Leftover Turkey

Happy Black Friday everyone. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Just wanted to say that there really is nothing like leftover turkey to brighten a black day. While some people are out shopping today I would suggest that you take some time out and enjoy the turkey goodness. Sit back in your underwear, or pajamas if you're too much of a prude :P, and enjoy your well earned leftovers in the way that God intended, with stuffing and mashed potatoes!

Now there's this thing called tryptophan that is an amino acid makes you sleepy. Now turkey doesn't have more tryptophan than other foods, egg whites have 4 times as much, but when are you every going to eat a full pound of egg whites?

Now there's turkey sandwiches, turkey ziti, turkey noodle soup, and um, turkey salad, left over stuffing, ah with um gravy and turkey on top and zzzzzzz.

Smallville

I didn't get into Smallville until sometime in the fifth season. I saw an episode or two from the first season when it was on, but most of what I remember about that was thinking that I might have to pick up Smallville when it came out on DVD. So about 3 years ago I dropped the cash to pick up the first season on Half.com, and sat down and started watching. Well, I got hooked, and had seasons 2, 3 and 4 on their way, and my wife and I checked out for about a month every night watching these. Since then I've picked up season 5 & 6 and will probably pick up season 7 this winter, and in the mean time, I'm watching season 8 on the CW, and it suprisingly doesn't suck.

One thing that does happen way to often is I have to explain something to my wife. I don't know how I became the defacto Superman expert, but I fill that roll explaining things from the entire Superman universe when it either pops up as a plot device or is alluded to. The thing is sometimes this isn't always completely obvious. A good example of that is using Plastique as a character, even though she's more of a Captain Atom character. Mikhail Mxyzptlk is another good example, because other than his name doesn't really resemble Mr. Mxyzptlk at all. Also in the season one episode "Drone", Sasha Woodman is obviously at least based on the Queen Bee if not just the Smallville version of it. This season I've had to explain Maxima, Plastique, Doomsday and Mercy (Tess Mercer). Mercy actually had me thrown for a bit because I just didn't see her fitting into Mercy Graves spot in the Superman universe, I thought the driver that capped Patricia Swann was going to evolve into the Mercy Graves character. Oh well, can't always be right. I'm going to make my wife watch the animated film Superman: Doomsday as that will explain Doomsday and Mercy way better than I ever could.

Even though I like the obscure references to things in the Superman universe, I like Smallville overall too. Sure some of the things that happen in Smallville are very by the formula, but when they started adding story arcs in the third season, it opened up some stories that were really good. Now I'm not going to say that every large story arc was good (cough Margaret Isobel Thoreaux) and some of the stand alone episodes were almost pathetic (cough Thirst), but some of the story arcs like the Oliver Queen arc, or Chloe dead/Lois intro arc, the 33.1 arc, or the Alicia Baker arc (perhaps my favorite).

Another piece of this show I really like is the guest stars, especially the ones with a superhero background, like Dean Cain and Linda Carter. Some of the other cool guests are Tom Wopat (God forgive him for his 80's afro) and Jane Seymour, who incidentally is still the hottest Bond girl to date. Of course you can't forget some of the great cast of this show either. So far John Schneider and Allison Mack have been my favorite cast members though I'm coming around to Erica Durance and Cassidy Freeman. My favorite characters are Lex Luthor, Chloe Sullivan and Oliver Queen.

The whole show is a good mix of characters and story lines and has a lot to offer a wide variety of fans. I wish they had done something like an idea I had though for the beginning of season 8. They are in the midst of repackaging the show, moving it to Metropolis, moving away from the Lana and Lex characters, focusing on Lois, adding characters and just changing the whole formula. Why couldn't they have renamed the thing too? Change the name from Smallville to Metropolis, change the intro, the song (somebody save me!) and did a full overhaul. I think it would have changed the question of "How long can Smallville last?" to "What are they going to do with Metropolis?" It would have been a spin-off sure, but it would have been progress because eventually Superman has to leave Smallville.

Oh well, I've said my piece. Doing a little fan service with the Chloe picture.

