Friday, February 13, 2009

Roget in Love

A great Friday-ish article by Hart Seely in Slate.

Roget in Love
When there are too many ways to say "I love you"
by Hart Seely

It was a mistake, a gaffe, an error, plummeting in on Merriam that day. When she looked at me with those big brown organs of vision, I felt myself omit a cardio pulsation.
"Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Thesaurus, Peter Roget," she said. "Look what the Felis silvestris catus just imported."
Merriam had a way with units of language.
"I've come to talk, speak, communicate, converse, correspond," I said.

"Peter," she interrupted, "I don't have time to masti! cate the obesity. Excrete, or remove yourself from the cookery."
<>"Very well. I won't thrash around the foliage. I apologize if I urinated you off.
I've come to request your unclenched fist in holy matrimony."
Her mandible plunged and her occuli hydrated.
"Peter, I'm sorry," she said. "But you're a global cycle late and a Federal Reserve note short. We're through."
"Through? Do you mean, as in, done, completed, and defunct? Or through as in via or by means of?"
"Peter, we're ceased. I'm tired of beating my head against a permanent partition of oven-baked blocks. For a long time now, we've been like two floating vessels passing in the regular period of darkness between sunset and sunrise."
That's when it hit me.
"Webster?" I said. "You're seeing Webster!"
She toggled her head vertically and released air from her lungs.
"Webster loves me," she said.
"Webster doesn't know what love is!" I cried. "Merri, I adore you, ! worship you, I'm your admirer, your follower, your aficionado, your enthusiast, your fan, your devotee, your adherent, your buff! Webster can't be those things. What can he give you that I cannot?"
"Meaning," she whispered. "He gives me meaning."
"Wait a minute. I thought Funk and Wagnall gave you meaning! Remember them? I guess their meanings weren't so definitive, eh?"
"I don't do three-ways," she said.
"Well, you sure get around. Whatever happened to that 'May I quote you' creep? Remember how 'familiar' you were with him?"
"Leave Bartlett out of this," she said.
"Merri," I said. "Listen to me. Webster will dump you, ditch you, scrap you, chuck you, abandon you, discard you. Right now, he's probably out with Collier or Compton or some tramp from Oxford. You're just another plume in his visor headpiece.
"He'll abridge you!" I continued. "He'll file you under M for merriment or merry maker, or messy. That'! s what Webster does. He draws you the size of a postage stamp, then he turns the page!"
"You're too late, Peter," she said, raising a ringed metacarpal. "We've recited nuptials."
"You'll come back!" I shouted. "You'll crawl back on your grasping forelimbs and kneeling leg joints! You two have as much chance together as a compacted sphere of frozen water in hell!"
She closed the door. That was the last time I saw Merri.
Of course, these days, she's the last word on everything, the famous Merriam Webster. Me? I'm lost, misplaced, missing, alone …
I loved her.
I just couldn't find the words.

Share/Bookmark

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Need a job? What about working for the Royal Family?

There are jobs to be had working for the Royal Family. Information about jobs and how to apply are listed on Her Majesty's website. You generally have to have the right to work in the UK, but it's an interesting idea for work.
Share/Bookmark

What would YOU pay for this fabulous product???


Be sure to click the picture and look closely at all the buttons.

This fine product is available from ThinkGeek.com for $6.99.

Share/Bookmark

Fun: Donald and Daisy

From Phyllis B.

Donald Duck and Daisy Duck were spending the night together in a hotel room and Donald wanted to have sex with Daisy.


The first thing Daisy asked was, "Do you have a condom?"


Donald frowned and said, "No."


Daisy told Donald that if he didn't get a condom, they couldn't have sex.


"Maybe they sell them at the front desk," she suggested.


So Donald went down to the lobby and asked the hotel clerk if they had condoms.


"Yes, we do," the clerk said and pulled one out from under the counter and gave it to Donald.


The clerk asked, "Would you like me to put that on your bill?"


"No!" Donald quacked, "What kind of a pervert do you think I am?"

