Tag: ek Holiday

As opposed to night which will be coming soon enough.

Most of my regular readers know that I look on Holiday blogging as a public service.  Many times I need a distraction while I’m working or an excuse to get away from the crowd.  That’s difficult when schedules are disrupted and regular habits and outlets are unavailable.

So I put these little research projects up to inform you of special events of interest and alternatives to absent activities.

Additionally today we’ll have special coverage of Big Balloon Parades and three Throwball games and as the weekend progresses other Holiday sports including the final Formula One of the season from Interlagos.

This particular piece covers the hours from 6 am to 6 pm.  Feel free to contribute items I’ve overlooked.

Well, some people are up getting set for tomorrow and since many of them are seldom awake at this hour I thought I’d point out some background programming.

I’m a little behind myself so this is an appetizer.

midnight

• CBS– David Letterman (Amy Poehler, Josh Hutcherson, Tegan and Sara)
• A&E– Duck Dynasty (marathon until 4 am)
• BBCA– The Man With The Golden Gun
• Discovery– Moonshiners (marathon until 3 am)
• Food– Restaurant: Impossible (marathon until 4 am)
• History– American Restoration (marathon until 4 am)
• H2– How the Earth Was Made (marathon until 4 am)
• SciFi– For Your Eyes Only
• TLC– Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (marathon until 3 am)

12:30 am

• CBS– The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson

1 am

• AMC– Gone With The Wind
• Animal Planet– River Monsters (marathon until 6 am)
• TBS– Conan

2 am

• BBCA– Luther (marathon until 6 am)
• Hub– Facts of Life (marathon until 4 am)
• Turner Classic– Wise Blood

2:30 am

• Comedy– Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
• SciFi– Dr. No

3 am

• ESPN– Hoopies, Clippers @ Thunder
• ESPN2– Sports Center (until 6 am)
• Nat Geo– Ultimate Factories (marathon until 6 am)

4 am

• Turner Classic– The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Us Scandinavian Bachelor Chefs (h/t CompoundF) frequently find ourselves in the position of needing a last minute substitute for real food because planning ahead is not one of our strengths (if it were we probably wouldn’t be Bachelors anymore).

Here’s a recipe that is not too fussy and can be thrown together at the last minute and great expense as a cheap imitation of inferior quality.

You will need-

• Ground Turkey
• Dried Cranberries
• Onion (chopped coarse)
• Bread
• Butter
• Garlic Powder
• Bell’s Poultry Seasoning
• An Egg

• Dry Packaged Instant Turkey Gravy

Optional (of course the more you add the better it will taste)-

• Walnuts (chopped coarse)
• Canned Mushrooms (stems and pieces, chopped coarse)

The goal is simple, to create a reasonable taste facsimile of a Turkey dinner with stuffing and gravy without days of defrosting and hours of cooking time.  It is somewhat pricey as ground Turkey often costs as much as ground beef or more.

The primary problems to overcome are cohesion and dryness.  I’m going to recommend what seems like a lot of fat but Turkey is quite a lean meat.  I’ll be working with approximately 2 pounds of Turkey as a base (that’s how much the local Super Market puts in a package), you adjust the other ingredients for taste and volume.

The most labor intensive part of preparation is chopping the onion(s).  Depending on how strong the flavor (in decreasing order- yellow, red, sweet) you’ll want to prepare about half the volume of your meat.  If you use yellow and are sensitive to onions (I am) you may want to saute them a little to take some of the harshness out.

The most time consuming part is the bread.  Toast it a bit (hey, if you have enough time to stale it you most likely don’t need this recipe), smear generously with butter and shake quite a bit of garlic powder on top.  Cube.  You need about 3/4 of the volume of your meat (6 slices or a little more).  Crusty European breads work much better than Balloon breads because the goal (as with meat balls) is to lighten the texture of your finished dish.

Mixing–

I put the other ingredients in the bottom of the bowl with the meat on top but I don’t think it makes any difference.  The important thing is not to over mix because the loaf will get gummy and dense.

A cup or more of Dried Cranberries (I like them), Onion, Garlic Toast, 4 Tbls Butter (chopped), Ground Turkey, 1 – 3 Tbls Bell’s Poultry Seasoning (the primary flavor is Sage in case you can’t find it), an Egg or 2 to bind.

