• @bunnywink I’m the same sign, and that was also very apt - I had a conversation like that this morning with one of my friends. Weird! in reply to bunnywink #
• Me-too or no, I just purchased four MJ songs on iTunes: Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Thriller, Beat It, and Billie Jean. #
• Skipping breakfast and lunch a lightheaded person makes. Off to banks and pharmacy, not in that order necessarily. Perhaps to cafeteria. #
• In spite of the sad news coming from the West Coast, I am happy to see the sky today for the first time in like twelve thousand years. #
• @keithel Front page of latimes.com says that he’s died. in reply to keithel #
• @defectivegirl TMZ.com reports his death is confirmed by “a source.” in reply to defectivegirl #
• @arataka Wow, that’s crazy. What a crazy month this has been, let alone crazy week… in reply to arataka #
• Holy shit… Michael Jackson, too? I have mixed feelings on that which depend on whether or not he was a child molester. RIP. #
• RIP, Farrah Fawcett. #
• @DarylSurat See, we can agree on many things besides Doomsday and Cyber City! I bet even Gerald likes it and he has questionable taste. in reply to DarylSurat #
• SIGH. The Globe’s rainy day guide says to go shopping at Kotobukiya! http://bit.ly/1anDhp #
• @eilonnwy Only problem with going pesco is that there’s a whole other set of ethics involved with seafood. in reply to eilonnwy #
• WHOA! Now we’re talking! Floral Birki’s sandal! http://zapp.me/7427072 #
• These are cute, but way more than I’d hope to spend at $179: http://zapp.me/7522744 #
• I want some goddamn sandals. These might do. http://zapp.me/7553703 #
• Maybe Jon & Kate had chemistry at one time, but they didn’t during the filming of the few shows I’ve seen. #
• @wednesday Added red wine to pan drippings + a tiny bit of dijon mustard, a little flour, some water, pat of butter. Tastetastic… in reply to wednesday #
• How come nobody is telling me anything about anything that’s going on? Is it because people assume I’m sick and don’t wanna know? Cos I do! #
• Oooh, made really delicious beef loin steaks with pan sauce. Pan sauce was the best part. Too bad I am aaallll alooooone… #

• Whee! I pitted a bunch of cherries for my yogurt! Cherry pitters are awesome! What other small stone fruit are there besides olives… #
• Neil has invited himself over for the second night in a row LOLOLOLOLOLOL #
• @hoover_dam You are horrible. in reply to hoover_dam #
• So! Yeah, the time needed to recover from taking a high dose of steroids wasn’t covered by the clinic… #
• UGH! WTF nosebleed? #
• I want to make fruit tacos with cherries and homemade vanilla-cinnamon tortillas. They may also include almonds. And strawberries. #
• On the bright side, going to Williams-Sonoma after work to get a cherry pitter, then to Ikea for a replacement cutting board! #
• Ugh, food doesn’t taste good again yet. Not even City Slicker garlic spinach. It’s pretty much a perfect food. #
• @celebrian It depends on your perspective. On the one hand, a happy Iran is good for everyone. On the other, we’ve made do for a while… in reply to celebrian #
• @eilonnwy Yeah, I gotta say this has been a disappointing Week in Obama. Make good on your promises! Do the right thing, damn you! in reply to eilonnwy #
• Obama administration is filling up the Justice Dept. with RIAA people. Creepy. http://bit.ly/CFkB2 #
• I ended up losing 0.2 lbs. despite having been given 5000mg in total of Solumedrol this past week! Hooray! #
• Here I am showing my support for Iran AND changing the color scheme for my Twitter page. Totally bitchin’! #
• I hope Andrea likes it, though. I did a line drawing of Todd based on a photo that I was sent of him for such things. #
• I made a flyer for Todd’s memorial fundraiser; I’m pretty happy with it considering it’s something I made under the influence of ‘roids. #
• @bunnywink Aaaaah… like Restaurant Week here! I getcha. in reply to bunnywink #
• @bunnywink What is a Summerlicious and how can my summer contain it, if it indeed can? in reply to bunnywink #
• @DarylSurat Blah, that’s shitty. Feel butter! in reply to DarylSurat #
• @celebrian Dag, that doesn’t sound good. Hope she’s okay. in reply to celebrian #
• @DarylSurat Now flesh it out into narrative form! in reply to DarylSurat #
• Also, farm-fresh eggs really are worth the extra couple of bucks over supermarket eggs. They’re very yum. #
• @hoover_dam took a bunch of awesome photos of me getting shot up with steroids this afternoon. Go look at them! They are laffo! #

ATTENTION!

