Random Thought

I've just been adding some images to my Tumblr photoblog, and a thought occurred to me.

Does anyone know if there is a blogger widget that I can add to my sidebar so that some of my Tumblr images show up? Is rather not post the images directly as a daily post, but it might be fun to have the latest ones pop up on the sidebar.

Is that even a possibility?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Twelve Days of Christmas Fail...

So, I was floating about today on the interwebz, and what do I discover? The 12 days of Christmas are not the 12 days leading up to Christmas day, but rather, they begin on December 26th and extend for 12 days until January 6th, or Feast of the Three Kings. There is even a special cake/bread that is eaten on January 6th, called a rosca de reyes, which roughly translates to King cake or King ring.

So, my carefully planned 12 Days of Christmas posts are pretty much a giant fail.

Wouldn't you know it?

I Am On a Mission...

To all my readers:

I may or may not be around after tonight. You see, tonight I will attempt to travel back in time and change history.

You'll know I succeeded if Germany loses World War II and if Sarah Palin quits the governorship of Alaska.

Wish me luck!

Post-Christmas

I hope everyone's Christmas day was filled with family and fun. Mine was better than usual, which is not to suggest that my family holidays are filled with drama and unpleasantness, because they are not. It just seemed very festive.

The Christmas crackers were tone of fun. We pulled them after dinner, though everyone wanted to pull them one at a time, rather than around the table. But still, fun fun fun! We all wore our paper Christmas crowns that fell out, though to varying degrees of happiness and time. The party poopers took them off immediately after we took the family photos, and I wore mine until the last people left at 10:30 pm.


Christmas lunch was good. I made a turkey baked with a lemon garlic butter under its skin, a glazed ham, green beans with bacon, buttered corn, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and southern style biscuits. I forget about desserts completely, but my sister brought over a pumpkin cheesecake, so that was a saving grace. I had meant to take a couple of photos of the Christmas feast to put up here, but my two nephews were acting like they hadn't eaten in a week. I hadn't even managed to get all of the food on the table before they were serving themselves, and I didn't want to take photos of a mutilated turkey bowls of food that had been gotten in to.

I was laughing that this year should be called The Year of the Alcoholic, because so many bottles of alcohol were exchanged! My brother gave everyone, EVERYONE, a bottle of wine. He bought them when he was out at some fancy wine place and couldn't help himself, he said. Ha ha! My 23 year old nephew got a bottle of Amaretto, my dad got a bottle of Jeremiah Weed bourbon liqueur, a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey, and a bottle of Jack Daniels, my brother got Jack Daniels, my 23 year old nephew gave away a bottle of Chiroc vodka and a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey to friends. It was totally nuts! We never exchange alcohol and this year was a boozefest.

My uncle is the one in the center dressed as a Chinaman

My mom's brother came by and livened up the place by playing his guitar for a while. He is a professional musician; when he was younger, he was in a band called The Latin Breed that put a few albums out, so having him play for us is always fun.

My brother sang a few songs with him and so did one of my cousins, his daughter. My mom videotaped it all, along with my five year old nephew attempting to strum along on the guitar my brother gave him for Christmas. It was pretty funny watching him try to play as he scowled in concentration and not coming anywhere near a tune. He is very sharp, though, and I expect him to become good in short order. I just hope I'll be around to get to watch him. To be truthful, I am not expecting to, but I am still hopeful.

Merry Christmas!

And may God bless us, everyone!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 12

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Twelve drummers drumming

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 11

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

 Eleven pipers piping

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 10

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Ten lords a leaping!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 9

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Nine ladies dancing

Christmas Cartoons

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 8

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Eight maids a milking

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 7

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Seven swans a swimming

Christmas Cookies FTW!

In yet another weird bout of Christmas cheer, today became cookie day. Yay!

These are chocolate chip pecan cookies and coconut macaroons. Elsewhere, there are mounds of oatmeal pecan cookies. I think I made way too many, to be honest. I tried giving some away, but no one who came by were interested. Weasels....

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 6

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Six geese a laying

Early Christmas Present

As an early Christmas present to you, my readers, I am sharing the directions to my vegetable seasoning spice. Now, I don't call this a season all, because I don't generally put this on any sort of meat. However, on pastas or vegetables, this seasoning mix is really delicious.

