Ha! xfce4 did it, AGAIN. This time though, I had previously taken my own suggestion from LAST time, and just grabbed last night’s cron backup of my menu file, and hence prevented further heartache.
Take that, you steaming pile!
Interestingly, this time I have absolutely no idea what prompted the menu overwrite, which is somewhat disconcerting. If it’s still not a bug, then it’s also disheartening.
Actually, I don’t want to know anything about the way this tastes.
The things some people willingly eat… Beth found a food that repulses me way more than the idea of fried bull testicles: Balut, or, partially developed baby ducks, eaten whole, straight from the egg.
Looks delicious, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?!?!
Balut, baby ducks eaten while still in the egg, is a dish from the Philippines. The vendor has to keep the eggs warm so the embryo stays alive, and has to know exactly how old they are: Do you want 12-day, 16-day, or 18-day eggs?
This is a great example of something that only works as local food. Why don’t we eat it? (Maybe because it sounds really gross?) If you’re adventurous, learn how to cook and eat balut.
Adventurous, indeed. This reminds me of Jabba the Hutt’s eating habits, only less alive (barely).
I don’t know what it is about eating entire animals that disgusts me so profoundly. I think it’s the bones, brains, and entrails (I would make a terrible zombie).
Luckily, since I’m no longer eating poultry, I don’t have to deal with all those hypocritical feelings of disgust that some of you carnivores may be feeling right about now (because, y’know, meat comes from animals; most of which used to have entrails).
When I was four, the best I could hope for in terms of toy guns were cap guns (point that at your head and you’d go deaf!), and the most violent video game I had heard of was Pitfall (games like Custer’s Revenge were off the radar for me).
Kids today, on the other hand, are apparently being conditioned for a bright future in the up-and-coming murder-suicide industry. Lucky!
At least, that’s what I assume the future for Lil Derrick holds, providing he gets one of these (a toy gun with a built-in whistle in the barrel) (video):
for his fourth birthday (which he celebrated with a Grand Theft Auto cake):
Both via BoingBoing, which ironically posted both items this morning without noting any connection.
I just signed up with Facebook.
This thing is so much better than the smeg that is Myspace that it’s really very depressing that people still use Myspace for anything other than finding new music.
Also, I think it’s quite a bit better than orkut, and not just because of the lack of Peruvian friend spam!
For those of you keeping score at home, I haven’t willingly (rennet and gelatin are snuck into everything these days) eaten a mammal since August 2004, when I had the sudden epiphany that not only is red meat bad for the environment, produced in a cruel and barbaric process, and not healthy, it also doesn’t seem particularly appetizing to me. Ironically, I came to this realization shortly after eating a turkey drumstick at a renaissance fair, and being greatly repulsed by it.
Later, in January 2005, I cut first the poultry, and a few days later, the fish, out of my diet.
That continued for a few months, but I really wasn’t eating very healthily (as there are plenty of fried and/or sweet things that are vegetarian) and my poor eating habits eventually caught up with me around May. At that point, I had started getting nightly stomach aches, frequent itchiness, and was suffering a general lethargy; and my friends diagnosed me as having a niacin-protein deficiency, and suggested I start eating more proteinaceous things.
So, in an attempt to fix myself, I tried the most proteinaceous vegetarian thing I could think of: soy, and lot’s of it. But then I found out I’m allergic to soy, as well as practically everything else; and for a few weeks I was on a prescribed diet of (basically) rice and chicken.
Thus, the vegetarianism was no more.
On the plus side, the chicken cleared my nutrient-deficiency symptoms right up!
That was then. This is now.
I’m older, and have a generally better diet these days. I know my limitations, and that I simply cannot happily live on a pure vegetarian diet with my particular mix of allergies and other dietary quirks.
But I’m going to try to do the next best thing, the best I can!
This past weekend, I resolved to try to cut poultry out of my diet, again. I’m going to force myself to eat more fish and tofu (as cooked soy doesn’t seem to give me any adverse allergic affects), and will be on guard for any changes for the worse so that I can try and fix things before they become a problem again.
I’ve been eating this way for a few days now, and I’m feeling healthier already, but be rest assured I’ll complain all about it here the moment something goes terribly wrong.
Unless, of course, it kills me.
Warning: this post is tagged ‘nsfw‘ on account of gratuitous topless female humans featured in the videos within. It’s not sensual, just senseless, which is really all the fun.
