ellerandall.com

Kiddie Porn

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 19:24:18 CST

maters:

cucumber:

yeah, I have plums!:

apples:

Hello Alliums...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:46:41 CST

Those are some sad little shallots, but it's still a bit early.

PS: Raspberry jam was made today. Still waiting on blueberries (hang on Kate!)

Mr. Gnome

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 15:04:48 CST

contemplates the walla wallas...(and is happy to finally be in the sun)

WTF, Earth?

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 10:45:26 CST

Forecast for Northern Oregon Cascade Foothills: June 6, 2008

Showers...small hail possible in the afternoon.

Hail? My next door neighbor (read: over the fence gardening buddy) who has lived here far longer than me, and has a garden three times the size, informed me last month that this would be "the year without a summer." Then about 2 weeks later, it almost hit 100 degrees. Yeah, what does he know, right?

Three days later the temperature dropped 40 degrees, and has rained, rained, rained every day since. I'm not growing a garden out there, I'm making minestrone. And now, apparently, I'm going to freeze it.

Meow for change

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 14:11:22 CST

And now, the time has come...

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:41:49 CST

You know what I'm doing tomorrow! I also have boysenberries, and will probably have blueberries, maybe next week? Plum, apple and blackberry will have to wait til later in the season - though honestly, with the awfully stupid weather we've been having, I don't know if I'll even get plums this year. That'll really bum me out, if that's the case, because the plum jam was my favorite of the bunch last year.

If you haven't sent your jam jars back, there is still time. I'm going to wait til all the jam is finished this year and send out packages then. And if anyone has any special orders, now would be the time to let me know!

5 elle-truths

Sun, 18 May 2008 14:29:10 CST

1. I believe in the universal interconnectedness of all things.

2. I am greatly comforted by symmetry, and the color green.

3. If anyone were insane enough to make a movie of my life, it would have to be a musical, and there would probably be tap dancing.

4. I seem to be genetically predisposed to journey over destination.

5. I am a danger to myself and others in a laboratory setting. I am generally only a danger to myself in the kitchen.

Bonus: I once had a premonition I would live to be 106. I'm also uselessly psychic, so I don't worry about it much.

Bread hearts butter

Wed, 7 May 2008 20:19:24 CST

Who knew? I didn't. Put heavy whipping cream in food processor. Turn on. Wait a couple minutes. Hello butter. Ok, you have to drain the buttermilk and "wash" it a couple times, but the whole process was much easier than I would have guessed. Oh, and soooo yummy.

Ciabatta, take one...

Fri, 2 May 2008 13:57:58 CST

Could have been "airier" but otherwise, B+ for a first try. Made fantastic sandwiches!

The recipe is from Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice which, in a weird way, reads like a chemistry lab book - so in that sense it was familiar. Baking IS chemistry, just with a smaller periodic table!

Crack Baby

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:23:20 CST

Flower Power

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:17:25 CST

The cuke, she flowers:

Now if it would just stop snowing and hailing and frosting and freezing so I could put her in the ground! Or at least a pot! I can't be flowering in a peat pot, that's just wrong.

Boom-De-A-Da

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:48:24 CST

Oh, I fucking chuckle every time I see this!

Yum...

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:01:01 CST

From this to this in just a little over a month:

In other news, I read a rumor that my strawberry place is open for the season, so there could be jam on the horizon. Now would be a good time to return your jam jars from last year!

In other, other, news, Safeway wrote back. They were, like, helpful and shit. Kinda freaked me out.

I'm OLD.

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:35:42 CST

I'm OLD. I know this to be true because today, I wrote a letter to Safeway. Yes, the grocery store (that's Dominick's to you Chicago folk out there). You know where I get this shit from? My grandfather. In his day, the complaint letter was an art form, and he was a master. The end result was that he got tons of free shit. I got an automated reply.

