Pic of the Day
| Quote of the Day |
| Web Site Worth the Visit Bowl Down the Birds A surprisingly addictive little game here, what with a bowling cat using, what? Birds?...as the bowling pins. Hairball Bowling |
| TIDBITS WEATHER BULLETIN North Dakota News This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota after the recent snowstorm. Up here in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a historic event ---may I even say a "Weather Event of Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communitiesand cut power to tens of thousands of people. FYI: George Bush did not come.... FEMA did nothing.... No one howled for the government. No one blamed the government. No one even uttered an expletive on TV. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit. Our mayors did not blame Bush or anyone else. Neither did our governor blame Bush or anyone else. CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards..... No one asked for a FEMA trailer house.... No one looted... Nobody - I mean Nobody - demanded the government do something... Nobody expected the government to do anything either. No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and no Geraldo Rivera came or were asked to come to our aid. No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found. Nope, we just melted the snow for water... Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow-engulfed cars... The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny... Local restaurants made food, and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snow-bound families. Families took in the stranded people - total strangers. We fired up wood stoves... Broke out coal-oil or Coleman lanterns... We put on an extra layers of clothes, because up here it is "Work or Die." We did not wait for some affirmative-action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin' at home' checks. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves. In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% most of the world's social problems evaporate. The world does not owe you a living. |
Fox's "Hell's Kitchen"
I love cooking shows and thought Food Network's cooking competition (Who Will Be the Next Food Nextwork Star?") ,covered on this Blog HERE, was a wonderful series.
I had every intention of covering this Fox series but after the first show I will not. Below are links to all aspects of the show and yon readers can watch this drivel if so desired.
The first and only episode of "Hell's Kitchen" that I watched was on 6/12/06. I note that this year's competition will be a "Battle of the Sexes". So okay, that's an interesting premise.
In this first of the series, we were treated to shrimp with chocolate sauce, and a Shrimp Scampi with a Caeser Salad on Top.
One contestant, rather amusingly, a Tom who labors as a stockbroker, had a serious sweating problem. Much of the show (perhaps too much) was devoted to the problem of Tom's sweat.
Interestingly, the women won the meat cutting contest and even more interesting, their reward was a helicopter ride to a restaurant serving wild game. Go with me here...that "prize" was hardly something a woman would love. I'm thinking the show's creators thought the GUYS would win the meat cutting contest and came up with what is a more appropriate treat for male winners.
Thus the show has promise on some level but I simply will not watch another show because...Why? That cussing and bleeping is a real turn-off.
I simply cannot stand another second of it.
Now Fox likely thinks that Chef Ramsey cussing is somehow unique and intriguing. Perhaps in the kitchen. On TV, the curses and required bleeps are simply annoying and majorly detract from what's going on in the dagblasted kitchen.
I predict this show will go down in flames this season. The way the contest is set up, the silly action of constantly closing the kitchen, the endless, endless cursing, it just does not work.
The Food Network did a wonderful series of a cooking contest. It CAN be done.
Hell's Kitchen Main Site
Hell's Kitchen Recaps
Hell's Kitchen Show Info
Wren Update
The precious baby wrens of my famed pig planter have fledged. And the morning of their grand initiation into the world outside of the iron planter was eventful and provided precious memories for the humans.
I'd worried about the fledging of these babies in that it would not do to have baby wrens flopping about the porch all scared whilst big galoot dog was present. Though I had no idea when the parent wrens would summon their children from the nest and indeed, considered that these parents would know better than to call the babies with dogs and humans about.
The parents were as wise as I thought.
Husband left for work one morning and almost immediately he came back in.
"Come here, Pat. Be real quiet."
I knew something was up with the wrens. I excoriated dogs to remain behind closed doors and went onto the porch where husband pointed out a sight to me that was precious beyond precious.
Two little baby wrens, their downy feathers still waving in bits and threads around their faces, clung tightly to the wrought-iron railing behind the pig planter. I did manage to get a picture of one baby wren, below. But that sight of those two youngsters holding onto the small railing of my plant holder was almost sad but yet such a happy thing. In the driveway and along the sidewalk, the two wren parents called and cajoled the youngsters. The youngsters had huge mournful eyes and were the picture of fear.
