An update on BJ’s and the salmonella scare, a hissy fit untaken over lost glasses and recipe for tortellini soup. Detailed information on paying one’s self-employment taxes, from me, for our soon-to-be Secretary of the Treasury. Heh.
American Idol went to San Francisco and Louisville and an interesting statistic re this show. One real contender pops up with a most intriguing background. A Puerto Rican lady annoys us with her laugh as she moves on to Hollywood. With pics and video clip compilations you’ll find nowhere else on the Internet.
Bachelor Jason continues on his quest to find a new bride and mother for his son. Amazing, I tell you, simply Amazing.
With pics and video clip compilations you’ll find nowhere else on the Internet.
Pic of the Day
The Messiah Is Inaugurated
So I tell myself, in those moments of self-assessment that would make me a better person, that my dislike of Obama the Messiah is sour grapes and is definitely unsportsmanlike.
Then I remember how terrible the Messiah followers treated George W. Bush, even more, as the poor beleaguered man was leaving the national stage a whole bunch of Messiah-worshipers sang “Nanana, nanana, Hey, Hey, Goodbye.” I mean he was going to be out of their lives, couldn’t they have just left well enough alone?
While two wrongs don’t make a right, I say phooey. I don’t like Obama, I will often refuse to refer to him as President Obama like they did for George W. and I will always bear in mind how the Messiah’s disciples who worship his beloved feet acted like the heathens they obviously are. And I include quite a few Republicans in that group.
Yon reader who so adores Obama who will save the planet, part the waters and pay our house payments even as he appoints tax-evaders to head our Treasury Department and places thugs or thieves on his staff, will just have to click on by. Soon enough the Messiah will cut down this Blog and all others, conservative talk radio, Fox news, and any and all free speech outlets who should speak bad (or make fun of his big ears) of He who will heal the planet. Until then I will say what the constitution allows me to say. The reader can decide whether or not to stick around and I will defend his or her right to do so.
In the interest of fair and balanced, I include this link to an LA Times article which praises the Messiah so much it will cause diabetes to the vulnerable.
Below I include, cause that’s just the kind of guy I am, a picture of our new President. And a handsome fellow he is.
Below, just to round it out, I include a picture of the Messiah’s new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. Said pic was taken, I will remind, on Barack’s inauguration day and such class this group will have.
I’m just sayin’.
In Praise of Soup
Soup is a fine food as The Wise I sees it.
Of course there’s requirements. Soup should have a full, throaty broth and there should be plenty of it. Soup should also be filled with various vegetables, some pasta, perhaps, a protein such as chicken or seafood. None of this soup filler should overwhelm any other.
A fine soup can be made in a cream or nice stock broth.
A fine soup can be served with a nice sandwich, grilled cheese is always good with soup. Soup is always a part of a meal, rarely the entirety of it.
So I came across this soup recipe, called tortellini soup. I made it and enjoyed it so much except I made a few changes. Hell, I didn’t even use tortellini!
Tortellini Soup
2 tbsp olive oil
2 oz. Pancetta or bacon, finely diced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (49.5 oz) chicken broth
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 package (9 oz.) cheese tortellini
1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes in puree
8 oz. Fresh spinach, rinsed, stemmed and chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add pancetta. Cook until crisp. Add onion; cook 3-4 minutes or until soft. Add garlic; cook 1 more minute. Add broth and Italian seasoning; bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook tortellini according to package directions; drain. Add cooked tortellini to coup mixture. Stir in tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes. Add spinach and cook just until wilted. Season with salt, pepper. Garnish with cheese.
Above is the original recipe. I changed it quite a bit but the above would likely be fine as written.
First, forget pancetta or bacon. That kind of thing always turns rubbery in soups. I like to keep a container of soup around for a week, having a bowl every other day or so. I did add bacon in my version but wouldn’t do it again.
Second, I used normal pasta, wagon-wheel types of things.
Finally, what with it being January and everything, fresh spinach is in short supply. I do, however, quite love spinach, yes the kind that comes in Del Monte cans and is boiled to death. I just love the taste of it. So I left off the fresh spinach and added two cans of spinach, being sure to include the juice.
With the depth of the garlic and the unique taste of the spinach, the above made a wonderful soup that I had at least once every day for a week.
Timothy Geithner
Once upon a time I worked as an Independent Contractor. And hey, folks, I won’t even lie to you as the fine, fine Tomothy Geithner, whose tax-cheating self will soon be our next Secretary of the Treasury, did.
I was trying to cheat on my taxes, yes I was. I was hoping that the rather muddled company for which I worked would fail, in the confusion, to generate a 1099 and report what they paid me to the IRS.
Well they didn’t.
I had to pay not only my taxes, but penalty and interest as well.
The self-employment tax on Independent Contractor wages is, or was at the time…might have changed by now…15.2%. That’s BEFORE federal and state taxes on the money.
Then again, I wasn’t Obama’s choice to be Secretary of the country’s Treasury and get this…Geithner’s EMPLOYER paid the man’s self-employment taxes and Geithner not only didn’t pay the self-employment tax, he kept the money for himself!
The Messiah knows how to pick them, don’t he?
If you are a criminal, thug, thief, Islamofacist terrorist or just plain rude individual, then you are Barack the Messiah’s best buddy and shall either be given a ticket to the inaugural ball or be appointed to his staff.
