Category — Uncategorized

Really just reposting this from Kevin Church, himself reposting from the source, but I know that there are some Star Wars enthusiasts in my audience who don’t cross over to his.

The amount of truth in the post I link to is a bit unsettling. I’ve never been one of those Star Wars geeks who finds the idea of dressing up as anything (well, I was a Jedi one Halloween, but that’s different) appealing, let alone a Stormtrooper. I think the 501st is a good group of people, but I especially don’t get the whole heroization of the henchman thing, which has now crossed into the GFFA proper with the Clone Wars movie and the severe amounts of Mandobation we’ve been getting from Karen Traviss.

Food for thought.

Finally, paying someone to go through Chris Sims’s trash for me has paid off, landing me this scandalous snapshot.

I mean, look at the enthusiasm on his face. Well, both of their faces.

Longtime pal of this blog Erin Palette is wending her grim, gothy bits of mind candy into a novel, and she’s essentially liveblogging the process. Called Curse/Or, the project seems a bit like Gibson and Powers sandwich with a side of Ellis fries.

You should check out the prologue and first chapter, revel in its unbridled cancermancy, and then harass her dark and tormented ass to finish Chapter Two. I know that’s what I’ve been doing.

Phoning It In blogger and Friend of The Axe Jason says:

I think Morrison is chewing through past continuity so fast so that he can eventually create a nostalgia-singularity in which he will soon be writing nostalgic comics for his own past work, thus allowing him to stop actually writing and allowing the singlarity simply write scripts that are now nostalgic for themselves on its own.

And while that’s certainly an ambitious goal, it misses the mark a bit.

G. Mozz’s real plan is to find a way to write scripts that are nostalgic for scripts he hasn’t yet written.

So, I’m now in what I’m calling “The Pokemon Phase” of my social media flirtation with Facebook, wherein I start sending friend requests to everyone of value that I know. It’s a slow process - frankly, because I force myself not to devote entire hours to doing it. It’s as if having Internet friends affords me some additional human value, which I hungrily seek to maximize. I have got to catch them all, or so I’m told.

So, I’m giving a presentation to our in-house marketing team yesterday, and it’s all about social media.

Presentations have always kind of been my bane. Once, during a lecture, I just kind of lost control of myself and ended up writing things like lexeme and “Jo Nah can only use one power at a time” and a stick figure Wolverine. I have no idea why I did any of those things in retrospect, but they happened. It scared me a bit. And looking out into the blank faces of my students, I could tell whatever just happened had scared them a bit, too.

But I digress. And I’m about to digress even further, but in a different direction.

I’ve never seen the real utility of MySpace and Facebook on a personal level. I know what they do, and I know that millions and millions of people use it, but I’ve never deemed it “for me.” And it’s not like I’m some kind of Luddite. I grasp technology like a hungry baby – but not that hungry, because I’m selective about it. I don’t grok the value that it adds to my daily life beyond ego-driven self-promotion, and my quota of that is pretty well full already.

Anyway, the upshot is this: during this meeting, it came out that I’m apparently the only person in the entire world that doesn’t have a Facebook account. So, I’m going to make one – and liveblog the process.

I’m quite delighted to discover that I don’t need to submit a jar of blood or sacrifice two doves or sell my soul in order to sign up, although I do need to decipher some obnoxious captcha text, which is the same thing, when you really think about it.

Upon logging in for the first time, I find that I already have a friend request waiting. From a real person that I know. How fucking weird is that? I think that’s pretty weird.

Moving past that initial shock, it looks like, yes, everybody I have ever sent an email to or received an email from is using this stupid site. Everybody except three people, one of whom is my mother. After picking the people I actually talk to regularly and weeding out the masses of videogame and comic book PR reps, I now get to decide whether or not I want to spam the three people in my address book who aren’t using Facebook (one of whom is my mother) and invite them to join in its wonderment. I pass.

Now Facebook wants to know where I went to school and where I work. It’s kind of exciting, actually, like Facebook and I are on a date. I wonder what movie we should go see? I wonder when we’ll start making out?

Next, I get a list of people who went to my alma mater, and while I know some of them, I feel a little awkward adding them as friends when I haven’t spoken to them in 8 years. And also friends of the friends I just picked. I find this stage creepy (again, just like a date).

This then takes me to my Facebook homepage, where I immediately discover that I have been bitten by a zombie. This is basically what I was afraid of. Zombies.

Because I’m having an awesome Facebook party right now, I choose a picture of myself in a festive party hat. No, Internet faithful, I don’t just wear sombreros.

I intuit that I have to edit my profile in order to appear like I give a damn, and it takes me an unconscionably long time to figure out where I need to click to do this, despite the word EDIT in plain view. That’s one strike against you, Facebook, and has nothing to do with my own idiocy.

