Pop Goes The Colonel

While we’re on the subject of food, please read Hot Lemon’s excellent post here on popping the perfect kernel and weigh in on the topic.

Why when I think of Hot Lemon do the words Big Orange come to mind?

Food Glorious Food

There have been articles in magazines and newspapers recently about what top chefs would choose as their last meal. The question is posed in support of a book called My Last Supper by photographer Melanie Dunea which features their answers represented pictorially.

Several of the responses were not for fancy schmancy dishes but rather comfort food tied to their childhoods and dear old Mom, something I’d understand better if my mother had been a decent cook.

Digging around on the internet, I found that there was some detailed information on last meal requests made by death row inmates but at the moment, and all moments really, I'm far more interested in what I'd have.

First I thought of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, creamy spinach with cheese, vegetables, and cheesecake with a follow up snack of Halloween candy but then I thought, why repeat what I just had last night?

Visions danced through my head - onion rings, hash browns, an end cut of roast beef, a three legged dog (how’d that get in there?), my mother’s fudge -- there are far too many possibilities!

At the moment, I’m happy I’m not being asked to make any final decisions and also that nobody’s taking my picture, this shade of gravy on my shirt does nothing for me.

A Night At the Audio

I went to the opera a few nights ago and thought I'd audio enthrall myself so up goes another audio post for the sidebar.

And this ladies and gentlemen, is Mr. Verdi.

Electoral Sex

Remember last month when I bought that goat? He never writes. Fucker.

I should have done this earlier. Some of the lovely people who helped get my goat are in the Top 10 running at Blog Interviewer this month. I want them to win! win! win!

Click on their names and vote for:

Beckeye because she's America's Next Top Model Blogger

Lori because anyone who writes about pussy should be in the Top 3

Toadee because I robbed him but just barely last time

Margo because, well, she's an excellent writer.

Barbara tell me why you're not in the Top 10? I'll take the blame if you'd like.

Everyone else can suck it but only because I'm too lazy to know them. And because Beckeye loves the movie Grease so much, may I just say If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter.

Please Write Anything Else!

I brought it upon myself. For making fun of spam in my prior post, the Blue Meanies attacked me today. I came home to 64 new comments on various posts. I was happy when my email started to download until I quickly realized that 3 of them were legitimate comments and the rest were from robotic spam fiends who failed grammar class.

The messages alternated between the following comments:

Your blog is great. Articles is interesting!

Thanks to author.

Hello all.

Nice article.

and my favourite:

Please write anything else!

In order for me to write anything else, I have temporarily turned on the comment verification feature. Please pray for me during this difficult time.

Yours in Christ,

Dale

Daktari

I try to conduct my computer life in the same manner as my regular life - under a semisweet cover of darkness, but this is not always enough to stem the tide of the modern scourge - spam email.

Today in my IN box, there was an exciting opportunity that began by quoting my blog address and then suggested that since I have a pharmacy / medical related blog, I could earn cash if I helped refer people to their website which is a discount drug business.

My less than comprehensive investigation into my blog showed me that of the six hundred and twenty-nine posts leading up to this one, there were a total of seven posts that referred to either pharmacy or medical. While this may satisfy their criteria, I'm not so sure I'd trust their Research & Development division or for that matter, their drugs.

While I thought briefly of the glory that being a drug kingpin or a pimp might bring, I decided against participating in this exciting opportunity and instead used my energy to come up with potentially life saving advice for you:

Always consult your physician before undertaking the reading of any blog other than this one.

My Espanya Has A First Name and It's Billie Jean

Now that I’m back in the office after a few days off, it’s right back to the grind I know so well, work avoidance.

Over the past few hours, my mind’s been heavy with a problem that I think only that bastion of justice Maury Povich may be able to help put to bed.

Tanya Espanya has been implying that I had something to do with the creation of a hideous monster who’s been dominating her life over the past few months. Please see here.

I did not have sex with that Spaniard.

