Something to be thankful for

You know, I can be a bit of a brooder. A Gloomy Gus. A picklepuss.

But then I see all the headlines about the Food Network's Paula Deen being hit in the face by a ham, and suddenly the sun comes out, at least metaphorically. It's even difficult for me to pick a favorite. "Chef Paula Deen Accidentally Hit by Charity Ham"? "Paula Deen's Hamtastrophy"? "Swine Flew: Paula Deen Struck By Errant Ham"? Don't make me choose, people.

Thank you, God. And thank you, ham.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! (Except for those of you in Canada. You had your shot last month--don't be greedy.)

That's what she said

The Daily News ponders the root of the universe:

Given the phrasing of the question, I'd say it's a toss-up between the first two choices.

UPDATE: 24 hours later, and the Daily News' poll "Hardon" remains up. Someone should really call a doctor.


(Note: A cross-post with Radosh.net. Do stop by if you haven't already.)

Found in "draft" status in my Blogger account but, fortunately, never posted

No one will ever remember that Woodstock thing that's going on

Why Jimmy Carter will win a second term this November

Leisure suits are so much classier than tuxedos



(Note: This post was written and put into draft status back in August. In retrospect, I should have left it there.)

Real ghostwriter of Sarah Palin's book: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The evidence? Feast your eyes, my friends, on this actual sentence from the book-like thingee she's selling:

"As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on."

But I have to admit: I got punked. A Slate reader posted the following sentence, implying it was from Palin's book, and I fell for it:

"The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle."

That is one terrible sentence. What's the subject? Is there a subject? Could it possibly be diagrammed? If so, would it look like the web of a spider on acid? Probably.

But it's not by Palin. It's from Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father.

Wow. Back to your day job, mister. (That horrible sentence aside, I enjoyed Obama's book--it's quite moving.)

(Palin sentence from Slate.)

When Geraldo Rivera is the voice of reason ...

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Shouldn't "real" news shows be comparing Rudy Giuliani's realistic past statements with his current fear-mongering, nonsensical ones? Why the hell is it left to a comedy show to do journalists' work?

Also, someone please remind me--should I be laughing or crying? I can never remember.

It's almost Thanksgiving ...

Time to rerun my grandmother's oatmeal stuffing recipe:

Saute a chopped medium onion (or, if you're feeling fancy, a big shallot) and rib of celery in oil. Add salt and pepper and two cups of rolled oats or quick-cooking oats and continue sauteing until the oats get toasty. Then stuff the turkey. (Obviously, you can cut this in half for a chicken. Or bake it in a covered dish alongside the bird with some chicken stock to keep it moist.)

That's it.

I'll have that with extra heart attack, please

Oh, it's so hard being a busy mom! Kids can be such picky eaters, and, let's face it, that new-fangled "pizza" the little tykes are going mad for these days just doesn't have enough meat in it.

What to do ... what to do ...

Hmmm. Maybe this sounds crazy, but what if we took a pizza, removed the crust, replaced it with meat, and added soup? Would that work?

Presenting ... the meat-za!

(Click image twice to embiggen to all its meaty glory.)

A matter of life and death

Or, rather, A Matter of Life and Death: My all-time fave film, which I've plugged on this blog a few times before, will be on Turner Classic Movies in the middle of the night tonight--3 a.m. Monday, to be exact, though check your listings if you're not on the East Coast. Set those DVRs or VCRs.

Here's that remarkable opening scene again:



Also, I'm going to assume TCM's programmers have a sense of humor. A Matter of Life and Death is followed by The Age of Consent, the name of the last film directed by Michael Powell, half the team behind AMOLAD. Only it's not Powell's Age of Consent, but a movie with the same title from 1932. That couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it? The odds seem pretty much astronomical.

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants

David Lloyd, the comedy maestro behind the classic Mary Tyler Moore episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust," died this week.

Someone has uploaded the episode to YouTube. I'm sure it'll come down soon, but for the moment:

Sounds like something that would happen in a junior high locker room

Presenting the first in an occasional series of scans from the recipe files of my partner's mother, the late Jeanne Feinberg. She was a gourmet cook--really!--but, let's face it, the 1950s-1970s era was an odd one when it came to American cookery.

Brace yourselves, people. I'm starting you off easy. There's some weird stuff coming up.

Click to embiggen ... if you dare.

First step toward world domination

I'll be making the occasional post over at Radosh.net, and I hope you'll follow me over there. (The proprietor, writer Daniel Radosh, was recently hired by The Daily Show and turned his site into a ménage à blog, if you will, asking frequent commenters to contribute.)

My first post is here. (There will be an "About Us" page over there soonish, with a link back here.)

Please don't heckle me.