Mix gently, completely, and not too long with your fingers.  Now is the time to add your optional ingredients, if using Mushrooms include the liquid too.

Cooking–

I like loaf pans, others mound on a sheet.  Grease for clean release.  It leaks a bit so you’ll want a lip to catch the drip.  In any event at least an hour at 325 – 350 until the internal temperature reaches the recommended level for poultry or brown on the top and gray through the thickest part.

Rest 5 – 10 minutes while you prepare the gravy, slice and serve.

Thanksgiving on a stick.

Gobble, gobble.

Too soon?

Now I’ll admit that most of what drives this particular post is my New England skin flintiness and it’s  hard to find meat cheaper than Turkey even when it’s not on special.  Indeed the problem for most people is its abundance as in, what do you do with the 15 pounds of it you’re too sleepy to eat?

I have an easy and tasty solution that will tide you over until the briskets of spring are available.

Pulled Turkey (sometimes called Turkey Hash) is easy to prepare and freezes well.  Basically you take all the bits and scraps you can pull off the bone (or shred larger pieces by hand) and remove all the tendons and cartilage and fat and uncrispy skin so that you’re left with a pile of pure stringy meat.

Now you can freeze it right at this point in individual recipe size portions in case you’re a big fan of Turkey salad or other treatments that don’t require visually attractive slices.  I do it to save freezer space.

My ultimate destination is a pot of gravy which I make in my typical fashion from a dried mix heated and whisked for a few minutes before dumping the meat (frosted or defrosted) into it for warming to serving temperature.

If it is shortly after Thanksgiving there is usually some leftover stuffing around but it works equally well over egg noodles or rice.  In a pinch or a hurry just a slice of bread will do and you can call it an open face Turkey sandwich.

The simplicity belies the taste (if you happen to like Turkey) and last time I checked 2 cups of gravy mix (prepared) went for $1.50.

Hard to beat.

Tomorrow- Turkey Loaf.

On 11 November at 5:00 am, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 am on 11 November 1918 – “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” – a ceasefire came into effect. During the six hours between the signing of the armistice and its taking effect, opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions, but fighting continued along many areas of the front, as commanders wanted to capture territory before the war ended. Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was shot by a German sniper at 10:57 and died at 10:58. American Henry Gunther was killed 60 seconds before the armistice came into force while charging astonished German troops who were aware the Armistice was nearly upon them. The last British soldier to die was Pte George Edwin Ellison. The last casualty of the war was a German, Lieutenant Thomas, who, after 11 am, was walking towards the line to inform Americans who had not yet been informed of the Armistice that they would be vacating the buildings behind them.

Stanley Kubrick– Paths of Glory (1957) (1:27)

Though mentioned by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, the modern idea of daylight saving was first proposed in 1895 by George Vernon Hudson and it was first implemented during the First World War.

Thus proving that not every idea is as good as bi-focals (Wait.  Bi-focals are a good idea?).

An alternate view-

What?  Too soon?

In any event I think this means that we will be joining the action from Yas Marina at a time that is actually legally 8 am but which will seem like 9 am to your body and any clock you haven’t adjusted.

Since my clocks are set 2 hours in advance anyway I’m not quite sure what they’ll say.

I’m sure you’re all looking forward to this with the same breathless anticipation I am.  Stop holding your breath, you’ll turn blue and pass out.  What about…

The Hypnotoad

"Television is a vast wasteland"

• CW– Supernatural
• MyTV– Numb3rs
• A&E– American Hoggers (premier, Season Finale premier)
• ABC Family– Dirty Dancing
• AMC– Apollo 13
• Animal Planet– The Blue Planet
• Bravo– Top Chef (Season Finale), After Top Chef (premier)
• Toon– King of the Hill, American Dad
• Comedy– South Park (premier)
• Discovery– Sons of Guns, How Booze Built America (premiers)
• Disney– My Babysitter’s A Vampire, Phineas and Ferb
• Encore– Batman Forever, Excalibur
• ESPN– Red Sox @ Yankees
• ESPN2– Orioles @ Devil Rays
• Food– Restaurant Impossible (premier)
• FX– Grown Ups, The Waterboy (I’ve never watched an Adam Sandler movie)
• History– American Restoration, Cajun Pawn Stars (premiers)
• IFC– The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Teeth
• Spike– The Last House On The Left (They re-made it?  Why?)
• Turner Classic– Mystery of the Wax Museum, Doctor X (Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray night)
• USA– NCIS (marathon)
• VH1 Classic– Nirvana: Live at the Paramount

Jon hosts Rand Paul, Stephen has Kenny Rogers.  More programming at Zap2it.