Human Art

Damned people, I hate them except when I'm busy loving them.

Check out this video after turning down the brightness on your monitor.

Love Hurts (audio blog)

There's another audio blog over yonder.

I'm still waiting to hear one from you!

The Rising Blogger (New Yoga Position)

I had a nice email from a character named Judd letting me know that I was nominated for a Post of the Day over on The Rising Blogger.

You can read the nice things he said about me by clicking here. I'm considering hiring him full time!

Firehouse (audio blog)

Look! Over there! No, not there, to your right, on my sidebar. It's a new audio blog of an old post freeing my time up to not write anything new or original.

Admit it, you miss Honeypot as much as I do, I haven't seen her much lately. I will be accepting voice auditions for the role as I'm not doing it justice.

Enjoy. Or not. No big whoop.

News To Me

This morning in the newspaper (yes, I’m still pretending I can read) there was a great column about a showdown between the Anthony Bourdain and Rachael Ray camps. The columnist used the eff word in a quote from Bourdain. As there’d been no reply from the editor’s desk about my earlier enquiry, I emailed the columnist and he replied in short order.

He confirmed what Mistress LaSpliffe and Deadspot said about being able to use direct quotes per standard CP copybook style but in his reply, he managed to use to good effect, just about every swear word known to man or at least me.

I thanked him for the information and let him know I look forward to the day he manages to get the cee word into newsprint.

Here’s to a free press or at least, a free newspaper. I’m still surprised but no longer curious.

Hang It Up Daddy

After seeing the film But I'm A Cheerleader several years ago, one of the songs from the soundtrack ate away at my brain for a long time. The film was pretty funny too but I just couldn't shake the song.

I guess I figured I'd been cured of it not having thought of it in a while. Then along comes Quentin with Death Proof. He's included the same song playing over the menu at the start of the dvd and now I've got the brain fever again.

April March - Chick Habit mp3

Someone run me over.

Dear Prudence

When did it become okay to casually print the words fuck and fucking in a widely circulated daily newspaper meant for transit readers?

In the Metro paper this morning, there was an article about Kevin Smith’s new book and they quoted him using the words above. The print edition has both words while the online version seems to show a little more decorum and only uses fucking.

While I don’t particularly have a concern with those words being bandied about in conversation among adults, isn't it inappropriate to use them so casually in print?

I’ve written to the editor but he’ll probably be too fucking busy to respond.

This Crotch Is For You

Just when I think my life can’t hold one more good thing, along comes Beckeye to prove me wrong.

Recently, her delicious contest (number four in a series) asked for a caption to accompany a photo of tanning expert Britney Spears.

Being the sort to enjoy an occasional bit of submission, I ponied up and gave her my best shot along with a couple of dozen other people.

Well, you’ll never guess what -- I won!

I am now officially a Firecrotch of the Month award winner!

Do Nobel Prize winners get such a bold and beautiful badge to display? I think not but then, I don’t know anything about the Nobel Prize.

For all you do Beckeye, this firecroctch is for you! Actually, it’s for me, so thanks!

I Light Up Her Life

Seeing as how I’m now closer to the Korean Bagel Lady than to some of my immediate family, she knew I'd been to New York on the weekend.

This morning when I went for my bagel, she asked how my trip was. When I told her I was stuck in the airport for 6 hours due to fog in New York and cancelled flights, she laughed and said You make me so happy now! You were alone? No, I answered, I was with a friend so it wasn’t so bad. Her smile faltered. Oh, that too bad, it better if you suffer alone but for 6 hours waiting, I am now so happy still! She smiled again and laughed.

She then commanded Tell me some special place you go in New York, the Empile State Beerding? No, but I did see The Frick Collection which was very nice. She shook her head and made a face like I’ve never heard of it so it can’t have been any good. As I picked up my bagel and said see you later, she laughed and shook her head: 6 hours! Hahahaha!

Is it progress that she didn’t overtly call me dumbass this time?