Garage Sales

I like having them, I like going to them. Garage Sales are awesome. I've made money at garage sales, both buying and selling. So far my best garage sale so far has netted me just over $600. I've also bought things that I've later sold on eBay, and done really good on that.

Probably the best single deal I've made buying at a garage sale and selling on eBay was a almost perfect copy of the 1981 Milton Bradley boardgame Dark Tower. I saw this at a sale for $10, and I originally thought, wow, that's a lot. Then I looked it up on eBay, and immediately went back and bought it. When I got it home, it had all the parts for the game, except for the 2 extra pegs (needed 40 to play but originally came with 42 just in case) and one of the 7 segment displays had one segment that didn't light up. I very specifically listed all this on the listing, and still sold the game for $137.50. That's 1275% profit, so that's not too bad.

I also bought a back-lit wall clock that looked like it belonged in a 60's diner. It was obviously a Pepsi promotional clock. The guy wanted $5.00 for it, and I said I really liked it. The only thing was is that it wouldn't light up. The guy apologized for this and told me I could just have it. So I took it and when I got it home I opened it up and there was a very simple wiring harness that had been unplugged. I plugged it in, and it worked great. Ended up selling that for $70.

What's I've recently done is buy some books that I knew I could sell online. I've bought about $100 worth of books and so far have sold some of them for about $400. Sure it's only 300% so far, but still that's a workable business model.

I also really like having garage sales and wheeling and dealing. For some reason I'm good at it too. It's really just a matter of knowing which people want to spend their money. Getting people to give you their money is easy as long as you don't get flustered. If people are wheeling and dealing with you, and are asking you to come down on something, that means they want to give you their money. It's easy to sell to people like these. It's surprising how people don't recognize that these people want to buy. I guess that's because the normal person thinks that it's a good idea to sell the stock they own at all time lows and put their money in precious metals at all time highs because it's "safe". That's actually what I call "dumb". Guess I'm just weird.

Superheroe Movies

I'd like to make a point with this post that has been needed ever since Marvel started making superhero movies. Superhero is its own separate genre. I like science fiction a lot. I like fantasy fiction too, more to read, less to write or watch. However many people used to lump fantasy fiction into science fiction for some reason. There's really not a great reason for doing this in my opinion, but it happened never the less. My local used bookstore does this too, and I don't mind when it comes to what books I can buy with my credit there. But they lump horror into it too, and horror is a separate genre and most people won't disagree with that. If you think about it, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars don't belong in the same genre either, even though there may be similarities in the storyline. Just as this is true of sci-fi, fantasy and horror, it is true for superhero fiction.

Superhero fiction has come a long way since the breakout 2000 movie X-men. This launched the new renaissance of movies that doesn't show any sign of slowing. From the successes of Spiderman and Batman to the less than spectacular Elektra or Punisher, there certainly have been more superhero movies over the last decade than at any other time in the past. Because of the popular nature of these movies, even the ones with less than sparkling reviews, the whole superhero genre has had a considerable resurgence.

Now I'm not totally limiting my superhero post to the movies, but that is definitely where the superhero genre is moving to. There is of course Smallville, which I'll post about separately soon. This has been such an improvement over some of the crummy superhero cartoons from decades past. Of course I'm not talking about Justice League or Justice League Unlimited. Those rock. And I will officially go on record saying that the Joker from the Justice League Franchise is the best Joker ever. Lois Lane from JLU is really awesome too, and even though I'm starting to come around to Erica Durance, the JLU Lois Lane is the best Lois too. Most of the other animated stuff sucked though, except for maybe the animated movies, the Avengers and Doomsday.

I think some other movies kinda fit into this genre even though they might not be obvious. Mystery Men and Ultraviolet obviously fit into this genre, but I think the Laura Croft and Indiana Jones movies also fit into this genre too, though not perfectly.

Fried Green Beans

While doing a little research on this, I actually came across another dish I've never heard of before: deep fried green beans which look like green french fries. I'm not talking about this, what I'm talking about is panfried green beans.