Lemme explain...as you may or may not know, last week (ish) I took off for an elle-cation. Went to AZ to see the family, and hang out with the cousins, and then on to LA to see the Beesons. I had a good time in AZ, especially my last night there where Uncle Bob's BBQ totally included cousins Elle-n-Kell ripping out a fan-fucking-tastic (or not) Copacabana, and Dad nearly sending a pool ball right thru the glass sliding doors. (I'm sure somewhere in this blog I've discussed my gene pool and wine and how they don't mix all that well.) In any case, while that was fun, the very last day of my trip was in fact the very best day of my trip, and that day was spent in LA with Super-mom, Super-chef, Kate Beeson.

Kate rules, let's just state that. I said, "a foodie weekend is fine with me" and a foodie weekend is what I got. First: porn. Some, like, wholesale food porn place where we oohed and ahed over funky pasta, lavender sugar, and pizza peels. Oh, and teeny tiny chocolate chips. Any thing you could possibly need, to cook any thing you could possibly think of, was somewhere in this store. *Shiver*

Next, we went to Whole Foods. I vaguely remember Whole Foods from Chicago - now, I'd have to go to Portland just to find one. (Salem is a sadder city than it should be.) I certainly don't remember them being twice the size of an Ikea. After we ran around the continent of Produce picking up all the goodies we'd need for dinner that night, Kate kept shopping, and I kind of just walked around in awe. The olive bar alone nearly brought me to tears. I couldn't even go near the cheese bar for fear I'd never leave.

Last, of course, was dinner, where I chopped veggies and broke her sink, and she whipped up a feast with one hand while holding a baby in the other. I washed dishes, and she was like, fuck it, I'll bake a cake. And it was the greatest fucking cake, ever.

I like to cook. I'm not gonna lie and tell you I'm good at it, but I don't suck at it either. I'm not nearly as good as Kate, even if she did fuck up the falafel. And it used to be that I could drive 16 miles to my little Safeway (ok, passenger; CR does the driving) and find almost all the stuff I needed. But last year they "remodeled" and while I did get a bigger selection of organic produce as a result, brand after brand disappears from their shelves, usually in favor of their brand. I shit you not, the last time I was there they had TWO brands of canned tomatoes - Hunts and Safeway. Two? I can probably find more than two brands of anything at Circle K, that's just stupid. Specialty pastas? Gone. Quality vinegars? Gone. Izze sodas? Gone. They barely even carry Boca and Garden Burgers any more.

I went grocery shopping today and it had to be at least the 6th time in a row where I walked around the store (freezing my ass off!) looking for shit I USED to be able to buy there but no longer can. The aggravation was compounded by the fact that I spent 20 minutes just looking for pine nuts because nobody there knew what they were. You know, for pesto? Oh, we have pesto. No, no, no.....! Then I walked to the bakery, knew I'd spend another 20 minutes trying to find pita, so I just asked. Ah, pita...the pocket stuff, right? Yes, dear, the pocket stuff.

So yeah, I wrote a letter. Cuz I'm old and cranky. And in 4 days, someone from "customer service" will cut and paste a reply into an email and hit "send." And I *still* won't be able to buy my Muir Glen tomatoes!

Yeah, yeah, I know, time for my nap.

Let it snow...

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:34:07 CST

It's funny that Wade posted this today cuz he's in IL and I'm in OR and when I looked out my window this morning, I saw EXACTLY the same thing.

Yeah spring?

In other news, assuming we don't get snowed in, beat by traffic, or trampled, CR and I will get to see Obama this evening in Eugene! W00T!

I am retarded

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:51:04 CST

Tis true, I have brought our box to a grinding halt more than once over the last decade. Crap code, stupid mistakes, once a bad include. But today - hooboy - did I ever top myself. This morning I somehow managed to lose an entire domain. Seriously, it was like a click-shush of the mouse I didn't even realize I did and POOF! Bye Bounte! It's back online now, but damn am I retarded! That's it - no more FTP before coffee!

First Born

Tue, 4 Mar 2008 19:20:42 CST

That's a mater in case you were curious.

Welp...

