the Fairy Penguins by Liam

Fairy Penguins live in Southern Australia, New Zealand, and under houses. It looks like it’s wearing a blue tuxedos and it has a white belle. They are 14 to 15 inches tall and weigh 2 to 4 pounds. Fairy Penguins eat fish, squid, and krill. There babies are called chicks. The mom lays two eggs. When a chick is seven months old it goes to a new life. How it gets around is climbing, swimming, waddling, diving, and tobogganing. It does have pray, it’s pray are cars, lobster-traps, dogs, cats, rats, ferrets, larg lizards, and snakes. If you kill a Fairy Penguin you are braking the lla.

Burrito yes. Hamburger no way, Jose.

For those of you who were wondering, the last post was an example of one of the few oddball meals that my pregnant wife is able to eat. Most typical meals (chicken, beef, etc.) make her nauseous. And since she cooks, we all eat what she eats. Although the requisite pickles are not on her menu, she craves strawberry ice cream and good pizza. Personally, I think almost any pizza from the take joints is crap... edible sustenance but nothing I look forward to. Luckily, Kerry sniffed out a place out here with excellent New York-style pizzas.

With Erin, it seemed like Kerry ate a lot of Chik-fil-A and hot wings. With Liam, Kerry stuck with meat and potato basics... no Chinese, no Mexican. And always, she can never figure out what to eat. Some free advice from someone who knows, if you can avoid it, keep away from a hungry pregnant women who can't make up her mind.

Keep far away.

Spinach Quiche

"Let me start by saying that I devised this recipe myself, and I just sort of add 'this and that.' This recipe is VERY forgiving, so you can add or remove ingredients according to your taste!" - Bailey

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 (4.5 ounce) can mushrooms, drained
1 (6 ounce) package herb and garlic feta, crumbled
1 (8 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Saute garlic and onion in butter until lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Stir in spinach, mushrooms, feta and 1/2 cup Cheddar cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon mixture into pie crust.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and milk. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into the pastry shell, allowing egg mixture to thoroughly combine with spinach mixture.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Sprinkle top with remaining Cheddar cheese, and bake an additional 35 to 40 minutes, until set in center. Allow to stand 10 minutes before serving.

Big Momma

Totally surprising me and my sister, my 68-year old mother got a tattoo last weekend. And not a demure flower on the shoulderblade but a snake encircling her LOWER arm!

Jeezum Crow!

Personally, I'm kind of neutral towards tattoos. To me, one or two is fine but a lot of people who get one seem to get tat-addicted and start crowding themselves. When I was single, I sometimes entertained getting one but never got around to it nor could I ever pick what to get. Now that I'm a family man, I've got absolutely zero inclination. I'll probably get one when I'm 68.

Go Mom!!

Jimi Hendrix. Badass.

Jimi Hendrix’s “Smash Hits” was the first album I had on CD. If I remember it right, I bought it about a year before I had a CD player. I put it on my ipod recently and all I can say is “Badass.”

From Stone Free...
Stone free do what I please
Stone free to ride the breeze
Stone free I can't stay
Got to got to got to get away
Yeah
Tear me loose baby


From Foxy Lady...
You make me feel like
Feel like sayin' foxy
Foxy
Foxy lady

From Can You See Me?...
Awww shucks…

Plus the entire song Fire.

I love how… especially in Purple Haze, the first track on the collection… you can hear him coughing and clearing his throat. Jimi’s not wasting any time for retakes… he’s got better things on the other side of town.

Gellin'

If you’re going to run a marathon, you’re going to run out of energy. Maybe it’s psychological but for me, I’m going to need more than the PowerAde they pass out. I had one of those carb gels once a long, long time ago when I used to mountain bike and it tasted like the sickly sweet goo that, when I was a cavity-prone tot, the dentist used to fill teeth molds with then have me keep in my mouth for 5 minutes. I gagged and had to spit the crap out.

So I tried one about a month ago after a run just to check it out and though not horrible, I wasn’t looking forward to forcing a few of them down during the race. But, as I found out last Sunday, after running for 17 miles, anything with sustenance tastes pretty damn good!

Aware? Not so much.

I was thinking about putting together a typical Jim rant, this one about how I can't stand overused phrases. I've heard a particular phrase three times in the last week and figured another "my bad" was hitting the scene.

Of course, since said "scene" is that of a guy living amongst the stripmall-ensconced Targets and Krogers 20 miles OTP who hardly ever watches TV and, until 15 minutes ago when they announced behind me that he was the musical guest on an SNL rerun, thought Kanye West was a woman, I'm a little behind on the latest trends.

