Because internet there are entire blogs dedicated to husky/corgi mixes, and lists of the most adorable corgi mixes. In closing here is a picture of Ein because a bunch of you are inveterate nerds.
WAR Links! What is it good for? Absolutely…..very little? OK, these links might be a bit off my usual fluff, Daily Fail and Gibraltar fascination (unless maybe the Russians threaten to attack Gibraltar! Hmmm….). Anyhow, here are some links fer ye.
Minor traffic accident in Stockholm. Must have been distracted driving. (h/t Chipwooder)
Brian Williams gets warboner…? Missile boner? Either way, he is a loon.
Please to be seeing Russian truth telling press to be having reaction to Yankee aggression!
Arab Spring! Tunisia is a beacon of enlightenment in a benighted Arab world! This is ….disappointing.
And a special thanks to Jimbo for reminding us of National Beer Day. I have a bottle of Bourbon County 2016 at home that should begin to fear for its life.
If you aren’t strength training already, I highly encourage it. The benefits are many: increased physical attractiveness and general physical health, potential rehabilitation of old injuries or addressing impairments, increased performance (possibly as it relates to “sports”), and finally, it’s just a damn good time and feels great.
I don’t care if you’re a bodybuilder, a weightlifter, a strongman, a crossfitter, or a couch potato; you need strength training in your life.*
I’m not going to get into a really involved post about which program you should follow, how many sets or reps you should do, or how often you should do cardio. You can make progress following just about any program, and any program worth the time it takes to read will tell you all of those details. I have made good progress with 5/3/1, and Mr. Riven is excelling under Starting Strength. I’d recommend either, but obviously Starting Strength is the way to go if you’re new to the barbell.
There are four main barbell lifts: the overhead press, the bench press, the back squat, and the deadlift.
So, I know I said before that the overhead press is pretty approachable and that’s not wrong; however, the deadlift is right up there, too. What could be simpler than looking at a weighted barbell on the ground, bending down, and lifting it with straight arms? There’s nothing better than the feeling of a solidly good deadlift. (Well, maybe some things.) I guess you could say this about any barbell lift, but mechanically they’re all very simple because they must be. When you execute a lift well, it should feel great.
You know I’m going to have to link to the Art of Manliness video in which Rippetoe‘s mustache instructs the other guy’s mustache how to make the sack of meat that carries him around deadlift properly.
I’m also going to link Alan Thrall’s samey video–though I should point out that this time it’s a full beard instructing instead of a mustache. If these two videos sound similar, it’s because they’re both operating on this set of knowledge. There is a wealth of articles and information on the deadlift just on startingstrength.com alone, and both Thrall and (obviously) Rippetoe draw on that for their videos.
Sigh. But not me.
I like pulling information from different folks on the same material. In particular, I like to listen for different cues since some will resonate with you and some won’t. For instance: I’d been improperly interpreting the “proud chest” cue in both the deadlift and the low bar squat, leading to poor torso-hip angles on my lifts. It wasn’t until I heard the alternative cue “tight back” that I realized I’d been focusing on the wrong things. “Ooooh, it’s not that I need to keep my chest up, necessarily; it’s that I need to keep my back, lats, etc., tight. This will keep my back straight throughout the lift, and raising the chest is only a mechanical effect of that.” What a spaz, right? So listen for different cues. And use a hook grip or you’re dead to me. I know it’s uncomfortable; deal.
Having read the comments in the last section (but, of course, being too busy playing Horizon and the NieR demo in my underwear to participate), I noticed a few folks mentioning wanting to get into better shape but having various (valid) excuses: older, injured, don’t have the equipment, don’t want to join a gym, and more. Here is a link to a what I’ve found to be the most comprehensive, grounded, and even-handed approach to dieting–and that includes both dropping and gaining weight. I used to be pretty heavy, and one day I’d just had enough of looking at myself in the mirror and wishing it was different. Wishing doesn’t make it so. I ignorantly crash dieted down to a meager 120 pounds, but I still looked like hell–just a scant, paltry hell instead of a pudgy, chubby hell. I used the advice in the above forum to slowly put on another 30 pounds while lifting (forever bulk!), slowly lose 10-15 of those pounds without any of this nonsense, and I’ve been slowly, slowly, soooo slowly recomping in the 135-140 range ever since. All this to say I’m much happier with how I look now at 135-and-change than I was when I was lighter. It’s crazy what a little muscle-mass can do. The first time I sat on my actual ass in an office chair (y’know, instead of a pad of fat) was revelatory and over-all just awesome. You, too, can sit on your ass.