As I’ve mentioned before, Forbidden Zone is probably my favorite movie ever.
Probably, you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. That’s a shame, because this movie is, in my opinion, much more worthy of being the definitive cult classic than say, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While RHPS has lots of laffs and sex, fun costumes, inane audience participation, and a devoted fandom; I contend that Forbidden Zone is just Better.
Some people I’ve shown Forbidden Zone to just don’t get its inanity, not understanding that that is the whole appeal. It’s like a cartoon from the 30s made a thing of the flesh! Or at least, a thing of the live action. Not since german silent movies have I seen expressionism used to such effect. It’s full of great music that is mostly borrowed from the past (Cab Calloway, anyone?), and lots of gratuitous nudity that serves more to amuse through its randomness than its sexiness.
For an example of what I mean, check out this scene, from near the beginning of the movie:
And here’s another, one of my favorite scenes in the film, the song “Pico and Sepulveda“:
Forbidden Zone was the brainchild of Richard Elfman, and its cast mostly consists of members of his theatrical troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, which later morphed into the 80s new wave group Oingo Boingo, helmed by his brother, Danny.
Speaking of Danny, here’s one final scene from Forbidden Zone, of him playing Satan and singing a cover of Cab Calloway’s Minnie the Moocher. This YouTube video is what first introduced me to Forbidden Zone- after seeing this I added the movie to my Netflix queue and watched it at least three times in the first weekend, buying it shortly thereafter.
So I guess that’s it. I really just wanted an excuse to post those videos (you can find more by searching for “Forbidden Zone” in YouTube), but hopefully I’ve introduced you to a movie you’ll like as much as I do. Otherwise, if you are one of the depressingly rare few who’ve heard of Forbidden Zone before, hopefully I’ve brightened your day by sharing these videos with you.
If you don’t know what ‘bris’ is, you are probably better off, as the post title is a terrible joke. Still, it’s the first thing I thought of when seeing this hideous little monster.
Via (of course) Cute Overload
I remember spending one hot summer afternoon in my formulative middle school years lazing about on the couch reading Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew. Of all the short tales featured, most enjoyable to me was the not-so-short The Mist. To this day it’s remained one of my favorite tales of fiction of all time.
Thus, it should really be no surprise that I’m waiting with baited breath for the theatrical adaptation, due out this November. Even better, the adaptation is written and directed by Frank Darabont, meaning The Mist will likely be handled as well as his other King adaptations, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption.
The trailer certainly supports this possibility:
Of course, the subject matter is vastly different than his other King adaptations, but I think that things look promising :)
A bunch of friends from NJ came up to visit this weekend, and one of them had never seen a female cat before (“Your cat has two butts!”).
On Saturday, we went to the NY State Fair, where greasy food was eaten, crap was bought, goats were petted, Sea Lions were seen to frolic, and plush was won. I don’t have any good pictures of the actual fair, as I was experimenting with moblogging the day with my camera phone, though I do have a few of the aftermath:
I regret the lack of proper photos now, as there were some impressive freakshows there and it was my first time going to them and seeing the hokeyness firsthand. I felt like I was stepping back in time, or into an old B-movie, and only have low-res photos to commemorate it! Well, here are my collected freak pictures, anyway:
I love how they present actual preserved creatures (sharks, scorpions) and real birth defects (cycloptic pigs, two headed calves) next to taxidermied monstrosities/artworks (fiji mermaid) and waxwork concoctions (wolfboy). It’s like our dear, late, Weekly World News, only in three dimensions! And just like the WWW, yeasterday’s “alien fish” (which made rounds in the blogosphere earlier this year when Russian fisherman caught and ate it) gets recycled as today’s “Devil woman“! Genius! Best two dollars I ever spent!
Saturday night after the fair I embarrassed myself by not being able to keep my eyes awake for being so tired and bored in a bar (sometimes I feel almost narcoleptic, but happicow tells me it’s because of the hours I try to keep), and then put my friends to sleep by trying to show them Invader Zim (which I could stay awake for, on account of it being much less boring than a bar).
On Sunday we showed the survivors around Ithaca, shopping at The Commons, sailing, and eating local cuisine.
All in all, a rather busy weekend. Thankfully, today I didn’t have anything to get up for and could finally catch up on my sleep :)