This is easily the most important thing ever said on the internet. Please drop what you are doing and give this post your full and unswerving attention. Even if you messed your pants just now, suck it up until you’re done reading. I urge you.

ONLY THIS PETITION CAN SOLVE THE AGES-LONG CONUNDRUM OF EXPLAINING WHO SOLID SNAKE’S FAVORITE BAND IS, ONCE AND FOR ALL

Every year, millions of Solid Snakes can be found on the video output of various gaming consoles. Every incarnation of Solid Snake has yet to ever declare a favorite band. We, the undersigned, wish to designate the band Cheap Trick as the official canon favorite band of video game hero Solid Snake of the Metal Gear franchise.

Just imagine the possibilities!

I won't you to won't me!!

Or how about a little of this?

The dream police know what games you enjoy.

Think how rad it would be for Snake to impress Meryl with his first edition Japanese pressing of Cheap Trick at Budokan! He and Campbell could have codec conversations about what a dark time it was when Tom Petersson left the band to go solo in the early-to-mid-eighties! Imagine the conflict when Otacon borrows and loses Snake’s precious signed 7-inch of Baby Talk!

WHY?
Why not?

IS CHEAP TRICK YOUR FAVORITE BAND?
Actually, no. To be honest, I’m really not that familiar with them. I just thought that it was a good idea. My favorite band is The Clash, but they’re too political to really be an appropriate favorite band for Solid Snake.

REALLY, WHY CHEAP TRICK?
Again, why not? Given that a lot of people stay loyal to the bands they liked best in high school, it makes sense that a character who would have gone through his teenage years in the eighties might like Cheap Trick best, a band known for good power-punk-pop songs. I mean, really, why not? I don’t think he’d have been a hair metal guy, mullet or not. He doesn’t seem like he would’ve been a fan of Top 40 pop music. Maybe he liked Zeppelin a bit, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to think of a pimply, teenage Snake with like two scratched LPs that he’d play all the time.

surrender, surrender

6 Weight Watchers points. Probably less if you use fat-free soy and skip the PB.

The empty glass

Recipe time! I’m currently undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis. Said treatment involves taking steroids intravenously for a few days. It is suggested that you stock up on fluids (though expect to retain them a bit) so that it’s easier to find your veins for infusing. It’s also suggested that you eat potassium- and calcium-rich foods. I decided to make a banana smoothie for myself.  Bananas are a great source of potassium, and yogurt is a great source of calcium. Put them together, and you have the base of a beverage! I used soy milk because I didn’t have any milk (that wasn’t expired, lol). Using cinnamon and cardamom came from a desire to give it a vague chai spice. Any of the spices can be omitted, you can add choco syrup, cocoa powder, whatever. I like to keep it just plain old bananas as my fruit base. In general, I don’t really like more than two fruits in a smoothie-type beverage. I’ve been making similar beverages for myself since I was little. Uh, like other recipes I’ve posted here, I’m naming this after myself.

Maranana Smoothie

2 servings

• 2 bananas, ripe to your preference (I like them a little green)
• 1 cup plain fat-free yogurt
• 1 cup soy milk
• 1/2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
• 1 vanilla bean, split (optional, but if you have one, what the hell, use it)
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom, optional
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Put everything into a blender. Wait. Don’t put the entire vanilla bean in the blender. Scrape out the contents of the pod with a paring knife and dump it in. Cover the blender and process on highest setting for about a minute. Pour into glass. Enjoy. It’s tasty!

Christian has told me that I need to get out on the corner so that I can earn money to buy him a Macbook.

(Song is “Big Fat Fuck” by Ween. Turn down the volume. NWS.)

Maracue Sauce

I bought a zillion pork tenderloins a couple of weeks ago, waging on a suspicion that pork would be on sale because of the swine flu. I was right! Four pork tenderloins later and two weeks to payday, I needed something to cook for dinner. I’ve been making pork in sherry marinade and am ready to try something different for preparation. I decided to make barbecue sauce. Last year, I made my own barbecue sauce a couple of times and found that it’s pretty easy to do and fun to make. Thus, I present a barbecue sauce recipe of my own invention with nods to a recipe found in Cook’s Country as well as some recipes from Martha Stewart. Cook’s Country proposed a layer of Chinese five-spice powder underneath a Coke-based barbecue sauce, which intrigued me. I wanted to keep it somewhat traditional with stuff like molasses and ketchup and mustard powder, though.

Anyhow, read on. It’s really effin’ good and should yield about two cups. I named it after myself in total modesty, roflololol.

Maracue Sauce!