Clouds In My Cofee

For a moment, looking at this photograph taken on the weekend, I felt one step closer to understanding what Starbucks means by Tall, Grande and Venti. If you look closely, you can see Coaster Punchman jealously pushing me out of the way to take his rightful spot next to Poor George.

My Country 'Tis of Thee

This weekend in Canadaland, most people will be busy readying themselves for Thanksgiving on Monday. I have a lot to be thankful for but at the top of my list is the precious three day weekend.

To celebrate, I'm heading for the U.S. of A. on a fact finding mission. My first order of business will involve poring over our free trade agreement to see if there's any way I can exchange this hat for something a little more stylish. After that, it's all gravy.
Happy Thanksgiving and Weekend!

Delta Dawn

My morning routine involves avoiding everyone until I’ve arrived at my desk and had at least a few litres of coffee.

On the long elevator ride up to the second floor this morning, a woman I don’t know perkily announced “This is Friday for me! I’m so excited!”. I started to muster my patented wan morning smile when I took in what she was wearing.

There’s nothing quite like the sight of a fifty something woman dressed in a schoolgirl style skirt, knee socks and a white shirt and tie to force a genuine ear to ear grin from me. “Good for you!” I said and made my escape.

Apart from older people trying to interpret youth through clothing, today on Trend Watch, I’d like to ask for help on another puzzler.

In relation to the incident mentioned above, while I might have said It was my biggest smile ever, a number of people might have instead written BIGGEST. SMILE. EVER. I've been seeing THIS. EMPHATIC. EVERYWHERE.

WTF man?

For Those About To Write

I must say that I receive a lot of really excellent comments on my posts and for that, I thank you.

Recently, Write Procrastinator made me laugh pretty hard with a comment that I consider suitable for framing (or for being framed with).

On my recent Sticks and Stones post, WP called me Baron Dale von Sacher-Masoch for the repeat business I bring the Korean Bagel Lady's way.

I pointed out that I was a masochist from way back and commented that WP reads me like a book, a very short book, possibly with pictures.

His rebuttal:

See the Korean Bagel Lady pour hot coffee on Dale.
Pour, Korean Bagel Lady, pour.

See the Korean Bagel Lady pelt Dale with bagels.
Pelt, Korean Bagel Lady, pelt.

A classic no?

WP is not only a brilliant commenter but a prolific writer. Along with his blog here, he maintains another where he writes under a pen name. He hosts a fun movie title combining game over here and has been featured in the digital pages of Astonishing Adventures Magazine. For a procrastinator, he's pretty damned busy!

For all you do Write Procrastinator, sah-lute!

Generalists and Majors Uh Huh

Dear Human Resources Generalist,

When someone winks at you and gives you a lascivious smile at work and you're pretty sure they were instrumental in getting someone else fired for sexual harassment, what’s the protocol?

Confused,

Dale

xoxo

You Guys Get My Goat

Throughout the month of September, I begged and pleaded for votes to make the Top 3 on BlogInterviewer. It was a down to the wire contest between me and worthy opponent Toadee for third place but in the end, a small burst of steam put me ahead.

Honouring my promise to make a charitable donation if you got me there, I shopped around and decided to take Deadspot’s suggestion, contacted Heifer and bought someone somewhere a goat!

According to Heifer’s website, goats can produce up to a gallon of milk per day and along with providing a family enough to drink, left over milk can be used for making cheese, butter or yogurt and the rest can be sold to buy clothes, school supplies and medicine.

Children generally end up caring for them as goats are gentle despite their rough and tough and mean and stuff reputations. It also gives the child a chance to learn responsibility and valuable social skills like thumbing his nose at his friends and saying ‘look at me, I’ve got a goat, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah'.

This exercise has taught me a few things:

--I have a massive ego

--You feed it

--That Toadee guy probably hates me now

--Someone else hates me (I got a thumbs down vote)

--The Korean Bagel Lady is the star of my blog

--I’m a lucky guy


People of the blogs? You're the best, no matter what everyone else says about you.