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:38:17 CST

Things never really work out the way you want them to. Er, maybe I should say they rarely work out they way *I* want them to. What was supposed to happen is that the new posiBLOG I've been working on since the begininng of the year would launch, then Callisto would be released, and we would move forward with the "new" posi. What actually happened is that I released Callisto today, sans blog, cuz a blog needs bloggers and I don't seem to have any.

So, here you go. Enjoy - Callisto

Wishes CAN come true...

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:25:53 CST

All together now: awwwwww

I Rule!

Fri, 8 Feb 2008 14:16:13 CST

You may remember that last February I went on a green streak - and one of the things I did was join our power company's "Blue Sky" program which offsets 100% of our electricity usage with renewable energy. I got this from the power company the other day:

Your total 2007 Blue Sky purchase of renewable energy avoided the release of 8.97 tons of carbon dioxide into our air. This represents environmental benefits equal to not driving 19,220.37 miles.

I've also been invited to their 4th annual wind farm tour. How exciting!

Gravity Now Available!

Thu, 7 Feb 2008 16:17:53 CST

Gravity Preview

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 13:19:23 CST

Here you go:

The single will be available tomorrow at shopPOSI for TWO WHOLE BUCKS.

Super Tuesday!

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 13:09:49 CST

Super Tuesday is like a holiday in this house, albeit a holiday only a true political junkie could enjoy. No dinner, just finger foods, as the table will be covered in laptops as we obsessively refresh the pages on election return sites for 24 states (and 1 territory!). We'll have two TVs set up so we can simultaneously yell at Wolf Blitzer AND Chris Matthews. I'll have my calculator out running vote totals, yelling things like: HE'S UP 483 VOTES WITH 46% IN! (Yes, I said HE and not SHE). I'm sure wine will be drunk, though the amount might depend on the turn out, how late we have to stay up, and how many states are still too close to call with 98% reporting. It could be a looong night.

The predictions are insane. Zogby has Obama up 13, SUSA has Hillary up 10 (edit: in CA). Clearly someone is, ah, wrong. The punditry has pretty much decided someone will either be the clear winner, or they won't - how helpful! I have no idea what will happen, but I'm pretty sure the coverage here on the west coast begins at 3PM, so you know where I'll be the rest of the day!

Fuck Yeah!

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:58:05 CST

I'm sitting here right now just rocking my ass off to the new Atomica single, Gravity. I'm so excited to get this one up at shopPOSI!

I'm uploading to last.fm and kPOSI today, so you'll be able to listen soon. It should be available for download....maybe this week?

Sheesh!

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:42:41 CST

I know, you've missed me desperately. I've missed me too! What a crazy month. We lost one cat, freaked out over another, had a visitor for a week, celebrated an anniversary (13 years!) and are currently in the process of being buried alive by snow. And in the midst of this I've been writing (and re-writing!) code for the new this, that, and other site. New pr.com on the way, new shopPOSI, and various changes to some of the artist's sites. Oh, and music too - new Atomica very, very soon, followed by new Micronaut, followed by more new Atomica. Or something like that. It's been a busy month. What have you been up to?

RIP Fatty Randall

Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:08:06 CST

Erlenmeyer "Fatty" Randall
1995 - 2008

Rest in peace little girl. You will be missed.

POSI + 2008 = Digital

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 17:39:26 CST

Yes, you read that correctly, Positron! Records is going entirely digital.

I know some of you will be very unhappy with this news and for that I am sorry. But I don't have to look long at the numbers to see that every year digital sales outpace CD sales, and the divide is only growing. However, this isn't just about not selling CDs any more - this is about our entire relationship with music.

Positron! has never been a label like labels are labels. I've always had a more "do whatever you want" approach to things. My mantra for the artist was always: make the record you want to make. The problem with that is some artists want box sets and others want EPs. I'm not kidding, IRM's original idea for their debut release was a 3CD box set. And you know what? If I had the money I TOTALLY would have done it. But I didn't, so we had to compromise, which is why Axioms is more of a compilation than an album. Wade, on the other hand, would prefer to release EPs, but it costs the same to press a CD with 3 songs as it does 10 songs, so from the perspective of the person who writes the check, albums are more cost effective than EPs.