I’m thinking Red Sox/Yankees last day of the season pre-play-off Baseball followed by How Booze Built America, so we can certainly chat about that.  Of course if you want to talk politics I’ll ask you to step to the back of the bar and try not to disturb the other customers.

This is a respectable joint.

Sort of a tradition.

You see, they moved it on me, used to be Memorial Day weekend every year.   But I suppose we’re lucky to have it at all and this year it’s the final Grand-Am race of the season.

Lime Rock Park is the only race I’ve actually been to, as opposed to watching it on TV.  It’s interesting in a couple of respects.

First of all Lime Rock really is a park.  Lakeville is the back end of beyond, many solid miles of 2 lane distant from the highway.  There are a few buildings and a bridge to the infield and that’s it.  Spectators bring a cooler and a blanket and sit on the ground under the trees, some even camp out for the weekend so there are little tents all over the place.  When my Dad and my brother and I went we hung out on ‘the hill’ where you can see the first 4 turns and most of the main straight.

The other thing you notice about it is it’s extremely narrow and it’s hard to imagine any passing goes on, although it happens all the time.

Which brings me to the second interesting thing about Lime Rock, these are Sports Cars and there are 4 different classes of them running on track at the same time with varying speeds (which can make it confusing to watch).

The exotic looking and fastest ones are ‘prototype’ cars and come in 2 flavors, enclosed and open cockpit.  They generally have a seat for a navigator/mechanic (though it’s mostly an anachronism).

Then there are 2 classes of ‘touring (production)’ cars, Corvettes and everyone else.  They look like Porsches and Audis and BMWs and Corvettes (surprise) but they’re not generally street legal.  The touring cars are 20 or 30 miles an hour slower than the prototypes so when I say passing all the time I mean ALL the time, they’re kind of like rolling road blocks.

Speaking of road, as much racing takes place off it as on it and the only penalty is tearing up your undercarriage.  There is also a tendency to spend a lot of time figuring out which direction you are pointing after your last spin.  While there are a lot of bumps and offs surprisingly few of them are race ending.

For a Sports Car race Lime Rock is mercifully short.  The name races- LeMans, Daytona, Sebring are endurance races with several driver changes, to say nothing of tires and fuel.  It’s not uncommon for a badly damaged car to spend several hours in the pits and come back to race competitively, victory margins are measured in hours and minutes rather than seconds.

They don’t race on Sunday because the neighbors complain, but when people talk about Memorial Day being the busiest weekend in motor sports they’re generally including Lime Rock whether they know it or not.

Some minor updates.  There are now only 2 classes, Daytona Prototype (DP) and Grand Touring (GT).  Corvette will be duking it out with Maranello and BMW in the DP.

This will be Mazda’s final GT race using RX-8s.  I must admit they are a family favorite and I’ve driven a number of them far too fast.  People say the Wankel is not particularly ‘green’ but it produces so much power for the weight (it’s essentially a two stroke combustion cycle) that you can put a lot of enhancements on it and use very little fuel or displacement for a given level of performance.  ‘Stock’ cars are de-tuned so they only go 140 mph in the show room parking lot (need to check those rear end stress factors).

Coverage on Speed starts at 3 pm ET.  The Super Tuner title was decided yesterday and will be broadcast on Speed October 13 at 2 pm.

• Speed’s Grand Am page

Ahoy mateys.  It be Cap’n Hank Bloodbeard hijacking your blog ag’in.  Since the establishin’ of International Talk Like a Pirate Day in 1995, the number of Pirates has increased gratifyin’ly thereby proving the success of our Pastafarian Pirate Recruitin’ Program and confirmin’ the link between increased piracy and declinin’ Global Warmin’.

But wait ye say, Global Warmin’ has gotten worse and Pastafarianism is a made up religion contrived out of equal measures of ennui, ignorance and Rum!

WHY IS THERE NEVER ANY RUM!  Oh, that’s why.