Pan fried green beans are something that I got introduced to by my mother-in-law. I think what she made originated as a southern dish that was probably intended as a use for leftover green beans. She would take some onion and saute it in a iron skillet with some butter and olive oil. After the onions had started to caramelize, she would add the green beans (which were french cut if I remember) and let them fry just until some of the green beans were just starting to brown. That rocked.

The year later at Thanksgiving she replaced the green bean casserole with this same dish, except that she had added toasted almond shavings to the whole dish. It made it slightly sweet and added a crunch that really enhanced the flavor. The onions and almonds both were sweet, the onions and green beans were both salty and savory, and together just made a great side dish. I'm sure you could find a good recipe online if you wanted to try this. I'd recommend replacing your next green bean casserole with this as green bean casserole is so 90's.

The Three Stooges

I understand that the Three Stooges are primarily a guy thing. If you find a Three Stooges girl, marry her. If you can't swing that, sorry man, that's a huge loss and I feel for you. Maybe at least you can help hook her up with one of your friends. I've got a lot of respect for a dedicated wingman. But I digress.

The Stooges have an interesting and varied history, which is well documented by the way and doesn't need to be repeated here, but let me tell you what, these guys are great. I'll tell you right now that although some people think that the Stooges are violent, this is just not the case. This kind of slapstick humor is a great release of pent up frustration for just about anyone. These guys almost singlehandedly fixed all of the social issues of the first half of the twentieth century. I can't think of any specific examples right now, but just imagine how bereft of color and joy the world would be if not for this group of men.

First of all, there weren't three stooges, there were 7 and almost 8. You know Moe, Larry and Curly, and a lot of you will remember Shemp, but it takes a real connoisseur to remember Joe Besser, Curly-Joe DeRita, and Joe Palma. Emil Sitka was also brought on, but never made it into a film. Moe is my favorite, hey he had to be someone's favorite. The real wuss of the bunch was Joe Besser because he specifically had it written into his contract that he was not to be hit. This was a Stooge who didn't understand the Stooges. Sad really.

One of the things I really liked about these guys is that they were concerned about children and were generous with them. They did some charity work with children's hospitals and such.

BTW, I'm back home now. It was a good trip, but I'm glad to be back.

Garlic at Arabic Restaurants

Alrighty then. I've been trying to find a picture or a name of what I'm talking about, and there just doesn't seem to be one. The closest name I could find of what I might be talking about it Toom, which is just Arabic for garlic or garlic sauce.

Whatever you call it, garlic is this killer white sauce that is served with pita bread as an appetizer at some of the Arabic/Lebanese/Middle Eastern restaurants that I have been to. The cool thing is it's good on just about everything, and you can always order more. There's a restaurant not too far from my house that serves the stuff with pita to go. That is the PERFECT movie snack. So I guess that picking some of this for yourself on your next movie night is my little tip for the day.

BTW, I'm in Chicago today. If you look at Navy Pier, you'll see me.

Nova

You might want to call this one an aftershock from Science Theme Week and the PBS post. Nova has been on PBS for like 300 years or so, but it's still totally awesome, at least most of the time. It's a show about history or science or just about anything that fills my need for interesting diversion.

Just recently watched an episode about arctic dinosaurs that I saw a bit of that suggesting that there was paleontological proof dinosaurs were much more adaptable to temperature than is conventionally though. There was also something about differing opinions regarding whether or not dinosaurs were coldblooded in the same manner that contemporary reptiles are. You actually have to think to get it.

Also there was another show that explored the Inca rebellion in the New World using forensic analysis on some remains found on an old battleground. Another cool one explored the history of the exploration of Absolute Zero. A few years ago there was also a show about the recreation of a historic Roman bath. That one was absolutely awesome, but might have been better viewed from a jacuzzi (see previous post).

BTW, in Nashville today. One more stop in my tour of the midwest.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Space Ghost Coast to Coast is what got me into Adult Swim, or more correctly, when Adult Swim first came on, I did like one show, and that was Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I enjoy a bit of absurdity in my comedy, and SGC2C takes it to an extreme. Like Willy Wonka said, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."