So, if I mean it when I say I want the best for my artists, then I need to cater to their creativity and not their output. Because they are, after all, artists; creating is what they do. And by going digital, they can write, record, master and release a song in a day if they want to. They don't have to wait til they have 10 songs to make it more cost effective, they can release it at 4 songs if that's what they want. Nor do they have to pare it down to 10 songs, they can release an album with 50 songs if they want. They can create and release at whatever pace is comfortable for them.

Trust me, if I'd thought this up earlier, you'd have new Amish Rake Fight by now.

Ideally, for the customer, this means more new music, more often. Not more often only because the artist might be creating smaller collections of songs, but surely, wouldn't you rather get 3-4 new songs every 3-4 months than have to wait a year between records? No, I mean more often because no one has to wait for someone else's record to come out before theirs can. No one has to wait for the label to juggle money. The only time constraint on the label's end would be the time it took to upload the tracks.

Also, you may not know this, but Positron! Records doesn't own shit. So before you completely lament the demise of the posiCD, understand this: the artists own their own masters and thus can do whatever they want. They can also profit from whatever they do. So what begins its life as a series of downloadable EPs at shopPOSI, might at some point in the future turn into a box set on the artist's website, or CDs on tour. And you'll know that buying it from them meant every dollar went into their pocket.

So to begin our transition, all posiCDs are on sale at shopPOSI. Yes, if it comes with a free album download you still get one. Yes, if it's in your download locker now it stays in your download locker. As we sell out of CDs, the albums will become digital only. Some of them are already sold out and already digital only. And in about a month, we will have two brand new releases under this new system: Atomica's Grayscale and Micronaut's Callisto.

I think many in the music biz today are watching and waiting and wondering what the "new way" will be. Did Radiohead figure it out? Did Madonna, Prince, NIN? I think the new way is that everyone is going to have to find their own way. What works for one artist is not going to work for another. So Positron! going digital isn't a statement on how anything should be done, it's just the way I've chosen. And if there's one thing you can say about posi, it's that it's always had its own way, so in that regard, nothing will change at all.

UPDATE: CR talks more about audio fomats here.

Happiness is...

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:24:53 CST

These are a few of my favorist things...

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:52:19 CST

Now playing on the soundtrack to my life:
Brian Eno: Another Day On Earth
Soundtrack: Code 46
Underworld: Oblivion With Bells
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Jive Council: Jive Council (pulled this one out from last century and forgot how awesome it was)
Monk & Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

What are you listening to?

KITTY!!!

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:37:40 CST

I found a kitten today, or maybe I should say she found me as that's how these things tend to work.

CR won't let me keep her. Isn't he the meanest person on earth? It's ok, I'm pretty sure she must belong to someone cuz she is in great shape, super friendly, and loves her some human. We probably have a half dozen or so neighborhood cats that romp thru our yard and they all run like hell when they see us, but she ran right up to me and tried to jump in my lap. So, when CR gets home from snowboarding, he'll take some better photos to post around town and we'll see if we can't find her family. Though, don't get me wrong, I SO won't be disappointed if we don't. Then I'd have to keep her, right?

Edit: Oops. Further inspection reveals that SHE is actually a HE. Aren't you glad I'm not your vet?

Update: His name is Shakespeare, and he belongs to Ike, the neighbor. So really, I didn't find a stray at all, I just sorta catnapped the neighbors kitten. Oh well, he'll always be Mr. Bits to us.

Sometimes, the jokes just write themselves

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:04:05 CST

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried: Gonzales Named Lawyer of the Year

Tis the season...

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:55:52 CST

In 9 days we leave for my parent's house for Christmas. We're driving. Ok, I take that back: he's driving, and I'm passengering. Whatever you call it, I'm not looking forward to it. It's just mile after endless mile of Wal-Mart trucks and shit smell, and asshole after endless asshole under the mistaken impression that the left lane is his own personal highway. And don't even get me started on Arizona drivers and their need to sustain velocities approaching Mach II.

