Long day today. We just got finished cleaning up after dinner, in fact. Dinner was bratwurst and sauerkraut (If you all have an Aldis near you, their Deutsche Küche brats are in stock and only 2.99), roast potatoes, tomatoes and peppers, and a beet and goat cheese arugula salad with a made from scratch dijon vinaigrette. Very tasty.
Gerald’s tractor he uses for mowing blew up (one of his side businesses is lawn mowing, so when his tractor dies, it is a big deal), so he and I spent four hours driving around, going to tractor supply, etc., until we found a good replacement on sale at Lowes, which was even better because with my Lowes card I get 5% off and an extra 10% because of the military discount, and when you are spending three grand on a mower that’s a pretty damned big deal.
Tomorrow it’s all lawn and garden work, and then tomorrow night we are having Gerald and his kids over for home made pizza and movie night. Gerald’s wife is working doubles and Tammy is going to watch the kids all afternoon so Gerald can work, so we thought we’d just make pizza from scratch and teach them how to make dough and the like.
When I sit on the front porch I look up at my empty nest a lot and wonder where my birds are doing and what kind of wild adventures they are having. I wonder if they have fun or it’s all just danger and instinct to survive. I hope it’s the former. I’d invite them in to hatewatch House Hunters with me, but Steve would probably eat them.
Oh well.
raven
Fresh caught red snapper, shrimp, butterbeans, corn and spuds on the porch.
Corner Stone
Great. Jen Rubin and motherfucking Tom Nichols on MSNBC in one segment. Thanks.
John Cole
@raven: ok you win and where does one catch red snapper?
I will cut the first mother fucker who says “the ocean.”
Gin & Tonic
@John Cole: Not in the ocean, in the Gulf.
raven
Last eve, fresh caught pompano, okra and butterbeans.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Why do you watch?
NotMax
Better be cooking it in a coal-fired oven.
National security, don’tcha know.
:)
Anotherlurker
@raven: Great menu! I assume you caught you limit of ARS?
I’m going to get out a few times this month. Red Snapper are wonderful eating!
NotMax
Sigh. Effed that up.
Better be cooking it in a coal-fired oven.
National security, don’tcha know.
:)
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Because I fucking feel like it, assface. Then I feel like complaining about it. Right fucking here. Any fucking time I fucking feel like it.
raven
@John Cole: Aw man, I wasn’t in competition, just sharing the bounty of sea. (And the Cordele Farmer’s Market.
raven
@Anotherlurker: Yea, it was a good run on the 1st day of the season. I got to the boat at 5:30 and by 6:15 (for a 6am start) SIX of the 12 had not shown. Finally the other 6 straggled on board and we took off. It turned our they were not the 6 scheduled but a group that got on a boat without the fed license needed to snapper fish so they made the guy bring them back. We were all really lucky it worked out, we caught our limit of 24 and are all happy.
raven
@Anotherlurker: You said you were in Tarpon Springs, right? How far out do you go there?
Major Major Major Major
Yum.
@raven: Yum!
—
I finally finished a new comic strip and will be coloring it tonight. Tentative good news on the job front too, so I’m trying to let myself relax.
NotMax
@raven
Someone’s nose will be peeling tomorrow.
raven
@NotMax: I was lathered up and had my boonie hat on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Okay. I don’t really understand your kink, but you be you.
John Cole
@Major Major Major Major: let’s see a picture
singing truth to power
Tonight was bean dip with Aldi’s Hatch Green Chile Salsa, which is fantastic, and Beanitos black bean tortilla chips. Sounds pretty balanced to me.
Major Major Major Major
@John Cole: You really want a picture of me relaxing??
If it’s the comic strip you want a picture of, I’m posting it tomorrow and can tweet it at you in ALL CAPS when I do.
Steeplejack (phone)
@John Cole:
Now there’s Tiny House Hunters. My hate goes to 11.
If I see My Tiny Lottery Dream Home next month I’m going to stroke out.
Another Scott
Pretty plate of food. I was worried about your description (before the parenthetical), especially after reading things like this:
There are lots of reasons why eating processed meat is problematic (see the site and the full report). But moderation is probably the key to minimizing the risk. At least as it is understood at present…
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Tonight gonna be experimenting with chicken cacciatore in the Instant Pot. To be served over long grain rice with peas.
NotMax
@Another Scott
“They’ll have to pry the pink slime out of my prematurely dead hands.”
;)
Chacal Charles Calthrop
Maybe I shouldn’t ask this, what with the dewy finches out there all over, but has Steve ever actually caught a bird?