Space Ghost was a Hanna Barbarra cartoon from the 60's that didn't have an extremely long run, but it was alright. I think I watched it in reruns as a kid a couple times. Adult Swim took the characters from the Space Ghost franchise and put them in the setting of a talk show. Normally I would think this was just plain stupid, but they actually made it work, primarily by not focusing too hard on having guests. Sure they have them, but they don't try to get anywhere with them in particular, or they just make fun of them, like Bjork. Haha, Bjork.

The interaction between Space Ghost, Moltar, Zorak and occasionally Brak is priceless. Some of the best writing is definitely Moltar though, who is generally just a bit annoyed with everything that is going on, and seems to be the only one who isn't a complete idiot. It's all good.

BTW, I'm in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee today looking at the Smokey Mountains. Yeah!

YouTube

YouTube is starting to grow on me now. Sure it's been a cool place for funny videos and for people to fool around on leaving seconds long videos about nothing or videos that you would swear a epileptic wombat shot with a camera from the 1930's. There was just something about it that always seemed to me to be an underachievement for the site. I always thought they could do so much more. And now they are starting to.

Sure you can still find pirated episodes of shows you really like, but YouTube just got into full length sponsored episodes. I've been watching some of the initial Star Trek TOS eps, and the quality is pretty good. I especially like the turn lights down and theater view.

YouTube allows you to become a cewebrity if you want, or to just pass on that funny video that used to have to be copied PC to PC. I remember one of those that took 4 floppy disks just to copy back in the day, and you actually had to join the file later, and it was only 25 seconds long. Go fig.

On a totally off topic note, I'm on the road today, on a vacation. More updates of where I am am later.

Buffalo Meat

Dead cow flesh is just so 90's. Dead buffalo flesh is where it's at. I'm for all the bits of buffalo that aren't in this picture. Take away the snout, horns, eyes and hooves and it's all good man. Plus you can use the skin for clothing. Indians knew that these puppies were all that and a leather bag of meat.

Seriously though, as meat goes this is just about the best out there. The taste isn't gamy and the fat content is less than that of either chicken or turkey. It's like the healthy beef, and you can seriously call steak a health food now. How cool is that.

I don't think I have to go on about the coolness of steak. Mmmm, dead buffalo flesh.

Massage

I have a bad shoulder which I think I injured playing football in high school in my sophomore year. A guy landed on my right shoulder and I was kinda crushed between that guy and the ground. My left shoulder definitely took the brunt of the impact. For a couple of years I didn't really have any pain but there must have been some lingering damage as there is definitely pain there now, and there has been for almost a decade.

I take a couple Tylenol once in a while if the pain gets too bad, which doesn't happen much, but occasionally, and actually sitting here writing now is one of those times, the pain builds and builds and even when it gets better, it doesn't get all the way better, and the next time the pain is worse because it starts with pain that's already there and I have an amazing amount of pain for days on end that I don't get relief from even when I'm asleep, and the only thing that relieves any of it at all is a massage. Wow, a 102 word sentence to express that my shoulder bothers me sometimes. To be honest, I noticed the length of that sentence about 1/3 of the way through and decided to just let it go to see where it ended up. Pretty proud of that myself, but let's get back on topic.

So now for me I don't just like massage, I actually need a massage from time to time. Now as a connoisseur let me say that not all massage is created equal. A good massage is more than just rubbing a muscle or flexing a tired joint, the whole point of it is relief. If you don't feel better after a massage, it wasn't. I've had a few people people rub my shoulders who should honestly be deprived of the use of their hands for the rest of their lives for what they did to me in the name of massage.

I've got a shiatsu machine that only does one motion, but if my shoulder gets really bound up, nothing works it out like an hour on the machine. I think my record is about 3 hours loosening, and I felt better for the better part of a year. Shiatsu is actually a form of reflexology, which I've heard of but don't really know too much about other than it does work and makes me feel good.