In any case, once I arrive, I have kitchen duty. Mom's having 20 people for dinner. I must supervise all kitchen activity cuz, well, mom + kitchens can sometimes = problems, especially when wine is involved. It's Christmas. Wine will be involved.

All that said, I am excited about one thing: no one has Christmas spirit like my mom. And NO, that doesn't mean she'll greet us in some green and red Christmas getup and have a stupid, giant, blow-up santa snow globe on her front lawn. But she does decorate the house. Top to bottom, inside and out. And, I don't know - maybe you would think it's tacky, but to me, it's how Christmas is supposed to look.

The other thing that is AWESOME about going to my parents house, for any reason, really, is that aside from two lost souls, one of whom claims to be reformed, we're all democrats and thus I can RANT AND RAVE all I want and people just cheer. I even dropped a FUCK in front of my mom last time I was there, but it was in reference to Dick Cheney, so she was totally fine with it. So that's a plus because most people have to avoid politics at family functions, but at my house, you can walk in the door wearing a FUCK BUSH shirt and someone will hand you a sandwich.

Just make sure that whoever made it is sober. It is Christmas, after all.

Perspective is everything

Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:36:36 CST

Cartoon from markstivers.com via Seed

How NOT to get your demo heard

Wed, 5 Dec 2007 19:32:56 CST

I got a demo in the mail today. I'm somewhat visual in that if something catches my eye, it catches my attention. While it's not the end of the world that your demo doesn't look like you dropped $1000 at Disc Makers, if it DOES, all the better. This demo looked great. Nothing too particularly fancy, just a simple slim jewel case, but the insert and on disc printing were very well done. Enough so that I picked it up and said: wow, this is pretty nice, I should give this a listen.

But then I read the cover letter. I won't reprint it here, but the poor fellow spent about 3 paragraphs telling me why I shouldn't listen to his demo. It was just one confidence lacking sentence after another. In between the lines it screamed: I DON'T REALLY TAKE MYSELF SERIOUSLY. And if that's the sense I get from you, why should I take your demo seriously?

The point of a demo package is to actuate. You WANT to be the outside force that causes me, or whoever, to change direction and head for the CD player - which is almost exactly how it happened with Bounte. The package looked great, he didn't look like a serial killer (that's an inside joke), and he told us a little bit about himself, what he did, and what he wanted to accomplish. The package said: I'm serious and I believe in myself. In the player it went, and I think CR contacted him later that day, or maybe the next day. But this one? It sent me to my blog. So in the end, yes, it did spur me to action - just not the one he was probably hoping for.

No really, I'm alive!

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:54:06 CST

So I know that you have all been excessively worried that my lack of posting meant that I did not survive Thanksgiving. Breathe a sigh of relief, dear friends, I fucking KILLED. Ok, I fucked the pear tart up the first time around, but the second time it turned out great. So all in all it was a success, and it only took about 3 days to finish all the dishes.

In other news, went to see Chemlab last night, but alas I am old and it was, like, a 32 band bill, and I pooped out about 3 songs into USSA. Plus the club was maybe 2 degrees above absolute zero and I was freezing my ASS off - and if you know me, you know I don't have a hell of a lot of ass to loose in the first place. So the end result is that I did not actually SEE Chemlab, though I did see Jared and Eric and Wade and Jason, so on and so forth. It was kinda like a High School reunion minus the stupidity of High School. All and all a good night despite the fact that I can't seem to stay up past midnight any longer. At least not without excessive amounts of coffee. I know, I suck.

You might be a redneck...

Fri, 9 Nov 2007 18:03:05 CST

Today CR bought me a bale of hay to mulch the garlic I planted this morning, and a blue tarp to cover the unused hay. He then informed me that owning both made me a redneck.

So there you have it. I guess now all I need to do is park a dead car on the front lawn and acquire about 15 more cats.

Giving Thanks...

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 13:51:04 CST

The problem with living a few miles away from your mother-in-law is that you are only a few miles away from your mother-in-law. Don't get me wrong, my mother-in-law is great, but CR's is better, if for no other reason than she lives a few states away. But she also doesn't make him do shit, like host Thanksgiving.

