A cup or so of very ripe pineapple chunks
2 bananas that are so ripe they are almost liquid in their skins
That cupful of shriveling blueberries from the back of your refrigerator
A couple of good glugs of orange juice and skim milk
Toss it all into the blender and give it a whirl for a couple of minutes to make sure all the lumps are gone. It will be a really ugly color, like beige, speckly baby vomit, to be honest (those dark flecks are the blueberries and they're really, really good for you).
Pour into your favorite glass, the one blown by your friend with the famous literary great-grandfather. Drink. You won't be able to do this slowly, because it spackles some of the crevices in your soul and tastes like Smarties.
Watch the utterly ridiculous "Pretty in Pink" and realize that James Spader has based his entire acting career on playing...James Spader. He's like Tom Cruise without the Scientology and with the gross completely exposed. Also realize that Sidney Crosby looks disturbingly like the young Jon Cryer.
Then realize that it is a beautiful, sunshiny Saturday afternoon and you are indoors watching a crappy 80's movie.
Turn off the TV and go outside. Give yourself a timeout from thinking about Sarah Palin, or pedophile priests, or crazy-ass teabagging racists.
You will feel better.
I promise.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
I Love Wonkette
For a minute I thought John McCain had brought Sarah Palin back so he could push her back through the doorway to hell he dragged her out of in 2008. Alas, no, it was just a desperate move by a desperate old man.
Is it me, or does Sarah Palin look and sound like she's coked out of her gourd? And poor Cindy McCain looks like she wants to dive headfirst into a bottle of percodans.
Go here.
Like I've been saying, Retard Barbie is the comedy gift that keeps on giving. Make sure you read the comments on the Wonkette post if you don't believe me.
Take a deep breath while you watch and you can get a whiff of that old man smell mingling with dirty Depends and desperation.
And a fashion note for Sarah: Sister, there ain't nothing sadder than a woman of a certain age dressing like a teenager. It reeks of "I'm clinging desperately to my youth! And my hair is falling out!"
Is it me, or does Sarah Palin look and sound like she's coked out of her gourd? And poor Cindy McCain looks like she wants to dive headfirst into a bottle of percodans.
Go here.
Like I've been saying, Retard Barbie is the comedy gift that keeps on giving. Make sure you read the comments on the Wonkette post if you don't believe me.
Take a deep breath while you watch and you can get a whiff of that old man smell mingling with dirty Depends and desperation.
And a fashion note for Sarah: Sister, there ain't nothing sadder than a woman of a certain age dressing like a teenager. It reeks of "I'm clinging desperately to my youth! And my hair is falling out!"
Smelly Cat
The little one is quite possibly the cutest kitty, but I gotta tell ya, the long fur situation can sometimes get a bit stanky. She just spent 15 minutes in the litter box, followed by a couple of minutes running laps back and forth and patching out on the wood floors, then scootering while meowing loudly, and now she has just settled into my lap with that kitty-luv look in her eyes.
Which would all be fine except for the cartoon stink lines that are coming from the vicinity of her butt.
Excuse me while I don my chain mail gauntlets to begin the Trimming of the Pantaloons. This ain't gonna be pretty. There will be blood.
What happened to the idea of cats as self-cleaning?
Which would all be fine except for the cartoon stink lines that are coming from the vicinity of her butt.
Excuse me while I don my chain mail gauntlets to begin the Trimming of the Pantaloons. This ain't gonna be pretty. There will be blood.
What happened to the idea of cats as self-cleaning?
Poked by a Ghost
I went to Foley's on Wednesday after work with my friends Anthony and Veronica. We were there to watch the Penguins-Capitols game.
Foley's is one of those rare old spaces in New York that seems immune to modernization. When you walk in, take a look at the bar. Under the sports memorabilia is an elaborately carved wooden frontispiece, the kind you just can't find anymore. If anyone remembers the Cedar Tavern, that's the kind of bar I'm talking about. I still wonder what happened to the wonderful old Cedar Tavern bar.
The walls of Foley's are covered with sports stuff, but underneath all of that (I'm told it's worth in excess of 4 million dollars), you can see that the space has good bones. One can imagine Boss Tweed and Stanford White smoking cigars and eating steaks here, dropping ashes onto the same tiles where you spill your Budweiser.