Ye scurvy dog, them be fightin’ wards.  Ye’ll walk the plank. I’ll keelhaul ye.  I’ll see your black hearted soul in Davey Jones Locker (the one ‘e shares w’ Peter Toth).

We used to worry about that too until we took up w’ a crew o’ Freshwater Pirates from the Chicago School who explained that it doesn’t matter how consistently and thoroughly wrong ye are if ye suck up to rich people enough and parrot their prejudices, beat down the po’ folk until morale improves, and kiss their ass long and hard.  Take what ye can, give nothin’ back, yo ho.

Polly want a grant?

E’en on these shores Cap’n Bloodbeard (aside from really enjoyin’ referin’ to hisself in the thard person) be known for ‘is trail of terror and carnage and really bad puns.

• 2007 DocuDharma

• 2008 DocuDharma
• 2008 Daily Kos

• 2010 The Stars Hollow Gazette

• 2011 DocuDharma
• 2011 The Stars Hollow Gazette

I generally celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day by telling the 3 Pirate Jokes.  There are only 3, all the others are just variations.  As Cap’n Slappy says:

Thar be only three pirate jokes in the world. The biggest one is the one that ends with someone usin’ “Arrr” in the punchline. Oh, sure, thar be plenty o’ these, but they’re all the same damn joke.

“What’s the pirate movie rated? – Arrr!” “What kind o’ socks does a pirate wear? – Arrrrgyle!” “What’s the problem with the way a pirate speaks? – Arrrrticulation!” …and so forth.

The second joke is the one wear the pirate walks into the bar with a ships wheel attached to the front o’ his trousers. The bartender asks, “What the hell is that ships wheel for?” The pirate says, “I don’t know, but it’s drivin’ me nuts!”

And finally. A little boy is trick or treatin’ on Halloween by himself. He is dressed as a pirate. At one house, a friendly man asks him, “Where are your buccaneers?” The little boy responds, “On either side o’ me ‘buccan’ head!”

And there ye have it. A symposium on pirate humor that’ll last ye a lifetime – so long as life is violent and short.

If ye steer a course to the official website of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye may wish to read the FAQ, to help ye splice the mainbrace proper like.  Then ye’ll be ready to talk like a pirate.

Talking like a pirate, however, doesn’t just mean running through the hallways yelling “yarr!” at everyone. To get more in touch with one’s inner pirate, here is a short list of useful terms that may help readers throughout their day of pillaging and searching for buried treasure.

I also spend this day in Worship at Church and emulate the manners, customs, and language o’ me Pirate forbearers (I have the good fortune to be 1/4 full blooded Pirate through my Viking ancestors, indeed Viking is a verb which means ‘Pirate’) and singing some Pirate Carols.

There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.

I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.

Crossposted from DocuDharma

This puts us a mere 5 years behind Atrios who celebrated his 10th anniversary earlier this year and 3 years behind dK.

1827 days.  30,833 essays posted (17 a day).  20,089 featured (11 a day).  343,863 comments (188 per day).

Yes, that seemed like an awful lot to me too.  The initial values are taken directly from the database which sequentially numbers each essay and comment.  The larger amount of essays includes everything that the post button was pushed on including static, draft, and deleted pieces as well as all those that were not featured on the Front Page.  The featured essays come from direct measure of the number of Main Archive Pages (now 673 @ 30 per page +19 from the inception of the site on August 17, 2007) starting at our very first essay on our official launch day, September 12, 2007 (page 667 currently).

So 11 features a day seems reasonable since we’re currently running around 8 or 9, but 188 comments?  Well, if you average them out per feature you end up with about 17 comments which is not orders of magnitude outrageous when you consider that many of the 30% that didn’t make the Front Page got comments too, some quite a few.

Even if the numbers are a little inflated though, it’s still quite a record of accomplishment and I want to thank you, our readers and contributors, for making it such a success.

There are 2 individuals I’m going to publicly embarrass- Robyn and mishima.  They’ve been part of the site since before the beginning and the consistent high quality of their work as well as its dependability is an example for anyone, including myself.