You might remember that I hosted Thanksgiving last year. Er, at least that was the plan. But at the last minute, grandma-in-law decided she would host and everyone blew me off. So this year I didn't even bother. Then mother-in-law decided she wanted to do it, but she also decided she didn't have enough room, so she kindly informed me she would host it at my house - except she only going to do the turkey, and I can do the rest. How nice!

Except, here's the thing: I'm a vegetarian. If you want to have Thanksgiving at the vegetarian's house, it should be a vegetarian Thanksgiving, no? That's how I feel. When I go to the meat eater's house for Thanksgiving I have to eat the blue "fruit salad" (don't ask) and if I'm lucky there might be some mashed potatoes on the table. I never complain. It's one meal, I'm not going to starve to death.

Anyway, I offered to buy the turkey cuz I figured if there's gonna be a bird in my oven it should at least be organic and not some chemically treated fowl. But now I'm kind of torn on whether or not I want to. I'll have 6 people for dinner, 5 eat meat, and I already said I'd do it - so I guess it would be rather schmucky of me to change my mind. But on the other hand, I'm somewhat pissed off at myself that I didn't stand my ground in the first place. I could have just said NO but I seem to have a serious problem with that word - which is generally how I wind up doing shit I don't want to do in the first place.

My birthday is tomorrow. I'm not really good with the New Year's resolutions, but maybe I can make one for my birthday. Practice saying NO. To everything. Just for the fuck of it.

In any case, the one upside to all of this is that Thanksgiving will give me the opportunity to give my new Shun Knives a serious workout. Of course the probability also exists that I'll loose a finger in the process. Those fuckers are SHARP.

Winter Garden

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 16:08:38 CST

This week I ripped all that was dead and dying out of the garden. In the process I found a couple of decent sized carrots (yum), a few mutant green beans (eww), and one GIANT tomato that the garden critters had clearly claimed as their own.

The plan was to "winterize" the garden - rip everything up, mulch, and let it sit over the winter. But winter is a relative thing out here. It never really freezes, annuals behave like perennials, and even among the brown there is still much green. Winter just vaguely visits; it might spend a night or two, but it never really moves in.

That said, I started thinking about garlic. Now would be a really good time to get it in the ground. So, you know, I could just plant a third of the garden and mulch the rest. I have to dig a new spot for the tomatoes next year anyway...

So yes, garlic is ordered. And while I was there adding to cart I stumbled across hairy vetch. It's a cover crop that just POURS nitrogen into the soil and leafy things love their nitro. In the spring you just turn it into the ground and plant. Er, at least that's how it's supposed to go. So that got ordered too.

I've got a busy week this week! Nadja tomorrow, old on Thursday, and I should have garlic and vetch to plant before the end of the week. I know, I know - you thought you were free of crappy garden photos for at least a few months, and here I go planting shit again. Sorry!

I am geek

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:42:09 CST

I bought myself this bracelet from Etsy the other day. It spells GEEK in amino acids. I almost don't want to share the link cuz I pretty much want to buy everything else she has - so I'll just say stay away from the Ethanol stuff and I won't have to hunt you down and steal it.

(I really wanted the quark ring, but it was too small.)

Thanks to Mrs. ARF for sending me the link

OMG! W00T!

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:41:01 CST

I got an early birthday present today - CR is taking me to see Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg play with the Oregon Symphony on November 5th! I am a lucky girl!

Small Town Life...

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:26:20 CST

Plus: Our local Post Office is currently getting a face lift. They got construction going on all over the place, and today it knocked out their ability to process debit/credit cards. Did they close? No. Did they ask you to pay in cash? No. They wrote down what you owed on a little envelope and asked you to come back and pay later. Love it!