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (phone): I love Tiny House Living. Of course, every person having one built has like 7 friends/family members that build houses. So, not really all that realistic for most people.
But the end results are usually pretty cool for like one person. Idiots with a family and pets make me cray.
debbie
@raven:
Those fish look much bigger when they’re hanging from hooks.
Corner Stone
I also enjoy trying to complete the TLS handshake 14 or so different times over about 200 seconds.
NotMax
@debbie
Was just this morning listened to an old time radio show from 1941 wherein someone was telling the story of his friend who invented a “fish stretcher” to make one’s catch look more impressive.
“He expected to clear at least $40,000 from it. Didn’t make a cent.”
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s mainly me doing what I want, and not caring what people who don’t pay for my kink think about it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Corner Stone:
I actually find almost all of the houses in all of the shows interesting, just seeing regional differences, architectural styles, good or bad use of space, etc. It’s the people I can’t stand. They almost all have unrealistic expectations and/or focus on ephemera like the ugly paint in the dining room instead of whether the house is structurally sound. And a lot of them are just whiny whiners.
As for the tiny-house shows, a lot of the people are poseurs who want the super tiny house but insist on a queen-sized bed and a deluxe spa shower. WTF?
But, yeah, even those shows are interesting for the design choices and problem-solving.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (phone): It’s been obvious for years they all read off a script given to them by the show runner. The show makes them all out to be the dumbest, most clueless and arrogant assholes on the planet. Look at Property Brothers. “You truly deserve this.” No they don’t. They are a couple of Ivankas. They deserve to be in orange jumpsuits for 40 years. Not that fine ass house you just found/built/renovated for them.
dp
Another post that, in its totality, explains why I come to Balloon Juice several times a day. Cole, you are second only to Betty Cracker in my pantheon of bloggers.
Another Scott
@Corner Stone: Property Brothers has the stupidest writers on TV.
They want us to believe that the people on the show have never seen the show before, or something.
“Let’s look at this beautiful house! See how beautiful it is! It has everything you want, in your perfect neighborhood, and is move-in ready! It’s it great!”
“Yes! It’s just what we want!! Thanks!!!”
“Of course, it costs $300,000 more than your max budget! Haha!”
“Oh no!! How could you trick us like this!! What are we going to do!!!”
“Well, Drew can find you a house that’s nothing like this and then Jonathan can fix up part of it so that it looks nice on the inside and then you’ll be happy, even though the house will be nothing like this fabulous one!!11”
“Great! Let’s get started!!!!1”
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Cheers,
Scott.
dww44
@raven: That is wonderfully tasty looking supper/dinner. And… a great photo.
@Omnes Omnibus: Actually, for me, it was worth a watch. Ari Melber almost got Rubin to say out loud that Obama was a good President. She did finally fess up that Obama was better than Trump in specific ways that underscores how the latter is breaking the norms of the office.
Corner Stone
@Another Scott:
“And I certainly hope you can find a way to integrate all these appliances and cabinets I bought from store closing sales into our original scheme and budget!”
/says the asshole passive aggressive male
“Of course we can! Because it’s way too large for your needs and well outside your target area where you most wanted to live!”
I sometimes wonder if the “You truly deserve this.” is like the Chinese curse of “Interesting times”.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
Eh, I like Property Brothers. I think they do pretty good work. The unrealistic part is where the buyers are like “Oh, I don’t know about doing a renovation.” That’s where your comment about never having seen the show comes in. If somebody came to me and said the Property Brothers wanted to fix me up a house, I would be on it like a honey badger. They could even pick the house.
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, the scripts are obviously meant to “heighten the contradictions.” But still it’s amazing how, uh, unsympathetic a lot of the people can be.
Anotherlurker
@raven: It sounds like you had a lucky trip, where all factors line up.
Down here, I will fish a day boat out of Cortez, sometime. For ARS, they will tracel 30-40 miles, on a 12hr Snapper trip.
However, I enjoy to fish is multi-day trips. For example, a Middle Grounds trip, we leave the dock around 3pm. Get to the grounds by 9pmish and fish all day, all night, until approx. Midnight-1am. Then run back to Tarpon Springs. You have a 2 day limit for all species on this trip.
I really prefer multi-day trips with a deepwater component. The Golden Grounds are an 8hr-9hr. steam. Night fishing 180′ to 240′, on the hook, for Mangrove Snapper, Grouper, Chanpagne Porgy, Blackfin Tuna, Yellowtail Snapper, Red Grouper, etc… Day fishing, on the drift, depths of 300′-500′ for Yellowedge Grouper, Blueline Tilefish, Gags, Warsaw Grouper and other critters.