Not all roux’s are created equally. Despite the unique, delicious flavor of a flour/oil roux, it isn’t suitable for all dishes. You can make a roux from flour/butter and though the process is the same the resulting taste is quite different. A proper bisque requires a creamier base, usually seafood stock with milk or cream, and can require a fair amount of preparation. Since we are concerned with shortening time and effort, we will take a few shortcuts and still end up with a gourmet quality soup. It is a little more effort than the other recipes but well worth it. At least a dozen times every year people call me requesting that I prepare this.
12oz – 16oz frozen cooked and prepared seafood (crawfish is my favorite but shrimp or lobster is fine)
1 can of chipped crab meat (the cheap stuff, not the expensive lump meat)
2/3 stick of butter
½ of a medium sweet onion – chopped
¼ cup of white flour
1 pint of heavy whipping cream
1 to 1-1/2 quarts of whole milk
6 chicken boullion cubes
1 capfull of Zataran’s liquid crab boil
1 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon of chopped garlic or 1 teaspoon of powdered garlic
Melt the butter in a stock pot over medium heat. Toss in the chopped onion and garlic, then stir. Make sure the onion/garlic is well coated in butter and stir occasionally until the onion starts to become clear.
Sprinkle the flour over the butter/onion with your hand. Swish around with your spoon until the flour is saturated with butter and evenly mixed in. Keep stirring and cooking until you see your butter going from yellow to a light tan. Don’t let the flour stick to the pot or darken too much. You have just made a blonde roux with onions and garlic.
Quickly pour in the pint of heavy whipping cream that you had open and sitting in easy reach. Swish around with a whisk and scrape the bottom of the pot until all of the roux is evenly mixed. Pour in your milk. Toss in the chicken boullion, cayenne, liquid crab boil, and the can of crab meat. Note that the crab meat has a small piece of paper in it. Don’t put the paper in your soup, but make sure you do put the liquid from the can in with the meat.
Homemade Seafood Bisque with Cream and Parsley
Stir this well and turn the heat up to medium high. Bring it to a boil and keep stirring constantly. After it begins to boil count slowly to 30 while you stir, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot, and watch carefully that the pot doesn’t boil over. If it appears that the pot may boil over simply remove from heat and turn heat down before putting the pot back on. After you have counted to 30 with the pot boiling, turn the heat down to simmer, and stir in your seafood meat. Make sure you put all of the liquid from the seafood in with the meat. The bisque should thicken as it cools.
If you want to fancy it up serve in a bowl and sprinkle with fresh chopped green onion or chives and some garlic bread. Otherwise just serve in a bowl.
*Some people like whole kernel corn in their seafood bisque. If you are one of those people, simply add a can of whole kernel corn after you have completed the process. If you want it creamier still or to add a slightly different flavor you can add in a half-cup of sour cream or cream cheese.
This is NOT a low carb dish but is so creamy and delicious that it will become a favorite. If you have all of your ingredients out and a relatively clean kitchen, a pot, knife, and whisk handy you can whip this up in under twenty minutes.
In case you cis-workers needed another excuse to shirk work, leave early, and drink beer, beloved commenter Jimbo (of the non-papal variety) reminds us that it is National Beer day. Whether you drink the mass-produced rice beer of the megacorp, or your own lovingly crafted homebrew, have one for a good cause.
Happy Beer Day!
Before you get too buzzed, here’s a nice piece about Hayek, collective knowledge, and why government interventionism never works.
Visiting Auschwitz recently I was struck not by the “industrialisation” of death – it is a surprisingly low-tech place – but the “nationalisation” of death: the bureaucratic central planning and meticulous hierarchical organisation of mass murder: it takes a government to do an Auschwitz.
Speaking of governments killing people, the US fired cruise missiles at Syria. A part of me hopes that this is the fig-leaf cover of “doing something” that the US has long committed to do when NBC weapons are deployed by anyone, anywhere. The rest of me thinks Trump just shoved America’s wang back in the meat-grinder. And as a Florida man, that concerns me.
Seattle’s mayor apparently liked helping troubled teenage boys back in the ’80s. By buying them crack and paying for sex. As libertarians, we don’t get too stirred up about voluntary transactions of money for sex or drugs, but I do wonder if the Seattle Times would have waited until the fourth sub-hed to mention his party affiliation if he wasn’t a Democrat.
…And Tim Tebow is once again in the news for after hitting a homerun in his single A debut at-bat. He’s just so gee-whiz and nice. If he weren’t a Gator who had a good career in college mashing my beloved Seminoles, I’d be a fan. (Autoplay warning)
I hope everyone has a great day. Here’s a little something to get you rockin’.
