Top Ten of 2011

I did teh definitive Top Ten in 2009, but lest Auld acquaintance have forgotted, I'll do another one this time - but first,,,

Teh end of teh year - a time for getting blind drunk introspection. Let's take a look at my goals and see how I did:

1. 100 posts. Nope. Didn't even hit last year's mark.
2. AWESOME-ness. Check.
3. Photoshoppery. Check.
4. Your mom. Check.
5. Team Haislip. Check.

4 out of 5 - and teh only one I missed is teh only verifiable one. Not bad. And without further ado, TOP TEN REASONS WHY I DIDN'T HIT 100 POSTS THIS PAST YEAR

10. Post length. OMFG, I've gotten bloviating diarrhea. I gotta remember that "without further ado" thing and try and use it moar.
9. Your mom.
8. I'm lazy.
7. Too much farting around at CT.
6. Skyward Sword. Yes I only started playing this week, but I had this grand plan to crap out a couple dozen EPIC posts about every little thing in a flurry of Galtian überproductivity. You can blame teh stupid Temple of Earth (aka teh LAVA LEVEL) for Mankind's loss.
5. Your mom.
4. Teh dearth of Louise Burns YouTubes.
3. Uhhh, I forget teh third one.
2. Your mom.
1. PENIS. Totes heterosexually of course.

Owen Mediocre At Best

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BREAKING!!!! SECOND AMENDMENT UNDER ASSAULT! UPDATED!!!

For XBox Marketplace avatars anyways.

Wait. What does this have to do with teh Kenyan Usurper? Well, guess who doesn't have an XBox? d00d has that inscrutable oriental console with a name what sounds liek a slang term for PENIS. That's right, not only does teh foreign usurper favour foreign game consoles to USA #1 consoles - he's now taking away all teh guns! What's next? Rounding up all teh dissenting XBox Marketplace avatars and locking them up in concentration camps? Maybe PS Home?! OMFG!

BREAKING UPDATE! MUST CREDIT FOR SECOND PLAYER!! PRESIDENT OBAMA CAUGHT OUT IN A LIE! BREAKING!!!

In the video he clearly admonishes teh press corpse that they will never ever get a photo of him playing any dance video game. Clearly an outright lie as can be seen below:

Additional notes:
1. WTF d00d! Nice job ruining Christmas for your own daughters. I can just hear Malia saying "OMG, I never would have guessed you got us Just Dance 3 if I hadn't seen it on teh evening news!"
2. LOL! Always gets an F rating. I can out dance teh preznit! At least in teh video games. That hasn't been troo since Franklin Polio Roosevelt.
3. Teh reason he didn't get Skyward Sword - OMG it's right there in teh middle of teh freaking display! - is that he's probably already finished it. Whereas I will have to wait until at least tomorrow.

Merry Rick-mas

TRIGGER WARNING: Four Rick Astley vids follow - none of which are gonna give you up.

OMG. Teh POWAH of teh intart00bs has prevented d00d from aging.



New singles last year! OMG! Intartubules, why did you not tell me of this?!



AND



And WTF?! d00d's a drummer too!

Why We Fight: War On Christmas Edition - Musical interlude

Christmas music is old. Old old old old old. They call it "traditional". Hrmph. Even teh new stuff, all gets released so close to Christmas, that teh best a blogger can do is embed last year's stuff. Anyways, here are some traditional and classic oldies.

Pr0n Objectivises Women

Last year Lara Croft returned in a different kind of puzzle-action game, Teh Guardian of Light. It was a big change for teh Tomb Raider series which had been doing pretty horribly at teh time. Fixed camera isometric multi-player - download only non-AAA title. Sort of an anti-Tomb Raider Tomb Raider game. And it was just what was needed - selling pretty well for a download only game, and racking up review scores that Lara hadn't seen in a decade. And now there's another game planned for teh series scheduled for next year. And it looks fucking amazing. Anyways, all of this to say that Lara Croft is going to survive being portrayed by Angelina Jolie in two movies to return to pop culture prominence. You know how I can tell? They're doing new pr0n parodies of it.

Why am I telling you this? Teh comments. They take a turn for teh amusing.

First comment is an Objectivist - oops sorry, Ethical Naturalist -with an Ayn Rand quote explaining why he lieks strong women. Ayn Rand. BwaaAHAHhAHHAHahahHAH.

Teh beat down is administered all round with a showing of teh Kung Fu Monkey quote most often attributed to Krugthulu (and is ongoing at teh time of blogging). But liek a good Objectivist, he smugs himself up on his high horse and sneers at all teh folks who are pointing out that his John Galt underoos are badly shitstained. It's stretching into a fair length post about how "objectivism" is objectively teh Awesome with a tangent on how bagging on Ayn Rand is all fine and dandy since she was so horribly bad, but calling her a slut is over teh line. Really, it's an amazing conversation.

In a thread about PORN.

You can tell which one is teh Objectivist at an orgy - they're teh one lecturing teh sweaty heaving bodies about how they lurve teh sex because they are so superior at it.

Teh Apple of My Pie

I just noticed that yesterday's Opo salad was teh second time I food blogged. And teh first time, I said something about in-progress photos. Ooops. To remedy, a photo essay (with mouseovers):

And now for teh classic cooking show sleight of hand! These are actually strawberry-rhubarbs that I made a month ago to test teh technique.

Opo Research

So here's teh story - Opo or Indian Long Squash is massively on sale at teh supermarket. Not quite daikon radish cheap, but pretty darned cheap. I've never prepared it before but I had to give it a shot.