Pully Ridge is another legendary fishing ground that I have yet to fish. Very deep water, to 850’+. Big Grouper, Golden Tiles, Queen Snapper etc.
Yup. I’m crazy. I love to Deep Drop Fish. I learned in the Canyons, East of Montauk.
Sorry about the extended fishing report, but I like to talk fishing.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
God, that looks good.
Yarrow
Cole, that dinner looks delicious.
Thanks for the tip. Apparently and Aldi’s is supposed to be going in somewhere near me. I’ve heard rumors anyway. I’m looking forward to checking it out if it ever happens.
@raven: Yum! That looks amazing.
Corner Stone
@Anotherlurker: Whatever language that is, I don’t wanna learn to speak it.
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
I really wish you’d been in the audience when I heard T. Nichols speak. That would have been a laff riot.
Yarrow
I made blackberry crumble tonight. It was delicious.
ruemara
I don’t know if you believe me, but your life seems pretty cool, Cole. Friends, pets, good food, a garden and a lot of contentment. That’s pretty darned good.
Corner Stone
@zhena gogolia: There’s probably not a lot to say that he’d care to respond to. He’s an arrogant prick who claims expertise yet denies climate change science. I also really enjoy his advice that Democrats abandon black and brown people and become more assholish in order to win at the ballot box.
He knows two things for sure. Trump is a moron who knows nothing. Democrats will continue to lose until they cut loose black people.
Corner Stone
And in fact, that is one thing all the NeverTrumpers all know as well. Democrats must stop engaging people of color if they want to win elected office. All of them are consistent on this.
Corner Stone
Now I must play my recorded version of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
Mmmmm…Gemma…mmmm…Famke…
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: They are very consistent on that issue.
xjmuellerlurks
We’ve been shopping at Aldis lately. We had the Deutsche Küche brats – they are excellent. We also tried the frozen schnitzel, also very good. Have to make your own gravy/sauce. Pair with red cabbage and some warm potato salad or spaetzle. Aldis has limited selection so we don’t buy a lot of stuff there, but they have some really good items. Where we live now there is no Trader Joe’s, but this sort of reminds me of them.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Tiny Gingerbread House Hunters?
;)
Major Major Major Major
Comic strip: colored and scheduled for noon! Woohoo!
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
(raises a glass in your general direction)Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: I did full color, but muted and flat, all the shading is grayscale overlay.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Congratulations. Is this the one with the house in Denver or a different one?
Corner Stone
@NotMax: That first one didn’t work out too well for them. Maybe look at one with a better school district?
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: In a gated community, perhaps?
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Ah, for the days of Zip-a-Tone and an X-acto knife.
:)
Aleta
I’d like to find a crow cam or a raven cam, but all I’ve found is a red tailed hawk nest cam. The camera’s live even at night, so right now, Cornell Lab. As of today they write that the chicks should fledge in about a week.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Thanks. It’s the Denver one. I took a break, and then life got in the way for a while.
@NotMax: The software I use supports simulating that but it sort of leaves me cold.
dp
@John Cole: GOM off of Louisiana is likely the best place. Sorry if that’s too close to “the ocean.”
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Not much of a Supernatural watcher, however the Hansel & Gretel witch episode was kind of cute. clip
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I’m sorry. I got carried away. I really didn’t intend to eat the display. Fine, all of the displays…//
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: I enjoyed the first couple of them but then life got in the way as well and I didn’t stay up with it after that. How many do you have now?
Origuy
I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee this morning. Partial medial meniscectomy. Seems to have gone well, I have pretty good range of motion and can put weight on it. Of course I’m still full of painkillers. Hoping to be able to go to the Yukon in August.
On a food note, my housemates picked up tamales this evening. Can’t have beer with the painkillers, though.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Did you catch the animated ScoobyNatural episode?
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: Thirty, not including covers and holiday specials.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Wow! I’ll have to check back in and get caught up.
Aleta
Here’s a nice little red tailed hawk chick looking toward the camera, and then flapping wings. I was wrong–they write that “the 1st chick should fledge within the week.”
Adam L Silverman
@Origuy: Feel better!
Major Major Major Major
@Origuy: Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
@Adam L Silverman: I think Supernatural: The Musical is my favorite episode.
@Yarrow: Please do. Thinking of putting up a table of contents soon.
Yarrow
@Origuy: Glad everything went well. Enjoy the tamales even if you can’t enjoy the beer.