Greetings once again, fellow intrepid interlocutors of the insidious and the incredible, it is I, your humble author, once again delving into his personal DVD archive to bring you only the finest is bizarro horror filmmaking.
This week we take a look at the largely forgotten 1972 made-for-tv movie, Gargoyles. I’m afraid I don’t have much to regale you with in terms of production information; such is lost in the sands of time. And in the sands of New Mexico, where this beauty was filmed on a single camera in 18 days.
Opening title card. It’s always promising when they go with “day-glo slime” font.
No dear readers, this film is remembered for one reason, and one reason only: the exemplary practical gargoyle effects, made for zero dollars and whipped up over only a few days time. Now when I say, “exemplary,” understand that I’m grading on a curve here. Obviously, they don’t touch what is seen in much larger budget films. The costume designer was a fellow named Tom Dawson, who also did the wardrobe and costume effects for Blazing Saddles and Arnold Schwarzenegger crap-fest End of Days. It is interesting, however, to note that one of two people tasked with creating and applying the gargoyle makeup is Stan Winston, in his first credited special effects role. If after perusing that link you find yourself still unimpressed with the fine work of Mr. Winston, then you can go right to hell – my reviews are not for the likes of you.
Our story begins with a voice over explaining that gargoyles are actually the earthly spawn of Satan himself and that they arise every 600 years to try and take over the planet. However, it appears humans whip dat azz pretty badly every time because the creatures are now on the verge of extinction. However, it does result in many of the world’s myths about monsters.
Cut to anthropologist Cornel Wilde (who, fun fact, was blacklisted during the HUAC era) taking a drive through the desert, with daughter Jennifer Salt in tow (Salt would later touch again on the world of the macabre as a producer for sometimes-great-sometimes-dumb FX staple American Horror Story). Interestingly, throughout the film, Jennifer always seems to wear her shirts tied up to show off her stomach, which is, I suppose, something of a welcome diversion. Coming across a barely-functional roadside tourist trap run by lovable old Uncle Willie, the drunken coot ushers them out back to show them his prized possession: a gargoyle skeleton hung up in his shed out back. Willie proceeds to tell the anthropologist (the character has a name, but does it really matter?) about how the Injuns in the area used to have a lot of stories about these and….you know what, it’s just the usual hokum spun out in crappy horror movies. I’m so damned sick of people acting like/assuming that a bunch of freaking dudes dancing around smoking peyote have some kind of magical powers or great insight into the universe that I lack because I wear pants. Fuck that noise.
Bernie Casey is a Critical Monster Studies Professor
Anyway, the titular monsters attack, killing Uncle Willie and driving Generic Anthropologist and Hot Daughter to seek refuge at a nearby roach motel run by horny drunk Grayson Hall (best known for her long-running stint as Dr. Julia Hoffman on the original Dark Shadows). Having escaped with the gargoyle skull from Willie’s shed and with audio recordings of the attack, our protagonists try to make sense of all the shenanigans and goings on. They are attacked again by two of the creatures trying to retrieve the skull, and once they have it, they flee across the road only for one of them to be hilariously run over by a semi. It comes out of nowhere and is really quite funny, because normally when you see the creatures running or attacking, they director uses a kind of weird slow-mo, so it cuts straight from that, to a damn truck coming out of nowhere and smacking one of them.
“I don’t remember you from the faculty meetings at UCLA…”
Running to the police station to report the latest attack, Hot Daughter pleads with the cops to believe her, and to release several dirt bikers they caught at the scene of Uncle Willie’s earlier that day (the lead biker being played by Scott Glenn, who is one of those guys whose name you don’t know but you’ll recognize him when you read through his IMDB). On her way back, she’s kidnapped by King Gargoyle…Bernie Casey?! I think that’d be racist today. You may know him from his work in Revenge of the Nerds or Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but because I’m me, I’ll always remember him from Suzanne Somers and Stacey Keach eco-horror film, Ants. Yes, I have that on DVD as well. Anyway, the actually pretty awesome looking head gargoyle takes Hot Daughter back to their cave, where he explains that 1) they’ve only been woke for a few weeks, 2) he’s taught himself pretty good English in that time, and 3) he likes to have chicks read stories about 15th century rapes out of scholarly books to him. We also see the gargoyle hatchery, where eggs literally half the size of the adults hatch the creatures, and we learn that the ones with wings (such as Casey and his female gargoyle consort) are “breeders”.