All that aside, in its current incarnation, Foley's has the feeling of a good New York Irish pub that isn't trying to be anything more or less than that. The barstaff is friendly, the crowd is unassuming, the food is hearty and unpretentious (try the Backwards Burger, with the bacon and cheese cooked in thw middle of the burger patty, served with a side of superb, perfectly crispy home fries) and the lights are bright. Fabulous it is not.
Most of all, it feels like it's been there forever.
We were sitting at the first table by the front door. I had my back to the door, so I could see the television. Near the end of the game, I felt someone poke me in the middle of my back, between my shoulderblades. Three pokes, like someone pokes you with an index finger.
I stopped Roni in the middle of what she was saying, with a hand on her forearm.
"Tell me, is there someone standing behind me?"
She looked over my shoulder.
"No."
"I was just poked. Like this." I leaned over and demonstrated on her. She leaned back in her seat but didn't look surprised at all.
"I could tell this place was haunted as soon as I walked in the door," was all she said. Then she ate a french fry from my plate.
It makes me want to know more.
Foley's is one of those rare old spaces in New York that seems immune to modernization. When you walk in, take a look at the bar. Under the sports memorabilia is an elaborately carved wooden frontispiece, the kind you just can't find anymore. If anyone remembers the Cedar Tavern, that's the kind of bar I'm talking about. I still wonder what happened to the wonderful old Cedar Tavern bar.
The walls of Foley's are covered with sports stuff, but underneath all of that (I'm told it's worth in excess of 4 million dollars), you can see that the space has good bones. One can imagine Boss Tweed and Stanford White smoking cigars and eating steaks here, dropping ashes onto the same tiles where you spill your Budweiser.
All that aside, in its current incarnation, Foley's has the feeling of a good New York Irish pub that isn't trying to be anything more or less than that. The barstaff is friendly, the crowd is unassuming, the food is hearty and unpretentious (try the Backwards Burger, with the bacon and cheese cooked in thw middle of the burger patty, served with a side of superb, perfectly crispy home fries) and the lights are bright. Fabulous it is not.
Most of all, it feels like it's been there forever.
We were sitting at the first table by the front door. I had my back to the door, so I could see the television. Near the end of the game, I felt someone poke me in the middle of my back, between my shoulderblades. Three pokes, like someone pokes you with an index finger.
I stopped Roni in the middle of what she was saying, with a hand on her forearm.
"Tell me, is there someone standing behind me?"
She looked over my shoulder.
"No."
"I was just poked. Like this." I leaned over and demonstrated on her. She leaned back in her seat but didn't look surprised at all.
"I could tell this place was haunted as soon as I walked in the door," was all she said. Then she ate a french fry from my plate.
It makes me want to know more.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Uncanny
Isn't it amazing how the body just knows that a vacation is imminent? As if, by the simple act of handing in that little piece of paper saying, I have 2 personal days and 3 vacation days that I must use before the end of March, I am signalling to all the virulent microbes hiding in my world to suddenly leap into action. Hey! The weather will be beautiful and you will have 5 days off. Let's start with a shot across the bow of unexplained vomiting on Monday morning, followed by a day of vertigo and staying well away from subway platform edges. Then, let's fill your head with cotton batting and give you just enough of a fever to make you uncomfortably unable to concentrate on your big-corporation-mandated self-review (just use the words "collaborated," "implemented," and "impacted" a lot, make up bogus "goals" for your "career development" and you're golden. Apparently in corporate America, where I am admittedly a cynical observer, it isn't enough to be great at your job. You are also apparently required to ASPIRE to something MORE, even if all you want to do is come to work, do your job in an excellent fashion, and go home at the end of the day satisfied, so you can live your life doing whatever it is you want to do.) Then, the day before said vacation begins, those nasty little germs blow up into a full-blown factory of phlegm, so by the time you send that last email and shut down the computer, you are in the grips of a massive springtime cold.
What the hell is that about?
Having grown up with indoor-outdoor cats, I observed that the best healing seemed to take place when kitty would crawl under a piece of furniture and sleep for a few days. (We had an old black and white tom who once tangled with another animal, and staggered home with a gaping, bloody hole in his neck. My mother wrapped a clean rag around his neck, and he disappeared under the china cabinet for about a week. When he emerged, he was fine and went back to his tomcat ways). So I've adopted the same strategy -- sleep -- as my first defense against most ailments -- lots and lots of sleep. I believe it's the best way for the body to heal itself. Sure 'nuff, 12 hours of good zzz's later, I feel a little better, though the pile of snotty kleenex next to me seems to bely that fact. And a mere half dozen hours after crawling out of bed, I'm kinda ready to crawl back in...I think another 12 hours and I'll be good...