Well hey, it's a scary world out there and so far as these two baby wrens saw it, there was not one good reason for their parents to insist that they leave that cozy nest and yet they did as commanded. They simply had to trust that their parents knew what they were doing but their eyes shouted that they had serious doubts. There were three baby wrens in the planter. One, we assumed, had made the leap from the railing to the leafy safety of the nearby azalea bushes.
Since the babies have left I hear the parents' calling them. I don't know where they went and as of this writing I have not seen them. Husband told me he smiled all day at the sight of those two babies, so scared yet so brave.
"May they live long and happy lives," my husband said before leaving for work, knowing that the babies will have been on their way by the time he comes home.
Indeed. And someday, who knows, a cuter than cute wren might cross my path. Here's hoping I can utter a soft "It's all right" and perhaps, maybe, they might remember those words from the days they grew in a pig planter on a big woman's porch with two dogs sniffing about.
The Art Show of Ocean City
"This place is going to be full of liberals," I lamented to my niece as we wended our way to what was billed as "Saturday Night Live With the Artists". The event was held in a local hotel in Maryland's Ocean City resort and niece had purchased tickets from a loyal customer to her hair salon. It's the sort of thing one must do as an entrepreneur in that town. I am niece's consultant and bookkeeper and she enlisted me to attend the show with her because "you are the perfect person", as she told me.
A local artist, one David Turner-a sculptor, was the main guest of the show, which featured artists in action and something called a silent auction.
David Turner, evidently of some renown in this area, had sculpted a giant eagle called "spilling the wind". A raffle for a miniaturized version of this sculpture was also featured that evening. The big sculpture was going to be donated by the sculptor to the Ocean City Beach Birds Project.
Hey, I'm just a humble blogger, I didn't understand what it was all about.
Other artists were also featured, most of them hawking books. Including one local Judge, more on him later.
Because I have some thoughts and comments, heh, I will use my impressive stature as a blogger to so state them.
David Turner totally ignored me when I approached him for some more information on his sculptures. I also had camera in hand and informed him that I was a blogger writing a story on the show. Indeed, David's sculptures were of wildlife, especially birds, and were quite good. I know a thing or two about birds and one of Turner's sculpture was of a lovely wren, a bird fellow I'd been recently up close with given the famous wrens-in-the-pig-planter.
So okay, I am going to write really nasty things about this celebrated David Turner. For sure I am a middle-aged woman and not nearly as attractive as the sweet young things hanging around this famed sculptor. I understand hormones and such. But the guy would not talk to me, he acted as if I was an annoyance with my pesky questions while, strangely, he had endless talk for the pretty young things in the surround.
David Turner thought with his testicles and the price for that is some nasty assed blogger telling the world all about it. I don't like the guy and really think that for this one night he could have put his penis on hold and really try to promote his work. Here was a knowledgeable blogger taking pictures and trying to ask questions and every time a pretty girl crossed his path he cut me off.
I accept all accusations of sour grapes but it's simply not true. The guy had a roving eye and had no interest in the charity or good cause he was there that evening to represent. He was a young man and I know he had no interest me as a member of the opposite sex. For one night, ladies and gems, couldn't he have spent time promoting the cause instead of indulging his testicles? Or, go with me here, there were intermissions and other interludes that would have allowed this alleged sculptor to chase the young things after his rude self. He could have provided a local blogger with background and color and STILL chased the pretty things he so cherished is what I'm saying here.
I don't like David Turner and think his sculptures were UGLY! Not to mention his rude behavior.
As for Judge Cathell, heh. Turns out his wife is a regular customer of my niece's beauty salon and in the picture above niece poses with the esteemed Judge. I did buy one of his books, a book that intrigued me in that it's about the famed Phillips family. The Phillips family is famous for their many seafood, particularly crab, restaurants in Merryland. Judge Cathell wrote a book about them and I purchased one. I shall do a review of it once read.
The good Judge also wrote another book, a love story. I commented on the incredulity of a man writing a love story and the Judge proceeded to read, hey, not one page, not even two pages, but an entire CHAPTER of the book to me and my niece. Frankly, while the prose seemed fine, I thought the story to be silly and hackneyed and nothing a woman writer would pen.
Okay, I'm done being honest and bit cruel. I'm a blogger. I tell 'em like I see 'em.
More Miscellany posts HERE
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