I fill out my religious and political beliefs accurately:

And…now Facebook wants my address. And my phone number. And my IM screenname, and my bank password and my grandmother’s maiden name. Can I skip this part?

I’m tempted to leave my relationship status as “It’s Complicated” or “Single” just to mess with people. I don’t.

My favorite books? I take back my assessment that this is like a date. I’ve never dated a girl that’s cared that much about my interests. I think I like you, Facebook.

For the curious, this is what I have to say About Me:

There is very little appealing about me. I am a writer, which means I drink a lot. I wear several career hats, but one of them is marketer, which means I hate myself, which means I drink more. I read for pleasure, a bizarre practice only undertaken by the mad and socially ill. I like to cook, which means I like to eat, which is also socially unacceptable these days. I blog, which means I am self-absorbed on an incomprehensible level. Come along and be my awesome Internet friend.

Now everybody will want to be friends with me.

And…I don’t know what I do now. I mean, I have a wall. I could maybe write something offensive on it. Maybe I could become a zombie. Or a vampire. That might be cool.

Okay, last update of the night. Feast or famine….

So, listen, I haven’t been posting a lot lately, and it’s not because I’ve been burned out by work or working on other, non Conditional Axe writings, it’s kind of just that I’ve been lazy. I haven’t been consuming my culture much, if at all, since WizardWorld (and I think I teased a more comprehensive post about those goings-on that has yet to manifest, too).

I mean, I’ve seen The Incredible Hulk, which you’ve already seen more than likely, and it was really good. One of my coworkers is well and truly obsessed with The Hulk now, which - as the long-suffering comic book geek - is pretty funny to watch. And I’ve seen The Happening, which was really, really bad. Inventing obscure subtext for the mood ring is my new summer pasttime. Truthfully, it was my review of The Happening that really did me in. I spent hours looking for a decent picture of a fucking larch - which was vital for the lame-ass Monty Python reference I thought was so awesome at the time I thought of it.

But last night, I did something other than simply play my 360 and try to make dialogue sound not as unbearably hip and cute as it sounded in the first draft. I cooked.

You’d think that living in the barren wilds of Northeastern PA would be death for a foodie, but there are some safe havens among the chain restaurants and mediocre mom and pop Italian places. Places like the River St. Ale House, which has one of the craziest and best chefs in the area.

Really, we just need a legitimate goddamn diner back, in the wake of some old haunts like The Hart or the Western Pancake House no longer being around.

My only requirement for legitimacy is that they make chicken croquettes that do not look or taste like they come out of a bag with the Swanson logo on them - Yes Eddie’s, I mean you. The Blakeslee Diner comes closest, but every time I go, it seems like they’re not as good as they were the last time, a sort of diner diminishing returns. A truly legit diner should be open 24 hours, too - and this is another criteria where Blakeslee falls short.

Anyway.

I had some pork chops I needed to do something with last night, and I just kind of threw a recipe together. I may have been drinking. At any rate, it turned out to be pretty good. The wife even liked it.

Here’s what I did:

1 Can Boddington’s
1 Can Coca-Cola
1/2 Tsp Chili Powder
1/2 Tsp Ground Mustard Seed
1 T Honey

1 Egg
1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Cap’n Crunch
1 Cup Breadcrumbs

I tossed the beer, soda, chili powder, mustard and honey into a bowl, mixed and marinated the chops for about 30 minutes. If I were doing it again, I’d probably marinate overnight. You might be able to cut the mustard down to 1/4 Tsp. because I think it tasted a bit too strong.

While the meat is marinating, set up bowls for flour and the egg, which you’ll want to beat, and a plastic container with a lid for the cereal and breadcrumbs.

PROTIP: If you don’t cut the Cap’n Crunch with something else, it’ll be way too sweet.

Oh, and smash the hell out of the Cap’n Crunch. A few big chunks are nice, but it should mostly be pretty fine. You probably know the drill from here - coat the meat egg, dredge through the flour, and then deposit in the plastic container. Apply the lid and shake it like the proverbial Polaroid picture.

In the meantime, heat your oil of choice until it shimmers in a pan or skillet. I opted for canola oil, since we had that or extra-virgin olive oil and that just burns too quickly.

Get a good golden brown on the breading, and then put the skillet in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Something I wanted to do was make a cream sauce for the chops and the mashed potatoes I served it with. Probably use another can of Boddington’s, heavy cream, flour and the pan drippings.

It’s comfort food, and it’s not especially healthy, but damn was it good. It had a slight nutty flavor from the marinate and a bit of tang from the mustard, which was a nice balance for the sweet breading.