In other, less important news than my chest cold, Congress passed and President Obama signed some kind of legislation into law this week that apparently made a million wingnut heads explode. If you hear another person whining about being forced by the government to buy something from a private corporation, just ask them if they have auto insurance, and when they answer yes, ask them why. Then feel free to kick them in the nuts and walk away. But I do have to ask, what are the Republicans going to do now that they have painted themselves into an ideological corner -- they're surrounded by teabaggers with pitchforks, burning crosses, and pointy white hats, and I dont see how they can extricate themselves. See what happened to David Frum today to see what happens to conservatives who tell the truth about their FOX news overlords.
And one other unrelated thing: Jesse James has got to be the sorriest motherfucker in Hollywood right now. But honestly, look at the guy and who he used to be married to -- is anyone really surprised that old JJ has a taste for skankmeat?
And lest you think I was going to post without talking about hockey...HAHA, joke's on you! The Pens are in some weird slump, losing to teams they shouldn't be losing to -- the NJ Devils OWNED them this year, winning all 6 games they played, and the desperately-grasping-at-playoff-straws Detroit Red Wings beat them on Sunday (the question I have watching the Wings is: why is Todd Bertuzzi allowed to skate on NHL ice at ALL? Google "Bertuzzi Incident" to see what I mean). I'm not all that worried about the loss to the Capitals last night, since the Caps usually fall apart in the playoffs anyway. I predict the surprise clutch player of the playoffs for the Pens will be scrappy little number 9, Pascal Dupuis. Tonight I cruised the Rangers-Devils game for a while, if only to see what d-bag Sean Avery was up to. Unsurprisingly, he was running his trap in warmups, yip yip yip, starting up with Clarkson before the first puck drop. What an idiot.
I have to check out here because I am fading fast. Off to bed!
What the hell is that about?
Having grown up with indoor-outdoor cats, I observed that the best healing seemed to take place when kitty would crawl under a piece of furniture and sleep for a few days. (We had an old black and white tom who once tangled with another animal, and staggered home with a gaping, bloody hole in his neck. My mother wrapped a clean rag around his neck, and he disappeared under the china cabinet for about a week. When he emerged, he was fine and went back to his tomcat ways). So I've adopted the same strategy -- sleep -- as my first defense against most ailments -- lots and lots of sleep. I believe it's the best way for the body to heal itself. Sure 'nuff, 12 hours of good zzz's later, I feel a little better, though the pile of snotty kleenex next to me seems to bely that fact. And a mere half dozen hours after crawling out of bed, I'm kinda ready to crawl back in...I think another 12 hours and I'll be good...
In other, less important news than my chest cold, Congress passed and President Obama signed some kind of legislation into law this week that apparently made a million wingnut heads explode. If you hear another person whining about being forced by the government to buy something from a private corporation, just ask them if they have auto insurance, and when they answer yes, ask them why. Then feel free to kick them in the nuts and walk away. But I do have to ask, what are the Republicans going to do now that they have painted themselves into an ideological corner -- they're surrounded by teabaggers with pitchforks, burning crosses, and pointy white hats, and I dont see how they can extricate themselves. See what happened to David Frum today to see what happens to conservatives who tell the truth about their FOX news overlords.
And one other unrelated thing: Jesse James has got to be the sorriest motherfucker in Hollywood right now. But honestly, look at the guy and who he used to be married to -- is anyone really surprised that old JJ has a taste for skankmeat?
And lest you think I was going to post without talking about hockey...HAHA, joke's on you! The Pens are in some weird slump, losing to teams they shouldn't be losing to -- the NJ Devils OWNED them this year, winning all 6 games they played, and the desperately-grasping-at-playoff-straws Detroit Red Wings beat them on Sunday (the question I have watching the Wings is: why is Todd Bertuzzi allowed to skate on NHL ice at ALL? Google "Bertuzzi Incident" to see what I mean). I'm not all that worried about the loss to the Capitals last night, since the Caps usually fall apart in the playoffs anyway. I predict the surprise clutch player of the playoffs for the Pens will be scrappy little number 9, Pascal Dupuis. Tonight I cruised the Rangers-Devils game for a while, if only to see what d-bag Sean Avery was up to. Unsurprisingly, he was running his trap in warmups, yip yip yip, starting up with Clarkson before the first puck drop. What an idiot.
I have to check out here because I am fading fast. Off to bed!