The Illiterate

top ten update

A week later than expected, Mariah Carey slips another recorded attempt at seduction into the chart, sliding up and down her vocal range like it was a stripper

science marches on

I always suspected this was true, but now I have proof: right-handed people screw better.

top ten update

Nothing new this week, so I devoted my energy to another experiment in making the site at least partially pay for itself–iTunes. Now, if you really want to find out if you disagree with me or not, you can go straight to iTunes from the site and download the record yourself, and I’ll make a whopping 5% on that purchase and anything else you might buy in the following 24 hours. Then you can email me and tell me how wrong I am about everything.

an excellent dish

Tonight, I made a light duck stock, using the neck and gizzards from our Thanksgiving duck, seasoned with bay leaves, thyme, and peppercorns. I used it to make a white wine risotto. When I decided it was looking a bit plain, I scrounged the fridge for additions. A cup of leftover baked yam did the trick. The result was very very tasty indeed.

bake it up

I’ve taken quite a shine to baking this past year. I’m to the point now of baking all the bread we eat. Here is my stash of flour:

It’s in the corner of the dining room. The galvanized can holds the remains of a 25 lb sack of Bob’s Red Mill “white flour” we got from the bread outlet store. Suffice it to say, the flour is not white. It’s not exactly traditional whole wheat either (I bought that small sack of King Arthur for comparison). But, it makes a tasty loaf, nonetheless.

I’ve mostly been baking freeform oblong loaves on my cast iron pizza griddle. Today, I opted for a more traditional loaf, baked in a 10″ loaf pan:

It’s all good.

monumental tomes project

Lately, I’ve been reading books that are considered:

1. big

2. hard
3. worthy

such as:

• Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

• Ulysses, James Joyce
• Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Your suggestions are welcome for additional monumental tomes. Bear in mind, it must be something I’ve not yet read. I’ve read the first book of Proust’s classic, but not the rest, the same with Boswell’s Life of Johnson – though both of those would be worth reading again as a springboard into the rest. Stendhal’s The Red and The Black comes to mind, also Gaddis’s The Recognitions.

update: I should add “fiction” to the above list. That leaves out Boswell and also Gibbon. That’s another project altogether.

feast

Happy Thanksgiving!

Roast duck
Baked yams
Broccoli with hollandaise (that turned out perfectly!)
Cranberry sauce (canned, my favorite)
Freshly baked Presbyterian rolls (old family recipe)
Pumpkin pudding with maple whipped cream

2001 L’Ecole 41 Cabernet Sauvignon

Mmmmmmmm.

top ten update

Yes, I have been updating the last two weeks, I just haven’t been noting it here (that’s just to apologize to the two (three?) people who actually come looking for it every week). Not that I would have missed much if I hadn’t: odd love song from T-Pain, a-little-too-normal love song from Pussycat Dolls, stupid sex rap from DL4. But this week, here comes Madonna, tripping lightly through her own past, from the Supremes to Abba. Very nice.

Just thought I should mention Bono’s prophetic announcement this week that U2′s music would last a hundred years because it covers “an emotional terrain that didn’t exist before our group did.” Let’s see: musical bombast, spiritual and intellectual pomposity, ego the size of Detroit, and pretension far beyond the call of duty. No, I think that’s all been done. How does he expect to be taken seriously?

snoooooooooring

So, due to this head cold, I was snoring so much RJM was waking me up all night long, to the point where I was afraid to fall asleep. This made for horrible days at work and some very not fun nights. He is convinced I don’t have sleep apnea, just that when I’m a little sick or have had a bit to drink, I snore. In desperation, I bought a mandibular advancement device – which is a fancy phrase for a silicon mouth guard that keeps your lower jaw from dropping back. The one I bought is sold as a sports mouth guard in the US, perhaps because dentists make so much money on custom fitted ones. This wouldn’t surprise me.

Anyway, the thing takes getting used to. I’m not fully accustomed to it yet and wake up in the night to rip it out of my mouth. But, when it’s in place, I don’t snore as loudly or as frequently. As a side benefit, I’ve noticed I’m much more alert during the day, so some intermittent or mild sleep apnea probably has been afflicting me. If you have any trouble with your temporomandibular joint, you can’t use something like this, but otherwise if you are bothered by your snoring, it’s worth a try.

horizontal surfaces don’t stand a chance

The coffeetable, post-straightening up: