Standing On Boxes

Is Easter a religious holiday or a commercial one ?. Is it unpatriotic to not go and spend a lot of money on candy & gifts and etc. for Easter ? When I was growing up it was a religious holiday & I’ve nver really gotten into the whole “egg thing”….

I spent the morning with the small child. French toast made with actual French bread, bacon, and scrambled eggs. Nothing fancy. And then she was off to her grandmother’s for the rest of the day.
(And now I’ve got the house to myself again until next weekend.)

Took the small child to the local Chinese buffet for dinner. My fortune cookie fortune had an eBay advertisement on it.

Another evening with the folks at foodtv.com. Cobra hearts & tree grubs. Yum %-). I think Vietnamese cooking is just too different to become popular on planet USA in the original configuration.
But I could be wrong.

After picking up the small child for the weekend (3 1/2 hour &amp 200 miles round trip), nothing new on tv after 10pm on a Friday except Emeril (doing Morrocan food & a Morrocan belly dancer/musicians for entertainment).

But wait, Letterman is on. Wait long enough and something will show up on tv to stop the channel surfing, if only for a few minutes.

Ok…. I’ve been going to Subway for 18 years (One of the few things open after midnight back in 1984 in Orlando, Fl.) and today was the first time I’ve seen lettuce go on LAST (It’s usually the first vegetable). Is this just a minor aberation or a major change (like the change in roll slicing technique from a few years ago) ?

Hmmm…

I find that in some ways I’m very predictable. For the last 3 years 90% of the time I get the same sub at Subway:

Before that I seemed to always get the “Italian” sub which is whatever selection of spicy meats they have plus vinegar and oil.
I don’t think I could lose 100 pounds (if I had it to loose) on a Subway “diet”.

I seem to stick with the same foods for a long time. Used to get
only Big Macs at McDonalds but now I’ll get one of the cheese burger varieties instead.

Hmmmm….

Must be an age thing. I like variety but I like the same variety all the time.

He’s in Scotland this time. Fresh scallops. Mmmmm.

What would you watch on a Tuesday evening?

Jamie Oliver doing his thing with fresh sea scallops and a leg of lamb or the insipid eye candy of the post-Shannen Doherty Charmed over on TNT ?

Maybe I missed it but were the Womens NCAA Basketball finals cancelled ? Can’t think of any other reason why the men’s NCAA Final Four was mentioned on CNN Headline News in a sports segment, followed by mention of an NBA game with no mention of the womens NCAA Final Four. Or do I just not understand how sports news is broadcast by mainstream media ?

That must be it…..

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention

(bumper sticker reportedly seen in D.C.)

This would be Emeril adding a dark beer to a pot he plans on using to steam some crabs in.

The small child was spending last weekend with me and being a fan of cooking shows asked why every time someone like Emeril, when cooking in front of an audience, would get a large reaction from the audience when some form of alcohol was liberally applied to whatever was being cooked.

There really wasn’t a good answer. And isn’t. But I can guess. No matter how unlikely it is that anyone might cook one of these fancy or decadent dishes, when alcohol is added in copious amounts to something our collective vice detectors go off and that attraction to the forbidden generates a reaction in the crowds.

Creativity isn’t just talent and inspiration. It’s also a heavy dose of driving passion. But how do you know if you have enough of each to get somewhere? Or any for that matter. Or too much of one?

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Is basketball (or any other sport) an art form ?

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It snowed Tuesday night (1 inch) , Wednesday night (6 inches), and now on Thursday night… good thing spring starts today.

I don’t like using credit cards over the internet. I’ve done it but, knowing way too much about how such things work, I don’t really trust web sites that accept credit cards yet.

One of my preferred tv shows is in repeats until late April so I’m watching movies (Just got a couple in the mail today) instead with a brief break for The Naked Chef (Jamie Oliver) on the Food Network. He always seems to have fun cooking.

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What would you watch on tv ?

A. The Magnificent Seven

B. Four Weddings and a Funeral

Yes, there are other things to watch….

I almost always wait until mid-March though technically I’m supposed to get it done in February. But it takes a few extra weeks usually to save up the money for the other maintenance items I have done at the same. Sometimes the maintenance stuff has to wait until I swap out snow tires.

This year it’s the front brakes – rotors & pads. Here’s hoping it is less than last year’s rear brakes (pads, rotors, emergency brake) and etc ($600).

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All set…. not as much as expected ( $345) but that’s because I forgot to ask them to adjust the parking brake… ARGH!

Guess I’ll get that done in several weeks when I have the snow tires taken off (Winter is almost gone here in NH)….

Disney is showing The NeverEnding Story this evening, sanitized for our enjoyment. It’s actually a fairly good movie. There is something enticing about it. Even if they trimmed a bit of action from it. Can’t say the same about the sequels.

Ahh, trivia -> The actor who played Atreyu was a character called “Harry Potter” in the horror movie The Troll and was also in Battlestar Galactica. Doesn’t look like he’s acted since the early ’90s though imdb.com has him listed in the production side of things in the last several years. Another child actor who didn’t make the leap to adult actor ?

I finally managed to get my hands on the book last fall and was amazed that it is only nominally a childrens story.

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Kiki’s Delivery Service is another occasional movie that appears on Disney that is surprising.
The same director directed Princess Mononoke.

[10/9/2009 Update: Yes, I am referring to Hayao Miyazaki here. ]