I looked up "not so much" prior to starting this post and found this right off the Google bat. Apparently, Buffy the Vampire Slayer got it going a while ago and Jon Stewart made it big 2-3 years ago. I never watched Buffy and haven't had cable since 2000 so I never caught that one. My bad.

Poppies, poppies, poppies!!!

For the last week or so, I’ve been reading Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz” to the kids before they get off to bed. Although I read a couple of the Oz books when I was a kid I don’t think I ever read the one the movie was based on. It’s actually a little less gushy (not so many lovely princesses and darling waifs) than I remember the others being. Also, there are many differences between it and the movie.

First off, the famous Ruby Slippers don’t exist. They are Silver Shoes. The Tin Man is the slightly more awkward-sounding “Tin Woodman”. Even the Tin Woodsman would’ve been a little better. And the witch is not the harassing threat she is throughout the movie but only goes after Dorothy and crew after they enter her land basically intent on destroying her.

Speaking of destruction, it’s not the typical fairy tale. The Tin “Woodman” brandishes his axe in every other chapter, mostly cutting wood to make rafts, bridges, and ladders but also severing limbs (well, from mobile trees) and chopping the heads from 40 wolves. The jolly Scarecrow breaks the necks of 40 crows and the Lion snaps the neck of a giant spider.

But the part my kids seem to dig the most we haven’t even got to. It’s the picture to the right of three stoogish guys with no arms (likely victims of the Woodman). They’ve got a little chant complete with strange barking laughs : “We’re the Quadlings! Ha-ha-ha! We’re the Quadlings! Ha-ha-ha!”

Or something like that. The way I wrote it above makes it seem like there's some kind of structure to it.

No structure for the Quadlings!!!

Zippy

I love banana peppers. Not the obnoxiousness of jalapenos but with a good zing.

RIP POW

I just saw in the paper today heard today that the Prince of Wales, a pretty cool British pub in Midtown, has been closed. Per the ad, it was closed due to a lack of “adequate parking and foot traffic”.

Lack of foot traffic? I guess any dreams I had of the cities of the US becoming more European have died when a British pub directly across from the soccer fields in the biggest park in Atlanta cites lack of foot traffic as a reason for shutting down. The place is surrounded by apartments and condos.

I suspect the real reason is the lack of parking. Yes, compared to a strip mall with it’s acres of slab, the parking is horrible. I used to live there and I know.

I guess people are scared to walk half a block to their homes or cars.

Damn…maybe we should adopt the Wild West/Kennesaw idea of everyone carrying a six-shooter at their hip.

Sure, the numbers of accidental and emotional killings would skyrocket but at least we’d have a place to go and have a beer.

Humorology 101 - Lesson 17

Ok. We all agree that a joke is not funny if you have to explain it. Even if someone doesn’t even know it is a joke, it still makes it less funny to explain it. But I guess that's because when he eventually realizes it’s a joke, there is a moment, however minor and brief, where he feels a little stupid.

So that’s funny.

But what if he never realizes that it was a joke and goes on with his life forgetting it entirely? Is it then funnier to explain it?

No.. it still isn’t.

Hey, I know… what if you give away the fact that it was a joke indirectly, not even relating it to the original joke?

Is that funny?

No.

Super Duper Dog Dare Tuesday

I show up at the voting spot with about 20 minutes to spare before it closes. No crowds and not any major traffic problems getting there so things are looking good.

But what's this? I need 6 forms of ID?!

6?!!

Who the hell has 6 forms of ID? I have my driver's license, of course, and I think my work badge might be in the car somewhere. Somewhere at home is my passport and, probably in the attic there might be a Malibu Grand Prix Club card from when I lived in Orlando but I don't have time to get either of those!

Damn... doesn't matter any way.

The Mongoose Flies

Sunday, we went to the SuperBowl Party of some friends of ours. Did what I always do... ate a bunch of food, drank beer and only watched about 20 minutes total of the game which is the most NFL I've watched this season. Not that it wasn't a good game... down to the wire, stunning upset, 19-0 hopes... doesn't get much better than that where a game is concerned. The little'uns rampaged upstairs with about 8-10 more of their ilk then watched one of the thousands of CGI animated affairs.... this one a Shrek rip-off.

Highlights: garlic potato skins, chile con queso dip (nothing really exceptional about it, I just love the stuff), a Negro Modelo with said dip, and a lot of comic talk about our upcoming redive into poopy diaper world. And, to top it off, just as we were making our farewlls during the 4th, A Toyota Sequoia commercial comes on with you-know-who doing the music.

Ahhh... beer is good.