For your amusement I thought you might like to see our opening day line up-

September 12, 2007

• Muse in the Morning by: Robyn
• The Morning News by: ek hornbeck
• So Today’s The Big Day! by: ek hornbeck
• Welcome New Users by: ek hornbeck
• in Other news… by: pico
• Launch Strategy Open Thread by: buhdydharma
• A Blog is Born: Announcing ~ Docudharma! by: buhdydharma
• Four at Four by: Magnifico
• Oh Freedom! by: OPOL
• Pragmatists and Idealists: A Word About John Kerry by: Armando
• They Must Know We’re Here by: Turkana
• Spin by: LoE
• Thank You, You Insufferable Bastards! by: buhdydharma
• Midnight Cowboying – Osama Bin Laden: "War on Terror Has Jumped the Shark" by: pinche tejano

Another damned, thick, square book!  Always scribble, scribble, scribble!  Eh, Mr. Gibbon?

Doing the research for one of these retrospectives exposes you to some pretty interesting content, parts of which you are expected to be familiar with even if you weren’t around for the entertainment.  Here’s some meta from pre-launch.

• Look And Feel by: ek hornbeck Tue Aug 21, 2007
• So Say We All by: ek hornbeck Thu Aug 23, 2007
• Why We Are Here by: Armando Thu Aug 30, 2007
• Time Out by: ek hornbeck Wed Sep 05, 2007
• I/P by: ek hornbeck Fri Sep 07, 2007

And our first Hide Rates–

• How to Promote Defundamentalism by: Seneca Doane Fri Sep 07, 2007

We talked a lot about regulating controversy.  Oddly the central concept, having Editors debate questionable actions in private and recommend temporary penalties for misbehavior to buhdy who would make the final decision instead of automatic banishment based on witch-hunting mobs, didn’t generate nearly as much as the questions of whether it should be possible to express disapproval of a statement without further explanation (Wrong!) and if Pony was simply too cutesy to live.

When we found out there was no way for Members to examine hidden comments and uprate them if they disagreed with the assessment, we suspended ratings for all but Admins and Editors until Soapblox could fix the problem (a big surprise to sites that had been using ratings but not checking them).

• Meta Meat: Hidden Comments and Flamewars by: buhdydharma Sat Sep 15, 2007
• On Civility by: ek hornbeck Sun Sep 16, 2007
• Civility Lecturing: The short version by: buhdydharma Sun Sep 16, 2007
• on Armando and civility by: Jerome a Paris Sun Sep 16, 2007
• I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think about me. by: ek hornbeck Thu Sep 20, 2007

Unfortunately, some people have difficulty following the Eight Fold Way (and distinguishing a metaphor from scripture I might add).

• How Dare Brown People Participate In Politics? by: Armando Mon Nov 26, 2007
• Racist Rhetoric: Alleging Race Baiting by: Armando Tue Nov 27, 2007
• Response To Point Of Personal Privilege by: Armando Wed Nov 28, 2007
• Why "Civility" Is a Joke by: Armando Wed Nov 28, 2007
• A Problem of Race And Ethnicity by: Armando Fri Nov 30, 2007
• On Civility (Reprint) by: ek hornbeck Fri Nov 30, 2007

Have I mentioned I like irony?

I kind of miss the big guy and expect his disputes with Jeralyn over Zimmerman/Martin and Markos over… well everything, to soon lead to his finding something of substance to write about.  He wasn’t always wrong you know.

• "They All Disappoint&quot by: Armando Sun Dec 09, 2007
• From The "Pols Are Pols" File by: Armando Tue Dec 18, 2007

Later I’ll be re-publishing So Today’s The Big Day! which is kind of about the positive energy we felt when we opened our doors and Welcome New Users which describes some of the basic tools and organization.  Our handling of HTML has gotten much better with time so we now do have formatting buttons and a literal character (backslash-‘\').  While technically limited to avoid spam, there’s no practical cap on your daily essays if you get in touch with TheMomCat or I.  We monitor pretty closely, but we’re not instantly available necessarily.  I’ve kind of come to enjoy the slower pace where no one sets a serious time limit for you to provide linked evidence of your unfounded accusations, conspiracy theories, and catalog of calumnies and slanders!

I hope you’re enjoying your experience here as much as we do providing you a forum to have it.  I’m looking forward to many more years of stimulating discussion and thought provoking pieces.

Nostalgia Posted:

• So Today’s The Big Day!
• Welcome New Users