In fact, for most vegetables, add this and a dollop of butter, I can guarantee that they will be tasty. When I make corn, my niece always says that it is the best she has ever had. Lol!

The mix is quite easy to make, and I suspect most of you will have all of the spices on hand already.

Dr Mandragora's Vegetable Seasoning
2 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp ground mustard

I would package some for all of you myself, but you know, postage would just be ridiculous.

If anyone tries this, please please please let me know what you think. Enjoy!

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me

Five gold rings

Fried Pies FTW!

In an excess of holiday spirit, I decided to make some fried sweet potato pies this afternoon. The dough is flavored with anise and cardamom, and the sweet potato filling is a mixture of sweet potato, brown sugar, butter, and vanilla.

Yum!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 4

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Four Calling Birds

Christmas Crackers

On a bit of a lark, I purchased 12 authentic(?) English Christmas Crackers from Williams Sonoma. I've heard them mentioned on a couple of shows I watch on BBC America, and I remember there being a reference to them in one of the Harry Potter novels, but I've never actually seen one. So, when I remembered that Williams Sonoma carries them, I decided to use some of my remaining money to get some as a treat for my family.

To be honest, I don't even know what I am supposed to do with them. American "crackers" are lit with a fuse, but I'm fairly certain these are supposed to be pulled apart. According to the bastion of knowledge, Wikipedia, the original Christmas Crackers were made to "snap" and contained an almond. Yeah, I know, that sounds pretty sucky. There had best not be a stale and sour nut in these crackers, that's all I'm saying. Lord knows there is going to be enough "nuts" here at Christmas, if you know what I mean. In the Harry Potter story, their Christmas Crackers exploded with sparks and glitter and dropped a fun hat the characters then got to wear. Something tells me that I won't be getting a big Santa hat out of this particular batch.

Well, a rancid drupe, a flashy hat, or anything in between, the fun will be in experiencing something new. Besides, if Christmas Crackers are good enough for Gordon Ramsay's holiday celebration, they can't be all bad.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 3

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Three French Hens

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 2

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Two turtledoves

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 1

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

 A partridge in a pear tree

Graham Norton and Justin Bieber

I just saw Justin Bieber on Graham Norton’s show. Now, before I start, let me just clarify that I do not hate Bieber; I am not a fan, but I am not on the Bieber hate squad either.

However, I have to say that he did not come off well on the show. First off, he came onstage with his pants sagging so badly that he was duck-walking to keep them from falling down. And when he sat, the crotch was midway down his thighs. I am sorry, but since when do Canadian white kids dress like street trash? Doesn't his mother travel with him? She really should say something about that. There are no parents that I know who let their kids sag like that in public. Well, no good parents, anyway.

Secondly, hearing him speak was so very very painful. I realize he is 16, but the 16 year olds I know can carry an intelligent conversation. I guess I just expected him to be, oh I don’t know, smarter? My experience is that musicians tend to be more creative, smarter, more well rounded than most. He seemed very shallow, uninformed, sort of a "if it doesn't have to do with me, I am not interested or informed about it". Ah well, I guess you don’t have to be smart to smile and flip your hair.

Finally, when Confessions in the Red Chair began, the first guest was a lady from Washington state. Bieber kept interrupting Graham with prattle and inane questions, like a child pestering his mom when she is talking on the phone. When the Biebs asked if the woman was transmitting from Washington, I just sighed. No, Justin, you are in England on an English talk show. Why would there be cameras in the US? Please don't "belieb" the smoke your people blow up your rear end; the world does not revolve around you, people were not lining up to talk to you, and not everyone at Graham's show was there to see you. I was embarrassed for him, to be honest.

He seems like a nice kid, but I just don't get his appeal. Omg.....unless it's because I am finally getting....GASP.......old?

Nah, that can't be it.........

<_<

>_>

Baby It's Cold Outside

I have to preface this with a comment. I do not watch the show Glee on a regular basis, which means that I have never watched a full episode in my life. However, I love Christmas and anything, well...most things, associated with it. So, when I saw that Glee was having a Christmas show, I decided to tune in.

Out of the several Christmas songs they sang, their version of Baby It's Cold Outside was my favorite. Considering that I hate hate hate that song, that is definitely saying something. The fact that it was performed by two gay guys just made the performance that much more fun.