• 1 sweet onion, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 Tbsp crushed red pepper flake
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1 tsp ground mustard
• 1 Tbsp Chinese five-spice powder
• 1/2 Tbsp chipotle chile powder
• 2 Tbsp Coca-Cola (Pepsi is for a-holes)
• 1 cup vegetable stock (Trader Joe’s is carrot-centric and works really well; I would try to use a carrot-rich broth. Meat broths or stocks would probably work, too)
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 cup Chinese black vinegar (see below)
• 1 tbsp maple syrup (I had no brown sugar, so I used maple syrup since it was around)
• 1 tbsp blackstrap molasses

Heat olive oil in medium saucepan. When oil is hot, add onions and garlic and saute until translucent, about 5 minutes

Add crushed red pepper flakes, mustard, celery salt, ground chipotle, and stir until fragrant.

Add Coke, vegetable stock, and ketchup. Stir to combine and taste to adjust spicing if necessary. Add vinegar, syrup, and molasses. Taste for flavoring and adjust as necessary. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Can be used warm on meats or vegetables or can be cooled and stored. Should keep in refrigerator for 3-5 days.

Yield: about 2 cups.

Weight Watchers points: 12 pts for whole recipe, 1 point for 8 “servings.”

Black Vinegar

About black vinegar:

What is black vinegar? I first encountered it at the New Shanghai restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown and if I’d had it before, I didn’t realize what it was. Black vinegar has a really complex taste that comes from the fermented grains that it’s made out of. I guess a lot of people who are familiar with cooking with it (more than I!) say it’s somewhat like balsamic vinegar. I found a pretty good description of it elsewhere on the internets that I’ll copy and paste because it’s way the hell better than anything I could say. From wisegeek.com:

Black vinegar is a type of vinegar which originated in China and spread across much of Asia, along with many other originally Chinese foods. It can be made with a wide assortment of ingredients, and an array of formulas produce black vinegar, so there is an immense variance in taste. Like other vinegars, black vinegar is made by fermenting something, in this case grain, and then allowing the resulting liquid to age. After aging, the vinegar is bottled for sale.

Many cooks compare black vinegar to balsamic vinegar, since the two foods have similar flavor profiles. Both are typically aged, leading to a more complex, rich flavor. Both are also dark in color, with black vinegar ranging from reddish brown to true, inky black. However, the base ingredient of black vinegar is grain, not grapes, and this leads to a different end flavor. In addition, high quality balsamic vinegar is usually fairly uniform in flavor, while high-end black vinegar varies widely in taste from nation to nation and province to province.

Rice, wheat, millet, sorghum, and barley are all fermented to make black vinegar. Many people prefer black vinegar made from rice, since it has a slightly sweet flavor to compliment the familiar acidic note found in vinegar. One of the most popular varieties of black vinegar is Chinkiang, which is made with glutinous rice and malt, leading to a sweet and complicated flavor.

After I went to get my hair touched up both before my hairdresser goes out on sick leave for several weeks and also to have nice hair in time for Anime Boston, Christian and I went to the Porter Exchange to get dinner at Cafe Mami and then to Kotobukiya to see what there was to see. The store was pretty ransacked. We looked around, not much to see. Something on a shelf caught my eye. Something with Rilakkuma, aka Relax Bear, the San-X character that I consider to be my totem animal because Relax Bear is all about relaxing. Not being lazy, just relaxing. Anyhow, I took a look, felt the package, realized what was going on, and gave a little squeak.

Maxi pads!

I feel that this rivals the Hello Kitty douche that I received from Prairie for my 21st birthday in terms of “what the fuck?”-ness.

I ordered a bunch of stuff from Shinzi Katoh. Unfortunately, none of it is for me, but it is for other, charitable purposes. Still, I thought I’d share.

Shinzi Katoh is a zakka artist from Japan. This gentleman makes some of the loveliest and most adorable illustrations you could conceive of, and some that you probably couldn’t. I first became of this guy and his work via the world of bento. I saw some cute bento stuff with awesome artwork, wondered about it, discovered its origins. To die for!

Anyhow, here is a sample of some of the stuff that a lucky person could win from the Anime Boston charity raffle to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Central New England chapter:

But that’s not all! Oh, no! This is most of it, though, so don’t get yer hopes up! Other additions will include a cookin’ book and perhaps a couple of items to get a person started off on making their own cute lunches for on-the-go munching.

In celebration of my buddy Char’s new job at Funimation, I present to you some demented pictures of myself eating a veggie corn dog!

What does one have to do with the other? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

HOORAY FOR CHAR SHE AIN’T NO SHIFTLESS LAYABOUT

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