There’s something very wrong with the world when you can buy sushi at the gas station convenience store.
Discovery Channel teaches me cool stuff
Discovery has always had the best educational content. Today, for example, watched a show where they looked at video of a V-shaped arrangment of lights flying across the night sky near Pheonix, Arizona. Rather than assume that it was a formation of military planes, an “expert” theorized that it was a giant black triangular spacecraft. He had “artists conceptions” to prove it too!
Recipes for Men: Potato Soup
Right, so you’re hungry and you want to make something for dinner. Yeah, you could head out to McChoke-n-Puke’s and pick up a quarter pound of crap. But you already blew a pile of cash on what’s in the cupboards and the fridge. Time to put your building skills to the test — it’s time to make some soup.
Alright here’s what you need.
– A pile of potatoes.
– A litre of chicken broth (or mushroom broth if you’re a wuss and don’t eat animals).
– A pile of veggies. Whatever’s around.
– Condensed milk or sour cream.
– Salt, pepper, whatever spices you want. Real men add Tobasco.
Now. Don’t wimp out. Get to work.
1. Find a big fuckin’ knife. The bigger the better. Grab the potatoes and whack ’em into quarters. Avoid your fingers, or you’ll have a hard time finishing the job.
2. Find a gigantic pot and boil the fuck out of the potatoes.
3. Boil them more. They’re done when you can stab ’em with a fork and they’re soft.
4. Grab one of those big strainer things and dump the potatoes into it. Now, if you’ve done this part right, you should have a strainer full of boiled potato chunks and the water went down the drain. If you have potato water all over the floor, you forgot to put the strainer in the sink first. Don’t worry about it. You can clean that up when you do your monthly cleaning.
5. Now put the potatoes back into the pot and use a potato masher and crush the fuck outta those potatoes. Don’t wuss out. You need the exercise. Pulp those fuckers.
6. Whack open the broth container and pour the whole damn thing into the potatoes. Stir ’em up.
7. Grab that big knife and chop the veggies until they’re good and dead. Dump ’em into the mashed potatoes.
You can use almost any vegetable, but if you know more about beef than broccoli, you should take a sec to learn. First rule: cole slaw is not a vegetable, no matter what Colonel Sanders says. Next: pick a vegetable that you’ve seen cooked before. Cucumber or lettuce would be a bad idea. Carrots and celery are better. Boring, but better.
Try something like asperagus or leeks. Not many people know about leeks these days, but they’re an ancient vegetable, eaten by the pharaohs of Egypt. I think. It was either that or they served it at the Luxor in Las Vegas. Can’t remember which. I was pretty out of it at the time.
Anyway, let’s say you get some leeks. Leeks will try to fool you. You can’t eat three quarters of them. All of that nice-looking green bit is so stringy after it’s cooked that it’s only good for making rope. I’ll cover how to make leek rope in the next entry.
The best part about leeks is that they’re great for jokes. Just imagine the looks when you say, “Hey, I gotta take a leek” then you go to the fridge. Well, maybe it’s more funny when you actually see it.
8. Boil the fuck outta the veggies.
9. Add seasoning until it doesn’t taste boring. Turn down the heat so it’s not boiling anymore.
10. You might have noticed that your soup is really low on oil and fat. That’s why it tastes like dishwater. Whack open the condensed milk or the sour cream and dump it all in. There’s your fat content.
Done. Eat it. Fuckin’ awesome. Goes good with a glass of chablis. I mean beer. Goes good with beer. And a burger. Hoo, that was close.
The professor’s rocket
Yet another story fragment…
The professor’s rocket taxi descended on a plume of light and settled delicately on its three landing fins. As the atomic engine faded slowly into silence, its impressive bulk towered over the waiting press corps who rushed from the nearby bunker to the foot of the now-extended gangway. At last, with a chuff of air, a crack of light appeared around the curved door in the rocket’s side, and it swung open majestically to reveal the professor himself.
“Gentlemen,” he declared grandly. “Today is the dawn of a new day in science. Today I, Professor Falkensteinbrautsengen, will take mankind to the moon!”
“I tell you it can’t be done,” Carter exclaimed, slamming his open palm against the side of the travel pod. “And not only can’t it be done, it not also can’t be not done!”
Inside the lab, away from the thronging mobs outside, Carter looked from face to face, looking for support, but found none. All of Professor Falkensteinbrautsengen’s assitants were loyal and, moreover, knew which side their bread was buttered. At present, it was buttered on the top side, with a nice layer of strawberry jam.
“Unghkna ngh dmph?” the youngest assistant observed.
“For god’s sake, Smythe, don’t speak with your mouth full of bread,” Carter chided.
The youth swallowed and started again. “How can you say that? Professor Falkensbrau… Falkensteiber… Professor F is the most brilliant scientist on earth!”
Carter nodded. “Is he? Is he really the most brilliant scientist on earth? Or do we simply believe that because he has the press eating out of the palm of his hand?” Carter gestured at the silent travel pod. “Look at this thing. It barely runs longer than five minutes without blowing several tubes. And the atomic pile leaks!”
“Sure it leaks,” Danforth interjected, “but since we painted it with lead-based paint, the mutation rate has dropped dramatically.” He waved his tentacles pointedly at Carter.
…
724 minutes
A couple of weeks ago, some idiot stole the intercom panel from my building’s front door. Not only did that mean that nobody could beep me, but it also meant that the
postie couldn’t get in to deliver any of the mail. Sure, I didn’t get any bills for two weeks, but I’ve also been deprived of my DVD movie rentals, which come by Canada Post.
Finally, today the mail started flowing again, and I found two weeks of envelopes packed into my mailbox. That’s two weeks of movie rentals, plus the director’s cut of The Return of the King.
So there’s nothing to do but accept the challenge and catch up on 724 minutes of movie-watching — and that doesn’t include the DVD extras. I’ll be a wreck when I’m done later today.