Share/Bookmark

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Habanero Garlic Pasta

This is one of my favorite recipes of the Babe's. Sadly, I really can't indulge as much as I'd like, as the pasta is really bad for diabetics. I made it for us a few weeks ago and decided to photograph the process so I could publish it here. Mangia, mangia!

Habanero Garlic Pasta

Ingredients

  • 8-12 peeled cloves garlic (good-sized)
  • 1 fresh habanero (dried will work if you soak it in hot water to soften)
  • ½ stick of butter
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • 1 pound angel-hair pasta
  • ½ cup shredded (not grated) romano or asiago cheese
  • finely minced fresh parsley (optional garnish)
  • salt & pepper
Procedure
  1. Start a pot of well-salted water for boiling the noodles.

  2. Slice the peeled garlic gloves into thick slices, about 4-5 slices/clove. The amount of garlic is a matter of taste, so be sure not to over-garlic this.




  3. Slice open the habanero, remove the seeds, pith, and stem, and slice as finely as possible into thin threads of habanero.



    Tips:



    • Wear a glove on your left hand—a plastic sandwich bag or spare plastic grocery bag will do nicely—so that your skin never, ever comes into direct contact with the habanero.
    • Slicing into fine threads can be done easiest with the point of the knife on a chopping block if you prefer.
    • Be careful when cleaning up so you don't get habanero juice on you from the cutting surface or the knife.

  4. Melt the butter in a skillet, add the olive oil, and heat over a medium heat until a bit of garlic dropped in sizzles very gently.
  5. Put the angel hair pasta in the (now boiling) water.



  6. Immediately put the garlic and habanero into the olive oil. The ingredients should sizzle gently. Stir with a wooden spoon to break up any clumps and to ensure that everything browns evenly.



  7. Cook the garlic and habanero for 5 minutes or until the garlic starts to caramelize slightly. The angel hair pasta should be done by now (check for doneness). Remove the skillet from the heat. Caution: Don't let the garlic overcook or it’ll get hard and crunchy and taste slightly burnt.




  8. Remove the pasta from the heat and take to the sink. Add 1 cup of cold water to the pot, then drain immediately into a colander. Return the pasta to the pot.

  9. Drizzle the oil/garlic/habanero mix over the noodles. Use a fork full of noodles to swab out the skillet and get the last of the oil and the garlic and habanero pieces.




  10. Toss the pasta gently to mix.

  11. Put 1/4 to 1/3 of the pasta on a plate. Dust with salt and pepper. Put 2-3 Tbsp of the shredded romano cheese in a line or an “X” across the pasta. If desired, sprinkle with 1 tsp. of finely minced fresh parsley for garnish (be sure to try the dish with and without; parsley may compete with the other flavors too strongly for your tastes).

  12. Serve.
You can vary the amount of garlic and habanero—I've had it up to as much as 2 balls of garlic and 3 habaneros—but go slowly with your experimentation. It's shockingly easy to get it too strong or too hot for your tastes.
Share/Bookmark

Sunday, February 08, 2009

How to avoid a trapped arm whilst cuddling

A friend just pointed out this lovely video from a bizarre group called Videojug. Their motto is "Life explained. On film."

This particular video is How To Avoid Trapped Arm Whilst Cuddling In Bed.

There's another one that's also very funny entitled How to Deal with Odd Sexual Requests. Both of these are narrated with particularly delicious English accents.

There are dozens of other cool videos at the Videojug website on all sorts of topics. It's not just things that happen in bed: there are things like How to Make a Shaker Cocktail, How to Use the Slash Punctuation, and How to Read a Knitting Pattern. Go check them out!
Share/Bookmark

Car break-ins

There've been some bad people running around the neighborhood lately breaking into cars and stealing CDs and likely look valuables. We got hit, our n-d neighbors got hit, someone else lost a bunch of tools, and someone else lost a purse. The neighborhood will be seeing what it can do about these people.
Share/Bookmark