A close-up of the really quite good monster makeup used in this film
Generic Anthropologist convinces the cops and the local dirt bikers to help search for Hot Daughter, and the group is eventually assaulted by the gargoyles. The humans manage to kill a lot of them with shotguns and pistols, which really makes one wonder how the whole, “We’re going to exterminate humanity” thing is going to work out for the monsters. Scott Glenn goes in to throw gas around and burns the hatchery, and upon seeing him beset with gargoyles, Generic Anthropologist declares him dead and flees (he did the same to Uncle Willie earlier – seriously, the guy will decide you’re a lost cause within seconds of you running into any adverse circumstance). The supposedly thousands of eggs burn up from the two gas cans splashed around one room, and Bernie Casey, along with his consort, try to fly away with Hot Daughter to, I guess, rape the shit out of her, since it’s pretty clearly established that the monsters only produce offspring with each other. However, Generic Anthropologist makes a Quick Decision and uses a handy rock to bust the consort gargoyle’s wing, forcing Bernie Casey to abandon Hot Daughter so that he can fly away with his basic bitch. And…that’s it. They get away, they end.
Bernie Casey: Critical Monster Studies Professor’s breeder counterpart. She actually gets jealous of Hot Daughter and helps Generic Anthropologist to escape at one point, dooming her entire race because she can’t control her womanish cattiness.
The movie basically sucks, but really, if you have the 74 minutes to spare, it is honestly remarkable how good they do with the gargoyle costumes given what you know must have been incredible time and budgetary constraints. So kudos for that. Director Bill Norton went on to acclaim *coughbullshitcough* as the director of such masterpieces as More American Graffiti, and Hercules and the Amazon Women. If any of you have seen either of these, sound off in the comments.
Actually please don’t, nobody gives a shit.
On a parting note, apparently it’s not safe to trust the TCM website’s user-generated movie ratings, because holy hell, check this out. The lowest one is 4.31 out of 5.
Personally, I award Gargoyles 10 Pubic Hair Cartoons out of a possible 30. Keep track of the percentages here; 10 isn’t very good.
Currently, there is a sale on all Paradox Interactive games on Steam. As such, I have been too occupied with establishing the Ayutthaya Empire across 17th-18th century South East Asia to do the necessary research for a post this week.
Let us see here…I have a couple of vanilla links and a couple of caramel ones….Huh, seem to be a bit bland today. Hopefully they will provide enough amusement for your afternoon.
Tō-ji, a Buddhist temple of the Shingon sect in Kyoto, one of the many beautiful attractions in Japan you aren’t visiting.
Welcome to Straffinrun Tours. Do you want to go around and see some of Japan’s oldest and most visited shrines and temples? Experience the subtle beauty of a tea ceremony? Try your hand at the wondrous art of ikebana? Yes? Get the f*** out of here because you bore me. Use Google and save yourself a couple grand. My tour is focused on exposing you to the concept of 本音 (pronounced honne) and 建前 (tatemae). For that we will need to meet and watch real Japanese people doing mundane things in their daily lives.
Have you ever laughed at a bad joke your boss or customer has made because the social situation called for it? If yes, you have practiced tatemae. The Chinese characters 建前 translate literally as “constructed front” and can be seen as your social persona that we put up to keep us from beating each other to death. Some people say it’s basically lying, but, well, they’re idiots.
Ever fantasize about slamming you boss’s head into the corner of his desk after hearing his bad pun for the 26th time? Well, that would be honne. 本音 literally means “real sound” or, in other words, what you are really feeling at the moment. Hopefully, you practice some impulse control and don’t run around calling a spade a spade. It can be a bad idea. Especially in Compton.
Pachinko parlor
So now that you’ve gotten the basics of honne/tatemae down, let’s find out what the little Nipponjins are up to. First stop on the tour is a Pachinko parlor. Noisy, smoky, and filled with dejected people gambling. The game itself is ridiculous, but we’re not here to be bedazzled with blinking lights and digital breasts. Over there! Don’t look, but look at the woman in her 60s, wearing the tiger pattern blouse. Her machine just went “reach” which means she has two of the three numbers necessary to win. Will she? Zannen (too bad). She lost. Did you see her reaction? She pawed at the screen as if to say, “Oh, you’re a bad boy.” Now watch the man in his 40s, wearing the suit. His machine just went “reach”. Zannen. He lost, too. Yet his was a stone-faced reaction despite having a 70% chance of winning \10,000. The tiger blouse woman showed you her honne and the man, his tatemae. You’ll notice about 90% of the players react like the man and 10% like the woman. That’s Japan. You don’t show your emotions in daily, public life unless you’re a freak.
