Tighten Up: Prodigal Remix At Home

REM with a Sense of Humor and Archie Bell and the Drells. For the lo-budge enthusiast such as myself, open these in two tabs, and start Archie Bell and the Drells at 0:34 into REM. Mildly psychotropic for those sensitive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlRl-70_2NE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wro3bqi4Eb8

Or try to work off these links:
REM

Original, Archie Bell and the Drells.

Now make it mellow!

Col. Sanders Ebola

From this blog.

An Observation from John Lennon

Maybe it's because I'm reaching the age when John Lennon recorded "Nobody Told Me" just before he was shot, or maybe it's just because at this age we are more relaxed about pointing out the general ambiance of pointless bullshit that we're all engaged in, but either way I've been fixated on the song. With respect to food, he nails a couple of nice cliches in juxtaposition:

There's always something cookin'

But nothin's in the pot

They're starvin' back in China

So finish what you've got

 Strange days indeed, and we're still in them.

.

Olive Garden ....

It shouldn't have taken me this long to realize that there is no such thing as an olive garden, I grew up in California's Central Valley. The restaurant should be called Olive Orchard.

Or if you just want to embrace the absurdity, Pasta Garden.

But no, again, this would have to be a Pasta Orchard. To wit (starts at 0:30):

Re: Piglets. My New Favorite Russian Saying

Up until a moment ago, my reigning favorite Russian saying was one I heard on a show where some Brits were trying to recreate a transcontinental Eurasian roadtrip in 1920s or 1930 era cars. They broke down badly in Siberia, and tried to convince the mechanics to bust their balls to fix their blown engines or whatever it was. As the Brits (and BBC or TLC camera crews) tried to hurry them to act and offered to pay for more folks to help, the gathered mechanics got all circumspect and Russian and one pronounced:

Nine pregnant women don't make a baby in one month.

Now that I write it out again, honestly that may still be my favorite Russian proverb. That's a lesson I learned in Belize over and over again, especially with broken down trucks. It's burned deeply into me. But I read this one from Vladimir Putin  in an AP story about US requests to extradite Eric Snowden out of the international terminal of a Moscow airport:

"Ask yourself a question: Should people like that be extradited so that they put them in prison?" he said. "In any case, I would prefer not to deal with such issues. It's like shearing a piglet: a lot of squealing and little wool."

Much like department meetings in the humanities. After all the fighting you don't even end up with bacon.

Egads!

Lament to the Pacific Mackerel

Scomber japonicus!

Why are you so somber?

What's wrong with us?

Beating a Dead ...

My glee for horsemeat-related news will eventually taper off, I assure you (or since we're talking about perissodactyls I should say tapir off -- rimshot), . Until that day...

In the process of researching an Italian tile with a saint on it that an uncle in Ireland owns, I came across a post about horsemeat in Iceland by Yrsa Sigurdardottir at Murder is Everywhere, a blog by 7 crime writers I've never heard of. She opens the post with this:

In 2007 Romania banned horse carriages on its roads. As a result there were lots of unemployed horses around. Fast forward to 2013 and the food scandal that has rocked Europe. Turns out that the Romanian horses are showing up in lasagna and other prepared foods supposed to contain ground beef.

In Iceland we do not shy away from eating horse meat. We do like to know when we are being served it and would not like to be sold beef and get horse. I do not know if it was because of this or because we did not want to be any less vigilant that other European countries but Iceland decided to do testing of its own market. The results were pretty darn good for most of our producers as the ingredients proved to be in check with the labeling. There was only one exception actually, a company that specialized in making meat pies – that were supposed to contain ground beef. I am going to keep you waiting a bit before telling you what the meat pies actually contained.

Building up the suspense, she then kills me with the fake or "troll" logos people had proposed for the shitty meat-pie company -- Strobe.is -- even before they were exposed as totally shitty. Even though feelings about eating horses vary among cultures, the reaction to straight-up corporate bullshit is universal. A taste:

Good old Icelanders. Have a look at the post for the denouement to the meat-pie mystery.

Neither Hard- nor Soft-Boiled Egg

I found this picture from Fall 2011, where I guess I was trying to make a soft-boiled egg and ended up just barely over doing it. Apparently this warranted a photo. I suppose you don't hold such a specifically cooked egg in your hand everyday.