Opo is a very, very bland vegetable. No flavour to it at all. But it has great texture - very similar to zucchini or summer squash. Traditionally, this vegetable is used in curries, probs because it does have so little flavour of its own and would make a fantastic vehicle for sauce. I didn't want to do this because I was afraid that cooking it at all would make it all mushy and ruin teh only characteristic it actually has. So salad.

Teh other part is that we're introducing Ultra Ninja to new foods and it goes over better if we eat the same thing that she does. The latest food is cooked barley. Pearl barley is quite similar to brown rice, and sticking to the Indian theme as set by the long squash, dinner was butter chicken.

As I mentioned at teh Mothership, went with a sweetened rice wine vinagrette with a hit of Tabasco to dress the salad which was long squash, carrots and red onion. Tasted not bad, and looked awful pretty too. Something was missing, and I am ashamed to admit that I think what was missing was cilantro. Which I hate. Ugh.

Anyways, this is what it looked like:

Teh blob at teh top of my plate is hot mango chutney. Here's a close-up of the salad:

Verdict? Success, but room for improvement. Barley goes incredibly well with indian food. It's certainly not the same as basmati, but it does make a great base. The slight elastic chewiness of barley (relative to white rice) is very nice with flavourful sauces. Don't know if I can say I prefer barley to basmati for indian food at this point, but it's nice to have an alternative. The salad went incredibly well with the butter chicken too. Although it (and I can't believe I'm saying this) would have been improved with cilantro.

Lessons learned other than teh cilantro thing: You want to slightly overcook the barley so it's a little drier and more sauce hungry. There's an ideal thickness for Opo in salads like this. You want it thick enough so that it holds it's texture, but no thicker than that. Since it was my first run at it, I actually made a range of different thickness slices. 3 mm to 5 mm (1/8 to 1/4 inch for those more comfotable with archaic units) is the sweet spot. A yogurt dressing would have tasted great, but would also interfere with teh pretty colours in teh salad. Finally, if you're going to ask for advice about dinner prep, do it early enough that you can get in some marinating or a quick run to the market.

A Break From Fighting: War On Christmas Edition

In defense of Christmas, @ISAIAHMUSTAFA can do no wrong.

Que Sera Siri

Siri, why you gotta play us like that?

Siri, why am I so late getting to this story which was basically played out a week ago?

Mostly because it's gotten teh right and proper smackdowning it warrants. Even if it is totes unintentional, that is still some creepy-ass misogynistic bullshit*, and it's good that it got highlighted as much as it did.

Anywho, I'm going back to it for another reason. To point and laugh at all teh smug Apple fanbois with their shiny new toys. LOL. Srsly, this Siri thing has taken the wind out of a bunch of idiots and jackasses - and I applaud that. Not to say all Apple dorks are shitbags but - I was going to say something about collateral damage or something. You know what? It's not damage. If an otherwise decent person now no longer believes in his inherent superiority because of his consumer electronics choices, that's a good thing. Without a doubt, the hit to their fanboi-ism is not a minus. Speaking of, it's always teh betrayed that have teh most passionate responses and it's voyeuristically titillating to see teh damage.

Yeppers. Teh thing I'm glad about is that no one from teh Apple Army of Assholes even tried to claim that this was intentional on Apple's part - a component of their plan to raise awareness and prompt discussion about teh raw deal that women get with respect to sexual health, and heck - health care in general.

*Teh screenshots say it all.

Why We Fight: War on Christmas Edition Part Deux

Firstly, I was totes not being counted in. Here is further photographic evidence of my child's above average IQ lack of drumming skillz.

Anyways, Ultra Ninja's first War on Christmas is playing out classically. See, teh troo meaning of X-mas isn't teh crass consumerism and teh comforts you get from material things. Here she is, finding no joy in her mountain of toys:

No, teh troo meaning of X-mas is being in constant agony and suffering and sharing the exquisite pain with your fambly. She's teething. Again. The middle two on teh bottom broke through a month ago and were separated by just a few days. Good times. They're now both fully out as you can see in this perfectly focused and crystal clear image:

Her third tooth broke through a couple days ago, and according to her pattern, it's matched partner is just at the surface right now. Looks like she'll be getting her two front teef for Christmas - and bugger-all else* unless she lets her parents have a minute or two of sleep.

*Just kidding. She's actually getting a pony - free-range, grass-fed and ready for the grill.

Cain Quit You

Well I'm glad I didn't wait on Herman Li Cain. With teh way teh Tea Party caucus is blowing through potential candidates, you gotta snark while teh hucksters hot.

Well, since his campaign's run outta Steam, let's send him off right.

Nine-nine-nine, nine-nine-nine, kiss Herman Good-bye.

You'll never vote Cain, he's suspended his campaign
And he's not running baby, no more - that's what I'm sayin'
He's groped too many ladies,
And a (And a) thirteen year affair's just too shady

So go on and kiss him, Good bye.
Nine-nine-nine, nine-nine-nine, kiss Herman Good-bye.

Listen to me now

He says it's all untrue, all those harrasment issues
Despite dozens of women who all say he tried
To get in their pants baby, because he was their boss

So kiss Cain (kiss Cain) Good bye.

Nine-nine-nine, nine-nine-nine, kiss Herman Good-bye.
Nine-nine-nine, nine-nine-nine, kiss Herman Good-bye.
Nine-nine-nine, nine-nine-nine, kiss Herman Good-bye.