If you did not see the show, please take the time to see the performance in the video below. I don't think you will be sorry.

Lulu Assumes

We had company over the other day and not enough beds to accommodate everyone, so a comfy pallet had to be put together. Lulu assumed that the comfy spot was set up just for her, the silly girl.

Josh Douche-hamel

I don't usually blog about stuff going on in the entertainment world, but these sorts of behaviors from actors and their ilk really irritate me. The following story was copied from Yahoo's entertainment news.

*****

Josh Duhamel didn't get to fly the friendly skies on Thursday. The actor, 38, was kicked off a flight headed from NYC to Kentucky after refusing to turn off his BlackBerry before takeoff, TMZ reports.
A passenger on the flight said that Duhamel was "very rude" and "taunting" a male flight attendant's repeated requests to turn off his device.


Upon the attendant's third request, Duhamel reportedly laughed. At that point, the still-grounded plane left the runway and headed back to the gate -- further delaying the flight and reportedly angering other passengers.

Two officers later boarded the plane, and escorted the Transformers actor (and husband to singer Fergie) off the vessel.

A rep for the actor told TMZ that Duhamel was simply texting about his flight being delayed. "He's sorry," the rep added.

*****

Now, I realize that the job of Duhamel's rep is to cover the actor's ass, but still. Does he really think we are falling for that line of bullpoop?

Here's a news flash Duhamel. You aren't that great of an actor. The fact that you boink Fergie doesn't give you the right to thumb your nose at the rules. You aren't better then I am or entitled to privileges that the rest of the passengers on the plane couldn't have. Lastly, your childish behavior inconvenienced many people, hard working people, people with real jobs, because you thought you could do whatever you wanted to do.

I hope the airline you inconvenienced bars your spoiled ass from flying on their planes ever again. I hope you get charged with being a public nuisance. And I hope you realize what a jerk you were being. But I don't really expect any of those things to happen.

Question, Questions, and Their Answers

Gather 'round, my dears, and hear the answers to your queries. Though I promise to answer honestly, the truth is something else all together.

What is a malted milk cake?
The best way I can describe it is thusly: a malted milk cake, or at least the one that I make, is very much like a white chiffon cake that has malted milk powder added in. Malted milk powder is the stuff that ice cream shops add in to milkshakes that transforms them into malts. It is also the brown crunchy stuff that is at the center of malted milkballs such as the candy known as Whoppers.

Since the cake is flavored with malt and is covered in a chocolate icing, it has a taste similar to the chocolate covered Whoppers.

By the by, the icing is made with 20oz of chocolate, 1 and 3/4 cups of heavy cream, 3 tb of corn syrup, and 1lb of softened butter. Mmmmm....

What is up with Chasing Jackalopes and Sine Logicum?
To be honest, I have no clue.

I first started blogging over a year ago to occupy my mind and (hopefully) get my mind off my court case. Since my new date is quickly approaching, I am having trouble focusing on much of anything. I thought posting handsome dudes on the Tumblr blog would be fun, but now I am not so sure. It's kind of losing its luster.

As for this blog, composing posts of any any length is a challenge to me. It's pretty much what has happened to me every time a significant date begins to approach. This time is slightly different in that I anticipate this one being the one. I don't see the court postponing me again. I mean, It's been 3 years now, far longer than cases are ever strung out.

So anyway, we'll see how things go.

30 Days of Thanksgiving

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. My family and I gathered to eat and spend time together and argued/discussed what channel the television should be on. My niece and I always want to watch movies, but everyone else is more interested in the various  football games.

But we never actually gave thanks.

Odd, don’t you think, that the day we set aside to give thanks for what we have, all we did was look at the Black Friday ads, fuss at each other, and eat. I think that is a bit of commentary on us all.

So, I have decided to write down and post things I am thankful for, 30 days worth of things, in fact.
It sounds like a simple exercise, but I am not sure I’ll actually be able to come up with 30 entries. This should be interesting. So, without further adieu, here is the first entry.

*****

I am grateful for quiche, quinoa, quesadillas, quarter pounders, Queer as Folk, the music of Queen, the antics of certain residents of Quohaug, quizzically queer quips that cause querulous questioners to quail, qualified qualms, quantised quandries, quatrains, quirky companions, comfy handcrafted quilts and my quadruped companion Miss Lulu

The Night Before...