I should have taken pictures like Clinton Hill Foodie.

So, just like The Hearty Boys and Amy Finley before them*, ten mysterious cooks (and chefs) again descend on the Food Network kitchen as if they were carrion birds angling to strip the last bits of meat from the previous winner’s short-lived Gourmet Next Door.

I’m normally not one for reality television, but I’m such a Food Network junkie that the latter overrides the former whenever Star is on. If nothing else, it’s an entertaining glimpse into just why consensus is rarely** an effective decision-making tool, what with its 2/3 crash and burn rate. ‘Crash and Burn’ is a harsh term to apply to Finley, who filmed six episodes and then decided she didn’t want to be quasi-famous any longer, but season one winners Steve and Dan weren’t exactly…well, okay, sorry, the show sucked, guys.

And it was a predictable first week. The contestants had to pitch themselves under Alton Brown’s scrutinizing gaze, leading to a confrontation between Brown and Lisa Garza, the star-in-potentia I am most likely to complain ceaselessly about until she gets thrown off of the show (which should be soon!) See, Lisa’s culinary point of view involves “the 3 Cs,” and I only remember one of them - Community Outreach. Like Alton Brown and about nine other Food Network luminaries, I have no idea how community outreach applies to a cooking show. Maybe, I theorized to my wife, the show would be set in a soup kitchen.

And while Lisa grates on me the most, she made the cut in week one. The two on the chopping block were Nipa, the arrogant Indian cook who resorted to using store-bought curry powder in place of turmeric - which she couldn’t find at the store*** - and Cory, a stand-up comic who consistently froze under pressure and refused to crack a joke even once. When taken to task for her wisecrack lack, Cory defensively countered that she is “dark and acerbic” and that her show would feature those aspects of her personality.

Not surprisingly, Cory went home. The lesson appears to be that dark and acerbic stammering is not something Food Network viewers would want to see. However, frequent occurrences of Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade Meals on their programming schedule indicate that they have a vested interest in making me dark and acerbic.

Speaking of Lee, she joined Alton Brown, Giada DeLaurentiis, Bobby Flay, the Neelys, Masaharu Morimoto and network suits Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson to sample the contestants’ offerings and wisely refrained from comment unless it was solicited from her, at which point she gave Nipa’s dish a backhanded compliment by noting that she enjoyed it because she doesn’t like curry. Upon seeing Lee sitting shoulder to shoulder with actual chefs, my wife declared that she was going to enter the competition next season with the culinary point of view of “cooking meals from a can.”

Looking forward to next week, when Nipa apparently cracks under the pressure of being constantly perfect****.

* Technically, Guy Fieri is on this list and has had a bewildering level of success on Food Network since his victory, making him the Carrie Underwood of cooking shows.

** Jason Todd is the exception proving this particular rule.

*** I had a hard time believing that turmeric doesn’t exist in an NYC grocery store when I can walk to Gerrity’s and buy some.

**** Remember sarcastalics? They’re back!

Coworker and datalytics guru Mike and I had a conversation about what operating systems the great philosophers of the past century would have used. Sartre, he proposes would be an Apple guy, as would Camus.

“Camus,” I tell him, “would use Linux.” I believe this because Camus, like everybody else, probably loves him some penguins.

Okay, so maybe not. But remember, this is the guy who said:

I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.

He is exactly the sort of person Linux exists to serve.

“You should write a post on your blog about that,” he tells me.

So I did.

We were talking about this arcane topic as a segue in a discussion about Crispin Porter’s upcoming attempt to bail the water on Microsoft’s Titanic, and whether it’s possible for even the people who made the Burger King relevant can save Microsoft.

I argue no. The problem with Microsoft is not that the ‘Mac Vs. PC’ ads gained so much traction - the problem is that they gained so much traction because they are spot on. Microsoft has thrived for years upon years by being the default in an industry full of savvy-less interlopers who were either 1) blithely unaware that they had options or 2) too flustered by the overwhelming tide of options to bother investigating. Not that positioning itself in that ‘default’ spot wasn’t a stroke of brilliance - it was - but it also stultified itself in the process.

The point is, no matter how effective its ad campaign might be, the most they can hope to accomplish is probably, “It’s not really that bad, is it?” Because a hip image has to be reinforced with hip, relevant decisions. And I know that Apple doesn’t operate very hiply on the inside, but it serves the needs of its demo exceedingly well. Microsoft - in the decades I’ve been using their products - has never once seemed to do that. The closest they’ve come to the sort of relevance they need to recapture has been with the Xbox 360 - which existed in a vacuum for a year and whose only competition has been the PS3, which has itself been a Typhoid Mary of a console.