wherefore art thou patches
let me just say that I've been holding back on the soccer news, with MLS in the offseason. But there was a draft (Revs nabbed a player from Lehigh!) and the National Team is continuing to prepare for the WC in June.

pete’s picture of a funny lost cat sign reminds me of one Reen and I have seen for a full year now posted by the Chappy Ferry over on the Vineyard. I don’t recall the cat’s name but as it turns out, it’s not that important, so let’s just call him Patches. There’s the standard text describing what Patches looks like, where/when he was lost etc. And then beneath the description are the bulleted items which include the following two gems: (1) his collar has no name tag and (2) he does not answer to his name when called. So we saw this and both had a good laugh because obviously Patches is screwed. The image of people combing the neighborhood calling Patches’ name while he was huddled in the brush trying to stay out of sight tickled the funny bone. It was only fitting then that the posting was still up a year later. Poor Patches. R.I.P.

I am woefully behind on my sausage production this year. None will be placed in the 2006 logbook for January. Breaking my grinder set me back motivationally a fair bit. When the venny was fresh there was no option but to get it ground. Now I have a few pounds ground and a few more cubed and it’s all frozen. In addition I have a couple of pounds of frozen moose meat from my soster which I need to give some attention to. I’ll get there eventually.

We managed to finish painting the guest bathroom this weekend. Reen demoed the old vanity and disconnected the light fixture, spackled, sanded, washed and taped everything after work during the past two weeks. We chose a tan/medium brown. Reen calls it “coffee with cream” and Ben Moore calls it Algonquin Tan. We got the first coat down mid-week and the second coat up on Sunday. I must say that it looks good. It actually helps make the crummy tanish toilet/sink/tub color not look so bad. Instead they kind of just blend in now. Starting our painting adventure with the red in the living room really prepared us for the worst. If it doesn’t take 5 coats to cover then it seems easy. Although getting in behind the toilet wasn’t too much fun and there was a lot more cutting in to do in this small room due to the closet, window, shower, door and sink. Next steps are to get the new light fixture and mirror up in there.

For all you health nuts out there, good practice would now dictate that you limit your intake of haggis to once a week from here on out. One serving per week only please.  3 comments

eyebrows, tivo and cannibals
signal 238 that I am slowly aging: when I got my haircut today the lady asked if I wanted anything done with my eyebrows. Although I’d never thought of it before, I apparently associate a barber’s task with only trimming the hair on your head. Maybe the beard if it’s an old fashioned kind of place and you’ve got an extra $10. All other hair above the neck is your own damned responsibility. The only time you ever see things otherwise is when the funny old guy comes into the barber shop with hair coming out of every nook on his head. Uninterested or unable to groom himself, the fellow plops down in the chair and the scissors go to work.

So when she asked me if my eyebrows were “ok”, I said yes. Because they are just fine thank you, and I’ve got about 40 years to go until I’m the funny old guy with a Chia head.

And I suppose I should announce to the world that we bought a TiVo and are enjoying it so far. I actually got it talking with our wireless network last night in about 5 minutes. I was shocked.

Furthermore, I had my first glimpse of TiVo joy last night too. I was looking through the listings of movies to see if there was anything interesting and it turns out there was. First I found Drumline, which I believe I’ve mentioned before. But the real cool thing was that I saw a listing for Keep the River on Your Right. The book is a fascinating memoir of a young man who went off to live with natives in the Amazon jungle in the 50’s. He ends up living with them for a few years and at one point joins them on a raid of another village, watches his good friends murder the other people, and then partakes in cannibalistic rituals which were standard issue for the other tribesmen. I enjoyed reading this book a few years ago and was happy to learn that there is also a documentary which follows the guy, now 78, as he returns to the jungle to visit the tribe which he lived with in his youth. I saw it at blockbuster once but it’s not really a great Friday night date movie so I’ve always passed it over. But now here was TiVo telling me that it would be on in a few days. So I’ll record it this weekend and watch it at my leisure. Hooray for TiVo! And let’s not be miserly, hooray for cannibalism too.  5 comments

like a boxer who is down to his last strike
did anyone else catch this gem of an analogy from Senator Charles E. Grassley from Iowa during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing? ''You're the quarterback and your team is way ahead here in the fourth quarter, and opponents are very desperate. They haven't hit you all day, now for two days. And you're going to keep getting these last-minute hail marys thrown at you." I sure hope Brady doesn’t have too many hail marys thrown at him in Denver this weekend. I guess we can thank Joe Biden for starting this trend with his crappy baseball/strike zone analogy during the Roberts hearings.

But why dwell on that stuff when we can talk about glowing green pigs?! I’ll be accepting sausage recipe ideas for this at least until my mail order green pig butt comes in the mail.

And I will note with some sadness that reality tv may be coming to P-Town here on the Cape. Have I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of reality tv? Joyless humbug that I am.  7 comments

klezmerized
about a week ago I heard this story on NPR. The basic details are as follows: Somebody made recordings this old Rabbi singing prayers and songs which had long been forgotten. Kind of like the old recordings of early blues and folk music which are some of the only remaining evidence that these songs ever existed. And the singer’s grandson is now trying to get these recordings released to the public. Standard NPR story really, about the potential loss of a unique piece of cultural heritage. Yeah, yeah. Vote democrat, save unique cultural artifacts, we get it.

As I was half listening to this typical piece of liberal NPR propaganda, something caught my attention, and through the wonders of the NPR website and streaming audio, I can share it with you. If you follow the link above and then click on the Listen button (just above the photo) and after the add plays, the main story will come up. Listen to 4:13-4:52 and you’ll hear the part that got my attention. Go ahead and try it if you want to avoid reading the details which I have below.



What got my attention was that I recognized this little snippet of music from the recordings. This seemed odd because I’m not well versed in much of the sacred Jewish musics. But here is this old recording of a guy singing in Hebrew and I know the tune from somewhere. Eventually I was able recall that I knew the song from a movie. With a bit of googleing, I found that I knew the song from Pulp Fiction and it was called Misirlou and was recorded in the 60’s by Dick Dale and his Del-Tones.

Lo and behold I’m in the car again this Sunday and hear that NPR got a bunch of people writing in who also recognized the song. And so the folks on NPR did a follow up story about how this melody could be part of a sacred religious music and also make such a large impression as a part of modern pop-culture.

The story is worth listening to, but the short version is that the melody originated from Greece and Turkey and became a staple in the folk music in the Middle East. Dick Dale’s grandparents were from Lebanon and he first heard the melody as a child from his relatives.

If you do listen to the story, the most interesting part for me was listening to Dick Dale talk about how and why he ended up putting this tune from his childhood into his modern repertoire when he was an up and coming musician.  0 comments

75 in '05
I had a year in review thingy compiled but it now seems much too late for that so I canned the whole thing, save for the next little gem which I feel is still worth sharing.

I started keeping a notebook of the sausage I’ve made in February of 2005. The recipe, notes about how it was smoked, comments on how the final product turned out etc., just so I can keep track of what works and what doesn’t. So with each recipe is the amount of meat that I started with. I added that number up for each entry and came up with 75 pounds of sausage made in 2005. That doesn’t include the weight of the spices or water added or of any weight lost in the smoker, but I’m guessing it’s fairly accurate.  0 comments