I just finished icing my homemade Malted Milk Cake with a chocolate buttercream. And considering that I no longer have an electric handmixer, making that damn buttercream by hand was a royal pain in the ass.

I had planned on making some hamburgers and fries for dinner, but "they" decided that "we" should make all of our Thanksgiving desserts tonight so that oven space won't be such an issue, as per every other year of my life. So, no hamburgers....crap. Hence, Malted Milk Cake and assorted pies.

Sadly, the pies are all frozen stuff from the store. I woud have made them from scatch, but I just haven't had a lot of energy lately. Which is also why this blog has suffered from a lack of posts.

My Tumblr blog, though, is moving along nicely. It features primarily, to borrow a Sethboyardee term, cuteboys. There are a handful of nature photos and wallpapers as well to flavor the place up a bit. I've had fun there with the exception of a couple of altercations I've had with two different people.

Oddly enough, both of them said the same thing, that I "stole" images from their blogs and placed them on mine. Now, as I've said before, I don't save many images so have to search for whatever I blog each day. I don't grab images from other Tumblr blogs but look other places. To be honest, even if I did take the images from other Tumblr blogs, why would they get mad? They took the images from other places themselves.

I was able to assuage the ego of one blogger. The other got into such a snit that he deleted his blog altogether. How silly is that?

Anyway, if you haven't checked it out yet, please feel free to do so. It's called Chasing Jackalopes. In fact, sign up for an account so you can comment. That would be fun. Well, for me at least. Lol!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, or at least to all of you who actually celebrate the holiday. To the rest of you, Happy Just-Another-Thursday!

The Return of the Pumpkin Muffins

Jay from Jay in VA asked if I would put up the recipe for the pumpkin muffins I made the other day. Of course I said yes! The problem is that I tend to fiddle with recipes because that is my nature. I find that I don't like following people's directions, be it in the way I live my life, the rules I live by, of the way I make pumpkin muffins. This means I can't always recreate things precisely from batch to batch.

Yes, I made more muffins. Again. As if my belt isn't already on its last notch.

Love it or leave it, bitches. It's how I roll. (I don't know where that came from.)

Now, you should also know that I love making things from scratch; I just think food tastes better when made with real ingredients rather than with processed stuff. However, as I was looking around for a pumpkin muffin recipe, I stumbled across this one that uses a boxed cake. It looked interesting so  tried it.

So, anyways, I will put up the original recipe I found on the internet and then I will tell you what I did.

Original Recipe
1 18.25oz packaged yellow cake mix
1 15oz can of pumpkin puree
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground clove

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan or line with paper cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove until smooth. Spoon equal measures of batter into the 12 muffin cups.
3. Bake for 20-25 minutes in the preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

No matter what the cake mix requires in terms of eggs, oil, butter, or water, you don't put any of that in. All of the moisture comes from the pumpkin. Exactly..what the hell sense does that make? So, this is what I put in.

1 yellow cake mix
1 cap pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 cup water

1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground clove
1 cup pecan pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan or line with paper cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, pumpkin puree, egg, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and pecans until smooth. Spoon equal measures of batter into the 12 muffin cups.
3. Bake for 20-25 minutes in the preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Please feel free to use the original recipe. It won't hurt my feelings.

Big Ass Cookies

I have been watching Top Chef: Just Desserts and twice, Chef Eric Wolizkv from New York made these huge chocolate chip cookies. Both times, the judges thought his cookies were really good.

I scrounged around on the interwebz and found his recipe. Yay! Of course, me being me had to fiddle with his recipe because....well....just because. The original recipe is below as are my changes.

Mmmmmm!

 

 

Eric's Recipe

Ingredients:
    * 340 grams butter (3 sticks of butter)
    * 200 grams sugar (1 cup sugar)
    * 400 grams brown sugar (2 cups firmly packed)
    * 21 ounces flour (4 2/3 cups)
    * 1 tablespoon baking soda
    * 1 tablespoon salt (I used 1 1/2 teaspoons)
    * 2 eggs
    * 2 yolks
    * 21 ounces chocolate chips (or quality bar chocolate, chopped into chunks)
    (I added in 1 tsp of vanilla)


Directions:
1. Melt butter, cool slightly.
2. Paddle sugars with melted butter.
3. Whisk together dry ingredients.
4. Add eggs slowly. (And vanilla, if used)
5. Add flour, mix, add chips.
6. Bake at 325 for 14min or until golden brown. (I baked them for 16 minutes)


© 2010 Eric Wolitzky  - Bravo

Top Chef: Just Desserts

All right..what...the...hell?