Let’s get out of here and grab a drink. I know a pub down the street. Yes, it does say “Pub,” but remember that donut you bought at the bakery in the station this morning? It had “Donut” written on the wrapper, but it had eggplant inside. This is not your mother’s English. “Pub” to them means a small bar where, usually, a youngish gal, the one-san, and an oldish gal, the oba-san, fawn over you and you pay through the nose for the pleasure.
The only pic I could find tagged “oba-san” that wasn’t granny porn.
“Aah, sutoraifeen-san. Hisashiburi, desu ne” (long time, no see). The oba-san greets us as we slide into our stools, her 48-year-old bosom defying gravity due to the hiked up obi (sash) of her kimono. She pours us two Jim Beam Ryes on the rocks from the bottle with my name on it that she pulled off the shelf behind the bar counter. Talk to her. She is a master of tatemae. Your jokes will be hilarious. You look like Bradley Cooper, and where did you ever find that sweater? Goodwill? I’m not familiar with that brand. Is it a boutique on Rodeo Drive?
Here’s the rub; she doesn’t care about you other than you’re a paying customer. She thinks you know that, but you see how good you feel regardless? It’s dishonest honesty. The true masters of tatemae don’t trick you into believing what they are saying is true, but rather allow you to bathe in the respect they are showering you with. This is not your Western, “You look great. Did you lose weight?” type of flattery. It’s respect, so soak it in.
Unless you want to drop a mortgage payment, I suggest we get out of here. Hopefully, you’re beginning to see from our experiences at the pachinko parlor and the “pub” that honne/tatemae permeate Japanese consciousness. You get polite, speedy, and competent service at the convenience store because to do otherwise would be disrespectful of not only you, the customer but also of the clerk themselves.
So when you get back to The States and hear about “trigger warnings” and “micro-aggressions,” think about honne/tatemae. Are the sensitive souls pushing this nonsense because they want a more respectful discourse, or are they simply forcing people to yield to their superior wisdom? If it were truly about being respectful, they would show their tatemae and keep their petty grievances in the honne box. Running around, pointing out trivial offenses is the exact opposite of what honne/tatemae is all about. And for all the faults the concept has, it does provide a shield which can insulate you from nutjobs. The next time you’re accosted by a pink-haired slob for using the wrong pronoun, just remember the oba-san from the pub and tell her, “Those black yoga pants really do smooth out the ripples in your thighs.”
Often I have asked myself: what do all forms of stupidity have in common?
I have concluded that despite its myriad forms, derp has but one source: lack of curiosity. This attitude is exemplified in the cliche “perception is reality,” a phrase which makes me wonder if the people who use it have ever seen a magic trick.
The whole point of thinking is to look past what is obvious. That’s why we say (and should say more often) “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Synonyms for “think” in English include words like “ponder,” “examine,” “consider,” all of these words are derived from Latin words that mean to weigh or look at closely. Thinking means to test ideas, not just have them.
Our natural instinct is to make quick decisions and judgements based on first impressions and to stick with them. This approach works in most but not all situations. Even when faced with disproving evidence, most people are much more likely to look for information that confirms what they believe than evidence which contradicts it.
Does Not Compute
My favorite example of this is the broken calculator experiment. In it, high schools students and adults who had passed a math test were asked to estimate the answers to some arithmetic questions and check their answers with a calculator. The calculator was rigged to give answers that were off by about 25% – a difference big enough that a numerate person would know something is wrong. Yet in the experiment, about half the participants at the end said they believed calculators do not make mistakes.
In an even more depressing example, 19 college professors with PhDs in sciences were asked to evaluate a geometry lesson on calculating the volume of sphere. First, they were given an orientation on finding the volume by calculation and by measurement. The next day, they were given an incorrect formula which gives a sphere a 50% larger than normal volume. Then they were given actual spheres which they filled with water and then measured the volume with graduated cylinders. Incredibly, none of the participants questioned the formula. They reasoned they must have measured wrong or the equipment was labeled incorrectly.
So why do people persist in error? For the same reason people do many other wrong things – because doing the right thing is uncomfortable. The good news is that false beliefs cannot outlive the people who hold them, and so they tend to die off eventually.
When the decisive facts did at length obtrude themselves upon my notice, it was very slowly, and with great hesitation, that I yielded to the evidence of my senses.
-Joseph Priestley
Leo Tolstoy
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.
-Leo Tolstoy
The main hindrance for the search for truth is probably the inability to abandon a present belief and adopt a better one when it comes along.
-Peter Elbow
The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge.