Minus: Circle K is the hotbed of weekend entertainment. I don't mean, like, cool shit goes down at the Circle K, I mean that's where you park your pickup, drink your beer, and maybe meet your future mate. Hell, for all I know, they may even procreate there. What I do know for certain is that's were you go to get drunk and start fights. I got back from LA on Saturday and we pulled into town around 9PM - already they were fucked up. In the city, we didn't even leave the house til 10PM, so this whole wasted and passed out on the sidewalk at 9PM thing is pretty weak if you ask me. Then we caught two fucktards fighting on the corner and one almost pushed the other in front of our moving vehicle. Of course, the speed limit in town is only 25 so I guess we couldn't have fucked him up too bad had we hit him. Not that I'd have felt bad about it either. Retards. Fucking retards! It's bad enough you can't hold your BEER, but you got fucked up at the CIRCLE K. Have some fucking self respect!

I Heart Jon Stewart (and CNN can kiss my ass...)

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:09:25 CST

Note to CNN: I fucking despise you.

Fox News is faux news, and in this they are authentic. They are true to themselves in that they never deviate from the bullshit and lies. They are determined to be false, and they succeed with great effect. If you watch and believe, that's your problem.

MSNBC just plain sucks. Seriously, it's the retard news channel. Keith Olbermann is good, but should thank Jon Stewart every night before signing off. Chris Matthews is a drunk Irish frat boy. This is the channel that hired Rita Crosby. This is the channel that made Dan Abrams a general manager. Dan Abrams shouldn't have been given the job of sweeping the floors. And the gaggle of idiots they have in on the morning makes you throw up in your mouth a little bit. (I will give them a +1 for David Shuster. His mouth moves funny when he talks, but he's got spunk.)

CNN, at one point, was a REAL NEWS CHANNEL that delivered REAL NEWS. I remember coming home from class during Iraq v.1 and listening to Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett and John Holliman report from beneath their bed as bombs fell on Baghdad. But now? Now they have become a parody of themselves. They have the audacity to call themselves "the most trusted name in news" while simultaneously providing Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace with paychecks. Wolf Blitzer is INSANE. Lou Dobbs is a raging, maniacal, racist. And Rick Sanchez? OMFG. The only good thing he ever did was get tased.

I have been threatening to remove CNN from my satellite guide for months now, but I can't bring myself to watch MSNBC, and for however bad CNN is, a girl still needs her news, ya know? I can't help it, I'm an addict. But the morning Al Gore won the Nobel clinched it for me. I flip on CNN and what do I see? They are interviewing a "republican strategist" who is claiming he shouldn't have won because (A) global warming isn't really true and (B) his movie is full of lies. If you're going to bring on a talking head to be an expert on something, shouldn't they actually be an expert in it? If you really want to cover the angle that global warming is bullshit, shouldn't you interview a scientist and not a republican?

Fox NEVER reported the news, and MSNBC doesn't know HOW to report the news. I despise CNN because at one point in time they actually DID report the news, and now they actively and purposely CHOOSE not to do so. It is not simply a matter of being lazy, they actually choose to promote bullshit over the truth. When the time came to make the decision as to how they would follow the almighty dollar, they chose to give up news in favor of copying a fake news channel. It's almost as if they were the only people that didn't realize it was fake.

And so I've come to realize that in this weird world we now live in, CNN has become the "daily" show, while Jon Stewart has replaced them as The Most Trusted Name In News.

Oops.

Tue, 9 Oct 2007 12:48:05 CST

I was verbally disciplined yesterday for not updating my blog on a more regular basis. Sorry, it's been a busy couple weeks. I've got 2 sites I'm working on, another couple in my head, and I'm leaving for LA again tomorrow morning. I'm flying this time. I'm really no bigger fan of flying than when I stopped doing it over a decade ago, it's just that now that I'm on the west coast, all these flights are so short it's kinda stupid to get all anxious over them. Which is not to say I don't, but it's a short anxiety attack.

In other news, I'm sorry to say that garden updates and pictures of sad little carrots and big red maters are over for the season. The garden is now sad, cold, brown. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work, and I'm already scheming for next year. I should have plenty of jam to last til then. And marinara. And maybe even beans!

Kate Popped

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:00:57 CST

As many of you probably know, Mark Beeson has been the official "web dude" for all things SMG/POSI for well over a decade. He has geek credentials a googol long. So I found it a bit surprising yesterday when it was his WIFE who BLOGGED from her PHONE while in LABOR to update us all on Mina's impending arrival. So now we know where the kid will get her geekness from.