I watched last week's episode again tonight since it was rerun before the new one. Last week, the special guest judge, Nancy Silverton, looked very familiar to me, though I was pretty certain I had never seen her before. However, I just couldn't place her.

Until today.

Separated at birth? I think so.

A New Venture

My Tumblr icon

I find that my posts here at Sine Logicum are growing flat. I no longer write stories since I can't seem to focus, and I am posting mostly photos.

So...............

I've decided to play around with a Tumblr account. Right now, it's half hot guys and half interesting (to me) photos I've collected from the internet.

You are certainly welcome to check it out.

Chasing Jackalopes

Oh, but I'm not abandoning Sine Logicum, by the way.

The Writing on the Wall

I have always believed that everyone is important to someone in the world, perhaps many someones, and we may not even know it.

Dinner with the Doc: Tomato Basil Soup

I roasted Roma tomatoes, an onion, and a head of garlic.

I blended the roasted stuff, and added in chicken stock, basil, and heavy cream.

Add a grilled cheese sandwich, and dinner was born!

Photos from Today

 Today was my nephew's birthday. He said he wanted to come over and spend the day with me. I asked him what he wanted to eat, and told him I'd make it for him. He said he wanted menudo. Since there were going to be many of us, I pulled out the medium sized pot. ;P

 I swear I felt like a witch stirring this big-ass pot.

 Lulu started fussing at the front door, so I assumed there was something in the yard that was bothering her. I looked out; there were a dozen buzzards clustered around the Arizona ash. I was only able to catch a few since I used the camera phone.

Once I looked more carefully, I saw a dead squirrel in the road. That was obviously what they were after. And I can tell you, they did not like me standing close to them.

Happy Halloween!

I am up to attending any parties if anyone is having one!

A Plate of Yum

The weather has finally turned cool here in Mandragoraville, and I was inspired to do a bit of baking.

Behold! A plate of pumpkin muffins.

Mmmmmmm!

What the Fcuk is Wrong with Dancing with the Stars?

On tonight's elimination show, my favorite contestant, Audrina Patridge, was voted off the show.

What?

And the dancing gorilla that is Bristol Palin is still competing? Come on. I cannot believe that people are voting for that Alaskan train wreck while people like Audrina and Jennifer Grey, both ladies that are dancing very well, were in the bottom two. No.

The Bumble dancing with Yukon Cornelius at an Alaskan sock hop

It is sort of like Wheel of Fortune. I have noticed that the wheel, while spinning, has different ways of stopping. There are times it slowly rolls to a stop, even bouncing back from a stopper because it loses momentum. Then there are times it comes to a jarring stop, looking very much like a brake has been applied. For that reason, I cannot believe that the producers don't influence where the wheel stops to help create closer games/more excitement.

In like fashion, I now think the producers of Dancing are doing something similar with the voting. There is no way Palin, who moves with the grace of the Bumble from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer fame, is outperforming Audrina.

Ah well. It is an entertainment program after all, not a election for Emperor of the World, so it really makes no difference. I was just taken with Audrina and am sad to see her go.

Rocky Horror

I don't generally watch the television program Glee for more reasons than I care to list and you care to listen to. However, I did make plans to watch it this evening when I learned that they would be doing a version of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and I happen to love Rocky Horror Picture Show.

In fact, I eve remember the first time I watched RHPS: I was a freshman in high school. My family owned 2 riding horses back then and we made friends with a family who stabled their horses at the same ranch we did. Their oldest son and I got along very well and he would invite me to the movies every Friday evening. One of those evenings, we went to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror. I had never heard of it, so was not prepared for what it was.

We walked in to a theater that had almost no seats left, it was so full. And there were people in costumes, for goodness sakes. Costumes! My first thought was that these people were freaks. As the movie began and people began to stand up and reenact scenes on the screen there in the aisles, I realized I was absolutely correct. Rolls of toilet paper flew through the air, water pistols were fired into the air during a rain storm, and the entire audience was supplying dialogue that was far more entertaining than what was on the screen.