@Major Major Major Major: That might be helpful. I clicked through one time months ago and somehow ended up not on the first page and then got completely lost as to which one I was looking at and couldn’t find my way back again.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I thought they did a good job with the unofficial Wayward Sisters pilot episode this year and am upset they didn’t decide to spin it off. The character of Sheriff Donna answering this question was just hysterical:
https://youtu.be/QxJ2LeCFFGM?t=1m33s
I showed it to a good friend from Minnesota and she couldn’t stop laughing.
M4
@Yarrow: I dislike having to use an out of the box WordPress template, but I dislike premium pricing or building my own blog entirely more.
rikyrah
@raven:
That looks delicious ?
rikyrah
@Steeplejack (phone):
I overdosed with Tiny House and Tiny Luxury yesterday??
rikyrah
@NotMax:
Hope that you tell us how it turns out
Yarrow
@M4: I understand.
Jager
We have 4 eggs in the hanging fuchsia, some how Mrs J has gained the trust of the bird mama, so she can take the plant down, gently water it and hang it back up. Mama sits on the porch rail about 10 feet away and watches.
ruemara
@NotMax: No, keep those days.
Cathie from Canada
My husband gave me a bird feeder for Christmas and we cannot believe how much we enjoy it. We hung it on the back deck outside the kitchen window. Now that every bird in the city has discovered it, it seems like we have to fill it every other day. And our deck furniture now features a delightful bird-poop decor motif. But who cares really — we just enjoy watching the birds swoop and peck and perch and chatter at each other.
And our dogs love it too — they scarf down some of the seeds that spill. They just cannot understand why the birds don’t stick around to play when they burst out the back door.
We noticed a ground squirrel out front the other day — hopefully he won’t be visiting the back any time soon.
Anotherlurker
@Corner Stone: LOL!
Major Major Major Major
This twitter thread is awesome.
Mel
@ruemara: Agreed!
I’m old enough to remember spirit duplicators and carbon paper, etc. and young enough to have hated them even back in the day.
Nothing like memories of cranking out 300 copies of a school newspaper on Ye Olde Ditto Machine to make you appreciate the words “click to print”!!
BruceFromOhio
This is why I read this blog every day.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Um (he said with trepidation), no?
@rikyrah
Chicken thighs browning as we speak. Gonna be a while yet.
NotMax
@Mel
But Ditto fluid
1) gave you a buzz when inhaled
2) looked really cool on the skin under a blacklight.
;)
SectionH
@Cathie from Canada: Ah! Enjoy, I know the birds are too, but don’t be sure “every” bird in the city is there until you get a hawk strike (or maybe a falcon) because you have so many birds so often. Happened to us, but we are in a mid-city midrise with a small balcony, and we were feeding a lotta little birds. And some “carolina doves” (they’re tan pigeons, don’t be fooled).
I think it was probably a falcon, because they’re well known to nest at Mercy Hospital about a half-mile away. But it was
a srsly impressive sight, because I just happened to be looking. Scared me, ffs, never mind the finches. The falcon tried it a second time when I was watching – don’t know how many times before or after when I wasn’t watching – but I kinda cut back, not on having food exactly, but slowing the hospitality a bit? Never mind the bird poo was srsly getting out of hand.
NotMax
Hankering to see a really strange concept for a TV operatic musical? Check out this pilot (which wasn’t picked up for the schedule).
Songs and acting ain’t bad at all; even so it falls squarely into the “WTF were they thinking?” category. Caught it sheerly by chance when it originally aired during the summer TV doldrums.
Mel
@NotMax: I have practically no memory of anything that transpired in my 8th grade math class, which followed close on the heels of the 7 a.m. ditto action. Hmmm… Coincidence???
Are there green bell peppers in your chicken cacciatore?
NotMax
#88 was intended to be @Major Major Major Major
Mea maxima culpa.
Mel
@NotMax: Was that Chris Sarandon’s disembodied head popping around in the intro?
NotMax
@Mel
Recipe calls for both green and red peppers. Had neither in the house. Substituted a lone can of Ro-Tel (diced tomatoes and green chiles) that was hanging around in the pantry and some extra tomato paste along with the extra water needed for Instant Potitude.
Find the tomato paste in a squeeze tube which can find only at Whole Foods here very handy for just such a situation.
NotMax
@Mel
Good catch. His name is last in the opening credits.
Mel
@NotMax: It sounds like it’s going to be delicious! The Ro-Tel will add a nice kick.
I love the tomato paste tubes! None of that funky metallic can taste. I use it to thicken up my puttanesca if the tomatoes are a little too juicy.
Mnemosyne
We just got back from seeing Solo. It was fine, but it was no Last Jedi.