I’m just sayin’.
Just for Smiles
Came across these pics in my email box and was intrigued. So I decided to share.
Lost Glasses and Hissy Fits
I reported, in my first “thoughts” post of 2009, that my New Year’s resolution would be to cease throwing childish hissy fits whenever little things didn’t go my way.
The odd thing here is that when gigantic events are upon me I often soldier up, straighten my shoulders and plow on, steadfast of purpose and sure of goal. But let me drop something and I will sometimes stomp and shout, maybe curse a bit, over the absurdity of having to interrupt my busy life with such nonsense as searching for a bit of something laying somewhere on the floor.
Husband immediately stated that there was no way I could ever hope to live up to that lofty resolution, such is his faith in me. I told him that I will, that it might take me time, but that I would not only record every time I threw a silly hissy fit which helped no one, I would also record those times when I did NOT throw a hissy fit. The problem here being that I don’t get any credit for NOT throwing a hissy fit because, well, no one knows about it.
Which leads me to the lost glasses. Misplaced items almost always warrant a fine hissy fit as looking for items that should be within my reach too deserve some artful cursing and spitting for the waste of my precious life to search.
So one morning I awake and cannot find my glasses. Said glasses should be sitting merrily upon my bedside night stand as most folks do with their glasses but there you have it. Nowhere to be found.
Misplaced glasses are a special pain because the eyes needed to find them are essentially crippled in that, duh, the glasses that would make vision work are, eh, misplaced.
Now I did get a bit panicked, yes I did. I patted down the bed, I looked under pillows, I took the cover off of my bedroom easy chair lest they fell down into its bowels. I got down on hands and knees and patted under the bed for they could have fallen and somehow ended under. I kept telling myself that I should not scream or curse as this would be a silly hissy fit and would not help me find my glasses.
Finally I found an old pair of glasses and put them on. Surprisingly I could see just fine and this calmed me down. If I never found the glasses that should be somewhere nearby, dear Lord eyeglasses don’t just get up and hitchhike out of town, do they, at least I’d have this fine backup pair? And yes I checked the top of my head should they be perched upon.
Although I was quite annoyed that my eyeglasses were gone, that hissy fit or no, the damn things were gone, and there was no logical explanation and this made me mad, dammit!
There was one more possibility. I leave my robe lying across the bottom of the bed for chills during nightly bathroom visits, after shower shivers…that sort of thing. I picked it up and checked the pocket. Smooth as snot on a doorknob my eyeglasses slid out of the robe pocket, with a little help from my hand.
So, for the record, one hissy fit avoided, per my resolution, and situation resolved.
I’m just sayin’.
BJ’s Warehouse and Salmonella
I wrote about my recent visit to BJ’s Warehouse HERE. In the same post I lamented my purchase of a huge container of Austin peanut butter sandwiches on the same day that Kellogg company announced a salmonella scare on this same product.
I mean, it wasn’t like I bought just a pack of the things is what I’m saying here.
I had a coupon that allowed me to shop at BJ’s Warehouse for one visit without bother of an annual membership fee. I did so and promised I would compare the prices with Walmart’s. It’s hard to beat Walmart’s prices on any level.
Walmart had Sugar Frosted Flakes in a big box at $3.50 a box. I paid about five bucks or so at BJ’s for almost double those in the Walmart box. Which, at first glance, seems like BJ’s has the better deal but two things here: first, one has to factor in the cost of the annual membership to the cost of the BJ’s Frosted Flakes. Second, BJ’s new warehouse here in the swamps of Delaware is quite a few miles down the road. So there’s a travel cost involved for the savings.
When all was said and done, after my accountant mind applied the logic, it would turn out that the cost of the BJ’s Frosted Flakes was about one cent per pound cheaper than the Walmart Frosted Flakes. Per pound, let me emphasize. My goodness, do you know how much a pound of Frosted Flakes is? Even with husband gobbling them down as a Blue Jay eats peanuts, a pound is an enormous amount of Frosted Flakes that even he might not get to within a year’s timeframe. By then it would be time for another year’s membership at BJ’s Warehouse. For a penny savings?
I’ve decided that I will not pay the annual membership fee for BJ’s Warehouse. That coupon for a free visit was worth it and should any more grace my mailbox I might take advantage.
But for a couple with modest eating habits and with Walmart close by AND, very important, NO sales tax in the state of Delaware…I have not been convinced that membership to BJ’s Warehouse is for me.
Kellogg’s, by the way, is sending me a full refund for that gigantic pack of peanut butter crackers, which I am to destroy.
American Idol-San Francisco and Louisville
Review of Phoenix, Kansas City Tryouts
Watched the two pre-season shows this past 1/20/09 and 1/21/09. The judging team went to San Francisco and Louisville. Nothing major to report besides the pic montages and video remixes below.
I read that even this early season show of American Idol beat out all the messianic inauguration balls and this makes me smile.
The most promising of the contenders from these two noble cities was a contender named Joanna Pacitti. It would seem that she had a record contract with one of the big record companies but “it didn’t work out”. I’m not sure what that means but Pacitti is included in the remix of the “good” contenders.
I think she’s one to look out for.
Compilation of the Best Below:
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