There was a transvestite Frankenfurter in fishnet hose, Brad running around in his tighty whities, and a very sexy monster in tiny gold shorts.

In short, the 13 year old me thought the whole experience was AMAZING!

So, when I heard that Glee was doing Rocky Horror, I just had to peek in.

And I have to say, the show did a great job of putting a contemporary spin on the characters and the numbers. The blonde guy who they had as the monster in the tiny gold shorts was handsome, but there is no way he passes as a high schooler. Well actually, none of the main characters remotely look like they belong in high school, but I think that was a good thing. I would have felt like a perv checking out blondie in gold otherwise. Lol! And speaking of, I got the feeling that the blonde guy in the gold shorts was put on the show as eye candy because he kept showing off his very fit body in the majority of his scenes. Though I could be wrong.

John Stamos sans big hair and leather jacket

But the surprise for me was the cameo by John Stamos. The last I saw of him was in his days in the goofy show Full House. I recall him wearing tight pants, a leather jacket, and having big hair. And I really disliked him. I thought he was annoying, not good looking, and a terrible actor.

But tonight, I thought he did a great job as some red-haired teacher's boyfriend. He performed Eddie's (Meatloaf's) Hot Patootie number and sounded great. AND..he has gotten very handsome as he has gotten older. In a word, WOW!

Dinner With the Doc

I would like to say that, in the interest of healthy eating, I ate a nice salad for dinner. But, that just isn't true. This salad, though quite nice, was accompanied by a huge slice (or two) of lasagna. And a Coke float.

I suppose it's a good thing I have an odd intestinal disorder that keeps me from absorbing all of the calories/nutrition from everything I eat, otherwise I'd weigh 200 pounds.

spinach salad with tomatoes and croutons.

The dressing was made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, onion,

Dijon mustard, honey, salt, pepper

I Have a Confession...

I am totally in love with Audrina Patridge.

Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking. "But Doctor, I thought you were a card carrying gay dude?"No, dear reader, I have not switched teams. Well, not that I've ever actually played on either team, if you know what I mean.

Still, I've been watching Dancing with the Stars, more to make fun of the "stars" that can't dance than anything else, and since episode 1, I have been in love with Audrina. She has to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She is sweet, she is funny, and she is a great dancer. I don't think she gets the praise she deserves, though. The judges seem especially hard on Audrina while they handle Bristol Palin with kid gloves, even though she the grace of a dancing hippo. I swear, it's like watching Disney's Fantasia without the fun music in the background. I really don't understand why they do that.

In today's show, for example, Bristol fell apart in the dance, forgetting steps and just standing there while her partner danced around her. Yet, when she got to the judges' table, they all praised her "courage" and "growth". What? Even Len, who hates theatrics of any sort, "loved" the gorilla suit she wore. Sorry, Len, it is clear you all are afraid to speak out and criticize Bristol even though she is stinking up the place with her sad sad dancing. To be honest, though, I wouldn't want to be killed with a moose rifle either.

Anyway, here are some photos of the lovely Audrina.

Dinner with the Doc

This was a bit more of a job than I had anticipated. I placed a brisket on a barbeque grill and smoked it for 4 hours. The meat was moist and delicious, but it was more toothsome than I like. So, it then went into the oven with extra seasoning, etc. for another 6 hours at 220 degrees. However, the darn thing is still too tough. So, it is back in the oven even as I write this. It has provided meat for two meals, though, and everyone said it was delicious. I'm just not happy with it.

**********

In other news, I just looked back at my last few posts and realized that I've been stinking the place up! No real writing, no emotion, just pictures. Pretty pictures, in my opinion, but nothing of substance. I think it's because I haven't been in the best of moods, lately, and do not want to air that here on the blog. We all journey into blogland to relax and have fun, I suspect, and I don't want to cast a pall in my corner of the realm. I need to find a way to dispel the Aura of Negativity that has been cast on my kingdom, though.

Photographer Captures Lightning Strike

photos taken and copyrighted by Jay Fine

A Little Humor

That's gonna leave a mark.

This is why I don't forward emails.

Umm..no comment.