Now I have to get ready for bed so I can get up early for an all-day writing workshop. There’s no lunch provided this year, so I want to stop and buy a sandwich on the way so I don’t have to try and search out someplace to have lunch in the middle of what’s supposed to be a retreat.
Origuy
Thanks for the good wishes, everyone. The housemates went to Walmart to look for a Mexican woman who sells them out of the back of her car, but she wasn’t there. Just some people selling cherries. It’s Bing season here. So they went to the Tamale Factory. The place has tamale cookers the size of hot tubs.
SFBayAreaGal
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve been watching Supernatural since the 2nd season. Love this show.
SFBayAreaGal
I thought having to put in my name and email each time I post has been fixed.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: what. the. hell.
NotMax
@Origuy
Recover quickly. We’ll understand if you don’t take a knee for a while.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Heh. If nothing else, worth it for the rousing “Down the Doughnut Hole” number.
NotMax
@rikyrah
Cacciatore achieved. Pretty dang tasty. Maybe could have used just a pinch more oregano.
Major Major Major Major
So The Stars My Destination is, uh, a really weird book.
Joyce H
I’ll sometimes watch House Hunters and I’m always left with the question, “Do people with similar tastes in housing EVER get married to one another?” Because in every episode, it’s like – HIS wish list: A condo right downtown, in the center of all the vibrant energy of city living, within walking distance to work, a fixer upper with some good projects he can work on. HER wish list: A single-family new-build in the quiet suburbs, away from the city noise and hassle, with a big yard. From that point on, it’s psycho-drama to determine who is actually in charge in this relationship. When the guy who wants to walk to work agrees to the hour and a half commute so she can have her big yard (which he will probably be in charge of maintaining), well, it’s pretty obvious.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I read the first chapter, where the author details the history of jaunting. That was about enough weirdness for me at that point. It is considered a classic, though.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Trivia: Alfred Bester for a while wrote for DC Comics, penning some of its best-selling titles of the Golden Age. He created the character of Solomon Grundy, still a part of the DC Universe, as an antagonist to the original Green Lantern.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: @NotMax: I can definitely see how it’s the spark of cyberpunk, but it needs to slow down and take a deep breath!
Schlemazel
@Joyce H:
You do know that the couple has already bought the house before the show & the other two houses are just for the drama, right? The rest is all play acting – it is after all “reality” TV
NotMax
Scrolled through the queue on Amazon Prime to find something to which I can pay only partial attention and works if only listening when back is to the TV while on the computer.
Settled on Welsh cowboys.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Was originally serialized in (I think) four parts in one of the SF magazines of the era. Had to keep interest piqued and leave ’em wanting more at the dawn of the jet age.
Joyce Harmon
@Schlemazel:
Yes, I did know that, was disappointed when I first learned it. So I guess I’m complaining about the quality of the writing, because you see the same basic premise over and over again – diametrically opposed wish lists. Couldn’t they have both parties want a Craftsman bungalow and then have them argue about whether this one is Craftsmany enough? Or one had stained glass and the other has wooden built-ins and which of those features is more important? Then at least the episode wouldn’t end with the sense that one party in the relationship was settling for a living situation that is entirely not what they wanted. Another thing they do that irks me is to have one of the pair (it’s usually the woman) mock the other’s preferences. He loves old VIctorians and she tours the house going on and on about how creepy it is. Dammit, woman, that’s just rude!
Come to think of it, since the couples have already picked out a house, why do they go on the show? A lot of them come across really unsympathetically. What are they getting out of it?
raven
@Anotherlurker: I love it!
JMG
We had smoked salmon and arugula omelets last night. They fulfilled the prime requirements of a Friday night dinner. Real quick to make and even quicker to clean up after. Also they’re delicious.
Sloane Ranger
Spent last night watching a DVD of my 2nd favourite TV show (after Doctor Who) from my childhood.
It’s called The Freewheelers and was on in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It features three teenagers assisting a dashing British Intelligence agent fight Nazi war criminals, mad scientists and other assorted threats to our nation.
I must say I was pleasantly surprised as it’s held up well, plenty of location filming and decent action sequences. The worse thing are the clunky walkie-talkies they use to keep in contact.
Eight more episodes to look forward to.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
That early sci-fi was often really strange, more so than today’s mostly. I was probably in Jr High when I read that the first time. Early Sci-fi warped me permanently! Starting in Jr High…
My mom liked sci-fi back then so I got an early start. There was a little newsstand that sold Ace doubles for $0.35 so two novels, two covers, no back, cheap.