next season.  It was mostly a lot of "I have no idea who these people are, and have no emotional investment at all."  Followed by "OK, she's Hawkgirl, and he's Firestorm."  Later there was a "Firestorm blew up Vandal Savage's time machine, right?"  No.  Firestorm did not blow up Vandal Savage's time machine.  Get it together, Firestorm.
• Patsy Walker, Hellcat, as drawn by Natasha Allegri.
• Yeah, this is a good fan-cast for a Nextwave movie.  It will never happen, unfortunately, as Boom-Boom is a mutant, so she's in the Fox rights set.
• Political/economics stuff.
• On San Francisco rents.  Figure one is nice, but figure two is amazing.  TL;D[want to look at a great plot]: San Francisco needs to build more units of housing.
• Cool pope continues to be cool (on this subject, at least).
• This is unfortunate, because he's my Congressman.
• And maker of the best oddest commercial.
• So it's bad everywhere, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved.
• Other stuff.
• I have never heard of this.  I don't know how you'd even structure things without a visual analogue in your head.
• Sailor Pluto.
• Seeing eye robot.

Wednesday: All of them.

So now I'm remaking them all.

I have a bunch of links, which I've put into useful categories.

• Serious stuff.
• Intergenerational economic mobility in Florence since the 1400s.
• This is a blight, and the founders go bankrupt.  Is "let's insert ourselves as a middleman in a transaction that actively harms one participant" the new definition of "disruptive"?  Fuck those assholes.
• This means I'm going to get a lot of shit in the mail telling me how much better my service is going to be, but they're really going to raise prices and suck more, right?
• Men need to be less stupid.  If you don't like something, don't watch it.
• Also, apparently "man" is gender neutral.  I did the requisite thirty seconds of etymology to confirm tumblr on this point.
• Comic book stuff.
• Agents of Shield stuff.
• Since I posted yesterday's post before the show finished, I didn't point out that angry whiny shaky mutant is now goth whiny shaky mutant at the end. 
• Also science guy/mummy brother invents an AI, and plans to put it into a robot body, probably since the character did that in the comics.  I'M SURE THAT WILL END WELL.
• Civil War stuff.
• Like a red panda.
• A reasonably accurate plot synopsis.
• Mission report.
• He has a Peggy Carter tsum.
• Story concept stuff, I guess.
• Alien roadtrip.
• A mommy Godzilla.

Tuesday: That damn bird was back.

"You don't even work here!"

Today's also the finale of Agents of Shield, and because I'm smart, I used my time zone powers to read spoilers on twitter.  Since my last complain-a-thon:

1. People did dumb things.
2. The space monster killed all of his human people.
3. Shakey mutant got space monster mind controlled by the space monster
4. The Murder Monster had a secret purpose to un-mind control shakey mutant.
5. But then he died.
6. And she's been all super whiny about everything.
7. The space monster kidnapped a science guy to science at things and make shitty knock-off Inhumans.
8. I couldn't figure out why I recognized the new science guy, but it turns out he's the whiny brother from the 2000s Mummy movies.
9. Blah blah space monster wants to bomb the world with a shitty knock-off Inhuman generating bomb.
10. Everyone continues to do dumb things.
11. Even the space monster.
12. Just so many dumb things.

But, in less than a half hour, Zappy the (sorry for using the same word over and over again but) Whiny Electro-Mutant is going to trap the space monster in a tiny space ship and they blow up together and die and fucking finally I hated both of them so very much.

In other news, far better TV show Agent Carter is still cancelled because people are dumb.

• I doubt this is really going to fix anything with the DC movies.
• There are so many things in this panel that don't make sense.
• Is that an electric chair?
• I'm pretty sure "plunger switch" isn't how electric chairs work.
• Why is Peggy kicking and punching with opposite sides?  That seems like a really painful twist.
• I feel like someone should be shouting "USE THE GUN AS A GUN!" at that one thug.
• Was Knifey McGee straddling her before being punched?
• Isn't getting kicked in the back of the head make it more likely that plunger switch guy will fall on the switch?
• I don't know how this lamp works.  Is there just a bulb hidden behind the panel?
• Things are getting better.  The important thing is ensuring that continues.
• Don't be a jerk, basically.
• I am curious about this alternate Sailor Moon world.
• Cat.

Monday: I keep thinking that when I do the history picture thing, I should make a back-dated post if I don't already have one.

Then I could just link back to that post.  While looking for something today, I discovered that last year today I had the pork chop meal I had yesterday.  Also: eight years ago today I went to a church carnival in Michigan.

This seemed to be a good picture, because I didn't need to blur any faces.

This one too, for the same reason.

• New Pokemon.  I have three favorites in this set.
• Cat and crow.
• Supergirl.
• This is so weird, because the monster is all "I'm going to get you!" and the Sailor Scouts are just kind of "whatever, we're just going to stand here and look bored."

Sunday: I decided on pork chop.

It was a bit dry today.  :(

• This was in my RSS today, and it's worth clicking through to the actual interactive article.  The movie dialogue gender breakdown is even worse than I would have expected.
• Venezuela.
• The explanation for this is that Gwenpool is a Deadpool-like version of an alternate dimension Gwen Stacy (an ex-girlfriend of Spider-Man who died in the regular dimension when Spider-Man stopped her falling off a bridge too quickly) and the Thor here is Jane Foster, regular-Thor's friend who is now actual Thor because regular-Thor fucked something up and so is no longer worthy to use Mjolnir.
• Mew.
• Squirrel.

Saturday: Since my wallet died yesterday,

I had to go to the mall and have sushi.

That's how it works.

The yakitori isn't the best.  It's more "we put lots of sauce on it" and less "we grilled it and put a bit of sauce on it."

I also got a wallet, and it had so much crap jammed in it.  I need three copies of a stupid card trying to convince me how sophisticated I am because I use a wallet and don't just cram money in a zip lock bag?  Also, there are like eight slots in this one.  Who has that much crap?  Driver's license, credit card, atm card.  What else do you need?  I pulled out the removable id thing, because that's just dumb and makes it thicker.

Also, Dear Macy's, here's part of the reason you might be having trouble.  The wallet was $42.50, 30% off this weekend to $29.75.  "Here's what I'm going to do," said the lady at checkout.  "I'm going to add this $3 donation."  BEEP!  "But now I'm going to give you this extra 25% off coupon!"  BEEP!  "See, that's more than the three dollars!  It's all ok!"  Sure, lady, fine.  You want to kind of defraud your company out of $7.44?  Not my problem.

No, I do not have any idea what charity I donated $3.00 to.  I'm hoping it's not like, "Macy's Fund for Telling People Nazis Weren't Really So Bad."  Let's google it.  Oh, ok, those are fine, I guess.  Whatever.  Charity Navigator only lists one of those, though (only two stars, RIF?  WTF?).

• Darwyn Cooke.
• Various scenes.
• Batman and the Spirit.
• I should really get The New Frontier.
• Wonder Woman.
• More Wonder Woman.
• Power Girl.
• Selina Kyle.
• Not Darwyn Cooke.
• There is so much wonderful about this pun.
• Void.
• I found a new webcomic.  I am also group 3.