Their little libra arrived yesterday at 6:53 PM, and from what I understand, she's already as tall as Mark.

Welcome to Earth Mina!

Today's Harvest

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:42:53 CST

Look at all those tomatoes! And look at that sad, sad, little carrot!

In other news, I want my own Jessica:

In other, OTHER news, LA was great! Great show, great food, great friends, and Kate didn't pop!

Vacating...

Wed, 5 Sep 2007 23:26:05 CST

I'm off to SF and LA til the 10th for sun, fun and Underworld. And it's very possible that my friend Kate might pop while I'm there. (She's preggers, in case you couldn't figure that out.)

So naturally, the week I decide to go out of town is the week the maters decide to turn red. Bitches! It's fucking September!

My First Mater!

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:25:17 CST

About fucking time!

Dog Daze...

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:28:43 CST

Today is the annual Mill City Dog Daze whereupon everyone puts their shit out on their front lawn and sells it to their neighbors. We did not put shit out, but we did get up bright and early to go "shopping." CR is always hopeful that he will stumble upon a $5 Prophet 5, but alas, no luck. I, however, scored big.

First, I got a giant General Fireproofing desk for $20. It needs work, but the desk itself is in great shape. CR hates it though cuz he had to move it and it weighs, like, 4000 lbs. I'd post a pic, but he had to take all the drawers out to move it and it's still in pieces right now.

Second, for TWO WHOLE DOLLARS, I got the entire 1971 Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library. It was worth EVERY PENNY. You would not believe some of these recipes. And the photos? All I can say is food photography has come a long ass way in almost 40 years.

The library is split into 20-some categories. Some make sense, like, "American Classics," and "Budget Casseroles," but the one that caught my eye and made me go Qua? was: "Men's Favorites."

Oh yes, I will share. Card #2:

Yes, you read that right, MAN PLEASING APPETIZERS. And here all along, I thought it was boobs. No, as it turns out, it's two things - one called POW! and the other, called Rumaki, neither of which I have ever heard of before. But oh how tasty. POW! includes condensed beef broth, horseradish and dill weed, while Rumaki is made with chicken livers, water chestnuts, bacon and brown sugar. Yum!

Next up, from the "Snacks Around The Clock" category we have Card #15:

The Super Sandwiches include the Beef-Egg Sandwich, The Frank-Sauerkraut Sandwich and, wait for it, the Peanut-Bacon-Pickle Sandwich. To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure which sandwich is pictured on the card. Don't let the pickle fool you, because the Peanut-Bacon-Pickle Sandwich uses pickle relish, not pickles.

I don't think even Elvis ate that shit.

Last but not least, from the "Seasonal Favorites - Spring" category comes Card #5:

Lime Ribbon Delight, my ass. I dare you to find even one thing delightful in that photo. It's no wonder 2/3rds of the population wasn't overweight or obese in 1971, the food looked disgusting.

There are easily 500 cards in this box and I have to yet to find one that makes me say, "that looks tasty!" So if you happen to be in the mood for something truly disgusting, let me know cuz I probably have the recipe!

My how my garden grows (and ps: more jam)

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:06:46 CST

Remember this?

Well, it looks like this now:

I know, I know, it's hard to tell the garden from the surrounding grass (and weeds), but I guarantee you that giant mound of green in the background are some out of control tomatoes. And no, those little fuckers are still not red.

In other news...

...it turns out we have a plum tree. I think I knew this the first summer we were here as we got a few tiny plums, but I don't recall getting any last year. This year, however, it's giving the apple tree a run for it's money. So, of course, plum jam was made today. Apple butter is tomorrow. Who loves me?

Not so beastly

Wed, 8 Aug 2007 17:06:34 CST

As you can see, I've been a busy little bee this summer. You might even see a new posi site...someday. Sorry, I'm not really ready to commit to a time frame on that one yet. Posi always takes the longest because I have to please myself, and well, that's nearly impossible!